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: Jun. 21, 2024
Wide (United States)
The Bikeriders
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Exorcism
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Janet Planet
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Writer/director Annie Baker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, makes her feature filmmaking debut from the unique perspective of a lonely little girl jostling for her mother’s attention when that mother attracts lovers like bees to honey
Kinds of Kindness
- Excerpt: Lanthimos delivers of a triptych of his idiosyncratic weirdness, assembling his troupe of actors to do what they do best.
Thelma
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Squibb is a delight here, an impish instigator tempered by the more level-headed Roundtree, a great mismatched buddy pairing…
2024 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Argylle
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Bad Boys: Ride or Die
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Civil War
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Dune: Part Two
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Hit Man
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Inside Out 2
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Mean Girls
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
52-Hertz Whales
Panos Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: As such, in the end, “52-Hertz Whale” emerges as a mixed bag, since the story is definitely captivating, but its presentation problematic on a number of levels, with the whole thing emerging as more of a missed opportunity than anything else.
Abigail
Dan Stalcup @ The Goods: Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Abigail’s big twist would be so much more unique and impactful if Abigail was a fully-fleshed heist story at the start.
All That We Love
Sebastian Zavala @ Cinencuentro.com [Spanish]
- Excerpt: A frank experience, which manages to focus on a main character who feels real, like many of the mothers, aunts, sisters and women in general that we can meet in real life.
Benal et Adama
- Excerpt: Don’t mess with tradition
The Brats
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: The documentary is ambitious in how it includes so many people, films, and conversations to help us better define what [The Brat Pack] means and its lasting effect on pop culture.
Candice Fred @ HuffPost
Christopher Reed @ Hammer to Nail
- Excerpt: They form a fascinatingly reflective bunch, not only journeying down memory lane, but expressing genuine words of wisdom from which we could all benefit.
Checkpoint Zoo
- Excerpt: “There are smart decisions and there are right decisions”
The Dead Don’t Hurt
Victoria Luxford @ Dirty Movies
- Excerpt: Part-love story, part-revenge thriller, part-feminist Western revision, Viggo Mortensen’s sophomore feature (on the director’s seat) shows scrappy ambition, and gets flanked by two stellar performances
The Devil’s Bath
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: their best film to date…a historical drama with horrific elements rather than a straight-out horror film like their last two. Gschlacht’s contributions cannot be overstated, his prize winning work beautifully composed and painterly, his palette the colors of the forest.
Eephus
- Excerpt: A heartfelt tribute to America’s pastime and communal experiences sure takes its sweet time — and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Eternal Playground
- Excerpt: Class reunion from beyond the grave
Face Off 7: One Wish
Panos Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: All in all, although some issues do exist, mostly deriving from the intensely mainstream approach implemented here, “Face Off 7: One Wish” is a very entertaining, very rewarding, very well shot and acted movie, that will appeal to all fans of family dramas.
Ferrari
Diego Salgado @ SoFilm [Spanish]
Flipside
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …like a more organic Errol Morris anthology documentary threaded together with life lessons…both entertaining and moving.
Ghostlight
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: about the therapeutic properties of art…The Kupferer father/daughter duo finds each acting to opposite extremes, Dan taciturn yet given to sudden outbursts, Daisy challenging and cursing at everything in her path. Mallen is the great stabilizing forc
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The line Dan walks is thin and you can feel that O’Sullivan wrote his trajectory through the character’s voice to discover which side he’ll fall at the same time he does.
The Grab
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Cowperthwaite and Halverson lay it all out. It’s now on us to force our politicians to adjust … if voters still have the ability to do such things anymore.
Griffin in Summer
- Excerpt: The play within the film
Just the Two of Us
- Excerpt: Valérie Donzelli directs and, with Audrey Diwan, adapts the novel “L’amour et les forêts.” Starring Virginie Efira in twin roles, Just the Two of Us flirts with heightened genre flourishes but pulls back to reveal a simple chilling reality: domestic abuse.
Luv Ki Arrange Marriage
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Matched
Panos Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: “Matched” is not high art, and the story will probably alienate the fans of ‘true crime’. However, as a fairy tale whose main purpose is to shock and entertain it definitely succeeds
McVeigh
Dennis Schwartz @ dennisschwartzreviews.com
- Excerpt: A tense minimalist drama on the dangers of violence from domestic terrorists.
Megalopolis
- Excerpt: Almost four decades in the making, Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus arrives in all of its gloriously insane delights.
National Anthem
Victoria Luxford @ Dirty Movies
- Excerpt: Luke Gilford’s debut feature shows us what queer expression without restraint truly looks like, against the masculine backdrop of the Old West
Queendom
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: …although her act is drag-inspired and drag-adjacent, that term hardly describes Marvin’s bizarre performance art… her costumes are so otherworldly and alien that they don’t meet a strict definition of cross-dressing.
Reverse the Curse
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: REVERSE THE CURSE proves two very different films jammed together with seemingly no interest in softening the jarring shift halfway through. Thankfully, both halves are enjoyable.
Searching for Amani
Victoria Luxford @ Dirty Movies
- Excerpt: Murder, climate change and hope all play a big part in a bereaved young Kenyan’s search for the truth
- Excerpt: A tale of two climates
The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer
Sebastian Zavala @ Cinencuentro.com [Spanish]
- Excerpt: It should be immensely entertaining, especially for those looking for dark humor, confusion, violence and a premise that is practically impossible to waste.
Smiling Georgia
Victoria Luxford @ Dirty Movies
- Excerpt: No laughing matter: The lengths some politicians are willing to go in order to retain power can leave voters toothless
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
- Excerpt: It’s a cathartic cry, interspersed with equal amounts of joy at what life can offer even in the midst of hardship.
Tiger Stripes
- Excerpt: A thrilling addition to the empowered rebel and feral girl canon.
Tuesday
Gregory Carlson @ southpawfilmworks.net
Nell Minow @ rogerebert.com
- Excerpt: Julia Louis-Dreyfus gives a performance of breathtaking vulnerability as the mother of a dying teenager in “Tuesday,” a film that tells the story of the most shattering loss of all without melodrama or a score filled with syrupy strings.
2023 Films
Poor Things
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Priscilla
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Robot Dreams
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Zone of Interest
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
( Ab)normal Desire
Panos Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: ““(Ab)normal Desire” is an excellent film, a unique case for Japanese cinema, particularly because it manages to shed much light to a series of concepts that are considered taboo, without fetishizing them in any way, neither resorting to crime tropes in order to make them more interesting.
The Contestant
Victoria Luxford @ Dirty Movies
- Excerpt: Japanese male is confined to a room naked and without food for more than a year, in a sadistic experiment that helped to spawn reality television
The Leftovers
Diego Salgado @ SoFilm [Spanish]
Revolver Lily
Panos Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: As such, “Revolver Lily” emerges as a mixed bag, a film that definitely deserves a watch for its set pieces, visuals and action scenes, but will disappoint anyone who looks beyond that. Perhaps a smaller duration, which would allow the story to focus on the action would have made the whole thing better.
