Category: Film Review

Huffing Fellini fumes until he’s blue in the face, co-screenwriter/director Paolo Sorrentino attempts to revive a shimmering Italian atmosphere of pure cinema for “The Great Beauty.” He’s largely successful, constructing a valentine to one of the great filmmakers, but also finding his own themes and obsessions to follow. It’s a gorgeous picture with a few baffling events, though it rewards a lengthy sit (140 minutes) with an impressive tour of Roman architecture, an exhaustive exploration of deep-seated fears and desires, and an unexpectedly potent view of mortality, with Sorrentino generating a full-blooded mood of life in motion facing a lead character who’s uncomfortable with the forward momentum. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Some movies shouldn’t be remade. The 2003 Korean film “Oldboy” is practically a religious experience for some cinephiles, making it a curious choice for a do-over, especially one from director Spike Lee. Reheating the plot for American audiences, Lee seems lost here, staying true to the highlights of the original work while rushing through the toxic connective tissue that made the initial picture such a disturbing, distressing tragedy. While toning down his typical stylistics, Lee is the wrong choice for the material, unable to make any sense out of action sequences and character relationships, making his “Oldboy” more of a flip book version of the 2003 production, stripped of its merciless tone and throat-punch conclusion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Reviewed at the 2013 Twin Cities Film Festival

Director Alexander Payne has explored the Midwest experience on a few occasions, perhaps most pointedly in 1996’s “Citizen Ruth” and 2002’s “About Schmidt.” “Nebraska” is Payne’s submersion into the sights and sounds of his homeland, coming off his Oscar-winning hit “The Descendants” with a small-scale comedy about fathers and sons, junk mail and stolen air compression equipment. Shot in black and white and sparingly scripted by Bob Nelson, “Nebraska” continues Payne’s streak of delightfully human stories with heavy cultural seasoning, exposing quirks, exploring cantankerous personalities, and generally remaining unafraid to make a rural movie without resorting to caricature. The picture is an absolute treat. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s impossible to doubt Judi Dench, but it’s easy to underestimate her. The acclaimed actress and former M in the 007 franchise, Dench rarely, if ever, gives a bad performance. She’s just one of those talents that’s confident and concise. However, in “Philomena,” she’s extraordinary, performing at such a level of emotional communication, it’s startling to witness, making a simple, minor mystery riveting as she commands the screen with her subtlety. Co-star Steve Coogan makes a fine partner in the movie, with the pair developing a sense of intimacy and trust that helps the story find its footing as a tear-jerking, eye-opening journey of a broken heart. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After trying to locate some dramatic range in the summer effort “Redemption,” Jason Statham returns to fist-first material with “Homefront.” Although the film is an adaptation of a book by author Chuck Logan, the picture plays more like an old Jean-Claude Van Damme endeavor, only there’s a community of characters to pay attention to instead of the one-man-marauder scenario. As junky, B-movie entertainment with an emphasis on explosions, the feature is passably entertaining, submitting a decent amount of growly escapism and chewy performances. However, “Homefront” doesn’t live up to its potential, relying on Statham’s gifts with stone-faced intimidation instead of trying to manufacture a suspenseful atmosphere that could challenge the bruiser, inspiring the rest of the work to achieve a higher level of engagement. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After flirting with musical interests with 2009’s “The Princess and the Frog” and 2010’s “Tangled,” Walt Disney Animation furthers the Broadway mood with “Frozen,” which seems even more calculated to reignite the blockbuster energy that fueled studio hits from the late 1980s and early ‘90s. Filled with tunes and elaborate sequences, “Frozen” is Disney playing it safe, packing the film with adorable characters, broad villainy, and a marketable landscape of snow and ice. It’s far from revolutionary work, but there’s undeniable charm to be found in the movie, which features wonderful singing, dazzling animation, and some cheeky Nordic humor, helping to enliven what’s often a disappointingly routine picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Black Nativity” takes its title from a 1961 Off-Broadway show written by Langston Hughes, but it doesn’t have much in common with the source material. Instead of slavish recreation, writer/director Kasi Lemmons creates her own take, mixing theatrical staging and broad performances with cinematic intimacy, trying to convey a faith-based story in an unusual manner. She’s marginally successful, establish a raw, low-budget energy to the feature that keeps it surprising, while performances are generally accomplished, selling the morality of the story without dissolving into a puddle of amens. Straightforward but convincing, “Black Nativity” is refreshingly restrained, making it a nice counterpoint to other, noisier holiday entertainment. