”I thought I had it all figured out, but Campion’s film blossoms into something far stranger and more seductive than its synopsis might suggest. A hothouse psychodrama about performative masculinity and the personas we put on so as not to feel so alone, it’s a menacing movie, thick with an atmosphere of lurid homoeroticism and repressed longing.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/16/2021

“A steroidal inflation of the humble palooka’s underdog saga into a jingoistic, MTV gladiator movie in which an oiled-up Stallone defeats Communism in the form of Dolph Lundgren’s Russian super-soldier. To revisit Rocky IV is to be reminded that even though you loved a movie dearly when you were ten years old, that doesn’t mean it’s actually any good.” – North Shore Movies, 11/16/2021

“Spencer has a lot of the same problems as Lisey’s Story, Larraín’s eight-hour Stephen King adaptation that aired to little notice on Apple TV+ this past summer. He’s a filmmaker who thinks in bold, often abstract images and concepts that don’t always sit well alongside conventionally scripted scenes. I liked the movie a lot until I didn’t anymore.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/04/2021

“Dismissed in some circles as a Spanish spin on Girls, the filmmaking has such a wispy, gossamer touch it’s easy to miss how much she’s getting at here in the guise of a breezy confection. Only in the fiendishly clever closing credits do you realize the deep denial diagnosed in El Planeta is suffered not just by these two characters, but also the modern world.” – North Shore Movies, 11/04/2021

“A film about mourning, but in an especially British, stiff upper lip fashion. As in the original movie, which dealt with the ravages of addiction in an almost oblique, muted mode, the roiling emotions are kept close to the vest. Hogg again employs an eggshell color palette and elliptical edits. The surfaces are placid, beneath them lies turmoil.” – North Shore Movies, 11/04/2021

“It’s the mortifying prepubescence of Wright’s worldview that gets under my skin. The guy is my age but his films still feel like a kid playing with action figures. It’s a cinema for collectors: the movies are like Mondo limited edition posters of themselves, designed to be ranked on Letterboxd lists and parsed on Reddit threads for clever references to earlier, better films.” – North Shore Movies, 10/28/2021

“Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi eco-fable is a gargantuan spectacle, pummeling viewers with visual splendor and a sound mix that feels like an assault. It’s as massive a movie as you’re going to see this year and possibly the next. I’m talking huge. You don’t watch Dune so much as you surrender to it. At least I did, quite happily.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 10/21/2021

“A tribute not to the legendary filmmaker’s techniques but to his restless, questioning spirit, unafraid to dive into the messy overlap between art and life. Yet this is a much kinder, gentler film than any by Bergman, taking a moment to champion the virtues of Sweden’s other chief export ABBA, before ultimately finding a little serenity in the silence.” – North Shore Movies, 10/15/2021

“There’s an agreeably rambling, ragtag energy that when it’s cooking has the sidewinding appeal of an old country tune, packed with colorful characters and a lot of stuff happening that stubbornly refuses to rise to the level of story. It only gets into trouble when Corsbie runs out of verses to Snider’s song and attempts to impose a plot on the proceedings.” – North Shore Movies, 10/14/2021

“The best Bond since Craig’s initial outing in Casino Royale, and the first since the character’s 2006 re-introduction to remember that these films are supposed to be funny. Thanks presumably to a well-publicized dialogue polish by Fleabag writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, No Time To Die is full of punchy, prickly banter and has a refreshing silly streak.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 10/07/2021