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A 7-pack of films hits DVD this week. The best of the week is Fences featuring great performances by Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. The rest could be alternatively titled “The Not Too Spectacular Now Playing” although Elle (Best Actress) and Passengers (Best Original Score, Best Production Design) also received Oscar nominations. Here’s what you should be buying, renting, streaming (Legally! Drop the Fire Stick now!) and skipping for the week of March 14th:Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Dark comic vibes pulse through a dramatic thriller with quirky, eccentric characters that jabs at you until the third act then BLAM!

Ever feel like you’ve had enough? Ruth (Melanie Lynskey) hits her breaking point after her house is broken into, her laptop is stolen, her depression medication is lifted and, worst of all, her grandmother’s silverware was taken. After getting nowhere with the cops, she’s set off by one more act of violation when she finally catches which neighbor (Elijah Wood) keeps allowing their dog to poop in her yard. After confronting him, she takes to the neighborhood to ask if anyone has seen anything unusual. Eventually, she comes back to the same neighbor — Tony — who seems to be the only one interested in her case.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cold out there today. IT’S GROUNDHOG DAY!!!… meets MEAN GIRLS!!! (And it’s actually not terrible.)

There are a lot of similarities between the way Before I Fall tells its story and two classic films with ardent fans who will likely not be too pleased with Before I Fall. It’s the nature of moviegoers to not particularly care for something that seemingly rips off something you find to be both high quality and original. The two movies — Groundhog Day and Mean Girls — along with the Lauren Oliver novel the movie is based on, shape Before I Fall into what ends up being an adequate film that can never escape the shadow cast by the two other films.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: It won’t be the best of 2017 but it’s the best of 2017 so far. A fitting tribute to the end of Hugh Jackman’s run as Wolverine… if it’s the end, of course.

While the X-Men tales aren’t necessarily part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the films featuring the mutants of X-Men have been mostly good. Surprisingly, the weakest offerings have been the standalone Wolverine movies despite Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine being one of the most interesting characters of the ensemble features. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is practically unwatchable and 2013’s The Wolverine was an improvement but overstayed its welcome on screen and, by the end, became just another superhero flick.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Warm and soft as its subject matter and slight at 80 minutes. The documentary does enough to create a narrative around the excellent cinematography.

Although Kedi centers around cats and kittens to drive its visuals and attempts to create characters out of some of its featured felines, human kindness is actually at the film’s heart. The street cats of Istanbul are highlighted in this 80-minute documentary from Turkish-born filmmaker Ceyda Torun and focuses on 7 cats, in particular — Sari, Duman, Bengu, Asian Parcasi, Gamsiz, Psikopat and Deniz. While the focus is on the cats, we learn about the kindness of the people of Istanbul in their love and affection for these stray cats who take residence pretty much wherever they feel they’d like to take residence amongst the citizens of Istanbul.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Bitter Harvest? More like Bitter Borefest. It would be what happened if Lifetime started making movies for The History Channel.

Buried beneath the love story of Yuri and Natalka is a tale of the atrocities of 1930s Ukraine and the effects of Joseph Stalin’s genocidal policies on the region. There’s enough detail to realize Bitter Harvest recounts one of the darkest periods of history for the Ukrainian people, the Holodomor. The Holodomor was a man-made famine by the then Soviet Union that killed millions of Ukrainians. It was ordered by Stalin to pressure the Ukrainians to drop their independence movement. The film’s focus — the relationship of Yuri and Natalka — is rather uninteresting compared to the story of the famine and the subhuman treatment of the Ukrainians at the hands of the Soviets.Read More →