Cloud Atlas (2012)

“Cloud Atlas” is 2012’s Must See’s Big Screen Glory. That few people will ever see. I say this not for the greatness or splendor of this wunderkind time-hoping epic of faith, art, love, souls, and reincarnation, but because “Atlas” is also a train wreck of all those things, careening out of control like nothing before it. That in itself is glorious.

Written and directed by the Wachowskis -– Andy and Lana (formerly Larry), who gave us “The Matrix” and also its diminishing sequels –- and Tom Tykwer (“Run Lola Run”), “Cloud” is an endlessly fascinating and just as perplexing tale of time. My gut reaction falters and dodges, swooning from absolute devotion to flippant disregard. Joyous, no? Is this not what the best of art does? This is a film to watch again and again, ranking among “Gangs of New York” and “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” flawed modern masterpieces.

Based on the celebrated 2004 novel by David Mitchell –- which I have yet to read -– “Cloud” follows six interconnected stories across roughly 500 years: A privileged and gravely ill lawyer on a Pacific Ocean voyage in 1849 who is awakened to the horrors of slavery, a pre-war 1930s London as a young and deeply troubled gay composer lands a dream-job-turned-nightmare under a retired and senile musical maestro, then onto 1970s San Francisco as an African-American reporter investigates dirty dealings at a nuclear plant.

Deep breath. We’re only halfway through.

In modern England, 2012, a nerdy book editor runs afoul of a gangster and his own twisted, vengeful brother. In 2144, Seoul, South Korea, a very “Blade Runner”-like replicant-type waitress makes a break for freedom and realizes her human masters are most inhumane, with our final story in the 24^th century where much of the world rests obliterated under the oceans, and the last few humans live as primitives, except those who escaped Earth for distant worlds. This last story spans decades out, book-ending the film as a narration.

In the book, the stories follow chronologically, unbroken. In the film, they have been broken and scattered about, chunks and tidbits each flowing into the next and back. The movement is seamless, never off-putting, as smart and careful edits allow us to flow from the rush of a man or a horse, into the rush of a car or train. A birthmark is marks a reincarnated soul coming back tine and again to get it right. The lover of the ’30s composer turns up as an elderly and doomed man in the ’70s nuclear plant investigation. 

If anything, “Atlas” isn’t about reincarnated souls trying to get their own souls right in a lifetime, but get society as  whole right. The efforts, of course, as they must, lead to murder, accidents, and suicide. It also, of course, is how all people are connected, each influencing and setting a path for another. Trite? Maybe. But we need this film now, I do. There is no Tardis, btw.

Here, also, is where Wachowskis and Tykwer truly shine as they show how art influences our lives, not just misery and failed salvation, and allows us to live on for infinity via our creative mind. The lawyer’s life journal is published in a book to be read by the gay youth whose music the reporter obsesses with whose own novels will one day flow into another story. The film “Soylent Green” briefly appears in the background of one chapter, and comes up horrifically ugly later. In the Korean scene, a movie adaptation of the book editor’s life plays and power drives the plot forward. The film thread is a fabric with a sense that the world of 2350 overlaps into 1850. (Note: Nearly all of the main players are creative artists, not, say, a sad plumber whose name will be lay forgotten.)

Also connecting these stories is the cast, a hefty lift itself: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Susan Sarandon, James D’Arcy, and Hugo Weaving. Almost all of the actors appear in every chapter, a stunt ingenious and yet a sharp double-edged sword as it turns too comedic, and one of the reason why the film derails and crashes, only to rise again.

Hanks plays a doctor in 1850, a hotelier in 1930s England, a nuclear engineer in the 1970s story, the gangster with a vendetta against the book editor in the 2012 chapter, an actor on TV playing the book editor (previously played by Broadbent) in the Korean segment, and a simple farmer in the last chapter. Throughout Hanks wears heavy makeup, as do all the actors in every nearly scene, and as with the makeup, which ranges from deft and extraordinary to purely off-putting and uncomfortably laughable, the acting soars and dives. This is a movie of many parts, all moving at different speeds in different orbits.

As the scientist, Hanks is soulful and romantic, heroic and stalwart, and he’s grand. As the gangster, he crashes bad with the worst comedic “SNL” guest skit he’s never done, seemingly parodying Bob Hoskins’ bloody killer in “Long Good Friday.” How far the crash? When Hanks as the mobster kills a man, the audience laughed. I groaned. That’s not the reaction I imagine the directing team was going for. If it was, they clearly misaimed.

