‘Retrograde’ Review: Matthew Heineman Risks His Neck to Record America’s Exit From Afghanistan

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic “A lot of this really happened,” teases the opening card of David O. Russell’s unruly ensemble comedy “Amsterdam,” a loony early-’30s social satire that goes cartwheeling through a little-remembered episode in American history when fascists tried to overthrow the U.S. government. Russell clearly sees parallels between this alarming chapter of the nation’s past and our present, as national divisions threaten to overwhelm American democracy, but the writer-director has complicated the plot — the movie’s plot, that is, not the greater conspiracy on which it turns — to such a degree that audiences are bound to be bewildered. Instead of wondering which parts are true and which ones invented, they’re likely to find themselves asking, “What the hell is happening?” for the better part of 134 minutes.

Sibling rivalry. Home Town hosts Ben Napier and Erin Napier exclusively told Us Weekly that their daughters get very jealous of each other.

the network reported. Barnes, who had overseen NPR’s news operations since 2018 after five years as executive editor of the Houston Chronicle, is expected to leave at the end of November.

The title of “Railway Children” in the UK is “The Railway Children Return,” since it’s both an homage and sequel to Lionel Jeffries’ 1970 film—and British national treasure—“The Railway Children” (itself an adaptation of an Edith Nesbit novel). But Morgan Matthews’ unrequested sequel would be far better described as a resurrection than a return, as it plods lifelessly through each and every well-mannered farce, Arcadian frolic, and flag-waving escapade of its beloved predecessor, stopping only to exchange the original’s slapdash commentary on xenophobia for an equally slapdash discourse on racial injustice.

Matthew Perry both delighted and surprised his fans on Friday with a 'big' reveal which he made on Instagram. The Friends actor took to social media with a message announcing he was going on tour for his book, FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING.MORE: Jennifer Aniston turns up the heat in a white bikiniHe shared a snapshot of himself alongside a huge poster of the front cover and wrote: "Some BIG news. Join me on my book tour this November! Tickets on sale now (link in bio).

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic African American boxing champ Muhammad Ali famously refused to fight for his country, justifying himself with the oft-quoted quip, “No Viet Cong ever called me n—–.” That’s one-half of American history, and an important one. “Devotion” tells the other, presenting the story of a Black pilot so determined to defend — and die for, if need be — the United States that he was willing to endure institutional bigotry to become the Jackie Robinson of the skies: Jesse Brown, the first aviator of color to complete the Navy’s basic training program. A square but satisfying social justice drama set against the backdrop of the Korean War, “Devotion” impressed on the biggest screen possible at the Toronto Film Festival two months before its Nov. 23 theatrical release. Featuring elements of both “Green Book” and “Red Tails,” the film is more than just a stirring case of Black exceptionalism; it also celebrates the one white officer who had Brown’s back, Tom Hudner, treating the bond these two men formed as something exceptional unto itself. Director JD Dillard dazzles with see-it-in-Imax airborne sequences, but the meat of the film focuses on the friendship between Brown (“Da 5 Bloods” star Jonathan Majors) and his white wingman, played by Glen Powell, the “Hidden Figures” actor who most recently appeared in “Top Gun: Maverick.”

EXCLUSIVE: Open Road Films has acquired North American rights to Gerard Butler action thriller Kandahar in a splashy eight-figure deal (low teens, we understand).

Addie Morfoot Contributor “In Her Hands,” a Netflix documentary produced by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, has won the 18th Camden Intl. Film Festival’s audience award. While the in-person component of the Maine-based festival ended on Sept.

Angelina Jolie is in Pakistan to see first-hand the devastation caused by recent flooding.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic In the DC Extended Universe, it’s not the villains who have identity issues, but the heroes. Bruce Wayne watched his parents get murdered, adopted a teenage sidekick and now spends his nights cosplaying as the creature everyone associates with vampires. Kal-El also saw his parents die and goes through life trying to pass as the earthling Clark Kent, wearing spandex under his work clothes, just in case. These are not the traits of well-adjusted normies, and as such, there’s enormous subversive appeal in seeing trans artist Vera Drew turn such iconic characters inside-out in the illicitly made marvel that is “The People’s Joker.” Coming from a place of deep fan love and equally profound institutional mistrust, Drew’s anarchic feature-length parody impishly treads the line of fair use, so much so that the helmer pulled the film from the Toronto Film Festival after its raucous Midnight Madness premiere, citing “rights issues.” But what did she expect? The irreverent underground project reimagines the Joker’s origin story as a queer coming-of-age/coming-to-terms narrative, using a mishmash of styles: mostly crude live-action of the kind you expect from public-access programming (shot against greenscreens, then composited with rudimentary CG sets), embellished with various forms of homemade animation.

