Yeah, Hot Docs is fully underway (and the NOW site will be updating with capsule reviews for the length of the festival, so keep an eye on it), but the megaplexes are hopping with other stuff this weekend. So if you’re not keeping it real downtown, here’s what you have to choose from:
Blue Ruin: John’s been high on Jeremy Saulnier’s lo-fi revenge thriller since the early TIFF press screenings. I’ll have to catch up.
Brick Mansions: This ten-years-later English-language remake of District 13 was one of Paul Walker’s last pictures. Rad is disappointed both by that fact and the movie itself.
A Fighting Man: Glenn is unimpressed with Damian Lee’s latest low-budget offering, in which Ice Soldiers stooge Dominic Purcell flashes back on his life while being pummelled in the ring. So, yeah.
In the Blood: A week after Kid Cannabis opened, here’s another half-assed John Stockwell genre picture. This one’s an action movie, kind of.
Only Lovers Left Alive: Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska and John Hurt are the least glamorous vampires in all the world in Jim Jarmusch’s marvelous nod of a horror movie.
The Other Woman: Wait a second — Nick Cassavetes made a comedy? As Jose explains, not so much.
The Quiet Ones: Hey, remember The Exorcist? Well, this tale of a young woman who may or may not be inhabited by evil is set in the same decade! That’s something, right? (Not screened for press. Not a good sign.)
The Railway Man: Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman look awfully noble in Jonathan Teplitzky’s historical drama, which arrived at TIFF with considerable buzz . And then people saw it. Jose explains what went wrong.
And there you go. You guys have fun; I may have to go hunt down a Welsh musician this afternoon. Will be in touch.