Beginners (2011) and I Love You Phillip Morris (2010)

Ewan McGregor’s career never took off the way it should have: “Trainspotting” and “Moulin Rouge!” should have put him in orbit, but those “Star Wars” prequels – with McGregor lost amid CGI overload – may have spoiled Hollywood on him, or, actually, him on Hollywood. But I just caught two films with the Scotsman as the co-lead. By sheer coincidence, they both deal with gay issues – is McGregor going niche? – that would send bigot GOPers planning constitutional bans.

The real-life premise of Mike Mills film “Beginners”: Just after his mother died of cancer, his 75-year-old father came out, leaping head first into California’s gay culture before dying himself of cancer. Here, Mike is dubbed Owen and played by McGregor. Christopher Plummer is the dad. The film is moody, artsy and contains short diagrams where, say, multiplying coins equate growing cancer. It focuses on Owen recalling his emotionally cold childhood and then his 38-year-old self as he falls for a French actress (Melanie Laurent of “Inglorious Basterds”). Owen’s woes are not as compelling as daddy Plummer, the latter giving a shining performance as a man who seemingly has found the secrets to all of life’s happiness just as the ax falls. There’s anger missing here. Isn’t Owen allowed to be pissed? Dad was never home, out having dalliances. Even if dad was with women, that has to create a lasting deficit. More so, one wonders how Owen and his gal eat and pay rent, as he is a failure on the job and she never seems to work. A dog with subtitled dialogue is way too cute a gimmick. B

McGregor is the Phillip Morris of “I Love You Phillip Morris” which has nothing to do with the cigarette maker, but instead focuses on serial con artist Steven Jay Russell (Jim Carrey). Russell starts out as a married father in Virginia Beach and ends up in prison for credit card fraud, embezzlement, theft, malpractice and numerous prison breaks, one by faking his own death. It’s in prison where Russell meets Morris, and so, yes, this is a Jim Carrey rom-com-drama … behind bars, way queer, and based on a true story. Directors/writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa tell us so three times in the credits. “Morris” is funny at the start, but revels in mincing gay stereotypes and feels wildly contradictory, and overly silly. Carey’s “Liar, Liar” smirk made me wonder how anyone could take him seriously. He steam rolls McGregor, who misplays as a fragile daisy. Stabs at drama – an AIDS death – are forced and unearned. Critics loved this, a con all its own. C+

El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel) (1960)

One of the great gags in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” has a direct reference to Luis Buñuel’s acid-to-the-face classic satire “The Exterminating Angel,” a nasty little tale that makes “The Lord of the Flies” seem quaint and targets the privileged class of Europe. The gist is wildly “Twilight Zone” simple: The servants at a lavish mansion are inexplicably leave their stations and the home just as a lavish dinner party begins, and never ends. For the same spirit, or psychological block, keep the guests trapped in one room. Food and water runs out, hygiene turns ugly, a man dies of a heart attack and his body rots, the hosts and guests – Sivia Pinal is the lead actress – go quite mad. Into animals, the kind these hoity-toity blue bloods described the working/lower class as in the film’s opening. Incest, drugs, witchcraft, demons, suicide and sheepacide (is that a word?) – nothing is off limits to Buñuel who saves his final daggers for The Church and The Military. It’s a dark, nasty, scathingly funny slab at the powers that be, the elite folks who place themselves on higher moral ground, closer to God, because they hold more wealth. A timely movie for sure. A

Heist (2001)

Heist films – and this one is called “Heist” – are as contrived as any rom-com: The old crook is on one last score, has a big screw-up whoops, and gets strong-armed by a higher-up villain pushing a real final game with a massive pay day, all seasoned by double crosses, switched vehicles, fake outs, shoot outs, the sad but quickly overlooked death, and the coup de grâce gotch’ya. David Mamet, he of the pen is mightier than the sword school of film, serves up no different a dish here. Gene Hackman is the old crook, and Danny DeVito is the higher-up (so to speak) villain. Much of “Heist” is clever, and the dialogue stings and slings, and bruises. Yet, it barely gets the heart pumping as we wait for the next surprise and shock, none surprising or shocking. There’s little joie de crime here as in “Ocean’s Eleven,” or spastic blood-letting as in “Reservoir Dogs.” The opening 1940s-era Warner Bros. logo is meant to recall storied classic film noirs, but the movie never rises to the occasion. All praises to the cast, especially Hackman and Delroy Lindo, who carry the film. B

Midnight in Paris (2011)

“Midnight in Paris” is a delight. A reminder that Woody Allen is one of the best movie writers/directors out there no matter how creepy he is off camera. This is a comedy about a struggling American novelist (Owen Wilson) who becomes lost – figuratively and literally – in Paris’ nighttime streets, the lights and spirits of deceased artists, musicians and writers lulling him in utopia. Then he gets lost – in time – when a 1920s taxi, every night at midnight, whisks him away to the days of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter and Ernest Hemingway, what Owen’s Gil considers the greatest era for artisans in history.

