The Grouchy Editor

Blue Jasmine

 

You can take Woody Allen out of New York, but you can’t take New York out of Woody Allen – thank goodness.  Cate Blanchett shines as a society snob who takes a tumble when her husband goes to prison and her finances vanish, forcing her to shack up with a sister on the West Coast.  The setting is San Francisco, but the characters – each with his or her own idea of “the good life” – are pure New York.  Release:  2013   Grade:  B+

 

*****

 

Honeymoon

 

Here’s a spooky movie that’s refreshing both for what it is and for what it is not.  It is not zombies and it’s not vampires and it’s not all special effects and gore.  (OK, there is some gore.)  It is a throwback to 1950s science fiction, in which the communist threat reared its ugly head in monsters and neighbors and plants.  The story, in which newlyweds Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway find more than good sex at a secluded lakeside cottage, is a bit pokey at first, but the final act is chilling.  Release:  2014  Grade:  B

 

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

All Is Lost

 

Robert Redford plays a yachtsman who struggles for eight days to survive in the Indian Ocean after his boat is punctured by floating junk.  Redford was praised for his solo performance in this harrowing tale, and deservedly so, but All Is Lost is really a director’s movie … and a sound engineer’s movie, and an editor’s movie, and a cinematographer’s movie, et al.  It’s a fine showcase for what only Hollywood can do:  dazzle us with sight and sound.  Release:  2013   Grade:  B+

 

*****

 

Il Futuro

 

This is one of those artsy, low-plot foreign movies that suck you in because the characters are interesting and the images are striking.  Sad-eyed Manuela Martelli plays an orphaned teen who, along with her younger brother and his shady pals, concocts a plot to rob an aging blind man (Rutger Hauer).  The ensuing romance between old man Hauer and waif-like Martelli manages to be simultaneously creepy and erotic.   Release:  2013  Grade:  B-

 

*****

 

Wake in Fright

 

“He was a good guy.  But then he fell in with a bad crowd.”  John Grant (Gary Bond) is a good guy, a schoolteacher toiling in the boonies of Australia’s Outback.  He goes on holiday, has a drink, does a little gambling … and then meets the menfolk of a community known as “The Yabba.”  What follows is a harrowing, graphic look at just how low the human spirit can fall – disturbing stuff, but expertly realized by filmmaker Ted Kotcheff.  Release:  1971  Grade:  B+

 

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

The Den

 

Graduate student Elizabeth (Melanie Papalia) is researching online behavior at a video-chat site, but while she spends hours staring at a computer screen, the computer is secretly staring back at her.  The first half of The Den – shot entirely from Web-cam/phone-cam points of view – feels a lot more like Skype than Netflix.  But after tapping into our primal fears about invasion of privacy, the story devolves from clever and cool into a cliché-ridden amalgam of conspiracy silliness and Saw-like gore.  Release:  2014  Grade : C

 

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Tiny

 

There’s something romantic about chucking it all and adopting a back-to-nature existence, but I’m not sure I could follow the example of the young couple in Tiny who spend a year building a 130-square-foot cabin to call home in Colorado.  They filmed their project, which is part of a “tiny house” movement in which ecologically minded (or financially strapped) folk build and live in miniature homes.  It’s a fantasy with allure, but — there’s not enough room for my books.  Give me Dick Proenneke’s cabin in Alaska, or perhaps Jim Rockford’s trailer on the beach – small, certainly, but not that small.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B+

 

 *****

 

Black Rock

 

It’s “girls’ night out” from hell for three women whose bonding trip to a deserted isle goes sour when they encounter some Iraq war vets.  Rock asks some good questions: Is a woman ever partly responsible for her own sexual assault? Is every military veteran deserving of our respect?  But after an intriguing setup, director-writer-star Katie Aselton’s story degenerates into a silly, quite literal, battle of the sexes.   Release: 2013  Grade:  B-

 

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Birth of the Living Dead

 

The best part of this “making of” documentary is the gee-whiz good humor of filmmaker George A. Romero who, 46 years after the release of Night of the Living Dead, still gets a kick out of the fact that so many people have seen — and loved — his little Pittsburgh-based movie.  Romero is a much better salesman than some of the gassy windbags who are also interviewed and who seem hell-bent on attributing way too much cultural significance to what is, after all, a low-budget horror film.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B 

 

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Don Jon 

         

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Jon, a shallow bartender who is addicted to porn. Scarlett Johansson is the spoiled “princess” who wants Jon under her thumb, and Julianne Moore is a lonely widow out to save him from both porn and bad relationships.  The message is a good one, but unless you buy into the Gordon-Levitt and Moore hook-up – I didn’t – it falls a bit short as romantic comedy.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B

 

 

Captain Phillips

 

