There’s three feet of snow on the ground, with another rumored foot coming this morning. Stay home and watch movies. And if you live in a place with nice weather; I’m jealous.
Fire up that queue and prep that shopping cart.
The Judge
 |
| Warner Bros. / Released 1/27/14 |
Robert Downey Jr. stars as big city lawyer Hank Palmer, who returns to his childhood home where his estranged father, the town’s judge (Robert Duvall), is suspected of murder. He sets out to discover the truth and along the way reconnects with the family he walked away from years before. Extras include commentary, featurettes and deleted scenes.
Last Word: Robert Downey Jr. plays Robert Downey Jr. again, capturing that dismissive, glib, smartass that he’s become since his career resurgence. This time, he’s a smart-ass, snarky attorney with a cheating trophy wife and precocious daughter who’s summoned back to his hometown of Carlinville, Indiana when he’s informed of his mother’s passing.
He’s reunited with his brothers, Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio), owner of a tire shop and mentally handicapped Dale (Jeremy Strong), who views life through the safety of a film camera, as well as his estranged father, Judge Joseph Palmer (Robert Duvall). Shortly after the funeral, his father becomes a suspect in a fatal hit and run; the victim someone the judge once sentenced to 30 days in jail and when released drowned a 16-year-old girl. Downey becomes his father’s attorney, against his father’s wishes when the local council (Dax Shepherd), realizes he’s in over his head with the opposition, prosecutor Dwight Dickham (Billy Bob Thornton), who is pushing for first degree murder conviction.
In the process, Downey deals with some demons from the past, including his relationship with his father, who has secrets of his own to protect and reunites with his high school girlfriend (Vera Farmiga) who he abandoned following a Metallica concert twenty years before.
The verdict on the film isn’t perfect, unfortunately. It’s cliché filled, too long and several plot threads (including a possible incestuous encounter) are unnecessary. Without the caliber of talent, it would be more akin to a forgettable tv-movie. The cast all do solid work; and Downey, although not stretching any real acting muscles, is always charismatic on-screen and his chemistry (particularly with Emma Tremblay who plays his young daughter is genuine and touching). The Judge, isn’t particularly memorable (or even that good), but it’s inherently watchable, in no small part to the actors on screen who elevate the material.
Dracula Untold
 |
| Universal / Released 2/3/15 |
Witness the origin story of one of legend’s most captivating figures in the action-adventure, Dracula Untold. The year is 1462 and Transylvania has enjoyed a prolonged period of peace under the just and fair rule of the battle-weary Vlad III (Luke Evans), the prince of Wallachia. But when Sultan Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper) demands 1,000 of Wallachia’s boys – including Vlad’s own son – become child soldiers in his army, Vlad must enter into a Faustian bargain to save his family and his people. He gains the strength of 100 men, the speed of a falling star, and the power to crush his enemies. In exchange, he’s inflicted with an insatiable thirst for human blood that could force him into a life of darkness and destroy all that he holds dear. Extras include commentary, alternate opening, deleted scenes, interactive map and featurettes.Last Word: Dracula Untold tries to break apart from the pack as an epic, Tolkien-sque fantasy, thinly veiled as a retelling of the classic Dracula tale. Luke Evans (The Immortals, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) stars as Vlad Tepes, Prince of Transylvannia. Once a political prisoner of the Sultan of Turkey, trained by the Turks to be the ultimate soldier, and now lives a quiet family life with his Queen, Mirena (Sarah Gadon, Amazing Spider-Man 2) and son, Ingeras (Art Parkinson, Game of Thrones) and tries to keep peace in his kingdom.
When the new Sultan demands Vlad not only pay his yearly tribute, but invokes the old custom of conscripting 1,000 sons for the Turkish army, Vlad refuses. To protect his small kingdom from the wrath of the mighty Turkish army, Vlad makes a deal with a monster for dark powers to turn back the invading forces.
While I found Dracula Untold vastly entertaining, I don’t think it was in the way the filmmakers intended. The film seems to know exactly what it is when it comes to the action scenes. The battles and use of the supernatural as a weapon are fun to watch. However, when it come to the dramatic scenes, the film takes itself way to seriously. The romantic scenes were hysterical (Of which there were many. With the number of times Luke Evans gets shirtless, it is obvious which demographic the filmmakers were playing to), I laughed at death scenes, and wI laughed at families being torn apart. Probably not the response the director wanted.
