THIS WEEK’S NEW CINEMA RELEASES

Ready to head to the cinema to catch one of the new movies opening this week? Not a great line up but a couple will be worth seeing.

MY TOP PICK TO SEE

My top pick this week is the new Australian movie THE ROVER. 10 years after a global economic collapse, a hardened, ruthless ex-soldier tracks down the men who stole his only possession. As he travels through the lawless Australian outback, he takes a damaged young man as his unwitting accomplice. It stars Guy Pearce (Memento) and Robert Pattinson (Twilight). According to The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, Michôd creates a good deal of ambient menace in The Rover; Pearce has a simmering presence. But I felt there was a bit of muddle, and the clean lines of conflict and tension had been blurred: the dystopian future setting doesn’t add much and hasn’t been very rigorously imagined.

OTHERS TO SEE

GOOD VIBRATIONS is a biographical drama that chronicles Terri Hooley’s life, a record-store owner instrumental in developing Belfast’s punk-rock scene.

MAYBE/MAYBE NOT

For those of you who like some drama and romance, you may wish to check out THE FACE OF LOVE. A widow falls for a guy who bears a striking resemblance to her late husband. But there’s a decision to make according to The Dissolve’s Mike D’Angelo: Whether it’s worth seeing a film solely for one amazing performance is a personal judgment call; for those who take that particular leap once in a while, though, here’s a worthy candidate.

Finally, the comedy BLENDED, Adam Sandler’s latest. After a bad blind date, a man and woman find themselves stuck together at a resort for families, where their attraction grows as their respective kids benefit from the burgeoning relationship. Critics don’t like it much. For example, Austin Chronicle’s Marjorie Baumgarten finds that The laziness is what irks me most about Blended. Everything from the re-teaming of the two stars and their “Wedding Singer” director, Frank Coraci, reeks of moviemaking by checklist.

That’s it for this week. See you at the movies!