Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

"K-11" marks the directorial debut for longtime script supervisor Jules
Stewart, though she's probably best known as the mother of "Twilight"
superstar and famed stammer queen Kristin Stewart. Only able to talk her
kid into a voice cameo for her first helming gig, Stewart is left
without star power and a decent budget to bring her prison epic to life,
with only a few tricks, some unusual sexual tension, and an
overabundance of quirk and chaos to help sell her vision to the
audience. "K-11" is an odd feature and it's rarely a successful one,
sweating up a storm to come off edgy and unconventional. Tonally
unsteady and dramatically asthmatic, the picture is only moderately
tolerable due to few technical strengths and a key role played by Kate
del Castillo, who manages to make a slight supporting turn into a grand
display of camp, menace, and cockeyed sex appeal Stewart should've made
the focus of the entire film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Bletchley Circle" has an irresistible hook for crime-solving
entertainment, following the actions of four brilliant codebreakers from
WWII as they reteam to track down a serial killer in their hometown
nearly a decade later. I'm surprised this isn't a Hollywood blockbuster,
as the premise is ripe for maximum genre exposure. Instead of overblown
theatrics, we have this humble ITV production that's made its way to
America via PBS in an effort to show the audience there's a little more
bite to public television than one might expect. Sensible with a few
outrageous touches and smashingly acted by the four leading ladies, "The
Bletchley Circle" is addictive and fulfilling, carrying on like a
traditional British procedural, only with a delightful push of
empowerment to give it identity and a spirit to celebrate. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Dead Sushi" hits a note of insanity that's wholly entertaining and
frequently uproarious. It's a Japanese production that manages to merge
the madcap and the macabre with a defined sense of humor, making sure to
remind those horrified by the geysers of blood and peels of filleted
skin that, in the end, it's all about having a good time at the movies.
It's a difficult tonal tightrope walk, yet writer/director Noboru Iguchi
manages to construct an outlandish feature that never overstays its
welcome and offers some true originality as it mines the monster madness
of old. After all, it's nearly impossible to dislike a film that
highlights flying sushi, a man-sized tuna antagonist (wielding an ax,
natch), and offers a song performed by a friendly portion of tamago.
"Dead Sushi" is nuts, but its absurdity is most appetizing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Earth is an extremely complex planet, and we don't always have the best
perspective when it comes to assessing its sophisticated performance. Up
high in the sky is a network of satellites (some reaching up to 25,000
miles above Earth) tasked with studying the meteorological systems of
the planet, helping to create useful graphics that provide a deeper
understanding of routines and changes in the atmosphere. "Earth from
Space" is a "Nova" episode that details the work of this eye-in-the-sky
team as it isolates planetary habits and sudden changes, helping
scientists understand significant threats facing the continents, while
solving a few mysteries along the way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With "The Central Park Five," Sarah Burns enters the filmmaking scene,
accepting the challenge of a documentary concentrating on a monumental
perversion of justice. Of course, Burns has a few aces up her sleeve,
bringing in husband David McMahon and father Ken Burns (the man behind
such iconic programming as "The Civil War," "Baseball," and the recent
"The Dust Bowl") to co-direct, joining the family business as a seeker
of truth and an admirer of history. Those already in step with the Burns
way won't be surprised by the look and feel of "The Central Park Five,"
but the story is unforgettable, detailing a nightmare scenario for five
Harlem teenagers facing hard prison time and the condemnation of
America for a crime they didn't commit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After the rampaging worldwide success of "Downton Abbey," it was
inevitable that a knockoff would emerge, cut from the same elegant
cloth. With "Mr. Selfridge," a game of rumor, disaster, and manners
returns to the small screen, though it's miles away from countryside
opulence and aristocratic concerns, turning to the inner workings of a
department store to embark on a multi-character odyssey of melodrama.
