It’s wonderful that there’s growing awareness of autism, especially in cinema, which, in recent years, has gotten serious about the subject, with brave filmmakers searching for ways to tell inclusive stories as a way to demystify the disorder, exposing its mysteries and reinforcing its unique sacrifices. Director John Asher has firsthand knowledge of the subject, co-parenting an autistic boy (his ex being famous anti-vaxxer Jenny McCarthy), making his perspective on the rituals of raising special needs child valuable to “A Boy Named Po,” which is dedicated to his kid. And yet, Asher, and screenwriters Colin Goldman and Steve C. Roberts, seem terrified of following through on a realistic feature, turning “A Boy Named Po” into TV movie-style viewing experience, hitting conflicts and emotional beats with a sledgehammer, while the ending is borderline inexcusable. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Directors Benny and Josh Safdie don’t like to take it easy on their audience. The helmers behind “Daddy Longlegs” and “Heaven Knows What,” the Safdies love to turn their cinema into an endurance test, using extreme close-ups to inspire claustrophobia and creating characters who are addicted to bad decisions. “Good Time” is the new addition to their festering oeuvre, and it’s their finest work to date, finally masterminding a way to play to their strengths of diseased cinema and still tell a compelling story, with this round of anguish devoted to the dogged determination of brotherly bonds. “Good Time” is the most accessible Safdie production to date, but that’s not an invitation to all, as the feature requires ticket-buyers to be prepared for a grueling viewing experience, but an exceptional one, nudged along by star Robert Pattinson’s career-shifting performance.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

About five years ago, James Cameron elected to convert his 1997 Oscar-winning, pop culture dominating smash hit, “Titanic,” into 3D, trying to stir up some renewed excitement for the feature and add to his collection of 3D achievements after turning “Avatar” into the biggest movie of all time. Now he’s back with “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” which doesn’t instantly lend itself to the 3D conversion process, requiring some delicate tinkering to bring out a worthwhile viewing experience that expands on the depth of the original theatrical release. With “Judgment Day” already an absolute classic and one of Cameron’s best pictures, there’s little need for such gimmickry to justify a return to the multiplexes. But, for 3D-heads, Cameron does a tasteful job creating immersion into the blockbuster, sustaining balance between the original cinematography and new layers of distances and pointy metal threats.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In an incredible feat of timing, “Bushwick,” which is about the division and crumbling of the United States, comes out during a month were it feels like the county is about to be torn apart by a second Civil War. It’s a little eerie watching the feature, which explores the unraveling of society during a violent invasion, and it’s not the first time directors Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott have prepared something unsavory for viewers. Two years ago, the pair masterminded “Cooties,” which turned elementary school kids into bloodthirsty zombies. They’ve sobered up completely for “Bushwick,” and for this strange tale of domestic upheaval, Murnion and Milott construct a fluid, vivid depiction of battle zone panic and desperation, approaching the horrors of a war movie from an interesting point of view.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While there have been many films covering the millennial experience, few have captured the social media plague like “Ingrid Goes West.” It’s a tale of obsession that name-checks “Single White Female” in the screenplay, deflecting obvious comparisons to the 1992 female-on-female stalker cult effort, but screenwriters David Branson Smith and Matt Spicer (who also directs) tap into a specific position of fixation, using the full exposure of social media to manufacture an uneasy dark comedy about personal need, and there’s potent commentary about the overshare generation, which teases satirical highs. “Ingrid Goes West” doesn’t sustain its overview of delusion, but it gets most of the way there, showcasing sharp insight and sly wit as it investigates the madness of exclusion.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If you must steal, steal from the best. That appears to be the motto of “Ghost House,” a fairly obvious riff on Sam Raimi’s 2009 horror extravaganza, “Drag Me to Hell.” Many filmmakers have lifted from Raimi before, making director Rich Ragsdale part of a club, but where “Drag Me to Hell” was a thunderous, enchantingly bizarre tale of a young woman cursed, “Ghost House” (curiously, also the name of Raimi’s production company) merely offers a few neat visual ideas while grim acting and an overbearing score generally wear down the feature’s capacity to impress. Ragsdale appears eager to please here, which is a good thing, but this Thai chiller tends to be more abusive than frightening, though there’s potential for something macabre that keeps it moderately interesting, but never satisfying. If there’s one thing Ragsdale does exceedingly well, it’s his ability to remind the viewer just how well Raimi pulls off this kind of visual nightmare.