For a film to get its own page on the main 2019 links page, it must receive at least 5 link submissions from our members with few exceptions. Here is a list of all films that haven’t quite reached that threshold yet. When it does, it will be moved to the main page and removed from this page.
2050
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: To simply dismiss it because of surface notions is to ignore the slippery slope of where we are going as a population ruled by new technological advancements everyday.
#Female Pleasure
#Like
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: #Like attempts to break down the idea that women have to be perfect to be worthy of justice.
143 Sahara Street
The 16th Episode
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
1BR
Federico Furzan @ Cinelipsis.com
- Excerpt: When Sarah moves to an ideal place in Los Angeles, she realizes things are not exactly what they seem.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Thank god for cults, where would the horror genre be without them?
3 from Hell
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Fans of Zombie’s style will find plenty of things to like, though it doesn’t quite match the quality of its predecessor.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged
Steve Biodrowski @ Hollywood Gothique
- Excerpt: 47 Meters Down: Uncaged is summer movie junk food: it’s not nutritious, but you will enjoy snacking on its empty calories as much as sharks enjoy snacking on empty-headed divers.
Alex Brannan @ CineFiles Reviews
Mark Harris @ Black Horror Movies
63 Up
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: The latest in a series of documentaries that enrich our sense of what it means to be human.
Jonathan Richards @ www.santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: At seven, their lives were lightly sketched canvases, open to possibility, bright with optimism and limitless space to dream. And now the little tykes of Michael Apted’s extraordinary documentary series are 63, thinking about retirement, doting on grandchildren, closer to the exit than the entrance.
A Vida Invisível
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
About Endlessness
Alan Mattli @ Maximum Cinema [German]
- Excerpt: For all its bleakness, Roy Andersson’s latest portrait of humanity’s imperfections is dotted with moments of sublime beauty and loving wonder.
Absurd Accident
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Absurd Accident pulls from various recognizable influences, but writer/director, Li Yuhe, forms it into an entertaining dark comedy that feels wholly its own.
An Acceptable Loss
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: An Acceptable Loss is a film that thinks it’s deep and profound when, in reality, it’s incredibly shallow.
The Accompanist
- Excerpt: The power of music to heal
Adults in the Room in San Sebastian FF
Paulo Portugal @ insider [Portuguese]
After
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: If you are a Teen, you’ll love it…If not, then you’ll hate it…
After Maria
After Midnight
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
After the Wedding
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An emotionally literate drama in which the characters must deal with their past and present choices.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: You may not be deeply moved when it’s over, but the quality of the performances and the poignant ideas explored are enough to satisfy the need for a good human-centered story.
After We Leave
- Excerpt: Aleem Hossain’s intense science-fiction drama is set on an Earth where live has become unbearable and the only good option is to emigrate to an off-world colony.
The Aftermath
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: it is a real letdown to realize that director James Kent (“Testament of Youth”) has played a game of bait and switch, a complex historical period used as a mere backdrop for the story of a marriage teetering on the brink.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Post WWII upheaval is a cheap backdrop to beautiful people getting it on. Characters and situations are undeveloped, and there little genuine romance here, and too much laughable preposterousness.
Aga
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a mysterious, stunning, melancholy tale about a disappearing way of life, one being corrupted by humankind’s progression…“Ága” goes to the ends of the earth to reveal global truths.
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Beautifully directed, using a cast with little acting experience, wise Milko Lazarov weaves a story with little rehearsal.
Ága
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Visually stunning portrait of the spiritual struggles of indigenous people to survive.
All in My Family
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
All Is True
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
- Excerpt: All Is True is a bit too formal in its telling of the Artist as an Old Man. However, it has just enough in it to make one wonder about the man who gave us so many brave new worlds.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Elton’s cast the demoralized literary icon into a swirl of scandal, bitterness and’ regret and Branagh’s characterization has allowed him to climb back out again, making peace with a family sidelined by genius.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Kenneth Branagh explores what Shakespeare’s retirement may have looked like – familial scandal, remorse for past mistakes, and attempts toward future happiness. Performances outshine a lackluster, melodramatic script – but check out Ian McKellen’s few minutes on screen; he about walks away with the whole project.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The result is a well-made and well-acted piece of historical fiction whose big picture construct is sadly in opposition with its small picture intrigue.
All Rise
All the Colors of Giallo
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Standing alone, the competent titular documentary would not be of exceptional interest; it’s the extras that put this three-disc set over.
All These Small Moments
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
- Excerpt: All These Small Moments is a charming, well-acted New York City coming-of-age set against a family-in-crisis drama.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Melissa Miller-Costanzo’s directorial debut is as assured and empathetic coming-of-age film that doesn’t do many things new, but does them with well and with a tender touch.
- Excerpt: Though this sweet, subtle, and sentimental work is a smidge too simplistic in narrative design, it wins over any resistance with its quiet refinement and heartrending insight.
Alternate Endings
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Six creative ways dying people and their families are taking control of their deaths and the disposal of their remains.
Always Be My Maybe
- Excerpt: The positive influence of When Harry Met Sally is noticeable in the undercurrents, but this romantic comedy has its own unique identity.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Doesn’t rock the rom-com boat but absolutely delightful anyway. A smart, modern romantic comedy that flips genre scripts and finds a freshness in making room for new voices and new perspectives.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Just because this zany streak is where the film’s replay value lies, however, doesn’t mean the filmmakers didn’t also pack plenty of emotional weight.
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: Affectionately blending their own societal zest from their place in America’s Melting Pot, Wong and Park bring new voices as a genius comic pairing. Much of the method of Always Be My Maybe may be routine, but the resulting charm is unfailingly welcome.
Amazing Grace
Rick Aragon @
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: I stopped going to church in my teens, but if church were like this I’d be going every Sunday. The power of Lady Soul’s voice produces more shivers, more goosebumps, in ninety minutes than any thriller.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: To relive [this moment] in such resplendent glory is thus a gift no matter how simple the concept. This once transient moment now has the permanence to live on forever.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: There’s no story arc, no build to a boffo climax. It’s the Queen of Soul, singing her soul out with amazing grace and unearthly talent.
América
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …a beautiful portrait of familial love nestled within an eldercare drama.
American Dharma
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: In American Dharma, Morris continues his project of interviewing controversial political figures, not with an aim of pinning them down or exposing them, although he does push back (mostly through the use of ironic editing counterpoints) when it’s warranted. His film got me inside Stephen K. Bannon’s head, and it was an unsettling place to be.
American Woman
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A story of perseverance and emotional resilience with a bravura performance by Sienna Miller.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: about the in between time, a suspension of a woman’s motherhood but not her life…Sienna Miller really digs deep here
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: How do we grow in spite of [tragedy]? Each step [forward] proves to be a nuanced transformation thanks to Scott’s quiet direction and Miller’s stunning lead performance.
The Amityville Murders
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Among Wolves
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: A hypnotic cinematic poem to survival in the aftermath of war.
And Breathe Normally
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A moving story that showcases the need for openness and hospitality in our increasingly constricted world.
And Your Bird Can Sing
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
- Excerpt: If Richard Linklater had come of age in 21st century Japan, this is what Dazed and Confused might have looked like.
Angels Are Made of Light
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An engaging documentary about Afghanistan’s youth that activates our empathy.
The Angry Birds Movie 2
Alex Brannan @ CineFiles Reviews
M Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest
- Excerpt: The aptly-named The Angry Birds Movie 2 is a silly and fun follow-up to the 2016 CG-animated hit with eagles joining the furious fray and an endearingly touching story.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Painfully stupid faux-woke slapstick that wants to have its idiot male hero and its nods to feminism at the same time. Kids are listening, they are absorbing this garbage, and they deserve better.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: It’s pretty clear that the makers don’t intend for this to be anything other than a kiddie flick. And that’s precisely the reason why ‘The Angry Birds Movie 2’ works. Huge, huge step up from its predecessor.
Aniara
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Kågerman and Lilja bring Martinson’s poem to cinemas with a stark beauty both in its sci-fi production design and emotionally wrought performances.
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Animals
Diego Salgado @ SoFilm [Spanish]
Another Day of Life
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An animated documentary presenting a journalist’s poignant perspectives on the horrors of war.
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Astonishing: sometimes oddly beautiful but mostly like sci-fi horror. An anti-meditation nightmare, a call to arms if only we were ready to finally address our thoughtless impact on planet Earth.
Any One of Us
- Excerpt: Not surprisingly, deep depression and feelings of uselessness eat away at the inner being of these survivors.
Arjun Patiala
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Glenn Dunks @ The Film Experience
- Excerpt: It’s amazing to think that there can still be so much previously unseen footage from the biggest television event in history, and yet here we are at the 50th anniversary of the moon landing with a bus-load of new documentaries claiming new takes, new interviews and, yes, new footage.
Article 15
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
- Excerpt: In a plot that is centred on a twin murder in Indian heartlands, ‘Article 15’ is about the local society’s intrinsically trickled-in caste dynamics, ways of power politics as well as the central protagonist’s (Ayushmann Khurrana) coming-of-age.
Asako I & II
Allyson Johnson @ TheYoungFolks
Asako I and II
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Hamaguchi himself refers to the divide as the Everyday versus the Unexpected, but his his literal symbolism of Ryôhei as harbor after an earthquake versus Baku’s fireworks more aptly translates to safety and solidity versus danger and excitement.
Ash Is Purest White
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: While their ever-changing romance is the film’s lynchpin, its ability to contrast them against each other proves more crucial than that which they are or aren’t as a unit.
Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog
- Excerpt: A pure delight.
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Ask Dr. Ruth
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: For someone like me who really did know her as a comedic footnote in pop culture, Ask Dr. Ruth proves crucial to restoring her legacy.
Frank Ochieng @ ScrreenAnarchy
- Excerpt: Ask Dr. Ruth is both playful and piercing in its spotlight shining on a strong, achieving giggly feminine force that conquered lingering personalized adversity with sexual advisory potency.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: A documentary is only as good as its subject, and in Dr. Ruth Westheimer, director Ryan White (The Keepers) has a live one: a 4-foot, 7-inch bundle of irrepressible joy wrapped around a core of impenetrable sadness.
At the Heart of Gold
Bavner Donaldo @ CINEJOUR [Indonesian]
Auggie
- Excerpt: The self-same story could have been told without any science fiction.
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “Auggie” was written and directed by 28-year-old actor/director Matt Kane. He had a great cast to work with, but to see Richard Kind writhing on the living room floor with an imaginary love interest was just too much.
The Australian Dream
Blake Howard @
Simon Miraudo @ Student Edge
- Excerpt: The Australian Dream is shattering. And now, the illusion of our country can’t be unshattered.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: A simple, yet brutally effective action movie with Scott Adkins and Jesse V. Johnson working at the top of their game.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: This is a gritty, mean, down and dirty crime story about gritty, mean, down and dirty criminals. It’s also Johnson’s most ambitious film to date, as well as maybe his best.
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: It’s not a word that is commonly used, but the best definition I found for avengement is “the inflicting of retributive punishment”. That reasonably sums up the bulk of what happens in the hour and a half of this newest collaboration of producer and star Scott Adkins and writer-director Jesse V. Johnson.
Ayka
Amber Wilkinson @ Eye For Film
- Excerpt: They say it’s the hope that kills you and Dvortsevoy lets enough light in to emphasise her plight.
Babylon
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Frank Ochieng @ Screenanarchy
- Excerpt: …revealing and raw in its political and sociological spectrum. Unapologetically radical, intrusive and emotionally gripping…a blistering commentary…
Bachman
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: What Randy Bachman is like, with interviews from friends, family, including daughter and son, and others in the biz, is filtered through the song clips and his own comments on his life. This film isn’t anything like the extravaganza of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but it does give a good background to the life and music of Randy Bachman.
Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Top-drawer documentary on the African-American mystic, pastor, and spiritual mentor to leaders in the civil rights movement.
Bacurau
Chris Barsanti @ PopMatters [Croatian]
- Excerpt: Loony anti-colonialist Brazilian satire Bacurau doesn’t always balance its humor with its bite, but its communitarian soul, oddball wit, and dark vision of the future still hits home.
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
- Excerpt: Bacurau is a wonderfully weird western that is as funny as it is hard hitting and thrilling.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: It all leads to a rousing climax of violent surprises and poignant commentary as far as where [forgotten] communities stand against behemoths with unlimited resources.
Badla
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Balloon
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: A harsh realistic family drama shot like a documentary.
Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A fascinating portrait of a “larger than life” filmmaker and collaborator.
Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: More than a new chapter in cinematic history, Green’s film becomes a key piece towards revising everything we thought we knew.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: If you’re a movie buff, this is one of the most exciting movies you’ll see this year. And it should do its part to ensure that Alice Guy-Blaché is, in the words of the current New York Times revisionist obituary series, overlooked no more.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: What a wonderful experience it is to be taken on Pamela B. Green’s tenacious journey to uncover the story of the first female director, screenwriter, producer and studio owner!
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Not only a portrait of the woman who made more than a thousand of the very first films, but a mystery detective story about how the achievements of a trailblazing woman were erased, and found again.
The Beach Bum
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: So either you enjoy this never-ending frivolous dance or you tire of it. Despite being of the latter, Moondog and company’s infectious allure still won me over.
- Excerpt: ..a generic stoner comedy flick that has all the natural high of an unfiltered, soggy joint. Cluttered and chaotic, The Beach Bum is nothing but pointless piffle simply overdosing on its own brand of “rude-dude” drudgery.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: I’d be impressed if Korine had the self-deprecating self-awareness to make Moondog an autobiographical stand-in. But even if he did, that still wouldn’t make ‘The Beach Bum’ a good movie.
Beats
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Becoming Nobody
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An interview with the renowned spiritual teacher on the really big questions of life.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: A non-critical and unfocused but diverting documentary on the American academic who dropped out to become an influential spiritual teacher advocate for those seeking the inner truth.
Behind the Bullet
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: If there’s any concrete message in Behind the Bullet, it’s that our emotions are valid in the conversation surrounding gun violence.
Bei Bei
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Bel Canto
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This tonal misfire never hits the notes of drama and romance it aims for with its ickily problematic terrorist-hostage relationships. Facile and uncomfortably implausible, emotionally and practically.
Belzebuth
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Bennett’s War
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Bennett’s War has clunky, unimaginative dialogue and stiff performances.
Benzinho/Loveling
Paulo Portugal @ insider [Portuguese]
Berlin, I Love You
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: As the world’s most avid movie musical fan, I was bowled over by Jenna Dewan’s fantasy dance scene. And I felt the same way about the delightful conversation between Dianna Agron and and Luke Wilson, who play a charming puppeteer and burned-out Hollywood producer, respectively.
Berserk
Marina Antunes @ Quiet Earth
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: If it’s intended to be a darkly farcical neo-noir, the tone feels off, and ultimately the lack of stakes and danger renders “Berserk” null and void of much purpose.
The Best of Enemies
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Frank Ochieng @ ScreenAnarchy
- Excerpt: Although dramatically surreal and dripping with ready-made inspiration, The Best of Enemies feels unevenly pat and plays it rather safe without exploring the racially charged obstacles with a more pronounced grittiness.
The Bestowal
- Excerpt: Steven and Death have a long (and often tedious) metaphysical discussion about questions that intrinsically have no answer.
Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: This is an entertaining look at one of the most prominent sports figures of our time, and it’s packed with breathtaking surfing footage.
Between Two Ferns: The Movie
Derek Deskins @ Edge Media Network
- Excerpt: This was clearly a movie that was developed on the fly, an exercise in improvisation, and while that may be a gift to the improv experimenters (and the cast), it leaves it feeling like a puzzle that was never fully assembled.
- Excerpt: I have seen Between Two Ferns: The Movie, and I will watch it again, and, to be completely transparent, I’ve been skipping through its best bits on Netflix while writing this very review.
Beyond the Night
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
- Excerpt: Beyond the Night is an engrossing thriller filled with strong characters and an intruging central mystery that keeps you guessing.
Bharat
- Excerpt: Entertaining for most parts, ‘Bharat’ has its share of moments despite not exploring possibilities such as India’s development trajectory.
Bikeman 2
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Birds of Passage
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: unlike [“Embrace of the Serpent”], while this also charts the corruption of long tradition by greed and wealth, “Birds of Passage” becomes more of a family saga, a familiar story of drug money instigating violence.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: Birds of Passage is packed with tropes of the classic Mafia drama. There are imposing godfathers, ambitious up-and-comers, gun-happy loose cannons, psychotics, and gorgeous molls. There are blood feuds, dead bodies, lines drawn and crossed.
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Black and Blue
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Harris gives this her all and she’s easy to root for, but hers is a fine instrument in service to a blunt object.
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Dan Lybarger @ eFilmCritic
- Excerpt: Deon Taylor and Peter A. Dowling seem eager to please the audience, maybe a little too eager. Some of the surprises aren’t terribly surprising because the filmmakers hint they’re coming. Naomie Harris and Tyrese Gibson are already easy to cheer for. We don’t need any reminders.
