“Alvarez finds semi-clever variations on iconic action scenes from the earlier films, and when Spaeny strips down to her skivvies for the final confrontation with the xenomorph, I suppose we should be proud that since it’s 2024 she’s wearing boxers instead of Weaver’s bikini-cut panties. But the movie never feels like more than the work of a halfway decent cover band.” – North Shore Movies, 08/14/2024
”One of those movies that spends the first hour obfuscating story information and then the final forty minutes with all the characters screaming exposition over each other. I counted two separate scenes in which Schafer is led into a secret laboratory where Stevens stands around explaining his master plan. That’s at least one too many, but really probably two.” – North Shore Movies, 08/11/2024
”Justin Baldoni’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s beloved bestseller leans shamelessly — and not unsatisfyingly — into the source material’s romance novel trappings, conjuring an outsized, soapy fantasy of heartbreak and resilience that only falters when it tries to ground itself in reality. I would have liked the movie better if it were even cornier.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/08/2024
”Noted philosopher David St. Hubbins once said there’s a fine line between clever and stupid. It is in this liminal space that the films of M. Night Shyamalan reside, confounding critics with exquisitely composed exercises in idiocy. Trap is Shyamalan’s most entertaining movie in some time, and also his most shameless. These two things are not unrelated.” – North Shore Movies, 08/02/2024
“The Inistigators has some of my favorite actors brandishing brusquely funny Boston attitudes while running around making mischief in the city I love. So how come it falls so flat? Sometimes a movie can have all the right components and none of them wind up working together. I found myself leaning forward in my seat, wondering why I wasn’t enjoying it more.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/01/2024
”The best moments in Dìdi feel lived-in and true. It’s a very savvy movie about growing up online, and will cause Proustian reveries in some viewers with its pointed use of AIM instant messaging sound effects and the emotional devastation of discovering you’re no longer displayed in someone’s MySpace Top 8 friends. (We’ve all been there, Chris.)” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/31/2024
“The Madonna video cut away to scenes from her husband Sean Penn’s new movie, some sort of 1970s heartland crime drama in which the young man squares off with a pistol against a magnificently mustachioed Christopher Walken. It looked like something sinister and adult that eleven-year-old me shouldn’t be watching. Naturally, I was mesmerized.” – Crooked Marquee, 07/26/2024
“Barely a movie, Deadpool & Wolverine is a filmed attempt to realign corporate assets under a new umbrella. Yet the packed theater I was in ate it up, arf-arf-arfing like circus seals at every reference and illustrating just how little people are willing to accept from an entertainment if it makes them feel like part of a community. It will probably make a billion dollars.” – North Shore Movies, 07/26/2024
”It’s a bruiser of a picture, the kind that can be daunting for a lot of audiences. I mean, try being at a barbecue where people are asking you for movie recommendations, then suggest a two-and-a-half-hour, black-and-white drama about the European refugee crisis and see how quickly everyone goes back to talking about the potato salad.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/25/2024
“Watch any scene of a Sofia Coppola picture and you can instantly tell who directed it. These are lush, melancholic movies with carefully embroidered visual schemes floating on pillows of sound. Fuzzy guitars and ethereal synth tones follow our heartsick, usually adolescent protagonists on the cusp of adulthood and self-discovery.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/23/2024
SPLICED PERSONALITY 