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: DATE
Wide (United States)
The Happytime Murders
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
The Bookshop
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality and Practice
- Excerpt: A compelling performance by Emily Mortimer as a middle-aged woman who makes a courageous move.
Papillon
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: It is the non-Hollywood, less glossy version of Charrière’s story and it packs its own kind of punch.
Searching
Courtney Howard @ FreshFiction.tv
- Excerpt: Chaganty’s film deconstructs the artifice, all whilst delivering a warm, crisply-paced, character-driven, incredibly inventive yarn. It’s a taut thriller with a hugely emotional heartbeat.
Support the Girls
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: [Bujalski’s] latest features one of his largest ensembles with a career best performance from Regina Hall and Haley Lu Richardson doing a complete about face from last year’s “Columbus” in a movie that explores how much of our identiities is defined by the work we do.
Courtney Howard @ FreshFiction.tv
- Excerpt: It’s a soul-warming, endearing and entertaining piece of work.
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Andrew Bujalski pokes at a unique slice of Americana – the breastaurant. Showing real girls with real problems and a real humanity, the film screws comedic holes into the modern American value of young girls paid to flaunt, flirt, and flatter.
2018 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
EXISTING PAGES:
Ant-Man and the Wasp
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Christopher Robin
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Crazy Rich Asians
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Eighth Grade
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Meg
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Puzzle
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
INDIVIDUAL LINKS:
Arizona
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The ride is far from perfect and most characters do nothing but add fuel to an already burning fire, but that’s to be expected. It’s stupid, exploits the housing crisis as fodder for violent lunacy, and murders with impunity. But I did have fun.
Avengers: Infinity War
Moises Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
- Excerpt: Ten years in the making, Avengers: Infinity War arrives with all the weight, action, laughs, tears, and poignancy we could hope for, as celestial Titan, Thanos, hunts down the infinity stones so he can “bring balance to the universe” no matter the cost. The monumental but somewhat bloated production is a wildly entertaining feat, given the balancing act between the long list of characters involved, sure to leave audiences in tearful, anxious anticipation for next year’s conclusion.
Blindspotting
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: For the most part an insightful urban indie dramedy that intelligently reflects on violence and race issues, using comedy and rap music to its advantage.
Book Club
frank ochieng @ The Critical Movie Critics
- Excerpt: They say that reading is fundamental, but the romantic goings-on in the mature rom-com Book Club should be more of a page-turner especially when it involves some of Hollywood’s all-time seasoned and decorated actresses.
Breaking & Exiting
Frank Ochieng @ Screen Anarchy
- Excerpt: Breaking & Exiting should be more than a movie-going misdemeanor in this felonious flop devoted to a pair of lop-sided lonely hearts in transition.
Buffalo Boys
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
The Darkest Minds
Hugo Gomes @ Cinematograficamente Falando … [Portuguese]
Deadpool 2
- Excerpt: Deadpool 2 takes everything the first film did and cranks it up another notch. In doing so, the film stumbles more often than the first outing, but careens forward with such speed, intensity, and humor, it’s easy to let it slide. This Blu-ray release comes with with a wealth of extras that add even more entertainment to an already raucous experience.
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
Alan Mattli @ Facing the Bitter Truth
- Excerpt: Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot is a freewheeling and messy affair full of competent filmmaking, brilliant moments, and questionable ideas. In short, it’s a Gus Van Sant movie.
Eiffel… I’m in Love 2
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Far From the Tree
Frank Ochieng @ Screen Anarchy
- Excerpt: Wonderfully contemplative, sensitive, eye-opening and impactful Far From the Tree skillfully delves into the contrasting theory that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” sentiment to reflect how parents and their children are one in the same is not always necessarily the case.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality and Practice
- Excerpt: An adaptation of the bestselling novel about how books connect and inspire us.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: History, mystery and romance come together like a fine dance in this superb period drama.
Insidious: The Last Key
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
Juliet, Naked
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This perfectly cast film (Lily Brazier, who plays Annie’s sister Ros, actually looks like she could be Byrne’s sister) plays to the strengths of its principals, particularly Hawke who performs both the Crowe music we hear and a live cover of The Kinks’ ‘Waterloo Station.”
McQueen
- Excerpt: [McQueen] captures the humanity of its subject, British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, while also vividly capturing the beauty and transgressiveness of his designs.
Memoir of War
Marilyn Ferdinand @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: World War II has given the world many great books, yielding some of the best films of all time, including The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), A Generation (1955), and Army of Shadows (1969). Now, we have another: Memoir of War, based on the classic fact-based novella La douleur (1987) by French author Marguerite Duras.
Memoir of War (La Douleur)
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality and Practice
- Excerpt: An emotionally intelligent French film about a woman dealing with the losses of wartime.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Casey Wilder Mott’s delightful modern day version of Shakespeare’s work is perhaps the punniest, most meta adaptation of the bard’s output to date.
