“The Woman in Black” reaches back into the horror-movie past, long before mad slashers and crazed gore frenzies infested the genre, to present us with an unapologetically old-fashioned haunted-house exercise.

The picture pays vivid tribute to the fog-choked byways and richly decorated interiors of the old Hammer horror films (and is in fact the first release by that newly resurrected studio after some 30 years of commercial hibernation). But it also partakes of the narcoleptic pacing that hobbled some of those old pictures, and so despite this movie’s stylish design and agreeably vintage frights, it is also, sad to report, kind of boring.

The story is derived from a 1983 novel by Susan Hill that was previously adapted for British TV and radio, and has been running in a London stage version for more than 20 years. Clearly there’s an audience for this time-tested material; it only remains to be seen whether it’s an audience that also goes to the movies.

The setting is vaguely Victorian (although a briefly glimpsed newspaper story about Arthur Conan Doyle’s conversion to spiritualism would place it closer to the 1920s). Daniel Radcliffe, in his first post-”Potter” film role, plays Arthur Kipps, a morose young lawyer still shattered by the death of his wife in childbirth four years earlier. He is dispatched by his London office to the faraway village of Crythin Gifford, there to organize the estate of a recently deceased old woman. Arriving by train in the grim, unwelcoming village, he makes his way to her even grimmer residence—a dismal stone mansion situated in nearby marshlands at the end of a long road that’s submerged by high tides for many hours of each day.

Read the full review at Reason.com

Typically when you see a blue helmet on the big screen it means the UN is coming to the rescue.

That’s why they call Hollywood the Dream Factory, one supposes.

In “The Whistleblower,” the UN is part of a nasty racket covering up sexual abuse in war-torn Bosnia. The film, now available on Blu-ray and DVD, is based on Nebraska cop turned whistleblower Kathryn Bolkovac’s revelations about the UN peacekeepers’ monstrous behavior.

Yes, the film implicates the private security firm working alongside UN officials, but it does so in a matter of fact fashion rarely seen in politically charged films. And best of all is how star Rachel Weisz makes the lead character’s plight worth our admiration without any sanctimonious speeches to overrule our emotions.

(more…)

Quick note: For the sake of this review it’s important to explain the world in which “In Time” takes place. The film itself provides details but “The Minutes,” a special feature included with the Blu-ray/DVD set, is all about the origins of this society, so some things you read here come from that.

Director Andrew Niccol’s “In Time” opens with  a lot of promise and no small amount of tension, thanks to a terrific premise. Unfortunately, the narrative sputters and misfires in the second-half, but as a political allegory, by design or accident, we are treated to a damning look at what our culture and country might look like should Obama and his fellow leftists continue to prevail.

The year is 2161 and some years ago, due to fear of over-population, scientists not only discovered a genetic cure for aging, they implanted a clock in the forearm of every newborn that counts down the years, hours, minutes, and seconds you have left before you die. No one ages a day after they turn twenty-five, but once that birthday hits, you’re given a year to live. That is, unless you’re able to earn more time. Where Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives, a working class ghetto called Dayton,  your choices are limited to manual labor, begging, and crime.

Will’s not alone, either. In Dayton, the average person won’t survive the day unless they can earn more time. Here, a cup of coffee costs you four minutes, a bus ride two hours, and the rent a couple of weeks. Time is this nation’s currency, and with the cost of living always going up, it’s a hand-to-mouth existence for the half-million or so residents who live with their mortality constantly hanging over them and in the knowledge that something as mundane as missing a bus can mean you count down to zero and die on the spot.

(more…)

Can a young FBI analyst catch a Soviet serial killer before becoming his next victim?

In “The Double,” out this week on DVD, a U.S. Senator is assassinated in a style unique to a Soviet Cold War-era serial killer dubbed “Cassius.” Paul Shepherdson (Richard Gere) was the premier authority on Cassius back in the day and insists that Cassius is dead. Gere’s character is teamed up with Ben Geary (Topher Grace), a novice FBI analyst who has spent his entire career studying Cassius and is convinced the cagey assassin has returned.

