The Theory of Everything (2014)

Stephen Hawking’s life defies bullshit terms such as inspirational. Fifty years he has lived with motor neuron disease, his body crumbling even as he stuns us with his thoughts on how we came to exist. What comes next. “The Theory of Everything” is not about theories, but Hawking’s marriage to Jane Wilde. That’s enough story. It does not require delusions and conspiracies as was done to genius John Nash in the overdone “A Beautiful Mind.” For this love -– as you know –- succumbs. The life and mind and demand of Hawking’s needs are too much to bear, and that is the hook of this story. Directed by James March (“Man on Wire”), “Theory” knows fantastical love cannot overcome reality. And Hawking is about reality. He believes God is a myth; Wilde holds that God is among us. Their marriage cannot survive, not when she falls for a kindly man of God, and he for a pragmatic nurse. “Theory” bypasses many of Hawking’s history-resetting thoughts, but the filming of such, would be impossible. No? As Hawking, Eddie Redmayne breaks out as a major young actor of our time, while as Jane, Felicity Jones plays at war with the soul. B+

The Skeleton Twins (2014)

“The Skeleton Twins” has Sundance Winner embedded in its DNA: Dissatisfied white people moan, weep, break, and then manage to pull themselves together whilst living in a stunning home set among more stunning locales, here rural New York. It bleeds White People Problems. Yet it works. Hat tip to the leads. Former “SNL” cast mates Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader play estranged twins reunited through attempted suicide. In LA, Hader’s heartbroken gay Milo slits his wrists. He is found before dying, and the hospital call to sister Maggie (Wiig) stops her from gobbling pills. Sister brings brother home, where they attempt to patch their shattered relationship, and here’s where “Skeleton” soars: Hader and Wiig vibe shockingly true sibling love, inside jokes, bitterness, and parent-inflicted pain. It echoes in every smirk, lip-synch romp, and cruel taunt. I was awed how good these actors bounce off each other. And I know twins, my brothers are identical. Sadly estranged. That vibe is impossible to duplicate. Wiig and Hader got me. Whatever screenplay director/co-writer Craig Johnson started with, and it’s smart despite the whole WPP slant that can be tiring, it fires crisply by its words being spoken by these actors. B+

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 and Gone Girl (both 2014)

Blockbuster films “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1” and “Gone Girl” share little in common other than book source female authors, respectively, Suzanne Collins and Gillian Flynn. 

But, damn, these movies do show the difference of a bloated, ill-advised screen adaptation (that “Part 1” is a millstone) and another adaptation that takes the meat and bones of its source, cut the fat, and creates a raging animal that leaves one spooked, rattled, and –- most importantly –- wanting more. 

(Collins helped adapt her story, with others, Flynn takes sole credit.) 

If you’re smart enough to be on the Web, you know the basics of each film. “Mockingjay” comes from the third and final book in a wildly popular series about teen Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) as she struggles against a fascist future America where lives of the poor are held as sport to the rich. War is brewing. 

“Girl” follows a He Said, She Said format as a once good marriage has turned toxic and maybe deadly. The wife has gone missing, and the husband has “killer” inscribed on his scumbag forehead. 

The novel “Mockingjay” clocks in under 400 pages, and as with all of Collins’ books, reads fast. No stops or fluff. Fewer pages means less work to cut from page to screen. But success breeds greed. 

After the great sequel “CatchingFire” –- with its devastating emotional punches, great action and characters, and a cliffhanger ending –- became a smash hit even over its predecessor, watching this new film is a surprisingly dull overlong drudge. 

It’s half a real movie with dozens of outtakes crammed in. It makes the mistake of sidelining Katniss for nearly two hours of weeping and thumb-twiddling as she lets the boys take over. Ouch. 

The “Games” books and films have excelled IMHO over the awful, inept, feminism-hating “Twilight” series because Katniss has no time for romance or weeping, because she is too busy being the protector of her family. Very little of her is here. The studio now just sees dollars, and a dark, thrilling dystopian tale of and for youth is stretched too thin. 

We get scenes repeated -– Katniss stands over war rubble and charred bodies no less than five time, and two of those in the same exact location, where she ransacks, twice now, her ruined home for supplies. 

As the focus was nearly entirely on or about Katniss in previous films, we know grow our side-character roster, and God bless Philip Seymour Hoffman -– I miss him dearly –- most of his scenes are unneeded, with no need to watch him talking to Katniss’ PR handler (Elizabeth Perkins). 

Near the end, Katniss stands in a control room watching from afar as men go into battle, and she watches and watches, and spends what might be 10 minutes repeating, “Are you there?,” to the evil dictator who also is watching the rescue from afar, President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Much more happens and I won’t spoil a drop for those unfamiliar with the book, but just sitting there knowing we have another two hours of film to watch in what should have been a tight, relentless, three-hour film exhausts me. 

“Part 1” wants to sell itself as drums of war, but that pounding is all cash registers clinking, a move the wealth-crazed, Ayn-Rand-loving villains of this tale might ironically approve. The heroes? Katniss, and the haunted veteran played by Woody Harrelson? They would mutter, “I don’t have time for this.” 

“Gone Girl” –- even at two and half hours –- knows the best always leave you wanting more, be it book, film, or food. Flynn’s book was a helluva read, bouncing back for 400-plus pages between man and wife as they delve into their disintegrating marriage, he speaking in the present day after the wife goes missing and police and media come calling and ravaging; her from the past, in diary entries, sliding from happiness to despair. 

That’s three quarters of the film, until Flynn and director David Fincher don’t just turn the car around, they crash it wheels up in icy muck, and watch it -– and us -– sink and freeze. Part of the genius in “Girl” is the casting, with American sweetheart Ben Affleck as the husband and relative unknown actress Rosamund Pike (“Jack Reacher”) as the wife. 

