“Jason Reitman’s The Front Runner may not be the worst movie of the year, but it’s gotta be the most inessential and out-of-touch. This banal, deeply incurious picture exudes entitlement, pining away for the good old days when the privileged and powerful closed ranks to protect their own. Reitman should make a Brett Kavanaugh film next.” – North Shore Movies, 11/15/2018

“As in Gotti, Travolta just seems miserable, alternating between scrunching up his face like something smells bad and looking like he has to poop. There’s hilariously little attention to period detail and no attempt to age the star accordingly over the story’s twenty-five year span. He appears to wear the same denim shirt for decades.” – North Shore Movies, 11/15/2018

“Green Book plays like a Trumpist’s anti-Obama empowerment fantasy, in which a proudly ignorant white prole is constantly humiliating an erudite, sophisticated black man and showing him how the world really works. I wondered again why white audiences still seem to crave these movies, aching to be reassured that racism is bad but we’re still okay.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/15/2018

“What sticks with you long after the lights come up is the potty-mouthed banter bouncing back and forth between McCarthy and Grant, staggering drunk through a disappearing New York City, leaning on each other the way only the desperately lonely can. They’re like the Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo of used bookstores and parties full of old ladies and free shrimp.” – North Shore Movies, 11/12/2018

“A mix of murky interior shots that fails to establish any sense of day-to-day life in this Christian community. There’s a severe paucity of detail, with drab sets and nondescript locations. Everyone here is exactly who they first appear to be, which along with the absence of surprises in the story makes sitting through the picture feel like running out the clock.” – North Shore Movies, 11/08/2018

“I’m finding it hard to shake all the studiously polite interactions conducted through downturned, unsmiling faces. A tone of stagnancy pervades throughout the picture, which feels exhausted. It’s not Wiseman’s style to overtly editorialize, but the film’s frequent visits to a local cemetery draw a line under what’s already obvious: This place is dying.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/02/2018

“Cheerfully disregarding a lot of the true-crime particulars, Ruizpalacios has fashioned a slippery meditation on questions of ownership, heritage and history as plunder. He’s got a gift for writing a certain breed of over-educated and under-motivated young male suffering from a surly disaffection that’ll feel awfully familiar to fellow Gen Xers.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/01/2018

“The movie is logy and feels interminable. Guadagnino and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom avoid Argento’s vivid palette in favor of a dreary beige blur. This Suspiria is awfully ugly to look at, and replacing Goblin’s manic prog rock score with Thom Yorke’s droning and moaning is another energy sap that makes these two-and-half hours drag like five.” – North Shore Movies, 11/01/2018

“Wispy and underwhelming, there’s a lackadaisical, conflict-averse quality to Jonah Hill’s directorial debut that leaves a galling aftertaste. It is a film short on incident but long on carefully curated period details. There isn’t much here in the way of compelling drama, but if you like to gawk at Air Jordans and old CDs this is will be 84 minutes of heaven.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 10/24/2018