Movies in Theaters This Friday, January 4, 2013: Texas Chainsaw, 56 Up, and More Expanding
Just like last week was a little slow on releases, the opening weekend of 2013 isn’t exactly overflowing with new releases. Traditionally, movies looking for awards buzz will be crammed into the end of December. That means that January releases are often considered mediocre at best.
Still, we shouldn’t write off every single release automatically. Looking at last year, critical hits like Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and Norwegian Wood graced theaters at the beginning of January.
This weekend, look for the wide release of Texas Chainsaw 3D to be the biggest new draw. The horror movie The Devil Inside premiered in 2012 at a similar time to massively surprising box office numbers, so there’s a shot the horror trend will continue.
There are some limited releases, too, including 56 Up, A Dark Truth, and All Superheroes Must Die.
Perhaps the best plan could be seeing an expanding movie, as Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible (review here) and Gus Van Sant’s Promised Land (review here) hit more theaters.
As always, enjoy your weekend!
Lionsgate’s TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D continues the legendary story of the homicidal Sawyer family, picking up where Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror classic left off in Newt, Texas, where for decades people went missing without a trace. The townspeople long suspected the Sawyer family, owners of a local barbeque pit, were somehow responsible. Their suspicions were finally confirmed one hot summer day when a young woman escaped the Sawyer house following the brutal murders of her four friends. Word around the small town quickly spread, and a vigilante mob of enraged locals surrounded the Sawyer stronghold, burning it to the ground and killing every last member of the family – or so they thought.
Decades later and hundreds of miles away from the original massacre, a young woman named Heather learns that she has inherited a Texas estate from a grandmother she never knew she had. After embarking on a road trip with friends to uncover her roots, she finds she is the sole owner of a lavish, isolated Victorian mansion. But her newfound wealth comes at a price as she stumbles upon a horror that awaits her in the mansion’s dank cellars.
With gruesome surprises in store for a whole new generation, TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D stars Alexandra Daddario (Heather Miller) and Dan Yeager (Leatherface), Introducing Tremaine ‘Trey Songz’ Neverson (Ryan), Scott Eastwood (Carl), Tania Raymonde (Nikki), Shaun Sipos (Darryl), Keram Malicki-Sanchez (Kenny), James MacDonald (Officer Marvin), Thom Barry (Sheriff Hooper), Paul Rae (Burt Hartman), Richard Riehle (Farnsworth) along with special appearances from four beloved cast members from previous installments of the franchise: Gunnar Hansen (the original Leatherface), Marilyn Burns, John Dugan and Bill Moseley.
Starting in 1964 with Seven Up, The UP Series has explored this Jesuit maxim. The original concept was to interview 14 children from diverse backgrounds from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Every seven years, renowned director Michael Apted, a researcher for Seven Up, has been back to talk to them, examining the progression of their lives.
From cab driver Tony to schoolmates Jackie, Lynn and Susan and the heart-breaking Neil, as they turn 56 more life-changing decisions and surprising developments are revealed.
An extraordinary look at the structure of life in the 20th century, The UP Series is, according to critic Roger Ebert, “an inspired, almost noble use of the film medium. Apted penetrates to the central mystery of life.”
Andy Garcia, Kim Coates, Deborah Kara Unger, Eva Longoria and Forest Whitaker star in A Dark Truth, written and directed by Damian Lee. Garcia plays a former CIA operative turned political talk show host, who is hired by a corporate whistle blower (Unger) to expose her company’s cover-up of a massacre in a South American village. When he arrives, he is plunged into a violent and chaotic situation, with the military cracking down on a group of protesters led by a pair of activists (Longoria and Whitaker). The ever-increasing depletion of earth’s natural resource of water serves as the backdrop for this tense environmental thriller.
The film follows four masked avengers – Charge (Trost), Cutthroat (Till), The Wall (Lee Valmassy) and Shadow (Sophie Merkley) – who find themselves stripped of their powers by their arch-nemesis (Remar), whom they defeated years earlier…or so they thought. When the sinister mastermind puts the heroes through a series of brutal challenges that are virtually impossible to overcome, they must battle the clock – and even each other – in a race to stop a deadly countdown that could mean total destruction. Will the superheroes prevail, or will they be forced to meet their demise as mere human beings?
