New Releases for Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012

Posted Jan 29, 2012 by John Allman

Updated Jan 29, 2012 at 12:30 PM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

The Woman
Genre: Horror/Sequel
Directed by: Lucky McKee
Run time: 101 minutes
Rating: R
Format: DVD

The Lowdown: If you haven’t seen it, there’s a video on YouTube from the 2011 Sundance Festival where an audience member walks out of a screening of Lucky McKee’s “The Woman” and just goes off on theater management.

The man, a registered IMDb actor, is appalled by what he’s just witnessed. And by appalled, I mean he is furious at the theater for even showing the film.

He rails against the film for degrading and denigrating women everywhere. He condemns the misogynistic central theme that propels the narrative.

He wants “The Woman” to be banned and copies of the film to be burned.

Is it a real video featuring a genuine reaction? I think so, yes.

Is his criticism warranted? No, he pretty much completely misses the mark. But that’s OK.

“The Woman” is a film open to interpretation. It’s not an easy film to watch at points. It challenges its viewers in ways that few movies, horror or otherwise, rarely do. It pulls out some heady twists at the end. But it’s not “I Spit on Your Grave” or some other exploitation torture porn featuring an orgiastic onslaught of male on female violence.

In fact, I would say that the same misogynistic overtures that cause Mr. Sundance to lose his marbles are, in reality, nothing but a red herring, a clever ruse.

“The Woman,” you see, doesn’t pander to violence against women for entertainment’s sake. It sets up a reveal that is unexpected, and satisfying, in ways that mob justice might sate a crowd’s thirst for blood.

McKee wants you to be appalled because only then will you be able to accept that anyone and everyone who commits, condones or causes to continue any violence against women is deserving of some very painful, likely permanent, lessons about right and wrong.

But getting to the moral of the story requires you to wade through some rough waters, and not everyone may be strong of stomach enough to make the trip.

“The Woman” is actually a sequel, or a companion film, to “Offspring,” a 2009 feature written by Jack Ketchum, which was one of After Dark Films’ 8 Films to Die For.

Pollyanna McIntosh played “The Woman” in both movies. Her character is a matriarch of sorts to a feral pack of people who live in the wild and live off the land. They’re also cannibals. That might be an important distinction to point out.

McKee structures his movie like some hellish version of “My Fair Lady” where a country attorney, Chris Cleek, who has a wife and three children of his own, finds The Woman one day while he is out hunting. He traps her and hauls her back to his secluded house where he chains her up in a barn and begins a nightmarish breakdown of her body and soul, abusing her physically and sexually, in an attempt to “humanize” her.

In a sick twist, the lawyer’s entire family, including matriarch Belle Cleek (Angela Bettis, a McKee regular) and her children, know about Daddy’s dark secret. His son even exhibits unnerving aptitude for the family hobby, as well as mimicking his father’s worst traits.

Mr. Cleek doesn’t think too highly of women, including his own wife and daughters. They basically exist to serve him and his son, and not speak back or share an opinion. And if they upset him, then it’s OK to put a little fear in their hearts by smacking them down.

McKee pays particular attention to Ms. Cleek’s reaction, and lack of action, when her husband abuses The Woman and her own daughters. The Woman is paying attention too, and in the film’s uber-violent, ultra-graphic third act, when all hell literally breaks loose, the carnage that’s meted out is both visceral and cathartic, not to mention unforgiving.

“The Woman” is a well-made independent horror film. It doesn’t shy away from controversial ideas and visuals, but I don’t think it exists simply to court controversy either.

This isn’t torture porn. This isn’t brutality for brutality’s sake. There is a message here, and McKee presents it in both subtle, detailed brush strokes and vibrant, unexpected splashes of blood red.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes, depending on what you consider hot.
Nudity – Yes.
Gore – Considerable.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Not who you would expect.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.

50/50 (Summit. 100 minutes, R, DVD): Warning, warning. If you have lost a loved one to cancer, this might be the most difficult movie you will try to watch in a long time, if ever. It uncorks the tears on par with “Brian’s Song,” but unlike most tearjerkers, there are a plethora of riotous, insanely filthy zingers peppered throughout the laser-sharp script to keep you laughing hysterically amid the tears. Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a wonderful job playing the newly diagnosed, and Seth Rogen makes you remember why you loved him so much in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up.”

Roger Corman’s Cult Classics Lethal Ladies Collection 2: The Arena, Cover Girl Models, Fly Me (Shout! Factory, 235 minutes, Unrated, DVD): There’s no instant classic here like with “Too Hot to Handle” from the first Lethal Ladies collection, but the bonafide grindhouse gem here is “Fly Me,” an absurd slice of kung fu cinema that pits flight attendants against gang thugs. The movie kicks off with gratuitous nudity AND Dick Miller, and only gets more ridiculous from there. The fight scenes break out with little warning and make even less sense, but they are fun. And the grainy, over-saturated print complete with cigarette burns, choppy editing and occasionally uneven audio track make you feel like you’ve ducked into a rundown theater back in 1973.

Also Available:

Real Steel - The comparisons to “Rocky” in all the advertising materials aren’t misleading, but they don’t tell the whole story. This live-action Rock-Em-Sock-Em-Robots would have been just fine without the schmaltzy, over-indulgent bad Dad storyline that saddles likeable Hugh Jackman with a really tough role to sell and detracts from the giddy fanboy fun of watching giant robots beat the crap out of each other.

Punished - A brutal revenge thriller about a bodyguard ordered to execute the people involved in kidnapping his boss’s daughter. Oh, and he has to videotape each of the killings. Gruesome goodness ensues.

