Sean Burns

Boston

Staff Writer at WBUR-FM (Boston, MA)

Film Critic. Projectionalist. “Snide gatekeeper.”

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Articles

27th Roxbury International Film Festival centers community and connection

1 week ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

Jamaican-born and Boston-raised, the versatile character actor Frank Silvera played countless roles of wildly varying ethnicities.
Classic Corner: The Mortal Storm — Crooked Marquee

2 weeks ago | crookedmarquee.com | Sean Burns

If you walked in a minute or two late and missed the ominous opening shots of gathering clouds, one could easily misconstrue from the beginning of The Mortal Storm that you were watching a cutesy family comedy. The first few scenes of Frank Borzage’s stark 1940 political drama follow university professor Victor Roth on his 60th birthday.
Subtext and Text: On Michael Koresky’s Sick and Dirty — Crooked Marquee

2 weeks ago | crookedmarquee.com | Sean Burns

There was no such thing as homosexuality in the Golden Age of Hollywood. At least not officially. Movies of that era were subject to the Motion Picture Production Code. Better known as the Hays Code, the industry’s guidelines for self-censorship were named after Will Hays, president of the organization that would eventually become the Motion Picture Association of America and more recently, the Motion Picture Association.
Celine Song's 'Materialists' is a drama dressed up in rom-com trappings

2 weeks ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

Among the many lamentable casualties of the streaming era has been the loss of big screen romance.
Wes Anderson's new film is the summer's most delightful action-comedy

3 weeks ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

It might sound strange to describe a Wes Anderson film as the summer’s most delightful action-comedy, but “The Phoenician Scheme” is a cockamamie lark full of silly stunts, international intrigue and a daredevil anti-hero cheating death at every turn. When it comes to narrowly escaping mid-air mishaps, Tom Cruise has got nothing on Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda, the shady industrialist we meet in the process of surviving his sixth plane crash.
Classic Corner: On Golden Pond — Crooked Marquee

1 month ago | crookedmarquee.com | Sean Burns

The second-biggest blockbuster of 1981 was about a couple of old fogeys puttering around a cottage. Ranking just behind Raiders of the Lost Ark as the year’s box office champ, On Golden Pond grossed $119 million in U.S. theaters, which adjusted for inflation would be about $400 million today.
'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' attempts to tie together 29 years of adventures

1 month ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

Movie stars live in such bizarre, distorted realities that you almost can’t blame them for developing messiah complexes. Being the center of attention wherever you go can’t be healthy for anybody’s ego. This is why there’s always a phase in superstardom — usually right before a precipitous fall — when actors start gravitating toward humorlessly noble, godlike roles.
Nazis lose again (and again) at the Somerville Theatre

1 month ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

It started with “The Blues Brothers.” A few years ago, Somerville Theatre Creative Director Ian Judge was flipping through channels and happened upon the crowd-pleasing sequence in director John Landis’ 1980 musical demolition derby when John Belushi’s Joliet Jake Blues and Dan Aykroyd’s Elwood Blues knock a bunch of neo-Nazis off a bridge. Inspired by the 1977 Supreme Court case National Socialist Party of America v.
The Brattle honors 'Iceman' Val Kilmer with retrospective

1 month ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

Val Kilmer was ridiculously handsome. Seeing him in his prime on the big screen again is an almost absurd experience. He was so much taller and blonder and better-looking than everyone around him, like some sort of storybook Nordic prince. Kilmer, who died in April at the age of 65, could have very easily coasted on his looks, yet he had the restless, playful spirit of a character actor trapped in the body of a leading man.
Classic Corner: You're A Big Boy Now — Crooked Marquee

1 month ago | crookedmarquee.com | Sean Burns

Presumably the first student film to score one of its actors an Oscar nomination, 1966’s You’re a Big Boy Now was the thesis project of a UCLA grad school hotshot named Francis Ford Coppola. Not a lot of film students wind up having their homework released by a major studio, but the then-27-year-old wunderkind could never be accused of thinking small.