Category: Film Review

Kenneth Lonergan’s “Margaret” is a disaster, though one that contains its fair share of haunting moments and informed performances. Considering all the struggles the production has endured to even see a limited release, it’s amazing the feature is coherent at all. However, underneath the blindfolded editing, piercing performances, and wandering plot, there’s a great deal of substance to “Margaret” that’s either been completely disfigured or defanged, rendering the effort more of a fascinating curiosity than an ideally defined exploration of guilt and growing pains. It’s far from perfect, but hey, I’m just happy it’s finally available for viewing in some form. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The similarities between “Tomorrow, When the War Began” and 1984’s “Red Dawn” are numerous, perhaps litigiously so, yet the differences in execution are extreme. Adapted from the 1993 novel by John Marsden, the teen guerrilla concept has been comprehensively sugared up to appeal to today’s younger audiences, turning the stomach-churning prospect of WWIII into a daffy high school melodrama where the characters are more preoccupied with love interests than world-changing events. Junky, with an emphasis on theme park stunt show heroics, “Tomorrow, When the War Began” is undeniably entertaining, but also profoundly silly, making “Red Dawn” look like a documentary by comparison. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the case of “Thin Ice,” comparisons to the Coen Brothers’ “Fargo” are inevitable. The two pictures inhabit the same space of Midwestern noir, keeping tabs on unsavory types doing their best to make life more difficult for themselves. It’s a brisk, entertaining feature with an unforgivable ending, making the viewing experience primarily about treasuring the filmmaking elements that do come together satisfactorily, from wily performances emerging from a gifted cast to the bitter winter chill of Wisconsin, which plays a critical support part, urging the devious events along with a growing seasonal impatience that fits the tale superbly. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Released to considerable fanfare in 2007, Mark Steven Johnson’s “Ghost Rider” rode in on a wave of blockbuster comic book adaptations, boasting a colorful lead character in Johnny Blaze and a juicy budget to bring his fiery tragedy to big screen life. Met with critical yawns and fanboy frustration, the feature didn’t ignite the box office quite like its funny book brethren, leaving star Nicolas Cage without a superhero franchise to call his own. In 2012, Sony looks to maintain their rights to the Marvel character, cooking up a lower-budgeted sequel with Cage to give the concept another try, this time eschewing a traditional studio take on dark valor, passing the keys to the franchise to “Crank” directors Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine, allowing the spastic cult pranksters a shot at energizing a troublesome character. Sony would’ve been better off letting the rights lapse. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Taking a break from their usual interest in dense fantasy worlds and eccentric characters, the illustrious Studio Ghibli brings their imaginative filmmaking resources down to a decidedly smaller scale with their latest offering. “The Secret World of Arrietty” is an adaptation of Mary Norton’s “The Borrowers” book series, bringing the furious survival plans of teeny-tiny people to a lush animated realm, where such whimsical plotting and miniature antics can be represented in an awe-inspiring manner. Crafted with customary attention to the tiniest of details and blessedly concise, the feature doesn’t possess the epic scope fans might be used to from regal Ghibli offerings, but it retains a lovely spirit of adventure and alliance, forming a modest but sublime picture worthy of the exalted brand name. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There was once a time where I didn’t shudder at the thought of a McG motion picture. An admirer of the 2000 pop tart “Charlie’s Angels” and its underappreciated 2003 sequel, the filmmaker has proven himself highly capable with stylized escapist fare, always quick with a glossy frame and an amiable comedic spirit. Then came 2009’s “Terminator Salvation,” a rusted lump that effectively torpedoed any excitement for the franchise, and now there’s “This Means War,” which is easily the worst movie of his career. A disaster on a conceptual level, McG’s latest is a trainwreck of botched stunts, unfunny gags, and tuneless performances, pieced together with minimal interest in any sort of engaging cinematic clarity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Every now and again, a team of inspired filmmakers takes on the challenge of a horror anthology picture, bonding their ghoulish perspectives and creepy inspirations together to create a provocative exercise in revulsion, perfect for short attention spans. “The Theater Bizarre” is a low-budget attempt to provide a wealth of fresh nightmare material, sharing six stories of death and obsession that range from the pleasingly monstrous to the tediously abstract. As with most anthology efforts, only a few of the segments truly shine, yet the production as a whole carries itself confidently and shares a few scattered pleasures. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

