Category: Film Review

“Ghost Stories” is based on a play by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson, who adapt their own work for the screen. While horror material emerges from everywhere, the stage is rarely employed as inspiration for cinematic frights, giving the creators a quest to find some movement to inherently static storytelling. Three tales of guilt, fear, and the unknown, “Ghost Stories” does an adequate job with suspense, enjoying the chance to play extensively in the dark with completely rattled characters. Nyman and Dyson never dial the tension up all the way, but they manage to find pockets of high anxiety and strange occurrences, crafting a compelling descent into the unexplained and the forbidden, boosted by the occasional nail-chewing showdown between humans and the other side. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Actress Jennifer Morrison makes her feature-length directorial debut with “Sun Dogs,” and she’s selected a very human story to launch her helming career. It’s a tale of dysfunction and confusion that’s familiar in many ways, and it also threatens a level of quirk to help the sameness of it all stand out from the competition. But Morrison doesn’t sweeten behavioral extremity to a sickening degree, delivering a vision for Anthony Tambakis’s script that feels as real as possible while still embracing the strange fantasy found in the plot. “Sun Dogs” is a peculiar film at times, and there’s really no way for the material to find a neat conclusion, but it connects with intimate moments, with Morrison preserving as much personality and private yearning as possible, keeping the picture away from becoming a complete cartoon.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Tomb Raider” was released a few weeks ago, and now there’s “Rampage,” making this spring flush with feature adaptations of popular video games. However, with “Rampage,” the process to bring arcade highs to the big screen is a bit trickier, as the original 1986 release wasn’t exactly an open world game, offering players only the most basic in button-mashing entertainment. It was a chance to live out “Godzilla” fantasies, offering a simple showdown between panicking humans and gigantic monsters, with the pleasures of the game coming from mass destruction and growling antagonists. Turning the brand name into an event movie was never going to be easy, but director Brad Peyton only seems interested in creating noise, not excitement, as his helming duties here primarily consist of adhering to an embarrassingly crude screenplay and overseeing one of the worst ensembles of the film year. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

He was often billed as “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” but it seems all Andre Roussimoff wanted was to be treated as an everyday man. It’s not an easy request when one is over seven feet tall and weighs nearly 500 pounds, but the documentary “Andre the Giant” does a fine job getting to know the person inside the incredible size, looking to explore just how Roussimoff became one of the most popular professional wrestlers of all time. It’s not an especially eventful story, but director Jason Hehir creates a portrait of a young man who used his extreme look to his advantage, finding a home in the squared circle, making a name for himself as a legend while searching for a place in society where, just for a few hours, he could experience a level of normality alien to his existence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

