Recently released on Blu-ray and DVD: All Styles, Boris Karloff Collection, The Doctor From India, La Familia.
All Styles
Although hip-hop dancer Brandon (Dushaunt Fik-Shun Stegall) clashes with dad over his music, they share the same goal: advancement through education. When Brandon arrives at LSU he kills at Zumba, excels at hard classes and overcomes social awkwardness with his skills on the floor. Will forming a new crew get in the way of his studies? The plot is thin, the tone is breezy and the moves—influenced by modern dance and martial arts—are cool.
Boris Karloff Collection
Boris Karloff was always a class act even in low-class dramas. In his last years the actor who helped define horror starred in the four ultra-low budget flicks collected here. There are genuinely weird moments in these tales of science gone wrong and diabolic family legacies. Some will admire Dance of Death (1968) and Torture Zone (1968) for working within their limitations. Karloff died before Alien Terror and Cult of the Dead surfaced in 1971.
The Doctor from India
Director Jeremy Frindel (One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das) opens his documentary with a grand cinematic gesture—a long tracking shot of his subject, Vasant Lad, as the doctor proceeds from his car and up the steps to his free clinic. Lad introduced Ayurveda medicine to the west in the ’70s, a traditional Indian system valuing balance in all things. As Deepak Chopra remarks, it became mainstream in America because “it works.”
La Familia
As Venezuela slid into tyranny over the past several years, its economy has more or less collapsed. And while it’s not a political film, the country’s increasingly desperate poverty clings to La Familia like grit. Pedro and his friends play hardball on the grimy streets of Caracas but before long push comes to shove and fun and games turn deadly. Pedro and his father must hide to escape retribution in this story of family under pressure.
