More Articles By Ed Hulse

• Horror Effects
  SUB ROSA STUDIOS Available now > Fascinating how-to guide for aspiring gory-movie makers. In this relatively short documentary, makeup and FX specialist Tom Savini—whose work dominated the early splatter-film era—gives step-by-step lessons in creating gory, realistic special effects. Savini, whose credits include Dawn of the Dead, Creepshow and Friday the 13th, is a living legen... More
  
• Flashbacks of a Fool
  ANCHOR BAY/STARZ Street: Nov. 4 Prebook: now > Conventional rites-of-passage yarn tinged with a little A Star Is Born. Faded movie star Joe Scott (Daniel Craig), dissipated by a life of excess, reflects on his early mistakes following the death of an old friend. Joe’s reverie takes him back to ’70s Britain, where, as an ambitious young man, one of his complex romantic relationsh... More
  
• Chill
  LIONSGATE Street: Nov. 4 Prebook: now > Slowly paced H.P. Lovecraft adaptation delivers just enough visceral thrills. Funereally paced but sufficiently creepy to attract shudder-film fans, Chill is loosely adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s often-anthologized short storyCool Air. An aspiring writer (Thomas Calabro) goes to work for a former scientist (Shaun Kurtz) who suffers from a rare d... More
  
• Dear Me
  OCEAN PARK Street: Nov. 4 Prebook: now > Innocuous rom-com maintains brisk pace but delivers few laughs. This too-cute-by-half romantic comedy tries hard—very hard—to score but just misses the net. Gardener-cum-advertising copywriter Samantha Billows (Sarah Thompson) copes with anxiety by describing all her feelings in a supposedly anonymous blog. More
  
• The Other Half
  BFS Street: Oct. 28 Prebook: now > Bland British comedy has picturesque locations but low laugh quotient. This British rom-com probably won’t make a dent on American home viewers, who won’t recognize stars Danny Dyer and Gillian Kearney and don’t share the U.K.’s passion for soccer, which drives the plot. More
  
• The Polar Express Presented in 3D
  WARNER Street: Oct. 28 Prebook: now > 3D element adds another plus for this recent Christmas classic. First released as an Imax 3D attraction during 2004’s holiday season, this imaginative adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg’s children’s book has become a Christmas perennial, earning tens of millions with each successive reissue. More
  
• Meet Dave
  FOX Street: Nov. 25 Prebook: Oct. 29 > Thinly plotted Eddie Murphy vehicle relies heavily on physical comedy for laughs. Meet Dave finds Eddie Murphy playing the teeny-tiny captain of a crew of bite-sized aliens traveling to Earth in a human-sized spaceship that looks just like him. Dispatched to our planet in search of water for their parched world, the extraterrestrials think they know ho... More
  
• Still Life
  NEW YORKER Street: Oct. 14 Prebook: now > Brilliant, ethereal look at contemporary Chinese life. Glacially paced but hypnotically fascinating, this beautifully photographed Chinese drama sports a minimalist plot revolving around the submersion of an old village as part of a massive hydroelectric construction project. More
  
• The Edge of Heaven
  STRAND Street: Oct. 14 Prebook: now > Captivating foreign film about unlikely relationships and universal truths. During the Turkish holiday of Bayram, fate intertwines the lives of six people with divergent backgrounds, resulting in the forging of unlikely relationships in Turkey and Germany. Director Fatih Akin doesn’t overemphasize cultural differences and sociopolitical observatio... More
  
• Dance of the Dead
  LIONSGATE Street: Oct. 14 Prebook: now > Teen zombie comedy borrows liberally from other horror films but is infectious fun. This teen-populated zombie comedy, inspired by Shaun of the Dead, among others, contains just enough head-shattering, limb-severing and gut-munching to satisfy the 18 to 25 target audience, although in some places, it seems oddly restrained. More
  
• Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
  WARNER Street: Oct. 28 Prebook: Sept. 23 > Abigail Breslin is delightful as the plucky 'American Girl’ in this squeaky-clean dramedy. A nostalgic yarn that balances Nancy Drew-type melodrama with emotional authenticity, this disarming film makes good family entertainment. Its youthful protagonist—played by Abigail Breslin with the perfect combination of vulnerability and spunk&#... More
  
• The Last House in the Woods
  LIONSGATE Street: Oct. 14 Prebook: Sept. 17 > Derivative, old-fashioned Italian gorefest doesn’t stint on the blood and guts. With its nihilistic sociopathy, sadistic misogyny, uneven acting and cheesy gore effects, this Italian-made horror film recalls the ’80s chillers directed by that country’s Umberto Lenzi and Lucio Fulci. More
  
• A Very British Gangster
  ECHO BRIDGE Street: Oct. 7 Prebook: now > Compelling doc about a British gangster who’s a real-life Tony Soprano. We can thank the success of The Sopranos for the stateside marketing of this British doc about Manchester-based Mob boss Dominic Noonan, a garrulous, constantly preening punk who has spent 22 of his 39 years in prison. More
  
• Normal
  PORCHLIGHT Street: Oct. 7 Prebook: now > Histrionically sound but downbeat Canadian drama about a grieving mother. This morose, heavy-handed drama is neatly turned out and boasts fine performances but makes for pretty dreary entertainment. It’s a movie for people who love to feel miserable (and you know who you are!). More
  
• The Strangers
  UNIVERSAL Street: Oct. 21 Prebook: Sept. 26 (BD: now) > Moderately entertaining, tissue-thin thriller about thrill killers. This thriller finds Scott Speedman (Underworld: Evolution) and Liv Tyler (The Incredible Hulk) portraying quarreling lovers who return to their remote cottage late one night and shortly thereafter fall victim to masked tormentors. More
  
• The Trojan Horse
  ALLUMINATION Street: Oct. 7 Prebook: now > Unlikely but compelling thriller is bolstered by strong performances and taut direction. An engrossing if highly improbable political thriller, this Canadian miniseries (broadcast by the CBC last year) posits the merger of the U.S. with our neighbor to the north. More
  
• OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
  MPI Street: Sept. 30 Prebook: now > From France, a droll spoof of Cold War spy movies. The secret-agent hero of this often hilarious spy spoof was created more than a half century ago and has already appeared in a slew of pulpy novels and European-made movies. Deftly reimagining the smug, clueless Agent 117, French comic actor Jean Dujardin recalls such pop-culture icons as Inspector Clouse... More
  
• FAITH & FAMILY: Cloud Ten renews biblical focus
  SEPT. 8 | FAITH & FAMILY:  Company to increase release slate to four per year More
  
• Sunday School Musical
  Christian-themed High School Musical knockoff is high-spirited, innocuous fun. Street: Oct. 21 Prebook: Sept. 16 Upon learning that their church's youth center will be closed, a group of teens enters a song-and-dance competition in hopes of raising enough money to keep the building open. An unabashed knockoff of High School Musical, this wholesome DVD premiere boasts 21 songs, seven of which a... More
  
• Bigger Stronger Faster
  MAGNOLIA Street: Sept. 30 Prebook: now > Entertaining steroid doc explores both sides of the issue. This documentary focuses on the use of steroids in sports and bodybuilding, an issue on which writer/director Chris Bell is clearly torn. The filmmaker explores his own disappointment when he found out his brothers and idols Hulk Hogan and Arnold Schwarzenegger used steroids and talks to body... More