“Moms aren’t supposed to have lives of their own. What makes Gyllenhall’s debut such a fascinating film is that it doesn’t try to explain away the central character or justify her petty resentments. She instead makes visceral the fears and shame of mothers who feel themselves unfit, and the guilt that comes with wanting to keep a little piece of your life to yourself.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/29/2021

“In what will no doubt cause cardiac arrests for the social media hall monitors currently having conniptions over the age gap between the platonic lovers of Licorice Pizza, Baker’s film doesn’t just tell the story of a skeezy, fortysomething guy grooming and trying to turn out a teenage girl, it also dares to be amusing about it. Sometimes appallingly so.” – North Shore Movies, 12/23/2021

“No life lessons are learned and there’s no moral to the story that I can surmise, at least not beyond the deep appreciation of faded fads, forgotten pop songs and evenings that stretch out into the night with endless possibilities for adventure. It’s a thrilling movie to watch, hurtling forward with the headlong rush of two young people who can’t wait for their lives to begin.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/22/2021

“The most lovingly photographed of the Massachusetts locations is the Wakefield Bowladrome, where it has never stopped being 1978 and all the filmmakers had to do to make it period-specific was take down the ‘No Smoking’ signs. It’s also symptomatic of a certain carelessness on Clooney’s part. I mean, who ever heard of candlepin bowling on Long Island?” – North Shore Movies 12/20/2021

“But before the surprisingly rousing third act – for my money the first time since The Avengers assembled that a Marvel movie has achieved the giddy liftoff of all your action figures landing in the same sandbox – No Way Home is some seriously rough sledding, reflecting what a non-starter Tom Holland’s MCU incarnation of Peter Parker turned out to be.” – North Shore Movies, 12/15/2021

“Being The Ricardos is shockingly dismissive of its subject’s genius, allowing Kidman to fumble her way through some brief, half-hearted slapstick while the movie is more interested in another one of Sorkin’s beloved toxic workplaces, where everybody walks-and-talks with their chests puffed out, sputtering profanities and constantly trying to one-up each other.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/09/2021

“Fabietto so hates the crummy hand he’s been dealt, he wants to create an entirely different reality to live in, and cinema allows him to build newer, more beautiful worlds from scratch. I’m not sure The Hand Of God always works, but I felt like I understood something important about Sorrentino and his elaborately constructed pictures when it was over.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/01/2021

“Branagh and his regular cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos obviously saw Roma a whole bunch of times and liked it a lot, borrowing the low-contrast black-and-white digital video, distractingly hyper-separated audio tracks and approaching every shot from the most unexpected, obtuse angle they could possibly find. Then another Van Morrison song comes on.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/01/2021

“A fine Thanksgiving film for dysfunctional families, the gaudily entertaining House Of Gucci also brings an early delivery of Christmas ham, providing a feast for scenery-chewers like Jeremy Irons, Jared Leto and especially Al Pacino. But the show belongs to Lady Gaga, giving one of the most preposterously enjoyable performances you’re going to see this year.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/23/2021

“The Humans is hobbled at every turn by Karam’s curious camerawork. Not just the random inserts of cruddy windowpanes and clanging pipes, but also ostentatious dolly shots that circle the table, making sure to obscure the faces of whoever you want to look at most during a given scene. It’s the most distractingly directed movie of the year not named Belfast.” – North Shore Movies, 11/23/2021