While movie studios the world over scramble to create their own answers to the cultural/financial juggernaut of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, M. Night Shyamalan, the much-beloved, often-maligned creator of highly personal and unapologetically idiosyncratic thrillers, has managed it on his own, entirely. Shyamalan has finally completed his Eastrail 177 Trilogy, nineteen years in the making, ... more >
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“Glass”
Comic book mythology writ large
Samuel Jackson, Bruce Willis and James McAvoy
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
The Conspirator
A river runs through it
Robin Wright, Evan Rachel Wood, and James McAvoy
Directed by Robert Redford
Robert Redford is a good man. He is earnest and decent and his heart is in the right place. He is also an essential figure in cinema as he has single-handedly probably done more for cinema—with the Sundance Festival and Sundance channel and other film-related ventures—than anyone else in the history of this art. The late Henri Langlois, one of the founders of the Paris Cinémathèque and its head ... more >
The last station
A near-perfect role for Christopher Plummer
Christopher Plummer, James MacAvoy, and Helen Mirren
Directed by Michael Hoffman
In most period films nowadays, the director appears so enraptured with getting right every detail of daily life, scenery, costume, that the actual story tends to get lost. It certainly is the case with “The Last Station,” a stilted, ponderous film by Michael Hoffman, based on the Jay Parini novel of the same name, which relates the fight over Leo Tolstoy’s legacy in the last year of his life. ... more >