Here Are All the Movies Opening Today, October 24. What Will You See?
Here are the films opening theatrically in the U.S. the week of Friday, October 24. (Synopses provided by distributor unless noted otherwise.)
READ MORE: Watch: Shailene Woodley & Gregg Araki Talk ‘White Bird in a Blizzard’ at Soho Apple Store
23 Blast
Director: Dylan Baker
Cast: Mark Hapka, Bram Hoover, Stephen Lang, Max Adler, Alexa PenaVega, Dylan Baker, Kim Zimmer, Becky Ann Baker, Timothy Busfield
Synopsis: “When a high school football star is suddenly stricken with irreversible total blindness, he must decide whether to live a safe handicapped life or bravely return to the life he once knew and the sport he still loves.”
Theatrical Release: Wide
Citizenfour
Director: Laura Poitras
Synopsis: “In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her. The film that resulted from this series of tense encounters is absolutely sui generis in the history of cinema: a 100% real-life thriller unfolding minute by minute before our eyes. Poitras is a great and brave filmmaker, but she is also a masterful storyteller: she compresses the many days of questioning, waiting, confirming, watching the world’s reaction and agonizing over the next move, into both a great character study of Snowden and a narrative that will leave you on the edge of your seat as it inexorably moves toward its conclusion.”
Criticwire Grade Average: A- (10 reviews)
Theatrical Release: New York and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, DC (expands to various cities throughout November)
E-TEAM
Director: Katy Chevigny & Ross Kauffman
Synopsis: “When atrocities are committed in countries held hostage by ruthless dictators, Human Rights Watch sends in the E-Team (Emergencies Team), a collection of fiercely intelligent individuals hired to document war crimes and report them to the rest of the world. Within this volatile climate, filmmakers Ross Kauffman (Born into Brothels) and Katy Chevigny (Election Day, Deadline) take us to the frontline in Syria and Libya, where shrapnel, bullet holes, and unmarked graves provide mounting evidence of coordinated attacks conducted by Bashar al-Assad and the now-deceased Muammar Gaddafi. The crimes are rampant, random, and often undocumented, making E-Team’s effort to get information out of the country and into the hands of media outlets and criminal courts all the more necessary.” [Sundance Film Festival]
Criticwire Grade Average: A- (5 grades)
Theatrical Release: New York, Los Angeles and Washington, DC (opens in Chicago and San Francisco on October 31st)
Exists
Director: Eduardo Sánchez
Cast: Chris Osborn, Dora Madison Burge, Roger Edwards, Denise Williamson, Samuel Davis, Brian Steele
Synopsis: “When brothers Brian and Matt Tover secretly sneak out to their Uncle’s long abandoned cabin in East Texas for a party weekend with their friends, they find themselves stalked by the legendary Sasquatch. Cut off from the world, and knowing help isn’t coming, the kids must try to make it out of the woods alive while hunted by a creature that’s smarter, stronger, and more terrifying than they would have ever believed exists.” [SXSW Film Festival]
Theatrical Release: New York and Los Angeles, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Tampa
Force Majeure
Director: Ruben Östlund
Cast: Lisa Loven Kongsli, Johannes Kuhnke, Clara Wettergren, Vincent Wettergren, Kristofer Hivju
Synopsis: “A Swedish family travels to the French Alps to enjoy a few days of skiing. The sun is shining and the slopes are spectacular but, during a lunch at a mountainside restaurant, an avalanche turns everything upside down. With diners fleeing in all directions, mother Ebba calls for her husband Tomas as she tries to protect their children. Tomas, meanwhile, is running for his life… The anticipated disaster failed to occur, and yet the family’s world has been shaken to its core, a question mark hanging over their father in particular. Tomas and Ebba’s marriage now hangs in the balance as Tomas struggles desperately to reclaim his role as family patriarch.” [Cannes Film Festival]
Criticwire Grade Average: A- (30 reviews)
Theatrical Release: New York (expands throughout the country until January)
Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me
Director: James Keach
Synopsis: “In 2011, music legend Glen Campbell set out on an unprecedented tour across America. They thought it would last 5 weeks instead it went for 151 spectacular sold out shows over a triumphant year and a half across America. What made this tour extraordinary was that Glen had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was told to hang up his guitar and prepare for the inevitable. Instead, Glen and his wife went public with his diagnosis and announced that he and his family would set out on a ‘Goodbye Tour.’ The film documents this amazing journey as he and his family attempt to navigate the wildly unpredictable nature of Glen’s progressing disease using love, laughter and music as their medicine of choice.”