Ancient Aliens: Season Three – I love this show. It’s fascinating, rooted in science and history, and it gives credence to all of us who firmly believe we’re not waiting for first contact – It already happened a long time ago.

WWII in 3D – Archival war footage, converted to high def and 3D. I’m still holding out for the Korean Conflict Special Edition in Mono with grainy stock footage.

Tales of an Ancient Empire – Kevin Sorbo, people. ‘Nuff said. Make the popcorn and take a seat.

Mannix: The Sixth Season – Everytime I type “Mannix,” I think “Manimal.” Now that’s a show I’d like to see again on DVD.

Meet the Browns: Season Four – More stereotypical situation comedy from Tyler Perry, the unfunniest rich guy ever.

The Whistleblower – Oscar winner Rachel Weisz battles human traffickers in a gritty thriller about a topic most people don’t like to acknowledge exists.

Limelight – Fascinating documentary about one of the wildest nightclubs in New York City before Mayor Rudy forced them to shutter and close.

Restless – Gus Van Sant, working on a smaller scale than his usual films, but with no less impact.

Not To Be Overlooked:

Fire of Conscience (Indomina, 106 minutes, R, DVD): It takes a little while for the realization to sink in, but “Fire of Conscience,” an incredibly taunt Japanese crime thriller, mines the best elements of “Heat” and “The Departed” to concoct a film that seems very familiar yet wholly unique at the same time. I really enjoyed the story, especially the final act. This is one to look for on Netflix. 

Devil’s Playground (Indomina, 93 minutes, Unrated, DVD): This British zombie flick gets high marks for basically repackaging “Resident Evil” and “28 Days Later” with a not-so-original, but still enjoyable, story of one soldier’s attempt to rescue a woman whose blood could help develop a cure. Die-hard zombie fans may be divided about director Mark McQueen’s decision to not only allow his undead hordes to move swiftly, but to have them all suddenly skilled in the art of Parkour, the French method of maximizing spatial awareness to give one’s body the opportunity to slip, slide and glide over, around or through incredibly tight openings.  Personally, it didn’t detract from the overall story, simply because everyone infected with the disease suddenly seemed capable of flipping, leaping and flying over any obstacle between them and fresh meat. It kind of made the zombies more intimidating, even if they still got bludgeoned fairly easily by the good guys.

True Legend (Indomina, 116 minutes, R, DVD): “True Legend,” the epic story of Su Qi-Er, is told through massive kung-fu battles, set against lavish backdrops from exotic temples to mountain fortress retreats. Fans know that these type of stories follow a predictable pattern of introducing the hero, tracking his success, his fall from grace, his rebirth and his eventual victory against all odds, and “True Legend” does not disappoint, providing an interesting redemptive story arc along with some astounding fight choreography from the guys who worked on “The Matrix” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”  This one is pretty great.

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A Conversation With: Adrián García Bogliano

Posted Jan 21, 2012 by John Allman

Updated Jan 21, 2012 at 03:54 PM

For a director with a penchant for raw violence and disturbing imagery, Adrián García Bogliano decided to go in a totally different direction for his latest film, “Cold Sweat,” an unpredictable and often surprising exercise in mounting tension that flips traditional movie conventions and plays against expectations.

“Cold Sweat” tells the story of Roman and Ali, two friends with a blossoming affection who set out to find Roman’s ex-girlfriend Jackie, who went missing shortly after meeting a young man during an online chat.

The two young adults use modern technology to track Jackie to an unassuming two-story house in a non-descript neighborhood. What they find inside is a veritable house of horrors where every room holds a new, shocking surprise.

Bogliano, with his eighth feature film, masterfully ratchets up the tension, offering two elderly, villainous foes who like to play with liquid nitroglycerine to torture their victims. Several scenes play out like a Master’s Thesis in Filmmaking, deliberately drawing out the action until every movement, every breath, every drip of sweat and drop of liquid nitro could spell certain doom.

In between these long stretches of mounting dread, the director inserts well-placed humor and unexpected gore, keeping both his cast and his audience off balance and unsure what might happen next.

Bogliano, 31, of Spain drew inspiration from two films by two directors that couldn’t be further apart in style and execution.

He looked first to Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” the largely underrated second adventure in the ongoing franchise, which portrayed a darker, almost sadistic streak that divided fans expecting a fun thrill ride like “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

And he turned to his all-time favorite film, “Sorcerer,” by William Friedkin, a 1977 thriller made after “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist” that never achieved the same level of success or acclaim.

“Sorcerer” is about a group of men in South America who are hired to drive six crates of volatile dynamite across miles of insanely rugged terrain, including sheer mountain roads, stretches of dense jungle, a rotting suspended rope bridge and finally a surreal stretch of desert.

With this month’s release of “Cold Sweat,” as well as the upcoming release of “I’ll Never Die Alone,” a brutal rape and revenge thriller that looks even more malicious than the exploitation classic “I Spit On Your Grave,” and “Penumbra,” 2012 could well be the year that launches Bogliano into the upper echelon of today’s hottest genre directors.

Bogliano, who now lives in Mexico, took time from filming his next feature, “Here Comes the Devil,” to speak with BVB: Blood, Violence and Babes by phone.

BVB: First off, I loved “Cold Sweat.” I thought it did so many things right, and different, from your typical horror film, that it felt really fresh and exciting. Is that what you were going for – to play against expectations?

AGB: Exactly. That was exactly, to play against expectations is a perfect way to say it because we were thinking with this film the villains have to be the opposite of what you’re expecting, the big guy, the strong guy with a mask. Having these two old men was a way to do that, and also having them not use knives or something like that, instead drops of something you don’t know what it is in the beginning of the film. That was exactly the effect we wanted to cause.

