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Blu-ray Review – Tesla
In 2019, "The Current War" finally made its way into theaters after a lengthy release delay. It explored the story of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla and their battle to control the future of electricity. It was a flashy feature that didn't generate much interest from the public, but now there's "Tesla," which also details power plays between two men devoted to the energy cause, but for entirely different reasons. While "The Current War" tried to get up and running with broad screen style, "Tesla" is more of a filmed play, with director Michael Almereyda inspecting the inner life of the titular character, using a theatrical presentation and anachronistic touches to provide creative fingerprints on a story that largely exists in legend. Almereyda remains true to his vision with the endeavor, which has its imaginative moments, but largely broods itself to a full stop on a few occasions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Blu-ray Review – Capone
After scoring a commercial success with 2012's "Chronicle," director Josh Trank lost almost all of his critical and industry goodwill with his follow-up endeavor, the disastrous "Fantastic Four" do-over. While such a public flameout would kill most careers, Trank has managed to hang on to his employability by his fingertips, returning five years later with "Capone," a much smaller picture for the helmer. While there was a lot of speculation as to who was really behind the colossal failure of "Fantastic Four," "Capone" basically underlines Trank's shortcomings as a storyteller, getting lost in his own unpleasant whims with the feature, which gradually becomes a prison sentence for viewers as it tracks the steady decay of Al Capone — a tale nobody asked for, especially from Trank. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
2013’s “The Conjuring” was yet another James Wan horror movie when it was released. However, it was arguably his best horror movie, and the picture’s success was immediate and expansive, quickly inspiring the formation of “The Conjuring Universe,” which has delivered several spin-offs and a direct sequel, though 2016’s “The Conjuring 2” was a tremendous disappointment, with Wan getting lost in a bloated run time, killing suspense. For the eighth installment of “The Conjuring Universe,” Wan steps away from directorial duties, handing “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” to “The Curse of La Llorona” helmer Michael Chaves, who’s tasked with protecting the golden goose for another chapter of supernatural entanglements. Wan isn’t entirely missed, but Chaves has the benefit of moderately better material for “The Devil Made Me Do It,” which returns to the Ed and Lorraine Warren saga, offering a slight legal angle to the sequel’s hellraising, which brings a bit of freshness to an increasingly stale franchise. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – Death in Texas
For almost exactly an hour, writer/director Scott Windhauser (“Dead Trigger”) finds a fresh way to deal with old genre business in “Death in Texas.” He commits to character and performance, working to get the audience invested in these damaged people and their emotional history, making clear connections between the players while gradually increasing tension that normally accompanies crime movie interests. Windhauser eventually surrenders the softer interactions, giving the feature over to genre formula, but he has something special for 60 minutes, giving “Death in Texas” a John Sayles feel as storytelling winds around multiple players and their anguished hearts, keeping things confessional before the guns and coincidences come out to offer the usual payoff for this type of violent endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – Spirit Untamed
Almost two decades ago, DreamWorks Animation released “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.” It was slightly artier fare from the “Shrek” studio, presenting family audiences with an animated adventure about a special horse that didn’t involve cartoon touches, with the production trying to offer an epic instead of a babysitter. It was an interesting picture (with an incredible score by Hans Zimmer), but it, almost predictably, didn’t find many takers at the box office, with its Disney-ish ways unable to compete in the marketplace. There was never a sequel for “Stallion of the Cimarron,” but DreamWorks didn’t let Spirit die, bringing the fiery horse back for a 2017 television series, “Spirit Riding Free,” aiming the material at younger viewers eager to devour tales of horse riding and friendship. The show was a hit, keeping Spirit alive over the course of 78 episodes, but the company isn’t ready to give up on the moneymaker, making an unusual creative choice to produce “Spirit Untamed,” which is basically a remake of the “Spirit Riding Free” origin story with a slightly bigger budget, slicker animation, and a marquee-friendly voice cast. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – Hero Mode
There have been numerous films based on video games, but “Hero Mode” is the rare endeavor to explore the business behind the creation of video games. Screenwriter Jeff Carpenter doesn’t dig too deeply into industry ways, presenting more of an understanding of competition and labor while still making something approachable for a pre-teen audience. “Hero Mode” is old-fashioned entertainment in many ways, offering a gentle tale about self-esteem, teamwork, and relationships, mixed in with an amusing underdog tale from an adolescent perspective. The production isn’t swinging for the fences with this material, remaining mild with dramatics and emotions, but they find ways to reach viewers of all ages while still playing into current pop culture trends concerning kids and big-time gaming biz dreams. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – Flashback
