Identity Theft and The Heat (both 2013)

It’s awesome to see Melissa McCarthy becoming a box-office star. Here are two of her recent releases I just caught, nicely paired…

“Identity Theft” mashes neat freak and slob road-trip comedy “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” to numbers geek meets vulgar conman “Producers,” and hopes for gold. We get copper. You can guess the roles McCarthy and co-star Jason Bateman each go for. Plot: Bateman’s mega-nerd has his identity stolen by a freakish woman (McCarthy) in Florida, leaving him poor, jailed, and near fired. At the suggestion of police –- nothing here is plausible –- he goes to extradite the woman back to Denver. Again, nonsense. So, bat shit crazy thief Diana (McCarthy) makes our hero’s life hell with boorishness, screaming fits, a sexual romp with a trucker, and more. Bateman’s Sandy -– yes, we girl’s name jokes -– implodes under the hellfire of crassness until … he comes to appreciate Diana for who she really is, a victim worth loving. Look, I laughed to hell many times, especially when McCarthy puts on a shunned wife act, but when the movie goes for big tears with a syrupy ending, I cringed. The film does not deserve it, nor does the audience. Why can’t Diane just stay crass? Also, the violent bounty hunters ... why? C+

“The Heat” pairs her McCarthy against Sandra Bullock, a better foil than Bateman, as two LEOs out to capture a drug lord in a female-heavy spin on “Lethal Weapon.” The plot is inconsequential as director Paul Fieg (“Bridesmaids”) lets the genre staple of mismatched, bickering cops rule the film. McCarthy is a Boston cop with a gift for Riggs-like man-handling, while Bullock as a tight-wad FBI agent is more Joe Friday in “Dragnet.” How the women size one another up, bicker, and then get drunk together is goofy ’80s hilarious, and just when the relationship skates too close to tears, we get riffs on runaway cats and a gory CPR scene to puke by. McCarthy is more interesting with her cop storing an arsenal in her refrigerator, sexually using needy men, and making mincemeat of a john (Tony Hale, marvelously dweeby) cheating on his wife. It’s a role and film many women may cheer: A satire that turns macho man theatrics on their head. To think the studio was scared of financing this. Twits. Of the men, Tom “Biff” Wilson knocks off laughs easily as a “42-year-old” police chief. that said, over length hurts. A-

Frances Ha and Stories We Tell (both 2013)

Two recent art-house hit films came my way that focus on women, with females in partial control (directing, producing, writing) behind the camera. Films about women by women are too rare. I wish they would flood cinemas as do superhero flicks. Imagine having to choose which female-directed film you will see this weekend. Enough dreaming, onward…

Greta Gerwig co-wrote and is in every scene of “Frances Ha,” a black-and-white comedy/drama/ love letter to French films about a New Yorker facing a gasping dance career, the looming age of 30, and an emotional bounce after her BFF and roommate moves on to live with a fiancé. Directed and co-written by Gerwig’s real-life squeeze, Noah Baumbach, famous for “Squid and the Whale,” one expects quirks and awkward laughs with the drama, and we are served: Frances is a conversation assassin at social gatherings, and at one point -– deep in debt -– foolishly decides to jet to Paris for two days, only to take sleeping pills for jet lag and snooze trough half the trip. That’s truly hilarious, and I laughed heartily. The simple story rocks and soothes as it follows Frances getting on her feet again, but feels equally forced when the screenplay tosses in coincidences and run-ins, especially at a party I won’t even delve into. Frances (the “Ha” part you’ll learn at the end) is all the more wonderful for having no super powers. No matter how dire she needs them. B

“Stories We Tell” is –- halfway through the year -– my favorite film of 2013. Actress-turned-director Sarah Polley (“The Sweet Hereafter”) turns her eyes and camera on her own family as she asks the question we all do, “Where do I come from?” The answers are surprising and I will not divulge one moment of this gem, for watching “Stories” blind, with no knowledge of what is to come, is flat out the best time I’ve had at the movies this year. The film really is Polley speaking to her parents, siblings, and family friends, and about her own birth and her dead-from-cancer mother. With great assist from her father, Michael, a former actor who serves as narrator, Polley pulls back family stories like a series of curtains, each one leading to a new revelation or truth, entire histories of joys, mistakes, hurts, happy or foggy memories. It’s a reminder that our greatest stories are not -– and here Polley turns the cameras on herself and her editors -– found in cinemas or novels, but at the dinner table, across from parents, siblings, and friends. An exceptional watch that will even make you want to re-visit home. A

Mud (2013)

