Author Archives: Larry Sanderson

NYT Critic’s Pick Movie(s)

Bad Education
NYT Critic’s Pick TV-MA Comedy, Drama Directed by Cory Finley


Hugh Jackman is darkly charismatic as the real-life schools superintendent who admitted to stealing $2 million from his Long Island district.
By BEN KENIGSBERG

Beastie Boys Story
NYT Critic’s Pick TV-MA Documentary Directed by Spike Jonze


Ad-Rock and Mike D share stories and grief in a live documentary directed by Spike Jonze.
By A.O. SCOTT

— Of Possible Interest —

Robert the Bruce
Action, History Directed by Richard Gray


Angus Macfadyen, who first played the medieval Scottish king in “Braveheart,” reprises his role in this introspective historical drama.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Eating Up Easter
Documentary Directed by Sergio Mata’u Rapu


A filmmaker shows the daily environmental struggles of his native home.
By KRISTEN YOONSOO KIM

Circus of Books
Documentary Directed by Rachel Mason


A woman’s documentary on the gay pornography and adult goods shop her parents ran for three decades brims with warm remembrances by those who frequented it.
By TEO BUGBEE

Food! Glorious Food!

Help Is On the Way, Restaurants Are Told. But Will It Work?

Owners of many small, independent restaurants were passed over by a federal loan program. Now they fear that a new round may not solve their problems.
By PETE WELLS

The Food Chain’s Weakest Link: Slaughterhouses

A relatively small number of plants process much of the beef and pork in the United States, and some of them have closed because workers are getting sick.
By MICHAEL CORKERY and DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY

In Poland, Communist-Era Restaurants Are Perfect for the Moment

The simple cafes known as milk bars have regained popularity in recent years. Under lockdown, they’re providing affordable food and the comfort of nostalgia.
By AMELIA NIERENBERG

How Coronavirus Infected Some, but Not All, in a Restaurant

A limited study by Chinese researchers suggests the role played by air currents in spreading the illness in enclosed spaces.
By KENNETH CHANG

A Food Snob’s Food Tour Conversion


Michael Ruhlman, the author of best-selling cookbooks and an accomplished cook, didn’t need a guide. Or did he?
By MICHAEL RUHLMAN

FRONT BURNER

More Shelf-Stable Foods From Patagonia


The company has expanded its Provisions line to include pasta, grains and baby food.
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

Ottolenghi’s Test Kitchen Is Closed. But the Recipes Keep Coming.

Away from their small North London hub, a six-member team still finds a way to share recipes, and feed loved ones.
By YOTAM OTTOLENGHI

EAT

When You Need a Break From Beans, Crab on Toast Is the Answer


After my wife and I both lost our jobs, we diligently conserved our resources — until we didn’t. Then a splurge brought us back to life.
By GABRIELLE HAMILTON

A Hill of Beans


Pair them with rice, or with pasta, or as part of an avocado salad, or forgo them all together, and head to the grill.
By SAM SIFTON

FROM THE PANTRY

Turn Nearly Anything Into a Meal With This Simple Sauce


Salmon stars in this tonnato, an extremely simple sauce traditionally made with tuna, that lifts rich meat and crisp raw vegetables alike.
By Melissa Clark

FROM THE PANTRY

You’ll Never Guess the Secret Ingredient in This One-Bowl Cake


Spoiler: It’s mayonnaise, but you’ll never taste the tanginess.
By MELISSA CLARK

FROM THE PANTRY

Add Some Tuna to Your Puttanesca


Throw a can into this classic pasta dish for a little more body.
By MELISSA CLARK

11 New Cookbooks Worth Buying, Even in Quarantine

Our favorite releases of the season, selected by Food reporters and editors from The New York Times.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

More Melty Cheese

Indulge in small ways, with a creamy, cheesy potato gratin, or choose something bright like salmon with peas and radishes.
By JULIA MOSKIN

This Simple Five-Ingredient Pasta Has Loads of Flavor


You don’t need much to yield a lot of deliciousness — just a creamy base and a willingness to experiment.
By ALEXA WEIBEL

