Buffalo-Niagara Film Reviews: BUFFA-WOOD BLOG: OPENING THIS WEEK: 8/28/2013 + 8/30/2013

It's a shame that its such a light Labor Day weekend (with crappy weather on the horizon). Still a lot of great movies continue (including the expansion of the spectacular, The Spectacular Now - to Regal Walden Galleria, right where it ought to be). Here's what's gracing our screens this weekend - including two documentaries and two thrillers....

@ the Art House

The Great Chicken Wing Hunt - Matt Reynolds' documentary takes a group of unlikely tasters around the country on the hunt for the best chicken wing. Opening just a few blocks from Anchor Bar (I know - you're either a Duffs or an Anchor Bar person....or if you're a transplant, Buffalo Wild Wings) at the Market Arcade - this looks like one tasty doc.

Screening: Dipson Market Arcade

Closed Circuit (Opens August 28th) - Opening on Wednesday at the Dipson art houses (and Regal Quaker), Closed Circuit is a thriller exploring a high level terrorism trial. Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall play strange bedfellows (ex-lovers working on the defense team), with a supporting cast including Jim Broadbent, Juila Styles, Ciaran Hinds and Riz Ahmed. Directed by John Crowley (of two excellent films - the ensemble Irish crime comedy Intermission and the trouble young man drama Boy A) and written by Steven Knight (Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things) - this looks like a top notch thriller...

Screening: Dipson Amherst, Dipson Eastern Hills, Regal Quaker Crossing 18

@ the Multiplex

Getaway - Courtney Solomon (who has yet to make a good movie) returns with Getaway - staring Ethan Hawk as a race-car driver whose wife is taken (uh...kidnapped) and somehow Selena Gomez gets involved (maybe as a carjacker....so that's what happened when she left her friends behind in Spring Breakers). Jon Voight co-stars - in this film, which looks like it was shot with a few Go-Pro cameras...

Screening: Regal Walden Galleria, Regal Transit, AMC Maple Ridge, Dipson Flix, Regal Elmwood, Regal Quaker Crossing, Regal Hollywood, Transit Drive-In

One Direction: This is Us - I've always though One Direction was the kind of band that had been forced on us by the corporate music industry, they never felt organic. I hadn't heard of them until I saw a poster advertising (1D) - and even then I was confused. I have nothing against them - or the film's director Morgan Spurlock (who seems like the kind of guy you'd want to grab a beer with - a "public citizen"). This looks like a straight forward 3D concert film like Justin Beiber: Never Say Never (Spurlock isn't going test the effects of listening to their music for a month straight, or take the boys on a hunt to find Osama Bin Ladin - thanks to the heros at SEAL Team 6!) - but his involvement suggests this might just be more insightful than expected (fingers crossed).....

Screening: Regal Walden Galleria, Regal Transit, AMC Maple Ridge, Dipson Flix, Regal Elmwood, Regal Quaker Crossing, Regal Hollywood