Deep Focus

Deep Focus, Michael Sragow’s weekly review column, tries to do with critical prose what directors do with deep-focus imagery—vitalize and illuminate every aspect of a movie.

Deep Focus: Tangerines

By Michael Sragow

April 15, 2015

Zaza Urushadze’s beautifully lensed, Academy Award-nominated drama about the Abkhazian-Georgian conflict takes no sides

Deep Focus: Clouds of Sils Maria

By Michael Sragow

April 9, 2015

Tell it on the mountain: Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart grapple with the flux of identity and generations in Olivier Assayas's exquisitely attuned latest film

Deep Focus: Furious 7

By Michael Sragow

April 1, 2015

Luxury exports: the deliriously entertaining and increasingly global franchise rides out on a high note

Deep Focus: White God

By Michael Sragow

March 26, 2015

Obedience school: Kornél Mundruczó's moralistic, modern-day parable about outsiders has little bark and no bite

Deep Focus: The Gunman

By Michael Sragow

March 18, 2015

Sean Penn tries to follow Liam Neeson's path to second-career glory in this politically aware thriller, but fails to land a punch

Deep Focus: Cinderella

By Michael Sragow

March 11, 2015

In her shoes: Kenneth Branagh and a sparkling cast revive the Charles Perrault fairy tale with brio

Deep Focus: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

By Michael Sragow

March 4, 2015

Is this gerontic paradise located in the heart of mushville, or further out on breezier, feel-good pastures?

Deep Focus: Maps to the Stars

By Michael Sragow

February 26, 2015

David Cronenberg’s formalist and fungoid Hollywood satire cum ghost story, featuring Julianne Moore's other award-winning tour de force

Deep Focus: Queen & Country

By Michael Sragow

February 19, 2015

John Boorman's follow-up to Hope and Glory is the best and brightest of service comedies

Deep Focus: Kingsman: The Secret Service

By Michael Sragow

February 11, 2015

Breaking lad: the super-spy comic-book adaptation starring Colin Firth does not take the gentlemanly tack