The makeup and alternating actors ensemble also interrupts the film’s flow as I could not help but play I Spy while watching the drama unfold. Oh, look Weaving as an assassin, then a (I kid you not) leprechaun, as a slave-owner dandy, as a bulbous female nurse straight out of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and -– here’s where the makeup borderlines on but never crosses the line of offensive –- a Korean autocrat. Weaving looks ridiculous, like a melted candle, in Asian-like latex, and it distracts. The viewer, me, is no longer watching characters in a startling, long, multi-layered epic, but a series of coming and going actors playing for Oscar or ham.

Berry is at her best donning a slight wig as the journo out for a scoop, but terribly awkward -– she looks pained and terribly self-aware –- as a WASP Brit in the 1930s segment. Hanks playing an old version of the farmer, looks like the makeup truck came by and shat on his face. Sometimes, more so than not, less is more. It is true here.

Berry and Hanks, in that latter segment, also speak a gibberish English that takes time to dip into. It’s alternately inspiring -– of course language would evolve or devolve dependent on the winds of culture, but it also has the slight whiff that they are doing a dead serious impersonation of Jar Jar Binks in the film that shall not be named. You know the one. Indeed, writing this, I realize how much of the acting is mere mimicry. And, yet, I wonder if that’s part of the tale, life imitating art and art imitating life. Art as life eternal. As circular as the movie’s story.

But that does not take away from the absolute passion on screen here. Every scene, every segment and sidestep, and inside joke (the music score we hear as part of the soundtrack is vital inside the story of the film, and yet is declared lost and unimportant by some characters) needs to be here. It’s fully apparent: Tykwer -– who composed the unforgettable music, FYI — and the Wachowskis had to make this movie, or they would burst. 

It’s as exhilarating and breathlessly paced in sections as “Matrix” and “Lola,” and bloody as a grim historical film a la “The Mission” with mass slaughter in the future, where Grant -– in his best turn in years -– plays a wordless tribal chief who has gone full-on cannibal. The scenes in Korea –- directed by the Wachowskis -– may be my favorite as they pulse and vibe like a rocket ship, filled with spectacular effects and action, and a romance that recalls “Star Wars” and “Blade Runner,” mixed with a Terry Gilliam hallucination of futuristic life. The book editor comedy with Hanks as Hoskins, not so much. Car mishaps anyone?

Financed out of Germany with little Hollywood involvement, “Atlas” also recalls the gone-glory days of Tinsel-Town spectacles with larger-than-life drama and action (“Ben Hur” and “Lawrence of Arabia,”) and massive power-cast epics (“The Longest Day”) before every big film became about superheroes and boy wizards. These directors are hitting for the stands, they are not fooling around or scraping by bored with a summer spectacle.

Along with “Lifeof Pi” -– another big screen wonder of immense beauty that falls short in the end -– “Atlas” also touches on the existence of God Himself. Nowadays, a rare occasion itself. Not mockingly or with dead-eyed Pat Robertson cult adoration, but mystery, who is He? What does He want?

And that may be the great question of the film: What did I just watch? It’s a mystery I hope to unravel with future viewings, the secret thrill: I may hate or love this film next depndent on how I feel that day. The very prurpose of art, no? Temporary grade: B

Skyfall (2012)

James Bond is back in form in “Skyfall” after the dive that was “Quantum of Solace,” a film as meaningless as its title. This third in the Daniel Craig series nearly equals 2006’s “Casino Royale,” the best of the 007 series since the Connery days. The plot: A mystery man from M’s (Judi Dench) past is plunging MI6 and London into chaos, unveiling secret agents and blowing HQ to chunks. The weapons of death and madness are not nukes or giant lasers hidden in volcanoes, but laptops; the trigger is the [ENTER] button. The sword cuts both ways: Both the villain (Javier Bardem, sexually ambiguous in an Oscar-worthy turn) and the new Q (Ben Whishaw) both hawk hacking as their life’s trade, setting old-fashioned Bond off his game. Craig as Bond is at his best when thrown off, clawing back from the dead and irrelevance. The admittedly comic-book plot mechanics clank, but director Sam Mendes (“Road to Perdition”) and his writers invoke the Connery era as if were Scripture, pulling a “You Only Live Twice” stunt and a ’64 Aston Martin homage, and then set a new path for the 50-year-old franchise by tearing down its past. A-