Affleck’s Nick Dunne is a former NYC journalist turned bar owner, back in his Missouri sticks childhood home with a dead mom, a senile father, and a twin sister, and many dark secrets. His shirt always untucked, blue jeans under a gut, and a blank face, he is cold and aloof, so much to the point that the police starting wrinkling their eyebrows. Hard. Especially after the diary of the wife, Amy, is uncovered. Its most recent pages purging tales of abuse. 

Amy was raised a New Yorker and the child of parents who mined their daughter’s youth for books, children’s book that always seemed one step ahead of their own girl, one punch above perfect. “Amazing Amy” the book series was called. How can anyone stand to strive to be amazing, to live up to fiction? I will stop there. 

Fincher again has made a cold, daring film that cuts right to the dark pit of the soul, that little black ball rolled up deep inside, found in “The Game” and “Fight Club.” 

Flynn adapted her own book, gutting sections, condensing others, and adding new ribbons of dark blood toward the end. Spoilers? Harsh drama and part sick satire, “Gone” is a nasty trip through marriage and media, and personality, how people –- all of us -- perform in public, for one’s spouse or family, and even to ourselves, striving to meet expectation or get that life –- that perfect life -– we know we saw on TV, or dream about, or read about once. 

Like that book series. It’s toxic. (How harmful was a show like “Leave It to Beaver” to read, struggling American families?) There are great moments of crushing satire and criticism of the media that bounce the film along and ring true in our age where white wealthy women disappearing is national news, but not so for anyone of color, or low income. 

Tyler Perry plays the part of a sleaze lawyer who comes to Nick’s “rescue,” and he brings a dynamic, comedic charge to the film that saves it from going too dark, and he’s in a magical feat, our way into the film. 

This is a film to watch and talk about over booze and food, not read about. See it for no other reason than Affleck -- a successful director and new Batman -- crushing his role as an ugly man impossible to hate. He is a marvel to behold, as is the amazing Pike.

Yes, “Mockingjay” will make tons more money and get more press, but “Gone” is the film that stays the course. Unwavering.

Mockingjay: B- Gone: A-

The Game (1997)

David Fincher’s red-herring thriller “The Game” failed with most mainstream critics. I loved it. I just saw a different movie. “Game” is a deceitful movie about the deceit of movie-making, the Hollywood button-pushing that we know is fiction, but that we get sucked up into: Drama, action, comedy. The edits, camera angles, lights, sound effects: We know it’s fake, but we buy in bulk. We get involved. The plot: Michael Douglas is soul-dead San Fran multimillionaire Nicholas Van Orton who accepts a “gift” from his baby brother (Sean Penn), a vacation that comes to him at home and office, a personalized attack that crushes and removes every instinct Nic has built, bought, and forged, starting with a TV with its own mind and running past a crashed cab in deep water. The plot is preposterous, of course, but it’s on purposefully so, this beautiful nasty meta-film of a film stars a man who has bought into his own Hollywood thriller by choice, we the audience running with him. By choice. Douglas -– the symbol of amoral America during the 1980s –– is perfectly cast as a vastly unlikable man who we root for quickly. We are him. A

Birdman (2014)

When we first see Michael Keaton as a has-been Hollywood actor at the opening of tar-black fable “Birdman,” he is floating in midair as the intimidating voice of his once big-screen superhero alter ego -– see the title -– talks aloud inside his own head. That’s the start of this wondrously warped story. Yes, Keaton, who played comic book hero Batman, plays an actor who played comic book hero Birdman. Meta comedy is promised and delivered. Plot: Keaton’s Riggan Thomas is determined to reset his relevance by staging a Broadway play. The impossible task consumes Riggan: His lead actor is a prickish actor played by infamously prickish actor Edward Norton, and Riggan’s daughter (Emma Stone) teeters on drug relapse. Stone, of course, plays Spider-Man’s girlfriend. Spider-Man appears as a mocking taunt. Brilliant. Questions pop: Mainly, Will Riggan escape Birdman? Director Alejandro G. Inarritu serves a must-rewatch film about a man more scared of obscurity than death and a damning of the Marvel Movie Universe ruling cinemas and then flames his own film as Marvel-like action plays out. More than the art-house deep-thoughts comedy, this strange film is pure wicked fun to watch unspool. A

Enemy of the State (1998)

When I saw “Enemy of the State” in 1998 I loved it as a shockingly smart, electric child to the 1974 classic thriller “The Conversation.” Will Smith here plays a D.C. lawyer trapped in an impossible conspiracy involving the National Security Agency, portrayed as a power-mad and secret-crazed demon of data collection, snooping, and illegal spying, with anyone in its way, hunted for  life or left for dead. “There’s no such thing as privacy,” one character says. Director Tony Scott (RIP) and his writers must have seen the future. This is our reality. Our now. The NSA owns us. We willingly gave ourselves over. Now, the great cinematic trick: When Smith’s lawyer – arrogant, a cheater, way too assured of himself – falls hard, his only savior is an ex-snoop played by Gene Hackman, who played an expert snooper in “Conversation.” The casting is genius. Smart. Instant built-in background. The character names may be different, but the faces match. Fast paced with crackling dialogue and action, I once got a giddy charge out of nerds at computers handed the power of America. Now I see it as evil truth. Name one other film more precognisant. A

Life Itself (2014) and Dead Poets Society (1989)

Watching “Dead Poets Society” –- the Peter Weir-directed classic with Robin Williams as a liberal teacher at a strict conservative boy’s school -- and “Life Itself” – a documentary about Roger Ebert’s impact on film and family -- back to back is crushing, and ironic. 

These films are oddly, wildly, surprisingly linked. Both men were and remain major film-world touchstones in my life, Williams as performer and Ebert as critic and writer. They died far too soon, Williams from suicide after a life of depression, addiction, and finally disease, and Ebert after a long, public and astoundingly courageous battle cancer. 

