“The thing about pop crazes is that they’re ephemeral. But the entertainment industry is designed to drag them out until there’s no more money or audience goodwill left to be plundered. The Moment is aptly titled because such things are fleeting, and we’re watching an artist try to figure out in real time how much of herself should be for sale.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 02/06/2026
“The protagonist is played by first-time actor Ubeimar Rios. He’s a fascinating physical specimen who appears to have been put together out of mismatched parts, with arms too short for his body and a mouth too big for his face. Yet however awkward and off-putting, Rios imbues him with a shabby nobility. We believe that Oscar wasn’t always like this.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 02/06/2026
“It’s to La Cava’s great credit that these madcap shenanigans never feel forced or shrill. The long, elegantly constructed scenes accumulate characters and momentum like a snowball rolling down a hill. This was a glorious period in American cinema during which everyone spoke as quickly as possible. Even bad jokes sound funny if you say them fast enough.” – Crooked Marquee, 02/06/2026
“The pop music equivalent of The Star Wars Holiday Special. Both take place in that gaudy, bedazzled twilight time between the hoary ‘old showbiz’ vaudeville traditions of early television and the sleek, empty gloss that would come to define 1980s entertainment. It really was a ghastly aesthetic. Everything looks like moldering, aged cheese. With lasers.” – Crooked Marquee, 02/03/2026
“Trailblazers are saddled with the unfair burden of their actions becoming a referendum on their entire community. It took a class act like Sidney Poitier to desegregate Hollywood superstardom because he needed to be the antithesis of every stupid, hateful stereotype that movies had been helping to poison the world with since the medium was invented.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 02/02/2026
“An unstructured montage of the First Lady’s entrances and exits, it’s endless scenes of a woman with no discernible personality walking in and out of rooms, occasionally accompanied by a voice-over of empty, ChatGPT-sounding banalities delivered in an affectless monotone. Melania shouldn’t even be called a documentary. It’s just footage.” – North Shore Movies, 01/31/2026
“A deeply moral movie that tap-dances on third-rail subject matter and throws around verboten language to call out the racism and hypocrisy undergirding America’s cherished frontier myths. Blazing Saddles is as powerful a revisionist Western as Unforgiven or Little Big Man, it’s just incredibly silly about it. The film is full of childish humor, but treats you like an adult.” – Crooked Marquee, 01/30/2026
“A Private Life isn’t the kind of movie that spawns sequels, but I wouldn’t mind watching these aging exes solve a few more mysteries together. Auteuil has a softness that cushions Foster’s pointy features and flinty line deliveries. These two feel familiar in ways we instantly believe. It’s awfully sweet watching a couple of sixty-somethings get hot for each other again.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/29/2026
“Despite being one of the most violent movies ever made, the predominant feeling is that of joy. The swirling camera works as a dance partner to these absurdly charismatic performers and the nimble grace with which they glide through the destruction. You find yourself laughing aloud, not derisively, but in gratitude because you can’t believe what you’re seeing.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 01/22/2026
“Suffused with a gentle, trickster spirit, the picture’s rose-tinted, Depression era Americana and idealized notions of honor among thieves are even bigger cons than the one pulled off by the protagonists. But we in the audience are willing marks. The Sting is both a grift and a great escape. It makes you nostalgic for something that never was.” – Crooked Marquee, 01/16/2026
SPLICED PERSONALITY 