YOUR GUIDE TO THIS WEEK'S NEW CINEMA RELEASES

You guessed it — this week’s TOP PICK to see is …

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2! In this final instalment of the Hunger Games, as the war of Panem escalates to the destruction of other districts by the Capitol, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), the reluctant leader of the rebellion, must bring together an army against President Snow (Donald Sutherland), while all she holds dear hangs in the balance. Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt say that, With its political power struggles and prodigious body count, all rendered in a thousand shades of wintry greige, the movie feels less like teen entertainment than a sort of Hunger Games of Thrones. I’m seeing it tonight and can’t wait! Will post my review asap!

OTHERS TO SEE

In 99 HOMES, a father struggles to get back the home that his family was evicted from by working for the greedy real estate broker who's the source of his frustration. HitFix assesses it this way: Other than the unsubtle but vivid storytelling, the main joy of 99 Homes is seeing two excellent but very different actors spark off each other for almost the entire runtime, in a brace of performances both brilliant and brilliantly matched. Looks like it will be a worthwhile drama to check out.

MAYBE/MAYBE NOT

Terry Jones, who wrote, directed and acted in many of the Monty Python films returns with ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING, a comedy sci-fi in which a group of eccentric aliens confer a human being with the power to do absolutely anything, as an experiment. While the general public are rating this around 3 stars, the critics don’t like it on bit. The Hollywood Reporter’s Stephen Dalton describes it as … a flabby misfire full of labored slapstick, broad caricatures and groaningly absurd plot twists. And Screen International’s Fionnuala Halligan says it is [A] depressingly inept comedy. Are you going to go with the general public or the critics?

TO AVOID

Finally, and very disappointingly, SECRET IN THEIR EYES, which looked good in the trailers, is one to avoid this week. In this mystery thriller, a tight-knit team of rising investigators, along with their supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered. Movie Nation’s Roger Moore wonders whether Perhaps some of the same flaws lay beneath the surface of the original film, but the distraction of subtitles helped hide them. Here, they're gaping holes knock “Secret” off the tracks long before it's far-fetched twist ending. The original that Moore refers to is the Argentinian movie The Secret in Their Eyes which won the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year at the Oscars in 2010. Perhaps it might be better to watch the original which is available on Apple iTunes, Amazon Video, Vudu, and Sony Entertainment.

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

*NOTE* Movie summaries are adaptations of movie summary on IMDB. Opinions are mine unless credited. These updates are written from an Australian perspective so openings of the movies in cinemas may vary in other parts of the world.