The Imitation Game (2014)

“The Imitation Game” wants to be a liberal rage against the evil that was British law for a century: The criminalization of homosexuality, and the body-and-mind destruction – execution, really -- of WWII hero Alan Turing, because he was born gay. But it’s really an (sorry) ultra-straight drama that’s played so safe and virginal, my church-going parents would not blink. Benedict Cumberbatch is mesmerizing and coolly brilliant as Turing, the mathematician who is called on by Her Majesty to help break the seemingly impossible cryptic Enigma code used by the Nazis during World War II. Mr. Sherlock nails the part of the misfit thrown into the Army, where failure to fit in can get you shot or jailed. But Turing’s sexuality? Cumberbatch has nothing to work with. All sex is off screen, hidden like one of those impossible codes. Now I get Turing couldn’t act on desires during war, living under Army rule. fact. But here there is no desire. No anger. No frustration. Why? By the time onscreen Turing is forced to undergo chemical castration, one has to ask, why fret? This man, as written for the Oscar votes, seems to have been a unich all along.  B-

The Patriot (2000)

“Braveheart” goes Tea Party in “The Patriot,” a three-hour drama/revenge flick starring Mel Gibson as a Very Angry Man that only pretends it’s aghast at the terrible effects of war on one man’s soul and family, but really it’s jerk-off gun worship as every battle and death ups our blood and demand for Gibson to kill and maim. Gibson’s Benjamin Martin is a veteran turned Southern plantation owner – the blacks on his field are (cough) free, not slave – who gets sucked into the Revolutionary War after Brits kill his middle child. Director Rolland Emmerich needs his movie Red Coats -- led by Jason Issacs as a sniveling colonel – to be as evil as possible and commit atrocities that would make Nazis shudder to justify Martin’s blood lust. I get it, it’s a movie and we moviegoers love our Mel in seething Mad Max mode, but the flag-waving propaganda crosses into perversion. More aching is the depiction of slaves. The scene where a black man is conscripted by his cruel master, only to be followed by a comedic ginger 6-year-old boy asking to sign up for battle? Who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Patriotism with no insight. C-

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-

Belle (2014)

“Belle” is inspired by history, a 1770s Scottish painting of a half-black woman named Dido Elizabeth Belle on equal level with her Anglo cousin. The posing thumped historic, with the slave trade going on full hell tilt. “Belle” leans standard fictional Brit family drama cum courtroom thriller hoopla, thought it scores marks for telling that Britain and America built their empires on slavery. Fact. Story: Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is raised by distant, but wealthy relatives (Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson) when life already was bleak for women –- zero rights. Her obstacles are fierce. Nonetheless, she finds suitors, one an anti-slavery proponent (Sam Reid). Meanwhile, Wilkinson’s high-court judge hears a case on slave cargo and insurance. His decision could topple the sick practice and bring economic ruin. (No more free labor.) Belle obsesses on the case. She swipes evidence, dressed in a hooded robe that had me thinking “Jedi.” Heroic Reid shouts so many truth and justice speeches, I thought, “He’d make a great Superman!” Miscast Tom Felton doesn’t help as a snarling bigot. Is he aware he’s no longer playing Malfoy? Amma Asante’s drama is problematic, yes. Look past that. B

12 Years a Slave (2013)

I don’t want to know anyone who doesn’t walk out of “12 Years a Slave” a crushed soul rebuilt from the ground up by the final and finally at-last hopeful moments of this true horror tale that is deft enough to show beautiful –- stunningly so -- landscapes amid recreations of terrifying acts of inhumanity that were the start of this great (and terrible) nation. 

These shots are clear: As they degrade the lives of those they see as less than themselves, the allegedly greatest of our kind –- rich, educated, and privileged beyond measure -– bring ruin to their own lives with the heinous need to control and take all treasure. 

Brit-born filmmaker Steve McQueen (“Shame”) has done what few American directors have dare tried: Tell the brutal story of slavery in the United States with unblinking detail and absolute you-are-there authority. 

This is the anti-“Gone with the Wind,” with its Southern celebration and happy slaves, and certainly the anti-let-us-have-fun-revenge-flick “Django Unchained,” which I like less and less the more I recall my two, one too many, viewings of it. 

