Return to Sender

Released: 2015

MPAA rating: R

Running time: 1 hr. 35 mins.

Rosamund Pike follows up a turn as a manipulating, vindictive spouse in "Gone Girl" with this turn as a small-town nurse going through a traumatic time in her life.

Miranda (Pike) is getting ready for a blind-date when a man shows up at her front door, presumably said blind-date.  She lets him in and is brutally raped in her kitchen.

The assailant is quickly captured, arrested and convicted and is now in prison as she picks up the pieces of her life.  As part of her recovery, she decides to start writing him

letters in prison, which he does not accept (thus the title).  As the movie progresses, we start to see the cold, calculating woman she is beneath the friendly small-town girl

exterior.  There is a subplot where she learns to become friendly with her father's German Shepherd, which is also a metaphor for the relationship with her attacker.  As the

third act unfolds, her true revenge plot begins to reveal itself.  Pike does a nice job showing the many sides of this woman's personality, but my problem with the movie is this:

The character is not at all likeable.  It's quite an accomplishment for the filmmakers to take a woman who was brutally raped and make her a very unlikeable, unsympathetic

character, but they sure pull it off.  The middle part of the movie just didn't do it for me.  The more we learn of her, the less we like her and that is not a great recipe for a

revenge drama. Nick Nolte, as her father, brings some much needed humanity to the movie, but not enough to save it.  He doesn't have many scenes, but when he is on screen,

he really is the only character you care about.  I had higher hopes for this one. 

Grade: C- 

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Released: 2014

MPAA rating: R

Running time: 1 hr., 26 min.

I generally like slasher films despite the fact that they are pretty much all the same:  Masked madman chases down and kills young lovers (AKA the "sex=death" genre).

This, being a remake of a slasher film that I really never even heard of, was no different.  The story is this:  In Texarkana, a town split between Texas and Arkansas. there was

a mysterious killer many years ago who was never caught but many believe was a certain individual.  The murders are such a town legend that a movie was made about the

crimes (the original movie) and, every year at Halloween, a local drive-in shows the movie and many of the local teenagers attend.  After 66 years, the night of the screening,

suddenly the murders seem to be starting up again.  The one element I really liked about this movie, believe it or not, is how they remade it and worked the original movie into

the storyline.  They show the police watching the film to look for clues and to familiarize themselves with the prior case for similarities.  When similar murders take place, the

movie intercuts parts of the original movie with the matching "modern-day" murder to tie the history in with the current story.  For me, this took this rehash of a genre we've all

seen so many times before and put a slightly fresh spin on it.  There was a pretty decent twist toward the end when the modern-day killer is revealed, although it seemed to be

reminiscent of a twist in the original "Scream" movie.  Overall, it is a slasher film that adheres strongly to the rules of that genre while putting a somewhat new spin on it.

Grade: C+

Adult Beginners

Released: 2014

MPAA Rating: R

Running time: 1 hr. 32 min.

Based on the cast in this movie, you would sort of expect a somewhat crazy comedy.  Several cast members from TV's "The League" were involved in the writing, producing and

directing, so it's a fair expectation.  What you get instead is an examination of people who are entering a challenging part of their lives without having grown up at all.  The main plotline

follows Jake (Nick Kroll), a big shot in the tech industry, who finds his latest project crashes and burns.  Having invested his own money, he finds himself completely broke and needs

to move back into his family home, now owned by his sister, Justine (Rose Byrne), and her husband, Danny (Bobby Cannavale). Jake really has nothing to offer them in return

for their hospitality, so he brokers a deal to provide daytime child care for their son, a job he is woefully unqualified for.  It is properly billed as a comedy, but it is much more than that. 

Sure, there are definitely funny scenes. but it is a well-written, well-acted and well-directed story of people who have been adults for a very long time, but are just now learning how.  It

plays very much like an indie comedy/drama, and that's a good thing.  It's a nice semi-departure for many of the talent involved.

Grade: B

Unfriended

Released: 2014

MPAA rating: R

Running time: 1 Hr. 22 mins.

Cyberbullying is a very hot button issue in today's high schools.  We are always hearing stories about some kid who was pushed to the

edge by people harassing them on the internet and through social media.  Tragically, this sometimes lead to that kid committing suicide.

