On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: HIGH LANE, premiering today and simultaneously at Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX.
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What begins as a surprisingly intense physiological analysis of translating real fear on screen, divulges into little more than your typical cannibalistic forest dweller attacking innocent young hikers in HIGH LANE. This French thriller directed by Abel Ferry, centers around a group of extreme mountain climbers who find themselves trapped on a forlorn peak- where the only way off appears to be death.

For those readers fearful of heights, stay away from the first 30 minutes of the film as the high octane climbing scenes, filmed with extreme clarity (climaxing as the repel lines break), provoke even the most iron of stomachs into a fit of nausea. Complete with incoherent flashbacks of a deranged hospital stay that is never fully explained, the beginning of the movie succeeds by instilling real fear in viewers.

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: FREAKONOMICS. 
Email Adam

When one thinks back on the omnibus movie format, such classics as NEW YORK STORIES or COFFEE & CIGARETTES will usually come to mind. Well, now the documentary form gets the treatment with FREAKONOMICS.

The outcome is a fairly enjoyable albeit slick treatment, not so surprising considering the blue chip doc directors involved. Anyone who read the best selling non-fiction book from which the movie is adapted, and which includes its two co-authors, rogue economist Steven D. Levitt and the journalist Stephen J. Dubner, braiding together its five segments (directed by the film’s executive producer, Seth Gordon) will be in familiar terrain.

This reviewer had the opportunity to listen to the audio book on a cross-country trip some years ago and, as a result, felt a sense of déjà-vu watching the documentary. This is probably the result of Gordon’s loyalty to the book, a wise thing considering what a phenomena it has become. Doubtless, the viewer will feel they are in quite capable hands.

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: CEMETERY JUNCTION (FilmBuff).
Email Amy Slotnick

A smart and entertaining film from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant (creators of hit television “The Office” and “Extras”) that did not get a US release makes CEMETERY JUNCTION a perfect film for VOD. Set in 1973 about a group of working class young “blokes” from the dead-end town of CEMETERY JUNCTION, all trying to figure out their futures, the film has a few good laughs and a lot of heart.

Escaping the factory work typical of his family and friends, the main character Freddie (Christian Cooke) is hired as a door-to-door life insurance salesman when the boss (played by Ralph Fiennes) takes a liking to him during the job interview. As Freddie learns the ropes, he connects with Julie, the boss’ attractive daughter (played by Felicity Jones) who also happens to be Freddie’s old friend from school. Julie is engaged to Mike (Matthew Goode), her father’s suck-up protégé and Freddie’s supervisor.

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: AMERICAN COWSLIP.
Email Carol

AMERICAN COWSLIP is subtitled “A Redneck Comedy” but not in the Jeff Foxworthy sense. Sure, you’ll get the ubiquitous car parked on the front lawn, but this is not a formulaic we’re-poor-and-unsophisticated-but-still-happy kind of movie.

Instead, AMERICAN COWSLIP attempts to answer the question, What would happen if Eric Stoltz and the dude who played Waingro in HEAT had a baby and that baby grew up to be a heroin addict, doted on by three grannies and shamelessly pursued by a 17-year old hottie? And what would happen if we put our heroin hero between two speeding meteors on a collision course: being evicted from his home into an agoraphobic nightmare or winning the “Garden of the Year” contest, thus saving his house, sanity and baggie of horse? Yes, what would happen indeed.

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: BANKSY’S COMING FOR DINNER.

Imagine that you have 17 hours to shoot a movie about art’s most anonymous hero. You can’t show his face. You even have to mask his voice like some mob informant. You have one shot at this so you’d better get it right. This is the first time he’s ever done this and it might be the last. If you pull it off, it could kick start your career. If you blow it, it’s over.

Banksy?

Director Ivan Massow accepted his own challenge to film a documentary about a dinner with graffiti artist Banksy and an assortment of British celebrities who you probably wouldn’t cross the street to meet.

Charismatic grande dame Joan Collins is our hostess on the grounds of her gilded estate, complete with a herd of deer and the occasional peacock: a fitting anti-setting for an artist who'd probably stencil a heroin spoon instead of a lobster fork. Maybe he’ll tag her pool house on his way out.