Solomon Northup was a born free African-American in 1840s New York, a musician and engineer, until he was kidnapped and sold into bondage below the Northern line into death, rape, and forced labor that should shock anyone with a hair of decency. 

Chiwetel Ejiofor (“Children of Men”) plays Solomon, a man who must deny his own greatness and abilities, essentially his outright normalcy as a human, lest he be murdered or worse -- and yes there are worse fates -- by his white masters who will not see anyone of color as their equal. 

Solomon does this for 12 grueling years, his longest stretch as “property” of a sadistic drunkard (Michael Fassbender, a regular in McQueen’s films) who is abusive to all around him, including his own wife (Sarah Paulson) who can equal her husband’s acidic temper. 

This is an age when a black slave could be killed for learning to read or write, an act I cannot even muster in my head as a reality. But McQueen shows us many disturbing realities – including a brutal whipping that Solomon is forced to take part in – as every day, and as much a part of the American spirit as apple pie, George Washington and fireworks. 

To deny this, to ignore it, to wish it away as a past that should be forgotten and “get over it,” -– and I heard that a lot in Alabama and here in Virginia from racist cunts who then turn around and celebrate the rah-rah-rah spirit of the Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy, or what their university did in 1881 -- is a great as sin as those who meted out this disaster of inhumanity. 

Ejiofor truly, sorry this sounds cliché, this film has robbed me of most words, astounds in the lead role. I have been a fan of his for years, and now just stand in awe. He plays a freeman forced into not just slavery and near unspeakable cruelty an acting chore, a sick live stage act that lasts some 4,400 days, an educated, bright, angry, hopeful man who must show near none of those traits. 

That’s what sticks with me. Burying oneself as dead although you are yet alive, and long to see your wife and children, and parents, etc. 

In one bravo scene, three quarters, McQueen dishes out a scene that pulls no punches: Ejiofor as Northup looks out into the sky of his “home” and then directly into the camera at the audience, daring us to not just continue in his harrowing story but to never forget his suffering and the untold numbers of his fellow slave captives in an American that only called itself free, but in a blatant knowing lie, a wink as the rich and powerful killed hundreds of thousands, or more, of people of color, all for greed, and wealth, and land. 

The final moments, and this is no spoiler that Solomon lives, where he apologies –- apologies –- to his family for missing out on their lives, just laid waste to me. Can you imagine? I simply cannot, and have no words. McQueen and company have left me near silent. 

(Note: As with “The Butler,” a host of big names pop by for cameos, Brad Pitt among them, but these roles are mostly commoners, owners, bigots, and others, and the cameos do not stick in the crawl as, say, John Cusack does as Richard damn Nixon. OK, stop, hold on, Pitt almost grinds and pops too much a saint-like liberal progressive.)

Lest we need proof this story must be told, loud and in every corner, lest it ever be forgotten, a darling of the right-wing conservative movement has written a review of “12” –- without seeing the film, and stating he has no intention to -– saying McQueen and the film are too “harsh” on slavery, which has economic merit and can actually be healthy…. That such thought still carries cultural weight today is truly paralyzing. 

And makes “12” all the more vital. (If you can, read the book source. STAT.) A

Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013)

Perfect case of best intentions, and short results. “The Butler” aspires for Oscar glory and to do nothing less than tell the story of African-Americans and their plight to obtain true equality in America through the eyes of one White House butler (Forrest Whitaker) and his family (Oprah Winfrey as an alcoholic wife, and David Oyelloyo as an activist son). 

The titular butler is Cecil Gaines -– based ever so loosely by a thin thread on real-life figure Eugene Allen -– and his prideful job and moral millstone is to play silent witness to the terrible and great moments of the 20^th century Civil Rights movement as he serves tea and roast beef to a line of succeeding American presidents. Naturally, or so the film wants us to believe, each POTUS is won over to see the light of love and racial equality by Gaines’ stoic silence and dedication to the job, making sure the butter knife is just perfectly set so. 

Look, Whitaker knocks the part out, no surprise. He’s been a favorite actor of mine since “Platoon,” and his quiet anger and love shine through in scene after scene. But he’s still standing still for 99 percent of the film, like an end table. Mouth shut. It is Winfrey who near owns the film. Her rounded performance captures illness, anger, love, and jealous hate of the attention Cecil gives Jackie Kennedy, and is the sharp. The wife, though, barely leaves the house. That’s a mixed-bag. See, Daniels’ staging of those at-home scenes with Whitaker and Winfrey shine and sting as we finally see the American story through the hearts of our nation’s most belittled people. This is no “Leave it to Beaver” American Dream lie sold by conservative Tea Party drones. 

