”There are ideas here about cultural appropriation being a form of vampirism, also a tantalizing angle about Blacks and the Irish sharing a history of oppression, plus some bracingly heretical notions about Christianity. Just as Sinners never exclusively belongs to a single genre, it’s also never about just one thing. The movie is too wildly ambitious and overstuffed for that.” – North Shore Movies, 04/17/2025

“The film follows Young hitting the Pacific Coast Highway for a tour of outdoor venues in 2023. It’s a lot of iPhone and GoPro footage of varying quality, with an easygoing emphasis on the downtime between gigs. The mellowest of hangout movies, there’s a laid-back charm to the picture and I found myself admiring its cozy willingness to be boring.” – North Shore Movies, 04/16/2025

“Recent events seem intent on reminding us that we’re never quite as far along as we think we are, so Lee’s beloved farce gets a thoughtful 2025 makeover from director Andrew Ahn, who finds a few fresh angles on the old story while mining the material more for melodrama than comedy. It’s a warm-hearted movie that probably could have used a few more laughs.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/16/2025

“Based on Mendoza’s actual experiences in Ramadi, it’s a real-time chronicle of U.S. Navy SEALs attempting to extract a wounded soldier from a house under siege that’s so stripped of any drama or editorializing sometimes it barely feels like a movie. I will concede that Warfare is a technically impressive achievement. But good God, y’all. What is it good for?” – North Shore Movies, 04/11/2025

”This revelation carries The Friend past a few false endings, and it’s the smartest thing about the film’s refusal to anthropomorphize Apollo. We may never be able to fully comprehend those we choose to share our lives with. In the end, people are as frustrating, complicated and essentially unknowable as another species altogether. But we can love them.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/03/2025

”Supposedly adapted from a novel by The Punisher writer Chuck Dixon, the screenplay by Ayer and Sylvester Stallone is an uncredited amalgam of Liam Neeson dad fantasies warmed over with sprinkles of Epstein QAnon seasoning and a lot of dolorous honor and duty stuff about the armed forces. It’s all pretty draggy, downcast and should have been a lot more fun.” – North Shore Movies, 03/27/2025

”It’s a Guiraudie movie without any onscreen sex, yet it’s the one in which characters are driven daffiest by their desires. Repression makes everything worse, it seems. Misericordia has a wicked sense of humor that sneaks up on you. It’s an uneasy, pokerfaced kind of comedy that thrives on the viewer stewing in discomfort over the increasingly amoral twists.” – North Shore Movies, 03/27/2025

”Director Burnett’s whimsical 1999 romance was long thought lost for good; a casualty of cruel critics, fickle distributors and the precarious indie film ecosystem. But thanks to the valiant rescue efforts of the good folks at Milestone Film and Video, a new 4K restoration of this quirky little charmer is finally seeing the light of a projector at the Brattle Theatre.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 03/26/2025

“A bizarre vanity project for Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, this baffling, tacky simulacrum of a prestige picture only makes sense as a bid for garden party respectability from the purveyor of Dr. Pimple Popper and MILF Manor. The Alto Knights is an almost unfathomably boring movie, so inert it feels like the film itself has achieved senescence.” – North Shore Movies, 03/21/2025