No Huddle Reviews

By Natasha Samreny

“I wanted you to be able to be anything you wanted to be. That would make me feel worthy.”

A Better Life mesmerizes. Father and son share one life while their separate desires for something different drive them apart. Carlos Galindo (Demián Bichir) loses his job, and his son Luis (José Julián) seems to be losing his way. While Carlos does everything he can to maintain, Luis does all he can to avoid any connection with the life his father is struggling to keep.
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By Natasha Samreny

When I’m rich and famous, maybe someone will produce a good-looking movie about me and call it a documentary. Legendary, that’s what they’ll call me. Then I’ll be sure to secure a mythical place up there with all those other things we call legendary: dragons, Santa, the Abominable Snowman … and Jerry Weintraub.
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By Natasha Samreny

Best part about this movie is the military family subplot. Two families dealing with death, loss and deployment come together on Christmas through a fairy godmother-like character’s designs. Since US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past decade, movies discussing struggles military families face have increased but are still few and far between. Call Me Mrs. Miracle offers a touching glimpse into one of the hardest moments for families to be separated from their loved ones—the holidays.
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By Natasha Samreny

Judd Nelson and cupcakes. Cue Whitney, Didn’t we almost have it all? If you must, at least don’t watch this one an empty stomach. The movie’s about a small town’s star cupcake baker Mary Maroni (Lea Thompson) who ends up becoming Mayor on a fluke. And besides Judd (yes we’re on a first-name basis) as Thompson’s moustachio’d, harmonica-playing husband, frankly, the endless beauty shots of  rainbow-colored cupcakes stole the show.
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By Natasha Samreny

“Maybe that day when I ran out of the hotel, maybe I never stopped running really. Maybe I’m running away from the hurt.”

– Firefighter Tim Brown

When I got this batch of DVDs, I moved Rebirth to the back of the stack. I like documentaries, but I wanted to feel something—a connection—to rally emotion, or  savor a narrative.
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By Natasha Samreny

Dear Lemon Lima is the story of a girl who loves a boy and realizes what a jerk he is.  But there’s more, and if the story doesn’t keep you, the characters will.

The projected teen fan base might immediately recognize a couple of the supporting actors from recent ABC Family series. Actor Vanessa Marano played artist sister Bay Kennish in Switched at Birth, while stereotypically popular blonde Meaghan Jette Martin starred in the 10 Things I Hate About You series, and the movie Mean Girls 2. However, Lemon Lima (pronounced LIME-uh) is the first feature film for most its young cast.
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Written by John Delia

If you are a Keanu Reeves fan, then you won’t want to miss Henry’s Crime, now out on DVD.  The movie, released in 2010, has a thin storyline, but the good acting overshadows this downside.  His support cast includes nice performances by Vera Farmiga and James Caan, so the film can’t be all that bad. The film is directed by Malcolm Venville.
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Disco Worms

Disco Worms is animated film featuring Jane Lynch of Glee.   When I first saw the title of this film, I was rather skeptical about another animated movie singing old hits all over again. I was surprised to see that it was actually very well done.  The animation is fairly enjoyable.  I especially liked the brilliantly-designed body language of the worms whose tail-gestures make up for the lack of arms.
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At the turn of the millennium a decade ago, lists were pretty popular. It didn’t matter if you were into the world of sports or movies, everybody was looking for the all-time best of everything. The American Film Institute got into the trend by releasing top-100 lists. Heroes, villains and memorable quotes all got the treatment. We all argued about the “classics” we felt were unfairly slighted and the “idiotic” choices that did make the lists. If only the lists were so much larger.
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Timing is everything, and it is no coincidence that this nearly forgotten film version of Captain America is just now seeing the light of day on DVD, even if only as a manufactured on demand release. It would be so very easy to compare this film with the big-budget affair that was released this past summer. Easy, but certainly unfair. The 1990 production looks very much like a made-for-television film, but it wasn’t at all. It did sit on the shelf for over two years before it was finally released to a limited American audience.
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By Natasha Samreny

Lifetime movies are like rollercoasters for weak-stomached scare addicts. You know what you’re in for, but you do it anyway. Not every time, but admit it: you’ll put your butt in the seat if your friends are already strapped in. Halfway through you wanna throw yourself from the moving car, but you’re going too frickin’ fast and they beg you to stay, so you do.
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By Natasha Samreny

The first time I watched Amanda Knox, the film caught competition with impromptu roofers who decided to finish their job directly above my screening room as soon as the movie started. But I have to say Knox won.

Sure, it’s Lifetime, and I have the extra X chromosome recommended to appreciate one of their films. But Hayden Panettiere’s physical interpretation of the internal struggles that American Amanda Knox must have fought while under trial for murder in Italy, is striking
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I have a lot of fond memories of this show from back when it first appeared in the mid-1970’s. And while the series didn’t last very long at all, it seems to have left a pretty strong impression on me as a child. My mother was a huge Dallas fan, and I remember the first time I had seen the show, and there was Patrick Duffy with body hair, and I knew that The Man From Atlantis had gone on his final mission. You see, the show was left up in the air for a considerable amount of time. There was no internet to get the latest entertainment news,
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“Blue for us. Red for them. It’s that simple.”

What’s not so simple is this John Frankenheimer cold war sleeper from 1990. You say you’ve never heard of it? That’s not very surprising. The film couldn’t even break $2 million at the box office and was pulled after just two weeks of release. It’s hard to imagine a film from such a bright director as Frankenheimer and staring the likes of Roy Scheider would tank so badly. Tank it did, and quite frankly, any fans of the movie should be thanking MGM for releasing it now
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