Back in 2010, Gil is the fiancé of a wealthy woman (Rachel McAdams) who as with her Tea Party parents rejects anything not American and has no appreciation of art. Only status. She openly pines for a former professor, a know-it-all played wonderfully by Michael Sheen, who starts off every sentence with, “If I’m not mistaken,” when he is indeed. So, yes, Allen uses the crutch of the wicked girlfriend to allow his male hero the right to fall in love with the more pure Adriana (Marion Cotillard), the mistress of Picasso. Small error in a grand film.

This just isn’t a new classic Allen comedy, it’s a tweak at nostalgia fever by both Tea Party Americans who long for the founding days of America, and daydreaming liberals who think art was somehow more pure 100 years ago. Both are wrong. “Midnight” has more wit than any film I’ve seen all year. The best joke has Hemingway, Picasso, Fitzgerald, Dali (Adrian Brody!) and dozens of others treated as biopic shadows. Picasso belligerent, Dali talking nonsense and Hemingway uttering every word like a bull fighter with a rifle slung over his shoulder. It is all a wicked satire ala homage. The great artists (and he never says it, but Founding Fathers) we uphold as gods are as false as the notion that life was happier in 178whatever. Fact: You were likely to die of small pox than live out a life of glorious freedom, no matter what cracked teapot Michelle Bachman says.

The best scene has Gil talking to Dali and his fellow surrealists, fretting over his time travel predicament, confused by the mess of his life, and they nod their heads, knowingly and approvingly. Flustered, Gill spits out, they’re surrealists, they have no concept of normal. Fantastic screenplay. Wilson has never been more likable, and “Inception” star Cotillard knocks every other female onscreen out of the park. A

25th Hour (2002)

Edward Norton rules in “25th Hour,” a knockout post-9/11 New York drama about a dealer on his last free day before staring a 7-year prison stint. His Monty is a brilliant guy who dumped his gifts and turned stupid and lazy by pushing dope. That’s one of the marvels of Spike Lee’s in-your-face drama, Monty is likable, but guilty, he’s never celebrated, and as one of his best friends says, he deserves the millstone. Monty comes to recognize that. The 25 hours sees Monty reconnect with his best chums – a high school teacher (Philip Seymour Hoffman) lusting for a student and a narcissistic stockbroker (Barry Pepper), wonder if his girlfriend (Rosario Dawson) ratted on him, and console his heartbroken pop (Brian Cox). Meanwhile, the attacks of that awful Tuesday morning weigh harsh, how could they not, and how could Lee – a New Yorker – ignore the wound? Brutally honest and caustically funny, “Hour” is anchored by a beaut of a long nightclub scene where Monty learns prison isn’t his only worry. Lee is a genius at showing smart guys getting torched by their own sins. He ought to adapt Ellroy’s Underworld USA trilogy. A

Another Year (2010)

Few filmmakers portray life as real as Mike Leigh, and “Another Year” feels not so much like a movie, but an invite to stay with the family who’s at the center of this drama. Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent play a married couple, perfectly content with gardening, eating and reading in bed. She’s a counselor. He’s a geologist. They invites family and friends to a handful of dinners during the course of a year, including a divorcee (Lesley Manville) crumbling under loneliness who gulps wine as if it is an antidote, and an equally lonely old school chum (Oliver Maltman) who holds onto wine bottles as if they were oxygen. Alcohol equals life in this film. The main couple enjoys it as a side to the wonderful dishes they whip up. Take it or leave it. Manville and Maltman are full-fledged alcoholics, drowning their miseries in wine and all the more miserable for it. There’s not a false word, performance or scene in this drama that lays bare the jealousy that the miserable feel toward the happy. Manville should have won an Oscar. Fact. A

Never Let Me Go (2010)

Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 sci-fi novel is a brilliant under-handed writing pitch, a dystopian alternate universe cautionary tale built on high-tech ideas but plays as razor straight as a Charlotte Bronte novel. The film version is very good but it doesn’t pack the devastating emotional wallop. It can’t, this is a story about what goes on in people’s heads, little action, and no amount of narration can cover such ground. The gist: Three youth (Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield as adults) learn that their lives, raised in total control at a boarding school, are preset. There’s no alternative. No happy ending. We get a slow half-hour start of their childhood upfront that read far better on the page. I will not divulge anything else, except there is some comedy (the trio ordering food at a café) among the drama. Garfield shows teeth and rage only hinted at in “The Social Network.” Watch the movie, but read the book. It is heart-breaking and unforgettable. B+

Sucker Punch (2011)

I saw two-thirds of “Sucker Punch” in a cinema back upon its release in March. The previews promised a kick-ass film of armed-to-the-teeth women taking down Orcs, massive samurai warriors and Nazi goons straight out of a 1970s Marvel Comics book. It looked like a feminist take on “300,” served up by the guy who brought Frank Miller’s graphic novel to life, Zack Snyder. He promised as much, this being his first original screenplay. The trailer’s pop-art bright images zinged.

