Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

Nicolas Cage – the actor of “Wild at Heart” – has been missing for some time, replaced by a flaky, tired and boring stand-in in such garbage fare as “Bangkok Dangerous.” In the police thriller “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” Cage is once again thrillingly alive, electric, giving a high-wire act, and knocking every other player off to the sidelines. He drops out-there dialogue like “To the break of dawn!” with absolute relish, hitting every syllable in the strangest and darkest of ways.

This Werner Herzog-directed flick has nothing to do with Harvey Kietel’s 1992 flick “Bad Lieutenant,” except name and its general outline: A depraved, drug-addled police detective is on a fast train to hell as he investigates a disturbing crime. Here it’s the murder of a New Orleans family of illegal immigrants, apparently over drugs the caretaker was selling.

Cage’s Terence McDonagh is off the bat corrupt, but in a flash of kindness he saves an inmate from drowning in the 2005 Katrina floods. No good deed goes unpunished: Terence injures his back in the rescue. A doctor’s prescription of painkillers leads to hard drugs and so many crimes – blackmail, sexual assault, shakedowns and pointing guns at grannies. Let’s put it this way: Our hero has a “lucky crack pipe.” It’s telling of Terence’s flamed soul that his lowest point in the film is when his call girl lover (Eva Mendes) announces she’s going into rehab.

His back and shoulders hunched like a walking “7” and a gun shoved in his front belt like a calling card of a psychotic Western lawman of about 16, Cage hasn’t been this good in years: All big-eyes tender one minute with a baby and raging crazy the next, even scaring hardened gangsters. Cage’s eyes are glaring mad, and I’m not sure how he does it. I’m not sure I want to know. But the actor last seen in, I swear, 1997’s “Face/Off” is back. (For now. He is doing a “Ghost Rider 2” after all, a bunch of other garbage, too, God help us.)

This Herzog tale is dark as hell, grisly violent, and strange – David Lynch strange – but it’s also wickedly funny. Terence hallucinates creeping spying lizards, and as the film reaches its climax – well, let’s say, I’m not quite certain reality is all there. The ending, actually, is quite hysterical, if you can get past the horrible acts Terence commits. This might be a difficult film for some to stomach. I dug it. A brimstone comedy from hell. And the most exciting big-screen police thriller I’ve seen in ages, good news for a genre that has played it as safe as an episode of “Law & Order” for too long. New Orleans has never, to my knowledge, been this gritty onscreen before. This ain’t Bourbon Street fun and partying. It’s a third world country, where signs of mass death from a deadly storm are marked – literally – on nearly every home. A-

The Pawnbroker (1965)

Sidney Lumet’s “The Pawnbroker” – photographed in a stark black and white – is merciless, poignant, unsettling, and packs a devastating finale. It was the first American film to deal with the Holocaust from the perspective of a survivor. Rod Steiger – in arguably his greatest role – is that survivor, Sol Nazerman. Once a professor with a wife and children, Sol now runs an East Harlem pawnshop that plays front to a local mobster (Brock Peters). The shop offers dry cleaning, but only launders money. Sol loathes his customers, and everyone around him. They are “scum” and “creatures,” hate has bred more hate. As a devastating anniversary looms, the brick wall that Sol has built up and over his human shell cracks. Sol either will be reborn, or will get the death he longs for. Lumet inter-cuts long memories and quick violent images from Sol’s past: Subway cars become death trains, while a half-naked woman recalls his ravaged wife. The images are startling. “Pawnbroker” is dated in portions, some portrayals of African-Americans and Hispanics skate close to stereotype, but this is one hell of a film. Lumet’s genius is on display throughout. Steiger beautifully plays several ages and bursts with grief and God-hating rage. A

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)

“Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever” contains massive explosions, each bigger than the last, and insane car crashes where the hero is thrown 50 feet across and is only bruised upon hitting pavement. It’s over-the-top to the point of hilarious irony. And, it’s all utterly boring and cheap looking, with an ugly script, too. The entire thing is an absolute misfire. Even the title isn’t even accurate. Yes, Ecks (a disillusioned FBI agent played by an equally sour Antonio Banderas) battles Sever (a super Chinese assassin played by Lucy Liu) for 20 minutes, but then they join forces against a rogue U.S. agent (Gregg Henry) who meets with his minions at deserted city parks at night. Not for sex, but to kill them. The setting is Vancouver, but American law enforcement endlessly run amok. Was Canada annexed? Liu – so wicked in “Kill Bill” - can’t carry her inept role, which inexplicably turns sympathetic after she kills 30-plus police men. The director’s is named “Kaos.” The movie is dull. D-

