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: Aug. 22-24, 2014
Wide (United States)
If I Stay
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
When the Game Stands Tall
Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: Every personal setback, medical emergency, or tragedy is just what happens in between one season, game, or practice and the next.
[New Today] Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Imagine an entire season of side plots from Friday Night Lights shoved into two hours and you will have a good feel for this movie.
Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: Workmanlike rather than inspired…well-intentioned but heavy-handed.
Expanding (United States)
Island of Lemurs: Madagascar
Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: Apart from one element it’s a thoroughly likable, though hardly overwhelming, travelogue.
Limited (United States)
14 Blades
- Excerpt: 14 Blades will most likely only entertain its core audience of martial arts aficionados. But kudos to anyone who can recall the intended purpose for each blade.
Are You Here
- Excerpt: Originally titled You Are Here when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2013, it’s as if the refashioning of statement to question is posed for anyone left in the audience that stayed until the end credits.
Stacia Kissick Jones @ She Blogged By Night
Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: It’s fairly certain that while watching it you’ll wish you were somewhere else.
Love Is Strange
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The One I Love
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
To Be Takei
[New Today] William Bibbiani @ CraveOnline
- Excerpt: If you don’t know George Takei, and you will never be asked to come over to his house for tea and a pleasant conversation, then To Be Takei is probably the next best thing.
Kristy Puchko @ CinemaBlend.com
- Excerpt: To Be Takei is radiant with the joy of the man has captured the hearts and imaginations of untold fans. It left me smiling ear to ear, and with some serious food for thought.
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Abuse of Weakness
Carson Lund @ In Review Online
- Excerpt: If Abuse of Weakness is autobiography, it’s a challenging, uncategorizable use of the form: based on personal events but decidedly resistant to resuscitating the subjective experience of living through them—or, especially, providing any discernible commentary on them.
Boyhood
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Boys of Abu Ghraib
Calvary
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Cheap Thrills
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The Congress
[New Today] Matthew Lucas @ From the Front Row
- Excerpt: It’s also a film of very delicate beauty, from Folman’s startling imagery to Max Richter’s heartbreaking score – The Congress stands as a refreshing reminder of the singular power of cinema.
Dancing in Jaffa
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: Proof that dancing is a healing force capable of turning an enemy into a friend.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Dog
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The Expendables 3
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Frank
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The Giver
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God Help the Girl
- Excerpt: A quaint, pretentious film, representative of a quaint, pretentious band.
Guardians of the Galaxy
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
How to Train Your Dragon 2
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The Hundred-Foot Journey
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Into the Storm
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Jersey Shore Massacre
Mike McGranaghan @ Film Racket
- Excerpt: An irredeemably awful film.
Journey to the West
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Land Ho!
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Let’s Be Cops
- Excerpt: ‘Let’s Be Cops’ is a pretty disposable movie, the kind of picture that seems destined for Sunday afternoons on TBS. Many of the comic set pieces are sort of half-thought-out, and the climax makes the mistake that police comedies have made since ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’ of taking their shoot-outs and crime plots seriously (as if anyone actually cares).
Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: So rotten that you have the right to refrain.
Life After Beth
Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire
Steve Biodrowski @ Cinefantastique Online
- Excerpt: Like its titular zombie, this film makes a good first impression, but before long you can tell the neurons are not quite firing correctly.
Lucy
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Lunchbox
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Magic in the Moonlight
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A Most Wanted Man
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May in the Summer
- Excerpt: It quickly slips into an overly familiar melodrama, throwing us into a sort of foreign born It’s Complicated scenario -.
Need for Speed
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Rich Hill
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
Swelter
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: puny modern day western propped up against the influence of Tarantino’s Django Unchained and Robert Rodriquez’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico, yet it can’t approach either of those films, it comes off more as a showcase of violence in slow-motion than developing any kind of character.
The Rover
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Sex Tape
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The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears
[New Today] Matthew Lucas @ From the Front Row
- Excerpt: This feels ponderous; an aimless doodle where film school affectations are mistaken for actual depth, a modern day piece of avant-garde standing in the shadow of masters.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Trip to Italy
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Veronica Mars
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Visitors
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We Are the Best!
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What If
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Zero Theorem
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2014 Films (Coming Soon)
Cam2Cam
- Excerpt: Cam2Cam’s rudimentary grappling with the inherent dangers of online prostitution and the false security of interacting via digital platforms already seems about a decade behind the times.
The Inbetweeners 2
Simon Miraudo @ Quickflix
Kooky
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: A 6 year old’s imagination and alter ego, the little teddybear, transmigrate into a fantasy forest of good guys and bad guys. There is a mixture of puppets and toy cars with live butterflies, dogs, nature and people. Squirrels and birds are friends, garbage, especially plastic bottles and industrial waste, is the enemy.
Mardaani
[New Today] Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood