“A rip-roaring romp through the Reagan administration’s many foreign policy malfeasances and misdeeds. The satirical masterstroke is casting Cruise as the blithely amoral hustler at its center. It’s a grand performance of toothy grins, aw-shucks charm and movie star magnetism. Barry’s so much fun to watch you keep forgetting he’s one of the bad guys.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 09/29/2017
BATTLE OF THE SEXES * *
Starring Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Andrea Riseborough, Sarah Silverman and Bill Pullman. Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy. Directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton.
“At its best the film recalls late-period Eastwood pictures like Flags Of Our Fathers and American Sniper, plumbing the gulf between truth and what people need to hear. Last year’s despicable movie star auto-fellatio Patriots Day invented a phony hero to save the day, Stronger reminds us tragedy is a lot more complicated than a bumper-sticker slogan.” – North Shore Movies, 09/26/2017
KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE * 1 / 2
Starring Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Julianne Moore and Sir Elton John. Screenplay by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn. Directed by Matthew Vaughn.
“We gotta mix it up. We leaned heavily on the classics last year, and I think next year we probably will return to a little bit more of that. If we get a lot of people for Top Gun or Wonder Woman and ten of them come back to see Cleopatra then my job is done. I’ve continued to keep these important movies in the consciousness.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 09/20/2017
MOTHER! * * 1 / 2
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer and Kristen Wiig. Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky.
“‘Tilda Swinton is simply one of the most mercurial and indelible screen performers of our age,’ says the Brattle’s creative director Ned Hinkle, via email from the Toronto Film Festival. ‘She fits neither the definition of movie star nor the definition of character actor. I think she’s a very unique performer and also, in a real way, a cinema artist.'” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 09/14/2017
HOME AGAIN * * 1 / 2
Starring Reese Witherspoon, Pico Alexander, Jon Rudnitsky, Michael Sheen and Candice Bergen. Written and directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer.
IT * * *
Starring Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor and Bill Skarsgard. Screenplay by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman. Directed by Andy Muschietti. Continue reading
“Few films are as attentive to the spaces inhabited by their characters as Columbus. The screen is almost always broken up into frames inside of frames, favoring deep-focus shots in which foreground obstacles either wall these characters off from one another or isolate them together in a little box of their own, positioned against the rest of the world.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 09/07/2017
SPLICED PERSONALITY 