Charles Dance (Games of Thrones) plays the monster, and chews the scenery with every one of his vampire teeth. And I mean that in the best possible way, he looked like he was having a grand ol’ time. Evans feels like he stepped off the set of The Hobbit and decided to shoot Dracula Untold on a lunch break, with very little difference in look or feel in his characters. It’s as if director, Gary Shore, saw Luke Evans in The Desolation of Smaug and said, “Him, that’s the guy! we don’t need to change a thing.” In all fairness, it is Shore’s first feature film, which might explain why acting wise it is rough around the edges. However, Shore comes from a commercial background. He knows how to make things look pretty, and it shows. The battle scenes are exciting, the sets are excellent, and the costumes are beautiful. I can almost hear the sewing machines and the dremels of cosplayers everywhere firing up. As long as you know what you are in for, Dracula Untold is a good time. It more in the vein of 300 or King Arthur, period piece battlefield movie with a little supernatural thrown in. (– Elizabeth Robbins)
 |
| Universal / Released 2/10/15 |
Nightcrawler is a pulse-pounding thriller set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime. Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut-throat, dangerous realm of nightcrawling – where each police siren wail equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into dollars. Aided by Nina (Rene Russo), a veteran of the blood-sport that is local TV news, Lou blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. Extras include commentary and making of.Last Word: In the current economic climate millennials aren’t left with many options for employment. Desperation sets in and they end up moving back in with their folks holding down two to three different jobs praying that someone will find their resume or manuscript and drag them out of the hell-hole of a life they’ve carved out from the festering corpse that is the ‘American Dream’.
Nightcrawler is set in the backdrop of such a world deep in the fiery city of Los Angeles, but the main character Louis Bloom (played devilishly well by Jake Gyllenhaal) isn’t living with his parents or working two to three different jobs to get by. He’s ripping off train-yards for hundreds of feet of fencing, stealing bikes from people on the Santa Monica pier, and beating people to within an inch of their life for their expensive timepiece. Still, though, he pursues his version of the American dream.
As Bloom’s journey begins, he struggles to enter the legitimate workforce one awkward interaction at a time. At a construction site, where Bloom actually manages to sell some stolen materials, the foreman tells Bloom, flat out, ‘[He’s] not hiring a thief’ which leads to a comedically awkward exchange with Bloom thanking him for the opportunity. Such awkward exchanges happen quite a bit and the amusement doesn’t fade. Bloom has an amazing ability to use positive reinforcement with a psychotic tinge leaving you feeling like, at any moment onscreen, he could get violent. He also resembles a greasy, walking corpse solidifying his status as an LA weirdo or midnight manager at an Arby’s.
Things ramp up a bit when Bloom finds his true calling brushing shoulders with nightcrawler Joe Loder (portrayed by cinematic character-actor great, Bill Paxton). They met when both are at the scene of a highway accident. Bloom pulled over to seemingly scope the situation and see if anyone needed any help. Altruistic on the surface, but Bloom’s face tells a different story of a possible foot in the door with the two officers pulling a young woman from the flaming wreckage. Just as he gets close enough to feel the flame, Joe Loder and his second camerman rush past him to get footage.
A then auditory cue, mastered into a mix of highway traffic, of an airplane taking off signals the ‘ta-da’ moment where Bloom realizes he’s found his true calling: Being a nightcrawler. What’s a nightcrawler? Well, if you want to know, it’s someone who goes around town grabbing footage of car accidents, shootings, and other gruesome crime scenes so the evening and early morning news can have some footage packaged in with a story. You need the visuals. That’s what sells.
Well, that and fear; the fear of urban crime (*Whispering* That’s code for ‘black’) spilling into white, affluent areas. At least that’s how Rene Russo’s character Nina Romina, news director of the midnight shift at KWLA, sees it. A former anchor herself, she’s been mired in the system for so long that she just couldn’t leave. Not being youthful enough kept her off-camera especially in a market such as Los Angeles. Being behind the scenes, however, she still was able to control the news and in a sort of twisted way, she’s able to yank at the strings of these young, pretty little things that sing like canaries to the tune of her pied piping. Well, she’s not that bad or at least overtly so, but when she meets Bloom he stirs something up in her. He has a tendency to do that in everyone he meets.
Throughout the film, whenever you’re clued in to when Bloom has an affinity for something there’s usually a courting period where he samples a certain life-force (A true LA vampire) and uses his findings against the person or situation to get what he’s after. Nina is no exception. When they first meet Bloom wants her and blackmails her into sleeping with him in order to aid her in bringing the lowest rated network news program in Los Angeles to sweeps glory. Leveraging for love, Bloom is no longer seen as an awkward and ambitious kid with a good eye, but a ruthless schemer leaving her ultimately powerless.