Hollywood has always been good at producing the fact-based action movie – provided the script isn’t too beholden to actual facts.  I have no idea how accurate Captain Phillips is as it dramatizes a 2009 cargo-ship hijacking off the coast of Somalia, but it’s tense and exciting – think Dog Day Afternoon on the high seas – and Tom Hanks’s captain is, as Hanks characters so often are, a man you can cheer for.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B+

 

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Klown

         

This Danish road-trip comedy recalls old-fashioned American slapstick, the type of goofiness we used to get from Laurel and Hardy – but with one big difference:  The sight gags, often hilarious, are also rated X.  Danish TV comics Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen star as oil-and-water pals who embark on a male-bonding wilderness trip that goes awry thanks to their own ineptitude and a 12-year-old boy who tags along for the ride.  Release:  2010  Grade:  B

 

 

        

 

Canadian actress Tinsel Korey plays a troubled bookseller going through hell at work and at home – but who, or what, is responsible for that hell?  Stained tested my tolerance for the “it was only a dream” school of filmmaking, in which the viewer is never quite sure if what he sees happening is, in fact, really happening, and it doesn’t help that the first half of this psychological horror-show is slow.  On the plus side, Korey is good as a woman who doesn’t handle stress particularly well.   Release: 2010  Grade:  B-

 

 

The Woman

 

 

Well, The Woman ain’t boring.   I’m not entirely sure what the movie is – black comedy, feminist revenge flick, unpleasant gorefest – because it’s a tonal mess, but it ain’t boring.  Sean Bridgers plays Henry Higgins from Hell, a country lawyer named Cleek who keeps his family in check with a mix of condescension, threats, and old-fashioned whuppings.  One fateful day Cleek spots a primitive woman in the wilds of Massachusetts (yes, apparently there are wilds in Massachusetts), decides to take her home with him, and then … I can’t explain it.  But it ain’t boring.  Release:  2011  Grade:  B

 

 

Passion

 

 

Thirty years ago, Brian De Palma was king of the erotic thriller.  Today … not so much.  It’s a shame because Passion is certainly watchable and bears De Palma’s distinctive visuals and soundtrack.  But the story, in which a corporate cat-fight between executive Rachel McAdams and subordinate Noomi Rapace turns deadly, is confusing and illogical.  In De Palma movies of yore such narrative lapses were both minor and overshadowed by the man’s dazzling direction.  Not anymore.  Release:  2012  Grade:  C+

 

 

Short Term 12

     

 

Looking for something that all of the critics love?  Short Term 12 has a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and for good reason.  This little film about a handful of young counselors at a home for at-risk teens worried me at first, because it initially carries a whiff of Afterschool Special.  Uh-oh, I thought, it’s one of those earnest “good for you” movies.  But I was wrong. Unlike just about every other Hollywood release, Short Term 12 is neither cynical and snarky nor sappy and stupid.  It’s smart and moving.  And lead actress Brie Larson is a real standout.  Release:  2013  Grade: A-

 

 

  

 

Stardom puts the spotlight on vocalists who came close to the music-industry brass ring but, either through hard luck or, in some cases, because they didn’t really want it, missed out on solo stardom.  There is a lot of great music in this Oscar-winning tribute to backup singers – but not, really, all that much drama.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B-

 

 

.      

 

A quote in the ads for this film informs us that Jailbait is “in the vein of Orange Is the New Black.”  Uh, no, it isn’t.  It’s “in the vein” of trashy ’70s women-in-prison flicks like The Big Doll House.  Mostly it’s just writer-director Jared Cohn filming his girlfriend, actress Sara Malakul Lane, in one degrading nude scene after another. Lane, who was about 30 when this was shot, plays a “juvenile” sent to a detention center for young girls, which of course entails rape, shower scenes, more rape, and lesbian sex.  Lane does look good naked (she also looks 30),  but unlike those ’70s B-movies, this jail drama is a bore.  Release:  2013  Grade:  D

 

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

                                       Excision

   

 

It might test your tolerance for gross-out visuals, and I thought the ending was lame, but the witty horror-comedy Excision is also an amusing battle of wills between teenage social outcast Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord) and her mother, the uber-controlling Phyllis (Traci Lords).  Marlee Matlin, Ray Wise, Malcolm McDowell and John Waters lend support.  Release:  2012  Grade:  B

 

          

 

 

*****

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Penthouse North (aka Blindsided)

 

 

 

Jug Face

 

 

 

Chop

 

Lance is a former drug addict trying to get his act together.  Problem is, he’s offended someone, and that someone has a bone to pick with Lance — quite literally, as it turns out, and Lance’s life soon becomes a nightmare of blackmail, torture, and missing fingers.  For awhile, when Lance is toyed with by a stranger who refuses to tell him what he’s done wrong, Chop is delicious black comedy, and actors Will Keenan and Timothy Muskatell are amusing duelists.  But then director Trent Haaga decides to cater to the gore-lovers in our midst, and the film devolves into a live-action Itchy & Scratchy Show.  Release:  2011  Grade:  C+

 

*****

 

House of Tolerance

.      

