Had a great time talking to friends Jason Bailey and Mike Hull about fun facts and our favorite films from the year in which Bailey and I were born. My personal top five picks were Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville, Night Moves and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. An embarrassment of riches, even though the Red Sox lost the World Series. – A Very Good Year, 01/22/2023
SUNDANCE 2023 PART ONE: SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT DYING, OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN, SQUARING THE CIRCLE (THE STORY OF HIPGNOSIS), MAMACRUZ
My first dispatch from the 2023 Sundance Film Festival includes capsule reviews of Rachel Lambert’s Sometimes I Think About Dying, Rachel Zlotowski’s Other People’s Children, Anton Corbijn’s Squaring The Circle (The Story Of Hipgnosis) and Patricia Ortega’s Mamacruz.
Continue readingALICE, DARLING
“Kendrick plays the role more mysteriously and closer to the vest than you might expect. She focuses everything inward, coming in quietly underneath scenes where other actresses would have cranked up the histrionics for awards consideration. Unfortunately, she’s so good she makes the so-so performances of her co-stars seem worse than they actually are.” – North Shore Movies, 01/20/2023
ALL EYES OFF ME
“Again chronicling the romantic mishaps of a young woman pretending to be more worldly than she really is, writer-director Hadas Ben Aroya loves shooting long, erotic scenes that play out practically in real time, demystifying the messy mechanics of desire while revealing character through intimacy. Everything is no big deal, even stuff that probably should be.” – North Shore Movies, 01/20/2023
SKINAMARINK
“You don’t watch Skinamarink so much as you sink into it, allowing yourself to be enveloped by the unsettling atmosphere. Ball keeps the camera close to the ground and peering into the shadows, attempting to make out shapes that never quite materialize. The whole movie feels like the lights just went out and your eyes haven’t quite adjusted yet.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/12/2023
THE OLD WAY
“Even if the film’s depiction of neurodivergence will never be mistaken for sensitive, one must at least appreciate the audacity. The Old Way gropes around at some promising ideas, but the movie is cut too close to the bone to get much mileage out of these concepts, pulling back to meat-and-potatoes genre beats whenever things threaten to get really interesting.” – North Shore Movies, 01/12/2023
THE SEVEN FACES OF JANE
“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
M3GAN
“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
A MAN CALLED OTTO
“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
MEMORIES TO FORGET: EUGENE O’NEILL AND JOHN FORD’S LONG VOYAGE HOME
“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









