September movie reviews

In theaters:

BEAST

Idris Elba's family trip to Africa takes a bad turn when they encounter a bloodthirsty lion. It's a pretty lean, mean thriller, and well made. The CGI lion is very convincing. Elba is a strong lead of course.

THE INVITATION

Nathalie Emmanuel thinks she's discovered some extended family, but oh would you look at that they're vampires. This movie has nothing new to offer the genre (and is PG13 for some reason) and despite the joys of getting to look at Emmanuel in every scene is quite dull. But you do get a pretty good finale. 

BARBARIAN

Two guests at an Air BnB find out they picked just about the worst house ever to stay at in this horror movie, which at times is quite effective at turning the screws and making you nervous. The structure is weird and halts the momentum of a pretty excellent opening third, but it recovers, and offers up some grotesquely memorable sequences. 

PEARL

A prequel movie to X, starring Mia Goth as the younger version of the crazy old murderous lady from that film. I was mild on X but Pearl is great. Chief reason for that is Mia Goth, who gives a truly spectacular performance, one of the very best I have ever seen in a horror film, and possibly the best I have seen all year in anything. She balances sympathy and creepiness like nothing I have ever seen before, and has an already legendary long monologue towards the end. It kind of overwhelms the rest of the movie, which itself is well made and stylized. 

THE SILENT TWINS

Based off an interesting story about twin sisters who seemingly made a choice to never speak, except to each other. Letitia Wright plays one of them as an adult. The story itself, which from what I can gather is told very close to the truth, is able to carry the film along. You want to know why these girls are doing this. There is some visual creativity to the movie too. Nothing I would want to see again, but worth one watch. 

THE WOMAN KING

Based on a real tribe of African warrior women, although in a movie that is clearly very fictionalized (including an out of place drippy romantic subplot). It's quite good. Viola Davis is great and kicks ass. Quality ensemble with a few other familiar faces. Director Gina Prince-Bythewood stages some outstanding battle sequences.

DON'T WORRY DARLING

This movie attracted an extraordinary amount of pre-release controversy. I wasn't too interested in that. It's not surprising to me that Olivia Wilde is awful. But I still loved Booksmart. This film is way different, and mixes several genres at once. Its similarities to other films are many, but I will say that reviews calling this some disaster are trying too hard. It's a mess for sure, but I was never bored. The shining star of this is Florence Pugh, an incredible actress who is arguably her best ever here. She alone raises this film up a few points. She blows her less talented co-stars (Harry Styles, and Wilde) off the screen. The twist this film has is odd, but I have seen similar twists attempted far worse than this. 

SEE HOW THEY RUN

An at times annoyingly self aware murder mystery. Feels like someone saw Knives Out and wanted to do their copy of it. But other than a delightfully cheerful performance by Saoirse Ronan, this one doesn't have a lot of life to it, and I could not possibly have been less invested in finding out whodunit. 

Everything else:

9/11

A group of people are trapped in an elevator inside WTC. No this isn't based on anything true, it's just using the real life backdrop to manufacture drama. I watched it expecting something memorably awful (I mean, Charlie Sheen is in it) but aside from the exploitative nature of it and the cheap look, it is made competently enough and the acting isn't that bad. 

GONE IN THE NIGHT

Oddly this has a similar setup to Barbarian, as Winona Ryder and her boyfriend show up at a cabin only to find a couple already there. Then the boyfriend disappears. The movie, presented as a horror movie but more like a drama, jumps around in time sometimes for no real reason. It has a truly loopy climax that reveals what has been going on, but getting to this point is kind of a bore.