ONE GOOD MEAL

The Galette Recipe One French Creative Director Grew Up On


At his grandmother’s cottage in Brittany, Pierre-Alexis Delaplace of Kerzon would wait, somewhat impatiently, for this savory treat.
By NICK MARINO

Three-Ingredient Cookies, Fresh From Your Pantry


Bake your way to these sweet snacks using ingredients you’re likely to have on hand.
By DANIELA GALARZA

How to Find (and Discuss) Natural Wines

These bottles are made in small lots and are difficult to find. But here are five importers and five American producers to seek out, and some terminology to know.
By ERIC ASIMOV

Nina Balducci, Who Shaped a Famed Grocery Store, Dies at 91

She gave Balducci’s its polish and weathered an operatic family battle over the store’s ownership.


Nina Balducci on the cover of a 1993 catalog for Balducci’s. She helped design the store’s logo and shopping bags and created a successful mail-order business.
By Kim Severson

Sirio Maccioni, Whose Le Cirque Drew Manhattan’s Elite, Dies at 88

Dash, charm and matinee-idol looks helped make Mr. Maccioni an unusual sort of celebrity in New York City’s restaurant scene.


Sirio Maccioni in 1982. His fine dining restaurants in Manhattan drew an international following that included royalty, film stars, jet-setters and socialites.
By William Grimes

NYT Critic’s Pick Movie(s)

Beyond The Visible – Hilma af Klint




NYT Critic’s Pick | Documentary, Biography | Directed by Halina Dyrschka
How the rediscovery of a Swedish abstract painter changed the course of art history.
By A.O. SCOTT

Selah and The Spades




NYT Critic’s Pick | R | Drama | Directed by Tayarisha Poe
New talent behind and in front of the camera elevates a familiar tale of high-school strife.
By TEO BUGBEE

A White, White Day




NYT Critic’s Pick | Drama | Directed by Hlynur Palmason
A man finds coping with his wife’s death hard enough — and then learns she’d been having an affair.
By GLENN KENNY

Butt Boy




NYT Critic’s Pick | Comedy, Sci-Fi, Thriller | Directed by Tyler Cornack
A search for missing children leads to a man with a strange impulse in this wildly polarizing film.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

401K and Roth RMDs

If you have a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from a 401K or Roth, either inherited or your own, you can apparently skip RMDs in 2020:


‘A temporary waiver of required minimum distributions (RMDs). Generally, when you turn 72 (or 70½ if you reached that age on or before December 31, 2019), you must take an RMD from your IRA, 401(k), 403(b), or other qualified retirement plan account. If you were required to take an RMD in 2020 (either from your own IRA or defined contribution plan account or as a beneficiary taking life-expectancy payments), the CARES Act waives that requirement. How can you benefit?
Because RMDs are calculated on your account value at the end of the previous year—when account values were likely significantly higher than they are in current depressed market conditions—not taking an RMD in 2020 could allow you to avoid withdrawing an inflated amount and paying a bigger tax bill.
A waiver of the 10 percent early withdrawal penalty for retirement account distributions. The CARES Act waives the 10 percent early withdrawal penalty tax normally assessed on pre-age 59½ withdrawals, up to $100,000, across all retirement plan or IRA accounts, if you meet at least one of the following criteria:

· You have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
· Your spouse or dependent has been diagnosed with COVID-19.
· You face adverse financial circumstances arising from COVID-19, including, but not limited to, being quarantined, having work hours reduced, being laid off, or being unable to work because of a lack of childcare.
Further, if you receive a distribution for the reasons above, you may waive the 20 percent mandatory federal tax withholding. You may roll the distributed amount back into your retirement plan or IRA within three years from the date the distribution was taken. If you choose not to return the funds into a qualified account, you will owe taxes on the distributed amount (which also can be repaid over three years).
Increased retirement plan loan maximums. If you are affected by COVID-19; meet one of the criteria above; and your employer allows you to take a loan from your 401(k), 403(b), or other retirement plan account, you may take the lesser of $100,000 or 100 percent of your vested account balance (a significant increase from the 50 percent of your vested account balance, up to a maximum of $50,000, under normal rules). If you take a loan between March 27, 2020, and December 31, 2020, you may delay the loan repayment for up to one year.’
Then again, I ain’t a financial planner nor do I play one on TV.

