The Patriot (2000)

“Braveheart” goes Tea Party in “The Patriot,” a three-hour drama/revenge flick starring Mel Gibson as a Very Angry Man that only pretends it’s aghast at the terrible effects of war on one man’s soul and family, but really it’s jerk-off gun worship as every battle and death ups our blood and demand for Gibson to kill and maim. Gibson’s Benjamin Martin is a veteran turned Southern plantation owner – the blacks on his field are (cough) free, not slave – who gets sucked into the Revolutionary War after Brits kill his middle child. Director Rolland Emmerich needs his movie Red Coats -- led by Jason Issacs as a sniveling colonel – to be as evil as possible and commit atrocities that would make Nazis shudder to justify Martin’s blood lust. I get it, it’s a movie and we moviegoers love our Mel in seething Mad Max mode, but the flag-waving propaganda crosses into perversion. More aching is the depiction of slaves. The scene where a black man is conscripted by his cruel master, only to be followed by a comedic ginger 6-year-old boy asking to sign up for battle? Who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Patriotism with no insight. C-

The Conjuring (2013)

Shot with a marvelous 1970s vibe down to the opening credit crawl, “The Conjuring” takes the old “based on a true story” tag used by so lame horror movies and makes it something to scream about again. CGI? None that I saw. Plot: The Perrons (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor are the parents) move into a massive farm house. An old, hidden basement is found. Clocks stop. The dog dies. One girl sleep walks. Another is pulled from bed. Handclaps are heard. The instances then turn shocking until mother calls in Christian paranormal investigators (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). The woman can “see” ghosts, and the house is full of them. I’ll stop. Watch. Director James Wan works his film effortlessly, opening on a seemingly unrelated tale of doll. Are they unrelated? Music, editing, the giving of information, all are top notch, and climax is relentlessly tense. I have finally seen a film that can stand near “Exorcist.” I can’t get past one line where Farmiga says the ghost had not yet been violent. Did the actress misspeak? (Ignore that.) This is a nightmare inducer, the kind I’d sneak watch as a teen, sound low. I loved those moments. A- 

Boyhood (2014)

Filmed during a 12-year period, Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” follows a Texan child (Ellar Coltrane) from 6 to 18, from mishaps with pencil sharpeners to flirtations with marijuana and leaving for college. This has never been done before, not with one child, growing, maturing, faltering, and excelling in one motion. Stunt? No. The beauty of Linklater’s astounding film is how small it remains, this is not Gandhi, nor is there was or revolt. Mason plays Wii, watches movies, gets a car, a crappy job, and leaves for college. Mom (Patricia Arquette) struggles to better herself, for herself and her children (the director’s daughter, Lorelei Linklater, plays Mason’s sister), while dad (Ethan Hawke) takes decades to mature. Mistakes are made as mom remarries, and sees those relationships unravel fast, while dad quite can’t nail child interaction. Mason photographs. If there’s any “enemy” here, it is alcohol. Addiction, as empty escape. Linklater has Mason realize that trap on his own, observing, tasting for himself, observing, realizing. Coltrane’s performance is so natural, you buy him as Mason, unsure of where fiction and reality divide, and one cannot help but get swept up in Linklater’s ode to ordinary family life, drama, and love. A

P.S.  I'll revisit this film again and again, as I feel I will react to as I did “Tree of Life.” It is that good. That mind and soul altering. 

About Time (2014)

Writer/director Richard Curtis (“Love Actually”) gives the time travel genre a romantic jolt with “About Time,” a comedy drama that would leave a Terminator wet eyed. On his 21^st birthday, gawky Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) learns from his dad (Bill Nighy) that the men in his family can time travel. How so? Never explained. (What about the women, eh?) What is important is that Tim cannot pop Hitler or meet Van Gogh. He only can travel within his own lifetime. Indifferent to wealth or fame, Tim wants to fall in love. That he does with art geek Mary (Rachel McAdams), who shares a first name with Tim’s mother, a factoid our boy awkwardly share every time they meet. I do mean “every time” as Tim replays meeting Mary on repeat until it’s perfect, a fantasy every human likely plays out in their mind. In a move that’s on the sleeve and quite welcome for it, Curtis tips that fantasy is wasteful: Enjoy the moment, be it awkward, soggy, messy, or glorious. Perfectly ordinary, Gleeson and McAdams are a delight together. Some of the funniest bits are the side roads, especially Tim feeding a forgetful VIP actor his lines from off stage. A-

