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: Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 2014
Wide (United States)
Before I Go to Sleep
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Before I Go to Sleep isn’t merely bad cheese, it’s Limburger.
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: The point is to make us distrust everyone and everything that everyone says. It works a little too well, because we end up distrusting the movie as a whole.
[New Today] James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Excerpt: Before I Go to Sleep’ Is A Suspenseful Ride Through The Twists And Turns Of Nicole Kidman’s Mind
[New Today] Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Stylish and suspenseful – like ‘Gone Girl,’ it belongs in a new sub-genre labelled ‘marriage thriller.’
[New Today] Ben Kendrick @ Screen Rant
- Excerpt: Before I Go to Sleep does little to redefine the psychological thriller genre but still offers an intriguing central mystery that should keep viewers guessing.
[New Today] Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Before I Go to Sleep eventually goes off the rails as an exercise in manipulation with a “Sleeping with the Enemy”-like climax and a treacly, unearned epilogue.
[New Today] Tom Santilli @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: Comparisons with the better, more effective thriller, Gone Girl, are unavoidable. But taken on its own, Before I Go to Sleep should satisfy most movie-goers, even if it becomes quickly forgotten by morning.
Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: A lethargic, very silly would-be thriller…featur[ing] scenes of abuse that are extremely nasty and protracted.
Nightcrawler
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
ABCs of Death 2
[New Today] Marina Antunes @ Quiet Earth
[New Today] Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
[New Today] Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: This is definitely a straight-up horror film even though not every story falls squarely into that realm. It’s not for the squeamish as there are some pretty extreme moments, but for the fan of scary movies, you’ll definitely find some cool stuff in this virtual (and disturbing) picture book.
[New Today] Mark Harris @ About.com
The Great Invisible
- Excerpt: The Great Invisible occasionally touches on gripping material but leaves too much of the story unsaid.
Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A hard-hitting and illuminating documentary about one of the largest man-made environmental disaster in history.
Horns
[New Today] Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: The acting holds the film together, much of which is on Radcliffe’s shoulders. It’s a nice piece for him to help break into larger movies without a wizard’s cloak for him.
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: The gimmick … keeps us at a distance from the real toll on these characters.
[New Today] Mark Harris @ About.com
Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Horns will make a fine Halloween date movie for those who steer clear of gore and jump scares but other than that, there is not too much here.
[New Today] Kristin Dreyer Kramer @ NightsAndWeekends.com
Stefan Pape @ HeyUGuys
[New Today] Tom Santilli @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: Horns is a strange movie that doesn’t make it easy for us to wrap our heads around.
Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: A near-miss, a supernatural romance-cum-whodunit that strains under the weight of its warring elements.
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
1,000 Times Good Night
The Babadook
- Excerpt: Kent’s fixations are incredibly mature, and her focus is stellar. “The Babadook” never sells out, safeguarding its human interests, even when the shit hits the fan.
Big Hero 6
[New Today] Oktay Kozak @ Oregon Herald
Birdman
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Blue Room
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The Book of Life
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Breakup Buddies
[New Today] James Marsh @ Twitch
- Excerpt: The long, punishing arm of China’s censorship board still hangs heavy over the career of mainland filmmaker Ning Hao. The once-exciting auteur turns in another safe, audience-friendly offering with Breakup Buddies, suggesting his penance for the acerbic No Man’s Land is still far from paid.
Camp X-Ray
- Excerpt: The baggage Stewart brings to ‘Camp X-Ray’ makes its first hour more compelling than anything in the screenplay. If the character is out of her depth, there’s a question as to whether the actor is as well; both certainly walk into Gitmo (the setting and the set) with something to prove, and when obstructions are placed in front of them, their jaw hardens and they proceed with even greater determination.
The Canal
Ron Wilkinson @ Monsters and Critics
- Excerpt: Spirits in restrooms, blood from the walls and a hand cranked camera add up to something, but we are not sure what.
Citizenfour
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: This isn’t a one-sided movie as much as it is a movie about half of one side.
- Excerpt: Citizenfour is an historical document of confounding significance. It’s a glimpse behind the closed doors of a moment in time that has otherwise only been revealed in the abstract.
Ron Wilkinson @ Monsters and Critics
- Excerpt: Enter the real life world of spy craft and believe the truth is stranger than fiction
A Coffee in Berlin
Aaron Pinkston @ Battleship Pretension
- Excerpt: Anchored by a breakout performance and a witty script, the film is an effortlessly entertaining stroll through the German capital.
Dear White People
- Excerpt: Writer/director Justin Simien takes on race relations in the Ivy League with this dagger-sharp satire, a film filled end-to-end with tiny sticks of dynamite, each lit carefully with a gleeful smirk.Simien is a righteous filmmaker, but his bitterness is exhilarating, and at its best, ‘Dear White People’ vibrates with the visceral thrill of watching a gifted new voice get away with something.
