Crimson Peak, Black Mass, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (all 2015), and Massive Movie Round Up, Part … I lost count

A second hand surgery left me unable to type, but gave me time to catch movies at home with only a few in theaters. Add in that a new job, and I’ve been busy. Damn busy. Not seeing new movies busy. Small town life does not help. (I hate living in a small town.) With that, onward with miniscule new releases and many more older films… C’est la vie.

Guillermo del Toro -– God love him -- goes back to gothic horror in the English language Crimson Peak (2015), with Mia Wasikowski going “Jane Eyre” again as a woman who falls for the wrong guy (Tom Hiddleston) in the wrong house (it’s haunted, he has a creepy sister played by Jessica Chastain) and bad shit happens. Head wounds. Poison. Blood. Few make violence as personal as del Toro. Ghosts lean close to “Devil’s Backbone,” but this is same world consistency. Moody, dark, and very 1950s/60s spook house horror, this is a sick, nasty fun. Chastain is a great villain, outpacing our bland heroine by miles, and would del Toro (or Edgar Allan Poe) have it any other way? Damn fine score. B+

Johnny Depp goes dark in Black Mass (2015) as notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, but bad makeup and ugly blue contact lenses render the actor undead, looking like a leftover from “Twilight,” or worse, “Interview with a Vampire.” I still hate that film. When the villainous White helps an old lady carry groceries, all pleasantries, I pleaded, “Run away, granny!” A true letdown. One can’t take his eyes off Depp’s fake eyes, for all the wrong reasons. Watch it, but, you’ll never forget it’s Depp “acting.” On the plus side: The true story plot cracks hard, and the supporting cast is marvelous (Joel Edgerton, especially, as an FBI agent). But, really, I never settled in at any moment. C+

On the other hand, we go to see “Mission: Impossible” films to see Tom Cruise play Tom Cruise, Movie Superhero. Ethan Hunt? Just a fictional name. In Mission: Impossible: Rouge Nation (2015), Cruise and his pals (Simon Pegg plays the perfect Simon Pegg) take on an ex-Brit spy turned terrorist, with Cruise hanging onto a cargo jet by his fingers, and Alec Baldwin as a CIA Director practically winking as he calls everything in every film onscreenludicrous, and Cruise’s Hunt’s exploits a “force of nature.” Huzzah! Love. A-

Slow West (2015) is brief -- 80 minutes –- but it plays with big ideas and dishes dry, dark humor. Kodi Smit-McPhee plays a young Scot new to America, crossing 1870s America on a trek to find his crush. The boy is out of his league, and not in the know that his love and her pop are wanted by bounty hunters (Michael Fassbender and Ben Mendohlsohn among them). This is American history for real: Freedom and glory? Myth. For the great majority, it was misery, with salt poured in all wounds. B+

I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story (2015) is a documentary on the man behind Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, two of the most beloved “Sesame Street” characters for any child of the 70s. (When Big Bird appeared in “The Muppet Movie,” I stood straight in my seat, pointed and yelled, “It’s Big Bird!) The film paints Spivey in all his glory, talented puppeteer, doting dad, a man with depression and violent daddy issues, but even at 70 minutes, the film seems damn long. Maybe a better, shorter PBS special? B

Lone Survivor (2013) follows four Navy Seals (Mark Whalberg leads) on a recon mission deep into Afghanistan territory, capturing intel on a high-prized target. When the mission goes shit, Walberg is alone, wounded and in dire need of help. Director Peter Berg sells his story with guts and bravado, and heart for Afghanistans. Whalberg’s too old by 15 years? Nitpicking. B+

It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) is the classic car chase comedy, putting Spencer Tracey, Phil Silvers, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Ethel Merman, Milton Berle -– and tons of others stars of the day and silents –- after buried money. Epic, endlessly funny, director Stanley Kramer has a ball making his cast make fools of themselves. Best scene: Winters vs. gas station. Even the overkill length is tolerable. A

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines shows how James Cameron’s prior two films ran like precision watches. This entry puts director Jonathan Mostow in charge. Fuck up. The lead is pretty boy Nick Stahl as John Conner, who has shit to do with the teen John played by Edward Furlong in “T2.” Furlong vibed tough. Stahl? Frat boy. Schwarzenegger is here for the paycheck. Plot holes loom. Connor tells us he’s a nomad, living off the grid, but … he never leaves Los Angeles? Crap film. C-

Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken (2014) follows the unbelievable, but true story of Italian-American Louis Zamperini, Olympian hero turned World War II airmen turned POW of the Japanese. Jack O’Connell is the lead. Despite the incredible story, the drama onscreen never sparks, and only vaguely inspires. B-

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) is the fourth live action film of the 1980s indie comic darling about four half-shelled, talking green heroes who battle evil with swords and sticks. Most unrealistic scene? Our New Yorker heroes order Pizza Hunt (!!) when they want a pie. Fuckin' really? Pizza Hut in New York? Ruined all the realism. D+

