Tusk (2014)

“Tusk” cannot be unseen or flushed away. It deserves both. Pitched I suppose as a spoof on the “Human Centipede” flicks, once-talent Kevin Smith directs with the urgency of a fatty waving off farts as he sits alone on his watching bad TV. Justin Long plays a shock jock who gets kidnapped by a Canadian madman (Michael Parks) with a fetish for walruses. Yes, walruses. So, poor Long becomes a walrus. Yeah, Tusks in his mouth. Flippers. Funny mustache. Bodily morphed like the teens in “Centipede.” But it’s the audience eating shit here. Smith spoons it. Satirizing an OTT satire is a bad idea. Smith is all bad ideas. Halfway in, he drops in Johnny Depp as a redneck Canadian Inspector Clouseau hunting Parks’ psycho in a side plot that stops the film dead. Jokes about Canadian accents (!!) abound. (Are those still funny?) The tonal shift is so bewildering and Depp’s “performance” so wink-wink self-aware, it’s as if Smith is testing his most loyal fans’ patience: “Can you believe this shit!?!” Long gives his all. As a BFF, watch the lights go out in Haley Joel Osment’s eyes. Career panic. I can’t say Depp even cares. D-

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-