Played by Nate Rubin (Super), Mitch Parker is a wiry little fellow, barely out of high school himself, who substitutes for a high school English class. What he’d really like to do is be a novelist, of course, yet his off-hours are spent in a state of arrested development, playing Dungeons & Dragons with his […]
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The Sorcerer and the White Snake
Luckily, it’s the kind of family film that parents won’t equate to a chore. Li is a monk who specializes as a demon hunter, but the film’s focus is on Xu Xian (Raymond Lam), a young herbalist saved from drowning by the kiss of a thousand-year-old snake demon (Eva Huang, Kung Fu Hustle). She’s able […]
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Thale
Presumably in her 20s, their find, Thale (Silje Reinåmo), is actually a “huldra.” In Scandinavian folklore, that’s a seductive forest creature. Her pointy tail is the dead giveaway, but the guys learn more about her from tape recordings that sound like something out of The Evil Dead. From writer/director Aleksander Nordaas, the Norwegian Thale certainly […]
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Save the Date
Not quite a pure drama, not quite a pure comedy, the scrappy charmer also is a love triangle sharing a point with a love rectangle, both hinging on Sarah (Lizzy Caplan, Bachelorette), an artist and bookstore manager who takes the plunge by moving in with her rocker boyfriend, Kevin (Geoffrey Arend, Devil), but bails when […]
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John Dies at the End
“My name is David Wong. I once saw a man’s kidneys grow tentacles,” intones our genial narrator and protagonist (the heretofore unknown Chase Williamson) who boasts psychic abilities that include communicating with the dead. He and his best bud, John (Rob Mayes, MTV’s The American Mall), operate as freelance ghostbusters when they’re not beer-drinking slackers. […]
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Trance
Based on a 2001 British made-for-TV movie, Trance casts X-Men: First Class member James McAvoy (presumably standing in for Ewan McGregor) as Simon, an art auctioneer who becomes a media hero for foiling the heist of an über-valuable painting, yet pays the price when the would-be thief, Franck (Vincent Cassel, Black Swan), comes looking for […]
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The Four
It takes a good half-hour before we begin to comprehend who’s who and who’s aligned with whom. Even then, the story — based on a presumably popular novel — is plotted with spying and more than one alliance switcheroo. Everyone seems concerned about locating a stolen coin cast, yet the object is almost a MacGuffin; […]
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Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXVI
Besides, fans of MST3K only need know that another collection exists, and they’re sold. The latest, Volume XXVI (aka 26, if you don’t like maths), may not have any classics among its four-ep offering, but any episode is worth owning. Among this batch, my favorite is the most recent: 1988’s Alien from L.A., a sci-fi […]
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Dead in France
If more proof is needed — it’s not — the exploding heads, shoulder-stabbings and a good ol’ Wilhelm scream should do the trick later. Directed and co-written by Kris McManus, the UK film centers around Charles (Brian Levine, who co-wrote), a lonely hit man who’s not only a virgin, but never even kissed a woman. […]
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The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia
Once again based on a supposedly true story (which the Blu-ray’s extra features delve into), this unconnected, theater-skipping sequel to 2009’s sleeper hit Haunting in Connecticut takes place in 1993, when the Wyrick family — nary a Virginia Madsen among them — moved from the city of Atlanta to the rural Pine Mountain. An overly […]