Alas, the film itself was and is a dreadful, ugly-looking CGI bore, and a massive lie. It’s not feminist. It relishes in violence against women, and serves up its heroines in “fuck me” costumes of micro-skirts, high heels and fish-net everything, their very skin computer-polished clean and lifeless as their vacant personalities. I was indifferent when a storm knocked out power to the theater, scuttling the end. Yet I caught it on DVD this week. Pfft. I should have re-watched “Killers.”

The story: Emily Browning plays Baby Doll – that’s the actual character’s name for God’s sake – a 1960s orphan railroaded to a nuthouse for refusing step-daddy’s sexual advances. Facing a hellhole life that’s “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by way of Guantanamo Bay heavy on the rape, she imagines herself as a dance-queen prisoner in a musical bordello, but in those dreams when forced to dance she enters a third dream state where she’s an ultimate Xbox warrior, swords, guns and knives at the ready. (All teenage girls imagine this life, right?) She has four friends along the way – parts of her own vapid personality? – and each may well represent a sex fantasy of Snyder’s, or that of his intended audience of lonely nerds. Like Asians? Here’s one. Like butchy girls? Here’s another. Etc. Etc.

The opening is a worthwhile short film, as Baby Doll (I hate writing that name) fights off her step-dad, and valiantly tries to safe her baby sister’s life. The sequence – scored to a new riff of “Sweet Dreams” – ends with our protagonist dropped off at the Lennox House (Get it?) for a lobotomy. That’s where all wit ends. CGI takes over as Snyder whips up giant dragons, exploding zeppelins, “Terminator” robots and pixelated mayhem, each scene more fake than the last, and as flat as his Baby Doll’s empty eyes. It’s all the dreams-within-dreams drama of “Inception” hooked to the razzle-dazzle of “Moulin Rouge!,” minus everything worthwhile, dragged through a “Maxim” editors’ sordid annual retreat, and mangled with a PG-13 rating. Run-on sentence.

This flick was put together by guys who think “smoking hot” is a character trait, and they piss on the wound with a monologue about girls finding the power within each other to fight oppression. Pfft. Snyder could have filmed Barbie dolls on strings and gotten the same result. It’s there in the lead character’s name. Baby Doll. That’s all women are to Snyder, who’s making the next “Superman” film, toys. Pro-feminist? Then “The Jazz Singer” is a Civil Rights film. Scott Glenn, looking as if he died a decade ago, is a yammering fortune cookie, while Carla Gugino plays the bordello dance instructor as if she were Rowan Atkinson in drag. The title fits. It’s what I got. D

Biutiful (2010)

“Biuitful” is a Spanish drama about the 40something Uxbal (Javier Bardem) who’s scrapping by, raising two children as his bi-polar ex-wife prostitutes herself – with his own brother no less, operating an illegal Chinese sweat shop that will go tragic, exhuming the dead father he never met, and battling terminal cancer. This is the one-upper of sob movies. It makes “Monster’s Ball” seem jolly. There’s more wrong in Uxbal’s life, but you would not believe me. OK, I’ll spill. Dude sees dead people. I warned you. “Babel” director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s story follows Uxbal as he sacrifices himself to right all the wrongs in his life, self-made and otherwise, Job-meets-Christ. The miracle is that Bardem makes you mourn Oxbal’s slow passing, pissed pants and all. Dig Bardem’s performance, the cinematography and the grimy realism. Then go put your eyeball on a hot grill, lie down in traffic, snort cocaine off the tire of a moving bus. You’ll feel better. B

Season of the Witch (2011)

Film critics threw darts at the Nicolas-Cage-as-a-Crusader flick “Season of the Witch” because it lacked historical accuracy, an odd complaint since they were watching Nicolas Cage play a Crusader. Did they miss the title? Cage, so good in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” is puffy and disinterested as Behman of Bleibruck, a warrior for God who unwittingly massacres women and children, decides that’s wrong, and goes AWOL. Yep, pure Cage Shit Flick. For reasons too tiring to explain, he and his absolutely platonic best pal (Ron Perlman) find themselves playing guard to a woman (Claire Foy) accused not just of being a witch, but of creating the Black Plague. “Will she get a fair trial?” Behman asks. The church leaders nod, “Yep.” And he believes them! From there, it’s werewolves, murder, and Foy making goofy eyes with blue ambient light under her face. The special effects are 1980s bad. Perlman, good actor, looks like he's in hell, boy. Hanged and drowned, this "Witch" isn't coming back. Cage continues his shit streak. C-

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is a solid summer flick with killer special effects and a fairly solid brain, and a cool reboot/reimaging of the 1960s/1970s “Planet of the Apes” film series that scored golden box office hits, inspired a TV cartoon series and a whole bunch of lunch boxes. (Many a friend sported one in first grade. I was jealous. And, yeah, I’m ignoring Tim Burton’s ass hat 2002 remake.)

