Viola Davis and Cynthia Erivo are incredible in Steve McQueen's heist film Widows.
“Spoilerpiece Theatre” is a weekly movie podcast where I talk about new releases with fellow BOFCA critics Dave Riedel and Kris Jenson. We don’t give a shit about spoilers. We just want to talk about the movies.
In Episode 226 below, we review Private Life, Life Without Basketball, The Other Side of the Wind, Boy Erased, and Widows. This week, our friend Megan Kearns returns to the show! She kicks things off with Private Life (3:02), a frank and moving depiction of a couple’s attempts to conceive. I’m next with Life Without Basketball (7:37), a documentary about a Muslim American woman who faces discriminatory rules regarding dress, preventing her from advancing her basketball career. Then, Kris runs us through Salem’s Lot (11:31), the classic spooky miniseries based on the Stephen King story, as well as Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind (15:33), a film forty years in the making. It’s a true masterpiece, argues Kris, and you should all see it on Netflix now. Then, Kris and I look at Boy Erased (21:48), Joel Edgerton’s film about gay conversion therapy, with some good qualities but an unfortunate amount of overlap with The Miseducation of Cameron Post. Last up, all three of us get less and less enthusiastic about Steve McQueen’s Widows (40:11).
Evan Crean: Hello! My name is Evan Crean. By day I work for a marketing agency, but by night, I’m a film critic based in Boston, MA. Since 2009, I have written hundreds of movie reviews and celebrity interviews for Starpulse.com. I have also contributed pieces to NewEnglandFilm.com and to The Independent, as a writer and editor. I maintain an active Letterboxd account too.
In addition to publishing short form work, I am a co-author of the book Your ’80s Movie Guide to Better Living, which is available on CreateSpace and Amazon. The book is the first in a series of lighthearted self-help books for film fans, which distills advice from ’80s movies on how to tackle many of life’s challenges.
On top of writing, I co-host and edit the weekly film podcast Spoilerpiece Theatre with two other Boston film critics. I’m a founding member and the current treasurer for the Boston Online Film Critics Association as well.
This site, Reel Recon.com, is a one-stop-shop where you can find links to all of my past and present work. Have any questions or comments after checking it out? Please feel free to email me (Evan Crean) at: ecrean AT reelrecon DOT COM .