Prisoners (2013)

Dark dramas about child kidnapping do not make for Hollywood fare. “Prisoners” breaks that mold with its unsettling story one that remains gripping –- for the most part -- to the end, with a cast that digs deep. It centers on a Pennsylvania family (an excellent Hugh Jackman as father and Mario Bello as mother) that believes in God, guns, and “be ready” survivalist skills. Their all-American spirit shatters when their young daughter disappears on Thanksgiving Day, along with the child of an African-American family (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis). Jackman’s father who demands self-control loses himself to rage and takes hostage and savagely tortures a suspect (Paul Dano) cut loose by police for lack of evidence. What would Jesus do? Does it matter? Meanwhile, a detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) searches for the girls, hitting roadblocks and errors: He causes a jailhouse death, a move that shatters not his confidence, but the story’s logic flow. Ugly move: Director Denis Villeneuve marginalizes the mothers as they play to weeping clichés as the men do Manly Things. I fumed. But I also loved many details: The turkey and pie leftovers sitting uncollected for days and the sheer dullness of next-door evil in our America. B

Captain Phillips (2013)

Great directors re-tell history through image. Paul Greengrass puts viewers inside history, as if the drama is happening in real time. His 9/11 tragedy “United 93” buckled me. “Captain Phillips” reaches higher -- despite clunky family babble talk at the opening -- at every moment and then after the action ends, our director lets the stench of violence smother as our hero (Tom Hanks) openly sobs in shell shock. You know the story: In 2009, four Somali bandit pirates took command of a U.S. cargo ship off the horn of Africa, and when their shit hijack plan went south, they jumped in a lifeboat with New Englander and freighter captain Richard Phillips (Hanks). Assured as death, the men invite the full force of the U.S Navy. Don’t fuck with America. Greengrass shows the pirates as desperate men out for mere money, clueless to the animal they unleashed, and Americans as trapped in first-world glory. Intense and highly claustrophobic, Greengrass captures the terrible, unknowable toll of crime -– terrorism, whatever you call it -– on body and soul. As the pirate leader, American immigrant and film newcomer Barkhad Abdi equals Hanks’ astonishing performance. His character may be outgunned. Not the actor. A

The Fifth Estate (2013)

Working on the “Twilight” films must have sent director Bill Condon to an eternal junior high hell of filmdom because his new drama “The Fifth Estate” –- about Julian Assange -– plays to the lowest IQ who will walk into a cinema, expecting history retold. This is history for people who don’t read. We all know of Assange and his WikiLeaks website and the mass files he unleashed, gutting U.S. bravado with footage of an army helicopter crew mowing down innocents, and dumping State Department files on U.S. spy infrastructure. Condon assumes we don’t and goes for obvious at every turn. When an Assange protégé (Daniel Brühl) dumps WikiLeaks’ main server, we flash to the man smashing up make-believe desks and computers, setting fire to all around him. Just in case anyone fails to grasp “delete.” I was done before the end, tired of drivel talk such as “He’s bigger than the New York Times!,” but Condon has more. Benedict Cumberbatch -– smartly cast and a shade creepy as Assange -- breaks the screen wall, stares out, and tells us to get angry and find the truth, and I was glad to get up. And go out the door. C

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

“The Postman Always Rings Twice” comes from the same writer who gave us “Double Indemnity,” and the film plots play similar games: A guy (John Garfied) with no ties finds himself tied up with the married woman (Lana Turner) of a much older man who seems more Daddy than Hubby, and Daddy’s gotta go. For money and sex. Back up on that sentence, there’s just kissing here. This was the 40s after all. The first shot shows “Man Wanted” sign outside a roadside diner/ gas station, a riotous gag as the husband (Cecil Kellaway) is looking for help to run the quaint business, while wife is looking to take over the place and trade up her bed partner. Turner’s broad is playing from the go: When she drops her lipstick at Garfield’s feet in her introductory scene, it’s no accident it rolls far. The acting is aces and daggers, with Hume Cronyn (“Coccoon”) slashing deepest as a sleazy lawyer. True classic? Ehh. I hate the final scene as someone must morally and logically flip-flop with out-of-this-world gymnastic skills in order to meet the Hayes Code of the day that all criminals must be contrite, and then die. This was the 40s... A-

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

George Romero’s low-budget, non-Hollywood horror classic “Night of the Living Dead” is as shocking and brilliant and subversive as near any film ever made. It’s no midnight fright flick test-marketed to hit Farmville, USA, and score big bucks and TV play. This is why American Cinema rules, and why the best of the lot are almost always outside the kingdom’s gates. These creators who have no master also have no notes to follow, or stocks to please. 

