FILM FRENZY

Taron Egerton and Ana Sophia Heger in She Rides Shotgun (Photo: Lionsgate)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K, and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

THE BAD SEED (1956). The debate over “nature vs. nurture” is clearly one-sided when it comes to this gripping adaptation of Maxwell Anderson’s Broadway hit and William March’s source novel. Patty McCormack is Rhoda Penmark, a precocious 8-year-old girl who’s adored by everyone. Only Leroy Jessup (Henry Jones), their building’s grubby maintenance man,  doesn’t believe she’s a little darling — he’s right, as Rhoda is a soulless psychopath who as the film begins kills a classmate who won a penmanship medal she feels should have gone to her. Her mother Christine (Nancy Kelly, recreating her Tony Award-winning performance) eventually ascertains that something’s not quite right with her little girl, although she doesn’t understand how a child with her upbringing could harbor such evil inside. The property’s pop psychology doesn’t hold up, but that doesn’t prevent this from being an intriguing and nasty piece of work that was rather daring for the 1950s. Of course, the Hays Code wouldn’t allow the movie to be too daring, so the original ending (both play and book) is replaced with what stands as perhaps the most literal and outrageous example of a deus ex machina ever filmed. In addition to Kelly, five other B’way players were brought over for the film version, including McCormack, Jones, and Eileen Heckart, appropriately unhinged as the murdered boy’s mother. A box office hit, this earned four Oscar nominations for Best Actress (Kelly), Supporting Actress (both McCormack and Heckart), and Cinematography. Capitalizing on her most famous role, McCormack would later play a pediatric psychiatrist in a 2018 Lifetime remake and its 2022 sequel (The Bad Seed Returns) and an adult bad seed in the ‘90s cable offerings Mommy and Mommy 2: Mommy’s Day.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by McCormack and drag queen Charles Busch, and an interview with McCormack.

Movie: ★★★

BULLETPROOF (1996). Here’s the sort of indiscriminate “buddy action flick” that generally makes a huge pile of dough before audiences even realize what hit them. This one, though, proved to be a box office underachiever, having the bad luck to appear just before co-star Adam Sandler became a money machine with the 1998 hits The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy. This time around, the formula involves 1) a good cop (Damon Wayans); 2) a likable crook (Sandler); 3) a convoluted set-up that results in a love-hate relationship between the good cop and the likable crook; 4) a realllly bad guy (James Caan) who spends most of the running time sending his flunkies to kill the good cop and the likable crook; and 5) a “surprise villain” who fools the good cop and the likable crook but whose identity turns out to be as predictable as presents at Christmastime. Still, as far as cookie cutter action-comedies go, this one’s tolerable, thanks primarily to an easygoing rapport between the two leads. As undercover cop Jack Carter, Wayans provides the expected suave counterbalance to Sandler’s more manic Archie Moses, a drug smuggler who’s marked for termination after he agrees to testify against his former boss, crime kingpin Frank Colton (Caan). Wayans and Sandler remain watchable even when their quips sink like boulders in a swimming pool. But Sandler’s screechy rendition of “I Will Always Love You” is a good gag, provided your eardrums can withstand the punishment.

Extras in the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition include audio commentary by director Ernest Dickerson; an interview with actor Xander Berkeley (who appears in a small role); and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★

FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956). One of the undisputed classics of sci-fi cinema, Forbidden Planet is a far-flung adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with a smattering of Freud tossed in for good measure. Leslie Nielsen plays the stoic captain of an American rocketship which lands on the planet Altair-4; there, the space travelers meet Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his daughter Altaira (Anne Francis), the only survivors of a scientific expedition sent to the planet years earlier. Aided by his creation, the docile Robby the Robot, Morbius is content to remain on Altair-4, but all hell breaks loose once an invisible “Id monster” starts murdering the crew members. The set design, the music (the film was the first to use an entirely electronic score), and the Oscar-nominated visual effects are all first-rate; indeed, this remarkably mature drama was a major influence on the science fiction field for decades to come, most notably Star Trek. Robby the Robot proved to be a popular fixture over the years, with a handful of film appearances and guest spots on TV shows as diverse as The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis, The Twilight Zone, Columbo, and The Love Boat.

