“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
“This is one of Lee’s most dynamic pictures, so electric and overflowing with energy it’s damn near exhausting. There’s a reckless vitality to the filmmaking, as if Spike’s as surprised as we are that such a sordid tale would wind up being released by Disney over Independence Day weekend and knows he won’t be getting away with anything like this again.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 07/04/2018
“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
“Reading Ridley’s reviews feels like having a jocular chat with a pal that takes an unexpectedly personal turn. Jim’s excitement was infectious, a conversational tone deftly camouflaging the intellectual rigor beneath his arguments. His emotionally candid insights make Kael’s case for criticism as autobiography in vibrant, often uproarious prose.” – RogerEbert.com, 06/22/2018
“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
“An extravagantly stylized pulp burlesque that is at once an objectively lousy picture and just about the coolest damn thing I’ve ever seen. The pompadours are the size of skyscrapers and every street is lined with neon signs reflecting in the gutters. It’s the kind of movie where two guys have a sword fight with sledgehammers, because it looks awesome.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 06/20/2018
“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
SPLICED PERSONALITY 