Movie review by Greg Carlson

Until I saw “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” I really thought the cinematic expression of the multiverse concept had peaked with the triumphant Best Picture Academy Award for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a movie that catapults us – as I wrote in my original review – “onto the tracks of a rollercoaster careening through a dizzying set of alternative (sur)realities.” But the new superhero film, which continues the onscreen story of teenagers Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, and a whole army of colorful Spider-people that began in 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” is a glorious follow-up. “Across the Spider-Verse” is to the original installment as “Toy Story 2,” “The Godfather Part II,” and “The Empire Strikes Back” are to their franchises.

Last year, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” arrived in theaters just ahead of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” And here we are again, as “The Flash” – yet another multiverse-oriented movie – lands in two short weeks. The concept of parallel worlds has been evolving since at least the ancient Greeks, and Marvel has been steadily laying the groundwork for even more of it. In the narrow corridor of contemporary media, fatigue has been the common F-word when it comes to superhero cinema. “Across the Spider-Verse” presents a strong argument that there is still plenty of gas in the tank.

Admittedly, it helps if you’re already a fan (of comics, graphic design, animation, cinema, intertextuality, etc.), but directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, working from a screenplay by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham, locate the emotional core at the heart of the saga and never let it get smothered or obscured by the stunning visuals. The Spider-Man brought to life by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko is arguably the greatest hero of the Silver Age. Even average citizens have likely heard some variation of the aphorism “With great power comes great responsibility.” And one of the triumphs of this iteration is the way it creates a conversation between the old and the new.

The filmmakers pack a lot of story into the movie’s 140 minutes, introducing another set of web-slingers who either assist or oppose Miles – for any number of reasons made clear along the way – once he leaves Earth-1610 through a portal and unwittingly threatens a canon-disrupting event. Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld, as Miles and Gwen, interact with a dazzling ensemble that includes Oscar Isaac’s Spider-Man 2099, Daniel Kaluuya’s Spider-Punk, Issa Rae’s Spider-Woman, Karan Soni’s Spider-Man India, and several others involved in the complicated business of the Spider-Society. To paraphrase Shakespeare from “The Merchant of Venice,” everyone plays a part.

But for all the head-swiveling action sequences and clever homages (including several direct tributes to “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), “Across the Spider-Verse” successfully reimagines the character while retaining the things that have made Spidey great since 1962: coming-of-age questions of identity, the challenges of personal growth, conflict with loved ones, the pain of sacrifice, and the uncertainties and anxieties that exist in the liminal space between adolescence and adulthood. Contrary to the racist objections that have been playing out since the introduction of Miles Morales in 2011, all the differences and updates take absolutely nothing away from Peter Parker. And that’s amazing.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Writer-director Nicole Holofcener leans in – all the way in – to the sturdy milieu of the well-heeled, narcissist-inhabited, New York-based comedy landscape dominated for so many decades by the now fading/faded Woody Allen. A24 presents Holofcener’s “You Hurt My Feelings” as a May theatrical release following its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. In the film, protagonist Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a moderately successful writer second-guessing her current book, a fiction follow-up to her memoir, which explored the “verbal abuse” she suffered at the hands of her father. Beth’s husband Don (Tobias Menzies) treats clients as a therapist, although he worries he might not be any good at it. Grown son Eliot (Owen Teague) manages a marijuana dispensary but hopes to complete his own long-gestating writing project.

The blissful marriage, which Holofcener deliberately intensifies with an array of affectionate little gestures that humorously irritate Eliot if not the viewer, is built on a foundation of unwavering love and trust. Or so Beth naively assumes. While out shopping with sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) and brother-in-law Mark (Arian Moayed), Beth overhears Don criticize and dismiss her new novel. Because her husband has provided none of this kind of negative critique to her face, Beth is devastated, gutted, and very nearly destroyed. She wants to throw up. Her feelings, as most assuredly indicated by the title of the movie, have been deeply hurt.

