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: Aug. 1-3, 2014
Wide (United States)
Get on Up
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Guardians of the Galaxy
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Expanding (United States)
A Most Wanted Man
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Calvary
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Child of God
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A horror film that challenges us to never exclude anyone from our hearts.
Dustin Jansick @ Way Too Indie
- Excerpt: One must credit Franco’s ambitions to adapt these hard-to-film pieces of literature, though this film proves that literal adaptations are not his strongest suit.
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Alive Inside
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
And So It Goes
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Angriest Man in Brooklyn
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Pulling a terrific cast down with it, “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn” tries to waver every which way and strikes as too ineffective in all directions. The one that ends up earning the reason to be angry is the viewer.
Begin Again
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Beneath
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Boyhood
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Citizen Koch
Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: The movie didn’t have to be called Citizen Koch. In fact, the title leads us to expect a level of insight into the brothers that it does not begin to deliver.
Code Black
- Excerpt: In terms of establishing a narrative, McGarry sees his story as a two-pronged deal: personalities and procedure. One leads to the other, and the filmmaker spends a lot of time interviewing the young doctors he shadows, finding out what motivates them not just at the time of filming, but also the things that initially pushed them toward this type of medicine.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Edge of Tomorrow
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Exhibition
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Fanny
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
The Fault in Our Stars
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Finding Fela!
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A poignant documentary about the great Nigerian singer and songwriter whose music speak out for justice.
The Fluffy Movie
Godzilla
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: In many ways, this documentary creates an itch to know more about Gore Vidal, rather than scratching it.
Happy Christmas
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Like a person who takes forever to get to their point, filled with entirely too much inarticulateness, the film is more mundane life than interesting cinema. Reliably observant and unforced as it is, “Happy Christmas” is also a frustrating paradox: it begins agreeably, eventually grows tedious and then ends pointlessly.
Hard Drive
- Excerpt: Audiences could debate the authenticity of a contemporary relationship that doesn’t contain some form of mediation, but Hard Drive is so consciously cleansed of impersonal gizmos that one must see the absence of technology as part of the point.
Hercules
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
How to Train Your Dragon 2
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Ida
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Jersey Boys
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Jodorowsky’s Dune
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The Kill Team
Jordan M. Smith @ IONCINEMA.com
- Excerpt: The Kill Team starkly asks for us to try to reconcile the shifting gaps between patriotism and imperialism, aiding and oppressing, recreation and self-preservation. Hint: It can’t be done, as long as the innocent continue to be punished for trying to do what is everyone’s moral responsibility. – See more at: http://www.ioncinema.com/reviews/the-kill-team-review#sthash.IADcAQ0e.dpuf
Land Ho!
[New Today] Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: In Land Ho!, two elderly gentlemen travel across Icelandic landscapes but fail to mold a corresponding story. They are merely on a documented trip with some amusing conversations.
The Last Sentence
Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: At the heart, if that’s the right word, of this movie is the superb performance by Christensen (perhaps best known here as the villainous Mr. White in recent Bond movies.)
Life Itself
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Lucy
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Magic in the Moonlight
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Manuscripts Don’t Burn
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Marius
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
A Master Builder
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Spectrum Culture Online
The Monuments Men
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Mood Indigo
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Noah
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Nothing Bad Can Happen
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Only Lovers Left Alive
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Persecuted
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Spectrum Culture Online
Planes: Fire & Rescue
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Pleasures of Being Out of Step
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
A Promise
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This dreary, drippy period romance is sorely lacking in juicy melodrama and some sizzle among supposed stifled lovebirds.
The Protector 2
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
The Purge: Anarchy
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Rabindranath Tagore – The Poet of Eternity
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A uplifting tribute to the polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a truly extraordinary Indian poet and philosopher.
Rich Hill
[New Today] Marina Antunes @ Row Three
Sex Tape
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Snowpiercer
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Stage Fright
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Third Person
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Third Person is the sort of film that loses from shooting high and then shooting itself in the foot. In the end, there’s really nothing to take away, except to wonder how an interesting conceit and talented people on both sides of the camera could so terribly miss the mark.
Vampire Academy
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Venus in Fur
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Very Good Girls
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A difficult yet rewarding summer for a teenager getting ready to leave for college.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Overall, “Very Good Girls” is pleasant but tough to get overly excited about when it doesn’t add up to very much in the end. Fanning and Olsen are very good, though.
What If
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: Some fresh insights and new slants on the pesky question: can a man and a woman be friends and not lovers?
Wish I Was Here
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
2013 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
2014 Films (Coming Soon)
4 Minute Mile
[New Today] Marina Antunes @ Row Three
Dishkiyaoon
[New Today] Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Evergreen: The Road to Legalization
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Fort Tilden
Dustin Jansick @ Way Too Indie
- Excerpt: The film is a bumpy ride at times, but it remains a charming expedition.
Found
Nowhere in Moravia
- Excerpt: Director Miroslav Krobot combines elements of biting satire with droll comedy – not always successfully – in Díra u Hanušovic, a frustratingly deadpan account of small-town apathy in Middle-of-Nowhere, Czech Republic.
These Final Hours
Simon Miraudo @ Quickflix
Triptych
- Excerpt: The latest film from Robert Lepage is a beautifully brainy essay on our relationship with art.
The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom
[New Today] James Marsh @ Twitch
- Excerpt: Jacob Cheung’s new retelling of Liang Yusheng’s bestselling novel makes a royal mess of its source material as well as bearing little resemblance to Ronny Yu’s much-loved 1993 adaptation. Conflicted over whether to favour action, intrigue or romance, the film fails to strike a consistent tone, while its two leads offer little chemistry to steam up the screen.
