Escape Through Africa
Ted Betz’s directorial debut, Escape Through Africa, is an ambitious action romp – but a limited budget and unpolished script make for a tedious viewing experience.
Eric Roberts
The Surprise Visit
The Surprise Visit features a small ensemble of actors who seem to be challenging each other. Only they’re not inspiring each other, they’re competing against each other for who can exaggerate the most. And director Nick Lyon is letting his cast “duke it out”.
Blackbear
The synopsis of Blackbear vaguely reminds one of the 2006 film Annapolis–a film that, if you recall (and if so, good for you), was marketed as a recruit training film in the vein of A Gentleman and an Officer, but was actually, secretly, a boxing film. Blackbear is similar: it starts off as a war film, with the two central characters as captives by ISIS, only to quickly become a boxing film within the film’s…
Never Saw It Coming
Gail Harvey’s latest movie Never Saw It Coming has a title so unintentionally fitting, it makes my head spin.
The Red Maple Leaf
In Frank D’Angelo’s The Red Maple Leaf, special agent Alfonso Palermo (D’Angelo) asks potential suspects to “indulge him” during interrogations. I’ve heard some describe D’Angelo’s filmmaking as indulgent, which is why I smirked whenever Palermo asked this. Whether this was a cheeky wink toward critics is a mystery, and will probably remain unanswered.
Moments of Clarity
Out of all the dramedies I can remember, Moments of Clarity has the murkiest line separating what’s supposed to be funny and what’s supposed to be taken seriously. It’s the most uncomfortable moviegoing experience of 2016.
Sicilian Vampire
Just like staring at an inkblot, “random” and “strange” are the first words that spring to mind if I had to describe Frank D’Angelo’s Sicilian Vampire to movie goers. However, the oddities give D’Angelo’s film a fever dream allure – it’s entertaining one way or another.