Sean Burns
Film Critic
Sean Burns’ reviews, interviews and essays have appeared in Philadelphia Weekly, The Improper Bostonian, Metro, The Boston Herald, Nashville Scene, Time Out New York, Philadelphia City Paper and RogerEbert.com. He stashes them all at www.splicedpersonality.com.
Recently published
Emily Blunt steals Spielberg's busy 'Disclosure Day'
Film critic Sean Burns writes there’s a lot going on in this movie: a ton of running and jumping and driving cars through living rooms and into trains and invisible...
Apple TV's 'Cape Fear' is a 10-episode boondoggle
Based on the 1957 novel "The Executioners," the series stars Javier Bardem as an ex-con hovering around the lawyers (Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson) who put him in jail. "There’s...
The Coolidge screens a 'Bleak Week' of magnificently miserable films
An early summer festival of bad vibes, “Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair” touts 13 titles that touch on grief, war, illness, and more. WBUR film critic Sean Burns writes that...
Buddy movie 'Silent Friend' is told from a tree's perspective
Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi’s woozy and beguiling new film spins a trio of tales in which students and teachers at a German university long to be heard, viewed from the...
Horror film 'Obsession' is a cautionary tale about being careful what you wish for
Writer-director Curry Barker and creative partner Cooper Tomlinson parlayed their YouTube channel “That’s a Bad Idea” into this big-screen debut about a guy who wishes his dream girl would love...
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From child actors to screen icons, Kurt Russell and Jodie Foster celebrated in summer retrospective
While the two actors have never worked together, they've made surprisingly similar career choices. The Somerville Theatre screens 24-film series of double features May 17-July 11, and what's delightful is...
'Blue Heron' is both a reminiscence on childhood and an investigation
The remarkable first feature from Canadian writer-director Sophy Romvari is "about how we can spend our entire lives trying to understand what happened to us when we were children," reviews...
'The Devil Wears Prada 2' is an often funny and occasionally insightful sequel
Starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, the film catches up with Miranda and the gang from Runway magazine in a media landscape that’s been obliterated by smartphones and social media....
'Michael' is a troublingly untroubled biopic of the late King of Pop
Partially funded by Michael Jackson's estate and starring one of his nephews, the film presents its subject as a childlike saint sharing his light with the world, hurtling from one...
IFFBoston's annual spring extravaganza serves 'buffet of films'
Filmed everywhere from Hollywood to Hingham, the 2026 festival lineup includes 40 features and 11 short film programs, as well as the ninth annual Student Short Showcase, which offers a...