‘Inside Out 2’
In the sequel to the Pixar charmer “Inside Out,” Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) develops a new range of (anthropomorphized) emotions like Anxiety (Maya Hawke) and Envy (Ayo Edebiri) when she reaches puberty.
From our review:
Franchises often bank on nostalgia, so it’s easy to fall for “Inside Out 2,” which works largely because the first one does wonderfully well. The new movie conforms to the original’s ethos as well as inventive template, its conceit and visual design, so its pleasures are agreeably familiar.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Putting the “community” in community theater.
‘Ghostlight’
This family drama directed by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson follows Dan (Keith Kupferer) as he struggles to navigate relationships with his wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), and daughter, Daisy (Katherine May Kupferer), after tragedy strikes. He finds solace in joining a local production of “Romeo and Juliet.”
From our review:
It’s a gentle story, full of tender moments, and knowing that the parents and daughter in the main cast are a family in real life increases the warmth. There’s a complexity to their conversations, the way their interactions are never one-note (as parents and teens often are in films), that you can sense has its roots in real life. By the end of the film, their emotional bond carries the story.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
More like coming-of-rage.
‘Tiger Stripes’
After she gets her first period, Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) begins to experience strange and supernatural changes to her body in this feature debut from Amanda Nell Eu.
From our review:
Anyone who has gone through adolescence — in other words, everyone — knows the kind of myths, silences and shame that often accompany a maturing body. Eu smartly weaves that universality together with local myths and legends, and the result is a little eerie and unsettling, a film about dark things we’re afraid to speak about.
In theaters. Read the full review.
A swing and a miss.
‘Reverse the Curse’
David Duchovny directed and stars in this adaptation of his 2016 novel, which follows Ted (Logan Marshall-Green) and his terminally-ill father Marty (Duchovny), who hopes to see the Red Sox defeat the Yankees before he dies.
From our review:
Duchovny’s smarts are commendable, theoretically, but the movie falls short of compelling. And for all the novelistic details that he packs in, “Reverse the Curse” moves at the pace of a self-defeating snail.
In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. Read the full review.
A road movie with heavy baggage.
‘Treasure’
Edek (Stephen Fry), a Holocaust survivor, embarks on a trip across Poland with his daughter, Ruth (Lena Dunham), in this drama directed by Julia von Heinz.
From our review:
The crux of the film involves their visits to the Lodz apartment from which Edek and his family were exiled in 1940. Ruth wants to reclaim what was stolen from her family; Edek has a learned fear of not moving on from the past. Their difference in outlooks is a potentially powerful subject, but miscasting has blunted its impact.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Another tired Tudor tale.
‘Firebrand’
This historical drama depicts Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander), the last wife of Henry VIII (and the only wife to outlive him), as she attempts to influence the king without inciting his infamous wrath.
From our review:
Not until I watched “Firebrand” did I think the sight of Jude Law’s naked behind could cause me to recoil rather than rejoice. Playing a late-career Henry VIII, Law is all rutting buttocks and barely mobile bulk, an obese, paranoid ruler with a weeping leg wound where maggots wriggle in ecstatic close-up. Law (and his director, Karim Aïnouz) might be laying it on thick, but his grotesque tyrant is the only thing lifting this dreary, ahistoric drama out of its narrative doldrums.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Not so ultra, man.
‘Ultraman: Rising’
Shannon Tindle directs this spin on a popular Japanese superhero in which Ken Sato (voiced by Christopher Sean), a baseball player, inherits the title of Ultraman from his estranged father and reluctantly adopts a monster child.
From our review:
The energetic, manga-stylized scenes of bat-swinging and fist-flinging are given short shrift in favor of talky, draggy sequences about parental responsibility that cut from one conversation about exhaustion and sacrifice to another. If Ultraman wants to conquer the world, he’ll have to try something livelier than a cartoon that looks like a kids movie but lurches about like a saccharine family drama.
Watch on Netflix. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
A tender look at a relationship in transition.
‘Summer Solstice’
Noah Schamus’s debut feature follows the reunion between old friends Eleanor (Marianne Rendón) and Leo (Bobbi Salvör Menuez), who haven’t seen each other since Leo’s transition, and discover that more than just appearances have changed.
From our review:
It’s difficult to discern what Leo saw in Eleanor; she mostly comes off as a bossy mess. But perhaps that characterization is deliberate: In declining to put us under Eleanor’s spell, Schamus is able to focus on coaxing out the magic in Leo, a onetime wallflower just beginning to bloom.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Not his first rodeo, but it sure looks like it.
‘Ride’
After his daughter is diagnosed with cancer, John (C. Thomas Howell), a Texan bull-rider, plans a high-risk theft to pay for her treatment in this Western-tinged thriller from the writer-director Jake Allyn, who also plays John’s son.
From our review:
Allyn always seems a bit out of his depth trying to convey Peter’s inner anguish. Consequently, the character’s struggles with addiction and a troubled past feel like a distraction from the heart of the story, which is John’s efforts to do anything to help Virginia, his ailing child (Zia Carlock). Decked out in cowboy hat and Carhartt jacket, Allyn looks the part. But only Howell truly embodies the spirit of the Old West.
Available to rent or buy on most major platforms. Read the full review.
Compiled by Kellina Moore.
