Welcome to Annotate This, where we concisely gather reviews, trailers, and annotate the posters for movies heading to your local cineplex or art house theater this week. Click on the image above to add your comments to the mix.
The Great Gatsby
This movie garnered so much hype before its release, they even turned it into a book, which I've heard is mainly based on the soundtrack. One reviewer had to use razzle-dazzle and razzmatazz in the same sentence. Our review by Rich Juzwiak is here
Peeples
A Meet the Parents rehashing in which a regular guy, played by a funny guy Craig Robinson, meets the super preppy family of his girlfriend, Olivia Pope Kerry Washington. It's reportedly very French.
Stories We Tell (Limited Release)
Directed by Sarah Polley, who also made the wonderful/heartbreaking Take This Waltz, this is a truth-bending film about documentary, story-telling, and family secrets. It's elegiac and exuberant and entertaining.
No One Lives (Limited Release)
With an original premise, a vicious gang captures a seemingly normal couple and entombs them in an abandoned cabin. Twists abound! And yes, you read right—this movie comes from "the director of Midnight Meat Train."
He's Way More Famous Than You (Limited Release)
In what reads like an elongated Jennifer Lawrence-in-real-life impression, Halley Feiffer plays herself. As she tries to revive her starlet status amid the movie industry's vicious popularity contest, He's Way More Famous Than You both makes fun of its crassness but spouts a lot of crassness. It's been called unhinged, in a good way.
Venus and Serena (Limited Release)
Not actually a planetary documentary about planets, this is about Venus and Serena Williams, their tennis-playing, and amazing ability to remain sisters. P.S. Venus is obsessed with karaoke.
Sightseers (Limited Release)
A couple goes journeying through the British Isles in a camper and then find themselves in a hilarious and fatal comedy-of-manners.
And Now a Word from Our Sponsor (Limited Release)
This movie has Parker Posey and Bruce Greenwood in it, but it also looks like it might be nonsense. The premise is that one dude can only talk in advertising slogans for the whole movie.
Assault on Wall Street (Limited Release)
In this movie, an average New Yorker loses "everything" when the economy crashes. Therefore, a revenge story. For an idea about its complexity, its subheading is three words offset by periods: "POWER. GREED. JUSTICE."
Aftershock (Limited Release)
Eli Roth presents and co-wrote Aftershock with director Nicolas Lopez. It's an adventure-travel-horror story about an American tourist in Chile, who meets some gorgeous female travelers. When everything seems to good to be true, there will be a disaster.