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

It amazes me “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” was ever needed. But so goes American history. It opens with a 1960s pop song playing as a giddy couple make its way from an airport to the girl’s childhood home, where she will introduce him to Mom and Dad. The couple is mixed race, her white (Katharine Houghton) and him black (Sidney Poitier). The taxi driver smirks. The parents (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey) are open liberals, but just how so? We find out in one long evening. Yes, it’s coy now, post-Loving vs. Virginia, but not too easy. Poitier’s fiancé puts a burden to the parents: Accept me and our whirlwind romance now or I call it off. Can anyone demand that? His doctor character is such a saint, it near smothers debate. The screenwriters intently did this to fully play the race card, but does it serve character? What if he were a reporter at Tracey’s old man’s paper? The dialogue is still sharp and Tracey –- then dying of cancer -- is powerful. Hepburn, too. Her crying is contagious. A-

Nebraska (2013)

Alexander Payne has made many drama/comedies with characters stuck in shit situations that skate the line of full-on farce. In “Nebraska,” Payne goes back home to tell a story about an old guy who won’t go out happy or content, but in a mess. Similarities to “About Schmidt” end here. Woody Grant (Bruce Dern, just damn amazing) is on the edge of dementia, brought about by age, hastened by booze. Woody reads a scam advertisement letter and thinks he’s won a $1 million and no one not his wife (June Squibb) or son (Will Forte, long past “SNL”) can convince his otherwise. The son decides a car trip to “collect” the faux prize will cure pop, with a stop in Walt’s dying hometown as a balm. Payne’s tale -- written by Bob Nelson -– plays at the great losses Nebraska and much of America has suffered, with cars lasting decades a thing of the past, and days of families building their homes by hand a faint memory. The movie is great in those moments, especially in stark black-and-white. But Payne introduces too many dull hick stereotypes too often, and one gets the sense that his American mourning comes with a wink. B+

The Family (2013)

Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer play husband and wife in the comedy-drama “The Family” which follows a mob-connected clan unable to keep their New Yawk F.U. attitude in check while living in rural France under witness protection. Dad pummels a shady plumber with a hammer, mom blows up a grocery for its lack of peanut butter, while the children (Dianna Argo and David Belle) pull of blackmail and crush anyone who crosses them. Tommy Lee Jones, haggard and grouchy as always, plays the haggard and grouchy U.S. federal agent who has to keep the family safe from assassins. See, De Niro’s dad snitched his mafia bosses and is now wanted. Director Luc Besson -– he made “The Professional” –- eyes slapstick comedy upfront, and drama and suspense later, asking us to sympathize with these hard-ass ’Mericans when the guns come. It’s an ugly shift: We’re not talking Bernstein Bears here. This family proudly dishes cruelty, yet when tables turn, suddenly violence is wrong? (Never mind the high body count of innocents.) Love the “Goodfellas” bit, though. B-

August: Osage County (2013)

Can’t go home again? In “August: Osage County,” you won’t want to go home. Taking his play to the screen, Tracy Letts’ family funeral corker blows fire with deep resentments, booze, pills, physical and emotional attack, drugs, incest, child rape attempts, and a suicide. Do not come for the entertainment. Come for drama largesse. We open on an Oklahoma couple well entrenched in the war that is marriage. Sam Sheppard is boozer poet Beverly, who sees caring for his cruel, dying wife (Meryl Streep) as a chore that infringes his boozing. Streep’s Viv has mouth cancer, much ironic as her mouth spews non-stop hate. So ironic. Bev hires an “Injun” –- their usage -– caregiver and then vanishes, forcing Viv to call in her grown daughters (including Julia Roberts as the oldest), and each arrives swinging in a one-upper game of FUBAR. Before car engines cool, tempers flare and brimstone flies. Look, the acting is amazing. Streep wows. Roberts fumes. Many scenes hit home, but it’s two hours of constant yelling as that Native American nurse (Misty Upham) silently looks on with flat eyes that say, “We lost our homes for these fools?,” and serves pie. Quite the stereotype throwback. B

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

The story of Walt Disney’s struggle to make the 1964 classic “Mary Poppins” has often been told during the past 50 years. Author P.L. Travers fought Disney on every word during production and loathed the movie (the latter is outright squashed). This cleaned-up squabble is the basis for “Saving Mr. Banks” which shows how Travers (real name Helen Goff, played by Emma Thompson) was won over by Disney’s (Tom Hanks) charm, and explores why the children’s book author was so harsh -- mainly her haunting Outback youth. This is a Disney film, though, and from the opening logos, it works to make the audience smile and cry, damn the facts. It succeed, mostly. But “Banks” is grossly off point. Walt himself woos Travers with his own uneasy childhood tale, but it’s for naught. Yes, Walt had it hard, many do, but Travers’ parents were non-functioning adults riddled by alcoholism and mental illness that reached the act of suicide. (Worst offense: Mistaking dad’s drunken fatherly doting and kindness for actual doting and kindness.) No talk from a nice old guy or spoonful of sugar can remedy that. Still, the happy tunes and sunny spirit are difficult to resist. Disney magic, that. B-

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+

Prisoners (2013)

Dark dramas about child kidnapping do not make for Hollywood fare. “Prisoners” breaks that mold with its unsettling story one that remains gripping –- for the most part -- to the end, with a cast that digs deep. It centers on a Pennsylvania family (an excellent Hugh Jackman as father and Mario Bello as mother) that believes in God, guns, and “be ready” survivalist skills. Their all-American spirit shatters when their young daughter disappears on Thanksgiving Day, along with the child of an African-American family (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis). Jackman’s father who demands self-control loses himself to rage and takes hostage and savagely tortures a suspect (Paul Dano) cut loose by police for lack of evidence. What would Jesus do? Does it matter? Meanwhile, a detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) searches for the girls, hitting roadblocks and errors: He causes a jailhouse death, a move that shatters not his confidence, but the story’s logic flow. Ugly move: Director Denis Villeneuve marginalizes the mothers as they play to weeping clichés as the men do Manly Things. I fumed. But I also loved many details: The turkey and pie leftovers sitting uncollected for days and the sheer dullness of next-door evil in our America. B

Frances Ha and Stories We Tell (both 2013)

Two recent art-house hit films came my way that focus on women, with females in partial control (directing, producing, writing) behind the camera. Films about women by women are too rare. I wish they would flood cinemas as do superhero flicks. Imagine having to choose which female-directed film you will see this weekend. Enough dreaming, onward…

Greta Gerwig co-wrote and is in every scene of “Frances Ha,” a black-and-white comedy/drama/ love letter to French films about a New Yorker facing a gasping dance career, the looming age of 30, and an emotional bounce after her BFF and roommate moves on to live with a fiancé. Directed and co-written by Gerwig’s real-life squeeze, Noah Baumbach, famous for “Squid and the Whale,” one expects quirks and awkward laughs with the drama, and we are served: Frances is a conversation assassin at social gatherings, and at one point -– deep in debt -– foolishly decides to jet to Paris for two days, only to take sleeping pills for jet lag and snooze trough half the trip. That’s truly hilarious, and I laughed heartily. The simple story rocks and soothes as it follows Frances getting on her feet again, but feels equally forced when the screenplay tosses in coincidences and run-ins, especially at a party I won’t even delve into. Frances (the “Ha” part you’ll learn at the end) is all the more wonderful for having no super powers. No matter how dire she needs them. B

“Stories We Tell” is –- halfway through the year -– my favorite film of 2013. Actress-turned-director Sarah Polley (“The Sweet Hereafter”) turns her eyes and camera on her own family as she asks the question we all do, “Where do I come from?” The answers are surprising and I will not divulge one moment of this gem, for watching “Stories” blind, with no knowledge of what is to come, is flat out the best time I’ve had at the movies this year. The film really is Polley speaking to her parents, siblings, and family friends, and about her own birth and her dead-from-cancer mother. With great assist from her father, Michael, a former actor who serves as narrator, Polley pulls back family stories like a series of curtains, each one leading to a new revelation or truth, entire histories of joys, mistakes, hurts, happy or foggy memories. It’s a reminder that our greatest stories are not -– and here Polley turns the cameras on herself and her editors -– found in cinemas or novels, but at the dinner table, across from parents, siblings, and friends. An exceptional watch that will even make you want to re-visit home. A

