PETERSON REVIEWS
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How the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art is Celebrating a Seminal Northwest Artist
For 425: ‘James W. Washington, Jr.: Many Hats, One Spirit’ debuted at the museum on July 4.
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Proto-Noir ‘Out of the Fog’ is Engaging But Ineffective
The 1941 drama’s antifascist messages are muddled by its celebrations of conformity and the status quo.
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Back in Action
‘F1,’ ‘M3GAN 2.0,’ and ‘The Day the Earth Blew Up,’ reviewed.
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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.
OCTOBER 2026
The Theme is ‘Thrills and Chills’
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The Surprising Sensitivity of ‘The Leopard Man’
This proto-slasher from 1943 takes pains to show that its victims are more than their fates.
August 19, 2026
May 25, 2026
May 13, 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
Working Girls
‘Broken Mirrors,’ Marleen Gorris’ 1984 follow-up to her still-transcendent feminist drama ‘A Question of Silence,’ expands on its predecessor’s themes while dramatically improving on its writer-director’s aesthetic command.
July 9, 2026
Found Connections
Donna Deitch’s ‘Desert Hearts’ was a breakthrough for lesbian representation in cinema. It also achieves another rarified thing: Characters who feel like they exist outside a screenplay’s bounds.
June 30, 2026
