Knowing (2009)

“Knowing” is forgetting. In 1958 Massachusetts, a frantic girl scribbles seemingly random numbers on a sheet of paper that is then placed inside a time capsule that is dug up 50 years later by another group of children, one of whom is the son of an MIT professor (Nicolas Cage). Widowed, drunk, and sure that God is dead, our troubled hero stumbles upon a code in the numbers -– it marks the date, map location, and death toll of every disaster since ’58 until the end. As in End of Times. Director Alex Proyas (“Dark City” and “I am Legend”) has served up a dark Christian apocalypse thriller with no way out, and if you go for angel starships and religion-heavy films that drop 9/11 tragedy and people burning to death with barely a shrug, and that God naturally only saves white American children, then have at. Not me. This is not deep or knowing, and it does not dare question what kind of god plays this cruel. Stupidity abounds. Dig the scene where Cage uses a magic ID card stamped “Academic” to get by the police. Really?!? Where can I and my wife get that? C-

The Raven (2012) and Me and Orson Welles (2009)

Two famously eccentric American artists who burnt fast and hot get the fictional film treatment in “The Raven” –- with writer/poet Edgar Allan Poe playing super sleuth over a series of murders related to his writings –- and “Me and Orson Welles” -– with the actor/director as scoundrel muse to a plucky “High School Musical” hero. 

As Poe, John Cusack does that arched-eyebrow John Cusack thing he always does, and he’s flat out wrong in the role. The plot is a grisly rehash of “Se7en” stitched onto a carbon copy of Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes,” with a villain that’s dull as rag paper. Worse bit: Poe is shown playing with a pet raccoon. Director James McTeigue thinks he’s still filming “V for Vendetta.” Fawkes that. 

“Me” focuses on a teen drama protégé (Zac Efron) as he cons his way into a gig at the Mercury Theatre for the renowned staging of “Julius Caesar.” Christian McKay plays Welles as madman, genius, romantic, cad, screw-up, and artist, and brilliantly crushes every scene, but with “Tiger Beat” poster boy Efron in the lead pining for a smirking bored Claire Danes, the film sinks. 

Poe and Welles would torch these films. Raven: C- Welles: C+

Extract (2009)

Mike Judge’s “Office Space” is a classic comedy for anyone who works at a desk and stores paper clips as if they were nuts for winter. “Extract” is another work comedy from the man who also gave us “Beavis and Butthead,” but set in the blue-collar arena. Jason Bateman is Joel Reynolds, owner of a company that makes baking extract. Running a business is the American Dream, right? Not for Joel. His desperate plan to sell out and retire with his wife (Kristin Wiig) is undone thanks to a bizarre factory-floor accident, a goofball bartender pal (Ben Affleck), and the arrival of a hot con artist (Mila Kunis). Judge makes small comedies about real people – oddballs and eccentrics, sure – but people we all know, and love and hate, including the gabby neighbor. His targeting of the privileged is ruthless, while his needling of common folk is rarely mean. Funny? Yes. But “Extract” is scaled as a TV movie, even if the warped marriage comedy thread playfully echoes “American Beauty.” B

The Jonses (2009)

America’s addiction to consumer glitz gets skewered in “The Jonses,” a satirical comedy-drama about an atypical family with Demi Moore and David Duchovny as mom and dad, respectively. One will figure out the film’s wink-wink catch within 10 minutes, but I’ll hold dishing on it. The gist is, of course, that keeping up with the Jonses -- who have the best cars, latest cell phones, killer TV gaming system and the tastiest flash-frozen food you’ll ever eat -- is hell. The Jonses have unlimited funds. Their neighbors do not. The deficit is not kind. Much of the film plays like “Fantasy Island”: People live like this? What jobs do they have? No one here seems to work. It’s sci-fi to me. Director/writer Derrick Borte has a point to grind, and he does it well for a while, but there’s a nagging feeling that a thousand companies fought to get their products placed on camera, from the Audis to the coffee makers, and the fancy-pants Dell laptop at film’s end, all to make the audience say, “I want that.” Muddled message, eh? Duchovny and Moore are fantastic, movie stars forever. B-

Valhalla Rising (2009)

