Movie Reviews
Get the latest movie reviews from our in-house critics, Shirrel Rhoades and Ian Brockway. You’ll also find reviews from film festivals and advance screening movies. Do you have what it takes to be a Guest movie reviewer? Send us your review to info@TropicCinema.com for approval and maybe you’ll earn a spot! Want to make sure you never miss a review? Follow the Tropic on Facebook for daily updates!
Tropic Sprockets Goes Streaming: The Hottest August
For those in the mood for something eerie yet thoughtful, the documentary “The Hottest August” by Brett Story is excellent. As an eccentric character study of New York City in 2017, it is engrossing and unexpected with a variety of people telling of their hopes and fears.
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Tropic Sprockets Goes Streaming: The Times of Bill Cunningham
The late Bill Cunningham, under the guise of janitor’s clothes, was a superhero and powerful force in The New York Times Style section. Narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker, the documentary “The Times of Bill Cunningham” is breezy and affectionate.
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Tropic Sprockets Goes Streaming: Driveways
Director Andrew Ahn delivers a perfect film in “Driveways.” The film is a touching character study and an exploration of a friendship between two people: an eight-year-old boy and a man nearing his end. Spare, charming and warm-hearted, this minimally told story is an undeniable crowd pleaser.
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Tropic Sprockets Goes Streaming: Vitalina Varela
Director Pedro Costa is known as the Samuel Beckett of cinema. In “Vitalina Varela” (starring Varela herself in the title role) the director has never been more eerie. The film is striking, poetic and uncompromising in its minimalist approach -- not easy to handle with its lingering meditative tone but the reward is great for those that have a patient eye.
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Tropic Sprockets Goes Streaming: The Booksellers
The highest compliment I can give to “The Booksellers” is that it allows you to see books not as mere things but as vehicles of the spirit. Better yet, you will suddenly pine for the textured caress of a physical book, a two sectioned palm that remains open to you in its creases.
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Tropic Sprockets Goes Streaming: Sorry We Missed You
“Sorry We Missed You,” which would parallel nicely with Boots Riley’s telemarketing nightmare “Sorry To Bother You,” is Loach’s most scathing film yet and he remains one of the most uncompromising of our directors, fearless and direct, and he is also one of the most human.
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Tropic Sprockets Goes Streaming: Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau
For those wanting a bit of eccentric film history, “Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau” by David Gregory is lively and entertaining. The film is an account of the dysfunctional adaptation of the H.G. Wells film. The documentary is notable for the portrait of Stanley himself, a passionate, excitable force.
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Front Row at the Movies: The Times of Bill Cunningham
William John “Bill” Cunningham Jr. was an American original. A Harvard University dropout, he started out designing women’s hats before writing about fashion for Women’s Wear Daily and the Chicago Tribune. Then he picked up a camera and, for many years Cunningham served as the fashion and society photographer for The New York Times.
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Tropic Sprockets Goes Streaming: Saint Frances
Kelly O’Sullivan stars in a family drama that is subtly subversive, pushing a gentle envelope with warmth and humor. Though it is somewhat melodramatic, “Saint Frances” is boosted by fine performances, particularly from writer O’Sullivan and the young Ramona Edith Williams in her debut role.
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Tropic Sprockets Goes Streaming: Bacurau
“Bacurau," top winner in the Key West Film Festival foreign film category, defies convention with the kitschy gusto of a Midnight Movie cult film. It's a wondrous genre-shifting film about revenge and the toxicity of Western entitlement.
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