The Iron Giant is one of the better classic animated movies that have come along in the past 20 years and can compete right alongside Disney’s best, it’s just unfortunate Warner dropped the ball marketing it and instead it bombed at the box office. Thankfully since making its way on home video, the film has found a fanbase.
The Legend of Tarzan is hardly horrible and yet it’s also nothing special in spite of some nice work by the visual effects crew and some ernest performances by Skarsgard and, to a lesser extents Robbie and Jackson while Waltz proves once again as a serviceable villain.
Into the Forest is a somewhat depressing but very well acted drama, with the apocalyptical aspect being a catalyst rather than central plot, and specifically Ellen Page was fantastic. Now, this is not for everybody especially if you’re expecting a thriller and it is slowly paced, but if you’re patient and enjoy character studies, this is worth at least a rental.
Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar is a well written western-thriller film that features a powerhouse and spunky performance from Joan Crawford. The Blu-ray released by Olive Film’s new Signature line offers great video, good audio and a solid selection of bonus material.
High Noon, directed by Fred Zinnemann (The Day of the Jackal), is a classic western-adventure featuring a top notch, and a features a thrilling finale, who’s who of the 1950s from Gary Cooper to Grace Kelly to a young Lloyd Bridges.
Despite an interesting story, The Infiltrator is only propelled thanks to its charismatic cast, especially Bryan Cranston who once again turns in a great performance, it’s just a shame the script wasn’t equally great.
From just the tagline of “Saving the world takes a little Hart and a big Johnson”, Central Intelligence could’ve been a fun, if not throwaway, comedy but with very few laughs despite the ernest attempts by Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson, the film just did not work.
Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil is a nice inclusion in Warner’s Archive Collection and while I didn’t particularly think very much of the movie, there’s at least some good elements headlined by another masterful performance from Kevin Spacey and even John Cusack contributes well.
Psycho IV: The Beginning actually isn’t a half bad prequel/sequel and features fine performances from Anthony Perkins reprising his iconic role and Henry Thomas as his teenaged counterpart. For a TV movie, it’s well shot and the story is a nice culmination in the franchise following two sequels that were less than stellar.
Gotham: The Complete Second Season is another solid year for Fox with some compelling plotlines and although I think they might be overdoing it delving into Batman’s rogues galleries, it is at least in keeping with the Rise/Wrath of the Villains stories and the casting is also well done.
Adventure Time is a fun series that, although I’m not entirely in love with compared to others, but through its whopping 42 episodes (down from 52 from last season) is wonderful and a fine short time-filler give each episode is only about 12-minutes long.
Lady in White is a movie with a mish-mash of ideas from social commentary to supernatural thriller to crime mystery and in none of those respects entirely works. However, the performances are pretty good headlined by Lukas Haas and despite sluggish pacing, the film managed to keep me entertaining until the end.
Shout’s Collector’s Edition of Child’s Play might not be a homerun compared with their other CE’s, but it’s still a nice release with an improved video transfer, solid lossless audio and a nice selection of bonus features including a new commentary with Tom Holland and a couple nice featurettes.
Free State of Jones was an ambitious film for Co-Writer/Director Gary Ross who tends to be a filmmaker who makes nice, uplifting, films (see Seabiscuit) and this is no exception, though given the subject, it should’ve been better. That said, McConaughey and Mahershala Ali turn in excellent performances.
I have little doubt the filmmakers put their all into Satanic and despite some respectable enough performances by the young cast, Sarah Hyland especially, the story just lacked anything new or creative. The final act is a mess though I did think there were elements that almost worked, but not nearly enough to save the rest.