“The Sapphires” is such an earnest film with a distinct soulful beat,
it’s easy to forgive its occasional heavy-handed screenwriting and
abysmal third act. For the most part a cheery, pleasingly feisty musical
comedy set during an era of powerhouse pop songs, the feature is almost
too good to be true during the opening hour, delivering broad
audience-pleasing moments while shaping amusing personalities, getting
the movie up to speed with laughs and heavenly tunes. The party doesn’t
carry to the end, but there’s enough gaiety and whirlwind plotting to
sustain an upbeat attitude about the whole endeavor, even when director
Wayne Blair seems utterly determined to exit the effort on a sour note. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m not sure what type of film “Officer Down” wants to be, but it
doesn’t appear particularly successful on any front. Part cop drama,
part whodunit, with a dusting of action dynamics, the picture marches
forward without a game plan, creating a confusing, overly fussed-with
effort that depends on twists to keep the audience invested, only it’s a
stretch to believe that anyone will be at the edge of their seat by the
time the resolution arrives. However, “Officer Down” is surprisingly
settled, eschewing hacky low-budget chaos to attempt a more sensitive
understanding of a troubled mind. It doesn’t quite achieve its plan for a
psychological breakdown, but the effort is appreciated, even in a
feature as messy as this one. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The Wayans Family already had their way with horror film parodies,
having masterminded (or slapped together) 2000’s “Scary Movie” and
2001’s “Scary Movie 2.” Apparently, the lure of slapstick was too great
for star Marlon Wayans, who returns to duty with “A Haunted House,”
which pilfers most of its material from the “Paranormal Activity” series
and last year’s unexpected exorcism smash, “The Devil Inside.” As to be
expected with a Wayans endeavor, the picture is crude, desperate, and
permissive with its actors. What’s surprising here is how lazy “A
Haunted House” is, doing away with the relative polish of “Scary Movie”
to merely stitch together fart jokes and abysmal improvisations,
gradually doing away with any type of connective tissue or, in the final
act, elementary moviemaking coherence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Gangster Squad” shoots itself in the foot right out of the gate by
suggesting the movie is somehow rooted in fact. Sure, there was a mafia
figure known as Mickey Cohen, and yes, he certainly had an interest in
dominating Los Angeles, but the rest of this picture is more cartoon
than history. While adapting a true crime book by author Paul Lieberman,
the production doesn’t know when to stick with the facts or create its
own narrative, fumbling an engaging take on mob warfare and police
desperation by trying to turn it all into a stylized, overly emphatic
actioner, complete with blazing Tommy guns, professional wrestling-style
performances, and a simplified conflict to extract the most machismo.
“Gangster Squad” disappoints in a big bad way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Struck by Lightning” is Chris Colfer’s attempt to wake up his
generation while they passively walk into limited futures. Known for his
work on the television series “Glee,” Colfer is attempting to expand
his interests and employability as the show declines in popularity,
scripting himself a chewy leading role in a story that’s built around a
Big Idea, yet doesn’t have the finesse to leave the crater-sized impact
it’s seeking to create. Instead, the actor/writer/producer cooks up a
host of half-realized ideas, flaccid comedy, and strident melodrama,
looking to serve the goulash as adolescent illumination. It’s not
exactly ambitious, but “Struck by Lightning” is a noble failure, with
individual elements more interesting than the strangled, distracted
whole. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Superheroes have enjoyed a great deal of cinematic success in recent
years, packaged in films blessed with enormous budgets capable of
bringing intricate comic book worlds and high-flying superpowers to
life. “All Superheroes Must Die” elects the opposite route for its
fantasy feel, barely spending any money to detail trouble brewing
between a team of troubled, costumed champions and their nefarious
enemy. Painfully amateurish and poorly scripted, “All Superheroes Must
Die” is a chore to sit through, even at only 75 minutes in length.
