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Oliver Jones

Oliver Jones

The Daily Beast

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‘Nickel Boys’ Is an Experiential Masterpiece—And One of The Year’s Best Films

Director RaMell Ross’s bold reimagining of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is both lyrical and urgent. This is a movie worth...

12.12.2024 3

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘The Piano Lesson’ Review: Stained By Blood, Haunted By History

August Wilson's 1987 play is opened up in ways that that work—and some that don't—in this beautifully acted film adaptation.

25.11.2024 4

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Heretic’ Does the Impossible—Makes Hugh Grant Boring

Since he first popped and fopped into our moviegoing lives in the late ’80s, Hugh Grant has been charming, cloying, hilariously funny and sometimes...

13.11.2024 7

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘A Real Pain’ Review: Heartfelt, Full of Pain, Laced With Humor and Remarkable

The Jewish tradition of placing stones on the grave markers of the deceased as a form of respect and remembrance becomes a central animating force in ...

30.10.2024 5

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Conclave’ Review: Papal Succession As a Mystery Thriller

Ralph Fiennes is mesmerizing as a cardinal leading the process of choosing a new pope—which plays out like an Agatha Christie locked-room mystery.

23.10.2024 20

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘We Live In Time’ Review: Great Moments Don’t Add Up a Great Film

Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield's performances deliver real emotional intimacy, but this weepy romantic drama just never coheres.

11.10.2024 3

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Saturday Night’ Review: Not Live, Not Funny, Not Much

The nostalgia is so thick in Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s furiously busy paean to the nascent days of SNL, so unrelenting and potent, that...

08.10.2024 30

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Hold Your Breath’ Review: New Horror Movie Full Of Old Scares

Clapboards slam and crack like thunder. The weathervane creaks like a listing warship. When the wind, heavy with unceasing dust, whooshes, rumbles and...

02.10.2024 9

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Daughters’ Review: Sundance Award Winning Doc Explores Incarceration and Family

When we first meet Aubrey, she’s five years old; the purple beads in her braids glow in the light from her fish tank as she brags about her math...

19.08.2024 9

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Dìdi’ Review: A Poignant And Breathtaking Coming Of Age Story

There are such a bounty of moments of breathtaking specificity and quiet poignancy in  Dìdi —writer-director Sean Wang’s Sundance Audience...

26.07.2024 6

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Touch’ Review: Memory, Mystery and Lost Love Remind Us What It Is to Be Human

Seventy-one is as good a time as any for your first tattoo. Or so figures the soft-spoken and deliberate Kristófer, a widower visiting London from...

12.07.2024 4

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’ Review: A Weak Nostalgia Trip You Can Take On Your Couch

There’s a moment a little less than halfway through Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F , a franchise arising this Fourth of July weekend after a 30-year...

03.07.2024 5

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One’: Moseying Nowhere, Slowly

The often bewildering and somewhat underwhelming first installment of Kevin Costner's Western epic is long on characters but short on story.

27.06.2024 4

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Kinds of Kindness’ Review: Bold, Bizarre, Self Impressed—Also Masterful

A car crash, self amputation, a sex cult—Yorgos Lanthimos' new film is so singular and divisive, it’s likely not to just turn viewers against each...

21.06.2024 6

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Babes’ Review: A Gross-Out Comedy That’s Hilarious, Inspiring, And Groundbreaking

Director Pamela Adlon has done the nearly impossible: crafted a film that mines comic gold from people being loving to one another while acting...

18.05.2024 30

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘The Fall Guy’ Isn’t a Satire of Hollywood’s Worst Instincts, It’s a Product Of Them

Congratulations. Regardless of how intelligent you may be, you are far smarter than  The Fall Guy thinks you are. The latest jacked up, action...

03.05.2024 30

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Monkey Man’ Review: A Revenge Thriller Packed With Punches, Politics, Fury, and Joy

A kitchen-sink directorial debut from actor Dev Patel,  Monkey Man  is a knife-through-the-throat revenge thriller, a diatribe against...

04.04.2024 9

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Review: A Nonstop Ballet of Cartoon Violence

In the eight years since the release of the last Kung Fu Panda movie, the world has faced the (first) Trump administration, a global pandemic, an...

07.03.2024 10

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Io Capitano’ Review: Oscar Nominated Depiction of the Hellscape of Migration

No one thinks it’s a good idea for teenage cousins Seydou and Moussa to embark on the treacherous journey from their native Senegal to Europe....

23.02.2024 10

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘American Fiction’: Jeffrey Wright’s Stunning Performance Leads One of the Best Casts of The Year

  There are two films running more or less concurrently in American Fiction , a singular directorial debut from Cord Jefferson, former journalist...

14.12.2023 10

Observer

Oliver Jones

‘Godzilla Minus One’ Review: A Mountain-Sized Monster Restored to Cinematic Glory

Godzilla remains one of cinema's greatest metaphors, and in its opening weekend 'Godzilla Minus One' set a U.S. box-office record for a foreign...

04.12.2023 10

Observer

Oliver Jones

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