Author: BO

“Love, Simon” has a message of compassion and empowerment it wants to share with its target demographic. It’s a story of personal acceptance featuring gay characters, but it’s presented as an average teen movie with quirky personalities, glossy emotions, and a celebratory finale, keeping tight to formula as a way to remain relatable. Intentions are pure and, thankfully, there’s plenty of sincerity to keep the feature afloat, with director Greg Berlanti making sure the emotions that count the most are projected as accurately as possible. The rest of “Love, Simon” isn’t nearly as neatly executed, with some rather severe screenwriting issues making trouble for the picture’s overall effectiveness. There’s plenty to admire here, and any sort of gentleness at the multiplex is something to be treasured, but it’s hard to ignore the film’s general unwillingness to confront cruelty. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While paychecks make the world go round, there must have been something greater about “Bent” at one point during its development to attract actors such as Karl Urban, Sofia Vergara, and Andy Garcia. It’s a dim thriller that strives to emulate detective noir from the 1940s, transferring hard-boiled antics to the current playground of DTV productions: Louisiana. It’s unremarkable in almost every way, but it does have the actors, with Urban showing interest in co-writer/director Bobby Moresco’s crude way with corruption, sex, double-crosses, and standoffs. Perhaps “Bent” was something major in the script stage, but the final cut is a defanged, slightly bewildering collection of motivations and last names, while the overall production is missing a great deal of energy to fuel even its most modest ideas for mystery.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2001, director Thomas Riedelsheimer made an art-house hit with “Rivers and Tides,” his study of the work of Andy Goldsworthy, a British sculptor and photographer whose specialty is the wonders of the natural world. The artist’s work is a proper fit for big screen exploration, and Riedelsheimer was eager to share Goldsworthy’s unique perspective on the living life force that surrounds us, highlighting his interest in the manipulation of found objects, symmetry, and tactile zen. Nearly 20 years later, the helmer has returned to the company of Goldsworthy for “Leaning Into the Wind,” which doesn’t explore the subject’s life as he lives it today, but reunites with his specialized vision, joining Goldsworthy as he travels around the world to refine his influences and continue developing his art, with the movie detailing several installations and private tours that contribute to the creator’s personal view. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A decade is an eternity when it comes to the wait for a sequel. That’s an entire generation, and horror franchises generally keep puffing along when chapters are issued annually, maintaining whatever freshness was there originally that beguiled audiences. 2008’s “The Strangers” was a low-budget success, securing a certain future of follow-ups, but they never arrived until today, with “The Strangers: Prey at Night” taking on the unwelcome challenge of connecting to the original feature and showcasing a sense of renewed purpose to appeal to a younger audience. “Prey at Night” remains stuck with some editorial issues, and there’s the dead-end premise to grind things to a halt, but the newest celebration of nihilism and chart-topping hits from the 1980s is actually quite effective when it wants to be, finding signs of life in a brand name that was on its way to the morgue. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 book, “A Wrinkle in Time,” is a beloved “science fantasy” novel that’s often been described as impossible to adapt for the screen. There was a 2003 television movie that attempted to bring the author’s rich imagination to life, and now director Ava DuVernay tries her hand at interpretation, armed with a substantial budget and a bit of star power. Of course, DuVernay isn’t a seasoned filmmaker, previously working on smaller scale pictures such as “Selma,” and her inexperience riding the bucking bronco of CGI, whimsy, and world-building is evident from the first frame. “A Wrinkle in Time” doesn’t work, and while the helmer struggles to transform the complex material into the starting line for a fresh Disney franchise, she often comes up short, finding the feature too stiff and underdeveloped to connect as an awe-inspiring tribute to the power of science and love.