Mama (2013)

Even good-enough horror output from Guillermo del Toro is better than 95 percent of the junk that fills cinemas, and so it is with “Mama.” Here, del Toro is producer, leaving the directing to newcomer Andrés Muschietti, who with sister Barabara on screenplay duties, takes on a Hollywood staple: Children held under the sway of a dark power. The plot follows two girls  (Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nélisse) left abandoned in the Virginia woods by their mass-murderer father who at the moment he is about to slay his daughters is himself killed by a floating dark form. That’s Mama. Flash forward five years as the girls -– living like animals -– are found and placed into the care of their uncle (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on double duty) and his girlfriend (Jessica Chastain), who has no interest in family, or responsibility. Creepy, well-played and earned scares ensue. When Nelisse crawls on stairs and becomes dangerously unhinged, it’s no exaggeration to bring up “Exorcist.” Too bad this relies on sketchy coincidences, dodgy CGI for the Mama, and illogical crutches such as men searching dark woods alone at night. (Don’t these people watch movies?) Short of great, it’s worth a watch, with your (?) mother. B

Deadfall (2012)

“Deadfall” is a snowy thriller more generic than its title. Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde crack the plot open as Alabama sibling thieves gunning for Canada because all criminals adore good ol’ Canada.

Plans go bad. The couple crashes their ride in wintry Michigan, kill a cop, and split ways, but not before bro eyes sis’s ass. She likes it. Ick. Brother kills a Native American, loses a finger, saves a woman and child from a bad dad, and has a shootout with police. Sister hooks up with an Olympic ex-con (Charlie Hunnam) on the run to his parents (Sissy Spacek and Kris Kristofferson) for Thanksgiving. 

Stick a pack of monks in a room and they’ll guess how this drama -– from Oscar-winning director Stefan Ruzowitzky (“Counterfeiters”) -– will end: Buckets of blood and trite family confessions over turkey. 

Character arcs roam random, but not more than Bana’s accent which starts Forrest Gump goober veers Australian and ends bland American. 

Worst crime: Casting Kate Mara (“127 Hours”) as a deputy marginalized as a useless girl dolt by her sexist peers, then writing her character off as a useless girl dolt. Awful. D

Ruby Sparks (2012)

Paul Dano, the blood in “There Will Be Blood,” is a novelist who hit big at 19 and crashed by 29, sidelined by writer’s block, insecurities that befuddle his family, and no girlfriend on the horizon in “Ruby Sparks.” For a guy named “voice of his generation,” Calvin Weir-Fields is a pipsqueak. Then one day, the perfect woman (Zoe Kazan) walks right into his life, and introduces herself as the too-perfectly-named titular character. She’s his dream girl. Literally. He dreamt her up as a writing exercise, and now she’s cooking eggs, screaming happily at zombie flicks, and meeting the family. Smart, hilarious, dark, and able to stand within the long shadow of another cinematic gem, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” this indy film was written by Ms. Kazan for herself and real-life squeeze Dano, and it’s not just a career play, but a scorching satire on artistic ego, What Men Want, and the stark difference between wishing for a devoted girlfriend and getting exactly that. Kazan, granddaughter of Elia, takes a blowtorch to every boring, submissive rom-com female stereotype with her writing and acting, both radiant. Bravo! A-

Contraband (2012)

Mark Wahlberg headlines “Contraband,” a gritty tale of a smuggler turned legit family man and business owner. The movie opens on a cargo ship as two guys dump a 10-pound bag of coke in the drink during a police raid. Big mistake. The drug bosses (headed by Giovanni Ribisi, looking gaunt and wicked) want $700,000, or else. So back Wahlberg goes to the smuggling biz as one of the dopes –- the other now dead -– is his brother-in-law, and blood is blood. Kate Beckinsale is the wife, Ben Foster the best pal. Director Baltasar Kormákur keeps tense twists and shockers coming, and his climax goes against the grain of every standard revenge flick. It’s smart. Bloody. Violent. And funny as hell as during his complicated, miserable trip to Panama City, Wahlberg’s back-in-the-saddle smuggler comes across a Jackson Pollack, a massive fortune which everyone else mistakes for a drop cloth. Wahlberg is the stalwart hero, but it's both Ribisi and Foster who give the film its hot, dark pulse, the former carrying on business as his daughter watches. B+