Also note this: Ebert hated “Dead Poets,” and I had no idea until I Googled his review after “Dead” was watched, before “Life” was viewed. 

I wondered what made a guy tick who would hate that film, and then learned just that as “Life” –- directed by Steve James –- lays out not just Ebert’s bio details, but his way of thinking, what he wanted from a film, or life, or finally love at age 50 when he married. And, damn it, to hear Ebert’s words spoken aloud, and his one film, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” detailed to the extreme, the man was a poet, genius, demanding, argumentative, and cold, too.

Especially to fellow critic and TV partner, Gene Siskel, another man taken too soon. I digress because I still wrap my head around these two films seen so close together. (Pure timing, but what timing.) “Society” – in my book -- is a classic not from my youth when it came out, but even now. 

(I know current college students who are fans, teary eyed as they talk about it.) 

Williams is John Keaton, a 40-ish English teacher who arrives at his New England alma mater prep high school, taking over for one of the ancient teachers who has died. All of the teachers are ancient, guardians of the white master class that was once American capitalism. This is the 1950s. Keating insists his students destroy the intro of their poetry textbooks, and not to learn poetry, but to experience it, live it. 

Keating further proclaims the glory of Carpe Diem -– Seize the Day -– to his charges. His energy of course rattles the boys -– among them Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and Josh Charles –- and they take that energy to every waking decision, bucking their strict unloving parents obsessed with tradition, money, and name. 

None of these boys had ever *thought* to question their elders. Now they are. One to a tragic end. But is that Keating’s fault? Weir certainly stacks the deck: Keating is a saint, yes, a flat angelic saint, even if we as the audience love him and boo the cruel, unsparing fathers (Kurtwood Smith among them). 

So, yes, “Poets” may be simple -– Ebert hated its simple approach –- but need every coming of age story be complicated? It’s a simply tale, beautifully told. I love the students sneaking out in winter and the finale that once left the viewer bursting with pride, but now carries a devastating coda: Out inspirations, our captains, all die, some of them because life’s hardships can even overwhelm them. How do we carry on? 

As with Keating’s roar to seize the day and break free, Ebert went by his own instinct and his own drum and could never be pinned down. This is the man who famously trashed Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” in the face of universal praise. Respect had to be paid. Debate was out. Ebert was a master of argument. “Life” is based on the short-story memoir by Ebert. 

Here’s the thing about “Life Itself” – it’s no lightweight love letter about a film critic served up to please like-minded film critics and fanatics. Geeks such as myself. 

Early on Ebert -– in a hospital bed and clearly weeks away from succumbing –- acknowledges he is dying to the camera, alone, and then later before his wife, Chazz, who refuses to believe this “scene” played out live in a hospital room, cameras on. She insists Roger can fight on. He knows he cannot. 

That’s one of the beautiful, shocking emotionally scalding punches in this movie, Ebert upfront says this is *his* film and though he won’t live to see it, he will tell it as he sees fit. He shuts James down. James complies. 

The hospital scenes are grueling, Ebert’s brief return home a clash of wills as he refuses to attempt stairs, and his last typed public words –- “I can’t” –- are heartbreaking. Those are words he seemed never to utter before, a fat kid from suburban Illinois who was no arm chair critic, but a man who loved film, and got into the business, and helped champion the likes of Scorsese, and as the “Raging Bull” director tells, once dissuaded him from suicide with a phone call. 

More so, “Life” is about Ebert’s finding of familial love, marrying into a large family of children and grandchildren, and seeing Roger out of the theater and walking a grade schooler around London, wow, that’s life. Perfect.

Dead: A- Life: A

The Boxtrolls and Mr. Peabody & Sherman (both 2014)

What an odd time for animation. Even if we watch a film where the plot only ever hums and characters never pop, we can still marvel at the onscreen techno wonder. Everything looks amazing! “The Boxtrolls” and “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” – the former stop motion mixed with CGI, the latter all CGI – are prime examples. Hum. No pop. “Boxtrolls” comes from studio Laika, who made “Coraline,” an edgy horror tale for cool kids. But “Trolls” misfires with title characters -- tiny ogres live under a Victorian-era city and dress in discarded cardboard -- that fail to spark or overcome their human counterparts, including a status-hungry villain (Ben Kingsley) with a penchant for cabaret. Bummer. Only a fourth-wall-crashing Monty Pythonesque riff on “free will” fired my brain, during the end credits. A remake of the old cartoon shorts about a time-traveling dog and his not-so-bright human boy, “Peabody” is full of a breezy slapstick, bad puns, and warped histories of the Trojan War, Mona Lisa, and more. It relies on poop jokes and greatly underserves a female companion, but it gets in a Mel Brooks cameo as Einstein, and I love Mel Brooks. Boxtrolls: C+ Peabody: B

Nightcrawler (2014)

Imagine a dead serious “Network” written in the darkest pit of humanity, all humor strangled by an utter lack of empathy, with the journalism game run by any dick with a camera. That’s “Nightcrawler.” Jake Gyllenhaal plays Louis Bloom, a petty thief who one night finds his calling: Filming accidents, murders, house fires, and drive-bys, the fresher the gore the better for a top TV news slot. His “employer” is LA’s lowest-rated station, a bottom feeder with the mantra of fear sells. His “boss” is the vampire-hour editor (Renee Russo) who knows her middle age means job death. Bloom speaks in Internet PR babble, product comments, and tweets, using a deflated voice and spouting his love of accounting. He vibes Leo Bloom from “The Producers,” if Bloom had no soul. (Not Joyce Bloom.) Looking starved with bulging eyes, Gyllenhaal is a monster of success as he places civilians and police in harm’s way for a sell. Director/writer Dan Gilroy never judges, he shows us a mirror of journalism endlessly sinking in its race to hit ratings and print money, where cameras are as dangerous as guns. This is the world “Network” warned us about. A-

