”One of those post-Apatow comedies in which likable television personalities stand around ad-libbing and pulling faces over a promising premise that hasn’t been fleshed out into a story. Without looking it up, I’m guessing Babes probably premiered to easy-lay raves and some sort of ridiculous ovation at SXSW. I’m honestly shocked Kumail Nanjiani isn’t in it.” – North Shore Movies, 05/17/2024

”Granted, it’s still an exploitation picture. But it’s an uncommonly thoughtful and haunting one, bumping up against the limitations of the genre in fascinating ways. Too somber and meditative to thrill its target audience while a little too cheap and skanky to be the moody meditation Hornisher is shooting for, it’s curiously affecting all the same.” – North Shore Movies, 05/09/2024

”There’s something intentionally disjointed about the filmmaking. The camera angles are slightly obtuse and ambient sounds are mixed distractingly loud. Hamaguchi deliberately uses such disorienting cinematic devices to evoke the disharmony and inevitable imbalances in man’s relationship to nature. His scenic shots of the forest are hardly soothing.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 05/08/2024

”Sometimes we just want to watch movie stars being charming. The Fall Guy understands this well enough that you’re inclined to give the rest of the messy movie a pass. Still, a shorter, cheaper version probably would have worked a whole lot better. It’s easy to imagine a 105-minute incarnation directed by John Badham being a mid-summer programmer back in 1988.” – North Shore Movies, 05/02/2024

”Lee’s novel became a sensation on TikTok, probably because it keys into some of the weirdest mental health issues infecting our youth-obsessed culture. Alas, the movie has been carefully engineered to avoid or at least gloss over most of these matters in favor of an excessively pleasant wish fulfillment fantasy buoyed by the chemistry between its two leads.” – North Shore Movies, 05/02/2024

“Challengers may not be a great movie, but it’s the kind I wish we saw more of: unabashedly lusty even if that means being a bit ridiculous sometimes. One floridly melodramatic encounter between Tashi and Patrick in an alley is punctuated by squalls of litter and stray newspapers whipping through the air, as if a twister had been stirred up by their roiling passions.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/25/2024

”There’s a lot of blather in this talky Tarantino knock-off, which feels like a script that’s been sitting in somebody’s desk drawer since the late 1990s that’s been dusted off and hastily updated with only the most annoying contemporary horror trends. It’s the worst of both worlds, really, which is too bad because the idea behind the movie is admittedly juicy.” – North Shore Movies, 04/19/2024

”The biggest impression is made by brick shithouse Alan Ritchson, star of the Amazon series Reacher, which has gotten two seasons so far out of how much fun it is to watch a human tree trunk break stuff. Here he plays a smiling, psychotic Swede so powerful that when he uses a bow and arrow, the arrows sail straight through his targets and also kill the guys behind them.” – North Shore Movies, 04/18/2024

”Do you have to fully understand a movie in order to enjoy it? I don’t think so. Such was the case when I emerged in a pleasantly confounded state from The Beast at last year’s New York Film Festival. I saw the picture again last week and I’m not sure that I’m any closer to wrapping my head around it, but if anything I’m even more impressed. It’s a whole mood, this movie.” – North Shore Movies, 04/14/2024

”Sting is basically like E.T. except if Elliott had instead befriended a venomous space insect that wanted to eat Drew Barrymore. It’s curious that Charlotte calls the spider Sting, since spiders don’t actually sting people and it would obviously be a better name for a either a bee or the bassist from a reggae-influenced ‘80s New Wave band, but I digress.” – North Shore Movies, 04/14/2024