Category: Film Review

Writer/director Nicole Holofcener is known as a filmmaker capable of quality work. The architect of “Friends with Money,” “Please Give,” and her last effort, 2013’s “Enough Said,” Holofcener is one of the few helmers left with a distinct interest in the lives of adults, giving maturing concerns screen time to bloom into near-disasters. For “The Land of Steady Habits,” Holofcener finds inspiration from a book by Ted Thompson, but she makes the material her own in many ways, guiding a gifted cast through an obstacle course of setbacks, poor decisions, and lost hope, all the while infusing the screenplay with dry wit and understated emotion. “The Land of Steady Habits” isn’t going to satisfy those in need of hospital corners from their dramedies, but the few familiar with Holofcener’s world view are going to find plenty to enjoy here.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Trying to produce something on the spooky side for the whole family to help usher in the Halloween season, Universal Pictures and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment turn to Eli Roth to entertain the kiddies with an adaptation of the 1973 John Bellairs novel, “The House with a Clock in Its Walls.” Roth is, of course, not known for making PG-rated movies, having spent his career orchestrating extraordinary torture for his characters (and the paying audience) with horror films that focused on bloodshed and agony. Even as recently as this year too, with the spring bomb “Death Wish” once again reinforcing Roth’s inability to hold a picture together. “The House with a Clock in Its Walls” poses a unique challenge for the helmer, who’s forced to mute his splattery instincts, playing reasonably nice with playfully creepy material. Roth’s not prepared in full, creating a feature that’s tonally off-balance, making delight with the dark side a chore to experience.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The strange saga of Lizzie Borden has inspired countless dramatic interpretations, crossing all types of media. The magnetic pull to the accused murderer is easy to understand, as Lizzie’s tale hits on social position and domestic abuse, and culminates with the bloody, brutal death of two people utterly destroyed by an ax. It’s the stuff of pulp fiction, and the true story of the woman’s fight for identity returns to screens in “Lizzie,” with Chloe Sevigny taking a producer credit, giving herself the lead role, which provides a dramatic challenge not normally associated with the actress. “Lizzie” has its aggressive moments, but they’re largely saved for the midsection of the movie, with director Craig William Macneill keeping to intense atmospherics, not actual incident, to support the feature.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“American Dresser” initially wants to be a biker movie, following characters as they take off across the country on two wheels, embracing the romantic notion of daily tourism at top speed, taking in national grandeur and local color along the way. Writer/director/co-star Carmine Cangialosi achieves this feeling of freedom for about ten minutes, with the rest of picture sent in several different directions during its run time, and few of them come together in any meaningful way. “American Dresser” is scattered and ill-conceived, but there’s the saving grace of seniority, with stars Tom Berenger and especially Keith David turning in expressive performances as older men on a quest for one last perfect ride, getting the material halfway to competency while Cangialosi employs a blindfold and a dart board to select where the writing goes next.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m sure Paul Feig wanted a change of scenery. This is the man who tried to reboot “Ghostbusters” a few years ago with a new cast, treading on sacred ground armed with a massive visual effects budget and a threadbare screenplay, trying to make his brand of make-em-up comedy fit into a fantasy spectacular. The experiment didn’t quite work for audiences, and Feig took a lot of heat for his creative choices, leading him to step away from blockbuster ambitions and tackle the beach read mystery of “A Simple Favor.” Smaller in scale and lighter with improvisations (the riffing remains to a smaller degree), the picture tries to make sense of Darcey Bell’s 2017 novel, which strived to get in on “Gone Girl” mania and deliver its own swirling storm of low impulse control and abrasive personalities, while twists are meant to tie the whole thing together. I’m all for Feig getting out of the funny business, but “A Simple Favor” remains a very broad creation, which doesn’t inspire secretive business this type of entertainment requires to remain surprising and seductive. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Writer/director Austin Vesley has a lot of influences and interests he’d like to put on the screen with “Slice,” but no particular game plan on how to do it. A horror comedy with its heart in the right place, the movie is a messy presentation of genre imagination and production realities, with the low-budget endeavor struggling to make sense of itself. It only runs 79 minutes, which may help to understand what happened between the feature’s 2016 shoot and its 2018 release date, with Vesley’s vision subjected to severe editing, finding the brutal cutting shaving down “Slice” to the bare essentials of world building and monster making. I’m sure it was a fine screenplay at one point, but in its finished form, the picture is a jumble of ideas that never gels.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Eight years ago, Panos Cosmatos made his directorial debut with “Beyond the Black Rainbow.” The film was a brain-bleeder of the highest order, oozing with style and soaking in the juices of psychedelia, with Cosmatos bending cinema to aid in his mission to disturb audiences with unusual visions and atypical screen intensity. He’s back with “Mandy,” which is a slightly more linear tale of a mental breakdown, but Cosmatos doubles down on wild imagery and extreme violence, taking the audience on a ride into Hell in a manner that’s greatly unsettling and massively thrilling, especially for those who embraced the outer limits of “Beyond the Black Rainbow.” “Mandy” is specialized work, but it’s a doozy, cutting through the cosmic cream with nightmare realms, monstrous encounters, and a path of revenge that literally tears people apart. Maybe Cosmatos doesn’t know when to quit, but he’s making movies on a whole other level of consciousness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

