January 26, 2025 2:38 am

Roger Ebert Reviews

Short Films in Focus: Young People, Old People and Nothing In Between

Parida Tantiwasadakran’s “Young People, Old People and Nothing In Between” centers on the friendship between a 7-year-old named Juice (Deedee Piamwiriyaku) with ADHD and her friend, an elderly woman named Grandma Lovely (Suwinya Kungsadan), who is slowly descending into dementia. With such a wide age gap between them and a limited understanding of everything that

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Let The Dead Sleep: On “Alien Romulus” and Digital Resurrection

SPOILERS FOR ALIEN ROMULUS: Fede Alvarez’s “Alien Romulus,” the latest entry in the “Alien” franchise, is a sturdily constructed movie with two thoughtfully written lead characters at its center. One is Rain (Cailee Spaeny), an orphaned miner who joins a reckless scheme to break into a decommissioned space station, steal lifeforms that are still in

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Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival 2024: Highlights of a Joyous Event

There are few Black film festivals as celebrated or talked about as The Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, the finest film festival of the summer. The 22nd annual MVAAFF took place on the tiny island outside at the local high school Performing Arts Center. This is one of the country’s most decadent film fests,

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Venice Film Festival 2024: Babygirl, The Order, The Brutalist, I’m Still Here

After a screening of “Babygirl,” the Nicole Kidman showpiece about dominance and submission in the workplace that shook up the Biennale on Friday, a colleague insisted that, despite its issues, it wasn’t “a dismissible film.” And feeling my oats, I replied, “Just watch me.” But having had some time to turn it over, I’ve decided

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“Risky Business” Remains One of the Most Daring Films of the ’80s

There’s a long-held belief about Hollywood history that, from basically the moment “Heaven’s Gate” nearly bankrupted United Artists in 1980 to the moment “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” kicked off the indie boom of the ‘90s, studio executives had an almost pathological aversion to any movie with artistic ambition. There’s at least some truth to this,

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Venice Film Festival 2024: Separated, Maria, Kill the Jockey, One to One: John & Yoko

The early films of innovative documentarian Errol Morris — “Gates of Heaven,” about pet cemeteries, “The Thin Red Line,” a staggering true-crime store — waxed profound on matters of mortality and morality while maintaining a wry sense of humor. His more recent works have been ambiguous—his 2018 “American Dharma,” a portrait of political ogre Steve

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Netflix’s “Terminator Zero” Takes Too Long to Develop Its Own Identity

Considering how many R-rated ’80s action franchises had their own Saturday morning cartoons, it only made sense for “The Terminator” to eventually receive its own stylized animated show. Netflix’s anime-inspired “Terminator Zero” is tonally aligned with its film counterparts, if not even more horrific and dour than the watered-down installments in the franchise. However, the

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