Laura Dern

[5] Sooner or later all franchises grow stale. Jurassic, I’m sorry to say your time has come. Jurassic World: Dominion, the sixth film in the franchise, brings back director and cowriter Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) and unites the cast of the original Jurassic Park with the new stars of Jurassic World. It’s also the first film in the franchise to take place outside the park …

[8] Future Oscar-winner Laura Dern (Marriage Story) gives her first leading performance in this adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” the story of a fifteen-year-old girl who pursues male attention without considering the potential consequences. Dern’s character, Connie, lies to her family about her whereabouts, ditching the mall for the beach, or the movies for a bar across …

[7] Steven Spielberg passes the directorial reigns of the Jurassic Park franchise to the superbly capable Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Captain America: The First Avenger) for this second dino sequel. Sam Neill returns as Dr. Alan Grant, coerced by a wealthy couple (Téa Leoni and William H. Macy) to return to the prehistoric island for a personal guided airplane tour. But the wealthy couple turn …

[5] Mark Ruffalo and Laura Dern play one couple, Naomi Watts and Peter Krause play another. Both couples are friendly, especially Ruffalo and Watts, who sneak away every possible moment to have sex with each other. Dern’s no dummy, though. She knows her husband is cheating with her friend — and it’s driving her nuts. Krause knows, too — but he’s just grateful someone else …

[8] If someone is going to pick up Louisa May Alcott’s much-loved literary classic, dust it off, and serve up a retelling, let it be the Oscar-nominated writer/director of Lady Bird. Greta Gerwig is respectably faithful to the material, but bold in her decision to dice the story up and deliver it in non-linear fashion. In Gerwig’s adaptation, we experience the aftermath of the March …

[8] Writer/director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) picks up the reigns and steers the franchise into bold, new waters with an entry that summons Star Wars fans to let go of the past and wipe the slate clean, so that something new can begin to grow. After the fan-pandering Episode VII, something new and unpredictable was exactly what I craved in a Star Wars movie. Johnson …

[5] Gosh. I guess I just don’t get this movie. I mean, it’s beautiful and all, and the performances are certainly something special. But what the hell do I take from the story? It’s so open-ended (thematically), it’s practically a Rorschach test — probably by design, but frustrating nonetheless. Joaquin Phoenix plays a WWII veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress who serendipitously falls in with an …

[7] Julianne Moore stars in this true story based on the life of Evelyn Ryan, a ’50s housewife and mother of ten who kept her family afloat by writing award-winning marketing jingles. Director Jane Anderson manages to keep the movie light and airy, which keeps in tone with Evelyn’s indomitable spirit, but without short shrifting the film’s more serious, underlying statements about gender roles. Both …

[9] If you think of this movie as Jaws on land, as director Steven Spielberg has suggested, it can’t quite compare to that masterpiece. The characters aren’t strong enough. But it’s still a hell of a summer event movie, delivering groundbreaking effects and well-choreographed thrills. The Michael Crichton story focuses on an island theme park where a wealthy entrepreneur (Richard Attenborough) has resurrected dinosaurs from …

[9] David Lynch’s surreal cinematic mash-up of love and depravity won the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or. It’s a surprisingly simple story about two fierce lovers, Sailor and Lula (Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern) who try to keep their heads above water in a world gone, almost literally, to Hell. The overt Wizard of Oz references serve as a constant reminder that you’re watching …