Gimme Shelter (1970)

The Rolling Stones had an excellent 1969 with “Let it Bleed” and a tour that brought in Ike and Tina Turner, but all that good will and good weed and good sex flamed out at the FUBAR free concert at Altamont in San Francisco. Thousands of drugged-out hippies clashed with drugged-out Hell’s Angels, who the Stones foolishly paid for security, and wild mayhem ensued. Murders, too. Doc-maker brothers Albert and David Maysles and their crew literally *filmed* a man being stabbed to death, the mayhem so wild, they didn’t know it at the time. The Stones – Jagger, Richards, etc. – don’t say much, but they don’t have to. A “fan” punched Jagger in the face before he ever got on stage. Members of Jefferson Airplane were attacked by Angles, too drugged out to realize the warm-up band on stage belonged on the stage. The entire film is vibes raw, from early-69 studio recordings to the Stones fleeing the stage, terrified. A

The Counselor (2013)

“The Counselor” is a stunning failure from a seemingly A-grade group behind and in front of the camera. The story comes from the pen of Greatest Living American Writer Cormac McCarthy (“Blood Meridian”). The director is Brit Ridley Scott (“Alien”). Its rising star is Michael Fassbinder, playing a criminal lawyer known to us only as “Counselor” who dives willingly into the drug trade to get cash. Why? He wants diamonds for his Sweetie Pie (Penelope Cruz). Javier Bardem and Brad Pitt are among the villains. How can all this suck? I sat mouth agape in disbelief at this train wreck, and struggle to find words. OK. Cum on a car. No, really. See, Cameron Diaz loudly plays drug lord Bardem’s evil wife, an OTT Cruella De Ville as cast by “Real Housewives of New Jersey.” In one scene, she fucks and cums on hub’s sports car windshield. Really. Now the real sticky part (sorry): The WTF navel-gazing drivel that pours from the mouths of these great actors is even worse than that vision. Everyone in this film talks nonstop gibberish about fate, chance and death, and unlike every McCarthy book I have devoured, I begged for it to end. D

We’re the Millers (2013)

“We’re the Millers” is a stoner road-trip comedy with “SNL” vet Jason Sudeikis as a small-time pot dealer and “Friends” alumna Jennifer Anniston as a stripper hitting Mexico in an RV for drugs for cash. The two neighbors who hate each other pose as parents, painfully so, as neither could raise curtains. The flick is hilarious, raunchy, and dirty -– Anniston makes out with teen “son” Will Poulter –- until we all take an exit tour into family values and sentimentality and love conquers all hugs. Why? Here’s a rule: No one hugged at the end of “Producers” or “Blazing Saddles.” Follow it. Save the hugs for “Lifetime.” B

Non-Stop (2014)

“Non-Stop” is not a comedy. I laughed my ass off. Not a good sign for a thriller that stars Liam Neeson in Angry Action Figure Mode and plays on 9/11 fears of hijackings and police state surveillance. Neeson is Bill Marks, suicidal fuck-up air cop with a booze problem and a tragic life who should never hold a gun, much less be issued one by Uncle Sam for work at 30,000 feet. But here Bill is anyway, sweating buckets as he texts back and forth with a psycho who threatens to down the plane unless $1.5M is delivered to a Swiss bank account. One in Bill’s name. Cue drama! Cue the scenes where Neeson’s hero types. And types. And types. And calls his boss. Bill also kills a man, beats random passengers, screams, and waves and fires his gun like a madman. Why? This is “Taken” in the air. A cell phone and a gun, if those are in a script does Neeson just sign on? As stewardesses, Michelle Dockery of “Downton Abbey” and Lupito Nyong’o of “12 Years a Slave” do just about nothing. I’d watch a movie with them as the heroes. C-

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

Pain & Gain (2013)

Even at $26 million and without a trucker robot or asteroid in sight, movie wrecker Michael Bay can take what ought to be a simple crime tale and turns into an ordeal that is so painfully loud and soaked in obnoxious nihilistic testosterone that no sign of life or wit remains by the time the credits finally (finally!) roll. That’s “Pain & Gain.” A character has his skull crushed by a 50-pound weight, I thought, “Lucky bastard.” Mark Wahlberg, Duane Johnson, and Anthony Mackie play three lug head Miami gym freaks who crack a plot to kidnap a local millionaire (Tony Shalhoub) to rob him of fortune, home, cars, and boat. The crime goes sickeningly wrong, and the trio cannot even properly kill the man. Bay is pretending to make a film that satirizes the sick lust of the teen boy American Dream: Hot strippers, constant sex, fast cars, big homes, drugs, and guns, and forgiveness for all, because, hey this is America. But the sick prank: Bay believes this shit is the American Dream, and the right of every red-blooded, gay-bashing man. Even worse, he makes the victims more worthy of death than the criminals. Cinematic diarrhea. F

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Forget “Great Gatsby” comparisons. Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” is the greatest black comedy satire since “Natural Born Killers.” Trade phones for guns, gold watches for scalps. This crazy F.U. gem is being crucified as overlong and obnoxious, a pointless drug- and sex-smeared stain of debauchery focusing on Wall Street brokers who strikes it rich fleecing common Americans on shit investments. People, that is the point. Scorsese playfully crashes and flames his epic movie as often as real-life Wall Street scum bag Jordan Belfort (a never more alive Leonardo DiCarpio) crashes and flames yachts and cars, snorts coke, screws whores, and rallies his team to make more money. I cheered. This is America. Scorsese, writer Terence Winter, and DiCaprio are daring us to hate this movie. Our hate is misplaced. They are revealing the strings of the soulless puppet masters who run our banks, buy our congressmen, and control our 401K futures. More so: Our nation’s wealth and the whole stock market is the ultimate con we all buy into. Again and again. Refocus your anger. Best character: Jonah Hill -- gold! -- as a fat Alfred E. Neuman geek who drives Belfort’s scam. Mad men. A

This is the End (2013)

“This is the End” is a Hollywood-insider joke from the stoner club of Seth Rogen and pals, lathered in endless jokes about pot, jerking off, L.A. life, and bromances, with two running gags that make it worth at least one watch. First: James Franco stars as himself, playing up his apparent homosexuality by obsessing over Rogen (as himself) with scary devotion. The second: Emma Watson plays an ax-wielding bad-ass Emma Watson. “Hermione stole all our shit,” said by Danny McBride, has to be the funniest line of the year. The plot: Rogen and pot pal -– if you don’t like drug jokes, just stay away -– Jay Baruchel join a party thrown by Franco at the latter’s phallic-heavy home with booze and drugs free-flowing until the shit hits the world fan: Earthquakes, fires, monsters, and angry Watson. Typical Hollywood, every disaster here is from some other movie, borrowed and cleaned-up new, with the best riffs from “Ghostbusters” and “Rosemary's Baby.” Why not, eh? The end of “The End” may play a bit sacrilegious for some, but my worst beef came from the too self-satisfied smirk on everyone’s face. That said, I laughed my ass off. B+

The Raid: Redemption (2012)

A fact Hollywood does not want you to know: American action films pale in comparison to their foreign counterparts, and “The Raid: Redemption” –- made in Indonesia -– is a prime example. The plot is bare bones but all the better for it: A skittish SWAT unit raids a high-rise slum apartment building to nail the drug lord who rules from a top floor. The cops must battle goons, killers, and drug-fueled tenants at every inch and on every floor. The daddy-to-be rookie officer (Iko Uwais) who finds himself leader of the unit has a secret up in the high-rise, and I guess that’s where that “Redemption” part comes in. Director /writer Gareth Evans, a Welsh transplant, has made a film that neatly excises all dialogue from the genre, and focuses on the most intense martial arts fight I have witnessed, including a three-way between Uwais, and two of the drug lord’s henchmen that may defy physical logic with its horrific beatings, but must be seen. (Really, see this. Now.) Logic and continuity errors pop up, but that does not diminish this film as a treat that kicks American ass. Pure adrenaline. B+

Side Effects (2013)

Steven Soderbergh’s (apparent) final big-screen bow takes on big pharma and the need for Americans to dope up to get through the day, be it anti-depressants, anxiety pills, uppers, downers, or whatever. And what of the “Side Effects”? Limp libido? Exhaustion? Murderous sleep-walking fit? That’s the ticket here as a married couple (Channing Tatum and Rooney Mara) rocked by hubby’s prison stint for Wall Street sins are reunited only to see the wife slip off her plates after an apparent suicide attempt. Caught in the middle of all this, taking money from on high and prescribing pills to the low, is Jude Law as a psychiatrist, who begins Boy Scout and becomes … less so. I can’t give away anything more, because Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns (both of “Contagion”) take a turn that hit me, well, like a drug at first -- euphoric love, but then a quick and lowly crash as I contemplated all that I saw. How not to spill the pills? Let me say this: The ugly ridiculous denouncement is Family Research Council approved. Pure 1950s. Got it? Mara is great. Tatum, ehh. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays another head shrink, and Pacinos the scenery. B- 

Flight (2012)

Catch the trailer for “Flight”? Denzel Washington plays a pilot who miraculously guides a crippled plane to a crash landing -– upside down –- and becomes a hero? “Flight” is no more about flights gone bad than was “Dark Knight Rises.” Planes crash within the first few minutes. The rest of this unsparing drama -- a welcome return to live-action by director Robert Zemeckis -– follows Washington’s “Whip” Whitaker as decades of alcohol and drug abuse finally come to light. “Flight” dares pose a question that only the viewer can answer: If Whitaker’s debauchery led him to be able to bring that plane in safely and calmly, what does that say about heroism? Or so-called miracles? Whitaker is pitiful, shockingly careless, and self-centered, and yet impossible to hate. The way he stands in a room, near others … I know about alcoholism, and Washington nails every twitch. The climax feels wrong as we’re whisked away from Whip just as he is forced to go nine days sober, but it’s a tiny complaint. Zemeckis, lost too long with CGI Santas, has made a towering film, where a miniature bottle of vodka can own a man and his soul. A-

End of Watch (2012)

A heap of movie critics (even Ebert) are throwing praise on “End of Watch” -– a visceral, bloody, gut-punch police drama/thriller than goes against the endless grain of cops as corrupt, greedy, psychotic thugs -- as one of the best films of the year. It could have been. Damn it comes close, often with pitch-perfect dialogue, and harshly with haunting violence. But gimmicks from 1999 abound with shaky-cam overload -- times 10.

Dig it James Ellroy style: Jake Gyllenhaal gives his career-best showing (and he’s been good for years, especially in “Jarhead”) as Brian Taylor, a veteran Marine now working a black-and-white on Los Angeles’ toughest streets, South Central, a land of shit streets, crap homes, and closed businesses plagued by poverty, drugs, guns, and the growing power of Mexican drug cartels that know no border. It’s a near Third World, except the bad guys carry gold-plated AK-47s in some sick “Scarface” fantasy world come true. 

Taylor’s partner is Mike Zavala, a Hispanic-American with a wife and 3.5 children, played by Michael Pena. The men are brothers. Not by blood. But the job. Each will take a bullet or more for one another. No questions asked. The men bullshit banter in the squad car in the best movie back-and-forth since “Pulp Fiction,” but when the hammer drops, they are stone silent and careful, especially when they stumble upon a massive crime spree of human-trafficking and other horrors all right under their noses. They also “fight” the “parents,” that is, the Sarge and all the powers-that-be at work, but playfully. Zavala is the settled one, smart and cautious, Taylor is gung-ho and first out of the car.

The film, written and directed by David Ayer (he wrote Training Day”) drops us in this L.A. Story with no escape, and he shows the ugliest scenes –- ghastly murders, grpahic assaults, endless deaths, and child abuse -– with no let up. The settings never smack of a film set, or some obvious stand-in. I have never been to South Central L.A., but this feels real, down to the litter and alleys and bars on house windows. 

But damn it, where Ayer goes maddeningly wrong is in a ridiculous decade-old plot contrivance that has Taylor touting around digital cameras 24/7 to film his life on the job for an art class. (We never see the guy in class, despite his wanting to earn a law degree.) For all the on-the-street realism Ayers constantly pushes, I call “bullshit” on any relatively intelligent officer anywhere in the world, much less South Central L.A., that would enter potential hot spots and crime scenes carrying a freakin’ camera in one mitt and one-handing his side arm in the other. Especially for a Marine such as Taylor. 

Even what little I know as an ex-crime reporter, when entering an unknown location, searching room by room, any police officer keeps his hands, both hands, on his or her weapon because that weapon will save his or her life. Nothing. Else. Matters. Disagree? Ask a cop. Ask a soldier, for that matter. (If your partner chooses a Sony over a Glock, seriously, trade the hell up.) Call it a movie, sure. I get it, fantasy. But, guess what? The soulless gang members also happen to carry around cameras to share their exploits. For art class, too? YouTube? All this “Blair Witch” shaky-cam crap is mixed in with normal cinema capture, from the sky, floor, whatever, after Taylor’s camera is down. 

I dig and appreciate Ayer’s attempts at showing what policemen and women face each day, the gallows humor they (absolutely true) employ to stay sane, and a refusal to show every cop as worse than the bad guys (I’m look at you “Freelancers” and “Safe” and 1,005 other films), but he should have stuffed the gimmicks and played the film straight. This seriously could have been well atop my Top 10 List of the year. But for the gimmicks.