The Patriot (2000)

“Braveheart” goes Tea Party in “The Patriot,” a three-hour drama/revenge flick starring Mel Gibson as a Very Angry Man that only pretends it’s aghast at the terrible effects of war on one man’s soul and family, but really it’s jerk-off gun worship as every battle and death ups our blood and demand for Gibson to kill and maim. Gibson’s Benjamin Martin is a veteran turned Southern plantation owner – the blacks on his field are (cough) free, not slave – who gets sucked into the Revolutionary War after Brits kill his middle child. Director Rolland Emmerich needs his movie Red Coats -- led by Jason Issacs as a sniveling colonel – to be as evil as possible and commit atrocities that would make Nazis shudder to justify Martin’s blood lust. I get it, it’s a movie and we moviegoers love our Mel in seething Mad Max mode, but the flag-waving propaganda crosses into perversion. More aching is the depiction of slaves. The scene where a black man is conscripted by his cruel master, only to be followed by a comedic ginger 6-year-old boy asking to sign up for battle? Who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Patriotism with no insight. C-

Non-Stop (2014)

“Non-Stop” is not a comedy. I laughed my ass off. Not a good sign for a thriller that stars Liam Neeson in Angry Action Figure Mode and plays on 9/11 fears of hijackings and police state surveillance. Neeson is Bill Marks, suicidal fuck-up air cop with a booze problem and a tragic life who should never hold a gun, much less be issued one by Uncle Sam for work at 30,000 feet. But here Bill is anyway, sweating buckets as he texts back and forth with a psycho who threatens to down the plane unless $1.5M is delivered to a Swiss bank account. One in Bill’s name. Cue drama! Cue the scenes where Neeson’s hero types. And types. And types. And calls his boss. Bill also kills a man, beats random passengers, screams, and waves and fires his gun like a madman. Why? This is “Taken” in the air. A cell phone and a gun, if those are in a script does Neeson just sign on? As stewardesses, Michelle Dockery of “Downton Abbey” and Lupito Nyong’o of “12 Years a Slave” do just about nothing. I’d watch a movie with them as the heroes. C-

Calvary (2014)

Brendan Gleeson plays an Irish village priest who receives a death threat in the confessional box at the start of “Calvary.” “I was 7 when I first tasted semen,” the instigator says, proclaiming that he wants to slay a good priest in the name of revenge as the abuser priest has died. Refusing police help, James seeks out the man in secret among the locals, including a bartender, a butcher, the mayor, the mayor’s gay trick, a pathologist, an American writer, and a wealthy, lonely Londoner. Near all angry at life for its cruelty, or the Church, longtime protector of child rapists. James’ soul is righteous, he having lived as husband and father, his wife now dead, his grown daughter (Kelly Reilly) troubled and haunted. Writer/director John Michael McDonagh’s drama focuses on the trouble and glory of faith, even lost. James’ spirit bends as his week turns to violence, from the same man, others? Rarely is religion treated with such somberness. Alas McDonagh serves up blatant, ugly stereotypes. The trick is a Fox News cartoon. That said, the end broke me as James insists on grace over damnation. That, not the stereotypes, is a notion to live by. B

Trance (2013)

Gotchya films that spin on corkscrew narratives –- “Manchurian Candidate” is my favorite -– succeed only if we care about the characters and only if we dig the deep pit the screenwriters have tossed them into. Danny Boyle’s “Trance” is all crazy turns, pulled rugs, blown loyalties, and bad guys still gabbing after their skull has been shot off. The shocks and surprises hit so often and so outlandishly OTT, it passes suspense and becomes a comedic parade of drunken one-uppers. Numbness sets in. James McAvoy works at an auction house that falls prey to a heist just as a Renoir goes to sale. The work is seemingly lost and our hero is cracked on the skull, leading to memory loss. The heist master (Seymor Cassell) won’t have that and when torture fails, he hires a hypnotist (Rosario Dawson) to peer inside McAvoy’s brain. So to speak. The headachy flash edits are frantic and too hip. The flat characters don’t help. I really could have lived without ever hearing surround sound of vaginal hair being shaved. Boyle, it appears, could not. And if you can get past the firestorm finale without laughing to excess, I salute you. C

Broken City (2013)

An ex-cop PI with a dirty past gets marooned in a FUBAR infidelity case among city elites that results in murder and corrupted land deals. Forget it, Jake, this isn’t sharp dagger classic “Chinatown.” It’s dull spoon thriller “Broken City” with Mark Wahlberg as the dick working for a NYC mayor (Russell Crowe) who’s up for reelection. Mayor’s demand: “Find my wife’s lover,” but he has more in play. Money. The plot is threadbare. Jake Gittes worked for his info. Suffered. Wahlberg’s hero *finds* the bad guy’s plans printed on giant poster board with bold font at a Dumpster. Good actors have saved worse, right? Not this. Crowe plays the mayor in a cartoon mashup of 1970s’ Lex Luther and Donald Trump, with spray-on can orange skin and a dippy toupee. Wahlberg? Autopilot. Director Albert Hughes smart, too a tone for Wahlberg, too brave for the sorry studio? C

Closed Circuit (2013)

