Most Anticipated Movies Of September 2021!

And just like that we are at the final quarter of 2021! September is a bit on the weak side when it comes to movies, it’s like an appetizer that while it’s good you wish you could have had a little more. Especially when you compare it to October (which in my opinion has the best lineup of movies of any month this year) November and December (both have really strong lineups as well. But there are movies to look forward to in September so let’s talk about them!

One other thing before we start, I made the decision to exclude The Guilty while yes it is getting a theater release in September it’s a very small one. The Guilty is going to be released on Netflix in October so I will be counting it as an October movie! With that out of the way let’s get started! O

ne last thing I’m not going to go in great detail with all the movies because unfortunately certain studios really don’t say too much about their releases, sometimes they leave you with a plot and one trailer then that’s it until it actually comes out. So if one movie that is ranked lower has a much bigger description than a movie that’s ranked higher that’s why.

Like always let’s start from the bottom!

21. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – This was one of those movies that jumped around from release date to release date due to COVID until Amazon got the rights to it and will now be releasing it. I was pretty excited for this movie when the trailer first came out but over time the hype around this movie just died down for me. I’m sure it will be a fun movie though! It releases September 17th on Amazon Prime Video!

20. The Voyeurs – I’m watching this movie mostly due to the cast (love Sydney Sweeney) this was kind of a wildcard for the list. The trailer was interesting enough hope this will be good! It releases September 10th on Amazon Prime Video!

19. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster – This one is pretty straightforward, it’s a documentary about well Boris Karloff who played Frankenstein’s monster. Not much really else to say…it releases September 17th in theaters

18. We Need To Do Something – This is the first of a handful of movies I already saw on this list, I saw this one back at the Tribeca Film Festival and it’s quite great, it’s one of those horror movies that restricts itself to one area and slowly gets more and more bonkers as it goes on. Some people are definitely going to like this movie, others aren’t really going to be a fan. I found it to be a solid enough movie that’s worth a recommendation. It releases September 3rd on all VOD Platforms!

17. Shang-Chi – I had a hard time deciding where to put Shang-Chi if I’m going to be honest, on one hand the action scenes seem really neat and I am interested to see what they do with the character. However from the trailers it really looks like just another origin story, plus you have Eternals and Spider-Man that just look so much better thrown into the mix. We will just have to see how it is, which we won’t have to wait long because it releases in theaters September 3rd!

16. Surge – This one was in release date limbo for awhile, I’m glad to see it finally being released! The plot sounds interesting and the trailer is solid. Surge releases September 24th on all VOD Platforms!

15. Scooby-Doo Meets Courage The Cowardly Dog – Combining two of my favorite cartoons as a kid immediately gets my attention, plus this is a crossover that should have happened years ago, Courage The Cowardly Dog remains as one of my favorite cartoons of all time. So it’s nice to see the cartoon get something in 2021, plus I can definitely see this crossover working! It releases September 14th on all VOD Platforms!

14. Dating & New York – Yet another film I saw at the Tribeca Film Festival, Dating & New York takes a familiar story and manages to make things interesting, the acting is great, the atmosphere is fairytale like and it’s just an overall enjoyable movie as well as being quite solid! Dating & New York releases on all VOD Platforms September 10th!

13. Blue Bayou – Despite the very mediocre reception for this movie, I’m still pretty interested in this one I really like Alicia Vikander, Justin Chon is a fun actor and the story does interest me. The trailer seems promising enough I’m just hoping that it’s at least solid! It releases September 17th in theaters!

12. The Starling – This is definitely an interesting one, it’s a comedy drama with Melissa McCarthy and its directed by Theodore Melfi the director of St.Vincent and Hidden Figures. It seems promising enough and I hope this will be a good performance from Melissa McCarthy! It releases September 17th in theaters and September 24th on Netflix!

11. I’m Your Man – This one seems like a very interesting take on the romance genre, the trailer definitely has me intrigued! It releases September 24th in theaters

10. Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter To Los Angeles – Going to be real short on this one, it’s basically a concert of Billie Eilish’s new album that came out not too long ago, with that said I’m still excited! A lot of these concert movie type things are always fun to watch and I’m glad to see they aren’t going to go away anytime soon! It releases September 3rd on Disney+

9. Malignant – I’m so glad this movie is finally releasing, James Wan is back with a new horror film. I’ve wanted James Wan to do another horror movie for awhile now, his last horror movie was in 2016 with The Conjuring 2! Malignant seems pretty solid, I’m not completely won over by the trailer but I do have hope that James Wan will make this movie really interesting! It releases September 10th on HBO Max!