“The Predator” is the fourth installment of the “Predator” saga (technically sixth if one includes the dismal “Alien vs. Predator” films), and it’s the one production that carries the greatest sense of hope. It’s co-written and directed by Shane Black, who appeared in the original 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger classic, and a guy who generally knows his way around action screenplays, with credits such as “Lethal Weapon” and “The Long Kiss Goodnight” maintaining the shine on his industry medals. It’s a match made in geek heaven, but Black turns out to be one of the worst things ever unleashed on the franchise. Unfocused and obnoxious, “The Predator” takes a hardcore sci-fi/action premise and transforms it into a comedy for this latest brand reawakening, with Black running around with no sense of editing or performance, trying to turn an inherently gruesome concept into blood-drenched wackiness just to smudge his greasy fingerprints all over something that didn’t need such a drastic reworking.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Every now and then, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves are involved in a film project together, with some endeavors more intimate then others. They’ve appeared in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and “A Scanner Darkly,” but “Destination Wedding” isn’t just a case of co-starring in distinctly separate roles. Here, the entire feature rests on their shoulders, with Reeves and Ryder tasked with carrying all the dialogue and physical discomfort the material requires, finding writer/director Victor Levin giving his work over to the actors, who feast on all the misanthropy. “Destination Wedding” is simple and speedy, watching Ryder and Reeves rise to the challenge of characterization, having a ball with a consistently amusing, periodically hilarious effort that brings out the best in the leads.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With Bruce Willis having abandoned enthusiasm for the “Die Hard” series long ago, why not bring in Dave Bautista to take his place? The former professional wrestler and possible former Drax from “Guardians of the Galaxy,” Bautista makes for a fine man-against-the-odds for “Final Score,” which is as close to a “Die Hard”-style of actioner without triggering interest from 20th Century Fox lawyers. Ultimately overlong and improperly balanced in the script department, “Final Score” does have Bautista, who, despite his hulking frame, does a steady job of playing the everyman caught in a terrorist situation that takes place on a grand scale. The lead is welcome with emotion, but he’s best with ferocity, providing the production with a sizable punch and level of panic to help refresh the familiar.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Richard Wershe Jr. is primarily known for being the youngest F.B.I. informant, working with the bureau at the tender age of 14. It’s a fascinating piece of trivia and likely the one and only thing interesting about “White Boy Rick,” which hazily recounts his rise and self-inflicted downfall in the world of crime. Screenwriters Andy Weiss, Logan Miller, and Noah Miller go the “Scarface” route with the Wershe’s life and times, trying to turn a bad seed into a sympathetic figure to best fit into the formulaic mechanics of the feature. The labor doesn’t take hold, and while director Yann Demange ladles on the stylistics, trying to make an underworld study set during the 1980s pop off the screen, he’s not careful enough with characterization, playing fast and loose with the details of Wershe’s life, only giving the audience just enough to keep the young man a bruised saint who’s been wronged by the system, keeping things predictable and easily digestible. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Dog movies are plentiful these days, and most of these productions reaching for cheap sentimentality to connect with audiences, going saccharine with pooches make sure the endeavor is loved no matter the actual quality of the film. With “Pick of the Litter,” directors Don Hardy Jr. and Dana Nachman avoid dramatic manipulation to make a documentary about the raising and training of guide dogs for the blind, putting their faith into the inherent emotion and suspense of canines put to the test, with hopes they have a future as a powerful companion for the sight impaired. “Pick of the Litter” isn’t about adorable close-ups (although there are plenty of those) and tragedies, offering a more procedural examination of what it takes to develop the right stuff in rambunctious puppies who live to play but are tasked to learn the extraordinary discipline required for one of the most important jobs a dog can have.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Basement” is meant to be a horror film, but it really could pass as an actor’s reel. Co-star Jackson Davis receives the workout of his career with the material, which requires him to embody the curse of dissociative identity disorder, tasked with playing 12 characters, with most of them deranged in one way or another. It’s a thespian challenge that almost gets the picture to where it needs to be, showcasing an actor working very hard to make his part of the movie connect in full. The rest of “The Basement” doesn’t share the same level of commitment, finding co-writers/directors Brian M. Conley and Nathan Ives trying to knot material that’s best served as straight as possible, with concentration on a secondary plot and a wicked ending proving to be too much of a distraction.