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, “Valhalla Rising” is a confounding nearly wordless drama set in 1,000 A.D. about a Norse warrior (Mads Mikkelsen) held captive by local chiefs –- Scots, maybe -- and forced to participate in muddy and deadly “Fight Club” match-ups. The one-eyed man can see visions of the future, we know that much. Nothing else. He escapes and kills his captors, sparing the young boy who has been his caretaker. Freed, he runs into a group of Christian warriors, cutting a bloody trail on their way to Jerusalem to kill in the name of God. One-Eyed, as he is called, is strong-armed into joining. But the men, via boat, don’t end up in Israel. They are lost, turned around, at the top of North America. There, the bloodletting really begins. Native Americans. Filmed through cheesecloth and filled with a lot of self-important talk and show-offy shots that might impress Photoshop fans who overuse Photoshop, “Rising” never settles down to a good movie such “Fistful of Dollars." Never boring; never exciting. C+

The Princess and the Frog (2009)

Walt Disney Studios broke ground with “The Princess and the Frog” – a fantasy tale focused on an African-American girl with the big Disney Dreams™ and the handsome guy to go with them. It felt about damn time, after how many decades. Seven? Eight? Alas, this hand-drawn animated tale never took off in theaters. Racism? No. It’s the film's plot and tone. Our not-a-princess princess (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) wants to open a restaurant of her own, and running after her dream, gets mixed up with a young prince who’s now literally a frog (that’s Bruno Campos) and a local New Orleans con man/master of dark arts (Keith David.) I’m not quite sure any child dreams of opening a restaurant, so there’s that, and some of the animation involving “The Shadow Man” is quite spooky – skulls and wicked ghost shadows, etc. Not for the babes. All that said, this is one great-looking flick with some clever side characters and surprises along the way. It’s not Disney’s best, but even off-center Disney can be wonderful entertainment. B+

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

Nicolas Cage – the actor of “Wild at Heart” – has been missing for some time, replaced by a flaky, tired and boring stand-in in such garbage fare as “Bangkok Dangerous.” In the police thriller “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” Cage is once again thrillingly alive, electric, giving a high-wire act, and knocking every other player off to the sidelines. He drops out-there dialogue like “To the break of dawn!” with absolute relish, hitting every syllable in the strangest and darkest of ways.

This Werner Herzog-directed flick has nothing to do with Harvey Kietel’s 1992 flick “Bad Lieutenant,” except name and its general outline: A depraved, drug-addled police detective is on a fast train to hell as he investigates a disturbing crime. Here it’s the murder of a New Orleans family of illegal immigrants, apparently over drugs the caretaker was selling.

Cage’s Terence McDonagh is off the bat corrupt, but in a flash of kindness he saves an inmate from drowning in the 2005 Katrina floods. No good deed goes unpunished: Terence injures his back in the rescue. A doctor’s prescription of painkillers leads to hard drugs and so many crimes – blackmail, sexual assault, shakedowns and pointing guns at grannies. Let’s put it this way: Our hero has a “lucky crack pipe.” It’s telling of Terence’s flamed soul that his lowest point in the film is when his call girl lover (Eva Mendes) announces she’s going into rehab.

His back and shoulders hunched like a walking “7” and a gun shoved in his front belt like a calling card of a psychotic Western lawman of about 16, Cage hasn’t been this good in years: All big-eyes tender one minute with a baby and raging crazy the next, even scaring hardened gangsters. Cage’s eyes are glaring mad, and I’m not sure how he does it. I’m not sure I want to know. But the actor last seen in, I swear, 1997’s “Face/Off” is back. (For now. He is doing a “Ghost Rider 2” after all, a bunch of other garbage, too, God help us.)

This Herzog tale is dark as hell, grisly violent, and strange – David Lynch strange – but it’s also wickedly funny. Terence hallucinates creeping spying lizards, and as the film reaches its climax – well, let’s say, I’m not quite certain reality is all there. The ending, actually, is quite hysterical, if you can get past the horrible acts Terence commits. This might be a difficult film for some to stomach. I dug it. A brimstone comedy from hell. And the most exciting big-screen police thriller I’ve seen in ages, good news for a genre that has played it as safe as an episode of “Law & Order” for too long. New Orleans has never, to my knowledge, been this gritty onscreen before. This ain’t Bourbon Street fun and partying. It’s a third world country, where signs of mass death from a deadly storm are marked – literally – on nearly every home. A-