Food! Glorious Food! — The Quarantine Edition

Dumped Milk, Smashed Eggs, Plowed Vegetables: Food Waste of the Pandemic

With restaurants, hotels and schools closed, many of the nation’s largest farms are destroying millions of pounds of fresh goods that they can no longer sell.
By DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY and MICHAEL CORKERY

The Farm-to-Table Connection Comes Undone

A direct pipeline to chefs that took decades to build has been cut off by the coronavirus, leaving small farmers and ranchers with food they can’t sell.
By KIM SEVERSON

How Native Americans Are Fighting a Food Crisis

As the coronavirus limits access to food, many are relying on customs, like seed saving and canning, that helped their forebears survive hard times.
By PRIYA KRISHNA

Food Workers Say C.D.C. Guidelines Put Them at Greater Risk for Infection

The agency now says “critical infrastructure workers” who may have been exposed to the coronavirus can stay on the job under certain conditions, instead of isolating.
By DAVID WALDSTEIN

A Plan to Reconnect a Town in Quarantine: 10,000 Onions

The pandemic separated my family from our neighbors. Could a network of backyard gardens bring us together?
By C. J. CHIVERS

U.S. Food Supply Chain Is Strained as Virus Spreads

Disruptions are expected in the production and distribution of products like pork, and localized shortages could occur.
By MICHAEL CORKERY and DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY

At the Sourdough Library, With Some Very Old Mothers


Some starters never die, they just get filed away here.

Mr. De Smedt is the curator of the world’s only sourdough library. Located in the flyspeck village of St. Vith, 87 miles southeast of Brussels, the library houses the world’s most extensive collection of sourdough starters, those bubbling beige globs of bacteria and wild yeast — known as “mothers” — that bakers mix into dough to produce flavorful loaves with interestingly shaped holes.


By FRANZ LIDZ

SCRATCH

The Virus Closed Her Bakery. Now She’s Working Nonstop.

By JULIA ROTHMAN and SHAINA FEINBERG

Missing an Ingredient? Here Are Substitutions You Can Use Instead


If you have a well-stocked pantry, you can make almost any dish work.
By Alexa Weibel

Our Best Recipes and Tips for Quarantine Cooking

Here is a regularly updated list of our latest articles — and some older resources — to help you find what you need.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

FROM THE PANTRY

A Salad for When You’re Out of Lettuce


This starchy grain bowl makes use of those sturdy vegetables in your fridge.
By MELISSA CLARK

How to Cook Now


Feed your family, or just yourself. We have recipes for whatever situation you’re in.
By SAM SIFTON

he Food Expiration Dates You Should Actually Follow

The first thing you should know? The dates, as we know them, have nothing to do with safety. J. Kenji López-Alt explains.
By J. Kenji López-Alt

11 of Our Best Weekend Reads

The enduring appeal of Weird Al. Processed foods are making a pandemic comeback. In praise of quarantine clapping. Dua Lipa. Sandra Lee. And more.
By KALY SOTO

FRONT BURNER

Maida Heatter’s Baking Recipes Remixed

These books, focused on cookies and chocolate, would make a good Mother’s Day gift.
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

How to Make the Most of Those Cans of Sardines

Alison Roman’s advice to eat these especially delicious little fishes: Add lots of herbs and something oniony, a little fat and tons of lemon.
By Alison Roman

Enrique Olvera’s Satisfying, Adaptable Vegetable Soup

The chef shares his recipe for a hearty broth-based dish, inspired by the version his grandmother used to make.
By MERRELL HAMBLETON

Enrique Olvera and His Culinary Heirs Have Changed How and What We Eat

The influential chef has reconceived Mexican cuisine, both in his own country and beyond.

