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: Oct. 24-26, 2014
Wide (United States)
23 Blast
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: The clunky script and amateurish performances are not unexpected in the faith-based genre, but its dubious “inspiration” gives even diehard-atheist me pause.
John Wick
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Expanding (United States)
St. Vincent
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Limited (United States)
Citizenfour
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a hell of an eye opener, even given knowledge of its events. Poitras’s documentary makes us feel the danger of government invasion.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Edward Snowden speaks. Buy a ticket to this film… and use your credit card, so the NSA knows you care about this stuff.
Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: “Citizenfour” provides a stark cinema vérité perspective on America’s biggest political scandal.
Laggies
- Excerpt: While it’s true that adults don’t always have the answers and sometimes make childish mistakes, Laggies says as long as you look like Keira Knightley everything will be fine.
Revenge of the Green Dragons
- Excerpt: hysterically rendered cohorts are even more irksome, a barrage of squeals, snarls, and gunshots that are more repulsive in their exaggerated acting than any of their heinous crimes.
White Bird in a Blizzard
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: lurid camp
- Excerpt: White Bird in a Blizzard lacks momentum as a tawdry mystery, but it’s worth seeing for Woodley, Green, and Araki’s intoxicating sense of mood.
Benjamin Kramer @ The Voracious Filmgoer
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Too slow-moving for a thriller, but shocking ending is almost worth waiting for.
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
3 Days to Kill
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
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The Babadook
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Genuinely horrific and deeply scary in a way that draws on the most primal of emotions. A horror flick with rare emotional and psychological resonance.
David William Upton @ So So Gay
- Excerpt: Elegantly focusing on the extended chills the genre can provide, rather than short sharp shocks, Kent’s film will not be for those who favour their horror with buckets of blood, but it may prove impossible not to be drawn into the increasingly insular world.
Big Men
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: This doc tells the true story, with impressive access and documentation, about a little Texas company that finds oil in Ghana.
Birdman
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Blue Room
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The Book of Life
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Dear White People
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The film isn’t as funny as it could be, largely because Simien’s tone isn’t as fueled by anger as [Spike] Lee’s films, but when he scores, it’s often a bullseye.
Default
- Excerpt: Setting itself apart from a crowded field of Somali pirate movies is a goal Default reaches for, but in choosing meaningless action over all else it’s never achieved.
Dracula Untold
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Eternity: The Movie
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
Exists
- Excerpt: With nary an original flourish in its little brain, despite some fleeting moments of genuine creepiness, the distraction of its mechanics work as resolutely against its effectiveness like a majority of all films in this vein, wherein cameras stay indefatigably in action no matter the dangers faced, and obvious editing and musical cues interfere with the rules of the game.
Extraterrestrial
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
Felony
Foxcatcher
Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Fury
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Golden Era
Gone Girl
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The Great Museum
Alan Mattli @ Facing the Bitter Truth [German]
- Excerpt: The only real downside to this otherwise fascinating fly-on-the-wall documentary is that it shamelessly plagiarises Nicolas Philibert’s ‘La ville Louvre’.
The Heart Machine
- Excerpt: New York filmmaker Zachary Wigon’s concise introspective thriller, by contrast, is a rare example of a work that operates outside expected approaches, showcasing a genuine fascination with the mind/body split engendered by Skyping, online dating, and constant app usage through a plot that doesn’t fuel itself on received wisdom, instead considering its isolated characters as though through an anthropological lens.
Hollows Grove
Mike McGranaghan @ Film Racket
- Excerpt: A virtual compendium of found footage clichés, all assembled in an unoriginal, lackluster manner.
Housebound
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Judge
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Kill the Messenger
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Kundo: Age of the Rampant
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
Left Behind
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Life After Beth
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Life of Riley
- Excerpt: With a finale that suggests an ‘all’s well that ends well’ ideal, Life of Riley is a highly styled exercise from a master filmmaker, a bittersweet addendum to an impressive body of work.
Listen Up, Philip
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Magic in the Moonlight
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Maps to the Stars
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Julianne Moore gives a brave performance, but at times the determination to shock the audience reeks of desperation.
The Maze Runner
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A Million Ways to Die in the West
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Nightcrawler
Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog
- Excerpt: I’m giving you a night crawl…
The November Man
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One Chance
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Pride
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Private Violence
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Tthe 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.
Rudderless
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
See No Evil 2
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
Billy Donnelly @ This Is Infamous
Stonehearst Asylum
- Excerpt: an injustice to its vintage source material. Anderson can be a director of excitingly high concept, offbeat material, but Stonehearst is too glossy and too lugubrious to consider seriously.
Summer of Blood
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Town That Dreaded Sundown
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
Transformers: Age of Extinction
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Tusk
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The Two Faces of January
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The Way He Looks
David William Upton @ So So Gay
- Excerpt: Daniel Ribiero’s deft expansion of his exquisite short film allows the simple narrative more time to feel through its characters. It helps greatly that the young performers are so natural, not just in Lobo’s astonishing believability at playing blind, but in their rhythms and ability to place delicate reactions inside scenes that might otherwise contain very little.
We Are the Best!
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Whiplash
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Winter Sleep
Carlos del Río @ El rincón de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Poco visual y mal contada, y sin embargo, muy interesante.
Yves Saint Laurent
Dragan Antulov @ FAK [Croatian]
- Excerpt: Cak i oni gledatelji naviknuti na rutinske nedostatke suvremenih biografskih filmova osjetit ce se zakinutima.
2013 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Blue Jasmine
Nuno Reis @ Antestreia [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Apesar de já ser bastante pesado, se não tivesse a comédia forçada – e sabemos que Allen não precisa disso – podia ser o filme do ano. Um dramalhão sobre uma mulher no ponto de ruptura, pode não ser fácil de vender, mas seria inesquecível.
Vikingdom
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Made by Malaysians and played out on CGI-sets that look like black metal album covers, ‘Vikingdom’ is an odd film whose stupid title telegraphs the level of sophistication involved.
2014 Films (Coming Soon)
The Dark Valley
Delicious
Nuno Reis @ Antestreia [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: http://antestreia.blogspot.pt/2014/09/delicious-por-nuno-reis.html
Heimat: Home from Home
Tiago Ramos @ Split Screen [Portuguese]
Jauja
Carson Lund @ Are the Hills Going to March Off?
- Excerpt: Two things are new here in Alonso’s unyielding world: a leading lonely man with palpable emotions and motivations made clear to the audience rather than willfully obfuscated, and a willingness to allow the environment to assume the interior dimensions of this character.
Walking on Sunshine
Dragan Antulov @ FAK [Croatian]
- Excerpt: Džuboks mjuzikl koji uspijeva ništa više ni ništa manje nego što je uspjela ‘Mamma Mia’.