“Flashback” is the first feature from writer/director Christopher MacBride in eight years, having last helmed the faux documentary, “The Conspiracy.” The new picture plays like an idea that’s been brewing inside the filmmaker for a long time, finally presented with a chance to realize his dream movie after years of consideration and development. These pure intentions are somewhat lost in the overall execution, as “Flashback” is a brain-bleeder, but not an especially gripping one. There are layers for the layers in this endeavor, which follows a young man’s odyssey into his own mind, which is on the verge of shutting down, looking to regain control of his past, present, and future by renewing focus on a troubled classmate. MacBride oversees style and performance, but there’s limited appeal to the story, which is always most comfortable in puzzle mode, but the solution isn’t worth the time invested. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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UHD 4K Review – The Beastmaster
After achieving a career-changing breakthrough hit with 1979's "Phantasm," writer/director Don Coscarelli aimed to advance his standing in the industry with a bigger feature. Paying tribute to the sword-and-sandal movies of his youth, Coscarelli delivers "The Beastmaster," which merges old- fashioned screen heroism with fantasy interests of the 1980s, gifting the world a new type of warrior with the ability to communicate and partner with animals while facing the ugliness of pure evil. "The Beastmaster" and its this-is-rated-PG? highlights don't necessarily translate to riveting sit, but the imagination of the production is often impressive, especially when executed on an obviously lower budget. 1982 gave us the austerity of "Conan the Barbarian," but Coscarelli's endeavor is more of a romp with monsters and battles, and it's easy to track the helmer's intent with the picture, even if it doesn't always reach its full potential. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Blu-ray Review – Necromancer
In 1989's "Necromancer," revenge is a dish best served in a backyard Satanic-tented garage located in suburban Los Angeles. The highs and lows of low-budget filmmaking are on full display in the picture, which uses slasher formula for a possession story to give audiences some limited thrills while director Dusty Nelson tries to put one foot in front of the other. Production achievements are limited and there's not much of a fun factor to the endeavor, but "Necromancer" does deliver mild levels of aggression and B-movie weirdness for viewers jonesing for something distinctly created for the VHS market in the 1980s. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Blu-ray Review – Action U.S.A.
Co-writer/director John Stewart strives to make his mark on B-movie mayhem with 1989's "Action U.S.A." A seasoned stuntman (with credits on "Phantasm II," "The Hidden," and "Night of the Demons"), Stewart makes his helming debt with the endeavor, commencing a plan to inject as much hellraising as possible into a single feature, creating a film that's more of a demo reel for his capabilities when it comes to planning and executing stunts of all kinds. "Action U.S.A." is no thriller, despite a screenplay that clumsily attempts to create characters and situations of intimidation. It doesn't have the polish for that type of escapism. Instead, Stewart goes smashmouth with the work, packing it with car chases, high falls, explosions, and fisticuffs, on a mission to create excitement with the limited resources he has. He succeeds for the most part, as long as dialogue and drama are ignored. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Blu-ray Review – Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
With "Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets," directors Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross present a look at the state of the dive bar nation in 2016, spending the day at the Roaring 20's, a Las Vegas establishment that's working through its final hours of operation. It's not cause for celebration, but observance, with the siblings enduring nearly 24 hours inside the joint, capturing the arrival and slow inebriation of customers who truly have nowhere else to be. It's a documentary (kind of) that doesn't have much more to give than simple experience, gifting viewers time in a small, worn space with a community of drunks as they banter, argue, flirt, sing, and dance, with the helmers creating a tone poem, examining human behavior as it's gradually drowned by gallons of booze. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally
“American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally” hopes to refresh viewers on a largely forgotten area of World War II, exploring certain life choices made by Mildred Gillars, an American-born resident of Germany who eventually became one of the leading voices of Nazi propaganda efforts. The screenplay by Vance Owen, Darryl Hicks, and Michael Polish (who also directs) does the expected, working to understand the ways of a hated woman who pledged her allegiance to evil, endeavoring to understand what kind of survival instinct was required during a confusing time of global crisis. “American Traitor” is about Mildred’s experiences in Berlin, but it’s also a courtroom drama, and a particularly boring one at that. Polish tries to generate some level of psychological exploration when dealing with such a controversial person, but the feature is flat-out motionless at times, forcing co-star Al Pacino to summon his hammiest thespian ways to help provide some energy to an otherwise deathly dull film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – A Quiet Place Part II
