PETERSON REVIEWS
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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.
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Sex and Death, Locked in a Tango, in ‘Def by Temptation’
In this atmospheric and sensual (but not humorless) horror movie, Bible-style capital-T temptation is embodied by a blood-thirsty, ostensibly eons-old succubus that disguises itself as a distractingly beautiful woman.
NOVEMBER 2026
The Theme is ‘Sibling Bonds’
ASDFJHGSD
‘Twins of Evil’ is Sharper Than You’d Think
Though mostly made to capitalize on the newly minted sex symboldom of identical-twin sisters Mary and Madeleine Collinson, this 1971 horror movie ends up being a decent critique of puritanical hypocrisy.
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
