It’s never really a good thing when your movie is released on Video on Demand the same day it opens in the theater. This is slowly changing and becoming more widely accepted because it helps some independent movies earn more money. However, it still means that, regardless of how good a movie is (in any category), it is not eligible for an Academy Award nomination. So if it is a movie you think will be great, you wouldn’t make it available on OnDemand until after it leaves theaters. With that said, all those involved with this movie (regardless of whether you loved it or hated it) knew that it would never be in contention for an Oscar award. The Harvest is a movie I would not have seen in theaters, and had it not been on OnDemand at the same time as its theatrical release, I would have missed it altogether. Their release plan was good. The film, on the other hand, was meh.
All posts by bryanbuser
Maria Full of Grace (2004)
Joshua Marston’s (The Forgiveness of Blood) Maria Full of Grace is one of the best foreign-language films I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, I watched this movie on the heels of another foreign-language film (A Girl Walks Home At Night), which, despite its 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I found incredibly dull and had no interest in reviewing. So I was unsure about watching another subtitled movie the next day, but I am glad I gave it a fair chance. It’s a great movie that tells a heart-wrenching and believable story.
A Walk on the Moon (1999)
Promises (the only film he has been nominated for an Academy Award) was the first movie I ever reviewed for my blog. It wasn’t the most straightforward movie to review, and I would like to see it again one day and then read what I wrote for that first review, but that will be something that comes later. He’s a solid actor who seems to do fewer and fewer movies each year, but when he’s on his A-game, there aren’t many who are better. I had never heard of A Walk on the Moon before it showed up as a Netflix recommendation. I quickly threw it in the queue, and I’m glad I did. In addition to a fabulous performance by Mortensen, this was a solid movie with one of the significant foundations of human life at the forefront. It’s the most surprising movie I’ve seen this year, and I may have to reevaluate my 1999 top 10 list. This movie won’t be good enough to get on there, but there’s a chance it will. This review may be the deciding factor.
Big Eyes (2014)
Every once in a while, I’ll see a preview for the first time that I have absolutely no interest in. The movie looks cheesy, bland, weird, and so on. But then the film earns a solid rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and I’ll read what a couple of critics who liked the movie have said about it. And then I’ll watch the same trailer again and try to watch it with a different set of eyes. And between my first and second viewing, something convinced me to give the movie a chance. With Tim Burton’s (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands) Big Eyes, my chief complaint was that the film would be a little too weird for me. However, after a couple of weeks, I convinced myself I would see that movie. I hoped to catch this one in the theater (generally speaking, I am far less distracted in a theater than at home, but then again, I’m Captain Obvious with this statement). However, Big Eyes grabbed my attention from the get-go and held it through the 1-hour 45-minute viewing.
St. Vincent (2014)
Theodore Melfi’s St. Vincent, his first full-length feature film, is a movie I liked a little more than I did. Unfortunately, though it did it better than many of its predecessors, it follows a very familiar been there, done that approach. It’s no wonder that, despite some great performances (especially from its lead), it got lost in the shuffle and ultimately got shut out from any Academy Award nominations. There is only so much you can do with portraying a down-and-out lead character who hits rock bottom and then has to fight to be again. In some flicks, we see these characters have bottomed before the movie begins (Crazy Heart, The Dark Knight Rises), and in others, the characters hit rock bottom throughout the film (The Wrestler, Shame, Leaving Las Vegas). St. Vincent is more like the latter, and while some might like it better, it came nowhere close to any of the five movies I mentioned in the previous sentence. While Bill Murray (Groundhog Day, Lost in Translation) gave his best lead performance in over a decade, the film offered nothing I hadn’t seen before, and I liked the avenues each of the five movies mentioned earlier explored.