“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

“More like one of those off-brand, cheapo sequels from the 1980s than a modern franchise behemoth, the movie feels Frankensteined together from three or four different story ideas that all kind of cancel each other out. You never know what’s going to happen next because the characters’ motivations keep changing from scene to scene.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 06/22/2018

“At our particular moment in history we’re simply not prepared to receive such straightforward sincerity, devoid of any self-protecting irony. The forthright decency of Mister Rogers feels as if it has been beamed in not from our recent past, but from a distant planet altogether. If you cry during this film it’s because you’re realizing how much has been lost.” – North Shore Movies, 06/15/2018

“Fitfully funny and almost instantly forgettable, director Gary Ross’ distaff caper comedy contains just enough inspired moments to make you wish there were more. It will probably find its true calling in a year or two as one of those pleasant, Sunday afternoon diversions you leave playing on cable TV in the background while you’re doing something else.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 06/07/2018

”A big, boisterous jumble of mixed metaphors and dizzy positivity. Expanded from a svelte Neil Gaiman short story, How To Talk To Girls At Parties crams in so many bonkers ideas and kooky, left field curlicues it feels like there are at least three or four different movies going on during any given scene. A couple of them are even pretty good.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 06/01/2018