“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
“Fitfully funny and almost instantly forgettable, director Gary Ross’ distaff caper comedy contains just enough inspired moments to make you wish there were more. It will probably find its true calling in a year or two as one of those pleasant, Sunday afternoon diversions you leave playing on cable TV in the background while you’re doing something else.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 06/07/2018
”A big, boisterous jumble of mixed metaphors and dizzy positivity. Expanded from a svelte Neil Gaiman short story, How To Talk To Girls At Parties crams in so many bonkers ideas and kooky, left field curlicues it feels like there are at least three or four different movies going on during any given scene. A couple of them are even pretty good.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 06/01/2018
“A diamond-hard distillation of the themes and preoccupations Schrader has been wrestling with throughout his career, it updates and revises his legendary Taxi Driver screenplay for an era of commodified religion and environmental ruin. First Reformed is a major work by a cinema giant, urgently reckoning with issues both current and eternal.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 05/24/2018
“A breezy summer entertainment that benefits from high spirits and low expectations, Solo works best when it’s not bending over backwards trying to tie itself in with other Star Wars stories. For the most part this is a rousing space Western with a cast of lovable rogues, occasionally interrupted by spasms of shoe-horned references to the previous pictures.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 05/23/2018
“A significant improvement over the original while still not being particularly good, Deadpool 2 isn’t trying so hard to pretend like it’s something ‘dangerous’ and is perfectly content to be a typical summer superhero smash-up, albeit slightly snarkier than the competition across the hall. For all the vulgar showboating, this is a careful, corporate product.” – North Shore Movies, 05/17/2018
“Abel Ferrara’s 1992 masterpiece is a howl of anguish from the gutter. It’s a movie of wall-to-wall depravity and profound spiritual longing, at once one of the dirtiest and most deeply religious pictures I’ve ever seen. It’s probably blasphemous but also agonizingly sincere, the work of genuinely tortured artists trying to make sense of a fallen world.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 05/03/2018
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR * 1 / 2
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans and Josh Brolin. Screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo.
Last night living legend Paul Schrader brought his stunning First Reformed to the Independent Film Festival Boston. Starring Ethan Hawke as a pastor struggling with his faith, the movie feels like a culmination of the obsessions with which this filmmaker has been wrestling onscreen for more than four decades. Some edited highlights from his Q&A moderated by critic Jason Gorber:
“Unspooling in the area’s most beautiful and historic independent venues, IFFBoston has a communal spirit I find restorative. It’s always my favorite week of the year. At a time when most folks like to stay in their houses and stream things, there’s no understating how great it feels to get out and share big-screen experiences with enthusiastic audiences.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 04/24/2018
SPLICED PERSONALITY 