Vanishing on 7th Street (2011)

Hayden Christensen is on the run in the horror/thriller “Vanishing on 7^th Street.” He runs not from cops or crooks, nor space aliens. He runs from a dark cloud that vaporizes all life that it touches. George Lucas with more “Star Wars” prequel ideas? No. More biblical plaque a la “Exodus.” The Roanoke (N.C.) mystery plays a hand. No matter, director Brad Anderson (“Casper”) never tells us. We’re in Detroit at night when thousands of people disappear during a power outage. Only a tiny handful remain: Christensen’s TV news reporter and some stragglers (Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo) and a child. They bicker, fret, and flee the dark. God is invoked, but the majority of plot is set inside a bar. A church sits down the street. The mystery is a doubled-edged sword that leads to a WTF ending with plot holes wide open: The city falls into absolute blot-out-the-sun dark, but the moon shines bright. How? In horror, details matter. Christensen plays well against an endless void. It’s all uphill after Teen Vadar. B-

Charade (1963)

This. THIS is what “Tourist” -– the dull-flat romantic caper with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie -– wanted to be, and failed. Starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, with assist from George Kennedy, James Coburn, and Walter Matthau, twisty-turny, tongue-in-cheek thriller/comedy “Charade” follows a new divorcee (Hepburn) whose Parisian rich ex-husband turns up dead before the legal papers can be signed. Woe for her, because $250,000 is missing, and the cops and the crooks know in their blood Ms. Hepburn has it. Enter Grant’s slippery admitted conman who switches identities quicker than he does clothes, and this film -– directed by Stanley Donen (“Singin’ in the Rain”) -– is a hoot of 1960s cool/suave. The turncoats, betrayals, and reveals are played for suspense and laughs, alternating one after the other, none better than when a parade of men stalk into dead hubby’s funeral, studying and abusing the corpse, making sure he’s dead. Grant is old enough to be Hepburn’s father, but the “ick” factor is joked away, with Hepburn on top, so to speak, even if some of the “you’re-just-a-girl” shtick is sexist. Doesn’t distract, though, from this cinematic shell game. Hepburn shines, as always. B+

Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)

Talk about a lump of coal: For a film titled “Santa Claus” ol’ Saint Nick is MIA for most of his own notorious movie, no less from the producers behind the “Superman” films. Dang. Fetch Rudolph, and sorry, Virginia, this cinema origin tale focuses on the jolly toy-giver for only 30 minutes –- covering the North Pole, reindeer, and toys. Then it switches sleighs for a runaway elf (Dudley Moore) who takes up with a corrupt toy company CEO (John Lithgow). Santa? Ho-ho-hum, dude is relegated to a sad-sack grump sitting by the fireplace wondering if he’s still relevant. That right, Santa has an existential crisis. Talk about meta. Frances Church, help us! Add in a dull and cheap-looking production, even recycling flying footage from 1978’s “Superman,” and watching this is almost as disappointing as finding out you-know-what about you-know-who. That said, we get David Huddleston –- “The Big Lebowoski” himself -– as Santa, and you can tell he cherished this role. Just don’t steal his carpet. Lithgow’s OTT Grinch is a parody of the famous “SNL” Dan Aykroyd villain Irwin Mainway, so … why not just hire Aykroyd? A missed perfect gift. C+

Arbitrage (2012)

Richard Gere is never bolder/better than when he plays an amoral cockup with sins to hide and a clock to beat. He is that and more in “Arbitage,” a timely thriller with Gere as a billionaire hedge fund manager who in one week sees a longtime financial fraud shell game crumble and accidentally kills his mistress in a crash, all while dodging police and his suspecting wife (Susan Sarandon). This is a 1 percenter who has been thieving and lying so long, the light of truth gets him sweating. But he knows the rigged system. That’s the twist in this ethics quagmire: We see-saw between wanting this pig nailed and wanting him to escape unharmed. Writer/director Nicholas Jarecki also takes an open shot at the real “takers” in this land –- not the poor or African-Americans or Hispanics as Fox News preaches, but the rich white Wall Street elite who own the banks. The scene where Gere’s CEO cluelessly asks a young black man who he has drawn into his scheme, “What’s an Applebee’s?” (The man wants to open a franchise), exemplifies modern American values. Money is all. A-

