Because of embargoes (those happy little restrictions on when critics can post reviews, good or bad), a lot of our critics aren’t able to share links with you until release day. Here are some last-minute reviews for this weekend’s upcoming films. We’ve kept in all the reviews posted yesterday as well so you can have more help in deciding what to see (if you haven’t already).
Our critics have been hard at work reviewing the latest films. Here is a look at what’s coming out this weekend (in select cities, check your local listings) and what else may be in theaters right now.
Opening: Apr. 25-27, 2014
Wide (United States)
Brick Mansions
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Other Woman
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Quiet Ones
[New Today] Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: The problem with “The Quiet Ones” is that for all the set-up and atmosphere, the story completely unravels in the final act. I didn’t have a problem with where the story went from a supernatural standpoint, but rather from a character standpoint. The back-end of the script is poorly written and sometimes makes little sense.
[New Today] Phil Villarreal @ COED.com
Limited (United States)
Last Passenger
David Bax @ Battleship Pretension
- Excerpt: The deeper engine of Last Passenger is a humanistic impulse, the belief that we can improve ourselves and our lot by working together and even sacrificing for one another when necessary. Though it may, with its runaway train premise, seem like a story of man versus machine, Nooshin never lets us forget that there’s person driving this train to oblivion.
Locke
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: An intense, well-acted drama of one middle-aged man’s dark night of the soul where his choices come back to haunt him.
Walking with the Enemy
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: the license taken by director Mark Schmidt and screenwriter Kenny Golde in repackaging the life story of Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum…goes so far out on a limb that it snaps
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
13 Sins
- Excerpt: The movie puts the audience in the position to question what they’d be willing to do, and I think many of us would be shocked at which level our friends might bow out of this game.
Alan Partridge
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: The film gets [this character], and more importantly, so does Coogan, whose lived-in performance ensures that every tic registers in a tangible way…
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Anonymous People
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Bears
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Divergent
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Fading Gigolo
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Final Member
[New Today] MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: The world’s only penis museum is no joke, but there’s plenty funny (and enlightening, and poignant) in this sweet portrait of a man dedicated to completing his life’s work.
Finding Vivian Maier
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The French Minister
Carlos del Río @ El rincón de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Crónicas diplomáticas es divertida, y a veces lo es mucho, porque ves cómo funciona un ministerio desde dentro, y Tavernier te lo cuenta con un gran reparto y un ritmo rapidísimo.
Gloria
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Hateship Loveship
Dustin Jansick @ Way Too Indie
- Excerpt: Each time the film tip-toes around the obvious, it becomes more and more cringe worthy.
Haunt
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
A Haunted House 2
- Excerpt: Marlon Wayans on his own has taken his family name lower than ever before… even lower than “White Chicks.”
Frank Ochieng @ Focus of New York Magazine
- Excerpt: One can immediately detect a desperate sense of regurgitation in the strained chuckles as A Haunted House 2 has all the inspired hilarity of a decaying fang inside a drugged Dracula’s mouth.
Heaven Is for Real
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Hide Your Smiling Faces
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A meditation on death about two young brothers dealing with the sudden death of a friend and all the other losses around them.
Ilo Ilo
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Joe
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Lunchbox
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Machine
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Missing Picture
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Muppets Most Wanted
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Noah
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Nymphomaniac: Volumes 1 & 2
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Oculus
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Pompeii
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Proxy
Mark Harris @ About.com
[New Today] Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: As a slow-cook horror drama that keeps evolving down no easily foreseeable path, “Proxy” has no problem tearing its characters apart from their psychological insides.
The Raid 2: Berandal
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Railway Man
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Small Time
Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Filled with humor and heart, it’s an insightful, endearing father/son coming-of-age comedic drama, destined for well-deserved popularity on the DVD shelf.
Tasting Menu
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Transcendence
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Under the Skin
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Unknown Known
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: Rumsfeld’s clinically devised responses are less than satisfying, to say the least. Rumsfeld, a vacuous careerist politician, has mastered the art of obfuscation so thoroughly that he doesn’t even recognize the stench of his own rotten mind.
Who Is Dayani Cristal?
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A heart-wrenching documentary that reenacts the journey of a Honduras migrant who died in the Arizona desert and the compassionate actions of those who identified his body and provided closure for his family.
Wolf Creek 2
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Yves Saint Laurent
Vadym Grygoriev @ kinoblog.com [Ukrainian]
2013 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Breathe In
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Enough Said
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Instructions Not Included
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
2014 Films (Coming Soon)
2 States
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Bad Hair
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Cowgirls ‘n Angels 2: Dakota’s Summer
James Plath @ Family Home Theater
- Excerpt: There’s a place for light drama and formulaic, feel-good movies, and as that genre goes, Cowgirls ‘n Angels: Dakota’s Summer is an entertaining film that will definitely appeal to the target audience, and maybe even the entire family.
Ida
Carlos del Río @ El rincón de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Ida tiene una historia que no está nada mal, pero está contada de la forma más aburrida posible.
It’s Only Make Believe
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Kaanchi
[New Today] Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Love and Engineering
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
The Love Punch
[New Today] MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: The jokes are as creaky as the aching bunions and bad backs onscreen, but Emma Thompson and Pierce Brosnan are incandescent together.
Mystery Road
Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: It catches the endemic depression and aimlessness that afflicts Oz’s far west communities, and Aboriginal communities in particular – the droning boredom, lack of opportunity, the easy recourse to drugs – in a comprehensive way but admirably not descending into a blunt misery-fest.
The Sea
[New Today] MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Ciarán Hinds engages in some pointlessly dour Irish brooding at the beach.
Teenage
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Tracks
Ross Miller @ Thoughts On Film
- Excerpt: An inspirational, rousing watch that makes you feel every step of its gruelling journey.
[New Today] MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Romantic in the grandest sense, a visceral and hypnotic experience of idealistic aspirations set against the desolate beauty and danger of the Outback.
