For "Dunkirk" Christopher Nolan cast the puppy-eyed lead singer of One Direction, Harry Styles, as a British soldier during the famed 1940 evacuation. This is entirely appropriate. I say this because the British Army fought World War II with the ferocity of a boy band. I don’t understand why the British feel such a reflex to celebrate it.

Here’s a trip down the the pathway of British military performance in World War II: the British spent a month fighting in France, during which time they got whipped by a German army that was riding horses ten years earlier.

A virgin inspired by a divine sense of mission. A legendary sword. A bitter battlefield stalemate. And a France in need of saving. "Wonder Woman," the summer’s biggest hit, has been hailed for resurrecting one of the great heroines of the past. But the heroine being revived isn’t only the comic book phenomenon. It would be Joan of Arc, as well.

The story of St. Joan was one of the strangest black swan events in all of history. I’m sure the English and Burgundian French military planners laid out many possibilities during the Hundred Years War; it’s unlikely they were worrying much about losing

Early in “Stalker,” Andrei Tarkovsky’s newly re-released 1979 futurescape, a character […]

The premise of Nacho Vigalondo’s "Colossal," a Godzilla monster comedy starring Anne Hathaway, is such a creative burst that the movie earned a decent review just by getting to paper. A drink-til-you-drop party girl gets dumped by her boyfriend, moves home to a small town, takes a job as a waitress, and tries to sober up. Meanwhile across the world, a giant lizard creature appears and disappears each night to attack Seoul, Korea. When she scratches her

Warren and Faye always were good for a bloody ending. Especially Faye Dunaway, who has shown a genius for getting shot in a car to finish a movie. We should feel forgiving toward Mrs. Mulwray. She was born with an eye imperfection. And died with an even bigger one. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences could not have picked a better dance pair for the greatest televised mistake in the history of the world. As you surely know

The feel-good La La Land, director Damien Chazelle's prohibitive awards favorite, is a movie of mystery. Can Emma Stone sing? (She can.) Can Ryan Gosling sing and dance? (As a singer, he makes an OK dancer.) The real and lasting question rising from its smoggy, sunny success, however, is this one: Why don’t they make more musicals? Every week a pigeon flies in from “The Death of Cinema”-land with a horror story about

Probably the most famous first lady in the history of the United States, people remember Jacqueline Kennedy for riding next to her dying husband in the most perfect pink dress anyone had ever seen. This image permanently stuck in our head lights Pablo Larrain’s “Jackie” is fueled by this incoherent image pink and bloody – the glamour and the grief. Jackie isn’t the story of a murder. It’s the story of a funeral. Still overwhelmed by

Oh, what, you want to talk about “Allied,” the film?

Where’s the fun in that? Wouldn’t you rather talk about Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Marion Cotillard? Popcorn, please! Look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. Would you really rather go in-depth on the art direction? Twice Brad Pitt has made espionage movies about a spy married to a woman who might be

Less a modern Western than an inside look at Hollywood’s fragile psychology, the film “The Magnificent Seven” is a lesson in the way that the movies think at the moment. It’s an encouraging thing, and a more honest historical assessment, to re-create an Old West posse with minorities in major roles. It’s another thing to be so perfectly, comically and distractingly fancied up with diversity that a focus group seems like

The best thing about “Nerve” is that it doesn’t care what you think of it. While it’s not a crazy surreal soup like “The Lobster,” it’s been awhile since I’ve seen a film that feels quite so free in its own skin. The new Emma Roberts film starts like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and ends like “The Warriors” or “Escape from New York.| Its’ “The Hunger Games” as told by John Carpenter. “Nerve” is a total riot, the best bad movie in a long time. The Pokemon Go