Trainwreck (2015)

It happens even before she appears on screen. Amy Schumer is a film star. The comedian stars and holds writing credit on “Trainwreck,” Judd Apatow’s latest film about adults who don’t have it together. We open in the mid-80s on a dad (Colin Quinn) in a garage telling his young daughters that he and mom are divorcing. Monogamy is impossible he says. “Would you want to play with one doll for the rest of your life?” “No!!” Boom! We flash-forward two decades to Amy as a thirtysomething, untangled, drinking a lot, and trying to get ahead at her job. A thousands films like this exist about men. Now comes one woman’s turn, and my God, people freak. Schumer is just freakin’ electric here: Taking no prisoners, caustically funny, demanding, and crushingly sweet as she deals with her dying father, and Quinn is spectacular in the latter role. Seriously, he needs an Oscar push. Yes, the story may be pedestrian as Amy lands a rich doc (Bill Hader) to athletes, as opposed to say an hourly wager, but “Trainwreck” kills all those damn rom-com clichés of perfect endings and meet-cutes and last minute dashes to reconcile. A-

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

(EDITED 20 May 2015. A second viewing has me even more enthralled with this movie. But some a huge correction to the below: It is without doubt the same Max Rockatansky in this film as Mel Gibson played. That's clear up front, and elsewhere. Which makes the lead of Charlize Theron's road Warrior Trucker all the more amazing. And the first appearance of The Wives is one of the great rug pulls of modern cinema. The first shot seems contrived and sexist, wet ladies in the desert, wearing gauze, maybe. College guys next to me whistled. Within moments they cringed and winced at the rage these ladies held. That's powerful film-making. I never touched on the wild religious implications of the film, the sick promise of Immortan Joe to his followers that if they die for him, Valhalla (heaven) awaits. Massive part of the story. It hits current wars of this day. Just epic. I don't know George Miller, only a few months younger my father, pulled this off. He has just crushed every young filmmaker working today. Epic. That certain Jedi film coming out later this year has a huge mountain to climb. A sequel.reboot has just set a new standard for action films, and how woman are to be seen on screen. Forever. And the energy on screen -- the feeling that anything can happen -- i just have to applaud.)


Days on, I’m still pumped with awe. I don’t know where to begin or if I’ll ever get everything I feel right now. “Mad Max: Fury Road” is the most daring, subversive summer action film to hit cinemas in years. God love George Miller. 

This is THE film we need now. In its jaw-dropping spectacle. Its energy. Its anger.

From trailers and posters galore, we expect rising Hollywood star Tom Hardy (“The DarkKnight Rises”) to take on the iconic Australian role of ex-cop Max Rockatansky played frighteningly wild-eyed, fierece by Mel Gibson 40 odd years ago and run with it. 

Hero. Savior. Bad ass driver and gunslinger. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

During a frenzied pre-credits opening salvo, hero Max is taken hostage, bound and masked, and in drops the true lead of this film -- the new Road Warrior for our time -- Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa. One-armed, armed, and driving a steam-punk tractor trailer straight out of hell and into freedom. Or hope. Or any place, but from where she came. 

This is an action film with women at the core. Not since “Alien” have we seen such a display. Theron makes Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley seem tame. Here, strong, blood, divisive, kick-ass women in a near-future world take back control of their lives and their world -- killed by men -- with ferocious force. Max has to keep up. This could have been called “Mad Women.” (Unlike “Alien,” Miller uses scant clothing to again burn genre.)

And the action -– the entire film is one chase with so little dialogue, you begin to forget to question if anyone can talk – has no peer. In an age where whole hours of something like “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is wall-to-wall CGI and impersonal robots and immortal heroes, Miller drops in real vehicles and teams of stuntmen and women and smashes everything together decadent glee. He smashes trucks through cars. Drops bikes off mountains. Throws tanks into a tornado, and lets them fall. He kills characters we have instantly fallen in love with minutes ago. 

Every frame of “Fury” is madness, glorious madness that feels as alive and pulsing as the first “Mad Max” in 1979, a film that plays like it had to be made or its director –- Miller –- might lose his f’n mind. 

(This also recalls the gonzo mad independent Australian films of the 1970s, such as “The Cars that Ate Paris,” where narrative coherence is slain by glorious visual chaos. And, yes, John Seale’s digital, handheld cinematography is Oscar worthy, inches from bloodied cheeks and oil-spewing motors. Also Oscar worthy: Nicholas Holt, breaking out from boring X-Men and childish movie star roles to play a crazed man riddled with tumors and a desire to die horrifically, so he can be reborn whole.) 