But, despite being a fairly low-rent nightcrawler, he manages to deliver the ratings albeit through specious methods. Some of the carnage and mayhem he covers is even orchestrated by him. These methods don’t sit too well with one of Nina’s fellow colleagues, but she calls the shots. She makes the choice which Bloom, amidst his blackmail speech, lays out is most certainly there. No one can make her do anything. Some of the other characters fall into this same trap with Bloom. His co-worker, Rick, who, upon first meeting Bloom for a job interview, is told to really ‘sell himself’ which is a staple of how Bloom conducts himself and reflective of the teachings of an online business course he took. Rich sheepishly mutters that his name is Rick and that he graduated high school. This is punctuated by a sort of sluggish shrug. With body language that screams, ‘I have no permanent address’ and the revelation that he has a cell phone with GPS, Bloom grants him an internship opportunity that pays 30 bucks a night. Cash. Not even really knowing what it is he signed up for, they both vanish into the night hoping to catch some gruesome sights and sounds to sell. Rick is met with an evening of endangerment that extends into a couple of months. They do well together and Bloom is making some real money, but still only pays Rick 30 bucks a night. Rick eventually gets a bump in pay during the final act of the film, but he kind of has to sell his soul a little to get it.
Similar to Nina’s situation, Rick has to make a choice. He’s being leveraged by his need for money and the threat of physical violence by Bloom. The choice is his to make, though. There is a hesitation, but, like Nina, he gives in. Bloom does that to you. He makes you give in based on the world he’s constructed with your interests and needs pitted against you. The choice is almost an illusion, but, once again, it is there. One person who really didn’t have a choice and succumbed to Bloom’s plan for nightcrawler monopoly is Joe Loder. Loder actually tries to recruit Bloom after Bloom hits a bit of stride. Recognizing the talent and feeling the need to absorb the competition, he extends and offer. Being a 14 year veteran of nightcrawling in Los Angeles, Loder expresses that he’s doing Bloom a favor by bringing him on and having him join the big boys. Bloom tastes the desperation and doesn’t care for it. On his own and making a name for himself, it’s finally becoming a reality. The dream is formalizing. He rejects Loder’s offer a couple times before blatantly telling him to fuck off via a threat of physical violence. Loder storms off and goes ahead with a plan of having two separate units covering Los Angeles. It works and it essentially wedges out Bloom for an evening and a really big story and this is all during sweeps week.
This proved to be devastating because he couldn’t fulfill his part of the deal he made with Nina (Being that it was the beginning of ‘Sweeps week’) and that if Loder would continue successfully carrying out his new plan Bloom would be squeezed out entirely. There wouldn’t be enough to go around therefore he had to take action. Bloom sabotages a van, Loder gets in an accident, and, ironically enough, is the subject of one of Bloom’s pieces he sells to KWLA. This is much to the chagrin of Rick who audibly objects, ‘He’s one of us, man’. It doesn’t matter. Bloom wanted to be number one and he needed to fulfill his part of the agreement with Nina. It was all part of the plan. Anyone who got in the way had hell to pay. Now, we have Bloom without anything really holding him back.
He strikes gold by arriving at a crime scene before the cops arrive (He uses a police band radio). Witnessing a shooting in an upscale neighborhood, he grabs footage of the assailants getting out of the house and fleeing the scene. When he delivers the footage to Nina (A holy grail of ‘fear media’) and the police, he cuts out everything with the assailants, but leaves a copy for himself. Lying to everyone about it, even Rich at first, Bloom plots out the next step and decides to play out a situation where he’s the first and only person there. He’s fully orchestrated a crime by following the assailants the next night and calling it in. Sitting back, he waits as a firefight and car chase ensue. All of it caught by him and Rick, but at quite a cost.
Nina gets another masterpiece and we’re left with angered detectives foaming at the mouth for footage because, and rightfully so, they claim it as evidence. But, as the wheels of justice stall out, Nina shoots back that the footage is owned by KWLA and they’d need a court order to get it. Bloom ends up being brought into questioning, but nothing comes of it. The detectives see right through him though. Still, Bloom doesn’t crack. In fact, after leaving unscathed and presumably a short time after (Maybe a month or so) he unleashes two new vans of his production company, ‘Video Production News’ stocked with 3 additional interns (Presumably unpaid).
I enjoyed this movie. It reminded a good deal of another recent favorite of mine, David Fincher’s Gone Girl. While Gone Girl is a bit more deceitful in its methods, which is part of its charm, Nightcrawler is definitely more straight forward about its protagonist pretty much using everyone else as a pawn and operating with no regard other human beings.