Holofcener, who continues to demonstrate her gift for deceptively natural dialogue, poses a number of instantly recognizable questions. Do we all bend and shape the truth to avoid conflict with those closest to us? Do we all contemplate the limits of our own vocational and avocational skill? Wouldn’t most of us choose warm affirmation over radical honesty, especially when delivered by a loved one? To some extent, the principal characters in “You Hurt My Feelings” are creative artists, or at least use creative impulses to make a living. Interior decorator Sarah and actor Mark are just as vulnerable as Beth and Don to rejection.

As an analyst, Don is arguably the least traditional “creator” of the quartet, but Holofcener shares some of the movie’s most intriguing exchanges inside the “safe space” of his office. In the film’s most bracing running gag, real-life married couple Amber Tamblyn and David Cross openly unleash blunt and painful invective that the considerate and caring Beth and Don would never entertain. The comic juxtaposition of lovers versus fighters reminds us of the differences between those who seem to thrive on conflict and partners who unfailingly cheer and support each other.

Some critics have called out the privilege and first-world problems at the heart of “You Hurt My Feelings” as some kind of deficiency or shortcoming, but the title alone should offer the first clue that the filmmaker has a handle on irony. Louis-Dreyfus, allowed here to explore comic and dramatic dimensions of performance not aligned with Elaine Benes, Christine Campbell or Selina Meyer, worked with Holofcener (and the late James Gandolfini) a decade ago on “Enough Said.”  Hopefully, we won’t need to wait another ten years before the next collaboration.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Richard Wayne Penniman, known to the world by his stage name Little Richard, died in 2020 from causes related to bone cancer. The popular music legend, often referred to as the “Architect of Rock and Roll,” pioneered sounds and styles that would be idolized and emulated by Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Michael Jackson, and Prince, to name a few. David Bowie said that he “heard God” when he listened to “Tutti Frutti.” The star would have loved “Little Richard: I Am Everything,” the feature documentary by Oscar-nominee Lisa Cortés. The filmmaker has put together an electrifying movie worthy of its subject.

“I Am Everything” premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival and is currently available via the major streaming services. In the movie, Cortés masterfully presents the most significant dualities that defined Richard. Growing up in Macon, Georgia, Richard was exposed to the more reserved services of his mother’s Baptist congregation as well as the exuberant and highly participatory worship at the African Methodist Episcopal Church where his father was minister. Later, Richard would experience the racially biased discrimination and exploitation that would see white record labels taking the lion’s share of profits and Pat Boone charting “Tutti Frutti” higher than his own recording.

But the biggest doubling – at least for the mainstream audiences that would “tolerate” it as part of the singer’s flamboyant rock and roll package – manifests in Richard’s complex queerness. Richard would periodically renounce homosexuality to embrace the “godliness” of a faith-based Christian life, a source of frustration for generations of fans that Cortés addresses with great sensitivity and no candy coating. Richard’s ability to cross the “color line” in appealing to all races is astonishing in the context of his bold embrace of being openly gay in a time of fierce prejudice.

Cortés tracks this all without ever losing sight of Richard’s phenomenal talent and work ethic. The origin of the makeup and pompadour wigs as part of Richard’s image is linked to Billy Wright (who, along with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, was a key influence), but here is that polarity again: Richard claimed that straight white males in his audience, recognizing the singer’s lack of interest, wouldn’t feel threatened or take to worrying about their girlfriends. Too good to be true?

