Snow Falling on Cedars is a poignant, somber little drama-mystery, with great cinematography, that for one reason or another has kind of been forgotten.
Jack Reacher is a well made suspense-thriller featuring a great performance from producer/star Tom Cruise and his supporting cast members. However, while the story starts off with incredible tension the ultimate motives by the villain came off as weak. Even so, this is an entertaining movie with great stunts and action scenes.
The Hollars is a well made family drama-comedy with several great performances but none better than Margo Martindale who is a true delight and should get an Oscar nomination out of this role. John Krasinski is a fine actor and is in his element with this material and as a director, isn’t flashy and lets the acting do the talking.
White House Down is a forgettable action movie which heavily borrows from other, often better, movies most notable Die Hard. The acting isn’t bad though Foxx and Tatum don’t share great chemistry and the screenplay is riddled with lame lines that don’t hit their mark and don’t get me started on the plot.
Jack Reacher is a well made suspense-thriller featuring a great performance from producer/star Tom Cruise and his supporting cast members. However, while the story starts off with incredible tension the ultimate motives by the villain came off as weak. Even so, this is an entertaining movie with great stunts and action scenes. The Blu-ray itself offers up amazing audio/video transfers and there’s a fair amount of features headlined by the star and director commentary.
Thanks to fantastic performances from the entire crew, Elizabeth Olsen in particular is incredible, and a limited theatrical run, Liberal Arts is one of the best hidden gems of 2012 and is worth at least a rental. The Blu-ray has good video/audio transfers but the features are on the disappointing side with a short EPK featurette, though the commentary is good.
The Rum Diary is the kind of film that doesn’t linger after it’s over. It’s not bad enough to mock or good enough to recommend, it kind of is just… there. Depp delivers another good performance but even he can’t save an undercooked screenplay. With regards to the Blu-ray, it offers up nice video and audio transfers and even though the features are limited, the 45-minute documentary on Hunter S. Thompson is a treat.
Let Me In is a great film with solid performances all around and a story that, for someone not so enamored with the vampire subgenre, really worked. Matt Reeves as a director was also impressive establishing truly scary and creepy shots without going overboard. It’s kind of a shame the film didn’t do better here but now on DVD and Blu-ray it’s well worth at least checking out.