Bouncing Cats (2010)

The documentary “Bouncing Cats” is not making it into every cinema in the nation, but it should. The film follows Breakdance Project Uganda, brainchild of Abraham “Abramz” Tekya, a man who grew up in the African nation that long has been drowning in a bloodbath of British rule, war and godless rulers such as Amin and Kony. The concept seems almost trite: How will hip hop dance moves help thousands of children who know nothing but poverty, violence and illiteracy. Director/writer Nabil Elderkin tells his tale well, and admits that, no, just dancing won’t help lift these youth to happiness. They need more. Many celebrities appear: Richard “Crazy Legs” Colon is the Bronx kid-made-man who – in a scene desperately needed -- openly sobs at the immense suffering around him. Encompassing shocking violence and utter joy, this doc will stick with you despite the not subliminal Red Bull (funder of the film) ads. B+

Serpico (1973)

The ultimate police corruption drama, “Serpico” is another winner from the late Sidney Lumet, a director who never let flashy camera angles and high-jinks get in the way of an amazing story. And this tale, based of fact, is amazing. Newly minted NYC patrolman Frank Serpico quickly learns that Blue Blood is thicker than the red kind, and that an honest cop is the least trust worthy man on the job. Serpico is that honest cop. The film opens with Serpico being rushed to a hospital after being shot in the face at point-blank range. Fellow policeman relish the chance to see this guy six feet under. The rest of the film is a flashback as Serpico goes from joyful cop to a man hunted by his own brothers. The film’s pitch is not perfect: Early scenes with Frank’s family are scored to a painfully maudlin piece of music, but it’s a small sin in a deep and exciting flick. The once great Al Pacino plays Serpico, and his performance is among his greatest output – “The Godfather” films and “Dog Day Afternoon.” A

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

If “The Outlaw Josey Wales” is on TV – unedited – I’m there. This tale of a supposed “outlaw” (a farmer) out for revenge against the Union troops who slaughtered his family stands tall among Clint Eastwood’s many classics. Eastwood plays the seeker of vengeance as he alternately is hunted by Union forces, and tracks them himself. Along the way, Josey befriends a young doomed gunslinger (Sam Bottoms) and – in a hilarious and touching moment -- a Cherokee Indian (Chief Dan George) who’s smarter than anyone on screen. The action, humor and blood throughout are killer, especially a scene where Josey rests as blood-lust Unions cross a nearby river. The scene’s set-up – and the all-knowing cackle of an ancient hick woman – is one of my all-time favorite movie scenes. The long ironic commentary here has America portrayed as a land of lawlessness and savagery, run by European-Christian descendents who killed untold numbers of Native Americans for … their alleged (and of course untrue) lawlessness and savagery. This film is un-PC as hell, and that’s part of its beauty. This is Eastwood as his highest powers, equal to “Unforgiven.” A+

Cold Souls (2009)

Paul Giamatti is known to us as an eccentric worry wart, an unkempt guy who can’t stay happy. Or so that’s the impression. He has a long list of misfits and oddballs on screen, for sure. The comedy-drama “Could Souls” plays on this apparent perception. Giamatti plays “himself,” as he struggles through a production of famous downer “Uncle Vanya.” Through a “New Yorker” article, Giamatti learns of a soul storage business. Naturally, he figures no soul equals more freedom to act. Despite misgivings, he gets de-souled, save 5 percent. In pure irony, his soul ends up smuggled to St. Petersburg, Russia. This is a quirky little movie in line with “Being John Malkovich.” Like any good Russian story, “Cold” spills much suffering. But writer/director Sophie Barthes has enough tricks up her sleeve to make the oddities go down smoothly. The best of the sharp jokes: Giamatti acting indignant when told his soul is less valuable than Al Pacino’s. Giamatti must be the coolest guy on the planet. For real. B+

From Paris with Love (2010)

