I Declare War

Younger readers may not remember the days before cell phones and the internet when kids would regularly go outside and play for hours, often with nothing but their imaginations to entertain themselves. I Declare War hearkens back to those days, following a group of 13-year-olds as they enact an elaborate, ongoing game of war in the woods. Armed with sticks as guns and water balloons filled with red paint as grenades, two armies face off in an effort to capture the other team's flag. That's vaguely interesting on its own, but there's more: the filmmakers alternate showing footage of the kids walking through the woods with their stick weapons and footage of them carrying actual weapons. We're brought into the minds of the kids, seeing what they see and giving the game a greater sense of importance.

I Declare War
Co-directors: Jason Lapeyre, Robert Wilson
Starring: Gage Monroe, Siam Yu, Michael Friend

Getaway

In Getaway, Ethan Hawke plays Brent Magna, a former NASCAR driver who bailed from the pro circuit and dabbled in some shady dealings before going straight. He's settled down in a new country with his new wife, but when he comes home from work one day, he discovers she's been taken. His phone rings and a mysterious voice tells him to steal a Shelby Cobra parked in a nearby garage or his wife will die. So begins one of the worst car chase movies I've ever seen, and unquestionably one of the worst films of 2013.

Getaway
Director: Courtney Solomon
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, Jon Voight

Drinking Buddies

Can men and women be close friends without complicating things with sex and love? Drinking Buddies takes this question - most famously asked (in pop culture terms, anyway) in When Harry Met Sally... - and strips away the Hollywood sheen, replacing it with a quiet, realistic take of two people who are crazy about each other. Even if they can be together, should they?

Drinking Buddies
Writer/Director: Joe Swanberg
Starring: Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Ron Livingston

The World's End

Everyone can relate to that feeling of going home and things not being the same as how they once were. Unlike many movies that tackle that topic, The World's End is not a slow, ponderous treatise on aging and a wistful attempt to recapture one's youth (check out Kristen Bell's The Lifeguard if that's your cup of tea). This is an Edgar Wright film, so the movie takes those notions and blows them up - literally, at one point - and adds robot aliens to keep things interesting. The World's End is the final piece in Wright's Cornetto Trilogy, but takes a tonally different approach than the first two entries into this spiritual series.

The World's End
Co-writer/Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Rosamund Pike, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan