There are many reasons a film might be hard to watch: unbelievable performances, sloppy writing, unskilled direction. Some movies offend with tasteless portrayals of strong sexual content or graphic violence.

Beautiful Boy doesn’t have any of these problems. The film is beautifully acted and well made. Its one sex scene is very thoughtfully done. Beautiful Boy is hard to watch because of the sheer intensity of the subject matter it covers.

Bill and Kate are emotionally distant and muted until they receive the worst news two parents could possibly get. Not only has their only son been killed in a campus shooting, but it turns out he was the shooter.

The couple must deal with their own loss while trying to weather the varied opinions of family, neighbors, and media. This also gives them more time than they wanted to examine how they feel about one another.

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As technology gets smaller and cheaper, making films is getting easier and easier. But in a market lousy with low-budget indies, it’s not always easy to score well known actors. This wasn’t a problem for Mark Vadik.

The writer/director of Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer somehow managed to wrangle several seasoned actors for parts of various size, including Brian Krause (Charmed), Danielle Harris (multiple Halloween films), Doug Jones (Hellboy), and the irreplaceable Lance Henriksen. As you watch the film, the obvious question that comes to mind is, How?

Cyrus is a frame story in which TV journalist Maria Sanchez, looking for fodder for her tabloid news show, interviews a man who claims to know the identity of a local serial killer. He tells her and her cameraman the sad tale of Cyrus, a former soldier who, when his marriage and business fell apart, turned to murder and cannibalism.

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Texas Killing Fields is a strong, straightforward crime thriller which tells the story of three cops running the gauntlet in an attempt to solve two brutal crimes. But the film is particularly notable for its haunting tone and superlative acting.

Director Ami Canaan Mann does everything she can to give the movie an infectious gloom, an impressive imitation of the sprawling claustrophobia specific to Southern poverty. Mann, daughter of the legendary Michael Mann (who also co-produced the film), makes a lot of smart choices here, but none more crucial than the cast.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Sam Worthington bring their own unique intensity to their natural good cop/bad cop relationship, and a pre-Oscar nomination Jessica Chastain (The Help) brings a fiery quality to a supporting role. As usual, the 12-year-old Chloe Moretz shows remarkably advanced nuance for an actor her age.

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Catch .44 is the embodiment of style over substance.

The film looks great. Writer/director Aaron Harvey clearly has a good eye. If the budget is as low as he implies in the audio commentary, Harvey needs to marry his production designer and his cinematographer. A lot of the visual effects are a little clunky (think the fight sequences in Deadliest Warrior), but good for the budget (which bodes well for the future of indie film).

The acting is also very strong, which is not unexpected given a cast that includes veterans Bruce Willis, Brad Dourif, and Oscar winner Forest Whitaker. Most of the fun that can be squeezed from watching Catch .44 is seeing the actors play.

But the twisty crime thriller genre is all about story, and there just isn’t one here. Unlike The Usual Suspects and Reservoir Dogs, to which the marketing compares the film, Catch.44 doesn’t have any surprises, any secrets, or any tension. It’s mostly just people saying they are going to shoot each other and then, in fact, shooting each other.

The characters are poorly drawn and, with the possible exception of Whitaker’s confused psycho, unmemorable. Most have no arcs to speak of. The script doesn’t even keep you entertained with clever banter or intimidating tough-guy talk, another staple of the genre. The dialogue in Catch .44 is clumsy and lacking originality.

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This week’s pick is John Carpenter’s independent horror classic hit Halloween that held the record as the highest grossing independent film of all time. Halloween helped to usher in a new era of slasher films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Carpenter’s use of camera angles, music, photography, and story help create one of the most frightening films of all time.

Carpenter sights many influences ranging from Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Orson Welles. Carpenter’s then girlfriend and producer at the time Debra Hill had a concept about a group of teenage babysitters stalked by a masked killer. The script was called “The babysitter murders.” Producer Irwin Yablans suggested the title Halloween. Carpenter and Hill reworked the script to have it occur on Halloween night, and changed the title to Halloween.

Graduating from USC film school in the early 1970s, Carpenter’s first big break was the action hit Assault on Precinct 13 which producer Irwin Yablans viewed at the Milan Film Festival along with financier Moustapha Akkad. Both men liked Carpenter’s style and approached him about making a film for them. Akkad fronted the film’s three hundred and twenty thousand dollar budget and Carpenter was given four weeks to come up with the film.

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Video game movies get a bad rap. One one hand, you have films like the Resident Evil series, which managed to skyrocket the video game franchise into a whole new world, and on the other hand you have Super Mario Bros. starring Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper. A mixed pot, really.

The former is exactly what the upcoming live-action TEKKEN looks like it may just be. Based on the popular gaming franchise for the PlayStation, this film is set to be a main competitor to any upcoming Mortal Kombat reboots Hollywood has planned. Here’s the premise.

The year is 2039. World wars have destroyed everything and territories are run by corporations, the mightiest — and cruelest — of which is Tekken. Jin Kazama (John Foo) witnesses the death of his mother Jun (Tomita) by Tekken in the slums known as Anvil. Vowing vengeance, and armed only with his street smarts and raw fighting skills, he enters a dangerous and potentially deadly combat tournament, where he must defeat the world’s most elite fighters to become the “King of the Iron Fist.”

With some pretty legitimate martial arts stars and professional fighters, this film looks like it may just be the real thing. We’ve got an exclusive clip from the movie for you to check out and see for yourself after the jump. Catch TEKKEN on DVD and Blu-Ray July 19th.

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Beautiful Boy has an undeniably appealing premise—what do the parents of school shooter go through? And it has two very good actors—Michael Sheen and Maria Bello—who fully commit to their roles. Sheen and Bello play Bill and Kate Carroll, the parents of Sam (Kyle Gallner), the freshman who goes on a shooting spree at his college before killing himself.

