Abigail (2024)

A group of criminals kidnap a young dancer and hold her hostage at a lavish estate while attempting to extort her father for a huge ransom. When the girl informs them that he has no intention of paying, they get cold feet and attempt to leave, tripping the security system and sealing them inside the secluded manor which happens to contain an evil, mysterious presence within.

Oh, wait...you mean all the posters and promotional materials spoiled this initial twist? Yeah, the little girl just happens to be a vampire ballerina who delights in playing with her prey and picking them off one by one. This one doesn't do anything special, but it's fun if you're in the right mood for a rip-roaring horror-comedy.

2½ deadly pirouettes out of 5

Cuckoo (2024)

Pouring one out for my homies...

Logline: American teenager relocates to the Bavarian Alps with her family and encounters some kooky goings-ons.

I enjoyed this one mostly because I had no idea what the fuck was going on most of the time. It's rare these days that the trailer doesn't give away all its secrets. I still don't understand a lot of it, but I dug the unsettling atmosphere and disorienting way it all plays out. To say any more would be a disservice to the surprises it contains, and the odd directions it takes.

3½ cuckoo calls out of 5

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST [2017]

Twilight: Breaking Dawn director Bill Condon faithfully adapts Disney's animated classic Beauty and the Beast into a live-action musical.
The story of a young woman who falls in love with a monstrous fella that lives within a magical castle keeps Alan Menken & Howard Ashman's iconic songs firmly intact much to the pleasure of fans of the original film.  However heavily auto-tuned Emma Watson's flat-lining performance is far too dull to equal the strength of her character's beliefs.  Dan Stevens does his best as the Beast underneath a heavy layer of poorly rendered CGI fur but it's simply never enough to ignore it's artificial look.  Thankfully Luke Evans & Josh Gad are entertaining bad-boy scene-stealers, while Ewan McGregor & Emma Thompson's voice-work an absolute delight.  For an extravagant musical the camerawork is an absolute bore that never quite elevates the film to majesty it should have been.  Close but no cigar.

2½ really annoying singing wardrobes out of 5

COLOSSAL [2017]

Director Nacho Vigalondo comes up with one of the more unique films of the year so far with the hilariously strange sci-fi/drama Colossal.
Anne Hathaway does a fantastic job as an alcoholic who moves back to her home town, where she discovers she somehow controls the actions of a kaiju that simultaneously appeared in South Korea.
The carnage the monster causes takes a subtle back seat to the emotional wreckage caused by the leading character's alcohol addictions and social interactions.  If you're at all familiar with the disease then there's plenty to be found in it's far-fetched yet small-scope intimacy.  Unfortunately some of the plotting is sloppily aimless and that's where it loses the impact of what should have been an instant cult-classic.

3 black-outs out of 5

THE COBBLER [2014]

With strong leading performances from Peter Dinklage, Richard Jenkins and Paul Giamatti in his previous works, I found it odd that director Thomas McCarthy would pick Adam Sandler for his latest film, The Cobbler.
A depressed shoe repair man discover when he steps into someone else's shoes he actually physically becomes the footwear's owners.  With Sandler in the lead I was somewhat doubtful of this film, but McCarthy's previous movies all impressed me so that gave me some hope for this one.  That hope was diminished pretty quickly with this unbalanced disaster.  It can't decide if it's a McCarthy character piece or a juvenille Sandler flick and with that it never manages to join the two comfortably in the middle.  The former SNL funnyman is at his best when he's restrained, as he effectively proven before but there's far too many flashes of his manboy humor just threatening to boil over into this unfocused mess.

1 pickle out of 5

A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014)

Writer/director Scott Frank attempts to bring the popular literary figure Matt Scudder, a former NYPD-cop, now private investigator to the silver screen. Liam Neeson's experienced and thoughtful nature lends well to the character. It's obvious he has carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and demons in his past. Hired by a drug trafficker (Dan Stevens), he must track down a pair of grisly serial killers who ransom their victims. The film is paced extremely well with a bulk of the proceedings dealing with Scudder's meticulous and determined pursuit. The hit-and-miss supporting cast is really the only blight on the film. While I was impressed with Olafur Olafsson's sullen performance of the third culprit, it's a shame so much runtime was wasted on Scudder's adolescent wingman TJ (Brian Bradley).

3½ unfortunate bullets to the eye out of 5

THE GUEST [2014]

Director Adam Wingard's enticingly sinister psycho-thriller, The Guest, tells the story of soldier who visits the family of a friend who died in action to deliver a message to them.
Like Wingard and his crew's previous film, You're Next, it manages to take a simple and silly concept, paste a dumb face on it and deliver it with wit, style and a slickness that keeps you glued to your seat from beginning to end.  Known for gently playing the doomed Matthew on Downton Abbey, Dan Stevens takes an impressive turn as a menacing soldier turned killing machine in this ode to the '80's b-films.  If John Carpenter were to mix A History Of Violence and Drive, with a heavy dose of excellent post-punk/Goth-pop then this is what you'd get.  

3½ mix CD's out of 5