BVB: I really thought in addition to having villains who were completely unexpected, I felt like your movie, and I watch a lot of horror movies. I watch some really good ones and some really awful ones. And I felt like your characters felt very real. They felt like young adults. I loved how they were constantly referencing Facebook. I loved when Roman posted his status as, Help, we’re trapped in a house with two maniacs…

AGB: I saw the news the other day that something like that actually happened. I felt like when I was writing this, if you only had the Internet and not like in the United States, the system of 911, if somebody is going to know exactly who to ask for help through the Internet.

BVB: Were you just trying to show this is kind of the world we live in now. If you’re in your mid-20s, that’s probably something you think to do instead of call 911, if I can’t get an outside line, I’ll go to Facebook or I’ll go to social media.

AGB: Absolutely. I’m pretty sure that probably in a few years, that joke is going to be so 2011, right? A joke of a certain moment of time. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s a movie made in a certain time and a certain place. I don’t feel afraid to make movies that look like the place they were made and the moment they were made.

BVB: I felt like your film really did that. Not to give away anything, I try very hard not to spoil the films for my readers, but I’m hoping by the time this posts later in the week, with the movie releasing today, they will have had time to check it out. I loved that you made a horror film where the main characters all actually survived. You definitely went against the Final Girl pattern where there’s always just one survivor battling the bad guys. I thought that was really cool. Was that something you wanted to do to set yourself apart?

AGB: Yeah, yeah, yeah – I discussed it a lot with my brother (co-writer, Ramiro García Bogliano) and the other co-writer (Hernán Moyano) of the film. They were more into killing some of them. At the moment where I wrote the script, my feeling was more optimistic, so I said it can be that way because we were making films before this one, my previous films were more pessimistic, more violent. The previous one to this was one called, “I’ll Never Die Alone,” that’s going to be released now in the U.S. It’s so violent and it’s pretty disturbing. You finish that film and you want to cut your veins. I said I don’t want to do that anymore, I don’t want to do that again. I wanted to make something different, something for a teenage audience, something more energetic and more fun.

BVB: How deliberate was it on your part to let certain scenes play out in an extended fashion, like the nitroglycerine disrobing scene with Roman and Jackie. It really seemed to be a direct homage to old-school filmmaking like Hitchcock and Kubrick, who took their time and let the action unfold organically.

AGB: You mean the sequence where she gets down from the table to the floor? To me, that’s the heart of the movie. I have a very good friend who I always show my films as soon as I make the first cut, I show the films to him, I trust a lot his opinion. He just told me that, that was the scene of the movie, and I felt so good when he said that because that’s exactly what I felt. Everything else can be or not be there, it doesn’t matter. But the moment I really wanted to have in the movie was that moment. Like the homage I wanted to make the most was to ‘Sorcerer” by William Friedkin. I love “Sorcerer.” And to me, this was like a big homage. I think one of the most brilliant sequences in film history is that sequence with the hanging bridge of “Sorcerer.” That’s probably my favorite sequence ever. I wanted to make a homage to that. The way he keeps the tension, he keeps building the tension. It’s like the scene is never going to end. That’s exactly what I wanted for this sequence. I actually wanted it to last longer.

BVB: I mentioned earlier to you the criticism. After I saw the film I went to see what other people thought and one of the things that really struck me, I read some reviews and I saw some people criticizing, there was another scene where Ali sneaks into the study and the old man is on the computer and she’s trying to find a weapon, or a pair of scissors to help free them, and I thought that scene was wonderfully tense, but it seemed like there were people criticizing it who thought that she should have just gone all Rambo and try to grab the knife, or grab the scissors, and kill the old man. I didn’t understand that.

AGB: I don’t understand that. Well, I do understand that. Let me tell you what I think about it. I think a lot of people believe that they would act in a violent situation, they think they would act like in the movies, that they would say something, they would fight him. I believe that most people would try to go quietly, try to save the girl and get out of there and call the police. I think they’re thinking, two old men, dealing with nitroglycerine and they just exploded the head of a girl. I won’t play Rambo. They are old and everything, but they still have nitroglycerine in their hands, they’re still…killers.

BVB: I have to ask you, I loved this, you had so many things in the film that were very much grounded in my mind in reality, like that scene with the girl, instead of trying to kill the guy, she got what she needed and snuck back off. Then we get into this moment in the film where they stumble upon this basement, this cellar with these blind, cannibal, mole-like women and the film just goes into a whole other place, which is just awesome. Where did you come up with that? What was the inspiration for that? I thought that was just wonderful.

AGB: It had a lot to do with the previous film, “I’ll Never Die Alone.” It’s a rape and revenge film, but it’s straight one way. A bunch of girls, they see a murder and then the murderers come after them. They rape them, they kill a couple of them and then they seek revenge. I didn’t want it to be anything other than a very straight story. For this film, I thought let’s do something different. After 35 minutes, 40 minutes of the film, you think you know exactly where it’s going, and you don’t. That was the idea. That kind of film you rarely see. You don’t know what the hell is going on, but you like it. I’m hooked. These characters were, in a way, they were something we used to add more excitement to the film. We were thinking of a film that didn’t have to have a very strong structure, very strong logic. We wanted a film where every five or 10 minutes, something strange, something you don’t know where it comes from, happens. We used a lot what we read about how they structured the second Indiana Jones film. This kind of thing where anything goes. We wanted to use this kind of idea for the structure and we wanted to create not a very serious horror film, but more of a roller coaster.

BVB: That’s funny, I don’t think I would have ever thought to hear you compare that sequence of the film to Indiana Jones, but I like it. I know exactly what you mean, where all of a sudden hearts are getting ripped out, monkey brains are getting eaten.