The Innkeepers (2011)

“The Innkeepers” harkens back to old-school horror, the slow, slow, slow drop into the macabre and death, the full-on the lingering question that settles over the viewer hours later: “Did I see what happen actually happen?” We’re inside an on old New England inn with a history of mishaps, deaths, and renovations, but time has not been kind. The place faces shuttering. Two employees (Pat Healy and Sara Paxton) are on duty, and both are wink-wink ghost hunters. They’re there to make some cash, but mostly get ghosts on tape. The tenants are few and odd, including an actress (Kelly McGillis of “Witness”). Slowly, ever so slowly, writer/director Ti West sinks us into the story of these, um college slackers with clichés of spooky stories, a dark and dank basement, slamming doors, midnight mirages, and  a suicide upstairs, plus locked doors and creaky stairs. He keeps on sinking us downward, these old tricks spun jokingly, nastily, anew until we are as frazzled as the heroes locked up with the desire of horror maybe trumping anything real. A tiny budget, mostly unknown actors, and a simple plot go a long way. B+

Chronicle (2012)

Faux found-footage films are dead dull thanks to the “Paranormal Activity” quadrilogy. The low-budget “Chronicle” seeks to break the rut, and for the most-part, excels smashingly. Much is smashed in this 90-minute thriller after three high school boys stumble upon a cavern and quite foolishly (as teen boys are prone to do) touch a glowing, pulsing … something. Meteor? We don’t know, but the object gives the trio telekinetic powers. In sci-fi lore, newly powered teens must fight crime. Not here. They turn merry pranksters and play football 13,000 feet up. Then one of three -- bullied, beaten, and angry Andrew (Dane DeHaan of “Lawless”) -- goes mad and his rampage in downtown Seattle is so thrillingly of-the-moment TV news “real,” the sight is horrifying and exhilarating, thanks to director Josh Trank. But the teenage oh-so-exact shot “footage” and the constant meta-raised-eyebrows from the other characters halts the momentum, and I think, get on with the story. Stop the gimmick. That said, Track’s thriller near blows the superhero genre out of the water with a fraction of an “Amazing Spider-Man” budget. B+

Argo (2012)

Ben Affleck’s directing career has hit orbit. “Agro” is the crazy/ genius/brilliant/true tale of CIA agent and the Iranian Hostage crisis of 1979. I was five. “Star Wars” defined me. Thousands of miles away, Iran burned under a sick and violent Islamist dictatorship. Our embassy was rushed by zealots out for blood. Hostages were taken. The world panicked. War considered. A ray of hope unbeknownst to us: Six Americans escaped and hid inside the home of the Canadian ambassador, blind from Iranian grip. (Chris Terrio’s crackling script takes liberties here, as the six were split up. But never mind that.) How to extract the six? Enter CIA agent Chris Mendez (Affleck) and a bold plan: Ferret the group through the main airport as a “Star Wars” rip-off film crew, all under the Iranian Army’s watch. Pumped with tense drama, and dark political and Hollywood humor, “Argo” may be 2012’s best film, gripping and ingenuously played from the start. Affleck as a Hispanic-American is bullocks, but 10 minutes my qualms fell silent.The kicker: Our 2012 is no different, outside of shaggy hair and five channels. “Star Wars” still defines me, our embassies fall to madness, and Iran burns. I love this film.  A

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Brad Pitt's grim crime thriller “Killing Them Softly” already has much box office notoriety: A money loser slapped with an “F” from CinemaScore. Hell with that. This is ballsy filmmaking of the highest order. Andrew Dominik -– who made “Assassination of Jesse James” with Pitt -– is behind “KSF” as director/writer, and he is not out to please anyone. We follow two low-end criminals (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) who rob a mafia-run card game, and escape with cash in hand and angry men in pursuit, one of them a world-weary hit man played by Pitt. “KSF” is set in 2008, during the economic meltdown and Obama/McCain election, and Dominik uses the panic and uncertainty of the time to explode the panic and uncertainty onscreen. There are no heroes, jokes, or happy endings. It’s a devastating punch about real criminal life, peppered with sad-sacks, drug-users, and average joes in over their heads. Not necessarily evil. Unintended fuck-ups. Dominik dares say our politicians, Wall Street bankers, and Founding Fathers are/were no different. It's the American way. Even a tedious slow-mo killing and oddball fireworks scene can’t hide that “KSF” is shockingly true cinematic art. A-

