“Judging from her first three movies, I still have no idea if writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour is capable of telling a straightforward story. I’m also not sure she’s particularly interested in doing so. The fiercely talented filmmaker is a dazzling designer of environments, creating luminous and dangerous spaces in which her archetypal characters can roam.” – North Shore Movies, 10/06/2022
BROS
“So many of the movie’s running gags are about how comfortably gay pop culture has become, including a mercilessly funny flashback to Bobby’s Queer Eye audition and a less successful Brokeback parody. These bits only amplify the disconnect between the picture’s posturing as a milestone and the feeling that it’s awfully late to the party.” – North Shore Movies, 10/02/2022
THE GOOD HOUSE
”It’s a perfect role for Sigourney Weaver, whose crisp, patrician air always seems to be keeping something wilder just barely in check. Directors Forbes and Wolodarsky try to liven things up by having her break the fourth wall and confide in the audience directly, a gimmick that’s been so abused on television as of late I’d be happy to see it retired for a while.” – North Shore Movies, 10/01/2022
FREE RADICALS: GETTING STRAIGHT WITH ELLIOTT GOULD
“Gould scores with a spectacular array of beautiful women. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if the movie is commenting on the character’s misogyny or reveling in it. Filed under stuff you would never see onscreen today: a purring, post-coital Bergen stroking his mustache with her toes, plus a comely coed seductively running her fingers thorough the hair on his shoulders.” – Crooked Marquee, 09/30/2022
THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER
“Plodding along in a bleary no man’s land between satire and sentimentality, Farrelly is too reverential of our boys in uniform to really reckon with that obscene conflict, settling for a po-faced acknowledgement that things ‘were complicated’ over there. It’s the most genial of war films, keeping the bloody violence (and the Vietnamese) almost entirely offscreen.” – North Shore Movies, 09/29/2022
BLONDE
“I don’t begrudge anyone for not wanting to sit through a movie this miserable and intentionally upsetting, but the trigger warning is right there in the NC-17 rating and there’s no shame in not being tall enough for the ride. There should be a place for films like Blonde to explore unpleasant images and ideas for an adult audience.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 09/27/2022
DON’T WORRY DARLING
“The biggest problem with Don’t Worry Darling is that it takes the audience maybe fifteen minutes to come to the same conclusion that Pugh finally figures out after a full two hours. It’s a drag being so far ahead of the characters the entire time, and Wilde’s maddeningly repetitive structure makes the viewer feel as trapped as the protagonist.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 09/22/2022
PEARL
“More a creepy psychological character study than a kill-crazy slasher movie, it cedes West’s can-you-top-this camera trickery to a stunning, go-for-broke performance by co-screenwriter Mia Goth that would no doubt be recognized by awards bodies everywhere if people who cared about movie awards watched movies like Pearl. She’s incredible.” – North Shore Movies, 09/19/2022
ONE HEAT MINUTE RUM AND RANT #68: JACK REACHER ROUND
Had a blast with my dear friends Blake Howard and Rob Belushi on this special One Heat Minute Patreon subscriber exclusive discussing Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie’s endlessly rewatchable Jack Reacher. We talk a lot about Herzog and Duvall and stupid casting controversies and how the sorry sequel ruined Rob’s birthday. – One Heat Minute, 09/16/2022
MASCULIN FÉMININ: JEAN-LUC GODARD’S CHILDREN OF MARX AND COCA-COLA
“Masculin Féminin isn’t my favorite Godard movie, but it’s the one I felt most like revisiting after hearing news of the director’s death. I think because it’s about being the age I was when his films first found me: barely out of adolescence and all hopped up on hormones, cinemania and political fervor, when everything feels like it’s still stretched out endlessly in front of you.” – Crooked Marquee, 09/16/2022