The successful conspiracy flick rests on the audience unsure of who to trust or how deep the conspirators –- be they Big Brother or Big Corp. -– lay buried. Endings are key. From “Conversation” to “Most Wanted Man,” if I’m not shaken paranoid, then what’s the point? There’s none in “Closed Circuit,” a meek flick about London spies putting two attorneys (Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall) through hell as they represent the Muslim suspect of a shop bombing. Upfront: The villains are ploddingly obvious, with Jim Broadbent all ham as a John Mitchell type with an ugly beard, and another Famous Name as a mentor who -– of course -– turns traitor. Zero suspense. And that’s surprising as Stephen Knight (“Dirty Pretty Things”) wrote the screenplay. I wanted a dark tale that left me breathless, but when our heroes meet in secret at a football match, surrounded by cameras, I was laughing. More so, the heroes are dumb. Who doesn’t question the sudden suicide of a pal working on a top secret case? No one here has seen a movie. And that’s the problem, the likely studio-mandated fix-it ender is so happy, it feels like every movie we’ve seen. C-

The Book Thief (2013)

World War II drama “The Book Thief” is not for me. It is intended for teen girls familiar with fantasy and romance, not familiar with the Holocaust. “Thief” -- based on a YA novel -– wants tragic and magic as it follows every crushing blow -– death, illness, bombing -– with an immediate balm, often so fantastically out of place, it made me laugh. In disbelief. It is narrated by “Death” (why?) in a voice not different than Gandalf or Dumbledore, assured words pouring bright magic over the terror of Hitler’s Germany. The titular character is Liesel (Sophie Nelisse), ferried to rural Germany to live with childless peasants (Emily Watson and Geoffrey Rush). On the way, Liesel’s brother dies. Cry not. Rush’s new poppa is Mr. Rogers kind. Liesel steals a “criminal” book from burning, and is seen by the wife of the head Nazi. Fear not. Kind frau lets the girl steal books from her own home. The town is bombed. Scores die. Fear not. Liesel is found, adapted, loved, and saved. In two minutes. I know “Thief” must speak gently to and not horrify its young audience, and I get that, but I still cringed. Sage narrator, gorgeous cinematography. Cringe. C-

The Book of Life (2014)

Trailers for “The Book of Life” promised a gloriously animated supernatural vibe from King of the Weird and producer/writer Guillermo del Toro. The film delivers. Maybe not to the heights of “Pan’s Labyrinth” or animated siblings “Up” or “Coraline,” but enough that I left the cinema awed. Heavy on the wood and stone art of Mayan and Spanish cultures, “Book” has a literal bookend story of ragtag school kids visiting a museum and through a hip tour guide (Christina Applegate) learn of the feisty Mexican beauty Maria (Zoe Saldana) who becomes a coin in a bet between gods Xibalba and La Muerte, the after-life rulers of the Land of the Forgotten and the Land of the Remembered. Maria, see, is chased after two men, a reluctant bullfighter (Diego Luna) and a seemingly invincible soldier (Channing Tatum). The story is deep and wondrously dark and riffs on Radiohead’s “Creep.” Huge sticking points: Our gal still is made to choose her hubs to be. Ice Cube as God is so very Special Appearance By Ice Cube, the film’s magic bear breaks. B+

The Black Stallion (1979) and Walking with Dinosaurs (2013)

The perfect examples of the most polar of children’s films. The best. The worst.

The Francis Ford Coppola-produced “The Black Stallion” is one of my absolute favorite films to watch, it’s cinematography unparalleled, and I knew that awe even as a child, although I had no idea about cameras or light or imagery. It was instinct. I knew I was watching something special. 

This is an emotionally-charged and assured film so confident in its story, human and animal actors, and visuals that an entire 30 minute section plays with do dialogue, only music (by Carmine, Francis’ father) and sound effects as a young boy (Kelly Reno) lost on an island befriends a rampaging horse, the Black, after the two are thrown from a sinking ship. 

No movie would do that now. The trust in children to *get* emotion and relationship, no explanation needed, is gone. (Just wait a few paragraphs to see.)

Also gone: The nerve to have a child onscreen breakdown, as Reno’s boy tells his mother (Teri Garr) months after the fact of his father’s death on that sinking ship, and that he did not save the horse’s life, but it saved his life. That scene wrecks me still, and I’m 40. 

Reno, by the way, gives one of the great child performances of any film, much of his performance relying on eyes or body language, his interaction with the horse. A long, wide shot – uncut – of Reno offering the horse seaweed to eat is stunning, visually and through acting and framing. 

And patience. That’s a compliment. We watch the relationship between the boy and horse birth and grow. A lesser film would have cut, moved on. 

Yes, the story goes to the races, literally, with Mickey Rooney (God, he’s so grand here) as a trainer, but so what? This is pure adventure, beautifully told by director Carroll Ballard and photographed by Caleb Deschanel. (They later made the equally smart, deeply emotional “Fly Away Home.”) 

Now, the recent BBC-made “Walking with the Dinosaurs” is the full opposite, poison to a child’s mind as “Black” is a gift. In short, I hated this film like no other that I have since 2004’s “Phantom of the Opera” or 1997’s “Batman and Robin,” films that have nothing but visuals fireworks and effects endlessly vomited on screen as painfully inept dialogue and pop-music music hammer constantly and ceaselessly at any sensible person’s ears and soul. 

(It doesn’t help that I watch these films back-to-back.) 

We open in present day as a sullen teenager –- we know he’s awful because he wears a hoodie, instant fashion accessory for human scum I suppose –- talks in movie character exposition to his best pal via cell phone about being stuck with his uncle and sister on a dinosaur dig. Yes, really. Stuck. 

No worries, though, as a talking bird – voiced John Leguizamo – soon lands and tells teen boy about the winders of the dinosaurs. Here we flash back millions of years to a dino family of father, mother, and new hatchlings, including runt of litter Patchi (Justin Long) as their dino heard makes eats, travels in season, and avoids hunting beasts. So, nothing happens. “Land Before Time” was better.

The story is abysmal and simple-minded, jumping to jokes about poop showers after another dinosaur defecates on baby Patchi. More pop and shit jokes follow. Really, if you want your child to repeat “poop shower” on end, this is your bag. Of shit. That Patchi is a moronic child is of no help. 

