Arsenal (opens in Mentor January 6th at Atlas Diamond Center Cinemas)

[ARSENAL opens in Mentor, OH on Friday January 6th exclusively at Atlas Diamond Center Cinemas 16.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Brothers. The South. Sweat and dirt. Money problems. Drugs. Seedy hotels. Old beat up cars. A half-baked scheme to get money that inevitably goes wrong. Gratuitious violence. Gratuitious slow-motion. Gratuitous slow-mostion violence. Gratuitous Nicolas Cage in a bad wig. Gratuitous John Cusack in a do-rag. That's probably more useful than any plot synopsis I could give you for ARSENAL, the new low budget crime film from screenwriter Jason Mosberg and prolific schlock director Steven C. Miller that is inexplicably getting a limited theatrical run rather than heading straight for streaming and/or DVD and Blu Ray.

While Cage and Cusack's performances give the film what limited interest it has, the actual stars are Adrian Grenier as responsible brother JP, and Johnathon Schaech as "bad boy" Mikey. You've seen this sibling dynamic in countless other crime films, and there's nothing here that adds anything new to it. And that's pretty much the entire movie in a nutshell, whether we're talking plot, characters, or themes.

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.

Love & Mercy

Review by Pamela Zoslov

Bill Pohland's LOVE & MERCY, based on the life of Brian Wilson, transcends the conventions of the rock-music biopic in the same way the Beach Boys' sweet, yearning harmonies transcended the blandness and the brutality of their Southern California youth. The film is in two-part harmony: Brian the elder, a traumatized man in his 40s being dominated by self-styled psychologist Eugene Landy, and Brian the Younger, the chubby, tousled musical genius working his magic at the keyboard and in the studio, battling his inner demons and his bandmates. It's an extraordinary piece, expressing the complexities of Wilson's story and incorporating his music in unexpected and beautiful ways.

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.

Lee Daniels' The Butler

Review by Pamela Zoslov

The opening of LEE DANIELS' THE BUTLER tells us the movie was “Inspired by True Events.” Not “Based on True Events,” because director Lee Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong have taken considerable liberties with the life of Eugene Allen, the African-American butler who served at the White House through eight presidential administrations. Allen, who died in 2010 at age 90, started working at the White House in 1952 as a “pantry man,” polishing silverware and washing dishes for $2,400 a year. He retired in 1986, after serving as maitre d' for the President and Nancy Reagan, who honored him with an invitation to a state dinner, where he was, for the first time, served champagne rather than pouring it. A 2008 profile of Allen in The Washington Post was the source material for this sprawling film, which stars Forest Whitaker as the butler, renamed Cecil Gaines.

The Raven

Review by Bob Ignizio

This much is fact: On October 7th, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe died under strange circumstances, and the exact cause of his demise remains unknown to this day. Given the writer's penchant for tales of horror and mystery, a work of dark fiction that would endeavor to tell just what happened during Poe's final days would seem ripe with potential. THE RAVEN attempts to do just that, casting John Cusack as Poe and pitting against a madman who is re-enacting the crimes from his stories in the days leading up to the doomed author's final “nevermore”.

The Poe we meet is a sad creature, indeed. He's bitter over his lack of recognition and inability to make a decent living, still mourning the loss of his wife Virginia from consumption, and hopelessly in love with Emily (Alice Eve) despite the fact that her father Captain Hamilton (Brendan Gleeson) would sooner see Poe dead than have him marry his daughter.