”Not every first-time filmmaker comes out of the gate with a stone cold masterpiece, but a surprising number have come pretty close. Debut features arrive in all shapes and sizes, as we can see from a wonderfully extensive retrospective running at the Coolidge Corner Theatre over the next few months in celebration of the venue’s upcoming expansion.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/01/2023

“America’s loss of innocence writ large – and I mean really large – The Deer Hunter is a work of such self-conscious, chest-thumping grandiosity that it’s easy to see why the film has fallen out of favor in some circles. Yet there’s something elemental about the movie’s boys’ adventure machismo, a primal force that overpowers Cimino’s more cartoonish flourishes.” – Crooked Marquee, 11/17/2023

“Unavailable for years except via bootlegs and old, out-of-print Miramax DVDs, director Chen Kaige’s magisterial 1993 melodrama Farewell My Concubine is finally back on the big screen, celebrating its 30th anniversary at the Brattle Theatre in a spectacular new uncut 4K digital restoration. Even if you’ve seen the movie, you’ve never seen it like this.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 11/03/2023

”Slyly makes a metaphor out of the literal skeletons beneath 1980s prosperity as exemplified by the Cuesta Verde development, lending this haunted house picture a thematic complexity that foreshadows Spielberg’s more overt interrogations of American myths a decade or so later. I mean, there’s a reason the movie begins with the National Anthem.” – Crooked Marquee, 10/27/2023

“You know that horror films are always better with a crowd. Shocktober brings an embarrassment of riches for Boston area moviegoers looking for something even more terrifying than trying to park in Salem. With more than two dozen frightening films screening locally during the run up to All Hallows’ Eve, here are six favorites to get you started.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 10/25/2023

“Nobody’s better at feigning astonishment at things she obviously knew were going to happen. I’ve long thought one of the smartest things Swift ever did was not learning how to dance very well. She’s such a disciplined workhorse she could probably do so in a weekend, but the slightly goofy gait helps keep her relatable, at once larger than life and the girl next door.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 10/17/2023

“If you find your way onto Bresson’s frequency, his films can feel like they’ve transcended cinema’s inherent artifice and found a purer, more exaltedly spiritual mode of storytelling. There’s a reason Paul Schrader has made an entire career out of remaking Pickpocket and Diary Of A Country Priest. There’s also a reason Bresson’s most beloved movie stars a donkey.” – Crooked Marquee, 10/13/2023

“At once a mystic oracle and half-kidding huckster, legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog has spent his six-decade career shooting on seven different continents, chronicling humankind’s fraught relationship with a cruel and indifferent universe through thirty-four documentaries and twenty dramatic features, as well as dozens of shorts, operas and television programs.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 10/09/2023

”There’s no better actor than Robert Redford when it comes to being full of shit. Here’s a guy who devoted his entire career to finding cracks in his own impossibly handsome facade. He’s always playing characters too good to be true, because they are. Yet I can’t help feeing he’s a little miscast here. Redford’s too pensive a performer to sell Waldo’s recklessness.” – Crooked Marquee, 09/29/2023