Author: Max Rider

Julia Garner and Christopher Abbott in Wolf Man, directed by Leigh Whannell. Nicola Dove/Universal Pictures Does anyone know how to make a good, scary, entertaining or even passable horror film anymore? With the junk that crowds the marquees these days as evidence, the answer is a sad, emphatic NO! The most alarming new trend is to steal the names of the classic black and white Universal horror films from the 1940s, tease film buffs with one or two resemblances to their plots, and pass them off as cheesy re-makes. Poor Dracula has been trashed so many times that he no…

Khawla Ibraheem in A Knock on the Roof. Joan Marcus What would you do if you were told to remain calm and wait for death to arrive at your doorstep? This is the unspoken premise of A Knock on the Roof, the New York Theatre Workshop’s latest production written and performed by Khawla Ibraheem.  Mariam, Ibraheem’s character at the heart of this one-woman show, is the archetypal frazzled mother, wary of the dishes piling up in the sink and worn out by the endless questions of her son, Nour. Like women everywhere, she has been saddled with the bulk of…

Sophie Thatcher in Companion Cara Howe/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures For decades Hollywood has been fixed on the potential robot uprising, an obsession that has often pitted humans against machines. Today, of course, that concern is even more prescient as AI becomes ubiquitous in our everyday lives, dumbing down works of art and destroying the environment in the process. But what if it’s really humanity that is the villain? Companion offers a relatively surface-level thriller that asks far bigger questions than its easygoing vibe might suggest.  COMPANION ★★★1/2 (3.5/4 stars)Directed by: Drew HancockWritten by: Drew HancockStarring: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage,…

Primero Sueño shines at The Cloisters. Photo: Jill Steinberg Poet William Hoffman paints a scene of the paths of Fort Tryon Park, the rambling tangle of land upon which the Cloisters sits like an alien jewel, with “Alone in these woods, among vagaries of leaves and plummeting berries, we founder and flee into dreams of permanence.” The Cloisters is a place worthy of poetry and—as John Corigliano, who set Hoffman’s words in the 1960s, knew—of music, too. This weekend it was the home of a new opera, Primero Sueño, about an artist who herself founders, flees and dreams in search…