It's tart, expansive material, yet the endeavor is weighed down by a
significant case of déjà vu. Hoping to satisfy ravenous "Downton" fans
between seasons, "Mr. Selfridge" comes across as a soggy carbon copy,
laboring to cook up the same regality and ridiculousness that defined
the smash Julian Fellowes show, only here the results are uneven,
uninteresting, and anchored by an actor who's physically and
psychologically uncomfortable in the leading role. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While I didn't find myself overwhelmed with the insanity of the 2011
hit, "Bridesmaids," its absurd length and dramatic decline is a
Caribbean vacation compared to the forced acid bath of "Bachelorette."
Shockingly unlikable and unfunny, this latest round of women behaving
badly is crippled by unnecessary excess, botched characterizations, and a
calculated round of 1990s nostalgia to appeal to the core demographic.
Aching to be irreverent and insightful when it comes to the flattened
soul of the thirtysomething party girl facing the cell clank of
adulthood, "Bachelorette" would be better off as a soulless farce, not
the noxious semi-melodrama it eventually becomes. It's a movie that
doesn't know whether to hug its characters or push them off a bridge. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

We see this type of production pop up every now and again. Trying to
compete with Hollywood animation factories like Disney and Dreamworks,
independent studios typically have a devil of a time trying to get a
foothold into the global market, often faced with lackluster budgets and
wheezy scripts as they cook up colorful CG-animated antics for the
kiddies. A Spanish production presented and produced by Antonio
Banderas, "The Missing Lynx" is similar to releases such as "The Wild"
and the recent "Escape from Planet Earth," attempting to drum up some
excitement with little in the way of cinematic might, relying on frantic
action, crude comedy, and artificial sincerity to make an impression
with wee ones who'd gladly watch a test pattern if it included the
promise of candy, soda, and popcorn. Exhaustively underwhelming and
cheapy all around, "The Missing Lynx" isn't even passable babysitting
fodder, asking children to sit through a routine adventure with
anthropomorphized animals engaged in acts of panic and elastic
derring-do. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's easy to admire "Judas Kiss" for its ambition to be original. It's
another thing to actually sit through it. Attempting to avoid the
pitfalls and clichés of gay cinema, "Judas Kiss" heads into a borderline
sci-fi direction, often playing like the most sedate "Twilight Zone"
episode of all time. Credit goes to screenwriters J.T. Tepnapa (who also
directs) and Carlos Pedraza, who reveal a drive to juice up their work
with strange occurrences and unexplained behavior, while pushing forward
as a searing emotional experience concerning regret and sexual abuse.
However, that's a heavy workload for such a modest movie, and the
script's interest in magical realism is undone by half-baked characters
and inconsistencies, keeping focus off the key elements of heartache
Tepnapa and Pedraza hope will be strong enough to define the viewing
experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Although this "Nature" program is titled "Cold Warriors: Wolves and
Buffalo," most of the program takes place during the spring and summer
seasons, while the production's preference for wolves upsets any
promised balance. It's a strange documentary that seeks to understand
how the animals work to survive harsh, remote conditions, yet ends up a
highlight reel of hunting, following a group of wolves, the Delta Pack,
as they figure out how to pick off buffalo calves and maintain
nourishment to keep their cubs fed. Those expecting a detailed
inspection of wildlife and instinct are bound to be disappointed with
the effort, and if you happen to adore the buffalo, I wouldn't recommend
a viewing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A prequel to the popular British television series "Inspector Morse,"
which enjoyed a healthy run between 1987 and 2000, "Endeavour" intends
to restart the franchise in a younger direction, hoping to entice a new
generation of viewers willing to be sucked into fussy behaviors, dire
crimes, and extended sequences of clue gathering. To be completely fair
to "Endeavour," I'm not familiar with the original "Inspector Morse"
program; however, to the production's credit, they've managed to create a
story that doesn't require complete fandom to figure out and embrace,
managing to reintroduce the beloved character without leaving outsiders
in the dark, while admirers will still be able to detect familiar pieces
of personality. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

All the good intentions in the world can't help make 1996's "The
Preacher's Wife" anything more than a mediocre movie. It's a shame,
since there's some incredible talent working to bring the picture to
life, to gift it wings of soaring gospel and cheery do-goodery, yet all
the production can muster are a few smiles and an admittedly euphoric
soundtrack. It's a remake, drawing inspiration from the darling 1947
picture, "The Bishop's Wife" (starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and
David Niven), which is a fairly strong launch pad for the feature.