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The last few years haven’t been kind to actor Vince Vaughn. Once a firecracker of a comedic talent, Vaughn hasn’t really charmed audiences in a significant manner since 2005’s “Wedding Crashers,” spending subsequent years trying to land his own holiday perennial (“Four Christmases,” “Fred Claus”), survive indie films (“Lay the Favorite”), and slog through disastrous comedies (“The Internship,” “The Watch,” and “Couples Retreat”). Looking to dial down his rapid-fire persona for a bit of Thanksgiving warmth, Vaughn saunters up to “Delivery Man” as quietly as possible, hoping to come across appealing in a picture that’s programmed to tug at heartstrings. It’s an interesting change of pace for the star, but the movie doesn’t work. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A little over a year ago, “The Hunger Games” made its cinematic debut, wowing audiences delighted to see the work of author Suzanne Collins brought to the screen. For those outside the circle of fandom, the picture was a difficult sell, slowed by tremendous exposition, disrupted by an absurd use of shaky-cam cinematography, and cursed with a deflating climax that promised nail-biting situations of survival, only to gradually slow to a crawl. Now there’s a sequel, “Catching Fire,” and a change in the director’s chair, with Francis Lawrence taking over for Gary Ross. Although the narrative continues down an established path to dystopian revolution, there’s renewed purpose to this part two, finding “Catching Fire” skillfully communicating beats of unrest and despair, finding a way to help the ongoing franchise settle in as an energizing story of an underground uprising. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Heartache and harmonies help shape the experience of “The Broken Circle Breakdown.” It’s not an easy film to summarize, but few Belgium-born bluegrass tragedies are, arriving in a time-scrambled manner that’s fluidly realized, shaping an unusual take on the arc of a combustible relationship hit from all sides by woe. Co-writer/director Felix Van Groeningen manages this unusual vision with exceptional care, creating a kind of cinematic poetry out of disorientation, with music the glue that holds the picture together. “The Broken Circle Breakdown” is a stunning, poignant feature that deals with troubling examples of mourning and fractured communication, yet holds as a vivid statement of love in all its forms. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Although it’s being marketed as a tearjerker, “The Book Thief” is far stranger than it appears. Perhaps fans of the 2006 novel by Markus Zusak won’t be unnerved by the oddity contained within the film, but newcomers to this tale of wartime perseverance and the joys of literacy might find themselves baffled by a few of the elements that define this story. For example, “The Book Thief” is narrated by Death, who provides a running commentary on the extraction of individual souls and the beauty of expiration. Didn’t see that one coming, did you? Surprise is a valuable weapon in this otherwise familiar tale, keeping viewers alert enough to make it through this overlong but sincere coming-of-age saga. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m not sure what screenwriter Matt Drake (“Project X”) originally had in mind for “Charlie Countryman,” but in the hands of director Fredrik Bond, the picture is turned into a mess of ideas and motivations sliding around the screen under the guise of youthful impetuousness. It’s the cinematic equivalent of somebody rubbing their bottom on shag carpeting to work up a static electric charge, working furiously to build a sense of excitement that never comes to fruition, despite admirable aspirations to work the effort into a tizzy. Although gifted colorful locations and glossy HD cinematography, “Charlie Countryman” is too manic and meandering to achieve the emotional authenticity it’s searching for. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Cold Turkey” concerns the release of long-held animosities plaguing a dysfunctional family during the Thanksgiving holiday. Writer/director Will Slocombe isn’t exactly out to win any prizes for originality with this picture, following in the footsteps of a great number of filmmakers fascinated with the contrast of celebratory traditions and bruising emotional realities. In the movie’s favor is an unusual determination to find a frequency of unbearable behavior and remain there for 80 minutes, showing refreshing tonal bravery as the script inspects the callousness of characters who can’t seem to get their lives together, even for a single day. The discomfort found in the feature is overwhelming at times, which is a lot more interesting than many of the dramatic developments Slocombe serves up. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

