Movies in Theaters This Friday, October 31, 2014: Nightcrawler, Before I Go To Sleep, Horns, and More
Happy Halloween everyone! Some of this weekend’s releases are definitely taking advantage of the spooky holiday. Besides the re-release of Saw, there are a couple wide releases and even more limited ones.
To me, the biggest is Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut, Nightcrawler. Starring an emaciated Jake Gyllenhaal, the story focuses on an underground crime journalist. It definitely has the look of a good thriller so hopefully the final product is as good as advertised.
Before I Go To Sleep also debuts in wide release. This one is also billed a thriller with Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) starring. This is adaptation of S.J. Watson’s novel of the same name.
Although that does it for wide releases, to me, the most notable release is for Horns. I think it’s worth mentioning because it definitely fits into the Halloween theme and, perhaps more importantly, it shows star Daniel Radcliffe with some badass horns.
There are some other smaller, limited movie debuts, too. On Wednesday, the movies Goodbye to Language, The Great Invisible, and Revenge of the Mekons came out. Similarly, ABCs of Death 2, Hit by Lightning, and Point and Shoot all release in limited theaters today.
Have a happy Halloween everyone!
Christine Lucas [Nicole Kidman] wakes every day frightened and confused. She’s sleeping next to a man who says he’s her husband in a home he tells her is theirs, but none of this is familiar to her. She thinks she is a single woman in her 20s when, in actuality, she is a 40-year-old married woman. Christine suffers from psychogenic amnesia, as the result of a traumatic accident, and remembers nothing from her recent past – not the accident itself, nor her marriage to her husband Ben [Colin Firth].
Each day, Ben must introduce himself to her and explain their life together. He tells her she had a car accident years ago and lost her memory because of it. She can store up information throughout the day, but each night as she sleeps, everything she has learned about herself, her life and what caused her condition is erased from her memory.
One day, Christine receives a phone call from Dr. Nasch [Mark Strong], a neuropsychologist specializing in her condition, who tells her they have been working with one another – without Ben’s knowledge – to help her regain her memory. He explains that she was the victim of no ordinary accident, but rather a violent attack after which she was left for dead. Dr. Nasch provides Christine with a digital camera and tasks her to record daily messages with information she learns about her past.
As she pieces together her video diary entries, terrifying new truths emerge that force her to question everything she thinks she knows about her life, as well as everyone in it: Is Ben telling the truth about what happened? What are Dr. Nasch’s true intentions? What secrets have I been keeping? Who attacked me that night? And her existence shapes itself around a bigger question – who can she trust? – in this suspenseful thriller based on the worldwide best-selling novel by S.J. Watson.
NIGHTCRAWLER is a thriller set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism. Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut-throat, dangerous realm of nightcrawling – where each police siren wail equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into dollars and cents. Aided by Rene Russo as Nina, a veteran of the blood-sport that is local TV news, Lou blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.
Another 26-chapter anthology that showcases death in all its vicious wonder and brutal beauty.
The idea is simple: A married woman and a single man meet. They love, they argue, fists fly. A dog strays between town and country. The seasons pass. The man and woman meet again. The dog finds itself between them. The other is in one, the one is in the other and they are three. The former husband shatters everything. A second film begins: the same as the first, and yet not. From the human race we pass to metaphor. This ends in barking and a baby’s cries.
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. It killed 11 workers and caused the worst oil spill in American history. The explosion still haunts the lives of those most intimately affected, though the story has long ago faded from the front page. At once a fascinating corporate thriller, a heartbreaking human drama and a peek inside the walls of the secretive oil industry, “The Great Invisible” is the first documentary feature to go beyond the media coverage to examine the crisis in depth through the eyes of oil executives, survivors and Gulf Coast residents who experienced it first-hand and then were left to pick up the pieces while the world moved on.
Ricky Miller, the loneliest man in North America, FINALLY meets the perfect woman, Danita, but there’s only one catch — she’s married and she wants him to kill her husband. Even though restaurant manager Ricky has never even killed a spider, he agrees to do it, begging his best friend and accountant, Seth to help him.
Seth is reluctant to help Ricky “waste a mofo,” suspicious of Danita and her story that her husband is an abusive monster who will kill her if she ever leaves. Seth is relentless, even following Danita one day and finding out the “abusive monster” she described is actually an affable former rabbi, Ben.
Is Danita telling the truth about her husband? Will Ricky go through with his plan of killing in the name of love? Will Seth put aside his suspicions and take a day off from accountancy and help his best friend “off” an ex-rabbi?
In the aftermath of his girlfriend’s mysterious death, a young man awakens to strange horns sprouting from his temples.
Political provocateurs. Social agitators. Punk’s reigning contrarians. The Mekons have been called all this and more. Revenge of the Mekons chronicles the unlikely story of a group of radical British art students who formed in the first blast of punk rock in 1977. Against all odds—and despite a career consigned to the margins—the Mekons continue to tour and make adventurous and challenging albums, despite the fact that its eight members are separated by thousands of miles across two continents. Adored with cult-like devotion by fans and critics alike, the Mekons have redefined themselves and their music repeatedly over the years while staying true to the punk ethos. But the Mekons are more than just a band. They’re also an art collective whose members make art individually, collectively and in collaboration with other avant-garde artists. A rich and illuminating account of a fascinating, criminally under-recognized band, Revenge of the Mekons is a lively, inspiring and entertaining film—with killer music, to boot!
Winner of the Best Documentary Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, POINT AND SHOOT follows Matt VanDyke, a timid 26-year-old with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, who left home in Baltimore in 2006 and set off on a self-described “crash course in manhood.” He bought a motorcycle and a video camera and began a multi-year, 35,000-mile motorcycle trip through Northern Africa and the Middle East.
While traveling, he struck up an unlikely friendship with a Libyan hippie, and when revolution broke out in Libya, Matt joined his friend in the fight against dictator Muammar Gaddafi. With a gun in one hand and a camera in the other, Matt fought in — and filmed — the war until he was captured by Gaddafi forces and held in solitary confinement for six months. Two-time Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker Marshall Curry tells this harrowing and sometimes humorous story of a young man’s search for political revolution and personal transformation.
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