The wild story that in 1957 Richard mistook the rapidly moving light of Sputnik for some kind of apocalyptic fireball – causing him to discard his jewelry and pledge faithfulness to God right then and there – is included in the movie, serving as a gift-wrapped metaphor for the confusion that would contribute to the cycle of the singer’s swings between the less popular production of gospel records and the incendiary and profane rock songs preferred by the masses (some viewers will certainly blush when the meaning of the original “Tutti Frutti” lyrics are explicated). Self-hatred might be the easy answer for Richard’s back-and-forth career moves, but Cortés refuses to oversimplify or smooth out Richard’s devotion to each of these worlds. The result is a terrific biography.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmaker Ryan White’s documentary “Pamela: A Love Story” (stylized onscreen as “Pamela, a Love Story”) serves as a companion piece to the contemporaneously published memoir “Love, Pamela.” Both artifacts allow model and actor Pamela Anderson the opportunity to reshape many aspects of the media-derived narrative of her once chaotic life. The performer rocketed to international superstardom in the 1990s on the sandy and sun-soaked beaches of the television series “Baywatch,” but it was her tumultuous and ill-fated marriage to Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee – which reached an apex, or nadir, via the public release of a stolen sex tape – that some would argue ushered in the era of the internet-driven celebrity scandal.

Before the movie walks us through Anderson’s shock and frustration at the theft of her private property – as well as the absolute circus-on-a-rollercoaster that came with an unpredictable and eventually abusive rock star – White presents some background information about the intense relationship between Anderson’s parents and the personality traits of her father that embraces some armchair psychology to suggest the origins of the subject’s penchant for bad boys with wild streaks.

Anderson invites White into her home, narrating the film in a combination of conversational on-camera interviews and audio recordings of excerpts from her many journals, diaries, and personal correspondence. The specter of the sex tape at first hovers over the story, but White’s curated inclusion of a huge supply of home video – accompanied by Anderson’s explanation that she captured, recorded, and documented her life as a matter of regularity and routine – serves as a reasonable explanation of the intimate footage’s origin and existence.

White also integrates archival material that charts the course of Anderson’s success from the seemingly overnight sensation of being “discovered” at a 1989 BC Lions football game to an invitation to be photographed for “Playboy” (she would end up on more of that magazine’s covers than any other person). The absence of those who might offer deeper critical insights and context regarding the entrenched double standards faced by women (in entertainment and in general) means that Anderson alone must explicate and deconstruct the feelings that accompanied years of limited and limiting lines of questions that inevitably zeroed in on her physical body, her plastic surgery, and her sex symbol status.

That approach works. Time has not been kind to the casual way in which talk show hosts felt entitled to diminish and objectify Anderson, but the old clips selected by White confirm what turns out to be the greatest delight of the documentary: Pamela Anderson was and is intelligent, quick-witted, candid, and always prepared to deal with the older white men in jackets and ties seated behind desks that inflate their power and authority.

The last sections of the movie follow the stunt casting of Anderson as Roxie Hart in “Chicago” on Broadway in 2022. It is no spoiler to say that she aimed to prove naysayers wrong yet again. By this point, White has skipped over some of Anderson’s reality television and “Dancing With the Stars” work, but he does manage to squeeze in at least minimal acknowledgment of her animal rights activism, her curious relationship with Julian Assange, the cult film “Barb Wire,” and her five post-Lee marriages. Through it all, a charming Anderson handles everything like a pro.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Although not quite as good as feature directorial debut “The Edge of Seventeen,” Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of Judy Blume’s classic 1970 novel makes for an admirable and satisfying big screen companion piece. Veteran kid actor Abby Ryder Fortson leads an ensemble that includes Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, and Benny Safdie as the core members of the Simon family. While Blume’s frank address of topics including menstruation and the physical changes accompanying puberty continue to drive critical discussion of the story, Margaret’s struggle to understand the liminal place between her mother’s Christianity and her father’s Judaism is equally important.

Fremon Craig also wrote the screenplay, which preserves some of Blume’s dialogue verbatim while updating and expanding other aspects of the beloved novel. The movie uses the book’s period setting, but aside from some clothing choices and several vintage needle-drops – including “Son of a Preacher Man,” “Jump in the Line,” “These Eyes,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours),” and the reliable “Spirit in the Sky” – the overall mise en scene reads as wholly contemporary. The resulting timelessness invites several generations of readers to easily project themselves into the action.

