MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT  * * *

Starring Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and Henry Cavill. Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie.

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“The power of McKay’s pictures comes through their accumulation of detail and attention to the rhythms of day-to-day lives. My favorite shot finds José whizzing along on his bike in the rain, a garbage bag poncho blowing out behind him like a superhero’s cape. If the movie accomplishes anything it will at least make everyone who watches it a better tipper.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 07/26/2018

“Van Sant shuffles pages of the inspirational biopic playbook around into something a bit trickier and a lot more rewarding. It’s got the loosey-goosey, anything-goes energy of My Own Private Idaho along with the meat-and-potatoes melodramatic flair of Good Will Hunting. From scene to scene, the movie has a restless vitality that feels liberating. I liked it a lot.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 07/19/2018

“Boots Riley’s debut feature is an air-horn blast of anti-capitalist subversion with a surreal, midnight-movie twist. It’s like if Get Out got all mixed up with Repo Man, Robert Downey Sr. and scabrous early Brian De Palma satires like Greetings and Hi, Mom! The movie misses almost as often as it hits, but when the big swings land they leave a mark.” – North Shore Movies, 07/19/2018

“They say a movie is only as good as its villain. But what about one with no bad guys? Is there drama to be found in a picture about people doing their best to try and help each other out? Debra Granik’s enormously moving Leave No Trace is a sad movie that’s somehow still full of hope. You leave with your heart aching but not quite broken.” – North Shore Movies, 07/19/2018

“Their scheme is so stupid one could easily see writer-director Leyton turning the tale into a Coen Brothers-y farce in which bad things happen to dumb criminals. But instead American Animals conjures a pit-of-your-stomach dread, like when you know you’ve blown it but there’s no going back. It wallows in the cold, clammy wait to get caught.” – North Shore Movies, 07/12/2018

“An incoherent chop suey of big ideas and overfamiliar biography. Elvis Presley and America are gigantic, symbiotic symbols that for my entire lifetime have been exhaustingly over-employed to prop up whatever lazy abstractions you may please. Jarecki happens upon this trampled terrain as if he had the Pinta and the Santa María in tow.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 07/11/2018

“An absurdist folly pitched somewhere between Joseph Conrad and Samuel Beckett. Writer-director Lucrecia Martel takes no small pleasure in depicting the gears of colonialism grinding up its own. It’s a very funny movie for those of a certain sensibility, amusing in that bitterly ironic way Barry Lyndon makes some of us giggle ourselves silly.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 07/06/2018

“A high-spirited lark of enormous appeal and blessedly little consequence. Shot in bright, primary colors by the great cinematographer Dante Spinotti, Ant-Man And The Wasp isn’t exactly elegant when spinning out all the story threads, but returning director Peyton Reed is smart enough to prioritize the chemistry of his cast over assorted plot nonsense.” – North Shore Movies, 07/05/2018

“Probably the most entertaining movie ever based on a soft drink commercial, Uncle Drew invests absolute sincerity in its creaky, cornball tropes. The guilelessness is almost touching, albeit slightly disingenuous considering the film is spun off from a corporate branding exercise and contains wall-to-wall product placement as far as the eye can see.” – North Shore Movies, 06/28/2018