In 1983, a group of Georgians from well-educated families try to leave the Soviet Union at all cost. Their solution to hijack a place quickly turns bad and the surviving members get tried and executed, with the exception of one member.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Abominable (2005): Special Edition [Blu-Ray/DVD]
It’s pretty tough to find a good Bigfoot horror film these days, and whenever one really good title for the subgenre comes along, you have to hold on to it and appreciate it. Ryan Schifrin’s “Abominable” is a fantastic entry in to the sub-genre that takes Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” injects a little lunacy, and rather than Raymond Burr, we have a hairy, vicious, super strong abominable snowman terrorizing a group of girls. While on paper that sounds like the formula for a potentially silly movie, “Abominable” is stellar. It’s creepy, darkly funny, gory, and has one of the best final scenes I’ve ever seen in a horror movie, barnone.
Hamlet (2018)
Sarah Frankcom’s 2014 production, staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester and now being offered in a filmed recording, is a bare-bones, modern dress, multicultural interpretation of “Hamlet” that included gender reassignment in a few key roles.
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At The Door (Dys-) (2014)
A couple stuck in their Montreal apartment after a major event outside sees their already strained relationship start devolving into mistrust and perhaps a bit of madness.
The Last Witness (2018)
A journalist filled with gusto and ambition accidentally discovers the murder of 22,000 officers of the Polish army seemingly by the Soviet during WWII. The deeper he digs into the issue, the more danger he puts himself in.
Saving Brinton (2017)
This documentary focuses on Michael Zahs, a retired history teacher in rural Iowa who was responsible for rescuing rare nitrate films from the beginning of the 20th century that once belonged to William and Indiana Brinton, a pair of pioneering cinema exhibitors. The Brinton collection consisted of 130 films plus numerous magic lantern slides, and it also included a long-lost fantasy work from Georges Méliès called “The Triple-Headed Woman.”
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The 15:17 to Paris (2018) [Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital]
After the sheer duds that were “Jersey Boys,” and “Sully,” I was definitely ready for “The 15:17 to Paris” to be a riveting and emotional tale of true heroism in a dark world. The story of the Sacramento Hometown heroes is one of the great modern stories of heroism and courage in the face of sheer danger. And I could have thought of at least a dozen ways I would have loved to learn about this tale rather than a glorified television movie that’s pretty much a huge misstep in every direction. “The 15:17 to Paris” teeters back and forth between pure saccharine nonsense and baffling choices in filmmaking that kept me rolling my eyes and groaning throughout its run time.