Opening Everywhere: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Afflicted
Opening Somewhere: Under the Skin, Alan Partridge, In the Blood
FilmDrunk Suggests: You can read Vince’s review for Captain America: The Winter Soldier here, or you can read my review for In the Blood here, and then you can decide which one of us just wants to watch the world punch things. Or you can find a theater near you showing ScarJo’s alien movie and Steve Coogan’s comedy. All the while, I’ll be reading about whatever the hell Afflicted is.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 88% critics, 94% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Beneath the expensive, computer-generated busyness of this second Captain America installment is a bracing, old-style conspiracy thriller made extra-scary by new technology and the increasingly ugly trade-offs of a post-9/11 world. – David Edelstein, Vulture
There’s too much going on: the Marvel Universe stuff, the WikiLeaks-ish paranoia stuff, the video game-ish CG visual effects stuff, the epic John Woo-ish everybody-pointing-a-weapon-at-everybody-else face-off stuff. – Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
Armchair Analysis: I am very excited to see this movie. I have been dodging spoilers left and right, and I am very happy to enter this movie as a grown adult ready to cheer on a guy who wears a silly costume. The one thing that I know from the commercials is that Cap is a vigilante this time, for some reason that I won’t know until I see it, and he must have really messed up to get the boot. Because, like, wouldn’t he just say, “Yo, did you guys see what I did when all those aliens came through the whole in the sky? I’m kind of a hero, okay?” But I’m sure they explain all that.
Afflicted
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 84% critics, 73% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Runs smack into a number of generic clichés, from the back-and-forth bickering about how to deal with the situation to a lazy underlying misogyny. – Adam Nayman, Globe and Mail
A nifty found-footage thriller that marks a promising debut for writing-directing duo Clif Prowse and Derek Lee. – Justin Chang, Variety
Armchair Analysis: I hadn’t ever heard of this movie, so I looked up the synopsis to educate my ignorant ass:
This terrifying horror thriller follows two best friends who set out on the trip of a lifetime around the world. Their journey, documented every step of the way, soon takes a dark and unexpected turn after an encounter with a beautiful woman in Paris leaves one of them mysteriously afflicted.
That actually sounds kind of cool. Except the documented part. It’s like a found footage film? No thanks.
Under the Skin
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 84% critics, 62% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Watching this film feels like a genesis moment – of sci-fi fable, of filmmaking, of performance – with all the ambiguity and excitement that implies. – Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times
A beautiful and often hypnotic film. – Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger
Armchair Analysis: ScarJo actually drove around in a van to pick up random dudes for this movie, and yet when I do it, it’s all, “Hey you, you’re going to prison with your industrial bucket of lube!” Haters.
Alan Partridge
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 87% critics, 79% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
He manages, just barely, to keep the project from going soft, and to keep us perched between finding Alan Partridge unbearable and admitting that we kind of enjoy his company. – A.O. Scott, New York Times
It’s a silly comedy and Alan’s a petty egomaniac, but Coogan is a hoot as he skewers regional British radio and sends up conceited fools. – Claudia Puig, USA Today
Armchair Analysis: Alan Partridge stuff is pretty funny, so I assume this might be a funny movie. That’s called analysis, kids.