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. 14-16, 2014
Wide (United States)
Beyond the Lights
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Dumb and Dumber To
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Foxcatcher
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Homesman
Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Sturdy, bleak and understated – or, as one wag said, it’s No Country for Crazy Women.
Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Rosewater
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Wolves
[New Today] Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: ‘Wolves’ is a coming-of-age story about an uninformed werewolf accepting his true nature, meticulously constructed by a first-time director.
Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: A bloody, brutal bore…
- Excerpt: At its best, the film is a whirring, eclectic oddity without a clear target audience, which is why its eventual turn toward muddled father-son hokum and strained commentary on the duality of human psychology (good and evil impulses exist in us all, but we must learn to tame the evil!) registers as a disappointment.
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
20,000 Days on Earth
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
ABCs of Death 2
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Before I Go to Sleep
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Beside Still Waters
[New Today] James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Excerpt: Beside Still Waters’ Channels ‘The Big Chill’ For The Next Generation
[New Today] Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Friends reunite for a forced march down memory lane, whether they like it or not.
[New Today] Stacia Kissick Jones @ She Blogged By Night
The Better Angels
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: The effect becomes repetitive, and that ultimately emphasizes the rather slight nature of the story here.
Big Hero 6
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Birdman
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
Camp X-Ray
[New Today] Ron Wilkinson @ Monsters and Critics
- Excerpt: A lean and mean essay on human bondage, a minimalist examination of living life to the least.
The Circle
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An entertaining and edifying portrait of the gay scene in Zurich from the 1950s to 2003.
Dear White People
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Dracula Untold
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Drop
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Elsa & Fred
The Expendables 3
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Force Majeure
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Fury
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Gambler
Get on Up
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Guardians of the Galaxy
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Horns
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: One of the best SF series ever deepens its critique of the power of propaganda in ways complicated, intriguingly contradictory, and a little bit horrifying.
The Imitation Game
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A great performance by Benedict Cumberbatch and an illuminating portrait of the large role secrets can play in our lives.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A marvelous combination of thrilling intellectual adventure and sensitive portrait of a man ahead of his time both personally and professionally.
[New Today] Marty Mapes @ Movie Habit
- Excerpt: Intriguing character study and exciting war drama rolled into one
[New Today] Stefan Pape @ HeyUGuys
Inherent Vice
Interstellar
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Into the Storm
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Jessabelle
[New Today] James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Excerpt: Jessabelle’ Shows Potential, But Quickly Becomes The Ghost Movie That Everyone Expects
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Before going to the proverbial swamp for abrupt, jittery attacks by a screaming dead girl and shots of drippy faucets, “Jessabelle” is a tepid gumbo gaining some mileage out of its lived-in location.
[New Today] Jason Pirodsky @ Expats.cz
- Excerpt: Here’s one I thought I’d never see: a supernatural horror movie where the ghost behaves as a Talking Killer. As our heroine cowers in fear during the climax of Jessabelle, the evil spirit appears to her and explains the plot of the movie to us, telling poor Jessie why she is being haunted and what the ghosts plan to do with her now. Just like a Bond movie.
John Wick
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Kill the Messenger
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Let’s Be Cops
Simon Miraudo @ Quickflix
Men, Women & Children
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
A Merry Friggin’ Christmas
Mommy
- Excerpt: Heartbreaking, joyous, sad, and glorious, Mommy is pure exhilaration
A Most Violent Year
A Most Wanted Man
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Mr. Turner
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks
Francis Rizzo III @ DVDTalk.com
- Excerpt: Teen ponies play music to save the world
Night Moves
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Nightcrawler
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Open Windows
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Overnighters
Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: ‘The Overnighters’ is the captivating story about a series of despondent men trying to turn their luck around in the North Dakota oil fields and the pastor risking everything to help them do it.
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Next Projection
[New Today] Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Come visit the boomtown Williston, North Dakota and see what happens when folks known for their Christian charity run out of nice.
