Tuesday, September 13, 2016
One would expect great things form a film featuring Rachel Weisz and Michael Shannon, but the end result is just sort of weird.
Weisz plays Alice, a woman who has been reinventing herself for the past 15 years, assuming new identities and occupations all over the world. She winds up at a dinner party where Tom (Shannon) has some major suspicions about her.
Director Joshua Martin’s movie feels like it’s meandering a bit too much all too often, and the performers feel a little listless and lost. Shannon and Weisz have a couple of very good scenes together, but it’s all for naught because the characterizations never feel complete. Alice would seem to be a chance for Weisz to really cut loose, but the character is written with no real charms or intelligence. She’s just a boring, uncreative liar, and any statement the film is trying to make about the meaning of one’s identity falls flat. Shannon is good here, but Shannon is always good. He, too, is never really allowed to do much with his time in the film.
There are some walk-ons by some fairly well known actors and actresses late in the film, and that provides an interesting jolt, but not enough to pump any real life into the movie.
Tags: Rachel Weisz , Michael Shannon , Joshua Martin , Video
Monday, September 12, 2016
If you are a fan of directors like David Cronenberg and Dario Argento, then you might be able to make it through this rather unpleasant horror-comedy.
A party girl (Natasha Lyonne) blacks out at a rambunctious gathering and finds herself going through pregnancy symptoms shortly thereafter. Those symptoms go from standard nausea to skin peeling off and teeth falling out, and she eventually discovers there’s something well beyond standard procreating at play.
Chloe Sevigny costars as a fellow, low class party girl for director Danny Perez, whose film gets progressively gross up until the really, really gross birthing scene.
Argento and early Cronenberg were never my cup of tea; I just don’t get down with most body horror scenarios. That said, this film will certainly have an appeal to those who like their horror hardcore when it comes to the gore quotient. As for the story, it’s a muddled affair involving drug addicts, space aliens and Rosemary’s Baby-like setups.
Don’t watch this if you hated movies like The Human Centipede, Rabid and Deep Red. If that sort of extreme horror isn’t to your liking, this is liable to put you in a really bad mood.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Just in case you've got time to squeeze in a movie or two, Casa Video sent us this list of their most popular rentals from the last week. Enjoy!
- The Jungle Book
Tags: casa video , local business , rent some movies , Video
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Mel Gibson is a fucking asshole, but he can act with the best of them.
As Link, an ex con with a tattoo parlor in his trailer and a missing daughter (Erin Moriarty), he’s a stunning, grizzly marvel elevating mediocre material into something completely watchable. When the missing daughter gets herself into some major trouble, she comes back on the grid by giving Link a call. Having never really known his daughter, Link is determined to be the dad he never was thanks to a seven year prison stint, and he goes into super protective mode. The two wind up on the run from a drug cartel, and that leads to sights like Gibson on a motorcycle blowing people away with a shotgun.
This is a tour de farce for Gibson, whose ranting inside Link’s trailer as it is being shot to shreds just might be the best piece of acting he’s ever put forth.
Director Jean-Francois Richet lucked out in casting Gibson as this character desperately in search of redemption. It suits Gibson very well at this time, and I can’t think of an actor who would’ve done a better job with this material. On paper, this script probably looked like a million movies that came before it, but Gibson embraces his chance to rock out and goes bonkers with it. William H. Macy is reliably good as Link’s sponsor, Moriarty holds her own against the insane Gibson and Michael Parks kills it as a former Link friend and true bastard.
If you should choose to watch it, I think you will be surprised.
Streaming on iTunes and Amazon.com during limited theatrical release.
Tags: Blood Father , Mel Gibson sucks at life but is a decent actor , Video
Friday, September 2, 2016
(Most of) You get a long weekend, so there's plenty of time for some good old fasioned movie marathoning. Roll on in to Casa, grab some popcorn and start planning your entertainment schedule.
- The Nice Guys
Tags: casa video , long weekend watch list , Video
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Craig Robinson and Markees Christmas are one of the better father-son teams the movies have seen in a long time in this charmer from writer-director Chad Hartigan. Christmas plays Morris, a thirteen year-old American living in Germany because his dad Curtis (Robinson) has a job there as a soccer coach.
Morris is learning German, trying to make friends, and developing a crush on older girl Katrin (Lina Keller). He’s dealing with the kind of crap you would expect a black American to be dealing with in an all white city.
