EXIT STRATEGY: ROBERT BRESSON’S THE DEVIL, PROBABLY

“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

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WERNER HERZOG: EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AND GOD AGAINST ALL


“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

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TONAL TURBULENCE AND UNFRIENDLY SKIES: THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER

”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

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EARLY SHORT FILMS OF THE FRENCH NEW WAVE


“The styles and subject matter are all over the map. The one constant is a sense of endless possibility. With the liberation of location shooting, lightweight cameras and faster film stocks came a new language of expression, which manifested in many of these movies as an intoxicating irreverence, the feeling that old rules were made to be broken.” – North Shore Movies, 09/18/2023

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REMEMBERING ROBBIE: THE LAST WALTZ

“It’s like a music history class taught by instructors who are all a little zonked. Robertson was only 33 when the film was shot, the same age as another Scorsese protagonist who pulled into Nazareth. And if I could have one wish for the world, it’s that we all may someday find somebody who looks at us the way Martin Scorsese photographs Robbie Robertson.” – Crooked Marquee, 09/08/2023

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THE DIRTY STORIES OF JEAN EUSTACHE


“The series showcases a dozen of the director’s documentaries, features and shorts, headlined by a new 4K restoration of The Mother And The Whore. Films with such outsized reputations don’t always live up to them, but an afternoon spent finally catching up with Eustache’s masterpiece turned out to be one of the great moviegoing experiences of my life.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 09/05/2023

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BARBIE’S ROOTS AT THE BRATTLE


Barbie is crammed with so many homages and allusions to classic films that we critics could spend the entire running time Ken-splaining all the references. A more enjoyable alternative can be found at the Brattle Theatre this week, where their Barbie’s Roots retrospective presents thirteen of director Greta Gerwig’s inspirations for her billion-dollar blockbuster.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/28/2023

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HIP-HOP CRIME FILMS AT THE COOLIDGE


“The Coolidge’s Hip-Hop At 50 celebration takes a dark detour with a week of gritty crime dramas. All four of these films pulsate with street-level views of American life unseen in suburban multiplexes until the music of the cities started a pop culture revolution. Hip-hop helped reinvent the cops and robbers genre for an era of gangbangers and crack cocaine.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/19/2023

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NOTHING FROM NEVERS: HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR


“Is there a way to employ such imagery responsibly? Is it even possible in a piece of entertainment? These are some of the questions haunting Alain Resnais’ thrillingly complicated contemplation of historical trauma and shared memory in the guise of a fleeting romance. Hiroshima Mon Amour spans decades while remaining stubbornly in the present tense.” – Crooked Marquee, 08/18/2023

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IFFBOSTON’S SIGHT AND SOUND SUMMER VACATION AT THE SOMERVILLE


“‘The more you love movies the harder it is to make lists,’ says Tamm. ‘When people ask for my favorite film, lately I’ve been saying Singin’ In The Rain. Since lockdown, I must have watched it a dozen times. To see it in the same canon as Tokyo Story and 2001 is great. It’s a movie maybe some people wouldn’t think of as a foundational film, but it absolutely is.’” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/17/2023

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