At one point in “From Paris with Love,” John Travolta’s mad-dog CIA super assassin orders food from McDonalds, and he drops the three words that returned the actor to fame 16 long years ago. “Royale with cheese!” But this isn’t Tarantino. It’s Luc Besson, still floundering after a mid-1990s string of hip hits, on screenplay, and Pierre Morel in the director’s chair. These guys made “Taken,” with Liam Neeson as a mad-dog CIA hit man out for blood. Travolta’s Charlie Wax also is out for blood, but I can’t recall why. Drug runners. Assassins. Bad Chinese food. An uptight U.S. Embassy assistant (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who yearns to be a famous CIA hit man. Whatever. As with “Taken,” we have a ridiculously high body count; proud and bloody anti-woman plot points; and a stink eye for anyone not, umm, European. A perfect entertainment for right-wing fanatics. “Pulp Fiction”? Non, monsieur. C-

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

“Hot Tub Time Machine” is utterly, proudly ridiculous. The premise: Four guys jump in a ski resort hot tub and are zapped back to their own mid-1980s bodies. Correction: Three of them do so: John Cusack, Rob Corddry and Craig Robinson. Clark Duke is 20 in present day, and so, should be a sperm. But he’s not. Nothing makes sense here. All this is made OK when Robinson looks directly at the camera and screams the film’s title, with a big smile on his face. His shout says, “You think I’m dumb for being in this flick? Hell, you payin’ money to see it!” It’s a ballsy and hilarious wink at the audience. This is a wild celebration of all ’80s flicks where the bad kids were rich snobs and the heroes were stoners. Cusack sends up his own career, while Corddry steals the whole movie. The humor is so gross, you’ll gag. Even if the end is limp and sentimental, this is kitty nip for anyone who proudly wore a Members Only jacket. B-

Date Night (2010)

In “Date Night,” Tina Fey and Steve Carell play wife and husband, Realtor and accountant, and parents. Tired, rushed and dull, and from suburban Jersey. They are the nameless, voiceless extras you see in the far background of spy thrillers about exotic couples. But in this film, on their one night out to New York, Claire and Phil are the stars. Mistaken for blackmailers at a snobby Tribeca restaurant, Claire and Phil find themselves face-to-gun barrel over a stolen jump drive, and must run from potential killers (Common and Jimmi Simpson). So off they go, across NYC on the run. The great kick of this comedy is that the couple is absolutely out of their element the entire film, freaked by guns and reeking pay phones and car chases. Fey and Carell never lose sight of their characters’ normalcy, and that’s what makes them special. Various cameos pepper the film: Ray Liotta, James Franco, Mila Kunis, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig, etc., with Mark Wahlberg providing deadpan comedy gold as a shirtless James Bond hunk that normally would have the starring role. A-

Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

“Battle: Los Angeles” is a B-popcorn flick on mega-steroids, proudly patriotic, with an enemy that deserves every bullet coming at them. Dig it: High-tech monsters go for an all-out attack on Earth, and battle a platoon of U.S. Marines. Our heroes kick ass. Explosions galore! Gallant speeches! Self-sacrifices! Flag salutes! But “Battle” is a loud, obnoxiously edited rat-a-tat video game that serves up a headache, and things really get ugly when people speak. At one point, our main hero (Aaron Eckhart) gives one of those teary “I lost men” speeches and he says the names of his fallen men “stick in (his) head like a bad joke,” and the movie just vaporizes. I had to laugh. The devastated L.A. cityscapes thrill, but the aliens are badly rendered with Big Lots CGI that looks fuzzy, and I never forgot these actors are pretending to blow shit up, and not very well. This is “District 9” and “Monsters” for dummies, a pale child of “Aliens” and 100 other better films. C-

Barney’s Version (2010)

Everyone knows a lovely and amazing woman who’s married to a schlub of a husband. We stare and say, “What does she see in him?” Paul Giamatti is the actor who can play these guys and make you realize, “Now I see … kind of.” Giamatti’s Barney is a selfish, alcoholic, vulgar, hockey nut who runs a white-trash Canadian TV studio. Among the women attracted to Barney’s “ambiance” is a radio host named Miriam (Rosamund Pike, so damn good). He falls in love with this dame at his own wedding. See, a schmuck. That’s the main plot of this comedy-drama that spans 30 years: Barney woos Miriam but also is accused of murder when his best pal (Scott Speedman) goes missing. This is a well-written and funny, heartfelt story about a man who destroys his own live in spectacular fashion, an entertaining jolly when Ben Stiller is not involved. Giamatti poses godlike powers. He makes Barney not just human but endearing. A bit long, and containing a major death that is foolishly sitcom-like, but this is a tale well worth seeing. If you actually believe Barney’s version. B+

True Grit (1969)

Sometimes the remake is better. Take “True Grit,” the beloved John Wayne Western, with The Duke as U.S. Marshal Rueben “Rooster” J. Coburn, the one-eyed crusty, drunken, quick-draw bounty hunter who is hired by a 14-year-old girl to capture her father’s killer. If I ever saw this version in its entirety before, I can’t recall.

