Author: BO

Superheroes have enjoyed a great deal of cinematic success in recent
years, packaged in films blessed with enormous budgets capable of
bringing intricate comic book worlds and high-flying superpowers to
life. “All Superheroes Must Die” elects the opposite route for its
fantasy feel, barely spending any money to detail trouble brewing
between a team of troubled, costumed champions and their nefarious
enemy. Painfully amateurish and poorly scripted, “All Superheroes Must
Die” is a chore to sit through, even at only 75 minutes in length.
Writer/director/producer/star/editor Jason Trost has a germ of an idea
here that’s intriguing, but no coin to bring it to life, keeping his
movie flat, generic looking, and tedious. Who knew masked avengers on a
perilous mission could be so dull? Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Storage 24” is aching to be a gripping monster movie, but it’ll have to
settle with being a merely serviceable one. The picture benefits from
invested filmmaking, with the production working diligently to pull off a
haunted house atmosphere populated with rounded characters, while
unleashing a creature with a horrifying interest in the innards of its
human prey. Certainly enjoyable with a few interesting stalking
sequences, “Storage 24” isn’t remarkable, falling into a few low-budget
traps along the way. It burns through a somewhat predictable routine of
survival instincts, nutty outsiders, and betrayals, while the central
alien antagonist could use 15 more minutes in the CGI oven to firm up
some lackluster details. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Numerous questions are raised after viewing “Texas Chainsaw 3D,” more
than any cash-grab sequel/remake should rightfully leave behind. A
brazenly idiotic production that doesn’t bother make any sense or deal
directly with the screwball timeline it arranges for itself, the picture
is basically a glorified DTV effort that lucked into a January release,
displaying minimal interest in storytelling cohesion, passable
performances, and grim occurrences. The “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”
franchise has seen its fair share of brainless follow-ups and offshoots,
yet this new production takes the cake in terms of absurdity, eagerly
dispatching with coherence to rewire the tale back to its original
elements, once again pitting a maniac with a chainsaw against his
dim-witted, costume-challenged victims. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2009, director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal hit a
career peak with “The Hurt Locker,” a searing exploration of wartime
strain and its addictive residue. The effort collected awards and Oscar
gold, while bringing Bigelow into the big time after years helming cult
hits and ambitious misfires. The pair return to the stress factory of
the Middle East with “Zero Dark Thirty,” this time playing footsie with
authenticity as they focus on the manhunt for Osama bin Laden in the
wake of the 9/11 attacks on American soil. A direct and riveting
procedural picture with a foray into military action, “Zero Dark Thirty”
isolates a fascinating inner drive of revenge to fuel interactions with
international terrorism, maintaining a hauntingly personal perspective
that burns bright while the screenplay spins a sophisticated web of last
names and motivations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Crawlspace” is a good example of a no-budget picture accomplishing
quite a lot with very little. A blend of “Aliens” and “Scanners,” the
feature has confidence and a definite vision for its claustrophobic
scares. Perhaps originality isn’t a top priority for the screenplay, but
director Justin Dix manages to fuse his inspirations and his
aspirations into a tight 80 minute ride of hallucinations and chilling
medical discoveries, feeding genre fans a moderate but effective level
of gore to snack on while the dialogue explores devious manipulations.
At the very least, it provides hope that Dix, making his directorial
debut here, will go on to a career of satisfying shockers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The Tarantino Generation is briefly revived with the release of “Sushi
Girl,” a toe-curlingly violent journey into the black hearts of petty
criminals and their loquacious impulses. Loaded with barbed interplay
and fueled by a mystery of true intention, the movie sustains a certain
anxious rhythm that’s superbly entertaining, eased along by exaggerated
but excited performances from a group of actors who normally get the
shaft when it comes to extended screentime. While it’s nothing
inventive, perhaps a tad too derivative at times, “Sushi Girl” manages
to overcome its limitations with a polished, low-budget style and a
fiery attitude, keeping attention on the argument at hand, while
increasing brutality and a satisfactory ending ease the awareness that
the screenplay, credited to Destin Pfaff and Kern Saxton (who also
directs), is simply walking in the considerable footsteps of other
filmmakers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For the first hour, “The Baytown Outlaws” keeps to a persuasive display
of violence and colorful characters, with co-writer/director Barry
Battles manufacturing a tasty slice of southern-fried grindhouse,
populated with seedy characters and outrageous confrontations. The pace
isn’t kept as the material eventually begs to be taken seriously, which
comes to cripple the entire viewing experience. However, those with a
taste for unsavory events guided by loudmouth participants should be
able to extract some enjoyment out of the determined feature. It’s a
shame Battles loses his nerve in the final act, weirdly assuming viewers
have developed an emotional attachment to material that works best as a
cartoon. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Released during the same period as Gus Van Sant’s “Promised Land” and
its focus on the possible environmental disaster known as fracking, “A
Dark Truth” also explores a little-known area of natural resource woe,
covering the rise of corporations collecting control of water and land
rights in struggling countries. However, instead of a respectful drama
that preaches and teaches, “A Dark Truth” emerges as a political
actioner, with star Andy Garcia spending his screentime wielding a
handgun as his character sets out to expose evil. It’s a smart play to
secure audience attention, but the effort is wasted on a dreary,
formulaic picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I could see “Now is Good” appealing to a certain younger audience. Not
teenagers, but pre-teen girls dreaming of adolescent experiences that
could help to define them, while happily observing a traditional
rebellious attitude. Schmaltz of the highest order, “Now is Good” is
particularly punishing melodrama without a clear understanding of its
message, rewarding awful behavior in an effort to appeal to the only
demographic that will be able to endure it to the end. Surprisingly
harsh when it comes to the dented appeal of its lead character, the
movie is a predictable drag, attempting to cozy up to its young adult
literary origins (adapted from the novel by Jenny Downham) in a
decidedly tuneless fashion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Regular moviegoers, the weekend warriors, are repeatedly assaulted with
images of disaster, often taking on a global reach of apocalyptic doom.
One becomes desensitized to such grand illusions after a while,
regarding the end of the world as a time when the Capitol Records
building eats it, the Eiffel Tower takes a tumble, and Red Square is
reduced to rubble. “The Impossible” is a harrowing reminder of
real-world nightmares, with the film dramatizing the devastation and
anguish that followed the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster in a
frightfully vivid manner, taking a refreshingly blunt perspective on the
challenges of survival and the tenacity of the human spirit. Although
it sounds like a downer, “The Impossible” is actually emotionally
satisfying and educational in a way, with director Juan Antonio Bayona
doing a superb job keeping the details vital and the characters
admirably resolute. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Promised Land” is a film filled with unfinished business. Reteaming
director Gus Van Sant with co-writer/star Matt Damon (after their work
on “Good Will Hunting” and “Gerry”), the picture is a messy affair with a
killer hook, bringing a critical environmental issue to the forefront
without much of a game plan to dissect it. Convincing for the first two
acts, “Promised Land” has an adequate grip on character and offers a
slew of terrific performances. It’s an interesting movie, but never
reaches the greatness or significance it imagines for itself, cursed
with a dreadful conclusion that’s strangely non-committal considering
all the passions swirling around the material. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com