The most devoted Blume fans should appreciate Fremon Craig’s spiritual fealty to the source material, even if some details are missing and other dimensions are altered. The after-school club of girls Margaret joins is not identified as the Pre-Teen Sensations, but the famous bust-building exercise and accompanying chant (which Blume, who very briefly appears in an unrelated, non-speaking cameo, demonstrated when it was being rehearsed “incorrectly” on set) occupies its rightful place. One of the most significant alterations is the welcome expansion of business and agency for Margaret’s mom Barbara, whose own adjustments to suburban life and desire to fit in with peers parallel some of her daughter’s worries.

Despite the film’s PG-13 rating, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” has an overwhelmingly wholesome glow. That’s not to say Fremon Craig downplays the many ways in which girls on the cusp of adolescence can wield cruelty as a defense against confusion and uncertainty. In one of the best scenes in the novel, the physically mature Laura Danker confronts Margaret, asking, “Do you think it’s any fun to be the biggest kid in the class?” In the movie, Fremon Craig makes what I think is a good choice to reimagine the end of Danker’s small arc, even if it softens Blume’s edges.

Indebted to Blume, Fremon Craig’s thematic emphasis on womanhood charts our course through the film. Marya E. Gates points out that we see “not just a coming-of-age story but also a deeper examination of the sacrifices, trauma, and safety that women can find while building their own families.” Melena Ryzik writes about the movie’s intersection with religious freedom and bodily autonomy in light of current politics: “An era in which girls and women were held in an information vacuum — about their own bodies! — seems dangerously close to being resurrected.” More than five decades after we first met eternal sixth-grader Margaret, we need her more than ever.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok’s “Judy Blume Forever” debuted at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in January and landed on Prime Video just ahead of the theatrical release this week of Kelly Fremon Craig’s highly anticipated adaptation of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” The one-two punch lands as Republican-controlled states ramp up legislative attacks on trans rights, gender-affirming care, abortion access, and – in a return to familiar territory for Blume – libraries and the freedom of speech. The hypocrites in the GOP claim to support less government regulation and more personal freedom and liberty, but practice the exact opposite when it comes to things like drag shows and the censorship of books.

Enter the heroic Blume, now 85 years old but as youthful and as vital as ever. For scores of us, Blume’s books were cherished road maps through the most confusing parts of adolescence. Her sales numbers are staggering: more than 82 million copies and counting. The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom has identified the author as one of the most frequently challenged and several of her titles as regular targets of removal or ban. But Blume has persevered, decade after decade (the seismic, game-changing “Margaret” was published in 1970). Interview subject Jason Reynolds states, “I don’t think that Judy Blume wrote her books to be timeless. I think she wrote her books to be timely. And they were so timely that they became timeless.”

That soundbite arrives near the very end of the movie in a short section that opens the door just a crack to some criticism of Blume’s books as “historical fiction” (dated details, reliably binary characters, moms that rarely work, etc.), although it’s quickly pointed out by YA historian and author Gabrielle Moss that those aspects of the stories would most certainly be different if written today. But it is Blume’s barrier-busting embrace of taboo topics like menstruation and masturbation that, combined with her originality and voice, has endeared her to generations of young people as “one of us.” The filmmakers include fantastic archival material, private and public, as Blume often makes witty asides (like the time she scorched Pat Buchanan on “Crossfire”).

Blume, who appears on camera front-and-center and gloriously reads key passages accompanied by lovely animation by Andrew Griffin and Martin O’Neill, is the star attraction, but Pardo and Wolchok enlist a small army of childhood friends, authors, family members, performers, publishers, and young readers to earnestly, and often eloquently, sing Blume’s praises. The very best talking heads are Lorrie Kim and Karen Chilstrom, two superfans who wrote to Blume again and again, from childhood to adulthood. Kim and Chilstrom represent the thousands who form intense and often one-sided relationships to heroes/artists. But Blume always wrote back, and in one stunning moment, showed up.