Rick, played wonderfully by Riz Ahmed, even musters up the gall to tell Bloom that he doesn’t get people. This is regards to how he treats Rick like a sort of lap dog constantly trying to reinforce his own methods and will upon him. Bloom responds back with something to the effect of maybe it isn’t that he doesn’t get people, but, rather, he doesn’t care for or like them. This cold disassociation is the blueprint for Bloom. It can be seen as cheap, in so many circles, to have a character blatantly say something like (Show me, don’t tell me), but Bloom’s overall behavior reflects that statement long before he comes clean, so to speak. The statement itself also is another piece of the jenga puzzle that encapsulates his sort of autistic-esque interaction with everyone around him which lend to, as I stated in the beginning, amusing exchanges. Gyllenhaal nails it too. You feel a great uneasiness with him around others, but, when he’s alone in his apartment you can see him being a bit more tranquil. When he’s watering his plant there’s an actual care there in his body language. Truly, humans are all buttons for him to press.
Technical aspects of the film that have to be mentioned are, above all, the cinematography. It has a great grimy look to it that resembles the feel of being a nightcrawler and existing on the fringe. The quality seems to get less grainy and the camera movement appears to be more involved and elaborate as the movie progresses. This also coincides with Bloom’s improved equipment. I could be dead wrong, but that’s most certainly how it felt. The sound was pretty great too. A moment that I noted earlier where Bloom is realizing that he wants to pursue nightcrawling is extenuated beautifully by the overpowering sound effect of an airplane taking off over the bedrock of background traffic.
His brain is running with this idea and it’s just taking off his head. Like I said, it’s a great ‘to-do’ moment. The rest of the sound, including gunshots and car crashes, etc. have a great grounded feeling. You don’t hear a gun shot a lot, but when you do it’s fairly jarring. With that being said, the final act’s car chase scene is really well filmed and you truly feel the danger of the situation. That was sort of unexpected as far as my preconceived notion of the movie. To that note, I didn’t know what to expect. I had an idea about it being kind of a exploitation movie or a sort of midnight movie and it was and in all the most beautiful ways. The acting was superb. Everyone in it was believable and showed a good range of emotions that seemed to be grounded and pinned by a sense of need to stay relevant to themselves and to their surroundings.
One of the central themes of fear in the media and how network news, like all bits of media, is carefully constructed and has an aim to it. There is a compulsion and belief that self sustains it’s cheap assumptions. The cycle of fear reinforces itself and maybe that spills out from or into the human condition. People see the plug that can be pulled to stop something they don’t agree with morally, but if it truly gets in the way of their way of life or their sheer convenience it may be a victim of non-action. Like Chinatown, Nightcrawler shows you a city and all its machinations broken down to the beautifully ugly bare bone. The truth, sometimes, isn’t the best thing. (– Phil Healy)
Dumb and Dumber To
 |
| Universal / Released 10/17/15 |
Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reprise their signature roles as Lloyd and Harry in the sequel to the smash hit that took the physical comedy and kicked it in the nuts: Dumb and Dumber To. The original film’s directors, Peter and Bobby Farrelly, take Lloyd and Harry on a road trip to find a child Harry never knew he had and the responsibility neither should ever, ever be given. Extras include alternate opening, deleted/extended scenes, gag reel and featurettes.
Last Word: Lloyd and Harry reunite 20 years after their misadventure to Aspen to seek out the latter’s long lost daughter in hopes of gaining an organ. Each step of their journey brings them one clue closer to finding the offspring birthed by their mutual former flame Freida Felcher (Sidenote: This film is rated PG-13; do you even know what that word means??). Kathleen Turner plays the mother, and her fans will happily remember how much better she looked 20 years prior. While the pair make ready to get on their way to meet the 22-year-old child in El Paso, Texas, a devious plot is once again afoot that places our heroes’ lives in danger. But of course, they do not know that. Luckily, the tone of the film diverts the audience from acknowledging the same as well. Rob Riggle steps in for Mike Starr as a temporary tag-along who falls victim to more than just the antics of Harry and Lloyd, whose gags have evolved from putting hot peppers on hamburgers to passing gas in a compartmentalized hearse and lighting fireworks indoors.
The real hilarity ensues when the triangle is complete with Rachel Melvin, who is a welcome show stealer as the next generation of dumb, even if her quirks could be misconstrued as sexist or misogynistic by the overly sensitive. Brady Bluhm makes a welcome return one thousand weeks later as Billy, the blind boy who bought a headless parakeet from Lloyd in 1994. By comparison, slight modifications can be seen from the Farrelly’s film style which made movies like Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary cult comedy hits. An iota of more focus is put toward the subplot surrounding Penny, the aforementioned child, as she steps in to accept an award on behalf of her adopted father, a world-renowned scientist who has been suspiciously ill since remarrying. How will Harry and Lloyd fare this time around?
Ever watch The Hangover and The Hangover Part II or Tommy Boy and Black Sheep back to back? The same cast reunites to basically play the same story. Regrettably, lightning does not strike twice when the second verse makes too much of an effort to be the same as the first. A trend is easily noticed in Dumb and Dumber To where the same essential plot is followed, moving in slightly different directions in parts such as a train versus an upset ulcer or a science conference in place of an international preservation society meeting. Clearly, this movie was not made with new ideas in mind.
