Author: BO

With “Wild” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” director Jean-Marc Vallee has showcased ability to communicate the inner thoughts of his characters, focusing on emotional issues and medical disruptions to find what people are truly made of. He’s effective with smaller, introspective moments, but “Demolition,” which continues this visual and thematic journey, doesn’t come together as easily as before. Screenwriter Bryan Sipe crafts a story that highlights the range of grief, reaction, and redemption, but the collaboration doesn’t provide a particularly illuminating viewing experience, finding “Demolition” powerful, but only in fragments, spending too much time on trivial matters while the rest of the feature slowly grows confused and, ultimately, pointless. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Grosse Pointe Blank” is one of the best films of the last twenty years, and it’s heartening to see that screenwriter Max Landis agrees with me. Instead of forging ahead with a remake, Landis take his adulation for the 1997 release and reworks it slightly to create his own variation on the central idea of a killer in love in “Mr. Right,” an action-comedy that’s big on fight scenes and casual interplay between stars Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick. Big on energy, for at least the opening hour, “Mr. Right” eventually runs out of steam in a major way, but for those itching for “Blank”-style thrills, the feature finds periodic inspiration as it goes from love to war. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2010, writer/director Deon Taylor created “Chain Letter,” an updated take on slasher formula that utilized cell phones as the harbinger of doom. It was an awful film, one of the worst of the year, but Taylor played it straight, working to whip up some sizable scares while the rest of the effort died a slow, painful death. Taylor returns to the genre with “Meet the Blacks,” but he’s no longer interested in frights, attempting to wring laughs out of murder with this painfully inept semi-parody of “The Purge.” Released too soon after Marlon Wayans dropped a box office bomb with January’s “50 Shades of Black,” “Meet the Blacks” covers basically the same ground, spending too much time on vulgarity and racial hostility, and not enough on wit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The reasons behind the production of “Frank and Cindy” aren’t especially clear. The story of Frank Garcia and Cynthia Brown was originally explored in a 2007 documentary, directed by their son, G.J. Echternkamp, who decided to introduce some overdue family therapy by turning the camera on his dysfunctional parents, allowing them a chance to share their illnesses with the world. Nine years later, Echternkamp returns to the tale, this time dramatizing the doc, hiring Rene Russo and Oliver Platt to play his trouble guardians. Granted, the opportunity to portray such fallible people doesn’t come around every day, and the leads are up for the challenge, delivering vulnerable, memorable performances. However, little else sticks during the viewing experience, which comes across self-serving at times, with Echternkamp making himself the lead character. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The end of the world is transformed into a first-person shooter in “Pandemic,” the first of two movies this month that stage unspeakable acts of violence from a chaotic perspective (the other, “Hardcore Harry,” is due out next week). Combining ferocious visions of murder and self-preservation with tender missions of familial protection, the feature, directed by John Suits, strives to be a more meaningful horror story, working to establish humanity behind every irrational decision. Unless you happen to be a major fan of extended sequences set in dark hallways, there’s nothing overtly impressive about “Pandemic,” but its working parts are engaging, watching Suits build his own doomsday with a limited budget and an extended visual gimmick. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One day, a filmmaker is going to come along and mastermind a music bio-pic that’s about a passably functional human being, concentrating on the artist and their achievements, refusing to obsess over their abyssal flaws. Until that day arrives, we’re stuck with “I Saw the Light,” a particularly dismal exploration of the life and times of country singer Hank Williams. Instead of inspecting the performer’s creative drive, writer/director Marc Abraham (“Flash of Genius”) focuses almost exclusively on Williams and his troubling behavior with women, almost forgetting at times that the subject was a widely adored musician. “I Saw the Light” is tedious and roughly designed, though a star turn from Tom Hiddleston is the only truly committed aspect of the production, nailing a tricky performance while working with a frightfully vague script. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Girl in the Photographs” is credited as a final picture in the career of executive producer Wes Craven, who passed away in 2015. It seems fitting that the helmer would have interest in this production, as it periodically plays like a “Scream” knockoff, only instead of challenging genre formula, it dissects the world of fashion and art photography, trying to come up with a fresh take on aged slasher ingredients. “The Girl in the Photographs” is tremendously gory and aggressive, hoping to scare through acts of blunt trauma, but co-writer/director Nick Simon elects the meditative route with pedestrian material, generating more yawn than shrieks with this monumentally tedious feature. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A former child actor (“About a Boy”) struggling to find roles that reflect his development into adulthood, Nicholas Hoult attempts to guide his career into a sinister direction with “Kill Your Friends.” Co-producing and starring in the picture, Hoult provides a secure performance in a lackluster film, and one that strives to be stylish, ruthless, and darkly comic. We’ve been down this road before, with “Kill Your Friends” basically taking what it wants from “American Psycho,” working through murder and madness without inspired wickedness to encourage audience investment. At least Hoult is trying to do something different, but his effort can’t prop up the feature, which slowly loses focus and timing, ending up an uninspired mess. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Every talent in Hollywood deserves a chance to try different genres, to spread their creative wings. For John Schneider, best known for his work on “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “Smallville,” “Smothered” represents an opportunity to shake up his directorial career, overseeing a cheeky comedy that pokes fun at horror icons and the celebrity convention grind, and offers a killer who uses her enormous breasts to suffocate her victims. Not bad for a guy who recently starred in “What Would Jesus Do?: The Story Continues.” “Smothered” isn’t entirely successful with comedy and thrills, but it does offer a chance for the men behind horror’s most famous masks a chance to expand their thespian horizons, with Schneider wisely leaning on their natural charisma to help the feature through some rough patches. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“My Big Fat Greek Wedding” was the sleeper hit of 2002, emerging from out of nowhere to become the fifth highest grossing feature of the year (sandwiched between “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” and “Signs”). Expectations for a sequel were immediate, but writer/star Nia Vardalos chased a television dream with 2003’s “My Big Fat Greek Life,” which effectively killed the brand name. 14 years later, Vardalos returns with “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2,” attempting to recapture the vibrant cultural energy that fueled the original effort. While the story takes a leap in time, the jokes do not, finding much of the follow-up struggling to land punchlines and massage character quirk. While amiable, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” is dull and overscripted, watching Vardalos spin too many plates as she strives to give everyone something to do. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com