Director Edward Berger pulled off a cinematic miracle just one year ago. Tasked with making a suspenseful picture about a collection of cardinals gathering to select a new pope, Berger and his production team managed to make arguably the most exciting feature of 2024 with “Conclave,” achieving extraordinary tension out of a story that, from the outside, appeared to be an Ambien pill in the making. Berger jumps right back to work with “Ballad of a Small Player,” joined by screenwriter Rowan Joffe (“28 Weeks Later,” “Before I Go to Sleep”) for this adaptation of a 2014 novel by Lawrence Osborne. The story concerns a gambling addict and con man dragged through an assortment of challenges to his fortune and mind, with Berger focusing intensely on the punishment of desperation. Lightning doesn’t strike twice for the helmer, who can’t seem to find the rhythm of “Ballad of a Small Player,” which wants to be many things without being much of anything. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Richard Linklater keeps moving forward in his career, which is filled with interesting choices, giving him one of the most unique filmographies in the business. After delivering “Hit Man,” one of his best movies, Linklater goes from love and violence to a night in a restaurant in “Blue Moon,” which spends an evening with lyricist Lorenz Hart as he wrestles with his creative future, spends time trying to catch the attention of a beguiling young woman, and recognizes his career shortcomings. Reteaming with screenwriter Robert Kaplow (the two collaborated on 2008’s “Me and Orson Welles”), Linklater is left to manage a theatrical-style examination of heartache in many forms, and he pulls it off quite well. “Blue Moon” remains in a single location with a handful of characters, but Kaplow maintains snappy dialogue and emotional puzzles to solve, and the helmer has fun with it all, also scoring big with star Ethan Hawke, who’s wonderful as Hart, offering his most interesting, alert performance in quite some time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Jerry Stiller passed away in 2020, preceded in death by his wife, Anne Meara, who expired in 2015. They were professionally known as Stiller and Meara, becoming a respected comedy team throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, achieving some degree of fame with their stage interplay, which was tied to their real-world marital relationship. To Ben Stiller, Anne and Jerry were simply mom and dad, and soon enough, he was tasked with emptying out their New York City apartment for a future sale. Most people would quietly go about their business, but Ben elected to take advantage of the situation, bringing in a camera crew to create the documentary “Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost,” which pays tribute to the performers and tries to understand their human side when away from the stage. Ben is joined by his sister, Amy, for an exploration of the past and the present, offering an in-depth and often uncomfortably intimate study of Jerry and Anne and their unusual life together. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Horror can be a tough business, and it’s even harder when there’s limited imagination for frights in charge of the picture. Making his filmmaking debut is YouTuber Chris Stuckmann, who hopes to deliver a thoroughly terrifying feature in “Shelby Oaks,” though he doesn’t have much to work with in what’s truly a very dull endeavor. Lifting from movies such as “The Blair Witch Project” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” Stuckmann doesn’t have drive to really launch into disturbing behavior. Instead, he’s positioned himself somewhere between a found-footage endeavor and a chiller, never quite settling on a single approach to make sense of his main idea. “Shelby Oaks” (which was shot three years ago) aims to be creepy, but it’s painfully generic and poorly paced, resembling most other low-budget genre efforts in the marketplace with its strange appreciation of suspense and uneventful plotting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Frankenstein” has been done to death. Originating as an 1818 novel from author Mary Shelley, the tale of creation and revenge has been resurrected in all forms of media for over a century, finding its greatest popularity in the world of cinema, where the darkness of the story is allowed to be explored in full. There’s been no shortage of adaptations and general riffs on Shelley’s creation, but such well-worn artistic terrain doesn’t deter writer/director Guillermo del Toro. The man in love with monsters, del Toro finally gets a chance to play with The Creature in his own production of “Frankenstein,” going the big-budget route that emphasizes cinematic scale and texture. The picture is something to see, offering exquisite moviemaking craftsmanship, but like a lot of del Toro’s work, “Frankenstein” struggles to connect on a soulful level, remaining much more interesting on a technical one. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Making his feature-length directorial debut is comedian Aziz Ansari, who looks to “Good Fortune” (also claiming a screenwriting credit on the project) as a way to address the woes of life, especially for those struggling to survive financially in a world that’s happy to leave people behind. Ansari brings in a heavenly touch to play with some religious magic, and borrows a bit from 1983’s “Trading Places,” which offered a comedic take on the story of “The Prince and the Pauper.” “Good Fortune” looks to offer humor and sweetness as it examines the frustrations of class inequality, but it’s hard to understand exactly what Ansari wants his audience to feel when he’s stuffed the movie with weak jokes and unlikable characters. The film is a bit of a mess, at least tonally, and reveals Ansari’s weaknesses as a helmer, never quite grasping how little heart there is in this picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Mary Bronstein aims to cinematically communicate the pressure cooker experience of being a mother in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” There have been a number of slightly similar endeavors in recent years (including “Tully” and “Nightbitch”), exploring the psychological fragility of women who are doing their best to keep it together as pressures, real and imagined, build up around them, causing a temporary break from reality. Bronstein goes to a much darker place in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” reaching into the main character, who’s handling too much and all at once. The helmer offers a powerful examination of helplessness, and actress Rose Byrne shakes off the sameness of recent performances to vividly portray an emotional meltdown leaking out of a tightly wound person, getting to the core of a fantastically complex living experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Interest in the world of author Roald Dahl has certainly increased in recent years, inspiring a fresh round of literary adaptations including “Matilda the Musical,” “Wonka,” and “The Witches.” Even Wes Anderson has joined in, helming the short “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” for a streaming audience. Now there’s “The Twits,” which is based on a 1980 Dahl children’s novel, putting director Phil Johnston (“Ralph Breaks the Internet”) to work bringing the author’s unusual, somewhat gross ways to the screen, also sharing credit for the screenplay with Meg Favreau. “The Twits” has been handed a modern kids film makeover, with its original oddity softened in the hunt to bring a substantial story to the offering. Weirdness remains, and there’s entertainment value in Dahl’s world, but formula threatens to overwhelm the viewing experience, as the uniqueness of the book has been watered down to make a sellable movie out of it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2022’s “The Black Phone” was an adaptation of a Joe Hill short story. And it definitely played like one, with screenwriters C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson (who also directed) straining to turn a small idea for suspense into a feature film. And one that had a pretty definitive conclusion. However, definitive conclusions are no match for box office profit, and now we have “Black Phone 2,” with Cargill and Derrickson returning to expand Hill’s concept for a sequel that’s not necessary, and doesn’t invest in originality. The writers clearly turn to Wes Craven’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street” for inspiration and direct lifts, looking for a way to return The Grabber to action without fully erasing his fate in the previous picture. “Black Phone 2” sticks with dream logic and cheap frights, and the offering takes its time to get where it’s going, aiming for a more emotional, family-oriented scare zone in a decidedly ho-hum movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Jess Varley is after something specific with “The Astronaut,” but she doesn’t have a clear idea how to get there. It hopes to be a chiller, at least until it isn’t one, but the material doesn’t have much appreciation for originality, delivering the usual in terms of tight psychological spaces and perceived physical threats around an isolated setting. But there’s noticeable drive to make this endeavor snap to cinematic life, watching Varley oversee music and editing achievements that hope to sell the intensity of a picture that’s mostly flat. “The Astronaut” is headed somewhere, hoping to give viewers a ride of mystery that takes everything all the way to the final shot. The effort is appreciated, but the offering just isn’t very compelling, looking to pull off a major misdirect that lacks a more meaningful payoff. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Other” is a small-scale horror movie from writer/director David Moreau, who’s been faithful to the genre over the last two decades, including work on 2006’s “Them,” 2008’s “The Eye,” and, more recently, 2024’s little-seen “MadS.” Moreau’s latest keeps him in the shadows, this time examining the psychological melting of a middle-aged woman reconnecting with her past after the death of her mother, soon recognizing the true depth of trauma she suffered at the hands of her parent. “Other” has a therapeutic level to the writing, getting into hidden spaces of pain as the main character returns to the life she left behind. And there’s something of a creature feature angle to the story, putting Moreau to work organizing nasty things that only move in the dark. “Other” has the goods to become a striking short film, but the helmer is undertaking a feature-length journey here, and there’s far too much dead air in the endeavor to really rattle the senses. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Mastermind” is often identified as a heist movie, and perhaps there’s some truth to that label. It deals with a man attempting to organize the theft of four paintings from a local museum, handling the planning and execution of a crime that means more to him than simple financial gain. While thoughts of near-misses and scheming come to mind, the feature is the latest from writer/director Kelly Reichardt, and she’s not one to indulge the simple pleasures of flashy filmmaking and furious pacing. The helmer of thoughtful endeavors such as “Wendy and Lucy,” “Certain Women,” and 2022’s little-seen “Showing Up,” Reichardt mostly deals with screen stillness, looking to examine unique characterizations and quiet spaces. This creative approach doesn’t bring much intensity to “The Mastermind,” but those in tune with Reichardt’s work might find something to savor in this muted offering. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com