The dynamic between Robinson (easily his best performance) and Christmas makes it seem like these guys are really father and son. They compliment each other perfectly, and it’s refreshing to see a father and son talk and deal the way they do in this movie. The relationship between Morris and the somewhat troublesome Katrin is also refreshing in that it never seems false.
The movie should get Christmas some more roles in the future, while taking Robinson into new, more dramatic territories, because he’s beyond good.
It’s a solid coming-of-age story in an unexpected and unpredictable locale, with a cast of characters (including Carla Juri of Wetlands as Morris’ tutor) that scores across the board. This is one of the summer’s great surprises
(Streaming on iTunes and Amazon.com during limited theatrical release).
Tags: Craig Robinson , Markees Christmas , Chad Hartigan , Video
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Director Todd Phillips, a man generally responsible for slob comedies like The Hangover and Old School, goes a more serious, satirical route with this one. The results are mixed, but it’s ultimately entertaining.
Based on an article in Rolling Stone magazine that described real-life gun-runners who bilked the government and screwed each other over, the film plays out as a sort of The Wolf of Wall Street with weapons and Albania instead of stocks and the Financial District. Contributing to that Wolf vibe would be Jonah Hill (who stars in both) playing Efraim Diveroli, a diabolical, narcissistic weapons dealer who puts profit before morality and friendship.
Even though Hill throws in an annoying laugh that should’ve been discouraged, the core of his performance is still funny, and brutal when it needs to be. Miles Teller plays his partner, David Packouz, a massage therapist who can’t keep his career in line and needs to straighten out fast—especially because he has a kid on the way with his wife, Iz (Ana de Armas, far less scary here than when she was torturing Keanu Reeves in Knock Knock).
The film is at its best when the two are delivering a shipment of guns to Iraq on the ground in a beat up truck. Both Hill and Teller are good here, even when the film treads into familiar territory. This isn’t a great movie, but especially in a summer that’s stunk, it’s one of the season’s better ones.
Monday, August 29, 2016
Parker Sawyers and Tika Sumpter shine as Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson on their first date in this ultra sweet, enjoyable account of when the future President and First Lady got together for a day and eventually went to see Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.
Writer-director Richard Tanne, above all things, does a great job of capturing the spirit of the late eighties with his period piece, placing the two icons in a very believable, low key environment.
Sawyers (a dead ringer for Obama) and Sumpter capture the spirit of the couple without exaggerating any of their characteristics. It’s a blast watching a young Robinson, who was actually Obama’s mentor and advisor at a law firm he worked for that summer, keeping a persistent Obama in check with his romantic pursuits. It’s also funny to see the future president lighting up many cigarettes during the course of the movie, including his very first scene.
Tanne’s approach to the subject matter is beautifully understated, allowing for his performers to show us a couple of real people getting to know each other slowly. We all know how things turn out for the couple, but it’s fun to see them starting in Obama’s crappy, smoke stained jalopy with an unimpressed Michelle in the passenger’s seat.
By the end of the movie, he’s managed to impress her on a level that just might lead to a second date.
Tags: Southside with You , Parker Sawyers , Tika Sumpter , Richard Tanne , Video
Friday, August 26, 2016
Feeling the need for a weekend in front of the TV? Here's your weekly look at the most popular movies at Casa Video:
- The Boss
Tags: casa video top 10 , casa video , rent some movies , Image , Video
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
An improv group called the Commune faces an uncertain future when their theater is closing and members of their team are faced with life changing events. Writer-director-actor Mike Birbiglia plays Miles, an improvisational actor in his mid-thirties who feels passed over, while Jack (Keegan-Michael Key) finds himself in line for a role on The Weekend (the film’s less copyright infringed stand-in for Saturday Night Live). Gillian Jacobs (who is having a nice year with this and her role in the excellent Netflix series, Love) plays Jack’s girlfriend Samantha, who also has a chance to advance her career. They, and other members of the troupe, must decide between real money-paying gigs and doing what they actually love, that being getting up on stage and making stuff up for free.
I personally, can’t stand watching comedy improv, so that perhaps knocks the film down a peg for me, because there’s a lot of bad improv in this movie. Balancing things out for the better would be the performances from all involved, especially Key and Jacobs, who should do more projects together. Birbiglia does a nice job of portraying that artistic need to do one’s art in the face of all adversity.
Tags: Mike Birbiglia , Keegan-Michael Key , Gillian Jacobs , Kate Micucci , Chris Gethard , Tami Sagher , don't think twice , Video
