Category: Film Review

Three years ago, director Sam Mendes attempted to recreate the madness of war with “1917,” using filmmaking tricks and a large budget to immerse the audience in violence and panic. It was an epic picture that attempted to overwhelm viewers with sound and visuals, capturing a specific sense of confusion. Mendes goes much smaller for his follow-up but largely remains interested in human psychology, offering a more internalized tale of instability in “Empire of Light,” which examines the pains of mental illness and the power of connection. Mendes goes solo in the screenwriting department, and while his focus is on characters and their issues, he’s also inspecting the power of cinema in other ways, setting the story at a movie palace reaching the end of its lifespan. “Empire of Light” is unwieldy and a bit melodramatic at times, but it does retain sharp technical achievements and performances that capture what the helmer is looking for, creating sensitive moments as life carries people in different directions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Something from Tiffany’s” isn’t explicitly a Christmas movie, but it does take place during the holiday season, with the production determined to set a cozy mood of romance and connections in New York City. It’s not a Hallmark Channel endeavor either, with the picture an adaptation of a 2011 Melissa Hill book, giving screenwriter Tamara Chestna (“Moxie”) a chance to approach a tale of mistakes and misunderstandings without being solely focused on vanilla experiences. “Something from Tiffany’s” has a premise straight out of a sitcom, but it doesn’t play exactly like one, and while director Daryl Wein (“Lola Versus”) is tasked with creating a soft film, he fights to preserve as much character and feeling as possible with this type of entertainment. It’s not something that raises the bar when it comes to cinematic achievements, but it hopes to be a bit more honest about relationship complications and a tad less robotic than basic cable offerings. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Copyright laws are a funny thing, and they’re about to get funnier in a hurry. Beloved characters from books and movies are being repurposed for horror entertainment, and as the world waits for whatever “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey” has to offer, there’s “The Mean One” to tide them over. It’s a take on Dr. Suess’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” but instead of pulling ideas from the beloved book, screenwriters Finn and Flip Kobler take most of their inspiration from Ron Howard’s 2000 screen adaptation, which starred Jim Carrey as the Grinch. “The Mean One” can’t afford to hire Carrey and it can’t deal with lawsuits, playing a careful game of mimicry with its tale of a monster in a mountain who hates everything about Christmas. However, instead of planning a heist, this green ghoul is ready to kill. “The Mean One” is a low-budget offering from director Steven LaMorte, who doesn’t have a lot to work with here beyond initial outrageousness. It’s a seasonal slaughterama, but also painfully restricted by monetary limitations, feeling like a cheap quickie when it had the potential to be supremely weird. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s been repeatedly said that author Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel, “White Noise,” is “unfilmable.” There have been a few attempts to bring it to the screen over time, but nothing has managed to make it in front of cameras until now. Writer/director Noah Baumbach attempts to solve a literary adaptation puzzle with the endeavor, which follows a collection of characters as they face death, worry about death, and think about death. It’s an adventure of diverse tones and rhythms, and Baumbach seems to be the person for the job, coming off his career-best work in “Marriage Story,” where he managed to make the excruciating details of divorce into the best film of 2019. The helmer gets somewhere with “White Noise,” locating paths of anxiety and confusion to follow for the first half of the picture. It’s the rest of the feature that loses concentration, with Baumbach unable to translate some stranger ideas, losing consistency along the way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Emancipation” explores the story of “Whipped Peter,” an enslaved man who, in 1863, managed to escape his captors, crossing 40 miles of Louisiana swampland with hopes to reach some form of safety with Union officers during the Civil War. A photo was taken of his heavily scarred back, creating a horrifying image of suffering that helped to open some eyes to the barbarity of slavery. Screenwriter William N. College and director Antoine Fuqua endeavor to explore and embellish the man’s tale of survival, trying to add something to the ongoing cinematic study of slavery, but “Emancipation” isn’t a nuanced understanding of suffering and faith in the face of despair. It’s more of a Michael Bay-esque effort, with Fuqua trying to stylize horrors and highlight the adventurous aspects of the chase, losing essential elements of character and stakes along the way. The picture is straining to be an important look