Old Dogs (2009)

Billed as a family comedy, “Old Dogs” is offensively bad. No shocker, as it’s from Walt Becker, the guy responsible for “Wild Hogs.” That film starred John Travolta, who mugs here like a fool who long ago forgot “Pulp Fiction.” J.T. is co-partner of a NYC-based sports marketing firm co-run by life-long chum Robin Williams. The plot gets going when Williams’ tight-ass dweeb learns he fathered twins he never previously met. Nevermind that Wiliams' dip doesn't even ask for proof. He just bends. The mom is played by Kelly Preston, wife of Travolta. One of the twin brats is a Travolta. No wonder J.T. is all smiles. The film’s comedy relies on smashed, electrocuted and penguin-bitten balls, gay accusations, and rape-by-gorilla, and demeans fathers, homosexuals, the elderly, Japanese culture, and anyone with dark skin. Worse than the comedy is the lame swipe at emotional connections, with Williams looking pained. A full disaster, and sadly Bernie Mac's last film. F

Fame (1980 and 2009)

“I’m gonna live for ever. I’m gonna learn how to fly.” Those words are the soul and theme of 1980’s “Fame.” It is the almost-prayer that students at the N.Y. School of the Performing Arts send up as they dance impromptu atop cars and trucks in the busy streets. The reality, though, is harsh: Failure is more likely, or a desperate late-night abortion, or a self-imposed exile worthy of Michael Corleone. The young actors, especially Gene Anthony Ray as a homeless dancer, are amazing. The remake serves up synthetic fluff so square it wouldn’t disturb a single moral at a Family on the Focus meeting. In 2009, there are no open gays at a drama/arts school. Seriously. The young actors are OK, hired more for their magazine cover appeal rather than gritty talent. The teachers (Megan Mullally especially) rule the roost. Both films suffer from a rushed auditions-to-graduation timeline and a myriad of plots that get lost in the kitchen sink pace. 1980: B+ 2009: C-

A Christmas Carol (2009)

“A Christmas Carol” is the second-most popular story concerning December 25, behind the whole Christ-Savior-manger thing. This version of Scrooge's awakening gives us Jim Carrey lording with wild amusement over an all-CGI animated spectacle from director Robert Zemeckis. The former Ace Ventura spins gold as the miser and his three ghosts, saying otherwise would make one a ba-humbug. As well, the animation is far better than Zemeckis’ other animated efforts, the “The Polar Express” and “Beowulf,” but that ain't saying much. Yes, eyes finally sparkle, and skin has creases and sags never seen before in this fare. But we are still talking mannequin herky-jerky inhuman bodies. A couple years worth of Christmases went into this flick, the best effects Disney can buy, and with that, the beautiful simplicity of Dickens’ tale is buried under razzle-dazzle fairy dust. Here’s hoping Zemeckis leaves the birth of Jesus alone. B-

The Crazies (1973 and 2009)

Remakes are shadows of their originals, right? Every once in a while, though, an exception appears. Such is the case of “The Crazies.” Both follow the same outline: A military plane crashes in a small town’s main water source (Pennsylvania in 1973, Iowa in 2009) and unleashes a chemical weapon. The insidious agent turns the locals into mad killers, and the Army steps in for control. Then extermination. The ’73 version is spearheaded by Zombie King George A. Romero, who also has a co-writer/producer credit on the remake (directed by Breck Eisner).

Version 1 is a herky-jerky K-Mart cheapie that bounces between two firefighters and one’s girlfriend, stiff military honchos and a desperate scientist. Way too many people. There’s precious little suspense and no ending. I dug the scenes with normal regular folk fighting for their lives when they are mistaken for zombie-like killers, but the commentary push on Kent State falls flat. C+

Version 2 is a grisly violent flick that focuses only on two lawmen and one’s wife, skipping the larger picture. A total lack of outside information and the fine actors drive the suspense. Several lapses in logic and a lack of satire hurt the film, but it’s wildly entertaining. Two scenes rock: A deranged principal with a pitchfork and an equally mad coroner with a bone saw. The violence is nasty, but emotional, too. B

The Secret of the Kells (2009)

