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: Blue Moon

Lorenz Hart was half of the groundbreaking songwriting team of Rodgers and Hart, responsible for some 500 Broadway songs. Director Richard Linklater and star Ethan Hawke bring the tortured aspect of this brilliant writer to life. 

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Tropic Sprockets: The Mastermind

With a slow lingering camera, the visionary of understatement Kelly Reichardt captures a snapshot in time of the average man fighting for some degree of status and notoriety within an America rife in unrest.

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Front Row at the Movies: Farewell Top 10

People are always asking film critics to name their favorite movie. That’s a bit tricky. So, as I retire my weekly "Front Row at the Movies" column, I thought I’d leave you readers with a list of my Top 10 personal movie favorites.

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Tropic Sprockets: Frankenstein

The maestro of melancholy, Guillermo del Toro, scores with his version of “Frankenstein.” The film is terrific for illustrating the heart and pain of the creature along with the mad egotism of the creator.

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Tropic Sprockets: Ballad of a Small Player

Though this film sounds only one note of crippling addiction, the visualization is startling in its pyrotechnic representation of Macau, a dragon that swallows Lord Doyle (Colin Farrell) whole without so much as a belch.

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Front Row at the Movies: My “Last” Movie Review

This is my “last” movie review. “Front Row at the Movies” is ending. After all, I am growing older (nearly 84), tired of weekly deadlines, ready to watch films for my singular enjoyment. So, I thought this last review might cover a lifetime of moviegoing.

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Tropic Sprockets: Good Fortune

While influenced by John Landis’s “Trading Places” and the adolescent mania of Judd Apatow’s “Superbad,“ Aziz Ansari’s “Good Fortune” has a gentle positive and unassuming spirit all its own while giving the appropriate devil’s due to the 1%.

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Tropic Sprockets: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

In singing about the American male: modest, loyal, and sincere, yet confronted by a faceless, modern, and increasingly selfish world, there is no equal to Bruce Springsteen. In the new filmdirected by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart), we get a brief portrait of the songwriter during a pivotal time in his life.

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Front Row at the Movies: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

“Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” is very much a period piece, “an evocation of both a moment in Springsteen’s career and an era in pop music that have both long receded into history.”

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Tropic Sprockets: Roofman

This is an even and entertaining portrait of a somewhat capricious and rebellious yet oddly sincere man who heads for the roof more often than Santa Claus.

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