AGB: Absolutely. We used a couple of the classic Indiana Jones shots where a character is watching something off camera and he sees something before you do and you just see his reaction. Spielberg used to do that a lot and it’s an amazing kind of shot. It’s a really funny device. We didn’t have a lot of time to work with the actors, but they gave everything for the cameras.

BVB: Tell me a little about “Here Comes the Devil.” It’s set where a family is camping and two young children go missing and something happens.

AGB: Exactly. When they come back, they’re not the same. Something has changed in them. The parents try to realize what is it. I’m really excited about it. It’s a supernatural horror film, a genre I’m not so familiar with. I’ve worked with supernatural subjects, but not as much as this film. It’s really exciting.

BVB: Now did you write this one yourself, or did you collaborate with your brother?

AGB: No, this one I wrote it by myself. It was an idea I had in mind for a certain time. I think it’s going to be pretty, again, like my previous one, this is going to be pretty disturbing, violent and disturbing.

BVB: We like violent and disturbing.

AGB: Even when I work with comedy elements, I like it when the horror parts take place, I want it to be really strong and really violent.

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New Releases for Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012

Posted Jan 17, 2012 by John Allman

Updated Jan 17, 2012 at 08:04 PM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

Cold Sweat
Genre: Thriller
Directed by: Adrián García Bogliano
Run time: 90 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Format: DVD

The Lowdown: We all know how most horror movies play out: A group of kids wander into a bad situation. They make reckless, often ridiculous decisions. They die, horribly, one by one, until there is usually a Final Girl left standing to battle it out with the big bad menace, whoever or whatever that might be.

Adrián García Bogliano has seen plenty of those movies too, and as a director, he set out to totally flip normal plot conventions on their ear with “Cold Sweat,” a Spanish import that honestly zigs when almost every other movie zags.

Bogliano offers up believable young adults who don’t make rash decisions, other than to survive. He concocts two completely unique villains in two elderly former freedom fighters who have managed to get ahold of a cache of long-lost dynamite.

One of the men is a scientist who has mastered the technique of distilling nitroglycerine into its liquid essence, a highly volatile creation that he gleefully applies to his victims drop by drop, forcing them to fight their own bodies and restrict all movement for fear of going Boom. The other man is the brute, the enforcer, the cleanup guy responsible for mopping up the mess whenever another young victim loses the fight and accidentally lets their head fall on the tiniest pin-sized dollop of the liquid boom-boom.

Inside their home, a non-descript two-story house, the scientist uses the Internet to lure victims to visit, positioning a young boy in front of a webcam so that females think they are talking to him. The boy has been severely mutilated, and is unable to fight back.

“Cold Sweat” starts with Roman and Ali trying to find Roman’s missing girlfriend, Jackie, who was having an online fling with who she believed to be a good-looking young man. Because they’re tech-savvy, Roman and Ali trace the IP address of the person Jackie was chatting with to the house. Ali strikes up a chat and gets invited to visit. Bad things happen quickly from there.

Bogliano is just 31, but he manipulates his audience like a seasoned professional, allowing the tension to ratchet up organically as some scenes play on indefinitely, his camera lens focused on each bead of sweat that drips down a victim’s body part drenched in liquid nitro. It’s incredible unnerving, and Bogliano keeps upping the ante until he reaches a highwater mark near the movie’s midpoint with a scene that would make Steven Spielberg proud. It’s a directing showcase worthy of a highlight reel, and it marks the arrival of a formidable talent.

He’s not content to stop there, however.

Bogliano injects a new, unexpected horror about every 15 minutes, keeping his characters and his audience off-balance. Whether it’s a taunt game of cat and mouse played out over an intercom, where any noise, even a deep breath, might give away Roman’s location, or a hidden subterranean basement filled with the ghoulish subjects who have been experimented on for years by the two elderly men, “Cold Sweat” creates just that – a palatable sense of creeping, delicious dread that, literally, explodes at the most unexpected of moments.

I don’t ever like to give away a film’s ending, and I’m not going to spoil the whirlwind conclusion, but I will say this – Bogliano saves his best trick for last, smashing through the tired cliché that all horror movie victims are just that, victims.

“Cold Sweat” is a fun, gory, gleefully over the top roller coaster ride that shouldn’t be missed.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes.
Nudity – Yes.
Gore – Considerable.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Two elderly, demented ex-patriots who have converted a simple brownstone into a house of experimental horrors.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.

The Ides of March (Sony, 101 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): My personal favorite political allegory ever put to film is “Bob Roberts,” the wonderful Kennedy-esque satire that marked the writing/directing debut of Tim Robbins.

“The Ides of March” is right up there.

It’s better than “Bulworth” or “Primary Colors,” even if some of the twists are predictable, because the acting is spot-on, the writing is laser sharp and the direction by George Clooney is simply superb.

Everybody brings their A-game, from Ryan Gosling as the moral compass of the film, to Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti as rival campaign strategists, and even Marisa Tomei as a nosy New York Times reporter trying to get the latest scoop. Clooney is spectacular, playing in just a few scenes, as an Obama-like candidate who inspires his faithful. And Evan Rachel Wood is heartbreaking as the young intern who gets swept up into the political machine following a very human, but disastrous mistake.

Also Available:

The Coast Guard – What might look like a standard military action film on the surface, this Korean import actually takes the very-real tensions that exist along the North-South Korean border and explores what happens when the zeal to kill the enemy clouds one’s better judgment and sets in motion an awful domino effect.

Abduction – Remember when John Singleton was heralded as the next Spike Lee? Those hopes and expectations dissolved somewhere around “Shaft.” Remember when Taylor Lautner was supposed to be the next big action hero? No, actually.

