Like a gender-reversed Deliverance, three friends (Straw Dogs‘ Kate Bosworth, Childrens Hospital‘s Lake Bell and Aselton) motorboat to the titular isle for a gals-only camping trip. When three hunters cross their path, Abby (Aselton) spontaneously invites them to share their campfire and liquor. The guys accept, but after the very married Abby gets very drunk […]
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RED 2
Its inevitable successor, RED 2 (the acronym stands for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous,” per the comic-book source material), is, instead, a caricature of a caricature, one that revels in its lack of substance to the point of phlegmatic disinterest. The film revisits retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis, A Good Day to Die Hard), who, […]
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Evil Dead
In Sam Raimi’s wildly original, wildly influential The Evil Dead of 1981, five friends into the woods for a cabin getaway and couldn’t get away from the demons they accidentally summon from an ancient book. In his feature debut, Uruguay director Fede Alvarez retains that setup, minus the vacation. In his vision, the young men […]
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The Way, Way Back
Fox Searchlight — the studio that brought us Garden State, Juno and Little Miss Sunshine — has a knack for these pleasure centers, and The Way, Way Back is the latest installment in this line of cutesy, sentimental films. It opens Friday. The story follows the 14-year-old Duncan (Liam James, TV’s The Killing), an awkward, […]
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Femme Fatales: The Complete Second Season
This second batch of episodes, 12 in all on two DVDs, seems more confident than Femme‘s freshman outing, even if story quality remains wildly varied. Tanit Phoenix (Safe House) hosts the proceedings, with scenarios that include: • a comic-book heroine, • time-traveling clones, • noir-drenched detectives • and so much moaning. For every leaden dud […]
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Would You Rather
In order to afford a bone marrow transplant for her ailing brother (Logan Miller, The Bling Ring), young, unemployed Iris (Brittany Snow, Pitch Perfect) accepts an exclusive invitation to a dinner party hosted by businessman Shepard Lambrick (Jeffrey Combs, the Re-Animator trilogy), at which his foundation will award a sizable sum of money to one […]
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Blood Runs Cold
In this Swedish take on the all-American slasher film, Winona (newcomer Hanna Oldenburg) seeks refuge from stress at a vacation home, only to find more of it. Part of that is because she runs into her ex-boyfriend, Rick (Patrick Saxe, also making a feature debut), amid all the wintry conditions, but most of it is […]
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Enter the Dragon: 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition
With this, director Robert Clouse made what is easily Bruce Lee’s finest film (and then proceeded to follow it up with a never-ending string of schlock). While Lee is technically one point of a heroic triangle — with A Nightmare on Elm Street’s John Saxon and blaxploitation icon Jim Kelly being the others — let’s […]
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The Call
Halle Berry (Cloud Atlas) leads the show as Jordan Turner, a veteran 911 operator in Los Angeles. (If anything, she should dial 911 for help with her distracting hairdo.) In the prologue, she’s giving questionable advice to a girl who calls about a prowler, resulting in the teen’s death. Six months later, Jordan is still […]
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Crimewave
When I ran across Crimewave at the Buttons video store at N.W. 63rd and May Avenue in 1988, I had never heard of it. However, I rented it as soon as I spotted that it was co-written by Joel and Ethan Coen; at the time, they had just made this little comedy I absolutely adored, […]