Broken Lizard is no longer a brand name, it’s a warning label.
“Freeloaders” arrives from Broken Lizard Industries, and while it
doesn’t boast the comedy troupe’s participation beyond a few cameos and
producing credits, the feature falls perfectly in line with their style
of crude and clueless comedy. Although the effort is mercifully short
(72 minutes long), “Freeloaders” is a lazy, unfunny film that doesn’t
make an effort to dream up interesting situations and create memorable
characters. A few odd touches stand out, but not for reasons that
contribute to the entertainment value of the movie, finding the picture
lifeless and in dire need of genuine screenwriting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With found footage endeavors, we’ve seen giant monsters tearing through
New York City, ghosts haunting a suburban California home, and adults
getting lost in Maryland woods. Are you ready to watch one about
pedophilia on Arizona freeways? “Amber Alert” is the latest entry into
the DIY moviemaking sweepstakes, only this time the results are
painfully amateurish, frustratingly dim-witted, and just a touch too
tasteless. If the sound of child being molested and moronic lead
characters endlessly bickering is your thing, perhaps the feature won’t
feel like swallowing glass for 70 minutes. For everyone else, “Amber
Alert” is a repetitive, dreadfully padded event, employing a real-world
horror to fuel cheap shocks and a bogus dissection of moral
responsibility. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

At this point, I’m positive Gerard Butler selects his scripts by
blindfolded dart throw. There’s really no other way to explain why he,
and a bevy of capable actresses, could be drawn to such a shallow,
predictable hodgepodge of plasticized feelings and sitcom mechanics.
“Playing for Keeps” has moments where its intent as a human story of
yearning and regret is visible, but it takes a considerable effort to
find, forcing ticket buyers to wade through abysmal dialogue and
unfortunate performances to locate a few passably endearing moments. The
rest of the feature is determined to chase nonsense, with the whole
thing so awkwardly orchestrated, I’m surprised director Gabriele Muccino
kept his name on the picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Fitzgerald Family Christmas” represents a return to the basics for
writer/director/star Edward Burns, who long ago shot to fame with his
indie darling, “The Brothers McMullen.” Taking supporting work in awful
movies (like the recent “Alex Cross”) to support his micro-budgeted
filmmaking habit, Burns looks to resuscitate a little of the old
Irish-Catholic magic with his latest endeavor, which reunites him with
“McMullen” stars Michael McGlone and Connie Britton. Encouraging the
dysfunction is a seasonal setting, providing Burns with a fertile
battlefield of sibling discontent and parental resentment, creating a
prickly but inviting familial atmosphere that offers enough variation in
woe to ease the script out of its occasional dalliance with clumsy
melodrama. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A costume drama like “Cheerful Weather for the Wedding” has to have an
emotional hook, some type of profound feeling that eases the rigidity of
the characters and their carefully mapped banter. Mercifully, the
feature has such a grip, though it’s not as tight as hoped, only just
enough to register momentarily before the entire effort washes away.
Charmingly acted and bravely concluded, “Cheerful Weather” entertains
intermittently with its stiff-upper-lip community interplay, only truly
taking command when it focuses on unspoken desires and stymied
confessions, creating more of a captivating fuss with its fixation on
misery over any attempt at biting wit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Bring up climate change in a crowded room and a fight is likely to break
out. It’s a controversial subject that raises the ire of those
passionately involved with educational efforts and individuals out to
dispel the notion of such a global event. Sensing an impasse on the
issue, environmental photographer James Balog decided to document the
shift himself, traveling to the far reaches of Iceland, Greenland, and
Alaska to capture unprecedented glacier melt with a multitude of
cameras, hoping to create unforgettable time-lapse shots that might
convince those still wary about the climate reality facing our planet
that something needs to be done. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Price Check" is an unassuming dark comedy that packs a decent punch.
Using cover fire provided by the picture's workplace setting, with its
numbing talk of stats and strategies, the screenplay is actually quite
poisonous, treating the lure of temptation and casual lying with a
refreshing forthrightness, unencumbered by melodrama. Guided by a
fireball performance from Parker Posey, "Price Check" is uncomfortable
to watch in all the good ways, finding authenticity from an ugly
situation, while working through "Office Space" particulars with a sly
sense of humor and an appreciation for the humiliation and anxiety of an
exhaustive 9-5 life. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Killing Them Softly" isn't your average hitman movie. It isn't your
average heist picture. Heck, it's not really your average Brad Pitt
starring vehicle either. Reteaming with his "The Assassination of Jesse
James by the Coward Robert Ford" director, Andrew Dominik, Pitt assumes
another role that's cushioned by an ample amount of atmosphere, never
really requiring his full participation. Stylish and bleak, "Killing
Them Softly" is also profoundly political, using the basic tenets of the
mob genre to comment on the financial state of the nation, where even
men who've devoted their lives to murder can't make a buck these days. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I wonder how many people outside of horror genre fanatics even remember
the release of 2009's "The Collector." A low-budget effort slipped into
the summer moviegoing season without much fanfare, the feature only
attracted a small audience before it was shipped off to home video,
where I presume it found its fair share of admirers. After all, over
three years later, we now have "The Collection," a sequel that takes its
job of continuation seriously, despite greeting potentially hazy
memories at the multiplex. Vicious, loud, and shockingly short (72
minutes long), the follow-up only manages to match the scattered
highlights of its predecessor, unwilling to challenge the proven formula
the production orders up for round two. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After a thorough peeling in last month's unexpectedly bitter HBO
offering, "The Girl," the life and times of cinema's reigning master of
suspense returns to the screen in the appropriately titled "Hitchcock."
Although the mood has been considerably lightened from the cable
offering, "Hitchcock" remains equally troubled when it comes to the
internal workings of the filmmaker, once again wading into the vast
reservoir of the man's neuroses to decode how such a distanced,
manipulative pop culture figure and industry legend went about his daily
business during a particularly stressful stretch of his career. The
results are entertaining and capably acted, but true insight remains at
arm's length, despite a feature cooking up all sorts of ghoulish visions
and barely concealed jealousies. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The easy move would be to compare the drama "Sister" to the 2011
feature, "The Kid with a Bike." Both pictures invest in the
thinly-veiled agony of lost youth, following two boys as they deal with
parental abandonment in aggressive yet painfully insular ways. While
"Bike" was more demonstrative with its fits of pain, "Sister" takes a
path of misdirection, conjuring an absorbing tale of thievery on the
Swiss slopes while director Ursula Meier works her way into
uncomfortable areas of truth and neglect. For the most part a distant
film, "Sister" supplies a full behavioral experience that's riveting at
times, with lead performances by Lea Seydoux and Kacey Mottet Klein
communicating isolation in bravely vulnerable ways. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com