Neon
MOVIE REVIEW
Cuckoo (2024)
The absolute worst audience reaction you can have for a horror film is silence. People are supposed to be reacting to the gore, experiencing the shocks of the plot twists in their own bodies, maybe even screaming. This is not something you can expect from “Cuckoo;” it’s awful but it’s true that the audience at the Berlinale watched it in stony silence. “Cuckoo” should have been an O.T.T. camp catastrophe/delight, but unfortunately it's just a rotten egg.
Christine Fenzl
MOVIE REVIEW
I’m Your Man (2021)
The question is not whether you would if you could, because of course you would. The question is whether or not you should. Alma (Maren Eggert, who won the Silver Bear at this year’s Berlinale for her performance) is the only professor at her entire university in Berlin with neither a partner nor a family, which is why she has been compelled to participate in the project. There has been months of research and probing questions designed to reveal her deepest desires. And all that information has been run into the program that created Tom (Dan Stevens; yes, really), her perfect man.
MOVIE REVIEW
The Fifth Estate (2013)
Frank Connor/Walt Disney Studios
Julian Assange's pre-emptive attempt to persuade Benedict Cumberbatch not to play the WikiLeaks founder in "The Fifth Estate" was probably a forlorn hope. As if Mr. Cumberbatch, now deep into that period when stars can be seen still visibly enjoying the work, was likely to refuse the opportunity of investigating a character as confounding and mannered as Mr. Assange. The actor's talent for mimicry has been put to good use before, but Bill Condon's film allows him to deploy it on a higher level altogether, and the results are a firework display. It's not his fault that the film comes not long after Alex Gibney's documentary "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks," which covered some of the same ground in more eccentric and inventive fashion, and did so with a harder focus on Mr. Assange than "The Fifth Estate" can pull off.