- Excerpt: However, it is too bad that such hostile societal observations in Black and Blue are contained in a generic, clunky action-pack spectacle that undermines its profound presentation about police corruption and minority alienation.
Black Christmas
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Black Christmas isn’t perfect, but it’s fairly tight and tense, and it has a lot to say with its timely themes.
Shelagh Rowan-Legg @ ScreenAnarchy
Andrew Wyatt @ The Lens
Bliss
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Bliss is abrasive, moody, and nasty, but for a certain audience, its relentles griminess is a feature, not a bug.
Dennis Schwartz Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Please note that Begos is an admirer of madman filmmaker Gaspar Noé.
Blood Will Tell
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Pace moves too slowly with suspense. Still, what’s revealed does make some sense. A puzzling film that’s hard to view means patience needed to see it through.
George Zervopoulos @ Movies Ltd [Greek]
- Excerpt: I would love to become the new Secreto de sus ojos.
Bloodline
- Excerpt: Bloodline gives its characters just enough interiority to probe at the idea that parenthood’s combination of “love and total panic at the same time,” as Lauren says, can push someone toward murderous madness.
Blowin’ Up
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A fly-on-the-wall peek into a court in New York City where women work to help other women with realistic solutions to complicated problems. A wonderful ode to creative and compassionate thinking.
Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Even if jazz is not your thing, Huber’s rich musical history of its preeminent label is something to sink into.
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Frankly, though this is a well-made film detailing the rise of a company, there is plenty more room for the stories of the makers of that company. While Huber gets a series of musicians to extol the greatness of Blue Note, she misses what would give it a meaningful impact — the stories behind the scenes.
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
- Excerpt: It’s an ambitious and gutsy film that’s bound to knock the wind out of anyone who sees it.
Book of Monsters
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Book Smart
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: An exceptional piece of coming-of-age filmmaking both emotionally resonant and very funny. An impressive directorial debut from Olivia Wilde.
The Bouncer
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The Bouncer is a simple, but effective crime film that features a compelling, understated performance from Jean-Claude Van Damme.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Emmanuel Báez @ Cinéfiloz [Spanish]
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A tribute to a creative, determined, and compassionate African boy.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Chiwetel Ejiofor’s directorial debut is a modest film about human ingenuity in the face of incredible obstacles. It’s simple, but very effective.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: An inspiring true story about a courageous young boy who persisted with his inventive idea that saved many lives in Malawi, Africa.
Braid
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Time becomes malleable [as Pierone] removes the pathways from one scene to another so we can find ourselves in the same bottomless rabbit hole as her characters.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Keep your expectations at the level of a smart B-thriller and you may be pleasantly surprised by how well ‘Braid’ threads these three women together.
The Breaker Upperers
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: This New Zealsand comedy had me in stitches most of the time, thanks to its hilarious co-stars Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beck, who also co-wrote and co-directed the film.
Breakthrough
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: You need to have a bit of a cold heart not to be touched by Breakthrough.
- Excerpt: Breakthrough is warmly inviting for its ability to be honest, moving, melancholy, and deliver its truthfulness in profound revelation. Anchored by solidly heartfelt performances steeped in the holy belief system of faith and perseverance
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: Well, good believers love divine challenges and so does this Breakthrough starring Chrissy Metz.
The Brink
Laura Clifford @ Reelling Reviews
- Excerpt: a footnote past its expiration date.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: I feared a portrait of human dumpster fire Steve Bannon would humanize him, but he’s beyond that. Can we use this inside look at his political and cultural manipulations to stop his fomenting of hate?
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Alison Klayman, a progressive Jewish granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, consented to produce/direct a film on a man with whose ideas she does not agree.
The Bronx, USA
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: A pleasing nostalgia laden documentary about a once acclaimed high school in the Bronx.
Brooklyn Inshallah
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “Brooklyn Inshallah” bridges a cultural divide in America by showing Arab-Americans singing the Lutheran liturgy and favorite Lutheran hymns in Arabic. This embrace and synthesis of cultures forces us to do a double-take. It looks like there’s more in common between North Dakota and Brooklyn than we might have thought.
Buddy
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “Buddy” is a tender story of human-animal connection created by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
Buffalo Boys
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: director Mike Wiluan fumbles a bit with tone with a film that initially seems like a Jackie Chan vehicle before morphing into a brutally violent indictment of Dutch colonialism. He definitely has a talent for staging action scenes, though
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: That final showdown is a hoot, with four-barrel shotguns, cannons, arrows, knives, axes and hatchets among the various implements of death and destruction. Imagine that finale in The Wild Bunch, with fewer people, but bigger explosions and bloodier deaths.
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: Funny as it is, the viewer has a hard time deciding if it is cool neo-western or outright camp.
Bull
- Excerpt: Send in the clowns
Bunuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: I would advise anyone planning on seeing this film to see Land without Bread first, and then see how Bunuel and company created some of the more dramatic images.
Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: It reveals a Buñuel consumed with jealousy of Dali, insistent that he is the preeminent Spanish surrealist, as well as obsessed with death, morbidly so when it comes to the animals of the mountainous northern territory.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Provides as much insight into the often-manipulated “truth” of Las Hurdes as the filmmaker’s nightmare-fueled psychology.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: …the only movie to make the father of cinematic Surrealism its central character. That fact would make this film notable even if it wasn’t good; fortunately, it’s as entertaining as it is informative.
Burn
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Burn is a solid thriller that efficiently sustains a weird, off-putting energy for its entire runtime. Tilda Cobham-Hervey shines as the lead.
Burning Cane
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: A dark metaphor with even darker results. [Youmans’] handling of the topic is unapologetic in its visually poetic yet starkly matter-of-fact honesty.
By the Grace of God
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This winner of the Silver Bear at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival barrels forward at breakneck speed, yet no one in Ozon’s large ensemble gets short shrift. The victims of a crime become activists demanding – and achieving – justice in a work both bracing and infuriating.
The Bygone
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: The Bygone is a frustrating watch because the possibilities are right there, but never quite materialize.
Cajun Navy
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Inspiring documentary about a movement of volunteers helping their neighbors during hurricanes and floods.
Calm with Horses
- Excerpt: The cast of Irish drama ‘Calm With Horses’ elevates familiar themes about masculinity, violence, and poverty.
Caminhos Magnétykos
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Canary
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Christiaan Olwagen’s hugely ambitious year-in-the-life musical charts one young man’s journey to self acceptance during the height of the Apartheid regime…Bezuidenhout, who has the face of a silent film comedian, is a multi-talented lead.
The Cannibal Club
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Although the upper class may not literally be eating the lower classes, they’re damn sure doing the job on a figurative level.
Captive State
Dragan Antulov @ Draxblog VI [Croatian]
Oktay Kozak @ Paste Magazine
Frank Ochieng @ SF Crowsnest
- Excerpt: Captive State feels labored in murkiness and confusion…another derivative disaster movie basically flexing a basic bicep of puff-piece paranoia.
Casanova, Last Love
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: In the eighteenth century, Casanova, known for his taste for fun and play, arrived in London after having to go into exile.
The Cat and the Moon
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Alex Wolff’s directorial debut covers familiar territory, but he explores it with confidence and with a strong eye for character.
The Cat Rescuers
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A tiny, delicate, inspiring metaphor for the reshaping of attitudes we will need to make on a planetary scale, and for the effort we’ll need to expend to clean up the enormous messes we have made.
Cat Sticks
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Cat Sticks is a bold, confident debut. Sen’s low-key photography lends gravitas to the existence of these addicts usually treated as blights on society’s face.
Catch-22
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An expose on the egregious myth that World War II was the Good War.
Cecil B. DeMented
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Celebration
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: ten years after Saint Laurent’s death, a reedited version of the film has finally been released and it is a fascinating, if sometimes frustratingly impressionistic, fly-on-the-wall look at the last years leading up to presenting his last collection.
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: The camera basically records tailors frantically working to perfect the visions of a reclusive dress designer and emaciated, expressionless models parading that vision to the maker. The caveat is that “Celebration” offers a glimpse of the history, evolution, and mystique of Parisian haute couture.
Celeste
Censored
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Ripped from the headlines, or at least the Saturday night movie theatre, the forbidden turns out to be in all of us.
The Chambermaid
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Slice-of-life film about a young maid at a luxury hotel coping with and rising above the messiness of her work life.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: director Lila Avilés shines a light on the life of a woman who crosses paths with many but is seen by few.
The Changeover
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
- Excerpt: The Changeover is a well-made fantasy YA movie that features a terrifying villainous turn by Timothy Spall.
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Frank ochieng @ SF Crowsnest
- Excerpt: It is not often that a YA-based SF/fantasy/horror spectacle is received with a satisfactory amount of fleshed out characterisations to accompany the nail-biting action with adequate evenness. New Zealand’s ‘The Changeover’ is a character-driven frightfest at its small-scare creative core.
Ron Wilkinson @ Its Just Movies
- Excerpt: An easy going production with time-honored tropes fails to raise a ruckus.
The Chaperone
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …has its charms, largely due to McGovern, but it’s also hokey and its production is lacking
Chhichhore
- Excerpt: Sometimes dramatic and otherwise insanely funny, director Nitesh Tiwari’s ‘Chhichhore’ works like magic with its decision to remain uncomplicated. While the ensemble cast does very well, it is Varun Sharma and Naveen Polishetty who amass maximum hoots.
El Chicano
- Excerpt: …the humorless and dark tendencies feel utterly labored. Dripping in brutish violence as a police procedural, El Chicano is a sunken saga riddled in strained grade-B crime drama cliches.
Chintu Ka Birthday
- Excerpt: Starring Vinay Pathak and Tillotama Shome, Kumar Devanshu and Satyanshu Singh’s ‘Chintu Ka Birthday’ laced with extraordinary sound by Bishwadeep Chatterjee, gives you a fly on the wall account of an Indian family’s life in war-struck Baghdad.
Citizen K
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a fascinating piece of work, at once a highly unusual biopic and a solid primer on recent Russian history.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Muckraking documentarian Alex Gibney on why Vladimir Putin is so dangerous, via the tale of a Russian oligarch of the post-Soviet era turned dissident. Vital context for the state of the world today.
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: The thread of personal metamorphosis that Gibney tracks in Citizen K is what makes it such a dynamic and thought-provoking film.
Clara
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A close encounter with the ineffable mysteries of both human relationships and the universe.
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: This combination creates an intimate and daring film experience that enraptures as easily and as powerfully as it fascinates.
Clarita
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: The The Exorcist from The Philippines!
The Cleansing Hour
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Climax
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: [Noé]’s produced a film that features all of his taboo busters and yet, surprisingly, it may be his most accessible to date…a film that grabs you from its opening shoot and never lets go.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Climax is alternately an endurance test and pure art-house cinema, but there’s still no way to deny Gaspar Noé’s berserk descent into hell and loss of control being effectively visceral and unforgettable.
Dan Lybarger @ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
- Excerpt: In depicting a rave gone horribly wrong, his current movie, Climax, features intriguing stylistic choices, but it’s hard to feel sad or angry about what led the people in his movie down a destructive path.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Noé seems intent to render narrative as meaningless as possible. Who and where succumbs to the experiential act itself.
Close
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: An intriguing female-driven thriller directed and co-written by Vicky Jewson. Don’t worry, guys, the action scenes are also very exciting.
Closure
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
- Excerpt: Hilarious and heartfelt, Closure is a delight.
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com [Croatian]
- Excerpt: A quirky line up of eccentrics leads to a nicely done noir twist in the City of Angels.
CoinCoin and the Extra-Humans
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: It is not quite as satisfying as the first and will be even less so for those just coming aboard, but there is still much to enjoy in the warped wisdom of Van Der Weyden and the comical silent reactions of his trusty lieutenant Carpentier (Philippe Jore).
Cold Brook
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Cold Brook is an adult fairy tale that embraces its broad interpretations to remind its leading men about what truly matters most.
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: What takes “Cold Creek” to greatness is the notion that having a goal and working towards it is fun, but helping someone else, being ready to sacrifice your freedom, brings meaning.
Cold Case Hammarskjold
Rick Aragon @
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A chilling tale of conspiracy well-told.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: With conspiracy theories tumbling out of the Oval Office and a tide of white supremacy risiing across the land, the release of “Cold Case Hammarskjöld” couldn’t be more timely. At turns incredibly entertaining and jaw-droppingly horrifying, there’s never been anything quite like it…
Glenn Dunks @ The Film Experience
- Excerpt: But this story of (possible) intrigue, (maybe) scandal, and even (potential) AIDS warfare (!!!) is treated with none of the acute seriousness that it (probably) deserves.
The Collini Case
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Collisions
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “Collisions,” a very sensitive film on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement practice.
Color Out of Space
The Combination Redemption
Communion
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The film becomes a document of Ola’s lost innocence, hardening her to the reality that faith only gets us so far.
The Confirmation
- Excerpt: Boys will be…
Corporate Animals
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Corporate culture gets a delightfully twisted kick in the ass when a “team-building retreat” turns disastrous. As horror vies with comedy, the pitch(black)-perfect cast gets the balance just right.
Corpus Christi
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com [Croatian]
- Excerpt: A rough early effort and a vibrant statement about the dreams of youth, the failures of adult society, and a dangerous future.
Cory in Brick City
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Booker may be progressive and compassionate, but he is also strong on safe streets and a balanced budget.
Country Music
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A monumental series about the history, impact, and musicians of the popular music genre.
Creating Woodstock
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: The secrets behind the production of the 1969 three-day Woodstock music festival are spilled. How close and in how many ways the event skimmed catastrophe is documented in “Creating Woodstock,” a definitive documentary on the behind-the-scenes machinations of an event known across generations throughout the western world.
The Crossing
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This uninvolving coming-of-age crime drama tries to dazzle with visual tricksiness, but it cannot make up for its teen protagonist who is mere metaphorical symbol, and a bystander in her own story.
Crown Vic
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The result isn’t perfect, but there’s enough to peek inside this complex argument surrounding the police with nuanced emotion.
Culture Shock
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Guerrero’s film embodies the brutal process immigrants must endure to find a better life, and also the processes working against them to ensure they assimilate entirely into American culture.
Cunningham
- Excerpt: This colorful but remote-feeling documentary functions almost as though it were taking orders from the late Merce Cunningham.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: One of the most distinctive works is an early rotating presentation of individual dancers, all seen at once, all performing different works, as we listen to Cunningham describe the risk of performing something that he didn’t wholly know about in advance.
The Curse of Buckout Road
Mark Harris @ BlackHorrorMovies.com
The Curse of the Weeping Woman
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: The real curse of the movie is its generic and bland scares along its storyline. Happy for Linda Cardellini’s first movie as a lead but ‘The Curse of the Weeping Woman’ will bore you to tears.
Cyrano, My Love
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: an ebullient comedy of errors that recounts the fraught confluence of art, commerce, and egos
Danger Close
Daughter of the Wolf
- Excerpt: The filmmakers adeptly blur the lines between the heroes and anti-heroes, constructing a dynamic, character-driven portrait of rage and redemption
David Crosby: Remember My Name
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Biodocumentary about a rock star whose love of music helped him overcome his self-destructiveness.
Laura Cifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Eaton’s changing interview venues keep things fresh and he limits most of his other talking heads to archival footage, allowing Crosby to tell his own story
The Day Shall Come
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The Day Shall Come is one of the year’s biggest disappointments. The satire is limp and lifeless, and it just isn’t a particularly funny movie.
- Excerpt: Watching the film one is never sure what group will be skewered next by Chris Morris’ bitter, toxic wit.
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: The Day Shall Come is not quite as hard-edged as his previous feature, but there is still a good amount of fun to go with the messaging seen this time around.
De De Pyaar De
Dead End
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Deadtectives
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Tony West’s Deadtectives mixes horror and comedy, sometimes well, sometimes not. The beginning is rough; the comedy sitcom-y, the horror forced and toothless, but near the halfway mark, the film strikes a balance between jokes and scares—and leans into the spooky.
Deadwood: The Movie
Blake Howard @ Graffiti With Punctuation
The Death and Life of John F Donovan
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: The first bad film of Xavier Dolan.
The Death of Dick Long
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Easily the best movie about an Alabama-based Nickelback cover band I’ve ever seen.
Debt
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: While we quickly become sympathetic to the plight of the hapless Tufan, every character around him is experiencing some kind of pain, be it financial or emotional, and how they interact with each other is subtly exposed as a series of debits and credits.
The Deeper You Dig
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: It’s super slick for such a DIY production, making the most of what it has—off-kilter premise, isolated setting, inherent strangeness—and takes less obvious paths available when you don’t have a ton of external oversight.
Deerskin
Alan Mattli @ Maximum Cinema [German]
- Excerpt: Consistently fun to watch, not least because Dupieux knows how to use the film’s rough and sketchy edges to his advantage.
