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!

Front Row at the Movies: Where’d You Go, Bernadette

A successful architect, married to a brilliant Microsoft exec, a proud mom, you’d think Bernadette has it all. But she is wracked with anxieties. Bernadette Fox is agoraphobic. She dreads leaving her home even to go to the school her daughter attends.

Tropic Sprockets: Blinded by the Light

Though “Blinded by the Light” is a bit Disneyfied in its feel-good tone, it points to the very real potential of music to change human rhythms pointing to other cultures and perspectives. In our current xenophobic political climate where fear of immigration is transmitted in our news outlets incessantly, this cannot be understated.

Tropic Sprockets: Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Linklater, a master of microscopic relationships usually directs with such care, but for those looking for a classic from the Texan auteur, this is a misfire.

Front Row at the Movies: Blinded by the Light

Moviegoers have described it as “the sort of unguarded drama they used to make in the ‘80s” … “a coming-of-age tale of unabashed earnestness” … “a delirious and romantic rock ‘n roll parable” … and an “incandescent ode to the life force of pop music.”

Tropic Sprockets: Maiden

Tracy Edwards not only conquered the roil of the sea and its formless motion but she subverted pompous male-dominated beliefs, turning them into stagnant water, brackish and stale.

Front Row at the Movies: The Farewell

Suppose your grandmother was dying. Do you give her the bad news? Or do you hold a surreptitious family reunion where everyone can say farewell without the old woman realizing that her end is near? A good idea? Even Lulu Wang, the writer-director of “The Farewell,” seems somewhat ambivalent.

Front Row at the Movies: All is True

Fact is, not much is actually known about Shakespeare’s later years, but Ben Elton’s speculative script doesn’t get bogged down with worrying about factual history any more than the Bard’s “Henry VIII” did. It’s like that old saying goes: Never let facts get in the way of a good story.

Tropic Sprockets: All is True

Though it has trappings of a PBS production with its lingering glances, its score and some melodramatic pauses, the intensity of Branagh is satisfying and authentic. The film makes a companion piece, albeit in a minor key, to the director’s more ambitious efforts.

Tropic Sprockets: Sword of Trust

“The Sword of Trust” is a laugh out loud comedy, a silly scythe with thrust. It is both an antidote to and an analysis of our disparate national identities.

Front Row at the Movies: The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Thomas Wolfe wrote “You Can’t Go Home Again.” That’s kinda the theme of a film called “The Last Black Man in San Francisco" -- but in this case Jimmie Falls did.

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Movie Reviews

Front Row at the Movies: Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Tropic Sprockets: Blinded by the Light

Tropic Sprockets: Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Front Row at the Movies: Blinded by the Light

Tropic Sprockets: Maiden

Front Row at the Movies: The Farewell

Front Row at the Movies: All is True

Tropic Sprockets: All is True

Tropic Sprockets: Sword of Trust

Front Row at the Movies: The Last Black Man in San Francisco

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