A few very promising new movies are finally hitting the big screen this weekend. Unfortunately, they’re opening opposite a cinematic atrocity that just so happens to be the solitary wide release.
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The only movie with the grit stand against the powerhouse ‘Furious 7’ is yet another Nicholas Sparks adaptation. From the director of the terrible action movie ‘Faster<\/a>‘ comes the romantic flick ‘The Longest Ride<\/strong>‘. Clint Eastwood’s son Scott only lasted a few minutes in ‘Fury’ before getting blown up, but he’s leading this melodrama as a past-his-prime bull rider attempting a comeback. The story follows his unfitting relationship with an art major played by Britt Robertson (from the upcoming blockbuster ‘Tomorrowland’). Somewhere in there is a love story between two older people, one of which is played by Alan Alda. Being a Nicholas Sparks story, my money is on Alda dying at some point.<\/p>\n Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about the cooler prospects offered up this weekend.<\/p>\n The release that I’m anticipating the most is writer-turned-director Alex Garland’s ‘Ex Machina<\/strong>‘. The mind behind ‘28 Days Later<\/a>‘ and ‘Sunshine<\/a>‘ has put out a science fiction thriller about a promising programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) who is brought to the hidden home\/research facility of a reclusive genius (Oscar Isaac) to evaluate his latest creation \u2013 a radical piece of artificial intelligence. His think-for-itself computer comes in the form of a semi-flesh-covered robot with the looks of a provocative and gorgeous female (Alicia Vikander). Although distributor A24 is only placing it on a limited number of screens this weekend, strong tracking and pre-release word-of-mouth have already locked the film for a decent expansion over the next two weeks.<\/p>\n IFC has a three-screen release with ‘Clouds of Sils Maria<\/strong>‘. Juliette Binoche stars as seasoned actress who agrees to appear in a revival of the stage play that placed her on the map twenty years earlier. The play focuses on a young woman who manipulates her boss into committing suicide. Now too old to play the same conniving role, she’s the boss character and has to endure the now close-to-home production with a young starlet (Chloe Grace Moretz) playing opposite. Kristen Stewart also co-stars. The tension created by the characters is said to be delightfully unbearable.<\/p>\n Simon Pegg is back on the big screen with ‘Kill Me Three Times<\/strong>‘, which can also be viewed from home via paid streaming services. In the action-thriller, Pegg plays a hitman whose failed job places him in the middle of a deadly and dangerous scenario that he had better get out of quickly. Teresa Palmer, Alice Braga and lesser-known Hemsworth brother Luke co-star.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Warner Bros., Ryan Gosling’s ‘Lost River<\/strong>‘ debuts at three locations. The actor-turned-writer\/director’s first feature is getting raked over the coals by critics, but sounds interesting nonetheless. Christina Hendricks stars as a single mother who’s lured into a mysterious underworld with the hopes of saving her small family. The supporting cast includes Saoirse Ronan, Matt Smith, Ben Medelsohn and Eva Mendes.<\/p>\n Expanding nationwide are ‘While We’re Young’ and ‘Woman in Gold’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few very promising new movies are finally hitting the big screen this weekend. Unfortunately, they’re opening opposite a cinematic atrocity that just so happens to be the solitary wide release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":69405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[743],"tags":[8090,8096,8106,8095,8097,2509,134],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69338"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69406,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69338\/revisions\/69406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}