Contagion (2011)

“Contagion” will stay with you for weeks, like a bad infection or the title killer virus that spreads around the globe thanks to Gwyneth Paltrow’s businesswoman/mom/wife/adulteress. This is a medical apocalypse horror flick where every cough, sneeze and human touch comes on like an axe blade. Director Steven Soderberg and writer Scott Z. Burns present a cold and smart drama, as if told by a veteran crime reporter. The duo refuse to go for the loud orchestra-assisted heroic deaths of major characters: They get sick and die, the scene moves on. No comment. Like the virus. Some great actors – Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne and John Hawks among them – are the scrambling heroes, locking their surviving children in their home, taking to the field to control the virus’ spread, or managing from on high at Center for Disease Control. The characters spill expert medical terms without apology, make errors both terrible and loving, and the saviors wear lab coats. The women rock. Science rocks. Jude Law plays a snakey left-wing blogger, and is deviously good. Damon marks his best onscreen moment: A husband so shocked upon hearing of his wife’s death, he asks to speak to her. The doctor repeats, “She’s dead.” Cold and sad. A-

Warrior (2011)

“Warrior” is a two-for-one “Rocky” tale set inside the metal cages of Mixed Martial Arts. Tom Hardy is Rocky 1, a hulking slab of muscle and seething anger named Tommy Riordan, returned home to visit his Found Jesus father (Nick Nolte), a recovering alcoholic whose past sins run deep. In Philly is Rocky 2, Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton), an ex-MMA pro now teaching high school physics. The kicker: The men are brothers, split apart by the old man’s carnage. Directed by Gavin O’Connor, who made “Miracle,” the movie plays with every sport film cliché around from the loyal wife to the hero with a dark secret. Nolte’s listening to “Moby Dick” on CD pushes the edge of symbolism, that white whale being his sin. It could have been cut. But like “Miracle,” this is a go-ahead-and-cheer film with the brother-against-brother final bout dishing out drama that hurts. Nolte plays regret so well, and Edgerton (“Animal Kingdom”) is heroic as the underdog fighting to pay the mortgage. But this is Hardy’s film. He stalks and defeats opponents with a Raging Bull glare, and builds on the grisly prison flick “Bronson” and his scene-stealing from “Inception.” He’s up next as the steroid-crazed Bane in “Dark Knight Rises.” Batman better watch his back. B

Don’t Look Now (1973)

Donald Sutherland plays John Baxter, an academic and artist/restorer, obsessing to the point of tedium over the exact size and shade of colored squares for bas relief sculptures on his latest facelift project, a centuries old church in a dreary, wintry Venice. The work is good, it keeps him distracted from thinking about the soul-crushing drowning death of his young daughter back home in England, the brokenness pooling inside his wife, Laura (Julie Christie), and the fact that he foresaw the girl’s death moments before it occurred.

When a small gesture – the closing of a restaurant window – brings Baxter and his wife into contact with two sisters (Clelia Matania and Hilary Mason), one of whom is blind and psychic, lives will unravel. For the blind woman can see the dead daughter, and the girl has a message for daddy: Flee Venice or die.

That is the premise of Nicolas Roeg’s justifiably famous psychological horror/thriller “Don’t Look Now.” There is a serial killer here, yes, but the suspect is off to the side, a secondary plot tangent, whereas the real onscreen horror is about a couple desperately trying to come to terms with unfathomable loss and guilt, and further losing their paths – mentally and physically – along the way to recovery. The latter part is literal, as the streets and alleys of Venice can be an endless puzzle box, where light often is absent and unreachable. Even during daylight.

I have been there, to Venice, and I have never seen its dark side – and it has a dark side, no lie – put to better use than here. This is a city where walking around a corner can bring you to the safety of a market square or a pitch black dead end. Dread follows this couple.

Roeg’s story, loosely based on a short story, and his editing and camera work, and the refusal to use subtitles for spoken Italian, constantly keep the viewer off balance. Some scenes play out mysteriously and suddenly, and it is not until the end credits roll that one realizes their significance. A second viewing is a must. Also our heroes are not so lovable: They abandon their surviving child to a boarding school back in England after he watched his sister drown. Who does that? One pauses at their parenting skills, and ponders the meaning of such a send-off.

