Category: Film Review

Laurie Anderson is a performance artist and a musician, nurturing an impressive four-decade-long career of artistic endeavors. She’s a spiky-haired avant-garde original who lives to disrupt expectations, with her latest work, “Heart of a Dog,” one of her most baffling. While it appears on the outside to be an appreciation of animal companionship, finding Anderson in a sentimental mood, “Heart of a Dog” immediately sheds expectations to become something more in step with the performer’s appetite for the surreal. It’s certainly emotional at times, but the feature is primarily a sensorial immersion into life, death, and all the strangeness the makes up the post-9/11 human experience, with Anderson deploying animation, home movies, and abstract footage to carry viewers into the warm waters of the unknown. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1990, the story of Reggie and Ronnie Kray, the twin gangsters of 1960s London, was explored in “The Krays,” which starred Gary and Martin Kemp, from the band Spandau Ballet. Acting efforts are substantially accelerated in “Legend,” which does away with twinning to focus on star Tom Hardy, who portrays both Reggie and Ronnie in a bruisingly seductive manner only he can pull off. Casting works wonderfully, but “Legend” is an extremely difficult movie. Imagining the Krays as a bottomless pool of interesting behaviors and impulses, the feature doesn’t make much sense of their criminal reign, cherry picking the highlights of their madness without establish context, making the picture feel frustratingly incomplete. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2006, Sylvester Stallone pulled off the impossible. With “Rocky Balboa,” the screen icon revived a dying franchise with a sincere final chapter, aging his most famous character gracefully, adding some necessary lumps to the boxing champion with a picture that returned Rocky to his roots. Of course, there’s trepidation with “Creed,” which arrives nearly a decade after Rocky enjoyed a respectful send-off. And yet, under the care of co-writer/director Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station”), the brand name returns to glory, albeit under a different boxer’s name. Against all odds, “Creed” emerges as a powerhouse continuation of Stallone’s creation, carrying all the fire and emotion of the original 1976 movie while reworking irresistible formula for a new generation of underdog cinema. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For the first time in their history, Pixar Animation is releasing two films during a single calendar year. “Inside Out” was the first one out of the gate, unleashed last June to universal critical acclaim and blockbuster box office, making it third highest grossing effort from the company, reestablishing its creative and financial dominance after taking 2014 off. “The Good Dinosaur” is the quick follow-up, and it’s a simpler, more traditional tale of adventure and maturation, moving away from the sophisticated emotionality and world-building of “Inside Out.” While it plays on a more recognizable level of engagement, “The Good Dinosaur” still manages to showcase Pixar pride, sustaining their reputation for quality entertainment as it careens from sensitivity to surprisingly dark elements of antagonism, displaying a little more menace than the title suggests. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sensing a good thing with the reimagining of “Sherlock Holmes,” screenwriter Max Landis gives the same treatment to the legacy of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, “Frankenstein.” Adding adventure and scientific smarts to his reworking of the original story and its many cinematic adaptations and perversions, Landis gets lost early, attempting to pack in a myriad of ideas to help sympathies and surprises, laboring to deliver a fresh take on old material. “Victor Frankenstein” doesn’t work, but its ambition is encouraging, along with an interest in practical effects to bring the goopy particulars of mad science to the screen. However, tedium soon topples the effort, which fights to make a viable movie out of a grab bag of ideas. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The great journalism films make the audience feel like they’ve joined the hunt for truth, embedded alongside bleary-eyed, rumpled writers as they pore through tips and research, trying to shape a viable story out of bits and pieces of evidence. “Spotlight” is such a movie, carrying itself with confidence as it explores the delicate subject of molestation and the Catholic Church. Co-writer/director Tom McCarthy doesn’t lunge for incendiary material, instead building an atmosphere of unease, developing the case along with the reporters. “Spotlight” is sharp and flawlessly performed, joining the ranks of exceptional journalism pictures with its commitment to procedure and willingness to investigate both the guilty and those looking to expose them. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Billy Ray (“Breach,” “Shattered Glass”) is asking for trouble with “Secret in Their Eyes.” A remake of a terrific 2009 Argentinean film, the update has the impossible task of domesticating material that was best served in its native country, which offered twists, turns, and memorable locations. The new “Secret in Their Eyes” is a flatter, blunter object, laboring to recreate the same Double Dutch routine of mixed timelines and pained lives, brightened considerably by periodic surges of suspense. Ray doesn’t completely wipe out, but inertia is the feature’s greatest enemy, somehow conjuring monotony when handling a fairly eventful story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Brooklyn” shares an old-fashioned story of love and personal awakening. It’s a simple tale with complex but relatable emotions, sold expertly by director John Crowley (“Intermission”) and screenwriter Nick Hornby (“High Fidelity,” “Wild”), who respect the classic cinema tempo of the material, laboring to realize a level of innocence that’s rarely attempted anymore. “Brooklyn” is lovely work, sensitive and evocative, always downplaying the potential for melodrama to find the truth of the moment. Moviegoers often caught complaining that “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” should make attendance a priority, as failure to support such endearing, achingly human filmmaking only hastens its obsolescence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Hunger Games” pulled a “Harry Potter” last year when it decided to maximize profits and split the final book in the Suzanne Collins series, “Mockingjay,” into two pictures. When “Part 1” was released last year, there was a noticeable dip in screen enthusiasm, finding momentum that was established in 2013’s “Catching Fire” erased due to heavy amounts of exposition and a general throttling of urgency to help fill two sequels. “Part 1” was a disappointment, one-note and dull, but it did promise a war zone grand finale to send the franchise off on a high note. “Mockingjay – Part 2” is finally here, and, bizarrely, it’s nearly as inert as its predecessor, once again straining futilely to transform a wafer-thin story into a nearly five hour viewing experience when paired with “Part 1.” Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With “Unbroken” and “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” Angelina Jolie Pitt has shared a fascination with human endurance. Depicting wars, horrors, and cruelties, she’s never been one to detail the joy of life, only coming across such an epiphany by accident. With “By the Sea,” Jolie Pitt returns to direct herself and real-world husband Brad Pitt in a tale of complete and utter anguish, staying within her comfort zone with this throwback effort to intimate tales of self-destruction from the 1970s. “By the Sea” is a vanity film, but not completely without merit. When it isn’t permissive with performances and indulgent with its run time, the picture has a few insightful ideas to share about loss and marital strife, but it takes considerable work to find such wisdom. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Coming down from their world-rattling attempt to make fun of North Korea with “The Interview,” co-writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg set their sights on the holiday season with “The Night Before.” Obviously, with this duo guiding the mischief (along with Ariel Shaffir and Jonathan Levine, who also directs), warm, cuddly feelings of Christmas cheer aren’t on the menu, but this rowdy, drug-laden comedy certainly tries to remain meaningful as it attempts to make a worthy big screen mess. Funny in fits and perhaps too obsessed with maintaining character, “The Night Before” isn’t quite the guns blazing comedy it could’ve been, but there are more hit than misses as Rogen and Goldberg return to their happy place of cursing, bodily fluids, and celebrity cameos. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While Quentin Tarantino continues his exploration of the western in this holiday’s “The Hateful Eight,” director Jackie Earle Haley and screenwriter Robert Lowell keep the old Tarantino spirit alive in “Criminal Activities.” A mixture of violence, comedy, and loquaciousness, the picture is reminiscent of the many knockoffs that found release after “Pulp Fiction” became a phenomenon, handled with a buzzing energy by Haley, who makes his helming debut with the feature after managing an acting career for the last four decades. While it all plays very familiar, “Criminal Activities” has a few creative moves of its own, finding the production trying to nail down a special rhythm to all the conventional intimidation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The last time actor Simon Pegg decided he wanted to warm up his image, it resulted in 2014’s particularly unpleasant “Hector and the Search for Happiness,” which actually made the jovial performer come across unappealing, suggesting that perhaps tales of love were not his forte. “Man Up” is a decent enough rebound for Pegg, who teams with Lake Bell for a lively adventure through misunderstanding and silliness. It’s definitely not Pegg’s finest professional hour, but as fizzy romantic comedies go, “Man Up” has its share of surprises and enthusiasm for the material, maintaining an effort to disrupt the subgenre routine with speed and a great deal of mischief. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Following the footsteps of “Anvil: The Story of Anvil,” “I Am Thor” looks to locate another overlooked member of the heavy metal community who’s interested in a comeback. The documentary surveys the life and times of Jon Mikl Thor, a once mighty bodybuilder who rode his physique to the heavy metal middle in the 1980s, blending superhero theatricality and blazing riffs to wow audiences. He was also the star of junk drawer cinema classics such as “Zombie Nightmare” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare,” creating an image as a hulking master of ceremonies, out to conquer the entertainment industry with his unique, hammer-wielding presence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the plainly titled “Heist,” the production labors to merge a standard crime thriller with elements of “Speed,” dusted with some off-the-shelf emotional obstacles for the characters. Director Scott Mann (“The Tournament”) has all the right ingredients for junk food cinema in front of him, but no real clue how to assemble a frothy feast of exploitation. “Heist” is only enjoyable when it remains on the move, racing past logic and repetition with convincing energy. Applying the brakes to detail worry only reinforces flimsy screenwriting and iffy casting, losing the movie’s appeal as it struggles to build a more dramatically sound offering of complete nonsense. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Scary movies tend to stick to the same settings out of habit, never venturing too far away from haunted houses, securing the comfort of familiarity as monsters and ghosts emerge from the darkness. “Visions” isn’t a radical departure from the genre norm, but it does use a vineyard as its playground of doom, which livens up a picture that eventually becomes a standard chiller, recycling scares and strange explanations as it struggles to remain compelling. Director Kevin Greutert isn’t one to deny audience expectations, but there are a few decent turns in “Visions” to keep it moving, even as it quickly grows tiresome. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The 33” certainly doesn’t have the element of surprise. A dramatization of the 2010 Chilean Mining Disaster that trapped workers underground for 69 grueling days, the production is working with a globally known event, including a happy ending that was omnipresent during a few news cycles five years ago. Even the theatrical trailer for the movie gives away the ending, making suspense all but an impossible for director Patricia Riggen to achieve. “The 33” is painfully overlong, but it’s also effective with the basics of survival, using moments of claustrophobia and familial divide smartly as it searches for anything to help distract from the highly publicized conclusion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If you’re planning to see “Love the Coopers,” remember to bring a pencil and some scratch paper. It may be easier to follow this mess of a movie with the help of careful notes, but there are no guarantees. A Christmas lump of coal sneaking into theaters before Thanksgiving, “Love the Coopers” strives to be a heartwarming holiday effort concerning a dysfunctional family, but never once does it stop to introduce the participants or explain the details. Director Jessie Nelson and screenwriter Steven Rogers soak the picture in maudlin events, with occasional breaks for light slapstick, but as the feature unfolds, less is understood about the titular clan and their yearly need to make one another miserable. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Actor Gregg Turkington is comedian Neil Hamburger, or perhaps Neil Hamburger is Gregg Turkington. The distinction is never clear, but that’s part of the performer’s appeal to “anti-comedy” fans. “Entertainment” is a valentine to Turkington’s method of madness, with director Rick Alverson making sure every pregnant pause, non-sequitur, and violent outpouring of hate is tenderly cared for, attempting to communicate Hamburger’s special way with nothingness for die-hard admirers and newcomers. Equally successful as a cult comedy and a non-lethal crowd dispersal weapon, “Entertainment” is a type of film that establishes its tone in the very first minute of screentime, and it’s your own fault if you decide to stick around for the rest of it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After maintaining a long but uneven career of interesting performances (“Master and Commander”) and painful ones (“Priest,” “Legion), actor Paul Bettany is ready to move behind the camera, finally in control of his own project. “Shelter” is Bettany’s helming debut, and he’s made exactly the type of movie a frustrated thespian would, dreaming up a tale of misery and hopelessness to best underline lead performances from Jennifer Connelly (his real-life wife) and Anthony Mackie. “Shelter” has its heart in the right place, trying to identify the frustration and self-destruction of homelessness and rehabilitation, but its fixation on indulgence chips away at the feature’s lasting message of endurance, mixed with a little tragedy. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com