“An exercise in pure craftsmanship, master director Steven Soderbergh’s latest doodle for a streaming service finds the filmmaker in down-and-dirty Haywire mode again, distilling a hooky idea into 89 minutes of all-killer, no-filler entertainment. It’s the kind of movie people like me are talking about when we whine that they don’t make ’em like this anymore.” – North Shore Movies, 02/14/2022

“But movies being what they are these days and Branagh being Branagh, our sleuth is significantly slimmed down and must secretly be suffering. Seems like every other film now has to be ‘about trauma.’ Thus, in the most inadvertently hilarious addition to Christie’s canon, Branagh begins with a tragic, black-and-white origin story for his silly mustache.” – North Shore Movies, 02/14/2022

“Trier is heavily indebted to the French New Wave, and this picture’s most beguiling moment arrives after Julie and Eivind first meet, when all of Oslo seems to freeze in its tracks as she sprints through the stilled streets, giddy with the first flush of infatuation. But eventually the world has to start moving again. It always does. That’s what the movie’s about.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 02/10/2022

“They have great voices. Slate’s got that unexpectedly versatile baby doll squeak, which harmonizes quite nicely with Day’s exasperated rasp. These two *sound* funny together, which allows them to pull off the sometimes sorry dialogue. I laughed out loud at more than a few lines that are clearly not funny on paper, just because of how the stars said them.” – North Shore Movies, 02/10/2022

“The most gloriously indecorous entertainment I’ve seen in ages and the hardest I’ve laughed in a movie theater since lord knows when. It’s a non-stop barrage of elementally idiotic behavior, daredevil foolishness and a marvel of ingenuity in the realm of genital trauma. If nothing else, this film is visual testament to the astonishing durability of the male scrotum.” – North Shore Movies, 02/04/2022

“Alastair has a habit of quoting Hamlet, which can’t help but recall Gibson’s own celebrated take on the melancholy Dane, here filtered through the regrets of a character fallen far from the heights of his profession due to demons and drink, working on a hacky project he can’t stand, reciting the gravedigger speech to a classroom of confused preschoolers.” – North Shore Movies, 02/04/2022

“Where Antonioni asked us to embrace the mystery, Franco’s film is about getting answers. Eventually, annoyingly and anticlimactically as possible. We discover that Roth’s relationship with Gainsbourg is not what we’d at first assumed, though the revelation carries next to no weight whatsoever. In fact, the more we learn, the less interesting Sundown becomes.” – North Shore Movies, 02/04/2022

“One of the more pointless examples of Hollywood’s fetish for IP strip-mining, this 26-years-later sequel to the winking ‘90s phenomenon surrounds a new cast with a few of your favorite old characters and basically re-enacts the original picture with enough nostalgic nods to give undiscerning viewers obsessed with their own childhoods quote-unquote all the feels.” – North Shore Movies, 01/14/2022

“At once an experiment and a retrenchment. After all, what is Shakespeare’s Macbeth but another of Coen’s beloved noirs? The Thane of Cawdor and his conniving bride commit a stupid crime and spend the rest of the picture compounding its consequences, trying to keep from getting caught as the corpses pile up around them. There are even two idiot hitmen.” – North Shore Movies, 01/14/2022

“Hamaguchi has often cited Cassavates as an inspiration, which makes sense when you see the uptight etiquette as a Japanese equivalent to the American filmmaker’s backslapping bravado. They’re both false fronts that the movies take the time and care to peel away, revealing the roles we play and the emotions roiling underneath everyday life.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 01/13/2022