For a film to get its own page on the main 2020 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.
2040
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A dash of eco-optimism to counter global-warming doom and gloom. Gameau is an enormously engaging fact-based dreamer offering a much-needed mindset refresh and proactive actions we can engage in now.
- Excerpt: The biggest risk in fighting climate change is an overwhelming sense of helplessness. “2040” points a practical, achievable path toward solutions, but its most important contribution is a sense that change is possible.
2067
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Generously, this is a 15-minute short padded out to an unforgivable, patience-trying two hours, there’s so little in the way of fresh ideas or engaging characters. Kudos for making time travel boring.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It serves as another misfire for a “hero’s journey” space film.
#Alive
Emmanuel Báez @ Cinéfiloz [Spanish]
- Excerpt: ‘#Vivo’ es una película de zombies #mediocre
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: #Alive’s two leads provide a lovable set of characters that are easy to root for. While it doesn’t break the mold of the zombie movie, nor does it dig into the social commentary inherit to the genre, but what makes it engaging is the willingness of filmmakers to take a more subdued and deeply human approach.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Still has its moments but ‘#Alive’ is pretty much a predictable and generic zombie flick.
#UNFIT: The Psychology of Donald Trump
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Mental-health professionals, bound by ethics to point out danger, discuss how President Donald Trump is uniquely dangerous, a literal menace to society. Nay, not “discuss”: they are screaming it.
- Excerpt: “We have a duty to warn”
The 11th Green
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Warning: though there are many pluses, like watching Burke be Barack and contemplating the competing roles of ambition and basic human nature, the plot of “11th Green,” a golf reference, is so intricate and complex that it might take two views.
12 Hour Shift
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Writer-director Brea Grant has her own gallows-humored sensibilities and scrappy enthusiasm to bring to this entertainingly grimy dark comedy-thriller.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Stacks macabre situations on top of each other to create a wild journey through a criminal enterprise.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: It’s a thrill ride of conveniences with real consequences and that matters more than you might think. That futility proves its best feature.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: An interesting story full of important conversations about women struggling in the workplace, whether at a hospital or in an organ trafficking ring, as well as about euthanasia and the death penalty.
18 to Party
1BR
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a rarity for the genre – a horror film that is genuinely horrifying…Marmor’s film not only goes to unexpected places, it does so by mixing such disparate elements as Scientology, Polanski’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘The Tenant,’ and the black site torture chambers of the Iraq War all set to 60’s pop like ‘Angel of the Morning.’
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [Sarah will] have to reconcile the uncertainty of life amongst the general population with the certainty of existence alongside those of like-minded ideals.
2 Hearts
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
32 Malasana Street
- Excerpt: Fans of supernatural hauntings will find a lot to appreciate with the genuinely unsettling ’32 Malasaña Street’, a deftly-directed and smartly acted humanist horror movie that remixes familiar elements to laudable ends.
365 Dni
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
The 40-Year-Old Version
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [Blank] puts the ups and downs from the past couple years into this fictionalized version of herself who faced so many of the same questions and struggles she did.
76 Days
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The filmmakers focus on a handful of characters throughout to capture a sense [of what was happening]. It’s a lot to take in, [but] we must bear witness.
- Excerpt: Denialists and those who are adamant that “COVID-19 is over” should be required to view this documentary, but, of course, never will: it’s just more “fake news”.
9to5: The Story of a Movement
- Excerpt: Bognar and Reichert tell the story with great sympathy while placing it in the context of wider social changes.
A La Calle
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “A La Calle” is the story of a brewing insurgency as a once-trusted leader transitions into a ruthless, totalitarian dictator. It is instructive and a forewarning as a resource-rich country needlessly becomes a failed state.
Abe
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A spiritually inspiring story about how a young man tries to bring his diverse family together through food.
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Junior chef Abe is a bundle of fervent innocence. Unfortunately his mom and dad are demoralizing killjoys.
About a Teacher
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: The ending will cause tears, but the film itself is a glorious testament to what really did happen in a New York high school.
Adverse
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Welcome back Mickey Rourke!
Airplane Mode
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: AIRPLANE MODE reminds us there is real life outside of social media. Not a bad message for our digitalized age.
Alabama Snake
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: Love He uses a light touch with tropes of horror and grand guignol that ground the story in its time and place while setting a mood of uncertainty that lends plausibility to mutually exclusive scenarios.
Alex Wheatle
- Excerpt: Alex Wheatle is yet another strong showing from Steve McQueen and company, and one that feels more personal than the rest thanks to its focus on the journey of its titular character.
Alice
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: To watch Piponnier weigh that abhorrent truth is to witness the internal struggle every woman who’s experienced this type of coerced acquiescence faces.
All Hail the Popcorn King
Mark Leeper @ Mark Leeper’s Reviews
- Excerpt: A study of the surrealist writer Joe R. Lansdale; his coterie of twisted but loyal fans makes for a fun film.
All In: The Fight for Democracy
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Informative documentary on the history of voting rights and the threats to it in our time.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Enlightening, enraging history of all the ways in which the United States has tried to bar citizens from voting, plus a primer on what Americans can do right now to ensure that our voices are heard.
All My Life
All That I Am
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An emotionally touching documentary on the toxic damages of child abuse on the victim and those closest to them.
All the Bright Places
Candice Frederick @ New York Times
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: This outstanding teenage tearjerker impressed me with its honesty, compassion, and sensitive performances by Elle Fanning and Justice Smith, who project amazing chemistry together on screen.
All Together Now
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The film is deeply moving and Brett Haley’s affection for his characters shines through. It cements Auli?i Cravalho as a major talent who is more than just a great singing voice.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: When the movie ended, my husband said he wants to see a sequel. I agree, for one movie about the great Amber Appleton is not enough.
Alone
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Alone could easily run the risk of coming across as generic, but John Hyams’ minimalist approach along with Jules Willcox’s performance makes for a tight and tense experience.
- Excerpt: Stripped down to the bare necessities—a woman, a man, and a stretch of road—“Alone” milks its narrative simplicity for all it’s worth as a primal survival thriller.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: It’s been done so many times but ‘Alone’ is a finely made film that delivers on the premise of an intense, heart-pounding thriller.
Alone with Her Dreams
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A well-wrought and memorable coming-of-age drama.
American Dharma
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Morris’s conversation with Bannon reveals a lot and is, in fact, a more illuminating look at the man than last year’s “The Brink.”
American Murder: The Family Next Door
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: True-crime documentaries have become a cottage industry for Netflix. This one really captured the public’s attention.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Popplewell’s film is an expertly researched prologue to a much-needed conversation it avoids.
An American Pickle
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A dramedy that will get you asking yourself questions about family and legacies.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: One wishes “An American Pickle’s” script had been tuned a bit more tightly, but Seth Rogen’s man from the shtetl may just have you craving pickles with a chaser of seltzer.
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Seth Rogen’s ability to play two different people is indeed convincing but the rest of this account isn’t very interesting or funny.
The Andorra Hustle
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: To be honest, there are so many factors, evasions, lies, circumstances, possible bribes, and competing interests, that I cannot fully understand or explain the convoluted plot of “The Andorra Hustle.”
Anelka: Missunderstood
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Antarctica
Sebastian Zavala @ Ventana Indiscreta [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Although Antarctica deals with complex and sensitive issues -abortion, consent, sexual and physical violence at school- it does have a sense of humour.
The Antenna
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: The Antenna is an eerie dystopian horror that reflects Turkey’s descent over the past decade(+) into a state of mass surveillance.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Debuting director Behram shows obvious skill in building fear. It’s a talent that might be better harnessed in service of a more propulsive script in the future.
Archenemy
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Its limitations and often puzzling worldbuilding can sometimes get in the way, but Adam Egypt Mortimer’s stylistic flourishes keeps everything engaging.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Ultimately, Archenemy proves frustrating. The most fun, intriguing characters, and exciting ideas take a backseat to rote family drama that carries little weight. The film has big aims, but in the end, it takes a bold leap, arms outstretched, but misses the target and plummets to the ground.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Mortimer compensates by highlighting the delusional fallacy some hide behind to excuse the pain they inflict by overinflating the value of the protection they provide.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Makes for a loopy action-adventure film, filled with raw energy and a muddled story.
The Argument
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A spunky comedy about a couple trying to finally settle an argument.
Arkansas
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s a fairly simple and modest crime film that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Arkansas is thus a series of trust exercises between idiots, the fearful, and the [over-confident]. Hemsworth and Duke are therefore the perfect team: brawny and scrawny.
Artemis Fowl
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Easily one of the worst movies of the year. Given the state of film in 2020, that’s really saying something.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A disaster of a kids’ fantasy caper; feels like it’s making up the plot as it goes. A mishmash of manufactured wonder: characters barely sketched, action seemingly setting up future Disney World rides.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Destined to bore children and adults alike.
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
The Artist’s Wife
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Portrait of the midlife crisis of a loving and creative wife.
Andrea Chase @ EatDrinkFilms.com
- Excerpt: By refusing to compromise about life’s messiness, it makes an art of chaos in elegantly composed vignettes filmed with a chilly beauty, and gives us an ending that is maddening, yet absolutely true.
The Asadas
Panagiotis Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: “The Asadas” is a very entertaining, very easy-to-watch film that manages to present such a difficult concept in a way that is both sensitive and easy going, and a rather interesting portrait of a very interesting man.
Asia
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Touching drama about the unusual directions love takes in a mother-daughter relationship.
Assassin 33 A.D.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Donnie Darko’ meets ‘The Passion of the Christ’ done on the kind of budget usually reserved for an episode of ‘The 700 Club.’
Assassins
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: The story of the women duped into *checks notes* killing Kim Jong-un’s brother is more bonkers — and sad, and gripping — than we’ve heard. Utterly fascinating; the stuff of a Hollywood thriller.
Athlete A
- Excerpt: One former gymnast says, “The line between tough coaching and abuse gets blurred.” This may be what it takes to win gold at the Olympics, but is it worth the cost?
The August Virgin
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A Rohmer-esque drama set in Madrid about a young woman’s quest for a new way of living and meaningful relationships.
Ava
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: Director Tate Taylor can’t resist a nonstop barrage of cliches as the story slickly flits through a series of glamorous international locations
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Aviva
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …a glorious, sensual, compelling dive into a romantic relationship expressed with dance and gender fluidity…a stunningly original work of art, directed with the same awareness of movement by Yakin as evinced by his dancers.
Axone
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Axone is a very important film, but what helps it is that is never feels like an important film while you’re watching it, and exploring everyday life in India from a unique perspective.
Baaghi 3
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Baby Done
- Excerpt: The cinema of New Zealand is varied and diverse: half of it stars Taika Waititi, while the other half is just produced by him.
The Babysitter: Killer Queen
- Excerpt: Juvenile but energetic and sinfully amusing most of the time, “The Babysitter: Killer Queen” never ceases to entertain.
Babyteeth
Chris Barsanti @ Slant
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: First time feature director Shannon Murphy turns an Australian stage play (adapted by its author Rita Kalnejais) into a dramedy about embracing life with strong subtexts about psychiatry versus art therapy and prescribed versus recreational drug abuse.
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: An unconventional coming of age drama featuring an outstanding performance from Eliza Scanlen.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: It’s a messy existence that mirrors the unpredictability of life and yet the filmmakers never chastise their characters or moralize their actions.
Bad Hair
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: “Bad Hair” cannot and should not be taken seriously, but its themes are still as potent as a scalp scrub.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Similar to Anna being disregarded because of appearances, the film’s intellectual drive is consumed by its superficial, mainstream genre façade. [But] it’s not a total loss.
Bad Impulse
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: This clever thriller impressed me with its timely theme, suspenseful presentation, and shocking ending which includes a last shot that’s absolutely unforgettable!
A Balance
Panagiotis Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: “A Balance” is a tremendous film, one that truly reinvigorates the largely preterit family drama genre, and one that touches the borders of the masterpiece, which it would have surpassed if the ending was a bit different.
Banana Split
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: A little more experience behind the camera would afford that extra bit of polish, but that’s a mere quibble given the film’s strong cast and energetic filmmaking. “Banana Split” is a refreshing treat.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A teen comedy that combines the emotional honesty of an ’80s John Hughes flick with a very modern social media-influenced sensibility.
- Excerpt: …[an] unconventionally perceptive and engaging coming-of-age female friendship/romancer. Inherently touching and liberating, Banana Split an endearing account of cemented youthful female relations
The Banker
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: An entertaining story about a good hearted scam that did the right thing.
Bare
- Excerpt: The naked ebb and flow of men
Be Water
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Yet another documentary on the Hong Kong superstar Bruce Lee.
The Beach House
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s just a bit too minimal of a genre exercise, and while it does it well, it doesn’t do a lot to create a lasting impression. That of course doesn’t diminish the good work put in by filmmaker Jeffrey A. Brown and star Liana Liberato.
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Beverly Questad @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: While it remains a success, what that apocalyptic world says about our own is heady enough to have facilitated dealing with [the characters’] personal drama too.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It fails in the third act to deliver much excitement after its solid set-up.
Beasts Clawing at Straws
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Yong-hoon keeps so many plates spinning in the air his pacing will leave you breathless… Best of all, the filmmaker knows just who to leave holding his bag.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Kim Yong-hoon takes a familiar formula and makes enough smart choices to keep it interesting. Its darkly comic impulses gives the film a lot of personality.
Becoming
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Verges on an ad for Michelle Obama’s memoir, but a sincerely warm one. We glimpse a woman authentically funny, self-aware, down-to-earth. Like spending time with a friend you didn’t realize you had.
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Even stuck in quarantine, there’s still been a steady stream of horror movies to check out. ‘Behind You’ is also a movie.
- Excerpt: Please note: we are switching site hosts. Sorry for the technical difficulties.
Being Mortal
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Belly of the Beast
- Excerpt: Cohn uses the story of Kelli Dillon as the entry point to the horrifying practice of involuntary sterilization of female prisoners in California, with a look back at the history of the eugenics movement in the United States.
Belushi
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: Startlingly intimate
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Belushi is an intimate look at an immensely talented guy for whom joy and pain were often intertwined.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Cutler therefore uses this look into Belushi’s life to expose the casualty of American success.
Benjamin
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Benjamin is a film that wears its heart on its sleeve, and while it may seem like another quirky, unassuming indie on the surface, but underneath all that is something that is really thoughtful, introspective, and unafraid of leaving certain questions unanswered.
Beyond the Horizon
Alan Mattli @ Maximum Cinema [German]
- Excerpt: Winner of the 2020 Best Swiss Film award, “Beyond the Horizon” is an uneven but emotionally satisfying coming-of-age drama.
Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Wonder and mystery dwells in the work of forgotten abstract pioneer Hilma af Klint. Sarcasm and side-eye for the male- and money-dominated fine-art establishment dwells in this superb doc about her.
Bhangra Paa Le
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Big Time Adolescence
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It might be covering familiar thematic ground, but the emotions and relationships still ring true. Pete Davidson leaves a strong, impactful impression.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Even when things go haywire and lean heavily onto the humor of each situation, the film refuses to lose its dramatic edge. There are stakes to what is happening.
- Excerpt: Unfairly, Big Time Adolescence suffers from the standard formula of routine coming-of-age comedies that follow the predictable pattern of snarky amusement and surfacing angst.
Black Bear
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Watching “Black Bear” is like watching a pot of water simmer and then boil over without being able to stop it, and yet it’s more controlled and captivating than that.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A provocative, challenging work that shows the amazing Aubrey Plaza in a whole new light.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: They are bringing to life the bleakest and harshest corners of their craft through situations in which they have most definitely been on both the giving and receiving end.
Black Beauty
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A splendid remake of the classic story about the value of truly partnering with a horse.
Black Box
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: Even if the structures of the plot seem eerily familiar, it’s an enticing and entertaining play on the present-day sci-fi genre
Mark Harris @ Black Horror Movies
ron wilkinson @
- Excerpt: A mother board of high tech digital human spirit may be the answer or it may be something else.
The Black Emperor of Broadway
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Brilliantly written, brilliantly portrayed, brilliantly directed and perfectly timed, “Black Emperor of Broadway” is the film of the year. It combines the thoughts of the BLM movement, Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an AntiRacist” and Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” in a moving depiction of white privilege and arrogance that compromised the lives of black people in America through time.
Black Is King
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: As a middle-aged white guy, I’m certainly no expert on the myriad references to African culture contained within Black is King, but I know they’re there, and Beyoncé frames them in such a way that makes me thirsty to know more. Chief among my interests is the film’s ties to Afrofuturism.
Black Water: Abyss
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A decent B-movie experience.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Never tries to be much beyond a slice of B-movie man-versus-nature terror, but it does what it does effectively and efficiently, providing tension, scares, and gnashing crocodile teeth
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Black Water made Australia’s Horror very proud, but its sequel is unimpressive.
Blackbird
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Family drama about facing death and the revelations that come with it.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: The to-die-for cast can’t quite save this melodrama from its trite obviousness, in which rage and grief are matters of tasteful, upscale lifestyle. But they at least they make it passingly watchable.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: As sweet as it is devastating, we feel the swirl of emotions and relate to the resonant push and pull between love asking for time and knowing there’s none left.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: We forget about Susan Sarandon the movie star as we watch her character struggling with simple things such as getting out of bed in the morning or going up and down a staircase. And we see the love deep within those big eyes as she interacts with her loved ones during her last weekend with them.
Blame
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: High school drama revealing the toxic impact of jealousy and competition.
Blessed Child
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: I finished Blessed Child feeling like I only knew half of Cara Jones’s story when it came to her escaping the cult in which she was raised. She does, however, document with a raw openness and vulnerability her desperate attempt to keep her family even as she walks away from the religion that they still hold dear.
Blood and Money
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Tom Berenger endows the lead character with a world-weary persona that moved me in every scene of this excellent snowy thriller.
Blood Hunters
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: When you hire people for your movie who know how to fight a funny thing happens, the fights look good. Too bad that’s all ‘Blood Hunters’ has going for it.
Blood Machines
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: That it’s all shot with an obvious male gaze can often undermine [its feminist] themes too, but it is gorgeous just the same.
Blood on Her Name
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: A strong lead performance, smooth pace, dour visual aesthetic, and intriguing subversions of established expectations offer up a solid slice of hard-luck small town neo-noir.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The film is only 80-minutes, but it’s not until the end that things really start moving because that’s when the time to act overcomes the desire to think.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Blood On Her Name efficiently tells a cracking story while simultaneously tackling issues of gender and morality, both of which are ever present and more than occasionally problematic in the (neo)noir genre.
Shelagh Rowan-Legg @ ScreenAnarchy
- Excerpt: Blood on Her Name shows not only how most of us could never cope with a terrible crime, but how those already under the thumb of the system can likely never escape it.
