“Champagne Problems” (*** out of four) was a sparkling romantic comedy about a female business executive (Minka Kelly) who travels to France to see about acquiring a worldwide champagne company but instead falls in love with the champagne founder’s son (Tom Woniczka). No Dom Perignon or Kristal but good-natured performances and chemistry from the two leads and some occasional laughs make this a smooth and sweet brew. Highlight: a German character’s interpretation of “Die Hard” and how Hans Gruber was a misunderstood hero.

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“Day Of A Lion” (*1/2 out of four) was a turkey just in time for Thanksgiving about two sisters (real life sisters Bianca and Dilara Forscht) who reunite at their childhood home after their father’s death where they re-open old wounds and emotional trauma which leads them to question their past and present reality. Static story is stiff and inert and might have worked better as a two-character play. Both Forscht sisters wrote and directed and get an A for effort but this is a real yawner. Watch “The Lion King” instead.

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“Double Exposure” (*1/2 out of four) was a sodden romantic melodrama about a struggling artist (Alexander Calvert) who finds himself grappling with guilt over his first love (Catherine Caylee Cowan) and how this overtakes his present relationship with another woman (Kahyun Kim) which turns his sanity and reality inside-and-out. Throwback to Hitchcock thrillers and French film noir of the 50’s and 60’s is usurped by dull execution and characters with no appeal whatsoever. Film has a corkscrew ending but you likely won’t make it that far.

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“Deathstalker” (**1/2 out of four) was an efficiently done remake of the 1983 “cult classic” about the title rogue warrior (Daniel Bernhardt) who is tasked by an embittered witch (Christina Orjalo) to unite the 3 powers of creation but finds a multitude of treachery and adventure along the way. Light-hearted and not especially filling, as it lifts also from “Labyrinth” and “Legend” and also (at times) “The Princess Bride”, but at least writer/director Steven Kostanski keeps the story moving and gives you your money’s worth with visual effects and sword-and-sorcery action. Either way, this is FAR better than the 1983 original.

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“Self Driver” (*1/2 out of four) was a lurid psychological melodrama about an Uber driver (Nathaniel Chadwick) who joins a new money-making app involving driving but finds his psychological limits are put to the test over the span of a long night in which he encounters the heights and depths of depravity and society. Starts off well and wires you into the fervid pulse of its lead character and scenario but soon goes afield and wallows in self-indulgent unpleasantness and loses its grip. Writer/director Michael Pierro pays obvious stylistic homages to “Taxi Driver” but the meter on this one runs out long before it’s running time is up.

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“Creeper In The Woods” (*1/2 out of four) was a by-the-numbers clunker about a group of friends (Sydney Spaulding, Mackenzie Aaryn, Kirsten Henriquez, and others) who go on a camping trip in the middle of the woods where they are (yawn) menaced and slashed by a deranged hillbilly (Brandon Yates) known as The Creeper. (Does this sound at all familiar?) Synthetic amalgam of elements from “Wrong Turn” and “Cabin In The Woods” which were already rip-offs of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Deliverance.” Film is only made for junior-high kids with low-attention spans who’ve never seen any of the above.

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“Fan Of Mine” (*1/2 out of four) was a sordid psychodrama about a world-famous pop star (Angeleah Speights) who becomes fixated on one of her female fans (Sylena Rai) which derails her career and her sanity and blurs the lines for all of them between fixation and fear and the chilling price of fame. Intriguing psychological material is bungled by amateurish filmmaking and lame script and characterizations. 1981’s “The Fan” told similar material with more verve and resonance. Speights is a knockout in the lead but film is unlikely to find many “fans” of its own.

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“Bang Bang” (*1/2 out of four) was a gritty but grimy underworld melodrama about a long-retired boxer (Tim Blake Nelson) obsessed with rectifying the sins of the past and enacting revenge on the boxer (Glenn Plummer) who defeated him and ended his career. Inspirational melodrama has little inspiration or emotional resonance since Nelson’s character (and performance) is unlikeable and thus film wallows in unpleasantness and never delivers the knockout punch it wants. Plummer is wasted in key supporting role; his role in “South Central” was similar to Nelson’s but carried much more bang and passion.

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“Delivery Run” (*1/2 out of four) was a desperate horror melodrama about a food-delivery driver (Alexander Arnold) who is driving in the dead of winter through the Minnesota wilderness where he is pursued by a crazed snowplow driver (Jussi Lampi) who will not stop until he is dead and things start to get really ugly on the highway. Potentially solid B-movie material is usurped by unlikeable characters and weak screenplay. Obviously inspired by Steven Spielberg’s “Duel” and (to some extent) “Joy Ride” but fails to “deliver” any significant quota of thrills or scares.

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“Rumpelstiltskin” (* out of four) was a wooden horror adaptation of the classic German fairy tale about a young woman (Paula Marcenaro Solinger) who risks her life to protect her newborn son by making a deal with the title forest creature (Aron Brough) who enacts bloody vengeance on her and her family. Fans of horror would be better served by watching the Disney original for more scares and certainly better acting and filmmaking. By this point, the novelty of adapting classic stories into horror films has seriously run out of gas. This makes either of the “Winnie The Pooh” thrillers look like “Halloween” by comparison.

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