“One of my favorite Oscar moments occurred during the 2002 ceremony when Robert Altman and David Lynch both lost the Academy Award for Best Director to Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind. Lynch later recollected that when Howard’s name was announced, Altman had called him over, pulled him close and said, ‘It’s better this way, David.’” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 02/27/2025

”However hard To Live and Die in L.A. might try to look and sound like another gleaming, shitty ‘80s movie, it’s got the rotting, miserable soul of a 1970s masterpiece. The movie’s slick, music video affectations can’t conceal the fundamental scuzziness. All the golden sunsets and neon lights feel like a battered woman’s smudged makeup over a black eye.” – Crooked Marquee, 02/21/2025

”Look, I’m not saying that every middle school kid should be allowed to see Blue Velvet, but watching it at that age blew open a lot of doors in my mind about what art was and what movies could do. Lynch taught us how to see films and television as more than mere plot delivery devices and embrace the many moods and mysteries they’re capable of conjuring.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 02/07/2025

”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