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Shirley Li

Shirley Li

The Atlantic

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The Reintroduction of Dev Patel

In Monkey Man, the actor and filmmaker channels his persistent irritations about Hollywood into a stylish thriller. As an actor, Dev Patel has tended...

05.04.2024 4

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

If Teenage Girls Ran America

Girls State is a sharp study of how a well-meaning civics program can simultaneously inspire and limit young women. Early in the new documentary Girls...

03.04.2024 10

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

Godzilla x Kong Is One Long Tease

Godzilla x Kong fails to deliver any action-movie spectacle. There is rarely a good time for Godzilla to show up, but the MonsterVerse version of him...

29.03.2024 3

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

What Netflix’s 3 Body Problem Can’t Solve

In adapting a sweeping and cerebral trilogy for TV, the new show forgets one of the original story’s biggest themes. This story contains mild...

23.03.2024 20

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

‘Our Film Shows Where Dehumanization Leads’

The director of The Zone of Interest accepted his Oscar with a startlingly pointed anti-war speech. The Oscars are not built for somber appeals about...

11.03.2024 5

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Knockout Oscars Speech

The Holdovers star was grateful to win an Academy Award—and hopeful that it won’t be her last opportunity. You know you’ve delivered an Oscars...

11.03.2024 10

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

Shōgun Is Challenging Hollywood’s Most Revered Stereotype

FX’s epic new series is bringing unusual complexity to the beloved figure of the samurai. Most American audiences have probably never seen Hiroyuki...

08.03.2024 10

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

The Joyful Ache of Julio Torres’s Problemista

The existential comedy lovingly skewers the absurdities of chasing the American dream. Alejandro, the protagonist of the film Problemista, is an...

02.03.2024 10

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

The Expats Episode That’s Practically a Stand-Alone Film

The best installment of the Hong Kong–based drama connects the privileged protagonists with a society they inhabit at a distance. Expats, Amazon...

16.02.2024 5

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

Why Do We Choose to Watch Upsetting Movies?

Swiss Army Man. Raw. Sasquatch Sunset. What is the appeal of films that send audiences running for the theater exit? Earlier this month, I watched...

30.01.2024 3

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

The Dark-Horse Oscar Contender Everyone’s Watching

Society of the Snow is an often-nightmarish—but wildly absorbing—viewing experience. Society of the Snow tells the real-life story of Uruguayan...

17.01.2024 4

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

The Emmys Tried to Time Travel

By paying tribute to the great shows of yesteryear, the ceremony argued for television as a shared culture. For all the glamorous stars and standing...

16.01.2024 2

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

Jo Koy’s Biggest Mistake at the Golden Globes

Hosting awards shows is a truly thankless job. Here are some things I saw while tuning in to last night’s Golden Globes that made me laugh harder...

08.01.2024 10

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

Nine Underrated Movies That Are Worth Your Time

Hollywood’s award shows will overlook these films—but you shouldn’t. Around this time every winter, I find myself talking about the same handful...

04.01.2024 20

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

The New The Color Purple Finds Its Own Rhythm

The movie musical is a tear-jerking and exultant epic that also works as a companion piece to the 1985 original. Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation...

25.12.2023 9

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

What Does ‘Perpetual Atrocity’ Sound Like?

The Zone of Interest is an eerie and restrained study of the Holocaust that never shows a single frame of the atrocity. Jonathan Glazer’s new film,...

16.12.2023 10

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

The Weird, Fearless Partnership Behind Poor Things

Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos talk sex, trust, and self-discovery. The protagonist of the new film Poor Things is no ordinary heroine. As played by...

09.12.2023 9

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

A Movie About Our Endless Obsession With Tabloid Scandals

Todd Haynes’s May December is a beautiful, terrible nesting doll of a film with a uniquely twisted core. In Todd Haynes’s new film, May December,...

01.12.2023 5

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

What Happens When Real People Play Squid Game?

Spoiler alert: They don’t die. People clad in green tracksuits stand nervously in a circle. They’re participating in a “test” on Squid Game:...

23.11.2023 6

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

The Real Legacy of the Hunger Games Franchise

The series succeeded not because it had a clear political philosophy, but because it understood the power of entertainment above all. Hollywood was...

17.11.2023 10

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

The Curse Is the Strangest Television Show About Television

Nathan Fielder’s new series is weird and off-putting, yet intensely compelling. Watching something made by Nathan Fielder can be an act of...

11.11.2023 10

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

The Marvels Is a Reminder of What Marvel Needs

The film is pleasurably lightweight, its story unburdened by the off-screen drama of the studio that made it. The Marvels arrives at a strange moment...

10.11.2023 4

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

A Movie That Considers Love’s Unknowability

Fingernails, now on Apple TV , is a mischievous brainteaser that challenges our preconceived notions of commitment. In the world of the new movie...

07.11.2023 3

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

A Movie About the Irresistible Pull of Girlish Fantasies

Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla illustrates how one of the most storied romances in American history produced a delicate, terrible loneliness. In...

03.11.2023 8

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

Pain Hustlers Is a Goofy Celebration of Greed

The film turns the opioid crisis into a scammer story, not a criminal one. The opioid crisis is the deadliest drug epidemic in American history—and,...

25.10.2023 2

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

It’s Time for Hollywood to Step Away From the Opioid Crisis

Pain Hustlers tries to turn the epidemic into a snarky comedy. It doesn’t work. The opioid crisis is the deadliest drug epidemic in American...

25.10.2023 3

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

Netflix’s Buzzy Wall Street Thriller Is a Letdown

Though it started a Hollywood bidding war, Fair Play is never as provocative as it wants to be. Hollywood has long been seduced by the world of high...

05.10.2023 20

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

Why Won’t Anyone Just Leave These Women Alone?

Kitty Green’s new movie, The Royal Hotel, follows two backpackers who do everything they can to avoid male aggression—and find it anyway. In The...

04.10.2023 3

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

The Hollywood Dual Strike Isn’t Just About the Writers and Actors

Many of Hollywood’s workers are watching the dual strike from the outside, and wondering how to make labor function for them. Not long after the...

19.09.2023 2

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

That’s Enough Big Fat Greek Weddings

The latest sequel to the one-time phenomenon is uncomfortable to watch, squandering whatever goodwill the series once had. In 2002, My Big Fat Greek...

08.09.2023 2

The Atlantic

Shirley Li

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