Category: Film Review

“The Master” attempts to simulate a collapse of hope brought on by
tremendous trauma and acts of self-destruction. It’s the latest from
Paul Thomas Anderson, one of the great filmmakers of our time, who makes
a long-awaited return to screens after his last picture, 2007’s “There
Will Be Blood,” barnstormed through cinemas, ending up with a few Oscars
and a catchphrase that enjoyed time in the pop culture sunlight. “The
Master” doesn’t share the sound and fury of “Blood,” with Anderson
aiming for more spiritual matters rooted in real-world invention.
Ambitious without a daredevil sensibility, this is not a feature that
always commands the utmost attention, feeling a tad ponderous and
unfocused at times. The creative elements are extraordinary as usual,
yet there’s a palpable restraint to the material that keeps it from
burrowing under the skin. “The Master” fumbles around in the dark,
though it’s often an enthralling journey marked by fits of scorching
passion and quaking frustration. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“End of Watch” touches absolute brilliance with alarming inconsistency.
It’s a procedural drama with a film school twist, using video cameras to
dig deeper into the hardened cinematic routine of the L.A.P.D. Instead
of “Cops,” where a cameraman is largely responsible for capturing
criminal activity, “End of Watch” puts the video equipment into the
hands of the police, creating a spirited atmosphere of intimacy to aid a
tale of partnership put to the ultimate test on a daily basis. It’s an
interesting concept with a trendy found-footage tilt, yet
writer/director David Ayer doesn’t follow through with the
possibilities. In fact, he doesn’t follow through with much of anything
in this searing but problematic cop drama. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Last year, writer/director/actor Josh Radnor made a small but impressive
debut with “happythankyoumoreplease,” a precious title for sure, but a
workably anxious creation dedicated to the collisions of life. Squeezing
out a second picture between seasons at his day job, acting on the
sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” Radnor returns with “Liberal Arts,” a
small-scale character piece that shows impressive growth in directorial
confidence and screenwriting nuance. Despite its potentially formulaic
collegiate setting, the helmer captures a full sense of thought and
desire in work that’s undeniably human, striving to make a movie about
whirring minds and anxious souls, not content to assemble a neurotic
collection of intellectuals burning through literary references while
swigging coffee. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s rare to see an actor act their age these days, yet Clint Eastwood
always seems determined to play above his years, recently drawn to
cranky, senile characters, last seen on screen in 2008’s ode to senior
might and lawn protection, “Gran Torino.” “Trouble with the Curve”
introduces an even creakier side to Eastwood, playing an aging man
facing the end of his career and his sight, while dealing with the
normal irritations and blockages of old age. It’s not a comfortable
watch, yet Eastwood has that irascible charm that keeps a sense of humor
swirling around dark developments. The movie is lucky to have him and
co-star Amy Adams, who both bring a fresh sense of life to an otherwise
hokey, stale screenplay. To bring baseball terms into the review, the
pair consistently hit home runs while the feature itself only manages
the occasional ground rule double. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I must admit, I’m a sucker for the high school reunion subgenre. It
inflames that primal itch to see close friends, enemies, and lovers
reunited after a long absence, coming together to assess childhood hopes
and adulthood realities, while surveying radical changes in body type
and maturity levels. It also provides a solid foundation for ensemble
work, gifting actors of various abilities brief glimpses of character to
develop, while pinballing around a room of diverse personalities. “10
Years” doesn’t radically alter the basics of this type of story, yet it
proceeds with caution, ignoring a grotesque display of concentrated
nostalgia to explore intimacy, enjoying the process of personal
discovery in a blessedly gentle manner. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If “About Cherry” actually contained a story concerning the leading lady
known as Cherry, it would be a far more enlightening picture. Instead,
the movie is a drippy, incomplete effort from first-time director
Stephen Elliot, who has a functional idea to drill inside the scattered
mind of an aspiring adult film actress, yet he lacks the concentration
required to shape these acidic experiences into a cohesive tale of
panty-dropping enlightenment. The feature is all over the place,
spending valuable time with vague characters and implausible personal
exchanges, resulting in a muddled, inconsequential journey of a
surprisingly unsympathetic character and her hazy ride to the top of the
porno food chain. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m happy that the actors could secure themselves a lovely Hawaiian
vacation with “You May Not Kiss the Bride,” but I only wish they
contributed to a more substantial film. Surprisingly violent for a
romantic comedy, the feature offers a broad display of slapstick and
shootouts, positioning itself as a tropical adventure with a sense of
