Category: Film Review

“October Baby” aims to tell a poignant story about abortion survival, and it does so in the most banal manner imaginable. A tedious motion picture with a pronounced pro-life purpose, “October Baby” is primarily devoted to teary interactions and horrifically strained comic beats, hoping to tackle an unsavory subject matter in a delicate matter, backed by liberal use of montages and dewy cinematography that resembles a coffee commercial. It’s a disingenuous movie without a human moment, reliant on its religious message to entice audiences, barely making a screen effort to tell a persuasive story about a sensitive subject. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

An adaptation of the 1952 play by Terence Rattigan, “The Deep Blue Sea” studies the death of an affair and the forced recognition of independence. It’s a somber picture, supported with blasts of classical music to heighten the developing tragedy, and while it dwells in troubling circumstances and crippling personal mistakes, the feature holds steady as an authoritative piece of drama. Director Terence Davies encourages the pain, mixing searing audio and visual elements to tell a fragmented story, soaking the viewer in discomfort and longing as these characters figure out their positions of dignity after the bottom has fallen out of their lives. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” didn’t need to be so middling. Boasting a strange premise and a wildly appealing cast, the effort would’ve done just fine trusting the naturalistic spirituality of the story, leaving the characters to observe the development of an impossible professional assignment. Instead, director Lasse Hallstrom pours a thick glaze over the entire endeavor, taking something charmingly idiosyncratic and turning it into contrived mush for the masses. The filmmaker plays it safe, abandoning any hope for surprise in an exhaustively pedestrian feature that could use a great deal of it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The latest from the Dardenne Brothers (Jean-Pierre and Luc), “The Kid with a Bike” continues their distinctive journey as filmmakers interested in viewing the world with a naturalistic eye, peeling overt manipulation away from their features, focusing on the instinctual actions of their characters. It’s story without meat, yet the textures are unforgettable, trusting the viewer with unexplained acts of devotion and persistence, crafted with equal attention to horror and raw experience. While it’s unlikely to move anyone to tears, “The Kid with a Bike” remains an effective picture with a genuine feel for human behavior, unearthing a direct sense of disturbance and a few select moments of stunning psychological clarity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Brake” has the unfortunate position of following 2010’s “Buried,” with both films sharing the premise of a man trapped in a box for 90 minutes of screen time. With “Buried,” there was Ryan Reynolds and the dire situation of being locked inside of a coffin in middle of nowhere. For “Brake,” there’s Stephen Dorff and a clear plastic box within a moving automobile. It’s a bit of a downgrade in imagination and thespian reach, but it doesn’t entirely rub away the suspense of this effort. Although the two features share uncomfortable similarities, “Brake” works as a budget suspense experience, reaching enough boiling points to entertain, but not enough to block out the ridiculous ending. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s difficult to tell if “Casa de mi Padre” is an experiment or an extended prank. A Spanish-language farce spearheaded by Will Ferrell, this is one oddball feature, making fun of telenovelas and those strange, stationary Mexican movies typically screened on Telemundo on Saturday afternoons. As bizarre as it aspires to be, “Casa de mi Padre” isn’t nearly as insane as it could’ve been. Something tells me the production didn’t want to overwhelm audiences with a steady display of comedic madness, instead portioning out the lunacy carefully, hoping to maintain interest in this spread of Mexican violence, song, and sex. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Jay and Mark Duplass have a specialized way of filmmaking they’ve perfected over the years, through pictures such as “Baghead,” “The Puffy Chair,” and “Cyrus.” Their aesthetic, once branded “mumblecore” and fitted for a leather jacket, has now gone mainstream, and so have the Duplass Brothers in a way, with “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” their most accessible effort, fixated more on the millimeter moves of emotional growth than a grand dramatic scheme. It’s a feature of small moments and open hearts, captured with the semi-irritating improvisational and zoom-happy elements the directors favor. Perhaps this is the ideal entry point for those new to the Duplass view of the world, supported by familiar faces visibly enjoying the slack atmosphere. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