But, damn, “Butler,” is a mess. We get an eye-rolling list of Hollywood big names as those presidents, each one more miscast than the last: Robin Williams as a fuddy-duddy Ike, John Cusack as an “SNL” version of Nixon, and -– worst move ever -– Alan Rickman as a Reagan so piss-ant dreary, one wonders if anyone here ever saw film of the real man. Reagan dripped charisma. Love him or hate him, you know the man practically sparkled. Rickman? Not at all. Sorry. These cameos stop the film and had the audience snickering. 

As well, spread out for five decades and hitting every historical race marker like some warped liberal version of “Forrest Gump” -– that feels racist to say, but it’s true -– “Butler” plays like a road trip with a rush-rush-rush pop racing the family car down I-95, yelling to the children in the back, “There’s New York, there’s Philadelphia, there’s Washington, we’ll make Orlando by noon,” never stopping to see Independence Hall. 

This history is too important for such treatment. The scenes of black protesters at lunch counters being molested and tortured are soul-crushing, and this is not ancient history. This story would have made an amazing television series on HBO, with room to truly explore what it means to work in a marble building that represents the highest office in all the world, but have absolutely no power of one’s own, unable to even safe your own child from death or a policeman’s billy club. Mr. Allen’s life seems to have played more quieter than the story here. I want to see that life. Not a stand-in quietly serving Hans Gruber supper. B-

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

I have watched “Lawrence of Arabia” many times, but I have never *seen* it in 70 mm as it’s meant to be adored. That said, my recent TV viewing left me awed again. This epic turned razor sharp history lesson is indeed one of the greatest films ever made. It’s cinematography of endless deserts and massive (pre-CGI) battles involving men on horseback charging trains, and Peter O’Toole as Lawrence standing before the sun remains unmatched. O’Toole is T.E. Lawrence, the Brit cartographer who becomes a war leader, leading hundreds of Arabs (our naïve English term put upon hundreds of tribes, unasked) against the Turkish Empire during World War I. That’s a slice of the story. When director David Lean depicts mad Lawrence leading “his” army into Damascus, only to lose the city to chaos, it plays out as foreshadowing of America in Iraq. Lean goes brilliant as we watch Lawrence “grow” from a speck on the horizon to filling the screen, blotting the desert out in paranoid close-ups. Draw your own conclusions on who this man might be now. I love this film, historical in every way. I hope to see this in a theater one day. A+

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Here’s my deal with “The Da Vinci Code,” the box-office smash based on the Dan Brown best-seller. Legions of Christians gnawed their fists off because book and film dared shove an Easter Egg history shocker that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene inside a ridiculous 10-cent thriller about a professor of (snooze) symbology. But why? Both open thusly: At the Louvre, an albino monk  assassin (!) point-blank shoots an old man in the stomach, but grandpa rises and walks about, no blood, moving artwork and leaving arcane blue-light clues for the professor hero, and THEN strips naked, and sprawls out Da Vinci Vitruvian Man style, and dies without moving a twitch. If you can get past any of that to get pissy over Jesus’ sex life, than you need prayer. And brains. And I just touched on the plot holes. Some say “Code” attacks faith. Bull. It attacks thought. The Bible, with all its wonder, is more logical. Ron Howard directs on autopilot, Tom Hanks is adequate as the hero, and Audrey Tautou (“Amelie”) tries out English as the heroine. The sole highlight: Hans Zimmer’s fantastic score. It works miracles. D+

The Untouchables (1987) and Gangster Squad (2013)

Double bill: Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables” with Elliot Ness versus Al Capone, and “Gangster Squad,” with L.A. cops against Mickey Cohen. Both are true cops-and-mobs stories repainted with Hollywood final blowout action scenes. Why allow Frank Nitti his suicide when Ness can toss him off a building? “Squad” plays looser with truth. 

Such is film. Facts hit the floor faster than bodies. In 200 words, my take downs on these mob take-down films.