Writer/director/producer/star/editor Jason Trost has a germ of an idea
here that’s intriguing, but no coin to bring it to life, keeping his
movie flat, generic looking, and tedious. Who knew masked avengers on a
perilous mission could be so dull? Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Storage 24” is aching to be a gripping monster movie, but it’ll have to
settle with being a merely serviceable one. The picture benefits from
invested filmmaking, with the production working diligently to pull off a
haunted house atmosphere populated with rounded characters, while
unleashing a creature with a horrifying interest in the innards of its
human prey. Certainly enjoyable with a few interesting stalking
sequences, “Storage 24” isn’t remarkable, falling into a few low-budget
traps along the way. It burns through a somewhat predictable routine of
survival instincts, nutty outsiders, and betrayals, while the central
alien antagonist could use 15 more minutes in the CGI oven to firm up
some lackluster details. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Numerous questions are raised after viewing “Texas Chainsaw 3D,” more
than any cash-grab sequel/remake should rightfully leave behind. A
brazenly idiotic production that doesn’t bother make any sense or deal
directly with the screwball timeline it arranges for itself, the picture
is basically a glorified DTV effort that lucked into a January release,
displaying minimal interest in storytelling cohesion, passable
performances, and grim occurrences. The “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”
franchise has seen its fair share of brainless follow-ups and offshoots,
yet this new production takes the cake in terms of absurdity, eagerly
dispatching with coherence to rewire the tale back to its original
elements, once again pitting a maniac with a chainsaw against his
dim-witted, costume-challenged victims. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2009, director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal hit a
career peak with “The Hurt Locker,” a searing exploration of wartime
strain and its addictive residue. The effort collected awards and Oscar
gold, while bringing Bigelow into the big time after years helming cult
hits and ambitious misfires. The pair return to the stress factory of
the Middle East with “Zero Dark Thirty,” this time playing footsie with
authenticity as they focus on the manhunt for Osama bin Laden in the
wake of the 9/11 attacks on American soil. A direct and riveting
procedural picture with a foray into military action, “Zero Dark Thirty”
isolates a fascinating inner drive of revenge to fuel interactions with
international terrorism, maintaining a hauntingly personal perspective
that burns bright while the screenplay spins a sophisticated web of last
names and motivations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Crawlspace” is a good example of a no-budget picture accomplishing
quite a lot with very little. A blend of “Aliens” and “Scanners,” the
feature has confidence and a definite vision for its claustrophobic
scares. Perhaps originality isn’t a top priority for the screenplay, but
director Justin Dix manages to fuse his inspirations and his
aspirations into a tight 80 minute ride of hallucinations and chilling
medical discoveries, feeding genre fans a moderate but effective level
of gore to snack on while the dialogue explores devious manipulations.
At the very least, it provides hope that Dix, making his directorial
debut here, will go on to a career of satisfying shockers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The Tarantino Generation is briefly revived with the release of “Sushi
Girl,” a toe-curlingly violent journey into the black hearts of petty
criminals and their loquacious impulses. Loaded with barbed interplay
and fueled by a mystery of true intention, the movie sustains a certain
anxious rhythm that’s superbly entertaining, eased along by exaggerated
but excited performances from a group of actors who normally get the
shaft when it comes to extended screentime. While it’s nothing
inventive, perhaps a tad too derivative at times, “Sushi Girl” manages
to overcome its limitations with a polished, low-budget style and a
fiery attitude, keeping attention on the argument at hand, while
increasing brutality and a satisfactory ending ease the awareness that
the screenplay, credited to Destin Pfaff and Kern Saxton (who also
directs), is simply walking in the considerable footsteps of other
filmmakers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For the first hour, “The Baytown Outlaws” keeps to a persuasive display
of violence and colorful characters, with co-writer/director Barry
Battles manufacturing a tasty slice of southern-fried grindhouse,
populated with seedy characters and outrageous confrontations. The pace
isn’t kept as the material eventually begs to be taken seriously, which
comes to cripple the entire viewing experience. However, those with a
taste for unsavory events guided by loudmouth participants should be
able to extract some enjoyment out of the determined feature. It’s a
shame Battles loses his nerve in the final act, weirdly assuming viewers
have developed an emotional attachment to material that works best as a
cartoon. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com