Blood Quantum
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Blood Quantum is a relatively bare bones zombie flick with undercooked drama that doesn’t totally do justice to its rich ideas. However, it contains enough excitement and action to satisfy fans of the genre.
Bloody Hell
- Excerpt: ‘Bloody Hell’ relishes in the feisty nature of Australian horror, delivering an irreverent and hugely entertaining midnight movie that’s sure to get audiences blood boiling and fists pumping. Star Ben O’Toole is a blast in the pole position and director Alister Grierson proves himself someone to watch out for.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s not for every viewer, but the mashup does manage to effortlessly blend together comedy and violence.
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
Chris Barsanti @ The Playlist
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Spending twenty-four hours with a bunch of bar flies has never been this mesmerizing, this profound, this funny and sad…an outstanding example of what can be done with a tiny budget, innovative filmmakers and a well assembled ensemble.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: So yes. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is a documentary. Just because the reality and humanity it captures is heightened doesn’t make it any less pure.
Body Cam
Mark Harris @ Black Horror Movies
Books of Blood
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: In the spirit of seeing something Clive Barker-adjacent, it’s a serviceable fix.
The Booksellers
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The stories told are equally fascinating and entertaining with each interviewee letting his/her eccentricities and sense of humor shine through.
Born to Bev
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “Born to Be” has deepened my understanding and compassion for the trans community. Hayashi and Ting have been awarded the The Museum of Chinese in America 2019 Legacy Award for this phenomenally well-sequenced, respectful, ground-breaking documentary.
Born to Play
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Lieberman builds suspense in the lead-up to each game, but she also promotes respect, support and interest in the phenomenal world of women football players.
The Boy Behind the Door
- Excerpt: A masterpiece of small-scale filmmaking, a taut thriller which uses classic cinematic techniques to tell a well-formed story effectively.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …a frustrating mix of strong child performances in an above average production with the type of dumb moves from both victims and perpetrators that artificially keeps undercooked horror plots cranking along.
The Boys Who Said NO!
Andrea Chase @ Eat Drink Films
- Excerpt: Too important a film to be missed.
Brahms: The Boy II
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: No spoilers, but this review contains a more creative plot twist than the movie itself.
- Excerpt: Clearly, naughty Brahms from 2016’s The Boy needed more of a supernatural spanking than he does a needless follow-up in a dull and creepy cornball sequel…the belabored subpar chills that aimlessly wallow in manufactured weirdness and waste.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: As lifeless and blank as Brahms’ expression.
Breach
Sandy Schaefer @ Comic Book Resources
- Excerpt: Breach isn’t scary or remotely original, but there are moments when it provides some amusingly cheesy sci-fi action/horror entertainment.
Breaking Fast
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
Browse
Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A rousing and rockin’ documentary in which Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band record a new album and the Boss offers spiritual commentary on the songs.
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: As he puts on his beat up jacket and walks out into the snowy New Jersey night, he is the same kid who walked the same beaches sixty years ago.
Buddy Games
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: A depressingly unfunny dudes-will-be-dudes romp that could have been called “Barstool Sports: The Movie.”
Bulbbul
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: While Bulbbul is perhaps not scary in the traditional sense, it is scary in how it digs into the realities that women deal with. It’s an enthralling and visually stunning fable from start to finish.
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Bull
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Instead of sending her leads down a road that’ll change their circumstances, Silverstein provides each a crucial confidante to silently endure the unavoidable pain with them.
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Annie Silverstein, an award-winning filmmaker from the get-go, is the director, teaming up with her husband, Johnny McAllister, to write this new kind of screenplay where the actors seem to be simply playing themselves.
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Everybody loses and gets old. It is how one loses and gets old that counts.
Buoyancy
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: A ghost ship haunts a blank sea forcing its occupants to choose their fates.
Burden
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: True story about a black Christian minister who practices love, forgiveness, and reconciliation by befriending a Ku Klux Klan member.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: If only Heckler hadn’t weighted Mike’s attraction to Judy over the Reverend’s hard won influence, he could have made an end run on the oft-lamented ‘white savior movie’ with his black hero, but while the film has its flaws, it works more often than not, buoyed by good performances.
- Excerpt: …a compelling but seemingly trite tension tale. Redemption expositions are cozy and thought-provoking in concept but nicely wrapped feel-good fables such as Burden seem to be holding back the realness of its provoked outrage.
The Burnt Orange Heresy
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A character-driven drama about the art world and the glamorous and deceptive people who inhabit it.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Debicki and Sutherland enjoy a beautiful give and take while Jagger enjoys a sympathy for the devil…But one begins to wonder if Bang is simply being typecast as shallow art world figures or if the actor himself is merely glib.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Do the powerful own a monopoly on truth? The optimists out there may be vexed with director Giuseppe Capotondi’s answer to that question.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: The film offers one hypnotic twist after another.
The Call
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Despite some gripes, The Call is one of the better thrillers I’ve seen all year. It’s a thrilling and original film with two great perfromances from Park Shin-hye and Jeon Jong-seo.
A Call to Spy
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
The Calming
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A beguiling and meditative movie about antidotes to chaos.
Camp Cold Brook
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Come to camp but skip the swim lessons.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Perhaps one of the most compelling aspects of Pemberton’s documentary is a psychological study that was done with hundreds of Monopoly players…
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Attention, social justice warriors. French economist Thomas Piketty’s howl-of-rage academic treatise is now a hugely engaging documentary, eye-opening and brutally entertaining. Man the barricades!
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a brilliant translation of Piketty’s ideas to a visual medium. It is required viewing for anyone who wants to understand how things came to be this way and how we can change our situation for the better.
Capone
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: I’m not totally convinced that Capone adds up to all that much, but there is not a single dull moment. It’s a relentlessly nasty, weird, bewildering, and immensely entertaining experience from start to finish.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: A “Twilight Zone” riff on the “This is Your Life” template wherein the subject is transported through a Jacob’s Ladder-esque hole towards oblivion.
Cargo
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: There is a lot to love about how Arati Kadav marries mythology and science fiction. It’s a dynamic and imaginative debut that is tryly unlike anything you’ll find in Indian cinema today.
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Celebration
- Excerpt: It doesn’t take long to fathom the reasons Bergé did not want this film released, and, personal issues aside, it’s one of the more unusual fashion documentaries ever made.
Centigrade
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Walsh and his two actors make the most out of their singular location, one which may have been easy on the budget but which surely posed technical and artistic challengers. They’ve risen to them.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: I mean it as a total compliment to say Centigrade will drive you nuts.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: The low-budget film is enhanced by its fine technical work, but stalled by its cold story that never quite warms up.
Charter
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Written and directed by Amanda Kernell, the movie asks important questions about parenting and responsibility – two concepts that turn out do not always fit in the same vein.
Chemical Hearts
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: There’s a darkly intriguing tone to this thoughtful teen drama. Although it’s rather mopey and naggingly disconnected from reality, like most films based on young-adult novels
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Chhalaang
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Chhapaak
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
- Excerpt: Meghna Gulzar ‘s film exposes how men empowered by patriarchy nip women off their dreams by throwing acid on them. Deepika Padukone and Vikrant Massey are wonderful in this sensitive, deeply disturbing film.
Una Chica Invisible
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Chick Fight
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Filled with jokes that are cheap, obvious, and/or unfunny.
Children of the Sea
Allyson Johnson @ TheYoungFolks.com
Choked: Paisa Bolta Hai
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It is ultimately a minor addition to Anurag Kashyap’s filmography, but it’s still evocative, thoughtful, sly, and features a great lead performance from Saiyami Kher.
Cicada
Circus of Books
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
- Excerpt: Where the Circus of Books lacks focus, it makes up for in pure heart and a touching personal story that gives hope to a community.
City Dreamers
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: celebrates four vibrant octo and nonagenarians recounting their upbringing, education and careers all framed by the various cities that shaped them and those that felt their influence.
City Hall
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A detailed documentary showing the many things a city government does for its citizens.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Wiseman has called his latest documentary ‘anti-Trump,’ because his subjects believe in democratic norms and indeed, it is a love letter to a functioning government of the people, for the people and by the people.
Josh Taylor @ The Forgetful Film Critic
- Excerpt: His name is only mentioned a handful of times, but City Hall is ultimately an uplifting anti-Trump film; it’s perhaps the only one we need.
Clementine
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Clementine never relinquishes its quiet drama to [possible suspense]. The focus remains on Karen, Lana, and their futures away from their respective manipulators.
The Climb
Andrea Chase @ Eat Drink Films
- Excerpt: It is as surprising as it is daring, and it finds a perfect medium in this study of transcendent absurdity.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: “The Climb” is not only funny and insightful, but full of cinematic invention, its scenes transitioning on everything from singing gravediggers to pole dancing karaoke to a tracking shot of a dog that takes us from Thanksgiving to Christmas.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: An out-of-nowhere comedic gem with some of the funniest scenes you will see all year. The whip smart script makes The Climb one of the better buddy comedies to land in a while.
Clouds
- Excerpt: For Zach, the question is vital and it is urgent. For the rest of us, this movie is a reminder that we should not have to wait to fly above the clouds to keep our lives wild and precious.
Clover
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Things do get extra silly by the end, but the blackly comedic tone is consistent enough to allow for such a wild turn of events to feel at home nonetheless.
Coastal Elites
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: It zeroes in on politics, with only tangential references to Covid-19 or Black Lives Matter. Which makes it somewhat shouty
Colette
- Excerpt: Dante on Earth
The Collini Case
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Beautifully photographed by Jakub Bejnarowicz (Netflix’s ‘Perfume’) in widescreen with a color palette of green, blue and blond, the film is gripping from start to its shattering finish.
The Columnist
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Uses biting humor to create a scathing indictment of the way we treat each other in this Very-Online world in which we live and examine the real-world toll of the seemingly empty words we so often throw into the social media void with little consideration.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [It] would be a very different piece [if Femke was careful]. It would be about a serial killer giving into her darkness rather than a woman restoring confidence and autonomy.
Come As You Are
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …feels surprisingly fresh, favoring the warmth and humor derived from real friendship and romance over the more obvious sexual hijinx one might expect.
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
James Wegg @ JWR
- Excerpt: Can you walk in my shoes (or chair)?
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: http://itsjustmovies.com/review-come-as-you-are/
Come Away
Kyle Anderson @ Nerdist
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: I know most children’s stories are based on sinister myths which dribbled out of spooky German Brothers Grimm forests, but it’s perplexing to see both Neverland and Wonderland stand upon the shoulders of one family’s emotional meltdown.
Come Play
Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: There are obviously scenes that require CGI, but it adds a layer of frightening magic to know the creature exists in an FX workshop somewhere… Although people may not fear a monstrous story taking over their screens, they may now just feel the briefest moment of fear when taking a selfie in a dark room.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Atmospheric, assuredly crafted, and sometimes even shiver-inducing, “Come Play” is only as strong as its monster.
- Excerpt: A Halloween scare-fest this is not, but it’s also not totally rotten. ‘Come Play’ features a solid-enough turn from Gillian Jacobs as a mom struggling to connect with her son on the autism spectrum but the total lack of scares and generic plotting makes this disposal studio horror movie junk.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Gives us a meaningful story about how damning loneliness can be to the vulnerable.
Come to Daddy
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …while the film can be wedged into the horror genre, it’s more of a darkly comedic psychological thriller which, unfortunately, devolves into an ultra violent gross-out spectacle, almost entirely losing the father-son reunion story at its heart.
- Excerpt: Thoroughly cringy and calculating, the calling card for Come to Daddy will make gagging to the peculiar whims of this welcoming warped B-movie blister a fine goosebump gem to consider with passing cynicism.
Coming Home Again
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Moving family drama about a young man who discovers the healing power of caregiving.
A Concerto Is a Conversation
- Excerpt: Survival by mail
Concrete Plans
- Excerpt: Rural horror and class warfare make for happy bedfellows in Will Jewell’s accomplished thriller.
Coolie No. 1
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Corpus Christi
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Shooting in beautifully composed 2.39 : 1 widescreen, director of photography Piotr Sobocinski Jr. favors the greens of rebirth accented by Madonna hued blues…Bielenia is perfectly cast, his cinematic face capable of appearing both demonic and angelic, the actor intensely committed.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This profoundly empathetic tale of an unlikely spiritual leader is a condemnation of the dogmatism and narrowmindedness of the Catholic Church and a provocative exploration of guilt and redemption.
Coup 53
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: It unspools like a political thriller, but its real world consequences are dead serious.
Cowboys
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: The tender and personal film conveys enough warmth for the sympathetic viewer to feel-good about the gentle story.
The Craft: Legacy
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Lister-Jones has developed a story outline which follows the themes of the first…and adds additional new layers of gender and sexual orientation fluidity and how those threaten the patriarchy.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Astutely written with care and respect for its heritage, Zoe Lister-Jones’ film favors sisterhood in the current landscape over chills, despite being built in the Blumhouse factory.
Crawlers
Mark Harris @ Black Horror Movies
The Crimes That Bind
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Crip Camp
- Excerpt: What took us so long?
Critical Thinking
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Inspiring true story that proves that the game of chess can be a path to self-esteem and mastery for youth of any background.
Crock of Gold
Chris Barsanti @ Slant Magazine
- Excerpt: affectingly poignant in its frequently uncomfortable presentation of MacGowan’s physical ruination.
Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: an all encompassing document of the myriad aspects which comprise its subject. And MacGowan leaves us with words of wisdom – ‘It’s probably best to drink not quite enough, you know?’
Crossing Delancey
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Every scene works in this wonderful but small film.
Cryptopia
Bavner Donaldo @ CINEJOUR [Indonesian]
Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: It takes us on a rollicking journey through the history of Bitcoin: its detractors, its disciples, and its philosophers.
Cuties
Emmanuel Báez @ Cinéfiloz [Spanish]
- Excerpt: ‘Cuties’ desafía a la reflexión sobre la influencia del mundo digital en las niñas
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Maïmouna Doucouré handles the material in a way that is artful, sensitive, yet bold and purposeful. While not flawless, it rings true and explores an aspect of growing up that has often been ignored.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Sometimes uncomfortable and others too radical, ‘Cuties’ is a riveting, thoughtful coming-of-age film that portrays a disturbing reality about the the power, the danger, and the limitations of a child’s gaze – everything it can discover, absorb, and misinterpret.
Dads
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A light-hearted and breezy documentary celebrating stay-at-home fathers.
The Dalai Lama: Scientist
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Gets into interesting subject matter.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies
- Excerpt: Although its depiction of violence often overshadows the underlying messages of racism and fascism, ‘Dara of Jasenovac’ is still a well-crafted exploration of the survival of the human spirit.
The Dark and the Wicked
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: I’d go so far as to say Bertino’s is the better film [than “Relic”]…if it were not for his literal last second indulgence in a jump scare which undermines his theme of the bravery called upon by love.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Despite some derivative theming, the film has enough unsettling imagery and oppresively atmospheric filmmaking to leave an impression.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Mercilessly and oppressively grim, “The Dark and the Wicked” is one of those rare films that has the power to actually chill you to the bone.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: A creepy, visceral horror tale that sticks around in a deep, hidden place.
The Dark and Wicked
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Sometimes jump scares can be pretty effective.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: A creepy, visceral horror tale that sticks around in a deep, hidden place.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: The chilling film sets an eerie mood that never relents.
The Dark Divide
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: The scenery is out of this world beautiful.
Darkness
- Excerpt: A powerful debut from Italian writer-director Emanuela Rossi, ‘Darkness’ uses a manufactured threat to speak to the potency of parental gaslighting as a headstrong daughter attempts to break from the bondage of manipulation. Written and performed with great sensitivity, Rossi tackles an unsettling topic with genre appeal.
Darkness Falls
Darkness in Tenement 45
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: It has some problems, but has some good ideas.
Dave Not Coming Back
- Excerpt: Into the depths, but not out alive
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: A moving and well executed saga of the wins and losses in the crushing depths of deep cave diving.
David Byrne’s American Utopia
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: I just can’t say that the finished product is essential beyond its purpose of transferring a once-in-a-lifetime experience to the masses.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s the best movie experience I had this pandemic year.
Dead Dicks
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: …warts and all, ‘Dead Dicks’ is worth a watch to those who find the premise or the mental illness theme compelling. It lags in the middle with a bit too much dialogue, but it starts the third act with two twists that come in quick succession, and ends on a strong note.
The Dead Ones
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: I’m not the first one to describe ‘The Dead Ones’ as some variation of “The Breakfast Club goes to Hell,” and I won’t be the last… But ‘The Dead Ones’ is a good bit more than that belittling description suggests, digging into the issue of teen bullying and its too-frequent apocalyptic consequences, while satisfying the bloodlust of its horror demographic.
Dead Reckoning
Dear Santa
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Wholesome and heartwarming film.
The Death of Dick Long
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: …around the midway point, ‘Dick Long’ takes its outrageous premise and, unexpectedly, wrings serious drama out of it.
Death of Nintendo
The Decline
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese and English]
The Deeper You Dig
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a stylish looking, well acted film that examines the strong bond between a mother and daughter both before and after death with plenty of creep factor for genre buffs.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Lots of families have favorite shared activities, but not many mother/father/daughter units make unsettling indie horror about guilt and grief.
Defending Jacob
Federico Furzan @ Cinelipsis [Spanish]
Denise Ho: Becoming the Song
- Excerpt: “Keeping silent is more terrifying”
Desert One
- Excerpt: Desert One will give you an appreciation for how complex a problem Carter faced, and how easily, in real life, things can go wrong.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a compelling, fully fledged historical document of a doomed rescue mission. Kopple’s intent to honor these men’s bravery comes through loud and clear.
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Barbara Kopple’s film on the 1979 attempt to rescue Americans captured inside the American Embassy in Iran is important for two reasons. First, it is a record of significance in American history. Second, it is a primer on all the things that could possibly go wrong in a sure-thing rescue mission.
Detention
- Excerpt: errible CGI and a muddled narrative keep ‘Detention’ from realizing its ambition to mix history and horror to convincing results.
The Devil Has a Name
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Olmos is therefore the “cool” teacher presenting serious subject matter in a colorful way. And to that end he succeeds.
The Devil to Pay
- Excerpt: “You do the work, you reap the rewards”
The Devil’s Deal
Diablo Rojo PTY
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: A strange, dark, witch-infested descent into hell.
Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A look at the lively life of the world’s leading expert on Mexican food.
Dinner in America
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: What begins as an unpleasant satire of American life turns into a sweet romance without ever sacrificing its punk aesthetic.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: A middle-finger-flying, punk-rock-f*&k-you of a love story
- Excerpt: ‘Dinner in America’ is a rough-around-the-edges ode to love on the fringes of society, where a criminal punk rocker and a bizarre loner court an unlikely flirtation, all while navigating the suburbs, musical aspirations and the law. Expect a brash curb-stomp of a coming-of-age saga and prepare for impact.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It comes with a star performance by Kyle Gallner to carry it through some of its rough spots.
