Movies in Theaters This Friday, March 14, 2014: Need for Speed, The Single Moms Club, Veronica Mars, and More
Like I mentioned last week, March is finally a big month for upcoming movies (no offense January and February). That is definitely evident this weekend with a huge variety of films, both wide and limited.
Perhaps the biggest release is for the video game-turned-movie Need for Speed. The movie stars Aaron Paul (AMC’s Breaking Bad) and musical artist Kid Cudi. Scott Waugh (Act of Valor) directs the action racing film.
The lone other wide release belongs to Tyler Perry’s The Single Moms Club. I wouldn’t consider myself a very vocal Tyler Perry fan, but the truth is I just haven’t seen his movies. There’s obviously a reason he can continually make movies, so audiences definitely like him. Besides him, the movie stars Nia Long (The Best Man) and Amy Smart (Crank).
The bulk of releases, as you can tell, come in the limited department.
In fact, the most noteworthy release (in my opinion) is the long-in-development Veronica Mars movie. Based on the cult TV show, it’ll reunite show creator Rob Thomas with the title character (played by Kristen Bell). Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the TV show yet, but I know there is a lot of hype behind this movie.
I’ve also heard good things about Denis Villeneuve’s (Prisoners) thriller Enemy. The cool thing here is Jake Gyllenhaal as he plays a duel role in the film. It also stars Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds).
The final limited release I can’t wait to plug (and see) is Jason Bateman’s directorial debut Bad Words. Bateman has ascended up the ranks as a legitimate comedy star, so I’m excited to see what he can do from behind the camera as well. He’ll star in the film, which is set to expand later this month.
The list of other limited releases is long, so bear with me: The Art of the Steal, Better Living Through Chemistry, Bewakoofiyaan, Big Men, The Cold Lands, Dark House, The Den, Exposed, Guilty of Romance, Himizu, Le Week-End, On My Way, Patrick: Evil Awakens, The Right Kind of Wrong, Shirin in Love, Teenage, and U Want Me 2 Kill Him?
Below are the trailers and synopses for each film. Enjoy your weekend!
Fresh from prison, a street racer who was framed by a wealthy business associate joins a cross country race with revenge in mind. His ex-partner, learning of the plan, places a massive bounty on his head as the race begins.
Brought together by an incident at their children’s school, a group of single mothers from different walks of life bond, and create a support group that helps them find comedy in the obstacles of life.
A third-rate motorcycle daredevil and part-time art thief teams up with his snaky brother to steal one of the most valuable books in the world.
Jason Bateman (“Identity Thief”) makes his feature directorial debut with the subversive comedy BAD WORDS. He stars as Guy Trilby, a 40-year-old who finds a loophole in the rules of The Golden Quill national spelling bee and decides to cause trouble by hijacking the competition. While reporter Jenny Widgeon (Kathryn Hahn of “We’re the Millers”) attempts to discover his true motivation, Guy finds himself forging an unlikely alliance with a competitor: awkward 10-year-old Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand of “Homeland”), who is completely unfazed by Guy’s take-no-prisoners approach to life.
Better Living Through Chemistry
A straight-laced pharmacist’s uneventful life spirals out of control when he starts an affair with a trophy wife customer who takes him on a joyride involving sex, drugs and possibly murder.
Mohit is a marketing whiz kid vying for a step up the career ladder. Mayera is a financial brain with a penchant for shoes. They’re a young middle-class corporate couple that’s ambitious and likes the good life too. They work hard, they party hard. They’re also passionately in love with each other. Their belief: You can live on love and fresh air. Their obstacle: Mayera’s willful bureaucratic father V.K Sehgal. The obstinate old man believes that only a rich man can bring Mayera happiness and a mid-level executive like Mohit simply isn’t good enough! Exactly how fragile are relationships in these times where consumer lifestyles dictate their very nature and intensity? Who gets the last laugh when recession strikes and the lack of money tests love… credit-card-junkies private-sector Mohit-Mayera; or safe-playing sarkari, V.K. Sehgal?
A good movie gives you a ticket to a secret world and Big Men delivers again and again, taking you into rooms you have no business entering. You’ll eavesdrop on meetings about oil deals worth billions of dollars and watch heavily armed militants preparing to strike. It’s a fast-paced tour through the high-powered world of African oil deals – a quest for money and power and influence that affects us all.
The film’s central story follows a small group of American explorers at Dallas-based oil company Kosmos Energy. Between 2007 and 2011, with unprecedented, independent access, Big Men’s two-person crew filmed inside the oil company as Kosmos and its partners discovered and developed the first commercial oil field in Ghana’s history.
