A new 4K restoration of the 35-year-old classic by director Zhang Yimou is breathtaking.

13 Nov

A new 4K restoration of the 35-year-old classic by director Zhang Yimou is breathtaking

⭐⭐⭐⭐Rating: 4 out of 4

There’s a striking beauty and an equally chilling cruelty to Zhang Yimou’s “Raise the Red Lantern” (1991), a sumptuous period piece about power, privilege and the destructive consequences of women pitted against one another for the favor of a man who holds all the cards. The film, which lost out on Academy Award for best foreign language film (now best international feature) to “Mediterraneo,” will celebrate its 35th anniversary with a limited nine-day run at the Brattle Theatre. The new version is a stunning 4K restoration that makes Zhang’s already arresting imagery look sharper, deeper and richer. The reds are more vibrant, the blues more ominous and the shadows more pronounced, bringing new dimension to the architectural textures of the sprawling compound where nearly all the action takes place.

Adapted from Su Tong’s 1989 novella “Wives and Concubines,” the film unfolds in 1920s China, during a period of political and social upheaval when centuries-old patriarchal traditions remained firmly entrenched and Mao’s revolution looms on the horizon. Gong Li (“Miami Vice,” “Memoirs of a Geisha”), striking and angular, fierce and soft, plays Songlian, a 19-year-old university student forced to abandon her studies after her father dies and the family fortune evaporates. With few options, Songlian agrees to become the fourth mistress of Chen Zuoqian (Ma Jingwu), a wealthy patriarch whose household operates according to an elaborate set of rituals and rigid hierarchies.

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In ‘Wild Horse Nine,’ Cold War operatives on an existential mission

13 Nov

Cold War paranoia meets Martin McDonagh’s darkly absurdist humor.

Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich in WILD HORSE NINE. Credit: Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2026 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

⭐⭐⭐1/2 Rating: 3.5 out of 4

Martin McDonagh wrote and directed this dark comedy set in Chile on the eve of the 1973 coup that ousted democratically elected President Salvador Allende and ushered in the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. That world-shaping Cold War event, along with the ouster and killing of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the Kennedy assassination, looms large in this farcical take on power games and power dynamics. It may also just be McDonagh’s strongest work yet.

Anyone familiar with McDonagh knows his penchant for absurdist spins on the human condition. “Wild Horse Nine” stars John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as CIA agents sent to Santiago to help destabilize the Allende government. In texture and temperament, it’s closest to McDonagh’s “In Bruges” (2008), another near-surreal gem about men with guns and time to kill in a far-flung locale — you could argue it’s a loose remake.

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Documentary demonstrates the lasting power of Pinocchio’s

13 Nov

If you’re a fan of Pinocchio’s square pies, this film slice just might fill you up

Owner Adam DiCenso opening Pinocchio’s. Credit: Courtesy of vivFilms

One by one, Harvard Square’s old-school haunts are slipping into memory. Whitney’s closed in December 2024, and Charlie’s Kitchen, which shuttered after a devastating flood in January, has confirmed it will not reopen. Over in Inman Square, S&S Deli closed this spring after 107 years.

Pinocchio’s, the modest pizza-and-sub shop tucked away on Winthrop Street, remains. Now, the longtime purveyor of the square slice gets its turn on the screen in “Pinocchio’s Harvard,” a 20-minute documentary by Albanian filmmaker Valmir Tertini. You can catch the film Sunday afternoon at Harvard’s Boylston Hall, where Tertini will be on hand. The event, presented by the Harvard Albanian Students Association and Tertini’s production company, vivFilms, aims to shift attention from the university’s celebrated classrooms to the nearby gathering place where a mouthwatering slice and a casual conversation might provide their own education.

Photos of Mark Zuckerberg adorn the walls of Pinocchio’s. Credit: Courtesy of vivFilms

The film frames the snug pizzeria, which has been feeding Harvard and its surrounding community since 1966, as an essential cornerstone of life in the square. Known as “Noch’s” to regulars, its fan list includes Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Damon, Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu; some of their photos hang on the walls.

We’ve penned our appreciation in the past. Sixty years in business is a substantial run for any restaurant, especially in a neighborhood where each departure prompts another round of reckonings about what the square is becoming.

Tertini discovered Pinocchio’s by chance when he and his wife, Enxhi, walked around Harvard Square. She mentioned a well-known pizzeria nearby, and the name rang a bell: He’d heard it on the television series “Suits.” (The clip makes it into the film.) While Tertini enjoyed a slice, he met owner Adam DiCenso and asked whether anyone had made a documentary about the place. DiCenso said there had been multiple newspaper stories and television segments, but no documentary.

