Category: Film Review

“War Witch” isn’t a message-minded film looking to expose the horrors of
the world in a coldly academic manner. It’s a character piece with a
loosely defined narrative, with an unusual sense of stillness to depict
matters of tremendous horror. Writer/director Kim Nguyen constructs a
harrowing portrait of innocence lost with minimal hysteria, finding a
richer sense of experience by restraining graphic violence and contrived
characterization. Infused with Terrence Malick spices, “War Witch” aims
for ambiance as a way to approach its searing images of war, keeping
the viewer unnerved instead of outraged when inspecting the troubles of
Africa. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“So Undercover” represents star Miley Cyrus’s attempt to distance
herself from the tween entertainment she’s known for, without upsetting
her fanbase. It’s more adult in design, trying to toughen up the actress
with action and intrigue, while remaining attentive to the needs of
light comedy and romantic interests. It’s not an especially impressive
picture, but its hunt to find something new for Cyrus to do on-screen is
interesting, building a bridge between her cheery “Hannah Montana” work
and her thespian intentions for the future. “So Undercover” offers
Cyrus brandishing guns, dodging explosions, and engaging in terrible
improvisations. The little Disney star is all grown up, though Cyrus in
need of a script that’s as interested in maturity as she is. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Just when the zombie subgenre had seen enough of panicky survivors, the
stumbling undead, and doomsday landscapes of ruin, “Warm Bodies” swoops
in to save the day, or at least refreshes the concept long enough to get
excited about the prospect of watching brain-munchers on the big screen
again. Imaginatively directed and wonderfully performed, “Warm Bodies”
is a strange hybrid of zombies and Shakespeare, bringing a tilted
romantic comedy take on survival horror. The disorientation is bliss,
with the effort finding inventive ways to attack the routine, showing
amazing ability with a challenging tonal juggling act few filmmakers
could pull off. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After his career crumbled in the early 2000s, Sylvester Stallone went on
the defensive, returning to characters and genres that provided his
biggest successes, using this safety net to engineer his own creative
path as a writer/director. The second wind resulted in “Rocky Balboa,”
“Rambo,” and “The Expendables,” three solid pictures of undeniable
popcorn appeal and unexpectedly potent atmospherics, restoring some
wattage to the star’s marquee value. “Bullet to the Head” (shot before
last summer’s “The Expendables 2”) is a return to Stallone’s
actor-for-hire bad habits. It’s an entertaining wad of macho
goofballery, no doubt, but without a tight grip of creative control and
the element of surprise, this actioner comes up short in lasting appeal. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The teaming of Christopher Walken, Al Pacino, and Alan Arkin seems like a
can’t-miss proposition, offering the screen legends a premise that
allows for light comedy and heavy emotion, making the most out of this
rare moviemaking event. And yet “Stand Up Guys” is the opposite of
inspiring, wasting the talent on a dreary collection of random
adventures and unimaginative tomfoolery, hoping the sheer radiation of
ability is enough to fog the fact that the script never decides what it
really wants to be. Mostly baffling with a handful of bright moments,
“Stand Up Guys” is a bust that doesn’t know when to quit. In fact, it
doesn’t really know when to start either. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With a documentary like “Sellebrity,” sympathy is in short supply.
Photographer Kevin Mazur, notable for his front-line access to famous
folks during red carpet events, endeavors to fashion a statement of
unease and outrage when it comes to the Wild West world of tabloid
photography, creating a portrait of anarchy to emphasize the divide
between self-promotion and exploitation. However, when dealing with
unshowered paparazzi types hunkered down on greasy street corners and
immaculate interviewees captured in their palatial homes, it’s a
lose-lose situation of sensitivity. “Sellebrity” is a numbing viewing
experience that’s oddly constructed and a touch too sanctimonious to
take seriously, eventually coming to blame the viewer for the ills of
the tabloid industry, despite Mazur feeding into the same diseased hype
with this cinematic effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Feminism meets exploitation in Austin Chick’s “Girls Against Boys,” a
particularly nasty revenge feature that attempts to explore a rattled
psychological space as it indulges in murders and a few grisly acts of
vengeance. It’s not particularly consistent or profound work from the
“XX/XY” filmmaker, but the effort has a certain style that holds
interest, scored to a throbbing range of soundtrack cuts that provide an
electronic pulse to otherwise banal events. Sure to divide audiences
with its fuzzy math and swing of the intellectual wiffle ball bat,
“Girls Against Boys” is best appreciated as a sensorial experience, with
the script successfully brushing against raw nerve endings of sympathy
and rage. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Now here’s a film with incredible promise, introducing itself as an
irreverent horror-comedy with profound interest in pantsing fairy tales
and splashing around in thick gobs of gore. “Hansel & Gretel: Witch
Hunters” aspires to be cheeky entertainment, sold with a wink and a fist
to the face (helping out its 3D presentation), with plenty of ghouls,
trolls, and horrible humans to populate a carnival atmosphere of genre
delights. However, despite a colorful presentation, the movie fails to
raise much hell, insisting on a flat tone of tedious storytelling when
all anyone really wants to see are the titular heroes continuously
slaughtering broom-riding she-devils, sprinting across this askew
fantasyland on the hunt to save humanity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I have no idea what the title “Movie 43” means, but I do know what the
picture is about. A series of sketches and commercials barely tied
together with a flimsy wraparound story, the collection is intended to
show off the zanier side of normally sedate talent, pushing
Oscar-winners and more dramatically inclined thespians into
taboo-smashing blasts of comedy, also making room for a few actors
specifically known for their crudeness a chance to join the party.