Leguizamo narrates in a cringing, whining voice every pierce of action as if we cannot see it, and throws out witty sayings such as, “Don’t get too attached, this place will be an oil field one day.” He says, “whatever!” a lot. He makes pop culture jokes that fall flat. 

The voice actors talking for the dinosaurs re-explain everything going on, for the really stupid audience. When the father dies on screen, we are told he is dying on screen. “Stallion” uses silence to tell its story. “Dinosaurs” won’t shut up. 

The talking is ceaseless and grating, and when it pauses, light FM music that could lead to elevator suicides, pops in. 

There is always noise. Constant noise. Every time a new beast appears, the film stops dead so a random girl can repeat the name of the beast and spell it out. I cringed every time. None of the character’s mouth’s move, so we’re led to believe all the talk to telepathic or the animators could not swing mouthing. 

At one point this movie was to be a near-silent film, only a small bit of narration. The studio -– 20^th Century Fox -– got scared, and brought in the voice “talent” and the poop jokes because they think children are stupid or trusted to pick up on story beats. Every frame is a condescending slap to any girl or boy who enjoys learning.

“See and feel what it was like when dinosaurs ruled the earth,” the tagline promises. No. Dinosaurs didn’t laugh. Dinosaurs didn’t make movie references, or jump in rivers to save their girlfriend. Dinosaurs didn’t make poop shower jokes. Nor did any dinosaur ever bet money on another set of dinosaurs fighting. Nor did ninjas exist back then. 

I’ve read suggestions to watch the movie with the sound off. That won’t help.

Black: A+

Dinosaurs: F- (I have not given a film this grade in a decade. A regular F will not do.)

The Conjuring (2013)

Shot with a marvelous 1970s vibe down to the opening credit crawl, “The Conjuring” takes the old “based on a true story” tag used by so lame horror movies and makes it something to scream about again. CGI? None that I saw. Plot: The Perrons (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor are the parents) move into a massive farm house. An old, hidden basement is found. Clocks stop. The dog dies. One girl sleep walks. Another is pulled from bed. Handclaps are heard. The instances then turn shocking until mother calls in Christian paranormal investigators (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). The woman can “see” ghosts, and the house is full of them. I’ll stop. Watch. Director James Wan works his film effortlessly, opening on a seemingly unrelated tale of doll. Are they unrelated? Music, editing, the giving of information, all are top notch, and climax is relentlessly tense. I have finally seen a film that can stand near “Exorcist.” I can’t get past one line where Farmiga says the ghost had not yet been violent. Did the actress misspeak? (Ignore that.) This is a nightmare inducer, the kind I’d sneak watch as a teen, sound low. I loved those moments. A- 

The Crying Game (1992)

I’m shocked how the numerous reveals of “The Crying Game” still build on me, that I find hints never noticed before: Side characters, motivations, phrases with new meanings. Stephen Rea is IRA “volunteer” Fargus, who takes part in the kidnapping of a British soldier (Forrest Whitaker) and as he guards the prisoner, foolishly befriends the man. The soldier knows Fargus’ motives are crumbling and pleads, “Go to England, find my girl, and tell her I love her.” Fargus goes and finds Dil (Jaye Davidson) and follows her, attracted and intrigued by her world, stage presence, and an aura that leaves him curious. Soon, though, our hero’s IRA accomplices (Adrian Dunbar and Miranda Richardson) return and are intent on putting our man though a suicide mission. If he fails, Dil dies. That’s only a portion of Neil Jordan’s film, which also is about an entirely different matter altogether, including how Fargus will not fight for his own life, but will kill a man for insulting his lover. Rea is fantastic, complicated, confused, then sure, and Davidson constantly turns the tables on what Fargus expects and wants, and what we expect and want. A

The Purge (2013)

“The Purge” is horror with a nasty serving of satire that slashes at the Tea Party elites who think wealth makes them holier than anyone below them, and yet angry at anyone who dares have a bigger house or a nicer car. I dug it. Ethan Hawke plays a self-satisfied hawker of home security devices in year 2022 of a post right-wing-revolution “New” America. Money is God. Guns are the Holy Son. The NRA might be running the show. One day each year, true “patriots” –- the haves -– are allowed (encouraged) to rape and murder at will, with the bottom of the economic chain the true target. But, Hawke’s quirky liberal teen son (Max Burkholder) opens the family fortress to a hunted veteran and soon preppy masked hunters come house crashing. (The sociopathic leader is unfailingly polite and dressed in a blazer with a haircut that screams edgy Young Republican. I knew assholes like him in college.) Writer/director James DeMonaco might not have a great film, but it’s daring, even if the end has too many pointers and Lena Headey’s wife remains flat. (I had hopes the “good” son might turn a shocking path, but did not happen.) B

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

I love silent movies: The boiling down of storytelling to mere visuals that must make one *think* sound: Conversation, screams, the crash of a chandelier. Brilliance under pressure. “The Phantom of the Opera” -– from the 1908 book and featuring Lon Chaney in the title role –- is near perfect. Either born with grisly disfigurements or badly burned after birth, the Phantom is a once-famous composer now forgotten, living below the Paris Opera House obsessing over bit signer Christine (Mary Philbin). He worships her. He sneaks into her room. He sends a chandelier crashing on the audience after the house runners refuse to punt their star for his goddess. This Phantom is no romantic, but a sick perv with a hideous face -– dig that makeup, a flayed skull with no lips -– hidden behind a mask that looks like that of a kindly friar. The best scenes have the Phantom crashing a costume ball dressed in a red, promising death to all, then standing on a roof like a demon, lurking, planning. The black/white cinematography goes green/red with inserts of blue and the unnerving color shock is like a blood shot from hell. A century old, this still terrorizes. A

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)

Yes, I watched. Yes, I hate myself for watching.