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A lonely grifter in New York City steals our heart

7 Nov

John Turturro gets the role of a lifetime and gives a crowning performance in “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York”

A still from “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.” Credit: Courtesy of Sony Classics

Sometimes, the laws of the lawless are more honest, honorable and severe than those that bind the mainstream. “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” captures this dynamic through a small, character-driven drama centered on Harry (John Turturro), a semi-successful pickpocket in New York who hasn’t got the memo that no one carries cash in their wallets anymore and who abhors cellphones. Should he boost one, he’s immediately confounded by it and near always, tosses the device into the nearest trash bin.

The film draws heavily on throwbacks without ever feeling cliched or borrowed, a rare accomplishment. The central theme of a man out of touch and out of time has been done many a time before on screen but few directed with the tenderness and fury of Noah Segan. It stands with “The Wild Bunch” (1969), Sam Peckinpah’s elegiac framing of the fading west, or “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (1974), where Robert Mitchum’s small-time Boston hood has his fate sealed but is too naïve to know it. Like those films, “Pickpocket” shows us how living and operating outside the law comes with freedoms, quick riches — and unmitigable consequences.

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In ‘Gentle Monster,’ struggling with the unthinkable

1 Nov

Léa Seydoux plays a woman who faces a terrible question about her husband and their child.

A still from “Gentle Monster.”

“Gentle Monster”

⭐⭐⭐Rating: 3 out of 4

This rapt emotional burner embeds us with a family that earns our sympathies despite disturbing charges against certain members of the household. When Munich police detectives show up at the country retreat of the Weiss family to collect the husband’s laptop, cellphone and any type of media storage device on the premises, Phillip (Laurence Ruppm), the man under investigation, seems resigned to the incursion. His wife Lucy (Léa Seydoux), however, demands answers—answers that will not come for some time. More troubling, given the implications, is the fact that the couple’s 9-year-old son Johnny (Malo Blanchet) is asleep in a nearby room during the systematic sweep for evidence. (The structure and overtones are strikingly similar to the recently released “Fjord.”)

Pulling back, Lucy and Phillip are kindred artists and idealists who have moved to country to pursue their creative yens. She’s a small hall performance artist somewhere between Laurie Anderson and Lana Del Rey, who takes, breaks and repurposes love ballads written by men, because while men may write them, she says, they don’t feel them. Phillip a bit of a man-boy, is a meandering documentary filmmaker whose projects are constantly starting and stopping — he also suffers from acute panic attacks. Understandably, they have rippling financial pressures — a point that becomes a pivotal bit of key evidence in getting to the truth in this emotionally taut bending of realities.

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‘Wicker,’ ‘Wildwood’ both bring cinematic wonder

26 Oct

A man made of wicker features in one movie while the other consists of remarkable stop-motion animation.

“Wicker”

⭐⭐⭐Rating: 3 out of 4

In “Wicker” it turns out a decent man requires a little basket weaving. At least, that’s the hook in this bawdy fairy tale, adapted by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer from Ursula Wills’ acclaimed short story “The Wicker Husband,” in which a woman’s pursuit of companionship sends a dour village into a tizzy. The premise is fanciful, but the sexual double standards, marital dissatisfaction and resentment of another person’s happiness are familiar enough.

Olivia Colman (“The Favourite,” “The Lost Daughter”) plays an unnamed fisherwoman who lives on the outskirts of a seaside village and occupies a similarly marginal position in its social order. Ridiculed for her dowdy appearance and fishy smell, she commissions a local basket maker (Peter Dinklage) to fashion her a husband. What arrives is Alexander Skarsgård in woven form, somberly polite, virile and more than dutiful in attention—got a leaky roof or a squeaky bed, he’ll have it fixed in a jiffy. Just don’t ask him to do anything with fire. His existence becomes an affront to the community’s understanding of how marriage, and women, should work.

“Wicker” falls somewhere between “The Princess Bride” (1987) and “Caligula” (1979), with its mystical underpinnings — Dinklage’s conjurer feels more amiably puckish Rumpelstiltskin than maniacal Frankenstein — medieval-

adjacent setting and frothy talk of shagging and making babies. You could think of it as King Richard’s Faire dialed up to 11 on the naughty scale.

The perceived marital bliss of Colman’s fisherwoman overthrows social norms, making it the bane of those atop the social hierarchy, especially Elizabeth Debicki’s judging matron, a Karen OG constantly relegating others to places below her station.

Colman anchors the story’s emotional center with assurance, while Skarsgård’s casting supplies a layer of absurdity, putting the hulking berserker from “The Northman” inside an unfamiliar body, with Debicki (“Tenet,” “The Crown”) as the face of the village’s traditionalist status quo.

As lithe and sprite as “Wicker” is, the osiers of its are novel concept are stretched thin by as the plot gets deeper into the woods. The organic nature of a woman’s quest for companionship and respect becomes subsumed and the cheeky, burlesque-leaning humor fades. Still, its apt, able ensemble renders it a merry mug of cinematic mead.

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Somerville Theatre sold to current managers

25 Oct

News of the deal brought relief and excitement to local leaders and cinephiles. The new owners have launched a GoFundMe to help pay some of the downpayment.