Together they set out to track Cassius, assuming he’s still alive, before the killer strikes again. Will Geary discover the secret Shepherdson is keeping before Cassius can escape or come after him?

“The Double” conjures up all sorts of questions considering the premise of the movie and its title: double agent? double cross? However “The Double” is more of a psychological thriller than a spy movie or suspenseful mystery. The major twist/reveal happens in the first 30 minutes, which was initially disappointing. But the suspense of whether or not Cassius will be caught is carried throughout the rest of the movie so well that the patient viewer doesn’t feel robbed of a denouement.

Gere and Grace make an excellent team, sharing the spotlight with balance and only trying to outshine the other in understatement. Gere in particular is very convincing as the steely-eyed Shepherdson and at times downright scary.

(more…)

This week on the HomeVideodrome podcast, Hunter reviews Liam Neeson’s death-obsessed wolf-fighting-fest “The Grey,” Jim discovers “Blubberella” and extols on the greatness of “Adaptation” and the week’s releases get the usual treatment. Head on over to The Film Thugs and give it a listen.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive” is the essence of crime cinema cool boiled down to its bones, combining the spartan feel of Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Samourai” with the sheen of Michael Mann’s ’80s output like “Thief.” Throw in a protagonist reminiscent of Ryan O’Neill’s strong silent wheelman in Walter Hill’s “The Driver,” and you’ve got a shiny movie buff confection.

Ryan Gosling completely owns the nameless lead role, shiny scorpion jacket and all. The year Gosling had in 2011 effectively silenced his critics who wrote him off as a pretty face in “The Notebook,” with “Drive” standing at the head of the pack. His soft exterior makes his cool-yet-vicious character in “Drive” all the more potent whenever he has to stomp some poor henchman’s head in.

I love grizzled, masculine action heroes like Liam Neeson and Lee Marvin as much as the next red-blooded American, but Gosling steps up to the plate, points to the outfield, and knocks the ball straight into the spark-spewing lights. Don’t let his soft features or feathery surname fool you. Gosling brilliantly channels the brand of cool perfected by Alain Delon in Melville’s quiet heist & hitman sagas.

(more…)

You wouldn’t know it to read me, but when it comes to my language regarding movies, I am careful. It’s not that I’m overly enthusiastic, it’s just that I really do believe that many films qualify as a classic, a masterpiece, or an epic. I’m more than willing to concede that my threshold might be lower than some others, and in that respect I may be a little too enthusiastic, but that doesn’t mean I throw those words around carelessly.

Something you almost never hear from me, though,  is “my top 5″  or “my top 10″ or “my top 25.” That description is used for all-time favorites, and represents a pool of about 50 steady titles that, over the years, have fallen in and out of one of those categories. So when I tell you that Alfred Hitchcock’s 1946 romantic-thriller “Notorious”  has been a perennial top 5 of mine for over two decades now, you understand what this film means to me.

There is no other movie that makes me feel as much as this one does. Thanks to the extraordinary performances of two of the most beautiful people ever to stand before a camera, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergmann, “Notorious” throws me on an emotional roller coaster of suspense, exhilaration and, most of all, heartache, for the full 101 minutes. And the reasons are many.

(more…)

The trailer for 2011’s”Dream House” seemed to give away more than most movie snippets. That could be why “Dream House,” out Jan. 31 on Blu-ray and DVD, ended up making less than half its estimated budget.

The film doesn’t deserve a rebirth on home video. The story is difficult to swallow, and thrillers need far more shocks than the few doled out here. But star Daniel Craig invests so much in the main character that you’ll keep watching just to see how the tortured story resolves.

Craig plays Will Atenton, a writer who leaves his posh publishing gig to write the next great American novel — or British novel, perhaps, given his plummy accent.

Will retreats to his family’s snow-kissed home and a wife (Rachel Weisz) and two daughters who look like they sneaked out of a ’50s family sitcom.

It’s all too bloody perfect, and soon we’ll see why.

