Category: Film Review

Rob Zombie has become the Woody Allen of horror movies. He has the one thing he likes to do and he does it, reasonably well too. However, it’s difficult these days to find an audience for features about sadistic clowns and gushing bodily fluids, forcing Zombie to dial back the scope of his latest picture, “31,” heading to micro-budget filmmaking to scratch his creative itch. Coming off the interesting “Lords of Salem,” it’s a bit of a disappointment to watch Zombie play it safe with “31,” which only seems interested in maniacal behavior when it wants to be, leaving the rest of the commendable but slightly dulled effort to padding and atmosphere, with the helmer trying to stretch his sack-of-dimes budget. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Sully” has a fascinating challenge of dramatization to master, tasked with shaping a story out of 208 seconds of mid-air confusion. Especially under Clint Eastwood’s direction, there isn’t much hope for the film to command attention, with the helmer’s measured style at odds with the urgency of the potential plane disaster that’s inspired the movie. The saga of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is admittedly thin for a big screen investigation, but Eastwood manages a healthy sense of tension and reflection to power the picture, emerging with his strongest effort since 2004’s “Million Dollar Baby.” Eastwood is traditionally careful behind the camera, but he wisely allows star Tom Hanks time and space to register every emotion in the book, delivering an outstanding performance that allows “Sully” to transcend its inherent oddity and become more than a surface investigation of media-fed heroism. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the always percolating revenge genre, it takes a little imagination and a lot of ruthlessness to make an impression, separating the effort from formulaic competition. “In Order of Disappearance” manages such invention, dividing time between cold-blooded plans for murder and in-depth domestic observations. Director Hans Peter Moland and writer Kim Fupz Aakeson conjure a very specific serio-comic tone for their picture, using exploitation inspiration to discover a fresh approach to the wrath of a father looking to avenge the death of his son. “In Order of Disappearance” is dark, but exceptionally so, cooking up a tale of comeuppance that highlights sensational Norwegian locations, dimensional characters, and shocking acts of violence, keeping viewers on their toes as this wonderful movie unfolds. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Other People” is a rather bland, nondescript title for an outstanding movie about family. I suppose there are few alternatives to choose from, but don’t let the name put you to sleep, this is a must-see film. Writer Chris Kelly brings out the best in his characters, using the horrific event of a cancer diagnosis to backdrop this depiction of a year in the life of a man and his assorted relationships, taking in all the dysfunction and tentative interplay, mining the journey for a rich humor and plenty of pathos. “Other People” is exceptionally balanced and downright hilarious at times, and while Kelly covers well-worn ground, he does so with distinct personality and perspective, finding freshness in universal pain. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Chad Hartigan (“This Is Martin Bonner”) successfully disrupts expectations with “Morris from America,” taking the plight of a young black teen who dreams of becoming a rap superstar to the streets of Germany, where his obsession isn’t shared by his peers. It takes special care to make the fish out of water elements work, and Hartigan shows commitment to the cause, creating a satisfying comedy with some real adolescent pathos, finding authenticity while handling a premise that threatens to break out into sitcom-ery at any moment. “Morris from America” is funny and unusual, and while it teases storytelling disaster as it unfolds, the production remains amusing and periodically genuine. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“London Road” is a musical, but it certainly doesn’t share any jazz hands and happy feet. A docudrama-style overview of a serial killer’s rampage, the production aims to disturb expectations through songs, challenging the cast to come up with a way to blend singing with the communication of fear, keeping performances natural enough to remain respectful of the dire situation. It’s a strange picture from director Rufus Norris and screenwriter Alecky Blythe, who adapt their London stage hit for the screen, laboring to lose some of the stillness this kind of material inherently retains. It’s commendable work, as “London Road,” while lacking any memorable tunes, retains a surprising urgency and clear view of panic, keeping up vocal achievements while tending to fine performances. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The 1719 novel “Robinson Crusoe,” has been a source of creative inspiration for centuries, experiencing all type of media adaptations and interpretations. Author Daniel Defoe’s tale of castaway life is ripe for exploration, but “The Wild Life” isn’t interested in retelling the same old story of survival and cultural discovery. Looking to charm family audiences, the production pushes Crusoe to the background, instead focusing on the animal kingdom for this CGI-animated take on the source material. “The Wild Life” is an appropriate title, carrying a manic energy and a cast of creatures, and while it maintains vague similarities to Defoe’s story, it mostly invests in situations of slapstick and cartoony characters, looking to compete with broad Hollywood fare, which always has luck with anthropomorphized animals. