Author: BO

Writer/director Hal Hartley returns to screens with “Where to Land,” which is his first picture since 2014’s “Ned Rifle.” While Hartley’s oeuvre has endured a bumpy ride at times, he was missed, with his specialized approach to indie filmmaking giving audiences a unique reminder of his creative voice and take on the world. “Where to Land” represents the helmer’s quest for self-inspection, following the tale of a tired director making contact with his past, present, and future as he attempts to assemble a last will and testament. “Where to Land” is classic Hartley, collecting a small community of characters to deal with an invented crisis, sold with snappy dialogue and terrific acting. It’s a return to form for Hartley, who manages concerns and mild comedy with confidence, making the endeavor a treat for those who’ve been following his career since it began. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Nicholas Hytner hasn’t made a film in a decade, last seen on screens with “The Lady in the Van.” He’s not a director who works very often, and received some acclaim in the past, guiding such pictures as “The Madness of King George” and 2006’s “The History Boys.” “The Choral” is scripted by Alan Bennett, a longtime Hytner collaborator, and the duo concoct an extremely British endeavor about the grip of anxiety during World War I, and the soulful release of art during a troubling time. There are no surprises found in the offering, which plays like a mid-‘90s art-house release, providing a sense of comfort, musical performance, and wartime conflicts to best reach its target audience. Despite a general lack of electricity, “The Choral” is well-made and compellingly acted, periodically dipping into interesting areas of longing and loss while it tries to deliver reliable storytelling. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Julia Ducournau has built a career on provocative pictures, and while she doesn’t work often, she’s managed to capture attention with her first two features. 2016’s “Raw” stirred up film festival hype with its gruesome imagery, and 2021’s “Titane” turned Ducournau into a force of nature, delivering a wild examination of murder and sex that also burned brightly in pre-release circles. “Alpha” is her latest endeavor, and one can sense Ducournau struggling to produce something to compete with her previous work, looking to meet expectations with a surreal story of relationships and viral fears, returning to her love of body horror. “Raw” and “Titane” were bizarre offerings, but they remained interesting due to Ducournau’s strange ways and general storytelling fearlessness. “Alpha” doesn’t offer such a thrill, remaining limited in its emotional reach and characterization, making for a cold, sluggish viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2014, author Helen Macdonald released her memoir, “H is for Hawk,” which explored an emotionally turbulent year for the woman, who handled the loss of her beloved father through the strange ways of falconry, giving her a unique distraction as she dealt with so much. Screenwriters Emma Donoghue and Philippa Lowthorpe (who also directs) elect to bring such an experience to the screen, dramatizing the roughness of Helen’s state of mind and her special relationship with a Eurasian goshawk. It’s the stuff of a television movie, but “H is for Hawk” tries to be a tad more sensitive about the character’s state of mind, giving actress Claire Foy room to feel around a rattled headspace while the writing explores relationships and acts of isolation. The feature offers an unusual partnership between a woman and her bird of prey, and emotional moments are mostly earned in the endeavor, which makes sense of the central crisis, frequently going deeper into memory to help strengthen its view of personal loss. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Just last year, partners Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold collaborated on “The Brutalist,” attempting a tough sell as they created a nearly four-hour-long study of emotional ruin and suffering. They managed to pull off a minor hit with the picture (which Corbet directed), trying their luck again with “The Testament of Ann Lee,” which details the life and spiritual liberation of Ann Lee, the founder of the Shakers religious community. Fastvold takes the reins on this project, attempting to ease the imposing nature of the story but turning the film into a musical of some shape, also displaying plenty of dance to communicate the ways of faith and its direct connection to God. “The Testament of Ann Lee” isn’t particularly ambitious, and it’s not strongly paced, as Fastvold gets too caught up in the Broadway-style approach of the feature, out to make something theatrical, not insightful. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Housemaid” is an adaptation of a 2022 book by Frieda McFadden, who’s been cranking out novels and stories for roughly the last decade. She found major success with the title, and Hollywood came running, as tales of horrible people doing horrible things is big business, especially when it deals with toxic relationships (“Fifty Shades of Grey,” “It Ends with Us”) and questionable messages of empowerment. Paul Feig directs the endeavor, having already guided a similar project to box office success (2018’s “A Simple Favor”), and he’s tasked with delivering a twisty thriller highlighting unstable characters and strange decision-making skills. “The Housemaid” is a beach read that’s found its way to the big screen, offering viewers a questionable study of survival that’s weighed down by uneven acting and a lack of sharp editing, making for a long sit as concepts that probably made sense on the page seem quite ludicrous on film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If you’re a fan of anything SpongeBob SquarePants, there’s been a lot of viewing options in recent years. A resurgence of sorts has occurred for the animated world, with new shows appearing and spin-off films released. Earlier in 2025, “Plankton: The Movie” was issued as a streaming title, and the producers aren’t taking a break, trying their luck again on the big screen with “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants,” which restores focus on the main characters and their eternal battle with aquatic adventure and stupidity. Director Derek Drymon and screenwriters Pam Brady and Matt Lieberman have one job to do: keep it silly and moving. The production team mostly accomplishes this mission, with “Search for SquarePants” fun and colorful, delivering needed wackiness and cartoon antics, improving on 2021’s “Sponge on the Run” with a fresh round of goofiness and more pirate-y happenings. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Great Flood” has the initial appearance of a traditional disaster movie. There’s a massive global event that triggers a major emergency situation for the characters, as rising waters and numerous tsunamis chase the personalities as they make their way up a large apartment building. Writer/director Byung-woo Kim is certainly inspired by other hits in the subgenre, creating a frightful screen emergency that delivers on unusual survival sequences. However, “The Great Flood” isn’t strictly interested in generating pulse-pounding entertainment with a terrifying situation of planetary extinction. There’s more, much more, to the screenplay than cheap thrills, and it’s debatable if sizable turns of plot actually work for the endeavor or simply overstuff it with needless extensions of concern. It remains an active feature with committed performances, and the helmer is absolutely looking to comment on the future of our shared technological experience. However, after about an hour of near-misses and panic, a good case for simplicity in spectacle is made, finding the offering a bit too knotted for its own good. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Nobody is interested in the life of a film critic, but I have to share just how difficult it actually was to see “Rental Family.” Disney elected not to screen the feature for press coverage in my market, which is unusual for a review-dependent picture such as this. I discussed alternative screening opportunities with PR reps, but was “ghosted” in the long run, which is not unheard of in this business. The movie finally opened in theaters, and I purchased a ticket to see it, only to have the showing canceled due to “technical difficulties,” and definitely not because I was the only patron for this particular showtime (again, this has happened to me before). Perhaps I wasn’t meant to see the endeavor, as denial was everywhere I turned. Finally, weeks after the movie has opened, a connection was made, and “Rental Family” probably wasn’t totally worth the headache to catch it, but it’s a charming, sensitive study of human connection, and that’s just the stuff I think most viewers could use during these bleak days. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Angel Studios enjoyed success with last spring’s “The King of Kings,” which provided an animated study of the life of Jesus, as interpreted by author Charles Dickens. It’s perhaps the only Biblical tale that involved the antics of a cartoon cat, but the picture attracted an Easter audience, and Angel is trying to make some monetary magic happen again with “David,” which explores a story of heavenly purpose and leadership. It’s not a continuation of “The King of Kings” (no crazy felines this time), with writer/directors Brent Dawes and Phil Cunningham submitting a musical that’s occasionally interrupted by battlefield action and power plays. The movie really wants to inspire with its messages of Godly submission, but “David” isn’t very compelling, offering mostly uninspired tunes and routine animation as it provides a look at the main character’s journey of devotion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There was an exceptionally long wait between 2009’s “Avatar” and 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water.” Writer/director James Cameron took his time between films, out to increase the quality of his visual effects and work to support a newly minted franchise as it embarked on a path of potentially many sequels. “The Way of Water” was a stunning visual achievement, but Cameron certainly didn’t challenge himself as a storyteller, essentially remaking the original picture while continuing his world-building efforts. The follow-up delivered an uneven viewing experience, but Cameron returns again with “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which one hopes will remove any reintroduction needs and plow ahead as a fresh adventure featuring war, planetary ruination, and characters locked into intense relationships as the Pandora crisis worsens for everyone involved. That’s not exactly the case with “Fire and Ash,” finding Cameron (and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver) spinning his wheels once again as the movie plays like a greatest hits package from the first two “Avatar” endeavors. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Kate Winslet makes her directorial debut with “Goodbye June,” and she keeps the project in the family. The script is written by her son, Joe Anders, who’s also making his first project, electing to keep things intimate and emotionally taxing in the feature, which follows the final days of a matriarch aiming to confront her family’s differences while trying to bid farewell to an existence filled with loved ones struggling with their own problems. “Goodbye June” is most certainly a tearjerker, a ferocious one at times, leaving it up to Winslet to fight the development of melodrama as she seeks to study the sadness of the central situation. Winslet enjoys the services of an outstanding cast, and she does a commendable job keeping stickiness at bay, making a lovely, deeply felt examination of relationships in need of repair during a trying time of acceptance. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com