Author: BO

Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain went Hollywood with his last feature, 2016’s “Jackie,” and it worked for him. Creating an emotional and illuminating portrait of Jackie Kennedy’s strange days before and after the assassination of her husband. It was powerful work from Larrain, who kept himself together while dealing with studios and the awards circuit. Returning to Chile, the director delivers “Ema,” which offers him an opportunity to delve into complete creative freedom once again, this time examining powers of self-destruction developing between two people who once believed they loved each other, but now deal in bitterness and pain. The material details an emotional war zone for all the characters, and it’s sold with a free-flowing sense of bodily movement and darkness. Larrain scores another career achievement with “Ema,” which offers a hypnotic but deeply unsettling viewing experience, remaining artful throughout. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Apple made headlines last winter when they decided to pay a fortune for the rights to release “CODA,” which won several awards at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. It’s easy to understand why the company shelled out $25 million dollars for the endeavor, which offers plenty of audience-pleasing moments and warm emotion. It’s also unafraid to get broad when it has to, making sure to reach the back row with its familiar charms. There’s some degree of sameness to the feature, but writer/director Sian Heder (2016’s “Tallulah”) works hard to create deeper emotions in play, striving to generate an understanding of the characters and their individual hardships. “CODA” (which is a remake of a 2014 French film) is kindly and means well enough, boosted by select moments of real dramatic power that carry an otherwise fluffy effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The best music documentaries focus on the stories involved with the creation of records, or exploring band or artist dynamic. This is what audiences come for, to get a peek behind the curtain, understanding how creativity ebbs and flows, occasionally resulting in world-shifting successes. “Under the Volcano” is a simple picture about the days of Associated Independent Recording, with co-founder George Martin moving the process of creativity to the island of Montserrat in the West Indies. He took his reputation and the money made after working with The Beatles and constructed a living space for bands hunting for a different vibe when developing their careers. Instead of the coldness of urban life, AIR Montserrat provided paradise, albeit in the shadow of an active volcano, and director Gracie Otto (“The Last Impresario”) gathers interviews from those involved with the studio to best understand how this building and vibe managed to inspire some of the best albums of the 1980s. And yes, there are wonderful stories contained within. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m sure the producers of “Crime Story” wouldn’t mind potential viewers thinking they’re sitting down with a variation on the “John Wick” formula of a one-man-army returning to the criminal underworld he left behind to settle some scores. Even more interesting is the addition of Richard Dreyfuss in the lead role, with the seventysomething actor finding his big mean again with an aggressive part. Unfortunately, “Crime Story” isn’t that invitingly preposterous, with writer/director Adam Lipius making a family story instead, scripting a knotted tale of broken promises and long-simmering resentment, also exploring end-of-life fears that have the potential to transform this effort into a more satisfying study of frustrations. It’s messy work, but Lipius does craft a few compelling scenes of mental anguish, touching on real-world concerns while overseeing a weirdly labyrinthine endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s been a lot of Lin-Manuel Miranda in recent years. He finally brought his beloved stage musical “Hamilton” to screens last year, and one of his earliest career triumphs, the Tony award-winning “In the Heights,” received a cinematic adaptation last June. He’s even participating in the making of “Encanto,” an upcoming release from Walt Disney Animation. He’s been a busy guy, but his musical instincts haven’t diminished, remaining in full force with “Vivo,” where he portrays the titular kinkajou and oversees the creation of the original soundtrack, which is sure to receive regular rotation in minivans everywhere. Director Kirk DeMicco (“The Croods”) feeds off Miranda’s bountiful energy with “Vivo,” launching a vibrant musical with memorable songs and colorful animation that’s fantastically entertaining at times, securing a Cuban-flavored vibe for family audiences in need of a little boost of excitement from an animated adventure. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Pascual Sisto makes his directorial debut with “John and the Hole,” and he’s elected to try his luck with a disturbing story about imprisonment and exploration, mixing casual horrors with a darkly comedic approach. Sisto is playing in the same sandbox as noted provocateurs Yorgos Lanthimos and Michael Haneke, but he tries to bend the material his own way, working with a screenplay by Nicolas Giacobone, which is an adaptation of a short story. Such limited dramatic origins are evident throughout “John and the Hole,” which is filled with thousand-yard stares and character stand-offs, but Sisto finds a way to make the stillness of the movie work in his favor, erecting an eerie and somewhat understandable tale of extreme teenage rebellion that becomes something of a psychological and storytelling puzzle as it unfolds. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