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Exploring the insidious influence of Nazism on screen, most stories understandably stick to the basics of World War II, where the Third Reich reached full power, threatening to spread their evil across the globe. However, for a few productions, it’s the time after the end of the war that’s most interesting. “The People vs. Fritz Bauer” details the fight to collect the remnants of Nazi rule while it remains in the shadows of German society during the 1950s, spotlighting one man’s battle to keep eyes wide open as monstrous individuals remain at large. “The People vs. Fritz Bauer” is a deliberate picture, never achieving a full gallop, but the subtleties of performance and history are engrossing, with co-writer/director Lars Kraume preserving the gut-rot essentials of the tale. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It takes a very long time for “Antibirth” to get going, but once it does, writer/director Danny Perez has some intriguing ideas to contribute to the realm of underground cinema. Influenced by the works of David Lynch and David Cronenberg, Perez attempts to subvert expectations when it comes to the killer pregnancy routine, going abstract with his art-school filmmaking instincts, taking the long way to suspense as he bathes the picture in filth and attitude. “Antibirth” is made for a specific audience, and those dialed into its highlights should be able to put together a satisfying viewing experience. It’s a wild movie, but only when it shows focus. The rest is white noise with sloppy characters, making the wait for something to happen a real chore. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Ever since 2006’s “Clerks II,” writer/director Kevin Smith has been in a career free-fall, dividing his time between filmmaking projects and the creation of a podcast network, which directly inspired his last effort, 2014’s “Tusk.” Fighting to find his storytelling groove again, Smith takes a mighty tumble with “Yoga Hosers,” which aims to be a live-action cartoon that celebrates exaggerated Canadian interests, the comedic value of Nazis, and teen girl friendships. Smith went abyssal with screen grimness before, and now he heads in the opposite direction, aiming to keep “Yoga Hosers” as rubbery and smiley as possible, hoping to give the paying audience a contact high. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As a director, Alexandre Aja has built a career on scares, emerging as one of the more competent genre craftsmen working today. He’s landed chills and dark humor in efforts such as “High Tension,” “Piranha 3D,” and the recent “Horns,” but “The 9th Life of Louis Drax” finds the filmmaker looking to grow as a storyteller, moving away from overt scares to more emotional developments, disguised as a quirky tale of an accident-prone boy finally confronting his problematic years. An adaptation of Liz Jensen’s novel, “Louis Drax” is unable to translate its literary complexity to the screen, with writer Max Minghella struggling to make sense of the story’s working parts, which cover a wide range of emotions and malicious events. Aja tries to find the material’s heart, but he’s much better communicating its menace.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Derek Cianfrance has developed a reputation for quality work. He’s drawn to grim material, detailing the death of a marriage in “Blue Valentine” and the death of innocence in “The Place Beyond the Pines.” Now it’s time for the helmer to explore the death of life itself in “The Light Between Oceans,” an adaptation of M.L. Stedman’s 2012 novel. Oppressively melancholy with a special interest in morbid turns of plot, the feature positions itself as a stately drama, respecting its literary origins by taking time with initial characterizations and the wind-whipping setting. However, to Cianfrance, a scene isn’t a scene unless it leaves the audience completely numb, with “The Light Between Oceans” unable to emerge from the dark, effectively destroying whatever richly mournful qualities were found in the source material. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In recent years, Mel Gibson has experimented with roles in exploitation movies, trying to find his groove with excessive violence and straightforward scripting. Not that he’s ever avoided brutal actioners before, but with “Edge of Darkness,” “Get the Gringo,” and now “Blood Father,” Gibson appears to be creating a new career identity as an enforcer, playing men who aggressively take care of their problems. The change of scenery fits an older Gibson, who’s skilled at finding the dark humor in any heated situation. Thankfully, “Blood Father” is filled with strangely tense moments and blunt confrontations, playing to the star’s strengths as director Jean-Francois Richet puts together a satisfying southwestern obstacle course with this engaging, tightly edited effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If you like your cinema in a swirled state, where characters bleed into one another and states of consciousness are manipulated from afar, than “Zoom” is a must-see movie. Attacking its puzzling ways with a clear vision is director Pedro Morelli, who finds humor, horrors, and an