Before I get ahead of myself: We are back in the post-nuclear apocalypse desert of the “Road Warrior” and “Thunderdome,” although I don’t think “Fury” is exactly a sequel or a reboot from the previous films. It’s never specifically said that this Max is the same Max of the previous trilogy. His flashbacks -– violent, haunted acid trips of a man long past sanity -– match nothing told before. Miller has us work for info. He drops us in the middle of the action and makes us chase down the back stories, the detailed horrors of this world. 

One viewing is not enough. Furiosa’s task at the start of the film is to steal gasoline for her master, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played the villain in “Mad Max,” but a fully different character). Joe is an obese tumor-stricken old man wearing a plastic muscle suit that bulks him to Hulk-size, with a horrifying oxygen mask of plastic, rubber, and animal teeth for a face. He is the leader of a desert cult that worships him as a god, and as he controls all water, food, fuel, and the blood supply, he will not be questioned. 

He also keeps five young women as sex slaves to breed his children. It is they who are Furiosa’s cargo as the film opens, she defying the order to steal petro as she carries these women to the “green place” of her lost youth. Within Joe’s tower cave, his “wives” have scrawled defiant phrases: “We are not your property!” 

The chase is set when Joe decides otherwise and sets out to get his “women” back, no matter who he has to kill to do so. (Even his underlings question his sanity.) That the “wives” are introduced as one-note barely-dressed supermodels is a tantalizing FU from Miller and his writers. In the sands, away from men, finding more women warriors and mentors, these young “hotties” explode in murderous revolt. Max can barely keep up. 

Oscar winner Theron rules the film with quiet intensity. Our action star for 2015. Hardy is her acting equal as a man lost and in desperate need of saving by these women before he loses his last thread of humanity. Epic does not do “Fury” justice. It is vital viewing as action spectacle and comment on our sexist age. 

I can’t think of another Hollywood summer film that has so upended my expectations to glorious effect. Miller has just writ the end of our male-dominated Marvel and D.C. summer era. Those films are made by business. This was made by burning need. A+

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 and Gone Girl (both 2014)

Blockbuster films “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1” and “Gone Girl” share little in common other than book source female authors, respectively, Suzanne Collins and Gillian Flynn. 

But, damn, these movies do show the difference of a bloated, ill-advised screen adaptation (that “Part 1” is a millstone) and another adaptation that takes the meat and bones of its source, cut the fat, and creates a raging animal that leaves one spooked, rattled, and –- most importantly –- wanting more. 

(Collins helped adapt her story, with others, Flynn takes sole credit.) 

If you’re smart enough to be on the Web, you know the basics of each film. “Mockingjay” comes from the third and final book in a wildly popular series about teen Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) as she struggles against a fascist future America where lives of the poor are held as sport to the rich. War is brewing. 

“Girl” follows a He Said, She Said format as a once good marriage has turned toxic and maybe deadly. The wife has gone missing, and the husband has “killer” inscribed on his scumbag forehead. 

The novel “Mockingjay” clocks in under 400 pages, and as with all of Collins’ books, reads fast. No stops or fluff. Fewer pages means less work to cut from page to screen. But success breeds greed. 

After the great sequel “CatchingFire” –- with its devastating emotional punches, great action and characters, and a cliffhanger ending –- became a smash hit even over its predecessor, watching this new film is a surprisingly dull overlong drudge. 

It’s half a real movie with dozens of outtakes crammed in. It makes the mistake of sidelining Katniss for nearly two hours of weeping and thumb-twiddling as she lets the boys take over. Ouch. 

The “Games” books and films have excelled IMHO over the awful, inept, feminism-hating “Twilight” series because Katniss has no time for romance or weeping, because she is too busy being the protector of her family. Very little of her is here. The studio now just sees dollars, and a dark, thrilling dystopian tale of and for youth is stretched too thin. 

We get scenes repeated -– Katniss stands over war rubble and charred bodies no less than five time, and two of those in the same exact location, where she ransacks, twice now, her ruined home for supplies. 

As the focus was nearly entirely on or about Katniss in previous films, we know grow our side-character roster, and God bless Philip Seymour Hoffman -– I miss him dearly –- most of his scenes are unneeded, with no need to watch him talking to Katniss’ PR handler (Elizabeth Perkins). 

Near the end, Katniss stands in a control room watching from afar as men go into battle, and she watches and watches, and spends what might be 10 minutes repeating, “Are you there?,” to the evil dictator who also is watching the rescue from afar, President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Much more happens and I won’t spoil a drop for those unfamiliar with the book, but just sitting there knowing we have another two hours of film to watch in what should have been a tight, relentless, three-hour film exhausts me. 

“Part 1” wants to sell itself as drums of war, but that pounding is all cash registers clinking, a move the wealth-crazed, Ayn-Rand-loving villains of this tale might ironically approve. The heroes? Katniss, and the haunted veteran played by Woody Harrelson? They would mutter, “I don’t have time for this.” 