 God bless Pena. A consistently great actor in “Crash” and “The Lincoln Lawyer” and a few dozen other films, he gives an amazingly tough, smart, funny, and humane performance here. His officer is a full human being, jumping off the page. Watch his horrified silent reaction as he comes across a squalid dungeon full of Mexicans held as drug-runner slaves, and, damn, the man deserves an Oscar nomination. And leading man status on par with Gyllenhaal and any other actor out there. B

Savages (2012)

Oliver Stone returns with “Savages,” a grisly flick that follows drug dealer best friends who sell California’s most-in-demand weed. Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is scared-by-war ex-military, while Ben (Aaron Johnson) is a hippie botanist with a penchant for mission work. They are yin and yang, with O (Blake Lively), the surfer girl drug addict they share an ocean-side home and bed with, in circle’s center. “Savages” gets to its title fast as a Mexican drug cartel (led by Salma Hayek) busts in with a do-or-die business proposal. This is a nasty and sickly funny production, hallucinogenic as anything Stone has made. Yet gun-shot holes pop loud as a double-barreled ending serves ludicrously tragic followed by ludicrously pat, while much dialogue grinds as when O speaks of Chon: “I have orgasms, he has wargasms.” Huh? Loved: How Hayek and her thugs look on perplexed as the gringos piss away life and family. Hated: Hayek deliciously serves up the notion that the guys love each other more so than O, and the revelation is left dead and forgotten like the myriad bodies that fill this tale. The “Butch Cassidy” references only hinder. B-

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+

My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Playing Marilyn Monroe is no small feat. She’s the definitive Hollywood icon of sex and tragedy, 40-plus years after her death. Yet, Michelle Williams nails the part with astounding skill, and not just of Marilyn Monroe, but the way Marilyn played “Marilyn” for cameras, for hangers-on, and adoring, endless fans. A role that seemingly even confused herself, according to the screenplay. The lyric “I’m not broken but you can see the cracks,” from U2, comes to mind. In 1957, Monroe arrived in England to make a film with Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh, eerily good), and the screen goddess created an instant clash with her wayward, unreliable off-screen ways. The “My” in the tile is Colin Clark, a young assistant director who befriends, and so much more, the star. A guy named Eddie Redmayne plays him. True story? Don’t know. If the real Colin lied in his books, he didn’t fib big, because he and Marilyn don’t go there. This is Williams’ film. It’s dull whenever she’s not onscreen. It’s a drama and a morality tale, so, yes, drugs are bad. Williams is a pure goddess on screen. Bravo, miss. B+

Trainspotting (1996)

Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting” is an adrenaline shot of cinematic greatness about heroin addicts that dares show the quick pleasure of shooting up. Bob Dole balked. Idiot. No “ABC School Special” has ever shown an addict hand-fishing for a dropped stash in a shit-filled toilet, or a guy waking up slathered in diarrhea after losing his bowels, or an infant dying from neglect. This tale of poor Scots who see their parents struggling to earn a pound and figure why not shoot up, is the real deal writ large and depraved. It’s sickly fascinating to watch, a stoned mad-hatter film akin to “Clockwork Orange” or “Romper Stomper,” but to live it? No. Ewan McGregor is a guy who wants heroin over the big house, bigger TV, fancy car, and a job, and Boyle, writer John Hodge (taking on Irvine Welsh’s book) charge those commodities as no better than a shot of white liquid. Only an idiot, or a conservative, would see the finale as happy when a druggie says life will be OK with a wad of money. In a film full of sick jokes, it’s the most repugnant laugh of all. That said, this pales next to 2000’s stellar “Requiem for a Dream.” A

The Rum Diary (2011)

I discovered something about myself not too far into “The Rum Diary,” the latest gonzo tale by and about journalist/novelist/debaucherist Hunter S. Thompson, who never met an alcoholic drink or illicit drug he didn’t like. Correction, I learned something about Johnny Depp. He’s the star here. See, I have grown tired of Depp as an actor.

After watching “Pirates of the Caribbean: Are they Still Making These Things?,” I realized he no longer is an ace actor game at playing emotionally aloof rascals who involve themselves in dangerous games, but standoff at a safe distance. He has become an emotionally aloof actor involving himself in big films, but stands off at a safe distance. “The Tourist” more than fits that bill. His characters are no longer the ones who don’t give a shit, now it’s Depp himself.

Here, a journalism/discovery-of-self drama set in 1960 Puerto Rico from a HST novel, he plays Paul Kemp, a failed novelist who gets mixed up in a dying newspaper rag (headed by Richard Jenkins) and a corrupt real estate deal (headed by Aaron Eckhart), and must dig himself out. Between hits of rum and mescaline drops.

