PETERSON REVIEWS
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‘Police Story,’ a High-Water Mark for Action Filmmaking, is Spoiled By Poor Taste
When not boasting some of film history’s most athletic action set pieces, the 1985 comedy thriller often cloddishly attempts slapstick humor.
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‘Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid’ is Like Catnip for Classic Hollywood Devotees
This 1982 parody film might be a little less entertaining for non-adherents, though.
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Seattle Couldn’t Quit Haim
For 425: The eminently lovable sister act stopped by Seattle’s WAMU Theater as part of its I Quit tour.
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‘House of Bamboo’’s Style Can Only Take It So Far
Samuel Fuller’s Tokyo-set noir is a visual treat, but it’s thwarted by a thoroughly unengaging lead performance.
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‘It’s Really Important to Us to Bring That Female Perspective’: Inside Emergence Films’ Mission to Support Women Filmmakers
For 425: Launched in 2016, and with a new philanthropic initiative announced this year, the Sienna Beckman- and Rachel Noll James-founded film company looks to give creative opportunities to women in a male-dominated field.
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Get Shorty
It doesn’t matter that Howard Hawks’ 1946 adaptation of ‘The Big Sleep’ doesn’t make any sense.
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Sleuthing is a Nightmare in ‘Angel Heart’
The creepy aesthetic of Alan Parker’s horror-inflected detective movie from 1987 is the strongest thing about it.
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Richard Roundtree is Electric in ‘Shaft’
Gordon Parks’ 1971 thriller, and Roundtree’s terrific work in it, paved the way for a new generation of Black action heroes.
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Mirror Images
‘Twinless’ and ‘The Conjuring: Last Rites,’ reviewed.
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‘Joint Security Area’ Emotionally Complicates the Whodunit
Park Chan-wook’s Korean Demilitarized Zone-set mystery is less interested in investigative twistiness than the surprisingly touching, then tragic, backstory behind its plot-driving murders.
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Misery Business
‘Splitsville’ and ‘Caught Stealing,’ reviewed.
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Candy Land
Jacques Rivette’s free-wheeling 1974 epic ‘Céline and Julie Go Boating’ is charmingly confounding.
NOVEMBER 2026
The Theme is ‘Sibling Bonds’
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‘Visible Secret’ is a Low-Key, Surprisingly Spooky Romantic Comedy
Ann Hui’s 2001 movie posits what a rom-com might look like with a ‘Sixth Sense’-esque underlay.
October 16, 2026
August 19, 2026
May 25, 2026
Smoke and Mirrors
Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s inventive documentary isn’t just about the disgraced entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes.
October 19, 2026
Ghost World
Kaneto Shindō’s ‘Kuroneko’ is still forward-looking in its contempt for patriarchal devastation.
October 15, 2026
Strong, Stoic Types
Director-star Paul Newman’s 1971 treatment of Ken Kesey’s ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’ perceptively observes the corrosiveness of toxic masculinity.
August 7, 2026