“Gone Girl” –- even at two and half hours –- knows the best always leave you wanting more, be it book, film, or food. Flynn’s book was a helluva read, bouncing back for 400-plus pages between man and wife as they delve into their disintegrating marriage, he speaking in the present day after the wife goes missing and police and media come calling and ravaging; her from the past, in diary entries, sliding from happiness to despair. 

That’s three quarters of the film, until Flynn and director David Fincher don’t just turn the car around, they crash it wheels up in icy muck, and watch it -– and us -– sink and freeze. Part of the genius in “Girl” is the casting, with American sweetheart Ben Affleck as the husband and relative unknown actress Rosamund Pike (“Jack Reacher”) as the wife. 

Affleck’s Nick Dunne is a former NYC journalist turned bar owner, back in his Missouri sticks childhood home with a dead mom, a senile father, and a twin sister, and many dark secrets. His shirt always untucked, blue jeans under a gut, and a blank face, he is cold and aloof, so much to the point that the police starting wrinkling their eyebrows. Hard. Especially after the diary of the wife, Amy, is uncovered. Its most recent pages purging tales of abuse. 

Amy was raised a New Yorker and the child of parents who mined their daughter’s youth for books, children’s book that always seemed one step ahead of their own girl, one punch above perfect. “Amazing Amy” the book series was called. How can anyone stand to strive to be amazing, to live up to fiction? I will stop there. 

Fincher again has made a cold, daring film that cuts right to the dark pit of the soul, that little black ball rolled up deep inside, found in “The Game” and “Fight Club.” 

Flynn adapted her own book, gutting sections, condensing others, and adding new ribbons of dark blood toward the end. Spoilers? Harsh drama and part sick satire, “Gone” is a nasty trip through marriage and media, and personality, how people –- all of us -- perform in public, for one’s spouse or family, and even to ourselves, striving to meet expectation or get that life –- that perfect life -– we know we saw on TV, or dream about, or read about once. 

Like that book series. It’s toxic. (How harmful was a show like “Leave It to Beaver” to read, struggling American families?) There are great moments of crushing satire and criticism of the media that bounce the film along and ring true in our age where white wealthy women disappearing is national news, but not so for anyone of color, or low income. 

Tyler Perry plays the part of a sleaze lawyer who comes to Nick’s “rescue,” and he brings a dynamic, comedic charge to the film that saves it from going too dark, and he’s in a magical feat, our way into the film. 

This is a film to watch and talk about over booze and food, not read about. See it for no other reason than Affleck -- a successful director and new Batman -- crushing his role as an ugly man impossible to hate. He is a marvel to behold, as is the amazing Pike.

Yes, “Mockingjay” will make tons more money and get more press, but “Gone” is the film that stays the course. Unwavering.

Mockingjay: B- Gone: A-

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Peter Weir’s “Picnic at Hanging Rock” is a mystery with no answer. It’s 1900 Australia and a group of girls from an elite finishing school leave for a picnic at Hanging Rock, a chunk of mountain with a near-supernatural magnetism. It looms as a god, setting visitors in a daze. Watches stop. People sleep. Four girls wonder for no reason but curiosity. Three disappear, one returns panicked. The vanished girls drop the perfect façade of the school and town into hysteria, order and etiquette shattering. People don’t fear the girls’ deaths, they fear their “violation.” The unknown expands. Weir uses glowing cinematography and pan-flute music to portray the perfection that we all desire to build us for the fall. Life is unanswerable, we cannot escape it reciting poetry or meeting dinner time. The only innocent free girl throws herself to death. The grand head mistress (Rachel Roberts) loses her glory to reality, her fate leads back to that Rock. Honestly, “Picnic” is perfect, as defined as what we are not shown, by as what we are. It is art that cannot be explained or crunched into a few sentences, it must be seen. On repeat. Endlessly fascinating. A+

The Frozen Ground (2013)

“The Frozen Ground” got me burning mad. Nicolas Cage as cop. John Cusack as serial killer. Shot and chopped up young women. Alaska. True story. 1980s. The whole murky grisly movie works OT to condemn violence against and the objectification of women ... And yet writer/director Scott Walker’s camera stares nose close at Disney Princess Vanessa Hudgen’s stripper ass as she stage grinds. Because one can’t make a film about strippers and hookers being slaughtered by a loser kook without a little T&A stage action. At least if everyone behind the camera is male. Maybe only women should make films about cruel ways men treat women. Especially talking fact. Plot: Cusack’s Robert Hansen has 20 girls in the grave, but Hudgens’ (“Spring Breakers”) prostitute/stripper has escaped and can ID him. Her lone hero is Cage’s cop, who works so hard on the job, his family is neglected. Nothing on screen differs from an episode of “Law & Order: SVU,” so we only have stunt casting to cheer. Cusack underplays. So does Cage. The less said about 50 Cent’s pimp, the better. Recalling the victims to pop music: Ugly bad move. D+

