PETERSON REVIEWS
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‘The Last Hurrah’ Plays Like Political Fan Fiction
John Ford’s 1958 movie isn’t among the political satires to have an angry, acidic touch. Its objects of scorn are teased mostly in a hair-ruffling way.
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‘Cactus Flower’ Makes It Seem Easy to Do Comedy
Everybody is on their A game in this pitch-perfect farce.
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Crashing and Burning in ‘Showing Up’ and ‘Fast X’
New Kelly Reichardt and ‘Fast and Furious’ nonsense.
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‘The Money Pit’ Digs Itself Into a Hole
‘The Money Pit’ pretty much has just one joke.
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The Quiet Rage of ‘The Best of Everything’
Whatever its shortcomings are, the seriousness with which ‘The Best of Everything’ takes the struggles of young women is remarkable for its era.
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Short Takes: SIFF Edition
On ‘Year of the Fox,’ ‘My Animal,’ and ‘Love to Love You, Donna Summer.’
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Goldie Hawn Gives One of Her Funniest Performances in ‘Housesitter’
She and Steve Martin are so good that it doesn’t bother you much how preposterous the movie is.
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Too Much Too Soon in ‘Bright Lights, Big City’
Like the best-selling book on which it’s based, the movie is smart and efficient — has a certain elegance to it — without ever going anywhere particularly interesting.
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‘Swing Shift’: A Good Movie That Could Have Been Great
Rumor has it that Jonathan Demme’s WWII soap opera had been a masterpiece before his final cut was tampered with by Hawn and her producing partner.
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‘Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret’ is a Winning Coming-of-Age Movie
Plus: ‘Clock’ is intriguing, but ultimately ineffective, pregnancy horror.
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The Still-Raw Pain of ‘McQueen’
Released less than a decade after the tragic death of its subject, the Scottish fashion designer Alexander McQueen, ‘McQueen’ is a documentary whose overhanging sadness has the consistency of paint that hasn’t yet dried.
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SIFF’s Artistic Director on What to Expect from This Year’s Festival
The iconic Seattle International Film Festival returns next month.
SEPTEMBER 2026
The Theme is ‘Based on an Article’
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In ‘Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros,’ It’s All in the Process
Revisiting Frederick Wiseman’s 44th documentary, which trains its gaze on the Troisgros family and its various culinary pursuits.
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
Peterson Reviews 