“It’s a story perfectly suited for Sorkin, a screenwriter who specializes in soaring, self-righteous speeches by quippy idealists who love being smarter than you. The Trial of the Chicago 7 is his best script since The Social Network, chockablock with hyperliterate zingers and groovy grandstanding. Nobody really talks this way but we all wish we did.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 10/15/2020

“Shot in secret over the past few months, it’s a sober, step-by-step recounting of the Trump administration’s catastrophically bungled response to COVID-19. There are no big revelations here, the movie’s mostly stuff we already knew. Yet seeing it all laid out end-to-end like this made me so furious I had to go walk it off for a little while.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 10/14/2020

“Writer-director Quirke clearly saw Black Swan and liked it an awful lot, but I’m starting to think that filmmakers should have to apply for a license before being allowed to shoot in ‘scope. Maybe require them to turn in two or three storyboards showing how they plan to utilize the widescreen frame for something more than just TV that’s squinting.” – North Shore Movies, 10/13/2020

“Genial fuckarounds for the genuinely gifted Sandler and his moderately talented posse, these Happy Madison films felt so insulting when you had to make the actual effort to drive somewhere and hand over your hard-earned money to see them, but now that they just pop up unsolicited on Netflix I suppose there are worse ways to kill a couple of hours.” – North Shore Movies, 10/07/2020

“Director Garrett Bradley does something fascinating with all this home video footage. Instead of presenting a straight chronology or clearly delineated flashbacks, she and editor Gabriel Rhodes have collapsed past and present into one big continuous reverie, allowing snippets of scenes old and new to soar away on a gorgeous solo piano score.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 10/07/2020

“Despite the delightful counterintuitive casting of America’s mom Phylicia Rashad as a mad scientist, it’s a flat, cheap-looking film with borderline hilarious ‘science-fiction’ props, like a web of produce department plastic draped over the head of our protagonist while a bank of computer modules beep and blink like the navigation system in The Black Hole.” – North Shore Movies, 10/06/2020

“Art is how we cope. It helps us heal, and I’m not sure I’ve seen a more beautiful exploration of this process than Kirsten Johnson’s prankishly funny and enormously moving documentary about caring for her father as he struggles with dementia and their family prepares for the inevitable. Sounds like barrel of laughs, I know. But trust me on this one.” – North Shore Movies, 10/02/2020

“An extraordinary piece of work and one of the most quietly radical in a career spanning six decades. Wiseman wants us to reflect on all the essential roles that public institutions play in our daily lives. It’s the movie’s view that cities have certain responsibilities to their citizens and that this is necessary and noble work, even when it inevitably falls short.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 09/25/2020

“I thought the whole point of making movies about leggy female assassins in evening gowns was to give us a little eye candy, but Ava can’t even find a single flattering angle on any of the beautiful actresses in this cast. I know not even Luc Besson really knows how to make Luc Besson movies anymore, but at least he can still photograph women.” – North Shore Movies, 09/24/2020

“This isn’t gentrification, but something more insidious that’s the subject of this blood-boiling new documentary by Fredrik Gertten. See, all those shiny, empty silos cluttering up the skylines are investment properties that in a lot of cases can’t be bothered with miniscule matters like tenants. Your rent’s chump change. This is big business.” – North Shore Movies, 09/24/2020