Hanna Arendt (2013)

The banality of evil. The very notion that anyone can commit unspeakable evil under the oh-so-wrong “right” condition is something of a cliché now. But back in the early 1960s as philosopher/teacher/writer Hanna Arendt coined the phrase while covering the Eichmann trial for the New Yorker, she was met with a crushing ethical/academic flame war. As played by Barbara Sukowa, this European art-house take of “Hanna Arendt” has the Holocaust survivor and NYC resident shunned here and in Israel after she not only wrote that Eichmann was just a boring mediocre shit with no brains, but some Jewish leaders helped open the door of Nazi extermination through contrition. It’s relatively accepted now. Not then. Not when wounds and memories were so raw. The move is at its best at these moments of personal drama and inner torment. Yet, often I feel left cold by these New York intellectual dramas as they seem to take anyone not in the “know” to task for not being a member of the party. I look at these square-heads here and think, “Why be friends with them?” My tweed jacket diet only goes so far. B

In a World… (2013)

I vividly recall Lake Bell from the final episodes of TV’s “Practice” and its spin-off “Boston Legal.” New to me, she stood above a stellar cast of actor that included James Spader. Bell popped smart and darkly funny. Her big screen feature starring, writing, and directing debut is “In a World…,” a comedy about a 30ish woman smashing her way into the boys-only “Trailer Voice” club that her own mega-ego father (Fred Melamed) rules as semi-permanent king. Bell’s Carol’s voice talents have no end, even if she lives with pop and has love woes to make Juliet sulk. That’s a skim off the top of this tale that plays rom-com, flips comedy genre clichés 180, and blasts loud as testy feminist scream and future-looking let down as Carol learns that the farther she moves into Hollywood, the more she realizes that the capitalist big pigs care nothing about any woman’s breakthrough, only money. God Bless Rich America! Parts of “World” are long or buzz-free, but damn Bell has made a fine, funny project that spits in the eye of the world she likely seeks entry into.I want to see her next film now. B+

The Lost World (1960)

“The Lost World” is some kind of crazy time capsule flick, a reminder how far most of America and the world has progressed since 1960. Here, a group of explorers led by a pompous professor (Claude Rains) jet to South America to claim what the prof calls “El Dorado,” a forgotten mountain where “dinosaurs” roam and dark-skinned cannibals screech and chase after good white folk. Among the heroes is a helpless, always shrieking lady (Jill St. John) who is repeatedly told a woman’s only place “is in the home” and her venturing outside is dangerous. She agrees. “150,000 years ago or today?,” the “Lost World” poster reads. That’s irony. Then and today, this is a Tea Party GOP’ers warped version of the world, as it was, is, and shall be forever. Hey, it’s an improvement over the 6,000 years thing, right? In the end, all of the white people survive, find wealth, and laugh. All the foreigners die, including the maybe gay guy. I cringed, winced, and, yes, laughed at the sexism and xenophobia, and the ancient special effects that have lizards with glued-on appendages “chasing” people. “Lost World” is accurate. C

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

The Rain People (1969)

Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Rain People” is a low-budget, outside-the-system film at its best: Brave, as uncomfortable as any harsh truth, and against the set codes of American-GOP-approved rules. It’s a must-watch companion to fellow “F.U.” road picture “Easy Rider” as it follows a conflicted housewife named Natalie (Shirley Knight, raw with emotion) as she runs away from home in -– of all things -– a station wagon. Natalie is newly pregnant and scared of the responsibility. She is consumed by how to carry on, or not. Coppola wisely allows Natalie to stay conflicted, notably speaking of herself in the third person. She -– purposefully unwise -– picks up a hitchhiker, a college footballer dropout (James Caan, excellent) waylaid by a devastating injury to his brain. The two wonder mostly, finding an America beautiful and patriotic, and yet corrupt and uncaring. Deeply poignant, beautifully written, and often purposefully infuriating, “Rain” provides a shot of truth about the lies we tell ourselves and others, boasting of false joy or denying our lost happiness. The movie’s stark ending is as harsh as life’s crueler turns, as it must be. Awesome credit: A guy named George Lucas is listed as production assistant. “Rain” deserves more celebration. A

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-

Brave (2012)

