”The film follows an unemployed family struggling in London’s East End council estates, bluntly confronting the grinding boredom of life on the dole and the seething resentments it breeds. Nearly everything in the film is curdled and ugly, even the humor aggressive and sour. It’s one of the most vivid depictions of how people without purpose turn on each other.” – Crooked Marquee, 01/31/2025

“The Coolidge Corner Theatre celebrates Black History Month with Icons, a six-film retrospective shining a spotlight on groundbreaking performances from throughout the years. The series kicks off with Carmen Jones, director Otto Preminger’s fascinating 1954 attempt to film Oscar Hammerstein II’s Broadway update of Bizet’s Carmen with an all-Black cast.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/30/2025

”From the missing apostrophe in the title to the herky-jerky, handheld camera and constantly slipping focus, Pennebaker’s film feautres none of the spit and polish one usually sees in showbiz docs. It’s a lot of bumpy rides from one nondescript hotel room to another, probably the most accurate depiction ever filmed of the tensions and tedium of life on the road.” – Crooked Marquee, 01/24/2025

Had a nice chat with Hanna Ali for WBUR’s The Weekender. The subject was movies where snow sets the scene, so I picked Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys, Steven Soderbergh’s Out Of Sight and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Also, shout-outs to Dr. Zhivago, Batman Returns and anything where James Bond is skiing. – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/03/2025

”White Christmas really isn’t much of a Christmas movie. It’s more of a backstage musical with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye as Broadway superstars putting together a benefit show while romancing a singing sister act played by Rosemary Clooney and the dazzling Vera-Ellen. They’re all awfully cute and it’s written in such a way that nobody has to try very hard.” – Crooked Marquee, 12/20/2024

“The ringmaster is a sweaty, corpulent wreck having paint-peeling, Strindbergian arguments with the voluptuous bareback rider Anne (Harriet Andersson) with whom he fled from his wife and children. Bergman was in the midst of an affair with Andersson at the time and his camera is positively in thrall to her fleshy sensuality and Bettie Page bangs.” – Crooked Marquee, 12/13/2024

”We both had pretty different ideas of what we wanted from cinema, but he taught me a way to engage with the world. Brudnoy actively sought out people with different perspectives and life experiences. I think that was part of why he loved going to the movies every day — meeting new characters, hearing new stories, always more opportunities to learn.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/09/2024

“Mitchum was 57 years old and he looked every minute of it; a shambling, still-handsome wreck whose trademark sleepy eyes were sinking deeper by the day. This isn’t the unflappable wiseass Bogart played in The Big Sleep, but rather an older, sadder guy who can’t help but do the right thing and always ends up with nothing to show for it but a broken heart.” – Crooked Marquee, 11/22/2024

“A monstrously funny middle finger of a movie that serves as a splenetic lean-in to pretty much every personal and professional criticism Allen has faced throughout his career. It’s a nasty picture, but feels liberating and fresh. Shaking off any semblance of decorum or need to be liked by the audience, the movie is unapologetic, even exhilarating in its rottenness.“ – Crooked Marquee, 11/14/2024

”The notorious and oft-banned 1976 debut of writer-director Catherine Breillat is gross, shocking and undeniably the work of a major artist, even when it feels like a work in progress. This fragmented, expressionistic coming-of-age tale depicts a young woman’s pubescence as a sticky, horned-up horrorshow of errant desires and bodily betrayals.” – Crooked Marquee, 11/08/2024