Category: Film Review

If Nina Simone was a multifaceted personality capable of performing musical miracles during her career as a recording artist, wowing audiences with her depth of feeling and genre range, “Nina” isn’t interested in telling that story. Or any story for that matter, delivering a bio-pic that’s clouded and confused, misguided in certain aspects of production, and absurd in its blindfolded editorial approach. Shot four years ago, “Nina” is finally seeing the light of day, but this is no long-awaited release. It’s a prison escape, displaying a stunning depth of filmmaking ineptitude from writer/director Cynthia Mort, who isn’t really making a movie about Nina Simone, she’s committing a 90-minute-long character assassination, transforming a music legend into a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While Bruce Willis continues to tarnish his career with cash-grab supporting roles in B-movies, at least there’s a suitable replacement for the star’s once mighty charms. “Precious Cargo” gifts actor Mark-Paul Gosselaar a chance to prove himself as an action titan, taking center stage in this feisty but formulaic heist effort. It’s certainly an unusual casting choice when hunting for a fast-talking, bullet-spewing performer, but Gosselaar ends up the highlight of the feature. Director Max Adams has more difficulty, attempting to sell a vision for big stunts and large-scale suspense, but he’s working exclusively with clichés, struggling to create big screen ruckus with visuals already detailed in hundreds of other productions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In this politically volatile time, a film like “Dough” probably isn’t going to move the needle much when it comes to religious and cultural unity, but every little reminder of peace is welcome. “Dough” isn’t a strong movie, but its premise has potential and director John Goldschmidt has a good grip on the picture’s tone for the first hour, balancing comedy with the material’s interest in exploring refugee anxiety and Jewish tradition. Good performances and a strong opening isn’t enough to carry a viewing experience that’s eventually smothered by melodrama, but Goldschmidt keeps the feature amiable, even a little silly at times, before it runs out of things to do. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For writer/director John Carney, music is as vital as drama in his cinematic endeavors. For “Once,” the helmer found lo-fi love on the streets of Dublin, celebrating two amateur musicians finding love and communication through performance. In “Begin Again,” Carney inched toward mainstream interests with name actors and a broader storyline, but still made time for songs to carry the viewing experience. For “Sing Street,” Carney returns to his indie roots and the soothing ways of musical expression, crafting a loving ode to joys of garage bands and pubescent interests. A spirited, hilarious movie, “Sing Street” is Carney’s best work to date, smoothly merging his storytelling and jukebox obsessions. Even with a few rocky moments, it all works with irresistible confidence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The latest effort from Italian director Matteo Garrone (“Gomorrah,” “Reality”), “Tale of Tales” endeavors to bring a world of fairytales to the screen, but these aren’t your usual stories of extraordinary events and eccentric characters. Inspired by Giambattista Basile’s 17th century work, “Pentamerone,” Garrone goes wild with “Tale of Tales,” hitting macabre highs with his carefully composed look at the mad passions of queens, monsters, and the desperately lonely. It’s a vividly crafted picture, with stunning technical achievements and startling turns of plot, but Garrone’s real accomplishment is his ability to conjure an authentic storybook atmosphere, with the various segments of the movie retaining their literature inspiration while generating pure cinema. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One could make the argument that every sequel is unnecessary, but it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where there’s any demand for a follow-up to 2012’s “Snow White and the Huntsman.” While a box office hit due to release timing and audience hunger for CGI-laden spectacle, the picture didn’t exactly inspire lasting fandom, with most ticket-buyers forgetting the feature in full on the ride home. However, profit is profit, and Universal Studios isn’t about to leave money on the table. “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” is visually similar to its predecessor, but a few key changes have been made to ensure a lively viewing experience. Sadly, what’s presented here isn’t enough to engage, again proving that this update of the Snow White story isn’t meant to be a fantasy playground, continuing a lethargic take on magic and mystery that barely improves on the previous adventure. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Based on a 2012 novel by Dave Eggers, “A Hologram for the King” arrives pre-loaded with personality detail and bold dramatic movement, using hundreds of pages to create an emotionally and physically volatile environment, servicing an extensive journey for the lead character. Writer/director Tom Tykwer only has about 95 minutes to cover the same terrain. A clever filmmaker who previously helmed “Run Lola Run,” “Perfume,” and “Cloud Atlas,” Tykwer is up for the adaption challenge. While his ability to condense sections of the story leaves much to be desired, Tykwer captures a defined mood with “A Hologram for the King,” teaming with star Tom Hanks to issue an unusual effort that embraces idiosyncrasy and long stretches of sincerity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It was a private moment shared by the President of the United States and the world’s biggest music star, but a meeting in 1970 between Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley (a joining of disparate worlds documented with a single photograph, becoming one of most popular pictures in the National Archives) created a tidal wave of speculation, with fans of both men openly wondering just went on behind closed doors. “Elvis & Nixon” doesn’t have the evidence, but it provides a bright recreation of the event, imagining the oddity, bravado, and irritation triggered by Elvis and his determination to meet the most powerful man in the world. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With anthology horror pictures all the rage in recent years, it’s been interesting to see what concept the filmmakers employ to piece together their omnibus of evil. For the “V/H/S” series, a more abstract approach was attempted, marrying weird tangents of doom through the power of video. In the recent “Southbound,” tales were collected with a plan to shape a narrative circle, building bridges between the segments. For “Holidays,” the idea is simple. Offering largely unknown directors a chance to make a mess of a calendar year, the shorts embrace individual themes based on their festive day, with seven holidays to explore and exploit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Richard Linklater has enjoyed a creative resurgence in recent years, scoring critical kudos and impressive box office returns with dramatic efforts such as “Bernie,” “Before Midnight,” and “Boyhood.” However, it’s his 1993 picture, “Dazed and Confused,” that manages to endure, building a cult audience over the last two decades that’s responded positively to Linklater’s infatuation with the “hang” film, pulling life and pure social sway out of screen shapelessness. Returning to the vibe, Linklater crafts “Everybody Wants Some,” another casual look at personal interactions, desires, and time-killing with group of funky characters. Indentified as a “spiritual sequel” to “Dazed and Confused,” “Everybody Wants Some” retains none of the charm and pace of the earlier effort. Linklater doesn’t have much of a vision for his latest movie, trying to get by on fumes as the feature slowly runs out of reasons to keep watching it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

To capitalize on the success of Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation” and “The Past,” one of his earlier efforts, “About Elly,” finally found distribution in America last year, helping fans discover the helmer’s previous work, studying the development of themes and quality craftsmanship. Finding success with old news, another selection from Farhadi’s slim filmography is chosen for an art-house run. 2006’s “Fireworks Wednesday” reaches deeper into director’s creative vault, discovering a domestic drama that’s fully immersed in Iranian culture and attitude, but lacks the refinement that would eventually be found in subsequent pictures. Still, a chance to process the development of Farhadi’s world view is valued, and while “Fireworks Wednesday” is a bit more obvious with its tale of household unrest, it captures human reaction wonderfully, keeping a tight leash on melodramatic impulses. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s been 12 years since the last proper “Barbershop” sequel was released (a spin-off, “Beauty Shop,” disappointed at the box office in 2005), and nothing much has changed in this cinematic world of gossip, one-liners, and extended debate. And that’s just the way producer/star Ice Cube likes it, keeping to core franchise elements to replicate successes from the last decade. Taking on street violence and family strife, “Barbershop: The Next Cut” is an easily digestible dramedy, though it’s never really all that funny and never as profound as it could be. Still, the formula is successful in stretches, with an ensemble working diligently to revive a dusty atmosphere of camaraderie, giving fans exactly what they want. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Criminal” wants to be a great number of movies, but it never gets anything quite right. Director Ariel Vromen clings tightly to cliché and screen aggression to capture audience attention, masterminding a surprisingly ugly thriller that barely contains any thrills. “Criminal” is a frustrating picture before it transforms into a forgettable one, watching bad actors flounder and good actors wrestle with a terrible screenplay by Douglas Cook and David Weisberg, which merges sci-fi make-em-ups with a missing identity plot, and there are touches of terrorism to act as smelling salts for a flatlining production. It’s a big mess of ideas, but Vromen doesn’t know how to line them up properly, finding every new revelation worse than the last. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Disney has returned to Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” a few times. Of course, there’s the 1967 animated classic, which contorted Kipling to create a swinging musical, leading with the hit tune, “The Bare Necessities.” There was a 2002 sequel, and in 1994, the company attempted a live-action version starring Jason Scott Lee as Mowgli, which failed to perform at the box office despite positive reviews. Kipling’s 1894 collection of stories has actually inspired many film and television productions, but none have been as a massive as Disney’s return to the wild with the CGI/live-action take on “The Jungle Book.” Director Jon Favreau utilizes technology, not nature, to inspire this reworking of the ’67 picture, delivering realistic animal interactions and digital environments, laboring to manufacture a world for Mowgli’s mischief instead of finding one on Earth. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“April and the Extraordinary World” is a French production pulled from the imagination of graphic novel artist Jacques Tardi, who hung around to participate in the creation of the film’s look. It’s an oddball animated picture, but often wonderfully so, taking a journey through the decades and visiting different environments, while maintaining an engaging steampunk visual presence that’s vividly communicated. Perhaps it lacks the refinement a large budget provides, but “April and the Extraordinary World” is very good with the unexpected, from plot points to character design. Directors Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci are faced with an adaptation challenge, but they manage to keep the spirit of the source alive, blending in bits of action, humor, and alternate universe invention. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Instead of forging ahead with a bio-pic on the life and times of jazz legend Miles Davis, co-writer/director Don Cheadle takes a small sliver of the musician’s life to explore in “Miles Ahead,” which doesn’t broadcast any type of biographical reality. Instead of a linear dissection of Davis and his rise to fame, the production assumes the shape of jazz, sampling bits of behavior, personal ruin, and music business dealings to put together an idea of Miles Davis. This concept eventually wears out its welcome, but “Miles Ahead” gets surprisingly far on the scattered approach, thanks in great part to Cheadle’s visual ambition with the low-budget effort and his lead performance as Davis, slipping on the skin of a reckless man who also possessed stunning musical vision. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Documentaries about fashion and industry mysteries are all the rage these days, recently explored in films such as “Valentino,” “The September Issue,” and “Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s.” “The First Monday in May” continues the journey, but for this round of appreciation, director Andrew Rossi tries to find a way into the artistic process, endeavoring to spotlight the struggles and anxiety that come with the recent consideration of fashion as high art, and not just decoration. “The First Monday in May” isn’t the most focused feature around, but it does manage to grab a peek behind the curtain, observing the herculean effort required to pull off the Met Gala every year. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Working through his interest in playing tortured artists, actor/producer James Franco adds “The Adderall Diaries” to his growing list of mediocre releases featuring characters just a bit beyond his thespian range. Based on the memoir by Stephen Elliott, the feature is a mess of subplots and personalities that demand more screen time than what’s offered by writer/director Pamela Romanowsky (“The Color of Time”), who tries to work in all the themes and kinky detours of the source material without caring for overall narrative flow. It’s disjointed work, cold to the touch, but there’s a supporting cast to keep “The Adderall Diaries” semi-interesting at times, holding up the effort while Franco works through a series of pained poses. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s difficult to understand why co-writer/director Florian Gallenberger felt the need to bring the horror of Chile’s Colonia Dignidad to the screen. A place of unimaginable suffering, home to torture, rape, and murder during a time of national cruelty, dissection of the Colonia Dignidad requires a special filmmaking talent, skilled in the art of suggestion and sensitivity to the real-world nightmare the compound became. Gallenberger doesn’t possess such a respectful vision, going the grindhouse route with this thriller. “Colonia” mistakes identification for sympathy, pushing towards tastelessness as it lingers on brutality facing the characters, looking to build shock value instead of exposing the haunting reality of the Colonia Dignidad in a manner that’s respectful to victims and mindful of history. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Music is the spirit and theme of “One More Time,” yet the film has difficulty staying in tune. Writer/director Robert Edwards has a conversational vision for the feature, which dissects familial relationships and generational divide, keeping his characters loquacious as they manage their insecurities and troubled histories. This leads to interesting performances, but the movie also makes room for a musical mood, exploring the industry through the efforts of one aging singer trying to remain relevant. It should be a more emotionally engaging picture, but “One More Time” only reaches periodic clarity, struggling to find the borders of its vast psychological examination. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com