“None of these practical concerns have any impact on the central romance, and One Night Only isn’t engaged enough with its high-concept to entertain that kind of scrutiny. A lot of the online nitpicking reminds me of a regular at my old bookstore who used to scream about how Star Trek was bad because ‘their system of currency makes no sense.’” – Spliced Personality Substack, 08/07/2026

“It’s also kind of a bummer to remember how high culture was once seen as aspirational, and that we could have a rock star conductor like Leonard Bernstein who strived to make the arts accessible to everyone. I grew up in a Boston where Arthur Fiedler was as revered a local hero as Carl Yastrzemski. It wasn’t that long ago.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 08/05/2026

“Charli XCX plays the kind of girlfriend who complains that ‘we just had sex eleven days ago,’ and her unenthusiastic faking of an orgasm is one of the funniest bits of business I’ve watched in a while. It does your heart proud to see young Cooper Hoffman following in his father Philip Seymour’s footsteps as one of the great movie masturbators.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/31/2026

“In its gentle, unassuming way, Penny Lane’s enchanting documentary made me think about the mysteries of the natural world as much as any Terrence Malick or Werner Herzog picture. It’s a movie about ecosystems and our place in the pecking order, about behaviors that are taught and those that are ingrained through millions of years of evolution.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/30/2026

“Even the opening Marvel logo music is melancholy. With its themes of emotional abandonment, institutional betrayal and a torture-happy third act, Brand New Day is interestingly ambitious but really not very much fun. A bit visually jazzier than the woeful recent franchise standard. At times it almost looks like you’re watching a real movie.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/28/2026

“McElwee explains how Adrian’s death made his life feel like a movie with the reels out of order. Remake is his way of sorting through all these impressions and emotions, trying to make them make sense. We’re watching a master storyteller attempt to impose a narrative on a tragedy that stubbornly refuses to comply. Things just disappear.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/28/2026

“Absolutely terrible, but maybe also kind of great? There’s a mulish integrity to Her Private Hell. Can you call something a failure when it succeeds in being exactly the movie the director wanted to make? The logical endpoint of Refn’s whole deal, like he’s reached his final form. I’m morbidly fascinated to see where he could possibly take things from here.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/24/2026

“Like a lot of great poets, Mary Oliver made what she did look easy. Try it. It’s not. Waters’ engaging documentary strips the artist of that annoying aura of Oprah-fication, burrowing beyond the gaseous platitudes into concrete examinations of her poems that demonstrate how Oliver’s writing is more complex than its reputation might lead one to believe.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 07/20/2026

“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