Film Reviews | Salt Lake City Weekly
Support the Free Press | Facts matter. Truth matters. Journalism matters
Salt Lake City Weekly has been Utah's source of independent news and in-depth journalism since 1984. Donate today to ensure the legacy continues.

Film Reviews

Fall Movie Preview 2024

Wicked, A Complete Unknown and sequels to Moana, Joker, Venom, Gladiator and more.
By Scott Renshaw

September 2024 Special Movie Screenings

Salt Lake Film Society Tower of Terror, Jurassic Park in Concert, Wasatch Mountain Film Festival and more
By Scott Renshaw

Movies about evil AI

Ahead of the opening of AfrAId, more movies about sentient computers gone bad.
By Scott Renshaw
Fall Movie Preview 2024
Fall Movie Preview 2024

Fall Movie Preview 2024

Wicked, A Complete Unknown and sequels to Moana, Joker, Venom, Gladiator and more.
The lines between movie "seasons" are pretty blurry nowadays. Summer isn't just about franchise blockbusters, and fall isn't just about awards-bait dramas.

By Scott Renshaw September 11, 2024

Film Reviews: Between the Temples, Good One, The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat
Film Reviews: Between the Temples, Good One, The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat

Film Reviews: Between the Temples, Good One, The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat

Complicated relationship dynamics drive three new features.
Director/co-writer Nathan Silver and co-writer C. Mason Wells mix a little quintessential Sundance quirk into their throwback New Hollywood vibe, resulting in a dramedy that's enjoyable, awkward, and enjoyably awkward.

By Scott Renshaw August 21, 2024

Movie Reviews: My Penguin Friend, Sing Sing, Skincare
Movie Reviews: My Penguin Friend, Sing Sing, Skincare

Movie Reviews: My Penguin Friend, Sing Sing, Skincare

New features hitting local theaters.
Never underestimate the ability of cute animals to carry a movie a long way, nor how relatively bland that same movie can seem when the cute animal isn't around.

By Scott Renshaw August 14, 2024

Movie reviews: Dìdi, The Instigators, Daughters
Movie reviews: Dìdi, The Instigators, Daughters

Movie reviews: Dìdi, The Instigators, Daughters

New releases in theaters and streaming services
You can spot pieces of a dozen other coming-of-age tales in writer/director Sean Wang's debut feature, but he melds them so deftly with the specificity of his characters' time, place and cultural background that it never feels like you've seen it all before.

By Scott Renshaw August 7, 2024

KNEECAP capsule review, August 2024 special screenings calendar
KNEECAP capsule review, August 2024 special screenings calendar

KNEECAP capsule review, August 2024 special screenings calendar

Web sub: Silent Fallout, Serenity, The Maltese Falcon, Back to Hogwarts and more.
Writer/director Rich Peppiatt brings a punky, anarchic energy to this fictionalized biography of the Belfast-based hip-hop trio Kneecap, but the fun gets tangled up in the political framework and too many subplots to really keep them all humming.

By Scott Renshaw July 31, 2024

Movie Review: DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
Movie Review: DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

Movie Review: DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman play Marvel Universe satire as crying-on-the-inside clowns.
The eternal psychoanalysis of perpetually wise-cracking pop-culture characters is that, deep down, they just want to be loved.

By Scott Renshaw July 24, 2024

Film Reviews: National Anthem, Widow Clicquot, Skywalkers: A Love Story
Film Reviews: National Anthem, Widow Clicquot, Skywalkers: A Love Story

Film Reviews: National Anthem, Widow Clicquot, Skywalkers: A Love Story

New releases cover a trio of unconventional romances
A heist thriller crossed with a complicated romance, Skywalkers is the kind of documentary for people who might not think they're into other kinds of documentaries—provided, that is, they don't also have crippling vertigo.

By Scott Renshaw July 17, 2024

Overview of the LION KING media universe
Overview of the LION KING media universe

Overview of the LION KING media universe

Sequels, prequels, midquels and remakes of Disney's animated classic
At the peak of the 1990s "Disney Renaissance," the animation braintrust turned to not another fairy-tale libretto, but an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet set on the savannah.

By Scott Renshaw July 10, 2024

Despicable Me 4 and July special screenings
Despicable Me 4 and July special screenings

Despicable Me 4 and July special screenings

Sundance Local Lens, Utah Film Center summer series and more
I understand intuitively that what for me is a big problem with Despicable Me 4 might actually be the franchise distilled to its purest essence

By Scott Renshaw July 3, 2024

Feature movie review: KINDS OF KINDNESS
Feature movie review: KINDS OF KINDNESS

Feature movie review: KINDS OF KINDNESS

Yorgos Lanthimos aims a daringly misanthropic adult tale at multiplex audiences
It's not that there aren't plenty of films being released all the time that are adventurous, challenging or just plain odd.

By MaryAnn Johanson June 26, 2024

Feature movie review: THELMA
Feature movie review: THELMA

Feature movie review: THELMA

Finding fun and complexity in the idea that you're never too old to be an action hero.
"I don't feel old," Thelma insists to Daniel, and Thelma the movie feels absolutely driven by that idea, in complicated and sometimes bittersweet ways.

By Scott Renshaw June 19, 2024

Nostalgia and the movies of 1984
Nostalgia and the movies of 1984

Nostalgia and the movies of 1984

What we remember as the best, and why
As the calendar turned to 2024, I began mentally cracking my knuckles.

By Scott Renshaw June 12, 2024

Movie reviews: Hit Man, Songs of Earth, Am I OK?
Movie reviews: Hit Man, Songs of Earth, Am I OK?

Movie reviews: Hit Man, Songs of Earth, Am I OK?

New releases outside the multiplex mainstream
Richard Linklater has spent more than 30 years being so good at making risk-taking indie cinema that it's easy to forget how great he can also be at pure pop entertainment.

By Scott Renshaw June 5, 2024

New theatrical releases and June special screenings
New theatrical releases and June special screenings

New theatrical releases and June special screenings

ROBOT DREAMS, THE DEAD DON'T HURT, Megaplex Theatres Summer Movies and more.
Pop culture has unfortunately narrowed the definition for what is considered a "love story"

By Scott Renshaw May 29, 2024

Feature movie review: FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA
Feature movie review: FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

Feature movie review: FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

The post-apocalyptic franchise continues to be a completely unique blockbuster series.
When Mad Max: Fury Road appeared in the summer of 2015, it emerged into a cinematic world where it felt like a unicorn.

By Scott Renshaw May 22, 2024

Feature movie review: WE GROWN NOW
Feature movie review: WE GROWN NOW

Feature movie review: WE GROWN NOW

Period-piece drama finds quiet power in how hard it is to keep kids safe
The bleakness and violence in the setting of writer/director Minhal Baig's We Grown Now —the Cabrini Green housing projects of Chicago circa 1992—makes its way onto the screen in indirect ways.

By Scott Renshaw May 8, 2024

More »
···

© 2024 Salt Lake City Weekly

Website powered by Foundation