Movies

The best horror movies, just as major as the more reputable stuff, work on a primal level, beyond plot or words. They grab at your bowels. Dario Argento’s 1977 stunner Suspiria, an explosion of color, gore and vaulting stylistic ambition, is undoubtedly one of them. To know (and to love) the film is to appreciate Italian cinema in a deeper way, for its eeriness and hysteria. Still, it wasn’t quite a slam dunk when it was announced that a fellow Italian—even one as gifted as Call Me by Your Name’s Luca Guadagnino—would be re-imagining Suspiria, an obsession of his for decades. Guadagnino knows about getting good performances, and how to brew adult sexiness. But it’s a miracle that he seems to understand Argento’s witch-centric original on an almost molecular level—so much so that he can radically depart from it and still cast his own spell. Scripted by David Kajganich (who also did Guagadnino’s A Bigger Splash, itself an adaptation of the 1969 French thriller La Piscine), today’s Suspiria is a spectacularly strange affair, thrumming with wild blood and weird powers. It’s easily the classiest horror movie made in years, maybe ever, decked out in muted pinks and green marble, and scored, gorgeously, by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, whose arpeggiating piano lines, rumbling synths and cooing vocals create a Can–like propulsiveness. Traditional horror fans won’t be pleased: Almost transgressively, Guadagnino has deprioritized the shocks, even the fear. But in their place, he’s pumped u

Calling the new A Star Is Born a “valentine” from its star, Lady Gaga, to her fans sounds a bit coy and delicate, so let’s call it what it really is: a hot French kiss (with full-on tongue), filled with passion, tears and a staggering amount of chutzpah. Generously emotional and all the more fun for it, the movie functions as something akin to a Marvel-esque origin story, with Gaga’s own mythology—vamping it up at drag cabarets, etc.—subbing in for her character’s background. It's more than smart to have cast her; it's essential to the movie even working. But to watch her character, Ally, become a star—especially onstage during the film’s live moments, which feel frightening, massive and deafening—is an incredible piece of evolution. Gaga is really acting here: shy, somehow smaller, trembling with excitement. Incrementally, she blooms in the spotlight, proudly waving around that Streisand schnozz, the big voice completing the transformation. She’s extraordinary, and you root for her to go supernova per the scenario’s time-honored trajectory. Director-co-star Bradley Cooper has something else in mind, though. Just as his own performance—as Jackson Maine, this film’s rocker on the downslide—ends up being one of those grumbly beard chews (if you remember the 1976 version, you might describe it as "Kristoffersonian"), his steering of the drama is understated: modest and unshowy. He’s trying to make a “real” version of this glitziest of stories (whatever that means), and you lov