Surely the dating scene has always been a horror show, with people trying to find other people in a blur of weirdos and creeps. With apps, the situation has grown more complex, allowing people to zero in on hyper-specific wants, and this craving for perfection is brought to a macabre extreme in “Fresh,” which examines one woman’s experience with a seemingly special guy, learning more about his dangerous desires. Writer Lauryn Kahn (“Ibiza”) and director Mimi Cave are out to create something sinister but also knowing, exploring the preliminary stages of trust in a relationship, while staying aware of the dangers facing females on the hunt for a companion while making their way through a world of constant threats. There’s absolutely nothing in “Fresh” that requires 114 minutes of screen time, but an interesting twist on a bad boyfriend concept awaits those with enough patience to make through this twisted endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For reasons not entirely understood, there’s now a surge of movies dedicated to understanding the relationship between television legends, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Last December, there was “Being the Ricardos,” where writer/director Aaron Sorkin took a look at a specific time in these hectic lives, out to identify professional commitment, marital strain, and public scrutiny, going the dramatic route to best delve into these personalities. With “Lucy and Desi,” director Amy Poehler and writer Mark Monroe manufacture a documentary about the subjects and the span of their lives, out to supply a full sense of motivation and inspiration as Ball and Arnaz went from burgeoning performers to the biggest stars in America. “Lucy and Desi” is a celebration of artistic endeavors and an inspection of the domestic experience, giving fans a peek behind the curtain to best appreciate all the couple accomplished. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Eamon O’Rourke has a promising idea with “Asking for It,” merging exploitation trends of the 1970s with social issues of today, working up update the revenge film for a new audience. The story details an underground community dedicated to the protection and satisfaction of sexual assault victims, with this team facing their biggest challenge in the rise of a male power organization determined to destroy females in the name of masculinity. There’s a compelling concept that invites a high-minded take on B-movie mayhem, using enticing extremity to reach viewers with ideas on the screwed-up state of the world. Making his helming debut, O’Rourke doesn’t have the experience to make magic with “Asking for It,” which is repeatedly held back by painful budget constraints and poor execution, leaving a noble endeavor to gradually fall apart. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s been a lot of Batman on film recently, with the caped crusader recently released from his Ben Affleck phase for director Zack Snyder with last year’s “Justice League” reconstruction. Not much time has passed, but a new year demands a new Batman, and Robert Pattinson steps up for “The Batman,” which presents a fresh start for the franchise, with director Matt Reeves (“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” “War for the Planet of the Apes”) in charge of a different vision for the same Gotham City misery. “The Batman” has all the ingredients the fanbase expects, dealing with villains, crime, and costumed heroism, but Reeves successfully shakes things up with his noir-ish take on the brand name, turning the picture into a brooding detective story that pays careful attention to character and atmosphere. It’s a lengthy endeavor (175 minutes long), and you’ll feel it, but the reward for such an extreme run time is full immersion in the mental health war that is the Batman experience, with Reeves nailing the brutality and awakening of this complicated dark knight. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Tyler Perry is a writer, director, producer, and actor. And now he’s a liar. 2019’s “A Madea Family Funeral” was meant to be the final feature starring the eponymous character, with Perry sharing his desire to retire from the demands of drag as a middle-aged man, having shared all that he could with the franchise. Three years later, there’s “A Madea Homecoming,” which brings the gun-toting grandma back to viewers for a 13th cinematic adventure, as Perry apparently has more to say with the one-note creation, refusing to keep his promise. Hoping to bring laughs to a pandemic audience, Perry relies on his old shtick with “A Madea Homecoming,” filling the picture with easily solved problems, loud personalities, and strange slapstick, with the major addition being Irishman Brendan O’Carroll, who joins the movie in his drag persona, Mrs. Brown, bringing his version of Madea-ing to American audiences, though nobody specifically asked for this. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“No Exit” is based on a 2017 novel by Taylor Adams, though it never plays as though it was inspired by a literary endeavor. Adams doesn’t offer an extravagantly designed plot to explore, more interested in pouring the foundation for a cinematic thriller about strangers in a small room growing increasingly suspicious of one another. Such simplicity makes an easy transition to the screen, with writers Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari attempting to preserve characterization and eventual turns of plot, while director Damien Power is tasked with creating a powerfully cold and chaotic weather event, and rising tempers, to maintain a proper thriller event. “No Exit” doesn’t overwhelm, but it clicks as an efficient summary of head games and direct threats, with escalation efforts extremely successful as conversations from the first half of the feature are traded for violent interactions in the second half. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Leave it to a rock band to make the most entertaining horror comedy in recent memory. Foo Fighters have been around in one form or another for nearly 30 years, but there’s something about a pandemic that inspires strange ideas. For frontman Dave Grohl, the downtime presented a chance to develop an idea for a demonic possession story, with screenwriters Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes hired to flesh out the concept of a band experiencing a developing nightmare while attempting to record their latest album inside a haunted house. There’s a single setting but lots of ideas for bodily harm in “Studio 666,” which updates the concept of a “band movie” for genre fans, asking members of Foo Fighters to play slightly cartoonish versions of themselves while the tale delivers blasts of ultraviolence and moments of silliness. “Studio 666” is tremendous fun, and while it’s aimed at the fanbase, there are gore zone delights for all. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Earlier this month, Roland Emmerich tried to thrill moviegoers with his vision of global disaster in “Moonfall,” spending an enormous amount of money on visual effects to create massive scenes of destruction. The film was greeted with a collective yawn from viewers. Now Norway has their shot at making a mess of things with “The Burning Sea,” which brings a smaller sense of danger to screens, though the writing doesn’t skimp on scary business, turning to the horrors of real-world ecological ruin to fuel an offering of disaster cinema. Norway has been here before, finding success with efforts such as “The Wave,” “The Quake,” and “The Tunnel.” The production is practiced in the ways of summoning suspense, and while “The Burning Sea” has its defined Hollywood moments, director John Andreas Andersen does an excellent job keeping the endeavor focused on the business at hand, scoring a few nail-biting sequences along the way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Desperate Hour” takes on the sensitive subject matter of school shootings, only it never fully explores the chaos that goes on inside a terrorized building. Screenwriter Chris Sparling (“Greenland,” “The Sea of Trees”) remains on the outside of the developing situation, creating a suspense picture about a parent who realizes their own child is involved in the event, left to madly contact others to better understand if the teen is a killer or a victim. “The Desperate Hour” aims to be an unsettling viewing experience, observing a real-world situation of shocking confusion, following a single character as she speeds to a destination that will forever change her life. There’s tremendous disappointment that comes with the realization that Sparling isn't committing to an authentic depiction of anguish, eventually going Hollywood with a feature that’s refreshingly pure in its intensity for its first two acts. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Unfortunately, “Gasoline Alley” isn’t a live-action adaptation of the long-running (103 years!) comic strip. Instead, it’s the latest offering of snoozy acting from Bruce Willis, who barely participates in this murder mystery, which presents Devon Sawa as a tattoo artist caught up in bad business that’s resulted in the deaths of four prostitutes. Sawa gets to have his Man on Fire moments, going steely and growly in the lead role, and there’s a curious credit here, with Tom Sierchio co-scripting the feature, previously known for his work on the fantastic 1993 film, “Untamed Heart.” Early hopes for something different from a Willis production are dashed fairly quickly, as co-writer/director Edward Drake doesn’t have the time or money to really think about the lurid material, trusting in routine chases and shootouts to get the endeavor to 90 minutes, skipping on a chance to really explore the griminess of the premise, unwilling to find a fresh way to deal with screen ugliness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Zoom is described as a “video teleconferencing software program,” and it became a very big deal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Zoom permitted large groups to gather online and interact in a way that kinda-sorta resembled the natural back and forth people had in “the before times.” It was also a valuable source for connection as isolation crept into our lives, giving loved ones a chance to see one another again, helping to briefly but effectively chase the lockdown blues away. “Family Squares” is a Zoom movie in a way, using the technology to bring together a group of actors tasked with portraying a dysfunctional family pulled together to deal with the death of the matriarch. Director Stephanie Laing (“Irreplaceable You”) offers an ambitious examination of communication and performance with the picture, and while she could seriously use another pass in the editing room, “Family Squares” does find its footing as a study of emotion and relationships dealing with various distances. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Big Gold Brick” is reminiscent of prefab cult films released in the early 2000s, when producers were trying to reach an alternative audience with brain-bleeders (e.g. “Donnie Darko,” “The Chumscrubber”), looking for young talent to do something quite different to attract attention. Making his feature-length helming debut is Brian Petsos, who takes viewers into the world of brain injuries with “Big Gold Brick,” which mixes the real and unreal in a dark comedy about relationships and the art of storytelling. Petsos comes prepared to show his stuff with the endeavor, overseeing a stylized, vaguely silly effort that’s meant to be a wild ride into psychosis, and one that requires 132 minutes of your time. There’s little reward for such a big ask from the production, as the material isn’t particularly amusing and lacks gravity as a study of a broken mind. Petsos wants the world with this offering, but it’s hard to remain interested in the movie’s frustrating indulgence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Butter” is based on a 2012 YA novel by Erin Jade Lange, and its cinematic adaptation seems inspired by the major success of 2017’s “Wonder.” The two tales deal with the experience of being bullied and misunderstood, with external differences inspiring others to dehumanize the characters in subtle ways. “Butter” examines the difficultly of being morbidly obese in high school, with the eponymous teen struggling to be treated kindly while masterminding a dire plan to be understood by all. Lange’s material explore dark emotions and real-world pain, which is difficult to bring to the screen. Writer/director Paul A. Kaufman has all the good intentions in the world to create a sensitive understanding of the boy and his problems, but such ambition, as pure-hearted as it is, tends to cloud the complex emotions in play, making for a mediocre take on adolescent confusion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com