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. 18, 2021
Wide (United States)
The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
2021 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
The Amusement Park
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Army of the Dead
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Cruella
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
In the Heights
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
A Quiet Place: Part II
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Spiral
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Woman in the Window
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Wrath of Man
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
12 Mighty Orphans
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: [The adults’] compassion towards these boys is a piece; the boys’ evolution is the puzzle. And to that end 12 Mighty Orphans is pretty darn effective.
All Light, Everywhere
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: Anthony’s point, however, is less that objectivity can’t exist than a desire to remind us of our essential need to question what is being sold to us as objectivity.
All Light, Everywhere
Josh Taylor @ The Forgetful Film Critic
- Excerpt: All Light, Everywhere implicates the very act of its own creation in its exploration of the flaws of human observation. Theo Anthony’s documentary destroys the conventional wisdom that “seeing is believing.”
All the Streets are Silent: The Convergence of Hip Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997)
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Fans of hip hop and skateboarding—particularly from this ten-year stretch or those with an affection for the Zoo York Mixtape video—will find much to love.
As of Yet
Catch the Fair One
- Excerpt: A vicious saga of exploitation and vengeance, ‘Catch the Fair One’ is a blood-splattered and grounded thriller that suffers from being oppressively bleak even as it directs focus towards an important and under-discussed topic.
Caveat
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: I really liked the production design. The visuals ooze creepiness even if the payoff doesn’t arrive until the very end.
Censor
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: Censor is a really engrossing horror film, and it does a really terrific job at utilizing influences and paying homage to a very specific period of film history. Niamh Algar brings a strong emotional core to some of the film’s more offbeat indulgences.
La Dosis
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: This is a genre film utilizing its subject matter as a springboard towards drama. The payoff is purely entertainment, not philosophical debate.
Edge of the World
- Excerpt: …a film that commits the ultimate sin for an entertainment product: it’s boring.
F9
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: These meathead melodramas are so far beyond nuance, one would have to accidentally reverse into a theater to be unprepared for the action ride F9 delivers.
Gaia
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s an unnerving and very well performed genre film that doesn’t need to do a whole lot for it to get under your skin. Whether this will connect to a mainstream audience, I kind of doubt it, but I can imagine horror fans embracing this, and appreciating it for what it is.
Gaia
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Transformative eco-horror with a lot on its mind, the distinctive visuals and off-center mood are enough to smooth over most of the rough spots and make this well worth watching.
Infinite
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Knee-jerk clichés abound in a shameless retread of The Matrix in which many levels of storytelling ineptitude are the only depth on offer. Can Hollywood please stop reincarnating the same old movies?
Infinite
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: All things considered, Infinite is the perfect content for Paramount+: big budget theatrics and low stakes drama.
Infinite
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: I like Wahlberg just fine, but he is sorely miscast as the lead character.
Last Film Show
- Excerpt: A love letter and elegy for film and the unvalued art of the projectionist, ‘The Last Film Show’ is a beautifully-filmed and involving story of coming-of-age in a darkened movie theater in a modernizing India
Les Nôtres
- Excerpt: By the time Les Nôtres arrives at its odd open ending, the film’s early intensity has tapered off into something less satisfying. Still, like so many similar movies before it, it’s all too easy to get sucked into the twisted, tangled drama of this town.
Les Nôtres
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Les nôtres is going to ruffle plenty feathers. Not because of its topic, but because of its willingness to depict characters that will stop at nothing to keep pretending.
Les Nôtres
The Novice
- Excerpt: A thrilling character study about an obsessive athlete and her self-destructive drive, Lauren Hadaway’s ‘The Novice’ explosively flips the sports drama on its head.
Poser
- Excerpt: An envious podcaster infiltrates the Columbus underground music scene in Ori Segev and Noah Dixon’s engaging debut ‘Poser’. A stalker-thriller featuring a pair of engaging breakout performances, the beats may be familiar in places but are remixed to amplified effect.
Queen Bees
- Excerpt: Half a dozen veteran performers do their best to elevate a patchy script in “Queen Bees,” a gentle romantic comedy set in a retirement community that one character describes as “‘Mean Girls’ with Medic- Alert bracelets.”
Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Rise Again proves itself to be an extensive deep dive into a subject that needs to be taught. It’s time to remove [our collective] blindfold.
Woe
Woman in Motion
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: We’re here to learn about Nichols’ deserved place in our space program’s history [as] an innovator and influencer who quite literally dragged it into [the] present.
