Category: Film Review

I feel bad for writer/director Jesse Zwick, as his film “About Alex” will be compared to Lawrence Kasdan’s “The Big Chill” repeatedly. Yet, he brought it on himself, with “Chill” focusing on a group of college friends reuniting after the suicide of a loved one, while “Alex” is about a group of college friends reuniting after the attempted suicide of a loved one. Neuroses flare up, sex breaks out, and dormant insecurities are paraded around for everybody’s entertainment. The primary difference is that Zwick doesn’t have Kasdan’s touch when it comes to characterization, but “About Alex” certainly isn’t an embarrassment, delivering a few surprisingly competent performances and a dollop of honesty as it plays a convincing game of grand theft movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Perhaps it’s a bit painful to realize, but “Twister” is nearly 20 years old. The monster storm extravaganza, one of the pioneering efforts of the digital disaster movie movement of the 1990s, was a massive success back in 1996, but failed to spawn a league of imitators (save for a double shot of volcano efforts in 1997). “Into the Storm” finally steps up as the next huge nature-gone-nuts production, but instead of trusting the inherent horror of a tornado touchdown, the producers have elected to transform the premise into a found footage feature. While “Into the Storm” has a mighty roar when it comes to scenes of mass destruction, the rest is insufferable, pinned between a paint-by-numbers screenplay and a feeble storytelling trend that only encourages filmmaking laziness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Lasse Hallstrom has built a career out of safe entertainment. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this artistic ambition, it’s rendered his filmography predictable, without only a few odd diversions interrupting the norm. The helmer of “Chocolat” returns to the world of food with “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” a completely mild tale of romance and redemption coated with a familiar Hallstrom glaze, often caught straining for audience approval when its cast of characters deserves a more exhaustive examination. It’s a pretty movie, always aiming to please, but the picture overstays its welcome, eventually trading the reliably routine for the ridiculous. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Damned” isn’t especially ambitious in a genre that could use more invention. Simplistic and hurried, the picture assumes the qualities of a throwback horror experience, following a group into a dangerous area where they’re picked off one-by-one by a malevolent force. Again: been there, done that. Helping “The Damned” reach some level of digestion is director Victor Garcia (“Hellraiser: Revelations”), who at least summons a convincing demonic energy to help motivate the characters into the panic zone. The feature certainly means well enough, with a few trembling performances that sell the moment, yet there’s little to dig into once formula takes over, leaving the effort predictable. Shrieking and bloody, but predictable. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Poughkeepsie Tapes” isn’t a new release. Produced in 2006 and slated for release in 2007, something went horribly wrong along the way, with the picture shelved for the next seven years. In the interim, siblings John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle managed to create a career without the use of their directorial calling card, helming 2008’s “Quarantine” and 2010’s “Devil” (a third film, “As Above, So Below,” is due out in a few weeks). While their subsequent efforts failed to impress, it’s interesting to finally see the origin of their fascination with the horror genre, with “The Poughkeepsie Tapes” a feature of pure shock value in line with similar attention-seeking debuts. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A few years ago, writer/director John Michael McDonagh cooked up “The Guard,” a darkly comic endeavor that gave star Brendan Gleeson a rare opportunity to show off his range and leading man capabilities, working perhaps the best role of career to its fullest potential. McDonagh has elected to remain in the Gleeson business with “Cavalry,” another grim yet acidic take on the evil that men do. The pairing makes sense, with the actor capturing every detail of the screenwriting, while the direction is happy to hand focus over to the star, permitting the feature to find its surprises, abrasiveness, and thematic intentions with welcome ease. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While music bio-pics are always difficult to take seriously, 2007’s “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” effectively drove a sword into the subgenre with its spot-on parody of clichés, absurdities, and dramatic crutches. There have been so many efforts, and few of them manage to capture the soulfulness of both the music and the artist, it’s a wonder why Hollywood continues to try at all. However, the lure of James Brown proves seductive to director Tate Taylor, who follows up his smash hit, “The Help,” with another tale of racial tension and confession, this time celebrating the mysterious ways of The Godfather of Soul. “Get on Up” is a profoundly flawed feature, but it retains an irresistible subject, with Brown’s insanity and adversity making an energetic leap to the big screen. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Up to this point, Marvel Studios didn’t have it easy, but they certainly had an advantage. Mining its most popular characters to create a cinematic universe filled with heroes and villains, the fantastic highlights of icons such as Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man filled the screen with familiar moves of derring-do and outrageous power. But now it’s time for a change, with the creative team turning their sights on “Guardians of the Galaxy,” a relatively unknown property that traditionally earthbound action into deep space. It’s a gamble that pays off splendidly for Marvel, who not only strike gold with this oddball collection of adventurers, but manage to create one of the most satisfying pictures of the series. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

What’s so interesting about Woody Allen’s work ethic is how unpredictable he can be. One year, he’s masterminding Oscar-winning material that plays to his strengths of comedy and melodrama, puckered to perfection, as found in last year’s “Blue Jasmine.” “Magic in the Moonlight” represents one of the writer/director’s down years, where the inspiration isn’t quite there and his habitually sharp timing is off. It’s certainly not one of his worst, but after the wonderful layers of his previous effort, which aced every theme and emotion it pursued, “Magic in the Moonlight” spends much of its run time spinning its wheels, failing to gain traction with laughs and interesting conflicts despite a corker of a premise. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Mood Indigo” is perhaps the saddest episode of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.” The latest from director Michel Gondry, the film is yet another explosion of art-school ambition, this time unleashing his insatiable appetite for whimsy on a melodrama, attempting to fuse matters of the heart with visual idiosyncrasy. The sheer craftsmanship of the movie is astounding, with intricate details filling every frame. Gondry can always be counted on for oddity, but “Mood Indigo” doesn’t bother with consistency or, at times, even coherency. It’s a personal flight of fancy for the helmer, who’s so far up into the clouds with this endeavor, he forgets where to land this insistently peculiar picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The cleansing process of long distance running gets a new workout in “4 Minute Mile,” a drama that often takes on more than it can handle. Director Charles-Olivier Michaud is blessed with capable performances from key cast members, and the picture gets surprisingly far on its sincerity, presenting some real psychological blockage that takes time to work through. “4 Minute Mile” has the capacity to explore some compelling areas of doubt, but the screenplay by Josh Campbell and Jeff Van Wie goes overboard in an attempt to secure tears, torching the third act with brazen manipulation that nearly sours everything that comes before it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

To find fault in a picture about the construction of a children’s hospital feels potentially ghoulish, but “Louder Than Words” is a muddled take on a heartfelt subject. Based on a true story, screenwriter Benjamin Chapin has an enormous number of characters and incidents to package into a 90 minute movie. Instead of braiding subplots together to create a richly dramatic viewing experience, Chapin merely samples anguish and moves on the next bit of overwhelming business. It’s frustrating to watch, as “Louder Than Words” does feature some promising conflicts that suggest a more profound film is on the way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s difficult to discern exactly what audience “My Man Is a Loser” is intended to appeal to. Male viewers should be offended by the screenplay’s assertion that all married guys are nitwits incapable of managing their problems, constantly befuddled by the opposite sex. Female viewers probably won’t appreciate the paint-by-numbers broheim vibe writer/director Mike Young establishes, with strip club visits and exposed male genital humor likely lost on most ladies. Of course, all could be forgiven if the movie was even the slightest bit funny, but Young doesn’t make much room for wit, depending on tired improvisations and a clichéd battle of the sexes scenario to fill up the feature, which runs out of breath as soon as it commences. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Comedy is subjective, perhaps the one genre that divides audiences the most. However, it’s important to spot when a production is actually trying to secure a healthy sense of humor and when filmmakers are simply flinging anything at the screen with hopes something sticks. “Behaving Badly” doesn’t try at all. It’s vulgar and lazy, and most importantly, there’s not a single titter to be had. Co-writer/director Tim Garrick imagines himself the conductor on a symphony of the outrageous with this feature, but its ugliness shouldn’t be underestimated simply because the movie is looking to provide a good time. “Behaving Badly” is one of the worst pictures of 2014, a tribute to “Risky Business” made by people who only read the synopsis on the back of the DVD box. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the race of competing productions, Brett Ratner’s “Hercules” clearly bests Renny Harlin’s January misfire, “The Legend of Hercules.” However, in a way, the audience actually loses twice when it comes to the big screen exploits of the famed demigod, with both pictures so obsessed with mammoth production scale, they forgot how to be fun. With Dwayne Johnson in the title role and Ratner trying to remind viewers that he’s the king of action and comedy, it doesn’t make sense that “Hercules” is as leaden as it is. It’s a bloated, tonally wonky effort that hits all the summer popcorn entertainment highlights but, in the end, it feels like empty calories, lacking the spirit of power and heroism that’s defined this character throughout history. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The great thing about “Lucy” is how it brings writer/director Luc Besson back from the dead. At least career death, with recent fare such as “The Family” and “Arthur and the Invisibles” showcasing a once vital filmmaker trying to find his voice again. “Lucy” isn’t that strong of a movie, but it has guts, a real sense of bravery for a summertime release, trying to give audiences a little more to chew on than your average slam-bang production. It’s surreal, exploratory, and interpretational — a puzzle of the mind that Besson manages with immense concentration, even when it reaches for the stars in terms of philosophical and scientific concepts. Trying to create his “2001,” Besson overestimates his ability to tie it all together, but when it’s interested in challenging viewers with its brain-melting ways, it’s quite the spectacle. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While watching “And So It Goes,” I experienced a strong feeling of déjà vu. So much of the curmudgeonly character played by Michael Douglas felt like a watered down riff on the role Jack Nicholson portrayed in “As Good as It Gets,” which earned him an Oscar. Sure enough, both films are scripted by Mark Andrus, who’s attempting to reheat the golden formula for director Rob Reiner, who’s never met an act of cinematic repetition he didn’t suck the marrow out of. “And So It Goes” is practically a remake of “As Good as It Gets” with a few key changes in supporting personalities, and while James L. Brooks is skilled at creating human moments out of cliché, Reiner can only manage a tedious obviousness that strips the life out of most scenes. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Without an interior drive to whip this story into a frenzy of melodramatic panic, writer/director Richie Mehta finds a reflective position of concern in “Siddharth,” which manages to deepen already understated emotions. It’s a heavy film, but cautiously so, working to preserve an experience of discovery and understanding for the audience, without resorting to clichés to finger-paint conflict. It’s moving, aching work, outstandingly performed by lead Rajesh Tailang and crafted with an evocative sense of India, understanding the pressures of poverty instead of exploiting it. Due to its subject matter, it’s not the easiest sit, but “Siddharth” rewards the brave with a study of pained determination and portrait of Indian life that offers a few surprises. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In many ways, Anton Corbijn’s “A Most Wanted Man” feels like a reaction to his last picture, 2010’s “The American.” The George Clooney effort was esoteric and distanced, refusing to indulge audience expectations for a thriller, creating a considerable divide between those who appreciated its artistry and those who found the film cold to the touch. “A Most Wanted Man” is a more traditional spy story, utilizing the rattled remains of a post-9/11 world to set the scene for a story that concerns the limits of trust and the demands of manipulation, isolating the frigidity of duty, taking its inspiration from a 2008 John le Carre novel. Although it remains deliberate in pace, “A Most Wanted Man” is more approachable and engrossing, failing to tarnish the helmer’s considerable reputation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Joe Swanberg makes tiny movies. He’s built an impressively determined filmography of no-budget productions, some that remain quite obscure, while others, boosted by star power, have reached the art-house circuit, connecting with audiences on the prowl for modest but meaningful stories about feelings and fears, such as last year’s “Drinking Buddies.” “Happy Christmas” goes out of its way to articulate a loose sense of conflict, but Swanberg’s intent is crystal clear, crafting a fidgety picture that’s flush with human behavior. It’s not focused in any traditional manner, but little portions of comedy and domestic tension get the feature where it needs to go, even if the destination is nowhere in particular. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com