humor. Without a single laugh or a convincing performance, “Kiss the
Bride” ends up a South Seas home movie for key production personnel. It
was probably a blast to make, but fails as an offering of big screen
escapism. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Despite its eventual failure, “Bait” deserves some credit for trying to
pull off an insane scenario capable of reigniting the killer shark
subgenre. There are moments here, albeit few and far between, where
director Kimble Rendall seems like he’s found a way to make this
low-budget shocker work on a limited scale, playing with claustrophobia
and oddity to turn a ridiculous script into a credible machine of
terror. Scares are absent and the performances are wretched, yet “Bait”
deserves a participation ribbon for its willingness to take an aquatic
hunt in an unexpected direction, using recent world woes to inspire a
shark tale that’s poorly executed yet charmingly absurd. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s hope in the opening ten minutes of “Resident Evil: Retribution”
that writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson might to able to turn this
tattered franchise around, taking a few moments to reconnect to the
previous sequels through an introductory recap from our monotone
heroine, Alice. For a brand name that’s prided itself on nonsensical
scripting, it’s strange to watch this fifth installment take a breath to
fit the puzzle pieces together, pretending the earlier pictures
actually made sense, with “Retribution” hinting at an enormous refocus
of priority on an actual plot. Sadly, it’s all a tease. A loud,
explosive tease. Instead of storytelling bravery, “Retribution” shoves
the series deeper into absurdity, continuing the quest of 2010’s
“Resident Evil: Afterlife” to contort a once promising zombie stomp into
a stilted, baffling 3D fireworks display. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Unlike many other adult dramas, “Arbitrage” doesn’t feature a single
sympathetic character. It’s a slightly incomplete story of privileged
people using their influence to further fraud and dodge manslaughter,
manipulating those beneath them. It’s a compelling tale of reptilian
behavior and escalating legal woes, best appreciated for a few fine
performances and writer/director Nicholas Jarecki’s attention to
merciless acts of business world survival, embodied heroically in star
Richard Gere’s bravely unlikeable work. Although it never ties together
as securely as it should, “Arbitrage” carries itself with a confident
sense of gloom and panic, keeping the mysteries at hand persuasive
despite storytelling that flames out instead of building ominously. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Mike Birbiglia’s “Sleepwalk with Me” began life as a stand-up comedy
piece before it was quickly transformed into a National Public Radio
story, a comedy album, a Broadway show, and a book. And now it’s a
movie. Not bad for a charming, mildly horrifying tale of sleep disorder
and a life devoted to comedy tested by the pitchfork poke of domestic
routine. Bravo to the gifted Birbiglia for his ability to reinvent the
material for a diverse range of formats, with each stop on the
“Sleepwalk with Me” creative tour revealing newfound emotional angles
while basically rehashing the same jokes. Despite its intimate origin
and spasms of humor, Birbiglia’s tale of woe makes a soft, easy landing
on the big screen, finding a fresh approach to slide outsiders into the
comedian’s world, while longtime fans will have fun discovering
unexplored corners of the sleepless saga. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s a revolution going on in Hollywood today, and I doubt few
outside the industry are paying any attention to it. Enter Keanu Reeves,
who’s determined to explore the changing landscape of moviemaking as it
switches from a photochemical film process to a digital one, taking
viewers through a history of production advancements and discoveries,
interviewing most of the directors who’ve already taken position on the
front lines of the fight. “Side by Side” is technical, possibly only of
value to true cinephiles, but it’s a vital education on the highs and
lows of film vs. digital as the medium moves into an exciting new
direction of creative access and picture clarity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I believe the only viewers able to extract something of substance out of
“Solomon Kane” will be those already tuned into the Robert E. Howard
creation, which debuted in print in 1928. While it’s not a difficult
film to dissect, the grit and groans seem programmed to satisfy longtime
fans, not newcomers to the wrath of a God-fearing mercenary. Unfocused
and noisy, there are numerous colorless, violent movies like “Solomon
Kane” these days, with the effort’s combustibility more numbing than
rousing, leaving a perfectly acceptable lead performance from James
Purefoy to carry the lion’s share of the picture’s appeal, and it’s a
weight that’s often too much for the actor to bear. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While 3D rereleases (this year alone has returned “Beauty and the
Beast,” “Titanic,” and “The Phantom Menace” to screens) are motivated
entirely by monetary needs, I must admit it’s been enlightening to
revisit titles from the recent past, providing an opportunity to
reevaluate movies that didn’t exactly penetrate the first time around.
