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: Nov. 7-9, 2014
Wide (United States)
Big Hero 6
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Interstellar
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Jessabelle
[New Today] Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
Open Windows
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Theory of Everything
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
21 Years: Richard Linklater
Carson Lund @ In Review Online
- Excerpt: There’s nothing terribly toxic about the addition of this sort of movie to the cultural surplus; after all, Linklater’s a director who arguably deserves all the good press he can get. But 21 Years fails to apply any critical thought to its subject or the documentary form—the latter being perhaps the cardinal sin.
ABCs of Death 2
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
All You Need Is Love
Art and Craft
- Excerpt: An object lesson in how to make a good documentary
As Above / So Below
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Before I Go to Sleep
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Big Men
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Executive produced by Brad Pitt, “Big Men” opens with a question. It also tells the true story, with impressive access and documentation, about a little Texas company that finds oil in Ghana.
Blue Ruin
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Book of Life
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Boxtrolls
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Boyhood
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Case Against 8
David Upton @ So So Gay
- Excerpt: In the bubble we’re placed in with these heroes, Cotner and White have to be very careful to maintain a sense of perspective and context, simultaneously allowing the audience to identify with this side of the case without losing sight of what it means in the grander scheme of American society.
Chef
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Citizenfour
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Dear White People
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Diplomacy
Ron Wilkinson @ Monsters and Critics
- Excerpt: A friendly discussion of life and death passes the time as the Allies storm the last Nazi defenses of the City of Lights.
Dracula Untold
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Drop
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Elsa & Fred
[New Today] Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
- Excerpt: Featuring two iconic American stars in this rehashed material gains Radford a lot of leverage in what’s otherwise a rather feeble claptrap of mounting cliché
[New Today] Tom Santilli @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: We’ve seen this movie a hundred times, but it is the equivalency of comfort food.
Extraterrestrial
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Force Majeure
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Foxcatcher
Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Sorrowful and sordid, it oozes bizarre homoeroticism and brutal violence.
Fury
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Hangar 10
[New Today] MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Found footage has come to be an excuse for storytellers to completely bypass drama, character development, and plot in an attempt to be “authentic.”
The Heart Machine
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Horns
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
John Wick
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Kelly & Cal
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A simple, honest, deeply satisfying tale of the complex mixed emotions and desires that make up a woman’s life and often exist in secret.
Laggies
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Listen Up, Philip
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Nas: Time Is Illmatic
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
National Gallery
Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A documentary masterwork by Frederick Wiseman on art, seeing, and reverie at London’s greatest art museum.
Nightcrawler
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The November Man
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Private Peaceful
Private Violence
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: In this film, the lid is just beginning to lift from the black hole of domestic violence and its pervasive infiltration into American society – at all socio-economic levels.
Rocks in My Pockets
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: The bottom line is that this film is not only a great work of visual and verbal art, but also a remarkably honest portrait of five women and their emotional oppression.
Rosewater
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: while the subject is certainly worthy, the film is rather pedestrian.
Saturday Night
Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
- Excerpt: Yet the unremarkable nature of the episode itself is what makes Saturday Night so compelling. It feels like we are getting a real look at the process of putting on a weekly variety show, and because the episode feels so typical, it can stand in for the making of the show as a whole.
See No Evil 2
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: See No Evil 2 surely does what it sets out to do as a straight-up stalk-and-slash affair within a horror sub-genre not exactly famous for inspired plotting and fully written characters. This is a passable Friday night, but it would be nice to care more.
The Skeleton Twins
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
St. Vincent
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Stonehearst Asylum
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Two Days, One Night
Alan Mattli @ Facing the Bitter Truth [German]
- Excerpt: The Dardennes lose some of their radical documentarism but gain new political relevance.
Virunga
Kenji Fujishima @ Slant Magazine
Winter in the Blood
2013 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Sem a pica humorística que se esperava, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” cai depressa numa rotina sem chama.
2014 Films (Coming Soon)
’71
- Excerpt: The film is remarkable, first, for being very well made, very well written and very well performed and, second, for taking a divisive issue and moulding it into a thriller that doesn’t feel exploitative and insensitive.
Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed
- Excerpt: Spain’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film is a nice little ditty about following your dreams.
Loreak
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Reaching for the Stars
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: “Searching for the Stars” is also about searching for individual freedom. It is the juxtaposition of the individual versus the collective.
REC 4: Apocalypse
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
The Shaukeens
[New Today] Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Slums: Cities of Tomorrow
- Excerpt: An eye-opening experience.
Song of the New Earth
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Kenyon is a self-professed “…neo-pagan, Daoist, Tibetan Buddhist, agnostic, quantum physicist mystic all rolled up into some strange amalgam.” His life story, four-octave vocal range, vibratory presentation and words are worth whatever time and money you have to spare.
Super Nani
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Witching and Bitching
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: It’s a rambunctious ride that seldom lets up for a breather; it just keeps pressing the petal to the floor, injecting more crazy fuel into its insanity engine.