2018’s “A Quiet Place” was the little genre feature that could, besting all expectations to become one of the biggest hits of the year, dazzling audiences with its tight suspense sequences and hurting popcorn sales with its extensive use of silence. It turned actor John Krasinski into a major directorial force, celebrated for his inventiveness while mounting an unusual alien invasion picture. Of course there was going to be a sequel, and “A Quiet Place Part II” picks up exactly where the first movie left off, returning audiences to the war zone of the Midwest, following Evelyn and her family as they carry on without the leadership of her husband. While a little offering of backstory is presented to viewers, Krasinski isn’t straying too far from the original formula, keeping “A Quiet Place Part II” similar in style and tension, only shifting around character position for the continuation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – Cruella
Dodie Smith’s 1956 children’s novel, “The Hundred and One Dalmatians,” has proven itself to be quite valuable to the Walt Disney Corporation. The company created a popular and profitable animation adaptation, 1961’s “101 Dalmatians,” and hasn’t looked back, returning to the concept, not necessarily the source material, to inspire sequels, television programs, video games, theme park meet and greets, spin-offs, and something approaching a remake with a 1996 live-action endeavor starring Glenn Close as the wicked villain, Cruella de Vil (and there was even a sequel to that). It isn’t surprising to see Disney returning to Smith’s creation once again for “Cruella,” but this isn’t a continuation of the original story. Instead, screenwriters Dana Fox and Tony McNamara are starting fresh with the feature, giving “Cruella” a “Maleficent” makeover, attempting to transform a woman who once wanted to skin puppies alive and wear their fur into a sympathetic character, asking viewers to endure a 134-minute run time as the producers attempt to position Cruella for future franchise opportunities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – Plan B
“Plan B” is a strange film. It begins as a teen horndog comedy before it becomes a road trip movie, eventually transforming into a relationship drama that touches on self-esteem issues, and it concludes with a message on the importance of birth control options for teenagers. Screenwriters Joshua Levy and Prathiksha Srinivasan take the kitchen sink approach to the picture, which is primarily a comedy but gradually loses interest in securing laughs, hoping to reach audience hearts and minds with a tale of acceptance and love. The intent is pure, and “Plan B” is awfully funny at times, but it’s handled roughly by director Natalie Morales, who has trouble smoothing out tonal changes as she falls in love with the main characters, content to go wherever they lead. It’s disjointed and overlong, but the endeavor captures adolescent concerns quite accurately at times, creating its finest moments when it merges horror and heartache. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – Blue Miracle
If you had “underdog movie about the world of sport fishing” on your 2021 bingo card, you’re in luck with “Blue Miracle.” Screenwriters Chris Dowling and Julio Quintana (who also helms the picture) find a slightly different direction with the material, which is based on the true story of orphanage Casa Hogar and their participation in the 2014 Bisbee’s Black & Blue fishing tournament. The film hopes to provide a lively tale of competition and human connection, also providing messages on self-worth and the pressures of integrity, and while the feature isn’t a challenging endeavor, Quintana captures the heart of the story, offering strong performances and suspenseful fishing action to help deliver some decent family entertainment. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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Film Review – Funhouse
Writer/director Jason William Lee is concerned about the state of fame and pop culture, and he tries to work through some of his issues with “Funhouse.” It’s a horror take on the “Big Brother” television franchise, tracking the growing nightmare prepared for eight reality show celebrities who choose to compete in a locked, monitored building for an enormous cash prize. The idea of “Funhouse” isn’t a problem, with the premise creating opportunities to lampoon and lambast what passes for popularity these days. It’s the execution that’s difficult to endure, as the low-budget production struggles with casting limitations, and Lee battles the cheap look of the feature while trying to launch his stinging attacks on the perversity of modern-day notoriety. The movie isn’t an effective takedown of reality show stupidity, but Lee is certainly trying to make a difference with the endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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UHD 4K Review – They Live
After experiencing a little more creative freedom with 1987's "Prince of Darkness," writer/director John Carpenter trades horror for political and social commentary in 1988's "They Live." Endeavoring to inspect the illness of America during the 1980s, specifically the reality of Reaganomics, Carpenter transforms a short story (five pages long!) by Ray Nelson into an examination of class divide, using science fiction as a way into a study of a population unknowingly brought to its knees. With "They Live," Carpenter brings down action and suspense to explore the state of the union, doing so with exciting playfulness and directness as he takes on the strange power plays of the E.T. 1%. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
BRIAN ORNDORF 