Category: Film Review

Reviewed at the 2012 Twin Cities Film Fest

It’s nearly impossible to fathom that after 50 years of acting, Dustin
Hoffman is only now hunting down a directorial career. It’s about time
for the legendary performer, who brings a sublime sense of human need to
“Quartet,” while permitting a team of premiere actors an opportunity to
investigate emotional highs and lows in their own unique ways,
resulting in a stunningly acted picture. There’s also a profound love
for the performing arts flowing through the effort, taking a few moments
to stand in the presence of greatness. While certainly aimed as an
audience-pleaser, “Quartet” earns its friendliness, trusting in the
power of performance to communicate troubling and euphoric matters with
exceptional nuance. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

On his own, director Rob Cohen is responsible for movies such as
“Stealth,” “The Skulls,” “XXX,” and “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon
Emperor.” On his own, star Tyler Perry is responsible for “Madea’s
Witness Protection,” “Madea’s Big Happy Family,” “Madea Goes to Jail,”
and “Madea’s Family Reunion.” To the financier who decided to pair these
two up for “Alex Cross,” I ask, are you crazy? It doesn’t take a genius
to comprehend that two dreadful forces of filmmaking are going to
manufacture an abysmal film, and “Alex Cross” is an exceptionally rancid
feature. When it’s not being completely idiotic, it’s frightfully
tasteless, with both Perry and Cohen making sure the entertainment
factor is thoroughly sucked out of this ludicrous thriller. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Reviewed at the 2012 Twin Cities Film Fest

“It’s a Disaster” features a perfectly clever premise ripe for a screen
exploration interested in tonal extremes and adventurous
characterizations. Filmmaker Todd Berger prefers to play this darkly
comic doomsday tale somewhat on the safe side, forgoing a rigorous
display of beguiling panic to poke fun at relationship woes and
religious paranoia. Berger also overestimates the freshness of the plot,
dragging out what appears to be a nifty short film to 90 minutes of
sporadic comedy success. There’s something about “It’s a Disaster”
that’s ripe with potential, but a slack atmosphere populated with
overeager actors grows tiring, lessening interest in their ultimate
fate.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Reviewed at the 2012 Twin Cities Film Fest

“Stag” arrives in the shadow of “The Hangover,” though this tale of
bachelor party shenanigans emerges from the Canadian film industry. Just
how Canadian is this movie? Well, there’s a stripper, but she remains
clothed for 99% of her screentime and the feature ends with a father
reaffirming his love for his family. “Stag” isn’t exactly a raunchy
explosion of men behaving badly, and it’s not all that funny either.
True to its Canadian heritage, it’s mild stuff, hoping to come across
triumphantly ill-mannered with erection jokes and the occasional curse
word, missing a devilish spark that could amplify its tightly mittened
tomfoolery to pleasing extremes. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I missed out on reviewing last year’s “Atlas Shrugged: Part I” for many
reasons, with limited theater availability and a lack of personal
interest my primary motivation to pass on an opportunity to screen the
picture. Also a compelling reason to dodge the feature was the furor
surrounding the film’s inspiration, as I knew little about author Ayn
Rand outside of her basic philosophical leanings, which appear to cause a
great deal of wonderful people a considerable amount of unnecessary
frustration. Despite an admirable push to generate some hoopla around
the release, “Atlas Shrugged: Part I” bombed at the box office and then
gathered dust as a home video release. It seemed as though this “Part I”
of a proposed trilogy would be as far as Rand’s most successful work
would get on the big screen. However, never underestimate the power of a
wealthy producer (in this case, John Aglialoro). 18 months later, and
we now have “Atlas Shrugged: Part II – The Strike.” It’s time for me to
bite the bullet. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With the release of “Smiley,” the horror genre has reached a new low. Or
perhaps a total exhaustion of malevolent possibilities is a more
accurate summary of the monumental nonsense that’s intended to pass for a
story, which two screenwriters have bravely taken full credit for. A
ludicrous condemnation of hacktivism layered with worn out slasher
clichés, “Smiley” is witless, charmless motion picture that imagines
itself an ideal vessel for co-writer/director Michael J. Gallagher to
purge his rudimentary ideas on the fragile state of online ethics,
hoping to offer younger audiences a lesson on reckless behavior while
mounting one of the most inept movies of 2012. The only thing truly
scary about this terror film is that somebody paid to have it produced. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If the triumph of “Gone Baby Gone” and “The Town” wasn’t enough to
solidify Ben Affleck as a directorial force to be reckoned with, “Argo”
is a feature that should silence even his most persistent critics. A
nail-biter of the highest order, “Argo” is crackerjack mix of world
politics, classic screen suspense, and knowing Hollywood ribbing,
creating a strange cocktail of fact and fiction that Affleck handles
with an exquisite cinematic polish. Riveting from start to finish, the
effort manages to maintain a firm grip on a harrowing international
incident while keeping an eye on the basic needs of dramatic tension.
There aren’t many filmmakers capable of executing this style of tonal
juggling anymore, and now Affleck has nailed his third consecutive
attempt. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Before he acquired directorial legitimacy and accolades for his work on
2009’s “Precious,” helmer Lee Daniels made his debut with 2006’s
“Shadowboxer,” starring Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr. It was
spectacular trainwreck of a movie, inconsistent and overheated,
attempting to generate a typhoon of emotions and violence without a
steady creative force guiding the way. Daniels returns to this murky
realm with “The Paperboy,” a feature that practically revels in its
disorder. Chasing a sweat-stained sense of Floridian turmoil to buttress
a thoroughly uninteresting story of murder, Daniels once again mistakes
permissiveness for artistry, creating a picture that looks like it was
shot on a reel of dirty underwear, developed in a mixture of spit,
semen, and alcohol. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Sinister” joins a growing trend of horror movies offering characters
who don’t react appropriately to unequivocal proof of their own future
doom, a bewildering screenwriting concept recently explored in the last
three “Paranormal Activity” pictures. Genre admirers generally don’t
seem to mind this gap in storytelling logic, but for those who like a
little more thought put into their fright films, “Sinister” is a
patience-tester with some genuinely interesting, atmospheric elements to
cushion its fall. However, passage to the solid stuff is blocked by
brazenly cheap scares, a hazy monster mythos, unreasonably idiotic
characters, and excessive length, making “Sinister” an absolute chore to
enjoy in full. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I fully recognize that I was in the minority with my mixed review of
2008’s “In Bruges,” finding writer/director Martin McDonagh’s obvious
cleverness overwhelmed by issues of pace and a formulaic sense of humor.
The helmer has tightened his game some with “Seven Psychopaths,” though
it’s another bumpy ride of black comedy and narrative wanderlust, this
time supported by a wonderful cast of famous faces, who’ve arrived ready
to play in McDonagh’s sandbox of graphic violence and daffy characters.
“Seven Psychopaths” is uneven, but defiantly so, creating immense
personality along the way, helping to absorb the randomness of the
screenplay and his numerous tangents.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After making a slew of films emphasizing his way with fall-down-go-boom
comedy, star Kevin James is finally ready to make a picture where the
comedic impulse is integral to the plot. Heck, it’s even titled “Here
Comes the Boom,” giving James the easiest lay-up feature of his career.
While there’s a triumphant physical commitment to the part, delving into
the brutal realm of mixed martial arts, James’s screenplay is day-old
bread, blending the “Rocky” formula with heaping helpings of “Nacho
Libre,” creating an energetic visual experience throttled by a humdrum
story. Indeed, James does plenty of fall-down-go-boom, but it’s wasted
on a tediously conventional movie that does surprisingly little with the
spectacularly strange sight of James in stampeding MMA mode. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It makes sense to find producers continually working to bring Louis
Pergaud’s 1912 novel, “The War of the Buttons,” to the big screen.
Christophe Barratier’s French production is actually the fifth picture
born from the original work, which spawned two features in 2011 alone. A
tale of war that blends the innocence of youth with the realities of