(more…)

Five Best Picture winners in one Blu-ray collection with no shortage of special features is a pretty good deal… if you like the movies. Because I’m a fan of four out five of the titles, this was a real find.

The English Patient (1996)

Director Anthony Minghella’s sweeping WWII romance ranked as #24 in my countdown of the greatest left-wing films of all time:

Filled with poetic dialogue, lush cinematography, some truly extraordinary scenes — such as the sandstorm sequence where Katharine and Laszlo fall in love — and  a charming subplot involving the short-lived but sincere romance between Binoche’s Canadian nurse and Kip (“Lost’s” Naveen Andrews), a brave Indian who defuses bombs, you almost will yourself  not to notice the film’s depraved and shockingly selfish philosophy. The film is seductive, though, and you want to give into it, but in the end the only moral outcome would be to have the cast of “Inglorious Basterds” storm in and beat Laszlo to death with a baseball bat.

If you don’t mind being manipulated by an ingeniously crafted and immoral piece of propaganda (and I don’t), another bonus is the look of the film (the cinematography won an Oscar), which is a jaw-dropper on Blu-ray.

—–

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Many will never forgive the fact that director John Madden’s fictionalized account of a passionate but ill-fated love affair between a young, struggling William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes)  and the beautiful young woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) who inspires some of his greatest work, beat out Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” for that year’s top Oscar prize.

This might be heresy, but I think the best film won.

(more…)

It’s got everything against it:

1) It’s a silent movie 2) in black and white 3) with no-name lead actors, 4) no special effects, 5) a title that oozes pretension, 6) … and it’s French! And now the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has to come along and drive the final nail in the coffin, nominating it for 10 Oscars.

Add up all these ingredients and you have the perfect recipe for the dullest, snootiest movie ever, right? That’s the trouble with selling people on “The Artist.”

Normal, non-pretentious people, that is, who don’t think sitting through a black and white movie is a badge of honor, like an artistic Purple Heart (the snob’s version of “taking one for the team”: watching a long, boring movie so you can tell your friends about it).

And that title?  It should have been called “The Comedian.” Or “The Entertainer.” Anything but “The Artist” (that’s “Artiste” in French — mon Dieu!). (more…)

“Birding comedy” is not a phrase you hear all that often. In fact, “The Big Year” may be one of a kind.

Here’s a blurb for the new film, out this week on DVD: “It’s the best birding comedy of all time!” Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean much.

“The Big Year” is about three very different men all struggling to juggle their personal lives with their love for birding … or bird watching for the uninitiated. A character corrects another when he says “bird watching” at one point, but I couldn’t figure out what the difference was. All three men are setting out to have a “big year,” which means they aim to see as many different species of birds as they can in one year to become the “greatest birder of all time.”

As two men with accents say early in the film, “Only Americans can turn birding into a competition.” Owen Wilson then proceeds to flip them his own bird. I actually laughed at that one.

Brad Harris (Jack Black) is a 36-year-old man who lives with his parents and hates his job. Stu (Steve Martin) is a rich businessman who just wants to retire, but his underlings seem lost without him. And finally there is Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) who holds the big year record of 732 birds and now returns to defend his title. Bostick struggles to keep his marriage alive while he constantly chooses the birds over his pregnant wife.

(more…)

It’s unfair to hold Woody Allen to the standard he set 35 years ago with “Annie Hall.”

Allen’s romantic comedy, which beat out “Star Wars” for the Best Picture Oscar in 1977, remains an unabashed delight in its newly minted Blu-ray format. You’ll fall in love with Miss La-dee-dah herself, Diane Keaton, and marvel how Allen could smuggle in so many laughs without sacrificing the film’s bittersweet core.

It’s that rare comedy that hasn’t aged a minute, even if we still scratch our heads over why a stunner like Annie would fall so hard for a neurotic comedian.

What’s more remarkable about re-watching the film is seeing how Allen the artist handled the political divide then … and now.