That writer/director Jeff Wadlow has managed to maintain a helming career for the last 13 years is impressive. He hasn’t made a decent movie yet, but Wadlow has been offered numerous opportunities to guide productions, making filmgoing painful with endeavors like “Never Back Down,” “Kick-Ass 2,” “Cry_Wolf,” and Netflix’s “True Memoirs of an International Assassin.” “Truth or Dare” is Wadlow’s latest waste of time, and it’s one of the most idiotic features in recent memory, with the director aiming to make a PG-13 horror event solely for the pre-teen sleepover audience. Its success is assured simply due to obvious budgetary limitations, but Wadlow has nothing to offer his picture, which is a chore to sit through, delivering an insipid story, overly emphatic performances, and complete lack of scares, playing to pushover crowds with the weakest production effort possible.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m not sure the world is ready for a serious study of tennis players reaching peak psychological strain, but the makers of “Borg vs. McEnroe” have set out to understand what goes on inside two of the finest players the game has produced. A Swedish production directed by Janus Metz, the picture endeavors dramatize a critical 1980 Wimbledon match between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, but it doesn’t devote itself entirely to the ins and out of the epic showdown between rivals that attracted world attention. Tennis remains a priority for the production, but the screenplay (credited to Ronnie Sandahl) looks to peel back the layers on these famous men, working to understand their respective childhoods and personal drive to become the best tennis players around. A competitive battle ensues, but “Borg vs. McEnroe” does a sharp job holding attention away from the court, finding ways to keep personalities as engaging as the titular showdown.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writer/director Fritz Bohm crafts a Grimm Brothers-like tale in “Wildling,” which doesn’t set out to redefine the monster movie, enjoying a chance to play in the subgenre sandbox while dreaming up a few fresh ideas of its own. It’s a dark picture, often quite literally, and one with a plan to sneak up on audiences with scenes of unexplained behavior and baffling personalities, with hopes that when clarification sets in, the feature will have a tight grip on viewers. “Wildling” gets mostly there thanks to a chilling tone and capable performances, and while Bohm doesn’t always have the most original vision for the central metamorphosis, there’s a momentum to the endeavor that’s compelling, and its general direction toward macabre discoveries is periodically hair-raising.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“1945” is a WWII film that examines a different type of combat, inspecting a range of guilt and paranoia as it imagines a community coming apart as the global conflict comes to a close. It’s silent warfare, and quite effective too, with co-writer/director Ferenc Torok taking a look at a unique time in history, when the fighting has largely ended and decisions made in the heat of the moment finally begin to show consequences, highlighting the near-casual cruelty that emerges once morality is muted by opportunity. “1945” is a dark picture, but its bleakness is necessary, with Szanto inching away from evil-that-men-do clichés to find something profoundly psychological that touches on anti-Semitism, mob rule, and the gut-rot of shame that comes with exposure to past sins. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Marrowbone” is an odd cocktail of genres and cultural influences. Half the film reflects its country of origin, with the Spanish production pursing chills and ghostly encounters the local industry is known for. The rest of the picture plays like an English melodrama, with icy characters wrestling with unspoken desires, making dignity-decimating discoveries along the way. One could consider “Marrowbone” an ambitious effort in the manner it wants to sample softness and horror, but writer/director Sergio G. Sanchez (making his helming debut) doesn’t have the training to marry distinct moods, rendering the movie ineffective in both terror and heart, muting whatever eeriness is meant to emerge from this misfire.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2013, Lynne Ramsay was set to direct “Jane Got a Gun,” only to pull out of the production at the very last minute. There was much hullaballoo about her sudden abandonment of the project, with some speculating that Ramsay would never be permitted to make another movie. Proving her critics wrong, Ramsay returns to screens with “You Were Never Really Here,” an askew revenge story that feels like a personal purging of aggression from the helmer, who orchestrates many scenes of the main character bludgeoning men of power with a hammer. Rage flows throughout “You Were Never Really Here,” which provides a visceral viewing experience, but it’s not vital work from Ramsay, who returns to her screen interests and habits, covering artful ways with blood and noise.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2010, Barry Levinson and Al Pacino teamed up for “You Don’t Know Jack,” which explored the saga of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and his controversial “death machines.” The picture was not only a riveting drama about a taboo subject, but it managed to make Pacino an interesting actor again, briefly snapping the screen legend out of his paycheck haze. Eight years later, they’ve reteamed for “Paterno,” once again detailing an unsavory topic with confidence, this time dramatizing the whirlwind around Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and his ties to retired coach Jerry Sandusky, a pedophile who viciously abused his trust with children. “Paterno” is already commencing a tightrope walk with this subject matter, but Levinson manages to dissect the case with care, exploring the murky waters that separate willful ignorance and permission. And Pacino does wonders again with a true crime part, generating a sense of downward momentum to a man who once stood with the football gods, only to see everything he worked for disappear over a hellacious weekend.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While it attempts to be a nail-chewing thriller, “10×10” doesn’t have much of a hook to reel the audience in. The screenplay by Noel Clarke (“Storage 24”) has the idea of a small-scale confrontation between two angry people, and he toys with perceptions of guilt and wild accusations, but it takes a very long time to get anywhere interesting. It’s a short film (80 minutes), so screen time is precious, but Clarke offers a lot of filler, which drags the viewing experience to a halt. Suspense is rarely summoned in “10×10,” but when it actually gets around to staging something more than silent reflection and everyday routine, it becomes the movie it’s ultimately endeavoring to be. But the payoff is not worth the time invested. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Wim Wenders is an artist, and he’s made some incredibly powerful films over the years, retaining his singular appreciation for longing across great physical and psychological divides. But when the director goes wrong, he really wipes out. Straining to retain some level of cinematic grace, Wenders flounders mightily with “Submergence,” unable to fully decode what appears to be a romantic tragedy of sorts, but really comes off as a study of insanity in various forms, crossed with touches of social and political commentary. Since Wenders doesn’t have the time or access to sit with each ticket-buyer and explain exactly what he’s going for here, much of “Submergence” remains frustratingly inert and vague, as though the helmer never wanted to commit to a single idea, instead offering several half-baked concepts with hopes something might stick.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“An Ordinary Man” is the latest picture from Brad Silberling, who once enjoyed a major Hollywood career, helming titles such as “Casper,” “Moonlight Mile,” “City of Angels,” and “Land of the Lost.” Perhaps trying to shake off the mainstream movie blues, Silberling focuses on “An Ordinary Man,” which isn’t anything more than a filmed play, essentially handing star Ben Kingsley 80 minutes of screen time to chew scenery with extended monologues. There’s sophistication in the study of guilt and emotional isolation, but the feature is alarmingly simple and repetitive, with Silberling laboring to fill his effort with anything that could inflate the material into something substantial. Unfortunately, his instincts only conjure tedium, and while Kingsley rages until he’s red in the face, the rest of the endeavor struggles for oxygen. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s hard to believe it’s been four years since the last release from writer/director Wes Anderson, but the extended time between productions has returned the helmer to the world of stop-motion animation. Anderson has been here before, with 2009’s exquisite “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” but he’s not content to churn out a precise duplicate, going deeper into culture and oddity with “Isle of Dogs,” a highly bizarre achievement that showcases Anderson’s visual interests and methodical design work, darkened some by a semi-grim subject matter and fondness for pregnant pauses. “Isle of Dogs” seems directly made for true Anderson-Heads, but those in the mood for something completely different that offers extraordinary creativity and a sly sense of humor, this is a complex and deeply impressive moviemaking achievement. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

