PETERSON REVIEWS
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‘Joint Security Area’ Emotionally Complicates the Whodunit
Park Chan-wook’s Korean Demilitarized Zone-set mystery is less interested in investigative twistiness than the surprisingly touching, then tragic, backstory behind its plot-driving murders.
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Misery Business
‘Splitsville’ and ‘Caught Stealing,’ reviewed.
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Candy Land
Jacques Rivette’s free-wheeling 1974 epic ‘Céline and Julie Go Boating’ is charmingly confounding.
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The Nasty, Brutish, and Short ‘Three on a Match’
This entertaining, bite-size soap is almost absurdly bleak.
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The Late-Period Hits and Misses of ‘Honey Don’t!’ and ‘Highest 2 Lowest’
For 425: New movies from Ethan Coen and Spike Lee, reviewed.
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Crispin Glover Isn’t the Best Thing About ‘Rubin & Ed’
Despite giving the flashiest performance in Trent Harris’ giddily weird comedy, it’s the lower-key Howard Hesseman who runs away with the movie.
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Avery Cochrane’s Pop Confections
For 425: The Seattle-based singer-songwriter discusses her new single, her artistic process, the perils of social media, and what inspires her.
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Paths of Resistance
‘A Special Day,’ Ettore Scola’s moving, antifascist two-hander from 1977, features stunning work from Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.
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The Powerful Testimonies of ‘Sudan, Remember Us’
Journalist and filmmaker Hind Meddeb’s latest project is an indispensable, multiperspective account of resistance.
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‘The Five Heartbeats’ Invigorates the Biopic Form
Director-star-co-writer Robert Townsend’s initially shrugged-at, decades-spanning drama about the lives and careers of Black, 1960s vocal-group members is lovable even when it’s employing genre clichés.
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‘Powwow Highway’ is an Exemplary Road Movie
A Martinez and Gary Farmer are terrific in Jonathan Wacks’ 1989 comedy-drama.
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‘Weapons’ is a Step Down for Zach Cregger
A busy narrative approach and some resonant topicality can’t obscure the much-buzzed-about movie’s limitations.
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 