Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Jack’s (Jacob Tremblay) fifth birthday is typical: He says good morning to the various objects in his home, brushes his teeth, then exercises with Ma (Brie Larson). Gradually, however, we realize that Ma was kidnapped seven years earlier by a sexual predator, and her son’s knowledge of the world extends no further than the inner walls of the tiny, locked shed he calls “room.”

A team of four Boston Globe journalists headed by Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton) is searching for their next exposé when their editor-in-chief (Liev Schreiber) suggests they investigate pedophile priest John Geoghan: a controversial assignment for a newspaper with a 53 percent Catholic subscriber base. Six-hundred articles later, Boston’s Cardinal Law had resigned, and the church was forced to confront an international pedophilia crisis.

It’s been said that true genius is never appreciated in its own time. Some of the most brilliant minds in human history have challenged the status quo, pioneered their field, and changed the world with their groundbreaking ideas and their seemingly limitless creativity. But the flip side of that coin almost always meant that their personal eccentricities left a gaping void in their capacity for being likable human beings. The film Steve Jobs explores that theme at great length and begs the question: Just how much leeway should geniuses be allowed before we dismiss them as the douchebags they are?

With Creed, director Ryan Coogler (Frutivale Station) reboots the long-running Rocky franchise for a new generation of fans. Like The Force Awakens, Creed, from a screenplay by Aaron Covington and Coogler, plays it safe, never deviating far from the fundamentals that made the original film such a success.

After an acclaimed reboot that successfully shed the sillier trappings of the long-running James Bond franchise, the creators of the recent Spectre have now curiously chosen to embrace the clunky clichés and cartoon villains not only of the 007 canon but seemingly every thriller of the past decade. Big Brother has arrived! It’s the death of privacy! “We must stop this doomful technology before it goes online, or it will be too late!” (Not an actual quote, but you get the idea.)

Based on Michael Lewis’ non-fiction book, The Big Short brings together the ensemble cast of Steve Carell (who plays Mark Baum, a character based on the real-life Steve Eisman), Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, and Ryan Gosling as a number of Wall Street moneymen who discover the fraud underpinning the mortgage lending practices of the big banks and independently make moves to profit from the impending collapse of the system. Additionally, the film makes comical use of celebrities, playing themselves, to explain some of the technical financial jargon in layman’s terms. Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explaining subprime mortgage-backed securities is my personal favorite.

In June 1957, Soviet spy Rudolf Abel is captured in New York City. Insurance attorney James B. Donovan is appointed to handle the defense, based on his experience at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Reluctant to take the case at first, Donovan ultimately accepts, passionate in his belief that everyone deserves a fair trial.