“This is an entertaining enough Friday night at the movies, but to say that the seams show is an understatement. Co-written and directed by cheeky genre deconstructionist Shane Black, it’s a hodgepodge of half-developed science fiction concepts, splattery set-pieces and Black’s specialty: tough guys talking shit. I really liked the shit-talking parts.” – North Shore Movies, 09/13/2018
“There’s nothing for us to enjoy in the self-mockery. The flat staging and abject absence of visual style signal more contempt than amusement. Nobody’s taking this silly story seriously, but Feig is too prudish and (let’s face it) incompetent to provide any compensating sensual pleasures, the way De Palma or Fincher have in the past with similarly chintzy material.” – North Shore Movies, 09/13/2018
“A tangy little bit of literary score-settling, taking the piss out of mid-century macho myths of what a Great American Writer was supposed to be. Staged in a deceptively dry fashion by Swedish director Björn Runge, the movie lulls you into a false sense of decorous complacency before the claws come out. The melodramatic second hour is simply delicious.” – North Shore Movies 09/13/2018
“To summarize the plot of Mandy would probably take about two sentences and be entirely beside the point. This is an atmosphere picture steeped in dread, punctuated by heavy metal blasts of cathartic carnage. The movie isn’t just set in 1983, it feels like a memory of something you might have watched that year on late night cable after your parents fell asleep.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 09/11/2018
“The counterintuitive casting works because the chemistry between Ryder and Reeves is so instantaneous and their ease on screen with each other so delightfully palpable. All the yammering put-downs become a form of flirtation. Ugly-spirited zingers that would draw blood from other actors end up tossed aside here with wry, rumpled smiles.” – North Shore Movies, 09/08/2018
“Rourke gives his funniest, most endearing performance as a raggedly princely drunkard wooing Dunaway’s washed-up, boozy grande dame. Müller’s cinematography imparts a grungy beauty to this Skid Row lit by sputtering neon and half-burnt-out strings of Christmas lights. I daresay there’s never been anyone better at photographing peeling paint.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 09/04/2018
“Life after the final bell is the subject of Rod Serling’s screenplay. Anthony Quinn’s performance is as oversized as his fists yet impossible not to adore, with Mickey Rooney’s weary cornerman seeing the inevitable, heartbreaking ending coming even before we do. By then the cloud of shame emanating from Gleason could block out the sun.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 08/30/2018
“I was not above laughing out loud at the most groan-inducing references, as when Kranz wanders the halls looking for room ‘2B’ or Levine ordering his damned dog Spot to get out of his chair. But every Midsummer adaptation stumbles over the supernatural stuff, which is done no favors by the specificity of a movie camera and perhaps needs the abstraction of a stage.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 08/29/2018
Got my toga on sitting in with host Frank Gregory on WDEL’s Saturday HotSpot to talk about forty years of National Lampoon’s Animal House. We discuss the film’s Ivy League origins, controversial casting choices, the enduring legend of John Belushi and how fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. Listen to MP3’s of the show after the jump.
“Works better than it probably should thanks to the canny casting of Hawke, deftly employing the star’s generational baggage to portray a scruffy, goateed ‘90s icon gone to seed, washed up and living in a barn behind his ex-wife’s house, estranged from litter of children with different mothers who all hate his guts. Reality, as it turns out, bites.” – North Shore Movies, 08/23/2018
SPLICED PERSONALITY 