The verdict on the 1969 bag of oats: Eh. No, really, eh. This “Grit” follows the same plot as the 1968 book and 2010 script, and is likewise more interested in character study than who did what to whom. But it has that studio-controlled, scrubbed-clean sheen that kills so many period pieces of older Hollywood epics. Y’know – men ride in the wilderness for days on end, and still sport freshly pressed clean clothes. No dirt to be found. Yeah, it works in a live-action cartoon such as Errol Flynn’s “Robin Hood.” But not here. It’s a glaring fault, as clueless as the studio lighting during the “night” scenes.

As a star, Wayne is always magnetic. But the man always also has just one speed, blow-hard tough guy, and there’s just no texture there. Ever. As the teen, Kim Darby is truly great in body language and voice, but she looks every day of her (then) 20-plus years. As a Texas Ranger, singer Glen Campbell is an embarrassment. He cranks out his lines as if he’s auditioning for the part.

There’s much great humor and some subtext here, apparently taken from Portis’ book, but any human grit or frailty is buried under painfully upbeat music and that aw-shucks squeaky-clean smile optimism that many conservatives (read the “American Spectator” review) point to and say, “See! America was really like that!” And I call it bullshit make-believe, rose-tinted Santa Claus and Peter Pan fantasies.

The 2010 Coens-Jeff Bridges remake is better acted, darker, more wickedly funnier and grittier in every way. It comes closer to the Truth. I bet the Wayne version felt old upon release. Am I un-American? Eh. Original version: C+

Blue Valentine (2010) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)

Two films focusing on crumbling, spiraling marriages? Full of seething anger and pent-up hates and resentments, with love utterly and wholly defeated? This may be the double-billing from hell for some, but it makes for great cinema. “Blue Valentine” is a recent art-house hit, and it may gain cult status as wider and wiser audiences seek it out. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” – a needed follow-up, especially in light on Elizabeth Taylors’ death -- is hands-down one of the all-time, you-must-watch-this classics. Shockingly, the older film still is the darker of two, by light years.

“Blue” opens on a young married couple (Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams) and their daughter, and stays with them for a long weekend. A bad, soul-crushing weekend. The family dog escaped from the backyard pen and is missing. The high-speed rural highway below the house is not a good omen, and the dog is indeed found dead. This moment is the final crack in a crumbling marriage. But all is not grim.

We flashback to when Dean and Cindy first meet. He’s a high-school dropout who can barely get through a job interview for a moving company. She is fresh off a bad breakup, hails from an emotionally violent home, and yearns to be a doctor. They click, wonderfully and explicitly, but can it last? They rush toward marriage because Cindy is pregnant, and Dean wants to be a father and a husband, even if the child is not his. The question must be asked: Are they right for each other? Each so humanly, woefully flawed?

Writer/director Derek Cianfrance pulls no punches as the twin plots surges toward utter happiness (past) and absolute destruction (present). The last scene is perfect, as is much of the film (a run-in with the ex-beau doesn’t seem to work in retrospect, a shouted comment from a friend of Cindy’s is so out-there odd, it stops a big scene near dead). Williams and Gosling are funny, euphoric, devastating, sexy, sad, dire, and everything you could ever want or fear. The little girl playing the daughter is heartbreaking sweet. A-

If “Blue Valentine” is a knife to the gut, then “Virginia Woolf” is an atom bomb. Real-life married couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor play George and Martha, he an associate professor, she the daughter of the university president. The setting: A New England college, probably one of those small, private snob schools. After a drunken faculty party, George and Martha stumble home, and talk and flirt to no avail, and bicker a bit. And bicker some more. Just as a young professor and his wife come to the house – Martha unwisely invited them over at 2 a.m. – the bickering turns ugly. Flesh ripped from bone ugly.

For the rest of this one night, George and Martha filet each other, with the young couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) held hostage, scared to stay, and equally hesitant to leave. Two decades of bitterness, past hurts, accusations and anger are coming to a full, raging boil. The crux: George’s lack of ambition against Martha’s beloved “daddy,” the couple’s absent son, and the endless amounts of alcohol readily available. I can’t recall any other film where so much alcohol is poured and consumed. It is their fuel.