Here are some tidbits you may not catch if not watching closely: Swizz Beats has a brief appearance as a ninja leader in a fantasy sequence that does not come close to the humor of the previous film’s daydream of invincibility. Laurie Holden’s character has the same first name as the last character she played in a movie with Jim Carrey (2001’s forgettable The Majestic). Blink and you will miss the cameos of Bill Murray and Will Arnett.
The story is formulaic and ultimately predictable. On the other hand, the main actors clearly have fun with the script, which takes away from how dismally boring it might be were this not a Farrelly brothers comedy. However, credit deserves to be given where it is due. Easily could this lead to a spinoff movie or TV show for breakout star Melvin, who spent her early acting years with recurring roles on shows such as Days of Our Lives and Heroes.
A hospital scene at the very end will help any audience member identify where they stand with the movie: they were either blown away like Harry and Lloyd, confused like Penny and Freida, or just not with it at all like the doctor who sees no humor in the premise whatsoever. It is not Peter and Bobby’s best, but not nearly their worst, and a fantastic diversion from that dreadful 2003 prequel. Unfortunately, this type of humor is becoming a bit too niche to maintain its freshness in modern cinema. The film itself is easily forgettable, with no real memorable moments that fans will act out later at the dinner table or during their own cross-country drives. While not a hit, this is still a far cry from a complete miss, and once again teens and college humor fans will probably not mind. (– Herbert Shaw)
John Wick
 |
| Summit Ent. /Released 2/3/15 |
When sadistic young thugs senselessly attack John Wick – a brilliantly lethal ex-assassin – they have no idea that they’ve just awakened the boogeyman. With New York City as his bullet-riddled playground, Wick embarks on a merciless rampage, hunting down his adversaries with the skill and ruthlessness that made him an underworld legend. Extras include commentary and featurettes.Last Word: I’m a huge dog lover, especially beagles, so I’m a bit biased right off the bat. The beagle in David Leitch and Chad Stahelski’s stylish and humorous action flick, John Wick, is just about as cute as they come. Seriously, the puppy is super tiny and has eyes that would make John Wayne Gacy reconsider his actions. It just makes you all warm inside. But I digress.
The fact is, John Wick is an absolutely crisp and refreshing film that delivers all the bone-crushing, head-shot-abundant action you would expect from an action film but with enough smarts that sets it apart from the troves of others out each and every year. Keanu Reeves is back, everybody. John Wick (Reeves) is a solitary man with a mysterious and violent past who just wanted to leave that life behind and settle down with his new wife. All is well for about two months before his wife dies of an apparent illness. Then, a small posse of Russians take a liking to Wick’s nice car. A rather large liking, as they end up breaking into his house at night, beating the living daylights out of him, killing his puppy (the horror!), and stealing his whip. Normally a murdered puppy would drive anybody to consider manslaughter, but this puppy is special to Wick, as he/she was given to him posthumously by his wife as sort of a post-loss healing mechanism. The puppy means a lot to Wick, and without getting into spoiler-territory, the death of this particular puppy drives him to consider much more than simple manslaughter. What’s so fun about this movie is that it spends virtually no time explaining Wick’s back story. Instead, it has the characters do the explaining. In the Wick world, everybody he encounters seems to know and fear him in some way. There is no, “John Wick is bad because ____,” there’s just, “oh shit, John Wick.” It lets the audience know that, regardless of what his past is like, John Wick has always been a bad-ass. Over the course of the movie, you begin to understand his importance without being told, and it’s an absolutely welcome way of storytelling.
What happens in this film is exactly what you get when you give two veteran film-industry stuntmen a chance to direct: a whole lot of ass-kicking, leg-snapping, double-tapping action, and with enough style to make Steve McQueen jealous. This is, in part, due to the wonderful camera that happily strays away from the dreaded shaky-cam. Cinematographer Jonathan Sela keeps the camera nice and wide during both the action and the quieter scenes. It’s very effective in getting the full picture when watching Keanu Reeves pull off his own stunts; 90% of them, supposedly. Speaking of stunts, they are plenty. Again, this is directed by two stuntmen, so you can bet the gun fights are refreshing, controlled, and believable. Two descriptive words that instantly come to mind when thinking about John Wick are bad-ass and satisfying. The satisfying term is especially true to the gun play. John Wick must have played a lot of Call of Duty in his past because he nails head shots left and right and each kill is equally satisfying. Maybe it’s because Wick does what so few action heroes remember to do – make sure each enemy is dead by firing an extra shot on the body – that feels so refreshing, but it’s something that, while small, is instantly noticeable.