Mile 22
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: The script is a mess, the plot is near indecipherable, and the editing may be some of the worst in recent memory; however, my pulse raced. I was tense. Mile 22 has no idea what it wants to be, but it may physically impact the audience enough for them to not notice.
Mile 22
Frank Ochieng @ Screen Anarchy
- Excerpt: Sadly, this derivative demolition derby is all gore galore without any ounce of conviction. Clearly, this roughshot romp feels like a showy excuse for Wahlberg to channel in his Rambo-esque tendencies as he coughs up another trigger-and-disfigure actioner offering synthetic thrills.
Never Goin’ Back
Frank Ochieng @ Screen Anarchy
- Excerpt: Frizell possesses an honest, irreverent and observational eye on the wayward mindset of young female-centric co-dependency attached at the hedonistic hip. Interestingly, girls behaving badly in the realm of slacker-induced mischievousness as they settle in the glow of blow definitely is a natural high for the roguishly crafted Never Goin’ Back.
Night Comes On
Courtney Howard @ FreshFiction.tv
- Excerpt: This revenge film with unshakable heart is an assured debut for most of those involved.
Scarred Hearts
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: As he exhibited in “Aferim!,” Jude has an extraordinary ability to address dark themes with a great deal of humor.
Skate Kitchen
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Skate Kitchen works because of the believable non-professional actors playing versions of themselves and how Crystal Moselle leans back and lets the film breathe through extended skating montages to break up the more common plot line. I still do not understand the desire to board and skate culture as a whole, but Moselle made me appreciate it.
The Swan (Svanurinn)
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality and Pratice
- Excerpt: A sober-minded and intense girl in Iceland deals with epiphanies about adults and nature.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
- Excerpt: All the basics of a high school rom-com line up as though their names are being called out in home room attendance-taking.
We the Animals
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: features the wonder of childhood pierced by parental problems of Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project,” some of the magical realism of Benh Zeitlin’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and the fragmentary impressionism of Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life.”
Western
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The best films are generally those that craft their characters first and let the plot write itself through them. Grisebach draws these men with three-dimensional, complex identities and watches them butt heads and shake hands knowing their inherent drama is enough.
A Whale of a Tale
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality and Practice
- Excerpt: A Japanese documentary that returns to the small town featured in The Cove to record the continuing controversy over the killing of dolphins.
What Keeps You Alive
- Excerpt: What Keeps You Alive is a solid thriller, constructed with style, that makes its manipulations matter.
What Keeps You Alive
- Excerpt: Colin Minihan’s What Keeps You Alive is a beastly hybrid of survivalist and relationship thrills, savage like a wolf hungry for innocence.
The Wife
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality and Practice
- Excerpt: An intriguing film about a troubled marriage and a gigantic secret with an astonishing performance by Glenn Close.
The Wife
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The Wife is [Glenn Close’s] tour de force. If only it were up to her standards.
The Wife
Frank Ochieng @ Screen Anarchy
- Excerpt: Intelligent, psychologically suspenseful and resonate Runge’s template of union bliss gone amiss may very well finally lasso the veteran Close that Oscar statuette that has ducked and dodged her clutches throughout her distinguished career.
2017 Films
Black Butterfly
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: An intriguing puzzle that still has me wondering if I’ve put all the pieces together correctly. But the film offers thrills and nerve-wracking excitement as well as strong performances by its excellent co-stars.
Blind
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Romantic suspense served up by Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin, who still radiate star power.
Can We Still Be Friends?
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
First Kill
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: If you can stand the annoying background sounds and music, this movie might be interesting for you. It features lots of action and a fabulous performance by newcomer Ty Shelton .
Icarus
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: This revealing documentary about doping of athletes to improve their performances plays almost like a spy thriller.
Okja
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Outrageous as the “Okja” plot may seem, it deals with important issues and makes us think– not simply enjoy. It ends up being a movie that matters.
The Rider
Alan Mattli @ Maximum Cinema [German]
- Excerpt: Zhao zeichnet hier ein subversives Bild von Männlichkeit, gerade im Kontext des Genres, in dem sie arbeitet – ein hoffnungsvoller Gegenentwurf zum kompromisslosen Machismo, der für so viel Schrecken in der Welt verantwortlich ist.
Strong Island
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: One of the most poignant and intimate documentaries I’ve ever seen.
What Happened to Monday
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Noomi Rapace takes charge of the screen with her splendid interpretation of multiple characters.
Wonder Woman
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Gal Gadot really looks the Wonder Woman part. She’s the epitome of DC art.
You Get Me
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Predictability is a problem here. And that’s not a good thing for a thriller.
2016 Films
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Moises Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
- Excerpt: With Joss Whedon at the helm once again, Nick Fury’s superhero dream team reassemble in Avengers: Age of Ultron to thwart a sentient being’s devious plans for annihilating life on Earth. In typical sequel fashion, the second entry in the franchise goes bigger and louder but lands with a somewhat disappointing thud, slightly losing focus on what makes these movies so appealing by making the villain more a bothersome distraction than a complementary foil that challenges the integrity of the team.
Center of My World [Die mitten der welt]
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
