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Review of reviews: Film & Home Media
Though Denzel Washington has made his
share of tossed-off movies, “he is never
humiliated by hogwash,” said Anthony Lane
in The New Yorker. He rises above it, always,
and he’s done it again in this overly familiar
cop drama about a haunted detective and
a serial killer. The other two Oscar winners
he’s paired with fare less well. As the tale’s
prime suspect, Jared Leto stands guilty of
“overacting with unlawful silliness,” while
Rami Malek “seems, as usual, to have
beamed down recently from Betelgeuse and
not yet nailed his earthling disguise.” But
this Warner Bros. release isn’t a mere throw-
away, said Adam Nayman in TheRinger.
com. Written and directed by John Lee Han-
cock, director of The Blind Side, it was nearly
made 30 years ago, when lurid genre movieswere ahead of the curve. Though merely
workmanlike, it’s also “gripping and watch-
able,” and Hancock has provided an ending
that, “while deliberately denying us certain
satisfactions,” makes a resonant point about
uncertainty. “The Little Things belongs to
an underappreciated category of theatri-
cal experiences,” said David Sims in The
Atlantic.com. Namely, it’s “the competent
yarn you could go see alone on a weekday
evening and emerge from feeling satisfied.”
It’s not just about catching a monster but
also about “how the pursuit of justice can
be crippling and all-consuming.” And even
its weakest moments aren’t enough to stifle
Washington’s star power. “Almost nothing
is.” (In theaters or streaming via HBO Max) R
Other new movies
Supernova
Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci’s new film is
“modest in every respect except its emo-
tional impact,” said Karen Han in Slate.com.
The two 60-year-old stars play longtime
romantic partners who set off on a last
hurrah of a road trip after Tucci’s character
is diagnosed with early-onset dementia.
“Neither Tucci nor Firth has ever shied
away from being vulnerable on screen,
and Supernova requires vulnerability first
and foremost.” Yet this isn’t just an actors’
showcase; it’s above all “an attempt at cap-
turing an impossibly difficult experience.”
(In theaters now; on demand Feb. 16) RDear Comrades!
Russia’s Oscar entry is a “dazzling” his-The Little Things
++++
Washington as Detective Joe Deacontorical drama, said Ann Hornaday in The
Washington Post. Filmed in gorgeous
black and white, the film dramatizes a 1962
massacre in which striking workers in a
small industrial town, many of them Stalin
loyalists, were gunned down by the KGB.
All the action feels spontaneous rather than
scripted, and the storytelling is too nuanced
to “make sense” of the tragedy. At the same
time, the film “goes a long way in allowing
people to look at it with clarity.” (In virtual
cinemas, on Hulu, or on demand) Not rated
The Human Factor
America’s failed efforts since 1991 to forge
a peace between Israelis and Palestinians
may feel like yesterday’s news, said Joe
Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. But
this behind-the-scenes account is “surely the
most spellbinding documentary ever made
about the mediation process.” As U.S. nego-
tiators revisit each twist in the story, their
account yields high drama—one that can
teach us all how best to seek peace in any
sphere. (In select theaters) PG-13Atlantis
“Atlantis isn’t an easy film to watch, and
it’s not meant to be,” said Jenny Nulf in
The Austin Chronicle. Set in the aftermath
of a war between Ukraine and Russia, the
near-future drama follows a traumatized
ex- soldier who’s piecing a life together amid
ruin. “It’s an anti-war film without solutions,”
and yet director Valentyn Vasyanovych
clearly “believes in humanity rebuilding
from tragedy.” (Available via projectr.tv) RNew and notable podcasts
The idea seemed
simple: a hotline that
invited callers to unbur-
den themselves by
anonymously leaving
an apology that would
be recorded on an
answering machine,
said Hannah Davies in TheGuardian.com.
But artist Allan Bridge didn’t know in 1980
when he posted flyers around lower Man-
hattan to launch the experiment that the
project would consume him for the next
15 years. He took the name “Mr. Apology,”
becoming at once confessor and reluctant
police informant. His widow, Marissa, hosts
this “brilliantly murky” series about the
project, and she has thousands of hours
of taped apologies to draw from. Though
Bridge’s delivery is “on the wooden side,”
said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times,
the recordings “make for remarkable lis-
tening.” Child runaways and unfaithful
spouses expressed heartfelt remorse that
made healing seem possible. Before long,
though, the service became “a repository
for the darkest human impulses.” In one
rambling 1981 message, a man promised
to kill Mr. Apology, while apologizing in
advance. And still Bridge pressed on.Most episodes of Chris
Gethard’s weekly call-
in series are “full of
candor and insight,”
said Jose Nateras in
AVClub.com. When the
comedian and former
radio talk show host
launched Beautiful Stories From Anony-
mous People in 2016, it was presented as a
comedy podcast. But when Gethard and a
caller he knows nothing about launch into
an hour-long talk, the conversation typically
hits other emotional registers at least as
hard. And “there’s something vital about
listening to the very human connection they
make, especially when we’ve never had to
work so hard to seek that kind of thing out.”
Some episodes get “bracingly intense,”
said Emma Dibdin in The New York Times.
Recent callers include a former member of
a harem, a woman who became a grand-
mother at 39, and a narcoleptic eager to
dispel popular misconceptions about her
disorder. One sleep-deprived caller said
that she had found out days before that
a close friend had murdered someone.
“Empathetic and thrillingly unpredictable,
Beautiful Stories makes ordinary life as cap-
tivating as any scripted drama.”Because this podcast
premiered while public
health authorities were
discouraging leisure
travel, “you can’t help
but appreciate the
show’s timing,” said
Sean Rameswaram
in CBC.ca. Host Zach Mack, a business
owner and journalist, feeds listeners’
wanderlust by providing snapshots of
popular travel destinations while explor-
ing questions about the ethics of tourism
even in normal times. He begins in Marfa,
the town in West Texas that has become
an art haven and a magnet for Instagram-
mers and developers who are indifferent
to the impact they have on the town’s
year-round, working-class community.
The series is often a guilty-pleasure listen,
said Nicholas Quah in NYMag.com. Mack
is traveling during Covid, after all, and
though he casts a critical eye on people
who in October were choosing to visit
Disney World, there’s no avoiding the fact
that he’s there, too. Despite his failure to
fully justify some of his choices, his adven-
tures are “often enjoyable anyway,” and
he’s even better on the thematic episodes
he calls “Detours.”The Apology Line
(Wondery)‘Beautiful/Anonymous’
(Earwolf)Greetings From Somewhere
(Zach Mack)