Josh Board

Josh Board is a member of the San Diego Film Critics Society and has been reviewing movies since 1990.

Recent Articles

  • The Cars — Moving in Movies (while thinking about Ric Ocasek)

    When Eddie Money died last week, I thought about the Topher Grace movie that took its name from his hit Take Me Home Tonight. It was a fun movie, that got horrible reviews. Now, you don’t think of Eddie Money as having a lot of songs in film. You think of bar bands covering one of his hits. Money did write a few original songs for some films, but they were all flops. When The Cars lead singer Ric Ocasek […]

  • Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice

    I went to try and get an interview with Linda Ronstadt once before her show at Humphrey’s by the Bay. She was walking by the bus, with messy hair, and seemed a bit out of it. The interview ended up not happening. It was just two days after she had been booed at a concert (I believe in Las Vegas), where she started getting political onstage and a fourth of the crowd walked out on her. I think she also […]

  • Hustlers

    It’s strike three for Lorene Scafaria, and she’s out! The female writer/director disappointed me in 2012 with Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, and three years after that, with The Meddler. And, I won’t even count the horrible screenplay she gave us for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. And now she’s given us a movie that is on my list for one of the worst of the year. My wife and I are perplexed at the early […]

  • The Goldfinch

    Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Goldfinch, uses a true story about Dutch painter Carel Fabritius, who in the mid-1650’s, died during an explosion that killed many in the town (and destroyed all but about 12 of his paintings). The fictional part is that his painting “The Goldfinch” is in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, and a terrorist explosion kills many people in the museum. A young boy lost his mom, but acquired a love interest — and a […]

  • Downton Abbey

    I was going to be late for the screening of Downton Abbey and…then I got a migraine. My wife was already down at the theatre, and she was more excited to see it than I. That’s mostly because I’ve never seen a single episode of the show. I texted her, and this is the conversation we had (which I’m going to turn into a review). Josh Board: How was the movie? Tina Board: It was great. I liked it from […]

  • Official Secrets

    A few months ago, the San Diego International Film Festival brought in director Gavin Hood and his latest picture Official Secrets for their Film Insider Series. I was enjoying a slice of Craft Pizza Company’s delicious pepperoni, when Hood walked by me. I yelled out, “Eye in the Sky was so underrated.”  He came over and shook my hand, thanking me. After his movie, I wouldn’t be so complimentary when I asked about something in his new film I didn’t […]

  • Brittany Runs a Marathon

    A few months ago, a 66-year-old woman died and there was a rather long obituary on her in the paper. I didn’t recognize the name, but remembered her story once I started reading. I was 11-years-old in 1980 when she made the news for cheating in the Boston Marathon. The year before, it was discovered, she cheated in the New York City marathon (people had seen her on the subway to Central Park). In the Boston Marathon, she had a […]

  • Before You Know It

    It’s great that the Sundance Institute helps young filmmakers get movies made. One of the best songwriters in America named Stew, and his partner, bassist Heidi (both from the band The Negro Problem) got something made with the help of Sundance. Now, we get this indie movie written by friends Hannah Pearl Utt (who also directed and stars) and Jen Tullock (who stars as the ditzy sister). It’s a solid, albeit flawed, debut feature from Utt (Disengaged).  There are many […]

  • IT Chapter Two

    I brought a friend with me to this movie screening because she loves horror films. She liked the first movie a lot more than I did, and as we walked out of this one, she exclaimed, “That was amazing. They knocked it out of the park. I loved the special effects. I loved how they mixed the 40-year-old characters, with the kids. I liked how it was ten times scarier than the first movie. It was bittersweet in the final […]

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