Blume is so prolific that Pardo and Wolchok are forced to make hard choices. I think they succeeded, as many personal and literary milestones are marked by Blume herself, who indicates the variety of ways in which “It’s Not the End of the World,” “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing,” “Blubber,” “Deenie,” “Tiger Eyes,” “Wifey,” and “Forever …” were (and were not) cultivated from her own experiences. The latter novel, which caused an uproar for presenting teenage sex without some kind of punishing consequence like pregnancy or death, is echoed in the title of the documentary. The word also works as a wish for Blume’s earthly longevity and the everlasting life of her bibliography.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Hereditary” notched one of the most dazzling directorial debuts in recent memory, catapulting writer-director Ari Aster into the rarefied air of A24 auteurs, the hearts of genre hounds, and the spotlight of serious crossover attention. The filmmaker utterly curb-stomped any thoughts of a sophomore slump with “Midsommar,” a folk horror masterpiece even better than “Hereditary.” Expectations for round three, the decidedly different “Beau Is Afraid,” couldn’t have been higher. The divisive, three-hour phantasmagoria trades the spine-tingling, bone-rattling terror of the previous work for a deeply personal black comedy. But is it funny?

Aster cannot be faulted for taking advantage of his success to make a bold attempt at something outside the hues and tones of his previous two films. And assuredly, the filmmaker’s commitment to exploring PTSD and examining looming family ghosts link “Beau Is Afraid” to the brand. But reviews and reactions are expectedly split within groups of critics as well as fans. Ehrlich tags it as a “true original in spite of all that it borrows” (no disagreement there) while LaSalle sees “a movie that’s all talent and no discipline, which, in practice, is even worse than a movie that’s all discipline and no talent.” As for me, the burdensome length didn’t do the story any favors, despite Joaquin Phoenix’s reliability.

Phoenix’s title character joins a long line of emotionally paralyzed worriers tethered to apron strings forged of iron. Hot on the heels of “The Fabelmans,” “Beau Is Afraid” also breaks bread with, among others, “Portnoy’s Complaint,” “Psycho,” “Mother (1996),” the “Oedipus Wrecks” segment of “New York Stories,” and “My Winnipeg” (which tops Aster’s film with a fraction of the budget and an 80-minute clock). We learn that Beau’s father died at the point of sexual climax during which his son was conceived – and on his wedding night, no less. Beau, who shares the same heart defect that claimed his dad’s life, has remained a virgin into middle age.

No doubt many Aster admirers will dig the film’s commitment to the surrealist blurring of the “real” (such as it is) and the impossible as Beau fulfills his promise to attend the funeral of his mother. Our hapless protagonist is propelled from the dubious safety and shelter of his ratty, spider-infested apartment above porn shop Erectus Ejectus into an episodic odyssey fit for the imagination of Leopold Bloom. Along the way, Aster tries out all manner of gags and humiliations, setting up motifs (testicular torment!) that will receive callbacks and payoffs once the narrative reaches its eventual destination.

I have no doubt that Aster enjoyed making “Beau Is Afraid” a lot more than I enjoyed watching it. And I did enjoy some of the cogs and gears if not the sum total of their assembled machinery. When Aster tries his hand at staging a play in the manner of Wes Anderson’s many instances of glorious theatricals, the gorgeous design, complete with a reverential nod to “The Wizard of Oz,” breathes some life into the ordeal as a temporary distraction. I know the big showdown with Patti LuPone is supposed to be the main event, but it is the preceding scene that makes one wish Parker Posey would have been around for much, much more. She is easily the highlight of the movie.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

References to more than 200 films and dozens of insights from scholars, programmers, filmmakers, authors and others justify the more than three-hour running time of Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies founder Kier-La Janisse’s engrossing documentary “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror.” Originally conceived by the director as a much shorter bonus featurette to accompany Severin’s restoration of “The Blood on Satan’s Claw,” the sprawling, near comprehensive overview is a must for horror hounds and cinephiles. Following a 2021 South by Southwest premiere, the film is available as a standalone physical media release. It also anchors Severin’s handsome Blu-ray box set “All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror.”