Extras in the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition include a 2006 retrospective making-of featurette; deleted scenes; a 2005 piece in which Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and James Cameron discuss the science fiction films of the 1950s; two 1956 episodes of ABC’s MGM Parade in which Pidgeon promotes Forbidden Planet; and two subsequent works featuring Robby the Robot: the 1957 feature film The Invisible Boy and a 1958 episode of the TV series The Thin Man.

Movie: ★★★½

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994). Purists may carp, but this big-budget adaptation of Anne Rice’s bloodsucker book mostly gets it right, serving up a suitable mix of neo-Gothic grandeur, heady homoeroticism, and existential angst. The modern-day interview is between a journalist (Christian Slater in a role earmarked for River Phoenix just prior to his death) and the vampire Louis (Brad Pitt), who relates the tale of how, 200 years earlier, he was a Louisiana plantation owner suffering the loss of his pregnant wife and unborn child. His misery catches the attention of the vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise), who offers him the choice of dying or becoming a vampire himself — Louis chooses the latter but finds he’s too conscientious to enjoy killing humans. As the years pass, the pair end up “adopting” Claudia (a formidable Kirsten Dunst), an 11-year-old girl whose bloodlust matches that of Lestat but whose loyalties rest with the more fatherly Louis. A trip to Paris follows, where Louis becomes acquainted with a sinister vampire troupe headed by the suave Armand (Antonio Banderas). Many horror yarns subscribe to the notion of vampires as pure embodiments of evil (as in 1922’s Nosferatu) while others depict them as sad and sympathetic creatures (as in 1979’s Nosferatu) — by contrasting Louis and Lestat, the film cannily has it both ways. It also intriguingly illustrates how basically human their actions are — in a parallel universe, they could be college roommates, with Lestat the type who parties with panties on his head while Louis pulls all-nighters brushing up for his algebra exam. This earned a pair of Oscar nominations for Elliot Goldenthal’s score and the art direction & set decoration.

Extras in the 4K + Digital Code edition consist of audio commentary by Jordan; an introduction by Rice, Jordan, and Banderas; a quartet of making-of retrospectives; and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★★

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973). Introduced to the original 1970 concept album at an early age, I can immerse myself in that magnificent soundtrack anytime, anyplace, anywhere … but my enthusiasm doesn’t quite carry over to director Norman Jewison’s screen adaptation. Jewison, coming off the successful film version of Fiddler on the Roof, takes a minimalist approach (scaffoldings in the middle of the desert) and offers modern touches (jets flying overhead) — these choices neither enhance nor detract. But many of the singers simply don’t compare to their original counterparts, and even Barry Dennen, who does reprise his role as Pontius Pilate, is far less subtle in his film portrayal. Still, the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice score and the complex interpretations of Christ (Ted Neeley ) and Judas (Carl Anderson ) win out over any shortcomings. Neeley and Anderson are fine, Josh Mostel amuses as Herod, and, as Mary, Yvonne Elliman (along with Dennen, the only cast member from the original concept album) is terrific. This earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Music Adaptation.

In related news, my early enthusiasm for the album paid off. Ceaseless listens over the years made it easy to memorize the entire rock opera, and I especially dug the songs by Pilate. So it was a dream come true when my high school (American International School of Lisbon in Portugal) mounted an outdoor stage production in 1982 (when I was in the 10th grade) and I was cast as Pontius Pilate. As the photo attests, our version took its cue from the film by mixing ancient and modern.

Extras in the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition include audio commentary by Jewison and Neeley; an interview with Rice; and a new audio mix by musician and engineer Brian Kehew, mixer of albums by Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac, Talking Heads, Madonna, and more.

Movie: ★★★

SHE RIDES SHOTGUN (2025). She Rides Shotgun is a movie of many merits, but chief among them is that it features one of the best performances by a child in recent memory. Certainly, there’s never been a shortage of exceptional acting turns by those too young to vote — the past dozen years alone have seen Jacob Tremblay in Room, Brooklynn Prince in The Florida Project, Elsie Fisher in Eighth Grade, and Frankie Corio in Aftersun — and Ana Sophia Heger joins the ranks with a performance of extraordinary emotional power. Her co-star is Taron Egerton, obviously much more hardened and rugged than in such pictures as Rocketman and Eddie the Eagle — as father and daughter, they’re completely believable in a movie that feels like a more violent cousin to the 2018 drama Leave No Trace. Egerton is cast as Nate, an ex-con who joined the white supremacist outfit Aryan Steel while in prison and ended up killing one of its leaders — this results in a “green light” being given for gang members to murder Nate and his estranged family. Nate ends up hitting the highway with his reluctant 11-year-old daughter Polly (Heger) at his side — he figures remaining on the run is the only way to protect his little girl. Meanwhile, Detective Park (Rob Yang) conducts his own investigation, well aware that he can’t trust anyone since Aryan Steel has cops on its payroll. Narratively, the film doesn’t always ring true — for one thing, it’s hard to square the standing of Aryan Steel as this massive and efficient outfit with its hee-haw members — but it’s the attention to the strengthening bond between Nate and Polly that makes it compelling. Some will find the ending downbeat and deeply disappointing while others will appreciate its honesty and hint of hope. Either way, the closing shot, a face filling the screen for a noticeably long time, will leave most viewers dabbing those eyes.

The only extra on the 4K + Digital Code edition is the trailer.

Movie: ★★★

SUPERGIRL (2026). While Superman managed to slip onto my list of the 10 Best Films of 2025, there’s sadly no chance of Supergirl doing likewise for ’26. That’s a shame, because the brief appearance of Kara Zor-El in the Kal-El flick was one of the myriad highlights. Supergirl continues that tease by further illustrating that Kara (Milly Alcock) is not a stalwart hero like her cousin (David Corenswet) but rather a frequently inebriated clubber whose only true friend is her canine companion Krypto. So far, so good, but after fleshing out the character — her backstory is tied to the destruction of Krypton — scripter Ana Nogueira can’t think anything more interesting for the character to do than play babysitter in a barren landscape more suited for a post-apocalyptic pic. Taking its primary cues from the comic book miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, it finds Supergirl travelling to a planet with a red sun (required for her to actually feel the effects of booze), where she encounters a young girl (Eve Ridley) whose parents were murdered by the intergalactic scumbag Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts). Supergirl is reluctant to help her out until Krem shoots Krypto with a poison dart, thus requiring her to track him down in order to obtain the antidote. Online trolls and right-wing commentators blasted Alcock for (in their opinion) not being pretty enough for the role (because, as we know, these guys all look like George Clooney), but the actress is the picture’s strongest component, effectively projecting Kara’s irritation and insouciance before she finds her inner altruism. Much of the tossed-off humor clicks, and Jason Momoa is more interesting as the bounty hunter Lobo than he ever was as Aquaman. But the central storyline is ultimately too marginal to make the best use of this scrappy heroine.

Extras in the 4K + Digital Code edition include a making-of featurette; pieces on Lobo and Krypto; and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★½

