Granted, that title tells you everything you need to know. Armed with steampunk weaponry and high-gloss camp, siblings Hansel (Jeremy Renner, The Bourne Legacy) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton, Clash of the Titans) have devoted their lives to dispatching witches. In the case of this film, their current target is one (Famke Janssen, Taken 2) responsible […]
blu-ray
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National Lampoon’s Vacation: 30th Anniversary Edition
Although I much would prefer a theatrical re-release or a fourth Vacation sequel, Warner Bros. celebrates the Griswold family’s inaugural cinematic sojourn with a 30th-anniversary Blu-ray edition. Think about it: Christie Brinkley and Beverly D’Angelo in high-definition; the 12-year-old me would have wept horny tears of joy. Then still beloved by the public, Chevy Chase […]
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Mad Max Trilogy
The first film introduces future cop Mad Max Rockatansky and director George Miller’s violent, pedal-to-the-metal world of carmageddon. Its chase sequences are as exciting as anything the action genre had seen, and they still hold up because their influence is ever-present. While Max’s family life slows the middle, it fuels a bang-up final act of […]
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Snitch
Here, he’s John Matthews, a successful businessman with a trophy wife (Nadine Velazquez, Flight) and an adorable little daughter. He doesn’t live with his other child from his starter marriage, Jason (Rafi Gavron, Celeste & Jesse Forever), now a high school senior. He’s a good kid. He just has bad taste in friends, one of […]
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Beautiful Creatures
Set in a South Carolina small town where the drawls are Okie-thick, the film follows Lena (New Zealand newcomer Alice Englert) as she nears her all-important sweet 16th. Because she is a member of the Ravenwood family of witches and warlocks — they prefer the term “casters” — that birthday is when she finds out […]
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This Girl Is Badass
But how much more badass might she be if her stunts were rooted in reality? For example, Jackie Chan can do — or could do — most of the things we saw him do in his movies; the blooper-ridden end credits attest to that. But from the start, Jukkalan’s tricks are aided by, well, tricks […]
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Aroused
For the film, Anderson interviews 16 female porn stars — including Alexis Texas, Asphyxia Noir and other obviously invented names — about what got them into the business, what they get from it, and what misconceptions they’d like to clear up. In other words, she gives them the opportunity to appear human. In doing so, […]
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Fred Won’t Move Out
That might sound like emotionally exhausting stuff, but this small indie has a surprisingly light touch. Writer-director Richard Ledes is more interested in capturing the stirring moments of family life than he is in heavy-handed exploration. The elderly couple at the center, Fred and Susan (Ruby Sparks’ Elliott Gould and Choke’s Judith Roberts), reside in […]
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Stripped / Nailbiter / American Mary
First, in Stripped, debuting feature director J.M.R. Luna updates the been-there scenario of college-age assholes on a holiday of hell by applying a coat of found footage to it. In this case, four friends gather to make the 21st birthday of one of them memorable, beginning with 8 a.m. bowl smoking before heading to Vegas, […]
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Rolling Thunder
Now available in a Blu-ray from Shout! Factory that puts MGM’s 2011 burn-on-demand release to utter shame, the film stars William Devane (the POTUS of last summer’s The Dark Knight Rises) as Maj. Charles Rane. After spending a grueling seven years as a prisoner of war, he returns home to San Antonio, Texas, to a […]