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Ever since he made his directorial debut with 1999’s “American Pie,” Paul Weitz has been determined to prove he’s more than just a comedy filmmaker. He’s had an eclectic career, but few of his endeavors have managed to find their creative footing, despite fine actors (“Admission,” “Being Flynn”) and interesting worlds (“Cirque du Freak”). Weitz almost achieves complete screen stasis with “Bel Canto,” which has the advantage of being based on a fascinating true story of a hostage crisis and loaded with capable actors. However, despite the positives, “Bel Canto” doesn’t have much energy, dramatic or romantic, to keep attention trained on the screen. Weitz goes through the motions with this melodrama, and while it certainly hints at pressure points to come, the feature doesn’t follow through on suspense, at times accurately recreating the feeling of being held against one’s will.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The biggest film director Pierre Morel ever made was 2009’s “Taken.” It was also the best film he’s ever made. The Liam Neeson one-man-army actioner wasn’t an original creation, but it possessed atypical ferocity for the genre, showcasing momentum similar productions are often too afraid to pursue. It was a blast of B-movie attitude and a hard production to replicate, with sequels to “Taken” pitiful, while knock-offs were easily ignored. After dimming the brightness of his career with terrible efforts such as “From Paris with Love” and “The Gunman,” Morel returns to the formula that provided him with career Viagra. “Peppermint” is another “Taken” riff, only here the focused bruiser is Jennifer Garner, who’s trying very hard to act butch for a production that doesn’t reward her commitment. Trashy and pointless, “Peppermint” isn’t the joyride of pain Morel is hoping for, finding the picture’s nastiness and idiocy too much to bear at times. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

It’s been interesting to watch producers scramble to create an extended cinematic universe for 2013’s “The Conjuring.” The surprise horror hit, which tracked the efforts of demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, had built-in potential for sequels, with the main characters owning a room of cursed artifacts, permitting the film’s creators to pull anything off the shelf and explore its history. However, an actual game plan for spinoffs never materialized, with 2014’s “Annabelle” a quickie picture that managed to do major business, while it’s 2017 sequel found an even larger audience and a noticeable uptick in quality. For the next round of franchise teat-squeezing, there’s “The Nun,” which travels back decades to discover the origin of the ghastly holy figure from 2016’s “The Conjuring 2,” with screenwriter Gary Dauberman laboring to make a threat best appreciated in moments sustain for an entire feature. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

After achieving cult fame for her supporting role on the popular program “Stranger Things,” actress Shannon Purser is rewarded with her own starring vehicle in “Sierra Burgess is a Loser.” The young actress fits comfortably into director Ian Samuels’s vision for the teenage experience, which takes more than a few cues from the John Hughes oeuvre to help squeeze through some tight dramatic spaces. “Sierra Burgess is a Loser” doesn’t offer a radical approach to teen cinema, with Samuels simply trying to appeal to the pre-teen audience likely to find it first and watch it often. However, Purser is awfully appealing in the titular role, showing charm and vulnerability, paired well with co-star Kristine Forseth, with the duo giving strong performances, supporting the endeavor as it tries to work through sludgy formula.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Brian A. Miller is just one of those people who manages to work their way into job opportunities despite having difficulty proving their aptitude for the job. The helmer of B-movies such as “Officer Down,” “Vice,” “The Outsider,” and “The Prince,” Miller issues another nondescript title in “Reprisal,” a film which contains little to no reprisal. Instead, the effort throws around car chases and tough guys, with Miller laboring to transform a wafer-thin script by Bryce Hammons into a meaty actioner, using every trick in the no-budget book, even periodic incoherence. “Reprisal” is dopey and dull, but Miller isn’t capable of much more than that, piecing together a feature most viewers have already seen before, only cliches are rendered half-speed for some strange reason, making the brief run time feel punishingly long.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer Nick Hornby has a specific vision for his relationship stories, taking a look at wounded hearts often with the help of music, adding another level of communication as characters struggle to express themselves. As an author, Hornby has delivered “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy,” and now there’s “Juliet, Naked,” which is perhaps the most autopilot-y of Hornby’s work, but remains inviting for the first half. Director Jesse Peretz (who hasn’t made a movie since 2011’s “Our Idiot Brother”) arranges a soft and amusing overview of characters in professional and personal limbo, and when “Juliet, Naked” focuses on the slow build-up of trust between the lead characters, there’s plenty here that’s engaging. Peretz and the screenwriters (Evgenia Peretz, Jim Taylor, and Tamara Jenkins) can’t shake a few of Hornby’s less successful ideas, but they get the feature off to a strong start, which helps the production coast to the finish line.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The trials of sleep paralysis have risen in popularity with filmmakers, with most looking at the innate horror of a situation where a sleeper has no mobility but full awareness when visited by torturous visions. 2015’s “The Nightmare” did an effective job creating a visual representation of the event, helping outsiders understand exactly what happens when sleep paralysis kicks in, and how it creates a terrifying vulnerability against imagined evil. “Mara” hopes to use such panicked stillness to fuel a horror endeavor, rejecting science and study to make a straightforward demonic visitation event. “Mara” has a host of problems that prevent it from achieving scares, with its primary sin being a general lack of suspense, with director Clive Tonge using formula instead of ingenuity in an attempt to generate a sufficiently disturbing sit.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com