Because of embargoes, 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: Sep. 18-20, 2015
Wide (United States)
Black Mass
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Captive
[New Today] Kristy Puchko @ Spinoff Online, Pajiba
- Excerpt: Captive is a bad movie. But I guess it’s something that it’s a bad movie in a way I didn’t expect. It’s not preachy. It’s just fucking dull.
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Everest
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Pawn Sacrifice
[New Today] Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: In cinematic terms, Zwick’s film may not possess the unhinged brilliance of its subject, but Fischer’s story–and Maguire’s committed portrayal of him–carry the day.
Sicario
[New Today] Kristy Puchko @ Spinoff Online, Pajiba
- Excerpt: Sicario mingles the menacing and the mundane into a Western with a bleak criticism of America’s war on drugs.
2015 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
Travis Hopson @ Punch Drunk Critics
- Excerpt: The 12 Rounds franchise never used its central idea to the fullest potential, but removing it completely wasn’t the answer, either.
90 Minutes in Heaven
Frank SwietekO @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: May strike a welcome chord with the evangelical groups at whom it’s obviously aimed. But for others the ploddingly preachy picture will seem more like a stint in purgatory, if not someplace even more uncomfortable.
After Words
Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: Part travelogue, part existential journey, part ugly duckling fable, and part Harlequin romance, this tale of two people by Uruguayan-born director Juan Feldman is the kind of guilty pleasure that satisfies even as you scoff.
American Ultra
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Attack on Titan: End of the World
James Marsh @ South China Morning Post
- Excerpt: In an increasingly prevalent trend among Japanese blockbusters, Attack on Titan: End of the World arrives just weeks after its predecessor. Like Gantz, Parasyte and others before it, it also eschews much of the promise that came with the high concept set-up of part one, replaced by reams of tedious exposition and backstory.
Being Evel
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery
James Marsh @ South China Morning Post
- Excerpt: Winner of the German Film Award for best documentary feature, Arne Birkenstock’s account of master forger Wolfgang Beltracchi tells a story almost impossible to believe in this era of rigorous carbon dating and hi-tech scrutiny. And yet, somehow Beltracchi and his wife Helene, over a period of decades, sold hundreds of forgeries of paintings from the likes of Max Ernst, Heinrich Campendonk and Fernand Leger, banking millions of dollars in the process.
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Blackhat
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Breathe
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Next Projection
A Brilliant Young Mind
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Challenger
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Next Projection
Coming Home
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Cooties
[New Today] Jeremy Kibler @ Diabolique Magazine
- Excerpt: Cooties falls short of brilliance, but this is one of those rare occasions where a film that looks like it was fun to make by the cast and crew is a whacked-out good time to watch, too.
[New Today] Kristin Dreyer Kramer @ NightsAndWeekends.com
[New Today] Kristy Puchko @ Spinoff Online, Pajiba
- Excerpt: The biggest problem of “Cooties” is that, much like its Ritalin-popping tweens, it’s unfocused.
Cop Car
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Cut
- Excerpt: For a film about a father’s grueling and seemingly endless journey to reconnect with the daughters he thought lost after his culture’s violent commandeering at the hands of Ottoman Empire forces, Akin’s willingness to sacrifice the contextual complications inherent in The Cut’s temporal and geographical shifts makes rather lightweight a drama that has much to gain from a sense of toil, duration, and physical duress.
The Danish Girl
Patrick Mullen @ Cinemablographer
Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Demolition
Patrick Mullen @ Cinemablographer
Digging for Fire
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Duke of Burgundy
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Durak
Ron Wilkinson @ Monsters and Critics
- Excerpt: An expose’ that rises above finger pointing to create a masterpiece of tension and suspense.
Everly
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
The Face of an Angel
Nuno Reis @ SciFiWorld Portugal [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: “The Face of an Angel” é uma obra filosófica que nos acelera o coração com a ocasional cena violenta, mas no fundo pretende apenas que pensemos por um momento e aproveitemos o amor e a juventude, ao mesmo tempo que critica a imprensa sensacionalista e a indústria cinematográfica.
Futuro Beach
[New Today] Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
The Gift
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Goodnight Mommy
Ron Wilkinson @ Monsters and Critics
- Excerpt: When things go wrong at home, they really go wrong.
[New Today] Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Cowriter/directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala prove themselves masters of misdirection in this psychological horror film in which the less said about the better.
Grandma
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Hitman: Agent 47
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Home
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
I Touched All Your Stuff
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: [VIDEO ESSAY] Although plagued with inept editing techniques and an irritating overuse of screenshot imagery and repetitive B-roll footage “I Touched All Your Stuff” is a fascinating character study even if you don’t walk out feeling like you had some epiphany.
The Iron Ministry
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
It Follows
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Jimmy’s Hall
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Kill Me Three Times
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Life
Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog
- Excerpt: Oh, life. Do do do do.
