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: THE PERFECT HOST (Magnolia Pictures).

On Demand Welcomes THE PERFECT HOST
By Chris Claro

Though they’re still around today, via such networks as Lifetime, Hallmark, and SyFy, the made-for-TV movie had its heyday in the 1970s. B-level features that ran anywhere from 70 to 95 minutes, TV movies had the feel of the lower half of a double bill. With their pulpy plots and recognizable character actors, they were junk food, a cinematic bag of Bugles with special guest star Dick Van Patten.

As I watched THE PERFECT HOST, I was transported back to the days of my nerdy youth, when, on many a Saturday night, stuck in a three-network hell, I consumed thousands of those empty TV-movie calories.

A tight little comic thriller that – almost – moves quickly enough to leap over its fairly prodigious plot holes, David Hyde-Pierce is the eponymous character, an effete Angeleno named Warwick who is putting the finishing touches on a dinner party in anticipation of the arrival of his guests. After John, a crook on the run from the police, ingratiates his way into Warwick’s house, each man employs wits and will to maintain dominance over the other.

Hyde-Pierce is one of those truly talented actors who can disappear into a role and make the audience forget his eleven-year stint as fussy Niles on FRASIER. His slow, deliberate revelation of what drives Warwick is one of the film’s biggest pluses. Swishy one minute, menacing the next, Hyde-Pierce calibrates his performance for maximum laughs.

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: GOOD NEIGHBORS (Magnolia).

GOOD NEIGHBORS On Demand
By Amy Slotnick

A serial killer in the city and a new neighbor in the building initiate the plot of thriller , GOOD NEIGHBORS. Set in Montreal in 1995, the film is lackluster and feels predictable; nevertheless it is semi entertaining.

Victor (Jay Baruchel) is new in town and moves into an old, French-style walk up apartment building, living directly above neighbors Louise (Emily Hampshire), a quirky waitress with too many cats, and Spencer (Scott Speedman), a wheel chair bound widower with a mischievous smile. The three apartments are connected by an exterior fire escape, adding an architectural spookiness as well as an alternate exit that is worked in nicely with the story’s plot.

Louise and Spencer are obsessed with the recent news stories about a serial killer who has murdered and raped several young women in the area, including a waitress from the restaurant where Louise works. Victor befriends them both and begins to walk Louise home at night, to prevent her from becoming another victim of the killer. For Victor though it is also a way to get closer to Louise with whom he has fallen almost suspiciously in love.

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: BRIGHTON ROCK (IFC Films).

BRIGHTON ROCK On Demand
By Chris Claro

In his adaptation of Graham Greene’s BRIGHTON ROCK, writer-director Rowan Joffe resets the noirish story of a low-level hood named Pinkie to early-60s England, against the background of the Mods vs. Rockers riots that gave rise to both the hippie and the skinhead movements. With the time shift, Joffe is able to take advantage of the styles and music of the era while reinforcing the timelessness of Greene’s violent tale of murder and deceit.

Sullen, violent, but oh-so-seductive Pinkie Brown (Sam Riley, CONTROL) finds himself in trouble after accidentally killing a member of a rival gang. To prove his innocence, Pinkie insinuates himself into the life of waitress Rose (Andrea Riseborough, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY), confiding in her about the murder and convincing her to marry him. Rose, under Pinkie’s hypnotic spell, does so, over the objections of Ida (Helen Mirren, RED), who sees Pinkie as the sociopath he is. True to the film’s noir roots, complications ensue and things end badly.

BRIGHTON ROCK is an odd duck: a middling thriller that almost seems more concerned with its production design than its modest story. True, the thin ties and period cars and Dave Clark Five tunes ground the film, but they also detract from a generally well-acted tale which calls to mind the moral dilemmas faced by characters in such contemporary stories of guilt and retribution as A SIMPLE PLAN and BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD.

As in those films, the slow build toward an inevitably dark conclusion saps BRIGHTON ROCK of some of its suspense, but Joffe compensates by coaxing strong performances from his actors. The Riley’s brooding Pinkie emanates a sinister sexiness that’s catnip to the naive Rose. Riseborough stands out as Rose, who becomes more mature and aware of herself even as she refuses to see Pinkie as anything but misunderstood.

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: TRESPASS (Millennium Entertainment).

Click Here For On Demand Weekly's Exclusive Interview With Director Joel Schumacher

TRESPASS - Starring Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman Premieres On Demand
By Chris Claro

This thing we call VOD is a strange beast. Populated mostly with smaller-budget independent films of a particular pedigree, video on demand has, in its relatively brief existence, encouraged the discovery of actors, writers, and directors who fly below the radar. It has offered a space to esoteric documentaries and earnest, star-free features shot in the hinterlands on a shoestring.

But every once in a while, it seems, a real live Hollywood-type movie premieres on VOD. Maybe a distribution deal falls through. Maybe there’s no marketing budget. Or maybe the director and his two Oscar-winning stars have holes in their schedules and villa payments to make.

Whatever the reason, TRESPASS, the new film directed by Joel Schumacher (THE LOST BOYS) and starring Nicolas Cage (LEAVING LAS VEGAS) and Nicole Kidman (THE HOURS) appears to be just such a movie. Released by Millennium, TRESPASS will have a day-and-date premiere “in theaters or order it with your remote,” as the breathless promos bark.

So now there are two venues in which to experience this turgid home-invasion thriller that starts at ridiculous, wends its way toward outlandish, and settles, in its third act, into total presposterousness. Cage plays Kyle Miller, a diamond broker whose go-go career has Kidman, the missus, feeling ignored. Aside from their issues, the couple has to contend with a typically self-obsessed and selfish teenage daughter. When a quartet of sadistic villains violates the Miller sleek sanctuary in pursuit of stones, cash, and maybe a kidney, the contrivances run amok, piling atop one another until they can’t do anything but topple over.

