PETERSON REVIEWS
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‘The Day of the Locust’ is Almost Too Bleak
John Schlesinger’s ‘The Day of the Locust’ says what movies about Hollywood love to say almost as much as they do that ‘making movies is magical’: that this city is much more a town defined by shattered success and cynical commodification than it is a beautiful place where dreams have an unusual ability to come true.
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Muffled Screaming
On ‘The Souvenir: Part II’ and ‘Passing.’
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‘It Could Happen to You’ is So Lightweight, It Could Float Away
You watch it the same way you’d read a feel-good story in a small-town newspaper.
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Too High
On ‘The Stunt Man.’
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Horror Movies
On ‘Bergman Island’ and ‘Spencer.’
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The Profound Grief of ‘Fearless’
‘Fearless’ is one of the finest of all movies about grief I’ve seen.
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Overnight Success
‘The Barefoot Contessa’ is among the most pessimistic dramas about film stardom ever made.
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Upheavals
On ‘House of Gucci’ and ‘Belfast.’
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Worms
On ‘Last Night in Soho’ and ‘Dune.’
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‘Dance with the Devil’ Does Too Much
‘Dance with the Devil’ is a busy movie; its narrative poses so many potential problems for the characters they could practically form a line.
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Retrospections
On ‘The French Dispatch,’ ‘The Velvet Underground,’ and ‘The Last Duel.’
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‘Pulse’ Makes Us Take a Silly Premise Seriously
It’s a nightmare-as-movie, where not much makes sense but where the environment in which everything takes place is so creepily immersive, feels true enough, that even when things get a hair tedious you still haven’t gotten rid of the pit that has formed in your gut.
JUNE 2026
The Theme is ‘Pride’
ASDFJHGSD
‘By Hook or By Crook’ is a Moving Ode to Friendship
Despite its low budget and the sometimes-amateurishness of its performances, it isn’t obvious that 2001’s ‘By Hook or By Crook’ was made by people who came into filmmaking practically on a whim.
May 25, 2026
May 13. 2026
March 27, 2026
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 