The Deported
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Stories of four immigrants and their families facing the heartbreak of deportation.
Desolate
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Desolation Center
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Despite Everything
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Devil’s Revenge
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: William Shatner battles the Devil with a grenade launcher, so there’s that. Only that, but still…
Diamantino
Paulo Portugal @ Insider.pt [Portuguese]
Diego Maradona
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Ron Wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: Sports heroism is under the microscope, warts and all, in this riveting soccer documentary.
Dilan 1991
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Dilili in Paris
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A French animated film about justice for women.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s absolutely astonishing to look at, a lovely visit to the City of Lights that quite literally glows… but the [English language] voice actors are all so wooden, they sound like the result of a translation program.
- Excerpt: Dilili in Paris is a strangely uneven French confection made of lovely animation, a bizarre plot about the kidnapping of little girls, and an English language dub that kills the rhythm.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: It’s too cerebral for children, yet too haphazardly constructed to satisfy adults.
The Dirt
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s gross-out impulses are entertaining enough, but it still falls back on the same formula that we’ve seen in so many biopics.
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: No movie could ever fully capture the insanity that was Motley Crue, but The Dirt comes about as close as possible.
The Divine Fury
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Finally, the South Korean MMA exorcism movie you’ve been waiting for.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: The Divine Fury has enough unique qualities to set it apart from the countless exorcism flicks already out there, and the story’s focus on how a person can turn anger / hatred into a positive force for good is an awesome, unusually uplifting narrative to find in the religious horror sub-genre.
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
- Excerpt: The Divine Fury manages to take cliches and spin genre gold out of them.
Dogman
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Fonte is fantastic […] but if the narrative he’s beholden to won’t let me invest in his journey, it’s all for naught.
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: A film of the most beautiful of losers, too abstract for its own good.
Domino
Roderick Heath @ This Island Rod
- Excerpt: Domino proves a galvanising experience in regards to the current movie scene, as pure an auteurist artefact as any I’ve seen and one that, in its way, recalls many a late B movie excursion from the major talents of a much earlier filmmaking generation: Fritz Lang or Edgar G. Ulmer would have entirely understood Domino.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The film declares the CIA as shady but necessary and the families of POC unworthy of even being spoken about alongside those of white knights with badges.
Diego Salgado @ Guia del Ocio [Spanish]
Donnybrook
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Some viewers will be put off by Donnybrook’s relentless misery and abject despair—there’s not a glint of hope to find, even in the devastating final moment. But it’s a primal cry, an injury that won’t heal, and a weighty, powerful look at the underbelly of America’s decaying heartland.
Jonathan Richards @ Pasatiempo
- Excerpt: Sutton (Memphis, Dark Night) achieves a lot of what he’s after in painting his bleak picture of life on the desperate fringes. It’s just so damned unpleasant to watch, and difficult, too — some scenes are rendered in such darkness, both of tone and of lighting, that you can’t see what’s going on, and believe me, you don’t want to.
Ron Wilkinson @ Its Just Movies
- Excerpt: Rough and tumble violence in an uncaring world.
Dons of Disco
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Don’t
Frank Ochieng @ Screen Anarchy
- Excerpt: Don’t Come Back from the Moon is a small-sized affecting coming-of-age tale with a big scale heart and thought-provoking conviction. Thoroughly probing and perceptive, the conscious cow does not need to jump over this heart-breaking Moon.
Don’t Be Nice
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A documentary that reveals the power of poetry to speak truth to power.
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: This is Shakespeare on steroids, a poetic banquet of color, action, rhythm and sound that transcends expectations.
Don’t Let Go
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Don’t Let Go offers simple thrills with an enticing premise, but it’s the performances that ultimately make it resonate.
Dora and the Lost City of Gold
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Raiders of the Lost Ark lite for kids, but juvenile humor and a derivative plot limit its appeal for adults. Teen Dora is really cool, though, and a great role model for girls and boys alike.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: There is no keeping up with the original TV audience, 16 year-olds are not going to see Dora on a Friday night, but for the young ones, Dora is packed with fart jokes, unrelenting pep, a song about pooping, and dire warnings of how awful high school will be. Six year-olds are going to love it.
Oktay Kozak @ Paste Magazine
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: ‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’ is quite an enjoyable family adventure fare with enough action and humor for kids and adults. Isabela Moner is perfect as Dora!
Down
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Beyond scary, DOWN should have been titled “How Not To Spend Valentine’s Day.”
Dragged Across Concrete
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Zahler’s idiosyncracies as a filmmaker is fascinating to watch, and despite some sloppiness, the film has a menacing style that is wholly its own.
Dragon Ball Super: Broly
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Designed specifically for those who have a long-term investment in the characters and story.
DreadOut
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: When are teens going to learn not to go into haunted abandoned buildings where cult murders took place?
Dream Girl
Driven
The Drone
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Earth
ron wilkinson @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Through the camera lens, man as force of nature gets a look at human impact, and at things to come.
Earthquake Bird
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Echo In the Canyon
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: It’s a roller coaster of emotion that ultimately proves how incomparable those originals are. So while today’s artists honoring them reinforces this truth, it’s perhaps not in the way they intended.
Edie
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Inspiring story about an adventuresome elder who discovers the fire inside herself.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This is no twee old-lady adventure. The magnificent Sheila Hancock crafts a portrait of elder womanhood as a tangy triumph of risk-taking over regret, and resolution over resignation.
- Excerpt: There are two stunningly beautiful sights in “Edie,” about an 83-year-old woman who wants to climb a mountain. The first is the breathtaking scenery of the Scottish countryside. The second is the lovely face of actress Sheila Hancock.
Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
- Excerpt: The last time we see Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) in Felina, the final episode of Breaking Bad, he is escaping captivity from an Aryan gang compound in a car belonging to the (very) recently deceased Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons). This exact instant is where we start El Camino, a Breaking Bad Movie.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: It’s fun to see these characters again and be back in this world, but “Better Call Saul” does exactly that in a substantive manner. El Camino is saddled with a hollow center.
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: Both Paul and Gilligan do justice to the character and to Breaking Bad with El Camino. It looks – and mostly plays – like an extended episode of Breaking Bad, but when you’re talking about one of the best shows ever created, that’s hardly a complaint.
An Elephant Sitting Still
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
James Wegg @ JWR
- Excerpt: One of darkest (in all senses: storylines, lighting, much of the music) films yet seen, gives many insights to life in present-day China along with the universal realities of bullying, infidelity, depression, angst and social media “outings”.
Eli
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: While a mostly generic haunted house film, it is worth watching for its bonkers final act.
Ema, Pablo Larraín
Paulo Portugal @ Insider.pt [Portuguese]
Emanuel
The Emperor of Paris
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Enemy Lines
- Excerpt: Banke’s first feature shows much promise
Enormous: The Gorge Story
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Entangled
Ron Wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: Entangled in its mixed messages, writer/director Milena Lurie’s film struggles to find a voice as its protagonist finds hers.
Escape Plan: The Extractors
George Zervopoulos @ Movies Ltd [Greek]
- Excerpt: Avoid It!
The Etruscan Smile
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: The marvelous performance by Brian Cox is what puts a Bonnie proper kilt on the dull narrative and at least makes it bearable.
The Eulogy
- Excerpt: We see it time and time again when filmmakers visions can no longer be supported by a local film industry desperately craving financial success often to the detriment of quality. Where filmmakers like Jennifer Kent can remain niche because her films are violent and confronting and yet are acclaimed around the world (her next project is, somewhat predictably, American-financed). Where talent is not incubated, yet expected to succeed or else. Where they cannot afford to support its artists in any real meaningful way yet expect them to carry the industry on their backs.
Ever After
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This German zombie flick offers horror with a spin of feminine steel, not soft but brutally maternal, as necessary as natural selection and as nurturing as civilizational, even planetary tough love.
Extra Ordinary
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Overall it’s a bit slight, too light and fluffy to have much lasting impact, but it’s also a hoot.
Extreme Job
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Director Lee Byeong-heon establishes a breezy balance between complex action scenes and goofy workplace comedy, seeding quirks, relationships and rivalries into the squad that pay off throughout the film.
The Eyes of Orson Welles
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Just seeing Welles’s artwork is of interest in itself, the man’s hand drawn Christmas cards alone an intriguing study (which, yes, Cousins is able to link back to his films).
A Faithful Man
Laura Cifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Garrel’s film is both funny and wise, upending our expectations from beginning to end.
The Fall of the American Empire
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: Flopping about on the screen, this good natured snarky look at the state of the world has its highs and lows.
Fantastic Fungi
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [The film seeks] to reshape our relationship with mushrooms and our western notion of fearing their power. [Reducing] the stigma surrounding the subject may save your life.
Fast Color
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [The metaphor] doesn’t have to be [hidden] when it’s so smartly interwoven with the fabric of such a personal narrative concerning a single family under duress.
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: There is a lot of clever subversion at play by presenting these characters in a toned-down superhero film.
Feast of the Seven Fishes
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [Despite the number of] subplots, Christmas Eve slows things down to make the camaraderie of preparing [dinner] an excuse to go into a trance of unadulterated joy.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: It might be the perfect film for the viewer who wants to see an undemanding traditional family film during the holiday season.
Feedback
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
The Feeling of Being Watched
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The Feeling of Being Watched is like an introductory handbook: one that peels back the layers on our government’s activities to show how they willfully complicate our methods of keeping them in check.
Un Film Dramatique
The Final Wish
- Excerpt: ‘The Final Wish’ is strangely contemplative in its attempt to shine an eerie light on the mysteries of death and estrangement. Woodward’s gory gem is more of the psychological horror variety as it adequately taps into the realm of a messy mindset gone haywire.
Finding Steve McQueen
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s a servicable crime film with a refreshingly light touch and likable cast.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: You probably won’t love Finding Steve McQueen, but [its] unyielding wholesomeness ensures you won’t be able to hate it either.
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: There was certainly a porch-rocker and beer-sipper of a story to be told with Finding Steve McQueen and we get that entertainment.
Sebastian Zavala @ Ventana Indiscreta [Spanish]
- Excerpt: It favours scenes of funny interactions between characters, with funny one-liners […], and Travis Fimmel acting almost as “drunk” as in ‘Warcraft’.
First Love
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: After a foray into period Samurai films, prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike (“Audition,” “Blade of the Immortal”) switches gears with a very violent, often funny, Yakuza noir with a blossoming romance as its through line.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: First Love feels simultaneously tight and meticulous, but also wild and free and barely clinging to sanity.
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: Takashi Miike’s ‘FIRST LOVE’ Is a Rambunctious Yakuza Rom-Com, and That’s Awesom
First to the Moon
Glenn Dunks @ The Film Experience
- Excerpt: It’s amazing to think that there can still be so much previously unseen footage from the biggest television event in history, and yet here we are at the 50th anniversary of the moon landing with a bus-load of new documentaries claiming new takes, new interviews and, yes, new footage.
Flesh Out
Amber Wilkinson @ Eye For Film
- Excerpt: Ochipinti’s film benefits from a strong documentary underpinning – with the lead actress saying that 70 per cent of what occurs is based on her own story at the film’s Berlin screening – showing how strong cultural expectations like this can be.
Fly Me to the Saitama
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: Whatever one may make of Fly Me to the Saitama, it’s never visually dull.
The Forest of Love
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Sion Sono doesn’t do “normal”; he goes for broke on every project. “Forest of Love” is overlong, ugly, perverse, masturbatory, and fascinating.
A Fortunate Man
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: The visions, flaws, and setbacks of a gifted young man who wants to be a Master of the Universe.
The Fourth Kingdom: The Kingdom of Plastics
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Not so totally unlike the rest of us, the marginalized struggle for place, acceptance, nurturing, and meaning at Missionary Ana’s Sure We Can, where transformation is possible.
FP2: Beats of Rage
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: It doesn’t make anywhere near the impact of the previous installment or leave as deep an imprint, and it’s entirely what one might expect, but it’s still a damn fine time if you’re so inclined.
Framing John DeLorean
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: It’s history lesson, editorial, and crime drama all rolled into one. And for the most part it works.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: The title appears designed to convey several meanings: the “framing” of DeLorean by the FBI entrapment scheme, the framing of the issue of this enigma of a man, and the framing of a portrait of an American original. Perhaps the ultimate irony of this movie about a man who defies being captured in a movie is this: His most enduring legacy may be in a movie, Back to the Future, which immortalizes his DeLorean DMC car as a time machine.
Frankie
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: The new family drama from Ira Sachs is so stale, any melodramatic wail, or even a sniffle, would be a welcome break to the introspection.
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: There are worse ways to spend a chilly evening than among the lush beaches, woods, and hills of Sintra, in the company of the great Isabelle Huppert. But there’s an alchemy to the talk in a Rohmer movie that isn’t captured here.
Freaks
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Nothing in Freaks is as it initially appears.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The film ultimately expands to encompass a worthwhile mythology with ample sequel potential and yet about 90% of the runtime takes place within a hundred yard radius of Chloe’s house. Largely due to budgetary constraints, Lipovsky and Stein have also worked a reason why into their script that allows the world to be brought into that home.
Free Trip to Egypt
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: An emotional roller-coaster ride as bigoted Americans find common ground with the people Fox News has told them to hate and fear. I laughed and cried, found myself full of despair and full of hope.
From Iceland to Eden
- Excerpt: Escaping life together
Fugue
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Muskala [provides] them all a second chance. Whether it’s one that finds them together or apart shouldn’t matter as long as they work towards the happiness that eluded them.
Furie
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Not that any of you reading this have such criminal inclinations, but maybe don’t abduct children. You shouldn’t do this for a variety of moral, ethical, and legal reasons, obviously. But beyond that, in a purely practical sense, movies have taught us that should you travel this path, one of the child’s parents will inevitably be some sort of secret badass who will rain down holy vengeance upon you and your associates from which you will not escape. Such is the case Vietnamese director Kiet Le-Van’s Furie.
The Furies
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: The Furies becomes a tapestry weaved together with the patriarchal images of classic sources, made into a contemporary vision of the extremes our culture has reached by perpetuating these images as reality and societal truth rather than recognise the human cost of these ideas and images.
Fyre
Dragan Antulov @ Draxblog VI [Croatian]
The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Even with a few rough patches, The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil bubbles with a propulsive energy. Polished and glossy, it moves along with an easy, rapid momentum, myriad action beats, and another top-tier performance from Ma Dong-seok as a businessman brawler who provides a thoughtful sharpness to this fun, if familiar, crime thriller.
The Garden Left Behind
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: You can’t discount what having a transgender cast does to ensure the psychology behind what’s occurring isn’t exploited or warped.
The Gasoline Thieves
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: In a confident, remarkable debut, Edgar Nito attaches a human element to a timely story pulled directly from the headlines.
Gaugin no Taiti
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Gay Chorus: Deep South
James Wegg @ JWR [French]
- Excerpt: Singing for our lives
General Magic
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: This is a fascinating story that hooks you, whether you’re tech-obsessed or tech-illiterate.
A German Youth
Ron Wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: Can we even make a movie of this? Film maker Jean-Gabriel Périot gives it a good try.
Giant Little Ones
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: So often we throw nuance out the window for increased drama when nuance conjures the best. Let everyone pretend they know what happened and watch them feverishly stumble over themselves to embrace and/or reject it. By intentionally withholding any concrete answers, Behrman lends their adolescence an authenticity rarely seen.
Gift
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A documentary showing how art keeps moving in circles of sharing, giving, and generosity.
The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A glorious documentary about the musical ministry of the Man in Black.
A Girl From Mogadishu
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Inspiring story of a true activist and exemplar of bearing witness.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Inspiring story of a true activist and exemplar of bearing witness.
The Girl in the Fog
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: Toni Servillo stars here as Vogel. Best known for his award winning performance in The Great Beauty, Servillo brings from that film the continued sense of someone world weary, who has seen and done everything, for whom nothing is new.
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Well done but predictable missing person mystery gives a new director time to get his feet on the ground.
Girl on the Third Floor
Kyle Anderson @ Nerdist
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Girl on the Third Floor’ is a gooey reminder not to tackle a major home renovation on your own. Especially when the house is a haunted former brothel with a bad reputation in the neighborhood.
Girls of the Sun
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: While it’s not as stylish as Husson’s Bang Gang, Girls of the Sun is just as assured. There’s a specific political message at its back and it expresses it without compromise for better or worse.
Give Me Liberty
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: That their cast of non-professionals and unknowns represents immigrants, minorities and the disabled in such a unifying and uplifting work is all the more reason to embrace an independent film that just might restore your faith in humanity.
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: An authentic heartfelt film about real people.
Ron WIlkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: Frenetic to a fault, bordering on sensory overload, this is a van ride to be remembered.
Good Sam
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Because actress Tiya Sircar projects such an appealing personality in the lead role, and the plot offers some fascinating twists and turns, GOOD SAM delighted me.
A Good Woman is Hard to Find
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
- Excerpt: Anchored by a fearless leading performance from Sarah Bolger, this film is a tale of female empowerment that avoids talking the talk and instead walks the walk.
