Salt Lake City Weekly

Movie Reviews: The Dark Tower, An Inconvenient Sequel, Detroit, Landline

We Love You, Sally Carmichael!, Desert Hearts

Scott Renshaw Aug 4, 2017 7:58 AM
Hot-button political issues hit local screens in both dramatic and documentary form, while art house offerings include the restoration re-release of a groundbreaking LGBT-themed indie.

The great sister relationship at the center of Landline carries it when it gets muddled in overplotting and set-in-the-mid-'90s signifiers. The locally-made indie We Love You, Sally Carmichael! misses insight but finds humor in the story of a writer hiding behind a pseudonym to create a hit YA-lit series. The groundbreaking 1986 lesbian romantic drama Desert Hearts remains vital in foregrounding strong characters finding unexpected love.

Eric D. Snider suggests that the blandly mediocre fantasy of The Dark Tower (pictured) might seem worse if you know the Stephen King source material.

David Riedel sees An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power focusing on preaching to the choir in a way its predecessor didn't.

In this week's feature review, Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit turns a real-life outrage into one battle in an ongoing American war.

Also opening this week, but not screened for press: Halle Berry plays a mother trying to save her abducted son in Kidnap.