8. The Eyes Of Tammy Faye – With September starting tomorrow that means award season is here and The Eyes Of Tammy Faye is definitely one of those movies that might be able to get into a few categories! Jessica Chastain looks pretty fantastic and while I’m not as excited for this movie as I am with other films that look like they could be award films, I still think this looks quite solid! It releases September 17th in Theaters!

7. Worth – Really Interested in this one and I’m glad it’s finally releasing, Worth is about lawyer Kenneth Feinberg who battles cynicism, bureaucracy and politics to help the victims of 9/11. It releases September 3rd on Netflix!

6. Language Lessons – I saw this one back at SXSW and it was one of the best of the festival. It’s one of the only movies that is COVID related to actually be quite fantastic, Natalie Morales does such a fantastic job with this film and truly delivers so much human type atmosphere to it. Meaning emotion, character moments and raw performances. It’s a beautiful movie that I absolutely highly recommend people see when it releases which is September 10th in theaters (I could almost swear it was set for a VOD release as well, I’ll make an update if I do end up finding out that it does have a VOD release!)

5. The Nowhere Inn- I’ve been looking forward to this movie for the longest time, the trailer seems interesting and the reviews I’ve seen have been pretty solid as well! It releases September 17th on all VOD Platforms!

4. Ema – So I should not had put this on my August list mostly due to it getting a small theater release. This month it gets it’s VOD release which is September 14th, it looks really great and I’ve heard it’s fantastic you have heard me talk about this already let’s move on.

3. Prisoners Of The Ghostland – Nicolas Cage is here with yet another film, I saw this back at Sundance and I’m truly excited to see this one again! Prisoners Of The Ghostland is such a bizarre movie that I’m unsure how audiences are going to react, some people will absolutely love it others won’t like it. I will say that it’s some of the most fun I’ve had with a movie so far this year and yes there are Nicolas Cage moments! It releases September 17th on all VOD Platforms!

2. The Year Of The Everlasting Storm – I love anthology films and this is one of them it’s seven stories from seven directors from around the world who chronicle the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. From what I’ve heard about it it’s quite fantastic and I’m truly excited to watch it!! It releases September 3rd in theaters!

1. Dear Evan Hansen – Ever since the trailer I’ve been really excited for this one, I’ve never seen the play but I’m just a huge sucker for musicals and this definitely seems like a very fun one!!

And that is all folks! One more thing!! I will be participating in the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF) and I’m currently figuring out the New York Film Festival! So keep an eye out for reviews for both those festivals!!

Stillwater delivers great performances but feels a little too safe where it could have been more.

A father travels from Oklahoma to France to help his estranged daughter, who is in prison for a murder she claims she didn’t commit.

Well it’s a huge step up from Tom McCarthy’s last movie “Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made (2020)” Stillwater is actually quite a decent movie that tells a story that does have it’s powerful moments, Matt Damon does a pretty solid job in his role even if his character does feel very one dimensional at times. Abigail Breslin I truly wish was given more to do, because she is quite great here the problem is she doesn’t have a whole lot to work with and is only really used for the plot. Which does lead me to the whole controversy about Stillwater, apparently it was reveled that Stillwater was loosely based on Amanda Knox’s case, Amanda Knox herself commented about this movie and was not happy at all. She says that nobody working on the film approached her about it and that it feels like a very watered down version of her case. Which I can easily see what she’s saying, as of writing this review Tom McCarthy has denied it being about Amanda Knox and I’m not sure where this situation is going to go. Anyway back to the movie itself, the writing has it’s moments of power where you feel the connection between father and daughter however there are other times where I wish the script hit a lot harder. The direction from Tom McCarthy is very generic, I was hoping this would be the movie to bring back the sort of direction he showed in Spotlight but that’s not the case here. The character study moments I definitely think are the strongest parts about this movie, it gives some of the characters who truly do lack a lot of development Something to work with and make them far better for the audience to invest in. There really isn’t much else to Stillwater, it’s a very okay movie that could have been much better had the script and direction been much stronger.

Stillwater is now available on all VOD Platforms!

6/10 C+

Respect highlights Jennifer Hudson’s talent but unfortunately misses it’s mark in a lot of areas.

