“A breakthrough for Wenders, codifying the dreamy, sentimental existentialism that became his signature. The director can be glimpsed at a diner jukebox early in the film, playing the Count Five’s ‘Psychotic Reaction.’ Indeed, it’s impossible to count all the jukeboxes, diners, highways, old muscle cars and rock n’ roll songs in Wim Wenders films.” – Crooked Marquee, 09/05/2025
“The flatness of the onscreen spaces matches the characters’ deadpan lack of affect, conjuring a torpid sort of vacation-mode miasma that becomes beguiling. By the end, you can’t imagine the movie looking any other way. A melancholy undercurrent runs beneath all this poker-faced silliness, almost like Glander has made a Jim Jarmusch movie for little kids.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 09/04/2025
“An expert use of Stamp’s ethereal presence. The more serene he is, the more it throws Braddock off his game. The elder assassin starts making stupid mistakes. Parker’s gotten inside his head, planting sly insinuations and pointed asides. Here’s where Stamp’s playfulness comes in especially handy; he’s able to make being beatific into a way of fucking with you.” – Crooked Marquee, 08/29/2025
“A deliberate throwback to the kind of glib, trash-talking crime pictures that proliferated in the immediate post-Pulp Fiction era when Caught Stealing takes place. I lived in this same Alphabet City neighborhood back then, and the film feels very much like something I would have snuck into at the Village East after a matinee of Feeling Minnesota.” – North Shore Movies, 08/29/2025
“I’m not sure I’ve seen a project that more overtly typifies the corporate fanboy Alamo Drafthouse sensibility I find so off-putting, a celebration of genre in air quotes where everyone’s trying too hard to show what an awesome time they’re having. I say this all the time, but Alamo theaters are for people who wish going to the movies was more like Dave & Busters.” – North Shore Movies, 08/29/2025
“‘I think it’s an instinctual thing,’ Covino explained. ‘There’s something about when emotions get heightened, moving to a more objective perspective can allow us to see that in its totality, and it can be mined for comedy. You have this opportunity to juxtapose a wide shot that allows you to take in the absurdity and laugh at what someone’s going through.’” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/28/2025
“Spielberg’s most Altman-esque movie, casting a wary eye on institutions his later pictures would exalt. The mayor from Jaws became such a popular meme during COVID-19 because the film is bracingly up front about how people in charge are not necessarily looking out for your best interests. There’s a New Hollywood cynicism that’s missing from his subsequent work.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/27/2025
“Chopped down to 62 minutes and dubbed into English, the film played on double bills alongside something called Mixed-Up Women. Such presentations cemented for generations the notion that Swedish films were full of frolicking nude starlets, a misconception I imagine led to unpleasant evenings for anyone who wandered into The Virgin Spring.” – Crooked Marquee, 08/22/2025
“Ron Howard’s lurid, misanthropic melodrama follows a doomed collection of German expats trying to forge a new utopia in the Galapagos. There’s no need for snakes in this Eden when you’ve got such shitty neighbors. Campy and cruel, the movie is an unexpected hoot, showing off a naughty mean streak in Opie that would horrify Aunt Bee. I like him like this.” – North Shore Movies, 08/22/2025
“Too slapdash to get a handle on, like Coen and Cooke started shooting before they’d figured out what story they were trying to tell. There are some amusing moments, a few intriguing ideas and a knockout movie star performance from Margaret Qualley as an aloof, no-nonsense private eye. But almost nothing in the picture connects.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/21/2025
SPLICED PERSONALITY 