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: Apr. 8, 2022
Wide (United States)
Ambulance
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Expanding (United States)
Everything Everywhere All at Once
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Cow
Gregory Carlson @ southpawfilmworks.net
2022 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Alice
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Batman
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Morbius
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Turning Red
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Ahed’s Knee
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: When Ahed’s Knee ended, I experienced a somewhat frustrating day-long period of trying to decide how I felt about it. The film is challenging, there’s no doubt about that, an artistic statement about the state of director Nadav Lapid’s native country and his desire to be free as an artist, but how does this all mesh with what is on the screen?
Alice
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: Alice is a terrible movie. It’s crude, obvious, badly written and filmed so awkwardly that it loses the momentum of its biggest surprise. And yet . . .
Aline
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: What a weird but strangely entertaining film…If seeing Lemercier portray a five year-old doesn’t freak you out, hang on for the rest of her portrayal of Dion as a quirky social misfit…
The Automat
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: What is admirable is the way that Hurwitz remains consistent. There is a temptation to blame the downfall of the automat on the current culture (I’ve done that myself in this review) but she wants to remain optimistic.
Babi Yar. Context
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: Babi Yar. Context sets itself apart from your standard documentary by simply giving us images, video, faces, snatches of dialogue and interspersed are helpful pieces of text so that we know where we are without gobs of commentary. Sergei Loznitsa’s film is about a very specific event, a massive crime against humanity but there is no narration, no talking heads, only an exemplary film that connects pieces of film into a context that gives us the timeline of an atrocity.
Barbarians
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Dorfman treats his characters like pieces on a board serving his whims. They aren’t three-dimensional people. If the filmmakers don’t care about them, how can we?
Better Nate Than Ever
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Musical lovers should enjoy this adventure of one brave boy.
Black Crab
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: Rapace reminds me a lot of Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, a blend of toughness mixed with maternal instincts that keep her going, but she never forgets to be a human being.
Brighton 4th
- Excerpt: The real selling point in Levan Koguashvili’s Brighton 4th is not the plot, but the way the film creates a portrait of Brighton Beach and its inhabitants. The interiors and character types don’t change that much whether the story is taking place in Georgia or America, and that’s a choice based in reality.
The Bubble
Cobalt Blue
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
The Contractor
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: What makes his and Saleh’s work better than those contrivances is that they are trying to say something with those familiar machinations. While not an anti-military film, it is an anti-propaganda one.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …one must question a narrative which implies a wizarding leader will be chosen by vote when that isn’t the case at all and which leaves questions hanging with no compelling reason to have them answered.
Gagarine
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Writers/directors Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh (with co-writer Benjamin Charbit) developed Gagarine into a tale of lost childhood and memorial.
Ghumjeeling : A Meeting by the Railways
- Excerpt: At 75 minutes, “Ghumjeeling : A Meeting by the Railways” does not particularly overextend its welcome, but the quality and watchability of the film would be much higher if the focus was more on the “Indian Arc”.
Infinite Storm
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Watts is good enough to pick up the slack and has some genuinely affecting moments here, but not even an Oscar-worthy turn can save the whole from its glaring tonal, pacing, and script issues.
Kicking Blood
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: The result is a dialogue-heavy independent film that uses its high concept hook as its entrance rather than purpose. It looks good despite its paltry budget and possesses solid acting too.
King Otto
- Excerpt: How did a team with no real reputation or big international stars find themselves lifting their first—and, to this date, only—major trophy? That’s the story told by King Otto, a feature-length documentary directed by Christopher André Marks that revisits Greece’s famous underdog victory with a particular focus on the man who inspired the team to win.
Lina From Lima
Sebastian Zavala @ Cinencuentro.com [Spanish]
- Excerpt: A very good drama with interesting musical touches, which feels different from what is usually produced in Peru and in Latin America in general.
Metal Lords
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: We’re here to see how the characters grow individually and together, not a generic plot progress as it has for decades. Good and bad, it met expectations.
Mothering Sunday
Night’s End
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: There is still a message to be had in doing so: namely telling Ken that he needs to deal with himself before dealing with others. I don’t think Night’s End lets him, though.
Nitram
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Nitram isn’t exploitation. It’s not turning the camera onto a monster to humanize him. On the contrary, its vantage point turns the camera onto us instead. Because this is the cost of so-called freedom.
See You Then
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: http://armchaircinema.com/see-you-then/
Sharmaji Namkeen
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Topside
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: I have nothing bad to say about the intent, only the execution.
Ultrasound
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: It’s the script that’s the standout here. Ultrasound‘s profound paranoia resonates in our gaslit world of deepfakes, fake news, and fake claims of fake news.
You Won’t Be Alone
- Excerpt: You Won’t Be Alone is the kind of movie that suggests more than it shows, deliberately leaving room for multiple interpretations.
You Won’t Be Alone
2021 Films
Drive My Car
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Mandibles
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
First Date
Mark Leeper @ Mark Leeper’s Reviews
- Excerpt: It starts as a mildly vulgar comedy, but the tone changes to really downbeat and violent as the film goes on.
Karnan
- Excerpt: Despite some faults which seem to be inherent in the local movie industry, “Karnan” is a true epic movie that also manages to highlight the issues the lower castes face in the country, through an approach that aims firstly towards entertainment.
Minamata
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: A story that deserves to be told on its own merits and a film that effectively does exactly that. Minamata isn’t perfect, but it’s a solid tale of art as power and citizens as heroes.
My Father’s Tracks
- Excerpt: “My Father’s Tracks” is not exactly a great film, but is easy to watch, funny, and includes enough elements that allow it to stray away from the plethora of family dramas/comedies that come out of the Japanese movie industry.
Onoda – 10.000 Nights in the Jungle
- Excerpt: “Onoda – 10.000 Nights in the Jungle” is a great film, a true epic that shows the consequences of war in the most eloquent fashion through a truly impactful and quite dramatic story. On a last note, Onoda was actually the penultimate Japanese soldier to surrender since Teruo Nakamura did so later in the same year…
Treat or Trick
- Excerpt: “Treat or Trick” is not exactly high art, and the truth is that the plot holes are quite a lot here. However, the fact that Hsu does not take neither himself nor his film seriously and his will to mock a plethora of concepts and even himself results in a movie that is truly entertaining, and quite easy to watch.
You Have to Kill Me
- Excerpt: As such, “You Have to Kill Me” emerges as one of those films whose audience will enjoy if they do not overthink, since entertainment is found here aplenty.
2020 Films
Jang-gae: The Foreigner
- Excerpt: The sum of the movie’s pros and cons tilts towards the first; in the end, however, whether one will enjoy “Jang-gae:The Foreigner” will be judged upon which elements one considers more significant. As an effort, it definitely deserves a watch though, if only for its comments.