Absolutely among the most terrifyingly real films I’ve ever seen, and winced through twice in a row. Sutherland I don’t think has ever been better, or Christie more lovely and hurt, and as the blind woman with a special sense all her own, Mason nearly steals the film in the final freakish minutes.

Not for all tastes that’s for sure, it contains one of the most notorious sex films ever put in a film. The drowning of the child, at the opening of the film, is also startling, leaving one cold and uneasy. Emotions throughout the film, including the climax, cling to you. Or they dd to me, even writing this blog piece days after viewing the film.

Incidentally, or not, “Now” has one of the most layered depictions of a Catholic priest I have ever seen. The bishop (Massimo Serato) overseeing the renovations dismisses the detailed work by Baxter. Having suffered his own tragedies, he shrugs off stucco choices and the shapes of gargoyles, and all the brick and mortar worry. Baxter foams and protests, “This is important!” It’s just a building, the priest says, looking with grave concern at his troubled and grieving employee and friend, “God has more important priorities.” A+

Airplane! (1980) and Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)

“Airplane!” has been a favorite since I first saw it 30 years ago. A spoof of 1970s-era airplane disaster flicks such as “Airport,” plus “Saturday Night Fever” and “From Here to Eternity,” it is the tale of a shell-shocked flyboy vet (Robert Hays) who buys a ticket on a Chicago-L.A. flight to woo back the stewardess (Julie Hagerty) he loves. But tragedy – food poison! – strikes, and Hays must command the airplane after the crew is laid ill. Insert dramatic music.

Directors/writers Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker just kill it, every joke either a gold-star winner or so awful, you laugh anyway. The genius is how nearly every actor – Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Robert Stack -- in the film is dead-set serious no matter what insanity occurs. My favorite bits change with each viewing, from Barbara Billingsley talking jive to the white man saves Africa spoof to the wrong engine sound and a horse in bed. I could drone on for hours about this classic, but just know this is the ultimate pick-up film on any bad day. Leslie Nielsen as the doctor is a cinematic god. RIP, sir. A

The sequel – aptly named “Airplane II: The Sequel” -- is not classic, or even really memorable. The cherries are far outnumbered by the shit balls in this mostly scene-for-scene remake-part-sequel set not in airplane, but a passenger ship Space Shuttle headed to the moon.

Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers moved on to greener pastures, as did much of the cast, leaving some guy named Ken Finkleman to helm this space ride. He’s the guy who made “Grease 2.” The semi-plot: An onboard computer control goes whack, causing mayhem. HAL spoof! Boring! Hays and Hagerty return, both on Ottopilot. Jokes about armed terrorists boarding unscathed as old ladies are strip-searched is funnier now than the 1980s, in a twisted way. But even at 85 minutes, the film nose dives. C+

Drive (2011)

Steve McQueen would faint. “Drive” is a soaked-in-blood B-Grade car chase flick living the A-Grade life, with a silent, stewing Ryan Gosling (“My Blue Valentine”) as Driver, a nameless Hollywood stunt man by day and a freelance wheelman by night. When he drives, cutting j-turns or racing past other cars, he does so with the exact precision of a brain surgeon. A toothpick sticks straight out of our hero’s closed mouth, as if it’s a holy cross, and biting on it will keep Driver’s tires spinning. He doesn’t sweat the cop car chases or the helicopter search lights, barely blinking as he turns and swerves and hides, the wide-eyed thieves in the backseat sweating and bopping around like loose grocery items.

Of course “Driver” is a Hollywood film itself, so there must be a lonely, pretty woman (Carey Mulligan) down the hallway, an oddball mentor (Bryan Cranston), and sadistic mobsters out to make the hero’s life hell. The heavies are played by Ron Perlman – turning his Hellboy hero upside down to pure-fire menace – and Albert Brooks – erasing decades of nice guy nerds by taking kitchen cutlery to a man’s head and throat. It’s a bristling, seething performance, and it deserves an Oscar nomination.

