“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

“In whatever form you may find it, Kill Bill remains perhaps the purest distillation of its auteur’s fetishes and fixations, mixing and matching spaghetti westerns, samurai sagas, blaxploitation, kung fu epics and grindhouse rape-revenge pictures into a lavishly produced, cinematically sophisticated smorgasbord of low culture and high style.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/04/2025

“Lancaster’s crisp elocution was never put to more satisfyingly sinister ends, portraying the writer as a tightly-wound, sexless automaton. Hunsecker’s dead-eyed stare came from the actor smearing Vaseline on his glasses so he couldn’t focus on anyone in front of him. It’s how he seems to be looking through everybody. He certainly sees through Sidney.” – Crooked Marquee, 11/21/2025

“A four-seater plane transporting Mitchum to the movie’s Bridgeport location lost its brakes and crashed through a fence into an outhouse. The actor climbed out of the wreck and hitchhiked to set. The panicked production team had just heard news of the crash and were scrambling for details when a scuffed Mitchum sauntered up and asked if anybody had any weed.” – Crooked Marquee, 11/07/2025

“Keaton is incandescent in the film, an instant icon in her wide-brimmed hats and men’s ties. Alvy jokes about her black soap and adult education classes, but we can see Annie is an explorer. The gift of Keaton’s performance – which is even more remarkable given the non-chronological structure – is how she allows us to observe Annie growing into herself.” – Crooked Marquee, 10/24/2025

“The nice thing about living in one of the greatest movie cities in the world is that there are more than 40 horror flicks you can go see on a giant screen with a sound system that blows away any setup you have at home. Besides, there’s something healthy about screaming along with strangers. It reminds us that we’re all in this together.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 10/21/2025

“Pontecorvo said he wanted the movie to feel like ‘a stolen historical document’ and his groundbreaking appropriation of newsreel techniques blurs the lines between documentary and fiction filmmaking to dizzying effect. Early release prints had a disclaimer informing audiences that no actual news footage was used in the picture. That’s still kind of hard to believe.” – Crooked Marquee, 10/10/2025

“Linda Linda Linda accumulates ephemeral grace notes and wry asides before blowing the doors off with a euphoric climax of pure punk rock elation, one of the happiest endings I’ve ever seen in a movie. I can still recall exactly where I was sitting at the Brattle that afternoon 20 years ago, because I was practically levitating out of my chair.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 10/02/2025