“If this sounds like Fatal Attraction, that’s because the 1987 smash was basically a remake. And just as Lyne’s blockbuster became a release valve for the era’s unspoken AIDS paranoia, Misty captured its own cultural moment, evoking the eerie hangover that followed Free Love, shot the summer after the Manson family ended all that California dreamin’ on Cielo Drive.” – Crooked Marquee, 01/27/2023
“The movie is a mind-melting, 201-minute colossus of monotony that warps and distorts time inside the viewer’s headspace. It is a towering achievement in cinema. It’s also one of the last films I’d ever recommend to casual moviegoers, which is why the placement of Jeanne Dielman at the top of the BFI list strikes me as such a problematic provocation.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/26/2023
“The film’s escalating escapades of sicko violence are punctuated by psychedelic drug freakouts and semi-pornographic dream orgies. It’s an awful lot, yet somehow still not quite enough. Thank goodness then, for our newly crowned scream queen Mia Goth, following up last year’s seismic performance in Pearl as an entirely different kind of chaos agent.” – North Shore Movies, 01/26/2023
“Looks and sounds so much like the kind of film you want it to be that if you’re willing to squint, you can let it slide. Maybe I Do may be little more than Nancy Meyers karaoke, but at least someone’s still trying to sing these songs. One hopes that if the nostalgia for this sort of picture continues, we might finally get one that’s actually good instead of just good enough.” – North Shore Movies, 01/26/2023
Had a great time talking to friends Jason Bailey and Mike Hull about fun facts and our favorite films from the year in which Bailey and I were born. My personal top five picks were Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville, Night Moves and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. An embarrassment of riches, even though the Red Sox lost the World Series. – A Very Good Year, 01/22/2023
My first dispatch from the 2023 Sundance Film Festival includes capsule reviews of Rachel Lambert’s Sometimes I Think About Dying, Rachel Zlotowski’s Other People’s Children, Anton Corbijn’s Squaring The Circle (The Story Of Hipgnosis) and Patricia Ortega’s Mamacruz.
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“Kendrick plays the role more mysteriously and closer to the vest than you might expect. She focuses everything inward, coming in quietly underneath scenes where other actresses would have cranked up the histrionics for awards consideration. Unfortunately, she’s so good she makes the so-so performances of her co-stars seem worse than they actually are.” – North Shore Movies, 01/20/2023
“Again chronicling the romantic mishaps of a young woman pretending to be more worldly than she really is, writer-director Hadas Ben Aroya loves shooting long, erotic scenes that play out practically in real time, demystifying the messy mechanics of desire while revealing character through intimacy. Everything is no big deal, even stuff that probably should be.” – North Shore Movies, 01/20/2023
“You don’t watch Skinamarink so much as you sink into it, allowing yourself to be enveloped by the unsettling atmosphere. Ball keeps the camera close to the ground and peering into the shadows, attempting to make out shapes that never quite materialize. The whole movie feels like the lights just went out and your eyes haven’t quite adjusted yet.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/12/2023
“Even if the film’s depiction of neurodivergence will never be mistaken for sensitive, one must at least appreciate the audacity. The Old Way gropes around at some promising ideas, but the movie is cut too close to the bone to get much mileage out of these concepts, pulling back to meat-and-potatoes genre beats whenever things threaten to get really interesting.” – North Shore Movies, 01/12/2023
SPLICED PERSONALITY 