But don’t think Gosling is be lefty empty-handed against such villainy. As with Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name and Kurt Russell as Snake Plisskin, Gosling’s acting is all in his glare, the slight movement of an eye against an opponent. For the first part of the film, one assumes he is just a driver for criminals, not prone to violence or crime. Wrong. He threatens a betraying woman, beats a man with a hammer and makes him swallow a bullet, and then ups the ante by beating a man to death. Gosling’s Driver does this seemingly without raising his pulse, a mere sweat mark, as if he’s just jogged a mile or two. A nice workout. Great performance.

There’s not a wasted moment in this economic film, shot similar to a late ’70s midnight feature that shows up on cable every now and then, and scored with a pulsating 1980s rock beat that sizzles. Hossein Amini’s screenplay is sparse, sharp. Gosling maybe has under 100 words. One great exchange: Brooks’ mobster wants to shake hands with Driver at the start of the film. Driver demurs. “My hands are dirty.” Grease and grime. “So are mine,” the man shoots back. Blood and sin.

Director Nicolas Winding Refn stages chases low to the ground, as if we’re following along on a jet-fueled skateboard. The fights and murders are doused with buckets of blood: A skull explodes wide open from a shotgun blast and when Driver stomps a man to death, we hear every crack of skull then the mushy plop of brain tissue. Wisely Refn pulls back the on-screen carnage toward the end for shadows and long shots. His prison drama “Bronson” was a shocking powerhouse film, but I thought his Viking flick “Valhalla Rising” was too artsy. Here Refn is in full gear, grinding the throttle until the engine gives, not sweating.

“Drive” doesn’t break new ground. The plot is, to put it mildly, familiar. So was “13 Assassins,” another summer winner for me. I’m not sure Mulligan pulls off her role: A mother and waitress barely scraping by money wise with a husband in prison. Most women in that position would be tired and frazzled. Her Irene seems more grad school track. But that’s Mulligan’s mug, I think. This past summer left us little in the way of pure adrenaline rushes, and “Driver” than fits the bill. I can’t wait to take it for another spin. A-

Secretariat (2010)

Walt Disney airbrushes life. That is its specialty. And in “Secretariat,” the studio does a splendid job: This biopic of the horse that won Triple Crowns shows no grit and grime of track racing, nor does it delve into race issues, Vietnam, drugs and sex, or feminist issues despite its 1960s-1970s setting. When Tea Party Patriots talk about the gleaming glory days of American history, they mean the America depicted in this movie. Not reality. But I digress, because this is a rousing lump-in-your-throat film. It focuses on Penny Chenery (Diane Lane), a housewife compelled into taking over her parents’ horse farm. Born with horse sense, Penny knows there is a champion soon to be born in her stable and so she marches full force into a sport run by cigar-smoking old men. You know the rest. From Lane’s whip smart take-no-crap aura to the beautiful cinematography (by Dean Semler) to the long finale where the horse gallops to glory, my snob standards fell and I smiled big. A must-show to girls looking for female heroes. B

Men in Black (1997)

I love “Men in Black.” To think it once was going to star Clint Eastwood and Chris O’Donnell. Thank God for Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. Jones is K, an agent for a secret government organization that is like Department of Immigration for outer space arrivals. K’s mission: Keep the aliens a secret from us human saps. Smith is J, a plains clothes street cop who ends up working for K. The plot has Smith as a surrogate “us,” seeing a whacky world that’s been all around us, but just out of sight until now. Our Men in Black have to stop the world from going asunder, and their enemy is a bug-infested famer whose body was smashed flat so he drags himself around with tics and hiccups. He’s played by Vincent D’Onofrio in an endlessly funny and Oscar-worthy performance. Director Barry Sonnenfeld makes the talking dogs, one-liners and the climactic joke about the N.Y. fair grounds seem effortless and perfectly sensible. Rick Baker designed the unique aliens. Smith and Jones -- I love their surnames here -- play like a father-and-son comedy team, having a blast. Even Jones smiles. A

The Help (2011)

“The Help” is impossible to hate or dismiss. If you have a sense of justice. But make no mistake about it, this is a Disneyfied dramatization of the long civil rights struggle by African Americans, and yet – a Hollywood tradition in “Glory” and “Mississippi Burning” and dozens upon dozens of other films – it chooses to focus on wealthy white characters. The people who should be our total and absolute focus are secondary.

