”One of those enervating exercises in IP regurgitation that only exists because somebody owned the rights and felt like getting paid. I suppose it’s unfair for any actor to get stuck following Brandon Lee in this role, but Skarsgård looks especially silly in his Jared Leto Juggalo Joker tattoos. Maybe not every fondly remembered film needs to be a franchise?” – North Shore Movies, 08/23/2024
“What follows is an extremely tedious mashup of Get Out with Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories and the ‘fuck the patriarchy’ keychain politics of Promising Young Woman. It’s such an off-putting stew of ill-considered gimmicks and attitudes that could charitably be described as unexamined, you can’t help but leave thinking less of the people who made the picture.” – North Shore Movies, 08/23/2024
”The most anxious comedy you’ll see this year, director Nathan Silver’s Between The Temples is a love story in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Except it feels like the movie itself is having the breakdown. Silver is an expert at the everyone-talking-over-each-other school of cinema, whipping the scenes into swirling frenzies of semi-controlled chaos.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/22/2024
”Negovan has toned down the old ultraviolence and gotten rid of Guccione’s precious pornography, making this a classier Caligula for a more refined audience, which somehow makes the movie even worse. Shorn of all the grody fucking that casued such a scandal, it’s now merely a tedious historical pageant with fine actors wandering around looking lost.” – North Shore Movies, 08/19/2024
“Last Summer is a remake of writer-director May el-Toukhy’s 2019 film Queen Of Hearts. Breillat’s version of the story is far less melodramatic and (surprisingly) less sexually explicit, yet somehow feels more dangerous, throwing itself into the transgressive tale with a wry reserve and an abundance of mordant wit. Good lord, is this movie funny.” – North Shore Movies, 08/16/2024
“The movie looks and sounds like what were commonly referred to as ‘women’s pictures’ back in the day, but its soul lies in the moody, psychological wreckage of the era’s most remorseless crime stories. Oft-befuddled critic Bosley Crowther called the film ‘a piece of cheap fiction done up in Technicolor and expensive sets,’ as if that isn’t what’s so awesome about it.” – Crooked Marquee, 08/16/2024
”There’s a common misconception that the big screen is for spectacle pictures, and intimate dramas like Donaldson’s debut can be watched at home without missing much. But I’d argue that small movies such as this one benefit even more from the focus and attention one can give when the only light in the room is coming from the story you’re watching.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/15/2024
“Alvarez finds semi-clever variations on iconic action scenes from the earlier films, and when Spaeny strips down to her skivvies for the final confrontation with the xenomorph, I suppose we should be proud that since it’s 2024 she’s wearing boxers instead of Weaver’s bikini-cut panties. But the movie never feels like more than the work of a halfway decent cover band.” – North Shore Movies, 08/14/2024
”One of those movies that spends the first hour obfuscating story information and then the final forty minutes with all the characters screaming exposition over each other. I counted two separate scenes in which Schafer is led into a secret laboratory where Stevens stands around explaining his master plan. That’s at least one too many, but really probably two.” – North Shore Movies, 08/11/2024
”Justin Baldoni’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s beloved bestseller leans shamelessly — and not unsatisfyingly — into the source material’s romance novel trappings, conjuring an outsized, soapy fantasy of heartbreak and resilience that only falters when it tries to ground itself in reality. I would have liked the movie better if it were even cornier.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/08/2024
SPLICED PERSONALITY 