"Unfriended" brings this issue to the forefront with the concept of a group of kids who cyberbullied one of their "friends" to that exact

point.  Although, in this movie, the suicide is just the beginning.  As the movie opens, we join a group of teens having a normal, mundane

Skype chat.  Shooting the shit, trying to figure out what to do that night, normal stuff.  Then, someone joins the chat without being called

or invited.  They have a generic Skype avatar and just begin to mess with these kids.  This mysterious person quickly identifies themselves

as their dead friend, Laura Barns, and she announces she is there to make them pay for their sins.  The movie follows the kids efforts to find

out who this hacker/practical joker really is, while  trying to remove them from their chat, but slowly finding themselves answering for their

sins, one by one.  Now, here is the interesting part:  This entire movie takes place from the point of view of one of the character's laptop screens.

Everything you see, everything you hear occurs in either the main chat window, a Facebook screen or YouTube accounts.  For the first 10-15

minutes, this concept annoyed me to no end, especially during the mundane opening dialogue mentioned earlier.  Characters were talking over

each other and some dialogue was hard to hear.  However, when the "Laura Barns" character started to get more involved, I found myself

getting sucked in to the storyline.  "Unfriended" may do for "desktop cinematography" what "The Blair Witch Project" did for shaky-cam

movies.  Once it got going, it had good suspense, some good twists and you find yourself wondering if you really have any sympathy for these

kids. Maybe, just maybe, they deserve what is happening to them.  This is not a top-tier horror film, by any stretch, but I thought it was very

entertaining and, at 82 minutes, it moves very quickly.

Grade: C

Wild

Released: 2014

MPAA rating: R

Running time: 1 Hr. 55 Mins.

This movie surprised me on several levels.  For one, I did not know "Wild" was a double-entendre: it refers to the "wild" where Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) hiked and the "wild" lifestyle that she lived up to the time of that hike.  I thought this would be a female rehash of "Into the Wild", especially considering that the title is virtually identical.  You can't escape the similarities of two movies about an individual escaping their lives into the wild, but they were two very different films.  As we join Cheryl's story, she is about to embark on a hike up the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from Mexico to Canada.  There is no indication she has any experience taking any long hikes before this.  Her motivation for the hike is told in flashbacks, starting with some childhood issues, moving to her mother's (Laura Dern) battle with terminal cancer and culminating with a divorce from her husband (Thomas Sadoski).  Prior to this hike, she seemed to deal with adversity in her life with lots of drugs and lots of sex (Witherspoon does a surprising amount of nudity in this film).  When the sex and drugs method costs her her marriage, she decides to embark on this head-clearing hike of discovery.  A nearly two-hour movie about someone walking seems ripe for lots of slow sequences, but they do a very good job interspersing flashbacks to take you through how she gets to this point of her life.  The music interwoven in the film also helps move the plot along.  In her travels, she meets quite a few different types of people, mostly men, and Witherspoon does an excellent job showing you her apprehension as some of these encounters seem destined for disaster.  I honestly was on the fence about even watching this, but I found myself really enjoying it.  I'm also not a huge Witherspoon fan (I don't dislike her, just never really had any opinion one way or the other), but she was very strong in this, so I'm more of a fan than before watching it.  "Wild" is definitely worth checking out.

Grade: B

Julia

Released: 2014

MPAA rating: R

Running time: 1 hr. 35 mins.

Julia (Ashley C Williams) is a mousy, under-stated woman who goes on a date one night with horrific results.  This is how the movie opens.  After having her world devastated by the incident, she meets a woman, Sadie (Tahnya Tozzi), who lets her know about a therapist who has a radical program to help women who are trying to deal with rape.  She meet the therapist and soon finds herself involved in some strange cultish group who, um, REALLY hate men.  At first glance, it seems like a rehashing of the storyline of "I Spit On Your Grave" (which I have not seen, so I can't speak directly to that), but it goes in some very unique and strange directions.  The film was well-written, well-directed and, actually, very well-acted, but I thought it had some major problems.  First, the main character of Julia is in just about every scene, but has very little dialogue.  I get that she starts 

off mousy and is later dealing with major trauma, but it just bothered me that she had so little to say. 

