The Purge (2013)

“The Purge” is horror with a nasty serving of satire that slashes at the Tea Party elites who think wealth makes them holier than anyone below them, and yet angry at anyone who dares have a bigger house or a nicer car. I dug it. Ethan Hawke plays a self-satisfied hawker of home security devices in year 2022 of a post right-wing-revolution “New” America. Money is God. Guns are the Holy Son. The NRA might be running the show. One day each year, true “patriots” –- the haves -– are allowed (encouraged) to rape and murder at will, with the bottom of the economic chain the true target. But, Hawke’s quirky liberal teen son (Max Burkholder) opens the family fortress to a hunted veteran and soon preppy masked hunters come house crashing. (The sociopathic leader is unfailingly polite and dressed in a blazer with a haircut that screams edgy Young Republican. I knew assholes like him in college.) Writer/director James DeMonaco might not have a great film, but it’s daring, even if the end has too many pointers and Lena Headey’s wife remains flat. (I had hopes the “good” son might turn a shocking path, but did not happen.) B

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

I love silent movies: The boiling down of storytelling to mere visuals that must make one *think* sound: Conversation, screams, the crash of a chandelier. Brilliance under pressure. “The Phantom of the Opera” -– from the 1908 book and featuring Lon Chaney in the title role –- is near perfect. Either born with grisly disfigurements or badly burned after birth, the Phantom is a once-famous composer now forgotten, living below the Paris Opera House obsessing over bit signer Christine (Mary Philbin). He worships her. He sneaks into her room. He sends a chandelier crashing on the audience after the house runners refuse to punt their star for his goddess. This Phantom is no romantic, but a sick perv with a hideous face -– dig that makeup, a flayed skull with no lips -– hidden behind a mask that looks like that of a kindly friar. The best scenes have the Phantom crashing a costume ball dressed in a red, promising death to all, then standing on a roof like a demon, lurking, planning. The black/white cinematography goes green/red with inserts of blue and the unnerving color shock is like a blood shot from hell. A century old, this still terrorizes. A

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)

Yes, I watched. Yes, I hate myself for watching.

Let me beam brief pride before I serve raging scorn: “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II” finally gives us something we have not seen yet seen in this supernatural romance franchise about a young woman torn between moody, control-freak vampire boyfriend (now husband) and moody, control-freak BFF werewolf: Bella (Kristen Stewart) at last forms a personality of her own and the initiative to take action on her own. Finally.

Disclaimer: Bella is dead. She is now a full vampire. So, never mind pride. Lady has a backbone, no pulse. She’s still at home, still controlled. She has to die to get freedom. 

Misogynist.

This last chapter of a two-part flick follows Bella and that vampire soul mate Edward (Robert Pattinson) as they protect their infant child Renesmee from evil vampire overlords who want the young girl dead, lest she turn monstrous. Renesemee is half-human, though, so not a danger, but not quite normal. Her age is a speed train, going to toddler in mere days, and grade schooler within months. She can fly. Read minds. (I guess she can join the “X-Men” movies?) 

Protecting the child from ritual murder is of such importance that Jacob’s werewolf family is willing to put aside its long regional war with Edward’s family and fight alongside them. 

Why? Love! 

But an intermission: See, this flick is still based on Morman conservative Stephanie Meyer’s novels, a woman whose overall view on females have vexed me for years. She writes submissive women, the kind who like to take abuse, and appreciate it, thrive off it. Men control. Women obey. No shades of gray. Meyer must hate being a woman.

In an earlier film, Edward visited Bella on the eve of their wedding, I guess to make sure she behaves, or because he loves her that much … who knows? Jacob once told Bell, “If I can’t have you, no one will.” Bella smiled. Romance, huh? Anti-woman. Meyer’s world.

(Myers’ “The Host” is worse, with a female hero who falls deeper in love with her man after he punches her in the face. Another beau prefers strangulation. Get the theme?) 

I bristled and stewed in those previous movies, but not to the point of turning off the film and walking away in disgust. I did here. I saw it coming, too. 

The scene: Twenty-something wolfman Jacob (Taylor Lautner) stands by Edward near movie’s end and -– referring to the 9-ish Renesmee, a child –- says, “Shall I start calling you dad?” The scene’s a joke. Get it? No? See the 20-year-old Jacob is in love with the little girl and wants to marry her. He wants her body. He thinks about it. Really.

It’s not his fault. It just happened! She imprinted on him, whatever the fuck that means. Actually it means the little girl came onto him, the No. 1 defense of every sick-ass child molester out there. Look it up. I covered crime and this shit as a reporter, and heard it in court. There is no mystery here. Meyer is into child sex and likely was abused. Often.

(My response to any defense that Jacob-Renesemee’s love is platonic/chivalric now and only will grow later into sensual love: No. Director Bill Condon calling the love brotherly-sisterly … does not help. Liar. Even Lautner apparently hated the material, so he says.) 

Sure Bella gets rightly angry when she first hears of this hook up, she goes after Jacob, but, hey, she’s eventually submissive again, them men tell her heel and she does, and this is Myers, and by the climax, Bella is ready to send off child daughter to live with the man of her destiny, her protector, in secret. A true Meyer woman. 