In Pixar’s “Brave,” red-haired and wild Merida is a Scottish lass who must make that terrible choice that seemingly every other Disney Princess has ever faced: Marrying for duty, not for love. She is no wallflower longing for Prince Charming, though, but a huntress who climbs tall mountains that lord over her Highlands home. When iron-willed mother (Emma Thompson) pushes our heroine to choose a suitor, she bolts. “Brave” is, wonderfully, the first Pixar film to focus on a female lead, but it’s also, sadly and oddly, the first of its films to bear a heavy, unmistakable thumbprint from new parent company Disney. From the princess angle to the heavy lessons, the DNA here is as old as “Snow White.” The plot fully kicks off when runaway Merida encounters a witch who promises to “change” her mother with a spell. What trouble magic brings I will not say, but its resolution is so simple and straight forward, I kept waiting for another shoe, any shoe, to drop. More Hesitant than “Brave.” In true Pixar fashion, the animation stuns, and the voice cast (Kelly Mcdonald plays Merida) is flawlessly chosen for talent, not name. B

Hysteria (2012)

“Hysteria” is a mostly daring, often hilarious satire, more commentary on history, than actual deed-for-deed, word-for-word history. In 1880s London, the city’s poor are loathed and considered trash by the rich. To help or mingle with them is status quo cultural sin. Women, damn. Women are thought to suffer from hysterical delusions, and if they speak out too loudly, demand change, and a right to their own (gasp!) body, then they face institutionalization. 

More than a handful of good ol’ U.S. Republicans will recognize these traits as the glory days of all humanity. The Romney-Ryan ticket approves, certainly. (Add in blatant hatred of homosexuals.) Indeed, “Hysteria” shows a time best forgotten. Or satirized. Not re-lived.

The big tongue-in-cheek focus lays on the invention of the portable electric massager that gave any woman a right to her own pleasure. We follow a young doctor (Hugh Dancy) who is vile enough to not only wish to help the poor, but recognize the science of germs, who is tossed from job after job for his beliefs. 

So, he bounces into the employ of a physician (Jonathan Pryce) who treats hysteria, the catch-all phrase for the female symptoms I described above, you know, dissatisfaction. Here the film turns riotously funny because the “treatment” at this time means literally having a doctor manually massage a female client to climax, for her to be relived of “unwanted” thought. Hilariously, the endless workload distresses Dancy’s Mortimer Granville to near disability, or what we call carpal tunnel syndrome. More hilariously: Watch how the older female clients of the physician practically rip apart Granville with their eyes. Enter the vibrator, which our hero doctor sees in another device worked on by a rich (and very liberal) friend. 

The old physician, by the way, has two daughters: One demure and colorless, by force, the other, headstrong, willful, and ready for a fight. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the latter. Yes, trouble brews. When Mortimer foolishly calls her a “socialist” for wanting to help the poor, leaving her own privilege behind, the audience nodded knowingly.

The brew goes flat -- dare I say limp? -- at the end, though. The climax of courtroom speeches and declarations of love is old, and far too Hollywood, umm, rigid for an English film made about breaking boundaries. That grinds loud and old. But I could not help but dig watching the way “Hysteria” parallels our own time, and how far some of us want to go back. We need another shakeup, STAT. B+

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (2011)

It’s too easy to pick on the “Twilight” films. What started out as an entertaining supernatural romantic fantasy for teenagers in 2008 quickly grew boring, trite, and, I can’t say this enough, cringingly anti-woman as we follow a Washington state high school girl (Kristen Stewart as Bella) fall enthralled to her century-old-stuck-as-a-teenager vampire fiance (Robert Pattinson as Edward) and yet remain mooned over –- literally –- by her werewolf best friend (Taylor Lautner as Jacob). 

The whole scenario is utterly ridiculous, but that’s fantasy, right? The screw? At every turn, and evermore increasingly here, Bella becomes less of a full-fledged intelligent human being that happens to be a woman, than a near mindless submissive girl robot. (Is there anything more ... boring?) She has absolutely no plan, thought, or choice outside of her devotion to her dreamy fang man, and ensuring his happiness. I mean, can she hold a job? I’m not certain. Bet she can vacuum. Bella might be the flattest main female character of a major Hollywood franchise ever put to film. Bella is the anti-Ripley.

This overlong film adapts the fourth book in the series, and only part of it as the studio knows how to ring a few more million dollars from smitten fans known as Twi-Hards. Here, Bella is 18 and ready to marry Edward for he won’t do the deed until they are wed, old-fashioned values and all, and she wants to do the deed. And become like him, a vampire. (That’s commitment.) They do marry, and director Bill Condon (“Gods and Monsters”) stages the wedding with romantic delirium –- forest, leaves, amazing dresses and tuxes that would make any romantic swoon, and there is camera work to die for. (That’s the great Guillermo Navarro as Director of Photography. He shot “Pan’s Labyrinth.”)

Condon and his writers then take us on the only-in-a-movie fantasy honeymoon in South America, on a private island, and there the trouble begins. Eddie -– can I call him that? -- is concerned he’ll hurt Bella during sex with his super-vampire strength, but she’s OK with getting hurt, up to the point where she becomes pregnant. Abnormally “Rosemary’s Baby” pregnant. For her love of Edward, Bella commits to baby, much to his woe, and the anger of Jacob, who, like Bruce Banner, is always angry.