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star – Produced and co-written by Adam Sandler, this vehicle for his comedy buddy Nick Swardson centers around the quest of young, dumb Bucky who decides he’s going to be a porn star to make his parents proud, despite the fact that he’s sporting next to nothing in the junk department.

Adam-12: Season 6 – The spin-off from “Dragnet” continues in its sixth season, portraying actual cases and crimes reported in Los Angeles.

Dirty Girl – Juno Temple, daughter of director Julian Temple, is a smoking hot, hold the movie all on her own star.

Dead Poets Society – Robin Williams, acting somberly.

Good Morning Vietnam – Robin Williams, yelling loudly.

Merlin: The Complete Third Season – The BBC takes an interesting spin on the legend of King Arthur and Merlin, setting its wizards and dragons serial back before either man was legendary, back when they were both foolish, headstrong young men.

Age of Heroes – Sean Bean kicking butt. It never gets old.

Romeos – Coming of age tale about a young pre-op transgender boy who falls for a young gay man, and the journey that they experience together. 

Division III: Football’s Finest – Starring Andy Dick. As a football coach. ‘Nuff said.

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New Releases for Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012

Posted Jan 17, 2012 by John Allman

Updated Jan 17, 2012 at 07:56 PM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

Killer Elite
Genre: Action
Directed by: Gary McKendry
Run time: 117 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Critics treat Jason Statham like a second-tier action star, like Steven Seagal or Jean Claude Van Damme, but only once they went strictly direct-to-DVD.

The truth is that Statham is a hell of a lot better than either actor on his own, or both put together. And Statham’s films, while often ridiculous, are for the most part consistently enjoyable. And lately, despite a critical drubbing and an absentee box office, Statham’s films have been exceptionally entertaining.

Since 2008, Statham has hit upon a streak of top-notch action thrillers, including “The Bank Job,” “Death Race,” “The Expendables,” “The Mechanic” and now “Killer Elite,” an extremely solid and surprisingly twisty spy thriller that packs in more fistfights and gun battles that a double feature of Jason Bourne.

Statham is at his square-jawed best playing Danny, a professional assassin, who decides to leave killing behind. His partner, Hunter, played by Robert DeNiro with the gravitas of a Scorsese film, which means he doesn’t phone it in, decides to continue on in the business. A year passes, and suddenly Danny is getting phone calls at his remote hideaway in Australia where no one should be able to locate him.

Hunter has been kidnapped by a dying Sheikh who wants vengeance for the deaths of three of his four sons. Danny is the only man capable of doing the killing because the targets are all former British SAS (Special Air Service), also known as The Feathermen because of their light touch and ability to kill someone so quietly that no one ever knows they were there.

The catch – and, it’s a good one – is that each of the assassinations must look like an accident, and Danny must get all the men to confess, on camera, before they die.

First-time feature director Gary McKendry does a good job carving out a style that’s not tied specifically to any other spy or action franchise. He doesn’t go crazy with the hyperkinetic editing of Tony Scott. He doesn’t try to do guerilla-style, pseudo-documentary handheld camera shots like Paul Greengrass. He just lets the action unfold, and when it comes time for another bone-crunching slugfest, McKendry does his best to stay out of the way, allowing his lens to capture the intensity of a close quarters fight without smothering the audience.

None of this would matter if “Killer Elite” didn’t have a killer supporting cast, in addition to Statham and DeNiro, and it does. Clive Owen is electrifying as Spike, the retired SAS guard dog employed by the super secret Feathermen organization. He really holds his own in the hand-to-hand combat scenes with Statham, and comes off as a legitimate threat.

The former SAS officers targeted for death are played by a host of superb British actors, and even Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Mr. Eko from “Lost,” gives a nice turn as a middle man handler trying to get paid once the contract is fulfilled.

If there is a criticism of “Killer Elite,” it is that the film could have been trimmed by about 20 minutes. There’s maybe one too many climatic fights, although the final twist is a good one and provides a refreshing conclusion in a genre where most people never walk away unscathed.

“Killer Elite” is a great action film that was criminally ignored in theaters and too easily dismissed by critics who failed to look beyond its B-movie lineage to find a highly enjoyable film.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – No.
Nudity – No.
Gore – Gun violence.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – It depends on your perspective: Is the revenge-fueled Sheikh, his obnoxious and weak son, the deliriously evil former British SAS killers or the hired assassins dispatched to kill everybody.
Buy/Rent – Rent it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Deleted scenes.
On the Web – http://www.killerelite.com/

Moneyball (Sony, 133 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): “Moneyball” is an amazing movie, one of 2011’s best, and it should be recognized as such at the upcoming Academy Awards with acting nominations for Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, a best director nod for Bennett Miller and a much-deserved adapted screenplay nomination for Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian.

It’s nearly impossible to know where to begin when praising “Moneyball.”

Pitt gives an effortless performance as Billy Beane, imbuing him with a perfect double pinch of guy’s guy athleticism and mischievous, Tyler Durden-esque snark. Basically, Pitt justs seems to be playing himself, which is completely believable, and by doing so, you can’t help but hang on his every word.

Pitt is my favorite actor, ever. And he’s aging well. His face is developing those lines around his eyes and mouth that distinguish him. He’s ruggedly handsome, yet still boyish enough to be playing an adult kid, a former ball player who found a better fit outside the clubhouse in the front office.

Hill is a revelation as the straight man, the mastermind behind money ball, the concept that by studying statistics and averages, one could conceivably craft a winning team through mathematical equations and not raw talent.

But neither actor would be as effective if not for Sorkin and Zaillian’s superb script which does for baseball what Sorkin did last year for social networking – it makes it understandable, and relatable, and completely captivating.

