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. 28, 2018
Wide (United States)
Little Women
Night School
Smallfoot
Limited (United States)
The Old Man and the Gun
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: This laidback crime caper could have gone down a number of different avenues to tell the story of a real-life career criminal, but when the camera accomplishes so much with slow push-ins on old man Redford’s very likable face, why make things more complicated?
2018 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
American Animals
Annihilation
Avengers: Infinity War
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Blindspotting
Crazy Rich Asians
Fahrenheit 11/9
First Reformed
Hereditary
The House with a Clock in Its Walls
Incredibles 2
Life Itself
Mile 22
Mission: Impossible – Fallout
The Nun
The Predator
The Rider
Searching
Sicario: Day of the Soldado
A Simple Favor
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Sorry to Bother You
You Were Never Really Here
1%
- Excerpt: Director Stephen McCallum’s deafening debut dives into the Australian biker underworld with a roar, grabbing that glamorised Sons of Anarchy image and bludgeoning it to death. The raw and disturbing Macbeth riff from writer and star Matt Nable has no sentimentality for the ‘brotherhood’ of the biker; instead power – sexual, physical and psychological – corrupts absolutely.
Assassination Nation
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: As far as this kind of satire goes, it’s a bit on the messy side, especially in terms of coherent theming. However, its anger is palpable and righteous, and – more importantly – it rings true.
Bad Samaritan
Federico Furzan @ Cinelipsis [Spanish]
Blaze
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: A gem, giving us more than just a biopic but capturing the outsider’s character for better or worse.
Blaze
Don Shanahan @ Every Movie Has a Lesson
- Excerpt: ?Serenading and soul-bearing for two stout hours, Ethan Hawke’s third directorial effort personifies the quintessential plight of the “starving artist.” Whether they carry a paintbrush or a guitar, these will-they-or-won’t-they tales stir hope and anticipation as nearly irresistible cinematic story material.
Breath
- Excerpt: Simon Baker (from T.V’s The Mentalist and L.A. Confidential) charges into the director’s chair with dramatic intensity and confidence, adapting Tim Winton 70s coming of age novel Breath.
Brother’s Nest
- Excerpt: While this twisted tale has been drawing convenient comparisons to the work of the Coen Brothers, Brothers’ Nest makes Blood Simple look like The Wizard of Oz.
Calibre
Federico Furzan @ Cinelipsis [Spanish]
Capernaum
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: If that sounds extremely depressing, you won’t be surprised to hear it is. What makes Labaki’s work so great is that she still somehow finds a way to inject humor into the horror. It helps that she found a boy as charismatic and fierce as Al Rafeea.
Crimosn Red Sky
- Excerpt: Veteran Mani Ratnam’s latest is an unconvincing gangster drama which is high on testosterone and relies needlessly on run-of-the-mill heroics.
Destination Wedding
- Excerpt: There is so much gleeful fun which comes from watching two misanthropes – played by Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder – hate-watch a wedding.
Good Girls Get High
- Excerpt: This “high” concept teen comedy about female friendship and panic over the onset of adulthood distinguishes itself in a crowded genre.
Gurrumul
- Excerpt: Seeing this film makes you deeply grateful that we can continue to celebrate this once-in-a-generation artist.
A Happening of Monumental Proportions
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: The title is intentionally ironic, and yet still feels like a bad and desperately unfunny joke. The spectacular all-star cast holds their noses and gamely dives in anyway, for the sake of Judy Greer’s directorial debut.
A Happening of Monumental Proportions
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: When Daniel tells [his daughter] he’s glad she takes after her mother rather than him, I couldn’t help but nod in agreement because all these insecure men have literally nothing to offer the next generation. And sadly neither does this film despite so much talent making us hope it might.
Hold the Dark
Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog
- Excerpt: It’s preeeetty dark all right. Pretty dark indeed.
Hurricane
- Excerpt: It’s down to a deadpan sense of humour that Hurricane ultimately takes flight, piloted largely by the charms of Rheon and a game cast, and emerging rather an endearing World War II biopic.
The Land of Steady Habits
Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog
- Excerpt: Steady your enthusiasm.
Living Universe
- Excerpt: Living Universe is the Walking with Dinosaurs of space documentaries. While it commendably uses our evolving understanding of the universe to tackle problems our next generation of explorers will face, it fails to do so in ways that are dramatically or cinematically interesting.
Lizzie
- Excerpt: To see the swing of the axe as cleansing rather than grotesque was the last thing I expected. And I’m grateful for it.
Lizzie
Lost Child
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: An extraordinarily delicate balancing act between drama and horror, visually and psychologically expansive, set in a place where stories of monsters are not mere entertaining fun, and where superstition is not harmless.
Manmarziyaan
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Manto
- Excerpt: Partly a case of an opportunity missed, ‘Manto’ derives a great amount of its appeal from Nawazuddin Siddiqui who dazzles you completely in what appears to be his most challenging role till date.
Monrovia, Indiana
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Never Look Away
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
The Other Side of the Wind
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Rosie
Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog
- Excerpt: The outlook is anything but.
Sharp Objects
Marcio Sallem @ Cinema com Crítica [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: By Maria Clara Bubna
The Sisters Brothers
- Excerpt: One of the best qualities of Audiard’s work is that, although he maintains his sky-high quality from one film to the next, you’d never guess that ‘A Prophet’ and ‘Rust and Bone’ and ‘Dheepan’ and this film were made by the same guy. He seems to shed the style and subject of each picture like a skin, worn for a while and then tossed away; this time, he’s doing a Western (as every director worth their salt seems to hope to), but with splashes of a road movie and a Horace Greeley-style adventure tale thrown in.
The Sisters Brothers
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: The film is violent, but also gentle in where things go with the relationships we see. It’s an odd beast of a movie and a western that strikes its own chord.
Superbly
- Excerpt: A pointless creation that completely missed the cultural point of its own iconic original.
Swinging Safari
- Excerpt: If you need a way to laugh at all the reasons you’re deficient, or to examine why your white Australian friends are the hot messes they are, grab your sluggers, lather up that body in oil, spark up a dart and laugh. And, hopefully, don’t cry.
Tea with the Dames
- Excerpt: The film’s greatest asset is its ability to convey the lively spirit of the conversations without feeling selective or artificially emphasizing points, beyond spare bursts of archival footage or the occasional question posed from [director Roger] Michell himself.
Tea with the Dames
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Come sit next to Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, and Eileen Atkins and eavesdrop on their witty banter, amiable swearing, and grand tales of their stage and film careers.
They Will Love Me When I’m Dead
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Vox Lux
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
Wayne
- Excerpt: Wayne, a documentary about racer Wayne Gardner, slows down when it should speed up
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- Excerpt: A solid, but faithful adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s gothic fairytale about two peculiar, ostracized sisters hiding a dark family secret.
Working Class Boy
- Excerpt: The Jimmy Barnes documentary Working Class Boy is very likely to make grown men cry…
2017 Films
Bomb City
Federico Furzan @ Cinelipsis [Spanish]
Sweet Country
2016 Films
The Curse of Sleeping Beauty
Ghostbusters
Ace the Case
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Richard Eyre’s “The Children Act” is the latest example of an accomplished director struggling to make their literary source material seem relevant.
Sole Proprietor
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones make a wonderful “Ghostbusters” quartet. They project such fabulous energy!