Let me beam brief pride before I serve raging scorn: “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II” finally gives us something we have not seen yet seen in this supernatural romance franchise about a young woman torn between moody, control-freak vampire boyfriend (now husband) and moody, control-freak BFF werewolf: Bella (Kristen Stewart) at last forms a personality of her own and the initiative to take action on her own. Finally.

Disclaimer: Bella is dead. She is now a full vampire. So, never mind pride. Lady has a backbone, no pulse. She’s still at home, still controlled. She has to die to get freedom. 

Misogynist.

This last chapter of a two-part flick follows Bella and that vampire soul mate Edward (Robert Pattinson) as they protect their infant child Renesmee from evil vampire overlords who want the young girl dead, lest she turn monstrous. Renesemee is half-human, though, so not a danger, but not quite normal. Her age is a speed train, going to toddler in mere days, and grade schooler within months. She can fly. Read minds. (I guess she can join the “X-Men” movies?) 

Protecting the child from ritual murder is of such importance that Jacob’s werewolf family is willing to put aside its long regional war with Edward’s family and fight alongside them. 

Why? Love! 

But an intermission: See, this flick is still based on Morman conservative Stephanie Meyer’s novels, a woman whose overall view on females have vexed me for years. She writes submissive women, the kind who like to take abuse, and appreciate it, thrive off it. Men control. Women obey. No shades of gray. Meyer must hate being a woman.

In an earlier film, Edward visited Bella on the eve of their wedding, I guess to make sure she behaves, or because he loves her that much … who knows? Jacob once told Bell, “If I can’t have you, no one will.” Bella smiled. Romance, huh? Anti-woman. Meyer’s world.

(Myers’ “The Host” is worse, with a female hero who falls deeper in love with her man after he punches her in the face. Another beau prefers strangulation. Get the theme?) 

I bristled and stewed in those previous movies, but not to the point of turning off the film and walking away in disgust. I did here. I saw it coming, too. 

The scene: Twenty-something wolfman Jacob (Taylor Lautner) stands by Edward near movie’s end and -– referring to the 9-ish Renesmee, a child –- says, “Shall I start calling you dad?” The scene’s a joke. Get it? No? See the 20-year-old Jacob is in love with the little girl and wants to marry her. He wants her body. He thinks about it. Really.

It’s not his fault. It just happened! She imprinted on him, whatever the fuck that means. Actually it means the little girl came onto him, the No. 1 defense of every sick-ass child molester out there. Look it up. I covered crime and this shit as a reporter, and heard it in court. There is no mystery here. Meyer is into child sex and likely was abused. Often.

(My response to any defense that Jacob-Renesemee’s love is platonic/chivalric now and only will grow later into sensual love: No. Director Bill Condon calling the love brotherly-sisterly … does not help. Liar. Even Lautner apparently hated the material, so he says.) 

Sure Bella gets rightly angry when she first hears of this hook up, she goes after Jacob, but, hey, she’s eventually submissive again, them men tell her heel and she does, and this is Myers, and by the climax, Bella is ready to send off child daughter to live with the man of her destiny, her protector, in secret. A true Meyer woman. 

Hell with this. Hell with it. I hate this film. And every message of submission. Child sexual abuse. Prepping girl brides for marriage to older men. None of this is an accident.

As I write, I fume again, I’ll quit. So, yes, the clean camera work by cinematographer Guillermo Navarro stuns, the best work of the franchise, and near any film in 2012. I also had a riotous laugh fest with a long battle royale near the film’s end which is neither a battle, nor a royale, as good guys and bad guys literally rip off each other’s heads in some not-semi-serious fashion that recalls Monty Python at its daftest. It’s really awful. 

Fitting. Heads should roll for this ugly, offensive series of films. This is vile shit, upping child molesters, making controlling abusive men romantic. I cannot believe I watched. The most dmaging to women and children Hollywood franchise ever made, and every film a hit. Maybe it America goes all right-wing, Bible-thumper, it will be more popular. F

Sabotage (2014)

Watching bloodbath -– not in a good way -– “Sabotage” it makes one wince at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s post-political film career. The light seems sucked from his eyes. Here we follow personality-free ultra-A DEA thug cops who drink, drug, swear, and easily swipe $10M from a drug’s lord’s house. The loot goes missing and the team starts dying in gruesome ways only a screenwriter can imagine. Ugly. Writer/ director David Ayer (“End of Watch”) has that duty, killing one guy by nailing him to a ceiling. By the film’s exhaustive end, you’ll –- or I did -– laugh at the big shock reveal, and still have to muddle through one more shoot out. Terrence Howard, Sam Worthington, Mirelle Enos, and Josh Holloway comprise the team, all screaming “fuck” as if they’re in a contest to out cuss “Wolf of Wall Street.” They fail. Ahnuld has the role of thug leader haunted by the death of his family by drug cartel, watching a snuff film on loop in the dark. We never see his face. But so what? Botox and steroids have rendered Ahnuld inert. What’s he thinking? Is he thinking? Is he a robot? Do I care? No. D

The Great Escape (1963)

Watching World War II action/drama “The Great Escape” -– based on fact, highly dramatized, three hours long -- has a new, unshakable tinge of sadness that did not exist during my childhood viewings. The entire principal cast has now passed, with Richard Attenborough and James Garner dying earlier this year. The true story: In 1944, 250-plus Allied prisoners attempted the most brazen escape from a POW camp ever known, with hundreds of minds and hands and three tunnels dedicated to infuriating Hitler’s military machine. Director John Sturges has made a near classic, even if it whiffs far too sanitized even for 1963. Attenborough, Garner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Donald Pleasence, and Charles Brosnan play the master escapists. Two hours document the dirt and work, the final rousing hour focuses on border runs. Pleasence’s forger is still my favorite hero of the bunch. The motorcycle chase with McQueen is exciting as hell, all stunts, no CGI. This kind of epic -– gifting character development and attention to process -– exist no longer. In Michael Bay’s world, it’s all flash and bang. Another sad passing. A-