In “Annie Hall,” Allen’s Alvy Singer is a liberal stand-up comic who is seen at one point performing for an Adlai Stevenson fundraiser. It’s clear from that sequence, and from other stream-of-conscious bits, that he’s a man of the Left. Yet Alvy never rubs us the wrong way no matter how he kevetches about his inability to be truthful to his girlfriends or his unabiding hate for the Left Coast.

Contrast that demeanor to two of Allen’s more recent films, “Whatever Works” and “Midnight in Paris.”

(more…)

Director Julie Ann Robinson would have been better served if Snooki had been cast as the lead role in her Jersey-based rom-com “One for the Money.” No seriously, at least the reality show darling would’ve added legitimate spunk to the film. Even if they gave Pauly D a quick cameo, that would’ve gained a few laughs from me.

“One For the Money” is set in blue-collar New Jersey and focuses on Stephanie Plum (Katharine Heigl), a character I can only hope exudes charisma in the Janet Evanovich novel from which the film is based. Heigl (“The Ugly Truth,” “Life as We Know It”) is famous for playing flighty women who are always on the verge of crying, and with her wavering Jersey accent she doesn’t reveal anything new in “Money.”

In the film, Plum goes to her parents’ house almost every night for dinner, and that’s when she drops the bomb that she’s no longer employed. Her mother suggests her daughter hit up her gross bail bonds cousin Vinny and beg for a new gig. Plum ends up scoring a job as a bounty hunter, and her first assignment is to track down town heart-breaker Joe Morelli (Jason O’Mara), the guy to whom she lost her virginity. What a coincidence.

(more…)

“Today is the day that everything changes one way or another.”

That sentiment leads escaped convict Nick (Sam Worthington) onto the ledge of the 21st floor of a New York hotel in the new thriller, “Man on a Ledge.” The former inmate is trying to prove his innocence in front of the police and a national media watching his every move. The concept sounds like “The Fugitive” on a skyscraper. but the film is so mundane and lifeless Dr. Richard Kimble himself might have asked for an autopsy.

Acclaimed television creator/writer David Milch’s latest HBO offering, “Luck” should be an easy favorite.

It’s about horse racing and the characters the sport attracts. It’s filmed largely at California’s Santa Anita race track and tells the story of racing from so many potentially fascinating points of view: gamblers, owners, jockeys and trainers. It stars a cast that on paper can’t lose, including Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina and real-life Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Gary Stevens. The co-executive producer is Michael Mann, who understands light and sound and color as well as anyone in Hollywood.

But that’s on paper. As bettors know, the horse with the winningest record, the best times, the richest purses and the bloodline for the distance doesn’t always win. There’s no such thing as a sure thing.

Stumbling out of the gate, “Luck” turns out to be a one-trick pony. It hurts to write that, because this show has the pedigree of a champion.

“Luck” begins with a peek behind the daily workings at a busy track. There’s the Peruvian trainer Turo Escalante (John Ortiz) described in press materials as “brilliant but disreputable.” And there’s the hard-luck grinder Walter Smith (Nolte), a good horseman and a good man who deserves the big win.

(more…)

If love really meant never having to say you’re sorry, I’d have enough time on my hands to get a PHD.

Yes, the tagline for director Arthur Hiller’s “Love Story” is unforgivably stupid, no question. Almost as bad is Ali McGraw’s performance as the gorgeous but doomed Jennifer. My wife hates this film and MacGraw’s performance so much that she only agreed to screen the Blu-ray with me so that she could delight in Jennifer’s cancerous demise. My wife’s tagline for the film is, “Marrying the studio head means never having to take an acting class.”

So what was it about this fairly mediocre 1970 tear-jerker that made it, not only the highest-grossing film of the year, but also the 6th highest grossing film of all time — the “Titanic” of its day?

Believe it or not, I saw this “chick flick” classic for the first time ever when the Blu-ray screener arrived last week, and thankfully I’m secure enough in my masculinity to admit that the story got to me. You can’t disagree with the film’s critics and their many criticisms, but in the end I’m not completely ashamed to admit that Jennifer’s death choked me up and that I found the third act a little gut-wrenching as that reality became increasingly inevitable.

