Weekend Film Reviews

Forty-one years ago, a pipe bomb went off at the office of a Palestinian-American activist named Alex Odeh. Odeh, a father of three, was killed in the seemingly targeted assasination. Decades later, the FBI still has not determined who was behind the attack. In Who Killed Alex Odeh? , two filmmakers take viewers on a journey from Orange County to Israel to investigate why. “It doesn’t...

In 1972, filmmaker William Greaves gathered surviving members of the Harlem Renaissance at Duke Ellington’s townhouse for cocktails and debate. They reminisced about the movement they built and argued over its meaning as Greaves recorded everything. It was never released — Greaves died in 2014 without completing the film — but now his son, David Greaves, has finished the job, edi...

Disgraced tech CEO Elizabeth Holmes has made a few curious decisions throughout her life. The most perplexing may be inviting absurdist comedian Nathan Fielder to make a documentary about her in the 34 days before she went to prison for defrauding investors. Film critic Tim Grierson says the result is “a kind of standoff” between Fielder and Holmes, who have something in common: neithe...

Billionaire tech CEOs are villainized in two big releases this week: The Social Reckoning, a dramatization of Mark Zuckerberg’s showdown with a Facebook whistleblower, and Musk, a documentary about Elon Musk. Critics Amy Nicholson and Katie Walsh say that the films, while informative, turn unpleasant men into unpleasant viewing. Zuckerberg is portrayed before “his bro-y makeover,&rdquo...

It took world-class makeup and prosthetics to turn Tom Cruise into Digger Rockwell, the titular star of Alejandro Iñáritu’s climate apocalypse satire Digger – even though Rockwell happens to be roughly as old as Cruise is in real life. The actor’s dramatic physical transformation is one of many heightened choices in the film, which, according to critic Christy Lemir...

NBC’s hidden camera series, To Catch a Predator , transfixed audiences in the early 2000s. Host Chris Hansen baited suspected child predators with actors playing minors, then intervened at the last second with police. A new film, Primetime , asks whether this was moral. “After the screening, I couldn’t get home fast enough to take a shower,” says Shawn Edwards , film critic...

What do you know about concrete? Not much, reckons John Wilson, the deliciously awkward filmmaker behind the HBO series How To with John Wilson. That show is an exercise in misdirection: each episode begins as a tutorial, narrated by Wilson, on how to complete a certain task — before meandering into unexpected territory. In keeping with that model, his new film, The History of Concrete , is...

There’s no outrunning it. Anyone writing a monster movie must eventually decide whether or not they’re going to show their monster. As Steven Spielberg demonstrated in Jaws , it’s usually more frightening to hide the face of the beast. But if the credits roll and it’s still hidden, the audience is going to be mad. In Hope , an alien movie set just south of the Korean DMZ, d...

Forget “6-7.” In 1990s Middletown, New York, a high school class figured out how to really drive the adults crazy: exposing a toxic waste scandal in their backyard. A new documentary, Teenage Wasteland, tells the true story of a group of students that stumbled onto a major scoop. To uncover the truth, they followed the money, grilled corrupt local officials and got on the wrong side of...

After decades of unsuccessful attempts to catch Roadrunner using anvils, jet packs, and rockets strapped to roller skates, Wile E. Coyote (caninus litigious) has a new weapon in his arsenal: #BigLaw. But Mr. Coyote is now directing his ire toward the Acme Corporation, which manufactures said devices that always seem to literally blow up in his face. Shawn Edwards, film critic at Fox4 News in Kansa...

It’s rarely a good sign if you’ve devoted hours to a horror franchise and you still aren’t sure what it’s about. But film critic Alonso Duralde gave it a try with Insidious: Out of The Further. “I’ve seen five of the six Insidious movies, and I feel like I still couldn’t pass a pop quiz about what ‘The Further’ is and how it works,” says...

There are a few indispensable ingredients in any stoner flick worth its weight in weed. After drug-addled antics, the most important ingredient could be the friends we made along the way. Cheech and Chong. The Dude and Walter. Harold and Kumar. Stoner comedies seem to always follow a pair of buddies – and those buddies are usually men. That’s not true of The Wrong Girls, which stars Kr...

