The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

I fell off the Wes Anderson Wagon years back. I loathed “Moonrise Kingdom,” having OD’d on his hipster bullshit. Now comes “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” and I’m back on board. Maybe because this WWII-ish (that is, everything here is fictional and with faux names) flick is pure caper, a 1940s-type adventure that plays like Tin-Tin for adults, but with a sharp political edge on violence and the act of needing a passport to travel our great world. But it never preaches. It’s a raunchy, clever comedy. Ralph Fiennes (seriously funny and edgy) is Gustave, the manager of the hotel of the title who obsesses every whim of his rich guests and happily screws old ladies. When one (Tilda Swinton in makeup) croaks, Gustave gets the blame. I won’t dish another word. Watch the story jump three hoops via flashbacks and rocket forward, with the required Bill Murray cameo, Willem Dafoe as a scar-faced killer, and a prison break better than the “Shawshank Redemption.” Anderson thankfully is no longer out to impress us with just how far out he can make a French movie reference, but is having pure, high fun. And it works. A-

Rush (2013)

What got into Ron Howard’s blood? After two too many Dan Brown movies, the man who made “Apollo 13” back when I was in college has made a knockout film that torches the screen with a bristling, heart-puncher drama about 1970s European Formula One racing. On track, it screams loud with men relentlessly chancing death for sport, and off track it screams ego and misery, excess, and raw sex. Sex from Opie? Yes. The true story: Brit James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth of “Thor”) and Austrian Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl of “Inglorious Basterds”) were deep bitter rivals of the world racing circuit, each eyeing a championship as if it were the fingertip of God Himself. Hunt has Playgirl looks, charisma to spare, and reckless arrogant attitude, while rich boy Lauda obsesses cold stats and logic, profit margin,  and is an asshole to spare. In the eyes of Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan, a horrific accident literally burns one into a new realization of life, but dooms the other to his chosen path. Howard’s depiction of racing kicks and horror is a blast as he drops us behind wheels and inside engines at every moment, revving our pulse and dread.  A-

A Dangerous Method (2011)

When David Cronenberg -- master of exploding head psychological atom bombs, and violence mixed with sex – said he was making “A Dangerous Method,” the ménage a trois between pioneer head-shrinks Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Sabina Spielrein, I was stoked. I wanted envelopes torched, singed paper ashes blown in the faces of prudes. So count me wanting, put out, so to speak. Except for a few wha? spanking scenes, “Dangerous” is all talk, and I should not be surprised, as this was once called “Talking Cure.” Our focus is on Spielrein, German Jew, wealthy, and hysterically mad, put in the care of Jung (Michael Fassbender), the protégé of master head doc Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Sabina bends Jung’s tight-starched collar, and Freud feuds, and Word War I dawns, and Jung’s last scene has him going like Michael Corleone’s last scene in “Godfather, Part II,” lawn chair and all. No burning desire, no passion. Talk. Knightly’s accent grinds, and Mortensen’s Freud has all the zing of Ask Jeeves, so it’s Fassbender’s show, and he’s damn good, but a notch below “Shame,” the 2011 sex-obsessed flick that’s all dangerous method. B-

Black Death (2010)

Few sights are as sick as some bigot spouting off about the evil of Islam, as they uphold the Christian Church as the Shining Symbol of Humanity. They should watch “Black Death,” a grisly horror-thriller about the mid-1300s Black Plaque that ravaged Europe. The power-mad Church calls the plague God’s punishment against the unfaithful, and the only way back to His (its) grace is absolute submission. (Sound familiar?) Eddie Redmayne plays a naïve monk conflicted about his oath to God who travels with several Christian soldiers to hunt an untouched village, for it must hold sinners. Director Christopher Smith and writer Dario Poloni don’t go simple, for that village has a blood thirst greater than the Church. Sean Bean is the head Soldier of Christ, and his demise is one for the Sean Bean Movie Death record books. Too bad Redmayne is so boyish he makes Tin-Tinseem like Jason Statham and fails huge at the darkest scenes that end this blackest of tales. Smart, tense, and wide-open as the similar-themed “Season ofthe Witch” is dull, dumb and CGI’d to hell, “Death” coolly reminds us that Men of God are rarely ever that. B