WAG THE DOG (1997). This sharp political satire finds Dustin Hoffman delivering a beautifully modulated performance as Stanley Motss, a successful Hollywood producer (reportedly based on Robert Evans) who’s sought out by political spin doctor Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro) after the U.S. President is caught groping a teenage girl two weeks before the election. Conrad’s plan is to create a diversion for the media so the assault allegation will be relegated to the back burner — he settles on creating the appearance of a war with Albania, and he hires Stanley to “produce” this skirmish. Stanley finds a child actress (Kirsten Dunst) to portray a war orphan, gets his singer friend (Willie Nelson) to write patriotic songs, and arranges for a twitchy Army sergeant (Woody Harrelson) to be presented as an all-American hero. Scripted by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet (adapting Larry Beinhart’s novel American Hero), Wag the Dog drips cynicism as it punches across its tattered message that “war is show business” (a line actually spoken by one of the characters). In an instance of life imitating art (see also The China Syndrome), the film’s release was followed three weeks later by news of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Wag the Dog earned Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Hoffman) and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by Hoffman and director Barry Levinson; a piece on the intersection between movies and politics, featuring interviews with former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, former White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers, screenwriter Budd Schulberg (A Face in the Crowd), documentarians Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker (The War Room), and more; and a Q&A with William H. Macy (who appears in the film as a CIA agent) about his work with Mamet.

Movie: ★★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

ANNIE (2014). [Warning: Offensive language ahead.] I’m used to receiving angry e-mails from readers, but my very own hate page on 4chan? (Haven’t checked these past 10 years to see if it’s still there; presumably not.) It was all about my original 2014 Annie review, and how my comments about racism made me a “fucking retard faggot,” a “liberal retard,” “pathetic and weak,” and a “traitor” to my own race. Somehow, the thread eventually went off on tangents about how the Germans were the real victims of WWII and there was no Holocaust, and how Jesus was white and the casting in Exodus: Gods and Kings was actually color-accurate. Then it got back to calling me a “retard” and saying nasty things about blacks, culminating in “Just a reminder all n*****s and race traitors should die. Anyone with a brain knows this is true. Deal with it, you pathetic cunts.” Yup, 4chan is pretty much the gathering of open-mouth breathers everyone had been saying! Yet here’s what those future Trump supporters refused to acknowledge about Annie, the little orphan girl created for the comics by Harold Gray and later brought to stage, screen, and television: She’s never been defined by her race but her class. A child of the Great Depression, she found herself enjoying the good life once she crossed paths with the filthy rich Daddy Warbucks. It’s her social standing that’s always driven the story, not the color of her skin, which is why it was downright depressing to find so many people outraged that a black moppet, 11-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, had been cast in the part instead of a white girl with red hair. (Of course, past Annies of the Caucasian persuasion didn’t sport blank zombie eyes like in the comic, but the yahoos were strangely silent about that.) At any rate, this modest box office hit is far better than its questionably motivated reputation. It’s frequently awkward, suffers from some pedestrian choreography, and wears its heart perhaps a bit too openly on its sleeve. But it’s also charming, well-acted (with the occasional exception of poor Cameron Diaz, trapped in the difficult role of Miss Hannigan), and, most surprisingly, quite funny. As the modern-day Warbucks, Jamie Foxx is a delight, and the film works overtime in presenting clever topical twists on the stage show’s clichés. If nothing else, this Annie is infinitely better than John Huston’s 1982 turkey, that grotesquerie starring Albert Finney and Carol Burnett.

Movie: ★★★

EDDIE THE EAGLE (2016). The “underdog sports movie” — if there’s a sub-genre that didn’t need any more piling on, it was this one. Yet for all its familiar trappings, Eddie the Eagle manages more often than not to escape that overbearing sense of been-there-done-that and emerge as a respectable movie in its own right. That’s a real surprise, considering this brand of story — the plucky nobody who unexpectedly excels at sports — has been with us since the days of silent cinema, when Harold Lloyd proved himself to be a gangly gridiron great in the uproarious 1925 comedy classic The Freshman. Here, the protagonist is the real-life Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards (Taron Egerton), a British lad who has been determined since an early age to become an Olympic star, despite the fact that he’s an awkward individual lacking any discernible aptitude at sports. But he finally finds a niche of sorts as a skier, and to improve his odds of making it to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, he elects to become a ski jumper since Britain hasn’t even bothered entering one into competition in decades. What makes Eddie the Eagle — the movie and the character — so endearing is the performance by Egerton, who had broken through the previous year as novice spy Eggsy Unwin in Kingsman: The Secret Service. There, he was brainy and brawny; here, he’s wimpy and gimpy. It’s a remarkable acting about-face, and what’s further interesting about his work here is that Eddie’s not an ugly duckling who blossoms into a swan — instead, he remains socially unpolished and seemingly ill-at-ease in his own body, an individual who succeeds through sheer willpower and a never-say-die attitude that’s positively inspiring. Hugh Jackman is also on hand — he plays Eddie’s boozy trainer (a fictional person created for narrative streamlining) — and he’s fine in a role that never escapes its rigid pre-determined constraints. But it’s Egerton, and Egerton alone, who allows the film to slip off its shackles of convention and fly like — what else? — an eagle.

