“Thematically, it’s a continuation of Oppenheimer, Nolan’s masterpiece in which a brilliant American Prometheus stole the power of the gods and doomed the world while trying to save it. Odysseus has likewise broken a sacred covenant for what he thinks is the greater good, unleashing unforeseen consequences that will reverberate through the ages.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/15/2026

“You can see a clear generational divide in the reception to these films, with most of us old fogeys mystified by the idea of an Evil Dead movie that doesn’t have Bruce Campbell shrieking and making Three Stooges noises while being punched repeatedly in the face. Taking all the kidding out of films that are essentially send-ups is certainly a choice.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/12/2026

“The troupe’s trademark blend of anti-comedy non sequiturs feels even more random than usual in this slapdash outing, replete with unfunny, starfucky cameos. Garishly overlit with a distracting reliance on fake bluescreen backgrounds, it’s the first theatrically released motion picture I’ve seen that could pass for a cellular telephone commercial.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/10/2026

“The set of self-imposed limitations creates its own aesthetic. Jenkin’s hand-cranked camera won’t run for more than 28 seconds at a time, forcing him to tell the story in a series of punchy, discrete images. Our brains assemble the scenes almost like a mental jigsaw puzzle. It’s amazing how many gaps your mind fills in for you when prompted properly.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/09/2026

“Bernstein shoots the phone calls like fuck scenes, the first one climaxing with Eleni wrapped in the curly white cord as if it were bondage gear. It’s lurid and faintly ridiculous, yet knowingly so. She’s doing what Cronenberg did with Crash, exploring the destructive aspects of desire by fabricating a kink nobody has and examining it from the outside in.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/09/2026

“It’s a generational divide you don’t see addressed much in film and television, where typically older folks are presented as prigs who can’t handle the candor of rebellious youth. As an aging Gen Xer, I’m thrilled to see a movie about how these days it feels like the opposite is true, expressly calling out millennials for being annoying little prudes.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/02/2026

“Shot by the superb cinematographer Hélène Louvart, whose handheld poetry is key to the films of Alice Rohrwacher and Eliza Hittman, Romería is a little confounding at first, but never less than visually ravishing. Llúcia Garcia, who plays Marina, has one of those captivating faces that can hold the camera all day. She even looks great with bangs.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/02/2026

“You don’t see a lot of children’s cartoons throwing around jokes about Eadweard Muybridge and Georges Méliès. But much to my delight, Minions & Monsters is stuffed silly with clever references to the early days of cinema. I applaud director Pierre Coffin for packing this film with jokes that even his target audience’s grandparents are too young to get.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/01/2026

“Given the nationalistic tenor of the proceedings, it’s amusing that they cast the most English-looking actor I’ve ever seen as George Washington. William Franklyn-Miller even has the name of a cad in a Jane Austen novel, and from certain angles he’s a ringer for Helena Bonham Carter. He’s one bad tooth away from being a human scone.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 06/29/2026

“Resting on laurels and recycling old footage, it’s the film equivalent of a classic rock band releasing a greatest hits album and tacking on a few middling new tracks so that fans have to re-buy a bunch of songs we already own. You know Knoxville and the gang are out of gas when they can’t even make cameraman Lance Bangs throw up.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 06/26/2026