However, the miracle doesn't carry for a second cinematic round, finding
director Penny Marshall struggling to locate the pixie dust that should
rightfully blanket every frame of the film, while stars Denzel
Washington, Whitney Houston, and Courtney B. Vance fight to maintain a
semblance of personality as the material gradually, and rather
peacefully, falls asleep. Kindly to a fault, "The Preacher's Wife" has a
big heart, but no sense of pace and conflict to sustain the viewing
experience for an unnerving two hours. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Volcanoes are mysterious, terrifying, and quite beautiful from a safe
distance. Their secrets are nearly impossible to discover, buried deep
in the Earth under layers of lava and furious gases, requiring a fine
touch of science to extract samples for study, and even those efforts
aren't nearly enough to understand the fury that powers these
fire-belching titans. Endeavoring to paint a larger portrait of volcanic
activity, director Bertrand Loyer has assembled "Life on Fire: Wildlife
on the Volcano's Edge," a six-part series that inspects the balance of
nature that sprouts up around these danger zones, heading around the
world on a mission to understand instinct, survival, and risk with an
epic cinematic sweep that provides atypical access to creatures
conducting daily business in the shadow of certain doom. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Natural Selection" has all the hallmarks of an average independent
production, with its HD cinematography, mild razzing of religious
conviction, and unshowered performers embodying the middle-class and the
borderline insane. Writer/director Robbie Pickering isn't shy about
following trends, but he's also smart about storytelling, endeavoring to
disrupt the norm with a strange tale of devotion and love buttered on a
road trip saga where things often go horribly wrong for the lead
characters. "Natural Selection" is a comedy, with excitable
personalities and broad confrontations, but Pickering clearly loves
these screwed-up souls, bending the material away from mockery,
gradually revealing his sincerity in a manner that's contagious.
Supported by marvelous performances and a prominent soundtrack, the
feature satisfies and even surprises on occasion, introducing Pickering
as a filmmaker with an interest in emotional content instead of serving
up pedestrian acts of humiliation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Hoffa" is a presentation of shameless mythmaking, though one that's
supported by such barnstorming direction, it's impossible to dismiss it
outright. It's a boldly designed, volcanically acted endeavor that
doesn't seek to understand its subject on anything more than a surface
level of engagement. This is not "Jimmy Hoffa: The Movie," but a
valentine to a shifty guy who didn't let anything stand in the way of
his vision for a unionized America, shielding his unsavory interests
behind an ideal of blue collar protection, where the common man could be
comfortable in the knowledge that loyal brothers and sisters were there
to defend his right to work in a safe, financially rewarding
environment. There's little dimension to Danny DeVito's picture,
replaced with shockwaves of cinematic orchestration that help to
preserve interest in the titular titan, even if viewers walk away from
the film with only a slightly more refined appreciation for Hoffa's
dedication to the cause. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The easiest way to describe "Life Happens" (which is technically titled
"L!fe Happens," but let's pretend it doesn't) is to compare it to Judd
Apatow's hit, "Knocked Up." While the general comedic ambiance isn't
nearly as sharp, the same message of extended adolescence smashing up
against the demands of responsibility is shared by both pictures, with
"Life Happens" electing to portray the female version of slackerdom,
which, to be fair, is rarely explored in film. Credit co-writer/director
Kat Corio (a longtime actress making her feature-length debut) with the
inspiration to shake up the routine, forging a dramedy about best
friends and the arrival of adulthood. However, this isn't a terribly
compelling effort, often wasting energy on dreary ideas for comedy while
being too permissive with its actors. In fact, for a movie that hopes
to tickle, it actually finds surer footing expressing deep emotions,
pinpointing the terror and grief that comes when pleasurably distracting