Worse, for every heartbreaking scene of racism, evil decorated in twisted Southern American Christian pride, the filmmakers serve up a comedic aside or comeuppance to let us know, we will leave the theater feeling good. No, “Help” is not great. But by the sheer strength of Viola Davis’ acting and the scary notion that an entire block of American voters consider this era to be America’s finest, it must be seen. Flaws and all.

Let us get my major grind out of the way. “Help” is geared toward the widest American audience possible, so it will not cut bone. It will not show the true Jim Crow South, made horrifically real and alive in the book “Carry Me Home.” (Read that book. Do it. Now.) It will not dare go the route of Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” with a rightfully angry black man -- that is a fine, true Civil Rights film -- ready to tear down the institution that has torn him down his entire life. It mostly avoids blood and death, and follows a liberal, white, pretty girl, because that’s what Hollywood thinks we want. Looking at box office receipts, they nailed an “Easy A,” to bring up Emma Stone. (“Easy A” is Stone’s biggest hit film.)

Stone plays the hero: Eugenia, a … wait for it … newspaper reporter (liberal!) who starts out writing a housecleaning advice column but soon dives incognito into telling the stories of black maids/ nannies – The Help -- hired by wealthy families. Including her own. In a Hollywood story, a young black woman or man could never dream up this idea. No. Help, so to speak, has to come from outside. Just like the heroic FBI (!!!) had to help in a certain Gene Hackman film I mentioned above. (Talk about a crock of history.) And, I know, it’s all based on a book. A best-seller. Whoopdeefriggin’ do, my point still stands.

But I digress. Stone’s newly minted University of Mississippi grad Eugenia returns home to the town of Jackson as an aspiring writer, her eyes now open to the horror that she was raised in and never thought of for a second. Eugenia’s first choice for the book is Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), the caretaker of her best pal’s daughter. Aibileen is, of course, scared of revenge from her white employers and local Klan, the latter of whom never actually appears. That would scare test screening audiences after all.

Eugenia asks upfront dumb questions: Do you regret raising the babies of others, whilst missing out on the lives of your own children? And do you have dreams other than being a maid? Well, no, shit, girl. Really? But here’s the beauty of this film: Davis rips the film from Stone with a fierce, devastating performance. She makes that awkward scene work. When Aibileen talks of her life, her body language vibrates with heartbreak, sadness, regret and, yes, anger, directed at herself and the world that belittles her based on skin color. (I can’t image being so treated, I’d rage forever. I would burn buildings down, no lie? Would you not?)

We also follow another white family, headed by a Stepford Wife-type monster, played by Bryce Dallas Howard. She is the villain, a young lady who speaks of Christian charity and yet proclaims Separate but Equal must always stand. The character veers close to caricature, but Howard – pouring out judgmental evil from her eyes – makes it work. Hilly, that’s her Southern Belle name, takes great pleasure in ridiculing her own maid, Minny (Octavia Spencer). And Hillies still exist today, no lie, and I have met them.

It is Minny who serves a dish of revenge, the comedic comeuppance, and brings about the film’s most controversial moment. It’s funny. I admit I laughed. I did. I also wondered if any such thing could have ever truly happened, in a state where murder upon African-Americans for the lightest infraction was the norm. The whole gag seems a modern, not historical, touch. I suppose from the book. I skipped reading it. Thankfully, the final scenes have Aibileen taking on her oppressors. No Eugenia about. It ends seriously, with quite a heart-breaker, and with an uplift.

So, see the film. Watch it for the scene toward the end where Eugenia walks into Aibileen’s home and sees a roomful of African American women. It is the first time I have ever seen a summer Hollywood flick that featured a roomful of African American woman, and that in itself says the struggles depicted here are not ancient history. They still exist. And be warned, when we have presidential candidates saying our Founding Fathers worked to end slavery and congressmen who shrug off the Civil Rights Act as passé federal oversight, and make a half-hearted apology that they were taken out of context. Jim Crow, institutionalized racism with state’s rights ... it could happen again. (That “Take our country back” mantra is a threat, do not doubt it. We have a black man in the Oval Office.)

