The Last Witch Hunter

Review by Matt Finley

Forget your Matthew Hopkinses and your Joseph McCarthys - there's a new witch hunter on the block. His name is Kaulder (Vin Diesel), and he's a swaggering immortal sourpuss supposedly based on Diesel's own Dungeons & Dragons character. Directed by Breck Eisner (THE CRAZIES [2010]), THE LAST WITCH HUNTER is a generic urban fantasy aspiring to both MEN IN BLACK's snappily paced world building and HELLBOY's high concept confrontations between the ancient occult and the modern world.

Though it falls wildly short of both marks (while still cribbing liberally from each), it remains a more dynamic and vibrant entry to the agents-policing-a-secret-world-within-our-own subgenre than either R.I.P.D. or DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT. In fact, despite numerous conceptual and practical shortcomings, I actually enjoyed this film.

Cooties (opens in Cleveland September 18th at the Capitol Theatre)

[COOTIES opens in Cleveland on Friday September 18th exclusively at the Capitol Theatre.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

In the new horror-comedy COOTIES, a little girl eats a bad chicken nugget and turns into a zombie. Before long she’s infected some of her classmates, and all manner of undead hell breaks loose as the kids start trying to eat their teachers and other adults. It sounds like the sort of schlockfest you’d expect to find padding out the offerings on Netflix, but thanks to a recognizable cast and a screenplay by SAW writer/producer Leigh Whannell and Glee co-creator Ian Brennan, this one is actually getting a limited theatrical release.

Repost: Grand Piano (July 12th at the Cleveland Museum of Art)

[GRAND PIANO screens Sunday July 12th at 1:30 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

You know there's something wrong with the movie business these days when a stylish but fairly straight-forward thriller with top notch production values and a recognizable cast like GRAND PIANO finds itself relegated to a 2 night only engagement at the Cleveland Cinematheque. That's not a dig at the Cinematheque by any means. It's just absurd that such a mainstream film can only find a theatrical home at a venue with a reputation as the place where movies too uncommercial even for Cleveland's other arthouse, the Cedar Lee, get played. That's without getting in to whether the movie is good or not, since that's hardly a criteria Hollywood takes into account when deciding what films they'll be opening on 2000 screens on any given weekend.

But enough of my editorializing. If you're reading this, you probably do care whether or not GRAND PIANO is any good. And I suppose it is, at least up to a point.

Grand Piano (May 10th and 11th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[GRAND PIANO screens Saturday May 10^th at 5:00 pm and Sunday May 11th at 8:40 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

You know there's something wrong with the movie business these days when a stylish but fairly straight-forward thriller with top notch production values and a recognizable cast like GRAND PIANO finds itself relegated to a 2 night only engagement at the Cleveland Cinematheque. That's not a dig at the Cinematheque by any means. It's just absurd that such a mainstream film can only find a theatrical home at a venue with a reputation as the place where movies too uncommercial even for Cleveland's other arthouse, the Cedar Lee, get played. That's without getting in to whether the movie is good or not, since that's hardly a criteria Hollywood takes into account when deciding what films they'll be opening on 2000 screens on any given weekend.

But enough of my editorializing. If you're reading this, you probably do care whether or not GRAND PIANO is any good. And I suppose it is, at least up to a point.

Maniac (July 13th at midnight at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[MANIAC screens Saturday July 13 th at midnight at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Frodo goes psycho as Elijah Wood takes on the title role in this remake of the infamous 1981 slasher film MANIAC. The plot: Wood plays Frank Zito, a twitchy sleazebag who kills and scalps women, then takes the bloody hairpieces with him to staple on to his collection of mannequins. He feels bad about it, but just can't help himself. Rinse and repeat until 90 minutes are up. That's about it, seeing as the tragic romance subplot that gave the original version some degree of pathos has been retooled in such a way here as to be nearly insignificant.

The fact that MANIAC is shot almost entirely from the POV of Wood's murderous protagonist is about the only thing even marginally interesting about it. Even that aspect of the film is as likely to feel like a cheap gimmick to some viewers as it is to seem like a clever artistic choice to others. Of course that's hardly the only thing in MANIAC likely to polarize audiences. As with the original, many will find it excessively violent and misogynistic. It's hard to deny that there are moments in MANIAC that genuinely feel aimed at the kind of people who get off on seeing depictions of women being brutally assaulted and murdered.