While forging his directorial career, actor John Krasinski has stayed with odd dramas that focused on complicated behaviors and family issues. He’s remained down to earth with efforts like “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” and “The Hollars,” hoping to create challenging work in the realm of the real. For “A Quiet Place,” Krasinski turns to horror to make an impact, helming a chiller that’s executed largely without dialogue, relying entirely on sound design and silent cinema-style performances to summon an unusual viewing experience — at least in a day and age when excess and loquacious characters are common in the genre. “A Quiet Place” is easily the best film Krasinski has made, and it features the finest performance he’s ever given, constructing a classy B-movie that explores the foundation of familial relationships, but also delivers sizable chills from total silence, showcasing a previously unseen ability to induce panic with minimal directorial flourishes. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

There’s a lot to fear about “Blockers.” It’s yet another improvisation-based comedy that traffics in vulgarity to come off edgy, joining a seemingly unending list of productions that view the screenplay as merely a starting point for random make-em-ups. And it marks the directorial debut of Kay Cannon, who wrote not one, but three “Pitch Perfect” movies. That “Blockers” is actually amusing, downright hilarious at times, is a multiplex miracle, finding Cannon better commanding a set than dreaming up punchlines. It’s a madcap endeavor with a few dismal detours into gross-out situations, but Cannon is backed by a charismatic cast and some universal truths on the state of teen maturation and parental control, overseeing appealing chaos as she joins the R-rated comedy gold rush.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Jared Stern doesn’t have a fresh idea with “Happy Anniversary,” becoming the latest in a long line of helmers trying to communicate the ups and down of a relationship with a brew of comedy and neuroses. There’s limited originality to the feature, but it does have personality, mining the perils of a longtime union with a fine sense of humor and steady level of concern. “Happy Anniversary” isn’t a Bergman film, but it does take bruising of the heart seriously, even while it’s making light of the situation, navigating hidden truths and stunted communication to find some fragment of authenticity in the midst of formula. Stern isn’t bringing out the big guns for his directorial debut, but he does achieve a lived-in sense of coupledom, which adds a little weight to the general lightness of the material.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Titan” aspires to be thought-provoking sci-fi entertainment, but it has some difficulty generating the right amount of seriousness to support any messages it hopes to impart. Director Lennart Ruff and screenwriter Max Hurwitz try to stay on course with this tale of genetic evolution, but it’s not an easy task, finding the project missing a certain level of inspiration that raises it above a “Twilight Zone” knock-off. The first half of “The Titan” handles with confidence and mystery, but Ruff and Hurwitz don’t push hard enough to secure a satisfying conclusion. As monster movies go, this feature isn’t frightening or corrupt enough, but it does have a premise capable of producing remarkable weird science, making the viewing experience more frustrating than haunting.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I think it’s safe to suggest that Dave Franco hasn’t been challenged much as an actor. He’s done work as the dim-wit in many comedies, but the first inkling that there may be something more to Franco than stunned, slack-jawed reactions was found in last year’s “The Disaster Artist,” and now, with “6 Balloons,” there’s hope for a capable dramatic career to come. He’s joined by co-star Abbi Jacobson and writer/director Marja-Lewis Ryan, with the trio creating a film with immense emotional weight and surprising intimacy, achieving an artful and eventful tale of obligation as it transforms into something more profound between siblings reaching their darkest hour. “6 Balloons” is wrenching stuff, but it offers points of behavioral illumination to enhance the viewing experience, and there’s Franco doing his best work to date. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com