“I saw a lot of terrific films in 2022, but they’re becoming increasingly more difficult for audiences to find, siloed off onto separate subscription services or buried in brief, barely-advertised engagements and feast-or-famine scheduling. Studio malpractice and streamer sabotage have me less optimistic about the future of the theatrical experience than I’ve ever been.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/20/2022
“An Aronofsky movie without any of the showmanship that makes Aronofsky movies watchable. Instead of bringing the old razzle-dazzle, he shoots it as drably and perfunctorily as he possibly can, boxing everything up into a cramped 1.33 aspect ratio in a dingy, cluttered apartment that looks like it smells bad. There’s not an interesting image in the entire picture.” – North Shore Movies, 12/18/2022
“It’s tempting to read the bishop’s cold quarters and the Ekdahls’ happy home as two sides of Bergman’s soul vying for custody of his alter-ego, Alexander. The final reels upend Strindberg’s ‘flimsy framework of reality,’ slipping into surreal sleight of hand as this battle of love and libertinism versus religious self-abnegation wakes the ghosts. They’ve been waiting.” – Crooked Marquee, 12/16/2022
“Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ and Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz are two of the greatest movies ever made, and Bardo borrows from them egregiously. But Fellini and Fosse were wise enough to make their narcissistic stand-ins figures of fun. Iñárritu is not a filmmaker who has much of a sense of humor about himself. Or about anything else, for that matter.” – North Shore Movies, 12/16/2022
“Abbasi’s blunt-force, big-screen translation is not for the faint of heart. It’s in your face and unsparing of the horrors endured by these sad, dopesick sex workers. Hanaei liked to strangle his victims with the headscarves women are required to wear in public, a symbolic gesture that would feel hackneyed in a fictional story, but happens to be horrifyingly true.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/16/2022
“A portrait of the artist as a little shit, Francois Truffaut’s debut feature The 400 Blows is a bracingly unsentimental look back at the director’s juvenile delinquent days. The kid was quite a handful. As far as great filmmakers’ fictionalized childhood stand-ins go, Antoine Doniel would probably steal Sammy Fabelman’s lunch money and stuff him in a locker.” – Crooked Marquee, 12/09/2022
“To me it feels all of a piece, restlessly questioning what constitutes decency and respectability in America. One of the wealthiest families in the world can murder half a million people and purchase unprecedented immunity with a $6 billion settlement, yet this so-called polite society is scandalized by snapshots of strippers, sex workers and drag queens.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/09/2022
“This might be Will Smith’s worst performance. One-note, remote, and emotionally constipated in that way movie stars can come off when they start believing their own messianic bullshit. (See also: the late works of Wahlberg, Mark.) Emancipation is not a historical document but rather an ugly, exploitative monument to one man’s out-of-control ego.” – North Shore Movies, 12/09/2022
“While I can personally confirm that managing a movie theater is an excellent way to end up in the booby hatch, Empire Of Light tries to cram too many big, serious issues into an unassuming setup, as if writer-director Sam Mendes’ memories of his childhood cinema didn’t feel important enough so he had to send neo-Nazis crashing through the front doors.” – North Shore Movies, 12/09/2022
SPLICED PERSONALITY 