“The un-kitty valley CGI turning these performers into Island Of Dr. Moreau half-feline hybrids is deeply creepy, with their monkey tails and the not-to-scale sets making you wonder if anyone involved has ever seen a cat. This may sound like a kitsch classic, except remember the show is just the same scene over and over and feels like it’s never going to end.” – North Shore Movies, 12/31/2019
“A bunch of pointy-headed academics writing about kids’ movies might at first sound counterintuitive, but as Keough notes in his introduction, ‘for better and worse, film critics are the most childish people you’ll meet.’ Having sat in Boston screening rooms with Peter for the past 20 years, I can attest that this is an observation he makes from personal experience.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/24/2019
“It’s a movie about waking up one morning and realizing you’ve gotten old, that your career never really worked out and that the culture has passed you by. It’s also a movie about how much this director loves all sorts of things I likewise adore: drinking buddies, old Westerns, neon lights, movie theater marquees, bubblegum pop hits and pretty girls’ feet.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/23/2019
“The elephant in the room here is that they accidentally made a real movie last time. So of course J.J. Abrams was brought back on board to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. Alas, we’re back to the monomyth and old, tiresome prophecies about chosen ones who will bring balance and everyone in this entire universe is fucking related.” – North Shore Movies, 12/20/2019
“Much as you’d probably expect from a #MeToo movie made by men, Bombshell wants to take down the designated misogynist villain while paying no attention at all to the structures and paradigms that allowed him to flourish in the first place. Why on Earth would you make a film about Fox News and leave politics (mostly) out of it?” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/19/2019
“As arduous an experience as Sátántangó may be, I can see why Susan Sontag wanted to watch it once a year. Amid all the moldering rot, drunken boorishness and stupid, venal scheming, the film also offers us a glimpse of something infinite, a vastness of space and time within this small village that can only be experienced at such an obscene duration.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/18/2019
1. Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood 2. The Irishman 3. Ash Is Purest White 4. Little Women 5. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire 6. Parasite 7. Atlantics 8. High Life 9. Diane 10. Dolemite Is My Name
Honorable Mentions: Amazing Grace, Apollo 11, Climax, Dragged Across Concrete, The Farewell, Her Smell, The Hottest August, The Image Book, The Lighthouse, Monos, Non-Fiction, Pain And Glory, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story By Martin Scorsese, Tigers Are Not Afraid
“Clint’s bozo antics at the RNC notwithstanding, his work has always had a hardcore libertarian bent, with Richard Jewell being the latest and perhaps bluntest articulation yet of his go-it-alone philosophy. The movie is mid-tier Eastwood, a classically crafted, crowd-pleasing character study that suffers from one dumb decision threatening to derail the whole thing.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/12/2019
“Apted and his editors preface their interviews with snippets from the previous pictures, so in a span of several minutes we see these subjects age more than half-a-century. We watch eyes grow hard and bodies get soft. The walks lose a step while youthful belligerence gives way to something more circumspect and considered. It’s a remarkable thing to witness.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/11/2019
“Set in Senegal, the story starts as an arresting ethnographic study until it takes a hard right turn into the mystic. With unerring confidence behind the camera, Atlantics steadily grows into something ever more mythical and strange, like a seaside campfire tale told by old sailors’ widows. You might think you know where it’s going, but you don’t.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/05/2019
SPLICED PERSONALITY 