In The Uninvited, a young girl and her audience find that there’s no more life left in the Asian horror retreads. Creepy figures in the night, quick yet bland scares — it’s all the same in teen fright-land. The original, by The Good, the Bad, the Weird’s Kim Jee-woon, was a stylish chiller hearkening back to both Ringu and The Sixth Sense. Yet while that director imbued a cold calculated dread to the complicated proceedings, Charles and Thomas Guard’s rehash establishes itself right away as a lifeless vehicle ripe for crowds that flock to this kind of redundant spook-house fare. The only interesting bit is how the directorial duo handles the intertwining plot at the core of the flick — and how obviously they decide to present it. Insert yawns here, because those who invite this sucker into their viewing schedule deserve what they get.

Read the rest of this entry »

Liam Neeson lets loose a mean dose of delicious thuggery in Taken, a taut thriller that puts the viewer in the passenger seat right next to a hell-bent father seeking his stolen daughter and the blood of those behind her abduction. Deftly directed by District B13’s Pierre Morel from a script by Luc Besson and writing partner Robert Mark Kamen, this tense actioner doesn’t spend much time setting things up, nor does it decelerate once the flick picks up steam. Not one to overstay its welcome, this suspenseful tale is an economic exercise in delivering the goods for those who are interested in a two-fisted Liam Neeson vehicle to soak up, bask in, and then leave behind as soon as it’s over.

Read the rest of this entry »

If anyone still harbors doubts as to whether animation can be used to tell a serious-minded story and not simply to entertain children on a Saturday morning, that questioning soul need look no further than Waltz With Bashir to witness just how effective the medium can be at dealing with mature issues with sincerity and reverence. Even if a soldier manages to avoid getting physically wounded in war, no one returns form the battlefield unscathed, and when filmmaker Ari Folman attempts to help a fellow veteran of the Lebanon War discover the hidden meaning of a recurring nightmare, he begins questioning the fact that the war seems to have had no discernible effect on him psychologically. But it has, and as his quest to help a friend find meaning in the abstract commences, Folman discovers that some memories can be so dark that it takes the light of reflection to illuminate them.

Read the rest of this entry »

A romantic comedy just as benign and generic as its instantly forgettable title suggests, New in Town may be a simplistic reworking of rom-com script number 42B, yet much like Blanche Gunderson’s “nothing fancy” meatloaf, it has a certain Midwestern charm that settles calmly in the stomach, making the viewer feel warm, comfortable, and quick to smile.

Read the rest of this entry »

Raw and relentless, Olly Blackburn’s Donkey Punch isn’t your mother’s Dead Calm; after straining a bit too hard for jet-setting hipster cred during the setup, it pulsates with debauchery as the tension starts to build and the eponymous jab is thrown. With one dead body on board and six still breathing as the tension starts to build, it’s anyone’s guess as to who will be the last person standing. Despite the possible exception of its crude MacGuffin and some especially raunchy sex, Donkey Punch really isn’t that different from any number of stranded-at-sea suspense thrillers. Still, for those willing to ignore that nagging sense of déjà vu, this cynical little shocker does a serviceable job of amping up the tension as the balance of power fluctuates in a cleverly plotted series of deceptions, manipulations, and double-crosses.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pride & Glory: The best gritty cop drama about family bonds and corruption since We Own the Night. But Keep in mind, We Own the Night was kind of bad.

The Rocker: The best movie about an aging but hilariously bombastic musician teaching a bunch of kids about the joys of rock and roll since School of Rock. But keep in mind, School of Rock was only four years ago.

RockNRolla: The best uber-stylized British crime comedy since Snatch. But keep in mind, that was before Guy Ritchie lost his balls in his divorce settlement.

Also on DVD this Week: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, College, Days and Clouds, Fireproof, The Lucky Ones, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Closing the Ring, Open Season 2, Blossom - Seasons 1 & 2, Cheers - The Final Season, The Love Boat - Season 2, Vol. 1., and Lakeview Terrace.

The battle between pleather-bound vampires and scrunchy-faced werefolk rages on, this time in a medieval setting, in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. This time, FX guru Patrick Tatopoulos takes the directing reins and, in doing so, crafts what could be the best that the series has to offer. While still far too serious for its own good, this entry manages to thrill without falling back on its second-rate Matrix roots. With no frenetic gunplay and tight close-ups of latex-covered rumps, the picture is freer to focus on its mythology, which was always the best thing that B-flick series had going for it. Boosted by a fantastic performance by Bill Nighy, Lycans has just enough bite to keep one interested as the backstory is fleshed out in this singular take on the clash between the top two creatures of the night.

Read the rest of this entry »

At a running time of three hours and 21 minutes, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) was an audacious effort for a 25-year-old filmmaker — and sufficiently daunting on practical grounds so that the movie wasn’t seen in the USA in anything except 16mm prints for the first 33 years of its existence, until 2009. It’s not a brisk 201 minutes but it is engrossing and rewarding, a painstakingly realistic account (oozing verisimilitude out of every frame, and there are a lot of frames) of three days in the life of the female protagonist of the title, portrayed by Delphine Seyrig.

Read the rest of this entry »