The film is fun, stylish, and surprisingly funny, but it isn’t without its faults. I hate to say it, but Reeves’ line delivery is absolutely terrible, almost to the point where I would silently grown whenever he’d have a “bad-ass” line. But it’s Keanu Reeves, so weirdly enough, this can be forgiven. Part of it is the script, part of it is him. It may not be a big fault, but it’s a fault that exists nonetheless. How the average moviegoer will take it depends on the way they view the film: is it mindless or not? Either way, it’s great to see Reeves back in the action spotlight. (– Steve Carley)
Save Our Skins
 |
| BBC Home Video / Released 1/20/15 |
In this madcap mélange of sci-fi, comedy and horror, two not-very-bright British geeks wake up in New York City one morning to discover that everyone else has vanished from the earth. Ben and Stephen relish having everything all to themselves until solitary splendor gets boring. But yikes! they re not alone, after all. Ghostly aliens and ravenous monsters threaten their long-term health, and an SOS message on YouTube gets no reply. Why is this happening to the two most ill-equipped people in the universe? If they can answer that question, the pair may yet be able to save their skins and the human race!
Last Word: Stephen (Chris Haywood) and Ben (Nate Saunders) are two English guys who travel to NYC for a comic book convention only to wake up from a bout of jet lag and find themselves completely alone. Hoping for answers, the two blokes embark on search for the truth where they are chased by a blue monster, become a possible food source for a deranged old man cannibal, meet up with a psychotic hottie, find help from some Canadians, seek knowledge from an intelligent alien and well, come across something a bit mythological.Produced on a micro-budget, Save Our Skins may not have a whole lot of special effects to give it a sci-fi ambiance, but the chemistry between lead actors Haywood and Saunders (which is reminiscent of Pegg and Frost) more than makes up for it. Unfortunately, that’s the best you can say for the film. When the two have to interact with the other characters, the film slows down to an amateurish crawl that makes you twice as aware that perhaps this film would have been better off as character study between two dorky friends left alone in the world rather than a I Am Legend/Shaun of the Dead/A Boy and his Dog hybrid.
The good bones of the film are there, you can see and appreciate them, but it’s bogged down by an unfunny cast of supporting characters, a script that doesn’t realize that it would have been better served as a short and an apocalyptic end-of-the-world revelation that would have been a lot better had it been the actual “ending”.
If you really want to enjoy the film, stop it after about :25. It may not have a conclusion, but, it will be far more enjoyable than the other :65. (– Elizabeth Weitz)
The Book of Life
 |
| 20th Century Fox / Released 1/27/15 |
From producer Guillermo del Toro and director Jorge R. Gutierrez comes a breathtaking animated comedy with a dazzling visual style unlike anything you’ve seen before. Torn between the expectations of his family and the desires of his heart, a young man named Manolo sets off on an epic quest, that spans three spectacular worlds, in order to reunite with his one true love and defend his village. Not your ordinary fairy tale, The Book of Life is a wondrous fantasy-adventure filled with magic, music and fun! Extras include the short film The Adventures of Chuy, featurettes, gallery, music video and commentary.
Last Word: I love animated movies. Traditional hand-animated, digital, stop motion; American or Anime, it doesn’t matter. I am definitely in the club that believes that animation isn’t just for kids, and some of the best story-telling today can be found in this cinematic medium.
The Book of Life was a delightful surprise. I was expecting a cheap knock-off of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. What I got was a beautiful, colorful tale about love, family, and friendship. Mexican-born, director and writer Jorge R. Gutierrez crafts funny and touching story pulling from Mexican folklore, Greek mythology, and Hollywood comedy.
The Book of Life is the story of three childhood friends; the s the story of three childhood friends; the kind-hearted Manolo, the dashing Joaquin, and the headstrong Maria. Each struggling to live up to their families’ expectations. In addition, the two young boys compete for Maria’s affections. Their plight has not gone unnoticed. La Muerte, the ruler of the Land of the Remembered and Xibalba, ruler of the Land of the Forgotten have taken an interest in the children’s drama. The Gods have made a wager on which boy will succeed in winning Maria’s heart.
Each chooses one of the boys to be their champion. Maria is sent away to school, and many years pass before the three amigos are reunited and the Gods see which of their Champions will win. The Book of Life is filled with bold colors and rich design, setting it apart from your standard Disney/ Dreamworks film. The voice cast lends a great deal of humor and genuine sentiment to their roles that I found the almost all the characters endearing.
Diego Luna (Elysium) as Manolo is earnest and sweet, the perfect underdog in the lover’s competition. Maria (Zoe Saldana, Guardians of the Galaxy) is an excellent role model for young girls, not content to let the boys save her, but able to hold her own with the best of them. Channing Tatum (Magic Mike) is perfect as the conceited swashbuckler. The supporting cast is filled with some of my favorite character actors, namely Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo, and a cameo from the great Plácido Domingo. Rounding out the cast is a turn from Ice Cube as the Candlemaker, the neutral supernatural being who keeps the netherworlds in balance.
The only part of the film I felt lacking was the music. The score, written by Argentinian Gustavo Santaolalla (who won Oscars for scoring Babel and Brokeback Mountain), was wonderful and full of echoes of the color and warmth of Mexico. What didn’t work for me was the some-what Latin versions of American pop music. Although presented as a selling point in most of the promotional materials, I found the pop musical numbers distracting, and pulled me out of the film each time.
In a film that took many risks with artistic direction and with heartfelt writing, it felt like the insertion of songs like “I Will Wait” by Mumford & Sons and “Creep” by Radiohead were a play to make the film more marketable to a non-Latino audience. I found myself wishing that Santaolalla had written original compositions for the musical numbers, or had picked current Latin pop. Such care was taken with the rest of the film, and presented as a slice of Mexican culture, it would have been better to have actual Mexican music.
Pop songs aside, which probably only make up 12 mins of the film, The Book of Life is a fun and entertaining animated film that challenges the aesthetic of general animation, carving out it’s own place for movie goers. (– Elizabeth Robbins)
The Mule
 |
| XLrator Media / Released 1/20/15 |
It’s 1983. A naive man transporting lethal narcotics in his stomach is detained by the police. Alone and afraid, the “mule” makes a desperate choice — to defy his bodily functions and withhold the evidence… literally. By doing so becomes a “human time-bomb,” dragging cops, criminals. lawyers and his mother into his impossible escapade. Inspired by true events, The Mule is a comic nightmare of stomach-churning suspense starring Hugo Weaving (The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings), Angus Sampson (Insidious), Leigh Whannell (Saw, Insidious) and John Noble (Fringe).
101 Dalmatians: Diamond Edition
 |
| Walt Disney Home Video / Released 2/10/15 |
A charming London neighborhood is home to Roger (Ben Wright) and Anita Radcliffe (Lisa Davis), whose beloved Dalmatians, Pongo (Rod Taylor) and Perdita (Cate Bauer), have become the proud parents of fifteen puppies. But when Cruella De Vil (Betty Lou Gerson), a heartless woman with a psychotic obsession with fur, and her bumbling henchmen, Horace (Frederick Worlock) and Jasper (J. Pat O’Malley), unexpectedly appear, the pups soon disappear, along with every other Dalmatian puppy in town. Now Pongo and Perdita must rally their animal friends — among them sheepdog Colonel (O’Malley), tabby cat Sergeant Tibbs (David Frankham), and gray horse Captain (Thurl Ravenscroft) — find Cruella’s secret hideout, and free the puppies before the villainess can make herself an enormous fur coat. Extras include featurettes, Further Adventures of Thunderbolt short, Wonderful World of Disney episode: The Best Doggoned Dog in the World, music videos, making of, trailers, radio and tv spots.
Last Word: Few things have the same level of cinematic nostalgia than classic Disney films. Growing up in the Seventies and early Eighties, before the proliferation of cable and videocassettes, Disney films were regularly circulated from the Vault, allowing new audiences to discover these classic films every seven years. Revisiting 101 Dalmatians with adult eyes, the film is more interesting than I remembered. Certainly not one of the best animated or written of the Disney features, 101 Dalmatians is a kinetically electric and exciting film with a sense of charm and whimsy, as well as a seriously dangerous villain. As a matter of fact, out of the the Disney rogues gallery, Cruella De Vil, is one of the most frightening characters they’ve ever animated. Also, unlike most of their features of the time, 101 Dalmatians is not a musical (although, Cruella De Vil’s theme song is among one of Disney’s catchiest), but it’s such an inherently likable movie, it’s pretty difficult not to catch yourself caught up in the story and characters. The third act car chase with De Vil maniacally behind the wheel is fantastic. Highly recommended.