Matthew McConaughey is on a helluva roll recently, leaving behind awful rom-cons with killer takes in “Bernie,” “Lincoln Lawyer,” and now “Mud.” Mud is the name of his character, a man hiding from police and bounty hunters on an ugly speck of an island on the Mississippi River. This is not his story, though. It belongs to Ellis (Tye Sheridan, from “Tree of Life”), a young teen in turmoil as his parents split and he dabbles in the maddening world of young romance. Ellis, with a pal named Neckbone (!), stumble upon Mud, and a testy friendship/mentorship is born as Ellis becomes Mud’s connection to the outside world. I’ll stop there. Watching the plot unfold and big-name actors pop up in small roles is part of the thrill of this drama from writer/director Jeff Nichols (“Take Shelter”). Nichols is on his own roll, making smart films about small-town Americans without making them seem like yocals born to be mocked. Alas, his long climax jumps into the Hollywood rut of a big shootout that plays too loud and ludicrous. Tea Partiers will dig the anti-fed messages. Keep your eyes open for a bank sign at the end. B

6 Souls (2013)

You cannot go wrong with Julianne Moore. Even in lesser films -- “Lost World: Jurassic Park” -- she gives her all. So goes “6 Souls,” a possession horror film once titled “Shelter” with a belated release behind it. Moore is Cara, a psychiatrist reeling from the mugging death of her husband who sees herself as a doctor of science and woman of God, conflicted between pure logical analysis and God’s will. After Cara dismisses multiple personality disorders, it comes to no shock that she meets a patient (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who is many sided -- a gruff Yankee, a paraplegic Appalachian, and so on. The trick: All of his personalities stem from dead people. Interesting so far. But hold on. Cara’s psychiatrist father (Jeffrey Dunn) is so keen on a one-upper, he pushes daughter into dire situations, a move that almost stops the film cold. Is he nuts? More questions abound, such as –- avoiding a spoiler -– really, only six souls? And, how come white people get to just walk around anywhere, in strange homes? And not get shot? The climax is a letdown with a foot chase through woods, an idea not scary since, well, the Jurassic age. B-

Dirty Wars (2013)

“Dirty Wars” will enrage any American with a soul. It’s a grueling and honest Come to Jesus documentary on the U.S. military’s expanding War on Terror, with no bounds, boundaries, or accountability. Journalist Jeremy Scahill is our sole guide as he leaves U.S.-approved field reporting and ventures into rural Afghan homes to investigate raids by the secretive Joint Special Operations Command. During one such hit, nearly an entire family is killed, including women, a child, and a police chief. The distraught relatives have video footage of troops carving bullets out of the dying victims. Our leaders shrug, so what? Scahill asks why, digs deep, finds informants and threats, hits brick walls, and finds more war horror -– the assassination of a teenager -– and a direct line to the White House. Once the promised hope of liberals, Obama has outpaced Bush in secrecy and a body county unknowable and unexplainable. “Dirty” is a stellar work of journalism, and yet double-edged: Overly dramatic footage of Scahill typing in the dark of his apartment whiffs of Hollywood drama. But how else to tell this story? We need Scahill’s ego and hunger, because we’ll get the truth no other way. A-

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

It’s been ages since I saw Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street.” The 1987 classic is a blur to me, but Michael Douglas’ portrayal of Gordon Gekko – the hedonistic shark who swum in evil – remains in memory. Who knew a whole generation of real Wall Street tycoons would take Gekko as God, and bring about economic turmoil that nearly crippled our nation? With Stone’s return to Gekko’s world, I thought the man would burn furiously as he tackles the 2008 economic crash. No. Forget the trading floor, this is a dead slaughterhouse of missed opportunities, ham-fisted symbolism, and an outrageously happy climax that betrays every point that comes before it, and every principle held by those who distrust unguarded capitalism. We focus on hothead stockbroker Jake (Shia LaBeouf), whose girlfriend (Carey Mulligan) is the daughter of Gekko, himself eight years out of prison. Gekko sees our hero as an “in” to his daughter; Jake sees Gekko as an “in” to ambition. This triangle raises questions it can’t answer, including, “Why would a left-wing reporter who hates Wall Street live with a stock broker cub shark?” Pathetically, Stone no longer cares if “greed is good” or not as he races to a ludicrous ending. D

The Host (2013)