The Gospel of Eureka
The Great Green Wall
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “The Great Green Wall” is a gorgeous, terrifying tableau of the world’s most vulnerable people rising to their greatest battle – climate change.
The Great Hack
Dragan Antulov @ Draxblog VI [Croatian]
Ruben Peralta Rigaud @ [Spanish]
A Great Lamp
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: While the film won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, Qureshi’s debut feature expresses a desire in the director to explore human suffering and modern friendships on a small scale while treating it with grandiosity, care, and seriousness.
Greener Grass
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Happiness is but a trick of evil. We take. We squander. And we forget our pain just long enough to suffer through it all again.
- Excerpt: ‘Greener Grass’ uses dream logic and ontological sloppiness to create a singularly bizarro sendup of modern person as social media package. The twisted, random, and bogus plot will alienate viewers expecting traditional comedic stylings but those willing to get weird may just love what Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe have cooked up.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: In covering the rap scene in Mumbai, it not only delivers an energetic and masterfully crafted crowd pleaser, but it thoughtfully touches on the various forms of oppression that the characters face in their journey.
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
- Excerpt: As ‘Gully Boy’ evolves with its zestful, original characters, we tend to sieve the film through elements that are common in Zoya Akhtar’s universe – passion, dysfunctionality and people finding closures that are fulfilling to self and to their surroundings. Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt and Siddhant Chaturvedi are extraordinary in this skillfully told underdog tale.
Gundala
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Hagazussa
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Blood [chapter three] is conversely magnificent enough to render the whole worth checking out alone.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Fiegelfeld’s film looks back at a time when folklore and the supernatural held a stranglehold on people’s minds, and how such a punishing religious climate affected women.
Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This gothic, nightmarish ode to madness, the result of Christian persecution in a 15th century Alpine village, is surreal folk horror that creeps under your skin like the mists which curl up its mountainsides.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: A relentlessly moody and meditative experience that might test the patience of some while being far more rewarding to those who are sucked into its unnerving atmosphere.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: In my notes I wrote, “lots of goat close-ups and masturbation,” so…
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: With its 15th Century rural setting, Hagazussa treads some of the some ground as November and The VVitch. Unlike those two films, there is no obvious display of magic of any kind.
Hala
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A coming-of-age story carried by the grace, sensitivity and emotional intelligence of the young actress Geraldine Viswanathan.
Halston
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: With “Halston,” Tcheng may have chosen an inelegant framing device, but he’s done an admirable job recounting the life of an artist whose relationship with the business world was both savvy and his undoing.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: It’s a tale worthy of a classic Greek tragedy. A small-town boy makes good, acquires enormous fame, wealth, and power, and then — through a combination of hubris, miscalculation, tragic flaw, and the cruel hand of fate — crashes to Earth and is destroyed.
Happy Cleaners
- Excerpt: …an indelible and intimate film that captures the wavering spirit of a particular family’s nucleus. Fittingly, Happy Cleaners rinses and dries its revealing American immigrant messaging with candid absorption.
Harbor
- Excerpt: The voyage works out better than most might expect, but the sequel of “what now” for these desperate/disparate youths is eagerly awaited.
Harpoon
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Mean and nasty, gleefully gory and wickedly funny.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Watching [them] fall prey to impulse knowing they’ve all done something inexcusable they’re hoping stays under wraps is fun because there’s an authenticity beneath the gore.
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: Scuzzy ‘HARPOON’ a Stripped-Down Malevolent Dark Comedy At Sea
The Harvesters
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: The movie survives the occasional misstep to build a pretty decent thriller, buttressed by the knowledge of its factual underpinnings. But it goes off the rails as it builds to its final twist, a plot contrivance that could only have come from the mind of a writer bent on improving on the facts of the case.
The Haunting of Sharon Tate
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Tacky and ghoulishly exploitative, “The Haunting of Sharon Tate” keeps deluding itself into thinking that it’s paying respect or offering profundity when it’s just distastefully capitalizing on the tragedy.
Head Count
Mark Harris @ BlackHorrorMovies.com
Healing from Hate
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: “Healing from Hate” shows that “the amount we dehumanize others is the extent to which we are dehumanized inside.”
Hearts and Bones
The Heiresses
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: As Chela blossoms, her look changes, the character taking more care, her clothing becoming more youthful. Martinessi’s film which began shrouded in shadows, interiors like old museums, suddenly brightens, a dining room table sold opening the room up to light.
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: A somber character study of two lifelong companions going separate ways. One for the better and the other, who knows?
Hellmington
Her Smell
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Moss not only goes there, she goes beyond there, ranting, vomiting, stumbling, strumming, cinematographer Sean Price Williams and composer Keegan DeWitt supporting the assault of her amazing performance.
Chris Feil @ The Film Experience
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: For all the fun it is to watch Moss play this loathsomely uncontrollable character, seeing her out from under that armor with the pain of everything she’s done etched upon her brow is what you’ll remember most.
Heroic Losers
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: In a far-flung town in the province of Buenos Aires, many things are about to die out.
Hesburgh
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Fascinating documentary about a religious leader who was a master of human relations.
High Strung Free Dance
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: High Strung Free Dance’ is a must-see for all dance fans! Think ‘A Chorus Line’ meets ’42nd Street.’
The Hole in the Ground
Kyle Anderson @ Nerdist
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s an economically told chiller that hits beats you might be familiar with, but it’s done with just enough panache and good performances to keep things engaging.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Even if the climax is a bit anticlimactic compared to the atmospheric build-up, “The Hole in the Ground” remains attentive to its characters and achieves a mood that is creepy, unsettling, if not exactly frightening, and finally open to ambiguity.
Holy Trinity
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: If, like me, you’re the kind of person who relishes the opportunity to tell casual acquaintances ‘I saw this movie about a paint-huffing dominatrix who talks to the dead the other night,’ you’ll want to prioritize this one.
ron wilkinson @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: The beds of a hundred lovers are nothing compared to the one with Baby chained to it.
Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: If you don’t get why Beyoncé is worshipped as a goddess, this glorious pop spectacle — part concert film, part myth-in-the-making — will fix that. Enormously entertaining, and absolutely landmark.
Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror
- Excerpt: [A] revealing and refreshingly insightful documentary. This is an inviting and noteworthy commentary on a particular aspect of film-making that gets constantly overlooked. Anyone ready for an updated version of ‘Scream, Blacula, Scream’?
How Does It Start
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: Artistically striking with its challenges, How Does it Start is a reminder of how the uninformed see the world and it is rightfully jarring.
Human Nature
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: This documentary watches like the prequel to a dystopian sci-fi story.
The Hummingbird Project
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Excellent depiction of the cultural clash between speed and simplicity.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: You often don’t think about why you root for a film’s protagonist. It therefore becomes very glaring when this intrinsic emotional attachment doesn’t exist.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: Imagine drilling — let’s say boring — a tunnel from the Kansas Electronic Exchange to the New York Stock Exchange. Now imagine watching a movie about it — yes, it’s just about that exciting.
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: A fiber optic line from Kansas to New York is a stretch.
I Am Mother
Federico Furzan @ Cinelipsis [Spanish]
I Am Not Alone
I Can Quit Whenever I Want
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Radu Jude’s pitch black satire is an uncompromising – if occasionally draggy – look at the necessity for a nation to interrogate its past.
ron wilkinson @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: A slippery production of the Holocaust spirals nicely out of control.
I Feel Good
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Delépine and Kervern have packed their screenplay with so many gags, the movie is enjoyable just for its surface pleasures, but by the film’s musical conclusion they have also proven the joys of a simpler way of life.
I See You
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: A solid mystery achored by strong performances that manages to lull you into one direction while pulling the rug out from under you in a compelling way.
I Was Home, But
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Not for every audience, but nonetheless a beautiful German drama about depression!
Ideš? Idem!
Dragan Antulov @ Draxblog Film Reviews
I’ll Take Your Dead
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: I’ll Take Your Dead starts with a young girl’s ominous voiceover about seeing dead people and the nature of death, straight into a corpse being dismembered, dissolved in a bathtub, and disposed of. It goes from there.
Imperial Blue
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: At times it’s scintillating.
Imprisoned
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “Imprisoned,” a story of vengeance, redemption and the undying transcendence of love, is the second film to be released by socially conscious Equitas. It will earn superlative praise for writing genius, outstanding acting by the entire cast, and inspired production.
In Bright Axiom
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com [Croatian]
- Excerpt: A trip into as alternate reality turns out to be more quotidian than quantum.
In Fabric
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Featuring a standout performance from Strickland regular Fatma Mohamed, looking like the female Vogue version of Coppola’s “Dracula” while delivering the most deliciously tortured formal dialogue, “In Fabric” is a hoot.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Peter Strickland’s Duke of Burgundy is one of my favorite movies of the last decade, so In Fabric was always a must-see. And when the first shot has a warm, crackling giallo look, a switchblade, and ‘70s style prog rock score, you have my full attention.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: A delicious Modern Gothic mix of Marx and Freud that riffs on how commerce and consumerist culture withers us to ghosts of ourselves.
In the Absence
- Excerpt: Who deserves this kind of “leadership”?
In the Aisles
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A portrait of life after hours in a warehouse supermarket that illustrates the way of tenderness.
In the Shadow of the Moon
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A thriller than spans decades to explore the consequences of choices.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Solid performances and a compelling premise keeps the film engaging enough despite some missed opportunities.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Because of Boyd Holbrook’s fine performance as an obsessed police officer, I tried to stay with the complicated story. Unfortunately, this time-travel film is downright confusing.
In the Tall Grass
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: While not a total success, the film has its fair share of creepy and surreal imagery that holds your attention.
Federico Furzan @ Cinelipsis [Spanish]
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: It had potencial, but it’s an overall failure!
Betty Jo Tucker @ Reeltalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: The grassy field seems to come alive right before our eyes. But repetition of characters shouting to each other about where they are and too many dark scenes almost put us to sleep while watching this grassy nightmare.
The In-Between
- Excerpt: Best friends set out on a road trip from L.A. to Portland. They are barely functional as adults, best with layers of challenges that range from cripplng emotional damage to physical illness.
James Wegg @ JWR [French]
- Excerpt: How to let go
Incitement
- Excerpt: Amir is portrayed with such great humanity by Yehuda Nahari, who creates a character that is sincere, charming, and yet increasingly frightening.
The Incredible Shrinking Wknd
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Shifts happen, inch by inch, and we focus in, tighter and tighter, the weight and force building until it becomes inescapable.
Infección
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: A surprisingly well-made pandemic zombie film from South America!
The Infinite Trench
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Instant Dreams
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: The death of the Polaroid compares the photo to the mirage. Do we care most about the instant, or the dream?
International Falls
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: International Fall delivers a charming, biting look at emotional desolation, forgotten ambitions, and neglected dreams of two people as they quietly drown. It’s lovely and insightful, dismal and austere, and tiptoes the line between comedy and tragedy.
Into the Ashes
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Into The Ashes dives into familiar territory in the revenge genre, but the story is gripping, and it features a more moody and contemplative atmosphere that sets itself apart.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: It contains most of my favorite cinematic things—Frank Grillo, violence, a grim revenge tale—but other issues bog down the film and, it brings me no pleasure to report, it simply isn’t very good.
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: Like its title, Into the Ashes resides in the crackling smolder instead of the bright flames. There is plenty of heat to burn and brand from that calmer temperature of cinematic coals.
Into the Mirror
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Into the Mirror moves fluidly through memory, present self-imprisonment, and future’s promise with a majority of its information shared in the absence between cuts.
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley
Dragan Antulov @ Draxblog VI [Croatian]
- Excerpt: Izumiteljica je film koji se itekako pogledati i koji daje jednu zanimljiv, iako prilicno uznemirujuci pogled na današnji svijet.
Invisible Life
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A beautiful tribute to the enduring love of sisters.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The two actresses are both engaging, although the vivacious Stockler has the advantage of a more fully developed character.
Ron Wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: Two sisters with the most intimate of bonds are separated by societal mandate but never lose their connection.
The Invisibles
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Shifting readily between fiction and non-fiction gives us the best of both worlds because the proof of what we’ve seen arrives directly after seeing it.
Io
Shelagh Rowan-Legg @ ScreenAnarchy
Ip Man 4: The Finale
- Excerpt: The martial arts epic comes to a close in a fond farewell as Ip Man fights the most dangerous enemy of them all: racism.
It Must Be Heaven
Paulo Portugal @ insider [Portuguese]
It Takes a Lunatic
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Wynn Handman is the master here , revealed on screen for us to cheer. The scenes show actors giving praise for theater projects he did raise.
It’s a Hard Truth Ain’t It
Sarah Bunting @ The Blotter Presents
Iyengar: The Man, Yoga, and the Student’s Journey
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A fascinating glimpse into the master yoga teacher’s philosophy and teaching style.
J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Whatever you make of the people involved, J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius is a wild-ass ride, an engrossing look at a fascinating sliver of off-the-wall Americana, a minor religious movement that just sort of happened while two friends were fucking around.
J.T. LeRoy
- Excerpt: …only accomplishes its misguided mission as being a boorish misfire. The I.D. crisis in J.T. LeRoy is just not riveting enough to be unmasked at the expense of alienating feminine fragility.
Jallikattu
- Excerpt: Indian cinema’s unofficial ambassador of chaotic, testosterone-filled narratives and non-vegetarian food, Lijo Jose Pellissery’s ‘Jallikattu’ is a gory kaleidoscope to Kerala’s rural society that is richly in sync with its innate way of life.
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Kevin Smith’s most enjoyable film in over a decade, even if its relentless self-indulgences will test the patience of anyone who isn’t already a fan of this material.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: For all its redundancies, authentic character growth is wholly new. These characters now add substance to their own story.
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: Reboot simply rehashes the same tired in-jokes from the View Askewniverse and crams in every last cameo from same in a cynical cash-grab. The humor is crass and uninspired which makes it, subsequently, hopelessly dated.
Je T’aime Moi Non Plus
Ron Wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: A 4k restoration of the original wild child movie.
Jesus Shows You The Way to the Highway
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: 1970s kung-fu styled absurdist spy-type of film.
Jirga
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A powerful story of a soldier seeking to make amends who turns his enemies into friends.
Josie & Jack
James Wegg @ JWR [French]
- Excerpt: Till death do us bind
The Journey to China: The Mystery of Iron Mask
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Joy
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A grim portrait of migrant Nigerian prostitutes exploited in Austria.
JT LeRoy
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Because of the controversy surrounding [JT LeRoy], you [must] question when one of the principle players is given creative control. [But the film works in that context.]
Juanita
Candice Frederick @ New York Times
Judy & Punch
- Excerpt: Here’s a brazen and baroque black comedy that sets the tone with a darkly humorous public stoning and doesn’t let up from there.
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Jusqu’ici Tout Va Bien
George Zervopoulos @ Movies Ltd [Greek]
- Excerpt: Without a clear proposal, it does not stand out from the mediocrity.
Just Say Goodbye
- Excerpt: This melodrama lacks the necessary polish to elevate not just its important message, but also the actors’ performances.
K-12
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: K-12′ may not be especially deep or sophisticated, but it is pretty and off-the-wall. Martinez deserves some praise for attempting something with more artistic ambition than her audience requires of her.
Kabir Singh
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
- Excerpt: Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s ‘Kabir Singh’ is a lost cause in representing a leading man with unlikeable and abusive traits. The film’s inherent misogyny, stemming out of obvious ignorance, nullifies Shahid Kapoor and the talented crew’s earnest efforts.
Kalank
- Excerpt: Abhishek Varman’s dated period saga is neither explosive nor emotionally involving. The talented ensemble cast and the opulent cinematography, costumes and production design deserved a better canvas than what ‘Kalank’ offers.
Kardec
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: The subject matter lends itself to confusion and the dialogue seems a bit flat, but costumes and interesting settings help us feel a sense of place, and that’s important for a period movie like this.
Kesari
- Excerpt: “Kesari” is a dishonest, stilted film that does no justice to the historic Battle of Saragarhi!
Khandaani Shafakhana
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
The Kid
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: With so many different iterations of the same exact story flooding the cinematic market every year, it’s nice to look at a common narrative through a new lens.
The Kill Team
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A chilling and ethically powerful true story that asks why civilian murders keep happening in wars.
- Excerpt: The Kill Team’ takes on the toxic masculinity of war, but any real insight is AWOL
Kill the Monsters
- Excerpt: ‘What we’re doing [threesome] is the right idea’
Killerman
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Killerman wants to be a hard-edged crime drama. Aside from some nicely gritty cinematography, it brings nothing of value to the table.
King of Thieves
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [Despite being] a pretty straightforward genre film, the sheer joy of seeing these actors comment on their careers through these characters [should provide] a good time.
The Kingmaker
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
- Excerpt: In turns hilarious and horrifying, The Kingmaker is a combination The Tigress in Winter and Lady Macbeth’s Revenge.