Yes, Romero has made the modern Bible version of the zombie film, the capstone by which all others build upon, emulate, and fall short. The plot is basic –- even for its time -- following a small group of people trapped in a farm house as zombies (referred to as “ghouls”) attack from outside, first a handful, then a dozen, then a horde. Among the heroes are a woman (Judith O’Dea) who just watched her brother fall to an attack and will soon see him again, and a man named Ben (Duane Jones) who happens to be passing through town. 

Ben is African American, and a professor. Think about that. In 1968. Such an idea must have smoked Hollywood’s mind then, and owners of cinemas, too. No way “Dead” played south of the Mason-Dixie line. Not during American then. Hell, not now in some parts. Not when Ben is giving orders and slugging anyone who dare crosses him. 

So, take “Night” as allegory of a sick nation being turned upright, shocked out of its “Keep America White” brain dead coast of hate. Or take it as a freakishly brilliant “man’s got to do what a man’s got to do …” heroics of any horror story, brilliantly told. I fell the first way. You chose your path. 

Too, Romero lays out his graphic violence in stark back-and-white imagery that still sends a shudder. So many film rules die here, because Romero could kill them. Dig that little girl. Dig the first attack in a cemetery as a lone figure drifts in and out of the frame, barely in focus, like a dream. 

This is a ticking time bomb of survival, and when the sun rises and light blows out every shadow, Romero drops the hammer. See, I had not seen this movie until just now. (Go on, mock. I deserve it.) I watched stunned, convinced halfway through I found a new Top 10 Favorite, and dead certain at the very end. Genius. A+

In a World… (2013)

I vividly recall Lake Bell from the final episodes of TV’s “Practice” and its spin-off “Boston Legal.” New to me, she stood above a stellar cast of actor that included James Spader. Bell popped smart and darkly funny. Her big screen feature starring, writing, and directing debut is “In a World…,” a comedy about a 30ish woman smashing her way into the boys-only “Trailer Voice” club that her own mega-ego father (Fred Melamed) rules as semi-permanent king. Bell’s Carol’s voice talents have no end, even if she lives with pop and has love woes to make Juliet sulk. That’s a skim off the top of this tale that plays rom-com, flips comedy genre clichés 180, and blasts loud as testy feminist scream and future-looking let down as Carol learns that the farther she moves into Hollywood, the more she realizes that the capitalist big pigs care nothing about any woman’s breakthrough, only money. God Bless Rich America! Parts of “World” are long or buzz-free, but damn Bell has made a fine, funny project that spits in the eye of the world she likely seeks entry into.I want to see her next film now. B+

Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013)

Perfect case of best intentions, and short results. “The Butler” aspires for Oscar glory and to do nothing less than tell the story of African-Americans and their plight to obtain true equality in America through the eyes of one White House butler (Forrest Whitaker) and his family (Oprah Winfrey as an alcoholic wife, and David Oyelloyo as an activist son). 

The titular butler is Cecil Gaines -– based ever so loosely by a thin thread on real-life figure Eugene Allen -– and his prideful job and moral millstone is to play silent witness to the terrible and great moments of the 20^th century Civil Rights movement as he serves tea and roast beef to a line of succeeding American presidents. Naturally, or so the film wants us to believe, each POTUS is won over to see the light of love and racial equality by Gaines’ stoic silence and dedication to the job, making sure the butter knife is just perfectly set so. 

Look, Whitaker knocks the part out, no surprise. He’s been a favorite actor of mine since “Platoon,” and his quiet anger and love shine through in scene after scene. But he’s still standing still for 99 percent of the film, like an end table. Mouth shut. It is Winfrey who near owns the film. Her rounded performance captures illness, anger, love, and jealous hate of the attention Cecil gives Jackie Kennedy, and is the sharp. The wife, though, barely leaves the house. That’s a mixed-bag. See, Daniels’ staging of those at-home scenes with Whitaker and Winfrey shine and sting as we finally see the American story through the hearts of our nation’s most belittled people. This is no “Leave it to Beaver” American Dream lie sold by conservative Tea Party drones. 

