I Melt With You
There must be a special circle of hell reserved for films that are as bad as I Melt With You, a stunningly awful feature from writer Glenn Porter and director Mark Pellington, who somehow convinced Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven and Carla Gugino to appear in this disaster. The nominal plot finds four fortysomething college buddies getting together for a drug and alcohol-fueled reunion designed to make them feel like young fratboy assholes all over again. This retreat is coming at a particularly opportune time, as their personal and professional are in the crapper. Lowe is divorced and can't deal with the knowledge that the young son he adores has a new daddy; Piven is one of those unscrupulous financial types that happily skims off the top of his clients' earnings; Jane is a frustrated novelist reduced to teaching high school students; and the fourth guy (played by Christian McKay) is depressed about a recent death in his family. Setting up shop inside a beach house on the California coasts, the dudes party hearty in an attempt to chase the mid-life blues away, but one of them ultimately can't handle his depression and hangs himself in the shower. The others then recall a pact they made when they were 19, which stated that they too would end their lives if they felt they had somehow "betrayed" their younger selves. Instead of chalking it up to youthful stupidity, the three remaining idiots decide to take that promise seriously and proceed to figure out the best way to kill themselves (or each other) before a local cop (Gugino) is able to figure out just what the hell they're all up to. Directed like the worst music video of all time and filled with risible, self-pitying dialogue, I Melt With You doesn't just make you feel ashamed for everyone involved in this film -- it makes you ashamed for the entire male gender. (Available via Magnolia on Demand; opens in limited theatrical release on December 9.)
Best Scene: The closing credits, because it means the two-hour ordeal is finally over.

Into the Abyss
Absurdly prolific filmmaker Werner Herzog releases his second documentary of 2011, following the acclaimed Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which became a hit on the art-house circuit this past spring. Into the Abyss is a far more grave and serious affair, involving, as it does, matters of life and death. Herzog takes his cameras into a Texas prison to interview two convicted murderers, one of whom is sentenced to die in just eight days from the time of their conversation. That man is Michael Perry, who, along with his accomplice Jason Burkett (who avoided death row, receiving a 40-year sentence instead), was tried and convicted of killing three people in the process of stealing a car. Unlike Errol Morris, whose seminal 1988 true crime documentary The Thin Blue Line was designed to exonerate a condemned man, Herzog isn't out to prove his subjects' innocence. Both Perry and Burkett know they are guilty... although they each deny that they were primarily responsible for the murders, blaming the other instead. Instead, Into the Abyss concerns itself with the justness of the punishment they've received, specifically Perry's death sentence. Herzog mentions early on in the film that he opposes the death penalty, but he doesn't allow his personal feelings to drive the film. Indeed, he makes a point of including a scene where a relative of one of the victims describes the sense of peace she felt when she saw Perry executed. (It's worth noting that, as a follow-up, he asks her whether she'd feel equally satisfied had Perry been given a life sentence instead and she acknowledges that she probably would.) There are no easy answers to the questions Herzog poses to the various men and women that sit in front of his camera, but the director's ability to objectively pursue this line of inquiry makes Into the Abyss a compelling, revealing work of art. (Available via IFC on Demand; also playing in limited theatrical release.)
Best Scene: An emotional interview with former death-row guard detail leader Fred Allen, in which he walks Herzog through the exact steps of an execution and how years of watching people die transformed him into a death penalty opponent.

Angel's Crest
Another small-town indie drama, another slice of human misery. Set in the titular Rocky Mountain town, Angels Crest begins with young father Ethan (Thomas Dekker) driving into the snowy wilderness with his 3-year-old son and tracking a deer while the boy sleeps in his car seat. When he returns the vehicle, the kid is gone and his frozen body is discovered the next day. The death sends shockwaves through the small community, affecting everyone from the child's alcoholic mother Cindy (Lynn Collins), to a sympathetic diner owner (Mira Sorvino) to the local D.A. (Jeremy Piven), who seeks to prosecute Ethan for his son's death. (Although really, Ethan's abject grief seems worse than any jail sentence.) Adapted from a book by Leslie Schwartz, Angels Crest has a handful of good performances and the mountain-dotted backdrops (the movie was filmed in Western Canada) are stunning, but overall the movie labors in the shadow of such superior tales of small-town tragedies (which almost always seem to involve the untimely death of cute kids) as The Sweet Hereafter and Snow Angels. Its unrelenting grimness proves as oppressive as the snowy landscape that surrounds the town. (Available via Magnolia on Demand; opens in limited theatrical release on December 30.)
Best Scene: Ethan pieces together just how his son got out of his supposedly safe car seat.

Romantics Anonymous
Finally, some light-hearted levity for the holiday season! This goofy French rom-com follows chocolate-maker Angélique (Isabelle Carré) who is as exceptional at creating delicious confections as she's hopeless at romance. Taking a job at an underperforming chocolate company, she meets someone that's just as cacao leaf-addicted and love-challenged as she is: the outfit's owner, Jean-René (Benoît Poelvoorde). Despite their nerves, the two feel a definite attraction and, on the advice of their respective support systems (his therapist and her counseling group), they take halting steps towards a romance, complete with dinner dates and getaways at a beautiful country hotel. Clocking in at a brief 80 minutes, Romantics Anonymous is a slight, but mostly sweet bit of silliness that benefits hugely from its two appealing stars. Think of it as a light bonbon rather than a decadent chocolate cake. (Available via Movies on Demand.)
Best Scene: Angélique and Jean-René's first dinner date, during which he repeatedly has to leave the table and change his shirt due to nervous sweating.

Also on VOD This Month
Movies on Demand: Nobody came out to play with the mixed-martial arts flick Warrior, despite all the glowing reviews (ours included) when it hit theaters in August. But man oh man, if you like Rocky, you're gonna dig this one in a big way. And after watching the punishment that Tom Hardy dishes out to his opponents here, we can't wait to see him take on Batman in the next Dark Knight movie.
IFC on Demand: Twilight patriarch Peter Facinelli wrote and stars in Loosies, a drama about a pickpocket that contemplates becoming a family man when he learns that he knocked up a former one-night stand.
Magnolia on Demand: In Roadie, Ron Eldard plays an ex-Blue Oyster Cult roadie who returns home after two decades on tour with the band and finds himself with limited career propsects and a personal life in shambles.

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