“An unseemly amount of the dialogue in The Final Reckoning is like Baldwin’s ‘living manifestation of destiny’ speech, except not played for laughs. There are films about the life of Christ that spend less time proclaiming the divinity of their protagonist. Yet just like in the movies, right when all seems lost, Cruise miraculously comes through.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 05/22/2025
Had a terrific time talking to old friend and George V. Higgins expert Jake Mulligan about The Friends Of Eddie Coyle for WBUR CitySpace’s Set In Boston series. We discussed how the film spawned an entire genre of Boston crime films, even though none that followed had a fraction of the verisimilitude. Also, an excuse to tell some amazing Mitchum stories. – WBUR CitySpace, 05/16/2025
“’Somehow in the screwed up world in which we find ourselves, a ghastly amount of people have lost sight of the fact that these are the bad guys,’ says the Somerville Theatre’s Ian Judge. ‘This narrative cannot be allowed to be blurred by modern day losers stoking the flames of antisemitism and fascism. These movies help us remember who we are at our best.’” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 05/15/2025
”He was so much taller and blonder and better-looking than everyone around him, like some sort of storybook Nordic prince. But taking another look at the films in the Brattle retrospective, one comes away with how much the actor loved to undercut his matinee idol appearance. Kilmer may have looked like a golden god, but he was often a very silly goose.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 05/12/2025
Joined my buddy Blake Howard to discuss my favorite Gene Hackman performance. The Criterion Collection just put out a spiffy edition of Night Moves, director Arthur Penn’s definitive Watergate noir in which Hackman’s private eye becomes the avatar of an exhausted era, playing a game in which nobody’s winning. One side’s just losing slower than the other. – One Heat Minute, 05/12/2025
”Not a lot of film students wind up having their homework released by a major studio, but the then-27-year-old wunderkind could never be accused of thinking small. Coppola’s freewheeling adaptation of David Benedictus’ 1963 novel has style and ambition to burn. It’s a wild, visually spectacular calling card in the service of material that’s honestly pretty puerile.” – Crooked Marquee, 05/09/2025
“The world of David Mamet is divided between hustlers and marks. You’re either playing an angle or you’re being played. Henry Johnson could be the playwright’s bluntest expression of these themes yet, one of those late period works in which artists of a certain age stop smuggling their ideas underneath the drama and just come out and say what they mean.” – North Shore Movies, 05/08/2025
”If your mom doesn’t have the stomach for the Brattle’s annual Mother’s Day screening of Psycho, you’ll have plenty of options on the other side of the square. The Harvard Film Archive’s Mother’s Day Mini-Marathon features seven 35mm prints of big screen classics examining maternal love in all its complex and sometimes maddening dimensions.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 05/08/2025
”Calling it the best Marvel movie in years isn’t saying much, but it’s something. Thunderbolts* reminds us that the reason those early MCU adventures caught on was not because of special effects or intergalactic lore, but because they were workplace comedies about characters we enjoyed spending time with. Modest charms are nonetheless charming.” – North Shore Movies, 05/05/2025
”Palaud exhibits no interest whatsoever in her subject’s accomplishments, skipping immediately ahead to the drudgery of her heroin addiction. The indictments of boorish behavior by men in the film industry are indeed apt, but what’s ironic is that by refusing to see Schneider as an artist, the movie is guilty of some of the same sins as the director it tries to demonize.” – North Shore Movies, 05/05/2025
SPLICED PERSONALITY 