This week\u2019s low-profile VOD releases feature message movies about autism awareness and animal rights, revenge thrillers about a blind swordsman and an angry father, and 5,000 space aliens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Time Got Louder<\/em><\/strong> (VOD and select theaters November 17):<\/strong> Writer-director Connie Cocchia combines two melodramatic tearjerkers in this family drama about a teenager caring for her non-verbal autistic brother and exploring her first same-sex relationship. That\u2019s a lot for aspiring artist Abbie (Willow Shields) to take on, and it\u2019s more than either she or the movie can handle. Abbie and her brother Kayden (Jonathan Simao) have been close for their entire lives, and Kayden doesn\u2019t understand when Abbie moves away to attend art school, upending his familiar support system. Abbie deals with guilt over leaving Kayden behind, plus further guilt over hiding her burgeoning romance with fellow student Karly (Ava Capri) from her well-meaning but overwhelmed parents (Elizabeth Mitchell and Lochlyn Munro). The misguided plot drags on through contrived, anguished confrontations with the limited nuance of an Afterschool Special<\/em>. Mitchell spends at least half the movie in or on the verge of tears, and the overall effect is emotionally exhausting rather than enlightening. Grade: C<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 5000 Space Aliens<\/em><\/strong> (VOD November 21):<\/strong> It wouldn\u2019t be accurate to call filmmaker Scott Bateman\u2019s work a movie in the traditional sense\u2014it\u2019s more like an art installation, or something that would play in an underground bar during a performance by an avant-garde noise-rock group. Bateman presents a series of 5,000 one-second images that the opening title cards describe as depictions of aliens living on Earth. The segments are distorted clips from vintage advertisements, home movies, and other found footage, manipulated and augmented with animation. Occasionally, there appears to be a familiar face, although the clips flash by too quickly to be sure. Is that Bettie Page? News anchor Sam Donaldson? Does it matter? Almost none of the figures look particularly alien, and there\u2019s nothing eerie or threatening in the bright colors and pulsating, repetitive electronic score. It\u2019s an impressive one-man production that might catch your eye for a few minutes in a gallery, but watching it for 85 minutes straight is a serious endurance test. Grade: C<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Liberty<\/em><\/strong> (VOD November 21):<\/strong> Of all the ways that writer-director Phil De Witte could have delivered his message about animal rights, a thriller about an unhinged activist who kidnaps and tortures innocent people was probably not the best option. De Witte mainly succeeds in making animal-rights advocates seem deranged, with his story about a park ranger who abducts six people and places them in zoo-like captivity, to make a point about the cruelty of keeping animals under similar harsh conditions. Matt (Nicholas Michael McGovern) isn\u2019t even providing Jigsaw-style comeuppance to hunters or furriers, just tormenting randomly chosen victims with his condescending speeches. There\u2019s no character development for those victims, and the scattered efforts to generate sympathy for Matt only make him come off as more of a sociopath. It\u2019s like watching a smug, heavy-handed documentary combined with a plodding, suspense-free thriller. \u201cWe get it!\u201d yells one of the prisoners during Matt\u2019s latest lecture, speaking for both her fellow captives and the audience. Grade: D<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n