Articles by Prabhjot Bains

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  'Carmen' Has an Identity Crisis

  Directed by Benjamin Millepied

  PUBLISHED May 3, 2023

  Georges Bizet's canonical, much-adapted opera, Carmen, is steeped in a profound sense of time and place, intrinsically tied to the Kingdom...

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  'Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World' Is Anything but Miraculous

  Directed by George Tillman Jr.

  PUBLISHED Apr 27, 2023

  Amusingly, George Foreman's cultural legacy has less to do with his achievements as the two-time heavyweight champion of the world and more...

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  'How to Blow Up a Pipeline' Explodes the Line Between Activism and Radicalism

  Directed by Daniel Goldhaber

  PUBLISHED Apr 12, 2023

  How to Blow Up a Pipeline is one of the most potent blends of style and politics in recent memory. It's a lean, unrelenting social thriller...

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  'Of an Age' Basks in the Lasting Glow of a Fleeting Romance

  Directed by Goran Stolevski

  PUBLISHED Feb 17, 2023

  The flush of first love and a sexual awakening can be invigorating and utterly bewildering, mobilizing emotions that feel primordial in the...

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  'Magic Mike's Last Dance' Is a Limp Final Thrust

  Directed by Steven Soderbergh

  PUBLISHED Feb 10, 2023

  Each Magic Mike movie belongs to a different genre. Steven Soderbergh's 2012 original — despite its infectious gyrating and bevy of well-oi...

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  'Close' Interrogates the Boundaries of Male Friendship

  Directed by Lukas Dhont

  PUBLISHED Feb 2, 2023

  Great friends are hard to find and even harder to keep. Transcending basic labels, Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav de Waele) occupy a...

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  'A Man Called Otto' Is Saved by a Man Called Tom Hanks

  Directed by Marc Forster

  PUBLISHED Jan 5, 2023

  Marc Forster's A Man Called Otto is the cinematic embodiment of Tom Hanks's latter acting career: rarely remarkable but always reliable. It...

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  'Emancipation' Is Too Limited to Convey the Importance of Its Subject

  Directed by Antoine Fuqua

  PUBLISHED Dec 9, 2022

  It's incredibly rare when a story so extraordinary, harrowing and humbling is made to enter the realm of the mundane. Antoine Fuqua's Emanc...