Theatrical Release: New York, Nashville, Little Rock and New Brunswick (expands to seven more cities on October 31st)
The Heart Machine
Director: Zachary Wigon
Cast: John Gallagher Jr., Kate Lyn Sheil, David Call, Louisa Krause, Roderick Hill, Halley Wegryn-Gross, Libby Woodbridge
Synopsis: “Cody and Virginia start talking while he’s in Brooklyn and she’s in Berlin. It’s a romance that could only happen online, and they’re happy together—except they’ve never really met. But Cody’s questions about Virginia’s life in Berlin become an obsession, leading him to doubt that she’s there at all. Combing NYC for clues, an increasingly driven Cody begins overstepping boundaries of privacy in his desperate quest for answers. Tracking two parallel journeys that show how digital mediation complicates modern love, ‘The Heart Machine‘ explores the evolving relationship between physical and emotional intimacy, isolation in the urban hive, and the seduction of hiding behind a screen.”
Criticwire Grade Average: B+ (9 reviews)
Theatrical Release: New York
John Wick
Director: David Leitch & Chad Stahelski
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Regan, Willem Dafoe, Bridget Moynahan, Jason Isaacs, Alfie Allen, Lance Reddick
Synopsis: “An ex-hitman comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from him.”
Criticwire Grade Average: B+ (10 reviews)
Theatrical Release: Wide
Laggies
Director: Lynn Shelton
Cast: Keira Knightley, Sam Rockwell, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ellie Kemper, Jeff Garlin, Mark Webber
Synopsis: “A coming of age story about a 28-year-old woman stuck in permanent adolescence. Unable to find her career calling, still hanging out with the same friends, and living with her high school boyfriend, Megan must finally navigate her own future when an unexpected marriage proposal sends her into a panic.”
Criticwire Grade Average: B (16 reviews)
Theatrical Release: New York, Los Angeles and Seattle
Life of Riley
Director: Alain Resnais
Cast: Sabine Azéma, Sandrine Kiberlain, Caroline Silhol, André Dussollier, Hippolyte Girardot, Michel Vuillermoz
Synopsis: “In the midst of rehearsals for a new play, amateur dramatics proponents Colin and Kathryn receive the shattering news that their friend George is fatally ill and only has a few months to live. Life begins to come apart at the seams – not just for Kathryn, who was once George’s partner, but also for her friends Tamara and Monica. The full force of the emotional turmoil they experienced in their youth and their long-buried dreams are rekindled.” [Berlin International Film Festival]
Criticwire Grade Average: B+ (9 reviews)
Theatrical Release: New York
Low Down
Director: Jeff Preiss
Cast: John Hawkes, Elle Fanning, Glenn Close, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Michael Peter Balzary
Synopsis: “A compassionate, tender look at the complex relationship between Amy-Jo (Elle Fanning) and her father Joe (John Hawkes), a man torn between his musical ambition, his devotion to his teenage daughter, and his suffocating heroin addiction. Set against a sensuously textured 1970s Hollywood, the film beautifully evokes a colorful, seedy world of struggling musicians, artists, and vagabonds, in which Joe and Amy-Jo strive to live the lives they want against seemingly insurmountable odds.”
Criticwire Grade Average: B- (9 reviews)
Theatrical Release: New York (opens in Los Angeles on October 31st)
Ouija
Director: Stiles White
Cast: Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Daren Kagasoff, Douglas Smith, Vivis Colombetti, Bianca Santos, Erin Moriarty, Shelley Hennig
Synopsis: “A group of friends must confront their most terrifying fears when they awaken the dark powers of an ancient spirit board.”
