The Raven (2012) and Me and Orson Welles (2009)

Two famously eccentric American artists who burnt fast and hot get the fictional film treatment in “The Raven” –- with writer/poet Edgar Allan Poe playing super sleuth over a series of murders related to his writings –- and “Me and Orson Welles” -– with the actor/director as scoundrel muse to a plucky “High School Musical” hero. 

As Poe, John Cusack does that arched-eyebrow John Cusack thing he always does, and he’s flat out wrong in the role. The plot is a grisly rehash of “Se7en” stitched onto a carbon copy of Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes,” with a villain that’s dull as rag paper. Worse bit: Poe is shown playing with a pet raccoon. Director James McTeigue thinks he’s still filming “V for Vendetta.” Fawkes that. 

“Me” focuses on a teen drama protégé (Zac Efron) as he cons his way into a gig at the Mercury Theatre for the renowned staging of “Julius Caesar.” Christian McKay plays Welles as madman, genius, romantic, cad, screw-up, and artist, and brilliantly crushes every scene, but with “Tiger Beat” poster boy Efron in the lead pining for a smirking bored Claire Danes, the film sinks. 

Poe and Welles would torch these films. Raven: C- Welles: C+

Charlie St. Cloud (2010)

Zac Efron sees dead people in “Charlie St. Cloud.” I sat through this romantic drama thinking Haley Joel Osment could kick this brat all the way back to “High School Musical 4: The College Years.” But that’s me, day-dreaming. Efron is Charlie, a sailing champ on his way to Stanford when his brother Sam (Charlie Tahan) is killed in a car accident. Five years later, Charlie works at the cemetery that holds his brother and plays baseball everyday with Sam’s ghost in the woods. The filmmakers think this is sweet. I thought maybe dude should be locked in a mental ward. This being a story of redemption, Charlie soon plays hero to his new sailor girlfriend (Amanda Crew) who’s so unusual. By that, I mean she sleeps in the cemetery and often bleeds from the head. The flick resembles a Nicholas Sparks novel as painted by Thomas Kincaid at his most light-infused God is watching high, with Efron pouring on the cry-me-a-river pain. The “Sixth Sense” kid never had it this bad. C-