The Kingmaker and On the President’s Orders
Glenn Dunks @ The Film Experience
- Excerpt: There is a film’s worth of political bastardry in the doc’s pre-credit title cards alone. Was the director seduced by the allure of having Marcos on camera? Perhaps.
Klaus
Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Beyond the approachable storytelling, fun cast, and revisionist mythology, however, lies the stunning craftsmanship of the animation itself.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: At first this film looks mean and dark but finishes with joy and spark. I think KLAUS ends up being a wonderful way to start the holiday season.
Klimt & Schiele – Eros e Psique
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Knife + Heart
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: I do like this film much more than Gonzalez’s debut, You and the Night. It’s a more fully realized dreamscape of transgression.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: …rehashes familiar old giallo territory, but with a new queer slant.
Knife+Heart
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Brilliantly photographed in primary colors of blue, red and yellow… Gonzalez reflects his story back upon itself via films-within-his-film, black and white photo negative nightmares, dance floors, dark rooms and sex shows.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Knife+Heart is nothing if not stunning in its 70s aesthetic with film grain, sumptuous neon glows, and synth score [even if the climax] feels more convenient than fulfilling.
Knives and Skin
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Writer/director, Jennifer Reeder, wears her influences on her sleeve, but she uses those influences to create a timely and visually striking mood piece.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Bleak and grin, but ultimately hopeful and optimistic, Jennifer Reeder creates something unique and special. She’s a fresh new voice with much to add to the conversation.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Reeder situates this little town in an ethereal space, where magic realism is always potentially hiding, waiting to be found, and the past connects itself to the present via acapella versions of songs from the 1980s.
Knock Down the House
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A brisk and meaningful look at four women running to change American politics.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Knock Down the House earned the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award, a sure sign this documentary is both feel-good, inspirational, and at times a call to action. The glass ceiling is broken and the playbook is written – Rachel Lears and her four heroines, notably Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will now show others how to make the politically impossible, possible.
Alan Mattli @ Maximum Cinema [German]
- Excerpt: A hopeful film – and we can all use a bit of hope.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [It proves] a bit superficial [since it’s] less about what standing up entails than the circumstances that got them to stand in the first place. [But it’s] interesting enough.
Koko-di Koko-da
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Twisted and terrifying, it offers a time-loop of grief, death, and adorable animated shadow puppet bunnies and birds, which he also manages to turn scary and unnerving as all hell.
Kopfplatzen
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Kumbalangi Nights
- Excerpt: Precisely put, debutante director Madhu C Narayanan’s ‘Kumbalangi Nights’ is one of the greatest Indian feature films to be made in modern times. Brave, layered and laced with fantastic performances, this one is a fine genre piece which knows how to appetize and ultimately serve a sumptuous spread to those craving a magnetic cinematic sojourn.
Label Me
- Excerpt: Beauty in the beast
Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies
Sebastian Zavala @ Ventana Indiscreta [Spanish]
- Excerpt: If you consider yourself a movie buff, or even a fan of some of the most famous blockbusters in Hollywood history, this documentary is worth a look.
Lady and the Tramp
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: his is not a perfect movie by any means. It has no real reason to exist but it’s not offensive to purists. The massive difference between this movie and the original (made in 1955) is that the racial coding has has been changed.
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: All year long, its mainstream blockbuster peers tried every costly artificial and technological height to be a blaring chorus of bells and whistles, when all that was really needed were some cute, real animals backed often by a swanky band.
Ladyworld
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: “We’re not boys, we’re not brutal,” intones Dolly (Ryan Simpkins) in a broken, high-pitched cry. It’s more question than statement, and unfortunately for her, she’s about to learn precisely how savage teenage girls can be to one another.
Lancaster Skies
- Excerpt: The allure of flight
The Last Laugh
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Chevy Chase and Richard Dreyfuss know the way to entertain us! Watching these two is lots of fun — with a tear or two when it’s done.
The Last Serb in Croatia
Dragan Antulov @ Draxblog Film Reviews
The Last to See Them
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
The Lavender Scare
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Another shocking and horrific expose of American hatred and ignorance.
Leaving Neverland
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Leaving Neverland is not an easy watch, but it’s a necessary one that finally allows the victims to speak for themselves.
Glenn Dunks @ The Film Experience
- Excerpt: Reed does something great with with this material, which could so easily have been sensationalized or turned into cheap, ghoulish true crime fodder. His approach is elegant, refined and simple and yet holds the weight that such a discussion deserves…
The Legacy of the Bones
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese and English]
- Excerpt: The second film of the Baztan Trilogy isn’t as good as the first one, but it’s still a great thriller to watch!
The Legendary Stardust Brothers
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: More unhinged nonsense than you can cram into a silver bodysuit.
Leto
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Serebrennikov is obviously having fun with his history lesson of mood above drama. And since I’ve been listening to Kino ever since, I guess I was too.
Level 16
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: the big reveal undermines Esterhazy’s carefully laid and creepy setup, a case of meticulous years long planning turning out to be utterly unnecessary to its end goal, if more dramatically interesting.
Liam Gallagher: As It Was
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: This is required viewing for any Oasis fan.
Liberté, Albert Serra
Paulo Portugal @ [Portuguese]
Life After Flash
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: The picture’s title, Life After Flash, might lead you to expect the documentary will focus solely on Jones and what he’s been up to in the four decades since Flash Gordon was released. Watching it, though, I got the feeling that there just wasn’t enough material on Jones to make a compelling film.
Light from Light
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An unusual, almost meditative film that reverences the mysteries of death, grief, and loneliness.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Writer/director, Paul Harrill, takes a refreshing empathetic and gentle approach to telling a ghost story. Erin Ireland and Jim Gaffigan are terrific.
- Excerpt: Plays out as a smart ghost story about a paranormal investigator’s search for a possible afterlife that becomes personal to the investigator and her family.
Line of Duty
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Despite a clunky and underdeveloped script, there is some enjoyment to be had in Line Of Duty due to Aaron Eckhart’s commanding performance and some fun action beats.
Little Italy
George Zervopoulos @ Movies Ltd [Greek]
Little Joe
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Happiness is just a whiff away or is it?
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a thought provoking piece of paranoia horror where everyone around us is viewed with suspicion.
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: This little sci-fi film has been honored with 16 award nominations and a win at the Cannes Film Festival for best actress (Emily Beecham). Its brilliant writers, Géraldine Bajard and Jessica Hausner (nominated for best director at Cannes), have written a script that parallels fundamental and immediate issues in genetic engineering, parenting and happiness.
ron wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: A wonderfully understated sci-fi horror movie that puts all the right pieces in all the right places.
Little Woods
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
- Excerpt: Little Woods is a solid directorial debut for Nia DaCosta with yet another stellar performance by Tessa Thompson.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: An astonishing directorial debut from Nia DaCosta, featuring career best performances from Tessa Thompson and Lily James.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The result is a contemporary western where morality trumps legality every step of the way in a world where luck plays a larger role than anyone cares to desire.
Shelagh Rowan-Legg @ ScreenAnarchy
Locusts
The Lodge
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Long Gone By
Long Lost
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: A story about two brothers who’ve never met— the younger, scrappier Seth (Adam Weppler) and the older, wealthy, and weird Richard (Nicholas Tucci)— and the disparate lifestyles they lead transforms from what initially appears as an elaborate psychosexual mind-game into a metaphor about the ever widening gap between the working class and the bourgeois.
Longshot
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Loop
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: A great first incursion of Brazil’s Cinema in the World of Sci-Fi!
Loqueesha
- Excerpt: …embarrassing and abominable. Utterly imbecilic and indigestible, Loqueesha is a rancid stain for all that participated in this flatulent farce
Lords of Chaos
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: That it succeeds as well as it does is largely due to Culkin, director of photography Pär M. Ekberg’s striking visuals and its truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story about artists who prize image over all.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Lords of Chaos has everything you want from a fact-ish based dramatization of the darkest, most infamous chapter in extreme metal history. But while it’s high on spectacle and lurid, sensational details, it skimps on depth and motivation.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [It] could ultimately care less about the music when the psychology of this scene’s progenitors is what intrigues. This is about aesthetic, notoriety, and paranoia.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Lords of Chaos is, at times deeply, darkly funny, taking nothing away from its very true to life horror. Neither does it detract from Åkerlund and co-writer Dennis Magnusson’s focus on how the gruesome history of Mayhem is a hard lesson about authenticity, exploitation, fame, and the often self-fulfilling prophesy of those who step too close to the edges of true darkness.
Lost Holiday
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Love Child
Love, Antosha
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Never has the phrase ‘labor of love’ been more appropriate as it is for this incisive, engrossing and often surprising documentary on the beloved young actor.
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Love, Antosha can’t be anything but a love-fest, don’t think it isn’t earned. [Rather than] lament about what will now never be, enjoy it as a reason to appreciate what was.
Low Low
- Excerpt: …[a] vastly affecting and perceptive coming-of-age youthful feminine fable. One will sure catch a natural high when screening the understated grittiness of the triumphant yet telling Low Low.
Low Tide
- Excerpt: A24’s ‘Low Tide’ assembles pieces of ’80s cult classics to build an enjoyably tense slow burner about class and crime.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Low Tide isn’t groundbreaking or unique, but it knows its setting and characters enough to make the journey authentic despite its lack of surprises.
Lucky Chan-Sil
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Lucy in the Sky
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Anyone who’s been exposed to director Noah Hawley’s work on television (‘Fargo,’ ‘Legion’) would have high expectations for his theatrical feature debut, but while there is a lot of craft on display here, Hawley’s artistic choices are often questionable…
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: For all the aspect ratio changes, ruminations concerning what going to space can do to a person, and solid performances from a strong cast, the film is still plagued by problems regarding the story.
Luka Chuppi
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Lynch: A History
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Lynch: A History offers an engaging portrait of the man, the athlete, his life, and his time, as well as a fascinating experiment in narrative craft, form, and construction.
Made in Abyss: Journey’s Dawn
- Excerpt: Despite its flaws and foibles, when this uneven first half comes to its inevitable cliffhanger close, we’re still curious to see what creative craziness awaits us in part two.
Made in Bangladesh
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Combining these old tapes with news footage from the time, animated route maps and present day interviews, Holmes and his editor Katie Bryer have fashioned one of this year’s most rousing and emotionally satisfying documentaries. This one had me busting with pride for my gender.
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: The riveting tale of misogyny-busting sailor Tracy Edwards is as beautifully modulated as fiction, full of twists and turns and delicious ironies, and even sports a perfect ending. Yet it’s all true.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Beyond the social & political ramifications of what their vessel setting off at the cannon blast meant, however, is also a riveting adventure pitting humanity against nature.
Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Enlightening, thrilling masterclass in the art of cinematic sound, from every moment of groundbreaking history to the difference between sound editing and sound mixing. (Win your next Oscar pool!)
James Wegg @ JWR [French]
- Excerpt: Do you hear what they hear?
Malasaña 32
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
The Man Who Feels No Pain
Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog
- Excerpt: He probably couldn’t even feel his sides splitting if he watched this film. (It’s great.)
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: I was deeply impressed by its tonal gymnastics, and the way it squeezes out genuine emotional resonance from campy and delightfully goofy ideas. Sam Elliott carries the film with a sense of gravitas that keeps you glued to the screen.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: There’s a throw-down beat-it-up with Bigfoot at the end, but action is otherwise limited. This is instead about the man behind the legend and the heartache that defines him.
Maria
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Watches like an especially brutal ‘90s era throwback. Complete with techno-heavy nu-metal-scored fight scenes and clubs full of decade-appropriate dance-floor lighting.
Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Documentary about the magical and toxic moments in the lifelong relationship between the poet/songwriter and his muse.
Marighella
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Lisbon & Sintra Film Festival coverage
Amber Wilkinson @ Eye For Film
- Excerpt: Credit to the actor-turned-director for thinking big with his first directorial project but in pursuit of the bigger picture, quite a lot of the smaller intricacies are lost.
Marilyn
- Excerpt: … reflective and probing…the film’s gripping essence in conveying the pressures of a gay teen tormented by directional signs of angst-ridden burden does have its affecting, dramatic impact.
Mark of the Beast: The Legacy of the Universal Werewolf
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Buried Alive Film Festival coverage
Mary
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The pieces are in place for a solid horror film, but the flashback structure robs the film of most of its tension.
Mary Magdalene
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A creative, relevant, and reverent film about Mary Magdalene, a deeply spiritual woman for all ages.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A fiercely feminist and proudly revisionist historical drama that offers a powerful and much-needed rebuke to modern Christianity. Enrapturingly beautiful and intensely emotional.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: By placing this epic journey through Mary’s eyes we can understand the sacrifice as being more than just time and energy. Where Peter sought answers, her choice to follow Jesus was a betrayal to her name.
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: As the first witness of Easter, Mary Magdalene is a person of special testimony who always had more to her significance. This film honors that magnitude with virtue of its own.
Master Z: Ip Man Legacy
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: You wouldn’t think a martial arts movie featuring Tony Jaa, Michelle Yeoh, and Dave Bautista would be dull. Here’s Master Z: Ip Man Legacy to prove you wrong.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: This will surprise absolutely no one, but Yuen Woo-ping can stage the hell out of a fight. The guy is a legend for good reason.
Matthias & Maxime
- Excerpt: Xavier Dolan’s Matthias & Maxime is easily his sexiest film yet. It’s also one of his strongest.
Meeting Gorbachev
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: It is a bittersweet experience to hear Werner Herzog recount Gorbachev’s history.
Mega Time Squad
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The concept has been done before, and better, most notably by “Colossal’s” Nacho Vigalondo in “Time Crimes,” but Dammen’s gang that literally can’t shoot straight is so clueless, rooting for his bumbling protagonist proves an entertaining, if trifling, amusement.
Memory: Origins of Alien
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: … with that subtitle it is no surprise that a lot of the inspiration for “Alien” came from author Dan O’Bannon’s childhood.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Does precisely what any good cinematic documentary should: it helps us see a classic motion picture from new perspectives.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Think of Philippe’s journey into O’Bannon’s imagination as a syllabus presenting an overview on a wide range of captivating topics for which Alien becomes a palatable gateway.
Memphis ’69
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen
- Excerpt: Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen is more than just a standard bio-doc of Wikipedia dot points; it couldn’t be even if that’s what director Heperi Mita had wanted. After all, Merata Mita’s Wikipedia page is fairly barren. A tell-tale sign that to this day, nearly a decade following her death, her legacy remains clouded in prejudice and a lack of historic understanding.
Mia and the White Lion
- Excerpt: Despite a heartfelt sentiment, and the filmmakers’ desire to raise awareness about an abhorrent practice, packaging it in a family-friendly narrative proves to be problematic.
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Mickey and the Bear
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An involving story about a teenager dealing with her yearning for freedom and her commitment to take care of her troubled father.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Morrone poignantly portrays [a] war within by always showing the sadness beneath each smile. Dale is a force as he runs the full spectrum of emotions.
Midnight Family
- Excerpt: …a compelling composite of the fragility and durability of the working wonders that strive to take one step forward in the name of progress only to step three steps backwards as the trying times dictate the rhythm of progression.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s a disheartening look at such a backward ambulance system, but it makes for an exciting film.
Ron Wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: A rollicking docudrama of a news media rarity, a family making a living saving lives.
Midnight Traveler
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This intimate documentary works on many levels… First and foremost, it illustrates the plight of the refugee during a global nationalism movement when even legal shelter can prove unsafe.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Meet the Fazili family. They’re on the run from the Taliban, no country will take them in, yet there are two little girls who just want to dance to Michael Jackson and settle down some place where the locals don’t throw rocks at them.
Mike Wallace is Her
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A rousing documentary about the career of a controversial journalist.
Mike Wallace Is here
Rick Aragon @
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A rousing documentary about the career of a controversial journalist.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Avi Belkin’s probing documentary, Mike Wallace is Here, searches for answers. Did Wallace transform investigative journalism and loft it to new heights? Or did this pitchman/low-grade actor peddle an early form of “gotcha” journalism – more show business than pure reporting?
A Million Little Pieces
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [The filmmakers are] bound to [its] shortcomings because the text’s drama is born solely from James’ fear while everyone around him distracts from the redundancy of that truth.
Mine 9
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: While “Mine 9” reveals how coal miner teams become a community and support each other through family birthdays and tragedies, the takeaway for me was the crucial importance of advocacy and pay stability.
Mirage
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: A great film about family, time travel and perseverance!
Miss Virginia
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: If you are a parent of a child in school, no matter if it’s public, charter, private, urban, suburban, rural, or anything else, you owe it to yourself to absorb this kind of tangible and topical story and remember those who had and still have it harder than you.
Mission Mangal
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
Mister America
Modest Heroes
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s a short and sweet anthology that offers three distinct shorts that not only show off brilliant animation, but further promise for Studio Ponoc’s future as a major force in Japanese animation.
Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: The humanity and beauty of this documentary absolutely overwhelmed me. Bravo to director Irene Taylor Brodsky for bringing this inspiring true story to life on screen.
Mother
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A touching documentary about the three virtues of a compassionate caregiver.
Mountaintop
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A documentary about the recording of the Colorado album by Neil Young with the band Crazy Horse.
Mouthpiece
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: The internal monologue that modern women have with ourselves gets externalized in this audacious and absolutely brilliant dramedy. Poignant, vulnerable, and almost shocking, in the best possible way.
Mr. Toilet
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Zepeda’s “Mr. Toilet” is really not the glorification of Sim or even the telling of his life, it is just the vehicle she uses to convey the message about how toilets can affect a community’s health, its women, and its environment.
Mrs. Lowry and Son
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com [Croatian]
- Excerpt: An essay on family, and life, by two of the greatest living actors.
Ms. Purple
Allyson Johnson @ CambridgeDay.com
Murder Mystery
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Even as a diverting romp, “Murder Mystery” is neither as involving as an everyone’s-a-suspect whodunit should be, nor is it ever as funny as one would like it to be, but it’s an amicable time-killer.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler are no strangers to comedy, so they do their best in MURDER MYSTERY. But most of their comic banter falls flat.
Murderous Trance
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: It’s a plot that reeks of artifice, of ’30s B-movie camp. The saving grace? It’s based on a true story, the bizarre “hypnosis murders” that captured headlines in Copenhagen in the early 1950s.
Music Teacher
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
My Days of Mercy
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Beautifully incisive performances by Ellen Page and Kate Mara create a prism through which to examine how the death penalty impacts those far beyond death row. Hardly subtle, and yet still delicate.
My Son
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A throttling study of the toxic dynamics of anger.
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
The Name of the Rose
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A medieval whodunit with moral firepower that reflects a reverence for books.
The Names of the Flowers
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Narrowsburg
ron wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: A small town makes it big in Hollywood, although not in the way they had imagined.
Native Son
The Neighbour’s Window
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Neither Wolf Nor Dog
- Excerpt: A Native American Lakota elder, known only as Dan, asks a white write from Minnesota to visit and help him write a book about his people.
New Money
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: We find we can enjoy the performances more than the characters. We believe their emotional investment in isolation, but not in regards to the bigger picture.
No Mercy
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: At best, the film plays like Taken with a mean streak, or a South Korean version of Faster; but even with a fantastic central performance, it mires down in grimy exploitation.
No Safe Spaces
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A free speech documentary that raises a few worthwhile issues, without ever stopping to question whether its cries for common sense are really all that sensible.
Noblemen
- Excerpt: Tackling the sensitive theme of teenage bullying, debutante filmmaker Vandana Kataria’s ‘Noblemen’ is an empathetic take on a victim’s perplexing mindscape. Featuring Ali Haji, Kunal Kapoor and Muskkaan Jaferi, the film also offers a tasteful Shakespearean allegory.
Notebook
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Nothing Stays the Same: The Story of the Saxon Pub
Don Lewis @ Hammer to Nail
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A comedy that encourages viewers to reflect on what makes them happy.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Ode to Joy is about a man with a disease that causes him to pass out whenever he experiences pleasure. He’d be safe seeing this movie.
An Officer and a Spy
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
The Old Man Movie
On Broadway
- Excerpt: Oren Jacoby’s richly illustrated documentary on the ups and downs of modern Broadway, On Broadway, is all celebrations and no questions. Whether that’s a problem depends on your level of theater mania.
On the Inside of a Military Dictatorship
ron wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: No salacious details here, but a glimpse at Myanmar’s power structure and Suu Kyi’s place in it for those who want to solve the puzzle.
One Cut of the Dead
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Take one hypochondriac, an alcoholic, the overly committed wife of the director and his daughter, an aspiring director… combined with routine on set mishaps, and witness how mistakes and imagination aid the filmmaking process.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Clever, hilarious, and deeply, deeply satisfying.
One Piece: Stampede
- Excerpt: Fans won’t be disappointed.
Only Cloud Knows
- Excerpt: Based on a true story, this Chinese-New Zealand coproduction makes full use of the gorgeous NZ backgrounds for a lightweight romance from the director of ‘Youth.’
Ophelia
Blake Howard @ Graffiti With Punctuation
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: With good performances and clever additions to Shakespeare’s play, there’s enough here to provide real entertainment.
- Excerpt: There are parallels, and mirrored dualities throughout, and it is not only Ophelia whose character is made more vivid and complex.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [It plays] with the idea of storytelling itself and the degradation, absence, or addition of information depending on an author’s identity.
The Other Story
- Excerpt: Nesher skillfully balances a lot of characters and storylines, each illustrating a different kind of Israeli and a different connection to Jewish life, culture, and practice, but he never lets any of them become symbolic rather than real.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: When parenting is paired with religion, logic is in pell-mell retreat and remains so throughout Israeli director Avi Nesher’s entertaining but scattershot story of strained relationships and cultural divides in contemporary Jerusalem.
Otherhood
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Three lovely stars try acting their best. Yet humor fails the comedy test.
Our Time Machine
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
- Excerpt: Our Time Machine is a funny and moving documentary about an artist’s attempt to cope with his father’s illness by literally and metaphorically creating a time machine.
Outlaws
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: A24’s Greek tragedy by way of violent biker saga is fine, but you’ve seen it before.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Without that nuance to rip their wounds open, though, it’s tough thinking anyone but hard-drinking criminals already in an MC to crack skulls will find much appeal.
Overcomer
- Excerpt: Overcomer, the Kendrick Brothers’ newest faith-based film, is their most polished and dare I say, professional work.
Painkillers
- Excerpt: ‘Painkillers’ certainly does not reinvent the wheel when it comes to the physicality or emotional presence of pain and suffering. [It] definitely works on the nerves and reinforces a certain kind of fixation that is more than imagined or hallucinatory.
The Painted Bird
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Without compromise in its bleakness.
Palm Beach
Blake Howard @ Graffiti With Punctuation
Papi Chulo
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A sensitive portrait of urban loneliness.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: An uncomfortably clueless portrait of societal privilege taking advantage of financial desperation. Matt Bomer is very effective as a man truly heartbroken, though.
Paradise Hills
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: A strange, ambitious, if somewhat flawed, sci-fi parable that still offers a promising directorial debut from Alice Waddington.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [A] fun ride as guilty pleasure enthusiasm usurps any flirtations with thoughtful discourse.
Paris Is Us
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: This ultra-serious French drama ranks as the most intense movie about grief I’ve ever seen.
The Parts You Lose
- Excerpt: You won’t see a better example of pure cinematic storytelling this year than “The Parts You Lose,” an engrossing thriller about a young boy named Wesley (Danny Murphy) who befriends an injured criminal in hiding. Most of the movie is conveyed through his point of view, which is especially fitting because the central character is hearing-impaired.
Paul Sanchez Is Back
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: Meet you at poolside and never mind the cement mixer.
The Perfect Candidate
- Excerpt: The Perfect Candidate is a simple story, reminiscent of a fable, but it comes alive through the inspired acting of Al Zahrani and her supporting cast, including Dae al-Hilali and Nora al-Awadh as her sisters and Khalid Abdulraheem as their widowed father.
The Perfect Date
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: The cute push-pull chemistry between Noah Centineo and Laura Marano sealed the deal for me. Full disclosure: I’m an incurable romantic.
Perfect Strangers
Courtney Howard @ FreshFiction.tv
- Excerpt: This deliciously wildly provocative chamber piece is not only universal in its audience appeal, it has clever twists that make for thoroughly engaging entertainment.
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: The tingles that come from the mounting uncertainty of the characters project very well to the viewer. The very same can be said for the demand of answers.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A mesmerizing historical drama about democratic fervor met with ruthless brutality.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Peterloo is therefore less historical document than anthropological study and ultimately might say more about our present than its own.
Pets United
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Photograph
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: There is a sadness to these two characters that permeates the film and its gentle romance.
Pigeon Kings
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Did you know there’s a specific breed of pigeons that summersault mid-air? Did you know groups of people around the world who raise birds to do just that and have turned it into a competitive sport?
Pilgrim
Mark Harris @ Black Horror Movies
The Pilgrim’s Progress
- Excerpt: This animated adaptation of John Bunyan’s timeless allegory doesn’t so much surprise as it does reaffirm faith during gloomy times.
The Planters
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: With its squared-off mise en scene, bright colors, deadpan line deliveries, twee musical selections, and eccentric characters, comparisons to Wes Anderson are inevitable.
The Platform
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Playing with Fire
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: The fact Cena can squeeze heartfelt smiles and laughs, whether covered in some mess or wearing a My Little Pony half-shirt, is more than good enough for a family-friendly movie option for the upcoming holiday season.
Pledge
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: “Pledge” is confidently shot and has a nasty, buzzy thrill about itself, but would it have killed the filmmakers to at least provide a more likable or just sympathetic character who didn’t feel like composite leftovers from a “Porky’s” sequel?
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Pledge offers a hyperrealistic vision of the frat world that’s simultaneously outrageously exaggerated and also true to the nature of these violent, male-dominated institutions.
Plus One
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The appealingly down-to-earth Jack Quaid as Ben and the raunchier and offbeat Erskine as Alice share a rare type of best friend shorthand that makes them fun to be around.
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
- Excerpt: Plus One is a hilarious and, dare I say, relatable take on the classic rom-com formula with enough sharp one-liners — particularly by Maya Erskine — to keep you hooked.
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: The smoothness behind the alcohol-tinged bite of Plus One is to watch the two operate through softening each of their prickly characters against each other.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: With its fine cast members and clever plot, this rom-com made me laugh a lot.
Point Blank
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s hardly groundbreaking, but as a throwback to 80s buddy action movies, the leads are solid, the action beats are fun, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Blake Howard @
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Who cares if the ending of this fast-paced action thriller seems a bit cheesy? It’s the exciting journey that counts.
Polar
- Excerpt: This abhorrent actioner is vulgar auteurism at its most depraved.
Polaroid
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Some clichés, but a cool end result
Poms
- Excerpt: The blueprint for a genuinely inspired, warm-hearted dramedy is indeed there, it’s just that the filmmakers can’t figure out how to properly utilize what they have.
- Excerpt: a delivery system for some vague message about empowerment and sisterhood, as resilient as its cute golden agers, despite some unsettling “jokes” about blackmail, rape, elder abuse, and, kind of, murder.
- Excerpt: [A] silly-minded chuckler that needs to be rejected from the try-out squad. Of all the cheerleading routines that Keaton and her calisthenics cougars could have done in Poms is the split…as in splitting from this fruitless, rheumatoid romp.
Porno
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: If you lament the lack of graphic genital torture or exploded testicles in modern horror cinema, you’re in luck. First time director Keola Racela’s Porno has the cure for what ails you.
- Excerpt: Lurking in the devilish background is Peter Reznikoff’s wide-ranging take on Phantom of the Movie House, Lord Beekhman.
The Prey
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: But even with the problems, The Prey is watchable and should satisfy action fans for a time as they wait for the next movie from the likes of Gareth Evans and Timo Tjahjanto.
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Primal
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This is a slapdash affair from television movie writer Richard Leder that cops from everything from “The Silence of the Lambs” to “Snakes on a Plane…” the story is such a patchwork of other genre films it makes the act of watching seem like going through the motions.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: This movie has Nicolas Cage hunting a CGI jaguar and a political assassin on a boat. He also has a parrot sidekick that he hates. Make of that information what you will.
The Prince and the Dybbuk
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [It’s] a fascinating forensic case into an enigmatic man who seemingly transitioned between four or five vastly different lives within his sixty years on Earth.
The Professional: A Stevie Blatz Story
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
The Professor
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: An off-season ditty for Johnny Depp, this short story of a short life gives Depp the time to do a short performance.
The Projectionist
- Excerpt: Another dividing line between generations is whether you remember the days when, outside of the potluck and frequently mangled versions played on television, the only way to see a movie was in the theatre.
Promare
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [The] results arrive as though by the seat of the filmmakers’ pants. This artistic choice maintains a desire to always have at least one more surprise up their sleeves.
The Proposal
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A sophisticated documentary about architecture, power and control, and exquisite beauty.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The documentary Magid’s most reminded me of was the ground-breaking “Capturing the Friedmans,” another work assembled like a piece of mystery theater, its purpose not just to relay information in the most artistic manner possible but to astonish us by just what it has withheld.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: Jill Magid’s extraordinary art project, the genesis and execution of which unfold in this strange, almost dreamlike documentary, is like a story devised by Edgar Allen Poe, or perhaps Edward Gorey.
Prospect
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Psychomagic: A Healing Art
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
QT8: The First Eight
- Excerpt: Documentary QT8: The First Eight is director Tara Wood’s wonderfully exuberant and satisfying retrospective of the work of American auteur Quentin Tarantino.
Queen of Hearts
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A portrait of an angry married woman who makes some questionable choices.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Overwrought family drama that goes dark in its insidious story of betrayal.
Queen of Hearts Audrey Flack
The Quiet One
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Though “The Quiet One” begins with the story of Wyman’s distant parents and loving grandmother, it is not a deeply introspective or insightful film on what makes Wyman tick. There are no revelations about his bandmates and no thoughtful reflections on what he finds meaningful in life.
The Rabbi Goes West
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: By the end of “The Rabbi Goes West,” you may feel quite differently about the exuberant rabbi you met at the beginning.
Radioflash
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Inept post-EMP survival thriller is no more thrilling than it is plausible, and inexcusably casts its resourceful teen heroine as a victim constantly at the mercy of others and in need of rescuing.
ron wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: Nancy Drew meets the apocalypse in this mild-mannered coming of age road trip.
Rafiki
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: What makes Kahiu’s film essential beyond that moral and artistic victory [against Kenyan legal prejudice] is its ability to instill hope within a hopeless situation.
The Raft
- Excerpt: In 1973, anthropologist Santiago Genovés planned a social experiment that predated reality television by decades—put a bunch of attractive young people of various nationalities on a raft called the Acali, sail across the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to Mexico, and see what happens.
Rainy in Glenageary
Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: unless you are a hardcore Republican, or maybe even if you are, her words will have you rolling in the aisles.
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: An acerbic political Texan who served up the stark naked truth with cutting, irreverent humor, the Ivins doc gets you laughing at the truth because, in all honesty, it is so crazy.
Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Thought-provoking documentary on the journalist whose humor challenged government incompetence and social injustices.
Rambo: Last Blood
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com [French]
- Excerpt: Stallone, when not attempting to scale rarified thespian heights with neither metaphorical crampons nor oxygen tank to assist in the ascent, maintains his lopsided grimace and trademark grunt as he stalks along with cold dead eyes and a generally distracted air.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: One great action set piece is not enough to make up for a troubling and simplistic story that fails to evoke all the elements that made the central character so striking.
M Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest
- Excerpt: Rambo: Last Blood ends a forty-year-old franchise more with a pensive whimper than a unified hooah, but Sylvester Stallone’s return to his iconic role has his moments that fans will enjoy.
Blake Howard @ Graffiti With Punctuation
Ramen Shop
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s too bad the title of Singaporean director Eric Khoo’s has been homogenized for English language audiences as the original title, “Ramen Teh,” refers to the melding of two cultures’ famous dishes, Singapore’s Bak Kut Teh and Japan’s Ramen, into one, just like its protagonist.
- Excerpt: Ramen Shop ends up simultaneously being a pilgrimage and exorcism [whose] heartwarming tale of love overcoming prejudice [becomes] a visual smorgasbord of food porn.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: It’s a sentimental journey, but the cast plays it beautifully, and the many cooking scenes create a delicious highlight reel along the way.
Ray & Liz
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The overall effect of “Ray & Liz” is something like early Terence Davies Gothic, the nostalgia of his post-war reminisces of working class Liverpool replaced with the cold harshness of Thatcher’s England, yet just as eerily beautiful.
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Kent Turner @ Film-Forward.com
The Realm
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Red Joan
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: True story of an English woman who questions the way governments go about national security.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: There’s a lot of hot-button stuff going on in this A-bomb spy drama — politics, sexism, scientific ethics — but it’s all surprisingly inert, given the literal fate-of-the-world stakes.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: This isn’t about trading secrets as much as accountability and how we’re so willing to punish the symptom rather than the disease itself.
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: It is not about spy craft; it is about saving mankind from itself.
The Red Sea Diving Resort
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: As popcorn-ready as this true story may be, its marginalization of the real people and their plight is more than a little inexcusable.
Redoubt
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Matthew Barney’s version of an accessible art-house film.
Relaxer
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: We get eighty-minutes of empty promises before ten-minutes of off-the-wall live wire insanity fulfill what we were conditioned to accept wouldn’t come. Too little, too late.
Replicas
Steve Biodrowski @ Hollywood Gothique
- Excerpt: Never fully answers the questions it raises, but that almost seems to be the point.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The film has enough compelling ideas and entertaining moments to not be a complete waste, but it still doesn’t do enough to elevate the material above anything other than an amusing distraction.
