Red Lights (2012)

There’s gotta be a porn film with this title, “Red Lights.” But this isn’t that kind of film. We’re talking psychics here, supernatural, reality, and con jobs. Sigourney Weaver plays a brilliant but (naturally) under-funded university researcher of the paranormal who has spent her career unmasking psychics as frauds. Her assistant researcher and driver is a brilliant geek named Tom (Cillian Murphy, taking a break from “Batman” movies). The duo gets antsy when a blind psychic (Robert De Niro) turns up after a 30-year absence, ready to go public again. When Weaver’s character suddenly dies, Tom goes off the deep end of obsession to crush De Niro’s charmer. Writer/director Rodrigo Cortes (“Buried”) spins a creepy and interesting tale for a while, but as the thriller lurches on, it becomes a comedy soup. Tom getting into a shoving match with another professor (Toby Jones) had me giggling hard. I fell for red herrings I created entirely in my own mind. Score for Cortes. The final scenes, though, are so bug-fuck crazy stupid (I won’t spoil) that I tuned out, again laughing myself silly. I wonder if Cortes saw that coming? C+

Hitchcock (2012)

I adore and fear Hitchcock. The filmmaker. “Hitchcock,” the new movie about the filmmaker? Not one bit. See, this is pitched as a behind-the-scenes tale of the making of the classic “Psycho.” You know, the mother of all slasher films. And, yes, we do get some of the writing, casting talks, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh stuck in a shower with ol’ Hitch with a knife scaring the piss out of her. Those are snippets of the story. Moments. And Anthony Hopkins excels in them as Hitchcock, covered in fat makeup to play the big guy. When he “conducts” an audience reaction to the shower scene, outside a screening room, I was in movie heaven. But most of the film focuses on Hitchcock’s marriage, with his wife (Helen Mirren) nagging his ass 24/7 about avoiding snacks. God help me, it was like visiting my parents. More so, the missus launches a flirtatious affair with a Hollywood screenwriter (Danny Houston) and Hitchcock frets and fumes, and talks to the ghost of Ed Gein, the killer who inspired Norman Bates, and I wanted to slash apart this soap opera that muddies a mad genius/artist as a poor old befuddled geezer. C+

Frankenweenie (2012)

I welcomed the Tim Burton-directed stop-motion “Frankenweenie” with a wide smile of spooked childlike wonder. For years now, Burton has been missing as a filmmaker. He has made many movies -– “Planet of the Apes” and “Dark Shadows” -- but none steeped in the dark satire and deep loneliness he displayed in “Edward Scissorhands.” This harkens back to early Burton, and is a remake of his infamous 1984 live-action short, ingenuously reimagined. Young Victor Frankenstein is a loner whose best friend is Sparky, his pet dog. Victor pops a homerun during a parent-forced youth baseball outing. Sparky runs for the ball, and is fatally hit by a car. Victor is devastated, and soon goes the way of his namesake by bringing Sparky back to life via an electric storm and a lab that is every bit a grade-school salute to James Whale. What comes next is where Burton flies high: Victor’s spooky classmates each has a dead pet they want to see given new life, and this freak show takes off as hilarious and sly introduction of monster mash-ups for the quirky young. Shot in black-and-white, this is the Burton I love. A

Ted (2012)

My wife has come home many times to find me watching the so-bad-it’s-brilliant 1980 sci-fi cheese-fest “Flash Gordon.” So I laughed to an embarrassing degree while watching “Ted,” the raunchy comedy about a 35-year-old man named John (Mark Wahlberg) who lives with his toking, swearing, fornicating stuffed teddy bear (voiced by “Family Guy” patriarch Seth McFarlane, who also directed and co-wrote) from childhood. Ted and John constantly watch “Flash,” always stoned, and that drives John’s successful live-in girlfriend (Mina Kunis) off the rails. It’s me or the bear, she says, in a film first. Other film firsts: A hilarious Sam Jones celebration, a scene where Wahlberg calls in a teddy-bear theft to 911, and a new classic bit where the former Marky Mark commits to a room-wrecker fistfight that rivals “Fight Club.” As with “Family Guy,” McFarlane tosses non-stop crude and cruel jokes and pop culture winks, and half stick, the other half miss, and all are juvenile. Yes, he skates the thin line of racist/sexist/homophobic, and satirizing the same. Your tolerance may bend. Mine did not. Best treat: Watching Wahlberg play opposite a fuzzy wuzzy CGI bear that wasn’t even there. B+

Fantastic Four (2005)

“Fantastic Four” is a sucker punch to the face and heart of every true four-color-ink-for-blood comic book geek who knew growing up that the exploits of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and the Thing, was the coolest monthly read: A blood-and-marriage family of super-powered heroes with screw-loose hang-ups and arch-enemies. At least the plot follows the book. Five astronaut-types are blasted with cosmic rays while on a science mission, each person spouting outsize powers close fit to their personality: The ability to contort one’s body into any shape, invisibility, control of fire, and a moving, raging man of stone. The fifth wheel is the billionaire boss Victor Von Doom, destined to go evil with a name like that, except he turns into a metallic maniac, not a giant shitting asshole. Here’s a movie with 50 years of comic history as resource and director Tim Story (“Taxi”) kills it from the start. Bland, listless, with no sense of wonder, horror, or the fantastic. The cast is dull with Ioan Gruffudd as Mr. Fantastic and Julian McMahon as Dr. Doom. Questions linger: Would I notice had they switched roles midway through? Not likely. C-

The Bourne Legacy (2012)

“The Bourne Legacy” is an apology of a movie. After three films as the Robert Ludlum-created 007 agent on steroids Jason Bourne, unlikely bad-ass Matt Damon passed on a fourth film after his director of Parts 2 and 3, Paul Greengrass, sneered at another go-round. That did not stop the studio. The film’s tagline shouts “There Was Never Just One” in a faux shocker as, duh, we all knew that already. So, enter Jeremy Renner (“Hurt Locker”) as Aaron Cross, another super super-agent who finds himself, very Bourne like, hunted by the dastardly CIA suits out to cover their own asses for reasons to complex to explain. That’s the problem right there: It’s the same story, down to the terrified female pal (Rachel Weisz). Director/writer Tony Gilroy (he wrote the previous films) tosses in countless references to Damon/Bourne in CNN shots, photos, shouted oaths, and –- in a ridiculous scene -– a carved signature under a bunk bed, not much as a tissue connector, but regret. “We miss Matt, too!” Forget the tired chase plot and the blank ending, if the movie wants to hook back up with the ex, why care about the new guy? C-

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), in 3D High Frame Rate

When I first saw “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” I did so in the 2D, normal 24-fames-per-second format. Movie geek that I am, I sought out the much-debated 3D, 48-fps version that Peter Jackson insists is the definitive version. The 48 verdict: Incredible. Damn the naysayers. I have seen hundreds of films in a cinema, but I have never felt as if I could reach into the onscreen fantastical world before me, and what better film to do that with than a Tolkien story? Even one embellished and stretched thin and loud as it is here, part one of a new trilogy. Skin, swords, wizard beards and hats, and even Hobbit pottery appear real. The 3D work amplifies the perspective. Of course, this was my second viewing, I knew what was coming. Would I be so positive on my first go-round, unsure of the “Journey” ahead? I cannot say. I can say: The action and special effects have zero blur, including the jaw-dropper “riddle” face-off with Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and Gollum (Andy Serkis). I hated the lethargic pace more, and the fully unnecessary “LOTR” alumni reunions more so, but what a visual delight! The B- advances to B for this version.