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: Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2015
Wide (United States)
Black or White
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Loft
[New Today] Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: It is admittedly involving to sort through and see how all of these pieces click. In the end, however, “The Loft” turns out to be an empty, heartless waste of time built on a house of cards that eventually comes crashing down.
Project Almanac
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: Project Almanac insists that you lower your expectations. No, you should lower them further than that.
[New Today] Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Frenetic and formulaic, ‘Back to the Future’ it isn’t.
[New Today] Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Far from perfect, ‘Project Almanac’ has enough heart and energy that it is a decently fun ride.
Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: Visually hysterical, narratively nonsensical time-travel cheapie.
Expanding (United States)
A Most Violent Year
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Amira & Sam
- Excerpt: The film flirts with fantasy, but that fantasy is laid atop a foundation of realism and experience. Figment or no, it works.
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ RogerEbert.com
- Excerpt: Amira & Sam is an earnest and considerate examination of two people falling in love, but the movie lacks certainty when handling these characters separately.
The Devil’s Violinist
Timbuktu
David Bax @ Battleship Pretension
- Excerpt: Sissako deflates this tension with laughs for a time, before changing gears again and using the comedy again as contrast to a story that is almost unfathomably disturbing.
Supremacy
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
2015 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
’71
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
88
Gregory Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: It’s tangled, but you never get the sense the knots are worth working out, a suspicion confirmed in the final reveal.
2015 Oscar-Nominated Shorts
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
Americons
Appropriate Behavior
Black Sea
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Boy Next Door
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Duke of Burgundy
Stacia Kissick Jones @ She Blogged By Night
Hoovey
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
The Humbling
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Kingsman: The Secret Service
[New Today] MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: I cannot recall a film that left me with such a sour taste in my mouth by its end. Does the movie deliberately defy itself with obnoxious intent?
The Little Death
Sarah Ward @ Concrete Playground
Monsters: Dark Continent
Mortdecai
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Out of the Dark
Predestination
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Son of a Gun
Sarah Ward @ Concrete Playground
Song One
Stacia Kissick Jones @ She Blogged By Night
Strange Magic
Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Let’s just say it’s a bizarre, bad ‘Dream.’
Nell Minow @ The Movie Mom
Betty Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Great songs, a fun story and fascinating animation. One of the most delightful animated musicals I’ve ever seen.
Taken 3
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
What We Do in the Shadows
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
American Sniper
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Annabelle
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Art and Craft
- Excerpt: A fascinating documentary following a master forger and the expert trying to stop him.
Begin Again
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Big Hero 6
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Boxtrolls
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Cake
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Captive
Dear White People
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Divergent
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Dumb and Dumber To
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Fault in Our Stars
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Force Majeure
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Foxcatcher
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Imitation Game
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Inherent Vice
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Into the Woods
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Killing Jimmy Hoffa
[New Today] Frank Ochieng @ Sound on Sight
- Excerpt: …[a] straight-shooting and intriguing documentary. Thoroughly captivating and informative, Killing Jimmy Hoffa is a noteworthy documentary not to be silenced as its titular subject matter.
Leviathan
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Zvyagintsev builds to a crescendo with the force of an ocean storm…”Leviathan” is a great, literary work of existential despair, as magnificent as its titular creature.
- Excerpt: Zvyagintsev is more concerned with letting his audience settle into the lives of his characters than he is the more conventional happenings of the script outline. He lets us discover who Dmitry is and why he’s visiting Kolia and what Kolia is so angry about matter-of-factly, the way we might were we just casually observing.
Mommy
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Mr. Turner
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Mule
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Nightcrawler
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Pump
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: You will be shocked, I am sure, to discover that Big Oil has put its profits before all else (including you).
Ragnarok
Selma
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Still Alice
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
That’s Not Funny
[New Today] Aaron Pinkston @ Battleship Pretension
- Excerpt: Fans of any form of comedy will be able to relate with That’s Not Funny and the personal story at its center. More importantly, the film has a great historical research base without sacrificing entertainment.
The Theory of Everything
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Two Days, One Night
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Venus in Fur
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Wild
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Words and Pictures
Zero Motivation
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
2015 Films (Coming Soon)
The 50-Year Argument
- Excerpt: Book lovers rejoice!
Actress
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …is Burre giving a ‘performance’ or using [Greene’s] camera as a life-altering confessional? The compelling but not exactly sympathetic portrait is one hell of a risky audition.
Beautiful Noise
City of Gold
- Excerpt: Gold’s culinary commentary is some of the very best cultural criticism found anywhere, as it’s of the sort that not only helps readers to sort through our junk culture to find the gems hidden within, but actually unearths greater meaning about ourselves, our fellow humans and how the fabric of our cultures are woven together as one thanks to the unequivocal joys of eating. With City of Gold, Gabbert has authored a loving celebration of both man and metropolis, the glories of culturally rich cuisine and the kind of critique that inspires a thousand meals.
The Crow’s Egg
The Dark Horse
David Bowie Is
Dolly Ki Doli
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Duel at the Mound
The End of the Tour
- Excerpt: an honorable depiction of a beautiful mind unfettered by the trappings of a generic biopic.
Experimenter
- Excerpt: a cold, clinical portrait of a man whose own familial background informed his timely social experiment
The Forbidden Room
- Excerpt: majestic culmination of Maddin’s prowess in silent cinema tropes, a delirious, maddening rabbit hole of rippling nightmares that somehow, inextricably, fashion themselves into a cohesive narrative made up of cascading tangents
Grace of Monaco
Nuno Reis @ Antestreia [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: O filme é sobre uma actriz e para uma actriz, ninguém mais podia ser visto, ninguém mais podia ficar com os louros da vitória naquela fria guerra.
Labyrinth of Lies
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [[Spanish]]
Man from Reno
Once My Mother
Pale Moon
Red Amnesia
The Royal Road
- Excerpt: Though she takes Kushner’s sound advice that looking to the future is more productive than ruminating on the past, Olson can not help herself. In shooting landscapes, she documents them in time and space, creating a version of them that becomes portable and personal and wistfully reflective of a time that only moves further away. With heartbreaking candor and rigidly honed research that melds personal, cinematic and national history into one contemplative critique, The Royal Road attempts to memorialize these locales while unpacking the aberrant psychology of a filmmaker whose romantic pursuits are haunted by history before they even begin.
The Russian Woodpecker
- Excerpt: Vibrating with a reckless creative urgency, The Russian Woodpecker is a call for political integrity lost long ago, attempting to drill through invalid indoctrinations through sheer will and sobering truth. The world could use more brave souls like these, using research and authenticity as a weapon for political progress.
Shaun the Sheep Movie
- Excerpt: Aardman Studios return to the big screen in cracking form with another rip-roaring roller coaster of action, smart humour and lovable characters. Shaun The Sheep Movie promises to delight fans of all ages, and long-time aficionados of the studio’s signature claymation style can rest assured they have not lost their magic touch.
The Summer of Sangaile
- Excerpt: But beat by strained beat, there’s nothing innovative or subtle in this adolescent’s journey to spreading her wings and, literally, flying high.
Tangerine
- Excerpt: a glorious poem that never shies away from harsh realities even as it celebrates the vibrant dreams, desires, and lives existing within in a city stereotyped for its apathy and sterility as concerns human connection.