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s no fighting Rob Cohen’s directorial style, which is meant to simulate a jackhammer to the senses. He’s a crude architect of mainstream entertainment, unwilling to make something special when he can just blow something up, and “The Hurricane Heist” is exactly the type of movie he does repeatedly and poorly. After bottoming out with the worst Mummy sequel (2008’s “Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”), the unwatchable “The Boy Next Door,” and the strangely mean-spirited “Alex Cross,” Cohen remains revved up for this mix of “Twister” and “Hard Rain.” It’s meant to be spectacle, but the helmer only knows noise, offering a 100-minute-long cluster of puzzling action, dreadful performances, and a loose understanding of how Mother Nature works. Not that “The Hurricane Heist” needs to be a documentary, but a little meteorological authenticity would’ve been a fine distraction from all the bottom shelf creative decisions peppered around this dud — the latest addition to a particularly odious filmography.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2008’s “The Square” marked the feature-length directorial debut for Nash Edgerton, who crafted a wonderful homage to Coen Brothers cinema while stoking his own interests in macabre turns of plot and damaged characters. Weirdly, he never produced an immediate follow-up, spending time in television and creating shorts, but now Edgerton has returned to the big screen with “Gringo,” which carries a few of the same mischievous impulses that made “The Square” such a winner. Sadly, the effort as a whole is a let-down, watching the helmer take on too much characterization as he masterminds a cat’s cradle of combustible personalities trying to control aspects of Mexico, with some hoping to make it out alive. “Gringo” is a misfire, and a periodically painful one too, almost unwilling to come together with any sort of welcome ferocity, watching Edgerton spend too much time on narrative dead-ends and not enough on an end game for all this widescreen bustle.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Cory Finley is a playwright making a transition to film, but he doesn’t leave behind the theater in full. “Thoroughbreds” is his helming debut, and it plays very much like a theatrical piece, focusing on the construction of personalities through tightly considered dialogue, not screen movement or cinematic escalation. It’s something to be shared inside an intimate space with talented actors, and as a movie, “Thoroughbreds” lacks vigor, especially with a static finale. Despite some issues with widescreen urgency, the feature certainly isn’t short on commitment, with stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Olivia Cooke, and Anton Yelchin doing a fantastic job getting into Finley’s writing, finding character beats worth savoring as the effort as a whole fights to remain on its feet without act breaks. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Armando Iannucci has a long history with improvised comedy, and a reputation for intelligent satire, previously masterminding such productions as “The Thick of It,” “Veep,” and his last big screen directorial endeavor, “In the Loop.” Continuing his interest in political bickering, panic, and ambition, Iannucci takes on the Soviet Union with “The Death of Stalin,” an ominous title for a movie that periodically shows interest in wacky behavior. An adaptation of a graphic novel, the feature remains in line with other Iannucci efforts, with the helmer putting his faith in behavioral extremity and thespian excitement, coming up with a lively but overlong examination of behind-the-scenes unrest after the loss of a feared leader. It plays to expectations, but it also offers some unusual tonal choices that keep it unpredictable.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s been fascinating to watch the developing career of Daniel Radcliffe. The once and future Harry Potter has been trying to make interesting career decisions, picking roles that take him far away from the Boy Wizard, eschewing fantasy for the hard edges of reality. “Beast of Burden” isn’t a particularly exhausting psychological thriller, but it does merge Radcliffe’s love of the theater with his big screen endeavors, offering him the chance to command a movie basically all by himself. It’s just Radcliffe and an airplane for most of “Beast of Burden,” resembling a higher altitude “Locke” as the actor is tasked with communicating a heightened emotional range, portraying a character dealing with professional, criminal, and domestic pressures while high in the sky.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The timing of the theatrical release of “Death Wish” couldn’t possibly be worse. In America, the subject of guns and the lunatics who possess them is headline news, and has been for the better part of 2018. And here comes a film that celebrates the destructive wonders of firearms and the value of reaching beyond the legal system to set things rights. All this would be incredibly distasteful if “Death Wish” was a passably provocative feature, but this remake of a 1974 Charles Bronson chiller is directed by Eli Roth, who has yet to fashion a moviegoing experience that didn’t involve the repeated rolling of eyes. Roth goes all Roth on the material, trying to turn the complexity of vigilante violence into a modern exploitation picture, keeping his take on aged material tone-deaf and painfully dim. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com