Quick, Easy and So Satisfying

A creamy lemon pasta, garlic soup with spinach, a turmeric chicken ready for substitutions: Make meals that comfort.
By JULIA MOSKIN

FROM THE PANTRY

Coconut Macaroons, Two Easy Ways


Make a candylike version with all coconut and an egg white, or use a whole egg and almond flour for a more cakelike result.
By MELISSA CLARK

A GOOD APPETITE

You Don’t Need All-Purpose Flour for This Poundcake


Rice flour and coconut oil make this treat silky and compellingly gentle.
By Melissa Clark

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make 19th-Century Lemon Cake

To stay connected with visitors under stay-at-home orders, the New-York Historical Society is curating a digital collection of archival recipes.


The New-York Historical Society will post a recipe a week from a collection of 19th-century manuscript cookbooks. The first recipe is for lemon cake.
By Amelia Nierenberg

For American Wine Producers, Fear, Uncertainty and Hope

The pandemic has caused drastic cuts in business, forced painful decisions and inspired creative solutions. Still, another vintage is on its way.
By Eric Asimov

Irena Chalmers, 84, Is Dead; Writer Anticipated a Food Revolution


She wrote her first cookbook, “Fondue Cook-In,” to help sell pots. She went on to discover chefs who would become well-known cooking authorities.

She sometimes took a contrarian view of trends. “I think insisting on having a free-range chicken,” she often said, “is like having a free-range boyfriend. You never know where he’s been.”

By KIM SEVERSON

It Я Time

Ma current computer is getting long of tooth, what’s worse, it’s generating a constant string of CLOCK WATCHDOG TIMEOUT errors and crashing. I guess I could try patching the boiler, or adding a few more hamster cages, but even I can read the writing on the wall when it’s written in glowing iridescent ink.

Of course, I keep looking for the best new update, spending hours on YouTube and review sites, and I haz discovered that technology haz moved on. I have a slew of hard drives and three 5.25 bays. Cases are not like that anymore. My case will take one tiny squarish radiator, and is that enough for a new CPU? I’m currently in the Intel camp and am thinking of deserting to the Team Red camp. And in a time o’ plague! Life is just so confusing! Then ma store that I can skip the sales tax closes for Passover! And they do not have my picked-out MB in stock anyway! Besides, who needs a new computer in times o’ plague?

Just like Scrooge McDuck, I hates spending money, but unlike Scrooge McDuck, I haz no money bin I can swim in.

Food! Glorious Food!

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Is My Takeout Risking Lives or Saving Restaurants?

Online orders and no-contact pickup can be an economic lifeline, but someone still has to make the food.
By TEJAL RAO

‘I Just Need the Comfort’: Processed Foods Make a Pandemic Comeback

Shoppers, moved by nostalgia and hunting for longer shelf lives, are returning to old standbys like Chef Boyardee and Campbell’s soup.
By JULIE CRESWELL

Passover Under Lockdown: Israeli Jews Revise the Rituals

Why is this night different from all other nights? Israelis celebrate a festival of freedom under isolation and shelter-in-place orders.
By ISABEL KERSHNER

SHELTERING

How to Put Your Pantry in Order (and Stop Wasting Food)

Step one: Start by making a mess. Here’s what to do after that.
By TIM MCKEOUGH

The Lure and Lore of Corned Ham, a Salty Slice of North Carolina


Oven roasted corned hams are eye-popping and delicious. The leftover meat keeps for several weeks and can be used in many dishes, a plus in this time of home isolation.
Holidays bring a hankering for a traditional dish that the chef Bill Smith has devoted himself to making popular again.
By BRETT ANDERSON

A GOOD APPETITE

Everything Is Negotiable in This Asparagus Salad


You could use any kind of nuts or semifirm cheese in this nutty, cheesy bright spring salad. You could even lose the asparagus.
By MELISSA CLARK

FROM THE PANTRY

Garlicky Braised Greens for When That Vegetable Craving Hits


This brothy, flavorful dish may be just what you’re looking for after all those baking projects and beans.
By MELISSA CLARK