at physical and spiritual might, but the fine details of fear are lost in the flashiness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While writer/director Alejandro G. Inarritu made his mark with smaller pictures such as “Amores perros,” “21 Grams,” and “Babel,” he achieved major success with larger, Hollywood-driven productions, enjoying big box office and back-to-back Academy Award wins with “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” and “The Revenant,” making him one of the biggest names in the industry. Cashing in on such creative triumphs and profitability, Inarritu returns to his filmmaking roots with “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths,” going the passion project route with a permissive budget. The helmer hopes to offer a poetic, wily, and possibly autobiographical understanding of an aging man facing his faults and fears while trying to decode his own existence, and Inarritu certainly delivers a visual experience that captures a swirling sense of reality, taking viewers on an extended ride through pleasure and pain. However, such indulgence doesn’t translate to a powerful sit, as “Bardo” doesn’t exactly invite audience investment, largely remaining cold to the touch as the endeavor pursues any and all moviemaking impulses without supplying dramatic support. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Joe Begos has been kicking around low-budget cinema for just under a decade now, and he enjoyed some success with 2020’s “VFW,” a crazy take on zombie cinema featuring a cast of grizzled acting veterans. “VFW” was terrific entertainment, hitting genre highs with a decent imagination for violence and character interactions. “Christmas Bloody Christmas” is the latest offering from Begos, who doesn’t keep much from his previous achievement outside of extreme lighting to help cover monetary limitations. He goes the punishing route this time, aiming for a Rob Zombie-esque slasher event that details the efforts of a malfunctioning robotic Santa and its killing spree. A promising premise is wasted on rough performances and worse dialogue, with Begos asking fans to sit through tedious conversations for the first half of the picture before switching things over to grisly survival sequences. “Christmas Bloody Christmas” takes a long time to get going, and it’s debatable if it actually arrives anywhere. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Last year, Disney attempted to do something with the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” brand name, looking to reboot the world of author Jeff Kinney with an animated adaptation of the first book, which was previously explored in a live-action production from 2010. The cartoon wasn’t devoted to a complete translation of Kinney’s work, but it brought new comedic elasticity to the franchise, finding a way to bring the writing to life in a way flesh-and-blood actors couldn’t. Apparently, the movie was something of a success, with “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules” serving as a sequel, once again exploring the self-made misery of Greg Heffley and his eternal quest to be popular. There’s no leap in technology or increased budget for the follow-up, but Kinney (who scripts) tries to soften the harshness of his original writing, aiming to generate a more sincere understanding of brotherhood, bringing some heart to the endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Tommy Wirkola has done the whole irreverence thing before. Many times in fact, with his career largely boosted by the unexpected success of his 2013 fairy tale actioner, “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.” “Violent Night” is looking to conjure a similar energy of violence, comedy, and fantasy, this time putting Santa Claus in a “Die Hard” scenario, with the jolly fat man taking on a team of killers trying to work their way into a high-tech safe. Screenwriters Pat Casey and Josh Miller have the gimmick, sending Santa into a bloodbath, and they have an endless appetite for shock value, creating entire sequences dedicated to the obliteration of villains. And that’s all “Violent Night” really has to share, burning through its single joke in a matter of minutes, with the rest of the picture devoted to underwhelming performances, crude visual effects, and a lack of creative humor, which is something to be expected from the duo that previously scripted “Dorm Daze” and “Dorm Daze 2.” Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With a title like “Darby and the Dead,” expectations are put into place for a horror extravaganza. It comes with some surprise to learn that the screenplay (by Becca Greene) isn’t interested at all in summoning fears, instead going the “Mean Girl” route with this tale of a high schooler and her battle with popularity, also dealing with the deceased as a medium. It’s a bizarre mashing of subgenres, but teen cinema wins out in the picture, which is mostly interested in rehashing adolescent woes concerning relationships and self-esteem challenges, occasionally getting into issues with the other side. Two very bright performances from Riele Downs and Auli’i Cravalho offer plenty of charm and energy to the feature, but the sameness of “Darby and the Dead” prevents it from doing something interesting with life and death, with the story gradually sinking back into predictability after a lively opening act. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Ravi Kapoor hopes to bring some fun to the screen with “Four Samosas,” offering a celebration of comedy, music, and South Asian culture with the little picture, which tries very hard to please. It’s a heist movie in a way, but mostly interested in silliness with broad characters, and the endeavor is clearly influenced by the works of Wes Anderson and Jared Hess, offering a dry, stylized approach to goofballery. “Four Samosas” doesn’t have enough creative gas to get to the finish line, but Kapoor is dedicated to delivering a charming story of friends going to extremes to solve their problems, including wounded hearts. And there’s a fresh, engaging cast here that’s ready to play with the material, offering bright performances and decent timing in this somewhat strange but likable study of mistakes and community peculiarities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As the world waits for another installment of the “Godzilla vs. Kong” series (due in 2024), superfans of giant monster movies are offered something to tide themselves over with “Troll,” a Norwegian production looking to merge some kaiju action with local folklore. There’s also a disaster film element to the endeavor, with director Roar Uthaug (who previously helmed the “Tomb Raider” reboot) returning to the genre after 2015’s “The Wave,” bringing more death and destruction to the citizens of Norway. Screenwriter Espen Aukan conjures a simple plan of mayhem featuring a building-sized troll on the loose, hammering out basic characterizations to carry the human perspective while Uthaug deals with visual effects and scenes of mayhem. “Troll” is meant to easily play all over the world, delivering broad strokes and big threats, and it connects as intended. It’s not quite up to supermonster standards, but the viewing experience is breezy while also utilizing local culture and fairy tale history to complicate a dire situation of survival. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There was once a time when one had to wait years between adaptations of “Pinocchio,” with the author Carlo Collodi’s 1883 book a popular choice for producers looking to do something with world-famous public domain material. This year, mere months separate the releases, with Disney taking another swing at the concept with a September release directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks. It was more of a remake, giving the company’s 1940 animated endeavor a live-action update, but co-writer/co-director Guillermo del Toro is not interested in making the same movie as everyone else. He’s gone back to the darkness of Collodi’s imagination, reworking a story of magic and curiosity into a stop-motion animated study of pre-WWII Italy, with the eponymous wooden puppet facing the rise of fascism while also handling his dream of becoming a real boy. I’ve seen many takes on “Pinocchio” over the years, but this is the first version to feature a cameo by Mussolini, with del Toro, co-director Mark Gustafson, and co-writer Patrick McHale putting in the effort to make this version of “Pinocchio” their own. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the onslaught of holiday-themed entertainment this year, there’s “Christmas with the Campbells,” which has the appearance of a typical Hallmark Channel distraction for viewers who can’t get enough of the yuletide spirit or remain incapacitated in front of a television due to the consumption of too much egg nog. However, it’s not just another anodyne offering of cheer and romance, but something approaching a mild parody of such small screen comfort food. Screenwriters Barbara Kymlicka, Dan Lagana, and Vince Vaughn (who co-produces with Peter Billingsley) hope to add a streak of naughtiness to the proceedings, getting rascally with this take on small town Christmas experiences and relationship tentativeness. “Christmas with the Campbells” is a little too permissive with improvisation and crudeness, but there are laughs to be found in this bizarre mix of earnestness and silliness, and the cast comes ready to play. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Attempting to steer away from the controversies that pursued his installment of the “Star Wars” saga, 2017’s “The Last Jedi,” writer/director Rian Johnson went to work on a smaller movie meant to return him to filmmaking basics, offering a murder mystery in 2019’s “Knives Out.” He collected a large cast and a twisty plot, but also retained much of his habitual impishness, aiming to be clever with an assortment of red herrings and quips, while star Daniel Craig happily took his position as a southern-fried master detective dealing with the deceptive ways of potential suspects. “Knives Out” had its limitations when it came to providing an entertaining ride, and it made a lot of money, inspiring Johnson and Craig to return to duty for “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” which reunites with Benoit Blanc and his dealings with untrustworthy