Hell with this. Hell with it. I hate this film. And every message of submission. Child sexual abuse. Prepping girl brides for marriage to older men. None of this is an accident.

As I write, I fume again, I’ll quit. So, yes, the clean camera work by cinematographer Guillermo Navarro stuns, the best work of the franchise, and near any film in 2012. I also had a riotous laugh fest with a long battle royale near the film’s end which is neither a battle, nor a royale, as good guys and bad guys literally rip off each other’s heads in some not-semi-serious fashion that recalls Monty Python at its daftest. It’s really awful. 

Fitting. Heads should roll for this ugly, offensive series of films. This is vile shit, upping child molesters, making controlling abusive men romantic. I cannot believe I watched. The most dmaging to women and children Hollywood franchise ever made, and every film a hit. Maybe it America goes all right-wing, Bible-thumper, it will be more popular. F

Sabotage (2014)

Watching bloodbath -– not in a good way -– “Sabotage” it makes one wince at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s post-political film career. The light seems sucked from his eyes. Here we follow personality-free ultra-A DEA thug cops who drink, drug, swear, and easily swipe $10M from a drug’s lord’s house. The loot goes missing and the team starts dying in gruesome ways only a screenwriter can imagine. Ugly. Writer/ director David Ayer (“End of Watch”) has that duty, killing one guy by nailing him to a ceiling. By the film’s exhaustive end, you’ll –- or I did -– laugh at the big shock reveal, and still have to muddle through one more shoot out. Terrence Howard, Sam Worthington, Mirelle Enos, and Josh Holloway comprise the team, all screaming “fuck” as if they’re in a contest to out cuss “Wolf of Wall Street.” They fail. Ahnuld has the role of thug leader haunted by the death of his family by drug cartel, watching a snuff film on loop in the dark. We never see his face. But so what? Botox and steroids have rendered Ahnuld inert. What’s he thinking? Is he thinking? Is he a robot? Do I care? No. D

The Great Escape (1963)

Watching World War II action/drama “The Great Escape” -– based on fact, highly dramatized, three hours long -- has a new, unshakable tinge of sadness that did not exist during my childhood viewings. The entire principal cast has now passed, with Richard Attenborough and James Garner dying earlier this year. The true story: In 1944, 250-plus Allied prisoners attempted the most brazen escape from a POW camp ever known, with hundreds of minds and hands and three tunnels dedicated to infuriating Hitler’s military machine. Director John Sturges has made a near classic, even if it whiffs far too sanitized even for 1963. Attenborough, Garner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Donald Pleasence, and Charles Brosnan play the master escapists. Two hours document the dirt and work, the final rousing hour focuses on border runs. Pleasence’s forger is still my favorite hero of the bunch. The motorcycle chase with McQueen is exciting as hell, all stunts, no CGI. This kind of epic -– gifting character development and attention to process -– exist no longer. In Michael Bay’s world, it’s all flash and bang. Another sad passing. A-

47 Ronin (2013)

Japan’s historical story of “47 Ronin” is as sacred there as George Washington crossing the Delaware is here: A samurai army who wait more than a year living in excommunication before taking revenge and the head of their enemy after their master is dishonored and forced to commit suicide. Hollywood? Not impressed. Reaction: Let’s Tolkeinize it with dragons and a witch with a snake fetish, and Keanu Reeves. Because Keanu knows kung fu. And everyone loves CGI dragons. Did I mention the magical Voldermort doppelganger? Yeah. They did it. While never dull, “47 Ronin” is a mess of pop culture hits reheated into a mess. Reeves’ heroic Kai -– mostly seen in cut/paste reaction shots -– is an American raised in Japan, having been found as a starved, wounded child by the same sensei who later will be dishonored. As Kai is central, that not only slides Japanese hero Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada) to the role of second fiddle, but racist asshole. See, Oishi constantly derides Kai as “half breed” until he needs Kai’s fighting skills, then it’s all, “We’re pals!” So, opportunistic second fiddle racist asshole. Imagine Washington treated like that. C-

Getaway (2013)

The 2013 “Getaway” is terrible. Horribly “Can You Believe This Shit!?!” bad. Do not confuse it with the 1970s Steve McQueen flick or its Alec Baldwin remake. This stiff has Ethan Hawke as Brent Magna, an ex-NASCAR driver living in Bulgaria (!?!) who steals a Mustang and causes havoc on Sofia streets as ordered by an unseen criminal mastermind who has kidnapped Magna’s wife as collateral. Brent’s task: Blow up the city’s power station –- protected with a key pad lock (!) -– so the mastermind can pull off a daring robbery in darkness. The howler: Brent destroys the power grid … and not a street light blinks or a McDonald’s arch darkens. Nothing. Nadda. But. BUT. The actors pretend it is pitch dark. Seriously. The leap of logic gymnastics is breathtaking. Director Courtney Solomon -– he made the incompetent “Dungeons & Dragons” -– shoots and edits every car chase -– it’s nothing but –- as split-second visual seizures, and repeats the same footage. Hawke must have been desperate for money. The final nail: Selena Gomez (!?!) plays a pistol-packing carjacker. GTFO. F