Stacked high with famous faces while the material is primarily
bottom-of-the-barrel muck unfit for feature-length investigation, “Movie
43” looks to enchant with a proud parade of shock value, asking ticket
buyers to delight in ugliness in the name of good fun. If this is “Movie
43,” I’d hate to see the previous 42 attempts at pronounced stupidity
the production didn’t want to release. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Parker” feels like a three-hour movie that was whittled down to two
hours due to test screening complaints. As a story, it’s all over the
place, whipping around last names and refusing any deeper inspection of
motivation. As a bruising offering of crime film entertainment, “Parker”
is more successful, staging compelling heists and mano-a-mano contests
of strength. The entire production fails to gel into a cohesive whole,
yet parts of the picture remain agreeably distracting, while stars Jason
Statham and Jennifer Lopez deliver what they’ve been paid for, adding
brawn and sex appeal when needed. It’s a messy effort with plot holes
galore, yet director Taylor Hackford manages to convince with the
essential elements. Just don’t think about the details too hard. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Man vs. the elements is a common theme in moviemaking, allowing for an
appealing sense of ruggedness and oneness with nature that instantly
lends itself to movements of high adventure and the euphoria of personal
discovery. “Kon-Tiki” accepts the genre challenge with an incredible
story of survival and scientific craving to help power its cinematic
urgency, delivering genuine awe as it details the unwavering curiosity
of Thor Heyerdahl and his amazing trip from Peru to the Polynesian
Islands in 1947. Rich with character and heavy with ocean-based peril,
“Kon-Tiki” is unexpectedly exciting and refreshingly human, retaining a
searing sting of heartache and doubt as it manufactures eye-popping
moments of near-death experiences and the strange tranquility of total
isolation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The title “John Dies at the End” is a clever one, at least before the
film begins, promising a cheeky viewing experience with a boldly
spoilerific title that presents quite a challenge to the production,
tasked with keeping surprises when the very name of the effort gives
away the twist. It’s quickly established that “John Dies at the End”
isn’t going to be about a character named John, which is the first of
many disappointments contained within the movie. I suppose one isn’t
supposed take the picture so literally, but when the jokes are leaden,
the fantasy mangled by cut-rate visual effects, and the performances
rooted in sarcasm, there should be something here worth getting excited
about, even if it is just a mischievous title. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Knife Fight” often doesn’t know what type of film it wants to be.
Attempting to braid together political sincerity, political satire, and a
human element of guilt, the feature advances unevenly, stuck trying to
make sense of its erratic tone. While an ambitious effort to expose the
concentrated fraud of the campaigning process and all its collateral
damage, “Knife Fight” is a decent editor and a rewrite away from being a
passable statement of disgust. In its current form, the movie is a
mixed bag, offering a few winning performances and moments of
revelation, while the rest scatters aimlessly, in search of structure
director Bill Guttentag doesn’t provide. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s important to take Guillermo del Toro’s executive producer credit
seriously, as “Mama” bears all the signs of his previous work. It’s a
ghost tale with an almost storybook atmosphere, despite its search for
forbidding areas of confrontation between the unaware and the undead.
