| August 21, 2026 
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Hi, movie fans! As we prepare for the fall film season, I’m taking this lull to catch up on releases I missed over the last few months. So much good stuff! Where to begin? How about with “Late Fame,” starring Willem Dafoe as a post office worker who published a book of poems in his youth and is now heralded by a coterie of young fans. In her Critic’s Pick review, Alissa Wilkinson wrote, “A loving and lovely sensibility runs through ‘Late Fame,’ a fond and wise understanding of why some people want to become artists without making much art and why other people quit making it altogether.” (To be honest, my favorite moment was watching at Film Forum while a scene set outside Film Forum played on the screen.) I wasn’t as crazy about “Tony,” the portrait of a young and callow Anthony Bourdain (Dominic Sessa), but the performances were terrific (especially Antonio Banderas as an unlikely mentor), and I think my colleague Jeannette Catsoulis summed it up well in her Critic’s Pick review: “This captivating movie may be less about the birth of a chef than about the making of a man.” What about new movies? High on the list has to be “It Ends,” the latest in the subgenre of Gen Z horror. Wilkinson deemed it a Critic’s Pick, writing that the director Alexander Ullom makes “canny, effective use of what’s obviously a small budget, in the best way, the kind of tight filmmaking that leans brilliantly into its restrictions in both plot and aesthetics. Nothing feels wasted, and everything is purposeful.” That sounds terrific to me. Whatever you end up watching, enjoy the movies! | STREAMING RECOMMENDATIONS | |
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