For everything the story does wrong, it does two key things so right that those moments help to overcome the rest. When, in the middle of a perfect day, Jennifer tells her husband, Oliver (Ryan O’Neal), that she has to go to the hospital, it’s a real kick to the gut. Laugh all you want, but just thinking about it gets to me. And then there’s how we learn that she’s died. (No spoiler warning necessary. We’re told Jennifer will die in the opening scene.)

(more…)

In Billy Wilder’s Academy Award-magnet, “The Apartment,” winner of Best Picture, Director, Editor, Screenplay and Art Direction, there’s an unforgettable moment about halfway through that perfectly pays off everything that came before and beautifully sets up the unexpected to come.

The Mighty Jack Lemmon is C.C. Baxter, a worker-drone in the Kafkaesque office located on the 17th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper that’s home base for the insurance company Baxter works for and is desperate to get ahead in. With thousands of employees competing for a very few executive positions, Baxter decides to stand out by joining the good-ole-boys club. The awful men who can help to promote Baxter are a gaggle of adulterers in need of a place for their trysts. Believing the inconvenience is worth the eventual payoff, Baxter lends out the key to his bachelor pad a few nights a week.

As smitten as he is with the idea of becoming an executive, Baxter also has his head turned by one of the building’s many elevator operators, Fran Kubelik (a delightful Shirley MacLaine), who on the outside stands out as a confident, composed, and charming young woman who has it all together. The opposite, unfortunately, is true, but by the time Baxter figures this out he’s already in love with her.

The key to Baxter’s executive dreams is held by the company’s powerful personnel director, Jeff Sheldrake (a superb Fred MacMurray), and Baxter’s cynical plans all appear to come together when Sheldrake agrees to his promotion… in exchange for the key to Baxter’s apartment. It seems the very-married Sheldrake is just another good ole boy, but that’s no skin off Baxter’s nose, until the perfect moment I mentioned above arrives.

You see, it’s Fran Kubelik Mr. Sheldrake is trysting with, and it’s at the company’s wild Christmas party (a clothed Roman orgy) where Fran finally learns she’s being used — that she’s not the first subordinate Sheldrake’s conned into bed with the promise of a future together. This is also where Baxter learns the truth about Fran.

(more…)

With six feature credits already under his belt, some of them classics, co-writer/director Woody Allen finally became Woody Allen with the brilliant “Annie Hall,” and in doing so would be rightfully rewarded with four major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Original Screenplay (co-written by Marshall Brickman), Director and Actress (Diane Keaton). 35 years later, the simple story of Manhattan neurotic Alvy Singer (Allen) and his years-long romance with the delightfully ditzy Annie Hall (Keaton) still delights in ways that few romantic comedies ever come close to.

Told with a scattershot timeline (that somehow works) and through an endless number of short scenes that could stand on their own as insightful, amusing, and romantic skits, “Annie Hall” is a story told to us in the first-person by Alvy, a famous New York comedian. His story isn’t so much about his romance with Annie; it’s more about what he’s learned from the experience — not only about himself but human nature in general. And if you judge the film by its touching closing scene (as I do), you can count this among Allen’s rare optimistic offerings.

Keaton’s performance is a wonder to behold. When you compare the “la-dee-da” Annie Alvy first meets to the more worldly and composed Annie she eventually becomes (much of it due to Alvy pushing her in that direction), Keaton’s Oscar win is a no-brainer.  Right along with Alvy, we fall in love with Annie at first sight and, in the end, long for the innocence she loses. And this, of course, is also why the film is so bittersweet. With the best of intentions (mostly), Alvy helps Annie grow up, and she ends up outgrowing him.

(more…)

The producer is the legendary David O. Selznick, the director is Alfred Hitchcock, the writer is Ben Hecht, the score is by Miklos Rozsa, Salvador Dali designed the film’s key sequence, and the stars are Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. To say this was the A-Team of 1945 is an understatement, so what went so terribly wrong?

