“The searching, philosophical qualities of the original have been tossed aside in favor of bold-stroke, blockbuster battles between good and evil, less concerned with what it means to be human than with showing Friday night audiences a grand old time. As far as dumb action movies go this is a great-looking one, but it should have been so much more.” – North Shore Movies, 03/31/2017
“Remember, these films were made when the only place to see them was in a theater, usually with a lot of other people. To really understand why people first fell in love with the movies, you need to put Humpty Dumpty back together again and recreate the whole experience: the big screen, the live music, and, most importantly, the shared experience of the audience.” – Metro, 03/31/2017
THE BLACKCOAT’S DAUGHTER * * * 1 / 2
Starring Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Boynton, Lauren Holly and James Remar. Written and directed by Osgood Perkins.
“Set in a dystopian future where a peaceful socialist revolution did nothing to quell the battle of the sexes, Lizzie Borden’s notorious 1983 mock documentary Born In Flames follows a group of radical black lesbians forming a Women’s Army in the streets. Co-star Jeanne Satterfield will lead a discussion following the screening. You will have questions.” – Metro, 03/30/2017
SONG TO SONG * 1 / 2
Starring Rooney Mara, Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman and Cate Blanchett. Written and directed by Terrence Malick.
“In this increasingly digitized culture it can be difficult for our over-mediated eyes to determine what’s ones and zeroes, until you see a film like Fitzcarraldo and experience once again the shock of the real. It’s granular detail on a massive scale, with images full of intricacies not even the most sophisticated F/X effects department could conjure.” – Metro, 03/24/2017
“What T2 lacks in trauma it makes up for in an exhausted spiritual malaise that knocked this writer for a loop. I doubt the film will work nearly as well for anyone who didn’t have a poster of these guys hanging on their dorm room wall, but it’s viscerally deflating to see how these icons of the ‘Cool Britannia’ generation grew up to be such sad-sack losers.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 03/23/2017
PERSONAL SHOPPER * * *
Starring Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Sigrid Bouaziz, Anders Danielsen Lie and Ty Olwin. Written and directed by Olivier Assayas.
“A job for hire, The Departed is one of Scorsese’s least soulful movies yet perhaps his most conventionally entertaining. He jokes it’s the only one with a plot. Editor Thelma Schoonmaker paces the film like it’s strapped to a rocket. We’re already nineteen minutes in and have covered twenty years’ worth of backstory before the title card even drops.” – Metro, 03/17/2017
BRIMSTONE * 1 / 2
Starring Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce, Emilia Jones, Carice Van Houten and Kit Harington. Written and directed by Martin Koolhoven.
SPLICED PERSONALITY 