Following the rise of Aretha Franklin’s career — from a child singing in her father’s church choir to her international superstardom — it’s the remarkable true story of the music icon’s journey to find her voice.

Respect is one of those films that should have been much stronger than it ended up being, let’s get the obvious out of the way Jennifer Hudson does an incredible job in her role as Aretha Franklin, she captures the spirit of Franklin and gives such a fantastic performance with all the songs. There’s other great bits here and there but it ultimately comes down to Hudson’s performance, while everything else isn’t bad it should have been so much stronger. The first hour of the movie is rough, it definitely has it’s moments but for the most part the writing really does not help at all. What Respect mostly struggles with is innovation and soul, there just seems to be not a whole of inspiration certain scenes. It’s like everyone settled with Respect being a standard biopic and nothing more. The performances are all well done thanks to Jennifer Hudson who brings as much energy and power to the songs due to her talent, I couldn’t help but feel that if the movie had more innovation that some of the performances would have been even stronger. Lastly there’s the running time which should not have been 2 hours and 35 minutes, they could have easily cut out a bunch of scenes and nothing would have really changed, overall Respect is not a bad movie at all. It has a ton of great moments plus Jennifer Hudson, but I do wish it was a much better movie.

Respect is now available on all VOD Platforms!

6/10 C+

Vacation Friends isn’t quite the fun vacation you would want.

A couple meets up with another couple while on vacation in Mexico, but their friendship takes an awkward turn when they get back home.

Vacation Friends is likely one of the fastest comedies where it goes from genuinely hilarious to not funny at all. The first 30 minutes or so are quite great, the cast is pretty solid together Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, John Cena and Meredith Hagner all have great chemistry and are hands down the highlights of the movie. The rest of the movie however suffers from a very generic script that doesn’t offer anything new to the table and feels more less the same as other comedies. The direction also feels like it’s nonexistent at all, especially towards the second half of the movie where it feels like the writers threw a bunch of ideas at the wall to see what sticks. However the movie itself isn’t horrible, it doesn’t do anything horribly wrong but it also doesn’t do anything that stands out other than the cast giving solid performances.

Vacation Friends is now available on Hulu!

5/10 C

He’s All That is a prime example of “Just because you can make a remake doesn’t mean you should”

A teenage girl sets out to give a nebbish classmate the ultimate high school makeover.

I’m not going to go on about this movie for too long, but I do feel there’s a lot to be said about how much of a trainwreck this movie is. He’s All That is a gender swap remake of She’s All That which was released in 1999, She’s All That was one of the very early teen romantic comedies that was actually quite effective of what it was sent out to do, I didn’t watch it growing up as a lot of other people that I know had but I still find it to be a fun little movie. Mark Water’s He’s All That however is not that, instead we get another terrible teen comedy that just so happens to be a remake that I’m pretty sure nobody was demanding. The acting is straight up terrible besides Rachel Leigh Cook and Matthew Lillard who are actually pretty entertaining whenever they appear on screen the rest of the cast are just not good at all. Which is sad because I do like Madison Pettis it just feels like the writers had no idea what they were doing and completely missed the point of the original. What the selling point for this movie was however was that it has TikTok star Addison Rae as the leading role, now I do believe that some influencers can successfully transfer from being influencers to actors and actresses…however time and time again that hasn’t happened and that is still the case here. Addison Rae’s acting is terrible there’s no other way to put it, there’s very little emotion and it strangely feels like she’s phoning it in at times. Maybe if this were a Disney Channel Original Movie her acting could get a pass, but this is a Netflix release so there has to be a level of quality here. It’s really getting tiring of studios thinking just because someone is a influencer that means they can act, look what happened with The Smosh movie, The Fred movie trilogy, The Fine Brothers “F The Prom” and Shane Dawson in Not Cool. If you took Addison Rae away from this movie I’m positive that this movie wouldn’t have anywhere near the attention it has currently. The writing is what to be expected from these garbage Netflix teen movies a lot of unlikable characters, poor dialogue and has a bunch of lines that you wouldn’t catch a teenager ever saying. The humor is also a huge miss, like I said earlier it feels like this was written by people who have no idea how teenagers talk and the humor proves that pretty well. Mark Water’s direction isn’t great at all here either, it’s baffling you can go from Mean Girls and Freaky Friday (2003) to this. However Water’s career has been slowly falling apart over the years and He’s All That doesn’t show a sign of it being turned around, Water’s gives the same dull direction that has been present in a lot of his other work over the past several years in fact this was a DOWNGRADE from his last movie Magic Camp (2020). Lastly for whatever reason there’s product placement KFC and Pizza Hut to be exact. Overall He’s All That is soulless, it’s the type of remake where there was no love put into it at all and just takes advantage of the fact it has a famous TikTok star, it feels more like a “hey you know this famous influencer right?!? Well they are in this movie!” If your going to put an Influencer in this case Addison Rae into a movie don’t make it a remake especially when you don’t bother to understand what made the original enjoyable. Hands down one of the worst movies of the year..

