“Producers Roman Coppola and Gillian Jacobs present a movie assembled by eight different writer-director teams working independently of one another. As an experiment, it’s not uninteresting. But like most parlor games, this was probably a lot more fun for the participants than it is for the onlookers. One must remember that people have to pay to watch these things.” – North Shore Movies, 01/12/2023
“For most of its running time, M3GAN is a sicko comedy about terrible things happening to people (and animals) that deserve even worse, as well as a cautionary tale for moms and dads who find it easier to let electronic devices do the parenting for them. The best gag in Akela Cooper’s screenplay is how the doll turns evil because she spends too much time on the internet.” – North Shore Movies, 01/06/2023
“They’re clearly going for a Gran Torino thing here, with the grouchy old white guy who wants to be left alone begrudgingly befriending his adorable new immigrant neighbors and rescuing them from an external threat. But unlike Clint Eastwood’s hilariously crude codger, Hanks is merely dull and unpleasant. There’s nothing funny about his morose moods.” – North Shore Movies, 01/06/2023
“There’s a wonderfully enveloping atmosphere of doom in The Long Voyage Home, with the fog that drapes the sets feeling like a death shroud. O’Neill’s plays were minimalist affairs on nearly empty stages, and Ford finds a fascinating balance between the cramped, close-quarter scenes below deck and a boisterous, big-canvas action picture upstairs.” – Crooked Marquee, 01/06/2023
“It’s not just babies that are left behind in boxes. Kore-eda repeatedly returns to a subtle, yet insistent visual motif of constraining his characters inside similar shapes. Everyone in Broker is boxed in to some degree or another by bad luck, poor choices or the circumstances of their birth. The movie is about how we help each other get out.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/05/2023
“I’ll confess that it took me a second viewing to figure out what I think Baumbach was trying to do here, which is basically making an anti-’80s movie, turning all those cliched, nostalgic Spielbergian signifiers sickly and gross. This is one of those ideas that sounds awesome in theory, until you realize that you’re going to have to look at it for 135 minutes.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/28/2022
”And yet, I Wanna Dance With Somebody keeps sheepishly backing away from the story’s thornier, more complicated implications, especially when it comes to matters of race. It’s indicative of the movie’s overcautious approach that we keep seeing the singer around drugs, and sometimes even holding them, but never actually using them.” – North Shore Movies, 12/22/2022
“This manic mix of earnest immigrant family drama, science-fiction silliness, middle-aged romance and interdimensional kung fu cites so many influences and is so full of allusions the movie might as well come with an index, which is why the series is something Hinkle has had in mind since he first saw Everything Everywhere during its initial run back in April.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/21/2022
Always a delight talking to my friend Jen Johans, this time discussing Paramount’s new Top Gun: Maverick Blu-ray, about which our buddy Blake Howard also has plenty to say. (Because you haven’t heard Blake and I blather on enough about how much we love Tom Cruise.) Plus: our pal S.A. Cosby talking Nope and dear Nikki Dolson trying mightily to explain Moonfall. – Watch With Jen, 12/20/2022
“I saw a lot of terrific films in 2022, but they’re becoming increasingly more difficult for audiences to find, siloed off onto separate subscription services or buried in brief, barely-advertised engagements and feast-or-famine scheduling. Studio malpractice and streamer sabotage have me less optimistic about the future of the theatrical experience than I’ve ever been.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/20/2022
SPLICED PERSONALITY 