“E.T. is one of the purest and most emotionally direct of all American movies, with not a whit of adult condescension nor any self-protecting irony. Spielberg’s brilliantly subjective camerawork forces even the most jaded and cynical viewers back into the perspective of a child, which might be why it hits grown-ups so much harder than kids.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/11/2022
“I suppose one could argue that Sara DeLappe’s tart, cruelly amusing screenplay is shooting fish in a barrel. But some of us have had it up to here with movies that are more like group hugs and the annoyingly popular insistence that art has to be somehow aspirational, so it’s refreshing when a film comes along that’s this content to be a bitch.” – North Shore Movies, 08/11/2022
“An intensely nerve-wracking experience for acrophobics like yours truly. Fall’s attempts at character-driven drama are fumbling at best, but it hardly matters because the situation is such a goddamn nightmare I watched the film curled up in the fetal position on my couch, palms sweating profusely and testicles ascended to somewhere above my sternum.” – North Shore Movies, 08/11/2022
“It’s a smart concept, stripping the series of its increasingly unwieldly sci-fi world-building and sending it satisfyingly back to basics for a breathless run through the woods, pitting the sophisticated alien weaponry against primitive bows-and-arrows and plucky human ingenuity. You also get to see the Predator fight a bear. Which is awesome.” – North Shore Movies, 08/06/2022
“An achingly beautiful cautionary tale about the blindness of privilege, a movie rich with longing and loss. It’s impossible to watch The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis in today’s political climate without feeling a chill every time the characters shrug off another sign of encroaching authoritarianism, blithely believing such horrors couldn’t possibly happen so close to home.” – Crooked Marquee, 08/05/2022
“If you don’t find sub-Tarantino schtick like professional killers discussing children’s television inherently hilarious this could end up being the longest ride of your life. In fact, if there’s a joke that doesn’t land for you in Bullet Train, you’d better learn to love it anyway, because it’s gonna get repeated ad infinitum over the next two hours and change.” – North Shore Movies, 08/05/2022
“As an uptight executive rocked by the re-appearance of her abusive former lover, Rebecca Hall gives a performance so ferocious and overdetermined I’m not surprised to hear it being hailed as a tour-de-force. The lanky British thespian is one of the hardest working actresses in showbiz, or maybe more accurately, one of the hardest acting actresses in show business.” – North Shore Movies, 08/05/2022
“A rock-solid example of old-fashioned Hollywood craftsmanship, Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives hums along with a brisk, all-business efficiency. The film takes its emotional temperature from the stiff-upper-lip professionalism of the rescue divers, with a brusque aversion to schmaltz that’s a surprise coming from this particular director.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/04/2022
“Altman’s so-called heresy was actually a logical extension of Chandler’s vision of Marlowe as the last hurrah for chivalry in a fallen, postwar world that’s moved beyond moral concerns. Gould is grubby but gallant, a decent guy surrounded by sharks and betrayed for having faith in his fellow man. His best friend describes him as a born loser. He even loses his cat.” – Crooked Marquee, 07/29/2022
“’It’s easy in our lives to see the people we meet as characters. Even in your own friend group, you know? He’s the drunk. She’s the party girl. He’s the one who gives me advice.’ Vengeance is about a man coming to realize that the people around him are actually much more complicated than the characters he’s assigned them to play on his podcast.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/27/2022
SPLICED PERSONALITY 