Directed by Mike Nichols, in his debut, this Edward Albee play just kills on screen. Just when you think there can be no more hate or vile petty anger, the film sinks lower. And the acting soars. “Woolf” won an armful of Oscars, and should have taken more. Taylor – in heavy makeup, packing on weight and slurring her voice – plays 20 years her senior, and Burton is as scary as Lector and sad as Job in his role.

Their infamous double marriage surely adds blood to the proceedings as George and Martha bait and trap each other with words of war, how can it not? (Google Burton’s acidic comment on Taylor’s win and his snub of an Oscar. Holy shit!) Segal and Dennis also burn bright as a couple with their own dirty laundry.

“Woolf” is a must-watch, for its acting, the cinematography, the mere gamesmanship of trying to out-think George and Martha as they slash into each other, snarling like animals, and for the final confrontation. A ripe 44 years old, “Woolf” still packs some of the most deeply biting dialogue ever filmed. A+

Police Academy (1984) & The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)

“Police Academy” and “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” are 100-proof 1980s comedy spoofs: Silly gags, slapstick pratfalls and lots of (literal) toilet humor. They ridicule the myriad of police thrillers and grim film noirs that still come out a dime a dozen even now. “Police Academy” was the first to take the self-righteous piss out of the genre, but my compass points toward “Naked Gun.”

“Police Academy” revels in the “Porky’s” humor that ruled the early 1980s: Bawdy sex jokes, nudity at every chance, and ripping the wheels off of the Politically Correct Bandwagon. The set-up: The mayor of a large city declares that all citizens -- regardless of eligibility -- can join the police force. Naturally, idiots, scum, nerds, dweebs and gun-nuts hear the call of duty. The joke is, of course, that the police head-honchos are more incompetent and the downtrodden losers prevail. The writers dish stereotype gags on every minority group there is – black women, Latinos, gays, women, etc. “Blazing Saddles” and “The Producers” did far worse damage. But those films were finely scripted and hilarious from start to finish, they had and have a reason to exist. This is a stoner hit-or-miss comedy affair, and everything filmed seemingly thrown in. Steve Guttenberg is the wiseass charmer, always thumbing his nose at authority in full Bill Murray-Chevy Chase mode. B

“The Naked Gun” is a quick flick that is glorious entertainment. The “Airplane” Zucker-Abrahms-Zucker team clearly loves the films they mock. More importantly, they love Leslie Nielsen. We open with a stand-alone short that’s even funnier now – 1988’s leading dictators, terrorists and despots meet for lunch, planning to destroy America. Suddenly Lt. Frank Drebin (Nielsen!) lays waste to the room. Ghadaffi gets his ass kicked. Khomeini gets poked. Gorbachev has that weird red mark on his head wiped off. In perfect dead-pan, Nielsen says, “I knew it.” None of this makes sense, but it was every American’s truest dream that year. (Joke’s on us. Nielsen was Canadian.) We then jump into a hilarious, barely-credible-on-purpose L.A. conspiracy involving an evil tycoon (Ricardo Montalban) trying to whack the Queen of England. Every joke is a grade-school bad pun, obvious slapstick or goofy sight gag. But they work wonders, even the lesser jokes. Nielsen sends “Gun” into orbit, how serious he is in every moment. His “National Anthem” is gold. A cure a bad day. A

Knight and Day (2010)

Tom Cruise plays a cartoon version of his “Mission: Impossible” superspy in “Knight & Day,” a comedy-action-thriller that smells of 200 rewrites and old cliches in cheap paint. But – shocking to my snob tastes – it works. Mostly. As Cruise hilariously mocks his own onscreen heroics, Cameron Diaz -- she of the trillion watt smile and ditzy double-take – adds more wink-wink charm as the helpless/ hapless woman. Cruise is Roy Miller, a spy on the run who spots Diaz’s car restorer at an airport and sees the perfect unwitting partner who can help get him through his life’s woes before the end credits roll. See, Cruise as Miller knows he’s in a movie. Every shot in the film is too … perfect. This is all satire. (It better be.) Director James Mangold skips over gaping story holes by having his leads get knocked out and then woken up in new time zones and all-new clothes. “Knight” dissipates from the mind like rubbing alcohol on skin, but Cruise and Diaz are all sugar-high smiles on this candy corn flick. It all glides by. B-