A WRINKLE IN TIME * 1 / 2
Starring Storm Reid, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Chris Pine and Oprah Winfrey. Screenplay by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell. Directed by Ava DuVernay.
RED SPARROW
RED SPARROW * * *
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeremy Irons and Charlotte Rampling. Screenplay by Justin Haythe. Directed by Francis Lawrence.
OSCAR TAKEAWAYS 2018
“It’s an awful shame because as a kid, the Academy’s Lifetime Achievement awards were how I learned a lot about film history, and they inspired me to seek out movies older than myself and begin to understand that art exists in a continuity. Now instead we have time-suck stunts with Ansel Elgort and a six-foot submarine sandwich.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 03/05/2018
DEATH WISH
“For a movie featuring one of Hollywood’s few outspoken right-wingers running around the ghetto in a hoodie shooting brown people, what’s shocking is just how lame and instantly forgettable it is. You’d think such a morally repugnant gun-nut masturbation fantasy would at least be worth getting worked up about, but Death Wish is so wheezy it’s almost pitiable.” – North Shore Movies, 03/03/2018
OSCAR PICKS 2018
“Lady Bird is terrific. It’s the best possible version of that movie you can make. I don’t think Greta Gerwig gets as much credit as she should for her direction. The movie is paced almost like a screwball comedy. It flies. I’ve had dumb conversations with people who say the camera doesn’t move enough, as if directing was just acrobatics. There’s a lot more to it.” – Boston.com, 03/02/2018
THE SOUR HOUR: OSCAR EDITION
What a pleasure to sit in with my dear old friend Craig D. Lindsey on KPFT’s The Sour Hour. We piss and moan a bit about the Oscars and complain about the idiots in the Trump administration but mostly I just laugh at Craig’s rants. He calls me up about halfway through the show, after playing the Backstreet Boys song that was in Booty Call. – The Sour Hour, 02/28/2018
FEMMES FATALES AT THE MFA
“The phrase conjures black-and-white visions of Venetian blinds and countless cigarettes, allegorically exposing male anxieties of powerlessness in a changing post-war world. The MFA’s ‘Femmes Fatales’ is a fine selection if you want to study advancing gender roles in genre cinema, and works just as well if you like to go to the movies to look at beautiful women.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 02/28/2018
ANNIHILATION
ANNIHILATION * * * 1 / 2
Starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez and Oscar Isaac. Wriiten for the screen and directed by Alex Garland.
A FANTASTIC WOMAN
“In fact, Daniela Vega is so very good it’s impossible to watch A Fantastic Woman without wishing she’d been given more to do than just suffer. She wanders through the movie numbed with grief and absorbing abuse, which is compelling on a human level but dramatically monotonous. There aren’t exactly a lot of surprises here.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 02/23/2018
THE PARTY
”There’s a clear post-Brexit anxiety bubbing under the proceedings, as we watch London’s upper crust devouring itself. None of these well-meaning, hyper-educated liberals have been able to see what’s been happening right under their noses. But beyond any political implications it’s just a pleasure to watch these performers ping-ponging off one another.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 02/21/2018
SPLICED PERSONALITY 