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: Dec. 5-7, 2014
Limited (United States)
Life Partners
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: While writer-director Fogel and co-writer Joni Lefkowitz don’t say anything too fresh here, besides incorporating both sides of sexual orientation, the film is often perceptive and even sharply funny about co-dependent relationships and how they are tested when one romantic door opens for one party and not the other.
Pioneer
David Bax @ Battleship Pretension
- Excerpt: Skjoldbjærg’s style pastiche coheres to create something larger than the sum of its parts. Petter’s harrowing descent wraps us up viscerally in real-world deceptions and their devastating collateral damage.
Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
Carson Lund @ Slant Magazine
- Excerpt: Pioneer’s greatest asset, and another trait it shares with Mann and Fincher’s work, is a careful attention toward the particulars of its milieu in a way that doesn’t call attention to those period touches. The film matches the quotient of moustaches, thick-rimmed glasses, and earth-toned blazers from Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy without ever getting Argo-level ostentatious about it.
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry
Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Wild
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Zero Motivation
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Lavie’s made a film from an unique perspective, one which illustrates how discrimination works against the system, undermining it by breeding contempt. But while the film certainly has comedic aspects, it’s never as uproariously funny as it could (or should) be
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Algorithms
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
American Sniper
- Excerpt: American Sniper is at its freshest and most insightful when examining the physical and mental effects warfare takes on a soldier.
Annabelle
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Antarctica: A Year on Ice
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Babadook
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Birdman
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Black or White
The Boxtrolls
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Boyhood
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
By the Gun
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Cliched, confused and thoroughly unnecessary, “By the Gun” features a meaty role for Boston rapper Slaine (“The Town”) as Nick’s best friend George, but writer Emilio Mauro deep sixes the character’s early promise in a laughable “Mean Streets” ripoff.
Citizenfour
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Crossing
- Excerpt: John Woo’s first directorial offering in four years is a grand scale war-time romance chronicling the plight of three unrelated couples whose lives become entwined during the Chinese Civil War. As was the case with Woo’s 2008 two-parter, Red Cliff, the eponymous event – in this case the tragic 1949 sinking of Chinese steamer the Taiping – is still yet to come, as this first installment delivers two hours of detailed set-up, with its feet firmly on terra firma.
Enemy
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Exodus: Gods and Kings
José Arce @ LaButaca.net [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Ridley Scott propone una de sus peores películas desde un planteamiento erróneo y apelotonado, además de fallar en la elección de buena parte de su reparto. Bastante mal todo, en general.
- Excerpt: Meeting, but rarely exceeding, expectations, Ridley Scott’s grand retelling of Moses and the Hebrews’ flight from Egypt is strong on visuals and A-list presence, but slight on narrative and characterisation. Christian Bale and Joel Egerton both put in fine performances as Moses and Rameses, while the rest of the big-name cast gets lost amidst a CG-heavy blizzard of battles, plagues, revolts and muddled imagery.
Filth
Dustin Freeley @ Movies About Gladiators
- Excerpt: Irvine Welsh’s further examination of Scottish self hatred.
Force Majeure
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Foxcatcher
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The Foxy Merkins
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Grand Budapest Hotel
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Great Invisible
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Hangar 10
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
The Heart Machine
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Homesman
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Horrible Bosses 2
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Imitation Game
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Inherent Vice
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Interstellar
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Into the Storm
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Ivory Tower
Dustin Freeley @ Movies About Gladiators
- Excerpt: A documentary about education and its discontents.
Jessabelle
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Kill the Messenger
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Late Phases
The Lego Movie
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Liberator
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Listen Up, Philip
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Magic in the Moonlight
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Meet the Mormons
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
A Most Wanted Man
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Mule
Simon Miraudo @ Quickflix
Nas: Time Is Illmatic
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Omar
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Penguins of Madagascar
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Rosewater
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Rude Dude
The Sacrament
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Selma
Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A stirring and enlightening movie about civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his crusade for equality.
The Skeleton Twins
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Song of the Sea
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An Irish folktale about facing our fears, embracing death and human frailty, walking in wonder and returning home as transformed lovers.
St. Vincent
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Still Alice
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A caring and compassionate portrait of a linguistics professor stricken with early onset Alzheimer’s. carried home into our hearts by Julianne Moore’s mesmerizing performance.
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: An impressive hallowing of play and laughter as the sources of a lightness of being.
Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: The magic is in the technique.
The Theory of Everything
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
True Son
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Whiplash
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Why Don’t You Play In Hell
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Winter Sleep
Alan Mattli @ Facing the Bitter Truth [German]
- Excerpt: An intense, complex, subtly poetic character drama inspired by Chekhov and evoking Bergman – a majestic, intimate monument.
Women Who Flirt
- Excerpt: After dipping his toe into China with his 2012 sequel Love In The Buff, Hong Kong auteur Pang Ho Cheung embraces the inevitable and presents his first full-blown mainland production, Women Who Flirt. Zhou Xun and Huang Xiaoming play the longtime friends and colleagues whose til-now platonic relationship is jeopardised by Taiwanese dolly bird Sui Tang, forcing Zhou to step up and show she’s got what it takes to win the guy she’s always loved.
You’re Not You
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
2014 Films (Coming Soon)
Coming Home
Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
Death Metal Angola
Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Death Metal Angola’ is a quiet movie about a culture roaring back to life.
Déjà Vu
- Excerpt: Romanian film has long takes galore.
Guidelines
Mathieu Li-Goyette @ Panorama-cinéma [French]
Heaven Adores You
Simon Miraudo @ Quickflix
Mea Culpa
David Upton @ So So Gay
- Excerpt: Shoot out set pieces have no real rhythm to them; the tension rises and falls with unusual sharpness, dying off as the men cease in confusion. No one can see anything and the bullets don’t land; this is not a world of seamless choreography but a recognisably messy one where the camera lives among humans carefully searching for their unknown enemy.
The Nose
Mathieu Li-Goyette @ Panorama-cinéma [French]
Once Upon a Time, Veronica
Ungli
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