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

The most redundant horror franchise ever, “Paranormal Activity 3” takes its digital found-footage shtick back in time to the days of VHS tapes. Here, we follow the adult sisters from the first two films (Sprague Grayden and Katie Featherston) when they were children (Jessica Tyler Brown  and Chloe Csengery), still in San Diego, still in the same kind of yuppie split-level house, still stupid as dry paint, and still haunted by unseen ghosts. “PA3” would top “Rosemary’s Baby” if repetition were frightening. But this crap is painfully laughable. Yeah, some scares are found in watching children dragged and tossed by unseen forces. Such acts play on any adult concern for a child. Duh. But here’s the real mind fuck: As the girls play, dress, and sleep in their bedroom, they are filmed 24/7 by their dip-shit mother’s live-in video-camera-obsessed boyfriend (Chris Smith). Dude then watches the bedroom videos with his male best pal in the garage. Um, ghost-hunting pedophiles anyone? That the girls grow up to marry equally camera-obsessed men may not equal paranormal activity, but it sure is whacked sexual activity. Awkward, anyone? D+

The Sessions (2012)

When the Academy Award nominations come in, 2012 Sundance-Festival-favorite “Sessions” will be mentioned. For sure. But when the awards go out, it will be left empty. This is a drama destined to become movie trivia and “Did you ever see?” probing among die-hard, art-house cinemasts, loved by a few, unknown to most. 

That’s a shame. This is a smart, amazingly uplifting, funny, poignant, and, yes, heartbreaking adult tale of a man (John Hawkes, from “Winter’s Bone”) attempting to get laid despite his own body being left motionless from the neck down after being stricken by polio as a child. (He has full sensitivity. His muscles do not work.)

Based on a true story, “Sessions” focuses Berkley, Calif., resident Mark O’Brien’s desire and need to lose his virginity before he dies, and he knows he won’t live terribly long. His sell by date is approaching fast. Mark spends his nights in an iron lung, a massive tube that alleviates breathing problems, and his every waking moment is accompanied by an oxygen tank for much the same purpose. I said he cannot move, but he can get an erection, and, like any living being, longs for intimacy. 

Here’s the beauty of this film, small in the best of ways: Newcomer writer/director Ben Lewin -– himself partially crippled by polio -- refuses to go sentimental or booming give-us-a-big-cry movie soft accompanied by a swelling orchestral score from loud Hollywood. 

Instead, he beautifully lays out the film with clear-eyed, sobering journalistic precision. O’Brien himself was a poet and journalist. The mood, the smallness, fits. Perfectly.

Before the opening credits are through, Mark has finished university (in footage of the real O’Brien) and now works as a freelance writer, typing and dialing the phone with a stick inserted in his mouth. When he makes a house visit for an interview, as he does in any outside trip, a medical assistant pushes O’Brien along as he lays flat prone on a gurney. 

His latest paid gig: Write about sexuality and the disabled. That assignment gets his own wheels (and libido, and sexual fantasies) spinning. He’s 38, never had sex, and hitting the bars, clubs, and other singles hot spots, is out of the question. 

But a sex surrogate is within the bounds, and O’Brien seeks out Cheryl Cohen Greene (Helen Hunt, of “As Good As it Gets” fame, and gone too long from cinema screens), a specialist dedicated to physically helping people cope with sexual hang-ups. (If you’re thinking “prostitute,” don’t, and the notion is handled quickly here, in fine form.) 

As O’Brien explore his sexuality, he also wrestles with his faith and what God thinks of his struggle. If He would forgive O’Brien’s curiosity. O’Brien full believes and holds no anger at God, and his faith journey is also handled sober-minded serious, no mockery. Nicely.

“I’m not getting married anytime soon,” O’Brien says, I paraphrase, to his priest, played by William H. Macy. Their talks are fascinating, to anyone of faith, or not of faith. (Macy is so damn good here. Although right-wingers will cringe at his priest. Hey, this is Berkley.)