The bad guys, led by a genuinely scary Ben Mendelsohn (ANIMAL KINGDOM), have agendas, and the schematic script by Karl Gadjusek gives each member of the foursome his or her big scene to explain why they’re not really that bad, just misunderstood. Whether one is trying to recover his lost drug dough, regain custody of her daughter, or just express his psychopathic love for the ravishing Mrs. Miller, the crooks are each given paint-by-number colors that Gadjusek fills in dutifully.

On Demand Weekly's VOD Spotlight highlights stories from the On Demand industry. Chris Claro interviews director Joel Schumacher about TRESPASS (Millennium Entertainment).). Read our review of the film here.

Joel Schumacher Brings His Talents To On Demand
The director talks with On Demand Weekly’s Chris Claro about his home-invasion thriller, TRESPASS starring Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman

A Hollywood mainstay for almost forty years, Joel Schumacher’s career has been memorable as much for zeitgeist icons like ST. ELMO’S FIRE and FALLING DOWN as for his notorious entry in the Caped Crusader saga, BATMAN AND ROBIN. Throughout his time as a designer, writer, and director, he’s worked with everybody from Corey Feldman to Colin Farrell to Jim Carrey (twice).

Schumacher is back on both VOD and in theaters with his new thriller, TRESPASS. Starring Nicolas Cage, who Schumacher directed in 8MM, and Nicole Kidman, who worked with the director on BATMAN FOREVER, TRESPASS is a tightly-wound home invasion thriller set almost completely in the sleek waterfront domicile of the Millers.

Though the film is limited to almost a single location, Schumacher was determined to make TRESPASS more than just a filmed play. “It has to be very cinematic,” the director says. “You have to make sure that you’re not shooting it like an action movie, rather than a play. But you never know if it’s going to work.”

This isn’t the first time that Schumacher has backed himself – and his characters – into a tight spot. In 2002, the director made PHONE BOOTH, starring Farrell as a man whose survival depends on his staying on the phone. The similarities between that film and TRESPASS were not lost on Schumacher, who considers each a “concept” movie.

“A guy in a phone booth and voice on the other end says ‘if you hang up, I’ll kill you,’” says Schumacher. “What if four people invade your house and you, your wife, and your daughter are in jeopardy? Both good ideas, but then you wonder ‘what’s going to happen for the next 90 minutes?’”

PHONE BOOTH / Courtesy 20th Century Fox

On Demand Weekly highlights stories from the On Demand industry. Chris Claro interviews director J.C. Chandor about MARGIN CALL (Roadside Attractions). Read our review of the film here.

3 Questions With MARGIN CALL's J.C.Chandor

ODW: I heard that you wrote a first draft of the script in just 4 days, between job interviews. That's pretty impressive, can you talk about that?

J.C Chandor: Yes, I had the idea for the script and had been working through it for over a year. But the way I like to write is have an idea not fully formed, but fully researched and thought through before I sit down to actually write it. In this case, I had been working on the story off and on in my mind for over a year and finally sat down and wrote the line by line script in just 4 days. I then went back and made many additions and revisions but for the most part, almost all of that 81 page draft is in the final product. I’ve never written anything else that quickly before and probably won't again. But this was a script that at that time, I was clearly ready to write.

Zachary Quinto and J.C. Chandor / MARGIN CALL (Roadside Attractions)


ODW: Did the short shoot also help the actors not know each other so well which fits because Zachary's character and the other young guy did not know the heads of the company that well?

J.C Chandor: Absolutely. Whenever you're shooting a low budget film, by it's very nature, there are going to be many hurdles and barriers due to limited resources. What I always try to do as a filmmaker or writer, no matter the budget, is to use your weaknesses and try and turn them into strengths. In this case, I had a story about very intelligent, Type A people who are trained to never show panic. I was working with highly intelligent, very accomplished actors who also rarely ever panic on a job at this point in their careers. But the pace and scope we were having to shoot in such a limited time period, created an environment that at times even put these accomplished actors through what I later realized was a mild, low-level sense of panic under their performances. Which are used, hopefully, to great effect to express what their characters were feeling as well.

ODW: Margin Call is one of several films recently being released on VOD; what are your thoughts on the importance of a film such as this reaching as much of the American population as possible?

J.C Chandor: I'm very excited to see where this experiment ends up. No one quite knows in this current market/environment what the best way is to distribute the film. But we are getting a 60/70 city release theatrically. For a small budget film, that is a very exciting release. To add to that, most major markets and many smaller markets can view the film on VOD. That's exciting to get the film out to the widest audience. I always believe the best experience is in a theater, but I also have 2 small children and know going to the movies can be a complicated and expensive endeavor so it's nice to know this film is going to get it's widest audience possible.

- Chris Claro

Chris Claro is a contributing writer to On Demand Weekly. He is a former Director of Promotion for Sundance Channel and now works as a writer, producer, and media educator. He is a regular contributor to dvdverdict.com and contributor to the Eyes and Ears section of huffingtonpost.com

Look for MARGIN CALL (Roadside Attractions) on these On Demand providers (Amazon, Blockbuster, Charter, Comcast, Cox, DirecTV, Dish Network, Itunes, Sonic Roxio, Sony PlayStation, Time Warner InDemand, Verizon, Vudu, YouTube, Zune).

See Chris' Other Reviews & Interviews...