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. 28, 2019
Wide (United States)
Annabelle Comes Home
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Yesterday
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Maiden
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Combining these old tapes with news footage from the time, animated route maps and present day interviews, Holmes and his editor Katie Bryer have fashioned one of this year’s most rousing and emotionally satisfying documentaries. This one had me busting with pride for my gender.
Ophelia
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [It plays] with the idea of storytelling itself and the degradation, absence, or addition of information depending on an author’s identity.
2019 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Brightburn
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Child’s Play
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Pokémon Detective Pikachu
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Serenity
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Toy Story 4
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Wild Rose
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The 16th Episode
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
All in My Family
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: More than a new chapter in cinematic history, Green’s film becomes a key piece towards revising everything we thought we knew.
Blood Will Tell
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Pace moves too slowly with suspense. Still, what’s revealed does make some sense. A puzzling film that’s hard to view means patience needed to see it through.
Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Frankly, though this is a well-made film detailing the rise of a company, there is plenty more room for the stories of the makers of that company. While Huber gets a series of musicians to extol the greatness of Blue Note, she misses what would give it a meaningful impact — the stories behind the scenes.
Buddy
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “Buddy” is a tender story of human-animal connection created by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
Despite Everything
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Domino
Roderick Heath @ This Island Rod
- Excerpt: Domino proves a galvanising experience in regards to the current movie scene, as pure an auteurist artefact as any I’ve seen and one that, in its way, recalls many a late B movie excursion from the major talents of a much earlier filmmaking generation: Fritz Lang or Edgar G. Ulmer would have entirely understood Domino.
Ever After
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This German zombie flick offers horror with a spin of feminine steel, not soft but brutally maternal, as necessary as natural selection and as nurturing as civilizational, even planetary tough love.
Kabir Singh
- Excerpt: Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s ‘Kabir Singh’ is a lost cause in representing a leading man with unlikeable and abusive traits. The film’s inherent misogyny, stemming out of obvious ignorance, nullifies Shahid Kapoor and the talented crew’s earnest efforts.
Knock Down the House
Alan Mattli @ Maximum Cinema [German]
- Excerpt: A hopeful film – and we can all use a bit of hope.
The Last to See Them
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
Mia and the White Lion
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Midsommar
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Aster’s sophomore film is a bit like the writing on the walls in his first – intriguing and unsettling, begging for further analysis, yet probably offering nothing more than we see on the surface.
Midsommar
Midsommar
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Low trash masquerading as high art, and I’m here for it.
Music Teacher
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Noblemen
- Excerpt: Tackling the sensitive theme of teenage bullying, debutante filmmaker Vandana Kataria’s ‘Noblemen’ is an empathetic take on a victim’s perplexing mindscape. Featuring Ali Haji, Kunal Kapoor and Muskkaan Jaferi, the film also offers a tasteful Shakespearean allegory.
Parasite
- Excerpt: Bong Joon-ho draws on his considerable talents to explore the divide between rich and poor. A film you’ll be digesting for a while, before planning to see it again. But you know what they say about plans…
Parasite
- Excerpt: It’s a weird but maybe era-appropriate coincidence that the two best films of the year so far—Us and now Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite—are searing black comedies about class, featuring two rival families whose differences in wealth are largely the result of chance.
The Proposal
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The documentary Magid’s most reminded me of was the ground-breaking “Capturing the Friedmans,” another work assembled like a piece of mystery theater, its purpose not just to relay information in the most artistic manner possible but to astonish us by just what it has withheld.
The Quiet One
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Though “The Quiet One” begins with the story of Wyman’s distant parents and loving grandmother, it is not a deeply introspective or insightful film on what makes Wyman tick. There are no revelations about his bandmates and no thoughtful reflections on what he finds meaningful in life.
Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: An acerbic political Texan who served up the stark naked truth with cutting, irreverent humor, the Ivins doc gets you laughing at the truth because, in all honesty, it is so crazy.
See You Yesterday
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
Spider-Man: Far From Home
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
The Swerve
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
The Third Wife
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Vietnamese writer/director Ash Mayfair makes her feature debut inspired by the life of her own great-grandmother, its visuals (by “Pop Aye” cinematographer Chananun Chotrungroj) informed by the beauty of the natural world.
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, a friend of Toni Morrison’s for over 35 years, the film is itself a moving, loving collage of colleagues, proteges, archival footage, family photos, paintings, nature scenes, and historical documents.
Varda by Agnès
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
We Believe in Dinosaurs
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: But the issue this documentary exposes is the use of tax dollars for a religious exposition. The company behind The Ark Encounter exclusively hires people of a specific Christian creationist belief system who sign a statement specifically denouncing homosexuality as a sin.
Why Don’t You Just Die
Scott Phillips @ The Movie Isle
The Wild
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: How Titus presents the mining argument from Pebble Mine’s own executives, how he slowly but gravely makes his case with a depth of respect for Alaska and its people, and how he humanizes the Bristol Bay predicament with his own journey in life reveals true genius in filmmaking.
Wine Country
Luiz Santiago @ Plano Crítico [Portuguese]
2018 Films
First Reformed
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The Nun
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They Shall Not Grow Old
Alan Mattli @ Maximum Cinema [German]
- Excerpt: What Peter Jackson offers is solid documentary storytelling and game-changing cinematic handiwork.
