Only Lovers Left Alive (2014)

Art House Golden Rule: One must love Jim Jarmusch, he of “Night on Earth.” But his latest film is “Only Lovers Left Alive,” a vampire flick that itself seems eternal, a dark slog made for Gen Xers who covered their dorm walls with Trent Reznor posters, and still have only one weekly load of laundry: Black and very, very dark gray. I squirmed as 120+ minutes ticked by. Oh, Jarmusch spins amazing ideas on death of innovation -– music, poetry, the American car –- in a world of YouTube fame. Mass consumerism is the true mark of the undead. But, damn, how many slo-mo shots do we get of Tilda Swinton stalking down Tangiers alleyways as fat guys leer? She and Tom Hiddleston (Loki from “Thor”) are husband and wife, her living in North Africa with books, he in Detroit with his music, bemoaning the death of the once-thriving metropolis that gave us Chevys. I tried to bite and drink, but the Jack White as a vampire joke? Wooden stake. “Only” only comes alive when luminous Mia Wasikowski appears as a bloodsucker with no self-control. She’s sent packing too soon. C+

Stoker (2013)

Director Park Chan-wook (2003’s “Oldboy”) makes his American debut with “Stoker,” a gorgeous, nasty domestic drama turned serial killer thriller that takes Hitchock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” and cranks up the violence and perversion to skin-crawling affect. As with the 1943 classic tale, a girl (Mia Wasikowska) suspects her romantic/handsome/suave Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) of murderous deeds after her father mysteriously dies and the uncle -– father’s brother -– moves into to help comfort the mother (Nicole Kidman). The line “We don’t have to be friends, we’re family,” sums up the story: There is no love here. This familial lot is as creepy and somber as the house they reside in. That is a double edged sword. Park and writer (and openly gay actor) Wentmorth Miller start in crazy town and stay, banging you in the head with a frying pan from frame one. Hitchcock served a fine dinner first, then took to swinging. Such is life. Hitchcock would dig the dark path of our central heroine. Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland”) owns the film, against the cool Goode and Kidman, who cooks up an acting storm from a role blankly stamped “frigid.” Watch it twice. Squirm. B+

Jane Eyre (2011)

I’ve not read Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel “Jane Eyre,” nor have I ever paid attention to the dozens of film/TV versions that came before this adaptation starring Mia Wasikowska of Oscar-hopeful “The Kids Are All Right” as the titular character. Blame my lifelong manly ignorance.

The story is pure 1800s English drama: A castaway child is thrown into the meat grinder existence of a church-run boarding school-cum-orphanage, and suffers greatly. When Jane hits 18, she bolts for sunlight and a job as a head mistress at the estate of a singularly disagreeable man named Rochester (Inglourious Basterd Michael Fassbender). From there, it’s a romantic drama.

Director Cary Fukunaga creates an amazing world, going from vast open landscapes to moody interiors where you can feel the … history. (That is, the suffocating standards of Old England.) The romance might not boil to epic melodrama, but I dug Jane, a young woman who has experienced much woe but never bows or weeps like a beaten puppy.

Because it’s strongly evident on screen, I’m sure Bronte probably held a blade to the throat of her then-theocratic English government, one that upheld wealth and class above all, and used religion as a weapon of oppression in the name of greed and power. With much our of country heading fast to a right-wing church state that will boot stomp the poor, the weak, the gay, it’s timely as ever. (That Jane holds onto her faith throughout this film version is a miracle in itself, talk about self-preservation.)

I downloaded the book to my iPad, and will read it next. I wonder if Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann has ever read ... Na, not a chance. A-

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Tim Burton films always have wild visuals to make any film fan stare in awe, as is the case with “Alice in Wonderland,” his take on the famous Lewis Carroll story of a girl lost in a strange world that only an opium habit could fuel. Burton + Carroll: It’s a marriage made in cinema heaven. But this take isn’t about young Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole. No. It’s about angst-filled teen Alice (Mia Wasikowska) re-falling down the rabbit hole to re-meet Rabbit, the Dweedle twins, the cat … you get the point. Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter, whacked hair and crazy colored Elijah Wood eyes. Helena Bonham Carter is the Queen of Hearts, a head big enough to block sunlight. Anne Hathaway is the White Queen, who walks around with her hands up in the air. Um, why exactly? It’s all so much, and yet so little. There is no glistening-eye, heart-piercing wonder here, as in film gods “Beatlejuice” and “Edward Scissorhands.” Danny Elfman provides the film’s best asset, a music score to die for, and paint and draw and write and dream by. B-