Rosewater
 |
| Universal /Released 2/10/15 |
Rosewater is based on The New York Times best-selling memoir “Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival,” written by Maziar Bahari. The film marks the directorial debut of “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, and stars Gael García Bernal. Rosewater follows the Tehran-born Bahari, a broadcast journalist with Canadian citizenship. In June 2009, Bahari returned to Iran to interview Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was the prime challenger to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As Mousavi’s supporters rose up to protest Ahmadinejad’s victory declaration hours before the polls closed, Bahari endured personal risk by sending footage of the street riots to the BBC. Bahari was arrested by police, led by a man identifying himself only as “Rosewater,” who tortured and interrogated him over the next 118 days. With Bahari’s wife leading an international campaign to have her husband freed, and Western media outlets keeping the story alive, Iranian authorities released Bahari on $300,000 bail and the promise he would act as a spy for the government. Extras include featurettes
Alexander and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
 |
| Disney/ Buena Vista / Released 2/10/15 |
Disney’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day follows the exploits of 11-year-old Alexander (Ed Oxenbould) as he experiences the most terrible and horrible day of his young life — a day that begins with gum stuck in his hair, followed by one calamity after another. But when Alexander tells his upbeat family about the misadventures of his disastrous day, he finds little sympathy and begins to wonder if bad things only happen to him. He soon learns that he’s not alone when his mom (Jennifer Garner), dad (Steve Carell), brother (Dylan Minnette) and sister (Kerris Dorsey) all find themselves living through their own terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Anyone who says there is no such thing as a bad day just hasn’t had one. Extras include featurettes, bloopers and music video.
Last Word: It’s unfortunate that the portrayal of a happy, supportive nuclear family depicted on film is more of a rarity than the norm. Thankfully the producers of Alexander and…went against that and delivered a top notch ensemble in an unexpectedly charming and entertaining film. The target audience for the film is obviously the younger viewers with several broad strokes, potty humor, and slapstick, but director Miguel Arteta made sure that the film resonated with an adult audience as well. Steve Carrell and Jennifer Garner maintain the verisimilitude while demonstrating some seasoned physical comedy chops. The film also fills many of the small parts with familiar faces including Bella Thorne, Megan Mullally, Jennifer Coolidge, Alex Désert, and Donald Glover. But ultimately, it’s the young actors, Dylan Minnette, Kerris Dorsey and Alexander himself, Ed Oxenbould, who sell the movie. Alexander and… is silly and unrealistic, but does that matter? It’s fast paced, sweet and enjoyable; shouldn’t that be enough? Recommended.
Before I Go To Sleep
 |
| 20th Century Fox / Released 1/27/15 |
Oscar Winners Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth deliver riveting performances in this tense thriller based on the best-selling novel that features a shocking twist ending you will never see coming. Kidman plays Christine, a woman who wakes up every day remembering nothing. But when she tries to piece together her former life, she uncovers terrifying secrets that leave her with no one she can trust, including her doctor (Mark Strong) and even her husband (Firth). Extras include featurettes
The Drop
 |
| 20th Century Fox/ Released |
The Drop is a new crime drama from Michaël R. Roskam, the Academy Award nominated director of Bullhead. Based on a screenplay from Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), The Drop follows lonely bartender Bob Saginowski (Tom Hardy) through a covert scheme of funneling cash to local gangsters – “money drops” in the underworld of Brooklyn bars. Under the heavy hand of his employer and cousin Marv (James Gandolfini), Bob finds himself at the center of a robbery gone awry and entwined in an investigation that digs deep into the neighborhood’s past. Also featuring Noomi Rapace, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ann Dowd and John Ortiz. Extras include commentary, featurettes and deleted scenes.
Kink
 |
| Dark Sky Films / Released 2/10/15 |
Director Christina Voros and producer James Franco pull back the curtain on the fetish empire of Kink.com, the Internet s largest producer of BDSM content. In a particularly obscure corner of an industry that operates largely out of public view, Kink.com s directors and models strive for authenticity. In an enterprise often known for exploitative practices, Kink.com upholds an ironclad set of values to foster an environment that is safe, sane, and consensual. They aim to demystify the BDSM lifestyle, and to serve as an example and an educational resource for the BDSM community.
In kink, we discover not only a fascinating and often misunderstood subculture, but also, in a career far from the mainstream, a group of intelligent, charismatic, and driven people who really, truly love what they do.
Last Word: An interesting look that amounts to essentially a “day in the life” documentary of a fetish website and it’s employees. It’s a strange approach (especially from a viewer who’s familiarity of that world usually has the distance of a television or computer monitor between him), to depict the matter of fact-ness of this subculture as a business rather than as a titillating and sensationalized expose. The other fascinating aspect of the film is that it’s really not about sex (although there’s plenty of nudity), it’s about business and the product they’re selling is wish fulfillment and escapism. In some ways, it’s all about people who go to work and do a job. The difference is, when they go to work, they sometimes get hogtied or spanked. Recommended.
RPG
 |
| ARC Entertainment / Released 2/10/15 |
In a future world not too far away, multimillionaire Steve Battier (Rutger Hauer) is dying from a terminal disease. He accepts an offer from a biotechnological company that provides a very select group of clients the opportunity to be young again and free from disease… but there is a catch. Steve is joined by 9 other powerful players of the world, and they scheme against each other to survive. It soon turns into a game of death for all but one. He will enjoy all the seductions of youth, but may have to pay the ultimate price.
