Robert Abele –

‘Seberg’ review: Kristen Stewart can’t save superficial biopic of New Wave icon

February 26, 2020 at 11:30 a.m.

If "Breathless" star Jean Seberg hadn't existed, a hard-boiled novelist would have had to invent her — a glittering Hollywood/New Wave icon of modern style and civil rights outspokenness who...

‘The Times of Bill Cunningham’ review: Beguiling photographer justifies yet another documentary

February 25, 2020 at 4:42 p.m.

The great New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham, who died in 2016 at age 87, liked to call himself a "fashion historian," a surprisingly stodgy term for someone whose street...

‘The Mountain’ review: Jeff Goldblum plays a traveling doctor on a grisly mission

September 26, 2019 at 9:40 a.m.

The antithesis of any notion of cinema as an uplifting art, Rick Alverson's movies are psychic sores without Band-Aids: open wounds left to fester and disconcert, but which nonetheless sporadically...

‘Buñuel in the Labyrinth of Turtles’ review: Animated graphic novel adaptation of the director’s quest to make a documentary

September 5, 2019 at 6:56 a.m.

With a title like "Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles," you'd be forgiven for thinking its director/co-writer Salvador Simó had inserted one of cinema's great surrealists — Spanish-born auteur...

‘The Biggest Little Farm’ review: A couple’s agricultural dream comes to majestic fruition

May 16, 2019 at 10:33 a.m.

Few things have sent up our food-conscious era quite so accurately (or affectionately) as that first-season "Portlandia" sketch in which a restaurant waiter is given the third degree by concerned...

Review: ‘Polar’ is a toxic brew of mindless violence that shows Netflix can go low too

January 25, 2019 at 4:16 p.m.

Netflix serving up the ultra-violent vengeance slog “Polar” the same week it scored triumphant “Roma” Oscar nominations is like being reminded that even your favorite mall is likely to offer...

‘Capernaum’ review: Lebanese drama powerfully advocates for the innocent

January 4, 2019 at 10:50 a.m.

Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki's "Capernaum" is a poverty saga with a heart-in-your-throat urgency, a grueling tale of child endangerment and youthful resilience on Beirut's sorriest streets that some viewers may...

Review: The Dolly Parton-tuned ‘Dumplin’ is more of a collection of aphorisms than a movie

December 7, 2018 at 10:42 a.m.

If you’re a Dolly Parton fan, it’s part of her sneaky charm that the true bodaciousness in this figure of flashy, ogled glitz was always her singing/songwriting gifts, among the...

‘Araby’ review: A laborer’s diary details one man’s journey to improve his life

August 16, 2018 at 10:34 a.m.

A migrant worker's journal opens up a world for a disaffected teenager, and us, in "Araby," a beautifully turned Brazilian movie that carries on as if a social-cause documentary and...

‘Eating Animals’ review: Natalie Portman, Jonathan Safran Foer want you to care about where your meat comes from

December 12, 2018 at 9:04 p.m.

With a title like "Eating Animals," unless you're familiar with author Jonathan Safran Foer's 2009 book and the personal journey it lays out, you may assume Christopher Quinn's documentary adaptation...

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