Ida (2014)

Polish-made “Ida” is quiet, brief at 80 minutes, and shot in a square black and white format that predates widescreen thrills, with only two main characters, mostly in a car. But it’s powerful, and settles in slowly. Agata Trzebuchowska is Anna, a young woman living inside a nunnery, about to take the oath that will “marry” her to Christ. Before commitment, Anna visits her only living relative, an aunt (Agata Kulesza) who only just now has acknowledged the relation. Wanda, drunken, aloof, a Stalinist judge on her way down, tells Anna three truths: Her name is really Ida, her parents were murdered in World War II, and she is Jewish. The words rock Anna-now-Ida, who commits to finding the graves of her family to bless them. In the name of Christ. Shredding road-trip cliché, “Ida” is emotional and harsh, without judgment or cruelty. The ending is beautifully realized as Ida finds balance between the life she ought to have had, the life she was given, and the life she wants. Pawel Pawlikowski films his characters at the very bottom of the frame with a vast sky or ceiling looming above, as if the weight of the world is crushing everyone. A-

Hanna Arendt (2013)

The banality of evil. The very notion that anyone can commit unspeakable evil under the oh-so-wrong “right” condition is something of a cliché now. But back in the early 1960s as philosopher/teacher/writer Hanna Arendt coined the phrase while covering the Eichmann trial for the New Yorker, she was met with a crushing ethical/academic flame war. As played by Barbara Sukowa, this European art-house take of “Hanna Arendt” has the Holocaust survivor and NYC resident shunned here and in Israel after she not only wrote that Eichmann was just a boring mediocre shit with no brains, but some Jewish leaders helped open the door of Nazi extermination through contrition. It’s relatively accepted now. Not then. Not when wounds and memories were so raw. The move is at its best at these moments of personal drama and inner torment. Yet, often I feel left cold by these New York intellectual dramas as they seem to take anyone not in the “know” to task for not being a member of the party. I look at these square-heads here and think, “Why be friends with them?” My tweed jacket diet only goes so far. B

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Ten minutes into “Moonrise Kingdom,” I realized I had my fill of Wes Anderson, the Gen X darling filmmaker who tells tales of quirky hipsters and outsiders using ironic air quotes peppered with hip art deco sets and hip costumes. I’m sick of all of Anderson’s hipness. The guy aims and fails for some aura of New Wave French film with a story about pre-teen love birds (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) on the run from parents, police, and Khaki Scout Troop leaders in 1960s New England. To woo youngsters, Anderson tosses in fires, floods, storms, impaled dogs, and so much forced acting from famous actors (Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis, and Edward Norton among them), that it all feels like the over-the-top high school play that closed out “Rushmore,” a damn fine film. Yes, Jason Schwartzman appears. So does Bob Balaban as a narrator who changes camera lights. The obnoxious music score almost drowns out the realization that the central arc of Hayward as a beauty hip (again!) to Euro culture falling for a sad nerd is bullshit. Anderson’s kingdom of cool -– I loved “Fantastic Mr. Fox” -- has gone tepid. I’m out. C-

El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel) (1960)

One of the great gags in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” has a direct reference to Luis Buñuel’s acid-to-the-face classic satire “The Exterminating Angel,” a nasty little tale that makes “The Lord of the Flies” seem quaint and targets the privileged class of Europe. The gist is wildly “Twilight Zone” simple: The servants at a lavish mansion are inexplicably leave their stations and the home just as a lavish dinner party begins, and never ends. For the same spirit, or psychological block, keep the guests trapped in one room. Food and water runs out, hygiene turns ugly, a man dies of a heart attack and his body rots, the hosts and guests – Sivia Pinal is the lead actress – go quite mad. Into animals, the kind these hoity-toity blue bloods described the working/lower class as in the film’s opening. Incest, drugs, witchcraft, demons, suicide and sheepacide (is that a word?) – nothing is off limits to Buñuel who saves his final daggers for The Church and The Military. It’s a dark, nasty, scathingly funny slab at the powers that be, the elite folks who place themselves on higher moral ground, closer to God, because they hold more wealth. A timely movie for sure. A

The Apartment (1960)

Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” is the perfect romantic comedy-drama. The set-up: Jack Lemmon – never better, even in “Some Like it Hot” -- is C.C. Baxter, a cog in a massive insurance company machine. He’s a low-level drone, but a wicked tool to the big guys upstairs. The tool’s tool: His apartment is a fuck pad for the big bosses to bring their on-the-side girls. One of the girls is elevator operator Fran, played by the mesmerizing Shirley MacLaine, and poor sad sack C.C., well, he digs her. But Fred McMurray – Mr. Clean Cut Disney Film Man – is the prick cheating on his wife with Fran, and any another gal who comes his way. When Fran attempts suicide, it’s C.C. who saves her. The rest of the story is manna. Lemmon’s C.C. is a treat of a man, a nice guy who wants to move ahead, willing to cut corners, but still goofy enough to use a tennis racquet as spaghetti strainer. MacLaine is divine as a woman who can’t see herself ever truly falling in love, her smarts ignored by piggish men. Acting, script, every gag set-up, every line delivery is perfect. I love this film. A+

Pirate Radio (2009)

The British comedy “Pirate Radio” was called “The Boat That Rocked” during its original release in the United Kingdom. Nerd news accounts indicate the film not only was re-titled but re-edited on the trip over the Atlantic. And I can see where: Despite the best soundtrack since “Almost Famous,” this Richard Curtis-directed film is more pop, than rock.

“Pirate” follows a boatload of (mostly true?) Brit radio DJs who blast the Devil’s Music – The Who, Rolling Stones and Kinks -- toward shore from an old fishing vessel, much to the chagrin of proper English pricks on land. The ragtag radio crew includes Bill Nighy (“Underworld”) as the leader, Rhys Ifans as a cooler-than-thou DJ god and Philip Seymour Hoffman as an American away from home. The scenes with these blokes and their groupie fans all are a blast, if not a bit coy. For 1960s hellions, these guys and gals are tame compared to, say, the cast of “Gossip Girl.”

The boat ride truly goes all stop when it hits shore to document the English pricks, mainly a fascist bureaucrat (Kenneth Branagh) and his lapdog assistant (Jack Davenport). The lapdog’s surname actually is Twatt. Ugh. It’s that kind of film – marketed to adults, but written for teens who might not even fully get that joke. Worse, Branagh says the surname to infinity and beyond, “I like Twatt!” and then follows it up with 30 lines where he means to say he’ll dispose of the radio jocks, but ends up spilling out Freudian descriptions of gay sex. Yadda yadda ... y'know.

The gorgeous look of the film, the killer soundtrack – classic after classic rock song played out end to end -- and the top notch cast having a blast make this film hard to hate. But it’s equally difficult to love a film that had me thinking, “Ohh, I gotta Netflix the real version.” B-