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: Sep. 20, 2024
Wide (United States)
The Substance
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Transformers One
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Eureka
2024 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
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My Old Ass
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Speak No Evil
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Trap
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The 4:30 Movie
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: We sense that every moment (good or bad) comes from a personal place. That earnestness does a lot of heavy lifting, making this a much more palatable experience compared to Smith’s other, less successful undertakings.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Seeing the Clerks director working in a sweeter mode is nice, which is why it’s disappointing that he doesn’t make a slam dunk.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Kudos to Smith for trying something different, but it’s just too insipid to truly stand apart as a unique coming-of-age tale or a canonical Kevin Smith production.
Am I Racist?
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
- Excerpt: Am I Racist? has good moments of humor through people’s foolishness, but a little more focus on the people and less on Matt Walsh would make it a better project.
Dead Money
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Andy talks about math via voice-over, but this isn’t as much a poker movie as it is a darkly comic drama with poker in it. The suspense isn’t therefore built at the table, but by the guns being held to the temples of people off-screen.
Dead Teenagers
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Now this is what I was anticipating from Quinn Armstrong’s FRESH HELL trilogy after loving his previous project SURVIVAL SKILLS. It proves an ingenious thrill ride through the fourth walls of previously shattered fourth walls.
The Fire Inside
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: In the end, THE FIRE INSIDE is a sports biography with all the trappings you’d expect. It’s a solid debut for Morrison and a star-making turn for Destiny with a message for girls and boys to know their worth and never settle.
Girls Will Be Girls
- Excerpt: Winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award as well as the Special Jury Award for Acting for lead actress Preeti Panigrahi, the film is a powerful examination of how the patriarchy has and continues to punish girls and women for pushing back against the narrow roles prescribed for them.
Here After
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Here After has a finale that’s emotional, beautiful, and spiritual. Unfortunately, you have to slog through 75 dull minutes to get to it.
Heretic
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Credit the strength of Grant’s performance too—a fork-tongued vaudeville act meant to distract us as much as his victims. HERETIC might not be as smart as it thinks, but boy is it fun.
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Speaks meaningfully to familial bonds and how they can weave through our lives in ways we don’t initially recognize.
Look Into My Eyes
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: By using psychics as her idiom, Wilson unveils the uncomfortable place between belief and skepticism in a way that speaks to more than whether or not psychics can contact the dead or see more than the rest of us.
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: Poignant, mysterious, and thoroughly engrossing, LOOK INTO MY EYES is a wistful, and sometimes surprising, meditation on the need for connection.
Matt and Mara
- Excerpt: The film centers on a young writing professor and the instability she invites into her painfully stable life by reconnecting with an old friend; sparks fly in both directions, but both shy away from letting them truly catch fire.
The Order
Dennis Schwartz @ dennisschwartzreviews
- Excerpt: It’s a well-crafted, suspenseful, action-packed film that hits all the right spots.
Red Rooms
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: It’s a stunning tightrope walk that expertly weaves together a taut script, sensory overload (via very intentional and effective cinematography and score), and an enigmatic performance from Gariépy.
Sector 36
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Subservience
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Megan Fox forced into another one-dimensional “hot girl” role that offers zero opportunity to prove her talents.
The Thicket
Sebastian Zavala @ Ventana Indiscreta [Spanish]
- Excerpt: It combines clichés with a well-crafted atmosphere and outstanding performances, especially from Juliette Lewis. Although the plot is not innovative, its execution and visual style make the film feel unique and effective.
Uglies
- Excerpt: All of Uglies feels like a rush job where its creators had the instruction manual but lost the proper parts.
Watchmen Chapter I
- Excerpt: Watchmen Chapter I is exactly what you think it is and nothing more.
We Live In Time
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Garfield and Pugh are also just plain adorable in their capacity to shed all pretense of celebrity and embody an everyman vibe ruled by desire. They’re very funny in that way to alleviate the heavy weight that cancer holds on a movie like this too.
Winner
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Wherever you land on what Winner did, the depiction of a single individual creating so much chaos is entertaining.
Wolves Against the World
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: I myself cannot say that I didn’t enjoy the ride. Armstrong’s aesthetic choices alone are worth admission. It just never grabbed me beyond that level of superficiality.
