“A mostly made-up mishmash of coming-of-age cliches so self-aware that an early scene has the protagonist explaining what a bildungsroman is. Matt Johnson and his regular writing partner Matthew Miller shrewdly deploy familiar Hollywood formulas so we can see every set-up and welcome every payoff. They’re cooking up comfort food, and Tony delivers.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/11/2026
“When I saw the movie 30 years ago it was a late-1960s period piece set in a vanished downtown art scene. Revisiting the film was like opening a Totally ‘90s time capsule, its recreation of a bygone Manhattan now evoking a long-gone heyday of independent filmmaking from three decades after the movie was set. Watching it was like looking at a double reflection” – Spliced Personality, 08/11/2026
Had a lot of laughs with my buddy Blake Howard and television critic Roxana Hadadi wondering what the hell was going on with Apple TV’s Cape Fear remake, one of the most mystifying things we’ve ever seen. Hear three incredibly confused people try to puzzle out what the show was aiming at, while lamenting the perils of stretching a simple story out to ten hours. – One Heat Minute, 08/08/2026
“None of these practical concerns have any impact on the central romance, and One Night Only isn’t engaged enough with its high-concept to entertain that kind of scrutiny. A lot of the online nitpicking reminds me of a regular at my old bookstore who used to scream about how Star Trek was bad because ‘their system of currency makes no sense.’” – Spliced Personality Substack, 08/07/2026
“It’s also kind of a bummer to remember how high culture was once seen as aspirational, and that we could have a rock star conductor like Leonard Bernstein who strived to make the arts accessible to everyone. I grew up in a Boston where Arthur Fiedler was as revered a local hero as Carl Yastrzemski. It wasn’t that long ago.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 08/05/2026
“The funniest cameo is still Val Kilmer, doing his Doc Holliday accent in a Jim Morrison wig while trying to get the Sphinx-like Dylan to break. When I sat down with Kilmer in 2005 for the most bizarre interview of my career, he really lit up when I mentioned this film. I told him how many times I’d watched it, and he said, ‘That makes you, me and the editor.’” – Spliced Personality Substack, 08/03/2026
“Most of the dialogue is rancid, often riotously so. Stone tries to knock the earnest, do-gooder halo off the social issue drama by making his lead characters lowlifes. Half-Graham Greene, half-Hunter S. Thompson, Salvador isn’t particularly interested in the nuances of Central American politics. It’s more about the director’s ideal of a macho, alpha-male liberalism.” – Crooked Marquee, 07/31/2026
“Charli XCX plays the kind of girlfriend who complains that ‘we just had sex eleven days ago,’ and her unenthusiastic faking of an orgasm is one of the funniest bits of business I’ve watched in a while. It does your heart proud to see young Cooper Hoffman following in his father Philip Seymour’s footsteps as one of the great movie masturbators.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/31/2026
“In its gentle, unassuming way, Penny Lane’s enchanting documentary made me think about the mysteries of the natural world as much as any Terrence Malick or Werner Herzog picture. It’s a movie about ecosystems and our place in the pecking order, about behaviors that are taught and those that are ingrained through millions of years of evolution.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/30/2026
“Even the opening Marvel logo music is melancholy. With its themes of emotional abandonment, institutional betrayal and a torture-happy third act, Brand New Day is interestingly ambitious but really not very much fun. A bit visually jazzier than the woeful recent franchise standard. At times it almost looks like you’re watching a real movie.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/28/2026
SPLICED PERSONALITY 