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: Mar. 22, 2019
Wide (United States)
Us
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Hotel Mumbai
Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: The film Anthony Maras and his team have assembled shows the sort of understanding of how to capture tension, without drowning the film in unearned emotional turmoil.
Out of Blue
Out of Blue
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An exploration of the big mysteries that dwarf crime conundrums.
Triple Threat
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: The plot is garbled nonsense, but there’s a scene in ‘Triple Threat’ where Tony Jaa fights Scott Adkins, then Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais fight Scott Adkins, then Tony Jaa fights Scott Adkins solo again. A scene. Actually, not even a scene, it’s a sequence within a scene.
Triple Threat
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: There’s a scene in Triple Threat where Tony Jaa fights Scott Adkins, then Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais fight Scott Adkins, then Tony Jaa fights Scott Adkins solo again. A scene. Actually, not even a scene, it’s a sequence within a scene.
2019 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Alita: Battle Angel
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Apollo 11
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Captain Marvel
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Everybody Knows
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Fighting with My Family
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Five Feet Apart
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Greta
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Happy Death Day 2U
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Isn’t It Romantic
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Triple Frontier
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Adopt a Highway
The Aftermath
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: it is a real letdown to realize that director James Kent (“Testament of Youth”) has played a game of bait and switch, a complex historical period used as a mere backdrop for the story of a marriage teetering on the brink.
Any One of Us
- Excerpt: Not surprisingly, deep depression and feelings of uselessness eat away at the inner being of these survivors.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Emmanuel Báez @ Cinéfiloz [Spanish]
Canary
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Christiaan Olwagen’s hugely ambitious year-in-the-life musical charts one young man’s journey to self acceptance during the height of the Apartheid regime…Bezuidenhout, who has the face of a silent film comedian, is a multi-talented lead.
Captive State
Climax
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: “Climax” is alternately an endurance test and pure art-house cinema: it’s exasperating and off-putting, confrontational and self-indulgent, and daring and transfixing.
Climax
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: “Climax” is alternately an endurance test and pure art-house cinema: it’s exasperating and off-putting, confrontational and self-indulgent, and daring and transfixing.
Climax
Dan Lybarger @ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
- Excerpt: In depicting a rave gone horribly wrong, his current movie, Climax, features intriguing stylistic choices, but it’s hard to feel sad or angry about what led the people in his movie down a destructive path.
Depraved
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Depraved is about many things, among them the repercussions of technologies we invent, and, maybe more importantly, the results of raising our children and new generations in all the most toxic ways.
Finding Steve McQueen
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
- Excerpt: It’s a servicable crime film with a refreshingly light touch and likable cast.
Gully Boy
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
The Highwaymen
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: It is a quiet film, delving into the relationship of these two older men, teasing out one final detail about their relationship until a crucial moment, while also taking a hard look at the dubious American celebrity culture that thrived even back in 1934.
The Highwaymen
The Hummingbird Project
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: Excellent depiction of the cultural clash between speed and simplicity.
Knife+Heart
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Brilliantly photographed in primary colors of blue, red and yellow… Gonzalez reflects his story back upon itself via films-within-his-film, black and white photo negative nightmares, dance floors, dark rooms and sex shows.
Lords of Chaos
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: Åkerlund and Magnusson’s screenplay explores themes of art v. commerce – where a musician’s persona ends and reality begins – and how psychologically dangerous it can be when the line between the two blurs.
Styx
Jonathan Richards @ Pasatiempo
- Excerpt: Writer-director Wolfgang Fischer fashions a surprisingly involving tale out of a movie that, for much of its 94-minute running time, has one character and practically no spoken words.
Tigerland
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A documentary about a century of conservation efforts to save tigers in India and Russia.
Yardie
- Excerpt: Inspired direction can’t save Yardie from a formulaic script.
2018 Films
BlacKkKlansman
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Mary Poppins Returns
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Monsters and Men
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Acid Forest
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: From the perspective of the tourist comments, the viewer recognizes the debate. Should we enter the ecosystem and kill the birds, or let them denude our forests as nature takes its course?
Amateurs
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “Amateurs” was their brave choice to open the festival. Filmed liked a documentary about two sets of filmmakers making a marketing film about their town, the experimental Swedish film breaks the rules about film-making, challenging the viewer in several directions at once.
The Ranger
C.H. Newell @ Father Son Holy Gore
- Excerpt: The Ranger is a punk rock manifesto for women, using the backwoods slasher sub-genre as a method of delivery. Survival is a woman’s game in horror all too often, making it no different from real life.
Sir
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Sensitively written and directed by Rohena Gera, “Sir” truly embodies the theme of the 2019 Portland International Film Festival (PIFF): Empathy has no ethnicity.
2017 Films
Komunia
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: The film’s title ostensibly refers to the first communion of an autistic boy. But communion also means a deep communication of thoughts and feelings with another – and in this case, that other is us, the viewers. The family has allowed complete exposure.
What is Democracy?
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: From the brave art of Ambrogio Lorenzetti in 1338 to the always insightful challenges of Cornel West, Astra Taylor investigates ideas of democracy.