Divided into chapters, the film begins with an overview of the “unholy trinity” of genre/mode influences. Piers Haggard’s “The Blood on Satan’s Claw,” Michael Reeves’s “Witchfinder General,” and Robin Hardy’s “The Wicker Man” spoke to Vietnam War-era anxieties and powerful anti-authoritarian sentiments. Whether real or imagined, witches and witchcraft as vehicles for the feminist rebuke of the patriarchy set down deep thematic roots. Other core folk horror tropes, like ritual sacrifice and explorations of paganism and the Old Gods as manifested in the pastoral and the agrarian, would go on to inspire future moviemakers.

Determined to accept the largest number of potential titles, Janisse operates with a spirit of inclusiveness that welcomes all kinds of things that might be better (or at least more commonly) categorized in other popular horror subgenres. For example, folk horror isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when assessing Herschell Gordon Lewis’s “Two Thousand Maniacs” or Alan Parker’s “Angel Heart” or Bernard Rose’s “Candyman,” but Janisse and her interview subjects make a reasonable case for their consideration.

The wide net cast by “Woodlands Dark” snares international films of many types and vintages. Extending the big tent approach, happy listmakers will find entries from Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Serbia, the former Soviet Union and others, alongside the heavy presence of material originating in the United Kingdom and the United States. Theatrical features share the conversation with made-for-TV movies and individual episodes of series such as “Doctor Who,” “The Waltons,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Tales From the Darkside,” “Thriller,” and several more.

The sheer breadth of Janisse’s labors means that only a handful of the huge catalog receives the kind of deep dive that many viewers crave. It’s a minor complaint, though, given the expertise that radiates so passionately from the parade of assembled enthusiasts. By the time we reach the end, which lifts up the contributions of Ben Wheatley, Robert Eggers, Ari Aster, and a handful of other contemporary practitioners, Janisse has convincingly shown us the ancestors and origins of “A Field in England,” “The Witch,” and “Midsommar.” By this point, we have been asked to wrestle with the largest definition of folk horror to date. Academic Dawn Keetley offers one of the best summaries: “As our world becomes more urban, global, complex, and virtual, our nostalgia for a life that is more rooted, rural, and embodied increases exponentially.”

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In “Boston Strangler,” writer-director Matt Ruskin revisits the mysteries and inconsistencies of the notorious serial killer’s case, adding another chapter to the onscreen saga of the true crime staple. Featuring outstanding performances by Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon as the journalists who investigated the story for the Boston Record American, Ruskin’s movie will appeal to thriller devotees who enjoy making comparisons between published history and Hollywood versions. Handsomely photographed by Ben Kutchins to take full advantage of the 1960s setting, the movie’s most successful aspect is the way in which Ruskin focuses attention on the sexism and gender-based discrimination faced by Knightley’s Loretta McLaughlin.

The real-life McLaughlin, who died at the age of 90 in 2018, would eventually become the second woman in charge of the editorial page at the Boston Globe and a dogged public health advocate who extensively covered the AIDS crisis. Prior to those milestones, she was the reporter who broke the Boston Strangler story. Determined to treat the content with a stately air of old-fashioned respect befitting the period, Ruskin downplays the most salacious and sensationally graphic dimensions of the murders. The decision mutes the movie’s credentials as a piece of outright horror, but the filmmaker’s close attention to process and procedure offers enough drama to retain viewer interest.

“Boston Strangler” owes a debt to several films that connect a series of killings to media outlets pursuing information and police departments struggling to apprehend the person or persons responsible. In one scene, Ruskin apes the terrifying “lion’s den” encounter from David Fincher’s “Zodiac.” In others, the depiction of the partnership between McLaughlin and Coon’s more seasoned Jean Cole (in real life, the women knew each other long before the Boston Strangler story) rhymes with the team-up of Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey in Maria Schrader’s “She Said.” In subtler ways, Ruskin nods to the cinematic legacy of Clarice Starling in Jonathan Demme’s endlessly influential “The Silence of the Lambs.”

