“It took me longer than I should probably admit to figure out that the manic camera movements are meant to mimic Van Gogh’s rapid brushstrokes, and the repeated words an aural stand-in for the artist’s layered overpainting. So basically Schnabel’s trying to make a movie about Vincent Van Gogh in the style of Vincent Van Gogh, which is pretty neat.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/21/2018

“Pretty much the movie everyone was afraid Creed was going to be. A few fine character beats drift into stale, over-familiar formulas and fawning fan service. Well-acted enough that I couldn’t hate it, but it’s all so purposefully secondhand, deliberately designed to remind you of previous installments you loved without going anywhere exciting or new.” – North Shore Movies, 11/20/2018

“A collection of six vignettes varying wildly in tone yet unified by the sardonic siblings’ prankish existentialism. These punchy little tales veer from zany slapstick to heartbreaking tragedy, all working in service of the Coens’ fatalistic, class-clown philosophy, according to which life might be just a cruel, cosmic joke but it’s a pretty good one sometimes.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/16/2018

“Jason Reitman’s The Front Runner may not be the worst movie of the year, but it’s gotta be the most inessential and out-of-touch. This banal, deeply incurious picture exudes entitlement, pining away for the good old days when the privileged and powerful closed ranks to protect their own. Reitman should make a Brett Kavanaugh film next.” – North Shore Movies, 11/15/2018

“As in Gotti, Travolta just seems miserable, alternating between scrunching up his face like something smells bad and looking like he has to poop. There’s hilariously little attention to period detail and no attempt to age the star accordingly over the story’s twenty-five year span. He appears to wear the same denim shirt for decades.” – North Shore Movies, 11/15/2018

“Green Book plays like a Trumpist’s anti-Obama empowerment fantasy, in which a proudly ignorant white prole is constantly humiliating an erudite, sophisticated black man and showing him how the world really works. I wondered again why white audiences still seem to crave these movies, aching to be reassured that racism is bad but we’re still okay.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/15/2018

“What sticks with you long after the lights come up is the potty-mouthed banter bouncing back and forth between McCarthy and Grant, staggering drunk through a disappearing New York City, leaning on each other the way only the desperately lonely can. They’re like the Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo of used bookstores and parties full of old ladies and free shrimp.” – North Shore Movies, 11/12/2018

“A mix of murky interior shots that fails to establish any sense of day-to-day life in this Christian community. There’s a severe paucity of detail, with drab sets and nondescript locations. Everyone here is exactly who they first appear to be, which along with the absence of surprises in the story makes sitting through the picture feel like running out the clock.” – North Shore Movies, 11/08/2018

“I’m finding it hard to shake all the studiously polite interactions conducted through downturned, unsmiling faces. A tone of stagnancy pervades throughout the picture, which feels exhausted. It’s not Wiseman’s style to overtly editorialize, but the film’s frequent visits to a local cemetery draw a line under what’s already obvious: This place is dying.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/02/2018

“Cheerfully disregarding a lot of the true-crime particulars, Ruizpalacios has fashioned a slippery meditation on questions of ownership, heritage and history as plunder. He’s got a gift for writing a certain breed of over-educated and under-motivated young male suffering from a surly disaffection that’ll feel awfully familiar to fellow Gen Xers.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 11/01/2018