“Adele Lim’s gleefully vulgar directorial debut sends four friends on a raunchy road trip to China, toppling every prim and proper Asian stereotype along the way. Joy Ride is an awfully generic title, but I suppose it makes sense when you learn that Lim and co-screenwriters Teresa Hsiao and Cherry Chevapravatdumrong originally called it The Joy Fuck Club.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/06/2023

“Delpy is so much fun as the left-field femme fatale that you can’t help but wish the film had pushed things even further. (Anyone who’s seen Hudson Hawk knows Richard E. Grant can go a lot higher than over-the-top.) It’s capably directed by TV vet Troughton, but what the screenplay needed was a baroque stylist to really lean into all the lurid trickery.” – North Shore Movies, 07/06/2023

“Almost nothing in the picture works. The action sequences are a smeary hodgepodge of poorly composited greenscreen effects and weightless, rubbery digital doubles being tossed around without consequence. There’s no snap to these scenes, none of the unexpected cause-and-effect punchlines that make the earlier movies so much fun to watch.“ – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 06/29/2023

“Gather ‘round kids, and let grandpa here tell you about these things called comedies. See, strangers used to congregate in theaters and laugh at the amusing situations in which movie stars found themselves. Most of these scenarios involved getting laid, or at least wanting to very badly. Alas, this desire has all but vanished from mainstream American cinema.” – North Shore Movies, 06/28/2023

“Asteroid City is an ingeniously constructed hall of mirrors that collapses in on itself like a house of cards, all the while asking big questions about the mysteries of the universe and the ways in which we use science and art to make sense of a cruel world we cannot understand. This is Wes Anderson’s most philosophical film, and one of his very best.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 06/23/2023

“Keaton’s stiff, mechanical movements in that cumbersome suit have been replaced by smooth CGI stuntwork that’s especially absurd considering this is supposed to be a 71-year-old man. Worst of all, his Batman hasn’t been written as the kinky weirdo of Burton’s movies. He’s just another retro nostalgia prop in a film overwhelmed by references and in-jokes.” – North Shore Movies, 06/16/2023

“It’s disconcerting to see big stars like Jon Hamm and Tina Fey in something this cheap and thrown together. Slattery’s sophomore effort is distractingly incompetent on a basic production level. It looks like a student short full of threadbare sets, sloppy signage and some of the most laughably unconvincing TV chyrons I’ve ever seen in a film.” – North Shore Movies, 06/16/2023

“You keep worrying that the screenplay will resort to some dumb misunderstanding or try to gin up the stakes with one of them doing something stupid and ugly. But this is a movie about nice people in a tricky situation doing their best to be honest and kind, which is somehow so much more suspenseful than any hypothetical bodice-ripper.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 06/09/2023

“The first twenty minutes are extraordinary. The last twenty are infuriating. In between them sprawl another hundred minutes or so of swirling, kaleidoscopic adventure and some of the wildest animated visuals ever put to the big screen, albeit bogged down at times by some baffling storytelling choices. Caveat emptor: This is only half a movie.” – North Shore Movies, 06/06/2023

“The wily and surprising Sanctuary reminds me of independent films from an earlier era, back when stuff you’d see at Sundance wasn’t as concerned about sending the right social messages and instead got messy and mixed things up a little. This isn’t a dirty or explicit picture. If anything, it might be a little too tasteful in that regard. But it’s a fun film for grown-ups.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 06/01/2023