“It’s a prismatic portrait, albeit an occasionally confusing one. Some of the footage feels revelatory and some of it just seems random. What works as connective tissue are the stunning musical performances to which the film returns at regular intervals, with Jones strutting her stuff in staging originally designed by the late Eiko Ishioka.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 04/19/2018
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
“A nerve-shredding, artsploitation action picture, with Ramsay mixing and matching elements of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and John Boorman’s Point Blank to create something audaciously all her own. You Were Never Really Here is an icky, rotgut noir filtered through a prism of abstract art. It’s like a Charles Bronson movie directed by Alain Resnais.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 04/12/2018
A QUIET PLACE
A QUIET PLACE * 1 / 2
Starring Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe and Cade Woodward. Screenplay by Brian Woods, Scott Beck and John Krasinski. Directed by John Krasinski.
WIM WENDERS AT THE HFA
“Paris, Texas is an almost impossibly perfect title for a film that filters American western iconography through the distinctly European lenses of Wenders and his brilliant cinematographer Robby Müller. This boldly elemental picture is like The Searchers with busted neon highway signs, full of magisterial landscapes as craggy as the face of its star.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 04/05/2018
READY PLAYER ONE
”Subserviently seeks to flatter its target audience with a spectacular array of semi-clever references to cool stuff from their childhoods. Meanwhile an otherwise unremarkable, antisocial, adolescent white boy’s skill at video games and deep knowledge of trivial ephemera will somehow save the world. This is fanboy fellatio and I found it all almost unbearably depressing.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 03/29/2018
ISLE OF DOGS
”When Wes Anderson’s meticulous constructions work, the deeply felt emotions stirred up by their stories reverberate against his dollhouse designs in fascinating ways. When they don’t click, you can feel like you’re stuck spending two hours in somebody’s Etsy store. Isle of Dogs is one of the ones that works, for the most part.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 03/28/2018
UNSANE
“Soderbergh shoots the scare sequences like an old master playing with a new toy, nestling up uncomfortably close to his star with the unfiltered image quality peering into her every pore. He’s got his tiny camera looming above her shoulder or directly under Foy’s face, so it often feels like the movie itself is stalking her.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 03/23/2018