Even if you know the story of the 2001-02 Oakland A’s, who rose from the bottom of the pack to contend for a division championship with a team made up of nobodies and supposed has-beens, after trading off the perceived talent or losing all-stars to free agency, you will be surprised by “Moneyball.”

The story crackles with unexpected tension because it’s being told from a perspective that we, the audience, have never until now been exposed to. I literally was sitting up on the couch, leaning forward, unsure what was to happen next, when I should have been relaxed back in the cushions, fighting off sleep.

Even if you don’t like baseball, or you avoid sports movies with fierce determination, make an exception for this one film.  Trust me. You will be really glad you did.

What’s Your Number? (Fox, 117 minutes, Unrated, DVD): It’s difficult to succinctly ridicule a film that makes recent Katherine Heigl rom-coms look positively Oscar-worthy, but I will try.

“What’s Your Number?” wants to be an edgy alternative to the typical chick flick. Like “Bridesmaids,” it wants to have its overtly sexual and scatological humor without compromising its sweet, good girl chewy caramel center. But “Bridemaids” is one of the better written comedies of all time, a broad comedy that managed to make the most of its quirky subplots and surreal tangents without feeling contrived or, worse, like the ramblings of an 8-year-old with severe ADHD.

“What’s Your Number?” is not “Bridemaids.”

“What’s Your Number?” is so disjointed that it feels like three or four separate movies spliced together by a series of mad professor editors who somehow failed to notice the Grand Canyon-sized holes plaguing the script.

For one, “Number” can’t decide if it wants its lead actress, Anna Faris, to be a drunken tramp or a good girl who just happened to make 19 bad decisions. Here’s a hint, folks: If you don’t know how you perceive your main character, the audience isn’t going to have a clue what to make of her either.

Here’s another suggestion: Just because someone in the Writer’s Room came up with an interesting idea – why don’t Anna Faris and Chris Evans go play a game of Strip Horse at Madison Square Garden after midnight – doesn’t mean that idea should become a focal point of the film. For one, how would you explain them getting past security and not setting off alarms when they break in? And wouldn’t maybe someone notice two drunk, half-naked people playing basketball in an empty arena that late at night? Doesn’t Madison Square Garden have security cameras? Finally, what in God’s name does them playing strip one-on-one have to do with anything?

It’s because of these kind of ridiculous lapses in judgment that “What’s Your Number?” earns a big fat zero on a scale of 1 to 10.

Also Available:

Boardwalk Empire: The Complete First Season – HBO may have done it first, but grade-A, quality television shows like “Justified,” “Sons of Anarchy,” “American Horror Story,” “Dexter,” and “The Walking Dead” show that there’s more to Great TV than just the Home Box Office. Of course, HBO continues to thrive post-“Sopranos” with top-notch fare like “True Blood,” “Game of Thrones” and, yes, “Boardwalk Empire.”

“Boardwalk Empire” bears the prestige of Martin Scorsese, but it doesn’t need the master’s seal of approval to shine. Michael Shannon and Steve Buscemi, who hasn’t been better since his heyday of “Reservoir Dogs” and “Trees Lounge,” just elevate this booze-soaked tale of Prohibition era backdoor dealings and double crosses during a power struggle in Atlantic City. This has it all – writing so sharp it can open a vein, sultry femme fatales, ample nudity and sex and a wash of blood that never fails to surprise.

Summer of Massacre – This may well be one of the most random slasher films you’ve ever seen. I could only make it through about 15 minutes, during which about 18 random people were slaughtered with a bevy of bad CGI and so-so practical effects. Story? What story. If you can piece it together, more power to you. Me – I had to tap out.

Sinners and Saints – A misguided action flick that makes the worst of decisions and champions style over substance. A wave of nostalgia for the heyday of Walter Hill-era 1980s actioners couldn’t salvage “Sinners and Saints” from being just what it is – average and unextraordinary.

An Idiot Abroad – Ricky Gervais doesnt just torment Hollywood celebrities at the Golden Globes, he torments his friends too, specifically Karl Pilkington, whom Gervais and Stephen Merchant, his co-creator on The Office and Extras, spend eight episodes subjecting Pilkington to all manner of uncomfortable, cringe-worthy and hysterical adventures around the globe.

Saving Private Perez – Spielberg, this ain’t.

Answer This – I’ll take ridiculous comedies for $200, Alex.

King Arthur and Medieval Britain – The real story behind the myth of one of history’s most iconic heroes.

Frozen World: The Story of the Ice Age – Here’s a tip: Stock up on matches.

Doctor Who: The Android Invasion – Tom Baker as Doctor Who in this 1984 story.

Doctor Who: Invasion of the Dinosaurs – And then there’s this tale from 1974 featuring the third Doctor, John Pertwee, in a story that will sound perfectly plausible to Whovians today - the Doctor and his companion must protect modern-day London from invading dinosaurs.

GI Joe: Series 2 Season 1 – The first season of the 1989 reboot of the popular GI Joe cartoon gets a proper DVD release.

Gurozuka – J-horror ghost story from 2005 mixes elements of “Scream” and “The Ring.”

Greece: Secrets of the Past – IMAX exploration of Greek history with breathtaking visuals.

Higher Ground – Vera Farmiga’s directorial debut examines what it means to be a devout Christian in today’s world.

1911 – It’s rare that a Jackie Chan film makes a critic’s Worst of the Year roundup, but the historical epic “1911” did just that.

There Be Dragons - This is not a fantasy feature about medieval knights battling mystical beasts. This is a Roland Joffe historical drama set primarily around the Spanish Civil War. Joffe has made some amazing films, from “The Mission” to “The Killing Fields.” He’s on a shortlist of directors, like Terrence Malick or the late Stanley Kubrick, who cinephiles can trust to deliver something topical, beautifully shot and worthy of discussion.