Depp lazily walks all over the film blasé style, hiding behind sunglasses, rather than the Captain Jack eye liner, and making jokes about mermaids (too soon) and dishing out that “Whoa, can you believe this?” double jerk take reaction he does without end. (He seems only jazzed by Tim Burton films.) Paul is supposed to be enraged by film’s end, but he barely ever registers a pulse. Ink and rage? Zzzzz. When the plot’s air leaks out of the bag and Paul leaves the scene with a defeated shrug, we have to rely on an end credit’s title scroll to tell us, “No, really, this Kemp guy is important! He did things!” From the sights on screen, I would never have guessed it. Not in 1,000 tries.

As the sexy femme fatale that messes with Kemp’s head and other body parts, Amber Heard is the only pulsating person on screen, seconded by Michael Rispoli as an overweight photojournalist comic foil, and the only guy on screen with a heart. They are the rum shots in this watered down drink. C+

The Lincoln Lawyer and Limitless (both 2011)

The recent dramas “The Lincoln Lawyer” and “Limitless” follow two men undergoing massive, life-altering changes: The former follows a scum bucket defense attorney who saves his own crumpled soul when he realizes his wealthy client has no such thing. The latter focuses on a bum-luck writer who finds smarts and unimaginable wealth with an experimental drug, his soul is optional.

It’s “Lincoln Lawyer” that’s the winner by far, with Matthew McConaughey ripping into his role as Mickey Haller with a starving wolf hunger not seen since on the actor since “A Time to Kill.” McConaughey is all bleary bloodshot eyes, sweating out the poison of countless bad rom-coms, as Mickey scrambles to get out from under the weight of his sociopathic client (Ryan Phillippe, using his blankness to eerie evil effect). Nothing in this is a shocker, but it’s a helluva character study, with a great arc. William H. Macy graces the screen as a supporting player in Mickey’s life. A cool flick, more of these films please! Oh, Marisa Tomei -- seriously good actress. B+

In “Limitless,” Bradley Cooper is a NYC novelist, if only he could write one word, living in squalor and recently dumped by his successful girlfriend (Abbie Cornish). One magic pill changes all this, and Eddie is Ernest-Hemingway-Albert-Einstein with unlimited libido, godly language skills, and a penthouse apartment. Does it all come crashing down? Yeah. But then what could have been a spectacular, nasty and bloody satire on youthful “GQ” excess in 2000s turns into a slightly satiric celebration of exactly that. “Limitless” should have gone balls to the wall for a razor-sharp “R” rating, not an airplane friendly PG-13. Oh, so limited. Robert De Niro turns up for awhile but doesn't have much fun or range here. What's with that? B-

Requiem for a Dream (2000)

"Requiem for a Dream," Darren Aronofsky's FUBAR bloodbath of addiction and unrealized death, is the most soul-scaring descent into hell of any film I've ever seen. Not only is it the Best Film of 2000 in my book, but star Ellen Burstyn can smoke Julia Roberts (who wrongly won the Oscar that year) in a second and not break a sweat.

The film focuses on four Brooklyn residents -- Harry (Jared Leto), Marion (Jennifer Connelly), Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) and Harry's mother, Sara (Burstyn) -- who all are addicted to drugs in some way. For the three youths, there is heroin and pot. For mother, there are upper and downer diet pills.

But this horror film, scarier than anything in "The Exorcist" or any slasher film, doesn't stop there. It shows the full range of life's addictions to love, food, TV, fame, great sex, beauty, acceptance, youth, loss of a loved one and even wanting to be a better person. Addiction, the film says, is all around and will destroy every one of us. We need only pick our poison. We all suffer.

Burstyn's performance is absolutely devastating, and as Sara's body and mind literally melt away, her acting becomes unmatched in 2000 or nearly any other year. The rest of the cast, including a sweetly beautiful then shockingly depraved Connelly, also are fantastic.

Working from a famed novel, Aronofsky ("Pi") never hits the brakes nor does he wince at the absolute devastation that these lives endure. This is his masterpiece, a plunge into hell which leaves the viewer shaken and hollowed out. Clint Mansell's score is phenomenal, and serves as the background horror-house soundtrack on this tour ride of death. Except that death would be an easy way out for our four people.

And, here, the film suggests the luckiest drug addicts end up dead. The unlucky live on, and wait for a death that won't come soon enough. Their friends, loves ones, can only watch. This film -- despite the NC-17 material -- literally ought to be shown in high schools across the country. A+