Director Shawn Ku begins almost in medias res, as it’s only a matter of minutes for the premise to be established before Bill and Kate, and by extension the audience, are confronted with a flurry of television cameras, media pundits, and frustrated parents looking for someone to blame. The couple’s first instinct is to shut themselves up in their house and ignore the rest of the world, but the media hounds are relentless, and the two retreat to the home of Kate’s brother Erik (Alan Tudyk), his wife (Moon Bloodgood), and their small child.

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This week’s pick is the 1980 release of James Glickenhaus’s ‘The Exterminator‘ which takes us from the jungles of war torn Vietnam to the urban jungle of the crime stricken and bankrupt New York City of 1980.

The Film stars Robert Ginty (John Eastland), Steve James (Michael Jefferson), Christopher George (Detective James Dalton), Samantha Eggar (Dr. Megan Stewart), Dick Boccelli (Gino Pontivini), and Patrick Farrelly (CIA Agent Shaw).

The film opens with an explosion which propels an individual mid air. It’s quickly revealed to be the film’s protagonist John Eastland (Ginty) as he and his army ranger unit are ambushed and captured by the Viet Cong. Eastland and his unit are taken to a camp where they are interrogated in order to divulge information about an upcoming American offensive in the area. Eastland refuses to give up any information and one of his men is brutally decapitated by a Vietnamese officer.

Eastland is hesitant but the information that is given forces the Vietnamese officer to stop. Eastland’s buddy Michael Jefferson (James) breaks free from his bonds and strangles one of the Vietnamese captors with a piece of wire. Eastland and the others take a cue from Jefferson and aid in taking out their captors. Severely wounded, the Vietnamese officer tries to crawl away to safety but is executed by Eastland. Eastland, Jefferson, and the surviving rangers make it to a helicopter LZ and are airlifted to safety. The film then cuts to an aerial sequence of present day New York City where the story begins.

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The Big Bang looks like a bug nutty movie, totally the kind of crazy that is either inspired or down right horrible. I appreciate that the film takes stylistic risks to stand out, and the cast assembled is pretty stacked, so I am willing to give it a shot.

In anticipation of the May 13th limited release, Anchor Bay has released 2 new clips from the film. In the first clip we get to see a pair of the stellar character actors that populate the film playing the cops firing on our hero. The awesome Thomas Kretschmann and the awesomer Delroy Lindo unload a barrage of bullets into Banderas’ car. He, of course, responds in kind.

In the second clip we see a far more important piece of the story. Banderas is at his private eye desk, doing his private eye things when a mysterious giant appears. This is likely an important moment from earlier in the film, setting up the main action for the rest of the movie.

These clips are pretty standard for the private eye genre, but the trailer has promised something far more interesting and generally nuts. Hopefully these new tidbits will fit into the context of the film in a satisfyingly crazy way. Check out both clips after the jump.

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Possibly one of the most critically praised films of the year, and potentially a heavy hitter at this year’s Academy Awards, The King’s Speech has already made plenty of headlines as of late. Well you can add one more, as the film’s DVD and Blu-Ray details have been announced courtesy of a press release from Anchor Bay Entertainment and The Weinstein Co.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – Anchor Bay Entertainment and The Weinstein Company announced today the highly anticipated Blu-ray™ and DVD release of THE KING’S SPEECH, the first release under the two companies’ new agreement.  Heading to retail on April 19^th, 2011, THE KING’S SPEECH has dominated the nomination lists for the Oscars^®, Golden Globes^®, Critics Choice Awards and BAFTA awards, earning widespread critical acclaim and grossing over $73 million at the North American box office thus far.

Its 2011 honors to date include two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Cast and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Colin Firth); the PGA Award for Outstanding Producer of a Theatrical Motion Picture; the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Feature Film (Tom Hooper); and the Golden Globe^® for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture-Drama (Colin Firth).

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…again, there is one more carnivore that you have to watch out for, and that’s Roger Corman’s Dinoshark. That’s right, the monstrous and ancient Dinoshark is making it’s way to Blu-Ray and DVD.

From the Anchor Bay press release:

Born in Antarctica, Dinoshark noses his way down the warmer currents to Mexico, towards a popular vacation spot crowded with party-goers unwittingly ready to fall prey to a prehistoric eating machine.  When the killings begin, it becomes clear that no normal animal can be responsible for such savagery.

Local captain Trace McGraw (Eric Balfour – “24”, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Skyline) and marine biologist Carol (Iva Hasperger – “CSI”, “Cold Case”) seem to be the only ones convinced that the creature terrorizing their shores is something other than the expected man-eating shark.  They enlist the help of the world’s only expert on the Dinoshark (Roger Corman himself).  Together, will they be able to reel Dinoshark in?

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Normally, it’s pretty hard to swallow a film based on a video game. The only time that rule is voided is when the film is a direct-to-dvd passion project. Look at Halo: Legends. Now, from the fine folks at Anchor Bay films comes a new adaptation in Dead Space: Aftermath.

Based on the 2008 third-person shooter that combined elements of horror and sci-fi, this film picks up where the game left off, and leads us into the sequel, Dead Space 2. Here’s the synopsis.

The year is 2509. The first-responder ship USG O’Bannon has arrived at Aegis VII, attempting to hold the planet together in the wake of the catastrophe that destroyed the Ishimura. But only four members of the O’Bannon crew have survived, and the catastrophe remains unchecked. What went wrong? What secrets do they hide? And what new threats have been revealed…in the Aftermath!

Starring enough sci-fi regulars to make your head spin, this flick is available on Blu-Ray and DVD January 25th to coincide with the release of the new game. Check out a brand new clip from the film after the jump.

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