But also know this: When you are watching and laughing along at the funny bits (and I am guilty) in a movie about this era, remember not many people were laughing during the real 1963. Not in the South. The emotions, I gather from stories told to me and read by that occurred before my birth, were far more grim. On both sides of the divide. Give me “Malcolm X.” It is far closer to the ugly truth. This could play on TV, Sunday night movie, uncensored, and not raise a pulse. B-

Paul (2011) and Spaceballs (1987)

Within a few days of each other, I watched “Spaceballs” and “Paul,” two comedy-spoofs that kick the shins while kissing the feet of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in their full 1970s “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” glory. Hell, this blog title is named after “Close Encounters,” so I and my fellow sci-fi geeks are a happy target, too. So on we go…

Every child of the 1980s has seen “Spaceballs,” Mel Brooks’ spoof of “Star Wars” with rips at “Star Trek,” “Planet of the Apes” and “Alien” tossed in as extras. I knew this film before I knew several of the targets, being 13 in 1987. But space battles are not what Brooks is satirizing here. Rather, he targets the crass commercialization of those films, especially Lucas’ still-insatiable thirst for dollars: The way selling childish Ewok action figures became more important than crafting a nuanced child-like imaginative finale to the hallmark trilogy of Generation X’s youth. “Spaceballs” even stops midpoint to hawk its own release on VHS, a wiser joke now with present-day instant downloads and DVD releases within 8 weeks of a theatrical run.

The plot is “Star Wars” simple: A space cowboy named Lonestar (Bill Pullman) must rescue a princess (Daphne Zuniga) from the evil Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis, stealing the film even with his face covered most of the time). Brooks plays two parts: A “Wizard of Oz”-like lizard alien named Yogurt, spoofing Yoda, and a clueless president, modeled after, dare I say, Ronald Reagan. But it’s not a laugh riot. With none of Gene Wilder’s sharp gags and line delivery from “Producers,” Brooks’ comedy flounders far more than it soars.

Brooks relies on Jewish jokes, and one penis gag after another. Those get old fast. Much of the time, “Spaceballs” just sits there, almost proudly being dull as the heroes really are an unmemorable bunch of slouches. If that joke is on purpose, it back fires. Or one wonders if Brooks’ is just coasting. My theory: He doesn’t love “Star Wars” enough to really tear into it, and have giddy dirty fun as he did in “Blazing Saddles” or “Young Frankenstein.”

Brooks might enjoy “Paul,” with its dick and smoking pot jokes and the “I’m not gay” gay humor that play throughout. Realized in spring 2011, “Paul” plays along similar lines of “Spaceballs,” but stays on Earth with a classic two pals in a road chase plot. It’s more interesting, and has better lead actors. Even better: Some big sci-fi stars pop by spoofing our image of them. And we have Jason Bateman finally (finally!) playing a bad-ass fed prick, with a black suit and a gun. He’s no pocket protector nerd here. He rocks the part.

Our focus is on two Brit sci-fi nerds (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who previously teamed in “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”) who are in the States for Comic Con at San Diego, and then a road-trip in an RV to see Area 51, the famed Black Mailbox and all the other alien invasion hot spots dotted along America. Running from a couple red necks ala “Deliverance,” our heroes see a car crash on the desert highway. The driver: A little green alien. Just like in all the History Channel specials, big raisin head, big black eyes, wee frail body. But this guy sports the demeanor of Seth Green, the actor who made me hate “Green Hornet,” but like such fare as “Superbad.” Speaking of that, Greg Mottola, the guy who directed “Superbad,” is in charge here.