Simultaneously the crew filmed in the swamps of Nigeria’s Niger Delta, following the exploits of a militant gang to reveal another side of the economy of oil: people trying to profit in any way possible, because they’ve given up on waiting for the money to trickle down.
So what happens when a group of hungry people discover a massive and exquisitely rare pot of gold in one of the poorest places on earth?
Watch your back: it’s every company, government and man for himself and everyone wants to be BIG.
When his self-reliant mother dies unexpectedly, Atticus flees deep into the forests surrounding his Catskills home. Wandering the woods in shock, relying on what meager food and shelter he comes across, Atticus’ grasp on reality begins to fray. His nerves worn thin, Atticus latches on when he encounters Carter, a scruffy, pot smoking drifter, who lives out of his car and sells handmade necklaces on the festival circuit. A wary alliance forms, with each dependent on the other, but neither sure he is making the right decision.
HAUNTED is a terror-filled road trip, full of horrifying twists and brutal surprises. A heart-stopping thriller about a young man and a chilling old house that has survived decades, full of deep dark secrets.
A young woman studying the habits of webcam chat users from the apparent safety of her apartment witnesses a brutal murder online and is quickly immersed in a nightmare in which she and her loved ones are targeted for the same grisly fate as the first victim.
Adam Bell is a glum, disheveled history professor, who seems disinterested even in his beautiful girlfriend Mary. Watching a movie on the recommendation of a colleague, Adam spots his double, a bit-part actor named Anthony Clair, and decides to track him down. The identical men meet and their lives become bizarrely and irrevocably intertwined. Gyllenhaal is transfixing as both Adam and Anthony, provoking empathy as well as disapproval while embodying two distinct personas.
Beth B takes us into the 21st century underground and reveals a secret world where cutting-edge performers are taking hold of a taboo art form, Burlesque, and driving it to extremes that most people have never seen. It’s satire. It’s parody. It’s a populist blend of art and entertainment that gives new meaning to the word “transgression.” Above all, it’s a lot of fun, and it will blow your mind.
EXPOSED features performances by Rose Wood, Julie Atlas Muz, Mat Fraser, Dirty Martini, Bunny Love, Bambi the Mermaid, World Famous *Bob* & Tigger! These 8 female and male artists use their nakedness to transport us beyond the last sexual and social taboos.
Operating on the far edge of Burlesque, they combine politics and physical comedy to question the very concept of “normal.” Through them, we get to examine our own inhibitions.
Beth B has followed the lead characters with a “fly-on-the-wall” camera over several years, capturing rehearsals, backstage preparations, private struggles and triumphs, and the extraordinary performances. The film’s unique perspective allows us, the audience, into the clubs and other hidden spaces where these artists perform. This shocking and comedic art form thrives in the after-dark hours and cult venues of major metropolitan areas — renowned spots such as The Box, Coney Island Sideshow, Casa Mezcal, and The Slipper Room, founded by James Habacker, who also appears in the film.
This performance art is powerful and enlightening because it challenges traditional notions of body, gender, and sexuality. The body types of the performers range from statuesque to transgender to disabled. Their personalities are scintillating, yet very real. They may be part of a unique subculture, but they come from surprisingly diverse economic and social backgrounds. As they peel away their clothes – describing their journeys and commenting on their performances – they peel away our own preconceptions and inhibitions. Ancient moral, religious and sexual shibboleths are seen from new perspectives, and a new generation of the cultural avant-garde comes to light.
“Guilty of Romance” tells a terrifying tale of sex and violence through the lives of three different women: a police detective, a professor and a housewife. Set just before the turn of the 21st century, the film blends film noir with drama, in a perfect showcase of the director’s unique aesthetics and use of highly saturated colors. “Guilty of Romance” weaves a disturbing tale of escape of patriarchy and oppression — and is considered by many as the most exhilarating part of Sono’s “hate” trilogy.
Sumida and his schoolmate Keiko are 14-year-old school kids living a dystopian existence where each of their parents’ hopes and encourages them to die. Set in tsunami-hit areas of Japan about May 2011, which is used as a backdrop, the story follows roughly that of the manga of the same name wherein Sumida fights frequently with his father, is abandoned by his mother and tends to reject friendly advances of others. Eventually, he kills his father and then, assuming his life is ruined, attempts to improve society by killing “bad” people. Although not immediately obvious, what instead happens is that he attacks psychotic and violent characters, while he instead learns from Keiko and the Yakuza and people who befriended him that he himself has become “sick,” eventually breaking free of the cycle of violence, but without a complete resolution of the issues raised during the movie before its end.
