PETERSON REVIEWS
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‘Cooley High’ Hits You Where It Hurts
This is a hopeful and funny, then profoundly tragic, coming-of-age comedy that has a well-worn quality.
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Bill Murray Gives One of His Best Performances in ‘Broken Flowers’
I’d have liked it if his Don were less inscrutable. But I suppose the central, mostly unanswered enigma — why is he like this — is also sort of the point.
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Life Changes
On ‘Summer of 85,’ ‘CODA,’ and ‘Séance.’
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‘What About Bob?’: More Amusing Than Funny
Though unambiguously a comedy, ‘What About Bob?’ is a movie borne of nightmare logic.
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‘Fritz the Cat’: Historically Important, and Also a Mess
But even if ‘Fritz the Cat,’ a big hit in 1972, isn’t very good, I do think it’s worth seeing.
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Voices
On ‘Annette’ and ‘Respect.’
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On ‘Caddyshack’
‘Caddyshack’ never quite coalesces, but it has its moments.
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Headhunting
On ‘The Green Knight’ and ‘Suicide Squad.’
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‘House Party’ is a Good Time
‘House Party’ is enjoyable and undemanding; like the festivities Kid has to work so hard to get to, it’s built, above all, for a night of fun.
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‘The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek’ is as Nightmarish as it is Goofy
The action in the screwball comedy ‘The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek’ is so unfalteringly goofy that we sometimes forget that its premise is fundamentally nightmarish.
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‘Stripes’: Joining the Military for the Laugh
Like the previous year’s ‘Private Benjamin,’ military life is broadly made to look sort of fun — the perfect playground for a sitcom.
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Nothing Sacred
On ‘What’s Up, Doc?’
OCTOBER 2026
The Theme is ‘Thrills and Chills’
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Sin and Vice
On ‘The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh,’ ‘Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key,’ and ‘All the Colors of the Dark,’ an informal trilogy from Sergio Martino starring Edwige Fenech.
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