To describe the films of Leos Carax as an acquired taste doesn’t quite do justice to the type of surreal, free-flowing work the director typically offers. He’s been away from screens for quite some time, with “Annette” is first feature since 2012’s “Holy Motors,” and the helmer is ready to attempt something truly oddball with the endeavor. It’s an opera, with some rock rhythm to get it up on its feet at times, finding Carax teaming with the band Sparks (comprised of Ron and Russell Mael), who are currently enjoying quite a moment after the release of “The Sparks Brothers,” an Edgar Wright documentary about the group released in June. With such fondness for weirdness shared between Sparks and Carax, “Annette” seems like a major opportunity to blow minds with this merging of artful powers. Alas, appreciating the working parts of the movie and actually sitting through it are two different experiences, and while eccentricity helps the effort get through some stagnant sequences, this isn’t quite the soaring cinematic event it should’ve been. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Naked Singularity” is an adaptation of a 2008 book by Sergio De La Pava, which observes the struggles of a public defender who’s nearing the end of his rope, stuck working a system that’s too big and broken to manage. As a legal drama, the material has promise, taking viewers on a tour of courtroom wranglings and lawyer interactions, painting a bleak portrait of justice in America. It’s the rest of “Naked Singularity” that’s more difficult to digest, as a crime movie soon takes command of the feature, offering different degrees of crooked behavior from all sorts of corrupt characters. Co-writer/director Chase Palmer’s job is to make an approachable endeavor out of different tonalities, collecting strange ideas from De La Pava’s novel. He doesn’t quite land a balanced picture, but it’s an engaging ride for most of the run time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Rising Wolf” has one thing in its favor: it’s a killer elevator movie. Okay, so not the good kind of killer elevator movie, where a supernatural force takes possession of a car, sending it on a deadly ride up and down a shaft, causing all kinds of problems for increasingly panicking riders inside. Co-writer/director Antaine Furlong doesn’t head in a horror director. Instead, he uses the elevator setting to launch a fantasy series, keeping things budget-minded and manageable for its first chapter, following the unfolding nightmare for a young woman forced to endure hard hits and deadly threats while stuck inside a car. The fun factor of “Rising Wolf” is shockingly limited, as Furlong is attempting to create a serious feature about serious peril, and he dreams big with the material, hoping to use this study of close-quarters survival as a way into franchise filmmaking, though he forgets to inspire interest in future chapters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Playing God” is being sold to the public as something of a comedy. That’s not writer/director Scott Brignac’s fault, but he hasn’t created something silly with the picture. While it initially positions itself as a story of con artists trying to sell a heavenly connection to an easy mark, the material goes much deeper than basic acts of deception. Brignac looks to examine the body-bending pain of grief and guilt, carefully studying character reactions to significant feelings of hopelessness. “Playing God” starts with a sense of humor, but it eventually gets quite heavy, finding the darkness of the tale a bit too much for Brignac to handle at times, and he forgets what type of movie he’s making. It’s uneven, but the endeavor deserves some credit for trying to work beyond escapism to address some agonizing realities of life. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2016, there was “Suicide Squad,” with Warner Brothers trying to expand their interests in the DC Extended Universe by offering a sort of greatest hits package of fringe comic book characters. The feature was a gigantic success at the box office, but didn’t connect with the fanbase, emerging as something of a disappointment to everyone except studio accountants. Fearing a sequel might not be welcome at multiplexes, the keys to the franchise have been pulled from director David Ayer’s tight grip and tossed over to James Gunn, who made monetary magic with two “Guardians of the Galaxy” pictures for Marvel Entertainment. He also managed to charm a wide audience with the films, keeping up the kid-friendly PG-13 plans of the MCU. With “The Suicide Squad,” Gunn is permitted to return to his Troma Entertainment roots, offered and R-rating and carte blanche to transform the do-over into a “Guardians of the Galaxy”-style adventure, only with harsh language, splattery violence, and irritable anti-heroes. This isn’t the cuddly Gunn of recent years, but the “Super” Gunn, who wants to make a punk rock comic book extravaganza with a pronounced sneer, almost declaring war on his success with Disney with this surprisingly graphic endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com