He’s All That is now available on Netflix!

Disgrace To Cinema F

Annette (2021) Movie Review!

A stand-up comedian and his opera singer wife have a 2 year old daughter with a surprising gift.

Annette is exactly what I love about film, people using their imagination and creating something completely bizarre almost like a Frankenstein’s monster type deal. It blends so many different types of styles, writing and overall themes into it, for starters Sparks a band which consists of Russell Mael and Ron Mael were heavily involved with the film heck they even wrote the screenplay alongside the director Leos Carax. All three of them combined made some of the best writing so far this year, the writing creates so much emotion and has a lot of attention to detail. There’s a lot of clever symbolism that is quite interesting and you slowly start to understand what the film is saying and where it’s going as it goes on. Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard are absolutely brilliant in their roles, both give some of the most unique performances so far this year. Both have incredible singing voices and really hit it out of the park when it comes to chemistry, the direction from Leos Carax is both bizarre yet fascinating at the same time! There’s moments where Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) just does some incredible bizarre things, which I do think this film does a pretty great job of not being weird for the sake of being weird. There’s actual buildup to it which is quite strong, Carax keeps the film balanced and makes sure to save it’s weird moments for when you least expect them. The music combined with the cinematography is absolutely stunning especially with the production design as well, all three compliment each other really well and adds to the film’s overall atmosphere. Annette is a film that is most definitely not for everyone, it takes time to completely digest of what you are watching or what you just saw. But trust me when I say it is worth watching, truly one of the most fascinating films of the year!

Annette is now available on Amazon Prime Video!

10/10 A+

The Night House (2021) Movie Review!

A widow begins to uncover her recently deceased husband’s disturbing secrets.

The Night House was definitely a huge surprise, it’s been on my radar for awhile now (since it was shown at Sundance 2020). The Night House takes a simple premise and manages to make it to one genuinely creepy ride, first and foremost Rebecca Hall is brilliant in the leading role, she gives one of the best performances so far this year and truly shows how talented she is as an actress. Every bit of dialogue from Rebecca Hall is chilling there are scenes where dialogue actually makes the viewer quite uncomfortable, due to how strong her performance really is especially in that particular scene that really shows her character well. The writing is quite fantastic, it’s effective of telling a interesting story and takes you into the film’s world with some very powerful and interesting dialogue! Combine that with what is one of the best things about this film…the atmosphere! The film relies on the atmosphere to scare the viewer which it works quite well, the atmosphere also leads to some jumpscares that are surprisingly effective! The Night House is one of those movies that gets jumpscares right, a lot of the time in other movies jumpscares are very predictable, lazy and aren’t effective at all. The Night House has the atmosphere, the build up and it’s strong camerawork to make the jumpscares work, all of those elements combined together create several genuinely terrifying scenes that scare the viewer. The Night House is also surprisingly sad and can be depressing at times, it’s mainly due to the plot and it really works here. The film balances the horror and the sadness it’s really interesting to see the two together, overall The Night House is quite incredible and a film that I highly recommend checking out!

The Night House is now available in theaters!

9/10 A

Reminiscence (2021) Movie Review!

A private investigator of the mind navigates the darkly alluring world of the past by helping his clients access lost memories. His life is forever changed as he uncovers a violent conspiracy while trying to solve the mystery behind a missing client.

Reminiscence is a prime example of a frustrating movie, it has all the right elements to make a great sci-fi film. But ends up falling down so many holes that a lot of sci-fi movies end up, luckily this movie isn’t all that bad. Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson are both quite fantastic in their roles, the chemistry is very strong and they both dive as deep as they can in their characters. The filming is also quite great, not every scene is a winner but for the most part there does seem to be an attempt to create a special world as well as to make it interesting. That’s where Reminiscence ends for me, I like what Lisa Joy was going for and at times I do think she actually succeeded, however the writing really does not help in a lot of cases. The writing felt a little too weak at times when it was begging to be much stronger, a lot of the other characters were kind of just there to move the plot forward. What ultimately hurts Reminiscence however is the pacing, one of the worst things that can happen to a sc-fi movie is the pacing is a complete mess and that the story itself gets less and less interesting as it goes on. Which is unfortunately what happened to Reminiscence, the story started out interesting but lost it’s steam as it went on. Overall Reminiscence is not a terrible movie, it’s just a very forgettable one that had a lot of potential.