47 Ronin (2013)

Japan’s historical story of “47 Ronin” is as sacred there as George Washington crossing the Delaware is here: A samurai army who wait more than a year living in excommunication before taking revenge and the head of their enemy after their master is dishonored and forced to commit suicide. Hollywood? Not impressed. Reaction: Let’s Tolkeinize it with dragons and a witch with a snake fetish, and Keanu Reeves. Because Keanu knows kung fu. And everyone loves CGI dragons. Did I mention the magical Voldermort doppelganger? Yeah. They did it. While never dull, “47 Ronin” is a mess of pop culture hits reheated into a mess. Reeves’ heroic Kai -– mostly seen in cut/paste reaction shots -– is an American raised in Japan, having been found as a starved, wounded child by the same sensei who later will be dishonored. As Kai is central, that not only slides Japanese hero Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada) to the role of second fiddle, but racist asshole. See, Oishi constantly derides Kai as “half breed” until he needs Kai’s fighting skills, then it’s all, “We’re pals!” So, opportunistic second fiddle racist asshole. Imagine Washington treated like that. C-

Getaway (2013)

The 2013 “Getaway” is terrible. Horribly “Can You Believe This Shit!?!” bad. Do not confuse it with the 1970s Steve McQueen flick or its Alec Baldwin remake. This stiff has Ethan Hawke as Brent Magna, an ex-NASCAR driver living in Bulgaria (!?!) who steals a Mustang and causes havoc on Sofia streets as ordered by an unseen criminal mastermind who has kidnapped Magna’s wife as collateral. Brent’s task: Blow up the city’s power station –- protected with a key pad lock (!) -– so the mastermind can pull off a daring robbery in darkness. The howler: Brent destroys the power grid … and not a street light blinks or a McDonald’s arch darkens. Nothing. Nadda. But. BUT. The actors pretend it is pitch dark. Seriously. The leap of logic gymnastics is breathtaking. Director Courtney Solomon -– he made the incompetent “Dungeons & Dragons” -– shoots and edits every car chase -– it’s nothing but –- as split-second visual seizures, and repeats the same footage. Hawke must have been desperate for money. The final nail: Selena Gomez (!?!) plays a pistol-packing carjacker. GTFO. F

Chinatown (1974)

Halfway through Roman Polasnki’s perfect crime noir “Chinatown,” the femme fatale played by Faye Dunaway bumps a car horn with her head during a moment of distress. The noise startles her and seat mate PI Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson). It is the coldest punch of foreshadowing I’ve ever seen, and I only noticed it on what may have been my 15^th (?) viewing. The next viewing I noticed a new twist: Gittes’ love of horses. That’s the beauty of Polanski’s tale of 1930s Los Angeles and ex-cop Gittes, who spies on wondering spouses, and wears fine suits. Plot: The wife of LA’s water engineer hires Gittes to bust her cheating husband, except the woman isn’t the engineer’s wife, and when the man turns up dead, Gittes realizes he’s been played. Gittes takes action. Except the cruel joke of “Chinatown” is Gittes is a fool, so lost and clueless the deeper he sinks into ancient familial evil, by film’s end he is left in shock, helpless. Robert Towne gets the screenplay credit, but Polanski wrote the unnerving finale. Polanksi’s direction is as smooth as jazz, with perfect interior car shots. As the villain, John Huston plays a monster for the ages. A+

Grudge Match (2013)

Who would win in a fight, Rocky or Raging Bull? Twenty-five years ago that would have been a semi-serious whisky-laced conversation among movie fans who like their heroes damaged but triumphant. Oh, times have changed. A joke gabfest has turned actual movie with “Grudge Match,” featuring Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro having signed on for what I can only guess are gold bricks. I knew “Match” could be bad, a desperate fan fiction nostalgia trip to make us Gen X’ers recall how great these actors were on screen, and how huge the dramas of Rocky Balboa (dark, with redemption) and Jake LaMotta (far darker, none) were, once. But I wasn’t prepared for how endlessly mediocre every single boring moment would be, right up to the final sentimental boxing match that lasts six years as two 70-year-old actors mock-beat each other, and I became physically angry watching it all turn shit brown. I hated every bullshit wink-nod-wink inside joke: Stallone’s working class stiff visiting a meat freezer, De Niro’s smirking playboy and his comedy bar entertainment. A bad film that dares shits on two classics. Fuck this. F

Beautiful Creatures (2013)

I’m calling it the “Vonnegut Rule.” Anytime a teen drama needs to quickly illustrate its hero is a cool-sensitive outsider, he will be seen reading Vonnegut. Always “Slaughter House Five.” We get that scene moments into “Beautiful Creatures,” another YA adaptation about teens amongst supernatural angst and humanity-ending danger. Our reader is Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich), a high schooler with a DOA mom and MIA dad who falls for the new girl (Alice Englert) in class, because she’s witchy, and has, in fact, invaded Ethan’s dreams for months: Violent memories not his own. I know nothing of the books. But writer/director Richard LaGravenese’s movie peaks midway with a family dining room table fight that literally sends table and room spinning as one silent cousin sits, eating. (Why can’t the film be about him?) The remainder is blasé and anticlimactic, with part of the cast –- Emma Thompson -– camping it up “Batman” TV style, and the rest –- Ehrenreich and Englert –- crying over doomed love, all of them wrestling Southern accents that come and go, often in a single scene. Read some Vonnegut instead, eh? C