It’s spooky and weird enough to work, with a knockout resolution that
maintains the story’s integrity — the cinematic equivalent of finding a
four-leaf clover. Sure, flaws are readily apparent and length is an
issue, but “Mama” is after a retro atmosphere of spookiness, trusting in
the art of unease. It’s skillfully made and manages to provide the
willies with only a few cheap shocks, making the movie something of an
anomaly in a genre that routinely amplifies its scares and pulls its
punches. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It might be hard to believe, but Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn’t starred in
a movie since 2003’s “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” Sure, there
have been cameos in two “Expendables” screen adventures and a weird part
in 2004’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” but the once mighty action
hero has laid low over the last decade, fighting different battles with a
special group of villains as Governor of California. “The Last Stand”
treats Schwarzenegger’s return as business as usual, dropping the star
into the thick of the hunt, with only a few jokes addressing his
advanced age before he’s back cracking skulls and blasting away goons.
Sure, the gags could be better, the casting stronger, and the thrills
continuous, but “The Last Stand” remains immensely enjoyable and
occasionally freewheeling. At the very least, it’s good to have
Schwarzenegger back on the screen where he belongs. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Broken City” starts off with tremendous confidence, establishing a
story that pits corrupt politicians against corrupt cops during an
election season, with the future of New York City at stake. It’s Mark
Wahlberg vs. Russell Crowe in a big screen battle of brawn, with
director Allen Hughes creating an enticing web of lies to examine as the
film unfolds. There’s promise here, and a satisfying opening act. And
then the production begins to break down under the weight of its own
ambition, laboring to make plot points stick and characters significant,
eventually stumbling to a most unsatisfying close. In trying to
super-size its suspenseful interests, “Broken City” becomes a broken
record, hitting formulaic notes of fraud when the script is more
convincing as a visceral study of men behaving badly. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Charlie Sheen hasn’t starred in a motion picture since the 2003 release of “Scary Movie 3,” with years of television and, ahem, other
pursuits taking up his time in the interim. One would think that Sheen
would crave an opportunity to play a character unlike himself, venturing
out in the great creative unknown to embody heroism or villainy, or
perhaps a little bit of both in a wildly taxing film that stretches the
actor to his breaking point. Instead, Sheen drops into “A Glimpse Inside
the Mind of Charles Swan III,” a mildly surreal feature that finds the
chemically obsessed one playing a chemically obsessed one, with a
ferocious womanizing appetite and impish inclinations to spare. It’s not
exactly a bold leap forward for Sheen, but, to his credit, he manages
to survive a highly disorganized effort from fascinating helmer Roman
Coppola. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Michael Haneke has built a career out of punishing cinema,
slyly merging doomsday dramatics with a bleak sense of pace and an
occasional burst of dark humor. Think of “The Piano Teacher,” “Cache,”
and “Funny Games,” all powerful, sinister snippets of human behavior,
but not films that demand a revisit outside of cinema education
purposes. “Amour” is perhaps the least outwardly appealing effort from
Haneke to date, asking viewers to watch a woman slowly succumb to the
horrible effects of a stroke, while her husband carries on almost
helplessly, confronted with the reality of death and separation for the
first time in his life. It’s upsetting material lined with lead by
Haneke, who searches for the meaning of love but can’t help but dwell on
the details of decay. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Factory” finally finds release after an extended period gathering
dust on a shelf. Filmed in 2008, the production emerges from the wilted
imagination of Dark Castle Productions, home base to such features as
the ridiculous “Orphan” and “The Apparition,” one of 2012’s biggest box
office bombs. “The Factory” is their worst effort to date, which I know
isn’t much of a statement, but rarely has an exploitation thriller
repulsed in a manner that seems entirely avoidable. Grotesquely
misguided and conceived, “The Factory” asks viewers to sit patiently
while all manner of ugliness is trotted out for the screen, chasing
horror and procedural trends that are wildly out of date in 2013.
However, its considerable age doesn’t excuse its carelessness and
ugliness, which would’ve registered just as numbingly five years ago. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Sapphires” is such an earnest film with a distinct soulful beat,
it’s easy to forgive its occasional heavy-handed screenwriting and
abysmal third act. For the most part a cheery, pleasingly feisty musical
comedy set during an era of powerhouse pop songs, the feature is almost
too good to be true during the opening hour, delivering broad
audience-pleasing moments while shaping amusing personalities, getting
the movie up to speed with laughs and heavenly tunes. The party doesn’t
carry to the end, but there’s enough gaiety and whirlwind plotting to
sustain an upbeat attitude about the whole endeavor, even when director
Wayne Blair seems utterly determined to exit the effort on a sour note. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com