“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
“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
“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
“‘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
“Traveling across a highly stylized, egalitarian America full of loveable weirdos and eccentrics, our hero befriends escaped convicts, toothless hobos, ghost truckers, biker dudes and a diner waitress who dreams of moving to Paris. In its openhearted embrace of misfits on the margins, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is basically a John Waters movie for kids.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/14/2023
“It’s a potential parent’s worst-case nightmare of an ugly, unlovable time-suck taking over your life and the sleep-deprived psychosis of a purgatorial existence with a sick, disgusting child that Will. Not. Stop. Crying. Basically, if you’ve ever had a panic attack worrying that you might have knocked up your girlfriend, this is the movie playing in your head.” – Crooked Marquee, 08/04/2023
“A manhunt movie suffused with melancholy longing for past glories in the face of a morose, mundane present. Disguised as a film noir, it’s actually a precursor to the early 1960s British kitchen sink dramas, one crime plot away from This Sporting Life or Saturday Night And Sunday Morning. I’m guessing this was an important film for a young Mike Leigh.” – Crooked Marquee, 07/28/2023
“Released a year after The Bad News Bears, Slap Shot comes from a cultural moment when foul-mouthed sports comedies were how America explained itself to itself. It’s no coincidence that the opening credits unspool over Old Glory, and the country depicted is at a dead end. What else is left to do but get out there on the ice and goon it up for the crowd?” – Crooked Marquee, 07/21/2023
“However disparate in content and tone, Barbie and Oppenheimer are both distinctive visions from filmmakers who have a lot on their minds. You can wait all summer for a blockbuster that’s actually about something, and here come two on the same day. But I don’t recommend trying to do them as a double feature, no matter what Tom Cruise says.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/20/2023
“Allen might be the only primary creative force of the 1970s New Hollywood movement who never became a household name. Hagiographies of that era tend to trend toward blowhard, masculine director types, but it was this prim and proper female cutter who redefined the shapes and sounds of the most fertile decade in American cinema.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/18/2023
SPLICED PERSONALITY 