Primevil: Volume 3 – The BBC series about time travel and dinosaurs returns with its third season. Fans, like me, who tried this show two years ago but found it disjointed, too loose with plot lines and too reliant on CGI, need to take a second look.

The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption – This franchise has gone from The Rock to Randy Couture to an unbilled actor, Victor Webster, playing Mathayus, the Scorpion King. For this third installment, all the marketing has leaned heavily on genre favorites Billy Zane and Ron Perlman.

Not To Be Overlooked:

Bloody Disgusting Selects: Chop (The Collective, 88 minutes, Unrated, DVD): Trent Haaga gave the world “Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV.”

He also wrote the amazingly dark and twisted zombie masterpiece, “Deadgirl,” probably the best film about necrophilia ever made (Possibly the only film about necrophilia, I’m not sure, but either way it’s the best).

What that means is that Haaga, making his directorial debut, knows both campy and creepy, and he employs both magnificently in “Chop,” a pitch-black revenge thriller that saves its most delicious twists for the very end.

Haaga teams with screenwriter Adam Minarovich, an occasional actor best known to genre fans as the abusive Ed Peletier on last season’s “The Walking Dead,” to craft a beautifully structured thriller with just the right amount of gallow’s humor.

“Chop” is uneven at times, but what really holds the film together is the pair of leading performances by Will Keenan and Timothy Muskatell.

Keenan plays Lance, essentially the protagonist, who is kidnapped and tortured by The Stranger (Muskatell), a distraught man who claims that Lance committed some horrible act against him at some point in the past.

The deeper that “Chop” slides into unexpected territory, the better these two men act, really selling their characters, especially Muskatell, who does a brilliant job making the audience sympathize with him, even though we have no idea what injustice was previously done to him by Lance.

That unknown affront becomes the centerpiece of a wonderfully twisted series of reveals where Lance, rapidly losing digits and limbs, begins confessing to things that he has kept bottled up in his soul in hopes of finding out just what he did to The Stranger.

The big twist, of course, and one definitely not worth spoiling, is what exactly Lance did to The Stranger, and what happens once he remembers.

Haaga and Minarovich do a great job with pacing, keeping the viewer off-balance as to what fate might befall poor Lance, even as our opinion of Lance shifts with each reveal.

My only complaint, and it’s a quibble at best, is that the final reveal, the dark cherry at the heart of this bitter cordial, isn’t drawn out more. It happens quickly, almost too quickly, but then the impact of what you’ve just seen settles in and you find that the final moments of “Chop” are pretty damn terrifying in their simplicity.

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New Releases for Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012

Posted Jan 7, 2012 by John Allman

Updated Jan 7, 2012 at 01:05 PM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

Contagion
Genre: Thriller
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Run time: 106 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Director Steven Soderbergh has crafted a nifty, fast-paced, real-world thriller that looks gorgeous in high definition, and for the first 60 minutes or so, careens along a downhill track to hell with such nerve-rattling efficiency that you find yourself feeling disappointed once the sickness slowly subverts to a sniffle instead of the plague.

Don’t get me wrong, “Contagion” will unnerve you.

I watch a lot, A LOT, of horror movies, and blood, guts, gore, torture – I can handle. But pandemic/unknown virus spreading thrillers scare the crap out of me. Why? In my mind, they are more like documentaries or prophecies put to the screen, not some fictionalized serial slasher running around hacking up coeds.

This kind of thing could happen, and it has, throughout history.

Soderbergh drafts an all-star cast to tell his tale. I mean, really, it’s like watching some bizarre A-list edition of “The Pandemic Boat.”

You could spend much of the movie just picking out the cameos. John Hawkes, recently Oscar-nominated for “Winter’s Bone”? Yeah, he gets maybe 10 lines. Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow? She is on screen for all of 15 minutes – the first 15 minutes.

That’s like having Michael Jordan on your team and only playing him for one quarter of the game. Well, not really the best analogy, since I don’t think too much of Paltrow as an actress, but she does have her fans. You get what I mean.

“Contagion” also hands Jude Law and Laurence Fishburne their meatiest roles in years, and both actors do a good job of seizing the opportunity, particularly in one well-crafted back-and-forth, CNN-style television interview.

The thing that “Contagion” gets the most right is the fear. How often have you seen a disease thriller where one of the good guy CDC scientists becomes infected early on and dies a horrible death, on screen? That doesn’t happen often, but Soderbergh seems to know that stark imagery like that will drill down to our basest fears and hollow out a home, and he’s right.

The problem with “Contagion” is that it ultimately reaches a crossroads, and thankfully it’s a crossroads we haven’t reached in real life – yet. Go full-bore down the “I Am Legend” wormhole and depict a civilization that completely collapses with billions of dead corpses littering the streets, or stop just shy of total anarchy and have the researchers discover a cure?

That doesn’t mean the film fails. Not at all. It strikes the right note at its conclusion, showing a world that is definitely changed, but still clinging to the old traditions that define us as a higher species.

And, in a wonderful post-mortem touch, Soderbergh shows us how the whole virus began, presenting a nicely condensed Day 1 nearly two hours after subjecting us to the hellish weeks and months that followed.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Well, yes, technically, but sex is the last thing you will be thinking about.
Nudity – No.
Gore – Minimal.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – A bat and a pig.
Buy/Rent – Rent it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Three featurettes, “Contagion: How a Virus Changed the World,” “The Reality of Contagion” and “The Contagion Detectives.”
On the Web – http://contagionmovie.warnerbros.com/dvd/

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (Sony, 100 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): Don’t be afraid of the dark, little one. It’s only those stop-motion creatures returning from “The Gate.”