I may have missed the unique, Irish children’s tale “The Secret of the Kells” if it had not landed an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature for 2009. Thank goodness it did. “Kells” boasts some of the most innovative, out-there animation I’ve ever seen. The story is simple, playing like a first chapter: A young orphan boy is kept within the village walls by his paranoid, shockingly tall uncle. Young Brandon wants to visit the forbidden forest, and with the help of an elderly scribe, he does just that. I shall give away no more. Directors Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey have made one beautiful film. “Kells” pops with artwork inspired by ancient Bible margin art, Cubism, Expressionism, Japanese inks, water colors, chalk drawing, kaleidoscopes, etc. Inspired. Not charted to exceed CGI 3-D box office records. The dialogue is great and slyly funny, the themes dark and magical, the music hummable and ... what else is there to say? I’m ready for more Kells. A-

Food Inc. (2009)

“Food Inc.” is unshakable. I almost became a vegetarian. A Farmer’s Market, buy local, vegan. I still may. Thank God it mixes hope with much horror. The horror is the food on our collective dinner tables, provided by multi-billion dollar corporations that have turned eating -- the essence of humanity – into a commodity with no value for life. A military industrial complex. To wit: We’re paying companies to kill us slowly through food that is not real: X-Men chickens, lab-made soy beans and tomatoes reddened with God knows what. Director Robert Kenner and his narrators, Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, show us the slaughterhouses and detail the grueling death of a toddler by food poisoning, but they also introduce a Virginia farmer who loves the land, and wants to do right by people and animals. Stellar interviews and vignettes go a long way in teaching us who we are, because as the cliché goes, we are what we eat. See this now because the big corps say it’s a lie, and see it before we follow the GOP/Tea Party into handing the keys of the kingdom over to companies that have no values but for stocks. Price, that is, not animal. A

Gamer (2009)

“Gamer” is the poster child for a Hollywood bankrupt of any new ideas and one remote soul. My God, I sound conservative. (Help!) Gerald Butler (“300”) scowls as a violent convict/loving poppa who is a pure and innocent soul who must fight his way to freedom via a world-televised bloodbath version of “Every Bad Futuristic Action Movie Ever Made.” No cliche is left unturned, and is, in fact, repeatedly groped and man-handled in the dark of this dark and seedy story. The sorriest attempt at wit in this witless shit-fest has Butler chug a fifth of vodka before battle, so he can later drunkenly vomit and piss the liquid out into a truck’s fuel tank. For his getaway. Because that works. Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor pretend to damn a world that enjoys watching rape and murder on TV and in film, yet take joy as their jackhammer camera hovers over a woman’s pelvis as she is sexually assaulted and uses slow-motion for every bloody flying skull and toe. Relentlessly vulgar, and not remotely interesting. D-

Pandorum (2009)

In space, no one can hear you sigh. “Pandorum” is one of those giddy sci-fi flicks where some monstrous species hunts the crew members of a vast ship, promising thrills, blood and madness. We start off smart with a claustrophobic nightmare as astronaut Bower (Ben Foster) awakens from hyper-sleep in a tube that resembles a coffin. He’s panicked, covered in dead skin tissue and his memory is a wiped-out mess. With the help of his equally dazed and confused commander (Dennis Quaid), Bower learns two things quickly: The ship is a last-ditch haven for the human race, and (!!!) they are not alone. Alas, the dye is cast the second Quaid recalls a story about previous space travelers wigging out crazy after hyper-sleep. Director Christian Alvart and his writers serve up 30-year-old shitty leftovers, from the self-sacrificing minority to the “shocker” betrayal that was obvious an hour before. I love the art design and the penultimate climax with Foster crawling to salvation, but in the end it’s all sighs, few screams. B-

Planet 51 (2009)

Despite a full crop of Spanish creators, the CGI animated flick “Planet 51” is a very American spoof on the 1950s genre of space invasion flicks. The coin is flipped though: The invader is a NASA astronaut, and the victim planet an orb full of green creatures who live similar to the U.S. of A.’s population circa 1959. Dwayne Johnson voices Chuck Baker, the visitor who speaks in hyper sci-fi/jock/hero clichés as he tries to steal back his spaceship. Justin Long is the greenie who helps him, with Gary Oldman as the typical Army general with gun powder for brains. The movie is harmless fun and cute, but every gag is lifted from better sci-fi flicks. Disney could sue over the robot here that blatantly rip-offs WALL-E, melded with Eve. Speaking of that Pixar gem, “51” is as redundant as “WALL-E” is stirring. Good work by Johnson. C+

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

“The Men Who Stare at Goats” is a spineless stab at the war satire genre -- war is irrational, why try and rationalize it? -- created by “Catch 22” (book) and “M*A*S*H” (film). “Men” skips bloodshed, offering a high (literal) concept story – the use of mind-control warfare and psychic drugs against the enemy.