Leave it to “Twilight” writer Stephanie Meyer to create an aliens-take-over-the-world drama involving a vapid teen girl torn between two boys who –- I kid you not -– at different points choke and punch her. That’s “The Host.” Much like the creepy romance of “Twilight.” The story: All of humanity has been body-snatched by glowing alien crawfish that plunder one’s consciousness, rendering people thoughtless puppets. Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) -– our “heroine” -- is thus soul-sucked, but her urge to rejoin kin/fellow resistance fighters is so strong, she rebels inside her own head. This leads to Ronan endlessly and out loud debating her own voice-over, resulting in our alternating cringing and laughing. The girl(s) finds her tribe-like people, including two interchangeable guys who -– as I said -– thump her. Why? Melanie is now untrustworthy. The Meyer trick: Human Melanie and Crawfish Melanie are each in love with one of the guys. Neither ever considers, “Wow, these assholes hit women. I’m out.” Meyer. Director Andrew Niccol has done better future sci-fi with “Gattaca,” and Ronan rocked in “Atonement” and “Hanna.” Her irises glowing like “Tron” discs and reciting drivel, she evaporates here. The “months later” epilogue feels all too true. D-

21 (2008)

“21” -– based on a true-story -– is a casino heist film of a different color, relying on card-counting for its anti-heroes to steal from the rich. Speaking of color, the characters onscreen are of a different color too, as the real suspects were Asian-Americans. On film, it’s WASPed up the nil. (Producers say they tried really hard to find college-age Asian actors.) But I digress. The story: MIT math geek Ben (Jim Sturgess) digs the class held by a snarky professor (Kevin Spacey) and is soon asked to join the man’s off-hours Blackjack Club. But it’s a con, and the prof has his students pulling down Vegas casinos in front of all seeing eyes, two of which belong to Laurence Fishburne. Will Ben, a good lower-middle-class boy with an hourly job and a wish to attend Harvard Med, wake up from his Gordon Gekko dive and do good? Put aside the race issue, we’re watching an Eagle Scout build a fire with flashy editing, loud music, and the lure of sex stewing faux suspense to make us forget the guy’s a freakin’ Eagle Scout. The ending is so upbeat happy, Ben could be Roy Hobbs. C+

The Numbers Station (2013)

What happened to John Cusack? This is a guy who I have long admired, from “Say Anything,” with the boom box serenade, to “Grosse Point Blank,” a CIA assassin satire. But with “The Numbers Station,” on the heels of the regrettable “The Raven,” it seems Cusack has hit a deep, unfortunate slump. This has Cusack as one of the most tired of clichés, the deadly CIA killer (see, again) with a crisis of conscious after a job goes south and an innocent is killed. So his sad sack agent is sent to timeout, or more precisely, a remote U.S. Army outpost in England to babysit a code sender (Malin Akerman, because no government worker forced to live in isolation for two years at a time would look like Ma Barker) with orders to pop her if the station is ever compromised. Low and behold, the station falls under attack, and Kent must fight the good fight and talk about his wounded psyche with Ackerman’s coder, as people tend to do while being shot at. Will Cusack’s agent kill the lady? Right, the moment after Lloyd Dobler buys an iPad with ear buds. D+

World War Z (2013)

Against all odds -– based on an episodic novel seemingly impossible to adapt straightforward, and a production history rife with massive re-shoots and enough upheaval to make James Cameron wince -– actor/producer/Robert Redford-blessed Brad Pitt has performed a miracle. He’s made a fun, smart, summer popcorn thriller with “World War Z.” (Max Brooks -- son of Mel -- wrote the cult novel, for which TV sensation “The Walking Dead” likely owes its existence.) 

Pitts plays Gerry Lane, a former United Nations special investigator of human rights abuses now a stay-at-home dad. Quickly in the film, Gerry and his doting wife (Mireille Enos) are driving their daughters in Center City Philadelphia when radio news pops of a rabies outbreak among humans, and then traffic around the family pops and booms as the city falls into mysterious chaos. (The editing in these scenes is jittery with fear and gripping as hell.) Gerry catches a glance: Deranged people attacking each other, biting arms and faces and legs, and spreading the inhuman malady, with eyes bulging and bones cracking with sick unnatural movement. 

Of course Gerry is needed for his wonder-boy skills, and the U.N. calls and saves him and family, before tasking our hero with the impossible: Find the origin of the outbreak and any possible cure before the humanity flat lines. With that, Gerry globetrots to South Korea, then Israel, then onward and outward, all the time thinking of his family. He’s a good dad first. (Debate the moral choices made here later, on your own time.)