Unlike Demme’s film, “Boston Strangler” is missing a charismatic and diabolical antagonist on par with Hannibal Lecter. Ruskin, of course, draws his film from nonfiction sources and is further frustrated by the compelling multiple-killer theory that casts serious doubt on claims that Albert DeSalvo (played here by David Dastmalchian) was responsible for all 13 of the murders attributed to the Boston Strangler. The filmmaker does his best to sort out the involvement of the opportunistic inmate George Nassar and the even more opportunistic attorney F. Lee Bailey, but the ambiguity and uncertainty of the still-open cases – DeSalvo’s body was exhumed in 2013 for DNA testing that would confirm his 1964 murder of final verified victim Mary Sullivan – clouds the film with grim stoicism.

To date, the Boston Strangler case has inspired multiple films and storylines on television shows. Given the lack of resolution and the perpetrator’s modus operandi, which eschewed forced entry in favor of posing as maintenance, delivery, or service workers, Ruskin’s take will not likely be the final word. As a version told through the eyes of McLaughlin, however, this interpretation considers the kinds of personal and professional barriers and obstacles overcome by women who operated in male-dominated spaces and refused to accept patriarchal norms and expectations.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Baseball Hall of Fame slugger and living legend Reggie Jackson is the subject of Alexandria Stapleton’s eponymous feature documentary, now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. No stranger to interviewing outsize personalities with egos to match – the director’s feature debut was the Roger Corman biography “Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel” – Stapleton fashions a sturdy evaluation of Jackson’s career and legacy, with the superstar front and center in a series of contemporary and candid on-camera interviews supported by a wealth of archival footage. “Reggie” is nowhere near the final word on one of the game’s most dynamic heroes, but fans and newbies alike should find plenty to ponder.

Stapleton tracks the ascendancy of Jackson through a straightforward and chronological structuring of milestones and life events. Viewers are confronted with the racist reality faced by athletes on and off the field as Jackson recounts early playing days and reflects on a MLB career that spanned two decades from 1967 to 1987. Several sports legends, including Hank Aaron (who died not long after filming) and Julius Erving, join Jackson on camera to discuss a variety of topics, including the lack of Black and minority representation in front offices. Stapleton expertly handles the film’s shifts in tone, which frequently circle back to Jackson’s reliable outspokenness on racial inequalities.

Despite Jackson’s close identification with the New York Yankees, Stapleton takes her time before addressing those chapters of Reggie’s career. Jackson’s tenure in Oakland presents the filmmaker with an opportunity to consider the civil rights-era politics of the Black Panthers and to remind many that Jackson was an established star in yellow and green – contributing to five consecutive AL West divisional titles, three pennants in a row, and World Series victories in 1972, 1973, and 1974 – before he entered free agency. Once he started dressing in pinstripes for the start of the 1977 season, Jackson would write the most memorable chapters of his playing career, no small feat given what he had already accomplished.

Stapleton understands how to articulate the extraordinary pressures that faced Jackson once he joined the Yankees, succinctly summarizing the prickly relationship between Reggie and manager Billy Martin (who famously pulled Jackson after the player didn’t show enough hustle in a nationally-televised game against the Red Sox on June 18, 1977). The director also circles key moments in Jackson’s saga with popular catcher and captain Thurman Munson, who famously tagged Jackson as “Mr. October” without realizing what kind of impact and longevity the nickname would have.

“Reggie” briefly addresses Jackson’s parallel career as a commercial endorser of everything from the candy bars bearing his name (full disclosure: I ate a lot of them) to Panasonic video cameras and recorders. Jackson points out that at the time, he made more money as a spokesperson than he did for playing baseball. Volkswagen, Puma, Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats, and a junior batting trainer system are among the advertisements showcased in a nostalgic sequence attesting to some serious star appeal. For any number of possible reasons, Stapleton steers clear of Jackson’s off-field personal life, although daughter Kimberly appears briefly toward the end of the movie.