OK. The big night is upon us and it's the wild west out there. Not just the Kevin Hart controversy; the cutting telecast categories controversy; the "only Gaga/Kendrick Lamar can sing" controversy; the "popular" movie category controversy; but also that crazy slate of Best Picture nominees with no front runner! Well, the final ballots are [...]
SO many excellent films came out at the 11th hour-- meaning not until FALL 2018 (ridiculously late I might add), that it has taken me until now to see all the good stuff. Here is a list of my TOP TEN favorite films of 2018. Many of these films allowed us to see ourselves in [...]
I love this annual marathon meeting-- our 38th-- of the BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS to decide our year end faves! We voted the "Best" in 15 categories topped by our BEST FILM of the year: the stunning IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK written and directed by Barry Jenkins, about a young African American couple in 1970's [...]
Once again, I have waded through the summer's action-franchise-superhero swamp to find no new ground broken. "Jurasssic World: Fallen Kingdom" was a fun, velociraptorous romp through a gothic mansion. "Oceans 8" was an entertaining heist with fab female fashion and locations, but a plot full of holes which anchored its all-star female cast to a [...]
The first few minutes of this documentary are a tribute to discretion: a montage of talking heads who refuse to talk--and as Diana Vreeland once said, "elegance is refusal." The very fact of this documentary verges on the indiscreet, but I forgave the indiscretion and am thrilled to have had a peek. This is a [...]
In one of the more entertaining Oscar nomination ceremonies in recent memory, Andy Serkis and Tiffany Haddish announced the nominations for the 90th Annual OSCARS this morning from California. THE SHAPE OF WATER lead with 13 nominations. By my calculation, there were a few flubs, snubs, & surprises: --Spielberg was snubbed as Best Director for [...]
It's been another tough year for me at the movies. The swamp of desperately-plotted comedy and superhero sequels clogged with action sludge-- pulled me down, but not out. I hung on until late fall, when the cinematic floodgates opened to release a wave of excellent movies I'm still riding. I have not yet seen PHANTOM [...]
It happened this weekend: The BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS (of which I am a veteran member) met for the 37th time and voted Paul Thomas Anderson's PHANTOM THREAD (which a significant number of critics have not yet seen) starring Daniel Day-Lewis in his ostensible farewell performance as a fictional couturier, the BEST FILM [...]
Happy summer one and all! A pro-LONG-ed bout of pneumonia and a vacation abroad has kept me away from my website for awhile-- but I'm back up to speed with a slew of movies over the next few days and some "must-see" theater to recommend. Today I begin with the WOODS HOLE FILM FESTIVAL about [...]
In marathon season, after a marathon of coverage including the fictionalized film "Patriots Day" and the documentary play "Finish Line," the latest entry in the reportage of Boston's beloved race comes in first with the last word. My review here reprinted from The ARTery. "Boston" is the first feature length documentary film on [...]
