Category: Film Review

“Blithe Spirit” is a filmed version of a highly successful 1941 play by Noel Coward, which inspired a 1945 David Lean big screen adaptation, starring Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, and Kay Hammond. A beloved light comedy from a sharp wit, Coward’s imagination is resurrected by screenwriters Piers Ashworth, Meg Leonard, and Nick Moorcroft, who try to do something with the material for another interpretation. The trio get a little angrier this time around, offering a slightly heavier take on Coward’s vision while still attempting to maintain comic rhythms with a game cast who seem genuinely delighted to be participating in this project. “Blithe Spirit” has select moments of enjoyable insanity, but the farcical aspects of the work don’t come through with any distinction in the new version. Director Edward Hall (a television veteran) makes a pretty picture, but one that doesn’t sustain enough energy to the end, giving viewers less and less as the feature tries to bring Coward to a new audience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Nicolas Cage’s wild career has come to this: starring in a movie about a mute loner going to war against a Rock-afire Explosion-esque, pizza place animatronic animal band over the course of one long night. Actually, “Willy’s Wonderland” fits snugly into Cage’s filmography, playing to his career interests in oddball characters and extraordinary situations, allowing him to use his penchant for showy acting to its fullest potential. Writer G.O. Parsons doesn’t come armed with an ambitious screenplay, but he does an inventive job fiddling around with genre ideas, while director Kevin Lewis attempts to transform the feature into a surreal nightmare of caffeine-fueled violence and menacing robots. “Willy’s Wonderland” doesn’t offer anything more than it initially delivers, and that’s enough to keep Cage busy and viewers amused with this oddball bloodbath. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The comedy world was rocked in 2011 with the release of “Bridesmaids,” which delivered a major hit for screenwriters Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig. The mid-budget film managed to become a major pop culture event, but Mumolo and Wiig didn’t cash in on this success. In fact, they waited a decade before attempting another comedy. While “Bridesmaids” was wacky, it attempted to retain some heart. “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is a straight-up farce, with writers creating a starring vehicle for themselves, portraying wacky, culotte-wearing characters experiencing the trip of a lifetime while stumbling across the end of Florida. While the cartoony ways of the feature result in a few dud scenes, “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is good fun with some big laughs, especially when director Josh Greenbaum gets away from the bizarre plot and focuses on his leading ladies, who seem like they’re having the time of their lives with this picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Perhaps for most outsiders, the idea of a “Wrong Turn” series is baffling. Producers made it happen, sensing brand name potential after the original film made a small profit in 2003, resulting in the creation of five sequels/prequels (no, really) meant to give DVD renters something to do on a weekend night. We haven’t heard from the franchise since 2014, with 2021’s “Wrong Turn” a reboot of sorts, making a distinct play to refresh the marketplace value of the title and get away from the cannibalism aspects of the earlier installments. The feature aims to do something different with the concept of Virginian backwoods horror, and it offers an interest twist on the identification of villainy. The production doesn’t follow through on a few of its ideas, but the “Wrong Turn” do-over has moments of aggression and intimidation that work rather well. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Honing her directorial chops during her stint on the T.V. show “House of Cards,” Robin Wright transitions to the big screen with “Land,” making her feature-length helming debut. She’s selected an emotionally wrenching picture about grief and isolation, gifting herself a role that’s largely internalized, while the Wyoming setting provides a backdrop of glorious nature to best emphasize such a private war. There’s not a lot of dialogue in the screenplay by Jesse Chatham and Erin Dignam, but such a challenge of communication doesn’t intimidate Wright, who delivers one of the finest performances of her career while also managing a refreshingly minimal tale of rebirth without dipping into maudlin storytelling. “Land” has real power even when stands absolutely still for lengthy periods of screen time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Louise Linton is a Scottish actress who struggled to find parts during her career, last seen on-screen in a tiny role in “Rules Don’t Apply,” a film produced by her then-boyfriend, now-husband, Steven Mnuchin, who founded Dune Entertainment (“Avatar,” “Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties”) before joining the Trump Administration, working as Secretary of the Treasury. After years away from the business, Linton is suddenly back on the scene with “Me You Madness,” a feature written and directed by the performer, who gives herself the lead role. It’s not clear why Linton has returned to the movie industry, but she’s been handed an opportunity to prove her worth here, becoming the boss of a dark comedy that openly lifts from “American Psycho.” There’s bloodshed and the 1980s in all its pop culture glory, but nothing else works in “Me You Madness,” with Linton asking the audience to endure a valentine to her sense of style and humor, hitting all the wrong notes with co-star Ed Westwick. It’s an ego-drenched production that doesn’t become the violent cartoon it wants to be. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With “Cowboys,” writer/director Anna Kerrigan makes a feature that plays like a short story, dealing with personal issues of parenthood and protection on a smaller scale of dramatic engagement. Kerrigan takes a look at a crisis of guardianship involving a desperate man who wants to do best by his child, but doesn’t understand how to achieve such graceful leadership during a time of domestic upheaval. Instead of immediately reaching for melodrama, Kerrigan creates a vivid depiction of fatherly desperation and motherly frustration with authentic concern for both parties. While this custody tale has a few sobering turns to give it some punch, “Cowboys” remains committed to inspecting complex feelings and displays of limited impulse control, creating an involving page-turner for the big screen. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A period tale of forbidden love between two women trying to navigate the injustices and humiliations of a patriarchal society? December’s “Ammonite” struggled to provide a reason to stick with its lethargic storytelling, but “The World to Come” has a more interesting take on roughly the same situation of secret lovers in tight corsets. An adaptation of a Jim Shepard short story (he co-scripts with Ron Hansen), the feature offers an impressively forbidding location for its odyssey into the needs of the human heart. It’s the winter season in 19th century New York, giving director Mona Fastvold a bleak, freezing backdrop for a study of warming hearts, following Shepard’s poeticism to deliver a somber study of an impeded relationship that’s fueled by acts of personal expression. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Time loop movies are becoming increasingly common, giving filmmakers a chance to run wild with the fantasy premise, often going for laughs due to the concept of persistent repetition, which is always fun to watch. Just last summer, “Palm Springs” found a way to charm with its take on “Groundhog Day”-style confusion and romance, and now “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” is playing in the same sandbox, only here the emphasis is on young love and emotional confrontation. Screenwriter Lev Grossman adapts his own short story, creating a blend of mild funny business and deep feeling. It’s easy to spot the stretchmarks on the material, but ideas on life challenges and relationships come through with care, and director Ian Samuels does a clever job keeping the monotony of time loop events on the move, providing the feature with a few stretches of kinetic energy. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While the story of Fred Hampton and his time as one of the leaders of the Black Panthers has been in some form of development for years, his tale of authority and betrayal is especially poignant in 2021, with “Judas and the Black Messiah” offered to audiences likely in tune with its message now more than ever. Co-writer/director Shaka King (“Newlyweeds,” “Shrill”) searches to bring Hampton’s life to the screen with a defined cinematic presence, and while that approach sometime backfires on him, the helmer supplies confident work here, creating powerful moments of command and panic, taking a biblical lead to detail what the Black Panthers were doing in the late 1960s, also understanding the lengths the F.B.I. went to make sure that sliver of hope never developed into anything. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Falling” is the directorial debut for veteran actor Viggo Mortensen (who also scripts). He digs into his own experiences dealing with parental dementia to inspire the screenplay, which presents a bitter battle of memory and judgement between an ailing father and his patient son. The picture is tough, never flinching when detailing the verbal and physical violence associated with a failing mind, and while Mortensen uses this nerve pinch of horror to deliver some heated exchanges, he largely creates a poetic understanding of family friction, examining the journey to resentment and tough love. “Falling” is accomplished work from Mortensen, who comes to the feature fully prepared to deal with all the distress the premise offers, putting his faith into Lance Henriksen’s lead performance as a scattered man succumbing to his fate, giving the actor room to explore a volatile but privately vulnerable character. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Two years ago, director Lisa Downs dipped her toe in the warm waters of nostalgia with the documentary “Life After Flash,” which detailed the career of “Flash Gordon” star Sam Jones and the making of the 1980 cult masterpiece. Downs offered a compelling overview of Jones’s life after his most successful acting assignment, working to juggle a story of personal evolution with the nuts and bolts of “Flash Gordon,” trying to give fans everything they’ve been searching for. It was an intimate offering, and now Downs is looking to turn such filmmaking into a business with “Life After the Navigator,” which details the monumental life challenges actor Joey Cramer encountered after appearing in 1986’s “Flight of the Navigator.” With Cramer, Downs has more of a challenge when it comes to achieving tonal balance, dealing the highs of a strange but fascinating Disney release and the lows of drug addiction and crime, with Cramer struggling to survive after experiencing early success as a child actor. “Life After the Navigator” is an easy fit for Downs’s series, but it’s also a tale that doesn’t always deal smoothly with the extreme ways of the subject. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Mike Cahill made his first impression with 2011’s “Another Earth,” a sci-fi brain bleeder that attracted attention from critics and audiences, establishing interest in his career. He followed it up with “I Origins,” another mind bender that came and went quickly, unable to dazzle viewers taking a chance on another Cahill puzzle. He’s been away from feature filmmaking for seven years, returning with “Bliss,” which isn’t a drastic creative risk for the helmer, who reunites with the mysteries of the mind and the pains of the heart. Cahill only has the makings of a short with the endeavor, unable to squeeze enough drama out of the material, but there’s something here worth exploring, including a different approach to understanding the experience of drug addiction and mental illness, getting inside a melting mind instead of merely observing someone in the midst of a downward spiral. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While producers scramble to explore the world’s current pandemic situation with timely tales of separation and mounting frustration, “Little Fish” actually captures a familiar escalation of confusion and fear, perfectly in step with today’s daily news. The picture was shot nearly two years ago and doesn’t deal with the COVID-19 universe, but screenwriter Mattson Tomlin (adapting a short story by Aja Gabel) and director Chad Hartigan offer a vivid understanding of helplessness in the face of a public health crisis. The idea presented here is one of memory, with something happening to the population as individuals start to succumb to mental health issues. It all comes across eerily familiar, but the production remains on a dramatic path, dealing with the warmth of love and the challenges of a relationship, especially one that’s slowly being forgotten by two people desperate to save it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I don’t envy studio marketing departments, who are often tasked with selling difficult films to the general public, forced try anything to attract an audience. “The Right One” is a classic example of marketing misdirection, as the poster art promises a romantic comedy about a woman trying to deal with a man of many personalities, offering a beaming smile while her love interest is depicted in many stages of comical dress up. Fun? Well, the feature is actually about a journey of immense grief, examining coping mechanisms for a traumatized guy who can’t express his pain, dealing with his issues through denial. “The Right One” is a mess from writer/director Ken Mok, who probably had a cohesive idea at one point in the creative journey, losing his nerve with a pitch-black drama that’s suddenly trying to be sweet and silly at the worst moments. For those sitting down with the movie in hopes of enjoying the escapism promised on the poster, please adjust your expectations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Rams” is a remake of a 2015 Icelandic film. It’s been reimaged for an Australian setting, and lengthened by writer Jules Duncan, who spends more time in the tale, which involves a disturbing development in a farming community that prides itself on a love of animals and the land. The Icelandic version was compelling, with a balanced examination of comedy and drama, playing up a central crisis of brotherly estrangement. The update pursues a community atmosphere, with director Jeremy Sims (“Last Cab to Darwin”) enjoying his time with a range of actors, occasionally slowing the feature down to detail ensemble interplay. “Rams” remains approachable despite a bleak premise, and it certainly helps to have Sam Neill and Michael Caton in the lead roles, giving the endeavor richly communicative performances with limited dialogue. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Perhaps those jonesing for something in the same vein as 2019’s “Midsommar” might be the right audience for “Sacrifice.” Adapting a short story by Paul Kane and crediting H.P. Lovecraft as a storytelling influence, writer/director Toor Mian and Andy Collier attempt to summon a spooky mood of remote Norwegian evil involving the presence of a cult and psychological pressure applied to two Americans new to the area. “Sacrifice” doesn’t emerge with much authority, with the helmers aiming to achieve more of an unsettling viewing experience than an overtly violent one. The end result isn’t thunderous, with Mian and Collier going the slow-burn route to chills, but they still come up short with any sort of fear factor. There’s style and atmospheric churn, but the feature doesn’t deliver where it counts the most, taking the long way to an unsatisfying destination. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s surprising to see director Neil Marshall back behind a camera so soon after tanking his shot to revive the world of “Hellboy” for the big screen. The 2019 release was mostly terrible, highlighting Marshall’s shortcomings as a helmer who’s spent his career chasing violent, bloody stories of monstrous conflict and war. He’s a genre guy, and now he’s trying to make do with a limited budget for “The Reckoning,” which is something of a vanity project for Marshall, collaborating with actress Charlotte Kirk, aiming to turn his girlfriend into a major action star. It’s a strange project all-around, trying to conjure a period world of plague horrors and “witch finder” monologuing, also delivering sexuality and scenes of torture. Marshall attempts to bring bigness to Kirk’s presence, but the feature is woefully small and silly, offering a community theater vibe for material that’s looking to be merciless and dramatically thunderous. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s been a multitude of stories concerning the horrors of World War II brought to the screen, and there will be many more to come. It remains fertile dramatic ground to explore tales of heroism and suffering, giving producers more of a black and white opportunity to inspect personal sacrifice in the middle of a world-changing conflict. For “Dara of Jasenovac,” focus moves away from American and European concerns, highlighting the torturous experience of Croatia during the Ustase years, following one 10-year-old girl’s odyssey through a concentration camp system as she tries to keep her two-year-old brother alive. There’s perspective here worth noting, adding to the history of WWII, but there’s little in “Dara of Jasenovac” that hasn’t been done before, and by stronger filmmakers. It’s 130 minutes of hardship that quickly loses its impact, as director Predrag Antonijevic grows obsessed with finding new ways to photograph mental and physical breakdowns, creating an especially difficult sit for anyone beside students of history. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the grand scheme of Hollywood business and the quest for guaranteed moneymakers from golden IPs, it’s amazing there hasn’t been a sequel created for 1985’s “The Goonies” or, more realistically, a remake of some sort. There’s plenty there to work with, leaving screenwriter Christina Strain (“The Magicians”) with a free shot to harness that special screen energy and find a way to reintroduce it to a new audience. “Finding ‘Ohana” isn’t nearly as feisty or madcap as “The Goonies,” but it’s clearly aiming to achieve the same dramatic goals, putting kids on a path to hidden treasure to seek adventure and help solve a few family problems. Director Jude Weng (“Fresh Off the Boat”) delivers some spirited sequences for the picture, but the material isn’t strictly after thrills, often more interested in the nuances of Hawaiian culture and the power of love. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com