Vadim Grigoriev @ kinoblog.com [Ukrainian]
The Reports on Sarah and Saleem
“Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: charts how a misguided affair becomes a matter of national security while also exploring privilege, power and gender and cultural disparity.
”
Ron WIlkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: Melding the hurtful and selfish extramarital affair with the explosive politics of the occupied West Bank makes this a great thriller for our time.
Reverso
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
Los Reyes
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: There’s love and canine laughter; there’s happiness and there’s heartbreak.
Riot Girls
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Ambitious and cool, but also a bit lacking in one key area.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Think the cinematic equivalent of a 90-second punk song; it gets in, goes fast, and whips up the crowd. Sure, there’s not much space for thematic nuance, intricate embellishments, and elaborate technical showiness, but that’s not the point.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Riot Girls proves just as much about a new generation taking the reins as it does empowered women expunging toxic male entitlement.
The River and the Wall
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
- Excerpt: The River and The Wall makes a very firm, strong and rational case as to the impracticality of building a physical barrier on the U.S./Mexico border. It is not meant to be objective, but it is well thought-out and crowned with majestic images of a vast and wild area.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A remarkable documentary that gives us hope that young people documenting the consequences of a border wall will make a difference.
Rockaway
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: It shines [in] its desire to retain the darkness that’s intrinsic to its drama [despite focusing upon kids]. Youth doesn’t exempt us from the cruel world in which we live.
Rocks
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: Conceived and workshopped with the young non-actors in the cast, this British film has a bright snap of real life to it from the start, capturing earthy rhythms and depicting lively characters in scenes that often feel more documentary than drama
Rojo
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Naishtat [gives] his audience the credit to read into things with their own historical and political interpretations. Not being that audience means I can admit the film didn’t work for me personally while also lauding its craft.
Rolling Thunder Review
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
Rosie
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Moving drama about a suddenly homeless family dealing with the challenges of this increasingly common situation.
Rottentail
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: I can look past subpar acting and shoddy effects if the script is sounder than a sexist, man’s man pissing contest. Rottentail is not.
Round of Your Life
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Despite having reservations with the type of film and the inherent issues generated, I can’t say I hated the journey. There’s an authentically bittersweet nature present that just overcomes its limitations. – Despite having reservations with the type of film [it is], I can’t say I hated the journey. There’s an authentically bittersweet nature present [to] overcome its limitations.
Ruben Brandt, Collector
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Film critics, myself included, missed the boat on building buzz for this, submitted for consideration for the 2019 Animation Oscar. I sentence myself to forty lashes. “Ruben Brandt, Collector” is an explosion of deftly curated imagination, a dazzling and hugely entertaining film.
- Excerpt: Writer/director Milorad Krstic has combined his love for painting and film into an action thriller as surreal as it is familiar.
The Russian Five
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: I’ll never stop hating the Red Wings, [but I can now] appreciate and respect what the organization did to change the league’s entire landscape through its astronomical rise.
The Ruthless
Dragan Antulov @ Draxblog VI [Croatian]
Saand Ki Aankh
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Sadako
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Sadako, maintains the standard creepy, atmospheric vibe at the same time it updates the franchise mythology for a YouTube, anything-for-clicks generation. I mean, it’s hard to make a killer VHS tape scary in a day and age when no one even has a VCR, right?
Saint Bernard
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Originally completed in 2013 and only now finally being distributed by Severin Films, Saint Bernard is a culmination of what FX master and director Gabe Bartalos has done over the years.
Saint Judy
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An ethically rich drama about asylum law and the uplifting emotion of elevation.
San Andreas Mega Quake
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
Santiago, Itália
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Satanic Panic
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Class war, gooey horror style.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Stardust and Hendrix use socioeconomic language to present a satire of capitalism, using the cult as a way to confront the disingenuous, dangerous realities of neoliberal thought.
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Sator
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Although you can follow the story as an entirely supernatural horror tale, Graham makes the film readable as a view on the destructive legacy of hereditary psychological collapse across generations of a single family.
Saudi Women’s Driving School
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: One small step forward for the rights of Saudi women.
- Excerpt: Documentary ‘Saudi Women’s Driving School’ goes hard on girl power moments, but its attempt at objectivity feels artificial
Saving Atlantis
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Focused on the ocean’s coral system and its benefit to earth, Peter Coyote, an Emmy-winning narrator, actor, and author, explains what corals are, what they provide, and what their loss might portend.
- Excerpt: Lest we protect
- Excerpt: Lest we protect
Scales
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Well-crafted, magical fable with a compelling contemporary feminist message.
Scandalous
ron wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: A fond farewell to fish wrap, a flick at least a little more than the mag itself.
Scandalous: The Untold Story of The National Enquirer
- Excerpt: …[a] rousing and chippy documentary. Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer is inspired in its zany madness dedicated to appetizing trashy tidbits that adorn its preposterous pages.
School’s Out
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: School’s out for a very special band of hyperkids and the graduation party features all-you-can-eat destruction.
A Score To Settle
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: How Frank’s redemption and revenge are intertwined is well thought out enough to support the narrative choice to flip some things on their head, but the execution falls short.
Eddie Pasa @ DC Filmdom
Betty Jo Tucker @ Reeltalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Nicolas Cage chose the right amount of restraint in his portrayal of the unhappy, obsessed lead character in this dark thriller. But he has one almost over-the-top scene that will stay with you after the credits roll.
Sea of Shadows
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A documentary that unreels like an action thriller to tell the story of attempts to save the vaquita porpoise from extinction.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: The powerful subject matter is enough to carry this movie, although the telling is sometimes weakened by its too-broad approach.
Searching For Mr. Rugoff
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com [Croatian]
- Excerpt: The story of Donald Rugoff is not just the story of a man, it is story of modern cinema.
Secret Obsession
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Too bad some scenes appear a bit repetitive and hard to believe. Still, I never lost interest in brave Jennifer’s plight.
See You Yesterday
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Not perfect, but it has heart and a firey passion for exploring truths about society through a clever idea, and it sets up Stefon Bristol as a filmmaker to keep an eye on.
Candice Frederick @ New York Times
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Serendipity
- Excerpt: When New York artist Prune Nourry was diagnosed with breast cancer, she decided to document the experience…
The Serengeti Rules
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com [Croatian]
- Excerpt: Too fuzzy for too much of the time, this film’s high points are still worth the watching.
Serial (Bad) Weddings 2
George Zervopoulos @ Movies Ltd [Greek]
- Excerpt: This does not seem so inventive in the jokes of his script, as it describes a simply vivid picture of modern French reality, that does not correspond to the truth.
Seventeen
Samuel Castro @ El Colombiano [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Daniel Sánchez Arévalo consigue, como lo ha hecho ya varias veces en su carrera (es el mismo director de AzulOscuroCasiNegro y Gordos), crear una historia de personajes particulares, entrañables por su singularidad.
Shadow
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: It brings me no joy to report Zhang Yimou’s ‘Shadow’ does absolutely nothing for me.
Share
Andrew Wyatt @ Cinema St. Louis
The Shed
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Sheds are where murder happens. That’s just a fact of life.
Sheep Hero
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Filmed in The Netherlands, “Sheep Hero” is a gorgeously filmed documentary of an old way of life.
She’s Just a Shadow
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Director Adam Sherman has clearly absorbed a Sion Sono and Takashi Miike flick or two, and while the acting is bland and the dialogue may elicit some chuckles, the wild and colorful visuals are up to his influences, and he goes all out to give the audience what they crave, with little filter on the stylish sleaze and depravity.
Shooting the Mafia
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: About bravery, self-determination, and standing up in the face of great, crushing adversity, Shooting the Mafia paints a picture of a bold figure, but is also about something so much larger than a single person or story.
Sibyl
George Zervopoulos @ Movies Ltd [Greek]
- Excerpt: A Volcano Wakes Up.
Sides of a Horn
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A powerful short film that explains the conflict between poachers and rangers over rhinos in Africa.
The Silence
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Not a knockoff of that other quiet horror flick, though this familiar monster movie works hard to convince otherwise. But the terrific cast makes it worth a look, at least for Netflix subscribers.
The Silence of Others
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: But now a growing number of citizens, friends, family and sympathizers to the resistors of the Franco regime is asking for restorative justice.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: The revelations of Franco-era horrors, including some chilling footage of actual mass executions, are stunning.
Silent Panic
Silhouette
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Sister Aimee
Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Skin
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: They need Bell to give the tour de force performance he does in order to allow them the ability to go into the darkness with him. A just world would place him in the awards conversation, but ours will probably not give Skin the platform necessary for that to happen.
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: It’s solid and it works!
Skin in the Game
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A sobering portrait of human trafficking for sex in suburban United States.
Slaughterhouse Rulez
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
The Society
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A top-notch drama about youth facing the challenges of citizenship, community, and freedom.
Someone Great
- Excerpt: Someone Great services the head and heart in equal measure, hitting home the poignant profundity of Robinson’s portrait of female friendship and fortitude.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Much of the dialogue in this rom-com seems sketchy and peppered with too many crude comments, but I admire the film’s emphasis on diversity and friendship.
Sonchiriya
- Excerpt: Director Abhishek Chaubey’s ‘Sonchiriya’ is a superlative ode to lives in Central Indian ravines. Actors Manoj Bajpayee, Ashutosh Rana, Sushant Singh Rajput, Bhumi Pednekar and Ranvir Shorey are matchless throughout with each of them acing the Bundelkhandi dialect to perfection.
The Song of Names
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: I wonder if it plays differently to those who’ve read the book and can bring that context with them. This should be Dovidl’s story. Martin’s self-pity makes it his own instead.
Sophia Antipolis
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: A technology center rotting from within by a slow burn neutron bomb of the soul.
Sorry We Missed You
- Excerpt: Relentlessly bleak, Ken Loach’s spin on the gig economy is an intense character study of a family that just can’t cop a break.
Alan Mattli @ Maximum Cinema [German]
- Excerpt: Sorry We Missed You, in all its didacticism, uncompromising bleakness, and seething rage, is right up there with the most caustic of Ken Loach’s Thatcherite dystopias.
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: The bleak drama asks why things have to be so harsh in the workplace.
The Sound of Silence
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A creative exploration of the interactions between humans and the sounds of the things around them.
South Mountain
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: A powerful female-centered drama that is a meditation on loss and healing.
Sprinter
- Excerpt: This jogs along a predictable path, but makes a mad dash straight for the audience’s gut right before the finish line.
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Executive produced by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, “Sprinter” is an exhilarating inspirational story of immigration conflicts, family, perseverance and love.
The Spy Behind Home Plate
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: The story of Moe Berg is a great one. First generation son of Jewish immigrants, Princeton man, professional athlete, linguist, world traveler, radio quiz champ, playboy, an intellectual who got his law degree from Columbia University while playing major league baseball. And a spy.
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: James Bond before there was a James Bond, pro baseballer Moe Berg hit a few homers and made a few errors.
The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
- Excerpt: The Standoff at Sparrow Creek is formally and aesthetically fascinating, even when its script feels a little incomplete.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Henry Dunham’s twisty, dialogue heavy chamber play is a taut psychological thriller that upends our expectations, pulling the rug out from under us in its final moments.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s a taut and precisely constructed thriller that shines the spotlight on a group of terrific character actors.
Stare
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Stare doesn’t necessarily give J-horror fans anything new. Still, Adachi’s film is incredibly creepy, touching on themes about how and why folk tales affect us, and how the past connects with modernity through urban legends.
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
State of the Union
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Ten ten-minute films in which a couple grapples with the difficulties of maintaining an intimate relationship in our hurried times.
Stitches
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Stitches combines elements of thriller and melodrama, and deals with the story of newborn babies abducted from hospitals, which has been a hot social issue in Serbia recently.
Stockholm
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: While [the comedic] direction appears to do a gross disservice to these characters’ real life counterparts, it does make for a pretty fun movie.
Storm Boy
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: Storm Boy is as much about its people and settings as it is about its a boy and the bird that never leaves his side.
Stuck
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A parabolic musical about what needs to happen to achieve the ancient dream of unity and respect for all people.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Pure gritty urban joy, all marvelous, touching songs about grief, sacrifice, mistrust, misunderstanding, and other intimate perils. An exuberant marvel.
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: The spoken and sung revelations of each character’s plight create a clashing cross-sectional dip into America’s Melting Pot. These poignant emotions fuel biting social commentary in a way few films, big or small budget and musical or otherwise, have ever succeeded.
Student of the Year 2
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
Styx
Jonathan Richards @ Pasatiempo
- Excerpt: Writer-director Wolfgang Fischer fashions a surprisingly involving tale out of a movie that, for much of its 94-minute running time, has one character and practically no spoken words.
Suburban Birds
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Suburban Birds’ may be enjoyed by fans of slow, obliquely mystical cinema in the mold of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Bi Gan, but I found it took far too long in developing its enigmas, which didn’t seem worth the journey.
Sunburn
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Sunset
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …the filmmaker has captured the uncertainty of radical history with compelling artistic control.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: If you were to tell me Sunset was set in a “Westworld” type amusement park, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. Írisz becomes innocence itself trapped in a world at war.
Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: While it lacks the revelatory impact of its predecessor, this follow-up is still informative, entertaining, and slightly disturbing.
Superpower Dogs
- Excerpt: Not all heroes wear capes – some of them wear collars.
- Excerpt: Superpower Dogs should give your dog-crazy kid ideas of careers to explore outside of the veterinarian route. For dog lovers everywhere, movie is just fun and full of sloppy, exciting reasons to love dogs even more.
Surviving Confession
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: Breaking the fourth wall and spilling waterfalls of internal monologue, Surviving Confession pokes and prods the person who is supposed to be the pillar of strength.
Suzi Q
- Excerpt: This style can come off as a little bit daggy, but nonetheless pairs well with the American rock star who doesn’t seem to take herself all that seriously. Suzi Q’s rockabout attitude is certainly a step up from the dreary almost funereal trappings of recent American productions about female musicians like Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice and Netflix’s Gaga: Five Foot Two.
The Sweet Requiem
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: This is a deeply moving story, inspired by a true account, shot alternately in the desolate high Ladakh region of the Himalayan Mountains and in the Tibetan exile warren of Delhi.
Sweetheart
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The story is stretched a bit thin, but it is strong when it comes to J.D. Dillard’s ability to build suspense and Kiersey Clemons’ skills as a performer.
The Swerve
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Sword of Trust
Derek Deskins @ Edge Media Network
- Excerpt: aron’s performance as Mel is wonderful, delicate and dirty, and it elevates the film in every way, feeling like something only Maron could deliver. In its ridiculous premise, “Sword of Trust” draws you in and then floors you with its surprising depth and subtle witty humor.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: An absurd situation growing more surreal as the minutes tick away because their level of intrigue can’t help outweigh their trepidation in dealing with racist monsters.
- Excerpt: …a spry, absurdist tease below the Mason-Dixon Line that fabulously registers its outlandish lampooning of southern pride and promise in a deadpan ditty that stings with sharpened wit.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: Shelton (Humpday, Your Sister’s Sister) lays on plenty of laughs, but there’s a layer of serious ideas lurking beneath the fun. You don’t need a certificate of authenticity to see how the craziness that Shelton slyly delivers here reflects the condition of the world we live in.
Synonyms
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …easier to admire intellectually than respond to emotionally…No matter how mysterious some of Yoav’s actions are, Tom Mercier commands our attention…with a passionately defiant projection of his director’s vision.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [It’s] obviously a cathartic piece of art augmented by Mercier’s central, unbridled performance. But I [did] feel at arm’s length for much of the runtime.
Tel Aviv on Fire
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Nashif and Biton work wonderfully together, one cracking scene showing them writing jointly in unison, only to pivot and end up at odds.
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: Tel Aviv On Fire works quite well in presenting a unique situation for an area that could use more lighthearted stories targeting a mainstream audience.
Tell Me Who I Am
That Part Feeling
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: Music is the language in which Pärt is comfortable explaining himself. And as far as this film is concerned, if you want to know about the world’s most-performed living composer, that is where you’ll find it.
Them That Follow
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Eddie Pasa @ DC Filmdom
Then Came You
- Excerpt: Though it has many of the qualities that made teen terminal-illness weepies work, Hutchings’ dramedy eschews much of those films’ sincerity and intimacy in favor of sap.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The final result isn’t without flaws, but it’s so much more than appearances presume.
Frank Ochieng @ Screen Anarchy
- Excerpt: [A] quirky-minded yet solidly conceived dramedy. A cheeky story that resonates soundly in its sprinkled charm and contemplation. Indeed, Then Came You is thoroughly affecting…the first official Valentine of 2019 and it throbs convincingly.
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: Then Came You doesn’t have to be a message-thumping torchbearer for anything. Instead, it is squarely comfortable with its pile of pluck and parade of quirks.