O’Brien and Greene’s first sexual encounters are tinged with all the possible awkwardness of anyone’s first time, cranked a thousand fold as he can’t move. These scenes are funny, sad, beautiful. O’Brien carries a lifelong lack of physical contact, so he instantly falls for Greene. In his mind he sees her as love of his life. Except she is married, with a teenage son. 

I’ll stop with the film synopsis. This is a true story, if you know the outcome, I’ll just bore you. If you don’t know the story, I’ll make you mad. 

This is an adult film, no holds barred, with graphic nudity and sexual content, but it’s no porn film. The sex, as with O’Brien’s faith struggle, is dealt with clear-eyed and exact, no frills, no tricks. More so, it’s sex as human contact, an absolute need for intimacy and love. This is a story of one man under unique experiences few of us can ever imagine, but he’s a man like us nonetheless. 

Lewin doesn’t need to push his story down our throat with sugar, he lets his actors –- both deserving of Oscars, especially Hawkes -– act, and he tells his story with an exactitude that 95 percent of Hollywood could not possibly imagine: There’s a moment when O’Brien faces a life crisis, the 1989 California earthquake knocks out power, and Hawkes’s character does not cry a tear, but shrugs. Accepts. The moment almost seems comedic. 

But it’s not. The scene resounds with the serious realization of a man who knows the darkest laughs.

It’s a simple as this: O’Brien -– as played by Hawkes –- knows his time is limited, and he is making the best of it, hungry for every moment and every experience that others, myself included, take for granted. 

For a film that shrugs off miracles, “Sessions” is its own kind of magic. See it now. A

Life of Pi (2012)

“Life of Pi” follows the harrowing spiritual journey of an Indian teen named Pi (newcomer and sure-to-be-famous Suraj Sharma) who is swept away from a sinking cargo ship and lost at sea in a life boat for months, with a Bengal tiger as his sole companion and nemesis. Lost to Pi is his family -– father, mother, and brother, their zoo -– and before him lays certain death by starvation, heat stroke, thirst, insanity, or likely being the last meal of the tiger. Of all the books I read in the past decade, this has to be most un-filmable, yet Ang Lee -- who made “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” -– took it on. Cheers to him. Lee uses some of the best 3D and visual effects imagery I or you will ever see and every aspect of the film is just as top notch (including the music score) but … And I must be careful here not to spoil the end, author Yann Martel, in his award-winning book, dared stare God in the face and did not blink. Lee blinks. He shows all the beauty of spirituality, but not the darkness. Read the book. The movie insists on lightness. Martel, and God, knows different. B+

Flight (2012)

Catch the trailer for “Flight”? Denzel Washington plays a pilot who miraculously guides a crippled plane to a crash landing -– upside down –- and becomes a hero? “Flight” is no more about flights gone bad than was “Dark Knight Rises.” Planes crash within the first few minutes. The rest of this unsparing drama -- a welcome return to live-action by director Robert Zemeckis -– follows Washington’s “Whip” Whitaker as decades of alcohol and drug abuse finally come to light. “Flight” dares pose a question that only the viewer can answer: If Whitaker’s debauchery led him to be able to bring that plane in safely and calmly, what does that say about heroism? Or so-called miracles? Whitaker is pitiful, shockingly careless, and self-centered, and yet impossible to hate. The way he stands in a room, near others … I know about alcoholism, and Washington nails every twitch. The climax feels wrong as we’re whisked away from Whip just as he is forced to go nine days sober, but it’s a tiny complaint. Zemeckis, lost too long with CGI Santas, has made a towering film, where a miniature bottle of vodka can own a man and his soul. A-

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” is setup as the lowest common denominator flick ever made, complete with barbecued beans and farts around a campfire, but that’s the real joke as “Blazing” blazes the false square-jawed Anglo heroes old Hollywood Westerns and their rah-rah-rah Americana propaganda, the very racist founding of our great nation and all the right-wing patriots who shrug off slavery and massacres as not that bad. Brooks pushes every over-the-top, vulgar joke to the point of jaw-dropping delirium. Some work, some don’t. And Brooks ain’t kidding around. The plot is almost beside the point: Circa 1874, Cleavon Little is Black Bart, an African-American railroad worker handpicked as a prank to become sheriff of a small town marked for railroad right-of-way. His sidekick: The Waco Kid, the fastest drunk in the west, played by Gene Wilder. Alex Karras is a thug with an acute philosophy of life, Harvey Korman a bigot, and Madeline Kahn is so f’n tired. Brooks, working from a caustic script co-written by Richard Pryor, opens with a sing-along scene of “Sweet Chariot” as the best put down of white thug bigots ever put to film. Classic. P.S. I know bigots who’ll never “get” this film. A+

