“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

“It’s not just that he’s missing the mustache, he’s also got none of the trademark, smirky joie de vivre. Reynolds moves a couple of beats behind everyone else in the picture, accepting these increasingly absurd situations with a forlorn smile. Even his toupee looks less robust than usual. It’s affecting work, vulnerable in ways we’re not used to seeing the star.” – Crooked Marquee, 01/09/2026

“Redford spends a not inconsiderable amount of All The President’s Men on the phone, silently reacting to an offscreen voice, a big ask for any performer and not the easiest thing to make compelling on camera. But he was always so great at that kind of acting. Redford projected such an easy intelligence that you loved to watch him thinking things through.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/16/2025

“Cruise was at the height of his movie star powers, yet we’ve never seen him as diminished as he is in Eyes Wide Shut. He’s never looked so short or ill at ease, with Kubrick’s endless re-takes deliberately sanding all the natural charm off his line readings. Kidman towers over him not just physically, but also transforms into an abruptly unattainable object of mystery.” – Crooked Marquee, 12/12/2025

“Mystery Train is playful that way, using the overlapping incidents in the three stories not to make one of those grandiose ‘everyone is connected’ statements that became an easy way to get invited to the Oscars in the early 2000s, but rather to reflect how differently we all experience the same things. In other words, some people prefer Carl Perkins.” – Crooked Marquee, 12/05/2025