Reminiscence is now available in theaters and on HBO Max!

5/10 C

Demonic and Sweet Girl (2021) Movie Reviews!

A young woman unleashes terrifying demons when supernatural forces at the root of a decades-old rift between mother and daughter are ruthlessly revealed.

Neil Blomkamp once was one of those directors who were potentially going to have a “best working today” status District 9 was fantastic and even led to a best picture nomination, Elysium while it wasn’t as good as District 9 I still thought was a solid enough movie and actually a quite interesting one. But then Chappie happened…it was a very disappointing mess that had some great ideas but was not executed very well as well as some very poor acting. Ever since then Blomkamp has tried to get projects off the ground such as Alien, that’s until the pandemic when he was working on a movie in secret the first full length feature since 2015.

Demonic falls into a similar hole as Chappie did, it has great ideas but unfortunately none of it comes together. The idea of a dreamscape demonic possession is a great one, it’s just too bad that the movie does it in the most bare bones way possible. Acting wise Nathalie Boltt does a fine enough job as for everyone else they just feel kind of there. The writing is what hurts Demonic the most, it’s clear this movie wants to do several different things at once, it tries to put similar elements that films like Inception have done except not as good. The dreamscape demonic possession premise ends up becoming way too familiar and isn’t any different than your typical demonic possession movie, it doesn’t help that the writing also doesn’t give the actors and actresses much to work with, a lot of it is very surface level dialogue that ultimately hurts the pacing the longer it goes on. Overall Demonic is a disappointment, that I really wanted to be a great movie and be Neil Blomkamp’s film to completely switch things around. Sadly that isn’t the case here Demonic is just your traditional demonic possession that may seem like it’s bringing new ideas to the table but sadly doesn’t take advantage of said ideas.

Demonic is now available on all VOD Platforms!

3/10 D-

A devastated husband vows to bring justice to the people responsible for his wife’s death while protecting the only family he has left, his daughter.

Talking about these Netflix movies is starting to become very tiring due to a lot of them being almost the exact same thing as each other. Sweet Girl is another lousy attempt at trying to be Netflix’s next big action movie, Jason Momoa and Isabela Merced are both solid in their roles and actually have a few touching moments that are nice to see. However the action scenes are very cheap and are poorly put together, the twist is ridiculous and comes right out of nowhere it feels like a last second idea that they just shoehorned into the movie. A lot of this movie can be boiled down to “seen it done before and done far better” the writing is sloppy and ends up leading to the twist I described earlier, overall there really isn’t much else to this movie. Unless you are a completionist who is trying to watch every single Netflix Original Movie skip this one.

Sweet Girl is now available on Netflix!

4/10 D+

Snake Eyes (2021) Movie Review!

An ancient Japanese clan called the Arashikage welcomes tenacious loner Snake Eyes after he saves the life of their heir apparent. Upon arrival in Japan, the Arashikage teach him the ways of the ninja warrior while also providing him something he’s been longing for: a home. However, when secrets from Snake Eyes’ past are revealed, his honor and allegiance get tested — even if that means losing the trust of those closest to him.

Snake Eyes is the best live action G.I.Joe movie yet….but that is really not saying much at all, the other two movies have their list of problems and a lot of the same exact problems apply to Snake Eyes. Henry Golding at least tries to work with what he’s given and does manage to do an okay job, however what completely bogs down this movie is the action scenes…good lord the action scenes. The camera is way too shaky to the point where you can’t make out what’s going on at all, it doesn’t help that Snake Eyes fail to make itself stand out among the summer action movie crowd. Snake Eyes is the definition of a very generic action movie that does absolutely nothing new for the genre, combine that with some very poor writing that ultimately turns into a mess as the movie goes on. There are moments to be had where the movie could fun if you just want a terrible action movie to watch. But those moments are so far and few in between to the point where it’s not worth watching.

Snake Eyes is now available on all VOD Platforms!

3/10 D-