Here are some reviews of films coming out at the theater this week as well as others that may be in theaters or newly on home video.
Opening: Apr. 21, 2023
Wide (United States)
Somewhere in Queens
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Expanding (United States)
Beau Is Afraid
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Little Richard: I Am Everything
Laura Cliffod @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Cortes’s impressive work culminates in a montage of all the musicians Richard influenced, a knockout punch of a final argument.
2023 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Cocaine Bear
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Mafia Mamma
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Pope’s Exorcist
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Renfield
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Somewhere in Queens
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Altered Perceptions
- Excerpt: If only it wasn’t fiction
Big George Foreman
- Excerpt: Big George Foreman is a fascinating tale of perseverance, redemption, and faith. Khris Davis turns in a strong performance as the former world heavyweight boxing champion.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
- Excerpt: The feature debut of director, composer, and artist Pierre Földes (whose father, Peter Földes, was a pioneer of computer animation), the film adapts half a dozen of Murakami’s short stories from across three different collections to tell an episodic story of the struggle to find human connection in a dreary, disconnected world.
Boston Strangler
Gregory Carlson @ southpawfilmworks.net
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: A competent account of the investigative journalism concerning a serial killer.
De Humani Corporis Fabrica
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: That’s not to say the journey isn’t worthwhile, though. I loved the candid dialogue. My mind [simply wandered too often] whenever we weren’t lost inside someone’s flesh.
Fairyland
Roger Walker -Dack @ Queerguru.com
Hilma
- Excerpt: Af Klint was an unconventional subject, but this is a very conventional, slightly stuffy biographical film: a series of defining moments and significant encounters in beautiful period settings and costumes.
Joyland
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Linoleum
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: It’s a thrilling, sometimes heavy, drama about love, identity, and individuality that takes you to the ever-expanding universe of us.
Passion
- Excerpt: Passion, which Hamaguchi made as his thesis film while earning his M.A. at the Tokyo University School of the Arts, shows the director already displaying a keen sense of empathy and understanding for all of the complexities inherent in modern relationships.
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
Josh Thayer @ The Forgetful Film Critic
- Excerpt: Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields manages to present its subject as a whole person. By the end of the film, we feel we’ve seen Ms. Shields from every angle of her personality.
Sakra
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Regardless of that chaotic drama, however, the real draw is the action and fight choreography. Because the wirework and special effects paired with the speed at which everyone on-screen is operating makes the dizzying battle scenes exhilarating.
Sick of Myself
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: It has enough to say about mankind’s obsession with celebrity and capitalist greed’s manipulation of the disadvantaged for profit to give the whole value beyond just the satirical nature of its narrative, but [it works on that level] too.
Suzume
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The result is a gorgeous and emotionally heavy tale of longing and understanding. The humor of a talking chair and heartache of trauma combine to entertain and enlighten en route to a climax as personal to Suzume as it is universal to mankind.
Time of Roses
- Excerpt: How much can the remnants of one individual’s life tell us about the world in which they lived? This is the question at the heart of Time of Roses, an uber-stylish sci-fi thriller from Finnish director Risto Jarva soon to be available in a new restoration from Deaf Crocodile Films and the Risto Jarva Association.
Wild Life
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: My biggest takeaway from the whole is optics. This is a feelgood story with some effectively heartfelt and honorable machinations, but it’s also a mostly superficial puff piece that can’t quite shake its public relations air of artifice.
2022 Films
A Banquet
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Ruth Paxton’s A Banquet works on a couple different levels because of the way Justin Bull’s screenplay depicts a teenager’s apocalyptic visions as either terrifyingly real or potentially the product of a mentally ill mind made all the worse by grief.
