Sean Burns

Boston

Staff Writer at WBUR-FM (Boston, MA)

Film Critic. Projectionalist. “Snide gatekeeper.”

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Articles

Classic Corner: You're A Big Boy Now — Crooked Marquee

5 days 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.
A movie marathon examines motherhood's complex dimensions

6 days ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

If your mom is anything like mine and doesn’t have the stomach for the Brattle Theatre’s annual Mother’s Day screening of “Psycho” — a cheeky tradition topped only by their Father’s Day presentations of “The Shining” — you’ll have plenty of less grisly movie options on the other side of the square this year.
Director David Cronenberg turns personal loss into 'The Shrouds'

2 weeks ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

“It’s a rom-com, basically,” says director David Cronenberg of his new film “The Shrouds.” He’s only half-kidding. The movie stars Vincent Cassel as Karsh, an obsessive, inconsolable widower who invented a technology that broadcasts from inside coffins so that grieving loved ones can watch 3D livestreams of their dearly departed’s decomposing corpses on their home screens and mobile devices. It’s called “GraveTech,” and it proves surprisingly popular.
Classic Corner: Brief Encounter — Crooked Marquee

3 weeks ago | crookedmarquee.com | Sean Burns |Sean Burns

It is perhaps a bit rich that the doomed romance in one of cinema’s most beloved tear-jerkers begins with someone getting something in their eye. One can easily imagine screenwriter Noel Coward and director David Lean having a laugh about being so on the nose. (Or in the eye?) Nevertheless, the inciting incident of their Brief Encounter occurs when Cecila Johnson’s Laura Jesson is ophthalmologically agitated on a train platform by errant bit of coal dust from a nearby steam engine.
IFFBoston returns with annual spring feast for movie buffs

3 weeks ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

“When I read about it, I thought, ‘I don't know if I have the energy to sit through a movie about somebody dying of cancer,” admits Independent Film Festival Boston Executive Director Brian Tamm. We’re talking about this year’s opening night film “Come See Me in the Good Light,” which kicks off IFFBoston’s 22nd annual spring feast for movie buffs on Wednesday, April 23 at the Somerville Theatre.
Rom-com 'The Wedding Banquet' gets a thoughtful makeover

4 weeks ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

One would have hoped our society had progressed beyond the need for a remake of director Ang Lee’s 1993 breakthrough hit “The Wedding Banquet.” The premise of a second-generation Taiwanese American in New York City marrying a female friend so that she can get a green card and he can fool his parents into thinking he’s straight — much to the chagrin of his boyfriend — should be charmingly obsolete these days.
Classic Corner: 52 Pick-Up — Crooked Marquee

1 month ago | crookedmarquee.com | Sean Burns

The sleaziest major Hollywood release of 1986, John Frankenheimer’s 52 Pick-Up is an ugly, urgent thriller made by a director with something to prove. Based on Elmore Leonard’s 1974 novel, it’s about what happens when a trio of low-rent, wannabe criminal masterminds try to blackmail the wrong guy. Roy Scheider stars as Harry Mitchell, a self-made Los Angeles machine parts magnate who isn’t too many years off the assembly line himself.
Netflix's 'The Clubhouse' offers a savvy Red Sox brand relaunch

1 month ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

Whenever a documentary touts that they’ve been granted access to areas that are typically off-limits, you’ve got to wonder what’s in it for the organization doing the granting. In the case of Netflix’s new limited series “The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox,” the peek behind the scenes of a floundering Major League Baseball team is a shrewd public relations move for a franchise that honestly didn’t have much to lose.
Naomi Watts and a Great Dane find their way through grief in 'The Friend'

1 month ago | wbur.org | Sean Burns

I understand how insane it sounds to say that a dog gives a great performance in a movie. We all know that animal acting is mostly a matter of training and strategically timed treats. Yet still, I’ll be damned if Bing — the 150-pound Great Dane playing a depressed dog named Apollo in writer-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s festival favorite “The Friend” — doesn’t deliver some of the film’s most moving moments.
Classic Corner: Ball of Fire — Crooked Marquee

1 month ago | crookedmarquee.com | Sean Burns

I’ve given up on trying to keep track of the insane culture war nonsense that accompanies contemporary Disney releases. One could lose days going down the rabbit hole of red-faced men taking selfie videos in their big boy trucks while fulminating about how it’s the end of the world because a cartoon character did a feminism.