Reviewed at the 2013 Twin Cities Film Festival

It seems unfair to compare “Last Vegas” to “The Hangover” franchise,
though it’s obvious where the production received its inspiration from.
Instead of brain-fried debauchery and R-rated shenanigans, “Last Vegas”
plays it pretty mild for its older demographic, with Viagra jokes and
bikini contests passing for edge around these parts. Director Jon
Turteltaub is rather notorious when it comes to cranking out pictures
with mass appeal (“Nation Treasure,” “Phenomenon”), and his vanilla
approach remains in full effect for this dramedy, though a few surprises
are sprinkled throughout the feature, and the helmer has quite an
advantage with his stellar cast, unleashing four pros on threadbare
script, using their natural gifts to make the viewing experience as
pleasant as possible.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After battling convention with his uncompromising work on “Hunger” and
“Shame,” director Steve McQueen travels down a familiar path with “12
Years a Slave.” Harrowing, brutal, and heartbreaking, this tale of
abduction and subjugation is brimming with powerful imagery, making the
audience feel every last lash that’s cracked across the back of the lead
character. It’s powerful work, but it also has a fatiguing
concentration on suffering, lingering on torture instead of studying it
for the greater thematic good. Rich with details, “12 Years a Slave” is
an accomplished effort, yet McQueen is distracted by the weave work of
story, failing to find art in agony.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Ender’s Game,” based on the beloved, lauded 1985 book by Orson Scott
Card, finally blasts its way to the big screen after decades of
development. There’s franchise gold in them thar hills, with the
production carefully mounting what appears to be a story that could
carry on for multiple films, following the titular character as he
journeys from an awestruck boy to an intergalactic lawman, complete with
elaborate training missions and enormous space battles. While ambitious
and exceedingly well designed, “Ender’s Game” is mummified in the drama
department. It’s absolutely cold to the touch, with clumsy scenes
sapping power from the material’s thought-provoking commentary on war,
leaving writer/director Gavin Hood with a gorgeous picture that retains
very little spirit.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Blue Is the Warmest Color” is generating a considerable amount of
controversy due to its explicit content, with an eight-minute-long
lesbian sex scene helping the film receive the dreaded NC-17 stamp from
the MPAA. It’s actually amusing to see the movie’s release trigger such
uptightness because the sex adds up to a mere eight minutes out of 180 minutes
of screen time. It’s hardly a concern with a picture this ponderous,
acting more as smelling salts for this French after school special,
which is so distracted with its verite execution, it leaves out any
sense of emotional urgency. “Blue Is the Warmest Color” take three hours
to tell a story that tops out at 90 minutes, 98 if you leave in the
bumping and grinding. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Not every animated film needs to be an event, but “Free Birds” could use
a little more oomph to make it a must-see for crowds currently starving
for family entertainment. It’s not particularly exciting, never lands a
laugh, and doesn’t have the ambition to truly lampoon Thanksgiving
traditions. It’s a bland effort that’s contently cartoon until it
suddenly feels the need to trigger emotions with weird detours into
death and survival. Perhaps the idea looked better on paper. As a
CG-animated endeavor, “Free Birds” packs very little punch, with wild
mood swings that take a simple story and needlessly complicates it to
fill a contractual run time.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Star power is a rare thing, but it’s important, often helping mediocre
work find its footing through exceptional acting, guiding dramatic
direction when the production itself can’t manage the task. With iconic
actor Michael Caine, talent was established long ago, and while his
taste in screenplays isn’t always inspiring, his clarity of
communication is never in doubt. “Last Love” is his latest endeavor
after receiving a late-inning career boost due to his collaborations
with Christopher Nolan, and the feature benefits mightily from his
effortless presence. Skillfully conveying the ache, newfound elevation,
and confusion required of him, Caine is terrific here, making “Last
Love” and its ultimate third-act nosedive palatable, even profound
during a few scenes of intimate soul searching.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After the release of three hugely successful “Jackass” movies, it’s time
for the bruised and battered boys to rest their weary bones for a
spell. Picking up the franchise slack is “Bad Grandpa,” a spin-off
feature highlighting the antics of Irving Zisman, a senior citizen
character portrayed by Johnny Knoxville. Stripped of anarchic monkey
business, the “Jackass” team has cooked up a new direction for the brand
name, mixing a scripted story with “Candid Camera” style segments that
allow for a display of their wince-inducing sense of humor without the
burden of artificial male bonding. “Bad Grandpa” is certainly crude, but
it’s also riotously funny at times, with a bizarre calmness about it
that’s immensely appealing, toning down the cruelty to play some
old-fashioned pranks on a semi-suspecting public.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Beloved for novels such as “No Country for Old Men,” “The Road,” and
“All the Pretty Horses,” author Cormac McCarthy becomes a full-fledged
Hollywood player with “The Counselor,” his first original work written
directly for the screen. Teeming with unsavory, duplicitous,
philosophical types that normally populate his books, “The Counselor” is
ripe with McCarthyisms, while director Ridley Scott takes the mission
of adaptation seriously, working to preserve the vagueness and violence
of the effort. It’s a dark film, offering unsettling images and
uncomfortable situations, and it has moments of greatness, just not
enough of them to generate a riveting sit.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