By now ridiculing a “Twilight” movie equals crushing a 14-year-old girl’s spirit because she talks too much on the telephone with her friends. The movies are silly romance popcorn entertainment. I get it. And teenage girls like to talk on the phone. Some things cannot be changed. They are what they are. So, I went for comedy at this viewing, from the way Pattinson can’t hide his contempt for the material that is below him, to the way Lautner makes looking angry so painfully hilarious, and a scene in which Lautner and his extended family carry on a full-blown scream-fest squabble as werewolves, making for the worst voice-over live-action scene I can recall seeing in a Hollywood film of the modern era. 

I will say this, “Part 1” is splendidly art-directed. Toward the film’s end, as Edward’s vampire family prepares to square off for full-on CGI/wirework war against Jacob’s werewolf family, at the former’s house, all for the life of Bella and her Vambaby, I just loved the “Architecture Design” look of it all. The massive windows looking out into the endless trees. Drama? Pfft. This is a family that, facing attack, leaves their glass doors wide open. Military strategy? The family fails. Home buying? Absolute genius. 

Not genius, not by a long shot, is the arc of Bella’s story. Maybe I never will. I have griped before about Bella’s absolute lack of any life interest or counsel, and the befuddlement only continues here. She spends her pre-wedding night alone, except for a visit by Edward, who I suppose is only checking in on her. Control is so romantic. Almost stereotypical to a bad 1800s marriage, he has friends to celebrate with. She? None. Zip. Zero. Bella’s only friends, helping her along the way to the big day and the baby crisis are Edward’s family, his “sisters.” Her pop, her mom, all are kept at least at arm’s length, if not a few thousand miles apart. (At least the father is concerned. By telephone.)

Actually, sorry there’s one. Jacob, the heartbroken, mooning werewolf guy who shows up at Bella’s wedding and yo-yos from all smiles and hugs to throwing the girl around, violently shaking her, and screaming all within mere seconds. Luckily, ol’ Eddie is there to save her. He’s always there. I suppose we should all be thankful he is such a nice guy.

I keep wanting Bella’s policeman father to come in and get her out. Or, actually, for Bella to finally walk out on her own, wake up and save herself. Take up industrial engineering. Ride a bike cross country. Apply to, I don’t know, college, even community college. The last scene proves me wrong again. She remains ever flat and in love. And, I get it, or not, it is all fantasy, supernatural romantic fantasy. Not real at all. C-

Haywire (2012)

Steven Soderbergh’s “Haywire” exists for one reason: To show mixed-martial arts fighter Gina Carano kick the snot out of such Hollywood heartthrobs as Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, and Ewan McGregor. She does this exceedingly well. The fight scenes are fast, feel brazenly real, and contain none of the CGI’d wirework gunk that turns most female vigilante flicks into fetishized trash. I’m looking at you, “Underworld.” When Tatum pummels Carano in the opening scene, the sight is shocking. Carrano gives back, brutally. Alas, the action is all that’s worth noting as the story (by Lem Dobbs, who wrote Soderbergh’s “Limey”) is a merry-go-round of betrayals so outlandishly unbelievable and confusing, I gave up tracking details and dialogue. Speaking of, and I pray I never meet Carano, but her delivery is tepid, with at least half her words red-flagged as post- production re-recording. She has a tough screen presence, but so much of this film is awkward talk that it feels long at 93 minutes. In a sequel, Carano must fight Liam Neeson. Fact. B-

Melancholia (2011)

Ditching the 200-word limit count here, this film deserves the attention…

“Melancholia” is about nothing less than the shocking, smothering power of depression on the human psyche and the end of all life on Earth as know it, and writer/director Lars von Trier welcomes that end with open arms.

“The Earth is evil. … Nobody will miss it,” he says, through the mouth of his “heroine,” Justine, played marvelously and bravely by Kirsten Dunst.

This film – shocking, maddening, infuriating, heartbreaking and brilliant even when it derails off the tracks in spectacular fashion – is the twisted sister of “Tree of Life,” 2011’s other film about the universe, God, and a shattered family.

Important note: von Trier does not believe in God. Sub-note: This is not a date film.

Von Trier opens with the end of the Earth, as a massive planet -- previously hidden behind the sun -- coined by the press as Melancholia makes its way toward Earth, drifting, and then smashing our planet into bits.

Between scenes of cosmic death, he shows us Justine and her family in their final moments, both in reality, and inside their scarred souls and minds, as they face annihilation. The chunk of film – on first viewing -- is inexplicable and scored loud to Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde.”

(A second viewing is a must, and a revelation. On the big screen. With big sound.)