But, damn, “Butler,” is a mess. We get an eye-rolling list of Hollywood big names as those presidents, each one more miscast than the last: Robin Williams as a fuddy-duddy Ike, John Cusack as an “SNL” version of Nixon, and -– worst move ever -– Alan Rickman as a Reagan so piss-ant dreary, one wonders if anyone here ever saw film of the real man. Reagan dripped charisma. Love him or hate him, you know the man practically sparkled. Rickman? Not at all. Sorry. These cameos stop the film and had the audience snickering. 

As well, spread out for five decades and hitting every historical race marker like some warped liberal version of “Forrest Gump” -– that feels racist to say, but it’s true -– “Butler” plays like a road trip with a rush-rush-rush pop racing the family car down I-95, yelling to the children in the back, “There’s New York, there’s Philadelphia, there’s Washington, we’ll make Orlando by noon,” never stopping to see Independence Hall. 

This history is too important for such treatment. The scenes of black protesters at lunch counters being molested and tortured are soul-crushing, and this is not ancient history. This story would have made an amazing television series on HBO, with room to truly explore what it means to work in a marble building that represents the highest office in all the world, but have absolutely no power of one’s own, unable to even safe your own child from death or a policeman’s billy club. Mr. Allen’s life seems to have played more quieter than the story here. I want to see that life. Not a stand-in quietly serving Hans Gruber supper. B-

The Naked Gun 2 1/2 : The Smell of Fear (1991)

Comedy sequel “The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear” is a far lesser return than the first film which remains a laugh-out-loud pleasure of my 1980s youth. Every ounce of joy here can be attributed to Leslie Nielsen, back as Lt. Frank Drebin and in Washington, D.C., for a prestigious LEO honor. As with John McClane, where Frank goes, so does trouble. And death. Here, Frank gets mixed up in a Big Business scam to keep oil as America’s energy source forever and ever, damn the Earth, let’s make some money. The decades old jokes hit Big Oil and George Bush I and yet still feel sharp because the environmental conversation has not moved one inch. Conservatives hold on to their wealth and demand the world to stop. Liberals seek a future. I digress. Apologies. The successful laugh ratio is iffy, at best. The whole movie could lose 20 minutes more and come out sharper. I still dig George Kennedy as the clueless tough cop, and Anthony James -– a regular in Clint Eastwood films –- as an assassin with a song on his lips. B

Vertigo (1958)

In 2012 Sight & Sound magazine named Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” as the greatest film ever made. I though, no, “Strangers on a Train” is better, even just for Hitchcock. Then I re-watched this detective tale again and just got fully sucked in. I was hit with instant amnesia as I watched Saint Jimmy Stewart as cop John “Scottie” Ferguson near fall to his death catching a suspect, quit the force in fear, and then fall, romantically so, for the likely mentally unstable and suicidal wife (Kim Novak) of a college pal (Tom Helmore). The case has Scottie following the woman through San Francisco out to an ancient forest and then a monastery. It ends badly. One hour to go. It’s gorgeously shot and paced, and carried by hits of failed rom-com for Scotttie, sexual tension, and the absolute best film score ever made, courtesy Bernard Herrmann. But what struck me this viewing: Watch the film, pause in awe, and then re-play it your mind from the viewpoint of Novak’s eyes, and witness every damn single scene explode in a new, thrilling light that swoons and slashes. This indeed is Hitchcock’s greatest film, the mind fuck supreme. Fall for it again. A+

Gravity (2013)

“Gravity” is exhilarating, the most damn entertaining, breathless film this year. The promos promise an outer space-set drama about two astronauts (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) caught adrift in space after a freak debris incident, their shuttle destroyed and crew members dead. It is that and a survivalist-horror film drenched in the gut-punch notion that surviving in space means having to continue to face life’s cruelties on Earth. The lean plot is near required as director Alfonso Cuaron (“Children of Men”) plunges us into a 90-minute shocker that could break with too much filler. Among his sharpest onscreen moves: Simultaneously pitching “Gravity” as a near-wordless silent film of old, but shining new and large with spectacular, game-changing CGI, cinematography, and sound. He casts us adrift above the Earth, awed with wonder at our home and shocked by the absolute black void of space, and then miraculously takes us inside our hero’s space helmet with not a single edit. Bullock rips into her role -– raw, wounded, and shell-shocked –- deserves every award coming her way. As does Cuaron and co-writer/son Jonas who spin a perfect final scene uplifting in every sense of the word as it literally inverts the title. A+