Dirty God
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Vicky Knight tackles the role with total fearlessness. It’s a film that welcomes complexity, and avoids easy answers and generic gestures of “bravery” that are often thrown at stories like this.
Disappearance at Clifton Hill
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Music and mood are among the movie’s few, albeit considerable, strengths.
Shelagh Rowan-Legg @ ScreenAnarchy
- Excerpt: Disappearance at Clifton Hill gives us a good thriller that (like most good thrillers) asks more questions that it answers, and shows us characters both stuck in place, going in circles, and struggling to get out.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Full of psychological unease rather than jump scares, Clifton Hill plays well within its budget. Superior writing elevates it from merely a ‘modest thriller’ to a ‘modest-but-clever thriller.’
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: The energy of Niagara Falls segues into a carnival of cheap tricks in this methodical thriller.
The Disciple
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Touching portrait of an aspiring singer of Indian classical music and his journey to master his art.
Disclosure
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Terrific doc unpacks trans representation in Hollywood, unspoken attitudes about gender, sexuality, and race that most people, trans and cis, may never have clocked before… ideas that affect us all.
The Dissident
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
Dan Lybarger @ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: It all gels together perfectly for a fast-paced, poignant, and essential narrative despite being so densely packed with exposition and peripheral context.
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: When a master who-done-it is also a master documentary, a gripping film of uncommon depth is born.
Divinely Evil
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Divos!
- Excerpt: Divos! is a punchy charmer and rejoices in petty awkwardness, manically (or maniacally?) driven with the extreme motivation of those folks you knew in high school who took the yearly plays way too seriously.
Do Not Split
- Excerpt: “The British handed us [Hong Kong] to China like a bag of potatoes [1997].”
The Dog Doc
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An information-rich documentary about a compassionate and holistic approach to dog care.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Meehl’s documentary proves a crucial piece to the puzzle [of legitimizing alternative treatments] beyond merely focusing on one man or one clinic with complete idolatry.
- Excerpt: “Send us your hopeless”
Dois Homens ao Mar
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Dolly Kitty and Those Twinkling Stars
Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Don’t Read This on a Plane
- Excerpt: Reading it anywhere else might be just as bad.
Dreamland
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: It often feels devoid of both rhyme and reason. That’s what makes it so divisive—you either embrace the ride or revolt against it.
Driven
- Excerpt: This microbudget cross between Collateral, Clerks, and The First Power revels in simultaneously making peace with and having fun with its limitations.
Ronald wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: A stand up comedy routine delivered while driving an Uber car is still a stand up routine.
Driven to Abstraction
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it turns out that reality is too.
The Drummer
Sebastian Zavala @ Ventana Indiscreta [Spanish]
- Excerpt: The issues it handles, and the reality about Middle Eastern veterans that it paints, remain just as relevant today as they were ten or so years ago.
Durgamati: The Myth
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Duty Free
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “Duty Free” is a fun though pointedly insightful take on agism and purpose.
Earth
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: But when you watch the full movie it is hard to stay awake. The film team has forgotten the lives of their men and what was significant in their video captures. Long times are spent with a still camera focused on bare, dusty, repetitive earth moving.
Earwig and the Witch
Echo Boomers
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Echo Boomers is fairly empty rhetoric, but it can be a thrill to watch while it lasts.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The actors are having fun toeing that line and bringing us into the unbridled destruction as a vicarious outlet for which we won’t have to suffer the consequences.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz
- Excerpt: It wants desperately to say something impressive about the younger generations of millenniums except it has nothing impressive to say.
Education
- Excerpt: What the Small Axe anthology repeatedly tells us over the course of these five films is that looking for help from the powers that be is almost always a fruitless endeavor anyways; if you want to make real change, you have to fight for it yourself, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
The Eight Hundred
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: The film ends up as a rousing historical spectacle rather than an involving journey. Still, there’s never a dull moment over the long running time.
Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt)
- Excerpt: But beneath its paranormal fluffiness, there lies something stirring in its fusing of queer generations. LGBTIQ+ folk remain self-educators of their shared history, with stories of Stonewall, Oxford Street and beyond certainly not taught in the classroom by teachers and textbooks.
Embattled
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Embattled isn’t perfect, but it tackles a complex relationship with more nuance than one might expect given how not subtle everything is. Stephen Dorff delivers an electric performance..
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [The climactic fight is] where the fireworks are, but the true worth to Embattled is the path Jett takes to get there and the reasons for why he does.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: I would never think of watching an MMA fight, nor would I ever want to see this ugly family drama again, nor would I care to ink up my body as the film’s star does.
The Emperor of Broadway
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Brilliantly written, brilliantly portrayed, brilliantly directed and perfectly timed, “Black Emperor of Broadway” is the film of the year. It combines the thoughts of the BLM movement, Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an AntiRacist” and Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” in a moving depiction of white privilege and arrogance that compromised the lives of black people in America through time.
The Empty Man
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Empty is an apt way to describe this overlong and sluggish supernatural horror pic.
Endless
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Endless is not a particularly good movie, but it does offer more evidence to back up my belief that Alexandra Shipp has what it takes to be a major star.
Entwined
Epicentro
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: But Hubert Sauper, one of the most famous and most respected documentarians in the world, has been identified as creating a new form of cinema coined “cinema du lien” – the cinema of contact.
Escape From Pretoria
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: While I wished Escape From Pretoria dived deeper into the politics of its era and broader socio-political context, it still delivers a rock solid prison break movie that never loses touch of the humanity behind the characters.
Eternal Beauty
RIch Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: Films about depression and mental instability are tricky to pull off, but actor-turned-filmmaker Craig Roberts brings a superbly expressive visual style to this darkly comical story
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: So while Eternal Beauty is oftentimes funny, it’s almost always dramatically profound and emotionally complex.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Along with his ‘Funny or Die’ writing colleague Andrew Steele, Ferrell aces several inspired running jokes including one paying homage to “Elf.”
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: The songs (like “Volcano Man”) are sublime. The story not so much.
- Excerpt: Eurovision was cancelled in 2020 because of COVID-19. So, sure, let Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams host their own.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Across the screen fun music bursts — enough to quench many fans thirsts. Hooray for comedies like this; it put me in a state of bliss!
Even When I Fall
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: An incredibly inspiring story about two young women who come back from dehumanizing experiences to advocate for change. A film of great grace, dignity, beauty, and power.
Evil Eye
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Evil Eye is a disappointment. A few solid elements suffer under the weight of a dull narrative that is full of missed opportunities.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Like most of the movies under the “Welcome to the Blumhouse” banner, this might have played more effectively as a twenty-minute short.
- Excerpt: Predictable stuff that errs well on the side of inoffensive while promoting positive mother-daughter bonding.
The Exit of the Trains
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Exit Plan
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The whole shifts gears [to] become more about the hotel than the man we’ve invested in. You can’t just make the MacGuffin important at the eleventh hour and expect us to care.
Extro
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: an affectionate and amusing send-up of the Japanese film industry …a sweet and funny homage to the big dreamers whose importance to the film industry is often overlooked.
The F***-It List
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Faith Based
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: While it may not be the most biting critique of the Christian film industry, it’s a charming, funny, and very likable exploration of filmmaking and friendship.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Simply mocking stuff like God’s Not Dead would be shooting fish in a barrel. Instead, the film goes for something deeper and more poignant.
Fall Back Down
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: the cinematic personification of living in a big punk house with a ton of roommates. It’s fun and chaotic, random and strange, frustrating and complicated, full of wild characters, and leads you into all sorts of off-kilter adventures.
A Fall from Grace
Candice Frederick @ New York Times
Falling
Sebastian Zavala @ Ventana Indiscreta [Spanish]
Family Romance, LLC
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: It becomes clear that while some of Family Romance’s fakery and lies are harmless, those which deceive the recipient or are delivered to clients who get lost in illusions result in serious ethical and moral concerns.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A marvelously strange and perplexing meta meditation on human connection and ritual, on fact and fiction, on emotional truth. An existential cinematic rabbit hole as only Werner Herzog can deliver.
The Family Tree
- Excerpt: Different kinds of love
Fantasy Island
- Excerpt: What’s next? Perhaps Love Boat with sea-sick passengers? How about Hotel with extra pushy guests? Or maybe Finders of Lost Loves with alarming divorce rates? [A] whimsical waste of a pointless reboot.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: ‘Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island’ is every moviegoer’s worst nightmare.
Farewell Amor
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: touching family drama about the sacred powers of dance.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Msangi takes shortcuts to her happy resolution…but “Farewell Amor” ends on the right note.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Achieves that rare cinematic feat of being specific and universal at the same time. A lovely film, plaintive and poignant, with exquisite performances from a beguiling cast, and ultimately hopeful.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A terrific little indie with something to say not just about immigrants coming to America, but also about what happens when being in your own family feels as foreign as being in another country.
Fatal Affair
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Though repetition dampens the chills, FATAL AFFAIR boasts a few thrills. Too many cuts to ocean waves., yet acting almost this film saves.
Fatale
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieRevews.com
- Excerpt: A densely plotted and devilishly twisted erotic fantasy of a noir
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The Intruder team of Deon Taylor and David Loughery are back with another cheesy thriller starring Michael Ealy and an award winning star, this time two-time Oscar winner Hillary Swank slumming and having a ball doing so for the second time in 2020
Fatima
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A religious drama about the remarkable faith of a young girl after her account of seeing the Virgin Mary is questioned by family, community, and the church.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Full of compelling ideas about the mystery of faith.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: The reverential film will not change the minds of either believers or doubters.
Fatman
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: There is a subgenre of Christmas movies that intersect with blackly comic horror…Nelms’ film is so off kilter, it doesn’t quite line up with those in either the horror or comedy departments, but should appeal to the same audience.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: For the adults, it is a demented genre present curiously packaged with surprising charm.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Fatman is about six different types of crazy, and I kind of like that about the movie.
Feels Good Man
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: This is a densely packed film that both entertains via Furie’s empathetic quest to redeem his creation and educates with a very necessary lesson in meme culture and online behavior.
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: First time director Arthur Jones covers a lot of ground in Feels Good Man. His film is an engrossing look at the power of the internet to shape the world that lies beyond the screen.
The Fight
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …it is almost traumatic to be reminded of just how long and how often we have been battered with assaults upon justice and equal rights. Yet overall, the documentary slants toward hope.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Don’t miss one of 2020’s most indispensable documentaries.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Does the decision to sprinkle those tough debates into a much friendlier profile that targets an audience already on the ACLU’s side make the end result a “puff piece”? No.
Film About a Father Who
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: This film isn’t therefore about righting wrongs, but exposing facts Ira kept locked away. Lynne Sachs captures it with immense compassion.
Fire Will Come
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A mesmerizing film set in Spain in which trees play a major role.
Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: The breezy film with great visuals also has a serious tone about the survival of the world.
First Vote
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An engaging hour-long documentary about the political activism of four colorful Asian-Americans.
Fishbowl
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: What is most compelling about their debut, though, is their command of tone, their film imbued not only with the heightened drama of the teenaged girl’s point of view of the aforementioned “Virgin Suicides,” but the doomed romanticism of “Picnic at Hanging Rock” and the art house horror of “Take Shelter.”
Fisherman’s Friends
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Writers…employ the much-used “Local Hero” template for their fictionalized true story and yet director Chris Foggin, blessed with a strong cast, keeps the twee at bay with genuine good heart and strong characterizations.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Despite its faults, I was ultimately very charmed by the film. The sheer likability of the cast and lovely music makes the most out of a familiar formula.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [The cast has] willingly embraced the clichés to honor a story brimming with the kind of hope we need currently and it’s worth following their lead.
Five Years North
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Five Years North’s big takeaway [is] privilege. That’s what separates Luis and Judy.
Flannery
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A polished, erudite, and spiritually edifying documentary about the life and work of the Southern Catholic writer.
The Flood
- Excerpt: One of the most telling lines of the production comes from Haile’s lips: “I’ve always been unwanted.”
Followed
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …like “Paranormal Activity” crossed with Ty West’s “Innkeepers” with writer Todd Klick adding a psychological twist… This one’s claim of having been based on true events is also more valid than most.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: An unlikeable protagonist and messy story take away from a film that otherwise has compelling things to say about true crime entertainment and social media influencers.
Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film vols 1-3
- Excerpt: Given the very real problems that we’re facing today, it’s positively comforting to visit a world where, it seems, people had to work overtime to invent things to be upset about.
Force of Nature
- Excerpt: Even a script written by algorithm would make more sense than “Force of Nature,” a dumb dud of a movie that relies on the most preposterous of coincidences and the most exhausted of premises (in both senses of the word).
French Exit
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An impeccable comedy of manners full of quirky performances.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Jacobs has fashioned something akin to a Wes Anderson movie without the twee production design crossed with one of Woody Allen’s jaunts into the more supernatural side of show biz.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges propel a mismatched cast of oddballs reveling in an absurd situation looking for a cat who contains the consciousness of the dead husband. Thank goodness it’s not something off-the-wall or unbelievable.
Fried Barry
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: In the end, I’m not entirely sure what to make of South African oddity Fried Barry. Leaping boundaries of horror, science fiction, and gritty realism, among others, it’s certainly a wild, chaotic, immersive ride.
Friendsgiving
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Given the dreaded blooper reel during the end credits of “Friendsgiving,” these friends are clearly having fun. It’s just too bad the viewer feels excluded from the party.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: An overcooked turkey.
Game of Death
- Excerpt: The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed some lesser-known, low-budget films to step into the spotlight. Game of Death should have *stayed* lesser-known.
The Garden Left Behind
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: Intimate and skilfully observed, this low-key drama has a vivid emotional undercurrent right from the start as it follows a young woman who has to argue about why she wants to be herself, fight for her right to live in peace and face a major physical and emotional transition.
Get Duked!
- Excerpt: Hip-hop tracks, hallucinogenic rabbit droppings, and “the greater good”-spouting antagonists from 2007’s “Hot Fuzz” converge for a dementedly original package with a distinctly Scottish flavor.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: It’s a shame most people won’t have the opportunity to watch this with a crowd. It’s the kind of raucous, unruly comedy that would slay with a rowdy late-night audience.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Doff may have thrown in a kitchen sink of clichés, but he knows exactly how to marry them together. The result is an endearingly uproarious affair.
Getting to Know You
Ghost Stories
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Ghost Tropic
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This beautiful film from coeditor/writer/director Bas Devos is a paean to a city under cover of night and the little seen people who populate it.
A Ghost Waits
Mark Leeper @ Mark Leeper’s Film Reviews
- Excerpt: A GHOST WAITS is a new take on an old idea. It surpasses expectations, and while it is ultimately more promising than accomplished, its use of an interesting concept makes it worth seeing.
Ghosts of War
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: While [the supernatural] does effectively give meaning to what occurs, it also undermines the potency of knowing the grief these soldiers experience comes from within.
Girl
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: By being so stripped-down, “Girl” winds up being dreary and nondescript in its white-trash grime and bleakness.
The Girl Who Left Home
The Girl with a Bracelet
- Excerpt: A verdict will be reached before the final credits roll, but the key interest in The Girl with a Bracelet lies not in Lise’s guilt or innocence, but in the relationships among the members of her family.
Glauber, Claro
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Go Back
- Excerpt: Granted, some plot holes, particularly on the way some twists of the movie seem somewhat far-fetched, do exist, but in general, “Go Back” emerges as a rather interesting and entertaining movie that shows the way genre cinema should follow.
Go Back to China
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An entertaining story about a rich girl discovering that family matters.
God of the Piano
God Saves the Wings
Godmothered
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Son of a butterscotch is Jillian Bell just a delightful elixir of life.
The Go-Go’s
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: One of the best rock docs of recent years. A distinct attempt is made to cinematically capture the vibe that made the group so beloved.
Goldie
The Good Lord Bird
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A rousing, ribald, and immensely engaging miniseries on the crusade of abolitionist John Brown to free America’s slaves.
A Good Woman Is Hard to Find
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …a terrifically entertaining genre film laced with witty black humor and featuring an uncommonly good performance in a role demanding much of its lead Sarah Bolger.
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: A routine revenge flick packs a bigger message along with the grisly action.
Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A music-packed documentary revealing all the reasons to love the songs of the legendary Canadian musician.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Editor Alex Shuper seamlessly cuts together vintage and contemporary performances of the same song, a device that showcases just how good Lightfoot still is at eighty.
The Grand Grandmaster
- Excerpt: A mild parody of martial arts master epics is all over the place tonally, but its charismatic cast and some broad comedy is designed to appeal to a wide audience.
The Grand Unified Theory of Harold Bloom
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Profile of an eccentric and prolific techno-age philosopher.
The Grizzlies
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: Inspiring true story of an Inuit lacrosse team who transform themselves and their community.
The Grudge
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Nicolas Pesce has crafted a deeply unpleasant experience, but that largely works to the film’s advantage, as long as you’re willing to ride the film’s bleak wavelength..
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: The Grudge is an excellent reminder that the worst sin a horror movie can commit is to be boring.
Guest of Honour
Guilty
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: GUILTY reminds us how important it is to listen when sexual assault charges are made instead of automatically blaming and/or shaming the accuser.
Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Guns Akimbo
Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: Restricted to 95 minutes, the film doesn’t try to do more than the bizarre premise promises, which is an off-the-wall shoot ‘em up featuring a reluctant and ill-qualified hero.
- Excerpt: It takes a flick like Guns Akimbo to make you stop and appreciate the craftsmanship and nuance of a motion picture like Crank.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Guns Akimbo’ may be too mild to be memorable but it is a mostly satisfying time-waster thanks to some action scenes that are lively enough and a game ensemble cast.
Gutterbug
- Excerpt: Bug is a homeless junkie whose life has no meaning, until he meets a girl the day of his 21st birthday when he also decides to find his way home.
H Is for Happiness
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A totally entertaining movie about a young teen who models resilience, kindness, and a vibrantly happy outlook.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Offbeat portrait of an unconventional girl is all over the place, sometimes detouring into the cringeworthy, as it tries to depict the emotional familial confusion its tween protagonist is navigating.
Half Brothers
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A funny and compassionate movie.
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
- Excerpt: The Half of it is a melancholy, but an ultimately joyful, exploration of growing up and exploring your identity told through a thoughtful, meditative, and heartwarming story.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: I was charmed by the characters, found myself invested in their quiet and internal journeys of self-discovery. Alice Wu’s filmmaking here is confident, warm, and totally in tune with the feelings of the characters and their sense of longing.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Well-conceived and superbly written quirky coming-of-age story.