This re-release of 1973’s “The Wicker Man” is labeled “The Final Cut” to
provide a little marketing muscle, suggesting director Robin Hardy has
finally had his way with the feature 40 years after its debut. There
have been multiple versions of the movie, created from various source
materials, yet “The Final Cut” promises a definitive construction of
screenwriter Anthony Shaffer’s tale of pagan manipulation and Christian
fury. Perhaps in Hardy’s eyes, this is the last word on “The Wicker
Man,” but instead of engorging the effort with additional secrets and
oddity, he’s trimmed the picture in a peculiar manner, attempting to cut
to the chase to limit any initial disinterest in crucial
characterization.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Concussion” is a small package, remaining intimate with its characters
and composed with its drama. It’s a story of female sexuality told with
interest in the subject, not just flying a flag of womanliness to
attract a male audience. It’s tasteful work about a salacious subject,
with writer/director Stacie Passon taking tremendous care with the
subtleties of the story, sacrificing narrative drive to perfect moments
of human connection and the parched crawl of lust. “Concussion” isn’t
what it appears to be, making a considerable effort to upend
expectations and carry onward with determination, working to scrape away
the artificiality of female desire to survey an uneasy spot of
dissatisfaction most viewers may identify with.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Reviewed at the 2013 Twin Cities Film Festival

“How I Live Now” has no idea what type of movie it wants to be, so it
becomes them all. A scattered, meaningless war drama, the film comes
from director Kevin Macdonald, who’s made some impressive features (“One
Day in September,” “The Last King of Scotland”) and some duds (“The
Eagle”). He’s an interesting helmer who normally has a vision for his
efforts, but this one eludes him, to a degree where it begins to feel
more like punishment than suspense. “How I Live Now” isn’t a mess, but
it’s indirect, irritatingly so, wasting a tempting premise on half-baked
emotions and aimless moments of distress that should be far more
penetrating than they actually are.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Zaytoun” is often strong stuff, depicting acts of violence with a
merciless abruptness that triggers the requisite amount of shock. The
harshness of select scenes contrast intriguingly with the picture’s
overall gentle demeanor, depicting a wartime friendship between sworn
enemies, developed over time and through various acts of trust. We’ve
seen this type of story before, and the production doesn’t try to avoid
familiarity, offering the viewer a customary offering of feel-good
cinema set during a horrifying time of loss. The movie means well
enough, yet “Zaytoun” doesn’t do enough to upset expectations, trusting
in the power of warm orchestral strings and softening demeanors to coax
the viewer into a deceptive comfort zone.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Reviewed at the 2013 Twin Cities Film Festival

The trouble with no-budget filmmaking is that productions often feel
they deserve a badge for completing a movie with limited funds. As
though there’s a participation ribbon to be collected just for showing
up. The comedy “Screwed” was made for $1,400, which sounds like a
laudable accomplishment until you see the feature, than it becomes
painfully clear that additional monetary lubrication was in order.
Amateurishly shot and assembled, while the clichéd screenplay saps the
last drop of promise from the picture, “Screwed” is a chore to sit
through, never landing a joke properly or seeing its oddball premise to
its natural conclusion.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Fifth Estate” aspires to be a stirring investigative film
dissecting a combustible situation where truth is unfiltered,
participants unsecured, and the ultimate end game is hazy at best. For
this type of cinema to work, it needs a lead character who’s worth
following. He can be irredeemable and destructive, but has to retain a
depth of personality that rewards over two hours of screen time. I’m not
sure Julian Assange is worth the investment, at least not in the way
“The Fifth Estate” depicts him. A hopelessly dull picture concerning a
fiery situation of exposure and betrayal, the feature looks to dazzle
the viewer with aggressive acting and whip-crack globetrotting intrigue,
yet director Bill Condon feels like he’s dog paddling with material
that demands an emphatic front crawl.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com