“We get a child’s eye view of this confusing, adult world, and a messy family melodrama only partially understood by our pint-sized protagonist. The unintended consequences of the old man’s superstitions are an echo of all the movie’s intergenerational squabbles, set against a bustling backdrop where tradition and modernity elbow each other for dominance.” – North Shore Movies, 11/27/2025
“The child’s demise is staged with semi-pornographic vigor by Zhao in a way that makes the death scene from E.T. seem subtle and restrained. Buckley puts on such a clinic of guttural screams and heaving, mucus-soaked sobs she’s guaranteed as many golden statuettes as will fit on her mantlepiece when awards season is over next spring.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 11/25/2025
“Jay Kelly wants to be Wild Strawberries, but it’s more like Mr. Holland’s Opus. The mind reels at how the director of prickly films like Greenberg could make something this soft and bathetic, gently teasing Jay’s self-absorption while also indulging it to an eye-rolling degree. Does anybody involved have any idea how off-putting and unrelatable this is?” – North Shore Movies, 11/24/2025
“Lancaster’s crisp elocution was never put to more satisfyingly sinister ends, portraying the writer as a tightly-wound, sexless automaton. Hunsecker’s dead-eyed stare came from the actor smearing Vaseline on his glasses so he couldn’t focus on anyone in front of him. It’s how he seems to be looking through everybody. He certainly sees through Sidney.” – Crooked Marquee, 11/21/2025
“This is where the movie’s strange alchemy takes place, in the mundanity of the grunt work and phone calls — so many phone calls — in the spaces between the books and exhibitions and things we think constitute a brilliant career. That’s where life happens. That’s where the time goes. Days like this and the next day, one after another until there aren’t any more.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 11/20/2025
Better late than never, my buddy Blake Howard finally saw this year’s funniest film. He called me up to wax rhapsodic about the intricate design of the gut-busting gags in Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino’s comedy for adults who aren’t as grown up as they think they are. We also talked about why you shouldn’t hire a mentalist for a child’s birthday party. – One Heat Minute, 11/20/2025
“This breathless tumble of incident is paced very much like the second act of a Broadway musical, hurtling along trying to cram in a few more tunes and wrap things up so we can all go back to the hotel. When it was over, I didn’t feel like I had seen a movie. There’s no rising and falling action. It doesn’t have a beginning, middle and an end. It’s all falling, all end.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 11/18/2025
“Anchored by a playful, career-topping turn from Skarsgård as a father amusingly oblivious to his own shortcomings, the touching and often very funny Sentimental Value follows the Borg family’s slow surrender to reconciliation. It’s a movie about how holding grudges will eat you alive and sometimes it’s healthier to just forgive people for being who they are.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 11/13/2025
“The film stops in its tracks and forces us to watch a commercial for Liquid Death, which is somehow even more undignified than having to drink out of a can with that stupid heavy metal logo on it after you’ve just paid eleven dollars for water at a concert. If movies are going to make us watch ads I feel morally obligated to mock the product.” – North Shore Movies, 11/13/2025
“A four-seater plane transporting Mitchum to the movie’s Bridgeport location lost its brakes and crashed through a fence into an outhouse. The actor climbed out of the wreck and hitchhiked to set. The panicked production team had just heard news of the crash and were scrambling for details when a scuffed Mitchum sauntered up and asked if anybody had any weed.” – Crooked Marquee, 11/07/2025
SPLICED PERSONALITY 