Four months ago, director Deon Taylor (“Meet the Blacks”) was in theaters with “The Intruder.” While presented with the basic idea of a stalker chiller, Taylor couldn’t bring the film to a boil, preferring to linger on needless stupidity and arrange ineffective suspense sequences. He’s back with “Black and Blue,” another stab at exploitation formula, this time crudely using rising tensions with police activity and responsibility in America to backdrop a manhunt movie. Unwilling to truly dig into law enforcement issues, Taylor and screenwriter Peter A. Dowling (“Flightplan”) go generic, arranging a pedestrian chase picture that’s always throttling momentum to spend time with moronic characters and their inability to make simple things happen. There’s no snowballing sense of fun here, as Taylor goes dour and dim, robbing the feature of any potential action highlights. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Noah Baumbach has always permitted pieces of himself to inform his work, assessing stages of his life and experience with family through mostly effective dramedies, including his last endeavor, 2017’s “The Meyerowitz Stories.” With “Marriage Story,” Baumbach goes to a dark place to assess the end of a life shared by two unhappy people, taking over two hours of screentime to assess the difficulties of a specifically challenged marital union. This one plays like Baumbach is flipping through pages of his diary, delivering frighteningly intimate work that remains focused on troubling psychological spaces, with the fingerprints of personal experience found all over the effort. “Marriage Story” is richly detailed, tastefully balanced with some needed comedy, and consistently attentive to the inner lives of the lead characters, who endure all the dehumanization of the divorce process in America. And yet, through the gloom and rising anxiety, Baumbach always preserves the heart of the moment, fleshing out the struggle of legal and emotional separation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While there have been a few lengthy explorations of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series, “Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street” doesn’t have much interest in the screen wrath and pop culture influence of Freddy Krueger. Instead, filmmakers Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen quest to spotlight the life of Mark Patton, the star of 1985’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge,” who was set to hit the big time with his turn as Jesse, the boy tormented by the razor-fingered menace, only to find himself crucified by viewers for the gay overtones of the movie created by screenwriter David Chaskin. Patton was destroyed by the experience, erasing his desire to continue acting, but “Freddy’s Revenge” wouldn’t go away, growing in popularity and analysis as the years passed, giving the feature a second life, while Patton was singled out as the first male scream queen, complicating his relationship with a despised horror sequel he thought would rocket him to the big time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2013’s “Short Term 12” was a wonderful picture and introduced audiences to the talents of writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton, who made an impressive debut, offering a gritty but humane drama, and one that also managed to boost the career of star Brie Larson. In 2017, Cretton returned with “The Glass Castle,” reuniting with Larson for a significantly less satisfying storytelling experience, with the production showing obvious strain during its mission to create an impactful literary translation. Continuing on a slide of mediocrity, Cretton issues “Just Mercy,” which aims to shine a light on the experience of the wrongly convicted, but chooses to lead with crude manipulation instead of inspecting all sides of the issue. Cretton and co-writer Andrew Lanham certainly have passion for their message, but they bury the potency of their ideas in T.V. movie-style turns of legal upsets and victories. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m not sure a single frame can contain the power of actor/comedian Rudy Ray Moore, but Eddie Murphy gives it his best shot with some of his finest work to date in “Dolemite Is My Name.” Granted, Murphy hasn’t been mentally committed to a project in a long time, but he takes the challenge of portraying Moore’s screwball focus seriously, careful to keep the subject understood while enjoying the extremes of his personality. Bio-pic vets Scott Alexander and Larry Karazewski (“Big Eyes,” “Man on the Moon,” “Ed Wood,” “The People vs. Larry Flynt”) provide appealing guide rails for the production, working through a chunk of Moore’s crazy career, and director Craig Brewer keeps the feature moving along with a lively supporting cast. But the real reason to spend time with “Dolemite Is My Name” is the chance to watch Murphy come alive on screen again, giving the part his all in the best possible way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The PG-13 horror experience is usually a letdown, with unadventurous producers sticking to cliche and bloodless antics to engage a younger audience, opening possibilities for greater profit on low-budget entertainment. “Countdown” is certainly not going to win any awards for originality, aiming to remake “Final Destination” for the smartphone age. However, all is not lost in writer/director Justin Dec’s film (which represents his feature-length helming debut). The movie is absolutely goofy, aimed directly at viewers who can’t take the hard stuff when it comes to genre escapism, but there’s some energy to the picture that keeps it going. Dec makes a few critical errors that disrupt the mood of “Countdown,” but there’s fun to be had with the app-fearing chiller, as it plays quick enough and panicked enough to create a basic thrill ride. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Kill Team” was originally a 2013 documentary from director Dan Krauss, looking into the madness of the military in Afghanistan, singling out the story of Private Adam Winfield, who witnessed his fellow soldiers commit murder, taking down civilians, and felt powerless to stop it. After creating other documentaries, Krauss returns to the Winfield saga with “The Kill Team,” this time dramatizing the events, giving real world agony to actors for interpretation. In a marketplace overwhelmed by tales of Middle East war and agony, Krauss brings intimacy to the screen, examining the moral ungluing of boy who wanted to become a man while in service, only to face his future as a monster. While there’s little reason to revisit the story, Krauss makes his points vividly, finding an effective thriller this time around. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Arriving to add a little David Cronenberg homage to the Halloween season is “Wounds,” which is writer/director Babak Anvari’s follow-up to his 2016 Iranian horror film, “Under the Shadow.” Adapting a 68-page novella by Nathan Ballingrud (titled “The Visible Filth”), Anvari quests to turn something literary and indistinct into a 90-minute feature, leaning on an atmosphere of dread to fully freak out the audience. As nightmares go, “Wounds” is as thinly sliced as it comes, trying to get by on very little in the fright department, with the material encouraging more undefined highlights of terror. Moving at a slower pace with an unremarkable cast, Anvari doesn’t create many highlights with the movie, which only tends to connect when acting reverential to the “The Fly” and “Videodrome” helmer, trying body horror on for size. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Current War” has experienced a very real battle to find its way into theaters. Shot three years ago, the picture was originally produced by Harvey Weinstein with intent to distribute the project via The Weinstein Company. Of course, that plan didn’t come to fruition, and behind-the-scenes scuttlebutt soon surfaced detailing Weinstein’s quest to rework the movie without input from director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, resulting in an underwhelming film festival debut in 2017. Now “The Current War” is back without Weinstein, boasting a new cut from Gomez-Rejon, with hopes to make the feature more enjoyable for audiences. While I didn’t have access to the first pass at the endeavor, the second iteration of it is quite overbaked and, at times, completely airless. Perhaps the effort was never meant to be, but at least there’s pride from the helmer here, who bravely takes credit for this definitive version. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound” acknowledges early on that most film appreciation is often focused on visual achievements. Director Midge Costin is determined to change that perception with her first feature, presenting a survey of “the other half of the experience,” delving into the nuances of sound and the technical effort required to turn images into a compelling, possibly overwhelming, aural event. It’s this need to celebrate the unsung heroes of movie production that powers most of “Making Waves,” which presents an impressively detailed valentine to the Hollywood audio masters, and celebrates their work on classics that wouldn’t be classics without support from the sound people who work tirelessly to generate a singular sonic marriage to exceptional filmmaking. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Alice Waddington makes her feature-length directorial debut with “Paradise Hills,” and it’s a stunner in many ways. She’s created a fantasy world of re-education with screenwriters Nacho Vigalondo and Brian DeLeeuw, finding a way to deal with gender submission troubles while creating a futureworld environment of hostility thinly veiled by hospitality. The production has its storytelling issues, happy to throw everything at the screen without explaining a great deal of it, but Waddington also strives for a visual experience, offering terrific design elements throughout. “Paradise Hills” has something to say about the state of oppressed females, heading into a sci-fi direction to explore a survival tale that’s loaded with screen detail and summons the eternal burn of frustration as it transforms into revolution. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Nicolas Cage tries to create an acting opportunity for himself with “Kill Chain,” taking the lead role and a producer credit on the production, even offering himself something a vacation, with the feature shot in Columbia. Cage’s intent with the material isn’t difficult to decode, offering writer/director Ken Sanzel a shot at shaping a noir-ish look at people who kill and the trauma they wrestle with, gifting his actors plenty of opportunity to monologue and looked pained while participating in the occasional shootout. Like many recent Cage endeavors, “Kill Chain” is fairly weak, absent a supportive budget and helming hustle from Sanzel, who isn’t all that concerned with the movie’s lack of excitement, searching for a way to protect the material’s theatrical style instead of amplifying its periodic conflicts. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2015’s “The Gallows” was one of the worst films of its release year. 2019’s “The Gallows Act II” is one of the worst films of this release year. This is not progress. However, it’s Blumhouse Productions, which receives a lot of credit for supporting features such as “Get Out,” but remain just as capable of producing no-budget garbage for teenage audiences. Four years ago, they managed to make a few bucks with summer counterprogramming in “The Gallows,” a found footage chiller that didn’t make much sense, barely felt complete, but it contained enough jump scares (and utilized an effective marketing campaign) to pull in a sizable audience. Lack of positive critical and community response be damned, Blumhouse isn’t about to leave money on the table, returning with “The Gallows Act II,” which trades “realism” for Disney Channel-style melodrama and scares. Again, this is not progress. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For the fourth film of his retirement, Steven Soderbergh attempts to pull off an understanding of the “Panama Papers,” a massive collection of documents leaked in 2015 that detailed just how the rich stay rich, creating a network of barely legal hustling and outright fraud to avoid the scourge of taxes and deny assorted outside interests. There’s little dramatic meat on these bones, as the scandal was more about the revelation that the famous and the powerful were happy to hide their cash from the world, but screenwriter Scott Z. Burns gives it the old college try, adapting a book (by Jake Bernstein) that tries to clarify an enormous financial and moral mess. Taking cues from Adam McKay’s “The Big Short” and “Vice,” Soderbergh strives to stay ahead of a shapeless movie, laboring to make something cheeky, but it mostly comes off flat and disorganized. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2001, Kevin Smith was handed 22 million dollars to say goodbye to his View Askewiverse creation, using the cash to create “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” a cameo-laden farewell to the lovable stoners who delivered silly business in movies such as “Clerks,” “Dogma,” and “Chasing Amy.” The boys from New Jersey were handed the spotlight for their final screen appearance, with Smith serving up a tight, wacky, and celebratory feature. The retirement didn’t last long (the guys were back in business with 2006’s “Clerks II”), but Smith is in a sentimental mood again, crafting another valentine to his most popular characters with “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.” Taking aim at remake/reboot fever in Hollywood, Smith gifts his fanbase an intentional recycling of “Strike Back,” pantsing creative laziness with his own impishness, delivering a slightly winded but entertaining offering of exaggerated madness, with the whole thing dipped in nostalgia and sentimentality for maximum response. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com