Criticwire Grade Average: C (4 reviews)
Theatrical Release: Wide
Pelican Dreams
Director: Judy Irving
Synopsis: “Judy Irving (‘The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill’) follows a wayward California pelican from her ‘arrest’ on the Golden Gate Bridge into care at a rehab facility and explores nesting grounds, Pacific coast migration and survival challenges.”
Theatrical Release: Bay Area (opens in New York and Los Angeles on November 7)
Revenge of the Green Dragons
Director: Andrew Lau & Andrew Loo
Cast: Ray Liotta, Justin Chon, Kevin Wu, Harry Shum Jr., Shuya Chang, Geoff Pierson
Synopsis: “In the vein of crime classics like Mean Streets and Infernal Affairs, this film follows two immigrant friends, Sonny and Steven, who survive the hard streets of New York in the 1980s by joining Chinatown gang The Green Dragons. Sonny and Steven quickly rise up the ranks, drawing the unwanted attention of the city’s police force.” [Toronto International Film Festival]
Theatrical Release: New York and Los Angeles
Stonehearst Asylum
Director: Brad Anderson
Cast: Jim Sturgess, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, Brendan Gleeson, David Thewlis
Synopsis: “England, 1899. When young doctor Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) arrives at Stonehearst Asylum in search of an apprenticeship, he is warmly welcomed by superintendent Dr. Lamb (Ben Kingsley) and a mesmerizing woman named Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale). Edward is intrigued by Lamb’s modern methods of treating the insane…until a series of unusual events leads him to make a horrifying discovery, exposing Lamb’s utopia and pushing Edward to the limits of his conscience.”
Theatrical Release: Limited
Tiger Lily Road
Director: Michael Medeiros
Cast: Tom Pelphrey, Ilvi Dulack, Karen Chamberlain, Tom Nardini, Rita Gardner, Sarah Shaefer
Synopsis: “Two small town woman capture a handsome fugitive who breaks into their house trying to escape a snowstorm and the law.”
Theatrical Release: New York
A Thousand Times Good Night
Director: Erik Poppe
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Larry Mullen Jr., Eve Macklin
Synopsis: “The great Juliette Binoche plays Rebecca, a heralded war photographer wounded in the blood-stained streets of Kabul while doing a story on a suicide bomber. Back in the peaceful Irish countryside, her passion for her profession threatens to destroy her marriage and her family, who never know if she’ll return from an assignment alive. Can Rebecca live without the adrenalin rush of danger? Can her teenage daughter forgive her absence?” [LA Film Festival]
Theatrical Release: Limited
White Bird in a Blizzard
Director: Gregg Araki
Cast: Shailene Woodley, Eva Green, Christopher Meloni, Shiloh Fernandez, Gabourey Sidibe, Thomas Jane
Synopsis: “It’s 1988. On the surface, Kat’s home life seems perfect. A normal, college-bound teenager, she listens to Depeche Mode, hangs out with her tragically hip pals, and is critical of her parents. She’s also having her first romance with, literally, the boy next door and is starting to feel comfortable in her own skin—all under the watchful eye of her glamorous, but disturbed, homemaker mother. When her mother mysteriously vanishes, Kat and her father suppress their emotions and try to resume their lives. Years later, Kat’s subconscious is consumed by images of her mother, whose peculiar disappearance she can’t fully comprehend.” [Synopsis courtesy of Sundance Film Festival]
Criticwire Grade Average: B- (19 reviews)
Theatrical Release: New York and Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Seattle, Calgary, Ontario and Toronto (expands to various cities throughout November)
Yakona
Director: Anlo Sepulveda & Paul Collins
Cast: Tony Two Hawks Molina, Geoff Marslett, Tina Rodriguez, Jacqueline Claire, Anis Mojgani
Synopsis: “A visual experience through the crystal clear waters of the San Marcos River and its headwaters at Spring Lake. Follow the river on an impressionistic journey from its point of view as it flows from source to sea, through the changing seasons, through time and memory. Experience its relationship with the natural world and its interactions with humankind. Through “Yakona”, the voice of the river calls on humanity’s higher nature, inspiring its protection by revealing its beauty and life-giving spirit.” [SXSW Film Festival]
Theatrical Release: Los Angeles
Missed last week? Here are all the releases from the weekend of October 17th.
