In ‘House of Gucci’ Lady Gaga is as Unrecognizable as She is Unforgettable
Juicy, extravagant, glamorous, decadent and a crowd-pleasing carousel of euro-trash camp, Ridley Scott’s sordid saga about the rise and fall of the Gucci fashion empire has something for everybody....
View ArticleSpielberg’s ‘West Side Story’ is Simply Fabulous
We need a lot of things at the movies we are not getting. What we do not need (or so I thought) is another West Side Story. For one thing, it is everywhere already. Even the local high school in the...
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‘Flying Over Sunset’ Tries for Introspection but Achieves Self-Indulgence
Covid or no covid, new musicals continue to arrive in New York. There has been nothing to write home about, drag an extra mask around, or max those credit cards for. They close as fast as they open....
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Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Nightmare Alley’ Is a Work of Dazzling Disappointment
When any movie comes along as compelling, alluring, luridly fascinating, gorgeously photographed and uniquely original as Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, attention must be paid. It’s too long,...
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11 Overlooked Classic Films for a Pandemic Winter
The Observer’s senior film critic, Rex Reed, has been with us for 34 years, ever since the first issue of The New York Observer hit the newsstands in the fall of 1987. With many of our holiday plans...
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Saying Goodbye the Stars Who Left Us in 2021
Angela Lansbury used to have what she called her “gotcha” scene—the wrap-up at the end of each week’s Murder, She Wrote where she nailed and nabbed the killer. I’ve got my “adios” column—that yearly...
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Kenneth Branagh’s Unnecessary Remake of ‘Death on the Nile’ Is a Curiously...
Sluggishly directed by Kenneth Branagh, the unnecessary remake of the 1978 film version of Dame Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile is a curiously boring misfire. Having just returned from two weeks...
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‘The Music Man’: Hugh Jackman Dazzles in the Perfect Role
After a two-year nap, the New York theater awoke to the sound of 76 trombones this week, just in time to jam the mobs into the Winter Garden Theatre and welcome Hugh Jackman back to Broadway. Yes,...
View Article‘The Pact’ is a Riveting Homage to a Unique Literary Sensation
From Denmark, The Pact is a dour, sobering portrait of literary sensation Baroness Karen von Blixen at age 63, after she lost both her beloved farm in Africa and her lover, adventurer Denys Finch...
View Article‘The Automat’ Was the Coin-Operated Restaurant of the People
I didn’t grow up in the frenzy and fascination of New York, but it seems written in stone that I didn’t really start to live until after I got there. It was the winter of 1960 and from the dirt and...
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‘Dog’ Has No Teeth
Dog may be man’s best friend, but Dog, a snooze about a boring 1500-mile road trip shared by a dog and a man—both war-ravaged, brain-damaged soldiers—should have stayed in the kennel. DOG ★★ (2/4...
View Article‘Fresh’ is ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ with Tabasco Sauce
I don’t much care for dating hell movies. You know, the ones where nice women go to Gethsemane and back to find Mr. Right and end up with Mr. Wrong, experiencing humiliation, torture, and new,...
View Article‘Measure of Revenge’ is a Baffling Disaster
Oscar-winner Melissa Leo is an actor of great resilience, range and resolution. She must also be a performer with abnormal dedication to craft if she could stay awake long enough to get through the...
View ArticleIn ‘Gold’ Zac Efron is Running Out of Hope and Bottled Water
It’s interesting to see what actors in unremarkable but popular cornball hits will do to forge a respected artistic future in work that makes more challenging demands of their talents. Like Robert...
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Naomi Watts Is Stoic and Indestructible in Epic Adventure ‘Infinite Storm’
Another true-life story about surviving the elements, Infinite Storm adds nothing new to the genre, but it is well-photographed, the epic adventure is harrowing, and Naomi Watts earns more deserved...
View Article‘Deep Water’ Is the Sort of Sexy Thriller We Used to Take for Granted
I was disappointed by the perplexing reviews from other critics (mixed, but mostly negative) of Deep Water, a sexy psychological thriller directed by Adrian Lyne that I liked quite a lot. It has its...
View Article‘The Lost City’ is Witless, Boring and Stupid
Watching The Lost City is the cinematic equivalent of slogging your way through monkey poop. I squirm and moan my way through stinkers all the time, but I can’t actually remember the last time I saw...
View ArticleReview: So Little Has Changed in Baseball That It Is Unquestionably the Right...
Take Me Out | 2 hours and 15 minutes including an intermission | Helen Hayes Theatre, 240 W. 44TH ST., NEW YORK, NY | (212) 541-4516 | Tickets Twenty years ago, Take Me Out, a brave, powerful,...
View Article‘Ambulance’ Is Unoriginal and Boring but It’s Probably Not Jake Gyllenhaal’s...
Another decibel-blasting assault on the IQ by Michael Bay, a pointless, predictable thriller without any thrills anyone is likely to remember called Ambulance brings summer silliness to the screen...
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Review: ‘The Minutes’ Is a Haunting Examination of Who We Really Are and Have...
THE MINUTES | 1 hour 30 minutes | Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St. | 212-239-6200 | Tickets Tracy Letts is a Renaissance man in a rock-and-roll world, whose catalog of plays aimed at clarifying the troubles...
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