PETERSON REVIEWS
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Odds & Ends: June 2025
Notes from the last month.
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‘Drunktown’s Finest’ is an Affecting Ensemble Drama
Sydney Freeland’s 2014 drama’s realism doesn’t undercut its sensitivity.
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The Slow Descent of ‘Fox and His Friends’
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1975 black comedy is rivetingly bleak.
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A Compassionate Look at Dementia in ‘Familiar Touch’
For South Sound: Writer-director Sarah Friedland’s feature debut dramatizes an 80-something-year-old woman’s transition from self-sufficiency into assisted living with empathy and care.
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‘Desperate Living’ Feels Like the End of an Era
John Waters’ last movie before making his foray into the mainstream is among his most underrated.
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‘Lan Yu’ is a Little Too Understated
Stanley Kwan’s romantic drama keeps things at the surface.
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The Perils of Passion in ‘Materialists’ and ‘Misericordia’
For 425: New movies from Celine Song and Alain Guiraudie, reviewed.
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The Infectious Optimism of ‘Better Than Chocolate’
Anne Wheeler’s 1999 ensemble comedy is fun without undermining the struggles of its characters.
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‘Punks’ is a Lovable Ensemble Dramedy
Writer-director Patrik-Ian Polk’s to-follow TV show — the two-season-long ‘Noah’s Arc,’ which premiered on Logo in 2005 — only expanded on ‘Punks’’ group-of-gay-people-figuring-life-out conceit.
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‘Kamikaze Hearts’’ Toxic Truth-Blurring
Our inability to confidently distinguish fantasy from fiction in Juliet Bashore’s pseudo-documentary from 1986 is part of what makes it exhilarating.
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The Heavy Style of ‘The Phoenician Scheme’
Wes Anderson’s trademark aesthetic rigor poses thrills and problems in his latest movie.
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In the Shadows
‘Victim,’ Basil Dearden’s tense 1961 noir, groundbreakingly depicted gayness with sympathy and homophobia with contempt.
APRIL 2026
The Theme is ‘High Anxiety’
ASDFJHGSD
The Unrelenting Grimness of ‘Frozen River’
Misty Upham and especially Melissa Leo are excellent in this frostbitten drama.
March 27, 2026
February 4, 2026
November 6, 2025
Superheroines
On Julia Loktev’s towering, terrifying ‘My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow.’
March 30, 2026
Everything Everywhere
William Greaves’ ‘Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One’ is almost 60 years old and still feels ahead of the curve.
March 11, 2026
Next Big Things
Gregory La Cava’s ‘Stage Door’ is often at once hysterically funny and brutally pragmatic about the personal toll a career in entertainment can take.
March 4, 2026
Peterson Reviews 