Movie Reviews : NPR

'Bill & Ted Face The Music,' And They Make For Good Home Viewing

Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves play Bill and Ted in Bill & Ted Face The Music. Patti Perret/Orion Pictures hide caption

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Patti Perret/Orion Pictures

Pop Culture Happy Hour

'Bill & Ted Face The Music,' And They Make For Good Home Viewing

August 28, 2020 • It might not be a great film, but the nostalgic draw of the guileless Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted "Theodore" Logan has never been stronger.

'Bill And Ted Face The Music': Excellent, Bogus, Or Heinous?

Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter star in Bill & Ted Face The Music. Patti Perret/Orion Pictures hide caption

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Patti Perret/Orion Pictures

Pop Culture Happy Hour

'Bill And Ted Face The Music': Excellent, Bogus, Or Heinous?

August 28, 2020 • Back in 1989, we met Bill S. Preston and Ted "Theodore" Logan in the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. They returned in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey in 1991. And now, almost 30 years later, they're back. In Bill and Ted Face the Music, Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves return as... well, Bill and Ted, respectively. And this time, they'll need not just their triumphant band to save the world, but also their daughters.

'Bill And Ted Face The Music': Excellent, Bogus, Or Heinous?

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More Persuasively Dickensian: 'The Personal History Of David Copperfield' Reviewed

August 27, 2020 • Satirist, director and the creator of Veep, Armando Iannucci does Charles Dickens in The Personal History Of David Copperfield. And NPR's critic says there's a lot that's unexpected in the movie.

More Persuasively Dickensian: 'The Personal History Of David Copperfield' Reviewed

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'Class Action Park' Remembers The Perils Of A Really Good Time

Grainy footage of kids getting ready to fly down dangerous rides is the most striking image in the documentary Class Action Park. HBO Max hide caption

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HBO Max

Pop Culture Happy Hour

'Class Action Park' Remembers The Perils Of A Really Good Time

August 27, 2020 • The documentary Class Action Park tells the story of a New Jersey theme park that was widely beloved, successful and extremely dangerous.

Wild And Daring, 'Tesla' Captures The Spirit Of An Unorthodox Inventor

Ethan Hawke plays Serbian American inventor Nikola Tesla in the playful new biopic, Tesla. IFC Films hide caption

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IFC Films

Wild And Daring, 'Tesla' Captures The Spirit Of An Unorthodox Inventor

Fresh Air

August 21, 2020 • Ethan Hawke plays the famed Serbian American inventor in a new film that reminds us what a modern creature Tesla was — a figure from the past who never stopped pointing the way to the future.

Wild And Daring, 'Tesla' Captures The Spirit Of An Unorthodox Inventor

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Robert MacDougall, one of several teenage boys featured in the documentary film Boys State, on Apple TV+. Apple TV+ hide caption

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Apple TV+

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Passion And Politics In 'Boys State'

August 21, 2020 • The world of politics is not pretty, even in high school. That's one of the takeaways from the new documentary Boys State, about a week-long program sponsored by the American Legion. In it, a thousand Texas high-school boys form political parties, nominate candidates, and hold elections to form a government. The film shows how a few of these students think about politics and running for office. And it considers how they've been influenced by the last few years of American political discourse.

Passion And Politics In 'Boys State'

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'Tesla': A Movie About An Underrated Genius Who Challenged Edison

August 20, 2020 • Tesla is a thoroughly eccentric biopic starring Ethan Hawke as the electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, a rival of Thomas Edison's.

'Tesla': A Movie About An Underrated Genius Who Challenged Edison

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'Coup 53' Tells The Story Of A 1953 Campaign By MI6 And The CIA To Oust Iran's Leader

The new documentary Coup 53 tells the backstory of the ouster of Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran's elected prime minister. Amirani Media hide caption

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Amirani Media

'Coup 53' Tells The Story Of A 1953 Campaign By MI6 And The CIA To Oust Iran's Leader

Fresh Air

August 18, 2020 • A new documentary shows how the CIA and Britain's MI6 engineered the forcible removal of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The 1953 coup continues to rattle history to this day.

'Coup 53' Tells The Story Of A 1953 Campaign By MI6 And The CIA To Oust Iran's Leader

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'Boys State' Documentary Explores What Teens Learn About Democracy

August 13, 2020 • Boys State documentary explores how a group of Texas teens participated in the American Legion program to learn about democracy by organizing political parties and running a mock government.

'Boys State' Documentary Explores What Teens Learn About Democracy

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'Boys State' Helps Teens Learn How Politics Work — Perhaps A Little Too Well

Steven Garza is the underdog in the mock-race for governor in the documentary Boys State. He counts Bernie Sanders among his political heroes. Apple TV+ hide caption

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Apple TV+

'Boys State' Helps Teens Learn How Politics Work — Perhaps A Little Too Well

Fresh Air

August 12, 2020 • A new documentary follows 2018's Texas Boys State, a week-long summer experiment in which teens form their own representative democracy. The mock election highlights flaws of the real-life system.

'Boys State' Helps Teens Learn How Politics Work — Perhaps A Little Too Well

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Beyoncé's 'Black Is King' Is A Sumptuous Search For Divine Identity

Beyoncé, at the premiere of Disney's The Lion King on July 09, 2019 in LA. Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images hide caption

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Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Music Features

Beyoncé's 'Black Is King' Is A Sumptuous Search For Divine Identity

August 4, 2020 • The film project, released Friday on Disney's new streaming service, finds the star seeking out a shared history of Black excellence.

Seth Rogen Finds Himself (Twice) In 'An American Pickle'

Seth Rogen stars alongside ... well, Seth Rogen, in the HBO Max movie An American Pickle. Hopper Stone/HBO Max hide caption

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Hopper Stone/HBO Max

Fresh Air

August 3, 2020 • This mordantly funny horror film opens on a young woman who awakens with a terrifying premonition of doom. She Dies Tomorrow feels surprisingly in tune with our present moment of unease.

Fear Of Death Is Contagious In The Psychological Thriller 'She Dies Tomorrow'

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Movie 'She Dies Tomorrow' Reviewed

July 31, 2020 • Amy Seimetz's new movie, She Dies Tomorrow, captures the mood of the moment with moody atmospherics, hallucinatory flashes of color, and unsettling editing and humor.

Movie 'She Dies Tomorrow' Reviewed

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Jane (Jane Adams) and Jason (Chris Messina) get caught up in a viral outbreak of fatalism in She Dies Tomorrow. Neon hide caption

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Neon

Pop Culture Happy Hour

'She Dies Tomorrow' Is A Mood

July 31, 2020 • Writer/director Amy Seimetz's darkly, darkly comic meditation on the contagious nature of anxiety and paranoia plays with horror conventions while refusing to embrace the genre's pulpy pleasures.