Hammer
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: At only 82-minutes, Hammer contains very little that isn’t meticulously drawn by Sparkes as relevant to the whole—[most] occurring on the edge between rage and forgiveness.
Happy Happy Joy Joy
Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: https://www.reelingreviews.com/reviews/happy-happy-joy-joy-the-…a whiplash of a documentary, celebratory and damning in its fascinating history of an animation you will be amazed ever made it into children’s programming.ren-stimpy-story/
Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Story of Ren & Stimpy
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Happy Happy Joy Joy really delves into the good, the bad, and the ugly of what it takes to create a show that breaks all the rules.
Har Kisse Ke Hisse: Kaamyaab
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Kaamyaab has its fair share of flaws, but what brings it together is Sanjay Mishra’s performance. He brings a great sense of history, subtlety, and warmth to his performance that makes the film’s lighthearted and occasionally broad approach resonate.
Hard Kill
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Though I’ve seen worse thrillers, this was bad enough.
Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A portrait of the singer/songwriter whose story songs and humanitarian activism prove to be equally inspiring.
Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: To use the parlance of someone you might score psychedelic mushrooms from at a Grateful Dead tribute band concert: Don’t let any negative vibes near your aura while you watch it, man, or you’ll, like, be in for a real bad time.
Hearts and Bones
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A rich and immersive drama about two men dealing with the baggage of their pasts as they try to keep their friendship and marriages together.
Herb Alpert Is…
- Excerpt: It just makes you feel happy.
Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A wonder-filled animated film about the enchantments of the natural world seen through the eyes of a young boy.
Herself
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
Chris Barsanti @ Slant Magazine
- Excerpt: Phyllida Lloyd’s film cannot escape its own somewhat mundane self-set contours.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Dunne’s given us a character worth rooting for as she wends her way through a complex situation and the two young actresses supporting her are no mere moppets.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Clare Dunne’s earnest performance elevates a script intent on turning the screws of its heavy-handed genre.
La Hija de un Ladron
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Holding It In
Panagiotis Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: In the end, the taste “Holding It In” leaves is mixed. On the one hand, the informational purpose of the documentary is achieved to the fullest in technical terms, on the other hand the whys remain until the end.
Holidate
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: “Holidate” might be the edgiest, snarkiest Hallmark Channel romantic comedy there never was. It’s a tart-enough throwaway decidedly not for “the-schmaltzier-the-better” crowd.
- Excerpt: Holidate has nothing to say about anything. Basically, if Hallmark movies like “The Mistletoe Promise” and Netflix hits like “The Kissing Booth” are out in the world looking as beautiful as Dorian Gray, “Holidate” is the portrait hidden away in the attic getting more scrofulous by the minute.
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Very generic…
Homewrecker
- Excerpt: There is no question: Homewrecker is the most uncomfortable movie you’ll ever see.
Honey Bee
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [The film isn’t] about piling on the tragedy or sweeping her trauma under the rug for some unrealistic rebirth in the aftermath. It’s about growing, healing, and hope.
The Honeymoon Phase
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: It’s this uncertainty surrounding everyone’s motives that makes what follows unpredictable. The obvious “Black Mirror” comparisons make it so nothing is off the table.
Hong Kong Moments
- Excerpt: Writer and documentarian Zhou Bing follows seven Hongkongers in this timely and important snapshot of a critical moment in the history of Hong Kong.
Hope Gap
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An old-fashioned drama about love and divorce that touches the heart.
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Hope Gap excels in these personal revelations that hinge upon the actors’ performances and the sorrow of pain endured complemented by the recognition of pain wrought.
Horror Noire
Glenn Dunks @ The Film Experience
- Excerpt: How great it is then to see two new documentaries Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street and Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror focusing on these elements and offering glimpses into the complicated realm of what it is like to be a viewer and a creator in these spaces…
Horse Girl
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: there is a lot to admire. It’s well made, and Brie does a wonderful job in bringing her character to life, but the film loses focus as it goes along.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: …clearly a passion project for [Brie]… This makes it all the more tragic that, despite her fervent portrayal, the story isn’t as gripping as it might have been.
Hosts
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Hosts never skimps on blood splatter. Better than that, the story’s focus is on subverting images of Christian Christmas.
House of Hummingbird
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A coming-of-age story filled with small moments of spiritual wisdom, including a practice for times of sadness.
Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A coming-of-age story filled with small moments of spiritual wisdom, including a practice for times of sadness.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Bora Kim tackles familiar ideas in a way that is incredibly empathetic, warm, and tender. A deeply moving portrayal a girl’s loneliness and longing for something better at a moment of significant change.
How to Deter a Robber
Hubie Halloween
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: “Hubie Halloween” is a cheerfully silly and mildly spooky Adam Sandler-led celebration of the spooky, witchy season.
Human Capital
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A morality play about economic inequality.
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: At times too complicated for its own good, the screenplay juggles stories and perspectives as superb performances carry the day.
Human Nature
- Excerpt: In a time when scientific expertise is regularly denigrated (witness the bungled American response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the disrespect meted out to people who actually know what they’re talking about in this regard), Human Nature explains why the work of science is important, and how our lives are better for it.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: What is CRISPR? It’s a revolutionary new development in genetic manipulation, one that has epic, sprawling, far-reaching implications across numerous fields, and it just might terrify you..
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: The magic was here all along, and now, more than ever, it is ready to be used to eradicate congenital disorders, save coral reefs and possibly even help adaptation to climate change.
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: Human Nature is a thought-provoking film that is by turns wondrous and terrifying. It’s a sobering look at both the promise and the peril we face as we enter an age of being able to alter who we are on a genetic level.
Hunger Ward
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: A cruel conflict in the poorest Gulf country has strafed a culture and its people with the assistance of the US since 2015.
Hunted
- Excerpt: Ugly, vapid moral center aside, Hunted is just a barren artistic effort; the allusions to fairy tales end at aesthetic mimicry, giving the feature a raggedy, slapdash quality, with so many discordant accents that you’ll have no idea where it’s supposed to take place.
Hunter Hunter
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: In lesser hands, this horror thriller could have turned out to be a rote piece of exploitation, but writer/director Shawn Linden’s command of his material results in a smart and surprising shocker, a film that will haunt.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Hunter Hunter is a perfectly solid thriller with a memorable ending, but it ultimately ends up feeling hollow.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Hunter Hunter is a case of style over substance and your ability to appreciate that more than denigrate it will be the sole barometer of whether you leave satisfied.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Hunter Hunter is one of 2020’s biggest horror surprises
I Am Greta
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An enlightening documentary about a passionate young prophet for eco-justice.
I Am Human
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An engaging and thought-provoking documentary about cutting-edge brain science.
I Am Lisa
- Excerpt: one comes away from this deliciously atmospheric, intellectually nimble excursion into lycanthropy, wildly entertained and not a little challenged about human nature.
I Am Woman
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: Energetic and engaging, this biopic about singer Helen Reddy carefully highlights the larger issues that drove her career and inspired her bigger hits, even as it sidelines major elements of her life
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A winsome Tilda Cobham-Hervey leads a rote rags-to-riches tale, though its rampant sexism is a villain women will recognize. Needs to be seen, even if it’s not quite the tribute Helen Reddy deserves.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A reasonably entertaining film for people who remember Helen Reddy and the way her signature song inspired millions of American woman in their fight for equality.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies
- Excerpt: A compellingly cruel Rosamund Pike outshines an otherwise middling ‘I Care a Lot.’
I Carry You with Me
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A love story about two gay immigrants that is full of surprises.
I Hate New Year’s
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Though it’s a better quality film than most holiday gay Lifetime romance films, it still comes across as a gay Lifetime romance film.
I Still Believe
Dan Lybarger @ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
- Excerpt: If you find Nicholas Sparks’ work too subtle and intellectually engaging, you might appreciate this film.
I’m Your Woman
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: It is gritty yet elegant, and takes film noir into it own genre, femme noir.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a low key genre effort that much like Hart’s female-centric take on the Superhero genre goes to some unexpected places.
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: That Hart and Horowitz can unravel a simple premise into this complex web of cyclical progressions and endearingly complicated lives is a testament to their talents.
Immigration Nation
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: In this relevant film, we have the rare opportunity of being witnesses to history.
Impetigore
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: To say [too much] would ruin some of the surprises that Anwar has in store since duplicity runs very deep throughout the mythology he has created.
Impractical Jokers: The Movie
- Excerpt: Ultimately, this cruel impractical joke is on all of us…is about as amusing as sitting on a whoppie cushion filled with chocolate filling.
Infamous
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The film is made with style, and Bella Thorne is a compelling lead, but the story is far too hollow and formulaic.
The Infinite Race
- Excerpt: Director Bernando Ruiz focuses more on the Rarámuri culture, and individual members of the community, than he does on the annual race, so this is an unusual entry in ESPN’s 30 for 30 series. Not that I’m complaining—the film is fascinating and you can’t help but admire the traditional way of life the Rarámuri are endeavoring to preserve.
Inherit the Viper
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: While the film might not say a whole lot about the opioid crisis, the performances and strong direction keeps the story engaging and the suspense exciting.
Inheritance
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The equivalent of a cheesy airport thriller, “Inheritance” gives Simon Pegg an opportunity to play outside his usual lines, but neophyte Matthew Kennedy’s script serves red herrings and abandoned trails as it sets us up for a big reveal that skids seriously off the rails.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Nothing works in this ludicrous thriller, which fails to compel us with its roster of monstrous characters. Lily Collins is woefully miscast; Patrick Warburton and Simon Pegg are criminally wasted.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Inheritance might have benefited from its third act being a tad subtler, but I get the allure of throwing away nuance for splashy suspense.
Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The smartest thing cowriter/director Brett Harvey is largely give the narrative reins of his documentary over to its charismatic subject… If you love the man as an actor, you’ll love him even more as himself.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Whether or not Trejo has actually paid his debt to society for the ills of his youth isn’t for us to judge anyway. All we can know is that he’s never stopped making amends.
Iron Mask
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Apart from the undeniable charms of silly wigtacular duel of Jackie Chan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, ‘The Mystery of the Dragon Seal’ has not much to offer. Still, it is competently made and there is something captivating about the nuttiness of it all.
Ironbark
J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and the Church of the Subgenius
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: One comes away with the feeling that the church is a yardstick by which the society at large can be measured by its reaction to it.
J’Accuse
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Jacinta
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: A new standard in documentary access shows a way out of cyclical intergenerational addiction but at a high cost.
James vs. His Future Self
Jang-gae: The Foreigner
- Excerpt: The sum of the movie’s pros and cons tilts towards the first; in the end, however, whether one will enjoy “Jang-gae:The Foreigner” will be judged upon which elements one considers more significant. As an effort, it definitely deserves a watch though, if only for its comments.
Jawaani Jaaneman
- Excerpt: This Nitin Kakkar film creates a new universe for fun Bollywood cinema centred on parenting headlined by one of 2000s’ most charming romantic stars. Welcome back Saif Ali Khan & cheers to the charming debutante, Alaya F.
The Jesus Rolls
Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: The narrative is built on dialogue as characters with different backgrounds collide in this crazy adventure of sex and crime.
Jezebel
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Aside from moments that could’ve been expanded upon, I was very fond of what Numa Perrier did with Jezebel. It’s an achingly human film that shines a light on the kinds of experiences films don’t often cover, and it does it in a way that is raw, honest, and surprisingly hopeful.
Jimmy Carter Rock n’ Roll President
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A rollicking documentary about the former president’s love of music and hospitality to musicians.
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: JINGLE JANGLE – a lot to see: songs and dances, so Christmassy! Toys and gadgets float through the air designed for fun and with great flair.
Jiu Jitsu
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: A movie starring Nicolas Cage, Alain Moussi, Tony Jaa, Frank Grillo, JuJu Chan, Marie Avgeropoulos, and Rick Yune, about a group of elite fighters who must use martial arts to defeat an alien invader, directed by one of the masterminds behind the recent Kickboxer films. That’s probably enough information for viewers to decide whether or not to see Jiu Jitsu, a film that delivers precisely what one might expect.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: This is the kind of badass sci-fi/action film you would expect Nic Cage to be in and sure enough he’s in it.
Joan of Arc
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Both sections of the film have a unique tone, the young Joan of Arc of serious and spiritual intent, those who debate her frequently appearing as if they’ve wandered in from a Monty Python film.
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Basically, “Joan of Arc” is an unusual presentation. It’s as if Dumont has deliberately broken every rule of good story-telling in cinema.
John Henry
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: While the film’s narrative is shaky at best, Forbes exhibits quite a bit of style with an obviously low budget, making him a filmmaker to watch.
- Excerpt: [a] half-baked, hedonistic inner city revenge thriller…registers with all the generic luster of a rusty sledgehammer. John Henry is hammered but not the preferred way you would expect
Judy & Punch
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Judy & Punch succeeds in large part because of how it mixes [farcical comedy and poignant social commentary] together to increase the potency of their respective impact.
- Excerpt: “That’s the way to do it”
Jumbo
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Jumbo is more akin to a children’s film [than Cronenberg] with its protagonist discovering something impossibly amazing only to be dismissed outright by adults.
The Jump
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: A slice of life from the Cold War that warms to a happy ending.
Jungleland
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Charlie Hunnam is at his absolute best. At times it’s bleak, brutal, sad, but it stays thoroughly human.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Just because you won’t find any profound revelations, though, doesn’t mean the experience is without merit.
Jurassic Thunder
- Excerpt: The promotional description of Jurassic Thunder makes it sound like a standard low budget B movie. I’m here to tell you, oh my brothers and sisters, that paltry collection of soft words doesn’t get close to doing justice to the stratospheric heights of ridiculousness in this film where the madness begins with badly animated T-Rex’s with frickin’ machine guns strapped to their frickin’ heads.
Just the Two of Us
- Excerpt: “Just the Two of Us” is a bleak movie, it could not have been otherwise considering its theme, but is also quite realistic in its comments and entertaining through its story and overall acting, thus raising much higher than any issues found here.
Kadaver
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: These are Nash’s anthems to the underestimated and this journey is proof that evolution through reinvention only makes you stronger.
Khuda Haafiz
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Kill It and Leave This Town
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Killed My Wife
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Eddie Pasa @ DC Filmdom
The Killing of Two Lovers
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Writer/director/editor Robert Machoian’s lived in meditation on a strained marriage just may be the filmmaking discovery of the year.
- Excerpt: An intimate and often tense portrait of a family in trouble.
Kingdom of Silence
Glenn Dunks @ The Film Experience
- Excerpt: It has been a while since I was quite so turned off by a documentary as quickly as I was by Kingdom of Silence. Well-intentioned in its exploration of the special relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and how journalist Jamal Khashoggi came to be executed, but built in a fashion that mimics some sort of Tony Scott crime thriller from the 1990s. Using every trick in the book when the story at its core is so interesting only seeks to diminish its impact.
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: This is not so much who killed Khashoggi but why? Khashoggi was brutally executed during a time when he was working with an investigation headed by families of 9/11.
Koko-Di Koko-Da
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Think ‘Groundhog Day’ but twisted, vicious, and heartbreaking.
Lake Michigan Monster
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The film itself is the joke: a great-looking labor of love that chooses silliness and puerility over austere seriousness. If nothing else, you have to admire its conviction.
Lake of Death
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Lapsis
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: An impressive outing, full of absorbing, of-the-moment themes and concerns, up there with some of the best of the year, until that finale.
- Excerpt: Head-scratching non-ending aside, ‘Lapsis’ creates a fascinating world and fills it with intrigue and colorful, compelling characters. One of the most original, thematic sci-fi efforts of recent history (fans of Black Mirror will certainly adore Hutton’s creation), Lapsis’ slapdash conclusion may leave viewers feeling like they’ve sat through an incomplete story, even if the journey itself more than justifies a watch.
Last Call
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: A quietly wrenching precis on loneliness and the need to connect in the 21st-century
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Where one-take dramas often lose their propulsive drive, this is a tight 77-minutes composed of a continuous fight or flight adrenaline rush whether dialogue is spoken or not.
The Last Full Measure
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [While] some of its melodrama [proves] disingenuous, it remains effective and affecting. There are some truly profound moments of authenticity that hit harder than [expected].
The Last Sermon
- Excerpt: Even before the opening credits, I learned a terrifying new term in “The Last Sermon”—”organic shrapnel.” Director Jack Baxter points to a place on his arm where pieces of a suicide bomber’s body are still embedded.
The Last Thing He Wanted
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Terrible…What a miss oportunity!
Rene Sanchez @ Cine Sin Fronteras [Spanish]
Last Three Days
- Excerpt: The four loves of Jack and Beth
The Last Tree
Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A compelling coming-of-age drama about a Nigerian immigrant in London.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: An astonishingly beautiful coming-of-age story of startling specificity and intense intimacy, yet universal in its compassionate depiction of a child’s perspective dawning on mature self-awareness.
Latte & the Magic Waterstone
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Unlike so many animated films, this one makes no effort to appeal to grown-ups. And that was just fine for my inner six-year-old.
Laughter
Laxmii
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Watching the documentary is like having a film school class where you study one of the most significant horror films ever made under the guidance of a master teacher.
The Legend of Baron To’a
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: So expect ample drama with the action. Fritz is a big man who needs to learn a lesson before teaching one on this tough road towards clarity. The [film] is also pretty funny.
Let Them All Talk
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Not since “Ocean’s Twelve” has director/cinemtographer/editor Steven Soderbergh delivered a vacation film for a prestigious cast, but this time around it’s an actors’ piece.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: “Let Them All Talk” does let them all talk, mostly coming down to being a breezy yet only deceptively light hang with actors we like and know can do anything at this point.
Sandy Schaefer @ Comic Book Resources
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Let Them All Talk’ is a slow-moving cruise but the acting is so comfortably genuine that it’s a really enjoyable, delightful ride.
The Letter
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A potent and scary parable about the harm spread by those who see the world as an evil and demonic place.
The Lie
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Veena Sud directorial performance is below expectations…
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Veena Sud’s first career miss…
- Excerpt: Parents play games with the family and family plays games with them.
The Life Ahead
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …at 86 years of age, Loren returns in an Italian version of the role last played on screen by Simone Signoret in the 1977 French Oscar and Cesar winning “Madame Rosa” and does her son proud with a subtle and moving performance.
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: It stars Sophia Loren and she is unquestionably an icon of the silver screen so….there’s that.
LIghts of Baltimore
- Excerpt: In the case of Baltimore, and of urban American in general, the battle of images has been far too one-sided. Lights of Baltimore offers one important corrective to the images we’re used to being fed, and I can only hope that more will follow.
Like a Boss
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Courtney Howard @ FreshFiction.tv
- Excerpt: Despite its sweet sentiments about female friendship, its connect-the-dots formula, mixed messages and stale characters and conflicts overwhelm, making this a messterpiece.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This instantly forgettable fluff lazily relies on too many unfunny slapstick and grossout tangents. But real humor blossoms in the terrific performances and in a fast, funny, and surprising feminism.