types, only this time, Johnson is more relaxed, diluting the primary puzzle of the endeavor with stabs at humor that largely fall flat, and writing that doesn’t welcome audience participation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Don Hall has been on an interesting creative winning streak, working his way around impressive Disney Animation achievements such as “Winnie the Pooh,” “Big Hero 6,” “Moana,” and “Raya and the Last Dragon.” He teams with writer/co-director Qui Nguyen for “Strange World,” which creates a journey to a special universe inspired by pulp magazines and fantasy novels, most notably the works of author Jules Verne. Hall and Nguyen manufacture a vivid viewing experience with “Strange World,” which features gorgeous animation and fascinating designs for otherworldly creatures and environments. It’s superb eye-candy, but there’s a lot more to Nguyen’s screenplay, which offers a graceful understanding of environmental issues and family relationships between adventure sequences that deliver impressive scale for big screen enjoyment. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Luca Guadagnino made a big impression on the cinematic scene with 2017’s “Call Me By Your Name,” finding ways to make an atmospheric, often intensely intimate movie about love. He followed his greatest critical and commercial success with a remake of “Suspiria,” exploring extreme genre darkness with an artful and excessively long take on the Dario Argento masterpiece. For “Bones and All,” the helmer hopes to combine his last two pictures into one epic concerning the fragile hearts of cannibals trying to feed and find themselves as they cross the American Midwest. It’s an adaptation of a novel by Camille DeAngelis, with screenwriter David Kajganich challenged to create a sincere examination of romantic chemistry while still maintaining a firm understanding of the horror the main characters create. “Bones and All” is a mixed bag with an indulgent run time, but it does offer some potent grisliness and feelings, with Guadagnino looking to transform the material into something quite serious while it leans toward “Twilight”-ness at times. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Devotion” is based on the true story of naval officer Jesse L. Brown, a black man who fought for his chance to join an aviation program, fulfilling his dream of flight. The feature is an adaptation of a 2017 book by Adam Makos, given a Hollywood makeover by screenwriters Jake Crane and Jonathan A. Stewart, who work to give a story of partnership and determination a certain slickness to help reach a wide audience. It’s a war film but also something tender, pulling some focus off Brown’s life story to understand his place in the military and his wingman relationship with Tom Hudner, mixing such intimacies with the horrors of the Korean War. “Devotion” doesn’t always choose subtlety, which diminishes some of its lasting impact, but it has its heart in the right place, aiming to share a study of honor and sacrifice from an underserved time in history. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Fantasy Football” offers one of the stranger concepts in recent memory, offering a tale about a teenager capable of controlling her father on the football field via a video game, giving him the NFL advantage of his life. There’s some type of magic happening in the feature, but the production isn’t focused on making logic issues work. It’s simply out to entertain with a healthy serving of oddity, and those who can mentally get around the premise and the many questions it inspires are offered a mild but reasonably charming family film. “Fantasy Football” doesn’t contain many surprises, but there’s a certain spirit to the endeavor that’s engaging, especially when it deals with gaming control and time management. Formula rules here, leaving the overall picture to predictability, but the weirdness of it all isn’t unappealing, just tiring as the effort moves into a labored third act. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s important to understand that the documentary “Good Night Oppy” is co-produced by Amblin Entertainment, the Steven Spielberg co-founded company that’s been involved in movies with mass appeal for decades. This is no nuts-and-bolts examination of the space program, but a crowd-pleasing overview of the Opportunity rover which was initially set to explore Mars for 90 days, but managed to hang on for 15 years, offering NASA an extraordinary opportunity to study the Red Planet in detail, providing the team with various challenges to keep “Oppy” on the move as the years passed. Director Ryan White (“Ask Dr. Ruth,” “The Case Against 8”) is working to turn the endeavor into a suspenseful, emotional viewing experience, and he goes big with “Good Night Oppy,” which provides stunning, big-budget (for a documentary) visuals and a rich sense of character from the gathered interviewees, who are charged up to discuss their connection to Opportunity. This enthusiasm is laid on fairly thick in the feature, pushing the effort into a few manipulative moments, but the core sense of wonder and inspiration remains potent. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com