How else to explain how I was totally geeking out, reliving my first time seeing a considerably cheesier film from 1986, when I should have been appreciating a wicked slice of R-rated horror co-penned by Guillermo del Toro.

“Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” fails on too many levels. The story is for crap. The relationship between Guy Pierce and Katie Holmes is ridiculously hollow. She’s been relegated to window dressing, which is not fair because Ms. Cruise can act. She just keeps getting offered, or she keeps picking, ill-defined roles. Pierce is such an A-hole from jump that you don’t buy him for one second as a concerned father. And poor Bailee Madison has to suffer through a numbingly repetitive series of shocks to the point that you almost want her to get carted off by those damn Gate-like, evil fairies.

Here’s my No. 1 question after watching “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” and it’s a time-honored query offered by many a horror fan: Why in the hell would a parent take their child BACK to the evil house where little creatures MIGHT be trying to kill people and kidnap her?

Why?

Why why why?

If you don’t have an honest answer, then the obvious answer is this: Otherwise, you would have a 45 minute movie.

So, I think it’s fair to say that if you’re going to keep the kid at the terrifying mansion filled with nasty whatchamacallit’s, you really need to deliver something truly scary, or shocking, or both.

And that’s where “Dark” fails most of all.

Shark Night (Fox, 91 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): Why would a backwoods hillbilly create mutant, fresh-water, killer sharks in a dank Southern bayou?

Because he was inspired by “Shark Week” from The Discovery Channel.

That’s the big reveal, people. That’s the honest answer given to explain why giant killer sharks have been devouring dunderheaded, water-skiing coeds for more than an hour.

There – I broke my cardinal rule, I gave away the big reveal.

I feel justified in giving this secret away because “Shark Night” is the single dumbest genre film I have possibly ever seen, and I watch a lot of freaking movies, people.

Justified: The Complete Second Season (Sony, 546 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): Speaking of “Justified,” the wonderfully dark, meticulously detailed crime series set in the tradition-rich coal country of Kentucky, if you haven’t been watching the past two seasons of this FX cable series, you are seriously missing out.

Timothy Olyphant has been given a career-defining role in Raylan Givens, the Deputy U.S. Marshal created by one of our best crime novelists, Elmore Leonard, and he imbues the character with a rich, complex moral code. Givens grew up straddling the line between right and wrong, with a father who blatantly broke the law and a childhood friend, Boyd Crowder (the amazing Walton Goggins), who has risen to become his arch nemesis and his closest ally.

“Justified,” developed for TV by Graham Yost, the mastermind writer behind “Speed,” “Broken Arrow” and some of the best shows on television, from “Band of Brothers” to “Boomtown,” crackles with intensity but always manages to respect the rural traditions and hard-scrabble life that its warring factions of kinfolk have protected and defended for generations.

Nothing is simple in this world. There is no all-good and all-evil, and the show deftly traverses these grey zones, presenting some of the best character development you’re likely to ever see in a show that’s essentially, in a nutshell, about a rogue lawman meting out Old West justice as he sees fit.

You grow to care for the various family members, even as you watch them do terrible things to one another.

The first season dealt with Givens return to Kentucky after he shot a Miami drug kingpin point blank at a marina restaurant. The long-standing truce between the Givens and Crowder families was decimated and lots of blood was spilled.

Season two, which you need to watch before next week’s Season 3 premiere, deals with a new family, the pot-growing Bennett’s, led by the deliciously evil matriarch, Mags Bennett, and her three sons. The Bennett’s have a plan to go legit and make a fortune off selling land to a coal mining company. But they just can’t help themselves from exhibiting old-school vengeance when someone goes and breaks one of the unspoken rules that governs life in such a place. In this case, that would mean reporting a pedophile to authorities instead of asking Mags and her boys to deal with the problem personally.

Raylan also has a long history with the Bennett clan, one that has simmered for years, barely below a boil. And Boyd Crowder, though he’s making a concerted effort to stay away from crime, keeps getting tempted by outside forces that want to exploit his penchant for violence.

On top of all that, Yost & Co. find the time to delve deep into a handful of satisfying subplots involving Givens’ ex-wife, with whom he may be reconciling, if her current husband (William Ragsdale – that’s right, Charley Brewster of “Fright Night” fame) doesn’t try to have them both killed, and Givens’ boss, Art, who doesn’t trust Raylan or like him much, for that matter.

At 13 episodes a season, this is a show you can quickly absorb, but your appreciation for the characters and storylines will resonate long after the last episode has played.

Also Available:

Mildred Pierce: The Collector’s Edition – Kate Winslet knocks it into the bleachers in this wonderful HBO production.

I’m Glad My Mother Is Alive – Your mother, however, may not be so glad after she realizes you are her long, lost, given-up-for-adoption son, and you have grown into a creepy stalker playing a dangerous game of deception with her in the middle. Moms can forgive a lot, but maybe not that.

The Guard – This fish-out-of-water, buddy-cop comedy has gotten nothing but rave reviews for its writing, acting and sense of style. Plus it has Don Cheadle and Brendan Gleeson. Count me in.

Don’t Let Him In – OK, I won’t. But, what if he has cookies?

Ice Quake – Does your “Ice Quake” bring all the boys to the yard? Only the ones who love bad SyFy Channel-inspired Mother Nature madness.

I Don’t Know How She Does It – I do, people. SJP isn’t that talented! When is everybody going to wake up to that fact?

Serendipity – Kate Beckinsale, I would watch you in anything, but this overly-predictable rom-com is asking a bit much.

She’s All That – Finally! Your Freddie Prinze Jr. Blu-Ray collection is one step closer to completion. Rejoice. 

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