Reel Encounters

Teenage Love Affair

The new romantic comedy “Love, Simon” is all about symmetry. This is a well-ordered world where everyone exists in a state that is not perfect, but rarely uncertain.

A scene from Armando Iannucci’s “The Death of Stalin”

Deadly funny affairs

Anyone looking for something diverting to see over the weekend should head to Amazon or iTunes to stream the new digital release “The Death of Stalin.”

Coming of age in “Green Days By the River”

As much as Michael Anthony’s “Green Days by the River” has turned into a symbolic text of colonial life in Trinidad and Tobago, the story will always depend more on its value as a coming-of-age tale more than anything else.

Hugh Jackman, Keala Settle, and Luciano Acuna Jr. in The Greatest Showman (2017)

Not quite “The Greatest Showman”

There’s something paradoxical about a 21st century film musical and even more so about “The Greatest Showman,” which is not the best or worst representation of what musicals are in 2017.

Ghosts that we knew

Who invented the bedsheet ghost? The image of a ghost marked by donning a white sheet with holes for eyes is a classic and familiar concept.

Shadows on the Beach

“Beach Rats,” the winner of the best director award at this year’s Sundance film festival, is a filmic bildungsroman.

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