Pitt and director Marc Forster, and a long gang of writers, including several “Lost” alumni, and some replacement director unknown, have nailed not just an undeniably cool version of the Brooks’ book, they also have cleared one other hurdle: Breaking from “Walking Dead” and other zombie horror classics, “Shaun of the Dead” among them. How so? They drop the “every man” angle and make this a mystery film from the top down, the world’s “police” attempting to beat a clock to save all of humanity. You can practically hear the “Law & Order” ka-klum! noise. And it works. 

Yes, the lack of any gore and guts for the PG-13 rating and the preordained knowledge that no one we care for, or Gerry cares for, will be chomped liver, breaks the dramatic weight, but the finale with Pitt staring down a zombie with an overbite is marvelous, chilling fun. Also kick-ass: A scene set inside a jumbo jet with a female Israeli soldier (Daniella Kertesz) saving our hero’s ass, plus the fall of Jerusalem is beautifully-played, large-scale CGI work seen from the eye of God. (Speaking of, the politics pitched here seem like a dare to the real world, and may be worth a second watch on their own.) 

If you need a hint of the behind-the-scenes “Z” chaos, look quick for actor Matthew Fox (also from “Lost”) as a helicopter pilot. He appears for only a few frames. In an original cut, he was a major character. But that I did not fully pick up on that in the theater? That’s as cool as taking out a zombie with a kro-bar and drinking a Pepsi to celebrate. And, yes, that happens. B+

The Natural (1984)

Not just a classic baseball movie, “The Natural” is an American fable as fantastical as Paul Bunyan or Superman. Quintessential American actor Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs, a middle-aged (35!) man who finally climbs to the majors to become the “best that ever came or will be” on the diamond. He can pitch like a tank, and hits balls -– with his own bat carved from a tree stuck by lightening –- like Ruth. Years earlier Hobbs was on his way to young stardom when a woman shot him out of spite, before committing suicide. Hobbs has buried the past, but is not ashamed of it, for it does not define him. Yes, Roy is waylaid and deceived, and Homer’s “Odyssey” is name-dropped and shadows the story, complete with a Cyclops (Darren McGavin plays a crooked investor with a glass eye). Directed by Barry Levinson, shot by Caleb Deschanel, and scored by Randy Newman, this is a superhero film for guys who think a baseball cap is just as good as a red cape. Corny? Sentimental? Obvious? Absolutely. But I recently re-watched it to the outside sounds of fireworks and thunder. I felt as if a child, peaking at God. A

The Asphalt Jungle and Armored Car Robbery (both 1950)

All crime films should be made in black and white. (Imagine “Heat” with no colors.) Bearing proof of this are two 1950 heist films that have police on the trail of thieves facing more troubles than jail time in “Armored Car Robbery” and “The Asphalt Jungle.” The former is barely longer than an hour and has a story just worth its likely 10-cent short origin, while the latter is dark, massive, and deep, a classic for the ages. Oh, and it has a very young Marilyn Monroe, before she became Marilyn Monroe. And she is damn good.

“Armored” centers on professional thief Dave Purvis (William Talman), a crook who thrives on his gift of having no attachments, be they emotional or concrete. (De Niro’s “Heat” crook could be this guy’s son.) Purvis heads up the daylight robbery of a (go on, guess) armored truck smack in front of L.A.’s Wrigley Field, kills a cop, and spends the rest of the film avoiding police, ditching his crew six feet under, and doing a piss poor job of cutting strings to the dame (Adele Jergens) he’s screwing. The story is so paper thin and the characters one-dimensional, this registers more as a TV one-shot than a big-screen tale. That said, director Richard Fleischer shows beautiful (and gritty) L.A. locales in bright light and dark shadow, from City Hall to dockyards and motels to working class homes just feet from Wrigley. How much of this exists now? Not much I guess.

Directed by John Houston,“Jungle” is crime noir perfected. Sterling Hayden plays Dix, a “hooligan” who gets hired as the enforcer in a (Chicago?) diamond heist headed by an elderly criminal known as “Doc” (Sam Jaffe). Doc reluctantly trusts the loot fencing to a lawyer named Emmerich (Louis Calhern), and the suit pulls a double cross, with murder and suicide dropping fast as police -– honest and corrupt, each with agendas -– close in. Monroe plays married Emmerich’s lover, and dude has a fetish for her shoes. This film truly broke the mold. See, “Jungle” dared speak reality in 1950, showing thieves as just men who for various reasons -– abandonment or disability -– use crime to survive, and police as willing to let deeds slide for cash. Somehow, maybe just because “Jungle” is so good, Houston survived the flag-waving censors pushing the lie of America as a Mecca of virtue. Dix is tough, brave, fatally obsessed, and the most honest character here. This is gold material, from Emmerich forced to play cards with his wife to the final shot of Hayden among several curious horses. They don’t make them like this anymore. Our loss.