enormous amount of neuroses in this frequently funny dark comedy. While it teases everyday concerns about body image and professional integrity, “Zoom” often dances to its own rhythm, slipping in and out of animation and reality to braid together three connected tales of anxiety, with Morelli working overtime to make sure the feature is as visually stimulating as it can be, closely matching its scripted insanity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After exploring a relationship between older men and their families in “Love Is Strange,” co-writer/director Ira Sachs turns his attention to juvenile relationships struggling under the weight of combative parents. “Little Men” continues the helmer’s fascination with askew domestic issues and the rental war zone of New York City, mixing real estate and broken hearts for a sensitive drama about the fragility of friendships. Led by terrific performances and a frightening understanding of passive-aggressive combat, “Little Men” is a modest drama with unexpectedly robust emotion, playing into Sachs’s special way with eroding relationships and burgeoning insensitivities emerging from unlikely sources. In a way, it’s almost a continuation of “Love Is Strange,” reinforcing Sachs’s fascination with family ties. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director of “The Son’s Room” and “We Have a Pope,” Nanni Moretti returns with a deeply personal picture in “Mia Madre,” which inspects the psychological exhaustion the pressures and confusion of everyday life delivers, periodically in overwhelming amounts. Collecting anxieties from his own life, Moretti funnels overwhelming feeling into his latest work, giving the feature outstanding emotional texture as it juggles subplots and character temperaments. “Mia Madre” is heartbreaking at times, but it also represents the human experience almost perfectly, understanding the minor scrapes incurred as troubles are worked through, mixed elegantly with mild humor and unusual meditations. It’s an exceptional movie, which isn’t a rare achievement for the helmer, but this material is clearly pulled from deep within, making it his finest effort to date. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Last year, director Alex Garland’s “Ex Machina” studied the idea of artificial intelligence reaching the stage of human emotions, with a robot struggling to experience life as a facsimile of flesh and bone. “Morgan” essentially attempts the same story, but instead replicating Garland’s careful assembly of mood and tension, it offers the helming debut of Luke Scott, and he’s not interested in asking provocative questions. A blunt B-movie hidden under the guise of thought-provoking science, “Morgan” is more of a horror endeavor than a dramatic one, emphasizing blood and violence with style and a cast made up of actors way out of their league. It’s a tremendously goofy picture, but one delivered without hesitation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1989’s “Kickboxer” isn’t hallowed ground, but it does hold a place in the big screen development of star Jean-Claude Van Damme, with the B-movie managing to find some box office hustle, helping the young bruiser climb the Hollywood ladder. Over 25 years later, it’s time for a remake, or reboot in fact, with “Kickboxer: Vengeance” looking to restart the Muay Thai machine for a new generation of genre fans, even bringing Van Damme back into the fold after he passed on a series of dismal sequels. Unfortunately, instead of reviving the original picture’s bright, kick-happy spirit, “Kickboxer: Vengeance” goes dark and dull, showing little interest in becoming the participatory event the first feature pulled off rather well. It’s nice to see Van Damme back in action, but there’s almost nothing memorable about the new take beyond a few fight sequences. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It hasn’t been an easy road to release for “The Sea of Trees,” which was soundly rejected at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, searching for a brave distributor after its initial critical drubbing. Finally seeing the light of day, the latest effort from director Gus Van Sant is also one of his worst, asking the audience to remain intimate with a morbid soap opera that’s overlong and dramatically undernourished. While offering committed performances, “The Sea of Trees” is intolerable at times, finding Van Sant unable to make sense of Chris Sparling’s screenplay, keeping emotions pronounced and pacing minimal as the helmer takes a good long look at the end of hope and the birth of survival. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s hard to imagine two performers as opposite as Jackie Chan and Johnny Knoxville. While they’ve both made a fortune on reckless stuntwork, putting their bodies in the line of fire to secure special visuals for appreciative audiences, they are less successful landing jokes, relying on broad slapstick to secure appropriate responses to high-flying action. Pairing them in “Skiptrace” is meant represent a merging of East and West clowning, but madcap results aren’t found here. Formulaic to a point of immediate predictability, “Skiptrace” sets out to dazzle with stunts as it tries to stroke a limp funny bone. Director Renny Harlin knows his way around screen chaos, but jokes are not his forte, remaining permissive with Knoxville and Chan, who need all the professional guidance they can get. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com