We then flashback months to an equally massive disaster, Justine’s wedding, as she and her new husband (Alexander Skarsgard) arrive at a reception at her sister’s rural mansion. She looks to the night sky and sees a red star, and also – in her mind – death and hopelessness. Justine truly believes herself to be, and her world crumbles.

The reception spirals out of control as the bride drifts into a deep depressed state, one her broken family knows too well, and commits heinous acts as a way to bring on the end, her end, full tilt. Sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) can only attempt to help. Weeks later Justine moves in with Claire and her husband (Kiefer Sutherland, never better as a self-righteous prick).

Similar to Melancholia smashing Earth, Justine’s arrival lays ruin to the family of wife, husband and young son.

Unsettling and uncomfortable from first to last frame, this plays as von Trier’s most personal film, his ode to his own depression. His Justine is unaffected by the pending doom of Melancholia, for her world already has ended. Justine grows strong as her sister falls to despair.

Von Trier – having previously made the grim as hell but wildly imaginative “Breaking the Waves” and “Dancer in the Dark” -- is a madman for sure, a complete jerk by all accounts, and a cretin. But he’s a master filmmaker. Who says Vincent van Gogh was cordial?

The scope of this small epic comes into orbit of the giant Terrence Malick epic “Tree of Life,” touches it. The films would make a perfect double of much majesty, and not a small bit of artistic madness. Von Trier was off his meds when he made this, and was at Cannes.

Von Trier’s miracle move is to make a nightmarish wedding reception seem like the end of the world, only to show us the end of the world, and he makes every moment – even the ugliest ones – a work of artistic beauty.

As for Dunst, she of the recent “Spider-Man” films, she shines bright as a woman so smothered in darkness, so weakened she can barely rise from bed.

In the end, you will want to cheer von Trier, or punch him in the face, but you will react. Strongly. That, folks, is what art is supposed to do.

And “Melancholia” is art. A

Hanna (2011)

Here’s a fairytale the Grimm Brothers dare not have imagined: A 16-year-old girl, raised in full isolation and trained to be a ruthless assassin by her golden knight father, is set out onto the world to exact revenge against the wicked witch who killed mommy. “Hanna” is not that bluntly supernatural, though. Daddy (Eric Bana) is an ex-CIA agent who we think is nutty paranoid until we learn he is rightfully so. The Wicked Witch (Cate Blanchett) is his CIA boss, a soulless Texan obsessed with material goods. Yes, it’s a commentary. Director Joe Wright is clearly having fun by squashing logic and ending his taut thriller at a derelict amusement park, with Blanchett walking out of the mouth of the Big Bad Wolf. This would all be laughable were it not for Saoirse Ronan, who ruled over Wright’s “Atonement.” As Hanna, she effortlessly bounces from a teen with no memory of women, and no idea of TV or music or cars, to a killer on a dime. She’s a better heroine than the girl from “Twilight.” Very “Never Let Me Go, Jason Bourne.” B

Bridesmaids (2011)

The Kristen-Wiig-spearheaded “Bridesmaids” is at once a female take on all-guy flicks such as “The Hangover” and a goofy yet sharp take on women wondering how they fit into the world, as opposed to the insufferable women who think the world revolves around them as in “Sex and the City 2.” This comedy revolves around Annie (Wiig), a mid-30s single woman with a failed business behind her, a dumpy jewelry store gig, and a crude fuck buddy (Jon Hamm) who doesn’t even appreciate the sex. When she learns her childhood BFF (Maya Rudolph, another “SNL” vet as is Wiig) is engaged, Annie reacts not with happiness, but despair. She fears being alone.

Annie means well, for sure, but her mental id makes hell for the bride’s life, including a literal shit-storm pileup at a high-dollar dress shop and a Las Vegas plane ride to nowhere. The best comedies, as with the best fantasy or sci-fi or romance films, take relatable, real people and put them in outlandish situations, and this is it: Drunk Annie balling at the death of Wilson in “Cast Away” and the sister-in-law bridesmaid (Melissa McCarthy, stealing the movie) not giving a flying F about what people think, and laying it all out for men. McCarthy says of a guy at a party, “I’m going to climb that like a tree.” Make a movie about her.

This is a fun movie, smart, happy to make an ass of its heroine, but never treating her as stupid or in a demeaning way. Nor are any of the women beholden to men, although they long for relationships, so they exist in a world Katherine Heigl fans cannot contemplate. It’s slow to go, and many scenes drag for a beat too long, as does every other Judd Apatow creation. He produced this. Still needs a sharper editor. But what a hilarious film. B+

Sex and the City 2 (2010)

“Sex and the City 2” is an abomination. Over reaction? I present this scene: NYC sex columnist/novelist/wife Carrie Bradshaw (Sara Jessica Parker) is sitting in a private jet, flying to Abu Dhabi on an all-expense paid trip. Free. No strings. Is she looking out at the window at the majestic world below her? Is she contemplating the wonders of culture and geography at her destination? No. She is pouting. She says, in that “I’m so witty” voice that Parker employs, and grinds my soul apart, and I quote, “Somewhere over Africa, I began to wonder about relationships.” Who. The. Fuck. Talks. Like. That? I mean, even in a fictional high-on-sugar-and-schmaltz fantasy cream fizz bullshit film about rich, snobby, soulless New Yorkers?