Not a prequel, this entirely new take on the apes-rule-humans story focuses on our hairy primate cousins who leap massively forward genetically after being exposed to a “miracle drug” that a young pharma scientist named Will (James Franco) has created to cure Alzheimer’s. Will has a literal deadline: The disease is wasting away his musician/academic father (John Lithgow). It all goes so ape shit wrong.

The leader of the “Rise” is Caesar, a chimp that Franco has raised since it was born, living at home as a pet-cum-child, one who can draw, use sign language and cleverly leap and climb kitchen furniture to snatch cookies atop a cabinet. A trip to San Francisco’s redwoods park leaves a mark on Caesar: He is on a leash led by Will and encounters a snarly dog … on a leash. The wheels start turning. His eyes narrow. A violent encounter with a prick neighbor pushes the house of cards over.

The plot and pacing is smart using elements, lines (“Get your damn hand off me…!) and names from the earlier “Ape” films but to new effect, and there is a real mission to Mars on the telly. “Rise” hints at being a franchise set-up but doesn’t play like you’re watching one-third of a film. The classic 1968 “Apes” was seen as an anti-war pic and a (I would think freakin’ offensive) satire on Civil Rights. (Charlton Heston appears on a TV in a rare wink-wink tip.) Director Rupert Wyatt and writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver seem intent on steering clear of big messages here, but slyly play on man’s insistence that he can do whatever he wants to who and whatever he wants, as long as it means more coin in the bank. And, yes, animal experimentation takes a walloping. But none of this is in-you-face preachy.

When the apes attack at the end wrecking havoc on the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s one of the best action sequences of the summer, a wild scene where chaos finally reigns in a summer tent pole movie. How rare is that? Franco gives a sleepy-eyed performance that grinds some critics, but it fits the part, the man is obsessed with finding a cure and probably considers sleep, rest, play, a luxury. (What doesn’t work: A romance between Will and a vet played by Frieda Pinto of “Slumdog Millionaire,” they have as much spark as a brother and sister.)

Now the reason why this film rocks: Andy Serkis, the man who played “Gollum” in “The Lord of the Rings” and King Kong in the 2005 remake, is our main rebel yell chimp. Again using motion capture technology, he makes Caesar into the best anti-hero of 2011, a glaring, plotting creature far smarter than his human costars. All of the primates are CGI and early in the film, especially baby Caesar, they hit and miss. Once Serkis takes over playing Caesar, though, it’s as if the animators were inspired to push the visual boundaries, and in several scenes – helping Lithgow’s pop use a fork, and when he fights a cruel prick (Tom Felton of “Harry Potter”) – all on screen looks real. Serkis is an amazing actor, and could snag an Oscar nom for acting without appearing on screen. His performance is worth the ticket price. B+

Tree of Life (2011) – A second look

On my first viewing of “Tree of Life,” Terrence Malick’s epic drama of God’s creation of the universe, one Texas family during the 1950s, and such small potatoes as life and death, it took me more than a week to even form words to describe a reaction.

And, now, on my second viewing, I realize those first thoughts and impressions were wrong. Fully and wildly dumbass wrong. I will not re-edit my first review. I still stand by it. As with a diary entry, it must remain, as this film – the most mind-blowing movie of 2011 – is something all new to me. Twelve days later. To understand my second-take reactions, one must read my first (naïve) impressions.

Malick, director of “Badlands” and “The New World,” here has made nothing short of a biblical love poem on film -- a psalm -- to not just the glory and passion of his own family, but God Himself, and all the meanings of His passion. In passion, there is great pain. And there is great pain on screen in this film. Death. (Sorry to get all religion, which I normally approach gingerly and awkwardly, always and forever.)

I realize now, that there is no Rapture or end of world drama in “Tree of Life,” I think, but only an adult man’s dream-like, memory-fueled acceptance of his beloved younger brother’s death by suicide and his re-finding of faith in God and life, the light if you will. That leap, that bridge, inspired by the planting of a tree at a glass-encased office tower.

It recalls the tree, the God-like tree, in front of his childhood home. The one associated with his own mother. Sean Penn is that man, Jack, an architect who was raised in a small Texas town by a strict and over-bearing, but loving and passionate, father (Brad Pitt) and free-spirited mother (Jessica Chastain).

I also now understand Malick’s use of creation and the very start of all life, for the miracle and darkness found in every childhood -- growing up, laughing, playing, maturing, rebelling -- is as majestic and beautiful as the very start of our and God’s universe and as dark as the cataclysmic death by meteor of all dinosaurs. It is beauty. Infinite.

I’m already well past a preset 200 word limit, and ready to spill another 1,000 words on this epic film – ready to spill on the dark traces of father and son relations that I experienced growing up, every boy did I surmise, and am re-living after seeing this work of beauty, and the way Jack’s younger self (Hunter McCracken) has his entire since-birth-driven belief in God and goodness ripped apart after watching a child drown.