Movie: ★★★

 INNER SANCTUM MYSTERIES (1943-1945). An offshoot of the popular radio series Inner Sanctum (which also led to a string of books as well as a TV show), this film franchise found Universal Pictures committing Lon Chaney Jr. to a run of six quickie “B” flicks that each barely ran over an hour (the longest clocks in at 67 minutes). Production values are kept to a minimum, and five of the six movies offer variations on the same theme: Someone ends up murdered, and the running time is spent determining whether the prime suspect (always Chaney) is the killer or if someone else is to blame. Despite the lurid titles and the presence of horror star Chaney, these aren’t monster movies but instead murder-mysteries made enjoyable by fine casting, interesting plot turns, and a plethora of suspects.

Calling Dr. Death (1943) stars Chaney as a doctor whose loathsome wife (Ramsay Ames) is murdered, thereby allowing him to focus on his devoted secretary (Patricia Morison). Weird Woman (1944) centers on the relationship between a college professor (Chaney) and his new bride (Anne Gwynne) — a woman whose upbringing among natives has made her embrace their voodoo rituals — and the evil that’s unleashed through the machinations of his jealous colleague (Evelyn Ankers, Chaney’s leading lady in The Wolf Man). Dead Man’s Eyes (1944) finds Chaney cast as a blind artist who benefits when his elderly benefactor (Edward Fielding), who willed him his eyes, is discovered beaten to death. The Frozen Ghost (1945) focuses on a hypnotist (Chaney) who hides out in a wax museum after convincing himself that he killed a man during one of his stage performances. Strange Confession (1945) casts Chaney as an honorable scientist who’s double-crossed by an unscrupulous boss (J. Carrol Naish) interested only in profit and fame (look for a young Lloyd Bridges as Chaney’s lab assistant). And Pillow of Death (1945) involves Chaney in a tale about a husband whose late wife might be able to identify her assassin through a shady medium named Julian Julian (J. Edward Bromberg).

Film Series: ★★★

KILLING THEM SOFTLY (2012). Writer-director Andrew Dominick, whose epic Western The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford made my 10 Best list for 2007, stumbles badly with this yarn (based on George V. Higgins’ novel Cogan’s Trade) in which a professional killer (Brad Pitt) is tasked with locating and eliminating the low-level crooks who were dumb enough to rob a Mob-enforced card game. Pitt is merely in “cool movie star” mode here, with the best performance coming from Scoot McNairy as one of the hapless thieves. For the most part, this is a generic crime flick that comes with the usual trimmings of Tarantino-inspired exchanges (except dull instead of exhilarating), loving attention to all the beatings and shootings (a bullet ripping through a cheek, a kicked rib cage cracking, etc.), and the entire female population represented by a solitary hooker (billed as, yes, “Hooker” rather than a name in the end credits) who’s only on hand to be insulted by James Gandolfini’s boozy hitman — when she asks for a tip, he replies, “Here’s a tip: Learn how to put the condom on with your mouth.” Add a ham-fisted and ill-advised attempt to make a meaningful statement about contemporary times and what’s left is particularly unbearable. Set in 2008, with both the presidential election and the financial collapse the hot news items of the day, the film constantly places its characters in settings where TVs or billboards are featuring Obama, Bush or McCain. It’s the movie’s way of saying that the crime underworld is no different than the real world, what with its bureaucratic blunders, corporate structuring, capitalist tendencies. and dog-eat-dog mentality. At one point, Pitt’s character even says, “America isn’t a country; it’s a business.” Great, but mob movies have been making similar parallels at least since The Godfather lo those many years ago. Killing Them Softly positions itself as a heady piece of entertainment, but it’s ultimately no more intelligent than The Pet Goat.

