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: Sep. 12-14, 2014
Wide (United States)
Dolphin Tale 2
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Drop
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
No Good Deed
[New Today] William Bibbiani @ CraveOnline
- Excerpt: No Good Deed clearly tries to capitalize on Elba’s towering sex appeal to justify why Terri endangers her family to a dangerous stranger, but it refuses to exploit him enough to either make its point or at least provide the audience with enough prurient thrills to warrant our time and money.
[New Today] Michael Dequina @ No Good Deed
Limited (United States)
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: One of Best Films of 2014 with its fresh insights into love, loss, marriage, and family life.
[New Today] Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Benson’s writing never feels anything but honest down to its smallest details and his exceptional cast is one of the best ensembles of the year.
The Green Prince
Ron Wilkinson @ MonstersandCritics.com
- Excerpt: A real life spy thriller proving the truth is stranger than fiction.
Honeymoon
Jeremy Kibler @ Diabolique Magazine
- Excerpt: Honeymoon is a minimalist, spectacularly acted something-in-the-woods chiller that burrows its way under the skin like a fungus. Good luck cutting it out.
Stacia Kissick Jones @ She Blogged By Night
I Am Eleven
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: An entertaining and appealing documentary about the hopes, dreams, and fears of eleven year olds around the world.
My Old Lady
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A well-acted psychological drama revolving around a homeless American, an aged bohemian, and her angry daughter.
Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Top-notch performances by Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas!
The Skeleton Twins
[New Today] Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: What makes this film work are the performances of former SNL colleagues Hader and Wiig, whose natural bond through good times and bad is one of the best depictions of siblings on screen since “You Can Count On Me,” a film which this one bears more than a little resemblance to.
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: It seems unlikely that The Skeleton Twins is aiming for something so simplistic, considering how much suffering it packs into the story, but simplistic is what it is.
Brent McKnight @ Paste Magazine
- Excerpt: Funny, touching, and heartfelt, “The Skeleton Twins” is a fantastic vehicle for its stars, and a moving portrait of the various things family can mean.
- Excerpt: Hader and Wiig have made a bold choice for their first major dramatic turn. Their performances as Milo and Maggie allow them to subtly tweak their own comic personas, playing the same basic types that made them famous but more or less showing what they’d be like on their worst days.
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
And So It Goes
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
As Above / So Below
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
At the Devil’s Door
[New Today] James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Excerpt: ‘At The Devil’s Door’ Tries Really Hard, But Just Doesn’t Deliver Any Scares
Begin Again
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Blue Room
Alan Mattli @ Facing the Bitter Truth [German]
- Excerpt: In adapting a Georges Simenon story, Mathieu Amalric follows in the footsteps of cinema giants like Duvivier, Renoir, Carné, Clouzot, Chabrol, and Tarr – and he fits right in: his is a film that is refined, subtle, well-crafted, and expertly staged.
The BoxTrolls
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: There’s a fine line between baroque and grotesque… and The Boxtrolls crosses it. Here is a film that actively makes you want to look away.
Boyhood
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Clouds of Sils Maria
- Excerpt: Great performances by Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart!
The Congress
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Dead Snow: Red Vs. Dead
[New Today] Kristy Puchko @ CinemaBlend.com
- Excerpt: Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead delivers more gore, action, firepower, and laughs than the first film. It’s brilliantly bonkers and will have audiences howling with laughter from its first zombie battle to its fucked up and fun final showdown.
Deliver Us from Evil
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Enemy
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Expendables 3
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Finding Fanny
[New Today] Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Frank
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Giver
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
God Help the Girl
Matthew Lucas @ From the Front Row
- Excerpt: unlike most things that get slapped with the label “hipster,” the film never comes across as ironic or condescending, it’s incredibly warm and sincere, bathed in a youthful nostalgia that is hard to resist.
The Guest
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: “[C]inema is over, man, and there’s nothing left but a death spiral of sarcastic self-reference reflecting and refracting around a dismal hall of movie mirrors and taunting us with the echoing emptiness our creatively bankrupt souls.”
Hercules
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Identical
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
If I Stay
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Immigrant
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Jersey Boys
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Kelly & Cal
Mike McGranaghan @ Film Racket
- Excerpt: Feels like a tiny little miracle.