- Excerpt: [A] flat and flimsy premise deserving of an immediate pink slip. The monotonous Like a Boss drags out its cockeyed comedic conflict with all the originality and imagination of cherry-colored lip gloss.
Lilly’s Light: The Movie
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Possibilities come to light as Lilly shares her magic sight. Imagination fills the screen in each unique creative scene.
Lingua Franca
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Lingua Franca’s power resides [in its depictions of] lost souls confronting impossible choices that pit their comfort against their humanity.
Little America
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A joyous collection of portraits of immigrant experiences inspired by true stories.
Live from the Space Stage: A Halyx Story
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Lonely Encounter
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
The Longest War
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A sobering, sad, and horrific overview of the United States war in Afghanistan.
Look at Me
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese and English]
- Excerpt: It recently premiered at Tribeca (online) and it was one of the most interesting shorts on the program!
Lost Girls
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: There’s a lot of care placed in the way the film approaches the way we talk about cases like this, and the way they are often dismissed and ignored, and by the end of it, you can’t help but feel just as frustrated as our characters.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Based-on-fact drama puts the focus where it rarely is onscreen: on women who are victims of male violence. Yet a terrific central performance and an abundance of empathy cannot overcome its clichés.
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Amy Ryan showcases her talent in a film that will make you want to know more about the Long Island serial killer.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: “Lost Girls,” a dark and true movie – as scary as a film can be. But this story should’ve been told as documentary, pure gold.
Lost in America
Love Aaj Kal
- Excerpt: Love Aaj Kal’ is a profound signal that the Imtiaz Ali brand of cinema ought to evolve. Because there is very little to feel in a banal love story made worse by lead actors who barely know their craft.
Love Express: The Disappearance of Walerian Borowczyk
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Love Express’ is merely an appreciation and celebration of Borowoczyk, as it pretty much was fated to be—because who’s going to dial up a Borowoczyk documentary other than someone who’s already a Borowoczyk fan?… Someday it will make a fine Blu-ray extra on a Borowoczyk box set.
Love Guaranteed
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: The beautiful cast and settings, plus the easy mechanics of the genre, make it irresistibly charming, even when it takes a shameless trip into gloopy sentimentality
Love Wedding Repeat
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese and English]
Love, Guaranteed
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
The Lovebirds
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: There aren’t enough laughs to justify sitting through this 87-minute movie. I know, that seems short….but it feels long.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: The hugely appealing Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani share terrific comic and romantic chemistry and work their everywoman and -man charm to the max. Go-to goofy escapism for, say, a pandemic lockdown.
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Surprisingly, this movie’s romance angle ends up being just icing on a very tasty cake. It’s funny, suspenseful and a joy to watch.
Lovers Rock
Lucky
- Excerpt: Director Natasha Kermani is onto an intriguing germ of an idea with Lucky, a message movie masquerading as a thriller, but the execution is simply not there.
Lucy in the Sky
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Ludo
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Lupin III: The First
Luxor
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: No one can know whether our actions can right this sinking ship we call Earth. What Luxor strives to give us instead is the room to hope that it’s even possible.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: A low-key film I dearly admired for its ability to have so much breath and to say so much by saying so little.
Made in Bangladesh
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An inspiring portrait of a persistent and resilient young woman fighting for workers’ rights in a garment factory.
Made in Italy
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: I enjoyed the landscapes.
Make Up
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Oakley’s decision to render events with an extreme air of uncertainty isn’t out-of-place because they surely feel that way to Ruth. She’s shedding her skin to be reborn.
Malang
- Excerpt: It feels like an extended music album visualized through Vikas Sivaraman’s indulgent lenses. Problems arise when ‘Malang’ tries to be a feature film as there is only so much one can do with a dull screenplay & lifeless characters.
Malasana 32
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Malasaña 32
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
The Man Standing Next
- Excerpt: A slickly produced snapshot of a moment in time that remains divisive to this day. An excellent cast and beautiful photography lift this above the average bear.
The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes
- Excerpt: The screenplay by Robert A Stemmie and Karl Hartl both plays the game—assumes Holmes and Watson are real persons living in the real world, or at least sets the story in a world where the characters believe that—and acknowledges that they are fictional creations.
Mangrove
- Excerpt: Come final summations, following a shocking moment of brutality as court orderlies assault Howe and Crichlow, the impact of this fight for justice lands with a wallop.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A triumph. McQueen brings history to life and makes it sing with zest and passion, with a spirit that endures beyond the strife. A celebration of Black joy alongside a raging against Black oppression.
Josh Taylor @ The Forgetful Film Critic
- Excerpt: As heart-rending and politically charged as Mangrove makes the fight for racial equality, the movie also takes time to celebrate this community and its joyous spirit. Crichlow’s Mangrove restaurant is a safe space for his community to gather, break bread, express themselves, and celebrate their cultural identity.
Marionette
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Marona’s Fantastic Tale
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: the animators bring her into existence with a lap of her mother’s tongue, using it like a paintbrush… This beautiful story is animated with uniquely surreal visuals
Matthias & Maxine
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Though it doesn’t stray too far from Xavier Dolan’s usual themes of questions of identity and sexuality, ‘Matthias & Maxime’ displays growth that comes from the maturity that resulted the movie as one of Dolan’s most engaging and modest film in years.
Max Cloud
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Max Cloud is a somewhat perfunctory, but pretty fun time. Its nostalgic indulgences prove to be rather charming, especially with Scott Adkins’ tongue-in-cheek performance.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Fun until it isn’t. The intentionally absurd plot can’t maintain momentum for an entire film, and worst of all, it squanders Scott Adkins.
- Excerpt: There are moments when it springs to life as it goes hard on a fight scene (Fight Coordinator Dawid Szatarski of the Andy Long Stunt Team deserves a shoutout for some fun set pieces that incorporate the film’s video game inspirations), letting Adkins do his thing, or when it doubles down on its 16-bit roots. But there’s just not enough here to sustain a feature, unfortunately.
Mayor
- Excerpt: …a purposeful push-back against the cliches of Israel-Palestinian conflict coverage.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Director David Osit embeds himself with a city mayor whose profile will hopefully rise monumentally after his documentary is released. Hadid is a wonderful subject, a humble, humorous, hard-working family man dedicated to his city and his people.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The conversation has been lethally skewed [to] inherently position Arabs as stubborn aggressors. It’s Mayor is crucially important as an irrefutable document to the contrary.
Meaning of Life
- Excerpt: “Meaning of Life” is an interesting movie, which would have been much better, though, if it was less hyperbolic and melodramatic.
Measure for Measure
- Excerpt: What price, redemption?
Measure for Measure
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: Shakespeare’s dialog and plot have been reimagined, which is a bit gimmicky. But the film is packed with snappy wordplay, sharp attitudes and dark currents of emotion
Military Wives
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: True story that proves that music is the best medicine.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: So aggressively precisely what you think it is that there’s almost no point in seeing it. Flattens a true story into generic pap that isn’t even that successfully, authentically feel-good, either.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Thomas and Horgan beautifully ensure that this story remains about grief’s many forms: past, present, and potential. Success is no match for catharsis.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: …hinges on an inventive, original idea, and relies on clever execution and adroit narrative chops.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The [film’s] true intrigue [is the] central performance’s distillation of a single complex identity. [Our] painful emotions often save us from the monsters within.
- Excerpt: Hands down, MINOR PREMISE is one of the year’s best.
Miracle in Cell No. 7
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: A heretofore unknown subtitled movie from Turkey became a Top 10 hit on Netflix. Will wonders never cease?
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese and English]
Misbehavior
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: There is not that great a distance between the mischievous children in Philippa Lowthorpe’s previous film, Swallows and Amazons and the disruptive women of Misbehaviour. Lowthorpe shows a delight in the shenanigans of this loosely assembled group that made up the beginnings of the Women’s Liberation movement in Britain, notably putting a halt to the Miss World competition that was internationally broadcast in November 1970.
Misbehaviour
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: With vivid characters and pointed situations, the film keeps the audience entertained while reminding us that the battle for equality is still being fought
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Is this a celebration or denunciation of beauty pageants? I’m confused but I do know that actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw is an absolute delight.
Les Miserables
- Excerpt: With vision of riots fuelled by racist police forces and shootings of unarmed Black citizens among 2020’s most prominent images, Les Misérables is as timely as it is depressingly timeless.
Miu Miu Women’s Tales
Marilyn Ferdinand @ Alliance of Women Film Journalists
- Excerpt: For roughly the past decade, Italian high-fashion brand Miu Miu, a subsidiary of Prada, has been commissioning and releasing short films from some of the world’s most renowned women directors. As long as the films include Miu Miu fashions and accessories, the directors have been free to express their own creative impulses and personalities. Within the series, film fans will recognize signature flourishes along with great invention.
The Mojo Manifesto: The Life and Times of Mojo Nixon
- Excerpt: Freedom Records & Films’ documentary about Mojo Nixon started production in 2012, and, at the time, it was scheduled to release a couple of years later. There’s no indication why it took so long, but the fruit of director Matt Eskey’s labors, The Mojo Manifesto: The Life and Times of Mojo Nixon, is well worth the long wait.
The Mole Agent
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Docu-drama about a kind man skilled in listening who goes undercover in a nursing home.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: [Alberdi’s] biggest boon is Sergio, the newly widowed man Romulo hires, whose kindness and attractive gentlemanly appearance makes him a big hit with the predominantly female residents of San Francisco.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: What starts as a detective mission quickly turns into a heartfelt treatise on the ways in which our elderly has been systematically forgotten by their children instead.
Monsoon
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: Director Hong Khaou continues on from the delicate beauty of Lilting with this gentle, finely crafted exploration of personal history and identity
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Not without its moments but Hong Khaou’s ‘Monsoon’ feels frustratingly underwritten and unfocused. The acting appears wooden in many scenes and, when all is said and done, the movie is largely pointless.
Mope
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: As a film, it’s solid, but full of frustrations and missed opportunities, but as a debut, I think it shows promise for Heyne as a filmmaker, and our two leads put in good work.
Mortal
Ken Bakely @ Film Pulse
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: While a number of aspects can be considered a bit familiar, I like that the film goes out of its way to not go the easy route with the characters, finding as many opportunities for complexity that it can. It’s effective enough with the things it gets right, even if it’s not great enough to transcend its ambitions.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Mortal is a fascinating take nonetheless with some cool set pieces and a willingness to increase stakes by killing characters and dealing with the complexity of the aftermath.
The Mortuary Collection
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: While horror can be a hall of mirrors for the human condition, “The Mortuary Collection” is just good, old-fashioned macabre fun.
Mosquito
Paulo Portugal @ [Portuguese]
Mosul
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Mosul is reIt maintains a sense of humanity even in its most bombastic action scenes. THe cast of mostly Iraqi actors brings a fresh perspective on the genre.
Mother Gamer
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
The Mothman Legacy
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Much of this horror documentary is exceptionally artistic and well done.
Mr. Jones
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A serious and sobering film about genocide in the Ukraine.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Despite a compelling narrative and absorbing period details and setting, the film is too rushed to make the necessary impact.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Rather than merely seek to expose its titular character as a selfless hero, the film also looks to make visible the strings pulled by opportunists we thought we could trust.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: MR. JONES may be hard to see, but check out this smart history. Challenging film? Oh yes indeed — probably one we need to heed.
Mrs. Serial Killer
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Despite this thriller’s serious theme and downer images, I enjoyed its clever camera tricks, and the parody attitude of certain scenes appealed to me.
Murder Death Koreatown
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Your enjoyment of ‘Murder Death Koreatown’ will be linked to your tolerance for watching feature-length shot-on-cellphone vlogs…If you’re willing to overlook the budgetary issues, however, ‘Murder Death Koreatown’ is a solid watch—and if you rate it on a dollars spent to entertainment value curve, it’s off the chart.
My Darling Vivian
- Excerpt: In 1951 Johnny Cash met Vivian Liberto at a skating rink in San Antonio when she was a Catholic schoolgirl, and he was an airman in the U.S. Air Force. He was immediately besotted with her, and after he shipped out to Germany, they exchanged thousands of love letters. When he returned in 1954, they were married, and shortly after that, she was pregnant with the first of four daughters.
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “My Darling Vivian” is a loving portrait of a mother who had her own challenges and darkness,
My Little Sister
Alan Mattli @ Maximum Cinema [German]
- Excerpt: My Little Sister is a solid enough drama, but it feels like a French or German arthouse film from 2011, illustrating just how out of step Swiss cinema is with the rest of the world.
My Octopus Teacher
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This otherwise gorgeous nature documentary is marred by the banal self-therapy of its human protagonist… and he is nowhere near as interesting as the manic pixie dream octopus who changes his life.
My Prince Edward
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: The good news is that Norris Wong’s debut as a writer/director is as worthy of acclaim as has been indicated by earlier critical reviews as well as award recognition.
My Psychedelic Love Story
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: The main characters were so limited.
Josh Taylor @ The Forgetful Film Critic
- Excerpt: Errol Morris doesn’t believe in adversarial interviews. He prefers to let his subjects say whatever they want, and he uses dialectical montage – the juxtaposition of two opposing images or statements to comment on one another – to impart a new meaning. My Psychedelic Love Story is Morris’s approach on steroids. Or rather, LSD.
My Spy
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A “family” comedy about nuclear terrorism, the incompetent CIA agent on the case, and his 9-year-old sidekick. Desperately unfunny, thoroughly misjudged. We are in the worst and the dumbest timeline.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Fires and misses to be this generation’s Kindergarten Cop. My Spy will neither torture parents nor become their kid’s new favorite movie, but it will distract everyone long enough to not make it seem like a waste of time.
- Excerpt: My Spy is little more than a compendium of lazy “tough guy is softened up by a cute kid” cliches that’s too violent for young children, and too childish for fans of action movies.
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: Even in a trite film such as this, Bautista’s comic timing proves to be worthwhile to some degree.
My Summer As a Goth
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: Well-meaning and certainly full of heart, MY SUMMER AS A GOTH serves its target audience without stretching beyond the demographic.
My Zoe
Márcio Augusto Sallem @ Cinema com Critica [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: A conclusão irreal e otimista parece destoar da lógica mundana, mas não do compromisso da direção em restituir o objeto de desejo a quem tanto o buscou, mesmo que esta busca esteja pautada na fuga e leve, ao pé da letra, o pronome possessivo no título.
The Mystery of D.B. Cooper
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: So rather than be a forensic dissection of D.B. Cooper’s crime, Dower’s film is more akin to something like Room 237—a collection of [possible] interpretations.
The Mystery of the Pink Flamingo
- Excerpt: A bubbly pink mocktail of a film, The Mystery of the Pink Flamingo embodies the spirit of its subject in wonderfully weird ways that entertain even when they don’t quite hit the mark.
Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: For those already familiar with her life and work, there isn’t much new to this. However, the doc makes the case that she leaves a strong body of work behind that will stand the test of time that better defines her legacy than her tragic, untimely death.
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Myths are busted, secrets are told, romances are accounted for, and friends testify about her values and character. How each of her three children remembers her is revealed.
Nationtime
- Excerpt: So many of the topics raised in 1972 are depressingly even more urgent today. The landmark civil rights legislation of the ’60s created new opportunities for equality and progress but it did not deliver them.
Neither Confirm Nor Deny
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: If adding little to the public knowledge of the event, the lessons of government transparency and freedom of the press are vital today.
The New Mutants
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: There’s a clever idea here, combining teen-angst drama with horror on the fringe of the X-Men universe. But the film is relentlessly superficial, never dipping beneath the surface of its pungent issues
- Excerpt: ‘The New Mutants’ is a classic case of wasted potential, Josh Boone’s vision of a darker horror-genre superhero movie not fulfilled so much as it is merely suggested. The cast and special effects are serviceable (if muddy at times) but the whole thing feels small and ultimately pointless rather than just self-contained. RIP X-Men.
Sebastian Zavala @ Ventana Indiscreta [Spanish]
- Excerpt: It’s a film that remains a bit half-baked, and that doesn’t convince either as a superhero film, or as a drama or horror film.
The Night House
Kyle Anderson @ Nerdist
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: A strong haunted house film, where ghosts and the occult come into play.
Sebastian Zavala @ MeGustaElCine.com [Spanish]
- Excerpt: It might not be pure art, but “The Night House” does work, even if it’s more on a dramatic level, than as a horror thriller.
Night of the Kings
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz
- Excerpt: It’s a curious film of brilliant storytelling, one that makes for an unusual prison film.
- Excerpt: In these days of political “storytelling”, the film is worth a look both to understand what any of us would do to stay alive and how being “generous” with the truth can affect lives.
No Small Matter
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An eye-opening documentary about the great benefits of early childhood education for children and the society at large.
Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An eye-opening documentary about the great benefits of early childhood education for children and the society at large.
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: “No Small Matter” gives many strong arguments, including data from early brain studies at the University of Washington, that prove early childhood education is the most important investment America can make for a strong, stable, successful country.
Nocturne
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: In its own right, “Nocturne” plays to a classy, more controlled tune.
- Excerpt: Too much name dropping and tossing about of classical music submarine this light duty horror cartoon.
Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A revealing documentary about two creative and wonderstruck friends.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: In following some of the strands of Chatwin’s life, we actually learn just as much about Herzog.
The Nose or Conspiracy of Mavericks
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Offering to the Storm
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
An Officer and a Spy
Alan Mattli @ Facing the Bitter Truth [German]
- Excerpt: Any semblance of thematic depth and emotional complexity is lost amid Polanski’s self-righteous, superficial self-referentiality.
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Oliver Sacks: His Own Life
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A fascinating overview of the life and work of a Renaissance Man.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …we also get a sense of the man largely through his sense of humor. Sacks confides that his love of the periodic table is so great, its featured on everything from his bedspread to his socks. Then there’s that great anecdote about Jello…
Olympic Dreams
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Guerilla filmmaking is at its most charming in this melancholy romance set — and improvised and shot on the fly — in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Village. Delightful and delicately observed.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: This Olympic setting does not require machine guns, hostages, and explosions – far from it – but Olympic Dreams is a case of background eclipsing plot and characters.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: It’s a shame that such unprecedented access to the Olympic Village was squandered on a paper-thin story that goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Olympic Dreams [is] a heartfelt and introspective journey that delves within the human psyche caught in stasis [to remind us] that we’re more than our achievements or failures.
On the Record
Once Upon a River
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Coming-of-age story about a Native American woman who benefits from the kindness of strangers.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Rose acknowledges this empathy at the back of Campbell’s story and ensures that it takes center-stage despite the inescapable horrors lodged within [the actors’] eyes.