FROM THE PANTRY

Let This One-Bowl Poundcake Soothe You


Citrus-scented and speckled with cornmeal, this cake is excellent toasted and buttered for breakfast.
By MELISSA CLARK

15 Wines Under $15: Inexpensive Bottles for Stay-at-Home Drinking


These intriguing wines are sometimes quirky and often unusual. All are delightful, whether with a meal tonight or as gifts to those who could use one.
By ERIC ASIMOV

THOSE WE’VE LOST

Anita Fial, Who Carried the Banner of Exotic Food, Dies at 87


Ms. Fial worked to burnish the reputation of mangoes, avocados, radishes and celery, among other produce.
By SAM ROBERTS

Food! Glorious Food!

TRILOBITES

Neanderthals Feasted on Seafood, Seabirds, Perhaps Even Dolphins

Scientists say that a discovery in a seaside Portuguese cave further challenges popular images of Neanderthals as meat-eating brutes.
By NICHOLAS ST. FLEUR

TALK

David Chang Isn’t Sure the Restaurant Industry Will Survive Covid-19

‘I’m not being hyperbolic in any way: Without government intervention, there will be no service industry whatsoever.’
By DAVID MARCHESE

New Orleans Restaurants, Used to Disasters, Reckon With Something Worse

The dining and bar scene, so central to the city’s identity, emerged strong from Hurricane Katrina. But the coronavirus crisis is different.
By Brett Anderson

Restaurants Find Hope in Delivering Donated Meals to Hospitals

As Americans pitch in to order meals for beleaguered health care workers, the deliveries can be a lifeline for restaurants and food trucks as well as hospitals.
By Pete Wells

These Days, Even a Michelin Star Chef Has to Sell Takeout

Many restaurants had been planning for a future in which delivery made up a sizable share of their business. They just didn’t expect that moment to arrive right now.
By David Yaffe-Bellany

Food Supply Anxiety Brings Back Victory Gardens

Americans were once urged to plant in every patch of available soil — and produced about 40 percent of the nation’s fresh vegetables.
By TEJAL RAO

INSIDE THE OUTBREAK

When Your Restaurant’s Star Dish Is Blamed for Spreading Coronavirus

As restaurants around the world close or retool to enforce social distancing, Hong Kong’s hot pot eateries offer a cautionary tale and some good advice.
By ELAINE YU

FRONT BURNER

An Easter Egg From Beverly Hills


AndSons, from the chocolatier Kriss Harvey, sells colorful chocolate eggs filled with layers of sweet goodness.
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

FRONT BURNER

Tempting Pastas and Sauces From Sicily


Bona Furtuna’s line, made in the town of Corleone, includes antipasti and marinara sauces.
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

FRONT BURNER

A Knife to Add Flash to Your Kitchen


A limited-edition tool from Victorinox, the makers of Swiss Army knives, combines a santoku blade with Middle Eastern-style steel.
Only $600!
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

The T List: Four Things We Recommend This Week

A postcard from an elusive desert landscape — and more.

EAT

This Broccoli-Dill Pasta Has a Hippie Twist. Your Kids Will Love It.


A quick purée, seasoned with lemon and garlic, is a kind of delicious all-purpose dip, sauce and spread.
By TEJAL RAO

Stress Baking More Than Usual?

Confined to their homes, Americans are kneading dough.
By ALEXANDRA MARVAR

A Few Pantry Staples for a Buttery, Flaky Treat


You don’t need buttermilk on hand to make biscuits: Just about any soured milk works. Melissa Clark can teach you how.
By MELISSA CLARK

One Pot of Rice, Endless Possibilities


This pantry staple can be transformed into so many meals. Here’s how to push it from side dish to star.
By ALEXA WEIBEL

A Dinner-Worthy Grilled Cheese

A basic grilled cheese doesn’t feel like dinner, but it can when you stuff it full of caramelized onions.
By JULIA MOSKIN