Listen to Me Marlon
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Listening
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Naive, hamfisted, and amateurish indie sci-fi… but as hilarious as the clumsy, clichéd execution is, it still isn’t even worth it for the laughs.
Love
[New Today] Jason Pirodsky @ Expats.cz
- Excerpt: Love is a surprisingly tender and affectionate film that attempts to explore the relationship between love and sex, and how an audience reacts to a stripped-down, frank onscreen portrayal of both. And it just about succeeds.
Love & Mercy
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Meru
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Misery Loves Comedy
[New Today] Stefan Pape @ HeyUGuys
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Mistress America
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The New Girlfriend
David Bax @ Battleship Pretension
- Excerpt: Ozon is unable to strike the balance between the two modes into which most of his films fall – the intensely psychological and the prankish but classicalist melodrama.
Queen of Earth
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Return to Sender
[New Today] Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Never sympathetic as a rape drama and hardly ever going far enough with its effort to even be a brutal Final Girl revenge pic, “Return to Sender” is stuck on low simmer with no real style. It’s also just a distasteful, wholly misguided and increasingly stupid waste of time.
Sleeping with Other People
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: Sleeping with Other People may take a long and winding road to get to its destination, but the destination is as conventional as we expect and fear it will be.
Some Kind of Hate
[New Today] James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
[New Today] Mark Harris @ About.com
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Straight Outta Compton
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Time Out of Mind
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Top Spin
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Trainwreck
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Transporter Refueled
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Turbo Kid
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Veteran
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Veteran is like Beverly Hills Cop remade with the young Jackie Chan.
The Visit
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
A Walk in the Woods
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
We Come As Friends
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Jonathan Ricjards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: The Sudan is big, unruly, magnificent, chaotic, sometimes beautiful, often painful. This movie is a lot like that too.
Welcome to Leith
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Youth
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
2015 Films (Coming Soon)
Bill
[New Today] Stefan Pape @ HeyUGuys
Cub
Nuno Reis @ SciFiWorld Portugal [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Com um início muito promissor de filme infantil, “Cub” descamba no medíocre filme de terror com muitos clichés. Parece ter sido uma oportunidade perdida em ambos os territórios.
Dégradé
East Side Sushi
Aaron Pinkston @ Battleship Prentension
- Excerpt: East Side Sushi is a warm story about cultural identity and really good food.
Eva Doesn’t Sleep
A Girl at My Door
[New Today] Stefan Pape @ HeyUGuys
Green Room
Nuno Reis @ SciFiWorld Portugal [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Saulnier volta a conseguir um filme controverso, sem pontos muitos fortes, mas sem pontos fracos, que fará os amantes do thriiler passarem um bom momento enquanto assistem a uma escalada da violência.
Hellions
[New Today] Mark Harris @ About.com
[New Today] Jeremy Kibler @ Diabolique Magazine
- Excerpt: Halloween-masked child demons demand more than King-sized candy bars in “Hellions,” a phantasmagoric horror treat that could also be seen as a metaphor for unplanned teenage pregnancy.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Surreal and spooky, Hellions is a nifty way to get freaked out for eighty-two minutes.
The History Student
- Excerpt: The History Student feels understated in its challenging message of a young boy’s exploration for self-identity and self-discovery because it is so quiet and radiant in its low-key elegance.
How Heavy This Hammer
Howl
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
The Messenger
[New Today] Stefan Pape @ HeyUGuys
Ninth Floor
The Office
- Excerpt: In a wild change of pace, Hong Kong director Johnnie To delivers an all-singing, occasionally-dancing adaptation of Sylvia Chang’s successful stage play, Design for Living. While the script has undergone numerous changes along the way, and boasts brand new musical numbers from Dayo Lu and Lin Xi, Office still charts the in-house dealings of billion-dollar company Jones & Sunn as they prepare to go public on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis. To covered similar territory previously – and better – in 2011’s Life Without Principle, but his film does display a keen understanding of Hong Kong’s workplace environment and rituals.
One Wild Moment
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
The Paradise Suite
Party Girl
Dustin Jansick @ Way Too Indie
- Excerpt: With the lead cast as herself, this film is too personal to be engaging.
Rahasya
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Sleeping Giant
Sordid Confessions
- Excerpt: Judge not, that ye be not judged
Sunset Song
Patrick Mullen @ Cinemablographer
Truman
Very Big Shot
Ville-Marie
Patrick Mullen @ Cinemablographer
The Waiting Room
The Waiting Room
Women He’s Undressed
Kristen Lopez @ Awards Circuit
The World of Astley Baker Davies
- Excerpt: The whole collection of shorts are highly enjoyable and the juxtaposition of darker films with lighter, funnier works surprisingly well as a showcase of both their makers’ talents and their versatility. See it in particular for the fantastic ‘The Hill Farm’ and ‘The Village.’