routines are abandoned. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I recognize that the 2001 Victor Salva horror film, "Jeepers Creepers,"
is revered in some corners of genre fandom, but I don't share the
enthusiasm. Plodding and poorly acted, "Creepers" (and its 2003 sequel)
nevertheless managed to make the notorious director into a brand name,
with threats of a third installment possibly surfacing in the next few
years. At this point, Salva needs the second sequel more than the public
does, forced to taste the bitter pill of the cruel DTV market with
"Rosewood Lane," a wretched, idiotic chiller that makes "Jeepers
Creepers" look like "The Exorcist" by comparison. Absurdly scripted with
no attention to detail, "Rosewood" is Salva's attempt to generate a
fright feature built entirely out of mood, dismissing storytelling to
maintain a tight focus on unexplained supernatural events, unexplained
characters, and unexplained explanations. The picture is a mess without a
resolution, perhaps only of value to students of genre cinematography
and Rose McGowan fans who enjoy seeing their favorite actress look as
confused as they are. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Night of the Devils" arrives with a little extra pedigree than the
average Italian shocker. The 1972 release was based on Aleksey Tolstoy's
1839 story, "The Wurdalak," providing inspiration that's more
interested in mood than overt scares, aided by leadership from director
Giorgio Ferroni (the mind behind "Mill of the Stone Woman," in his
penultimate film), who embraces the hauntingly straightforward interests
of the material. Startlingly fulfilling while remaining minimal in its
terror output, "The Night of the Devils" is an engaging viewing
experience, perhaps best suited for those open to its simplistic
narrative design, odd sensuality, and period-rich macabre details,
shaped into an entertaining examination of trauma and vampirism, sold
with all the sustained stares and zooms a viewer could ever want. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Before he was Mark Wahlberg, king of Hollywood, he was once Marky Mark. A
flexing rapper with his group The Funky Bunch, Wahlberg enjoyed some
degree of MTV-assisted success, but clearly there was no future in
shirtless video dancing and the occasional modeling campaign. Acting was
his big ticket out, and the industry welcomed him with open arms,
feeding him supporting work in "The Basketball Diaries" and "Renaissance
Man," but the real test of Wahlberg's skill as a potential leading man
arrived with 1996's "Fear." Handed a role that required a certain level
of insular emoting and broad display of serpentine brawn, Wahlberg was a
perfect candidate for the part, guided by director James Foley, who was
coming down from a career high working on 1992's "Glengarry Glen Ross."
Cruelly, instead of creating a feature of sinister ooze, the production
serves up a laughable thriller that's one of the all-time goofiest
movies, avoiding a tough inspection of troubling emotional speeds and
stunted communication to sneeze out a confused, half-realized story of
obsession and domination, with the layers of ultimate evil handed to a
guy who can't act. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Part of the mystery of Hollywood is the general inability of anyone to
predict a hit movie. Sure, there's a handful of blockbuster formulas
that are often used to great success, but the general rush of box office
triumph usually emerges from surprising titles. In 1982, the sleeper
hit of the year was "Porky's," a little raunchy comedy that home studio
20th Century Fox didn't even want to release, yet the picture ended up
as the fifth highest grosser of the year, just above such classics as
"Star Trek II" and "Poltergeist." It was lambasted by critics and
beloved by audiences, but why? Could it be that writer/director Bob
Clark tapped into a vein of nostalgia much like George Lucas did with
"American Graffiti," returning viewers to the eroding innocence of
youth? Was it the evocative Floridian atmosphere of backwoods clowning?
Maybe the compulsively silly performances were just that irresistible?
Or was it the boobs? I'm guessing the latter, as "Porky's" isn't a very
accomplished storytelling effort, wandering blindly around pranks and
melodrama as it fights to find a higher purpose beyond being just
another horndog teen feature. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com