An Omelet With an Unexpected Creamy Filling: Tahini

Cheese is the typical omelet filling, but for a similar richness that’s also dairy-free, try tahini.
By MELISSA CLARK

How to Freeze Just About Everything

Wondering how you can make the most of your freezer and your food? Melissa Clark can help.
By MELISSA CLARK

Sardines and Celery: A Perfect Pairing


When you tire of sardines on toast, this crunchy salad is a great alternative for the tinned fish.
By Melissa Clark

Lentils, Rice, Caramelized Onions and a Dinner to Remember


Adapted from a Middle Eastern mujadara, this streamlined take falls somewhere between a soup and a stew.
By Melissa Clark

18 Cookbooks for Comfort

In this uncertain time, here are the cookbooks Food reporters and editors turn to for reliably delicious results.
By MARGAUX LASKEY
March 26, 2020

Alison Roman’s Seder Table

Celebrating Passover, whether it’s alone, virtually or with those in your home, feels more essential than ever. These adaptable recipes can help.
By Alison Roman

A GOOD APPETITE

The Best Matzo? It’s Homemade

This version may not be kosher for Passover, but it’s delicate, airy and quick to make.


This easy matzo has potato chip appeal.
By Melissa Clark

Chicken, Artichokes and a Beloved Moroccan Passover Dish

Esther Soussan Berman passed away in 2010, but her recipe, for golden chicken thighs and fresh artichokes, still has a place on her family’s holiday tables.


Saffron and cinnamon flavor this chicken and artichokes dish.
By Joan Nathan

What to Cook This Weekend


Project recipes are particularly fine for these long days indoors: Make no-knead rolls or focaccia, or take the time to simmer some stock.
By SAM SIFTON

You Deserve a Good Lunch


Step away for half an hour today, if you can, and make yourself a turkey and apple sandwich, an easy pea soup or an omelet, using Jacques Pépin’s technique.
By SAM SIFTON

What to Cook This Week


Pasta with white sausage sauce, a spicy white bean stew, kimchi soup are just a few of the very good things you can make this week.
By SAM SIFTON

THOSE WE’VE LOST

Floyd Cardoz, 59, Dies; Gave American Fine Dining an Indian Flavor


He was the first chef born and raised in India to lead an influential New York City kitchen, at Tabla. He died in the coronavirus pandemic.
By JULIA MOSKIN

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Floyd Cardoz Showed How to Honor a Cuisine by Bending It

The chef, who died Tuesday, created Indian-American dishes that surprised and still linger in the memory.
By PETE WELLS

NYT Critic’s Pick — The Catchup Edition

Crip Camp

NYT Critic’s Pick R Documentary Directed by James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham
This feel-good documentary recounts the ties of a Catskills summer camp to American disability rights activism in the 1970s.
By BEN KENIGSBERG

Never Rarely Sometimes Always

NYT Critic’s Pick PG-13 Drama Directed by Eliza Hittman
In this stirring drama, the director Eliza Hittman tells an intimate story that is also a potent argument about self-determination.
By MANOHLA DARGIS

Human Nature

NYT Critic’s Pick Documentary Directed by Adam Bolt
Adam Bolt’s new documentary focuses on Crispr technology, which can edit genes, thus giving people the ability to change human, animal and plant life.
By KEN JAWOROWSKI

Bacurau

NYT Critic’s Pick Action, Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Western Directed by Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho
In this sensational genre whatsit, a town finds itself fighting for its very existence. (Good thing Sônia Braga lives there.)
By MANOHLA DARGIS

The Wild Goose Lake

NYT Critic’s Pick Crime, Drama Directed by Yi’nan Diao
This film is dark and moody like the old classics, but the director Diao Yinan has created a very contemporary crime drama.
By GLENN KENNY

Sorry We Missed You

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama Directed by Ken Loach
In this Ken Loach film, a British family that’s barely getting by faces the peril that is the gig economy.
By WESLEY MORRIS

First Cow

NYT Critic’s Pick PG-13 Drama Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Set in the mid-19th-century Oregon Territory, Kelly Reichardt’s latest film is a fable, a western, a buddy picture and a masterpiece.
By A.O. SCOTT

