“The best parts of Zola feel charged with a genuinely dangerous energy. There’s probably a manic, madcap version of this movie that’s more entertaining but not nearly as good. Bravo allows us to stew for a bit in the sticky evening air of tacky Tampa with its Confederate flags and bedbug motels, where anything can happen. Florida, man.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 06/28/2021

“Like the recent, risible Gotti, the film is infused with a dumbshit nostalgia for a time when tough guys took care of things on their own. It’s practically an act of advocacy on behalf of mobsters, equivocating Lansky’s role in countless murders as the same business as your local state lottery. If the movie weren’t so incompetent, it would be infuriating.” – North Shore Movies, 06/25/2021

“If this isn’t your kind of thing, get ready for the longest 92 minutes of your life. But for some of us the word ‘pretentious’ isn’t necessarily a pejorative, and it can be downright thrilling to watch two artists follow each other all the way out on a limb like this and start sawing it off. Ferrara and Dafoe are making cinema in a world that wants to watch television.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 06/22/2021

“It’s a film about listlessness and inertia, and being bored in unfamiliar places. Take Me Somewhere Nice unfurls in a hazy torpor, like a record playing at the wrong speed. So many scenes begin with Alma waking up and wondering where she is, a groggy sensation that the movie makes mutual. But when it’s over you feel like you’ve been someplace.” – North Shore Movies, 06/17/2021

“Shot in stunning, super-high-contrast 16mm black-and-white, the picture presents a child’s-eye perspective of endless possibility and wonder, in which every landscape looks like a cross between a junkyard and a playground. This is the kind of movie that you want to hold dear, even when it’s being as messy and mood-swingy as one of the kids it chronicles.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 06/17/2021

“An antidote to pandering crap like Hillbilly Elegy, the movie eschews melodramatic flourishes, and I could have watched these characters busting each other’s chops in the factory breakroom or goofing around down at the roller rink all day. Writer-director Riegel says it was inspired by her own experiences growing up and you can tell from the textures.” – North Shore Movies, 06/10/2021

“Larraín’s entrancingly artsy Jackie turned the White House into the Overlook Hotel, with Natalie Portman’s blood-spattered widow wandering the historic halls like a ghost in a pillbox hat. The best segments of Lisey’s Story have a similarly shell-shocked effect, collapsing past and present with scenes from their marriage bleeding into the echoey, empty now.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 06/03/2021

“The movie has had a rough reception stateside, perhaps predictably, because Lessovitz’s story sees a minority subculture through the eyes of a straight, white male protagonist, one of the worst crimes you can commit according to the current cultural commentariat. It doesn’t matter to such folks that this is a sensitive, thoughtful feature debut.” – North Shore Movies, 05/31/2021

“The movie is constantly trying to upend our expectations of the teen sex comedy, pointedly reframing obligatory tropes like the ladies’ locker room scene to sly, subversive effect. There’s something liberating about letting the ‘good girls’ talk dirty about their desires for a change, and one particular period joke almost made me fall out of my chair.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 05/27/2021

“Individual set-pieces are spectacular, but this meandering, sometimes mournful affair is more interested in world-building and backstory than the task at hand. The movie often seems to forget its irresistible premise entirely, opting instead to make the umpteenth ripoff of Aliens, with a beat-for-beat plot-point allegiance that’s almost actionable.” – North Shore Movies, 05/21/2021