Category: Film Review

“The New Radical” introduces the average viewer to the world of Cody Wilson, who, as a young man, decided to release the design of a plastic, 3D-printed gun for the world to download, imagining himself, as the title suggests, to be a champion of First Amendment freedoms, sharing his knowledge with the world. Director Adam Bhala Lough envisions a provocative look at the pliability of American rights and common sense with the documentary, but journalistic intentions fail to materialize. Instead, “The New Radical” is a 105-minute-long commercial for Wilson’s firearms business that’s also filled with zeitgeist-flicking asides on the omnipresence of gun violence and the subject’s connection to a new generation of people looking to rattle the establishment with dark empowerment, using Wilson to detail a David vs. Goliath war between longstanding government rule and Millennials trying to figure out how to implement a new world order.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s fascinating to consider that, recently, the most potent stories of Middle East life and history have been explored through animation. There was “Persepolis” and “Waltz with Bashir,” and now the “The Breadwinner” joins the list. While the feature does inspect a particularly brutal time in Afghanistan history (the Taliban era), the story remains committed to arcs of heroism and perseverance, working to create a sense of hope in the midst of absolute madness. “The Breadwinner” is a thoroughly emotional viewing experience, and while it triggers tears, it’s also a powerful tool of empowerment. The production pursues a particular note of hope found in the bold actions of a little girl in a ruthless land, successfully achieving a portrait of bravery that’s inspiring and riveting, while animation brilliantly balances harsh realities with storybook fantasy. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Cult films aren’t made, they’re born, often from the strangest of people, with the best worst movies never made cynically or intentionally, finding oddity just pouring out of the creation naturally. The journey for “The Room” began in 2003, where writer/director/producer/star Tommy Wiseau elected to take his thespian dreams into his own hands, creating an awkward psychodrama to best display his acting gifts to the world. The end result was inept from top to bottom, but its passion for tuneless filmmaking launched the picture as a midnight movie oddity, snowballing in popularity as hip audiences latched on to Tommy’s wacky vision. “The Disaster Artist” tracks the construction of “The Room” from the perspective of its co-star, Greg Sestero, who also wanted to acquire Hollywood glory, only to be mortified by Tommy’s creation. For director/star James Franco, the opportunity to dramatize this prolonged agony of production is irresistible, and his wildly entertaining “The Disaster Artist” is a loving ode to the power of delusion.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Kepler’s Dream” is an adaptation of a young adult novel by Juliet Bell, giving it an inherent softness as the material is meant to appeal to pre-teen audiences. Co-writer/director Amy Glazer respects the potential softness of the picture, doing what she can to preserve Bell’s sensitive subplots and defined characterization. It’s not urgent work, but for family audiences, “Kepler’s Dream” is genuine and nicely performed, with Glazer working to combat melodrama as much as possible as she juggles Bell’s plotting, which moves from a broken family story to a detective movie of sorts, adding some surprises to the mix.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Inoperable” suffers from a case of bad timing. Or perhaps its release is intentionally timed to follow the success of “Happy Death Day,” which attracted a young audience with an old concept. “Inoperable” also offers a slight riff on “Groundhog Day,” with co-writer/director Christopher Lawrence Chapman going the time loop route for this decidedly smaller take on persistent déjŕ vu. The horror endeavor doesn’t have much of a budget, and its plot either doesn’t make sense or requires Chapman to sit next to the viewer and explain it all at the story unfolds, creating a slightly underwhelming viewing experience. Gore zone visits are plentiful and Chapman appears to have the right macabre interests, but his feature is missing the noose-tightening appeal of recycled danger, playing far more lethargically than it should.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While the reality of social media is its current mission to enslave humanity as we know it, making movies about it always seem a little silly. It’s impossible to keep up with the movement of trends and technology, and the inherent shallowness of digital societies doesn’t translate well to the screen. Just look at internet-based films from the past (e.g. “feardotcom”). However, “People You May Know” isn’t any type of thriller or chiller, and it doesn’t take the subject matter lightly. Writer/director Sherwin Shilati is making a deadly serious feature about the disconnect of online life, offering a Faustian bargain story to examine the potential corruption of social media success, detailing all the lies it takes to achieve popularity. The message is interesting, but “People You May Know” is too heavy-handed, with moments of unpleasant preachiness and unwelcome comic relief.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Dee Rees is a gifted filmmaker with a clear interest in telling painfully human stories of race, identity, and struggle, always interested in richness of character. She arrived on the scene with “Pariah,” making a splash with a lauded indie production, graduating to more traditional creative interests with “Bessie,” which offered a shot at the creation of a bio-pic, dramatizing the life and times of singer Bessie Smith. With “Mudbound,” Rees’s moviemaking scope widens as she pursues a particularly bleak era in American history, sustaining career interests with an adaptation Hillary Jordan’s novel, taking viewers into the bowels of Alabama during the 1940s. It’s a feature drenched in suffering, hate, weather, and pain, making it a troubling sit. However, Rees does have a vision for the effort, helping to carry “Mudbound” through patches of familiarity, coming through with capable take on prejudice and rural isolation.