October movie reviews

In theaters:

THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER

Well, I suppose this is was better than David Gordon Green's Halloween movies. But not by much. This film is just a dull slog, generating no tension. And what they do to Ellen Burstyn here, reprising her role from the original, is criminal. 

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

Martin Scorsese's 3 1/2 hour epic mostly lives up to the hype. I mean, you feel the length for sure, and I wish there had been more early scenes of the Leonardo DiCaprio-Lily Gladstone relationship to sell that part of the story. But the story is deeply involving and coldly matter of fact about racism and evil in a way few films are. The main trio of performances are all stellar, especially the unshowy Gladstone and the chillingly diabolical Robert Deniro. Of course from a technical standpoint the film is impeccable. And it delivers a very unexpected gut punch of an ending in a most unexpected and creative way. 


Everything else:

HE'S ALL THAT

Randomly watched the gender-swapped Netflix remake of She's All That. The opening minutes were so cringe-inducing I almost turned it off, but I stuck with it and it turned out...okay. Addison Rae is a pretty cute lead, albeit with iffy acting chops. Rachael Leigh Cook and Matthew Lillard show up as random cameos.
 

ALL SUMMERS END

I was a little puzzled why a 2017 film featured its actors looking so young. Turns out this thing was shot 4 years earlier. A trio of kids play a prank with tragic consequences. One of them, the excellent Tye Sheridan, starts dating a girl (Kaitlyn Dever, also tremendous) affected by the tragedy. So of course there's the tension of when this gets revealed, and the way it does is pretty clunky, but most of the film is a very solid and well acted coming of age drama. 

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