A Most Wanted Man (2014)

One cannot watch Anton Corbijn’s ultra-tense “A Most Wanted Man” without mourning Philip Seymour Hoffman’s shocking death. “Most” is Hoffman’s final lead role, a notion that undeniably hovers over every dark frame. This story is rooted in futility and a man facing certain doom, likely eternal loneliness. Hoffman is chain-smoker German spy chief Gunther Bachmann, suffocating under the pressure of his job: Tracking suspected Middle Eastern terrorists in Germany post-9/11. The trick: Bachmann wants his suspects walking free to lead him to larger, more dangerous targets. His latest mark is a maybe innocent son (Grigoriy Dobrygin) of a war criminal who may want to truly dissolve his father’s ill-gotten future. The man brings into his circle a banker (Willem Dafoe) and a lawyer (Rachel McAdams) who quickly realize there are no bystanders in terrorism. More so, Bachmann is being hounded by bureaucrats to make arrests now, forget logistics. Who’s right? Who’s innocent? Nothing matters, and from the John Le Carre book from which this comes, that mindset can only lead to another dark day. The finale is a pulverizing gut punch. Hoffman truly marvels as a tired man crumbling before us. See it nonetheless. A

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-

Wild at Heart (1990)

David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” is another slice of a dream-state American pie. Burned to a crisp. Nobody sets a mood quicker or with romantic/doomed/thrilling atmosphere than Lynch, and this film is loaded with scenes beautiful (a couple in love dancing wildly on a desert side road) and hellish (Grace Zabriskie as a wordless demonic killer) and downright weird (Crispin Glover, going 111 on the nut-bucket scale).

The dancing lovers are Nicolas Cage’s Sailor, a newly paroled convict, and Laura Dern’s Lula, an innocent with a her bat-poop crazy momma (Diane Ladd, Dern’s real mother). The couple head West, fleeing mom, who sends a private eye (Harry Dean Stanton) and then a troupe of killers. I won’t dish on the rest of the pretzel-twisty plot, but say only that Lynch riffs off “The Wizard of Oz,” but with hard-core graphic sexual and violent content. There literally is a magic globe, a Wicked Witch and a Good Witch.

There’s so much to love here. A roadside car accident in particular is a dip into tragic/magic life and death as a Sherilyn Fenn plays a young girl whose head literally splits open. (Half the cast came from “Twin Peaks.”) Yet, this whacked trip Cannes Film Festival winner has its faults: Sheryl Lee, the dead Laura Palmer, plays a great corpse. Playing the Good Witch, not so much. She sucks, actually. And Willem Dafoe plays a disgusting, ill-conceived, seedy reincarnation of Frank Booth from “Blue Velvet,” but with a dash of “Deliverance” teeth and the strut of a 13-year-old boy. Dennis Hopper’s Booth came from Hell and remains the absolute movie psychopath. Dafoe’s bonehead is an unfunny joke. And, sure enough, someone’s head is blown off into tiny chunks. Is this Lynch on autopilot?

Side note: I still don’t get Lynch’s apparent fear of North Carolina. (Is it the barbecue?) “Heart” opens in Cape Fear, N.C., not too far off the map from Lumberton, where “Blue Velvet” was set. Or is he just paying homage to the original “Cape Fear” from decades back, as the 1992 remake was not yet released? Not sure...

Oh, this is where Cage’s Elvis homage began, and several years before the former’s career crashed deader than the latter's fat butt. Cage is throbbing with energy here, frightening one moment (the opening scene) and insanely funny the next (“What do you f-----s want?”). He is on 100 percent, though, in a daring, damn the rules role. He needs good directors. Alas, Dern plays another pure girl who bemoans if love is enough to conquer evil and death. Lynch loves a blonde like Hitchcock.

Not Lynch’s best by a long shot, but still a shocking, mind-blowing Avant-Garde treat with scenes that dead end but nevertheless fascinate. “Velvet” from start to finish stays on the soul, and is part of me, whereas “Heart” comes and goes in spurts. Still, less than perfect Lynch is one amazing ride. B+

Spider-Man (2002)

I still truly want to love the "Spider-Man" film. I had been waiting my entire geek life for a big screen adaptation worthy of the comic book exploits of my favorite superhero, and I got it in 2002. After all, I was vastly disappointed even at age 5 by a late 1970s TV film version. But I can't love this film. Despite director Sam Raimi ("A Simple Plan") pitching the ball high, and Tobey Maguire ("The Cider House Rules") is the ideal player for Peter Parker, the nerd who's bitten by a radioactive (or genetically altered here) spider and gains the ability to do whatever a spider can.

The film reaches a perfect Marvel highpoint in a dazzling scene where a distraught Parker, wearing jeans and a red sweatshirt, tracks the thug who shot his beloved Uncle Ben. Raimi and his VFX crew allow the viewer to feel like he or she is Spider-Man, swinging and leaping from one NYC skyscraper to the next. Then the hour mark hits, and the film just breaks apart with the full appearance of the Green Goblin. That would be Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn -- the genius scientist and father of Parker's only friend Harry -- who's gone insane after an experiment gone wrong.

It's not Dafoe's fault. It's the damn costume -- metallic, cheap and with a helmet that looks like an inverted penis, the character is laughable bad. Each encounter between hero and villain grows more tiresome as you see Dafoe's near-hidden mouth mimic words behind this dumb mask that looks painful to wear. It kills the film.

Nit-pickling? Yes. But every comic book story rests not on its super hero but the villains he or she is pitted against, and this one fails. My disappointments here were corrected in the vastly better sequel. As the soon-to-be doomed Harry, James Franco skates circles around Maguire in acting and charisma. He's the breakout star here. B

Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007)

"Mr. Bean's Holiday" is under 90 minutes, but it feels like watching paint dry in a rain storm while being water-boarded. The gist: Bean (Rowan Atkinson) wins a vacation from home (London) to Cannes, to visit the famed film festival. Bafoonery ensues. That's it, really. As a half-hour BBC feature, this would be dynamite, but nearly every scene is dragged out or dogged by glaring continuity mistakes. I loved "Bean," I've seen many of the shows and liked the first film, but this "Holiday" doesn't work. You laugh more at yourself for being dumb enough to watch the bloody thing than you laugh at what's going on in the film.
Willem Dafoe goes cheese as an egotistical actor-director who crosses paths with Bean. It's funny, until you think back that this man starred in "Platoon" and "Last Temptation of Christ." and "Shadow of the Vampire."
Skip the film, and watch the Bean show or any of Atkinson's finer work. Or get water-boarded. D