“Sir Ian McKellen has been loaning his Shakespearean gravitas to franchise films for so long it’s easy for movie audiences to forget how marvelous he can be when he’s asked to actually act. Steven Soderbergh’s new film comes as such a sweet relief because it reminds us of everything McKellen can do when he’s not stranded in front of a green screen.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/16/2026

“Hill is clearly writing from painful lived experiences here, but without the perspective of having come out on the other side of them. As the kids say, he’s ‘posting through it,’ and the movie’s weird contradictions and tonal see-saws make for a bracing viewing experience. I can’t really defend the movie, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 04/12/2026

“This is where the compression of the text feels really limiting. We’re so locked into the main character’s mania that there’s no variation in tone, no comic relief nor any of the grace notes that make Shakespeare’s saga so rich. This might be the shortest Hamlet I’ve seen, but it feels like one of the longest because every scene is played at the same pitch.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/09/2026

“The sheer volume of time we spend with these people is needed to convey the weird normalization of life under authoritarianism. It depicts how we all adjust to massive affronts to our cherished ideals and personal liberties while everyone finds a way to go on with the day-to-day business of living, even as the world changes forever around us.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 04/02/2026

“If you like laughing at things we’re not supposed to joke about, I’ve got good news. Teetering on the edge of tastelessness and pushing touchy buttons with diabolical delight, The Drama is the most provocative American movie I’ve seen since Eddington, and will probably be just as divisive. The film feels a little dangerous, like it wants to start an argument.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 03/31/2026

“It’s a wry comic insight that a character too timid to assert himself would be the desired companion of egomaniacs, but Shear doesn’t make big enough of an impression to fully pull it off. A week after seeing the film I’m having a hard time remembering what he looks like. Fantasy Life is like watching a Woody Allen movie in which Woody doesn’t tell any jokes.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 03/30/2026

“A bit of a puff piece and never less (or more) than pleasant, it’s a cozy hang with the cool kids. Anyone who has seen how I present myself in public already knows I haven’t the slightest interest in fashion, but I do enjoy aesthetics and these breezy 87 minutes cram something like 40 years of striking looks into an overview of a career that’s still going.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 03/26/2026

“As gentle as the cascading Ravel suite from which the film takes its title, Miroirs No. 3 is airy and bright. There’s nothing insistent about it, leaving room for the audience to bring our own interpretations. It’s easy to watch in a way that makes movie critics reach for adjectives like ‘minor’ and ‘slight,’ but a more careful examination reveals a picture that’s anything but.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 03/26/2026

“Most of this blather sounds like stuff from one of those Tarantino knockoffs that cluttered video store shelves in the ‘90s, like an elder millennial’s Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead. The movie tirelessly repeats stupid hitman nicknames and considers the height of comedy to be hardened gangsters discussing incongruously feminine TV shows.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 03/23/2026

“Director David Kittredge’s sympathetic and engrossing documentary argues that Exorcist II: The Heretic was not a failed franchise cash-in, but rather one of those grandiosely intentioned, late-1970s Icarus flights where an auteur high on his own supply steered too close to the sun. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen about the making of a movie.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 03/20/2026