Category: Film Review

Paul Solet made a powerful impression with his 2009 directorial debut, “Grace.” A macabre story handled with care, the picture was a confident horror effort that ranked as one of the best films of the year. It took a little time, but Solet has finally returned with “Dark Summer,” another no-budget chiller, only instead of exploring the anxieties of motherhood, he’s after a ghost story featuring atypically stoic teenage characters. Although the details are perhaps too obscure to feed into a rousing time at the movies, “Dark Summer” retains eerie elements and strong performances, once again showcasing Solet’s gift with the genre and his ability to turn limited funds and locations into a compelling tale of psychological erosion and spectral doom. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Michael and Peter Spiering do not make movies very often, with their last effort, “Daybreakers,” released in 2010. After flirting with the production of a “Dark Crystal” sequel for a few years, the Spierigs have returned to screens with “Predestination,” a mind-bending time-travel tale inspired by a Robert A. Heinlein short story. Growing more confident with their cinematic style and ability to knot up storytelling in compelling ways, the helmers generate a fluid feature that’s ripe with intentional confusion and sneaky suspense, playing up the weirdness of the premise while tending to the sensitivity of the characters. “Predestination” is strange stuff, but always fascinating, featuring sensational performances from Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When Paul Thomas Anderson makes a movie, it’s an event. He’s proven his mastery time and again with efforts such as “Boogie Nights,” “Punch-Drunk Love,” and “There Will Be Blood,” consistently making quality, layered pictures that celebrate eccentricity, satire, and gut-rot emotions. 2012’s “The Master” found Anderson caught in his own webbing, displaying an uncharacteristic sterility with his provocative take on soulful unrest and religion. It was a handsomely mounted feature, but habitually indulgent in ways that seemed to stymie its creator. “Inherent Vice” continues Anderson’s creative decline, once again picking a project that isn’t cinematic, finding the production working diligently to create a rich, pot-infused odyssey into crime and seduction with a script that’s primarily dedicated to the trading of last names and laboriously following through on anticlimactic encounters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

An actor perhaps best known for his supporting role on television’s “Felicity,” Scott Foley makes his feature-length directorial debut with “Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife,” a dark comedy that calls in a few favors from his friends and family. Reaching for a grim pitch of hilariously immoral behavior, Foley largely botches attempts at shock value and humor, saddled with his own unadventurous screenwriting that’s too reliant on sitcom-esque antics. Although the cast is game to play, often emerging as the only sign of life here, “Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife” is a one-joke effort that wears out its welcome as it struggles to dream up new misunderstandings to organize and macabre antics to choreograph. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s common to suggest that a particularly confused production feels like two movies stitched haphazardly together. “Black November” is literally a pair of pictures edited together. Originally shot as “Black Gold,” writer/director Jeta Amata set out to bring the ecological and political woes of Nigeria to the screen, looking to dramatize horrors strong enough to capture the world’s attention. Recognizing that harrowing details are simply not enough to secure distribution, the production reportedly shot new footage (over half the film) featuring a bevy of Hollywood stars, with the resulting divide between the two disparate dramatic speeds easy enough to recognize and often impossible to ignore. The patchwork effort behind “Black November” is almost worth a recommendation just to stare at such misguided ambition, but, overall, this is a botched endeavor, despite having pure intentions to rattle the world. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While it wasn’t an impressive picture, 2012’s “The Woman in Black” managed to summon an eerie atmosphere of spectral menace, while star Daniel Radcliffe gave the effort a proper dramatic depth, handling the unhinged demands of the genre professionally. Although the plot didn’t invite a second chapter, box office returns were too impressive for Hammer Films to turn down a lucrative financial opportunity. Now there’s “The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death,” a dull and Radcliffe-free continuation that’s more about cashing in on a potential franchise than opening the tale up for a second inspection. Ghoulishness is in limited supply this time around, watching director Tom Harper struggle with pace and imagination when it comes to the pulse-pounding elements of this anemic ghost story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Belgian filmmakers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne are primarily known for their naturalistic style, telling stories of hardscrabble lives to put the test by tragedy and neglect. Gifted helmer, the brothers have risen to prominence with efforts such as “Rosetta,” “The Child,” and “The Kid with the Bike.” “Two Days, One Night” is as close to a mainstream drama as the Dardennes are likely to make, recruiting star Marion Cotillard to join their parade of anxiety with this sensational tale of a desperate woman in an impossible situation. Highlighting raw emotions and torturous decisions, “Two Days, One Night” is exceptionally crafted, with a bracing honesty that challenges the viewer, making it the rare offering of participatory art-house cinema. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After teaming up to create two sensational horror efforts in 2007’s “[REC]” and 2009’s “[REC] 2,” co-writer/directors Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero went their separate ways for two more sequels. Plaza took the reins on 2012’s “[REC] 3: Genesis,” and now Balaguero receives his shot at creative independence with “[REC] 4: Apocalypse,” reportedly the final installment of this surprisingly durable franchise. While missing the sheer terror velocity of the first two features, the helmer commits to a decent path of closure with “[REC] 4,” returning star Manuela Velasco to the storyline and serving up blood-drenched chase sequences. Missing is the primal fear of the earlier pictures, yet this final chapter is immensely entertaining and dramatically satisfying. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Goodbye to All That” proves that a movie can feel unfinished and somehow manage to satisfy. The directorial debut for “Stone” and “Junebug” screenwriter Angus MacLachlan, the picture is on the prowl for a precise mood of discouragement in the face of victory, updating the sex-and-the-single-dad formula to fit contemporary dating insanity, weaving through online hook-ups and cyber stalking. “Goodbye to All That” is more amusing than funny, and while it’s disjointed, it’s sincere, working to articulate the laborious inflation of morale after the pain of divorce and the humiliation of daily life. MacLachlan shares a distinct point of view here, just not a particular gift in the editing room. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Joe Johnston is primarily known for major motion pictures. Previous movies include “The Rocketeer,” “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” and “Captain America: The First Avenger.” He’s dabbled in low-fi cinema before with 1999’s “October Sky,” but “Not Safe for Work” feels like an intentional cleansing of big-budget habits. A brief, blunt exercise in thriller cinema, the feature is a mean but not entirely lean machine, though Johnston puts in a heroic effort trying to build tension inside a limited space, working with a script that bites off more than it can chew when it comes to comfortable passages of exposition. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After taking on the apocalypse with their last effort, 2013’s “This Is the End,” directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg take on an even more volatile enemy in North Korea for “The Interview,” their farcical take on an assassination thriller. Continuing their quest for rude and crude entertainment, the pair remains fixated on cursing and bloodshed with their follow-up, working to hit high points of shock value with this violent comedy, which isn’t nearly as hilarious as it should be. Lost in a haze of aimless improvisation and dreary dumb guy antics, “The Interview” isn’t a lethal weapon of a movie, it’s merely a mediocre one, never matching its hellraising potential. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Gambler” is a remake of a 1974 feature, a semi-autobiographical effort that launched screenwriter James Toback’s career and provided star James Cann with one of his best roles. It was a complex, gritty look at self-destruction, boasting a decade-approved detachment that added to its severity and sophisticated characterization. 2014’s “The Gambler” doesn’t share the same sense of tonal bravery, hoping to remain in a claustrophobic space of personal ruin while keeping hope alive through half-realized romantic prospects. There are moments of moral muddiness that stick to the movie in fascinating ways, but this is not cohesive work from director Rupert Wyatt (“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”), who’s often caught trying to make a pretty picture when the material begs for ugliness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s a tight, tempting, and dangerous 80 minute musical fighting for oxygen in the 120 minutes it takes for “Into the Woods” to tell its story. An adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning musical, it’s difficult to tell if this particular work was ever meant for the big screen, much less a Disney production, with all its nasty parts and ghoulish developments either haphazardly muted or sawed off completely in an effort to appeal to a family audience. I don’t think Sondheim was aiming for the matinee crowds with this movie, but that doesn’t stop director Rob Marshall from softening the blow, botching tonality and ease of characterization in this visually engaging but ultimately joyless celebration of death and deceit, with the periodic musical number arriving to restore some snap to the picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Big Eyes” reunites director Tim Burton with screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Their last collaboration was 1994’s “Ed Wood,” a bio-pic about one of Hollywood’s worst filmmakers and his collection of friends and artists. It’s also considered by many to be Burton’s best picture. Returning to the bio-pic routine, the trio cooks up “Big Eyes,” an overview of Margaret Keane’s marriage and life as a frustrated artist. Those anticipating another affectionate and playful romp in the “Ed Wood” style should rein in expectations, as the production elects the Lifetime Movie route, missing many of the askew elements that typically shadow a Burton effort. Creative growth is welcome, but “Big Eyes” is hurt by a flavorless, humorless script and generic direction. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Imitation Game” tells the heroic story of brilliant mathematician Alan Turing and his incredible effort to crack Nazi Germany’s Enigma code, helping to turn the tide of World War II in a way nobody else could’ve achieved. It’s also the tale of Turing’s homosexuality, and how such a secretive life was punished severely by a government that would’ve been toppled without him. There are two distinct speeds to “The Imitation Game,” and they don’t gel as successfully as director Morten Tyldum requires. However, performances are fiery and committed, successfully communicating the brain-bending decoding mission and its many areas of paranoia, deception, and dark confession. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Unbroken” is the second directorial effort from superstar Angelina Jolie, but her brand name is eclipsed by the screenwriters. Credited to Joel & Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese, and William Nicholson, the screenplay has been worked over by the some of the best in the business, so it’s confusing to see how “Unbroken” has turned out to be a one-note, thoroughly vanilla take on personal endurance. Perhaps Jolie, in her tireless quest to capture the essentials of dignity and the human spirit, was blinded by the potential to make the most uplifting portrait of forgiveness of 2014. The tale is there for the taking, but miscasting, violent repetition, and a lack of character depth make the picture feel forgettable, even during its most evocative and emotional moments. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Mike Leigh doesn’t make movies, he crafts cinematic illness. He’s the rare helmer to invest in misery, and while “Mr. Turner” aspires to understand a brusque man, it’s also comfortable with extended displays of discomfort. Richly observed but not a film that’s simply attended on a whim, “Mr. Turner” is game to understand the particular psychology and social irritants of its subject, painter J.M.W. Turner, filling a whopping 150 minutes with scenes of artistic confidence and intimate dealings. Leigh always brings the pain, but such bulging agony is throttled for this bio-pic, which largely avoids melodrama to cut into the man and feel around for what remains of his soul. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com