Anthony Bourdain swears that he used to be unlikeable. That’s hard to believe for many fans of the late celebrity chef, but he wrote frankly about that period of his life in his best-selling memoir, Kitchen Confidential. The biopic Tony looks at the year he spent in Provincetown, Massachusetts, learning how to show up to work on time and, slowly, how to cook. His brattiness is key to the suc...

Gregg Araki is one of the most important directors in the New Queer Cinema, the 1990s film movement that put daring and dark LGBTQ stories onscreen and produced household names like Gus Van Sant and Todd Haynes. Araki’s movies The Living End and Doom Generation followed cynical queer teenagers as they wrestled with sex and death in an America that didn’t want or understand them. I Want...

Luis Valdez is widely known as the Godfather of Chicano theater. He directed the 1987 movie 'La Bamba' and the 1981 film 'Zoot Suit.' But Valdez also founded El Teatro Campesino, the in-house theater troupe for the United Farm Workers. His life is now the subject of a new documentary, ‘American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez.’ Film critics Dave White and Alonso Duralde call the fil...

'The Odyssey' discourse has been hard to escape ever since the cast was first announced early 2025 . The film finally hits theaters this weekend, but does it live up to Homer’s epic poem? “If you're going to make a film about that work … it has to have such scale and it absolutely does,” says film critic Tim Grierson. Co-critic Angelica Jade Bastién adds “it's...

'Moana' is the latest Disney movie to get the live-action treatment. Unfortunately, everything about the remake “feels artificial” for our film critics Witney Seibold and Katie Walsh . The pair also share their reviews of 'Night Nurse,' 'Evil Dead Burn,' and 'Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.'

The Minions franchise keeps growing with its latest installment Minions and Monsters . The film follows the yellow friends as they try to make a monster movie with real monsters. Chaos ensues, but is it a hit? Film critics Christy Lemire and William Bibbiani share their review. Plus: Enola Holmes 3 , Young Washington , and Romeria .

Johnny Knoxville and his band of misfits return to the big screen for one more round of gross and outrageous stunts in 'Jackass: Best and Last.' Film critics Alissa Wilkinson and Amy Nicholson review the fifth and last film in the series. Plus: 'Supergirl,' 'The Invite,' and 'Maddie’s Secret.'

Move over, Evil Emperor Zurg, Sworn Enemy of The Galactic Alliance. The latest Toy Story villain is an electronic tablet stealing a child's attention from her toys.

In  Disclosure Day, a government whistleblower and a local journalist race to expose the existence of aliens and the conspiracy to cover it up. Shawn Edwards, film critic for FOX4 News in Kansas City and co-founder of the African American Film Critics Association, calls this the third act in Spielberg's “space invaders” trilogy, dating back to Close Encounters of the Third Kind an...

'Masters of the Universe' is Mattel’s latest adaptation. The company is banking on the film to be a big hit like 'Barbie,' but critics Alison Willmore and Tim Grierson say He-Man’s return is a big mess. Plus 'Scary Movie,' 'Carolina Caroline,' and 'The Currents.'

The new World War II movie 'Pressure' tells the true, but not well known story of a British meteorologist who tries to predict the weather ahead of D-Day and warns Eisenhower of a pending storm. Does it add anything to the World War II film canon or is it a bust? Film critics Alonso Duralde and Dave White share their review. Plus, 'Backrooms,' 'Power Ballad,' and 'The Last Viking.'

'The Mandolorian and Grogu' is the first 'Star Wars' film in seven years to play in theaters. Will Baby Yoda (aka Grogu) be enough to pull in audiences? Film critics Shawn Edwards and Katie Walsh review the film. Plus 'Saccharine', 'I Love Boosters,' and 'Tuner.'

In the new film 'Is God Is,' two sisters are sent by their mother on a mission to kill their abusive father. Film critics Witney Seibold and William Bibbiani dub the directorial debut from Aleshea Harris "bold and exciting." Plus: 'The Wizard of the Kremlin,' 'Decorado,' and 'Obsession.'