Movie: ★½

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING (2002). One of the most extraordinary tales in indie film history is how this property began life as a one-woman play before eventually becoming the top-grossing independent film of all time (since surpassed). The stage show, created by actress-writer Nia Vardalos, was seen by Rita Wilson, who, along with her husband Tom Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman, elected to back a motion picture based on the material. Budgeted in the ball park of $5 million, the film started off small, but the word of mouth was so potent that the film played and played in the U.S. (for an entire year!)  and ended up earning an astounding $241 million stateside (and $368 million globally). It was a happy ending for all concerned, although it would have been nice if a better movie had generated such audience adoration. A romantic comedy that gently tweaks stereotypes even as its characters wallow in them, this centers on the plight of Toula Portokalos (Vardalos), a 30-year-old single woman who’s constantly being pressured by her family, most notably the Greek-and-proud-of-it patriarch (Michael Constantine), to get married to a nice Greek boy and start producing plenty of babies. Toula finally meets the man of her dreams, but much to the dismay of everyone around her, he most decidedly isn’t Greek — not with the name Ian Miller (smoothly played by John Corbett). The usual culture clashes come to the forefront in this tale that occasionally overplays the eccentricities (Dad goes around spraying Windex on everything, believing there’s nothing it can’t cure) but on balance remains recognizable in its presentation of the strengths required — and struggles revealed — in the battle for family unity and cultural preservation. The blandness is probably what endeared the movie to millions — all complications tend to be as complex as a knotted shoelace and, tellingly, even the character of Toula’s beau is made into a milky-white hunk to soothe American blue-hairs and their hubbies (Vardalos’ real-life husband is named not Ian Miller but Ian Gomez; he can be spotted playing Corbett’s colleague). Vardalos earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay (odd, since it’s clearly an adaptation), but her appealing performance is better than her script.

Movie: ★★½

WILD TALES (2014). An anthology film that calls itself Wild Tales can only truly deliver on its moniker by offering stories comparable to the insane likes of, say, Luis Buñuel’s 1929 Un Chien Andalou (with that infamous eyeball-slicing scene), John Waters’ 1970 Multiple Maniacs (featuring a character called The Puke Eater as well as the sight of a 15-foot-long lobster raping Divine), and David Lynch’s 1977 Eraserhead (wild from first frame to last). Made for moviegoers who don’t want their films too messy, Wild Tales is more often like mild tales, yet that’s not necessarily a knock. A gargantuan hit in its Argentinian homeland and an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this still sports enough of a wicked edge to break away from other rowdy satires that are more cookie cutter than cutting edge. Written and directed by Damián Szifrón, the picture — for better or worse — opens with its best skit: “Pasternak,” in which everyone aboard an airplane all improbably seem to personally know the title character. Because Szifrón plays it close to the vest for much of its length, this sequence works beautifully, and its final freeze frame is nothing short of brilliant. The subsequent five stories — yarns centering on a waitress out for revenge (“The Rats”), a yuppie and a yahoo engaged in road rage (“Road to Hell”), a demolitions expert (Ricardo Darín, star of Argentina’s Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes) experiencing a particularly vexing string of unfortunate incidents (“Little Bomb”), the cover-up of a hit-and-run (“The Proposal”), and a wedding in which admissions of infidelity fly fast and furious (“Til Death Do Us Part”) — all prove to be entertaining, even if they’re only able to offer outrageousness in carefully measured doses (“Road to Hell” arguably comes closest to go-for-broke consistency). Still, there’s just enough of a maverick spirit on tap to satisfy the type of discerning film fan who even now is gripped with terror at the thought of that upcoming Garfield sequel.

Movie: ★★★