Death Comes to Pemberley
Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
- Excerpt: A devilishly good whodunit by P.D. James that is a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
The Decent One
Ron Wilkinson @ Monsters and Critics
- Excerpt: Home movies juxtaposed with horrific Nazi footage paints the picture of the sleeping monster in us all.
Deliver Us from Evil
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Dracula Untold
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Extraterrestrial
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Force Majeure
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: The cool deliberation…takes a degree of patience to appreciate, and some may find its abrupt tonal shifts bewildering. But it’s a remarkable portrait of a family on the verge.
Fury
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Giver
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The Guest
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Hercules
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Interstellar
William Bibbiani @ CraveOnline
- Excerpt: Christopher Nolan’s latest is an impressive visual spectacle riddled with plot holes and false emotions.
[New Today] MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Thrilling intellectually and viscerally, full of stirring notions of what humanity is capable of, and full of hope. A wonderfully refreshing sort of SF.
[New Today] James Marsh @ The Society For Film
- Excerpt: Interstellar is quite possibly Christopher Nolan’s most personal film to-date, a grand spectacle of deep space exploration involving wormholes and theories of relativity, but which ultimately rests on the relationship between one man and his daughter. For all its epic visual splendour and scientific mumbo-jumbo, Interstellar is at its heart an intensely human drama. Its success, and indeed the success of the mission on screen, relies less on mathematics, mechanics and technology than on real emotion – and as a result, the film may alienate and upset those looking for a simple white-knuckle thrill ride.
John Wick
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Judge
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Kill the Messenger
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Laggies
Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: an odd departure for Shelton, an unusual premise relayed in more routine storytelling beats, but she’s cast it well and Knightley shines.
[New Today] James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Excerpt: Laggies’ Is A Coming-Of-Age Story For Generation Y
[New Today] Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: I respect a good quarter-life crisis, but Laggies is not one of those.
The Last Sentence
Aaron Pinkston @ Battleship Pretension
- Excerpt: While this is an impressive production from a very competent filmmaker, I was left a bit cold.
Left Behind
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Love Is in the Air
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Low Down
Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
Kenji Fujishima @ Slant Magazine
Lucy
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Maze Runner
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Men, Women & Children
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Million Dollar Arm
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Missionary
Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: Little more than a pallid gender-reversal version of ‘Fatal Attraction’ with an unseemly religious twist…at best cable-TV fodder.
Mr. Turner
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This is no stuffy costume drama but a richly lived-in visit to early-19th-century England that is rough, bawdy, often funny, and more often unsettling.
National Gallery
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This one isn’t a complete soup to nuts exploration of an administration so much as it is an exploration of how we communicate with art, Wiseman’s sly sense of humor peaking through in his editing.
Ouija
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Rhymes for Young Ghouls
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: If you are a film critic, ethnic studies type, or a Native American starved for cinematic role models, you’ll probably fall over yourself praising ‘Ghouls,’ and I’ll be hard pressed to muster much of a will to argue against you.
Snowpiercer
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
St. Vincent
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Stonehearst Asylum
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The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: Will enthrall everyone with its evocative images but probably task the patience of anybody not already acquainted with, and fascinated by, the story.
The Theory of Everything
[New Today] Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
- Excerpt: Standardly told, yet executing the complicated parameters and perils of the biopic quite satisfactorily, it may not be as brilliant as its subject, but it’s a moving piece of cinema nonetheless.
This Is Where I Leave You
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Town That Dreaded Sundown
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Against all trepidation that inevitably comes with a horror film named after a classic—or in this case, a minor classic—”The Town That Dreaded Sundown” feels like both a throwback and a revitalization, and above all else, it’s actually scary.
A Walk Among the Tombstones
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Warsaw Uprising
David Bax @ Battleship Pretension
- Excerpt: What we have is a film that – well-intentioned though it may be – is so profoundly misguided from the very start that it’s difficult to imagine what, if anything, could be done to improve it. At times, it’s so off-kilter that it’s funny, probably the last thing the filmmakers would want this story to be.
Whiplash
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White Bird in a Blizzard
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Winter in the Blood
David Bax @ Battleship Pretension
- Excerpt: As the name suggests, winter represents something just under the surface. There’s something in the blood, in the animals, in the dirt, in the town and in the liquor.
2013 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Charlie Countryman
2014 Films (Coming Soon)
Class Enemy
Alan Mattli @ Facing the Bitter Truth [German]
- Excerpt: Many of its characters do not go beyond the stereotypical, Rok Bicek’s feature debut can be deemed a success. A minute and arresting psychological drama.
Roar: Tigers of the Sundarbans
[New Today] Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
The Rugby Player
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
Someone You Love
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Watchers of the Sky
When the Garden Was Eden
Wild Tales
Carlos del Río @ El rincón de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Muy sobrevalorada.