 

A visual feast — and not just because of the female flesh on display.  The bordello sets, art direction, and leisurely pace capture a bygone world (1899-1900) that’s both seductive and soulless, as director Bertrand Bonello concentrates on the cloistered, dead-end lives of a dozen high-class Parisian prostitutes and their indentured servitude to wealthy clients.  The photography is gorgeous and the actors are top-notch, but the movie itself, like transactions in a fancy brothel, is a bit cold.  Release:  2011  Grade:  B+

 

*****

 

Cottage Country

.       

 

Must be tough living next door to the country that is home to Hollywood, the world’s premiere manufacturer of motion pictures.  That might give the film industry in your own country an inferiority complex.  I don’t know how else to explain Canada, which cranks out the most peculiar movies.  Cottage Country is a black comedy — in theory — about an engaged couple caught up in grisly murders at a rustic lakeside retreat, but its mix of yuks and yuck is a herky-jerky mess.  Release:  2013  Grade:  C-

 

*****

 

Sister

.      

 

Sister is one of those slice-of-life dramas that rise or fall depending on how much emotion you invest in the main characters.  In this case, we watch as a family of two — 12-year-old Simon and twentysomething Louise — struggle to get by in the shadow of a posh Swiss mountain resort, Simon by stealing from rich guests and Louise by, well, not much.  I cared about the two of them, a bit, but not enough to compensate for the film’s slow stretches and a fairly predictable plot.  Release:  2012  Grade:  B- 

 

*****

 

Deep Water

.        

 

In 1968, while competing in a sailing race around the globe, a mild-mannered businessman named Donald Crowhurst encountered problems with his boat.  Buckling to intense personal and professional pressures, and with no hope of winning the race, for a time Crowhurst managed to excite a breathless British press (and the world) by posting false progress reports.  Today, Crowhurst is a historical footnote, but this documentary about an English everyman who bit off more than he could chew, with tragic results, is both sad and thought-provoking.  Release:   2006  Grade:  B+

 

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

You’re Next

.       

 

Anyone who subscribes to a movie-streaming service like Netflix can tell you this:  There is no shortage of low-budget horror flicks.  To stand apart, a good chiller must either offer something new (The Blair Witch Project) or excel at generating suspense (anything from director James Wan).  You’re Next, yet another home-invasion story, does neither.  It has decent production values and competent acting, but like too many films in this genre, it substitutes gore for genuine fear and dishes up characters who do unbelievably stupid things.  Release:  2013  Grade:  C- 

 

*****

 

Prisoners

.       

 

I am imagining a pre-production meeting for Prisoners.  Suit A:  “Excellent story.  Two daughters go missing and we then explore the grief of their families.”  Suit B:  “Sure, but that’s not enough.  Audiences expect thrills, so let’s toss in a convoluted serial-kidnapper angle.  And we need some snakes in the movie.”  Suit C:  “Sounds good, but young people want blood and guts, so let’s include some graphic torture scenes.”  And so we got Prisoners, a good-looking, well-acted production that’s too clever by half and too long by about 30 minutes.  Snakes?  My eyes are still rolling.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B

 

*****

 

Insidious:  Chapter 2

.      

 

I’ve praised director James Wan (see above), but I’m going to stop doing that because after watching this tepid sequel to Wan’s creepy Insidious, it’s clear that he’s lost his mojo.  Uninspired and clichéd (pianos play themselves; battery-powered toys turn themselves on), Insidious: Chapter 2 finds the Lambert family once again beset by evil spirits — and Wan recycling scare tactics from better chillers, including his own.  Release:  2013  Grade:  C

 

*****

 

North Face

.       

 

I have no idea how much of this fact-based German film about an ill-fated mountain-climbing expedition involves stunt work, or how much of it is special effects, but the result is hair-raising — especially if you have a fear of heights.  A subplot about Austrian-German loyalty to Hitler in 1936 is distracting, but once the characters begin climbing the mountain … damn.  Release:  2008  Grade:  B+

 

*****

 

The Bling Ring

.       

 

“The Bling Ring,” in case you’ve forgotten, was a band of young Californians who gained notoriety for burglarizing the homes of Hollywood’s rich and famous, including Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.  Sofia Coppola’s film is curiously flat yet watchable.  We observe these vapid young people as they observe (and burgle) their celebrity role models — and none of us learn a thing of value.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B-

 

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)