Category: Film Review

One would have to be a Grinch to be anything but a puddle of tears at
the conclusion of “Any Day Now.” After all, it’s a potent story about
human rights, set during a time when injustice toward the gay community
was a common occurrence, finding those capable of great love shut down
simply due to their sexual orientation. However significant the story,
it’s difficult to swallow how co-screenwriter/director Travis Fine
treats the effort, selecting a Very Special Movie approach for material
that deserves nuance and patience, relying on shameless manipulation to
communicate simple ideas on prejudice and parenting. Every melodramatic
cliché is handed the white glove treatment in this maudlin misfire. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2001’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” was a genuine
moviemaking risk. The first chapter of an expensive, unproven trilogy,
the picture carried an extraordinary level of doubt alien to most
features, with the fate of a studio and the career of director Peter
Jackson tied to its success. But it hit, hit huge, becoming one of the
biggest movies of the noughties, while commencing a bold fantasy series
that helped to redefine epic filmmaking for an entire generation. At
least the Extended Cuts did. We don’t speak of the Theatrical Cuts
anymore. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” marches into theaters 11
years later, only now there’s a different type of pressure on the
financiers and Jackson: expectations. They be a brutal mistress, matey,
yet “Journey” manages the weight with some degree of grace, making sure
longtime fans are sated while urging the prequel into directions unique
to this new trilogy of hobbit and dwarf travel. So bust out the elf
ears, heat up a square of lembas, and pack in the pipe-weed. It’s
finally time to return to Middle-earth. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1971, “Wake in Fright” (also known as “Outback”) made its celebrated
debut at the Cannes Film Festival, but it was a difficult feature,
finding trouble collecting an audience in its native Australia, soon
slipping into obscurity without television and home video releases to
keep it fresh in the minds of movie fans. Over time, it was believed to
be lost. Decades later, a print was located, polished up, and returned
to glory, resulting in the reissue of powerful, frequently horrifying
picture from director Ted Kotcheff, perhaps finally receiving the
audience it deserves. Brutal, but in a deceptively causal manner, “Wake
in Fright” submits one the sharpest depictions of Outback life I’ve come
into contact with, imagining the vast land as a sun-baked prison from
which there is no escape. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Much of “Hyde Park on Hudson” is devoted to misdirection. With the
gorgeous wilderness of the titular location, polished and primed period
details, and the central casting of Bill Murray as Franklin D.
Roosevelt, it’s a not a film that outwardly suggests a troubling tale is
approaching. Even the marketing pushes a tone of jovial antics
featuring the 32nd President of the United States. However, while the
movie is playful at times, it’s primarily an unsettling tale of
submission detailing affairs and humiliations, though one that’s
habitually respectful to the participants. While it refuses a deep
inhale of distress, “Hyde Park on Hudson” successfully undertakes a
challenging story with a welcome detachment, preferring to focus on the
characters, not the larger fallout from their actions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Broken Lizard is no longer a brand name, it’s a warning label.
“Freeloaders” arrives from Broken Lizard Industries, and while it
doesn’t boast the comedy troupe’s participation beyond a few cameos and
producing credits, the feature falls perfectly in line with their style
of crude and clueless comedy. Although the effort is mercifully short
(72 minutes long), “Freeloaders” is a lazy, unfunny film that doesn’t
make an effort to dream up interesting situations and create memorable
characters. A few odd touches stand out, but not for reasons that
contribute to the entertainment value of the movie, finding the picture
lifeless and in dire need of genuine screenwriting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With found footage endeavors, we’ve seen giant monsters tearing through
New York City, ghosts haunting a suburban California home, and adults
getting lost in Maryland woods. Are you ready to watch one about
pedophilia on Arizona freeways? “Amber Alert” is the latest entry into
the DIY moviemaking sweepstakes, only this time the results are
painfully amateurish, frustratingly dim-witted, and just a touch too
tasteless. If the sound of child being molested and moronic lead
characters endlessly bickering is your thing, perhaps the feature won’t
feel like swallowing glass for 70 minutes. For everyone else, “Amber
Alert” is a repetitive, dreadfully padded event, employing a real-world
horror to fuel cheap shocks and a bogus dissection of moral
responsibility. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

At this point, I’m positive Gerard Butler selects his scripts by
blindfolded dart throw. There’s really no other way to explain why he,
and a bevy of capable actresses, could be drawn to such a shallow,
predictable hodgepodge of plasticized feelings and sitcom mechanics.