The Kill Team
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: While “The Kill Team” is well worth watching, the jury’s out.
Last Days in Vietnam
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Although Kennedy follows the standard documentary format of archival footage and stills edited with current day interviews, she has constructed her telling of the story so expertly that her work is both moving and riveting.
Ron Wilkinson @ MonstersandCritics.com
- Excerpt: Emotion packed thriller of America’s Southeast Asia Dunkirk.
The Last of Robin Hood
[New Today] Kristin Dreyer Kramer @ NightsAndWeekends.com
Life of Crime
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Love Is Strange
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
No No: A Dockumentary
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Next Projection
Pride
[New Today] MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: One of the rare movies that gets absolutely everything right, bursting with happy-tears emotion about solidarity, friendship, and smashing bigotry.
David Upton @ So So Gay
- Excerpt: One scene, a quiet scene involving the making of the most weakly flavoured sandwiches you may ever see, typifies the film’s wonderfully observed character interactions, putting together two characters we’ve barely seen interact but know have a deep history (it’s hard to avoid in a village this tight-knit) for a gentle revelation that lies at the heart of the film’s understanding of the world.
Rocks in My Pockets
Bev Questad @ It’s Just Movies
- Excerpt: Bauman identifies her film as one of mystery and redemption. There is no stigmatizing or shaming – and no sense that the condition is pre-determined to end badly. We understand and we see pathways to light.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Wetlands
[New Today] Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Memorably gross but pert and highly personal, “Wetlands” tells you more than you probably ever wanted to know about anal fissures, but it would be a lie to say the film is without any honesty or heart, and there isn’t a small amount of cinematic panache.
Matthew Lucas @ From the Front Row
- Excerpt: You’ll never see anything like it again, and you probably won’t want to, but one thing is for sure – Wetlands is one of a kind.
Wild
- Excerpt: This is how you do a great adaptation.
2013 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
At Berkeley
David Upton @ So So Gay
- Excerpt: The multiplicity of this life, this place is prodigiously captured, intimate and overwhelming all at once.
2014 Films (Coming Soon)
Autumn Blood
Beats of the Antonov
- Excerpt: Review from the Toronto International Film Festival.
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films
- Excerpt: Mark Hartley’s unofficial biography of Cannon Films impresarios Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus is equal parts reverent and dumbfounded in its depiction of these maverick Hollywood outsiders. Bottling the same level of ravenous reportage for Cannon’s bountiful output as Hartley pumped into his Ozploitation expose Not Quite Hollywood, he again creates a roller coaster ride that is as crude, cocky and shamelessly entertaining as the films themselves.
Elephant Song
- Excerpt: Tense psychological drama starring Xavier Dolan, Bruce Greenwood, and Catherine Keener
The Homestretch
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: As affecting as these teenagers’ stories in The Homestretch are, the accounts of their advocates are equally inspiring.
Iboga Nights
In Order of Disappearance
- Excerpt: A man avenging his son’s death has the potential to make for compelling cinematic territory, and when you throw someone with the credentials of Skarsgård in to the mix, it helps infinitely.
The Look of Silence
- Excerpt: ‘Killing’ is tough act to follow, but ‘Silence’ is a worthy companion film.
Mary Kom
[New Today] Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Mateo
[New Today] Samuel Castro @ Ochoymedio.info [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Mateo es una película colombiana, afortunadamente optimista, opcionada entre las tres candidatas al Óscar por el país.
Mommy
- Excerpt: Dolan proves himself a cinematic force with this searing, audacious film.
October Gale
- Excerpt: Ruba Nadda tries her hand at genre again and Patricia Clarkson wields a shotgun like a motherfucker.
Serial (Bad) Weddings
Alan Mattli @ Facing the Bitter Truth [German]
- Excerpt: Hailed by many as “the new ‘Intouchables'”, ‘Bon Dieu’ is too crowded, too slight, and ultimately too conventional to be deserving of the comparison. Amusing, yes, but almost instantly forgotten.
Teenage
- Excerpt: In some ways, it feels more like a good start than a complete picture. Even so, if the topic sounds appealing and you like looking at alternative historical timelines, Teenage enlightens and entertains.
Wet Bum
- Excerpt: Feature debut for writer/director Lindsay MacKay goes swimmingly.