It became just too much of a distraction to me.  Add that they did the old movie trope of "take off the glasses and let her hair down and SURPRISE!, she's beautiful!". The other major issue I had, and I'll try to word this carefully, is that the rape scenes (mostly shown in flashbacks) are less brutal than they should be.  Don't get me wrong, the scenes fall short of actually being titillating, but I didn't really feel the horror of rape was there.  The final issue was that the movie was at times just too stylistic.  Some of the set design and lighting tried too hard to seem like it was portraying the seedy underbelly of New York City.  Overall, though, the silence of the main character took me out of it the most.  

Grade: C

Top Five

Year Released: 2014

MPAA Rating: R

Run Time: 1 hr. 42 mins

"Top Five" was written, directed and stars Chris Rock as Andre Allen, an immensely successful comedian/movie star.  As we join Allen's story, he has decided he wants to make more serious films and is doing a press junket for his first major dramatic release, "Uprize" about a Haitian slave rebellion.  Allen is back in his hometown of New York City, which brings him back to the people he grew up with and still calls friends.  The main plot device of the film is Allen being interviewed throughout his day by Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson), a writer for a publication that viciously trashed his previous film.  I had heard that Chris Rock had consulted with Louis CK prior to writing this and you can sort of see elements of Louis' style throughout.  It is an interesting look behind the curtain of what a press junket is like as you see him spend his morning at Sirius XM moving from show-to-show (One of the funnier scenes is when Allen is cutting promos for a Sirius radio show, being coached by the producer, played by the great Brian Regan), and then doing phoners with radio stations around the country, all while preparing for his upcoming wedding to a reality TV star (Gabrielle Union) and being followed around by Brown, who is hitting him with her interview questions throughout.  Allen is also struggling with sobriety after a stint in rehab, so the stress of the junket and lukewarm reception to his dramatic turn makes things even more trying for him.  "Top Five" is not one of those "laughs per minute" comedies as it tells a real story but it is a funny film.  The movie is absolutely peppered with cameos from comedians that Rock has worked with in some capacity at some time in his career and probably the funniest sequence is a flashback to Allen "hitting bottom" when on a bender with Cedric The Entertainer, who plays a manager of some comedy function he is attending at the time.  Although it wasn't quite as funny as I might have hoped, the human aspects of the writing more than made up for it. Allen is someone you genuinely root for as you wonder if he can stay on track while all seems to be going wrong for him.  Rock did a really nice job writing this and directing a who's-who of modern comedy stars.  

Grade: B

The Woodsman

Released: 2004

Rated: R

Run time: 1 Hr. 27 Mins.


This is one of those movies that I avoided for so long because I feared where they would or could go with this subject matter.  To illustrate, here is the synopsis:  Walter (Kevin Bacon), a convicted child molester, is released from prison at the end of his sentence and returns to his hometown to try to pursue a normal life.  My fears were that they would portray a child molester as a sympathetic character, a misunderstood loner.  Well, my fears were partially realized, but I was able to go along for the ride.  "The Woodsman" referred to in the title is the woodsman from the Little Red Riding Hood story that saves her from the Big Bad Wolf.  As the movie opens,Walter is just released and begins to get his life together.  He gets a job, finds an apartment (across the street from a school!) and gets counseling to help his return to normal.  As you would expect, he is met with some resistance as his co-workers learn what he was in jail for and his sister has completely disconnected from him.  His only connection to his family is his brother-in-law (Benjamin Bratt), who visits him fairly regularly.  He also has to deal with a detective (Mos Def), who drops by periodically to check up on him and is absolutely unconvinced that this man can be reformed.  This is a great performance by Bacon, who really walks the tightrope between making this guy a sympathetic, almost heroic character and not shying away from how disgustingly creepy the character really is.  The dichotomy is illustrated beautifully by a sequence where he stands up to a man he suspects is targeting a kid at the school across the street, followed shortly later by a scene in which Walter has a discussion with a young girl on a park bench that may be the most uncomfortable, horrifying scenes I've ever seen.  So, I was able to get past my problems with the subject matter and enjoy (not sure that is even close to the right word!) the film for what it was: a bit of a peek into the mind of a monster...even if that monster really doesn't want to be a monster.  The only problem I really had with the finished film is that it was too short and ended rather abruptly.  I assume they felt they got across the elements they needed to get across and left it at that.  As a character study, it worked very well, but left me wanting a bit more.  This is definitely worth watching for Kevin Bacon's performance alone.  Interestingly, this movie was released shortly after Megan's Law was passed, making some of the story elements obsolete (the community not knowing there was a child molester among them, living next to a school!).  I also liked the relationship between him and his brother-in-law, who tried so hard to stay friendly but finding it more and more difficult, especially since his own daughter was the perfect age to fall prey to him.  Bacon's real-life wife, Kyra Sedgwick, also has an interesting role as his co-worker/girlfriend who stands by him even when she learns about his past.

Grade: B

The Canal

Released: 2014

MPAA Rating: R

Run time: 1 Hr., 32 min.


"The Canal" is an Irish horror film that has just the right mix of mystery and ghost story.  A film archivist, David (Rupert Evans), learns his wife, Alice (Hannah Hoekstra), is having an affair.  Shortly after his discovery, she turns up missing and is found dead and he, of course, is the prime suspect.  He learns of other murders that occurred in and around the home they own and becomes obsessed with proving that some mysterious force is responsible for her murder.  Evans does a really nice job playing David as a sympathetic, grieving husband who is determined to prove his innocence, while also showing you the methodical unraveling of his psyche.  While the film plays as a pretty good ghost story, it also leaves you with just enough to make you wonder: Did he do it? Is he going completely insane? You are really never sure.  The film also does a really nice job of letting you see his character through the eyes of those around him.  From the police detective who is determined he is responsible to the nanny and the woman who stands by him, you see his unraveling through their eyes.  The exasperation of the two women is portrayed perfectly as they begin to try to separate themselves from his madness, while trying to stay close to him to protect his son, who is clearly innocent in all of this.  What I loved about this movie, but what might bother others, is that it doesn't really commit to whether it is a ghost story or a descent into madness and you can certainly make the case that it is either or both of those.  At times, it borrows heavily from some of the Japanese horror classics like "The Ring", but it is still very much its own film.  It is a slow build horror film that doesn't rely too heavily on jump scares (although there are a few) and let's the story do the scaring.  All of it builds to one final scene that is just chilling. 

Grade: B-

Wild Card

Released: 2014

MPAA rating: R

Run time: 1 Hr, 32 min.

I'll get this out of the way first:  I like action movies and, among action stars, Jason Statham is one of my favorites.  It's not like I automatically love everything he's in, but he's a favorite.  "Wild Card" is a remake of a Burt Reynolds (also a favorite...showing my age) movie called "Heat".  Statham plays Nick Wild, a Las Vegas bodyguard, who finds himself involved in two separate situations.  First, he is hired by a young, mild-mannered internet millionaire (Michael Agnarano) to protect him while he gambles.  While it becomes clear he doesn't really need protection, Wild is called by a female friend of his, Holly (Dominik Garcia-Lorito, who tells him she was picked up by and abused pretty horribly by a man named Danny DeMarco (Milo Ventimiglia) and would like Nick's help in getting revenge.  This sets the stage for Nick to find himself squared directly against the mob that Danny is affiliated with.  As Statham movies go, this was a good one.  Statham gets to do his usual martial arts ass-kicking and tough guy gimmick, while managing to get a chance to act.  The movie takes some time to actually develop the characters involved and we learn a lot about Nick Wild's weaknesses and obsessions.  He declares that he wants to get out of Vegas for good and find a more relaxing life, but begins to find the only person standing in the way of that dream is himself.  There are some extremely far-fetched gambling sequences, but they are there to set up a bit of a plot twist.  Overall, I liked it a lot.  It moves very quickly and clocks in at just over 90 minutes, so it's not a huge time investment.  Statham gets to do what he does best while mixing in some actual acting.  It's the type of movie that made me a Statham fan.

