Keep New Times Free

Our Critics’ Picks for Movies to See ASAP

Friday, September 30, 2016 at 1:35 p.m.

Courtesy of 20th Century Fox Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: The conventional wisdom about early-career Tim Burton is that he was an imaginative visual stylist but not a great storyteller. It’s an undeniable fact that over his four-decade career, Burton has created fantastic characters who are now permanent installations in the popular imagination — no other filmmaker would have conceived the likes of Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Jack Nicholson’s Joker, Johnny Depp’s Ed Wood. In this Burton is brilliant, and it's a credit to his good taste that those roles are also outstanding collaborations with their respective actors. Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) is another. —Chris Packham

For more, read our review of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. 1/10

Courtesy of Lionsgate Deepwater Horizon: Deepwater Horizon is the most entertaining Hollywood disaster movie in years. I’m sorry — is that a terrible thing to say? Peter Berg’s film is based on the true story of the BP-leased, Transocean-owned deepwater drilling rig that in 2010 exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 and causing an environmental catastrophe that devastated the region. Berg brings the requisite gravity to this real-life tragedy, but his movie truly comes alive when things go boom, when the mud and oil start spraying and the bodies start flying. —Bilge Ebiri

For more, read our review of Deepwater Horizon. 2/10

Courtesy of Janus Films Cameraperson: “These are the images that have marked me and leave me wondering still.” That's how Kirsten Johnson prefaces Cameraperson, made up of footage she has collected over 25 years of working as a camera operator, cinematographer and director on dozens of different documentaries — films like Laura Poitras’ The Oath (2010) and Citizenfour (2014), Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick’s Derrida (2002) and Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). Leave me wondering still: Those words evoke a sense of mystery, of incompleteness, which is exactly the right frame of mind in which to watch Johnson’s own mesmerizing film. —Bilge Ebiri

For more, read our review of Cameraperson. 3/10

Courtesy of the Orchard Demon: Demon, while not straight horror, has one foot in the genre (the other, of course, is in the grave). Wrona's tale concerns a groom-to-be who, while digging outside his and his fiancée's new fixer-upper of a home, uncovers skeletal remains — and keeps the secret to himself. This is mythically verboten, it would seem, as by the time Piotr (Itay Tiran) lets anyone in on his discovery the damage is already done: His body is now home to Hana, a Jew whose mysterious death during the height of World War II has entered the realm of local legend. —Michael Nordine

For more, read our review of Demon. 4/10

Courtesy of BBC Worldwide America London Road: In the States, plays have cropped up around devastating events, such as Matthew Shepard’s murder and the Sandy Hook massacre, with playwrights circulating in the communities for months — sometimes years — to record interviews with normal people whom the news vans might have overlooked. The effects of these plays in performance are often more impactful than a reporter simply writing a story. Playwright Alecky Blythe’s daring and endearing London Road — first a stage play and now a feature film, both directed by Rufus Norris — tackles a small English town rocked by a serial killer. And it’s also a musical. —April Wolfe

For more, read our review of London Road. 5/10

Courtesy of Universal Pictures Bridget Jones's Baby: At the start of Bridget Jones’s Baby, our intrepid heroine (Renée Zellweger) seems back at square one: alone on an important night, consoling herself by drinking wine and singing along to “All by Myself.” (Could those be the same pajama bottoms she wore in Bridget Jones’s Diary?) Zellweger’s voice-over strikes the familiar self-excoriating tone as Bridget reminds herself of the gap between aspirations and outcome. But as much as this latest installment draws on affection for the snappy first film, which blended Absolutely Fabulous with Pride and Prejudice (sans zombies), it’s the differences that make Bridget Jones’s Baby the warmest and most satisfying of the series. —Serena Donadoni

For more, read our review of Bridget Jones's Baby. 6/10

Courtesy of American Experience FIlms Command and Control: Command and Control is frightening for a whole pants-shitting list of reasons, but perhaps the scariest is that the near-detonation of a nuclear warhead in 1980 was sparked by the tiniest imaginable accident. A technician working on a Titan missile in a Damascus, Arkansas, silo dropped a wrench socket from a height of 70 feet; it bounced off a platform and punctured the missile’s fuel tank, releasing an aerosol of pressurized hypergolic fuel into the silo and bunker. —Chris Packham

For more, read our review of Command and Control. 7/10

Courtesy of Conijn Films A Family Affair: Delving into your own family drama may ensure easy access, but it's a risky endeavor for a documentarian who doesn't know what he or she may uncover. A Family Affair, a documentary directed by Dutch filmmaker Tom Fassaert, offers an ambivalent portrait of Fassaert's larger-than-life estranged grandmother, who lives a seemingly glamorous but solitary existence in South Africa. —Abby Garnett

For more, read our review of A Family Affair. 8/10

Courtesy of Lightyear Entertainment Tanna: The sight of kids joyously playing with a "penis sheath" is enough to make Tanna recommendable, but fortunately, there's also far more to Bentley Dean and Martin Butler's ethnographic drama, which was filmed on – and stars natives of – the South Pacific island that gives the film its title. Awash in natural light that gently cascades over the area's dense foliage, as well as in portentous darkness illuminated by a volcano's sparkling bursts of lava, Tanna charts the fallout from the romance that blossoms between young Wawa (Marie Wawa) and Dain (Mungau Dain). —Nick Schager

For more, read our review of Tanna. 9/10

Courtesy of Outsider Pictures The Vessel: Magical realist Terrence Malick only produced dreamlike allegory The Vessel, a spiritual fable about an island community that comes to life 10 years after its destruction in a tsunami. But Malick's expressionistic style has clearly inspired writer-director Julio Quintana's technique and transcendental worldview. Quintana uses fluid tracking shots and the omnipresent roar of crashing waves to capture the air of expectation and anxiety that overtakes an unnamed island's inhabitants after reluctant secular leader Leo (Lucas Quintana) builds a mysterious shrine dedicated to local tsunami victims. —Simon Abrams

For more, read our review of The Vessel. 10/10

Our Critics’ Picks for Movies to See ASAP

Our intrepid film critics logged some serious hours in front of the silver screen this month to pick their favorite films of September 2016. If a few haven’t opened in a theater near you just yet, don’t fret: There’s always a chance you’ll be able to stream them on your small screen.

_{Up Next:}