Featured Movie Review

Family Weekend is now available VOD, in theaters 3/29/13, on DVD 4/23/13

In Family Weekend (House Arrest meets Little Miss Sunshine), Kristin Chenoweth and Matthew Modine star as two parents who have gotten so caught up in their own separate lives that one of their children decides to teach them a lesson they'll never forget. Holding them captive in their own home, the entire family gets to know each other again, even if through unconventional methods.

Yes, it is silly, but sometimes the silliest of premises can still be good. Olesya Rulin shines as Emily Smith-Dungy, a loner overacheiver trying desperately to garner the attention of her parents and siblings. I really enjoyed seeing a teenage character that wasn't trying to escape from her family, but trying to pull it together. Emily doesn't really have a plan, she's just acting on instinct, which makes her so empathetic and really gets you rooting for her. Her siblings were equally as compelling and are easily the best part of the film. Each one is carefully constructed with empathetic and vulnerable performances.

Quentin Dupieux's last feature, Rubber, blew me away being both ludicrous and smart, as the is a story of a serial-killing tire. Yes, a tire that has supernatural mind-powers it uses to kill people. (Currently available on Netflix streaming/Amazon Instant Video) Dupieux brings his unique story-telling and filmmaking perspective his is latest film, Wrong, now available on VOD and in theaters March 29th, 2013.

Dolph Springer (Reno 911's Jack Plotnick) awakens one morning to find he has lost the sole love of his life - his dog, Paul. Desperate to reunite with his best friend and to set things right, Dolph embarks on a journey which spirals into the realm of the absurd. On his quest, he drastically alters the lives of several severely bizarro characters, including a promiscuous pizza delivery girl (Entourage's Alexis Dziena), a mentally unstable, jogging-addicted neighbor, an opportunistic French-Mexican gardener, an eccentric pet detective (Steve Little of HBO's Eastbound And Down) and most mysterious of all, an enigmatic pony-tailed guru, Master Chang (William Fichtner) who imparts his teachings to Dolph on how to metaphysically reconnect with his pet. From fearless cinematic surrealist Quentin Dupieux, the director behind the head-exploding Rubber, Wrong is a wholly original and hilariously hallucinatory universe all its own.