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Thelma” is best described as an updated version of “Carrie,” even though Hollywood already tried to update “Carrie” recently, and it was awful. This time, Norway takes a crack at the horror of a young girl with telekinetic powers, with co-writer/director Joachim Trier (“Oslo, August 31st,” “Louder Than Bombs”) staging a spare, merciless journey of identity and unknowing menace, working in layers of sexuality, religious influence, and shock value along the way. Expectations for a more robust genre experience should be lowered, as Trier isn’t interesting in making a mess with “Thelma,” instead creating a slow-burn nightmare disguised as a coming-of-age drama. It rarely stuns, but the movie has select moments of effectively grim interactions and does well with its depiction of delayed adolescence.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Martin McDonagh has a special knack for behavioral insight, and the man loves his dark comedy. With “In Bruges” and “Seven Psychopaths,” McDonagh was cautious but somewhat glib with his characterizations, threatening quirk and a disruption of tonality. With “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” McDonagh finds a stunning cohesion between mischief and soul-splitting grief, putting the pieces of this puzzle together with flashes of violence. It’s a magnificent film, with McDonagh almost wizard-like in his ability to surprise with recognizable working parts, creating a powerful and intricate character study that finds tremendous value in the inner workings of damaged people. It always threatens to spin out of control, but McDonagh secures a buzzing atmosphere of threat to the effort, allowing “Three Billboards” to blossom in unexpected ways, and it possesses a few glorious sucker punches to keep viewers from becoming too comfortable. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

One year ago, there was “The Edge of Seventeen.” Written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig, the feature sliced through the claptrap that normally fattens teen cinema to deliver a bruising but honest take on the trials of adolescence, crafted with care and emotional precision. Now there’s “Lady Bird,” and even more effective take on the teenage experience from a female point of view, with writer/director Greta Gerwig absolutely nailing the crushing, combative details of growing up, stripping away most of the requisite profundity to hammer an in-the-moment feel that’s positively miraculous. It’s a phenomenal film, finding Gerwig’s attention to the nuances of young love and life authentic and often hilarious, refreshingly content to simply understand the needs of the juvenile heart, never slipping into manipulation or artificiality.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Noel Wells is best known for her brief stint on “Saturday Night Live,” a high-profile position on national television she recently admitted was less than ideal, leaving her a bit disgruntled. Taking her career into her own hands, Wells makes her directorial debut with “Mr. Roosevelt,” bringing her comedic interests to the big screen with a feature that proudly announces it was shot on film in the main titles. It’s the first of many personal touches that help support this wildly amusing picture, which, as expected, showcases Wells’s enormous talents as a performer, working through impressions, reactions, and some dramatic challenges. She’s also surrounded herself with a fine supporting cast, giving “Mr. Roosevelt” a strong screen presence with big personalities and neurotic behaviors. It’s funny stuff, providing a proper launch to Wells’s helming career.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Dan Gilroy made his directorial debut with 2014’s “Nightcrawler,” and it was quite the start for an impressive helming career. It was sinister work, wicked all over, achieving a curdled sense of threat for what becomes an inventive contortion of a traditional serial killer/stalker story. “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” is Gilroy’s eagerly anticipated follow-up, and it definitely lacks the filmmaking authority and tension that made “Nightcrawler” so hypnotic. Gilroy returns to some elements of suspense and psychological imprisonment, but he’s a bit lost with the rest of the picture, which begins as a character study before transitioning into a routine legal thriller, eventually ending as some sort of messianic examination. It’s a mess, but “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” isn’t an unpleasant one, maintaining signs of life with turns of plot and the sheer force of Denzel Washington’s lead performance, which manages to buttress the whole endeavor.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Charles Dickens’s 1843 novel, “A Christmas Carol,” has been subjected to countless adaptations, reworked for radio, theater, and screens big and small. It’s a holiday perennial that lends itself easily to dramatic interpretation, offering a creative challenge that merges the darkness of a psychological journey dressed up as a ghost story with a tale of redemption for the holidays, giving the season the optimism it now demands. However, “The Man Who Invented Christmas” is not another take on Dicken’s work, but a movie about Dickens and the pains of his literary victory, examining the writing process and how such creative frustration tends the mine the most brilliant ideas. Director Bharat Nalluri (“Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day”) tries hard to keep the cutes out of the story, but he’s not entirely successful, as “The Man Who Invented Christmas” is ultimately interested in being loved, not accurate. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

