I had to start cooking for myself again this week, which means I have stocked up on a ton of Smucker’s Uncrustables. They are these awesome prepackaged Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches that don’t have crusts. Science is pretty wonderful. Also, lots of new movies opening this week.
This BSR! Weekend Movie Preview is for the weekend of October 24, 2014. A quick disclaimer first. All of the film information presented here, including the plot summary, has been pulled from the Opening This Week page of IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/nowplaying/). I have not seen any of these movies at the time of this writing (except for one this week).
Join us this week as we preview “Ouija”, “John Wick”, “Happy New Year”, and more.
Ouija (2014)
PG-13 89 min – Horror
Director: Stiles White
Stars: Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Daren Kagasoff, Bianca A. Santos
Summary: A group of friends must confront their most terrifying fears when they awaken the dark powers of an ancient spirit board.
Thoughts: Coming soon: Light As A Feather, Stiff As A Board – a horrifying descent into the evil of pretend levitation.
John Wick (2014)
R 101 min – Action | Thriller
Directors: David Leitch | Chad Stahelski
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Willem Dafoe
Summary: An ex-hitman comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from him.
Thoughts: I actually saw this last week at a sneak peek. Totally worth your time. Here is my review: https://bigshinyrobot.com/58133/review-john-wick/
Happy New Year (2014)
180 min – Action | Comedy | Crime | Drama | Musical | Romance
Director: Farah Khan
Stars: Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Boman Irani
Summary: A team of losers win the love of millions in their quest to pull off the biggest diamond heist ever.
Thoughts: I have no idea what even… where to begin… “English, english, english.” I think I really gotta see this, otherwise I will never know. So many slow walk scenes. So many.
White Bird in a Blizzard (2014) – [Limited]
R 91 min – Drama | Thriller
Director: Gregg Araki
Stars: Shailene Woodley, Eva Green, Christopher Meloni, Angela Bassett
Summary: In 1988, a teenage girl’s life is thrown into chaos when her mother disappears.
Thoughts: My initial instinct is to make fun of this, but man, what a great cast. And Arraki is a very distinct filmmaker. I am not a fan of Shailene Woodley, but that is more of a generational thing I guess. And Eva Green looks seriously pissed off here.
Laggies (2014) – [Limited]
R 99 min – Comedy | Romance
Director: Lynn Shelton
Stars: Keira Knightley, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sam Rockwell, Mark Webber
Summary: In the throes of a quarter-life crisis, Megan panics when her boyfriend proposes, then, taking an opportunity to escape for a week, hides out in the home of her new friend, 16-year-old Annika, who lives with her world-weary single dad.
Thoughts: What is happening to me!! I should hate something like this. When did Hollywood start casting their shitty teen rom-coms with good actors. I call foul!!
Citizenfour (2014) – [Limited]
R 114 min – Documentary
Director: Laura Poitras
Stars: Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Appelbaum, Julian Assange
Summary: A documentarian and a reporter travel to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden.
Thoughts: I am seriously personally conflicted on the whole Edward Snowden situation. On one hand I think Whistle Blowing is the height of modern day everyman heroics. On the other hand, holy cow he took a lot of documents. More than he would ever need to make his case, and a lot that don’t have anything to do with what he wanted to expose. But I kinda get the impulse to do that as well. I have read that this film is very one sided on the issue, which I guess is okay, since it is pretty one sided in the mainstream as well.
Force Majeure (2014) – [Limited]
R 118 min – Drama
Director: Ruben Östlund
Stars: Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Clara Wettergren, Vincent Wettergren
Summary: A family on a ski holiday in the French Alps find themselves staring down an avalanche during lunch one day; in the aftermath, their dynamic has been shaken to its core, with a question mark hanging over their patriarch in particular.
Thoughts: Based on the summary, this sounds like an awful movie, but the trailer is pretty wonderful. IMDb really needs to hire someone new to write their movie summaries.
23 Blast (2014) – [Limited]
PG-13 98 min – Drama | Family | Sport
Director: Dylan Baker
Stars: Mark Hapka, Bram Hoover, Stephen Lang, Max Adler
Summary: When a high school football star is suddenly stricken with irreversible total blindness, he must decide whether to live a safe handicapped life or bravely return to the life he once knew and the sport he still loves.
Thoughts: I think I need to see a doctor or a therapist. I am not hating anything this week, and that is very unlike me. Maybe it is Ebola. Does anyone know if Ebola makes you change your mind about what you like and hate.
Revenge of the Green Dragons (2014) – [Limited]
R 94 min – Action | Crime | Drama
Directors: Wai-keung Lau | Andrew Loo
Stars: Justin Chon, Kevin Wu, Harry Shum Jr., Ray Liotta
Summary: Two best friends rise through the ranks of New York’s Chinese underworld in the 1980s.
Thoughts: The early word on this is not good, but I still would like to see it. If only to determine if the early poor reception is due to a misunderstanding of the Asian film aesthetic, which is very different from the American aesthetic. Asian films are looser on plot, and more character driven, and love mixing a bit of slapstick into extremely violent stuff. They can swing wildly from one emotional place to another in the space of a scene, which is not done hardly at all in the west.
Exists (2014) – [Limited]
R 86 min – Horror
Director: Eduardo Sánchez
Stars: Samuel Davis, Dora Madison Burge, Roger Edwards, Chris Osborn
Summary: A group of friends who venture into the remote Texas woods for a party weekend find themselves stalked by Bigfoot.
Thoughts: I wanna start my own film festival and call it the Bigfoot Film Festival, and we will show only Bigfoot films. And maybe an occasional Abominable Snowman movie, and possibly a special screening of Prophecy.
All in all, a pretty great week of releases I would think. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.