“‘I’ve always been fascinated by films within films,’ said the Brattle’s creative director Ned Hinkle. ‘The best instances of these are when an audience watching a film in the real world is brought into a cinema by the character onscreen and we all experience a particular moment together. It creates a crazy, almost metaphysical bond with the characters in the movie.’” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 02/25/2026

“In this case, half a movie is better than most in full. It’s a work of dazzling breadth and grandeur, with a naughty modernity that reportedly caused clashes on the set between filmmaker and star. (No doubt the Hays Office never would have allowed the prince’s panty-sniffing scene.) It may have taken 98 years, but Queen Kelly is finally ready for its closeup.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 02/25/2026

“Yet for a knockabout comedy contrived as a way to make boat payments and get drunk on the beach, Donovan’s Reef is nonetheless fascinating on several fronts, not the least of which is its fantasy of benevolent colonialism in a tropical Valhalla. The island is a utopia lorded over by aging white warriors. Lucky for us their hearts are in the right place.” – Crooked Marquee, 02/20/2026

“Kubrick was fascinated by the ways in which we foolish mortals try to impose order on an indifferent universe, constructing elaborate systems and machinery that inevitably come crashing down around us. His dark sense of humor and the pitiless temperament of his films caused some to label him a misanthropist, though I’d say he qualifies more as a realist.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 02/19/2026

“It’s to La Cava’s great credit that these madcap shenanigans never feel forced or shrill. The long, elegantly constructed scenes accumulate characters and momentum like a snowball rolling down a hill. This was a glorious period in American cinema during which everyone spoke as quickly as possible. Even bad jokes sound funny if you say them fast enough.” – Crooked Marquee, 02/06/2026

“The pop music equivalent of The Star Wars Holiday Special. Both take place in that gaudy, bedazzled twilight time between the hoary ‘old showbiz’ vaudeville traditions of early television and the sleek, empty gloss that would come to define 1980s entertainment. It really was a ghastly aesthetic. Everything looks like moldering, aged cheese. With lasers.” – Crooked Marquee, 02/03/2026

“Trailblazers are saddled with the unfair burden of their actions becoming a referendum on their entire community. It took a class act like Sidney Poitier to desegregate Hollywood superstardom because he needed to be the antithesis of every stupid, hateful stereotype that movies had been helping to poison the world with since the medium was invented.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 02/02/2026

“A deeply moral movie that tap-dances on third-rail subject matter and throws around verboten language to call out the racism and hypocrisy undergirding America’s cherished frontier myths. Blazing Saddles is as powerful a revisionist Western as Unforgiven or Little Big Man, it’s just incredibly silly about it. The film is full of childish humor, but treats you like an adult.” – Crooked Marquee, 01/30/2026

“Despite being one of the most violent movies ever made, the predominant feeling is that of joy. The swirling camera works as a dance partner to these absurdly charismatic performers and the nimble grace with which they glide through the destruction. You find yourself laughing aloud, not derisively, but in gratitude because you can’t believe what you’re seeing.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/22/2026

“Suffused with a gentle, trickster spirit, the picture’s rose-tinted, Depression era Americana and idealized notions of honor among thieves are even bigger cons than the one pulled off by the protagonists. But we in the audience are willing marks. The Sting is both a grift and a great escape. It makes you nostalgic for something that never was.” – Crooked Marquee, 01/16/2026