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: May 31, 2019
Wide (United States)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Ma
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Rocketman
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
2019 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Aladdin
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Booksmart
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Hustle
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Intruder
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Pokémon Detective Pikachu
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Sun Is Also a Star
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Tolkien
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Trial by Fire
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After Maria
Avengement
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: This is a gritty, mean, down and dirty crime story about gritty, mean, down and dirty criminals. It’s also Johnson’s most ambitious film to date, as well as maybe his best.
Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A fascinating portrait of a “larger than life” filmmaker and collaborator.
The Biggest Little Farm
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: If your success is truly that pure—own it. Don’t pretend otherwise because you think it would be more compelling [only to show each hardship is but a hiccup].
BrightBurn
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: a 20-minute story stretched to feature-length with tedious swaths that may have been intended as suspense, but instead feel like so much padding to increase the running time
Catch-22
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An expose on the egregious myth that World War II was the Good War.
Deadtectives
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Tony West’s Deadtectives mixes horror and comedy, sometimes well, sometimes not. The beginning is rough; the comedy sitcom-y, the horror forced and toothless, but near the halfway mark, the film strikes a balance between jokes and scares—and leans into the spooky.
Domino
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The film declares the CIA as shady but necessary and the families of POC unworthy of even being spoken about alongside those of white knights with badges.
Enormous: The Gorge Story
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
The Fall of the American Empire
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: Flopping about on the screen, this good natured snarky look at the state of the world has its highs and lows.
Fast Color
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [The metaphor] doesn’t have to be [hidden] when it’s so smartly interwoven with the fabric of such a personal narrative concerning a single family under duress.
Hail Satan?
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [Lane’s] film is a platform to cut through the laughter and protests by Christian celebrities that galvanize their ranks when it should expose the hate and entitlement at their back.
Human Nature
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: This documentary watches like the prequel to a dystopian sci-fi story.
I Was Home, But
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Not for every audience, but nonetheless a beautiful German drama about depression!
Instant Dreams
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: The death of the Polaroid compares the photo to the mirage. Do we care most about the instant, or the dream?
International Falls
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: International Fall delivers a charming, biting look at emotional desolation, forgotten ambitions, and neglected dreams of two people as they quietly drown. It’s lovely and insightful, dismal and austere, and tiptoes the line between comedy and tragedy.
Into the Mirror
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Into the Mirror moves fluidly through memory, present self-imprisonment, and future’s promise with a majority of its information shared in the absence between cuts.
Just Say Goodbye
- Excerpt: This melodrama lacks the necessary polish to elevate not just its important message, but also the actors’ performances.
Late Night
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Kaling wrote for lead Emma Thompson, who herself began in stand-up and a television sketch show, and the actress walks a tricky line, creating an entertaining public facade, a boss-from-hell workplace persona and a thoroughly sympathetic private character.
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: You may have trouble navigating its plot, but if ever there was a movie to get lost in, this is it.
My Days of Mercy
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Beautifully incisive performances by Ellen Page and Kate Mara create a prism through which to examine how the death penalty impacts those far beyond death row. Hardly subtle, and yet still delicate.
My Son
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Non-Fiction
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A dramedy about all the ways digital technology is shaking the book publishing world to its core.
Non-Fiction
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: These pseudo intellectual Parisians present theses, state bias, and move on. It’s like Assayas wrote them with the same algorithms he says have replaced taste-making critics.
The Perfection
- Excerpt: The Perfection is always intriguing and consistently shocking, the drama and sleaze anchored by fantastic performances that sell every demented twist and turn.
Poms
- Excerpt: The blueprint for a genuinely inspired, warm-hearted dramedy is indeed there, it’s just that the filmmakers can’t figure out how to properly utilize what they have.
The Professor
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: An off-season ditty for Johnny Depp, this short story of a short life gives Depp the time to do a short performance.
The Proposal
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A sophisticated documentary about architecture, power and control, and exquisite beauty.
Red Joan
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: It is not about spy craft; it is about saving mankind from itself.
The Russian Five
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: I’ll never stop hating the Red Wings, [but I can now] appreciate and respect what the organization did to change the league’s entire landscape through its astronomical rise.
The Secret Life of Pets 2
- Excerpt: Stronger sentiments and higher hijinks elevate this sequel above the original.
The Souvenir
Courtney Howard @ AwardsCircuit.com
- Excerpt: Hogg’s slow-burning, coming-of-age drama feels like a lived-in experience – one that’s simultaneously heartbreaking and heartening.
Sprinter
- Excerpt: This jogs along a predictable path, but makes a mad dash straight for the audience’s gut right before the finish line.
The Spy Behind Home Plate
Ron Wilkinson @ its just movies
- Excerpt: James Bond before there was a James Bond, pro baseballer Moe Berg hit a few homers and made a few errors.
Student of the Year 2
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Sunset
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: If you were to tell me Sunset was set in a “Westworld” type amusement park, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. Írisz becomes innocence itself trapped in a world at war.
The Tomorrow Man
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: works best as a showcase for its senior love story, Danner in particular concocting an adorably odd character
Walking on Water
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: fascinating and often funny
Wandering Earth
João Pinto @ Portal CInema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Watch out Hollywood, China is coming!
X – The eXploited
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Director Karoly Ujj-Meszaros crafts a taut, chilly, noir-inspired thriller. The film touches on the twin tides of political upheaval and creeping fascism, delves into dark corners of Hungary’s Communist past, and presents a protagonist coping with trauma that may be more connected to the surrounding events than she realizes.
XY Chelsea
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Pensively melancholy, this jagged, humane portrait of US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning is a massive challenge to the notion of soldiering as a good way for a lost young person to find oneself.
2018 Films
The Skin of the Teeth
- Excerpt: Believe nothing; savour it all
2017 Films
Top Knot Detective
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: If there’s one complaint to be lodged against ‘Top Knot Detective,’ it’s that it plays up the whole damn-Japanese-TV-is-incomprehensibly-weird stereotype, encouraging cultural mockery rather than cultural engagement. But the project is presented with such genuine love and affection for the genre that this seems like a minor criticism.