Grade: B-

Horns

Released: 2013

MPAA rating: R

Run time: 2 hours

AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX

 You may not know that Stephen King's son, Joe Hill, is also a novelist, writes in the same genre as his dad and actually writes so much like his dad that I find myself wondering whether Stephen King writes the books FOR him!!  "Horns" is one of Joe Hill's novels which was made into this movie, which could also be called "Harry Potter Goes To Hell"..  Daniel Radcliffe stars as Ig Perrish, whose long-time girlfriend has recently been found murdered, for which he is the prime suspect.  After a long night's sleep, Ig wakes up with devil's horns protruding from his head.  As he tries to figure out what they are and where they came from, he finds that everyone he comes to contact with feels the need to tell him their darkest desires and then go ahead and indulge those desires.  This makes for some real uncomfortable meetings with friends and family members.  Ig finds himself trying to rid himself of the horns while simultaneously trying to clear his name for the murder he is accused of.  Radcliffe does an excellent job in the role portraying all the emotions Ig is dealing with: grief, rage, confusion and the quest for vengeance.  Being the hated man in a small town is not a lot of fun for him, especially when it may be unwarranted.  I remember seeing some mention of this movie before it was released and then it came and went without fanfare.  I thought the film deserved better.  It was pretty well-written, well acted and well directed.  Perhaps the story seemed silly to some, but it's one of those stories where you just have to accept the premise of the "horns" and give in to it.  If you do, I think you'll find an entertaining story about small town jealousies and how one murder can send a community into a tailspin.  Rod Serling had equally ridiculous premises on "The Twilight Zone" all the time and no one really had a problem buying into them because Rod Serling is a master storyteller. Now, I'm not ready to put Hill in Serling's class (or even his father's), nor am I saying this would make a great "Twilight Zone" episode, but I enjoyed the premise and the movie was a fun ride.  

Grade: C+

Buy Horns on Blu-Ray 

Foxcatcher

Released: 2014

Rated: R

Running Time: 2 hrs, 12 min.


In a very rare case, I will open with this remark:  The movie was much better than the book.  Foxcatcher is the story of the eccentric (that's wealthy for "bat-shit insane") John Dupont (Steve Carell), his obsession with wrestling and his eventual murder of David Schultz (Mark Ruffalo).  This is portrayed mostly through the eyes of David's brother, Mark (Channing Tatum). As the film opens, we find Mark in a frustrating time of his life.   He is an Olympic gold medal winner who seems to be having trouble finding anything other than wrestling to do.  He also lives in the shadow of his brother, David, who is also a gold medal wrestler, but has more name recognition both in and out of the sport.  Enter John Dupont, who offers him an opportunity to run his entire wrestling program, which is set up to become the backbone of USA Wrestling for years to come.  The offer, actually, is made to both brothers, but David wants no part of uprooting his family and turns it down.  This sets up the weird triangle we get for the rest of the film as DuPont repeatedly tries to get Mark to convince David to join them.  Mark continues to feel under-appreciated and out of place.  As Mark is drawn into DuPont's world, he gets deeper into DuPont's oddness, including a developing cocaine habit.  That is the stage that is set for the drama that unfolds.  The performances are excellent and, in fact, I think Tatum's performance was even better than Carrell's.  There is always huge hype when a comedic actor nails a dramatic role and Carell does that here, although I think the role was not all that impressive to begin with.  Tatum has the heavy lifting of showing different levels of pain and frustration without ever verbally expressing it and hits it out of the park.  The movie is slow, but interesting throughout.   I mentioned earlier the eccentric vs. insane perception that wealth buys you and this film illustrates that beautifully.  DuPont seems to have his fingers in a lot of pies (wrestling, law enforcement), but doesn't really seem to possess any knowledge about any of them.  This is where Carell does a beautiful job of portraying the blank stare of a man who has no idea who he really is.  Ruffalo has the smallest part of the three leads, but is excellent in every scene he is in.  The sibling rivalry is such a central aspect of the story that it almost seems odd how it all comes to an end.  If it didn't really happen, it wouldn't make sense, and, in fact, doesn't make sense. My only negative is the slow pace of the movie, but I did find myself interested in just about every scene.  In regards to the book, as I mentioned in the opening, it spends the entire first half discussing Mark Schultz's life in wrestling.  If you're really into wrestling (real wrestling, not WWE), it may interest you, but if not and you want to read it, start in the second half!



Grade: B

 Order Foxcatcher on Blu-Ray here