The Invisible Man

NYT Critic’s Pick R Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller Directed by Leigh Whannell
Elisabeth Moss stars in a scary update on the H.G. Wells classic that trades science-fiction shivers for #MeToo horror.
By MANOHLA DARGIS

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising

NYT Critic’s Pick PG-13Animation, Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi Directed by Kenji Nagasaki
This animated film distinguishes itself in the era of superhero supersaturation with bright, bold and surprisingly emotional filmmaking.
By TEO BUGBEE

Vitalina Varela

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama Directed by Pedro Costa
In the new drama from Pedro Costa, daylight, and hope, are hard to find.
By GLENN KENNY

Premature

NYT Critic’s Pick Unrated Drama, Romance Directed by Rashaad Ernesto Green
A romance threatens to derail a gifted teenager’s college plans in this sassy-sexy drama.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

The State Against Mandela and the Others

NYT Critic’s Pick Documentary Directed by Nicolas Champeaux, Gilles Porte
Nelson Mandela’s trial nearly 60 years ago was not filmed, but the words spoken still echo loudly.
By GLENN KENNY

You go to my head

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, Thriller Directed by Dimitri de Clercq
A mysterious architect persuades an amnesiac that she’s his wife in this elusive romance set in the Sahara.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Buffaloed

NYT Critic’s Pick Comedy, Drama Directed by Tanya Wexler
Zoey Deutch’s pell-mell performance gives this debt-collection comedy the energy it needs.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

The Cordillera of Dreams

NYT Critic’s Pick Documentary Directed by Patricio Guzmán
An exiled filmmaker returns to Chile, contemplating fascism and eternity.
By GLENN KENNY

Cane River

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama, Romance Directed by Horace Jenkins
Horace B. Jenkins’s tale of forbidden romance in Louisiana, completed in 1982, opens at last.
By A.O. SCOTT

Taylor Swift: Miss Americana

NYT Critic’s Pick TV-MA Documentary Directed by Lana Wilson
In the Netflix documentary, we see a star that is self-critical, grown up and ready, perhaps, to deliver a message beyond the music.
By WESLEY MORRIS

The Assistant

NYT Critic’s Pick R Drama Directed by Kitty Green
Julia Garner is magnificent as a conflicted staffer to a serial sexual predator in this powerfully muted drama.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Incitement

NYT Critic’s Pick Thriller Directed by Yaron Zilberman
Yaron Zilberman’s film presents a discomfortingly close-range depiction of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin in the period leading up to the killing.
By BEN KENIGSBERG

The Traitor

NYT Critic’s Pick R Biography, Crime, Drama Directed by Marco Bellocchio
Marco Bellocchio’s film tells the story of Tommaso Buscetta, a Sicilian Mafioso who became Italy’s most notorious informer in the 1980s.
By A.O. SCOTT

Beanpole

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama, War Directed by Kantemir Balagov
Set in the aftermath of World War II, this dazzling movie centers on two friends who are each casualties of a historical trauma.
By MANOHLA DARGIS

It’s the future, stupid!

Well! I came back from over a month in Asia on March 6th from Bangkok via Tokyo. When I first arrived in Bangkok, I was a little amazed at the signage and the temperature taking of everyone getting off a plane at the international terminal. I was a bit taken aback by being screened by temperature at all of the ‘posh’ shopping centers I went to in search of a spare battery for my Sony camera. There was hand sanitizer everywhere. There were security guards applying hand sanitizer to escalator handrails.

What was it like when I got off the plane in Minneapolis? Nada. Zip. Zilch. Although, the airline ticket agent in Bangkok did check through my passport to make sure there were no China visas, and in Tokyo Delta or the airport had a clown-car team asking ‘security’ questions. Getting off the plane at MSP was like a blast from the past. “These people do not know what’s coming!” I thought, “I haz seen the future, and this ain’t it.”

Well, sadly, for once, I was not just another ignorant, know-it-all tourist, I was right.