This is a love letter to all films sci-fi, and other American hits: “E.T.,” “Star Wars,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Blues Brothers,” “Thelma & Louise,” the list goes on. But there’s also a tweak of all those films, as our green guy here dismisses “E.T.” hi-jinks, and smokes a joint with his road trip buddies. There are plenty of great jokes here, but some of the film – including a bit with a Christian fanatic (Kristin Wiig) – drag. At 90 minutes, “Paul” might have been great, at more than 110 minutes, and with an ugly punch of graphic blood, this alien sticks around longer than it should. Closing on a high note: Bateman’s character sarcastically rips into his minions, each a sci-fi fanatic. “You’re a grown man, right?,” he mocks them, and us in the audience. Ouch. But clever.

“Spaceballs”: C+ “Paul”: B

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)

Windi Murdoch has a mean right hook. Mess with husband Rupert and she will fuck you up. No joke. Awesome wife, she is. But movie producer? Not so much. Ms. Murdoch’s first foray into Hollywood is “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” a sufferable drama about four women suffering in modern day and 19th century China. What we learn: Friendships among women are good, sexism is bad, and foot-binding is really bad. Confession: I already knew all this going in.

The gist: In modern day Shanghai, successful businesswoman Nina (Li Bingbing) is set to move to New York when she learns estranged BFF Sophia (Gianna Junn) has been in a terrible accident. A distraught Nina rushes to the hospital to be by Sofia’s bedside. There, Nina finds a typed manuscript in Sophia’s belongings, an account of two women in 1800s China growing up and marrying in a society where women were mere son-bearing sex objects. I was never certain if the manuscript was fiction, or a historical record. I don’t care enough to know.

Director Wayne Wang (“The Joy Luck Club”) desperately wants us to care for these four women, but the heart just isn’t there. Nor the punch-in-the-gut drama. Riffing on “Godfather Part II” style editing, he cuts back and forth between past and present, making the audience work to keep up with what’s going on when, and who’s who, and giving us a clear choice in deciding which story is more boring. I vote for the modern tale as it was written fresh for the screen. It has female struggles that are just laughably bad, with high school drama galore and adult Sophia living in a “poverty” that half the modern world would kill to experience. The hokey English-written lines do not help.

The book, from which this film is based, focuses solely on the 1800s. Yet this historic portion is never allowed to dig deep. Yes, we see terrible sexism, and beatings, and cruel mothers-in-law, and it all happened to some one, but it has been played in a hundred other films. The editing does not help, denting emotional impact. Case in point, we witness a village massacre and the cold death of a child, but the scenes trip across the screen with a shrug, almost as if the script blankly stated “Insert Massacre Here.” The running villages scene could be stock footage for all I know. The music is standard issue, too.

Several unintended LOL moments derail this snoozer into distracting life: Hugh Jackman saunters on screen as a charismatic lounge singer because … I have no idea. Is he pals with fellow Aussie Rupert Murdoch? A woman near me yelled, “Oh, good! He’s gorgeous!” Worse still, the four women cross into each other’s time lines, because it’s … a trite liberal salute to women facing oppression throughout history? A stab at saying everything changes even as nothing changes? “Doctor Who” time travel? I have no idea. I burst out laughing, and others did near me, as two centuries-dead women with bound feet sipped coffee on an art deco high-rise patio. Not what Ms. Murdoch or Wang were going for, eh? D+

Get Low (2010)

Robert Duvall gets few parts worthy of his fierce, unlimited talent. “Get Low” is worthy. He plays Felix Bush, a 1930s Southern backwoods hermit, cantankerous and so feared by locals that little boys dare each other to step foot on his property. When he hears of a former friend’s death, Bush – ill, worn out, tired of being alone and haunted by a tragedy – opts for a unique send-off: He wants his funeral held before he dies. He wants to hear stories about himself, and tell one of his own, not to the townsfolk – all are invited – but to one woman (Sissy Spacek) from his past. Duvall tears into this role with the hellfire might he had in “Network.” This is his film, and the other actors – a hilarious Bill Murray as a likely ex-con turned legit undertaker – stand back in awe. Only Lucas Black as Murray’s trainee is out of his league, but his character is written as a dull Boy Scout unsuited to the dark brushes of comedy and pain on display. Director Aaron Schneider makes his debut here, and his work – cinematography, sound, music, cast, design – feels directed by a pro. Duvall is a national treasure. A-

The Jonses (2009)