Ewan McGregor is reporter Bob Wilton who flees an imploded marriage to Kuwait circa 2004. Bob’s hope: Write an epic story, become famous and win the missus back. His ticket is Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a Special Forces operator who claims he can burst clouds and kill goats with his mind. As Bob and Lyn drive (alone) into Iraq, they meet kidnappers, IEDs, Kevin Spacey and a secret base.

The best satires give us a hook -– people to care about, a maddening danger, or an edge, they also allow us characters unaware they are the butt of a joke. (Everyone is dead serious in "Dr. Strangelove," after all. Classic.) You can see the actors smirking here. This amounts to a piss-poor Coens knockoff with Clooney as the heroic idiot, Jeff Bridges rehashing Lebowski, and Spacey going gaga for Twizzlers. “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” had more to say about war. (Clooney pal Grant Heslov directed, not the Coens. Or Kubrick.)

Every joke is a near-decade late: If you thought LSD gags died out with Timothy Leary, you’d be wrong. As for the McGregor/Jedi jokes, who wants to recall those prequel films? D+

Alien Trespass (2009)

“Alien Trespass” is a tribute and gentle spoof of the 1950s alien invasion flicks that promised “us vs. them” fights, spaceships, ray guns, damsels in distress and square-jawed Anglo-Saxon heroes. This has nearly all of those ingredients, except a reason to exist. And it’s in color. Horrible color. The simple gist: A spacecraft crashes outside a Texas town, and the unseen alien pilot seizes the body of a local genius (Eric McCormick) as it diddles about trying to capture its prisoner, a slimy zucchini with one eye ball. I loved the cast and slight tweaks at ’50s culture: The brain and his wife (Jody Thompson) have a rockin’ sex life, but sleep in separate twin beds. But here’s the thing, this has been done before: “Independence Day” is a fantastic subversive comedy spoof of space invasion flicks, with the heroes being Jewish and African-American. I laughed from start to finish at “ID4,” and got mean looks. There’s nothing interesting here. This is a yawner. B-

Bronson (2009)

Pulling from “The King of Comedy” and “Natural Born Killers,” the gonzo bipic “Bronson” tells the ultra-violent tale of Michael Peterson, a.k.a. Charles Bronson, a.k.a. Britain’s most violent criminal. Bronson (Tom Hardy of “Inception”) tells us he can’t sing or act, but wants fame. So he (successfully) chooses the route of unmitigated, pulverizing violence as his golden ticket. The destination: Prison. Behind bars is his world to play with, and that he does to the fullest extent for 35-and-counting years, and mostly in solitary confinement. Director/co-writer Nicolas Winding Refn uses a “King” trick to dramatize Bronson’s inner workings as the prisoner performs on a “stage” to an audience alive only in his head. It is fascinating and scary as Hardy gives a thundering, crushing performance. Even as Hardy as Bronson commits heinous acts fully naked and covered in any combination of blood, soap, oil and/or black paint, he can't not be watched. A mix of horror, comedy and blow-hard direction add kicks to the movie, which may only be playing in Bronson’s own mind. A-

A Haunting in Connecticut (2009)

“A Haunting in Connecticut” is one of those “based on a true story” haunted house flicks that takes 5 percent of a barely credible story and runs with it. Ghosts. Bodies every where. A serial killer. Blood seeping up from the floors. Yet, this film works. Even with the clichés such as the ill, but wise beyond measure priest (Elias Koteas). Maybe it’s the film’s focus on a family (led by Virginia Madsen) dealing with a son with cancer, and how the script plays with the idea that if the boy cops to strange visions – say, a dead guy – then he could be taken off the meds that may save his life. Director Peter Cornwell goes 111 on the creepy-crawly-nasty scenes, leaving nothing to chance that one might think this is a hallucination. For a low-budget horror, it’s entertaining as hell, with great makeup and effects. B