To her credit, director Kat Corio has attempted to shake things up during her short career, trying on different stories of romance and perceived personal ruin. However, her storytelling gifts rarely match her ambition, with “A Case of You” floundering in a way familiar to anyone who caught “And While We Were Here” and “Life Happens.” A romantic comedy for twentysomethings, “A Case of You” labors to conjure the panic of a love life in today’s world of social media sleuthing, aiming to put a contemporary spin on age-old romantic comedy clichés, sold by actors in desperate need of a change in scenery. Some jokes land as intended, and there’s a weirdly star-studded supporting cast, but Corio isn’t brave enough to make the movie matter, eventually submitting to painfully labored formula to land this underwhelming effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sequels with a great divide of time between installments are a rare thing, but when they do happen, usually there’s a reason, either financial or fandom, that’s motivating the return to screens. There was a 28-year gap between “Tron” and “Tron: Legacy,” 22 years between “Psycho” and “Psycho II,” and 19 years between “Rambo III” and “Rambo.” It’s been 14 years since the release of “The Best Man,” though it’s difficult to tell if anyone noticed. Greeted with a box office yawn when it was originally released, it seems that if there was any time to mount a follow-up, it would’ve been within striking distance of 1999. Instead, it’s the year 2013, and the gang’s been reunited for another round of misunderstandings and betrayals, only now the group is a little older but not necessarily wiser, with writer/director Malcolm D. Lee trying to rekindle the chemistry that informed his helming debut, perhaps too late for comfort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Foodie culture is inescapable these days. It seems everyone has a cultured, measured opinion about mealtime execution, with thousands of blogs, shows, and articles dissecting the details of technique and flavor. However, at the core of creation is passion and inspiration, guiding forces that can turn the blandest of ingredients into a sensorial experience, displaying a rich appreciation for tradition and, in some cases, innovation. The documentary “Spinning Plates” take a look at three restaurants in America, each with their own backstory of struggle and unique culinary viewpoint. Mercifully, this is not a Food Network-style itemizing of idiosyncrasy, but an emotional understanding of inspiration and financial struggle, exploring how these establishments manage day-to-day with the help of family, friends, and adoration for the unifying power of food. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There have been a films made about the Beat Generation, but few have been so obviously targeted to entice a young generation of moviegoers. As common in today’s superhero-shellacked marketplace, “Kill Your Darlings” is an origin story of sorts, heading back into the thick of WWII, where the world received its first lungful of creativity from the likes of Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac — a trio of writers who would go on to challenge literary and cultural stagnancy with their liquid minds. “Kill Your Darlings” dramatizes the development of this artistic liberation, using a tale of obsession and murder as passageway into a private world of intelligence, recklessness, and revolution. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s interesting to note that the poster for “Sunlight Jr.” features a picture of its two stars, Naomi Watts and Matt Dillon, smiling. In the film itself, there’s little time for such positive indulgence. It’s deceptive marketing, but it has to be, as most viewers probably wouldn’t go near the movie if they knew exactly what type of experience awaited them. This is an impossibly dark effort, launched under the guise of social realism, but carries a heavy tone of punishment, with writer/director Laurie Collyer going out of her way to make the audience feel every disappointment and mistake. Instead of reflective, “Sunlight Jr.” feels calculated — 90 minutes of cinematic flagellation without the expected profundity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Education is under fire these days, with monetary concerns taking top priority at universities around America. Documentarian Frederick Wiseman, a filmmaker lauded for his spare style and observational approach, isolates the worry to a single institution, with “At Berkeley” exploring the debate and daily business for the venerated California campus, taking in the sway of life found on hallowed grounds. At 244 minutes, it almost lasts as long as an actual semester, yet the extended run time permits Wiseman to feel out the pressure put on school leaders and witness classroom activity, soaking up the brilliance at stake as budgets expand, leaving Berkeley scrambling to find a way to balance out the needs of faculty and students. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Just when you thought it was safe to enjoy parody pictures again, here comes Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer to ruin the gift of laughter for another filmgoing year. After the unsurprising success of their 2010 “Twilight” riff, “Vampires Suck,” the boys have return to the teen lit template with “The Starving Games,” which sends up “The Hunger Games” in a most obvious manner, but such thick-fingered finesse is all Friedberg and Seltzer are capable of. After “Date Movie,” “Epic Movie,” “Disaster Movie,” and “Meet the Spartans,” it’s safe to report that “The Starving Games” falls perfectly in line with their previous endeavors. That’s critic code for, “Dear lord, this feature is insufferable, please make it stop.” Read the rest at Blu-ray.com