Penance
Point and Shoot
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: As Curry jumps between his interview, Vandyke’s footage, and eventually news broadcasts, you may find your impression of his subject in flux. It’s a great psychological portrait, even as we’re always aware of image modeling.
Sex Ed
St. Vincent
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Starry Eyes
[New Today] Mark Harris @ About.com
Dustin Jansick @ Way Too Indie
- Excerpt: Constant gear shifting makes the pacing feel uneven and the underlying message disjointed despite the intriguing premise.
Stacia Kissick Jones @ She Blogged By Night
[New Today] Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Starry Eyes is bound to stick in the viewer’s mind for days and then some. If this is what selling your soul for a gateway acting part looks like, then writing about acting will just have to do.
The Theory of Everything
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Third Person
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Venus in Fur
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Viva la Liberta
A Walk Among the Tombstones
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
We Are the Giant
Kristen Lopez @ Awards Circuit
- Excerpt: …strip away the package and you have a tribute to those unafraid to rattle the cages of government.
Why Don’t You Play in Hell?
William Bibbiani @ CraveOnline
- Excerpt: It’s easy to imagine that watching Why Don’t You Play in Hell? is the next best thing to actually making a movie with Shion Sono. It’s nothing but smiles and blood and pure, unadulterated affection for everything that cinema is capable of.
Wild
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A soul-stretching movie about surviving in the wilderness, a solid mother and daughter relationship, and bringing out the best in yourself.
- Excerpt: Bristles with emotional resonance and enlightenment.
[New Today] Marty Mapes @ Movie Habit
- Excerpt: Engrossing story of two parts may be Witherspoon’s best role yet
2014 Films (Coming Soon)
1001 Grams
[New Today] Marty Mapes @ Movie Habit
- Excerpt: Hamer brings his visual wit to lives of Norwegian precision
5 to 7
- Excerpt: 5 to 7 sees itself as a fanciful, classic romance, and occasionally hits on just the right notes, but it’s too cloying to be anything more than a dalliance.
Big Stone Gap
- Excerpt: A heartfelt and earnest homespun comedy about the family ties that bind us all together.
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
Growing Up and Other Lies
[New Today] Andrew Wyatt @ St. Louis Magazine
- Excerpt: The film generally proves to be a lively, diverting tour of both male arrested development and Manhattan itself.
Kill Dil
[New Today] Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
The Lives of Hamilton Fish
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Wow! Talk about creativity and originality. This rock opera film has both — and more!
Redirected
[New Today] Stefan Pape @ HeyUGuys
Richness of Internal Space
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Rise of the Legend
- Excerpt: Close to twenty years since folkloric action hero Wong Fei Hung last graced the big screen, director Roy Chow Hin Yeung and star Eddie Peng Yuyan bring him back to life in thumpingly confident fashion. Employing an origin story that transforms a vengeful orphan into the poster child of proletarian righteousness, Rise Of The Legend lays the foundations for a whole new generation of Wong Fei Hung adventures.
Saint Laurent
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
A Special Day
- Excerpt: A nice toast of Prosecco. A Special Day is light and bubbly, a picturesque coming of age story, and a cautionary tale of aimless excess poured into one tall glass that goes down easy.
Trash
Carlos del Río @ El rincón de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Trash es una película yincana, y para pasar de una pista a otra, la trama da demasiados pasos; pero curiosamente, para resolver conflictos importantes, cogen atajos y los resuelven de la forma más simple e inverosímil posible.
The Tribe
Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
[New Today] Marty Mapes @ Movie Habit
- Excerpt: Arty, edgy, and bleak, The Tribe fails the plausibility test
Wild Canaries
[New Today] Marty Mapes @ Movie Habit
- Excerpt: Canaries is a lark, offering chuckles and grins if you let your defenses down
Writers
[New Today] Ron Wilkinson @ Monsters and Critics
- Excerpt: Screenwriting bromedy that shows Bollywood is not that much different than its American counterpart.
The Yes Men Are Revolting
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: The continuing escapades and creative pranks of the Yes Men whose espousal of Crazy Wisdom bothers corporations and government agencies.