An act, an event, I also saw as a child, as I spoke of in my first take.

And I did not realize until hours after my second viewing that the building that is central to Penn’s character, I have not only visited, but stayed at and photographed: The Hyatt Regency Hotel and Reunion Tower. I slept many nights, for several years running on an annual business trip. (It is within eye line of Dealy Plaza.)

I imagine my take will be fully different on a third viewing. How often does that happen in movies, to create such a personal reaction? Me, I loved it. But I respect the haters of this film, too. It is art. Made to provoke. If you think this film is shit, God bless, standby your reaction. Scream it. But know this: Does any human being actually give two farts about "Cowboys & Aliens"? I do not. I cannot even recall it. I bet fans of the film cannot either.

Few other films in 2011, or 2010, or 2009, and on and on, can make that claim. This is art. Mind-blowing, core of the soul, church in a cinema, art. New grade: A+

The Apartment (1960)

Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” is the perfect romantic comedy-drama. The set-up: Jack Lemmon – never better, even in “Some Like it Hot” -- is C.C. Baxter, a cog in a massive insurance company machine. He’s a low-level drone, but a wicked tool to the big guys upstairs. The tool’s tool: His apartment is a fuck pad for the big bosses to bring their on-the-side girls. One of the girls is elevator operator Fran, played by the mesmerizing Shirley MacLaine, and poor sad sack C.C., well, he digs her. But Fred McMurray – Mr. Clean Cut Disney Film Man – is the prick cheating on his wife with Fran, and any another gal who comes his way. When Fran attempts suicide, it’s C.C. who saves her. The rest of the story is manna. Lemmon’s C.C. is a treat of a man, a nice guy who wants to move ahead, willing to cut corners, but still goofy enough to use a tennis racquet as spaghetti strainer. MacLaine is divine as a woman who can’t see herself ever truly falling in love, her smarts ignored by piggish men. Acting, script, every gag set-up, every line delivery is perfect. I love this film. A+

Tree of Life (2011)

Terrence Malick’s latest ruminating avant-garde cinematic riff is “Tree of Life,” a 2 hour 20 minute drama about the creation of the universe and life itself, a 1950s small-town Texas family and the tragedy that befalls them, and a man seemingly lost or aloof in a city seemingly made of glass, steel, concrete and little of anything organic. That is, of life.

It ends on a beach in a wondrous scene that makes the finale of “Lost” seem as straightforward as a Hallmark card. Without the plane and dog, naturally.

It’s taken me more than a week – almost two to be exact – to even collect my thoughts on this voyage through Malick’s view of God, the universe, life, birth, family and death. Words failed me. Still do.

The movie is that good. Maddeningly so.

Then I realized the answer was in front of me, staring at me in the face. It is in the film’s poster, which I luckily snagged from the local artsy movie theater. (I got connections, don’t hate.) The poster contains 70-some images from the film, stills that represent memories of the film like snapshots from a family album, memories, a group of postcards from the universe’s beginnings to the film’s end.

Finally, I got it.

“Tree of Life” is about memories, the aloof man (the family is his, from childhood) and maybe God’s memories. Or Malick’s version of God, looking back at the universe He created out of nothing and then brought to an end. (That’s my theory on the end, it is the rapture.)

In its editing, “Tree” eschews linear design, dialogue, action and time. We witness dinosaurs hunting in a river that we later will see the Texas children traipse through as they play. This is pure Malick -- a polarizing, perplexing, maddening (that word again) and utterly fascinating filmmaker, maybe the best one of our day. (David Lynch being the top. In my book.)

“Badlands” and “Days of Heaven” are among my favorite films, and I’m still mesmerized by “The Thin Red line,” Malick’s World War II drama. The man would rather show forest animals and birds fleeing a South Pacific gun battle than show the men fighting and bullets whizzing by. It is that view that fascinates me, not just outside the box, but outside the world the box is in.

Here in “Tree,” more than any other film, he is saying we humans with all our dramas are part of something much larger than ourselves. As a friend wrote on Facebook the other day, referring to a Rick Warren book, “It ain’t about you.” Or something to that affect.

This is not a film for everyone. Its legion of fans may be rivaled if not well outnumbered by its detractors, many fine and decent (and some stupid ones I’m sure) folks who have walked out lost or outright angry at the inscrutable images of God’s first light breaking the darkness of space, giant fish, cells, blades of grass, waterfalls, cars, bi-planes, and fields of sunflowers. And then much of 2 hours of children playing.

Yes, God figures into this film in a major way, as the Creator of our world and the seemingly absentee Father that he now appears to be. (Go on, debate away. I debate myself on it.)

