“A vehicle for yet another wonderful performance from Willem Dafoe, who plays the sheepish postman like a slowly opening flower. One of our greatest living actors and arguably the most consistent, Dafoe has such range he can play everything from comic book supervillains to Jesus Christ, but he rarely gets to be an ordinary guy the way he does here.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 04/27/2026
“It begins as a highly theatrical, frankly captivating pas de deux in a barn-like studio space where these two extraordinary actresses encircle each other and drop insinuations, wandering in and out of their own flashbacks with astonishing fluidity. Lowery uses stage lighting tricks and flyaway walls so that the past and present are living under the same roof.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 04/24/2026
“An enchantingly raggedy love story about two horny teen witches with a psychic connection and a hunky boy with a very bad tattoo. The movie borrows the language of late ’90s and early 2000s paranormal YA adventures. It’s the same spooky kids’ stuff that made Jane Schoenbrun see the TV glow, only with higher stakes and better sex.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 04/22/2026
“Most movies about musicians follow an artist’s rise, fall and eventual redemption. Partially funded by the Jackson estate, Michael is all rise — the ascension of a holy being to the top of the universe. The movie ends in 1988 with the singer’s triumphant solo Bad tour, which is kind of like ending an O.J. Simpson biopic with him winning the Heisman Trophy.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/21/2026
“The existential disconnection of The Stranger is a product of Camus’ flat, affectless prose. So how does one convey this on film? I’m not sure it’s possible. Ozon shoots in a chilly, digital monochrome devoid of emphatic camera movements. The movie is distant and aloof, which is true to the spirit of the material, if something of a drag to actually sit through.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 04/19/2026
“An inert and dispiriting experience, it’s a listlessly stupid movie made by a guy who used to be much smarter about making stupid movies. The Dumb And Dumber director’s latest return to his lowbrow roots follows 2024’s grim Ricky Stanicky as another monkey’s paw situation for any of us who ever expressed a preference for Farrelly’s earlier, funnier films.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 04/18/2026
“Sir Ian McKellen has been loaning his Shakespearean gravitas to franchise films for so long it’s easy for movie audiences to forget how marvelous he can be when he’s asked to actually act. Steven Soderbergh’s new film comes as such a sweet relief because it reminds us of everything McKellen can do when he’s not stranded in front of a green screen.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/16/2026
“Hill is clearly writing from painful lived experiences here, but without the perspective of having come out on the other side of them. As the kids say, he’s ‘posting through it,’ and the movie’s weird contradictions and tonal see-saws make for a bracing viewing experience. I can’t really defend the movie, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 04/12/2026
“This is where the compression of the text feels really limiting. We’re so locked into the main character’s mania that there’s no variation in tone, no comic relief nor any of the grace notes that make Shakespeare’s saga so rich. This might be the shortest Hamlet I’ve seen, but it feels like one of the longest because every scene is played at the same pitch.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/09/2026
“The sheer volume of time we spend with these people is needed to convey the weird normalization of life under authoritarianism. It depicts how we all adjust to massive affronts to our cherished ideals and personal liberties while everyone finds a way to go on with the day-to-day business of living, even as the world changes forever around us.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 04/02/2026
