#‘Sly’ Review: Netflix’s Sylvester Stallone Doc Is Alternately Illuminating and Evasive

#‘Sly’ Review: Netflix’s Sylvester Stallone Doc Is Alternately Illuminating and Evasive

Does Netflix have some sort of stealth ownership stake in Planet Hollywood? Just a couple of months after giving Arnold Schwarzenegger a three-hour puff piece documentary, the streaming giant is set to release Thom Zimny’s feature-length Sly, a documentary in which Sylvester Stallone is exactly as candid and introspective as executive producer Sylvester Stallone wants…

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#‘Pain Hustlers’ Review: Emily Blunt and Chris Evans Star in David Yates’ Propulsive Opioid Crime Drama

#‘Pain Hustlers’ Review: Emily Blunt and Chris Evans Star in David Yates’ Propulsive Opioid Crime Drama

Pain Hustlers — David Yates’ entertaining crime drama about Big Pharma’s shadowy sales practices —  opens with a character differentiating his company’s misdeeds from a familiar pharmaceutical titan: “We’re not Purdue Pharma. We didn’t kill America.” Sure, the employees of Zanna Therapeutics, a fictional drug company, didn’t peddle their opioid painkiller to the same degree as…

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#‘Flipside’ Review: A Documentarian’s Inspired Look at Life’s Unfinished Projects and the Stuff We Collect

#‘Flipside’ Review: A Documentarian’s Inspired Look at Life’s Unfinished Projects and the Stuff We Collect

It’s easy to measure your life in accomplishments, to look at the accumulation of honors and accolades, of personal and professional victories, and to say, “This accumulation represents empirical success.” It’s harder to measure your life not necessarily in failures but in potentials left unfulfilled, in half-completed tasks or the stashed items left unused, and…

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#‘The King Tide’ Review: Frances Fisher in an Unsettling Tale of Supernatural Powers and Poisonous Groupthink

#‘The King Tide’ Review: Frances Fisher in an Unsettling Tale of Supernatural Powers and Poisonous Groupthink

The first time Frances Fisher’s character appears in The King Tide, she’s stooped, uncommunicative, crushed by life and perhaps by a stroke. When the main action picks up, 10 years later, she’s a glowing picture of New Agey vim and vigor, and the island where she lives has been transformed. Nobody fears illness anymore because…

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#‘Next Goal Wins’ Review: Taika Waititi’s Soccer Film Sacrifices Sincerity for Self-Conscious Humor

#‘Next Goal Wins’ Review: Taika Waititi’s Soccer Film Sacrifices Sincerity for Self-Conscious Humor

Before the world premiere of his latest film, Next Goal Wins, Taika Waititi offered a few introductory words and a characteristically dopey bit. He thanked his team, and then punched the microphone at the Princess of Wales theater because he was fired-up about imperialism. The microphone broke. The crowd laughed. Before leaving the stage, Waititi…

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