Action
Rod Lott
While not fully lucid, Painted Skin: The Resurrection excels from a standpoint of visuals. Whether that’s worth an entire viewing depends on your tolerance for fantastical whimsy.
Saturday 18 May
OKG Newsletter
Topic: fantasy
Painted Skin: The Resurrection
Your ‘Skin’ looks lovely.
Action
Rod Lott
While not fully lucid, Painted Skin: The Resurrection excels from a standpoint of visuals. Whether that’s worth an entire viewing depends on your tolerance for fantastical whimsy.
Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft
With utterly Grimm results.
Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
At least at press time, Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft is the latest shameless coattails rider of the big-budget Jeremy Renner vehicle Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which hits theaters next weekend. By contrast, this DVD premiere stars someone named Booboo Stewart, and that alone should tell you everything.
Holy Motors
It’s a trip.
Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
When I first saw Holy Motors, it was in a way that would make director Leos Carax cry, “Mon dieu!”: on a small window on my computer screen. That’s hardly the proper showcase for a film that set Cannes all abuzz, especially for courting year-end votes from critics’ groups.
The Great Magician
Now you see it ...
Drama
Rod Lott
With magic-themed movies The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and Now You See Me on the way, Hollywood is all about the abracadabra these days. If that exposes more eyeballs to 2011’s The Great Magician, good.
Tormented
Disappointed.
Horror
Rod Lott
Grudge guru Takashi Shimizu isn’t at a career apex. His 2009 film, The Shock Labyrinth, was a dud. His latest American effort, the airline ghost story 7500, was supposed to come out in theaters last summer, but got pushed to next month. So I hoped Tormented, a 2011 J-horror effort fresh to Blu-ray on these shores, might mark a return to form.
The Thief of Bagdad
Still magical, nearly 90 years later.
Action
Rod Lott
With the Cohen Film Collection, we may have another Criterion Collection-level provider of classic movies in the making, if its Blu-ray presentation of The Thief of Bagdad is any indication.
The Sorcerer and the White Snake
Jet Li slithers into a fairy tale with fights.
Action
Rod Lott
Although front-and-center on the Blu-ray box and the film’s trailers, Expendables team member Jet Li takes more of a supporting role in The Sorcerer and the White Snake. This shouldn’t be a surprise; about to turn 50, the guy isn’t as spry as he used to be. What is a surprise is how kid-friendly the Hong Kong film is. With little exception, it’s practically made for them.
Thale
A fairy tale with a tail.
Horror
Rod Lott
Members of cleaning services expect to find the unexpected. For Elvis (Erlend Nervold) and Leo (Jon Sigve Skard) of the No Shit Cleaning Service, that means uncovering a naked woman submerged in a basement bathtub, yet alive, in shock and with tubes down her throat.
Cherryh picked
CFN
Gazette staff
Good news for lovers of homegrown sci-fi/fantasy lit. Oklahoma-born-and-bred author C.J. Cherryh’s four-part series The Morgaine Stories is primed for a jump to the big screen. Luckily, the transformation from book to movie doesn’t require a secret spell or potion.
Blancanieves
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to the arthouse we go, for Spain’s ‘Blancanieves,’ the most unique twist on the Snow White story you’re apt to see.