A married couple, Meg and Nick (Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan), revisit Paris to revitalise their marriage, and run into an old friend (Jeff Goldblum) who gives them a new vision on life and love.
Facing a failed relationship and a struggling restaurant, a woman hits the road for a trip with her grandson.
After killing his mother and her lover some years before, Patrick is the comatose patient in room 15 of a remote, private psychiatric clinic run by the secretive Dr Roget who treats him as guinea pig in his bizarre studies of life and death. When Kathy, a nurse who has recently separated from her boyfriend, begins working at the clinic, she is instructed to care for him. She is disturbed by Roget’s treatment of him and somehow feels that Patrick is trying to make a connection with her. When Kathy realized that the lifeless murderer can communicate, she is shocked but compelled to prove her theory. Patrick has psychokinetic powers, which he uses to talk to Kathy by transferring his thoughts to her computer. As Patrick’s communication becomes stronger, strange and terrifying events begin to occur. Patrick has feelings for Kathy and his affection is about to manifest itself as a deadly, bloody obsession.
Leo Palamino has dedicated his life to what some may call impossible dreams. At least his ex-wife Julie would call them that. But Leo is an expert at not listening to her criticism or anyone else’s for that matter because Leo is a stubborn romantic… An idealist. A dreamer. And to dream big, impossible dreams you can’t listen to the people who tell you that’s what those dreams are.
It is precisely this refusal to listen to criticism that drove his ex-wife Julie to blog about Leo’s flaws as their relationship broke down. A blog… called Why You Suck that would become a cultural phenomenon. And so when we meet Leo Palamino, he is a romantic dreamer, a dedicated writer, a dishwasher in a tourist trap, and a celebrity…
A man famous for his flaws.
Then one afternoon, as the very dejected Leo watches Julie being interviewed on a talk show about her upcoming book, he lays eyes on the woman of his (impossible) dreams… COLETTE is on her way into a wedding across the street from Leo’s house.
Her wedding.
Love has no borders and therein lies the premise of the charming, new Iranian-American romantic comedy “Shirin in Love.” Nazanin Boniadi plays Shirin, an absent-minded, young Iranian-American living in “Tehrangeles” (the large Iranian community in Los Angeles) with her overbearing mother and empathetic father. Despite being engaged for years to a successful Iranian plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, Shirin finds herself breaking loyalty and tradition when she falls in love with a mysterious young man who lives in a lighthouse in northern California. As her secret unravels and cultures clash, Shirin discovers what it ultimately means to be true to herself.
Teenagers didn’t always exist. They had to be invented. As the cultural landscape around the world was thrown into turmoil during the industrial revolution, and with a chasm erupting between adults and youth, the concept of a new generation took shape. Whether in America, England, or Germany, whether party-crazed Flappers or hip Swing Kids, zealous Nazi Youth or frenzied Sub-Debs, it didn’t matter – this was a new idea of how people come of age. They were all “Teenagers.”
A hypnotic rumination on the genesis of youth culture from the end of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th, TEENAGE is a living collage of rare archival material, filmed portraits, and diary entries read by Jena Malone, Ben Whishaw, and others. Set to a a shimmering contemporary score by Bradford Cox (Deerhunter / Atlas Sound), TEENAGE is a mesmerizing trip into the past and a riveting look at the very idea of “coming-of-age.”
When 16-year-old Mark, a handsome and popular boy, meets local girl Rachel on the Internet, he quickly finds himself in an intense online relationship. Besotted, he will do anything for her – even befriend and defend her bullied, loner brother, John. When Rachel, who is trapped in an abusive relationship, is murdered, Mark and John are determined to avenge her death. Their actions draw the attention of a female MI5 agent as they unwittingly stumble into an ongoing operation. Soon, Mark is recruited to commit a devastating crime, one that made British legal history.
Based on true events in the UK in 2003, uwantme2killhim? is the story of the dangers of the internet, the new crime scene of the 21st century.
On the eve of graduating law school, Veronica Mars has put Neptune and her amateur sleuthing days behind her. While interviewing at high-end New York law firms, Veronica Mars gets a call from her ex-boyfriend Logan who has been accused of murder. Veronica heads back to Neptune just to help Logan find an attorney, but when things don’t seem right with how Logan’s case is perceived and handled, Veronica finds herself being pulled back into a life she thought she had left behind.
