PETERSON REVIEWS
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‘My Own Private Idaho’ is Lucky to Have River Phoenix
Writer-director Gus Van Sant’s insistent overstylization would sink the film if not for the heartbreaking, vivid work of the late actor.
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End Times
‘Civil War’ and ‘Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,’ reviewed.
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‘Girlhood’: A Bracing Coming-of-Age Drama from Céline Sciamma
Sciamma avoids the genre’s fondness for sentimentality.
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Fresh from a Grammy Win, säje Looks Ahead
The vocal supergroup won a Grammy earlier this year. Now, it’s turning its focus to touring and a new album.
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‘Monkey Man’ is Relentless — for Better and for Worse
Dev Patel’s directorial debut — which he also wrote, co-produced, and stars in — is frequently thrilling. It can also feel overstuffed.
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Fire and Rain
On ‘Running on Empty.’
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The Harrowing, Empathetic ‘Streetwise’
Martin Bell’s landmark movie about teenage runaways and outcasts getting by in downtown Seattle is a haunting group portrait.
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‘Jawbreaker’ Could Stand to Go Even Further
Obviously indebted to 1989’s ‘Heathers,’ the teen comedy needs to be finer-tuned for the darkness — and preposterousness — of its premise to fully work.
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Ghost Hunters
‘La Chimera’ and ‘Immaculate,’ reviewed.
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Why We Love ‘10 Things I Hate About You’
Key collaborators reminisce about the Seattle-set movie on the occasion of its 25th anniversary.
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Odds & Ends: March 2024
Notes from the last month.
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‘Come Drink with Me’: An Essential Wuxia Thriller
It also memorably features Cheng Pei-pei playing who many consider cinema’s first woman action heroine.
MARCH 2026
The Theme is ‘Acting’
ASDFJHGSD
‘Hollywood Shuffle’ Cuts Deep
The movie established director-actor-co-writer Robert Townsend not only as an astute critic but a limber comedy performer in the improv tradition.
February 4, 2025
November 6, 2025
October 27, 2025
Disobedience
John Sayles’ groundbreaking ‘Lianna’ was a landmark — albeit a criminally underseen one — for lesbian representation in cinema.
February 25, 2026
Trouble in Paradise
On the screwball-comedy perfection of 1937’s ‘The Awful Truth.’
February 23, 2026
The Heart of the Matter
Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Separation’ more than sidesteps divorce-movie expectations.
February 16, 2026
Peterson Reviews 