A Thief’s Daughter
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
The Third Wife
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Vietnamese writer/director Ash Mayfair makes her feature debut inspired by the life of her own great-grandmother, its visuals (by “Pop Aye” cinematographer Chananun Chotrungroj) informed by the beauty of the natural world.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: A society where men are worth more than women suffers the consequences of that injustice. Mayfair reveals this truth in its tense brutality despite never relinquishing her handle on the aesthetic beauty housing those horrors.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: An art-house treat with sparse dialogue and aesthetics covering up the emotions.
This Changes Everything
This Is Our Home
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: When this movie hits a wall, you can practically hear the impact.
This One’s for the Ladies
Thriller
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: There haven’t been many slasher films with an entire cast comprised with people of color that it’s a shame the South Central-set “Thriller” is just not a very good one.
Thunder Road
- Excerpt: Everybody grieves in their own way. Only a few do it with jazz hands.
Tigerland
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A documentary about a century of conservation efforts to save tigers in India and Russia.
To Dust
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Shawn Snyder explores death and grief in a morbidly funny, yet surprisingly resonant way.
To Kid or Not to Kid
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Documentarian Maxine Trump’s charming diary of deciding whether to have a baby does not shy from the most taboo of topics as she explores the cultural garbage that childless-by-choice women endure.
- Excerpt: Gently witty, perceptive and convincingly introspective, Kid stands in its truth about a different kind of mantle for perceived womanhood.
The Tokoloshe
Mark Harris @ Black Horror Movies
Tokyo Drifter
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: The banality of dialogue and incomprehensibility of plot can wear a little thin, but Suzuki keeps things so visually lively that it’s hard to hold the movie’s deficiencies against it.
The Tomorrow Man
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: works best as a showcase for its senior love story, Danner in particular concocting an adorably odd character
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Tone-Deaf
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: While [Tone-Deaf can be a rollicking good time] when stripped of the excess a peripheral cast ruled by convenience provides, those moments are few and far between.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: The Boomer-millennial clash just isn’t that serious or rancorous, so satirizing it isn’t bold or dangerous; in fact, it seems like a deflection to avoid addressing the real destructive partisan divide in today’s America.
Too Late to Die Young
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A coming-of-age and slice-of-life drama set in Chile.
Top End Wedding
- Excerpt: The Sapphires’ director reteams with Miranda Tapsell for Top End Wedding. Do they still shine?
Total Dhamaal
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Trained
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: Unbridled passion releases as the public display of affection in the Chicago chill shifts to warmer private interiors. This opening scene of filmmaker Yuri Rutman’s spare yet sizzling short film tantalizingly begs many questions.
The Traitor
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: While “Trespassers” gives its characters plenty of interpersonal drama to work with before their life-or-death struggle, there is precious little to care about.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Some script and originality issues aside, ‘Trespassers’ is a solid, if familiar, home invasion horror.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Because [the main quartet] have no real relationship to the [object of their pursuers’ desire], this encounter’s sheer randomness is proven anticlimactic from the start.
- Excerpt: …is competent enough to embrace its thrill-seeking mediocrity to the point of stimulating, corrosive curiosity. Trespassers is inspired by its high-wire handy-work of invasion horror
Mark Harris @ Black Horror Movies
Triple Threat
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: There’s a scene in Triple Threat where Tony Jaa fights Scott Adkins, then Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais fight Scott Adkins, then Tony Jaa fights Scott Adkins solo again. A scene. Actually, not even a scene, it’s a sequence within a scene.
- Excerpt: …synthetic showdown of low-rent lacerations and belabored beatings. Triple Threat is more of a single slingshot of cut-and-paste frivolity that seems more makeshift than raucously inspired
The Trouble With You
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …the type of commercial French filmmaking which rarely gets released in the U.S., a silly lark which is enjoyable while you’re watching it but is immediately forgettable.
Ron Wilkinson @ Its Just Movies.com
- Excerpt: French humor that does the impossible, transcends the Atlantic humor barrier.
True Fiction
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Logic has no place here.
The Truth
Paulo Portugal @ insider [Portuguese]
Tscharniblues II
Alan Mattli @ Maximum Cinema [German]
- Excerpt: A multi-layered film about an experience all too often ignored in Swiss documentary cinema – urban life.
Tu me manques
- Excerpt: A singular achievement
Turno do Dia
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
- Excerpt: As we potentially close out the Madea Cinematic Universe, A Madea Family Funeral offers typical Madea material: an odd mix of soap opera melodrama and raunchy humor with a hint of morality thrown in.
- Excerpt: …casket-filled clownery. Predictably contrived…Perry…we beg you–stop the inane gimmick and allow Madea to retire in her flowery bloomers in peace.
UglyDolls
- Excerpt: UglyDolls is less a movie than an infomercial for the plush Hasbro toys designed to be “ugly” in a commercially cute, lovable way.
Unplanned
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A reasonably engaging (if likely controversial) story about a woman who has a crisis of conscience at her job, anchored by a strong leading performance.
Untogether
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: A solid dramedy elevated by a stellar cast that signifies greater things to come for its writer/director, Emma Forrest.
Uyare
Valiant
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
The Vanishing
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The Vanishing is a haunting and riveting thriller with a great Gerard Butler performance.
Varda By Agnes
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A delightful and entertaining documentary on the life and work of French filmmaker Agnes Varda
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: stuffed with wisdom, joy and insights into creating art.
Amber Wilkinson @ Eye For Film
- Excerpt: A charming and playful consideration of her career.
Varda by Agnès
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Varda por Agnès
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
The Vast of Night
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Vault
George Zervopoulos @ Movies Ltd [Greek]
- Excerpt: The final conclusion is certainly positive. Surprise!
VFW
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
VHYes
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: … a breezy compendium of skewed nostalgia, sometimes hilarious, sometimes weird, and, unexpectedly, sometimes touching.
Villains
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: amusing little black horror comedy gets most of its laughs from Skarsgård’s inspired performance, his porn-stached Mickey a good-natured if cowardly doofus with surprising flashes of inspiration triggered by his girlfriend’s devoted belief.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: With a likable and charming cast, Villains offers some solid genre thrills with a twisted sense of humor.
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Full of sneaky twists, it’s not what it initially appears; while it feels light and bubbly at times, it also gets dark and bleak and sweet.
Virus
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
- Excerpt: Executed to near-perfection by Aashiq Abu, Indian film ‘Virus’ is the closest that a contemporary feature can get to documenting a deadly medical adversity with honesty and empathy.
Vita & Virginia
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: The legendary literary lesbian romance, starring the incendiary duo of Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki, is criminally blah, lacking all sexual and intellectual passion. How does this happen?
Vitalina Varela
Paulo Portugal @ Insider.pt [Portuguese]
Volition
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Vox Lux
- Excerpt: In Vox Lux, Natalie Portman plays a pop star (singing original songs by Sia!) reckoning with the decades of trauma she not only suffered—beginning with a school shooting—but also wrought, as a producer of disposable music, as an addled absent mother, and as an influencer of terrorist violence.
Waiting for the Barbarians
Wake
- Excerpt: …[an] inventively off-kilter dramedy. Ambitiously witty and oddly poetic, Mirakhor’s offbeat “traumedy” exhibits a display of unusual warmth and wackiness
Walk Run Cha Cha
- Excerpt: Remarkably, the solution comes in the form of Cha-Cha lessons (both group and private—ably given by the comely Maxsym Kapitanchuk and Elena Kirfuks), who show the partners just how to harness the steps but also rekindle their emotions.
Walking on Water
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: fascinating and often funny
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: The fate of the lost child and the crisis of crowds on the walkway enhance an already must-see film on perhaps the greatest artist of our time.
The Wandering Earth
Emmanuel Báez @ Cinéfiloz [Spanish]
- Excerpt: China’s most expensive sci-fi film is just decent.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The Wandering Earth is an immensley satisfying experience even at its most silliest. It’s the kind of simple, yet bold and unabashedly populist blockbuster that Hollywood hasn’t made in a while.
Roderick Heath @ This Island Rod
- Excerpt: It might be a bit too easy to say The Wandering Earth proves China can make blockbusters just as dumb and broad as Hollywood, but it’s certainly tempting.
João Pinto @ Portal CInema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Watch out Hollywood, China is coming!
War
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: You don’t have to be well versed in Bollywood to find things to enjoy in its enthralling action sequences and bonkers plotting.
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
- Excerpt: While Hrithik Roshan and Benjamin Jasper’s zany cinematography contribute the most in making ‘War’ worth a watch, director Siddharth Anand somehow ensures that he delivers better thrills than he did in the half-baked ‘Bang Bang’!
The Warrior Queen of Jhansi
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The filmmakers push hard to beat us over the head with a dynamic of good versus evil that’s already intrinsic to the circumstances.
Watch List
James Wegg @ JWR [French]
- Excerpt: Say it isn’t so
We Believe in Dinosaurs
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: But the issue this documentary exposes is the use of tax dollars for a religious exposition. The company behind The Ark Encounter exclusively hires people of a specific Christian creationist belief system who sign a statement specifically denouncing homosexuality as a sin.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: A Gothic treat about women seeking to escape the brutality of men, as well as how rural America casts anybody misunderstood in the light of Otherness.
The Wedding Guest
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Winterbottom is experimenting with genre conventions, but how he meshes them together strips each of the intrigue they might have brought to the table alone.
- Excerpt: Turn down this invite.
Western Stars
- Excerpt: There are plenty of great documentaries about great musicians. Not many have the soul of this one, nor the revelations of the artist’s mind.
What Is Democracy?
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A thought-provoking documentary presenting the challenges and flaws of democracy from ancient Greece to modern times.
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A terrific portrait of the legendary critic, as objective as she was proudly subjective. Pulls no punches on her complicated life and work but rightly hails how she revolutionized thinking about film.
- Excerpt: What would Kael think of this film? Probably that it was too conventional, just a mix of talking heads and archival clips, and not as lively as her own prose.
What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Deep Space Nine
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Despite blatantly targeting the fans that helped crowdsource it, the much loftier goal of contextualizing DS9 within the annals of sci-fi and television history is also met.
What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire
- Excerpt: Born to Be Scared
What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?
Candice Frederick @
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: This is what a French/Italian collaboration reveals when exposing the American South.
When Margaux Meets Margaux
Ron Wilkinson @ Its Just Movies.com
- Excerpt: Doppelgangers a generation apart learn equally from each other’s victories and mistakes.
When Mom Is Away
George Zervopoulos @ Movies Ltd [Greek]
- Excerpt: All the jokes are cold and frozen…
Where’s Daddy?
- Excerpt: [A] highly reflective and absorbingly insightful documentary. Where’s Daddy? is gripping and thought-provoking in its serious look at deprived families paying an ultimate price
Where’s My Roy Cohn?
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
Chris Barsanti @ Slant
- Excerpt: This sharp, to-the-point portrait of the crook, fixer, and right-wing pitbull resists the urge to darkly glamorize him.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Even though Cohn died more than 30 years ago, his stain on American culture remains and was revived with Trump’s election; therefore, here is a new documentary to remind us who he was, the crimes he committed, and to piss everyone off all over again.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Regardless of whether you think he was a man of integrity or the reason authoritarians have risen to power in America, [the film] proves entertaining because Cohn was himself an entertainer.
The Whistleblower
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Chinese film is coming for Western audiences, but this ludicrous thriller, full of coincidence and contrivance, ain’t it. Still, nice to see a global story that doesn’t center the US or Europe.
The White Crow
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: There are brief snippets showcasing ballet but little in the way of performances. I wanted to see more of that talent and less brooding.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Elegant but dull, and so subtle it’s downright diffuse. If you don’t know much about Rudolf Nureyev going in, you won’t know much coming out, either. Weirdly, it doesn’t even feature much dancing.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: You don’t need to know [Nureyev] or care about his art. This story is about [his defection]. [This is] a good thing since Rudi is a very difficult character to like.
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Ron Wilkinson @ Its Just Movies
- Excerpt: At times overly complicated and frustratingly murky, this noir has all the twists and turns right up to a strong and unique ending.
Who Let the Dogs Out
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: It’s a question that has plagued humanity since the dawn of time, or at least, you know, since the dawn of the summer of 2000. And as demonstrated by the new documentary from Brent Hodge answering that question isn’t quite as easy as one might initially expect.
Who Will Write Our History
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
Jonathan Richards @ Pasatiempo
- Excerpt: Our appetite for documentaries about the Holocaust has been amply fed over the years, and a new film on the subject may not be as eagerly anticipated now as it once was. But every now and then, something like Who Will Write Our History comes along and demands our attention, reminding us that the unthinkable happened, that it was committed in a civilized society by human beings upon other human beings, and that it took place within still-living memory.
Who You Think I Am
George Zervopoulos @ Movies Ltd [Greek]
Why Don’t You Just Die
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Why Don’t You Just Die!
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: It plays like a Looney Tunes cartoon gone bloody and psycho.
The Wild
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: How Titus presents the mining argument from Pebble Mine’s own executives, how he slowly but gravely makes his case with a depth of respect for Alaska and its people, and how he humanizes the Bristol Bay predicament with his own journey in life reveals true genius in filmmaking.
The Wild Goose Lake
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s an astounding film for its beauty alone.
The Wild Pear Tree
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: while much of “The Wild Pear Tree” revolves around the written word and oral debate, Ceylan’s masterful eye, especially for landscapes, ensures his latest is yet another luxuriating, cinematic soak.
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
The Wild Top End
- Excerpt: The Wild Top End hopes to play large-format theatres around the world as well as return engagements in Australia’s scant IMAX venues. A distant path to profitability, but who can complain in this market? The first such film for Wild Pacific Media, I hope The Wild Top End 3D finds an appreciative global audience and not just a local one.
William
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Plays with its let’s-clone-a-Neanderthal plot like it has no idea of the horrors involved and no appreciation of the ethical questions it raises. (Paging Ian Malcolm!) A tremendous missed opportunity.
The Wind
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …screenwriter Teresa Sutherland explores the [frontier madness] concept with demonic trappings, director Emma Tammi smartly using time shifts to distract from the tale’s final revelation while masterfully creating a tone of oppressive dread.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: A thoughtful and creepy psychological horror film that tackles the loneliness of the old west. Caitlin Gerard carries the film effortlessly.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Sutherland’s script is working on multiple levels while Tammi’s formal aesthetics reveal an artist in complete control of her vision.
Wine Country
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: If you think watching a group of middle-aged women rolling down a hill is funny, WINE COUNTRY is for you.
The Wolf Hour
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: If it wasn’t for Naomi Watts, The Wolf Hour would be terrible!
Woman at War
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A watershed Icelandic film which will speak to the hearts and minds of all committed women who are working toward the creation of an ecological world.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: While the blend could be adjusted to taste, its funnier moments on the gentle scale of humor, “Woman at War” continually reinvents itself, Geirhasdóttir’s vibrant performance its compeling constant.
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Majestic and sometimes inexplicable, “Woman at War” is a fabulously thought-provoking film that inspires and entertains.
Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: Filmmakers Barak Goodman and Jamila Ephron have done a heroic job of marshaling archival footage from that extraordinary weekend 50 years ago and of documenting the recollections of festivalgoers, voices cracked with age, as they remember the days that shaped their lives and their generation.
Working Woman
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A drama showcasing ways to respond to sexual harassment on the job in the age of #MeToo.
Wounds
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: A surprisingly shallow experience, given the people involved. Nifty ideas and imagery do not add up to a compelling and satisfying narrative.
The Wretched
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Wrinkles the Clown
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Wrinkles the Clown takes you completely by surprise, saying something worthwhile about how people generate and respond to fear.
X – The eXploited
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Director Karoly Ujj-Meszaros crafts a taut, chilly, noir-inspired thriller. The film touches on the twin tides of political upheaval and creeping fascism, delves into dark corners of Hungary’s Communist past, and presents a protagonist coping with trauma that may be more connected to the surrounding events than she realizes.
XY Chelsea
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Pensively melancholy, this jagged, humane portrait of US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning is a massive challenge to the notion of soldiering as a good way for a lost young person to find oneself.
Yardie
- Excerpt: Inspired direction can’t save Yardie from a formulaic script.
Years and Years
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: I’m obsessed with this British miniseries following one family through a dystopian 2020s. It’s completely harrowing, very nearly soul-crushing. Yet I cling to its tenuous optimism and profound beauty.
Zeroville
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Zeroville tries to be Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but it can’t when everything happens in earnest. Purpose is lost beneath its clashing tones and hollow aesthetic.
Jonathan Richards @ santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: Franco gets carried away with his own genius and winds up with a bit of a mess — it’s not an unlikable mess, and it has a real passion for the movies. But as Montgomery Clift (Dave Franco) tells Vikar, “Just because you love something doesn’t mean it loves you back.”
The Zoya Factor
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Story of the blues-inspired rock band who describe themselves as an oddball group.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: That Little Ol’ Band is a fun, enlightening look at one of the most unique and talented acts in the history of popular music.
