Movie Reviews & News

Get the latest news about what's going on at the Tropic, plus movie reviews from our in-house critics, Shirrel Rhoades and Ian Brockway. You’ll also find reviews from film festivals and advance screening movies. Want to make sure you never miss a thing? Follow the Tropic on Facebook for daily updates!

Tropic Sprockets: John Galliano: High and Low

This film is both delicate and disturbing. Galliano is an ambulatory vexation, opaque and mysterious.

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Front Row at the Movies: Limbo

Ivan Sen wrote the script based on his experience with the Outback town of Coober Pedy. He deliberately shot the film in black and white because of the large expanses of pockmarked white ground, a lunar landscape that provides a dramatic backdrop for this low-key missing person drama.

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Tropic Sprockets: Limbo

“Limbo" is the quintessential example of Existentialism on screen. Piercingly shot in crisp black-and-white, the film is strongly unapologetic in its detached, opaque, and stark quality.

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Front Row at the Movies: The Talented Mr. Ripley

“Suave, agreeable and utterly amoral,” Tom Ripley has no qualms in taking people’s money or killing a friend in order to avoid exposure. It’s all a chess game to him.

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Tropic Sprockets: Coup de Chance

The iconic auteur Woody Allen returns with a film completely in French titled “Coup de Chance.” The narrative, involving a marital affair, ego and murder belongs in the category of one of his most satisfying films in several years.

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Front Row at the Movies: Thunder Rolls

“Thunder Rolls” is an unusual sports movie. But you’ll be rooting, “Play ball!”

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Tropic Sprockets: La Chimera

Alice Rohrwacher ("The Pupils") strikes again with her offbeat trademark tone in “La chimera.” Though the film underscores its fanciful edge well, its wandering dispassionate attitude might not be to all tastes—but the narrative retains an eccentric and personal brand of magical realism.

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Front Row at the Movies: Civil War

Written and directed by British sc-fi maestro Alex Garland (“Ex Machina,” “Annihilation”), the film is intended to be non-partisan. There is no firm left-vs.-right ideology at play. Having California and Texas (two states that rarely agree on anything) join forces was very intentional.

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Tropic Sprockets: Civil War

The film is a shocking sensory experience, stirring, eerie and nerve-jangling as a deadly diorama, but there is not much here behind the camouflage.

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Tropic Sprockets: Remembering Gene Wilder

Wilder was one actor who went full throttle in whatever he did, and his acting was given with great feeling, without malice or cynicism. He gave to the audience what he had to give, in freedom and without judgment.

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