Back in 2003, I had a mixed reaction to “Finding Nemo,” an unpardonable
offense to some, but the movie didn’t immediately impress with its
overstuffed narrative, flashes of bodily function humor, and
screenwriting formula. I didn’t hate the picture, but I’ve come to
understand that any raised eyebrow directed at a Pixar production
(outside of the “Cars” efforts) is an offense punishable by the death
penalty in some corners of the internet, leaving me to wonder how a
feature I wasn’t fond of nine years ago would play today, aided by the
addition of 3D. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Branded” is a head-scratcher of the film that could only be decoded
after a long sit-down with its creators, writer/directors Jamie Bradshaw
and Alexander Dulerayn. It’s up to these two to fully flesh out their
intentions to the general public, because the movie they’ve made is
borderline incomprehensible, and not in an intriguing manner that
immediately encourages closer inspection. Narrated by a cow-shaped
constellation and set in the “dystopian future” of 2012, “Branded” is an
outrageous call to arms with its shoelaces tied together, falling flat
on its face the moment it gets around to charging ahead. Its ambition is
decimated by its absurdly slapdash assembly and fogged messages on the
zombification of consumerism. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Words” is riveting, illuminating, and communicative…for about 45
minutes. It’s enough time to convince an initially hesitant ticket buyer
that something interesting is afoot, with writer/directors Brian
Klugman and Lee Sternthal gracefully exploring the mechanics of a
literary career (or lack thereof), while building toward a crucial act
of plagiarism that feels like it could be dissected for two movies. And
then the brakes are applied in an abrupt fashion, removing the
professional urgency that drives the material, turning a pleasingly
straightforward story of personal corruption into a tepid cinematic
confessional. “The Words” commences so convincingly, there’s hope for a
climatic return to form. Alas, the picture limps to a close, more
interested in playing games than burrowing as deep as possible into a
spellbinding situation of fraud. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If there’s anything positive to glean from “The Cold Light of Day,” it
would have to be its use as an educational tool, teaching young film
students how not to make a mid-budget action movie. Perversely
amateurish and astonishingly tedious considering its mouthbreathing
screen elements, the feature stumbles from scene to scene, using
violence and disorder to cover the fact that the script, credited to
Scott Wiper and John Petro, is a complete load of rubbish, from dialogue
to plotting. While the genre typically leans toward nonsense to provide
cheap thrills, “Light of Day” launches into absurdity in the opening
ten minutes and never recovers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“For a Good Time, Call…” is the rare movie about the phone sex trade
that doesn’t treat the experience as flypaper for dysfunction, instead
generating a flighty, colorful atmosphere of salacious activity to
backdrop a thin but merry story of friendship. It’s rarely funny, yet it
sustains a jovial mood of naughty business, supported by two vivacious
performances from Ari Graynor and Lauren Anne Miller. Indecent enough to
fluster prudes and warm enough to win over female audiences, “For a
Good Time, Call…” is only undone by its pedestrian screenwriting, which
is so slavish to formula, it comes to destroy the big screen party
director Jamie Travis is fighting to maintain. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

To its credit, “V/H/S” attempts to attack the found footage genre from a
slightly different angle, taking the herky jerky antics to the realm of
the anthology movie, allowing six directors to have their way with all
manner of POV horror. Unfortunately, with this aesthetic comes expected
elements of blurred cinematography and amateur acting, and while the
irritations are broken down into blocks of 20-minute-long stories,
“V/H/S” remains protracted and dramatically undernourished. While two of
the tales retain a satisfying bite, the experiment as a whole is tiring
and often ridiculous, spending most of its energy supporting a concept
that wears out its welcome after ten minutes of exposure. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Fans of the 1992 picture “Baraka” have been waiting two decades for some
type of glorious follow-up to attack screens. “Samsara” is that
long-awaited continuation, once again plunging viewers into the alien
landscape that is our Earth, pulling at the threads of life to acquire a
sharper sense of humanity in motion as it moves toward times of
destruction and, in some cases, technological immortality. It’s a
mesmerizing viewing experience, returning to the battle grounds and
blissful encounters of “Baraka” while expanding on themes of humanity,
existence, and consumption, captured with painstakingly precise
cinematography and supported by a layered selection of music. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com