Australian horror masterpiece The Babadook (2014) sucks you and offers a real gut punch: Which is scarier: A demon or raising a wild child as a singe mum, or are they one and the the same? Jennifer Kent writes and directs, and Essie Davis is the most tortured, troubled mom since Rosemary got pregnant. A

I’m shocked how much The Abyss (1989) holds up, 25 years on. James Cameron’s alien thriller, anti-war drama takes place almost entirely underwater on a submerged oil rig where Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio deal with other worldly visitors and dangerous military types (led by Michael Biehn). The water snake scene remains one of cinema’s greatest “Wow!” moments. I prefer Cameron’s long cut. A-

Dan Stevens made fans angry when he bailed “Downton Abbey” at its peak fame. Turns out, good move. His first starring role is The Guest (2014), where Stevens turns all those romantic charmer moves on their head as an ex-soldier terrorizing an American family. Made in the spirit of “Stepfather” and “Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” with a huge wink at the genre, “Guest” is wildly entertaining and damn funny. A-

I had never seen Grey Gardens (1975) until it showed on TCM. Filmmaker brothers Albert and David Maysles certainly createdba masterpiece of film oddity, following the cousin and aunt –- both named Edith Beale -- of Jackie Kennedy. These women, rich beyond measure, live in squalor and literal shit, in a Long Island beach house past due condemning. They bemoan life. They won’t budge. As the film progressed, I felt bad for these women, clearly in need of psychiatric help. Does the film belittle them? Maybe. A-

Tak3n (2015) is the third entry in the film series involving Liam Neeson threatening bad guys on a cell phone, this time with a family member DOA. Producer/writer Luc Besson and director Oliver Megaton fly past any logic as their entire plot rests on the temperature of fresh bagels. Every single minute is mind numbing stupid, laughably so, but Neeson somehow saves the enterprise from total disastrous crash. I swear to god, the final scene has Forest Whitaker as a cop apologize for everything we just watched. C-

Non-Stop (2014)

“Non-Stop” is not a comedy. I laughed my ass off. Not a good sign for a thriller that stars Liam Neeson in Angry Action Figure Mode and plays on 9/11 fears of hijackings and police state surveillance. Neeson is Bill Marks, suicidal fuck-up air cop with a booze problem and a tragic life who should never hold a gun, much less be issued one by Uncle Sam for work at 30,000 feet. But here Bill is anyway, sweating buckets as he texts back and forth with a psycho who threatens to down the plane unless $1.5M is delivered to a Swiss bank account. One in Bill’s name. Cue drama! Cue the scenes where Neeson’s hero types. And types. And types. And calls his boss. Bill also kills a man, beats random passengers, screams, and waves and fires his gun like a madman. Why? This is “Taken” in the air. A cell phone and a gun, if those are in a script does Neeson just sign on? As stewardesses, Michelle Dockery of “Downton Abbey” and Lupito Nyong’o of “12 Years a Slave” do just about nothing. I’d watch a movie with them as the heroes. C-

Stolen (2012)

If Liam Neeson from “Taken” showed up in Nicolas Cage’s my-daughter’s-been-kidnapped thriller “Stolen,” the movie would have lasted 15 minutes. But he doesn’t. Cage plays Will, a master thief who sees life get worse after an eight year stint in prison. Case 1: Cops are on him like creepy on a Southern politician. Case 2: His presumed dead ex-partner (Josh Lucas) is out for revenge, snatching said daughter. The plot centers around taxi cabs. Lucas’ thug tools around in one. Will steals another. Why? No idea. Up against the always unhinged Cage, Lucas seems to have taken the villain role as a one-up challenge. After the prologue, he sports greasy surfer hair, a lazy eye, shaving scars, rotten teeth, an emphysemic cough, and a fake leg. He screams and growls every line. If this freak dropped into a “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, he’d get strange looks. Cage reacts by talking Swedish. Seriously. The climax of this Simon West flick one-ups the actors with a fight to the death not seen since “Freddy vs. Jason.” At an abandoned amusement park. Zany. Crazy. Terrible. Laughable. Grotesque. Better than the “Taken” sequel. C-

Taken 2 (2012)

“Taken 2” is pure GOP values: ’Merica is pure and strong, and every last Muslim is an evil perv-o killer, and women are helpless creatures who cannot drive a car or plan a vacation without male supervision. Fox News would endorse it. The themes are serious, I think. Liam Neeson again plays the ex-CIA agent who shoots,stabs, stomps, and rips apart dozens of evil foreigners to save his daughter (Maggie Grace) and now kidnapped wife (Famke Janssen) from slavery. We’re in Turkey and Islam looms like a disease, and every person of color -– be it police to hotel clerk -- is part of the conspiracy. Fox News. It’s all less than 90 minutes, so the trip is mercifully short, and Neeson is fast becoming a thinking man’s Chuck Norris, even if the thinking is fascist and WASP. To get a PG-13, director Olivier Megaton (his real name?) goes bloodless and when necks break in Neeson’s fists, we hear no sound because snapping bone is somehow more offensive than gunfire. The editing is terrible, and so  is the slant that Neeson (wonderful actor) is taking onscreen. D+