Author: BO

A long time ago on a place called Earth, there used to be an extended waiting period between “Star Wars” sequels, forcing fans to feast on scraps of information for years as the blockbusters marched through stages of production, find their releases practically declared national holidays. Those days are over. Now that the Walt Disney Corporation owns the brand, “Star Wars” is currently a yearly event, with “Rogue One” a spin-off of sorts, tiding over the faithful after last year’s “The Force Awakens” rocked expectations and box office records, and “Episode VIII” is prepped for a holiday 2017 debut. While it isn’t the first franchise departure (the Ewoks did have a pair of television movies in the mid-1980s), it’s certainly the largest, with “Rogue One” enjoying an immense creative push to help connect its story to the events of 1977’s “A New Hope.” It’s an experiment that mostly works, but there are moments when it’s clear that the task of finding new areas of “Star Wars” to play with is a bit too much for director Gareth Edwards to handle. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Now is the time for a tremendous, bawdy, take-no-prisoners seasonal comedy, hitting all the sweet spots during a particularly heavy year of bad news. “Bad Santa 2” stumbled right out of the gate, leaving “Office Christmas Party” a wide open shot to be the bellylaugh generator of the holidays. It almost reaches an inspired level of insanity too, but there’s not enough oddball behavior in the picture to make it truly memorable. Directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon have their hearts in the right place, but here’s the rare movie that’s hurt by characterization, finding “Office Christmas Party” so concerned with telling a coherent, emotionally resonate story, it often forgets to have fun with itself, eventually losing focus on chaos to adhere to convention, just to provide a comfort zone for its audience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After years spent trying to figure out how to make the internet scary (“Feardotcom” anyone?), Hollywood finally found something to work with 2015’s “Unfriended,” which inventively utilized online technology and social media connection to inspire a successful chiller. It was no great achievement in cinema, but a movie that was capable of surprise in a genre that often goes out of its way to avoid it. “Friend Request” isn’t as gonzo a picture, playing more traditional with its blend of witchcraft and Facebook, but it isn’t terrible, which is as close to praise as I’m willing to get. Co-writer/director Simon Verhoeven doesn’t go to the dark web to inspire the feature, but he does successfully land a degree of eeriness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sometimes, a movie simply doesn’t work due to a lack of seasoned professionals involved in the production. The screenplay (by Abe Pogos) for “Sugar Mountain” actually holds promise, looking to merge a “Fargo”-lite crime story about bad ideas gone wrong with a domestic disturbance tale, hoping to come out the other side with an emotionally profound, nail-biting feature that manages to do something with a limited budget. Director Richard Gray has a few credits to his name, but his command of “Sugar Mountain” is tenuous at best, struggling to fashion a suspenseful picture about family and betrayal, only to offer an amateurish drama that bites off more than it can chew. Early promise for a ripe inspection of brotherly unrest is quickly dismissed by limited actors and a helmer who never seems to know what he’s doing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Michael Shannon is an intense actor, and he’s maintained a career interest in playing intimidating or fried men, using his natural way with darkness to create often memorable characters that have complete contempt for humanity in common. Perhaps one day Shannon will stun the world with his portrayal of the Easter Bunny, or perhaps he’ll star in a music bio-pic about Raffi, but for now, he’s trying to corner the market on hard men, and he’s doing a wonderful job. “Frank & Lola” isn’t a professional detour for Shannon, but it does manage to harness his gift for threatening behavior, with writer/director Matthew Ross (making his helming debut) capturing raw nerve work from the actor, allowing him to define the unsettling tone of this burning, disquieting drama.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There are few actors like Isabelle Huppert. She’s a veteran of the industry, performing on film and television for 45 years, yet, unlike most of her contemporaries, she keeps trying to challenge herself, taking unconventional roles and working with sophisticated directors. She remains a fresh screen presence, and her experience is the engine that drives “Things to Come,” a seemingly mild story of domestic implosion that’s turned into something special by Huppert, who delivers an emotionally complex performance while maintaining her character’s tight command of social exposure. Writer/director Mia Hansen-Love isn’t big on sharp turns of plot, but she has Huppert and her drive to keep a potential cartoon summation of life’s cruelties as human and subtle as possible. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When Darren Lynn Bousman makes a movie, it’s usually sold as a feature from “The director of ‘Saw II, III, and IV’.” While it’s an accurate claim, Bousman hasn’t enjoyed the most inspired career, also helming duds such as “11-11-11,” “Mother’s Day,” and “The Barrens.” “Abattoir” is the latest misfire from Bousman, who seems consumed with becoming a top horror conductor, only his orchestra is perpetually out of tune. Blame for the ridiculousness of “Abattoir” is shared with screenwriter Christopher Monfette, but Bousman doesn’t plan to cover the story’s strangeness with a big enough budget, keeping events on the cheap, which makes it impossible to get lost in this noir-ish take on murder, menace, and the gate to Hell. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s tough out there for action heroes these days. The titans of the industry have aged out of the quest for cinematic dominance, and the next generation doesn’t have the benefit of a VHS revolution, earning their reputation through basic cable repetition and games of lonely Saturday night VOD roulette. We once had Schwarzenegger, and now we have Scott Adkins. Trying to bring his own special sauce to the party is Tom Hopper, who beefs and strips down for “Kill Ratio,” delivering his take on a standard survival actioner. Hopper certainly has the physicality for the part, showcasing his muscular hairlessness throughout the feature, but there’s a more challenging war to be waged with the production, as director Paul Tanter struggles to make something out of nothing with “Kill Ratio,” which doesn’t have the budget to become the explosive bruiser he imagines. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s certainly understandable why Katie Holmes has decided to take more control of her career. Just over a decade ago, she was the focus of the marketing push for “First Daughter” and co-starred in “Batman Begins.” Five years ago, she was playing second banana to Adam Sandler in drag in “Jack and Jill.” Industry opportunities weren’t trending upward. Holmes makes her directorial debut with “All We Had,” an adaptation of an Annie Weatherwax novel and material that unsurprisingly permits the star to achieve the greatest performance of her career. It’s an episodic picture, and perhaps a premise seen one too many times, but Holmes finds a way to soften cliché and make the feature feel lived-in and emotionally true. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Filling in an empty slot during a release weekend that’s generally regarded at the worst of the film year, it’s up to “Incarnate” to thrill audiences with its take on demonic possession and the spiritual heroes sent in to challenge evil. Shot three years ago, it’s little surprise that the movie is a dud, but it’s not an aggressive disaster, just a poorly assembled effort that looks like it was re-edited dozens of times, with the final cut less about being functional genre entertainment and more about being done. A low-budget chiller that doesn’t really have any detectable scares, “Incarnate” is a Thanksgiving turkey put out for display a week late, trying to suck up as much single-weekend cash as it can before word spreads that it’s completely forgettable. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Eyes of My Mother” is the debut feature for writer/director Nicolas Pesce, and it’s quite the introduction. It’s a spare chiller that treats perversion and murder almost casually, managing to unnerve through distance, showcasing the young filmmaker’s interest in slow-burn storytelling and mystery, with the feature taking its sweet time to play out in full. Visually, it’s stunning, using black and white cinematography to unsettle as it depicts grotesque body horrors and the daily routine of demented individuals, with Pesce attentive to scenes where the unthinkable becomes mundane to the characters. “The Eyes of My Mother” is gruesome and macabre, but it’s also powerful work, following through on a vision for psychosis with welcome brevity and a weirdly compelling, periodically loathsome fondness for the unpleasant. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Ever since he completed work on the “Twilight” franchise, actor Taylor Lautner has encountered difficulty finding a career direction that allows him to break away from his enduring legacy as a lonesome werewolf. He’s tried comedy (“Grown Ups 2,” “The Ridiculous Six”) and actioners (“Tracers,” “Abduction”), but nothing has stuck. With “Run the Tide,” Lautner elects to go inward, toplining a domestic disturbance drama that allows him plenty of room to emote, taking an opportunity to showcase other sides of his screen presence. Perhaps a leading man career is not meant to be for Lautner, but “Run the Tide” is easily the best work he’s done to date, handling himself adequately as screenwriter Rajiv Shah checks off every cliché in the book, making it nearly impossible for the movie to find a place of authentic ache. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com