The One and Only Ivan
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: If Stella’s ‘Not all humans are bad. They can surprise you,’ wilts under the slavery allegory, it fits right in with the animal rights concept that “Ivan” will imprint on children.
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: Thankfully, there’s a witty edge to the dialog that keeps things from becoming too syrupy. And it also helps that effects work is grounded and realistic
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: As a parable about the harms of animal captivity, The One And Only Ivan is fairly simplistic. However, it’s easy to get sucked into the story because of its charming characters.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Disney hasn’t produced such a bizarre animal-related feature since 1995’s Operation Dumbo Drop.
One Second
- Excerpt: “One Second” does not reach the levels of Zhang Yimou’s masterpieces of the category, as in the case of “Raise the Red Lanterns”, “To Live” etc, but remains a rather well-shot, well acted movie that manages to make a number of pointy comments while entertaining its audience.
Only
Ordinary Love
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: With screenwriter Owen McCafferty fictionalizing his own experience, directors Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn (“Cherrybomb”) provide a clean, modern aesthetic to their Belfast backdrop for Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson to render “Ordinary Love” extraordinary.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A Cancer Movie but not a horror story. Funny, moving, hopeful; an intimate portrait of a couple who know how to support each other and why that matters. Oh, and it’s also a love letter to the NHS.
- Excerpt: Manville gives a performance of heartbreaking delicacy and courage.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Tremors of anger and annoyance run just below the surface [because] not even the purest love can evade humanity’s inherently [fear-driven] messiness.
The Other Lamb
- Excerpt: A smart, provocative chiller with a strong perspective.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Szumowska utilizes the beautiful, almost otherworldly environment where she’s set McMullen’s script to visualize Selah’s coming-of-age journey towards the reality of her predicament.
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: If you ever thought joining a zombie cult would be fun, think again.
Our Lady of the Nile
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Our Mothers
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A moving story about a compassionate young man investigating the impact of genocide in his country.
Out Stealing Horses
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: an affecting coming of age tale about how an affair affects two boys in different families. Unfortunately the adaptation…has excised enough of the story that the film is narratively disjointed…
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: A melancholy permeates every frame of Moland’s film and can be felt with every note of Kaspar Kaae’s gorgeous score.
The Outpost
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Director Rod Lurie (“The Contender”), a West Point graduate and veteran, pays homage to Bravo Troop 3-61, who would be outnumbered by a factor of over four to one in a position best described as ‘fish in a barrel’ in one of the worst battles of the Afghan War.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: The Outpost feels like a war movie classic while simultaneously employing innovative ideas. The visceral performances are unique and combined with the absurdity of COP Keating’s situation, it will leave you with a lasting impression.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: The Outpost is one of the very best war movies of recent years.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s a good realistic war drama if you want to see how the war in Afghanistan is going.
The Owners
- Excerpt: This British horror-thriller is still familiar, but a sick and twisted kicker on its own.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A picture that keeps you guessing.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: The Owners is eerie and exciting in equal measure. All the thrills and the horror compliment the story’s themes, bringing out terror based in issues of class, family, and masculinity.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Not for scaredy cats, no siree. Almost too frightening for me!
Pahokee
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: When so many places in America are known for slashing budgets and ignoring public education, Pahokee arrives as an inspirational exception.
The Painted Bird
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Writer/director Václav Marhoul’s faithful adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski’s controversial 1965 novel…, a book that once read is never forgotten, is a stunning achievement for those willing to navigate the opposite of escapism.
Ronald wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: Vividly scripted and filmed, the horrors are all the worse for being so close to the present day.
Painter
- Excerpt: Art evades life
The Pale Door
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …director Aaron B. Koontz (“Camera Obscura”) would have had to devise a way to shoot flares out of the screen to engage my interest… The best thing about the film is the Edgar Allan Poe stanza which introduces it, a delusional misrepresentation of what follows.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It has moments that are inspired and haunting and entertaining, and the the gore effects are fantastic as well. However, it loses momentum awfully quick, and its limitations becomes very obvious.
M Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
- Excerpt: If not for the ham-fisted and largely forced melodrama that distracts instead of moving the plot forward, The Pale Door could have been a fun, low-budget horror flick about a gang of outlaws clashing with a coven of witches. Mostly devoid of scares and the sort of nightmarish atmosphere implied by the visuals, the movie offers little to fully engage audiences and can be somewhat of a chore, plodding along to a rather unrewarding conclusion.
Panga
- Excerpt: Be it with Bhopal’s lazy vibe or the homey living spaces, Ashwiny Iyer ‘s ‘Panga’ explores middle-class Indian life with great flair. Kangana Ranaut is wonderful whereas Jassie Gill, Richa Chadha and Neena Gupta lend solid support.
The Paper Tigers
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Delivers humor, heart, and face-kicking.
James Plath @ Family Home Theater
Papicha
- Excerpt: Beautiful cinematography by Léo Lefèvre underlines Nedjima’s creativity, in particular her eye for color in the fabrics she selects (and sometimes dyes herself), and the costumes by Catherine Cosme will convince you that Nedjima truly has a talent for fashion design.
Parallax
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: The pacing is sluggish.
The Paramedic
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Parkland Rising
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An inspiring portrait of young activists for gun control reform.
Pearl
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Though “Pearl” is about Pearl, the name of the girl who is tested by trauma, “Pearl” can also mean what this teenage girl has the potential to become. Going even further with the metaphor, “Pearl” describes this film — a glistening, lovely, rare pearl of a movie dedicated in the ending credits “to our daughters.”
Pink Men
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Pinocchio
Dan Lybarger @ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
- Excerpt: Garrone is best known for grim but gripping crime dramas like “Dogman” and “Gomorrah,” but his movies set in the real world are somewhat similar because the sets in both types of films look lived in and tactile. Geppetto’s home and workplace are covered in sawdust. As a result, it’s easier to buy into the fantasy to come.
El Plan
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Planet of the Humans
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A delusion-shattering documentary on how the environmental and green energy movements have been taken over by capitalists.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: From the warnings of the 1950s to the 21st-century corporate takeover of green energy, a grim look at humanity’s fate as the planet heats up. Is there any hope? This feels like only half the story.
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Launched in time for Earth Day, the message is lost in the medium.
The Platform
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It is a film that wants to make its message clear, and it will use any cinematic means necessary to get that point through. It’s full of engaging and thrilling filmmaking.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This sci-fi dreadfest immerses you into a shocking mystery, punches you in the gut, then grips you with a wisdom that transcends its obviousness, daring you to deny that its open savagery is our own.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [Relies] on excellent cast willing to unearth the humor of futility while also succumbing to its depths of despair [as it coaxes] out the kinetic energy of its static spaces.
The Pollinators
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Laments and hopeful signs about the fate of honey bees and the food supply.
Porno
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: If you lament the lack of sex demons and genital torture in current horror cinema, have I got something for you…
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Rather than be interested in dissecting its genres, it seeks to utilize those tropes to its advantage. And that’s okay.
The Postcard Killings
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s a compelling enough thriller for the moment you watch it, but isn’t gonna last very long in your mind after you see it. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s performance is what makes it all connect and work.
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: A grizzly serial killer thriller that’s not too exciting on film even if it might have been in the book.
- Excerpt: The art in murders
Premature
Karl Delossantos @
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Zora Howard is hypnotic to watch in Rashaad Ernesto Green’s exploration of a first deep-dive relationship. The Harlem setting and real-world atmosphere spark Premature’s earnest tone and establishes an authenticity not usually felt in the romantic drama genre.
The Prey
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The Prey doesn’t necessarily break a whole lot of new ground, both as an action movie and as a riff on The Most Dangerous Game. However, it’s made with skill and a great sense of building tension.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Worth a look for action fans and fans of people hunting other people for sport.
The Prince
- Excerpt: Life on the inside
Proxima
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Brings a fundamental new humanity to the story of those who court great danger in order to advance human knowledge. Eva Green is immense. Writer-director Alice Winocour’s compassion is achingly acute.
Proximity
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [The sci-fi elements] demand the time to be more than enigmatic and pretty. The script is sadly too shallow to bring everything together.
The Quarry
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: I’m not convinced it’s quite as profound as the filmmakers may have intended, but it a satisfying enough experience that was more than worth it just to see Shea Whigham give a terrific performance.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: What makes The Quarry compelling is that we know from the start that Whigham isn’t a monster. His performance is too full of heartbreak and remorse for that to be true.
The Queen of Black Magic
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Creepy, dark, and bleak, with a decided mean streak running through the entire film.
- Excerpt: With ‘The Queen of Black Magic’, Indonesian horror cranks the savagery and blood-thirst up to new gut-churning levels. Though the film from Kimo Stamboel revels in the gore, Joko Anwar’s script keeps things just grounded enough to invest audiences in the human element.
The Queen’s Gambit
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: A compelling coming-of-age story on chess that explores also how substance abuse has become such a killer in western society.
Queer Japan
- Excerpt: There’s a whole lot of fabulousness on display in Queer Japan, and not all of it involves costumes or art.
Quezon’s Game
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: An untold Holocaust story, of Philippine president Manuel Quezon’s fight to take in Jewish refugees, feels like it remains untold: this sluggish, overlong film cannot overcome its low-budget roots.
Quo Vadis, Aida?
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Jasmila Žbanic draws us into the events, finding an effective blend of historical reconstruction, family drama, and war-based thriller. Jasna Ðuricic’ is a revelation.
Raat Akeli Hai
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The film risks overstaying its welcome, but the story, the characters, and the craftsmanship makes for a very riveting Indian whodunit.
Radium Girls
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: True story of women who fought back when they learned they had been exposed to toxins on the job.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Quinn is riveting as the older, more well read sister Jo, a doomed romantic heroine of high order. It is horrific to watch her deteriorate before our eyes, the filmmakers utilizing just enough gore to emphasize radium’s devastating consequences.
A Rainy Day in New York
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: As the Tucson native swept behind the red velvet ropes of New York’s movie biz, Elle Fanning is simply a delight, Woody having procured another note perfect female comedic performance.
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: Bright and chatty, this romantic farce has Woody Allen’s usual loose, uneven signature all over it, including an underlying current of fragile misogyny
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Despite good performances, it feels like a retread of so many of Woody Allen’s previous efforts.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: I honestly wished the “moody” drizzle of Gatsby’s romantic fantasies would eventually turn into a tidal wave and wash them all away because they’re all so very insufferable.
Random Acts of Violence
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: My disappointment is therefore made worse because the capacity to be great is present. In [the filmmakers’] quest to expose [a necessary] truth, they’ve also unwittingly perpetuated it.
Rebuilding Paradise
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Poignant documentary about how the California community nearly destroyed by fire bands together.
Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Poignant documentary about how the California community nearly destroyed by fire bands together.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: It’s the type of human-interest story that touches upon the surface of what occurred in a way that hits audiences emotionally without actually saying much.
Red Penguins
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Gabe Polsky, the writer/director of “Red Army,” returns with a new Russian hockey documentary that may begin amusingly enough, but actually has more in common with Alex Gibney’s “Citizen K” than his own prior film.
Rent-A-Pal
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Jeremy Kibler @
- Excerpt: A simultaneously unsettling and heartbreaking character study in longing and loneliness, pre-Tinder, pre-“Black Mirror” and set in 1990.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A sharp, unsettling portrait of the psychological damage extended periods of loneliness and isolation can inflict on a person.
The Rescue
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This Michael Bay–esque love letter to China Rescue & Salvage may be propaganda, but its enjoyably bonkers melodrama and grippingly engaging action are a lot less obnoxious than any film Bay has made.
Residue
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: First-time writer-director Merawi Gerima takes a kaleidoscopic approach that’s more experimental than narrative, offering a storm of emotions that only occasionally connect with the audience
Shelagh Rowan-Legg @ ScreenAnarchy
- Excerpt: Residue frames how a place of beauty and family and friendship, one where people looked out for each other, has become strained, slowly being stripped apart.
Resistance
- Excerpt: The film is an old-fashioned and straightforward tale of brave opposition to the Nazi occupation of France.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: True story of the beloved mime Marcel Marceau’s activism to save Jewish children during World War II.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: That the man at the center is Marcel Marceau ultimately becomes a trivial matter once the story cements itself as being about so much more than his not-yet-realized celebrity.
Resisterhood
- Excerpt: To connect and support
Rewind
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Rewind is as much an advertisement for the Child Advocacy Centers created to better protect victims as it is a cathartic look at [his] arduous fight [for] justice.
Rialto
- Excerpt: So…sorry
Riders of Justice
- Excerpt: The opening night film at the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam is a solid revenge film with a socio-political twist, with Anders Thomas Jensen bringing punchy action and dark comedy in equal measure.
The Roads Not Taken
Candice Frederick @ The Wrap
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Our interest is kept by the stunning wealth of melancholic beauty behind every decision made.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Anne Hathaway, who is clearly having a blast as the Grand High Witch, conjures frights in familiar yet entertaining ‘Roald Dahl’s The Witches.’
Robert the Bruce
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: Melancholy drama about a Scottish king’s period of discernment.
Robin’s Wish
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: The story of what really was responsible for the tragic death of one of the greatest comedians of our time.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A heartbreaking “setting the record straight” documentary about the death of Robin Williams..
Rogue
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: A low-budget action B pic, armed with explosions and concern for animal abuse in wildlife.
Ropes
Sebastian Zavala @ Ventana Indiscreta [Spanish]
- Excerpt: If the film excels at anything, it is in the construction of its main character, a quadriplegic girl who has to find new reasons to continue living.
Rose Plays Julie
- Excerpt: A dark and dramatic glimpse of a family torn apart by sexual assault, ‘Rose Plays Julie’ is a blunt and uncomfortable character study that features strong performances from Ann Skelly, Orla Brady and Aidan Gillen.
Royalty Free: The Music of Kevin MacLeod
Sebastian Zavala @ Ventana Indiscreta [Spanish]
- Excerpt: It’s a study of a human being who, being incredibly humble, has ended up helping many creative people to achieve their goals.
Runner
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A stirring documentary about an African refugee who becomes an Olympic marathoner.
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: The power of Guor’s story is that we have a choice. We can let that oppression, trauma, and pain consume us or we can let it propel us to something positive.
Safety
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: It’s highly effective [at being a tearjerker, against all odds crowd-pleaser]. Just don’t ignore that it’s also highly manipulated.
Saint Frances
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s a thoroughly delightful watch, full of charming performances from the entire cast, especially from little Ramona Edith Williams. Kelly O’Sullivan makes a strong impression, not only as a lead, but also as a writer.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Taboo-busting laugh-until-you-cry tale dares to speak of oft-unspoken matters of women’s lives. So very necessary to open up the range of women’s experiences seen as baseline. I love this movie.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [The film reveals] the one [absolute] we do need: a certainty in our collective uncertainty. Happiness demands wiggle room.
Shelagh Rowan-Legg @ ScreenAnarchy
The Salt of Tears
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Chronicle of a man and three different women who discover the disappointments, heartbreaks, and surprises in romantic relationships.
Samurai Marathon
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s a solid period film that features some engaging characters, a great score from Philip Glass, and some satisfyingly gruesome bloodshed.
Sanditon
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An eight-part version of Jane Austen’s last novel, a love story and women’s lib tale set in a seaside resort.
Save Yourselves!
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Mani and Reynolds wield witty dialogue (the line ‘The poof is in the cabin’ may be my favorite of 2020) with crack comedic timing, making “Save Yourselves!” a delightfully goofball entertainment.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: This likably droll post-mumblecore effort graduates to full apocalyptic relationship comedy status with a witty script and two delightful lead performances.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A cheerful, pleasingly silly sci-fi rom-com.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Quirky comedy.
Scare Me
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: More comedy than horror, this witty freak-out cleverly plays with concepts of creativity and storytelling
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Josh Ruben has crafted a really unique horror comedy that has a lot more in its mind than initially one would initially expect. Aya Cash is a born star.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: As a chatty lark with a bubbling tension, “Scare Me” celebrates the skill of campfire storytelling, while also exploring a writer’s creative process and hostile gender politics.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: With its fascinating characters, brilliant performances from its cast, and a well-executed clever concept, ‘Scare Me’ is able to deliver fresh and compelling thrills to its familiar anthology formula.
Scheme Birds
Ronald wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: A solar black hole of infinite social gravity. Without films like this, not even light can escape.
Schwarz Weiss Bunt
- Excerpt: Schwarz Weiss Bunt (Black White Color) is a gentle Austrian tale of the perfect time in a young woman’s life. Matilda (Clara Diemling )is finishing college and her world is a continuum from familiar, familial comforts of the past, to the absolute perfection of her untested future.
Scoob!
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Scoob! is a perfectly harmless and serviceable distraction, especially for young kids. However, as someone who has always had an affinity for this series, and its characters, I didn’t find a whole lot to like about this film.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A spectacularly scattershot, pandering mess of pulp junk, cheap-looking animation, and poisonous gender dynamics. A charmless cash-grab that can’t be bothered with the slightest stab at originality.
Scream, Queen!
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
Glenn Dunks @ The Film Experience
- Excerpt: How great it is then to see two new documentaries Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street and Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror focusing on these elements and offering glimpses into the complicated realm of what it is like to be a viewer and a creator in these spaces…
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street is an extraordinary, long overdue documentary that attempts to examine the initially negative reception towards A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge and how that ultimately affected Patton as an at the time closeted gay man, as well as how it affected his career.
Sea Fever
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a taut little thriller which, while very reminiscent of “Alien,” is steeped in its own world aboard a small trawler. It also couldn’t be more timely, its themes of sacrifice for the common good especially resonant during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The film doesn’t explore a ton of new territory when it comes to stories about monsters, parasitic infections, and mysteries of the unknown, but it still does a solid job at creating tension and thrills with a sense of warmth for the characters.
Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This vital documentary about a trans man’s pregnancy shatters stereotypes along all sorts of vectors, and underscores the fact that however atypical our lives may be, we have more in common than not.
Seberg
Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Screenwriters Joe Shrapnel & Anna Waterhouse turn poetic license into dubious fictionalization told with leaden dialogue frequently guilty of speechifying…weighing down Kristen Stewart’s delicate performance.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: French New Wave icon Jean Seberg plays an unwitting game of cat-and-mouse with the FBI in a strangled blend of biopic and paranoid thriller. Not even always fascinating Kristen Stewart can save this.
- Excerpt: …ambitious but thoroughly disjointed psychological thriller biopic . Both Stewart and her vulnerable inspiration Jean Seberg deserved a better deep dive than this tiptoe through the surfacing waves of despair and disillusionment.
The Secret Garden
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Pointless adaptation of the beloved children’s novel soaked in a gothic spookiness that seems to deliberately misunderstand the story. Neither literal enough nor magical enough. My heart was unmoved.
