”These tech bro douchebags ride skateboards at work while drinking oat milk lattes, affectations that the film regards with visceral disgust. The 56-year-old Statham, in his battered pickup and mesh trucker hat, leans so hard into the generational antipathy it’s like a Death Wish movie, except instead of muggers he’s picking off trust fund kids who vape.” – North Shore Movies, 01/14/2024
“Not really a remake, nor even really a musical re-imagination of Tina Fey’s sleepover staple so much as it is a recitation. Pile into a packed auditorium and hear all (or at least most of) your favorite lines repeated by a new, less-illustrious cast under terrible television lighting. Occasionally they sing songs you will not be humming on the way home.” – North Shore Movies, 01/12/2024
”The film’s boldest and most effective stylistic gamble is that Glazer never goes inside the gates of Auschwitz. Screams and bursts of gunfire echo faintly in the distance, almost but not quite out of earshot. We can barely hear dogs barking and commands being shrieked, all while the Höss family goes about their dull, daily routines.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/11/2024
”The role instead went to Walter Matthau, during that wonderful stretch of the 1970s when a man with a self-described ‘face like a catcher’s mitt’ could be a movie star. There aren’t many films in which you can imagine Matthau swapping places with Eastwood – though The Bridges Of Madison County would be a corker – but Charley Varrick is a surprisingly comfy fit.” – Crooked Marquee, 01/05/2024
“Shot in stunning 6K resolution 3D by cinematographer Franz Lustig, it’s simply jaw-dropping to look at, bringing us into the massive installations and cavernous workshops of artist Anselm Kiefer. The sharp texture of these images takes your breath away, the objects seeming to float in front of us in the auditorium. You’ve never seen anything like this.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/05/2024
”Full of oddball digressions and magic realist flights of fancy, the film has the loose, expansive nature of a neighborhood legend, like a rambling tall tale passed down and embellished from one generation to the next. Household Saints is a jewel from an era that was a treasure trove for American independent cinema, yet for the longest time you couldn’t see it anywhere.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/03/2024
Had a wonderful time with my dear friend Jen Johans talking about some underdisscused B-sides in the great Robert Altman’s career. Selections include the avian anarchy of Brewster McCloud, his CBS adaptation of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, the delightful Cookie’s Fortune and The Company, a stealth artisitic manifesto that’s a favorite of both mine and Jen’s. – Watch With Jen, 12/22/2023
”Moviegoing bounced back during 2023, dominating the cultural conversation in a way we haven’t seen since before streaming and the pandemic ruined everything. The fact that a film as sophisticated and ambivalent as Oppenheimer could gross more than $950 million says great things about the future of movies and the people going to see them.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 12/20/2023
Jen Johans’ latest physical media special edition gets Walter Chaw going about Walter Hill’s The Warriors, Bilge Ebiri on Terrence Malick’s Days Of Heaven, Nikki Dolson on William Wyler’s The Desperate Hours and somehow I wound up talking about Carlito’s Way with two of the world’s greatest living crime writers, William Boyle and S.A. Cosby. – Watch With Jen, 12/04/2023
SPLICED PERSONALITY 