Stephanie Zacharek

In Jurassic World, Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic Park reboot — set 22 years after dinosaurs started walking the Earth, again — brontosauruses, stegosauruses and velociraptors have become old hat, sort of like the mechanical Abe Lincoln at Disneyland. Meanwhile, the habitat around them has gone Vegas: Isla Nublar, home of the......

What does the world sound like when you're Brian Wilson? When you've made a record that sounds like cirrus clouds look — as Wilson did with The Beach Boys' small modern miracle of harmony, 1966 album Pet Sounds — all bets are off when it comes to the way ordinary......

Even if you live in the same city or town your whole life, the place you came from is always a distant country: Old trees are cut down to be replaced, one hopes, by new ones; shops and businesses change ownership or, worse, are torn down; landmarked buildings may stay......

On my third day in Cannes, I was dismayed to settle in for a screening at one of the festival's two main venues, the Debussy, only to notice that the guy to my left had removed his shoes and socks and, file in hand, was happily sawing away at his......

CANNES, France — “Je m’appelle Max.” Now that’s an opening line, so much better in French, and it’s just one reason I’m glad I waited to see Mad Max: Fury Road here in Cannes on the morning of the festival’s second day, Thursday, rather than at home in the States......

Some people complain about sequels to beloved movies, while others welcome the possibility that a part deux might be even better than the first. Sometimes that happens: While The Godfather is great, The Godfather: Part II expands on its dramatic intensity without repeating any of the same tricks, and The......

The most beautiful and haunting words in John Pirozzi's vibrant documentary Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock & Roll are heard at the beginning: "When we were young, we loved being modern." That line has the succinct poetry of a song lyric, and the still photograph that accompanies it......

Fictional movies that tackle topical subjects often have about them the fusty air of a civics lesson, as if we’re supposed to watch pretending that we’re not being led down the path of righteousness. But writer-director Andrew Niccol’s Good Kill is something else; it’s immediate and vital, and it doesn’t......

Sofía Vergara is built like an amphora, a living testament to the form ceramicists throughout the centuries have adored. In the fleet and gloriously ridiculous comedy Hot Pursuit, Vergara plays Daniella Riva, a mobster's wife who needs to be escorted from San Antonio to Dallas, where she'll testify against the......

Depending on whom you talk to, we live in an era of conformity or one of anything-goes individuality; in a golden age of television or the brightest of movie galaxies. But just about everyone will agree that we’re ruled by screens of all sizes, which means it’s harder than ever......