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: Dec. 7, 2018
Limited (United States)
No Reviews Available
2018 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Beautiful Boy
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Creed II
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Favourite
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Front Runner
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Ralph Breaks the Internet
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Robin Hood
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Roma
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Support the Girls
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Suspiria
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Widows
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2.0
- Excerpt: At the end of it, ‘2.0’ ends up a generic, uninspired film that fails to utilize its resources. Rajinikanth is topnotch and so is Akshay Kumar but neither is able to salvage the film from setting in monotony of great degrees.
Anna and the Apocalypse
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A zombie musical comedy set at Christmas should be a can’t miss. But this one isn’t scary or funny; its characters are one-note, and the whole shebang — blah songs included — is emotionally flat.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: I can’t say I loved The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, but I still very much admire everything that went into making the film, and it still has the kind of uniquely entertaining and thoughtful experience that only the Coens could provide.
Bird Box
Karl Delossantos @ Smash Cut Reviews
- Excerpt: Bird Box doesn’t bring anything new to the post-apocalyptic thriller genre despite a strong third act and solid performances.
Boy Erased
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Boy Erased means well, but dramatically it’s inert.
Burning
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: There’s a meta-narrative aspect to Burning wherein the film’s characters are characters in life—symbols poked and prodded in some grand experiment to find humanity’s breaking point. It’s an illusory thriller infused with sex, mystery, and murder wherein retribution arrives once consequences become less important than pride.
Cold War
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
Dumplin’
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Although delivering an important message, DUMPLIN’ also ends up being a must-see for Dolly Parton fans and for people who love films about beauty pageants.
Family in Transition
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Frank and bittersweet, this is a quietly remarkable portrait of one father and husband’s gender transition, and how the family coped — and didn’t — with dramatic upheaval in the most intimate of settings: home.
Green Book
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: The filmmakers make a number of hollow and misguided storytelling choices that the two charming leads are barely able to make up for.
The House That Jack Built
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The House That Jack Built is goofy in all the wrong ways, violent without substantive purpose, and unsubtle enough to wonder if von Trier actually had anything to say besides, “Thank you for letting me get away with this for so long.”
John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Faraut is less interested in how cinema affects tennis than how they overlap. He’s searching for the line separating reality from performance and may ultimately prove one doesn’t exist.
Let The Corpses Tan
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: While the lack of characterization and emotional connection might sound like this would be a deal breaker, I was legitimately in awe of its bold and electric stylistic filmmaking for practically the entire runtime.
Liz and the Blue Bird
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: These are real teens so desperately searching for their place amongst each other that they forget to unearth what it is they want on their own terms.
The Mercy
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
Minding the Gap
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Rather than shy away from the impossible questions that must be asked to begin a path of understanding and healing, these three men bare their souls. The result is this unforgettably beautiful depiction of honest self-reflection and transformative possibility.
Mirai
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s a effectively told and gorgeously animated story about the pain and joy that comes with family, be it through parenthood or the relationship between siblings, and how the power of kindness and empathy can keep everything together.
Mirai
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This tenderly animated Japanese film about sibling rivalry is lovely with its fantasy, but too convoluted for children and too slight for adults.
Mirai
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Hosoda delves into the mind of a child and all the turmoil and incapacitating stubbornness that comes from needing to rely on someone else for everything. In such a complicated scenario, big changes can be naively interpreted as abandonment.
Pause
- Excerpt: With ‘Pause’, Cypriot filmmaker Tonia Mishaili delivers a massive blow on the face of patriarchy without explicitly referring to it. Stella Fyrogeni’s performance as the long-suffering Elpida is amongst 2018’s finest.
The Possession of Hannah Grace
- Excerpt: It’s factory-line horror as predictable as it is bland.
Rendezvous in Chicago
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: Smith’s canny talent to pen and juggle a triptych is not what impresses the most. Rather, what is greater, quite simply, is his sense of feel as a storyteller and filmmaker.
Wildlife
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Wildlife isn’t a total home run, but it still manages to be an impressive debut from Paul Dano that is elegantly performed and beautifully made.
2017 Films
Caniba
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: You should know this movie exists. God help you if you watch it.
The Relationtrip
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: The concept is high enough that I can’t help but wonder whether this might have been a box office hit with better-known leads, a quirkier best friend confidant, a killer one-liner or two, and a script that dialed back the surrealism just a tad.
