“Ashby’s melancholy sex farce about a habitually horny hairdresser and the comings and goings of California girls is a Restoration comedy transplanted to Beverly Hills. This bawdy tale of musical beds has a gossamer touch hiding a heavy heart. It’s a lot of silly screwing and running around until the last shot of the film sneaks up on you, packing an unexpected wallop.” – Crooked Marquee, 06/14/2024
”While it feels gross to discuss a young woman’s directorial debut with comparisons to her famous father, it appears that as far as handsomely shot hooey with a side of treacly humanism goes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I kept wishing The Watchers had been more stylistically distinctive from her dad’s work, so I could feel like a better ally.” – North Shore Movies, 06/07/2024
”Scrappy, confrontational and blessedly unconcerned with respectability politics, these pictures came from a community in crisis. They’re often furious documents, raging against societal and government indifference to a plague that’s powerfully felt even in the films where AIDS is never explicitly mentioned. Celebrate Pride month with six of these trailblazing titles.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 06/03/2024
“An integral part of my childhood, The Blues Brothers taught me the foundations of American music, introducing me to Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and James Brown at a time when you’d never hear them on the radio. It also taught me that cops, Nazis and good old boys are to be mercilessly mocked and messed with. Especially when you’re on a mission from God.” – Crooked Marquee, 05/31/2024
”There are too many terrific actors in Ezra for the movie to be terrible, but that’s not for lack of trying. A cloying disability drama that feels like it was written two or three decades ago, it bounds from one queasy cliché to another like the most divorced dad fantasy ever. Thanks to the performers, this isn’t a difficult movie to watch, but it leaves an icky aftertaste.” – North Shore Movies, 05/31/2024
”Mortensen shuffles the chronology in initially confusing, continually frustrating ways. I assume he’s attempting to deconstruct certain tropes regarding rape and revenge in Hollywood movies, but in trying to take apart the story’s engine he’s removed it altogether. These are all well-played scenes, and they sit there inert because there’s nothing driving them into each other.” – North Shore Movies, 05/31/2024
”As the narrative screws start to tighten, I couldn’t help imagining what Steven Soderbergh might have made from this material. Still, Linklater has always been one of our most affable auteurs, and Hit Man is nothing if not likable. There’s a real warmth to the picture that makes you want to share it with friends. Too bad most folks will have to watch it at home alone.” – North Shore Movies, 05/24/2024
”Miller’s hotly anticipated prequel is a much stranger, more sorrowful picture than its predecessor, replacing Fury Road’s high-octane excitement with moodier meditations on scarcity and loss at the end of the world. It’s a very good, sometimes shatteringly powerful film that has the misfortune of following one of the greatest movies ever made.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 05/23/2024
“We’re here for such a short period of time, and so often we’re asked to think that the point of our life is to accumulate a lot of stuff, or have other people think we’re fabulous, right? As if that’s gonna change anything. What I find so moving about Miss O’Connor is that because the reality of mortality hit her so young, she wrote about that mystery better than anyone else.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 05/22/2024
“It’s the kind of movie that tends to haunt viewers with memories that linger for years after the credits roll. There’s simply no shaking this Lancaster performance. The star was famous for his smarts and athletic prowess, yet his best roles explore the self-delusion behind that swagger. He’s fearless here, a towering failure, and we can’t look away from his collapse.” – Crooked Marquee, 05/17/2024
SPLICED PERSONALITY 