Damien Chazelle's
Whiplash is one of the best-reviewed movies of 2014—
whoops! Also in this week's issue, Ben Sachs reviews
Nightcrawler, starring a skinny Jake Gyllenhaal as an LA sociopath who finds his true calling as a videographer recording crime and accident scenes for the ten o'clock news. And we've got recommended reviews for
CitizenFour, Laura Poitras's fly-on-the-wall portrait of Edward Snowden in the run-up to his earth-shaking revelations about domestic surveillance of American citizens;
Hellaware, a satire of New York artsy-fartsies who embrace a down-at-heels horror-rap act; and
J'Accuse, Abel Gance's 1919 silent epic about love, death, and World War I.
Check out our new reviews of:
Before I Go to Sleep, starring Nicole Kidman as an amnesiac woman who wakes up every morning thinking she's in her 20s;
E-Team, a documentary about the "emergency team" fielded by Human Rights Watch to investigate and publicize war-zone atrocities;
Harmontown, which follows TV writer (
Community) and podcaster Dan Harmon on a U.S. tour;
Horns, starring Daniel Radcliffe as a horned man who causes people to act on their worst impulses; and
The X-Ray of Civilization, which collects short films from the height of the AIDS epidemic, by New York filmmakers Tom Rubnitz, David Wojnarowicz, and Tommy Turner.
Best bets for repertory: Ernst Lubitsch's
Broken Lullaby (1932), Saturday and Wednesday at Gene Siskel Film Center; Robert Wiene's
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), Friday at Symphony Center with live organ accompaniment by Cameron Carpenter; Sam Raimi's
The Evil Dead (1981), Friday at the Logan; Ingmar Bergman's
Fanny and Alexander (1983), Monday at University of Chicago Doc Films; Alain Resnais's
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), all week at Music Box; Albert Brooks's
Modern Romance (1981), Saturday and Tuesday at Film Center, with a lecture by Jonathan Rosenbaum at the second show; Henry Selick's
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) at Century 12/CineArts 6 and River East 21; Roberto Rossellini's
Open City (1946), all week at Film Center; and Samuel Fuller's
Shock Corridor (1963), Sunday at the WIP Theater, with an introduction by comedian Lee Kepraios.

- Vegas (see "Films by Lukasz Konopa")
Two noteworthy festivals kick off this week:
Mostra V: Brazilian Film Series begins Saturday at Columbia College Film Row Cinema and continues through November 14 at various venues, and
First Nations Film and Video Festival presents
LaDonna Harris: Indian 101, Wednesday through next Saturday at various locations. And on Saturday at Nightingale, the
Reader's own Ben Sachs and Cine-File contributor Kathleen Sachs introduce a program of shorts by Polish documentary maker
Lukasz Konopa.
Sorry about the music track.
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