An inspirational documentary on the highs and lows of an inner-city football team might not sound like the most appetizing moviegoing choice. It’s a sufficiently kneaded topic to cover, yet “Undefeated” displays more vulnerability than most films of its ilk, searching to understand how young men facing countless physical, financial, and educational challenges manage to band together and find a common goal. “Undefeated” dissects the interpersonal dynamic of the unit and the near-spiritual nature of the coaching position, covering a single season in the life of the Manassas Tigers as the squad looks to reverse a losing trend that’s swallowed the morale of the school and its surrounding community. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Father’s Day” is the type of genre entertainment that gives its audience plenty of reason to refuse its blood-soaked charms. It’s an unbelievably violent and nasty enterprise with a taboo-smashing, genital-eating attitude certain to make the unprepared run screaming for the exits. It’s also one of the funniest features I’ve seen in quite some time, using its inherent sickness to come together as a clever, sublimely silly grindhouse goosing, able to assemble disparate elements of gore and goofballery in a fluid manner missing from similar efforts searching to shock and guffaw. While leaning on chaos to fill its running time, “Father’s Day” is a triumphantly diseased motion picture, easily the best movie to pop out of Troma Entertainment in quite some time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writing anything about the “Star Wars” prequels is a dangerous pursuit. I’m convinced there are people who live only for the opportunity to disparage George Lucas online, leaving any type of discussion or opinion about these now-controversial pictures an open invitation for geek savagery, and I can’t imagine I’m the only one tired of it. Nevertheless, just when everyone thought it was safe to put the “Star Wars” saga back on the shelf, Lucas has ordered up a 3D makeover for his most polarizing work, 1999’s “The Phantom Menace.” That’s right, kids, it’s now possible to have Jar Jar Binks fumble and bumble right at the tip of your nose. Granted, it’s not the ideal way to commence a planned series of 3D reissues, but the film does lend itself to the format. And, to be perfectly honest, despite its obvious faults and unnecessary pandering to children, “The Phantom Menace” is…you know…kinda…sorta…fun.

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While I don’t doubt its appeal with family audiences, 2008’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” wasn’t exactly a screaming artistic success. Released during the early stages of the current 3D revolution, the picture was a novelty, capturing box office attention with its commitment to in-your-face Jules Verne-inspired spectacle, buttered up by the rubbery antics of star Brendan Fraser. Four years later, Fraser is gone and it now appears a great deal of audiences resent 3D releases, making the conception and timing of “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” precarious at best. While burdened with a leaden script built only with cliché, the sequel manages to pack a harder punch of adventure than its predecessor, making better use of its 3D environments, bringing in Dwayne Johnson to restart the party while co-star Michael Caine classes up the joint. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Vow” opens with the tag “Inspired by a true story,” which is Hollywood code for “There are only one or two things in this movie that are actually true.” The real-life tale of Kim and Krickett Carpenter has been magically transformed into a big screen romance with Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams, stripped of its Christian overtones to play into gooey Valentine’s Day sentiment, boiling down a remarkable tale of recovery and personal integrity into a puddle of semi-repellent sap. Taking the soap opera route, the production has robbed the tale of its oddity and intriguing preservation of marital contract. Instead, the picture supports schmaltziness and half-realized conflicts, trusting Tatum’s puppy-dog eyes and McAdams’s high-pitched stammer will sufficiently express the emotional fracture at the core of this defanged story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Safe House" is a satisfactory movie that's capable of greatness. It suffers from a common lack of creative courage, terrified to leave the audience to interpretation for very long. What begins as an enigmatic actioner with a marvelous handle on pounding screen energy is slowly brought to its knees over the course of two hours, eventually sized down to a standard display of black hats and white hats, with a hefty helping of government conspiracy hogwash to aid easy digestion. "Safe House" is at its finest locked in pursuit, with the viewer handed morsels of information between scenes of men shooting at one another. Once it settles into explanation mode, the enterprise grinds to a halt, leaving two convincing performances from Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington to drag on to a point of total disinterest. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Watching "Pina" is like attending a funeral for a total stranger. It's a stunning visual event, elegant and artful, paying close attention to the majesty of movement and the crashing of elements. However, if the name Pina Bausch means nothing to you, there's no motive to spend time with this vague greatest hits package of her work in modern dance. Director Wim Wenders projects nothing but love with this ode to form and tense choreography, but it's an empty affair providing a meager education on the life and times of a respected figure. Fans might not mind the drifting attention span of the 3D feature, perhaps thrilled with any chance to sit in the imposing shadow of the master, but those new to this subject might find themselves lost in a hurry. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Return” is an unsettling portrait of domestic reintegration without the customary flails of melodrama that would typically assist in the storytelling. It’s a meaningful picture that plays modestly, opting to express itself through haunted reactions from star Linda Cardellini and its somber small-town America setting, where the dream of prosperity through industry is gasping its final breath. Enlightening and at times heartbreaking, “Return” superbly communicates the difficulties of military transition and its ensuing confusion, executing its perspective with a refreshing trust in its audience to detect the waves of anxiety battering the lead character without a moronic need to underline every little step of the struggle. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Filmmakers routinely gravitate to the saga of dirty cops, eagerly investigating the ugliness of those entrusted with protection. It’s a fascinating topic, yet “Rampart” refuses to indulge itself when it comes to assembling the evil business of a police officer. While injected with plenty of bile and street smarts, director Oren Moverman’s latest is a bloodless affair watered down by its obsessive moviemaking flair. It’s more of a sound and light show than a hard-charging character study, rendering the lethal events surrounding the lead character almost meaningless when they’re flattened and packaged into this grab bag of style. There’s certainly something here that’s enticingly multifaceted and unstable, but it’s dark behavior that’s never communicated on screen in full. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Surprisingly, writer/director Robin Hardy didn’t pursue much work in the entertainment industry after the release of his 1973 cult classic, “The Wicker Man.” It makes sense that his return to the screen is a pseudo-sequel/remake/kissing cousin to his previous achievement, with “The Wicker Tree” looking to capture the same pagan terror, this time without Nicolas Cage and the damn bees of the goofball 2006 “Wicker Man” remake. Boldly developing a tone of high camp for this follow-up, Hardy looks to attack expectations by turning the premise into something silly, playing broadly to keep viewers off-guard. It doesn’t work in full, yet “The Wicker Tree” is an interesting failure, ultimately handcuffed by its low budget and thespian limitations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The found footage phenomenon sneaks into the superhero genre with “Chronicle,” an uneasy cross between a Morrissey record and a middling “X-Men” sequel. Chasing a trend with a slightly different goal in mind, director Josh Trank appears to be more interested in wowing his audience than selling a consistent tale of teenagers flirting with ultimate power. Little of the movie’s mysteries are developed, the acting is distractingly obvious, and the teen angst formula is laid on thick as tar, yet when the feature gets mean, it suddenly gets interesting. A visual effects demo reel in search of dramatic impact, “Chronicle” is frustratingly mediocre, absent a visionary filmmaker skilled at extracting a sense of peril from the material. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

During his tenure as the boy wizard in the “Harry Potter” franchise, star Daniel Radcliffe spent very little time away from the grind of blockbuster filmmaking, accepting challenges in the theater over building his big screen reputation. “The Woman in Black” marks the first acting effort from Radcliffe post-Hogwarts, turning to a bare bones chiller that’s almost entirely devoid of dialogue for the actor, instead deploying his well-honed abilities of wide-eyed reaction. “The Woman in Black” contains a few jumps and creeps, but it’s a disappointingly sluggish ghost story without a convincing antagonist. Admittedly, there’s a curiosity factor with Radcliffe’s performance. Beyond that, the picture doesn’t provide much excitement. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“A Separation” is a frustrating sit, as both a dramatic endeavor and a motion picture viewing experience. Anxiety runs red hot in this Iranian production, which unfolds in a purposefully tangled style of lies and half-truths, forcing the characters to communicate in an unrelentingly argumentative manner. It’s an oppressive moviegoing encounter, but a film richly layered by writer/director Asghar Farhadi, who embraces the bulging passions of the players, forcing outsiders to feel the bind of contradictions and oppression of life in the Middle East. Expectedly, the volatility is penetrating, but the feature is methodical, stewing in every last moment of unease and contemplation, stretching to a point where Farhadi is practically lapping himself. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com