Sean Penn is Jack, the aloof man/architect in the city, looking back on his childhood, with his overly strict father (Brad Pitt) and his luminous, angelic mother (Jessica Chastain), and two brothers, the most innocent of who will die years later. For reasons never shared.

(News interruption: Malick grew up in 1950s Texas, and had a younger brother who committed suicide at 19. The brother dies at 19.)

Adult Jack lives with a woman, maybe his wife, who he does not look at. Jack’s childhood scenes take up the majority of the film, and they are among the best of Malick’s work: Snippets, chunks and wide-swaths of Jack’s memories and barely recalled dreams are all innocent, terrible and scary. Rebellious, too. As is childhood, no?

Young Jack (Hunter McCracken) climbs trees – the title tree is in the family’s front yard – and swims, and talks his little brother into sticking a metal wire in lamp (it’s not plugged in) and putting his little finger over a barrel of a bb-gun (oops, it’s loaded).

I’ve never seen a film the better captures interaction of a family. The beautiful simpleness. To Jack, the mother is the perfect loving God(dess), and in one scene she floats in the air above the family tree. Like God would.

Dad is not that by far. He will toss the dinner table over to hit one of the children who dares disobey him. He is wrathful. In one scene young Jack sees an opportunity to kill his father. He leaves it be. We can take this as a troubled child reacting to his parents, or as one friend (go Dana!) suggested, mother is the New Testament God, father the Old Testament. My father wasn't Dick van Dyke for sure, and, man, that scene hit close to home. Been there. Dreamed that.

Indeed, church is a major part of the family’s life, and when a child friend drowns (it is shown from afar, but still packs a stomach punch) or a polio-stricken man walks by, the children are confused, befuddled, and ask their parents why God would let such things happen. As do all or most children. As did I, as many of the themes and actions in this film I directly experienced. I at age 9 watched a child drown. It still haunts me. When the youngest boy later dies as a young man, the mother asks God the same question, why?

Malick reaches far. The dinosaurs are too damn much. I only think the ending is the Rapture, some Christ-like figure appears. But the man is reaching. Who does that nowadays? To make a film that will divide audiences and get a group of adults talking about a film for more than a week, as has happened in my circle of friends?

No one is making films like this right now, going for such high themes as God, daring to freely mix the theories of creation and evolution, the universe and our place in it. Children playing, pranking and smashing windows.

This is what filmmaking is supposed to be out, right, the art form of our time? Abstracts welcomed. Love it or hate it, just see it. And see it on the big screen where it belongs. A

13 Assassins (2011)

I saw “13 Assassins” smack dab in the middle of this summer, and suddenly every rote dish of super heroes and fighting robots fell away. This is what an action/thriller is supposed to be – a sense of living in the moment, where anything can happen, and yet the filmmaker ups the ante. Director Takashi Miike’s kick-ass film is a bloody violent and smart return to the samurai genre, worthy of Kurosawa’s “Ran” and “Throne of Blood.” The plot is a classic staple: An aging warrior (Kōji Yakusho) is given a suicidal task he welcomes for he will die in battle. His target: Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki), a sadistic Shogun who zealously enjoys murder and rape. The massive end battle is a brilliant game of chess: Every grisly move and horrifying trap is a planned strategy to dismantle the enemy. The title’s 13 warriors give as good as they take, and in a wild card act, Naritsugu enjoys the chaos. There’s wit abounding, and the supernatural acts of gods and spirits if you’re looking. In a summer of mostly underwhelming calculated hits, Miike stands tall, sword in hand, splattered with the blood of lesser films, ready for more challengers. I doubt there will be any this year. A

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990) and Rubber (2010)

“Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” and “Rubber” are two miniscule-budgeted films about serial killers that couldn’t be more different, or more outside the mainstream Hollywood horror genre of overly hip and witty masked killers. The former is a disturbing minor masterpiece that’s unshakable; the latter, a pop blast of avant-garde cinema that made me think Andy Warhol and David Lynch.

Made in 1986, unreleased until 1990, the $100,000 “Henry” stars a young Michael Rooker as a soulless serial killer roaming Chicago. His housemate is a seedy bisexual redneck (Tom Towles) with a much younger sister (Tracy Arnold) with a checkered, troubled past. The trio all go horribly, terribly wrong, and director/writer John McNoughton not only doesn’t flinch from some of the most gruesome violence ever put to film, he dives in head first. The shock of the slide toward the bloody end is purposeful. Should not all horror films hit this way? How does this compare to, say, “Saw” or “Friday the 13th” where slaughter is treated as a joke. The acting is rough, bad rough, and the dialogue unnaturally natural, but, damn, it’s a difficult sight to shake. B+