Richard Engel, chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, warned of what he called “censorship by static,” as social media overwhelms people with information to the point that users are susceptible to disinformation.

Jennifer Griffin has signed a new multi-year deal to serve as Fox News Channel’s chief national security correspondent.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras sharply criticized the Toronto and Venice film festivals today for programming documentaries connected with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, suggesting the decision bordered on a “whitewashing” of history.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic No director has done more to deconstruct the myth of the suburban American family than Steven Spielberg. Dissertations have been written and documentaries made on the subject. And now, at the spry young age of 75, Spielberg himself weighs in on where his preoccupations come from in “The Fabelmans,” a personal account of his upbringing that feels like listening to two and a half hours’ worth of well-polished cocktail-party anecdotes, only better, since he’s gone to the trouble of staging them all for our benefit. Spielberg’s a born storyteller, and these are arguably his most precious stories. From the first movie he saw (“The Greatest Show on Earth”) to memories of meeting filmmaker John Ford on the Paramount lot, this endearing, broadly appealing account of how Spielberg was smitten by the medium — and why the prodigy nearly abandoned picture-making before his career even started — holds the keys to so much of the master’s filmography. More similar to Woody Allen’s autobiographical “Radio Days” than it is to European art films such as “The 400 Blows” and “Amistad” (the more highbrow models other directors typically point to when re-creating their childhoods), “The Fabelmans” invites audiences into the home and headspace of the world’s most beloved living director, an oddly sanitized zone where even the trauma — which includes anti-Semitism, financial disadvantage and divorce — seems to go better with fresh-buttered popcorn.

does, relying on more dynamic, albeit repetitive, scenes of her having to address the danger in her life.Much attention has been paid to Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s executive-producing role in the film, a fitting match for a documentary on a female politician struggling against the status quo. Ghafari rages against the system in question, but one glance at her office and her peers, and it’s easy to see that her staff consists of mostly men.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic “If we got rid of every gay man in the military, there would be no military,” a sympathetic officer tells Marine recruit Ellis French in “The Inspection.” That’s an exceptionally open-minded take on the United States’ “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, seeing as how pretty much everyone else French encounters at boot camp is openly hostile to there being a gay man among them. But writer-director Elegance Bratton made it through the system — like the character, he’d been lost and homeless for a decade before enlisting — and this deeply personal narrative debut is one gay Black man’s way of showing how he not only survived the experience, but was strengthened by it. “The few, the proud,” as they say.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic You’ve heard the expression, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” Well, “The Grab” makes the case that society had best brace itself for disorder, since certain parties are gobbling up the world’s food and water resources while the rest of us are distracted by other things. Produced in association with the Center for Investigative Reporting, “Blackfish” director Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s astonishing, eye-opening doc hits us with the idea that the next world war won’t be fought over ideology, oil or border disputes, but basic resources like meat, wheat and water, none of which should be taken for granted. Experts call this field “food security,” and the entire system is more fragile than it looks. World populations are climbing while water resources are dwindling, which has led countries such as Saudi Arabia and China to seek farmland on other continents. Among its myriad examples, “The Grab” focuses on a 15-square-mile expanse in La Paz, Ariz., an arid desert locale where there’s no limit to the amount of water landowners can pump from the aquifers. Arizona’s policy of unrestricted access means Saudi investors can legally tap into the water table to grow fields of hay, which will be shipped home to feed their cattle, even if it means draining the wells of local farmers in the process.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Just how polished does a career-spanning documentary about the anarchic underground filmmaker behind “Greaser’s Palace” and “Putney Swope” need to be? If you’ve seen any of Robert Downey’s films, the answer is obviously: not very. You might even say, the scrappier the better. So goes the thinking behind “Sr.,” a loose seemingly seat-of-your-pants portrait of the antiestablishment director (perhaps best known for siring “Iron Man” star Robert Downey Jr.) that sneaks up on ya, emotionally speaking, seeing as how it doubles as a kind of farewell exercise between the two generations (plus grandson Exton) in the months before Downey succumbed to Parkinson’s Disease.