‘The Bikeriders’
This crime drama follows the rise and fall of a fictional motorcycle club in the 1960s.
From our review:
The first essential thing to know about “The Bikeriders” is that the writer-director Jeff Nichols has, improbably, based the movie on a totemic photography book of the same title by the great American photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon. The second thing is that the movie stars Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy, a troika of charisma bombs who just have to show up for me to do the same. Nicely supported by a sprawling cast of other good lookers and hard workers, these three are among the draws in a movie that understands the seductions of beauty, the sensuous lines of a human body, the curves of a chassis.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
Yorgos Lanthimos gets weird (again).
‘Kinds of Kindness’
The latest from Yorgos Lanthimos is made up of three stories about dominating and being dominated, and features performances from Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe, who play different characters in each segment.
From our review:
“Kinds of Kindness” is a return to a certain form of form, if you will, for the director Yorgos Lanthimos, fresh off his warmer, cuddlier films “The Favourite” and “Poor Things.” His earlier movies, “Dogtooth,” “Alps,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and “The Lobster” — all four written with Efthimis Filippou, who was his collaborator on “Kinds” — are less accessible, more deranged, less logical, more disturbing. Which is of course why they’re so polarizing. And so beloved. I expect “Kinds of Kindness” to take its place among that latter group, with its vibrantly, defiantly off-putting stance and sidesplittingly sick sense of humor.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
Mother and daughter, both coming of age.
‘Janet Planet’
Playwright Annie Baker makes her first foray into film with this charming drama about a transformative summer for misfit tween Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) and her mother, Janet (Julianne Nicholson).
From our review:
“Janet Planet” is a tiny masterpiece, and it’s so carefully constructed, so loaded with details and emotions and gentle comedy, that it’s impossible to shake once it gets under your skin. … The graceful observations of “Janet Planet” render the two characters’ development almost imperceptible, hidden behind silences and what goes unsaid. You’ve got to lean in to catch some details: the moments framed from Lacy’s perspective, the look behind her eyes, the smile on Janet’s face. Movies are often built on moments of revelation, but in “Janet Planet” they’re more of a slow roll, a lot more like life.
In theaters. Read the full review.
When your fake exorcist needs a real exorcism.
‘The Exorcism’
Russell Crowe plays Tony Miller, an actor making a horror movie about demonic possession who realizes he has demons of his own in this meta-film from Joshua John Miller.
From our review:
The idea of turning “grappling with your demons” literal is intriguing, and the demon haunting the film — one associated with child sacrifice — is well chosen. But the movie feels reduced to a muddle, and its climactic sequence, which ought to have been a moving depiction of love and sacrifice, comes off as unintentionally campy and risible. That, in turn, trivializes (and almost obscures) the trauma at its center.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
A tough but necessary watch.
‘Green Border’
This powerful drama focuses on the Polish-Belarusian border and follows a Syrian family, anchored by parents Bashir and Amina (Jalal Altawil and Dalia Naous) as they try to make it to the European Union.
From our review:
The fury that radiates off Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border” is so intense that you can almost feel it encasing you in its heat. …[The] cruelty can be shocking, and while there are moments in this tough movie when I wept, the rigor of Holland’s filmmaking and the steadfastness of her compassion, help steady you as a viewer. Pay attention, you can almost hear her whispering in your ear. Pay witness.
In theaters. Read the full review.
What’s scarier than real life?
‘The Devil’s Bath’
Set in rural 18th-century Austria, this horror film follows Agnes (Anja Plaschg), a young woman who slowly spirals into madness.
From our review:
The cleverness of this psychodrama, by the Austrian directing duo Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (“The Lodge”), is that it employs the tropes and tools of folk horror without any of that genre’s supernatural flourishes. The film is grounded in a harrowing historical reality, about the desperate lengths to which women will go to liberate themselves from mentally poisonous domestic conditions. Franz and Fiala bring out this reality’s latent, almost fantastical horrors through a series of suspense-building strategies.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Like cross stitch pillows: cute but cloying.
‘Thelma’
After she is scammed out of $10,000, the titular nonagenarian embarks on a wacky quest for revenge (and reimbursement).
From our review:
“Thelma,” a mildly amusing, highly improbable codger comedy, is so typical of a certain kind of Sundance movie — sentimental, quirky, ingratiatingly likable — that it feels instantly familiar. Mostly, the film serves as a showcase for the wonderful June Squibb; but this rightly revered character actor was not the only notable asset that the writer-director, Josh Margolin, was blessed with for his first feature. Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Malcolm McDowell and the storied Richard Roundtree (who died last year) were all on hand, making it even more disappointing that Margolin couldn’t provide them with a richer, more satisfying script.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Compiled by Kellina Moore.