The Secret: Dare to Dream
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Nice Guy garbage man Josh Lucas negs sad sack Katie Holmes. Based on the pernicious self-help philosophy that insists that everything wrong with your life is your fault. You know: feel-good romance!
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A genial, if increasingly absurd romantic drama.
The Secrets We Keep
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a thriller that keeps us guessing about Maja’s state of mind as well as the concept of vigilantism. While the film’s trailer emphasizes the more lurid aspects of the film (kidnapping, torture, war crimes), Adler’s execution is far more thoughtful
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A first-rate adult thriller.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Implausible thriller.
Selah and the Spades
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Poe’s film exhibits far more originality than we normally see in the genre … But it is Lovie Simone’s cool intensity and Celeste O’Connor’s initial smitten bewilderment that turns into her own brand of confidence that ignite “Selah and the Spades.”
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Selah and the Spades teases a juicy tale of high school factions and boarding school realpolitik, but it sheds its sharp edge offering forced high school melodrama we can find from any number of YA faucets.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [Think Election meets Brick] and you can begin to approach the tone Poe provides her film’s power struggle between today’s youth and their own future.
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: The issues I had with Selah and the Spades were with the writing. The film wants to say too much about the modern high school experience, and as a result, it lands on an issue for no more than a scene before moving on to the next one.
Seniors: A Dogumentary
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: … a big-hearted pitch on the benefits of adopting older dogs… the subject matter – and the subjects themselves – are all undeniably tail wag worthy.
Sergio
Dragan Antulov @ Draxblog VI [Croatian]
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: A tribute to a great hero, a man called simply SERGIO. It’s a true story that needs told. We lack heroes in this man’s mold.
Shadow in the Cloud
- Excerpt: When preposterousness is done well it is preposterously exciting.
The Shadow of Violence
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: While it may not transcend the genre, the craftsmanship and strong performances manage to resonate because the filmmakers have a firm understanding of what makes crime dramas like these so compelling and emotionally involving in the first place.
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s called THE SHADOW OF VIOLENCE on Netflix in the U.S.– CALM WITH HORSES in the UK. No matter what the title, it’s well worth seeing.
Shakuntala Devi
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
The Sharks
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: With the male gaze removed, everything can unfold naturally with relatable awkwardness and appetite.
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s just a delight from beginning to end, and it provides a refreshingly earnest and old fashioned counterbalance to the kind of noisy, snarky, and quip heavy animated films that tend to come out these days.
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Aardman Animations is one of those hallowed traditions in the grand cinema of the UK that includes Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, kitchen sink realism, James Bond, Monty Python, and Agatha Christie adaptations.
She’s Allergic to Cats
Gregory Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: It’s an absurd, nightmarishly funny evocation of the life of a creative schlub trying to grind out a living in an indifferent L.A, and the comic scenes are like catching a spastic case of the giggles just as a panic attack is coming on.
She’s in Portland
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s too bumpy to enjoy the ride.
Shimla Mirchi
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Shithouse
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The film sometimes almost lapses into ‘Sundance twee,’ but Raiff comes across as so emotionally honest in his performance that as a filmmaker he manages to stay grounded.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Disarming, sensitive, and authentically observed, “Shithouse” is a small gem of an indie that anyone familiar with the college experience could appreciate.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: This is the kind of movie you just want to hug.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It proves to be more sensitive than you would think from its vulgar title.
Shiva Baby
- Excerpt: Laugh-out-loud hilarious and sweaty-palmed tense. Often in the same moment.
Shiva Baby
Allyson Johnson @ TheYoungFolks.com
Shoot to Marry
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The film is often amusing, always interesting and admirable in showing women in a very wide spectrum of careers, but that unsettling issue of Markle’s approach, pitching his documentary as one ‘about women,’ while trying to find a mate, nags.
Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Tusshar Sasi @ Filmy Sasi
- Excerpt: The mega responsibility on its shoulders notwithstanding, ‘Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan’ barely makes the cut as a coherent feature film. It is truthful towards LGBTQIA but the film, without doubt, is Ayushmann Khurrana’s weakest in years.
Siberia
- Excerpt: A Kickstarter funded hodge-podge of uninspired dream logic and imagery.
The Silencing
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: While it may have some missed opportunities, the bleak atmosphere and strong performances, especially from Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, gives you just enough to be engrossed in the story.
El Silencio del pantano
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese and English]
A Simple Wedding
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Charming culture-clash rom-com is full of life, celebrating human universals of family and love, and embracing differences that make the world so interesting. Smart and spritely, feminist and funny.
Sing Me a Song
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An exploration of the emotional undercurrents of the digital revolution in, of all places, a Buddhist monastery.
Skin Walker
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Small children doing the wrong things morph into adults doing even worse.
Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Always entertaining, thanks to extensive use of clips and some great anecdotes from the various interview subjects.
Skylines
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It earnestly embraces its unabashedly dorky B-movie identity, and it makes for a fun time. It’s hard not to admire Liam O’Donnell’s affection for the genre.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Wild, ambitious, and free-wheeling.
- Excerpt: Like all great genre, what makes Skylin3s more than the sum of its pop culture sensibilities and deep-cut references, is it’s got something its sincerely trying to say. It’s just absurdly entertaining in the process.
Sleep
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Venus does a wonderful job keeping us off-balance. What was an easily discernible line between reality and dream blurs until not even Mona can tell for certain which is which.
Sleepless Beauty
The Social Dilemma
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: ** Spoiler Alert ** Social media is addictive.
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: It is imperative for us to end the practice of tech companies manipulating people and allowing the spread of false information for fun and profit. I walked away from The Social Dilemma bereft of the hope that we have the political will or wherewithal to actually do such a thing in our current state. Raise your hand if you disagree.
Softie
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Involving documentary about the challenges facing a fearless young activist and his family in Kenya.
Someone, Somewhere
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: An enchanting French romantic drama about synchronicity.
Sometimes Always Never
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A father-son drama that reveals the small pleasures of ordinary days, including playing Scrabble.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Gentle kook and visual frolicking bury emotion in this tale of a man mired in grief. Little of its head-scratching whimsy makes a melancholy landing; most just floats away on wisps of insignificance.
Songbird
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: An appalling melange of insipid disaster drama and implausible romance with a bit of dystopian satire thrown in. This is a crass cash-in meant to prey on our pandemic anxieties, not grapple with them.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Without a doubt, sections of the story hit a nerve. At the same time, the real pandemic is obviously more anxiety-producing than a film could ever be.
The Sounding
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The end result is a powerful metaphor for our world’s prevalence to marginalize.
Soundwave
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Enough does thankfully come across, however, so we can appreciate what Narang is doing and saying regardless [of the film’s shortcomings].
South Mountain
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …everything about this small, intimate film feels so natural, lived in and true, Balsam’s performance empathetic and generous.
Ron Wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: The bucolic setting of the summer place contrasts with life moving on in uncharted directions.
Spell
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: While “Spell” has its fair share of frustrations, this is still a satisfyingly creepy battle of wits, and we are all here for Loretta Devine as a cheerfully wicked practitioner in folk magic.
Spenser Confidential
Frank Ochieng @ The Critical Movie Critics
- Excerpt: …[a] witless cop caper…this charmless action-comedy suspense piece will result in yet another disposable salt-and-pepper buddy flick aiming for low rent chuckles.
Spinster
Eddie Pasa @ DC Filmdom
Shelagh Rowan-Legg @ ScreenAnarchy
Spiral
- Excerpt: Spiral is a mysterious act of dread and atmosphere that also taps into the inherent horror of being different in a world that isn’t ready to accept that.
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Jeremy Kibler @
- Excerpt: “Spiral” is moodily photographed and dread-inducing, while also having enough to discuss beyond empty chills.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: A tense, terrifying ride, as well as a compelling look at intersectional queer fear(s) via a horror lens.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run’ has stunning, gorgeous-looking animation, but thin on substance.
Spontaneous
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s an effective and oddly moving genre-bender. With a ton of style, energy, and personality to spare, it’s a remarkable directorial debut from Brian Duffield.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: What makes “Spontaneous” so special is how it already begins as a bracing, whip-smart teen comedy and then knows just how to grab you in the throat and heart.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Spontaneous starts off as the best teen-centered dark comedy since Heathers, then evolves into something unexpectedly profound.
Spree
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Though the film occasionally stumbles in trying to make a point, its an energetic and entertaining ride. Joe Keery delivers a starmaking performance that allows him to showcase the kind of range he never had the chance to explore before.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: A baseless thriller critiquing the social-media craze for being an addiction.
Stage Mother
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: There’s plenty of colourful drag queen energy in this comedy-drama, but director Thom Fitzgerald keeps the tone introspective, adding thoughtful undercurrents and a big beating heart
The Stand-In
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: The gimmick behind “The Stand In” is having Drew Barrymore in dual roles. Unfortunately, seeing Barrymore twice does not make this high-concept life-swap comedy doubly funny, charming, life-affirming, or whatever its goal was supposed to be.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: An uneven tone and a flat romantic subplot hold the picture back somewhat, although it is fun in its best moments.
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Standing Up, Falling Down
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The plot’s obviousness melts away because we’re having a genuinely great time as these flawed men grow ever so slightly with each passing minute. They feel real.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: This dramedy falters by presenting too many awkward scenes that don’t seem real. But Billy Crystal’s fine lived-in performance makes the movie a must-see for his fans.
- Excerpt: It is so good to see Billy Crystal, playing Marty, back on the big screen
Starting at Zero: Reimagining Education in America
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Is this a documentary about quality day care for the smallest kids, or a slick PowerPoint presentation for policy wonks about the economic need to churn out cooperative corporate cogs from babyhood?
State Funeral
- Excerpt: Sergei Loznitsa’s 135-minute triumph is a beast of a film and one with its roots firmly in Soviet documentary (it was, after all, resurrected out of scraps of a different film). A herculean effort of archival dumpster diving that is something of a prequel to Loznitsa’s potent fall-of-the-USSR doc The Event (which I listed as the 7th best documentary of the decade) from 2015…
Stray
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: In the end, Elizabeth Lo has created a thoughtful documentary, not just about the life of a stray dog in Turkey, but about how the world treats its refugees, its homeless, and its poor and powerless.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s the kind of indie art-house film that lets you love it for itself.
Stray Dolls
- Excerpt: Sinha, in addition to emphasizing the harried bond of her feminine tag team drenched in decadent turmoil, shines a revealing spotlight on blue-collar working class drudgery in all its puddles of purgatory.
Street Dancer 3D
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Street Fighting Men
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Portraits of three working class African-American men trying to keep their souls alive in crisis-ridden Detroit.
Streetlight Harmonies
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A rollicking and revealing documentary about the birth and evolution of Doo-Wop music.
The Strong Ones
Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Despite the scattered approach, it is a worthy documentary that explores both the struggle and joy that stuntwomen experience doing what they love doing.
Suicide Forrest Village
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Suk Suk
- Excerpt: An important bit of commentary that explores both ageism and homophobia in Hong Kong via some solid central performances.
Summer of 85
The Sunlit Night
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An exquisitely rendered tale of an artist’s loneliness and starting over again.
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: Rich in gorgeous cinematography that makes a grey landscape as dazzling as primary colors, and quietly complex performances that reveal unspoken volumes
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A ramble with appealingly messy people rethinking their priorities that is perhaps more charming and touching than it might have been if this pandemic summer didn’t have so many of us doing the same.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [Slate’s] ability to be hilarious despite a quiet role like Frances lends an indelible charm that ensures we’re in her corner from the beginning.
Superintelligence
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: There is always a place for a comedy, like “Superintelligence,” that goes down easy in the moment without being entirely memorable.
The Surrogate
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An ethically rich drama about the complicated choices involved in pregnancy and parenting.
Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An ethically rich drama about the complicated choices involved in pregnancy and parenting.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: The result can be frustratingly militant in its desire to show all angles of its central conflict, but the questions it makes us ask ourselves are worth it.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Smart but talky indie drama of liberal New Yorkers concerned with a surrogate pregnancy and Down syndrome, as well as morality issues over abortion.
The Swerve
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Azura Skye digs deep and bravely finds something in herself beyond her endlessly watchable visage that gives this methodical, unsparing tragedy an unshakable power.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The Swerve embraces its heavy subject matter with a fearlessness that ultimately sends us towards a conclusion marked by intense despair.
Eddie Pasa @ DC Filmdom
Andrew Wyatt @ The Lens
Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Sylvie’s Love
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Eugene Ashe has fashioned a sweeping, soapy old-fashioned romance dripping in old Hollywood style glamour, a milieu star Thompson takes to like a duck to water.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Eugene Ashe breathes new life into the classical, old Hollywood romance. Tessa Thompson and Nnamdi Asomugha have wonderful chemistry.
System Crasher
- Excerpt: …startling and grippingly raw portrait of childhood monstrosity. Zengel’s furious face is resourcefully inspired as her walking wounded minor is a major firecracker with atom bomb-like capabilities.
Tales from the Hood 3
Mark Harris @ Black Horror Movies
Tanhaji: The Unsung Hero
- Excerpt: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Likewise, when Bollywood gives you historicals, subtract the history out of it. So yes, Ajay Devgn ‘s ‘Tanhaji’ works solely and adequately as a well-shot fantasy fare.
Tape
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Messy, furious, sometimes at odds with itself, this tale of documenting a powerful man’s sexual intimidation of a vulnerable woman is absolutely necessary, full of a rage that is absolutely vital.
Tapeworm
James Wegg @ JWR [Swedish]
- Excerpt: How do we survive?
The Tax Collector
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The Tax Collector doesn’t add up to all that much, especially compared to David Ayer’s more successful attempts at exploring similar themes. But if you are a fan of David Ayer’s particular brand of slime and grime, it will offer some trashy entertainment.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: A lot of The Tax Collector does [work] before it’s bogged down by misjudged sentimentality.
Ten Minutes to Midnight
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: That [it] works on two levels—schlocky thrills and mining [its lead’s] psychology—is a positive even if that duality [tends to harm] the latter while augmenting the former.
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Beneath the blood and teeth are timely issues about women in the entertainment industry.
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
The Tent
Thappad
- Excerpt: Helmed by Anubhav Sinha, ‘Thappad’ neither makes compromises nor treads side roads to reach its destination. It knows where to go & how to get there. This Taapsee Pannu-starrer is the most accomplished Hindi language film in a long time.
There Is No Evil
- Excerpt: …each story feels like a whole film in itself, and each sheds light on the choices and actions of the characters in the other stories.
Think Like a Dog
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness
Glenn Dunks @ The Film Experience
- Excerpt: Scratch beneath the veneer of its sneering Christopher-Guest-goes-to-the-trailer-park milieu and Tiger King proves to be lazy at best, morally corrupt at worst.
Tigertail
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The film leaves so many blanks and loose threads for its audience to mentally fill in, but Alan Yang still showcases an empathetic eye and a knack for lush visual storytelling that, over time, can really flourish into something special.
Time To Hunt
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The filmmaking is stellar, making wonderful use of color, space, and sound. Filmmaker, Yoon Sung-hyun, handles the tension incredibly well.
Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All Time, Vol. 1: Midnight Madness
Gregory Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: At bottom, it’s just a bunch of knowledgeable film fans sitting around yakking about some of their favorite films, which just also happen to be some of the wildest, weirdest, and most unique visions ever committed to celluloid.
The Times of Bill Cunningham
Jonathan Richards @ www.santafenewmexican.com
- Excerpt: This hour and a quarter in the company of the late photographer (he died after a stroke in 2016, at 87, still riding his bicycle to the end) is never less than engaging, even when he tears up on camera when discussing the AIDS epidemic and lost friends.
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: What’s the next step up from cotton candy when comparing entertainment to food? Pop rocks? Gummy bears? I’m asking because Netflix’s release To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You is that. It’s not as ephemeral as cotton candy; it feels more substantial.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Although not as entertaining as the original film, this sequel includes moments of sheer delight. Happily, the two main characters are just as watchable as before.
To the Ends of the Earth
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This lovely character study of a young woman finding herself while lost in a foreign land was commissioned to mark the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Uzbekistan and Kurosawa’s found a beautiful way to do it.
To the Stars
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Coming-of-age melodrama about misfit girls is at first passingly diverting, but it whips up mystery and suspense where it shouldn’t be, diminishing and minimizing an already neglected kind of story.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [The filmmakers] know that a physical makeover might turn heads, but the character’s already established personality is what has to keep those people looking.
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
The Tobacconist
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Story of a boy whose coming-of-age includes becoming friends with Sigmund Freud.
Tommaso
Eddie Pasa @ DC Filmdom
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: At center, there is a feeling that Ferrara believes that love is what gives a person meaning, worth, and value. So, his greatest fear is that he is unlovable.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: This unflattering portrayal, of course, is Ferrara’s way of working out his own issues and anxieties on film—a public confessional that is as brave as it is uncomfortable for the viewer.
A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An enlightening and inspiring 60-year history of the Peace Corps.
The Traitor
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Marco Bellocchio’s (“Vincere”) epic tale of the man who brought down the Italian mob (Italy’s submission for the International Film Oscar) is probably easier to dive into in its home country where one presumes Buscetta’s story is as well known as Whitey Bulger’s is in Boston.
- Excerpt: Was the man who brought down the Sicilian mob a rat or a defender of the true mafia? Director Marco Bellocchio has a strong opinion, but The Traitor may be too nebulous for an audience uninitiated in the subject matter.
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: A powerful story well told presages a cloudy future with no silver lining.
Trance
- Excerpt: Anwar Rasheed makes his comeback film richly fulfilling as far as his craft is concerned. That aside, ‘Trance’, fuelled by a zestful lead act by Fahadh Faasil, deserved a firmer screenplay to have become truly path-breaking.
Triggered
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: The filmmakers don’t intend for any of this to be taken too seriously and just be a gratuitously bloody good time, but “Triggered” is rarely ever as witty or fun as it believes itself to be.
Trolls World Tour
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s like eating Pixy Stix laced with Pop Rocks paired with a shot of Mountain Dew.
Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight
Eddie Pasa @
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Marvelous singing and dancing take over the screen in this creative sequel, which makes me very happy because I’m the world’s most avid movie musical fan.
Trolls: World Tour
M Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
- Excerpt: Starring Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake and Rachel Bloom, Trolls World Tour is a surprisingly entertaining follow-up with a heartfelt message about the unifying power of music.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: As pastel and glittery as its predecessor, with a silliness more glorious and less forced. Sweet, smart, sincere… but it doesn’t deserve to be carrying the future of movies on its little shoulders.
Troop Zero
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Some things like bullying are not funny in life or in TROOP ZERO. But talented child star Mckenna Grace’s impressive portrayal of a spunky little underdog back in 1977 rural Georgia makes this youthful comedy worth seeing.
