“If only they knew when to leave well enough alone. Alas, Moore is so hell bent on ripping the rug out from underneath the audience he winds up negating everything we’ve been emotionally invested in for the sake of silly shock value. You should go see it and leave five minutes early, because the surprise ending is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen.” – North Shore Movies, 03/18/2022

“It’s become increasingly depressing to watch Gibson giving his all in such sorry vehicles, making it hard not to reflect on the brilliant career he couldn’t help himself from ruining with his loathsome personality. Considering the talent involved, Panama feels like a dreadful squandering of resources, but at least nobody appears to have wasted much money.” – North Shore Movies, 03/18/2022

“A darker, even grittier reboot of many already dark and gritty reboots, The Batman is seriously serious business, sorely lacking in levity or light switches. This very special episode of CSI: Gotham tries to mimic all the moves from David Fincher’s Seven, but has more in common with junky ‘90s knockoffs like The Bone Collector and Kiss The Girls.” – North Shore Movies, 03/03/2022

“Is Sebastian Stan the dullest actor working today? Director Mimi Cave’s Sundance selection is another attempt to play against the actor’s blandly handsome, TV doctor looks, but the film feels more like an exercise than anything else. It’s one of those midnight movies for festival audiences to talk about over breakfast and then forget about before lunch.” – North Shore Movies, 03/03/2022

“A curious bit of exploitation movie archeology, this recently rediscovered collection of scenes shot in 1984 without sound was painstakingly reassembled with a new screenplay written and recorded around what could be surmised from lip-reading and best guesses. It’s an affectionate example of-slash-tribute to Reagan Era grindhouse garbage.” – North Shore Movies, 02/25/2022

“A lot of the time it feels like an old vaudevillian revue, and the charm of this 1976 sleeper hit is in these corny, vintage comedy stylings bumping up against bare boobs, explicit lyrics and a production number full of dancing dildos. It’s a dirty movie but not a smutty one, sunny and ebullient about sex in a manner that would quickly vanish from Hollywood entertainments.” – North Shore Movies, 02/25/2022

“In obnoxiously flashy films like Atonement and Anna Karenina, it often seemed like there was never a movie moment Joe Wright couldn’t gaudily over-direct, yet somehow his first full-bore Hollywood musical features some of his most restrained work, keeping a close-up intimacy with the characters as occasional ballets break out in the background.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 02/23/2022

“Birney and Audley are analog filmmakers at heart, and their dazzling dreamscapes are conjured out of papier mâché, puppets, stop-motion animation and primitive cinematic sleight-of-hand dating back to the silent era. They shot the movie on video but transferred it to 16mm film to get just the right grainy texture, adding little vinyl hisses and pops to the soundtrack.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 02/16/2022

“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