“Rubber” is all satire. It opens with an actor cracking the fourth wall and telling us, the audience, what we are about to watch is fully ridiculous. But, he asks, what movie isn’t? From there we follow two stories: A mass-murdering tire rises from the ground and stalks the American West, crushing bottles and cans before moving onto birds and rabbits, and then … people; the second track is an onscreen audience watching the tire kill, each member of this chorus a stereotypical movie fan. Director/writer Quentin Dupieux takes a stab at the horror genre, even his own film as his audience yawns and dubs it “boring.” Crazy thing: The guy makes you care about this tire. Not care, but take an avid crazed interest in its every roll. “Rubber” is fascinating, perplexing, weird and damn funny. At 85 minutes it’s too long, but it opens a sequel that would terrify a preschooler. B

Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

Yes, there are cowboys and aliens in “Cowboys & Aliens,” and also Native Americans, too, but that would have been one awkward title, right? “Cowboys & Indians & Aliens”? Movie posters and trailers for this western sci-fi mash-up have teased filmgoers for more than a year, luring us in with the wild idea of James Bond and Indiana Jones/Han Solo on horses blasting six-shooters at alien aircraft that would make Will Smith gawk and run back to Bel-Air.

Having now seen the film, I realize that’s all director John Favreau, his army (five! seven! more? I lost count) of screenwriters, and exec producers Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg had. An idea. Not much else. The movie is fun … kind of, a darkly serious and violent western that begins no different than, say, “High Plains Drifter” or “Rio Bravo.” We have the lone silent hero (Daniel Craig) who stumbles into town, gets himself knee deep in horse poop and ends up in jail. Then the bad guys attack and, oh my spoiler, Mr. Silent turns out to be Mr. Savior. You have seen this before, no? Harrison Ford plays a cattle boss named Dolarhyde, and with a name like that, you know he’s not passing out flowers.

So, yes, the aliens cause shit, lasso people up in the air with metallic wires, and fly off. And Craig’s Man with No Name and Ford’s Dolarhyde must pony up and save the day. The Native Americans come in later. I didn’t get any of their names as the characters are played almost painfully stereotypical. See, decades back, Native Americans were portrayed as savages. Ever since “Dances with Wolves,” Native Americans have been made so damn painfully proud and peaceful, one almost forgets they had a right to be pissed and violent – they were being slaughtered left and right by Europeans after all. That whole historic America was founded as a Christian nation thing that Republicans sell. If Jesus were a land-grabbing genocidal maniac.

Favreau dishes out some cool battles as alien aircraft blitzkrieg men on horses, with the latter being blown into bits in the air, and it all ends in an attack the (alien) fort climax, but none of it sticks. I’m 90 minutes past film’s end as I write this and it’s drifting from memory. There’s no kick, satire or mind screwy emotional power that made “District 9” one of the great surprise films of the past five years, nor is there a CGI effect that wows from eyes to the brain to the soul as did “Avatar.” Heck, check out the 1986 classic “Aliens.” That is a space western.

Planned and written by Hollywood committee, the movie seems to just think the very plot pitch of men named Craig and Ford on horses fighting bad-ass E.T.s is enough to win us over. Sorry. Craig is all glare and slow burn. He makes a damn good and dangerous cowboy – he lords over the rest of the cast. Alas, Ford’s town Thug King is a wash. Just as the character is getting good and bloody nasty, evil even, director and writers suddenly fold and make the guy all grand pop mushy, misunderstood and, well, boring. I bet Ford enjoyed playing the early portions.

Olivia Wilde (TV’s “House”) plays one of the few women on screen – seriously, there must have been a lot of gay cowboys out in this West – and must carry a character so bizarrely left-field, I never bought it. No one in the audience did, either. Laughs abounded. Not kind ones. She listlessly has to carry lines such as, “Don’t look into the light,” I immediately thought of that lady in “Poltergeist.” You know the one, the short woman with red hair. She’d have kicked this film up a notch. It does not help that Ms. Wilde appears as if she has returned from a spa. Her skin and hair are flawless. In 1890s desert. That’s more farfetched than gooey aliens killing hapless cowpokes.

For the record, the idea of cowboys shooting it out with aliens isn’t new, comic books were doing it when my father was a teen and a 1994 cheap flick called “Oblivion” have been there done that. That film was a hoot, a silly toss-off that cost less than the catering budget on “Cowboys & Aliens.” I giggled and cheered the thing as I watched it on a video rental. It’s set in an alternate American future-past and had a far more clever and outlandish plot. You’ll cry from laughter.

This isn’t a bad flick, not by far. An upside down riverboat casino in the Western desert is a brilliant set and design piece. Sam Rockwell entertains as a saloon owner named “Doc.” But when I and my wife walk out at the end of a film that has cowboys, aliens, Indians, spaceships, horses, the guy who directed “Iron Man,” James Bond and Indiana Jones slash Han Solo, and all we can talk about it is how cute the heroic dog was, then, buddy, the burnt coffee and crispy cows on screen ain’t the only thing stinking. (P.S. This is “The Godfather” compared to “Wild, Wild West,” a movie that almost killed a genre and Will Smith’s career. How’s that for a wrap around to the lede?) B-

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

In what may be the most spectacular use of CGI since Gollum shat on Frodo’s life in “The Lord of the Rings,” the director, Joe Johnston, and producers, Marvel Comics, of “Captain America: The First Avenger” have gone back in time, found footage of my high school/early college self, and transported the images of my 90-pound bony white ass to modern day. The corker: They painted on the face of actor Chris Evans on my head. (I was goofy looking. Evans is not.) Amazing.

