Weekend Movie Guide: The Angelic Rosamund Pike Stars In ‘Gone Girl’

Opening Everywhere: Gone Girl, Annabelle

Opening Somewhere: Left Behind, The Good Lie

FilmDrunk Suggests: Gone Girl looks pretty legit, despite the presence of Tyler Perry, while Annabelle is a groundbreaking movie about a scary doll. Choose wisely.

Gone Girl

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 86% critics, 93% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

The film’s stabs at social commentary — the constant barrage of tabloid TV coverage — are crushingly obvious. – Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

Once you release the movie from the demand that it be significant, there are a number of achievements. – Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post

Armchair Analysis: A lot of people keep telling me I should read the book first and then see the movie. Sure. Good luck with that. I’m pretty sure the book doesn’t have pictures of Rosamund Pike.

Annabelle

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 30% critics, 61% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

What we mostly get in Annabelle is what we’ve gotten from so many other horror films: creaking floors, funky white-robed figures, home appliances that go off on their own, mysterious writing that shows up in mysterious places. – Bilge Ebiri, Vulture

Annabelle, an effective prequel to horror pastiche The Conjuring, surpasses its predecessor simply by virtue of occasionally being scary. – Simon Abrams, Village Voice

Armchair Analysis: I can’t believe so many critics like this movie. It’s a f*cking possessed doll.

Left Behind

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 2% critics, 67% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

Not only is this an amateurish travesty combining fundamentalist Christian eschatology with disaster movie b.s., but it’s plodding and tedious. – James Berardinelli, ReelView

It should have more smoldering panic bursting into full-blown freak-outs. It should have more passion, more intensity. It should have more bees. – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

Armchair Analysis: Here’s the question – if I’m left behind, is the punishment to watch this crap? Because I’ll clean my act up immediately if that’s the case.

The Good Lie

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 83% critics, 74% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

It’s often earnest to a fault and fearful of its deeper, darker implications. Still, you won’t leave The Good Lie unmoved. Its heart really is in the right place. – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Director Philippe Felardeau finds some extraordinary landscapes here. And his camera also lingers over his characters’ faces, striking maps of their pain, their hunger, their loss. – Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger

Armchair Analysis: This stars Reese “Drunker Than Sh*t” Witherspoon, AKA “Y’all know who the f*ck I am?” We shouldn’t have let her off so easy for that nonsense.