Michael Phillips

Ginger Rogers sang it in “Flying Down to Rio”: “Music makes me do the things I never should do.” The lyrics refer to syncopation, and what it can do to...

Leaving his Iranian homeland to make the film “The Past,” in France, the writer-director Asghar Farhadi regarded his new surroundings like a native, not a tourist. He kept his tense...

“Isn’t It Romantic” gets by, barely, on its apparently inexhaustible comic premise, and on Rebel Wilson’s stand-back-world-get-offa-my-runway comic chops. Why isn’t it better? Realizing it’s easier to review the thing...

There’s a wonderful behind-the-scenes photograph, in black-and-white like the film itself, of a street scene from Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma.” It’s full of lighting equipment, illuminating what look like several genuine...

Albert Finney charmed the world in “Tom Jones” (1963), hopping from bed to bed with the grin of a reluctant wolf in 18th century matinee idol’s clothing. He found the...

Now 87, Jean-Luc Godard looks at the world the way Alfred Hitchcock photographed James Stewart’s panic attack at the top of the fateful bell tower in “Vertigo.” Godard’s recent essay...

I loved “The Lego Movie,” and I liked “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.” That about covers it. The first one enjoyed the advantage of surprise. Phil Lord and...