Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 3rd, 2015
There are no tigers — or any other large cats — to be found in Tiger House. The closest we get is a rather hefty guard dog whose screen time is tragically cut short. (Figured I’d give the animal lovers out there a fair warning.) Instead, the only prowling we see in this low-budget home invasion thriller comes from the violent gang of thieves who bust into a suburban home and hold the unsuspecting family inside hostage. Unfortunately for the crooks, there’s already an uninvited visitor in the house.
That visitor is Kelly (Kaya Scodelario), who has snuck over to see her grounded boyfriend Mark (Daniel Boyd). The movie opens with a flashback to the crossbow-related accident between the young couple that ruined Kelly’s aspirations of becoming a gymnast. Now Mark’s mom Lynn (Julie Summers) considers down-on-her-luck Kelly to be a bad influence on her straight-arrow son, which explains all the sneaking around. Meanwhile, Mark’s stepdad Doug (Andrew Brent) is some sort of financial bigwig, which makes him an attractive target for the group of crooks looking to rob a bank.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 16th, 2015
“People have short attention spans. And there’s always another murder.”
Barely a year after Gone Girl became a mid-range blockbuster, we're already getting our second big-screen adaptation of a Gillian Flynn novel. To be fair, both Gone Girl and Dark Places went into production around the same time in the fall of 2013. But that just means someone anticipated that a single shot of Flynn's twisted brand of Midwest murder/mystery mayhem wouldn't be enough to satisfy movie audiences.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 8th, 2015
“They’re hee-eere”
That instantly-iconic horror movie line — delivered in a cheery, chilling, sing-songy voice by the late Heather O’Rourke — signaled the arrival of malevolent spirits in 1982’s Poltergeist. In 2015, “they’re hee-eere” could just as easily refer to the latest glut of horror remakes. (Thankfully, there’s still at least one *sacred* cow.) That list now includes a new version of Poltergeist, which features some solid thrills and (for better and for worse) sticks pretty closely to the original.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 16th, 2015
If something seems too good to be true, then it probably is. It’s a lesson that’s hardwired into our brains, yet often proves impossible to resist. That idea is also what jumpstarts the action in The Legacy, which is equal parts stylish, campy, and compulsively watchable. The 1978 thriller, directed by future Return of the Jedi helmer Richard Marquand, now makes its Blu-ray debut courtesy of Shout! Factory.
Margaret Walsh (Katharine Ross) can hardly believe her luck when she receives a $50,000 check from an anonymous client in England to take on a mysterious interior design gig. Meanwhile, her strapping boyfriend Pete Danner (Sam Elliott) flat-out can’t believe it, but Margaret insists they check it out since her family has blood ties to England. The Los Angeles couple is enjoying a motorcycle ride on the picturesque English countryside when they’re accidentally run off the road by a car. The man in the car is Jason Mountolive (John Standing), and he invites Margaret and Pete to hang out at Ravenhurst — his lavish estate — while Pete’s bike is being repaired. As soon as the couple arrives, they sense something is not quite right. Mountolive is nowhere to be found and creepy Nurse Adams (Margaret Tyzack) isn’t exactly forthcoming with answers. (And what’s up with the creepy cat that always seems to be hanging around?)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 4th, 2015
If nothing else, The Curse of Downers Grove lives up (or rather down) to its morose title. It’s too bad because this (non-)thriller actually has a promising premise: every year, a supposed curse in the titular suburban Illinois town kills a senior at the local high school. The movie could’ve gone for darkly comic thrills or tried to construct a mystery around who the latest victim might be, to name just a couple of examples. Instead, this shoddy, inert flick squanders a variety of opportunities on the way to its preposterous conclusion.
The action here picks up with one week to go in the school year. Chrissie Swanson (Bella Heathcote) is a sharp, skeptical senior who doesn’t fully believe in the curse, despite witnessing the previous year’s victim plunge to his death. Did the curse kill him and the other teens or was it bad luck and good ol’ fashioned stupidity? I’m sure the fact that the high school was built on sacred Native American ground has nothing to do with anything.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 10th, 2015
“Sometimes the truth isn't believable. That doesn't mean that it's not true.”
Talk about truth being stranger than fiction! That proverb absolutely applies to the real-life story of Mike Finkel and Christian Longo, two men from seemingly disparate backgrounds who were thrust together by extraordinary circumstances. Their relationship is the basis for True Story, a drama about duality and deception. But while the truth is often stranger than fiction, that doesn't necessarily mean it's more entertaining.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on July 27th, 2015
At this risk of going all 30 for 30 on you, what if I told you one of the most layered, soulful performances I've seen all year comes courtesy of a canine? White God is a hypnotic, Hungarian parable about a girl and her dog. Sounds simple enough, but director Kornel Mundruczo places an unprecedented amount of storytelling responsibility on non-CGI, four-legged performers. The results are occasionally uneven, but frequently spellbinding.
“Nobody wants a stinking mutt. That's what shelters are for.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 29th, 2015
It honestly took me a while to get over the opening shot of The Forger. The shot itself is rather unremarkable: it's a simple close-up of star John Travolta sitting in a small room by himself and staring straight ahead. But between his ridiculously obvious wig and the waxy texture of his face — the actor now looks like he's wearing a Michael Myers-style “John Travolta” mask — I knew it was going to be pretty difficult to take him seriously, no matter who or what was playing. It's a shame because there's actually a pretty decent family drama to be found within The Forger.
Turns out Travolta is playing Ray Cutter, a Boston-based, world-class art forger who has 10 months remaining on a five-year prison sentence. With the light at the end of the tunnel in sight, Ray suddenly decides 10 months is too long to wait, so he makes a deal with local crime boss Keegan (Anson Mount) to pay off a judge and get out of prison early. In exchange, Keegan forces Ray to forge Claude Monet's “Woman with a Parasol”, steal the real thing from a local museum, and replace it with the forgery. So why would Ray indebt himself to a volatile mobster instead of merely serving out the rest of his sentence?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 17th, 2015
I’m hard pressed to think of a movie star who is better at playing rich a-holes than Michael Douglas. He’s played a Murderous Rich A-Hole, a Rich A-Hole Who Gets Put In His Place, and a Self-Destructive Rich A-Hole, to name just a few. And that’s not even counting his Oscar-winning turn as Gordon “Greed is Good” Gekko, the Definitive Rich A-Hole. It’s tempting to tidily sum up Beyond the Reach as “Gekko’s Got a Gun.” Unfortunately, what starts out as a picturesque two-hander becomes more preposterous as it goes along before completely flying off the rails in the final act.
The larger-than-life corporate shark Douglas plays this time around is named John Madec. He hires a young, talented, brokenhearted guide named Ben (Jeremy Irvine) for a hunting expedition in the Mojave Desert. Director Jean-Baptiste Leonetti and screenwriter Stephen Susco let us know Madec is a jackass before we even lay eyes on him; as Ben walks into the local sheriff’s office to meet Madec, we see his monstrous Mercedes truck taking up three parking spaces outside.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on May 27th, 2015
“Welcome to Cut Bank, MT. coldest spot in the nation.”
When you make a darkly comic crime thriller that centers around a bunch of bumbling schemers and a single, righteous cop — and then you name that movie after a frigid, real-life city in the northern part of the U.S. — the comparisons to Fargo are simply impossible to ignore. Thankfully, Cut Bank is buoyed by its own dry, lively cast of characters who are brought to life by a nimble set of performers.