This imagery – all kidding aside, how did they do that!?! – makes up the first bit of the best comic book movie adaptation this side of “The Dark Knight” or “Iron Man.” Based on Marvel’s first hero, “Captain America” is the story of a weakling made into a warrior who takes down a power-mad off-shoot of the Nazis, called Hyrda, during World War II. He becomes a national icon. Great concept. Always was.

The movie is shot to look true to 1940s period, is fun as heck, and proudly, but not boastfully, patriotic. Cherry on top: Evans is every bit the superhero (he played the Human Torch in “Fantastic Four” before this) that Ryan Reynolds failed to be in “Green Lantern.” There’s no wink, but it’s loose enough not to be mistaken for the lead in, say, “The Lives of Others.” Pure comic book glory.

I went in mixed, blood full of a lifelong comic book fan’s demands, and yet cynical that a film in 2011 could pull off the comic’s silly costume and flag-waving, “Stars and Stripes Forever” patriotism. I also did not see how they would pull off the Red Skull, the madman Nazi scientist in need of a dermatologist. The comic books have seen their share of tumult during several decades (as has the nation itself) even going as far as killing off Cap several years back. A bad 1990s film exists, as does a 1970s TV short series of movies. Crap. But here he is, in big screen glory. Cap. The Red Skull makeup looks more rubber dog toy than bone, but ... I got past it. Mostly.

Oh, yes, the plot: Young Brooklyn nerd Steve Rogers (Evans) is a Tinker Toy thin kid who wants to serve and fight Hitler in 1942 America. It’s his duty, he says, why wouldn’t he? (How utterly cool is that?) But he gets 4F’d as soon as he takes off his shirt and smiles, like an overeager puppy. Then, as happens in all comic books, he gets drafted to be part of a super-secret U.S. experiment to become a super soldier. Super. With a few hypodermic shots of blue goo liquid, enclosure in a sarcophagus–looking contraption that shoots off blasts of light and yellow sparkles, Rogers is remade unto an Olympian god -- tall, and stacked with ripped muscles and a square jaw. That’s how the real Evans looks like. Hereafter, all the footage of High School Me is cast aside.

Long plot short: The newly dubbed Captain America must fight the Red Skull, who is every bit evil as Rogers is good. Skull, real name Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), thinks Hitler is too cautious, slow. He wants to move the war up a notch or eight. Cue the sci-fi gadgets and secret bases, and Igor-like lab assistant. I know the comics by heart, so I wasn’t surprised by any plot point, although wildly thrilled that comic book sidekick Bucky Barnes has been moved up from Robin rip-off to Rogers’ bigger friend. He’s played by Sebastian Stan, going full Errol Flynn. Brilliant move.

Also on hand: Marvel Comic’s Howling Commandos. And this is the only major grind I have with the film: It’s World War II, and this unit is a group of various races and backgrounds, an English man, a Japanese man, and an African-American. Oh, it plays well now, it feels good and shows the best wishes of America as a melting pot nation, but for the period – it’s an outright lie. The American military during World War II was segregated, with racism rampant from on top all the way down. (Click here for a fantastic “New York Times” column on the matter.) Japanese men and women were incarcerated in camps across the nation. Fact. I know, some folks will say there was no racism then, such accusations are an evil liberal lie. They also say our Founding Fathers ended slavery. These lies are deliberate, as Orwell taught us, he who controls the past, controls the future. The Tea Party is not about patriotism, but absolute control. Fact.

Now I digress again. See, the great idea of Captain America – his 1940s inception, the comic books and this movie – is what’s best about America: We are not sickly wrong, but we will always find our way and do the right thing, whatever the cost. We want to and long to be Captain America, not fragile Steve Rogers.

Joe Johnston, the director, made the similar “Rocketeer” when I was in high school, and the lone hero against Nazis plot abides, as is it does in the brilliant “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” where Indiana Jones first cracked a whip. No, “Captain America’ isn’t that good. Few films are. Rather, this super hero epic conjures up 1960s flicks such as “The Dirty Dozen” or “Where Eagles Dare,“ where the complicated plot dies at the third act, and the “attack the fort” boy’s war dream takes over.

Bonus points for the brains to show Cap clocking Hitler, the perfect moment of comic book history. Perfect movie? Perfect comic book come to life? Yes. I am biased to like this, and admit it, having owned a vertically enhanced Captain America action figure when I was a child. The action figure -- NOT a doll, OK, it was doll. I digress. Again. Whatever. May every film Marvel makes be this good; red, white and blue and clocking evil in the chin. B+