Weekend Movie Guide: Chris Brown’s Oscar Campaign Begins In ‘Battle Of The Year’

Opening Everywhere: Battle of the Year, Prisoners

Opening Somewhere: Thanks for Sharing, The Colony, Ip Man: The Final Fight, A Single Shot

FilmDrunk Suggests: Vince doesn’t seem to be too keen on Prisoners, but I can’t hide my absolute joy for Battle of the Year. A movie about competitive dancing for the pride of a nation? And it stars Chris Brown? Holy crap, this is going to be amazing.

Battle of the Year

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 7% critics, 67% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

A dead-in-the-soul cash grab of a movie set in the competitive world of B-boy dancing that thinks clichés, phony melodrama and product placement can substitute for real storytelling and actual characters. – James Rocchi, MSN Movies

Should satisfy the planet of b-boys and girls to whom it thoroughly preaches, while amusing anyone else who simply can’t ignore the promise of an all-corn buffet. – My good friend William Goss, Film.com

Armchair Analysis: There’s a scene in the commercial, when the guy from Lost is like, “A female choreographer?” and I’m like, “I know, right?” but the female shows up and Christ Brown is all, “What’s up?” and she’s all, “I only deal with men” and I’m like F*CKING SNAP, SON! YOU JUST GOT SERVED! Every Oscar for Chris Brown, please.

Prisoners

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 80% critics that don’t look like Luke Walton, 84% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

A film that, for all its pretensions and intermittent power, is essentially high-grade claptrap. – Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

Prisoners has got more pedigree than a Westminster dog-show winner. It’s just not very good. In fact, it’s worse than not-very-good; it’s could’ve-been-really-good-and-isn’t. – Richard Corliss, TIME

Armchair Analysis: Hey, did you read Vince’s review of Prisoners? You should. He watched it and offered his opinions so you would know whether or not to watch it.

Thanks for Sharing

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 51% critics, 76% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

This feel-good look at a condition many refuse to acknowledge as a disease skips the self-pity and gets right to the heart of the issue: namely, the very real problems sex addicts have in creating interpersonal relationships. – Peter Debruge, Variety

Blumberg juggles comedy and drama here before going predictably dark (as addict tales tend to do), but he’s more circling his subject than nailing it down. – Tom Long, Detroit News

Armchair Analysis: That comment up there by Petey Debruge, that’s about people like me. I don’t buy sex addiction. Call me a cynic or whatever, but I just don’t. But this still looks moderately interesting, if mainly for my ongoing investigation into why I don’t like Josh Gad.

The Colony

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 5% critics, 21% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

A screaming, lunging, chomping chase movie that has nothing new to bring to a genre that just won’t die. – Kyle Smith, New York Post

The film strands its archetypal characters in a featureless danger zone and gives them overly familiar dialogue borrowed from a dozen other B-movies. – Inkoo Kang, Los Angeles Times

Armchair Analysis: Yeah, I’ve seen Ice Age and it’s not scary. So I don’t know who Montana Fishburne’s father is trying to fool.

Ip Man: The Final Fight

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 60% critics, 58% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

Seriously, if not always elegantly, the film portrays the great Ip Man as someone trying to survive, which is to say just as often a victim as a victor. – Nicolas Rapold, New York Times

The naturalism of Wong’s performance is undercut … by Yau’s use of phony-looking sets, sterile CGI and flashy aerial shots. – Mark Jenkins, Washington Post

Armchair Analysis: I’ve always been told the Ip Man movies are good. I just haven’t watched them. Maybe I will… maybe I will.

A Single Shot

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 51% critics, 52% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

An odd mix of beautifully bleak atmosphere and hammily mannered performances, “A Single Shot” is simultaneously understated and overpowering. – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“A Single Shot” is a singular pleasure, and worth seeking out. – Stephen Whitty, Newark Star Ledger

Armchair Analysis: Just a single shot? Well, I guess it’ll be Jagermeister! RIGHT BROSKIS??? Haha, have a good weekend, bros.