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

Abe Lincoln is hot in Hollywood. The 16^th prez stars in two big films this year. Suck it, Spider-Man. Don’t cheer yet, historians. “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is a mash-up of history (as in U.S.) and Stoker (as in Bram) with an ax-wielding, head-chomping hero in a stove-pipe hat killin’ vamps. Written by the book’s author, Seth Grahame-Smith, and directed by Timor Bekmanbetov (“Wanted”) with master of ironic goth horror Tim Burton as producer, “AL:VH” ought to be the funniest, bloodiest blast of 2012, especially with our over-the-top election year, but it’s a dud. I dig the joke of ol’ honest Abe (Broadway vet Benjamin Walker) as a badass out for blood, but the film suggests with grim faux seriousness the South used slavery as a guise, with Africans as food a’plenty for Dixie vamps. Stick that joke on the Holocaust and try and laugh. But that’s a side issue. This is an ugly, cheap-looking film with CGI effects barely out of test stage, including a foot chase through a horse stampede and a train ride from hell so ineptly staged I thought this flick an episode of “Punk’d.” On the viewer. Talk about a head shot. C-

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Roman Polanski’s gothic “Rosemary’s Baby” is the greatest paranoid horror film, wildly spinning on marriage and expectant mommy-hood with a massive dash of brimstone, and satanic milkshakes. It sets a scene inside a telephone booth in which nothing happens but a phone call and still drives the panic needle to 666. That’s insanely genius filmmaking, from God and/or hell. Based on Ira Levin’s novel and Polanski’s American writing/directing debut, “Baby” follows waif/ housewife Rosemary (Mia Farrow, perfect) as she moves into a castle-like NYC apartment with fledgling actor hubby (John Cassevettes, just slightly creepy). The couple instantly befriends the eccentric old folks (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer) next door. Soon Guy is a hit and Rosemary is pregnant. Enter, Satan. Polanski is a shit, but he knows heart-crashing shock is found in the mundane -– the daffy, smiling old lady serving a tasty homemade snack. Best WTF-just-happened-? cliffhanger ending ever. The neighbors terrify me no end: My Philly childhood eccentric, elderly neighbors fed me odd concoctions and drinks 24/7. I sweat bullets now, “All of them witches!?!” Who the hell will ever know, eh? One of my Top 25. A+

Rock of Ages (2012)

Worst fuckin’ episode of “Glee” I ever watched. And it lacks anyone half as cool as Chris Colfer. Blockbuster wannabe “Rock of Ages” tosses Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Bryan Cranston, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Paul Giamatti, plus two shiny youths -- Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta –- in an insipid mix-tape, mashed-up, lip-sync heavy rock story (sound familiar?) about fame and love that leans slightly more dangerous than “Bye Bye Birdie.” If “Birdie” were set in 1987. That’s the year “Ages,” based on a Broadway hit likely snipped of its balls on its way to the screen, takes place, when Poison, Def Leppard, and Jon Bon Jovi ruled MTV, radio, and record stores. Tone deaf from frame one with a sing-along Night Ranger bus ride, “Ages” sock hops between celebrating rock n’ roll big hair hedonism and giving a mocking F.U. finger to anyone who longs for vinyl records. Not that it matters. Our rock stars here drink, but never get drunk. Flirt and strip, but never screw. Drugs? No. Never. This is Wal-Mart rock, scrubbed clean for the kids who once listened to Quiet Riot, but now vote Romney, and party in PG-13 style. D+

Battleship (2012)