America’s addiction to consumer glitz gets skewered in “The Jonses,” a satirical comedy-drama about an atypical family with Demi Moore and David Duchovny as mom and dad, respectively. One will figure out the film’s wink-wink catch within 10 minutes, but I’ll hold dishing on it. The gist is, of course, that keeping up with the Jonses -- who have the best cars, latest cell phones, killer TV gaming system and the tastiest flash-frozen food you’ll ever eat -- is hell. The Jonses have unlimited funds. Their neighbors do not. The deficit is not kind. Much of the film plays like “Fantasy Island”: People live like this? What jobs do they have? No one here seems to work. It’s sci-fi to me. Director/writer Derrick Borte has a point to grind, and he does it well for a while, but there’s a nagging feeling that a thousand companies fought to get their products placed on camera, from the Audis to the coffee makers, and the fancy-pants Dell laptop at film’s end, all to make the audience say, “I want that.” Muddled message, eh? Duchovny and Moore are fantastic, movie stars forever. B-

Buck (2011)

“Buck” follows the man behind “The Horse Whisperer,” the 1995 book and 1998 Robert Redford film about a kind cowboy who tames a wild horse and therefore saves its owner, a wounded girl. The real Horse Whisperer is Dan “Buck” Brannaman, a former rodeo child star who found solace and salvation in horses after a life of hellish abuse. We follow family, horse owners, trailers and farms, but director Cindy Meehl makes it clear, this is about anyone’s life, even Philly boy, and taps into raising children, holding a marriage together, and reaching out to others. It’s not all sweetness. Just as the film turns Buck into a Zen Jedi Magic Man, he meets a troubled horse he cannot save, one that – in a jolt of shocking violence – nearly rips a man’s face off. The gush of blood is real. Buck is heartbroken. I could have saved him, he says. Old film of the dad with Buck is an unsettling peak at child abuse, the old man’s claws dug into the boy’s wee shoulder. A jolt to anyone who knows what that means. Maybe Buck is a Zen Jedi Magic Man. A-

Windtalkers (2002)

John Woo’s “Windtalkers” is sold as a never-before-told chronicle of Marine-trained Navajos who used a code based on their language to communicate military ops over radio during World War II. Naturally, this being a Hollywood drama, “Windtalkers” actually follows a white guy (Nicolas Cage) as he struggles with war wounds of body and soul, and relegates the persons of color (Adam Beach and Roger Willie) to supporting bits, and most shockingly their Navajo-spoken subtitled-in-English almost mute. Yes, battles are staged with absolute chaos and one can feel the heat of explosions and spent cannon shells, but war flick clichés abound, from campfire sessions to the devoted nurse to the nasty bigot who will have a change of heart. Beer bong alert: A serious drinking game can be made of Woo’s trademark slow-mo action shots. There’s a great story buried here, one that tackles the ironies of a people once hunted and killed by and subjected to white American rule, now fighting for that very nation with their lives. But this ain’t it. Not unless Cage -- playing a ridiculous Rambo killing machine with perfect aim -- is part Native American. C-

Spider (2002)

David Cronenberg’s “Spider” is a somber-as-ash take on a man bowed by schizophrenia that dares to not provide a miracle ending with “Big Movie Climax!” stamped in red ink. There is no escape here from the dark. We first see Dennis Cleg (Ralph Fiennes) deboard a London train, alone, shuffling, mumbling, his vital possessions – money and directions to a boarding house – stuffed in a sock. Dennis was raised in the neighborhood of his new home, and there he wonders – in his mind, for real, one does not know for sure – back to his 1950s youth with a mercurial father (Gabriel Byrne) and dotting mother (Miranda Richardson). Here’s where the spider’s web starts to form as we, through Dennis’ barely functioning mind, piece together a murder. In present day, the murk darkens as the dead mother seems to live on. Fiennes never budges from Dennis’ inner turmoil, his every move made with fear of punishment, and it’s a brilliant performance. Cronenberg traps us in Dennis’ world, itself trapped inside London’s dark-as-hell industrial gas district, which seems to exist in the same realm as David Lynch’s “Eraserhead,” another story with a narrator not only unreliable but quite mad. A-