A Separation (2011)

“A Separation” follows two families in modern Iran, at war with and amongst each other, boxed in by iron-clad rules of a sick, empty theocracy. Writer/director Asghar Farhadi makes us a participant in his first, bold scene: A young, devoted married couple nonetheless seeks a divorce, spouting their arguments directly into the camera. Simin (Leila Hatami) wants to raise their daughter in a free nation, while Nader (Peyman Moaadi) insists they stay, to care for his Alzheimer’s stricken father. “He doesn’t know who you are,” she pleads. “But I do,” he says. Within a minute, Farhadi makes his cast fully universal, as he nails the staggering toll of Alzheimer’s on any family. Simin moves out, forcing Nader to hire a caretaker for his father. That hire will cost everyone involved greatly as deceits and fears abound. In brilliant, wordless cutaways, Farhadi uses the pained faces of two girls to show a nation of lost, exasperated adults so fully separated by religion, sex, class, economy, and have and have not, they and it will never move forward. American Christians, take note. Screenplay, cast, camera work, the very feel and noise of Tehran, and that finale ... all flawless. A

The Smurfs (2011)

In the live-action/CGI hybrid “Smurfs” film, our Belgian-born heroes – blue, three apples high and each named for a character trait – are zapped to New York City, with evil wizard Garagmel in tow. There Papa, Smurfette, Brainy and – oh, you know what? Smurf this. I barely sat through the film, why bother with details. It took four screenwriters plus innumerable studio heads to drum up jokes about Smurfette as gang-banger, and toss the word “Smurf” into every sentence, and it’s from the director of “Scooby Doo.” Obnoxious even by kiddie fare standards. Record-breaking product placement. A New York so bland it could be the town I live in. Blah Smurf blah. Random thought: In all of New York, why must our heroes land in the arms of a white yuppie couple (Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays)? Be it “Alvin and the Chipmunks” or “Garfield,” “Marmaduke” or “Yogi Bear,” or even “The Muppets,” these pop culture throw-back affairs -- mostly based on older comic strips or cartoons -- play like a master class in the “Master Race.” So few people of color. Over-reaction? Prove me wrong. D+

Real Steel (2011)

“Real Steal” is a deft genre mash-up: “Rocky” meets “Transformers,” with a heavy dose of “The Champ” tacked on for good measure, and Hugh Jackman in the lead. My film snob tastes melted away. The boy inside me cheered. The simple story: In the near future, human boxing is outlawed, replaced by a Michael Bay fever dream: Massive robot boxers going at each other like Ali and Foreman in the ring, no blood or brain damage, just busted-up (and recyclable) metal junk. Jackman is an ex-boxer named Charlie who has gone from dishing and taking KO’s in the ring to running robot boxers for hayseed crowds. Here comes the Underdog Redemption kick as Charlie has an estranged son named Max who, A) Needs a dad after mom dies, and B) Happens to be a junior engineer and avid gamer. Hokey? Much. So what. This is a CGI-heavy effects film that doesn’t let computer wizardly bulldoze story and character. During the climax, Shawn Levy’s camera pans away from the robot action and focuses on the human players instead. We care about these people, lead robot Atom is a blast, and as Max, Dakota Goyo upstages Jackman and the CGI. KO. A-

Insidious (2011)

American-made horror flicks, especially ones rated PG-13, are a dime-a-dozen and pointless as alcohol-free beer. The urge to shock and cut a swath through the audience is undone by the need to ensure 12-year-olds can get in. “Insidious” is an exception. Dig it: Ghosts and ghouls rule your new dream house, but it isn’t the home that’s haunted. It’s your child. Spooky. That’s the premise that drives our parent heroes (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) to tumble desperate into the arms of some ghost busters straight out of “Poltergeist.” Dig it further: Imagine, guys, coming home to see our wife talking to your own mother … and a priest. (I’d shit myself.) As with “Poltergeist,” what we don’t see is the real shocker, not blasé gore. The rating lulled me in, and the film whacked me on the head, “Sixth Sense” style. Too many scenes at the end are dark to the point of murky (and baffling) confusion, and the villain is murkier, but “Insidious” had me up at 3 a.m., listening for spooked baby monitors we do not own. B