“Battleship” -– based on the board game -– bombed in theaters, and a viewing reinforces its death as deserved. The is an ugly CGI-drunk mess, taking 40 minutes to start as director Peter Berg (“Kingdom”) and his screenwriters break their backs and our patience introducing a screw-up U.S. Navy hero (Taylor Kitsch) destined for greatness when evil aliens invade Earth. Plot? Aliens attack. Navy fights back. That’s it. Unless you count the burrito subplot as vital. I do not. This could have used a rewrite and a butcher’s knife in the editing room because even Liam Neeson, onscreen for 15 minutes, looks bored as the Navy commander/father of Kitsch’s girlfriend. Here’s the real riddle: Despite the dull rip off of “Transformers” and “Halo” that defines 95 percent of the flick, Berg coolly employs real veterans young (Gregory Gadson, amazing) and old (WW2 and Korean vets) as saviors of our Hollywood-cast cardboard heroes and this move openly calls bullshit on every rah-rah action hero ever made. Corny? Yes. But it works. Alas, inept studio mentality sinks smarts. Bombs away! C

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

“Sleepy Hollow” is perfect Tim Burton id: Gloriously dark atmosphere spiked with a wicked sense of humor, misfit characters that can only be saved by love, surreal violence, and a god-awful story with stabs of brilliance, but mostly ugly exposition. Burton and screenwriters Andrew Kevin Walker and (un-credited) Tom Stoppard take the Irving story and dump the school teacher for a NYC police constable (Johnny Depp, brilliantly good) advocating science forensics to his detriment in an age -– 1799 -– drunk on religion. Crane is sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of lobbed-off heads by a demonic man on a horse, minus his own head, and the latter is no joke, because this is Burton, and magic, evil, and trees of death puking blood abound. Crane’s arrival –- filmed by Emmanuel Lubezki, scored by Danny Elfman, with a set from purgatory –- is marvelous, fused with old Hammer Films and 1931’s classic “Frankenstein.” Brilliant: Depp plays Crane as a heinous wus, using a teenage boy as a human shield. Weak: Huge story errors and a conspiracy-heavy reveal that defies reason. Christopher Walken plays the horseman, growling with devotion to Burton’s majestic dark yearnings. I miss this Burton. B

Looper (2012)

In “Looper,” director/writer Rian Johnson (“Brick”) takes the worn idea of time travel and renews it, not just with vigor, wit, and head-turning suspense, but strong characters that act in ways never touched on before -– suicide. Well, not exactly suicide as we know it.

Joseph Gordon Levitt (“Inception” and also “Brick”) plays Joe, a hit man who kills mafia castoffs delivered from 30 years in the future where time travel is possible but illegal. Crazy? Don’t mind it. Joe is known as a Looper because, literally, one day he must execute himself, his older late-50s self. Close the loop. Get it?

The scratch in this time trick: Old Joe turns out to be a vengeance-seeking raging pissed-off man-of-action embodied by Bruce Willis in full “Die Hard” mode, ready to hunt and kill a mysterious young boy who decades later will become an evil Keyzor Soze-like crime boss that will ruin Joe’s — both Joes — life. (A day without referencing “The Usual Suspects” is a day wasted.)

This is trippy, shocking story-telling, and Johnson dares play his hand wide open by admitting onscreen that time travel is pure bunk, a mind screw that is best left unraveled, and then he stomps the gas hard for go, non-stop. He also goes “meta” by having Young Joe’s mafia boss (Jeff Daniels) sulk around as the world’s laziest mobster, opting for PJs over clothes, but able to pop off dark and violent when his underlings fail.

Best bits: Daniels as this mob boss denounces Young Joe’s motives as a hit man who has watched too many movies about hit men, and then Johnson goes onto practically film and his cast act out a full-on worship sequence of mafia hit man classic “Goodfellas.” Time is not just twisted here, but the world of movies, inside and out, is tweaked and turned on its head. Also up for debate grabs: The effects of child abuse, loveless parenting, and how we change — and in many ways remain stunted — as we age. Heavy, wonderful stuff all around.

Johnson scores a knockout, too, because his cast, writing, emotion, and the action are all stellar. Levitt -– under makeup -– makes a believable Willis. All the junk on his face is off-putting at first, but Levitt moves beyond it, and the story is so strong, such complaints fall by the way side. I’ll take occasional makeup mishaps any day over a plot-empty, CGI-drunk stinker such as “Battleship.” I thought “Brick” far too clever for its own good, setting a film noir mystery in a high school. It never earned the raves. This does, easily so.

Also, check out Paul Dano of “There Will be Blood,” playing a fellow hit man who meets a horrifying fate right out of the nastiest episode of “Twilight Zone” ever imagined, but never filmed. More so than even Levitt, Dano is an actor we’ll be talking about decades from now as the best of his generation, his and our time. A-