The Trouble with Being Born
Chris Barsanti @ Slant Magazine
- Excerpt: In the end, the film suffers from the same issue as its moody androids: enervation borne out of repetition.
The True Adventures of Wolfboy
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Audiences need to see and sing the praises of this sweet, special little discovery about compassion and self-acceptance.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Krejcí’s film possesses the necessary weight and purpose that allows its palatable genre trappings to deliver its morals to an audience that may otherwise avoid them.
True Mothers
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Naomi Kawase’s ‘True Mothers’ is an emotionally charged drama about motherhood in all its forms.
The Truffle Hunters
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An absolutely charming cinematic romp with elders and their dogs hunting for a rare delicacy.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: the film is positively endearing when it spends time with 84 year-old Aurelio Conterno, who shares his truffled meals with Birba, the dog he loves so much his only rationale for finding a woman is so that Birba will have someone to look after it when he’s gone.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: One of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen. Delightful in its simplicity and profound in its wisdom. Specific yet universal, it’s an empathetic portrait of charming subjects. It’s also really funny.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The filmmakers are able to provide a three-dimensional look at Piedmont’s niche economy through their subjective compiling of objective vignettes.
Trump Card
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Any possibility of convincing moderate or liberal viewers is pretty much zero, thanks to unreliable commentators and manipulation of basic facts.
The Truth
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: As the often wildly funny drama plays out, lies are told to convey the truth of feelings, truths are unspoken for the same reasons.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: We’ve all seen the tale of an aging actress chafing against younger competition, but Kore-eda’s found a new twist using his old tricks.
Truth Is the Only Client
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: Rich in details, blissfully lacking hyperbole, this is a welcome scholarly approach to an emotional subject.
The Turning
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Some effectively creepy moments and decent performances are not enough to make up for a lackluster adaptation.
- Excerpt: Lacking spine-tingling dread, taut tension, and the deservingly provocative ending needed to make its modern sentiments land, this re-imagining is less than a classic.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Strips away the ambiguity of the source story to leave us with lazy jump scares, visual gloom, and a cheap cheat of an ending. Gaslights its protagonist and, incredibly enragingly, the viewer, too.
Tuscaloosa
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Tyler Perry’s A Fall From Grace
- Excerpt: …transparent and turgid. A Fall From Grace is so much of a mockery that this cinematic cyst may have the moviemaker returning back to wearing Madea’s saggy panties.
Uncle Frank
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: These two wildly different parts of the same film dovetail in an emotionally rewarding way, but that doesn’t help the feeling that Ball should have chosen one avenue or the other.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Tinged with melancholy and earned hope instead of sentimentality, “Uncle Frank” is familiar but heartfelt.
Uncle Peckerhead
James Jay Edwards @ The Big Smoke America
Uncorked
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Did you know that Jay-Z = chardonnay, Kanye West = pinot grigio, and Drake = riesling. That info alone is enough for me to recommend this film.
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Niecy Nash almost steals this movie as a proud mother who just wants her son to be happy. Her scenes with Mamoudou Athie are pure joy!
Under the Open
Allyson Johnson @ TheYoungFolks.com
Under the Stars
- Excerpt: “Under the Stars” has some faults in the overall presentation of the story, but its main theme emerges as quite interesting and the many impactful dramatic moments are bound to retain the viewer’s interest from beginning to end.
Undine
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Petzold uses the plausibility that make-believe, reality, and grief can each be layered atop one another to keep what’s going on shrouded in uncertainty.
Unearth
- Excerpt: Deftly escalates nervous tension, then shifts into body horror most recently experienced in Color Out of Space.
Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: From psychologists who have a Duty to Warn, a scary portrait of the consequences of the behavior of President Donald Trump.
Unpregnant
- Excerpt: Uneven as the journey can sometimes be, “Unpregnant” is acerbically humored yet sweet, and all’s well that ends well.
Until the Birds Return
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: How responsible are we when we see an injustice happen and we do nothing? Karim Moussaoui, an Algerian writer/director, presents three perspectives on this in his masterpiece.
Uppercase Print
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Valley Girl
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Watching “Valley Girl” is like listening to a cheesy, bitchin’ ’80s pop song: you know it’s a little cornball but you just can’t resist it.
Vampire Burt’s Serenade
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Who would have guessed that someday Kevin Richardson would be working with even weaker material than he did when he was in the Backstreet Boys?
Vampires vs. the Bronx
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: A charming cast and sense of place allows it to evoke the kind of classic family film of a bygone era that weren’t afraid to bring a sense of danger and menace.
Mark Harris @ Black Horror Movies
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Who would have thought with a title like that this would be a decent film!
Vanguard
Dan Lybarger @ www.arkansasonline.com
- Excerpt: In a mere 108 minutes, Hong Kong-based director Stanley Tong packs enough explosions, fisticuffs, vehicle chases and gunplay to fill the entire “The Fast and the Furious” franchise and still have a little escapist mayhem leftover. In some ways, “Vanguard” works roughly the way a machine gun does: if one bullet misses, one from the next series of 100 projectiles won’t.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Chan is sidelined here, doing minimal action, and his co-stars lack the charisma that he has in spades.
La Verónica
Diego Salgado @ SoFilm [Spanish]
Verotika
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Verotika is a thoroughly baffling work that has to be seen to be believed. And aficionados of movies that are crazy-town banana-pants absolutely should see it.
The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It’s just a cringe-inducing film that one wonders why it was made.
Villain
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a gritty English gangster film that, while covering no new ground, is steeped in local atmosphere and a sympathetic performance from Fairbrass, who embodies Bob Hoskins’ tough-yet-soft demeanor mixed with the brute physicality of Vinny Jones…
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Despite the familiarity of numerous elements in Villain, it’s still comes together as a rock solid gangster film that efficiently puts its focus on dramatizing the complicated and largely internal journey of our lead character, which is well performed by Craig Fairbrass.
Ron Wilkinson @ ItsJustMovies.com
- Excerpt: A predictable gangster family revenge film makes good.
Vinyl Nation
Gregory Carlson @ southpawfilmworks.net
Vitalina Varela
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The film, shot almost entirely at night by cinematographer Leonardo Simões, is breathtakingly beautiful…In one beautiful bit of alchemy, clothespins appear as raised praying hands over black cloaks which dance as Vitalina edges past them.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Vitalina Varela isn’t going to be for everyone as a result. It might be slow moving, but it’s emotionally profound.
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: Masterful cinema and a no holds barred lesson about people who are counted out and find hope in themselves.
Vitch
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: It took some three years to make this well-executed and uniquely personal investigative journalism film.
Voices in the Wind
Scott Phillips @ www.themovieisle.com
Volition
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: I spent much of it admiring how creative it was, and how confident the filmmaking is. It also shows the potential of exploring complex ideas through simple yet effective storytelling.
- Excerpt: “Our choices don’t matter”
Waiting for Barbarians
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A powerful drama about the toxins spread by rumors of war.
Waiting for the Barbarians
- Excerpt: The lack of specificity serves the film’s key argument, that colonialism itself is corrupting, independent of any details about how it is executed in this or that location or time period.
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [It contains] a lesson perfectly suited to this moment in our global history because it demands that we reflect upon our respective privilege and [its inherent] hypocrisies.
Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Excerpt: Ciro Guerra’s adaptation of the J. M. Coetzee novel ends up confused, dull, and woefully shallow because it’s too busy being symbolic to deliver a followable narrative.
The Walrus and the Whistleblower
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: I get the appeal of using Demers as an entry point into what’s going on, but highlighting him in lieu of the broader issue does the latter a disservice.
Wander
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Wander doesn’t totally come together. It does manage to be entertaining enough to overcome its politically muddled theming and strange storytelling instincts.
Ronald wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: A mystery thriller of slim proportions relying too much on high production.
Wander Darkly
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: WANDER DARKLY is the antidote to the generic rom-com.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Writer-director Tara Miele’s relationship drama “Wander Darkly” is ambitious in exploring trauma and grief through the memories of a relationship in collapse. If only the film were as cumulatively profound as it thinks it is.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The fluid editing and story structure provides [an] undeniable aesthetic potency, but it’s Miller and Luna who turn that surface beauty into something universally resonant.
Sandy Schaefer @ Comic Book Resources
The Wanderings of Ivan
- Excerpt: A semi-fine madness
The Wanting Mare
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: As the years turn Anmaere ever darker [we’re reminded] that paradise isn’t something to chase, but something to build.
Warm Hug
- Excerpt: China’s remake of the South Korean rom com The Plan Man is a endearingly stylish musical romp that is a good way to start the year.
Wasp Network
- Excerpt: The final product feels like more of an interesting and beautifully filmed anecdote than compelling political and human drama.
The Wave
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: It feels tailor made to spark shallow philosophical musings from stoners sitting on couches rather than offering any real insight. Still, it’s fun enough, uses, but doesn’t overuse, keen psychedelic visuals, and as a debut feature, shows off Klabin’s inventive and peculiar eye.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: I’m not completely sure [the filmmakers] hoped for “deepness” anyway. This is a comedy of the stoner variety despite its philosophical quandaries and sci-fi underpinnings.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Rough patches aside, the crisp acting, inventive visuals, and speedy pace make it a trip you probably won’t regret taking.
The Way I See It
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: bittersweet nostalgia for the Obama years tempered with barely suppressed rage at who is now leading this country.
Allyson Johnson @ TheYoungFolks.com
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A massively entertaining documentary about a guy whose job gave him a front row seat to history.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: A picture is worth a thousand words.
We Are Little Zombies
Eddie Pasa @ DC Filmdom
GregoryJ. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: It wrings a surprising amount of depth from its short attention span style, and a surprising amount of empathy from its tale of children whose defining characteristic is that they have no emotions.
We Are Many
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: “We Are Many” examines the 2003 march, the invasion into Iraq and the aftermath in virtual theaters beginning Sept. 25.
We Can Be Heroes
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: I’d have lost my mind over it when I was ten.
We Have Boots
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: n 2020, the year of BLM, we now know the reason for the umbrellas – to protect the protestors from the tear gas and pepper spray used by the police to debilitate them. The boots are for walking for as long as it takes.
- Excerpt: “No freedom for their homeland”
The Weasel’s Tale
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …a throwback black comedy of con in which the targeted victims turn the tables on the scam artists. This is a fun romp buoyed by an exceptional cast, Cecilia Monti’s costume design and Nelson Noel Luty’s art direction.
Welcome to Chechnya
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A gripping documentary about LGBTQ genocide and a brave band of human rights activists trying to rescue those affected.
Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A gripping documentary about LGBTQ genocide and a brave band of human rights activists trying to rescue those affected.
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: : as pure an example of ‘sophomore slump’ as I have seen, a muddled reimagining of the J.M. Barrie tale as gritty, retro magical realism with a Peter Pan (newcomer Yashua Mack) more giggling tyrant than free-spirited leader.
Dan Lybarger @ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
- Excerpt: You can find components of Peter Pan in Wendy, but locating the spirit is far more difficult. Peter had an easier time locating his shadow.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [Wendy] is our eyes and ears to experience this bewitching land of infinite possibilities and to see beyond the metaphor of “Mother’s” monstrous beauty.
What Lies Below
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: “What Lies Below” finally answers the question, “What if your mom’s hot new boyfriend was a horny lake monster?” It isn’t half-bad, even if its silly premise is played with earnest faces.
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: presents a wide ranging overview of the influential critic – one just wishes it were a little more analytical itself.
Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com
- Excerpt: What She Said is a consistently entertaining and enlightening look at Kael. Every person – this writer most certainly included – wrestling with their movie obsession, as well as the movies themselves, owes her a great debt.
What the Constitution Means to Me
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Live Broadway cast production of a play about how the personal becomes political.
Whirlybird
The Whistlers
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Ten years later [after “Police, Adjective”], Porumboiu’s subverting language with music, both with a cheeky soundtrack featuring Iggy Pop and opera and the whistling that allows our protagonist to communicate while escaping detection.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s style is minimal, but clear and effective. And while I didn’t love it, it was an engaging watch.
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The Whistlers lives up to its comedy billing with a bone-dry humor floating just below the surface [of the plot’s dramatic severity].
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: The Whistlers provides a level of satisfaction anyone with a desire to screw around with genre would want.
White Noise
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: When confronted with the horrors their words have incited, each waffles, walks back or folds, each and every one a coward of their convictions.
White Riot
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The resulting film, with its spritely pace, joyous spirit, fanzine aesthetic and punk rock soundtrack, is a hopeful testament to what can be achieved by ordinary citizenry.
A White, White Day
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A powerfully realized psychological drama about grief and other imponderables.
Widow of Silence
Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An ethically charged and mesmerizing movie about the unusual and yet predictable challenges faced by a half-widow in Kashmir.
The Wild Goose Lake
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …a thing of great beauty, a hotel room conflict cast in fuchsia, cinematographer Dong Jingsong flipping noir’s canted window blind lighting on its head and punching up nighttime exteriors with modern neon practicals, playing with his frame like a Lite Brite.
Ron Wilkinson @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: The energy is not there to grab and hold western audiences. Just as well, we will always have Bogie.
Wildfire
- Excerpt: The shadow of an impending Hard Brexit looms large over Cathy Brady’s astonishing feature debut.
The Willoughbys
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s a delight, and while it doesn’t necessarily stray too far from conventions, it is rich with humor, energy, and dazzling animation from start to finish.
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: The frenetic narrative rarely stops to take a pause. However, I did slowly warm up to the film’s wacky approach
Brent McKnight @ Giant Freakin’ Robot
- Excerpt: By turns, ‘The Willoughbys’ is harrowing and joyous, fun and chaotic, and while earnest and giddy, it’s messy and jumbled.
Wine and War: The Untold Story of Wine in the Middle East
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: …a documentary about the perseverance of wine-making amidst chronic wars, conflicts, and chaos.
Wira
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Wira offers some satisfying action that is brutal, but not gruesome, and it is anchored by a story that, while not the most unpredictable, is filled with characters that are easy to root for.
The Witches
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It doesn’t add all that much as an adaptation, compared to the 1990 version, but it’s a perfectly servicable family film with just enough flourishes from Robert Zemeckis that evoke his early whimsical adventures.
Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: [It’s reliance on CGI] increases the film’s whimsy, but lessens its connection to reality.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: If only “The Witches” had been emblazoned with more of the invention and mischievous bite Zemeckis brought to “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and “Death Becomes Her” once upon a time, this adaptation might have felt more inspired than merely cute or passably fun.
With – A Journey to the Slow Life
Josh Taylor @ The Forgetful Film Critic
- Excerpt: I was enchanted by With. The documentary is a collage of footage from around the world as Mekdachi, his family, and his friends make music together. “Friends are good at sending you a picture of yourself. Friends make you,” as one person says during the film.
A Witness Out of the Blue
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: A Witness Out of the Blue has all the earmarks of a classic Hong Kong crime saga. There’s murder, slick production values, a twisting plot, shades of moral ambiguity, standoffs, shootouts, and a parrot. Wait, what?
Wolfman’s Got Nards
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: A warm, fuzzy hug of a documentary.
The Woman Who Loves Giraffes
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A profile of a researcher whose studies of giraffes in the wild put her in the same league as Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …an 83 minute film which feels like it would be better served as a one hour PBS offering.
The Woman Who Ran
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: The uses of conversation revealed in three visits to old friends.
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Reviews
- Excerpt: Playful, breezy and uneventful drama.
Work It
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: WORK IT boasts a passion for dance plus a touch of teenage romance. It ends up as a fun dance flick; great dancing here the winning trick.
Working Man
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An insightful drama about the roles work plays in two men’s lives.
Beverly Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Written by Robert Jury, this is a gifted presentation that gently probes the human psyche and its response to sadness and tragedy. How we can still rise, despite the encumbrance of events not our fault, is the guts of Jury’s investigation.
World of Tomorrow 3
- Excerpt: A time-traversing love story set at the precipice of the apocalypse. Ready?
World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: More akin to Hertzfeldt’s older, more irreverent shorts like Rejected than its predecessors in this franchise. But the result is no less memorable.
The Wrong Missy
Joao Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
Yellow Rose
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Story of a Filipina teen who is nurtured by strangers demonstrating the spiritual practices of enthusiasm and kindness.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s an engaging and thoughtful slice-of-life picture that explores a specific experience in a way that is full of authentic details and a strong emotional throughline. Eva Noblezada delivers a star-making performance.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A movie filled with heart and soul.
You Cannot Kill David Arquette
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: A poignant redemption tale.
You Don’t Nomi
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: An enjoyable and informative documentary about Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls”.
You Don’t Nomi
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Like “Room 237,” “You Don’t Nomi” may not convince with some of its outrageous claims, but it is an entertaining look back at a notorious cinema flop that was bad in all the right ways.
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: In the first ten minutes, people remark, “Showgirls is about two men, who maybe did a lot of cocaine, drunk with power in Hollywood,” “You can’t look away from Showgirls or you’ll miss something huge, like a car crash or a vomit,” and “A type of comedy I don’t think you can make on purpose.” Needless to say, ‘You Don’t Nomi’ is a damn fine time.
You Should Have Left
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This is all pretty freaky stuff, but as Theo writes in his journal while his reflection in the window isn’t always doing the same, we begin to get a sense of déjà vu (just as we did when Stephen King began to repeat himself with “Secret Window,” also adapted by Koepp).
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The film is perfectly watchable, mostly due to Kevin Bacon’s performance, but it’s simplistic story leads into a mediocre and forgettable experience.
M Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
- Excerpt: With an interesting premise about a mysterious house in the chilly hills of Wales, David Koepp’s You Should Have Left showed a great deal of promise for, at the very least, a fun spook-fest with Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried in the leads. However, what should have been a creepy psychological thriller with a spine-tingling supernatural angle spirals into a dull melodrama that fails to leave much of an impact, making the title more of a suggestion than an open-house invitation.
Federico Furzan @ Cinelipsis [Spanish]
Young Ahmed
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An intense and sobering portrait of both sides of the spiritual practice of zeal.
Your Name Engraved Herein
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Z
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: The lasting effect of the film is in its allegory of how mental illness attaches itself to us, to the point we sometimes find comfort in it.
Zappa
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Winter throws sunlight on the seeds of one revolutionary individual. You don’t have to know anything at all about Frank Zappa going in to find this work thoroughly engaging.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: An in-depth look at the man behind the mustache through his own words, those of his collaborators, and the art itself.
Josh Taylor @ The Forgetful Film Critic
- Excerpt: The documentary Zappa shows us the artist’s genius and some of the contradictions of the man who incorporated it into his work. Winter’s movie doesn’t challenge its subject where it really counts, but it does succeed in giving us a view into Zappa’s rich artistic life.
Ze Pedro Rock’n’roll
Paulo Portugal @ insider.pt [Portuguese]
