“In a movie year without big-name, buzzy breakouts from Sundance or South By Southwest, IFFBoston is relying more on documentaries and foreign language films and less on marquee stars. Having been able to preview some of this year’s offerings, I found the scrappy lineup characteristically excellent, even if some of the topics sound like tough sells.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/17/2025
”There are ideas here about cultural appropriation being a form of vampirism, also a tantalizing angle about Blacks and the Irish sharing a history of oppression, plus some bracingly heretical notions about Christianity. Just as Sinners never exclusively belongs to a single genre, it’s also never about just one thing. The movie is too wildly ambitious and overstuffed for that.” – North Shore Movies, 04/17/2025
“The film follows Young hitting the Pacific Coast Highway for a tour of outdoor venues in 2023. It’s a lot of iPhone and GoPro footage of varying quality, with an easygoing emphasis on the downtime between gigs. The mellowest of hangout movies, there’s a laid-back charm to the picture and I found myself admiring its cozy willingness to be boring.” – North Shore Movies, 04/16/2025
“Recent events seem intent on reminding us that we’re never quite as far along as we think we are, so Lee’s beloved farce gets a thoughtful 2025 makeover from director Andrew Ahn, who finds a few fresh angles on the old story while mining the material more for melodrama than comedy. It’s a warm-hearted movie that probably could have used a few more laughs.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/16/2025
“Wallowing in a scuzzy underworld of nudie booths and porno shoots, the sleaziest major Hollywood release of 1986 is an ugly, urgent thriller made by a director with something to prove. What sets 52 Pick-Up apart from countless other tawdry thrillers of its era are the film’s ruthless efficiency and astonishing cruelty. This movie has a mean streak a mile wide.” – Crooked Marquee, 04/11/2025
“Based on Mendoza’s actual experiences in Ramadi, it’s a real-time chronicle of U.S. Navy SEALs attempting to extract a wounded soldier from a house under siege that’s so stripped of any drama or editorializing sometimes it barely feels like a movie. I will concede that Warfare is a technically impressive achievement. But good God, y’all. What is it good for?” – North Shore Movies, 04/11/2025
“Look at the limited series as a savvy brand relaunch, with the Red Sox enlisting Netflix to help reintroduce themselves to disgruntled fans. The highly touted ‘unprecedented’ access mostly means they’ve left the f-bombs in, with cameras in the dugout and the clubhouse catching players in appealingly relaxed, if not exactly revelatory situations.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/07/2025
”This revelation carries The Friend past a few false endings, and it’s the smartest thing about the film’s refusal to anthropomorphize Apollo. We may never be able to fully comprehend those we choose to share our lives with. In the end, people are as frustrating, complicated and essentially unknowable as another species altogether. But we can love them.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/03/2025
“The leggy bombshell is like nothing like these tweedy academics have ever seen, and Hawks gets enormous comic mileage out of their awestruck reactions to finding themselves in the same room as Barbara Stanwyck. (Honestly, they hold it together better than I would have.) This is the only live-action remake of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs anyone needed.“ – Crooked Marquee, 03/28/2025
“He looked how he looked: an unassuming, ordinary guy with an arsenal of grins, winks and chilling stares he could shade into infinite variations. His voice was higher and huskier than you expected, its cracks a key to his often aching vulnerability onscreen. Hackman excelled at portraying gruff men with volcanic tempers, yet few stars seemed so easily wounded.“ – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 03/27/2025
SPLICED PERSONALITY 