I was a fan of last summer’s “Cars 3,” but it was far from Pixar’s finest hour. Returning to a wheezy franchise for a third helping certainly didn’t inspire confidence in the company’s creative direction, and the last decade of production has found the beloved company relying on brand names to keep the lights on, making original works few and far between. “Coco” restores faith in the Pixar system, and while it doesn’t quite nail the thrilling invention of “Inside Out,” the picture represents some of the studio’s most colorful and culturally defined work to date, taking viewers into a vibrant realm known at the Land of the Dead, which doesn’t sound like a place anyone would want to visit, but the fantasyland provides a striking backdrop to an emotional tale of growth and remembrance. “Coco” is a beautiful movie, and the ending is sure to reduce most viewers to pudding, but it also serves as a reminder of Pixar’s free-range imagination when they step away from formula and sequels.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Wonder” is the latest film from director Stephen Chbosky, who made a sizable industry impression with 2012’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” While I had trouble with its muddled storytelling, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” showed atypical sensitivity when dealing with the lives of teenagers, taking personal issues seriously while preserving the roller coaster ride of social and emotional connections, valuing the often mysterious bonds of friendship. “Wonder” initially seems like the same type of movie, but it’s intended for a family audience, with softer edges and a wider range of age-appropriate problems. It’s also a stronger, more complete endeavor, with Chbosky doing a better job wrangling subplots and defining characters, doing to his best to maintain author R.J. Palacio’s careful understanding of the working parts of a family.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Last Flag Flying” is described as a “spiritual sequel” to the 1973 picture, “The Last Detail,” with both movies sourced from novels by author Darryl Ponicsan. For obvious reasons, the stars of the previous effort haven’t returned (Otis Young is dead, Jack Nicholson is retired, and Randy Quaid is currently suffering through a prolonged nervous breakdown), inspiring co-writer/director Richard Linklater to shift characterization slightly, keeping Ponicsan’s plot and character camaraderie without being slavish to what “The Last Detail” started. Losing the sequelization aspect is perhaps the smartest play for Linklater, freeing him up to make something frightfully intimate with “Last Flag Flying,” taking a look at the sacrifices of military service and the delicate nature of memories, reviving the road trip for three now ex-Marines as they come to terms with past mistakes and mounting frustrations.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s no reason to deny it: the DC Extended Universe would like to mirror the global box office triumphs of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing a game of catch-up that began with 2013’s “Man of Steel.” Now, just four years later, they’ve arrived at their first major team-up endeavor, quickly building on the success of 2016’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and last summer’s “Wonder Woman.” In a hurry to give fans all the comic book superheroes they can handle, the DCEU jumps right into the fray with “Justice League,” delivering a sizable pounding with iconic characters, upping the action and humor to connect more directly with the mass audience. “Justice League” is a mess, but not a completely unappealing one, best when delivering special powers and toying with a group dynamic. It’s the burden of storytelling that tends to get in the way of the fun, finding the screenplay adhering to blockbuster formula when the movie itself seems more interested in The Hang with a collection of troubled superheroes just trying to get along to fight a common enemy: disappointment in the DCEU.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There were always stories swirling around about Jim Carrey’s troubling behavior during the production of 1999’s “Man on the Moon.” These were vague tales of complete role immersion, where Carrey became comic Andy Kaufman to portray him in his bio-pic, offering not just reverence, but his entire body and soul to a part, shelving “Jim Carrey” for a few months to live life as Kaufman and his alter ego, Tony Clifton. It sounded bizarre at the time, and it turns out it really was, with “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond” finally piecing together an understanding of Carrey’s psychological choices as he inhabited his idol, with director Chris Smith granted access to hundreds of hours of behind the scenes video from the “Man on the Moon” shoot, showcasing just what happened during production, conforming that, indeed, there was no Carrey to speak of, only Kaufman.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While “The Divine Order” shares a story of gender discrimination, misogyny, and marital woes, it’s almost refreshing to find the tale taking place in Switzerland, avoiding American hostilities for once. The change in location is most welcome, with writer/director Petra Biondina Volpe examining the pains of womanhood from a different perspective, and while American influence remains, the screenplay showcases a distinct cultural fingerprint as it details the jail sentence of being a woman in 1971. “The Divine Order” has its melodramatic urges, but it’s an excellent overview of personal need with sharply defined characters, returning to an era of global change with a few details that mirror today’s social turbulence. Volpe taps into the zeitgeist and shares a period saga of equality, creating a picture that’s essential viewing for those interested in a wider perspective on feminist challenges.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2017 is starting to feel like a big garage sale, with Hollywood searching the archives for features to sell, getting rid of titles that never worked or were impossible to market. In the last month, there was “Amityville: The Awakening” and “Geostorm” (both shot in 2014), and now there’s “Cook Off!” However, the delay on the picture isn’t slight, with the mockumentary shot in 2007, putting a decade between completion and release. It’s an enormous amount of time, keeping expectations low for an effort that, for mysterious reasons, no studio wanted to offer audiences, even with its sellable premise and cast of comedians. “Cook Off!” isn’t a great film, but it’s not a complete disaster, happily lifting moves from Christopher Guest endeavors to create its own improv-heavy take on screwball characters engaged in heated competition.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com