Armored: B / Asphalt: A+

The Rain People (1969)

Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Rain People” is a low-budget, outside-the-system film at its best: Brave, as uncomfortable as any harsh truth, and against the set codes of American-GOP-approved rules. It’s a must-watch companion to fellow “F.U.” road picture “Easy Rider” as it follows a conflicted housewife named Natalie (Shirley Knight, raw with emotion) as she runs away from home in -– of all things -– a station wagon. Natalie is newly pregnant and scared of the responsibility. She is consumed by how to carry on, or not. Coppola wisely allows Natalie to stay conflicted, notably speaking of herself in the third person. She -– purposefully unwise -– picks up a hitchhiker, a college footballer dropout (James Caan, excellent) waylaid by a devastating injury to his brain. The two wonder mostly, finding an America beautiful and patriotic, and yet corrupt and uncaring. Deeply poignant, beautifully written, and often purposefully infuriating, “Rain” provides a shot of truth about the lies we tell ourselves and others, boasting of false joy or denying our lost happiness. The movie’s stark ending is as harsh as life’s crueler turns, as it must be. Awesome credit: A guy named George Lucas is listed as production assistant. “Rain” deserves more celebration. A

Mama (2013)

Even good-enough horror output from Guillermo del Toro is better than 95 percent of the junk that fills cinemas, and so it is with “Mama.” Here, del Toro is producer, leaving the directing to newcomer Andrés Muschietti, who with sister Barabara on screenplay duties, takes on a Hollywood staple: Children held under the sway of a dark power. The plot follows two girls  (Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nélisse) left abandoned in the Virginia woods by their mass-murderer father who at the moment he is about to slay his daughters is himself killed by a floating dark form. That’s Mama. Flash forward five years as the girls -– living like animals -– are found and placed into the care of their uncle (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on double duty) and his girlfriend (Jessica Chastain), who has no interest in family, or responsibility. Creepy, well-played and earned scares ensue. When Nelisse crawls on stairs and becomes dangerously unhinged, it’s no exaggeration to bring up “Exorcist.” Too bad this relies on sketchy coincidences, dodgy CGI for the Mama, and illogical crutches such as men searching dark woods alone at night. (Don’t these people watch movies?) Short of great, it’s worth a watch, with your (?) mother. B

The Lord of the Flies (1963)

“The Lord of the Flies” is a surreal yet documentary-like, micro-budgeted stark black-and-white staging of William Golding’s novel of children stranded on a Pacific island, left to their own wild imaginations and ultimately violent tendencies. As with the book, this is a stellar display of that animal (weak or cruel) inside all of us, and the great lie of childhood innocence. The boys here set out to mimic adults, and they do well at it. Look at the body count. There’s something about director Peter Brooks’ wonky sound-recording and often haphazard cinematography that makes this feel less like an adaptation that a capturing of the novel, from the nonsensical dialogue the children trade in, to the “take my ball home” with a slice of pulverizing violence. Brooks funded much of the production, having the cast live on an island for real. Genius. Daring. Hugh Edwards breaks hearts as Piggy, the boy who trusts too much, while Tom Chapin terrifies as Jack, the monster who feels it’s his God-given right to rule the weak. Very modern Republican. At 50 years old, “Lord” is still a tough watch as anything recent, including the tepid 1990 remake. A

The Black Hand (1950)

Unusually bleak for 1950s Hollywood rah-rah American films, “The Black Hand” opens in 1900’s Little Italy, New York, as a local attorney/doting father and husband is killed for daring to cross the Italian mob. The attorney’s teenage son -– a strapping with a thick Italian accent who could pass for young Brando -– vows revenge, and delivers eight years later after he returns to New York in the bodily form of 40-year-old Gene Kelly. A man as Italian as I am not. If you can get past that, this is a damn good film that takes head-on the disappointment of the American Dream for thousands of immigrants as they lived (and do still) under the thumb of petty thug dictators who hold more power and sway than the police or courts. There’s no “Singin’ in the Rain” here. In full dramatic mode singed with anger, Kelly pulls a knife on a guy for information and wields the dagger late in the film for more permanent deeds. Director Richard Thorpe (he later made “Jailhouse Rock”) makes the film feel authentic and lets Italians speak Italian for long periods, no subtitles, and takes the gritty, dark action to Naples. Seriously, Kelly is eccellente. A-