Talking with fellow Boston Online Film Critics Association members Bob Chipman, Steve Head and Charlie Nash about March’s repertory offerings – including the films of David Lynch, eighties sword-and-sorcery schlock, plus our fond farewell to Boston’s own Leonard Nimoy. – BOFCA, 03/02/2015
“No great shakes as a documentary but a hugely entertaining repository of zingers, Compared To What? follows the indefatigable congressman during the waning days of his forty-year political career. Part hagiography, part hangout-movie, how you’ll feel about the picture will presumably depend on how you feel about Barney Frank.” – Movie Mezzanine, 03/02/2015
“Focus is two movies for the price of one. You get a sparkling, sexy comedy and its lackluster, dispiriting sequel, both in the same sitting. I enjoyed the first half of this picture as much as anything I’ve seen in a while. Alas, then the film jumps ahead three years, and that’s when Romancing the Stone becomes The Jewel of the Nile.” – Movie Mezzanine, 02/27/2015
“Watched again today, the Twin Peaks pilot loses none of its hypnotic grandeur. Swaddled in Angelo Badalamenti’s gorgeous synth score, with foreboding bass-thrums occasionally making way for a recurring, cascading piano theme of faltering heartbreak — soaring into lonely, plaintive high notes before falling back into a busier, lower register of despair.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 02/27/2015
MAPS TO THE STARS * 1 / 2
Starring Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Olivia Williams and Robert Pattinson. Screeenplay by Bruce Wagner. Directed by David Cronenberg.
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY * *
Starring Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle, Eloise Mumford and Marcia Gay Harden. Screenplay by Kelly Marcel. Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson.
JUPITER ASCENDING * * *
Starring Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Written and directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski.
“A micro-budget labor of love for Pacino and his pals, the film was shot incrementally in twenty days over the course of three months, mostly in the director’s own house. Screenwriters Buck Henry and Michel Zebede have stripped away the ickier elements of Philip Roth’s dirty-old-man fantasy while ramping up the droll, dark comedy of indignity at its core.” – Movie Mezzanine, 02/05/2015
THE END OF THE TOUR * * * 1 / 2
THE OVERNIGHT * * 1 / 2
MISTRESS AMERICA * * *
MISSISSIPPI GRIND * * *
SPLICED PERSONALITY 