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Instead of undertaking a full-on recreation of the formation of The Smiths, Co-writer/director Mark Gill has decided to forgo an examination of Steven Patrick Morrissey’s ascent to music dominance and simply focus on years of transition in the 1970s. This was long before the world understood the Morrissey brand name, when he was just a depressed, intelligent young man with a Shangri-Las fixation trying to figure out his way in the world, albeit the world of Manchester, England, where the skies are always gray, residents are temperamental, and flowing rivers mock those who can’t escape the city limits. It’s “Smiths Begins” in a way, a rock and roll origin story much like Anton Corbijn’s “Control,” only the emphasis here is on the slow burn of sadness, tracking Morrissey’s response to constant disappointment, paralyzing shyness, and isolating intelligence.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For family entertainment in the summer of 2017, there have been movies dedicated to the inner lives of cars, minions, squirrels, and emojis. Perhaps it’s time for a human story. “Leap” endeavors to provide a slightly less manic distraction for younger audiences, examining the inner light of an orphan dreaming big, finding herself with a chance to become a star ballerina in Paris in the late 1800s. Directors Eric Summer and Eric Warin make the feature’s entertainment value a priority, but the helmers seem terrified to stay away from formula, slowly erasing everything that makes “Leap” appealing just to keep up with animation expectations. There are plenty of likable elements in the picture, and it serves its purposes as an empowerment tool, but the production spends too much time on autopilot, failing to follow through on its rather bold decision to tell a tale that doesn’t involve cuddly, slapstick creatures.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Genre filmmakers love the yuletide season, which provides opportunities to generate terrible things happening to (seemingly) innocent people. It’s that contrast between the jolly spirit of Christmas and the barbarous evil of men that’s inspired a few interesting efforts. Answering perhaps the most famous of the bunch, “Black Christmas,” is “Red Christmas,” a low budget chiller that takes on the challenging, audience polarizing subject of abortion while still tending to slasher cinema formula. While not exactly a lump of coal, “Red Christmas” has its issues, the least being star Dee Wallace, the beloved actress who gives the lead role everything she’s got, doing a more successful job communicating panic than her director, Craig Anderson. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Hitman’s Bodyguard” is supposed to be a comedy. However, it also desires to be an action film, and an R-rated one at that. To achieve such a restricted rating requires a bit more brutality than the average adrenalized endeavor, but screenwriter Tom O’Connor has a strange way of providing that extra inch of merciless behavior. In the opening five minutes of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” the villain guns down a helpless woman and her child in cold blood, looking to prove a point to a man he’s intending to intimidate. And so the laughs begin. Actually, they never start in this misbegotten movie, which has the idea that it can somehow recover from such a chilling act with jokes about Ace of Base and “that’s what she said” one-liners. Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t have much of a funny bone or even a special way with big screen chaos, remaining dead weight from beginning to end, wasting the time of a lot of talented people.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When Steven Soderbergh teased retirement from feature filmmaking after the pay cable debut of “Behind the Candelabra” in 2013, I doubt few truly believed he was going to give up the habit. He returned for the Cinemax series, “The Knick,” and now Soderbergh is back in an “Ocean’s Eleven” mood with “Logan Lucky.” One might expect something more profound from a revered director returning to the big screen (his first theatrical effort since “Side Effects”), but he’s in a silly mood for this West Virginia-branded caper, mounting a heist movie that’s big on broadness, with chewy, dim-witted characters trying to outfox one another while screenwriter “Rebecca Blunt” orchestrates a twisty, procedural event for the audience to snack on. It’s light stuff, which is a nice change of pace for Soderbergh, who, for the first time in a long time, seems genuinely interested in providing an entertaining ride, albeit with total boobs in the driver’s seat. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com