The future of the Somerville Theatre came into clear focus today when it was announced that ownership of the Hobbs Building, which houses the historic theater, was transferred to CSB Theatres, Inc.

CSB is co-owned by longtime theater managers Ian Judge, Ian Brownell, Jamie Mattchen and John O’Leary. Judge’s name is listed as owner of the limited liability corporation, but he called that a formality.

Judge called the deal “equal parts excitement and nausea.” CSB has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help raise $90,000 to back monies used for the down payment. “It’s scary,” Judge said, “but it’s basically our only chance to make sure that the theater stays around, locally owned in its current form for as long as possible.”

Ian Judge, new co-owner of the Somerville Theatre, was in the lobby greeting patrons.
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Potent performances power the taut drama in ‘Fjord’

25 Oct
Ideological isolation in the hinterlands of Norway.

A scene from “Fjord” Credit: Elissa Federoff / NEON

⭐⭐⭐1/2 Rating: 3.5 out of 4

Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner is a stark contemplation on faith, family and the limits of tolerance when deeply held beliefs and social norms collide. The film focuses on a devout Romanian immigrant family living in Norway whose five children are taken by the authorities after the eldest daughter arrives at school with visible bruises. The parents, Mihai (Sebastian Stan) and Lisbet (Renate Reinsve), deny abuse and become embroiled in a long fight to regain custody that, as the case proceedings develop, increasingly becomes a clash between their conservative Christian beliefs and Norway’s secular child protection system.

Throughout the ordeal, the Gheorghius feel largely isolated, even though Lisbet is from the remote village (located at the base of a towering mountain that’s part of Norway’s remarkable fjord system). Mihai, who just lost his parents (part of the reason for the move), speaks limited Norwegian, hampering communication, though he manages somewhat better in English. As parents of two teens, two elementary schoolers and one nursing newborn, the Gheorghius are strict by most standards, denying them cellphone and internet access and insisting on weekly Bible studies and daily prayer. They are also — as depicted — loving, caring and respected by their charges, and integrate well into the township’s general population, including being members of a Pentecostal church.

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“Whalefall” is more of a whale fail

18 Oct

New movie is a strange tale that lacks execution and energy.

Austin Abrams as Jay Gardiner in 20th Century Studios’ “Whalefall.” Credit: Jennifer Clasen © 2026 20th Century Studios

⭐⭐Rating: 2 out of 4

A strange “Jonah and the Whale” concept that’s even stranger in execution. It’s got incredible talent too, but none of that can save this cinematic miscue from submerging in banal blubbering. It’s essentially a one trick pony — make that “a one bubble guppy”—that lacks character development or even a plot. The film’s lone benefit is that it will likely inspire a brief online biology session for viewers using their smart phones to search on “whale digestion.”

The hook to this whale’s tale is flounder flat. Family patriarch Mitt (Josh Brolin) runs a sight-seeing boat tour company near Monterey Bay, but has terminal mesothelioma. He straps on his diving weights and jumps into the cold waters sans diving tank. The death (though the body’s not been retrieved) and pending funeral proceedings beckons home Mitt’s estranged son Jay (Austin Abrams, recently on screen in the raucous “Resident Evil” reboot) from college in Iowa. Driven by a sense of guilt, Jay gets up in the early hours of the morning one day and decides to look for dear old dad’s body. Combing through a kelp garden, Jay gets caught up in a fracas between a giant squid and a sperm whale. Both he and the squid wind up in the belly of the whale, and the cuttlefish proves to be one angry co-survivor.

The rest of the film is pretty much Jay trying to reason his way out of the whale’s colon before his oxygen runs out (the air cavity inside the whale is toxic). What that amounts to is Jay mumbling to himself through his respirator about what he needs to do and why as the whale burps, belches and farts. This awkward connection seems to be a method to keep the audience clued in.

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“You Can See Everything” is worth the view

17 Oct

The documentary about Theranos’s fallen founder Elizabeth Holmes is riveting.

⭐⭐⭐1/2 Rating: 3.5 out of 4.

Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary about fallen tech star Elizabeth Holmes is a riveting head trip and wild genre-bender that intoxicatingly combines classic journalism with inventive narrative departures. This eely shape-shifter burrows into you and won’t let go.

The making of the film is as much the story as its subject, who — at the time Fielder and Oppenheim catch up with her — is 34 days from beginning an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Theranos, her blood-testing start-up that promised to revolutionize health care and help detect cancer early, could only perform a small number of the 240-plus analytical tests it claimed. Holmes founded the company at 19. She and her Theranos partner and lover, Sunny Balwani, were exposed in a 2015 Wall Street Journal investigative piece and later tried on felony charges for fraud and fiscal deceit, sentenced in 2022 (Balwani got 12 years), and ordered to pay more than $450 million in restitution.

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