Autumn Waltz (2018)
Ognjen Petkovic’s short thriller is a tense look at a couple trying to escape a war zone and make it out of enemy lines without becoming one of the many victims of the ensuing battles. Set in the 1990’s amidst a landscape of rubble, and torn down deluxe flats, a man and woman attempt to make it outside of Yugoslavia. When they’re faced with a barricade of ruthless armed soldiers, they make up a story that allows them free passage. But as the soldiers interrogate them their reasons for leaving their home land begin to fall apart. At the last minute they’re saved by the most unlikely source and it’s a testament to how the past can affect the present, and vice versa. It’s a well shot and tense short with some fine photography and I quite liked it.
Tag Archives: Drama
In the Heat of the Night (1967): Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]
Norman Jewison’s “In the Heat of the Night” remains one of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger’s banner dramas, it’s a tense, taut, and engrossing crime thriller that brings to life one of the most compelling on screen heroes I’ve ever seen. Based on John Ball’s series of books about African American gumshoe named Virgil Tibbs, Jewison brings to the screen the first of the books. “Heat,” as written by Stirling Silliphant for the big screen is an imperfect drama with a little bit too much fat to the narrative, but in the end it comes out as a pretty as remarkable drama about the racially turbulent South and a man trying to uncover a crime that reaches far deeper than anyone, even the police chief, realizes.
Glass (2019)
Night Shyamalan shocked just about everyone when at the end of “Split” his wonderful thriller about a psycho with multiple personalities, he introduced the reveal that we were watching a secret sequel to “Unbreakable” the whole time. “Glass” is the third film in the trilogy of films that break down superhero tropes, the superhero genre, and the mythology of superheroes as a whole. Even with Shyamalan shocking people with “Split” and still being one of the first of his ilk to break apart the superhero mythology with “Unbreakable,” his last film in the series, “Glass,” promises to polarize just about everyone.
State Like Sleep (2019)
After her actor husband kills himself in nebulous circumstances, a photographer grieves then comes back to where they lived to figure out what happened before his suicide and perhaps why he killed himself.
The Howling 3 (1987) [Blu-Ray]
By the time “The Howling III” rolled around, the studios basically stopped continuing the storyline from the original Joe Dante movie and just turned the movie series in to an anthology. The only connection “The Howling” movies have with one another is that they have werewolves in them. The rest of the movies are basically of varying quality with drastically different narratives. Ironically latter day sequels (The Howling: New Moon Rising) would use clips from the former films as a crutch to make up for lack of story and the painfully low budget.
10 to Midnight (1983): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
It’s fascinating to watch “10 to Midnight” today and explore how dated it’s become and how much the themes and overtones it presents have been somewhat flipped on its head. J. Lee Thompson attempts to appeal to the folks that love their Dirty Harry’s and Lee Marvins by basically trying to turn Charles Bronson in to something of an aged vigilante that we can root for. But he basically comes off as an anti-hero, and “10 to Midnight” ends up becoming a war between a psychopath and a corrupt cop, both of whom never actually come out looking pristine once the film draws to a close.
Rust Creek (2019)
Sawyer Cotter is an over achiever who is very much looking forward to a new job and decides to drive home. While driving home, she accidentally loses her bearings and winds up on a deserted path on the back woods of Kentucky, where she meets Hollister and Buck. The pair happens to be drug traffickers who suspect she might have seen what they were up to. Anxious, they attempt to kidnap her, but Sawyer manages to fight them off and flee in to the woods. As they track her down, Sawyer has to rely on her wits to find her way back home, and becomes a part of a bigger plot involving the drug wars.