At the time, screenwriter Hecht was engaged in heavy psycho-analysis and understandably fascinated with the subject, and Hitchcock wanted to adapt  the novel “The House of Dr. Edwardes.” Uber-producer Selznick had almost all of them all under contract, and the alchemy came together to create Hitchcock’s silliest film.

Though the film improves dramatically in the second half, nothing about “Spellbound,” the story of spinster psychiatrist (Bergman) and a possible murderer suffering amnesia (Peck) in love and on the run from the law, is in the least bit believable. And nothing is sillier than her trying to cure him using the latest Freudian techniques along the way.

Bergman plays Constance Petersen, a doctor at a Vermont mental hospital who fills her lonely life with work. When the story opens, the new director is due to arrive and does in the form of the impossibly young and handsome Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Peck). The attraction between Constance and Edward is immediate, and by the end of the day, they are hopelessly in love. There’s just one problem. Edwardes is an imposter who may have murdered the real Edwardes.

(more…)

Directed by the great William Wellman, “Wings” is the not only the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture (it was technically declared “Best Production“), it’s also the only silent movie to ever hold that honor (though “The Artist” could very well bookend that honor this year).

Back in 1927, “Wings” delivered spectacular aerial photography that must have blown the customers out of their seats. But in 2012, thanks to over a decade of Hollywood’s over-produced CGI, you’re still going to be blown out of your seat. To experience, in high-definition, no less, the spectacular in-camera flight and battle scenes, is a wonder to behold. The aerial shots are nothing short of spectacular, as are the expertly choreographed sequences involving armies and explosions. If “Wings” were produced today in the exact same fashion, people would marvel at the achievement.

“It Girl” Clara Bow, a star so popular in the mid-to-late twenties there’s no actor working today who compares (think Marilyn Monroe in 1959), is listed as the film’s star, but she’s really a supporting player — a crucially important one, though. For she symbolizes all that is pure and decent and why our young, brave men fought and died in World War I.

All Jack Powell (Charles Rogers)  has ever wanted was to fly, and all Mary Preston (Bow) has ever wanted was Jack. In their small, very American town, Jack and Mary live next door to one another, but Jack only sees Mary as a friend, a pal. You see, Jack’s in love with the more sophisticated Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston), but unfortunately for him, she’s in love with David (Richard Arlen). It’s a complicated love rectangle, further complicated by class distinctions. Jack is working class, Davis is wealthy, and it will take the outbreak of a long and heartbreaking war to sort it all out.

Though rivals for the same girl, Jack and David both want to be combat pilots and end up in the same squad together. Soon they become friends, the very best of friends in the knowledge (brought to them by a shockingly young and undeniably charismatic Gary Cooper) that the very real prospect of death is a constant companion.

(more…)

“Man on a Ledge” is a tight little crime thriller—a heist-movie variant—with a few small problems and one big one. Given the top-notchness of the supporting actors here assembled—Ed Harris, Jamie Bell, Anthony Mackie, Titus Welliver—the casting of doughy Sam Worthington in the lead seems crucially ill-advised.

True, Worthington was also the nominal star of James Cameron’s “Avatar”; but really, who will ever think of that techno-epic as a Sam Worthington film? The mildly amiable Aussie is a stranger to star power, and putting him at the center of this picture is like building a fancy banquet around a main course of vanilla pudding.

In any case, the character Worthington has been called upon to play would challenge many a more resourceful actor. Nick Cassidy is a disgraced New York City cop, framed for a high-profile jewel theft and consigned to Sing Sing for a very long stretch, who escapes his warders, returns to Manhattan, checks into a room on the twenty-first floor of a midtown hotel, climbs out the window, and then spends most of the rest of the movie huddled on the titular ledge, in what we at first take to be suicidal despair. This constrained situation offers little opportunity for physical or emotional expression, and it shines a cruel light on Worthington’s charisma deficit.

Still, there’s some snappy action going on all around him. The script, by Pablo F. Fenjves—a star-bio specialist whose literary credits include ghostwriting the reviled O.J. Simpson murder book If I Did It—is a compendium of nicely tweaked genre clichés.

Read the full review at Reason.com