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: Shadow
“Shadow“ is a counterpoint to the blunt crunching and artery-bursting of “John Wick.” In Yimou’s realm, murder is an impulsive spirit of movement, akin to calligraphy.
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Tropic Sprockets: John Wick – Chapter 3: Parabellum
John Wick and Reeves by extension become living figures in a comic book. This makes the hyperactive hollow-points compulsively watchable, even though it does qualify as a guilty pleasure. As campy as Keanu is, he delivers his lines with such mirthless monotone, he fuses the actor as hitman and the hitman as actor into Pop Art.
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Front Row at the Movies: Carmine Street Guitars
Carmine Street Guitars was a place like that -- off the beaten path, but you’d find it if you were a musician looking for a handmade guitar. Rick Kelly finds his wood for making guitars all over the city, from dead trees and torn down buildings, and even a historic tavern. Then he artfully crafts it into a guitar designed to make the angels listen.
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Front Row at the Movies: John Wick – Chapter 3: Parabellum
In the world of John Wick, the underworld is everywhere – from street vendors and waiters to shoe shine guys and dog-walkers and homeless people – all acting as the eyes and ears for the High Table. And the organization has more assassins chasing John Wick than troops in a military parade in Red Square.
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Front Row at the Movies: Penguins
Admittedly, “Penguins” takes an anthropomorphic view of its subject matter, imbuing penguins with human-like qualities, but nonetheless you will enjoy the simple storyline (“a hugely entertaining underdog hero’s journey”) and the outstanding cinematography.
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Tropic Sprockets: Hail Satan?
Though offered with a fair amount of quirk and camp, ”Hail Satan?” is a serious film about the need for alternate beliefs to attain equal representation. Some will ridicule these ebony-cloaked emancipators, but through humor and stern spirit, they uncover the forever rebel that resides within the hearts of many.
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Tropic Sprockets: Tolkien
“Tolkien” has a warm and easy spirit showing the gift of friendship for what it is: a visitation of magic that occurs in reality, as adamantine as a ring.
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Front Row at the Movies: Tolkien
Fans of J. R. R. Tolkien have spent years dissecting his Middle Earth tales, trying to figure out arcane meanings, influences, how the stories came about -- some fans, and this new biopic, turn to Tolkien’s “heady days as a student and his hellish experiences in World War I” to find hidden clues to his works.
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Front Row at the Movies: Red Joan
Like many of you, I love a good spy story. Especially if it rings true, like those by penned John Le Carré or Graham Greene. They knew the clandestine world of which they wrote. “Red Joan,” a new movie by Trevor Nunn, has the ring of truth … because it is based on the real-life case of Melita Norwood.
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Tropic Sprockets: Ask Dr. Ruth
Director Ryan White (HBO’s "The Keepers") turns his camera on Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and the result is a charming biopic that is also very moving, and a statement of human survival and creation.
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