world conflict, “Buttons” is a seriocomic tale with ripe
characterizations, opportunities for horseplay, and a piercing awareness
of the evil that men do. Setting the story near the end of WWII,
Barratier makes the viewing event obvious in theme and location, yet his
classic Hollywood approach results in a satisfyingly glossy,
endearingly acted movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A comedic farce doesn’t have to make perfect sense, but there should be
something within the realm of logic fueling the insanity, grounding the
effort in plausibility as fits of madness swirl around. The
unfortunately titled “3, 2, 1…Frankie Go Boom” doesn’t supply a single
believable moment, sprinting around a most nonsensical, contrived
offering of screenwriting. It’s unbearable to sit through at times,
watching decent actors flounder with intentionally ridiculous material,
working themselves into a lather to serve writer/director Jordan
Roberts’s clumsy sense of humor. It’s utter nonsense, but not an
admirable type of tomfoolery that carries itself with an engaging
creative vision. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While Louis Leterrier’s “The Transporter” and “Transporter 2” were no
diamonds of cinema, they were wonderfully amusing offerings of junk
food, big on action and entertainment value, sold with a special Jason
Statham growl. And then co-writer/producer Luc Besson handed
“Transporter 3” to helmer Olivier Megaton, who cooked up a dreadful,
comatose third installment, effectively killing interest in the series.
Pierre Morel’s “Taken” was blissfully simplistic, focused, and served
raw, using star Liam Neeson’s natural way with blunt force to fashion an
absolute gem of an actioner. And now Besson has returned to his bad
luck charm, calling up Megaton to guide “Taken 2,” a disappointingly
flat, atrociously edited, and somewhat nasty sequel that doesn’t come
close to the rapid-fire original.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s no doubt that “Frankenweenie” is a Tim Burton film. That it’s a
largely lifeless Tim Burton film is the real surprise, considering it's
the man’s second shot at mastering this story. Originally brought to
life by the helmer as a short in 1984 (where it was basically brushed
aside by nervous Disney executives), “Frankenweenie” returns to screens
nearly two decades later, this time as a stop-motion animated
production, hoping to mirror the success of Burton’s similar efforts,
“The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Corpse Bride.” While it’s crafted
with gloriously ghoulish details and teeming with classic movie
references, “Frankenweenie” shows great difficulty proving its worth as a
feature-length effort, working through elements of monster rampage and
scientific debate that feel more like padding than a naturally dramatic
extension of the original creation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Emily Bronte’s celebrated 1847 novel has been adapted time and again by
world cinema, with each production embracing the squeeze of unrequited
love and the abundant atmospheric trimmings of the original work. It’s a
timeless tale of obsession, yet this latest take on the material takes
matters into a harsher direction of internalized agony and violent
communication. It’s a lengthy picture with ambiance to spare, but it’s
something to be seen, offering a rejuvenated approach to the story that
dazzles with grit and grief, captured with an authentically terrifying
atmospheric approach that beautifully supports the discomfort and
anguish flowing through the veins of the performances. This “Wuthering
Heights” is not something to be passively accepted, but deeply felt,
down to the bone. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There was tremendous potential for “Butter” to throw a spotlight on the
rigors of butter sculpting competitions, drinking in the varied
characters that populate this odd hobby while taking note of the
exceptional skill required to turn slabs of dairy into art. Instead,
“Butter” goes for a swipe of irreverence, poking fun with Midwestern
caricatures while bending over backwards to earn a gratuitous R-rating.
It’s a needlessly vulgar, decidedly laugh-free picture that works up a
sweat trying to come off provocative when all it needed to be was
present with a sculptural medium that doesn’t require much of a satiric
boost to provide 80 minutes of solid entertainment and the occasional
giggle. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Here’s a film that assumes a great deal of its characters and situations
are interesting and, in some cases, deeply sympathetic. How wrong
“Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You” is. A conventional exploration
of a young, troubled soul living an affluent life in New York City, the
feature is disorganized and unpleasant, aching to reach some form of
emotional vulnerability, only to spotlight a story without severity,
lacking an abyssal sense of violation and soulful agony that typically
informs such angsty endeavors. It’s not exactly a trainwreck of a movie,
but “Someday This Pain” is so void of depth and meaning, it often
resembles a parody of the bruised teen subgenre. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I applaud writer/director Darren Lynn Bousman’s attempts to keep the
spirit of low-budget horror alive, scripting stories that prey on fears
of the apocalyptic unknown and the mentally unstable. However, with
efforts such as “11-11-11” and a remake of “Mother’s Day,” the helmer’s
ambitions are far more interesting to dissect than his movies. Add “The
Barrens” to the pile of promising failures, with the creator isolating
the drive to seek and destroy the legendary Jersey Devil, which promises
to be an enticing feature of creepy woodsy remoteness, populated with
characters touched by madness. Bousman doesn’t have the vision to hoist
the horror up high, settling on a mundane camping thriller only
sporadically enlivened by mysterious violence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Won’t Back Down” is such an exaggerated attempt to shed light on the
failures of the public school system, it might have you rooting for
illiteracy to win in the end. Nuance and some type of dramatic balance
is punted away right at the top of the feature, making the next two
hours a preachy, hokey bore boosted by a few sublimely devoted
performances. Education is a critical topic worth a cinematic
inspection, but thespian passion and good intentions do not carry a
movie alone. A production like this demands a brain as big as its heart,
helping viewers to understand complexity when dealing with the youth of
the nation. “Won’t Back Down” merely uncorks a box of Crayons and
broadly colors over the issues at hand, doing a disservice to the
parents, students, and teachers who struggle with this impasse on a
daily basis. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com