“Playing for Keeps” has moments where its intent as a human story of
yearning and regret is visible, but it takes a considerable effort to
find, forcing ticket buyers to wade through abysmal dialogue and
unfortunate performances to locate a few passably endearing moments. The
rest of the feature is determined to chase nonsense, with the whole
thing so awkwardly orchestrated, I’m surprised director Gabriele Muccino
kept his name on the picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Fitzgerald Family Christmas” represents a return to the basics for
writer/director/star Edward Burns, who long ago shot to fame with his
indie darling, “The Brothers McMullen.” Taking supporting work in awful
movies (like the recent “Alex Cross”) to support his micro-budgeted
filmmaking habit, Burns looks to resuscitate a little of the old
Irish-Catholic magic with his latest endeavor, which reunites him with
“McMullen” stars Michael McGlone and Connie Britton. Encouraging the
dysfunction is a seasonal setting, providing Burns with a fertile
battlefield of sibling discontent and parental resentment, creating a
prickly but inviting familial atmosphere that offers enough variation in
woe to ease the script out of its occasional dalliance with clumsy
melodrama. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A costume drama like “Cheerful Weather for the Wedding” has to have an
emotional hook, some type of profound feeling that eases the rigidity of
the characters and their carefully mapped banter. Mercifully, the
feature has such a grip, though it’s not as tight as hoped, only just
enough to register momentarily before the entire effort washes away.
Charmingly acted and bravely concluded, “Cheerful Weather” entertains
intermittently with its stiff-upper-lip community interplay, only truly
taking command when it focuses on unspoken desires and stymied
confessions, creating more of a captivating fuss with its fixation on
misery over any attempt at biting wit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Bring up climate change in a crowded room and a fight is likely to break
out. It’s a controversial subject that raises the ire of those
passionately involved with educational efforts and individuals out to
dispel the notion of such a global event. Sensing an impasse on the
issue, environmental photographer James Balog decided to document the
shift himself, traveling to the far reaches of Iceland, Greenland, and
Alaska to capture unprecedented glacier melt with a multitude of
cameras, hoping to create unforgettable time-lapse shots that might
convince those still wary about the climate reality facing our planet
that something needs to be done. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Price Check" is an unassuming dark comedy that packs a decent punch.
Using cover fire provided by the picture's workplace setting, with its
numbing talk of stats and strategies, the screenplay is actually quite
poisonous, treating the lure of temptation and casual lying with a
refreshing forthrightness, unencumbered by melodrama. Guided by a
fireball performance from Parker Posey, "Price Check" is uncomfortable
to watch in all the good ways, finding authenticity from an ugly
situation, while working through "Office Space" particulars with a sly
sense of humor and an appreciation for the humiliation and anxiety of an
exhaustive 9-5 life. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Killing Them Softly" isn't your average hitman movie. It isn't your
average heist picture. Heck, it's not really your average Brad Pitt
starring vehicle either. Reteaming with his "The Assassination of Jesse
James by the Coward Robert Ford" director, Andrew Dominik, Pitt assumes
another role that's cushioned by an ample amount of atmosphere, never
really requiring his full participation. Stylish and bleak, "Killing
Them Softly" is also profoundly political, using the basic tenets of the
mob genre to comment on the financial state of the nation, where even
men who've devoted their lives to murder can't make a buck these days. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I wonder how many people outside of horror genre fanatics even remember
the release of 2009's "The Collector." A low-budget effort slipped into
the summer moviegoing season without much fanfare, the feature only
attracted a small audience before it was shipped off to home video,
where I presume it found its fair share of admirers. After all, over
three years later, we now have "The Collection," a sequel that takes its
job of continuation seriously, despite greeting potentially hazy
memories at the multiplex. Vicious, loud, and shockingly short (72
minutes long), the follow-up only manages to match the scattered
highlights of its predecessor, unwilling to challenge the proven formula
the production orders up for round two. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After a thorough peeling in last month's unexpectedly bitter HBO
offering, "The Girl," the life and times of cinema's reigning master of
suspense returns to the screen in the appropriately titled "Hitchcock."
Although the mood has been considerably lightened from the cable
offering, "Hitchcock" remains equally troubled when it comes to the
internal workings of the filmmaker, once again wading into the vast
reservoir of the man's neuroses to decode how such a distanced,
manipulative pop culture figure and industry legend went about his daily
business during a particularly stressful stretch of his career. The
results are entertaining and capably acted, but true insight remains at
arm's length, despite a feature cooking up all sorts of ghoulish visions
and barely concealed jealousies. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The easy move would be to compare the drama "Sister" to the 2011
feature, "The Kid with a Bike." Both pictures invest in the
thinly-veiled agony of lost youth, following two boys as they deal with
parental abandonment in aggressive yet painfully insular ways. While
"Bike" was more demonstrative with its fits of pain, "Sister" takes a
path of misdirection, conjuring an absorbing tale of thievery on the
Swiss slopes while director Ursula Meier works her way into
uncomfortable areas of truth and neglect. For the most part a distant
film, "Sister" supplies a full behavioral experience that's riveting at
times, with lead performances by Lea Seydoux and Kacey Mottet Klein
communicating isolation in bravely vulnerable ways. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Hellgate” comes from writer/director John Penney, the helmer
responsible for the 2006 thriller, “Zyzzyx Rd,” which holds the
distinction of being the lowest-grossing movie of all time. Ouch.
Returning to screens with a more marketable premise and pronounceable
title, Penney develops a “Ghost Whisperer” riff with “Hellgate,”
showering the viewer with images of bloodied demons, overly emotive
actors, and supernatural happenings, molded into a strangely lifeless
tale of alternate worlds and survivor guilt. Made cheaply and
formulaically, the feature’s only real asset is its Thai locations,
which provide the picture with personality and atmosphere Penney doesn’t
bring to the writing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Holy Motors” is a puzzler with a mischievous spirit. It’s nearly
impossible to understand the overall movement of this abstract French
production, but its individual scenes possess sizable power, playing
with emotional speeds and film genres while always on the hunt for ways
to keep the viewer guessing as to where this collection of images and
sound is going to head next. It’s far from an engrossing excursion into
experimental cinema, yet “Holy Motors” remains determined to chase
impulses and stage fascinating moments of life, death, sex, and musical
performance. It’s not always the easiest sit, but it’s frequently
memorable and commendably demented. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Deadfall” is troubling on a variety of levels, with its general
ineffectiveness taking a top position of concern. Populated with
troubled, violent characters who march their way through slight but
intriguing emotional barriers, the feature captures a stimulating feel
for a multi-character design of dysfunction. It’s director Stefan
Ruzowitzky who doesn’t mastermind a stable approach, failing to juggle
the subplots in a substantial manner, making the movie more about minor
moments with overly agitated characters. A few striking scenes of
snowscape conflict and familial discord bring appealing poison to the
proceedings, but the overall viewing experience of “Deadfall” triggers
substantial frustration as it winds through a bizarre string of
encounters without ever stopping to figure out a fulfilling narrative
direction. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The story about the creation and release predicament behind the “Red
Dawn” remake is actually quite interesting. Originally shot in 2009, the
picture hit severe financial turbulence when original studio MGM
teetered on bankruptcy, a dilemma that also threatened the stability of
the James Bond and “The Hobbit” franchises. “Red Dawn” was made to wait
while the pennies were counted and sorted, eventually sold off to a
smaller distributor altogether. And then questions were raised about its
invading Chinese villains. Sensing a dent in its international box
office potential, the producers hastily changed the baddies to North
Koreans, requiring extensive dubbing, cosmetic CGI, and a rethinking of
military motivation. After a three-year wait, countless abandoned
release dates, and teases of intriguing behind-the-scenes turmoil, “Red
Dawn” is finally here. And now having viewed the final product, I hope
the ghost of Patrick Swayze forever haunts the producers for their
creative cluelessness and unapologetic mangling of a once wildly
entertaining war film premise. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Rise of the Guardians” might appear to be another holiday-themed romp
released during a special time of year when audiences are in the mood
for such festive distractions. However, one only has to read the credit
“Executive produced by Guillermo Del Toro” to appreciate just what type
of fantasy experience the feature actually contains. With a taste for
nightmarish imagery and a detailed reworking of its league of
extraordinary magical figures, “Rise of the Guardians” has a harder edge
than I’m sure most families will be expecting, yet this focus on
adventure and concentrated evil creates an engaging movie with plenty of
excitement and a true sense of character motivation, gifting the
material impact when all signs point to numbing frivolity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com