All is not well in today’s educational system, and Tony Kaye’s “Detachment” is here to push our faces in the failure of those who teach and those who learn. Crafted with an eye toward performance art, the feature is a troubling, exasperating mess of aches and pains, spraying the screen with a morose fixation on dire developments in the average high school community. Impassioned and frequently aimless, “Detachment” is only interested in stirring debate, wallowing in the muck to push viewers up against the wall, forcing outsiders to consider the state of the scholastic union. There’s a searing cry for help here, buried somewhere underneath Kaye’s unrelenting directorial pretension. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“21 Jump Street” is a goof of a film that continually reminds the audience of its superfluousness. Refusing to be the victim of agitated scrutiny from movie geeks, the production makes it perfectly clear it’s in on the joke, striving to find ways to pants the supercop genre and high school cinema, not to mention its foundation as big screen update of a cult television series from the 1980s. Thankfully, “21 Jump Street” understands the basics in absurdity and overstimulation, steamrolling forward as a profane, ridiculous action comedy with two motivated lead performances. It’s no tribute to the original program, but a wink-happy perversion of the concept, raising hell in its own somewhat tedious, frequently hilarious way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The curious career of Nicolas Cage takes another step downward with the release of “Seeking Justice,” a dopey conspiracy thriller that asks nothing more of the actor than to sweat, grimace, and run. It’s not a thespian challenge for Cage, but there hasn’t been much of that in recent years. Instead, it’s another paycheck gig for the once exciting, magnificently peculiar actor, who appears completely detached from the production, keeping to a low-key glumness that suggests a goal of professional survival over an artistically fulfilling dive into a formulaic genre. Perhaps Cage has finally run out of gas. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Decoy Bride” is as formulaic a movie as can be, working with trite romantic comedy clichés and a premise that will likely cause more seasoned filmgoers to break out in hives. It’s a harmless trifle with a Scottish slant, but there are no surprises to be found, leaving the heavy lifting to the cast. Mercifully, the actors collected here are charming and willing to please, with star Kelly Macdonald a lifesaver, giving punishing predictability a light spin with her bright personality and commitment to even the hoariest of sitcom situations. She’s the miracle “The Decoy Bride” needs to remain afloat. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Horror and thriller filmmakers have my deepest respect. It can’t be easy coming up with original ideas to fuel big screen madness, requiring a unique creative drive to dream up scenarios that audiences haven’t seen a thousand times before. “ATM” attempts to subvert traditional serial killer shenanigans by keeping the setting limited to a glass box located in the middle of a parking lot, while engineering a twist ending that’s more interesting than effective. “ATM” isn’t a convincing movie, but the production is at least breaking a sweat on this effort, making it a promising misfire that might enchant those on the hunt for something slightly cockeyed when it comes to the torment of innocents. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Being Flynn” is a sad story trying desperately to register as tale of redemption and optimism. It’s difficult to break the bleak mood arranged by writer/director Paul Weitz, as it observes fits of self-destruction and madness, yet this is a human story about the recognition of failure, leaving the filmmaker room to explore vulnerable beats of awareness, captured through two fine performances from Robert De Niro and Paul Dano. It’s a demanding picture to watch, covering an assortment of despair that carries from start to finish. Nevertheless, Weitz fights to keep “Being Flynn” upright and moving forward, focusing on the life story being recounted, not the endless corridors of psychological darkness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The most fascinating aspect to “A Thousand Words” is how it requires Eddie Murphy to play silent for a good chunk of the picture. The famed comedian has defined his career with his motor-mouth skills, presenting an exceptional thespian challenge. In better hands, the feature might’ve pulled off something special, merging amusing mime work with a heartfelt statement on the soulful fractures that restrain the human spirit. Instead, “A Thousand Words” has been brought to the screen by Brian Robbins, the filmmaker behind “Varsity Blues,” “Good Burger,” and “Ready to Rumble.” Not exactly an inspired choice to provide speechless hilarity with some degree of sincerity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Utilized as inspiration for countless sci-fi epics (including “Star Wars,” “Flash Gordon,” and “Superman”), Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “A Princess of Mars” has finally found a widescreen translation in “John Carter,” Disney’s massive gamble to build a blockbuster franchise from the hallowed pages of 1917 novel. Enormous in scale and densely plotted, “John Carter” appears to do the source material justice, retaining a pulpy spirit while serving as a travelogue to the far reaches of Mars, greeting inhabitants both reverential and destructive. While possibly impenetrable to the casual viewer, the picture succeeds as grand entertainment, with dazzling technical achievements and wonderfully exaggerated performances of galactic heroism. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s been eight years since directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau made a splash with their aquatic chiller “Open Water,” a film festival fave that fizzled upon its theatrical release. Considering the hype that surrounded their shark attack movie, it’s odd that the duo has spent so much time away from the cameras, failing to build on their career momentum. “Silent House” returns the pair to low-budget gimmick filmmaking, rejuvenating their reputation as they attempt to convince audiences they’re watching 80 minutes of uninterrupted terror. The fantasy is convincingly executed, but wasted on banal haunted house formula punctuated with a baffling conclusion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Stories from the Holocaust are numerous yet they rarely cease to astonish. “In Darkness” is a worthy addition to this mournful assembly of wartime perspectives, though its horrors are hushed and gradual, hidden below in a subterranean tomb. Bleakness and hope are married effectively in director Agnieszka Holland’s latest effort, supplying a fresh viewpoint on unlikely valor and the many forms it takes when positioned opposite the need for survival. It’s a strong, unflinching picture, and a vital educational tool when inspecting the surprises of the human spirit during such a tumultuous period of anguish. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Trying to position herself as a female Woody Allen, forever interested in the habits of Manhattanites and their raging neuroses, writer/star Jennifer Westfeldt has called in all of her favors to help beautify her directorial debut, “Friends with Kids.” Commencing with a plausible swirl of social paranoia, domestic demands, and parental entitlement, the picture eventually grows unreasonably contrived, leaving the intriguing discomfort of the titular combination behind to work stale romantic comedy moves that would cause even Kate Hudson to dry heave. Attempting to remain in her comfort zone, Westfeldt mistakes cliche for charm, turning the potential for a provocative look at the erosion of friendships into a tedious sitcom. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Just when you thought it was safe to put 2008 to bed, here comes “Game Change,” which dredges up all the controversy and electricity surrounding the decision to pair Governor Sarah Palin with presidential candidate John McCain. Forget Obama and his historic political run, forget Joe Biden and his path to the White House. “Game Change” is solely about Palin and the myriad of ways to portray the monumentally divisive figure in an unflattering light. After all, it’s a comedy, for at least 30% of its running time, leaving the rest a condensed, perplexing vision of Washington ambition and insistent ego, leaving the movie somewhere between a cartoon and a mean-spirited prank. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If you ever come across anyone squawking about the lack of originality in today’s cinema landscape, immediately sit them down with the Swedish musical comedy, “Sound of Noise.” Although it sweats to fill up 90 minutes of screentime, the picture is an immensely charming and startling effort that manages to contort the art of musical performance into a terrorist agenda. Clever and highlighting a hypnotic arrangement of rhythmic assaults, the feature keeps viewers on their toes, wondering just where directors Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjarne Nilsson are going to take this wild adventure into instrumental invention and aural opposition next. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com