Carrie pouts because husband Mr. Big, a wildly wealthy Wall Street type played by Chris Noth, bought her a massive TV for their anniversary, so they can snuggle and watch movies in bed. The horror! The abuse. Pfft. It sinks in fast during the first 20 minutes of this ungodly long film that God Himself, if He exists or not, in all His infinite glory could not satisfy Carrie Bradshaw. So she will pout. She’s become a caricature reality show Housewife of Wherever, I guess New York. She is a 45-year-old child, with Botox. Syringes of Botox.

But that’s just the tip of this vile fantasy anti-feminist comedy that is so unaware of its self and the universe and any remote reality, it thinks having Arabic women lifting burkas to reveal hidden Madison Square Avenue clothes equals liberation. In a region infamous for killing women who dare speak out, drive, and ask for equal rights from their men overlords. More eye-opening side trips in this in-Hollywood-only Middle East include the four TV “SATC” friends (Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis are all on hand with Ms. Parker) having an openly swishy gay Arabic manservant because … we all know how Islamic-nations love gay people. As much as the Republican party. I won’t get into the multi-million-dollar opening gay wedding with swans, an all men’s chorus, and Liza Minnelli as the officiator and entertainment. So damn vulgar.

Director/writer/torturer Michael Patrick King has said this film -- this capitalism-is-God soul fuck -– is a throwback to the fantasy films of the ’30s, purposeful fluff made to cheer up audiences rocked by the Great Depression. Never mind that many people in 2010 could not afford the $12 movie ticket to be sucker punched. It was a nickel back in 1931. The HBO TV show was known for some crass consumerism, for sure, but it also was amazingly smart and shrewd, giving men the window-shop treatment women suffer in 99 percent of films and music and TV shows. Heartbreaks were played out, and 9/11 honorably looked upon with love for New York. The few moments of insight in this -– Davis’ mother weeping over hectic children and Nixon’s attorney dealing with a sexist boss, everyday stuff women deal with -– are drowned out in silliness such as a hot nanny with no bra, Jude Law jokes, and Nixon chirping all Minnie-Mouse-like saying “I’ll get a better job!” Really, lady, in this economy?

That the movie winks at true sexism and the economy, the housing market, and joblessness, GREED that has destroyed millions of lives, and yet has every character blissfully not giving a fuck is all the more insulting. A better film could have had these ladies knocked down a peg, holding fast to their friendship through the loss or a job, or eviction, or uncertainty. I have read reviews comparing the excess and dumpsters of money found here to “Transformers 2.” I’d say this film is more akin to “Grown Ups,” a sad sack comedy full of 40-year-olds acting like 20-year-olds, fully unaware no one in the audience finds them relevant anymore. At least the first film, released in 2008, had kick and spark of character growth, mixed in with the commercialism.

Final insult: The women flaunt their “feminist” power in the land of Allah like a pack of Westboro church members screaming free speech as they belittle every single human within earshot, and yet cry foul when criticized. Cattrall’s sex lioness -- once a pop culture icon, now a stereotype – is the prime offender, mimicking oral sex at an Arabic restaurant. That’s not feminism. That’s pissing on feminism. On culture. The whole film is an insult to women, Muslims, gays, America, the Middle East, all sense and sensibility. If you like this film, please, buy, rent or borrow a soul. There is none to be found here. F

Secretariat (2010)

Walt Disney airbrushes life. That is its specialty. And in “Secretariat,” the studio does a splendid job: This biopic of the horse that won Triple Crowns shows no grit and grime of track racing, nor does it delve into race issues, Vietnam, drugs and sex, or feminist issues despite its 1960s-1970s setting. When Tea Party Patriots talk about the gleaming glory days of American history, they mean the America depicted in this movie. Not reality. But I digress, because this is a rousing lump-in-your-throat film. It focuses on Penny Chenery (Diane Lane), a housewife compelled into taking over her parents’ horse farm. Born with horse sense, Penny knows there is a champion soon to be born in her stable and so she marches full force into a sport run by cigar-smoking old men. You know the rest. From Lane’s whip smart take-no-crap aura to the beautiful cinematography (by Dean Semler) to the long finale where the horse gallops to glory, my snob standards fell and I smiled big. A must-show to girls looking for female heroes. B