North by Northwest (1959)

I forgot just how funny Alfred Hitchcock’s early, genius spy-flick thriller “North by Northwest” is, until a recent watch on cable. Coolest Man Ever Cary Grant plays NYC ad guy Roger Thornhill, who gets stuck in a giddily preposterous mistaken identity chase across the U.S. of A with silent killers, the CIA, a dame, and Mount Rushmore all to follow. Early in, Grant as Thornhill is seized by two goons who try to kill him via a bottle of bourbon and a fake DUI car crash. Comedy gold hits: Smashed-ass Grant drives his way to jail, where his first and only call is to his mother. Literally, his mommy. Roger’s indignant. The cop near busts a tooth smirking. Hitchcock and writer Ernest Lehman (“Sweet Smell of Success”) turn 500 screws, add in murder, a mystery woman (Eva Marie Saint) with stranger/train sex on her inscrutable mind, and James Mason as a smooth villain with his own slippery identity. Oh, and that crop duster. So cool, Bond soon ripped it off. Hitchcock is having a cackling ball, yanking his camera to dizzy high spots, and letting Mason “punch” the screen. Knock out. Hitchcock kills it. A+

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” is a train wreck masterpiece I love all the more because it derails, because the guy who some critics continuously dismiss aims for the sun and misses, but comes oh so close. And leaves us stunned, too. Spielberg could coast on every film he makes. In “A.I..,” he spins wild chances and smashes down a scene midway through so devastating, it leaves one reeling flat, near in tears. 

Inspired by “Pinocchio” and a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick –- a master of cold dread –- Spielberg’s tale follows a humanoid boy (Haley Joel Osment) adopted by a couple (Sam Robards and Frances O’Connor) whose own son lies in a coma. Young, perfect David is a little boy balm until the “real” son Martin (Jake Thomas) reawakens. 

David is programmed to be loved. Martin wants to mommy to himself. Two events paint David as a family danger, and so mommy –- here’s the killer scene -– abandons David in a forest; she weeps, David begs, and Spielberg lays bare every child’s worst nightmare: Your parents do not truly love you, you are a fake. 

From there, the film flies high and nose dives hard as David falls into a nightmare world that involves grisly robot gladiator arenas, needless voice cameos (Chris Rock? Robin Williams?), and a search for the Blue Fairy to make David a “real” boy, just like … Martin? 

I won’t spoil more. Much of it works and a good bit does not as Spielberg takes on The End of the World, but really is pulling out the end of childhood innocence, that blind-faith moment when children firmly believe mommy and daddy are good, and will always be there, keeping you -- all that matters in the world –- safe. Which is more tragic?  

Osment is so amazing. I still bristle he did not get a Best Actor nomination. Unnaturally warm and bright, unblinking, desperate to please, and able to regurgitate a call, he is flawless, yet unmistakably eerie. Early in, tricked by Martin into cutting their mother’s hair, David pleads, “I just wanted mommy to love me. More.” That quick pause, before the word “more,” is true horror for the youngest of us, scarier than any death in “Jaws.” 

Speaking of that classic Spielberg film, John Williams provides the score here and it’s truly one of his best, and with certain beats recalling the wonder of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” A-

The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Wes Craven sure as hell is a master of horror, but he’s also a master of comedy, the latter trait knife sharp in “The People Under the Stairs,” a gore-filled laugh-riot that has a racist, NRA-card-packing psychotic redneck yuppie-wannabe cannibal brother and sister turned married couple (whew!) as the landlords of the L.A. “ghetto,” ruling over low-income African-Americans, stashing money and gold in their lunatic mansion. That’s right, the goofiest rich white stereotype, played over the top by Everett McGill and Wendy Robie -– they also played husband and wife on “Twin Peaks” -– who turn up the crazy to 1,011. Also stashed in that creepy-ass house: A Horde of teenagers, including a girl named Alice (A.J. Langer), all held hostage by the kooky couple, each child disposed of if they dare hear, see, or speak evil. Our hero is a black teen (Brandon Adams) who longs to be a doctor, to save his dying momma, and yet faces a life of crime. Craven dumps clichés faster than body parts, but it’s all for sick-twisted satirical laughs, and darn if they don’t work. B