“Untouchables” –- also based on the rah-rah TV show – follows Eagle Scout/U.S. Treasury agent Ness (Kevin Costner) as he brings in three like-minded heroes (Sean Connery as wise old cop, Andy Garcia as hothead cop, and Charles Martin Smith as nerd cop) to nail Robert De Niro’s Capone. Smart casting and smart-looking film. 

It smells of Chicago and spent bullets. De Palma and screenwriter David Mamet put us in gorgeous locales -– trains station, courthouses, and filthy red alleyways. Dialogue pops like spent lead: Connery barking about knives at a “gun party” is classic. 

I was 13 in ’87 and this became my Instant Favorite Film. The violence, male bravado, scope, and that shoot-out on the stairs. It’s a stellar cops-and-gangsters fantasy for… teenage boys. I’m wiser now, and the red-blood love has waned. This is a sloppy-ass film riddled with dubious continuity errors -– moving corpses, that wondering elevator in the assassination scene, a terrible voice dub throughout, and logic tossed aside in a courtroom finale. Too many scenes make me cringe. 

Was De Palma so in love with his own (admittedly great) style, he forgot the importance of details? Hell if I know. Costner is too fantastic to care. B+

“Squad” whiffs fake as “Untouchables” feels immersed in Chicago lore. You can smell the wet paint. I read Ellroy. Call me biased. Josh Brolin is WWII Army Special Forces vet John O’Mara, now a cop assigned to stop New York-bred Cohen (Sean Penn) from becoming the West Coast Capone.

O’Mara is very Ness to the point I believe writer Will Beall watched “Untouchables” on repeat. Lines are lifted whole. O’Mara also has his three heroes: Robert Patrick as wise old cop, Ryan Gosling as hothead cop, and Giovanni Ribisi as nerd cop. Toss in retro-progression with Anthony Mackie as a black patrolman and Michael Pena as a Hispanic flatfoot named Navidad. (Cringe.) 

Plot: O’Mara’s guys shoot the shit out of Cohen’s guys, who do the same back. Penn is comically spittle-tossing evil, his performance falls into hysterics. I laughed my ass off when a ridiculously dickensesque shoeshiner gets whacked. I gather director Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland”) wasn’t going for giggles among the blood and rape. 

As Ness says, “You aren’t from Chicago.” Do not pretend. C

Django Unchained (2012)

In his near-three-hour blaxploitation spaghetti western homage/ripoff “Django Unchained,” Quentin Tarantino serves up a blood-soaked raw piece of pulp fiction that makes “Inglorious Basterds” and its Nazi history redux seem Disney fluffy. He tackles slavery in the 1850s America and shows it in all its vile, morally offensive code, and does not blink -– a black man is ripped apart by dogs as whites standby cackling, and the “N” word is used as verb, noun, adjective, and an exclamation. I winched, blanched, and shut my eyes at the violence, and the images of African-Americans forced into chains and depraved medieval torture equipment. 

Vulgar and soul-killer upsetting? Yes. On purpose. How can it not be, how can any examination -- even fictional and heightened -- of slavery not make anyone with half a soul cringe, and look away in horror. Shame. But, hell, I say “Gone with the Wind” is far more offensive to the core because it shows slave-ripe America as some kind of utopian Candy Land. It was all good. The South was happy. I hate that film. Tarantino must as well. He fires on all cylinders, his anger at America’s past strong. Conservatives hate this film because it dares show America -– of 150 years ago -- as a moral cesspool no better than Nazi Germany. Leftists such as Spike Lee hate it because they didn't think of this film, cathartic in twisted ways, first. Thank God for Abraham Lincoln, and go see “Lincoln.” These films would make a wild double bill. 

Speaking of Candy Land, Candieland is the name of a Mississippi plantation run by a ruthless land owner (Leonadro DiCaprio) where Django –- a freed slave turned bounty hunter played by Jamie Foxx -– and his killer mentor (Christoph Waltz) seek to free the former’s wife. That’s the gist and final hour of this epic that is bloody brilliant in a dozen ways, a long overdue F.U. to Southern Whites, and their modern GOP apologists who use patriotism as a weapon of hate. 

There’s so much more to the plot, but I would exhaust myself spilling every detail. Cinema master that he is, Tarantino cannot justify the 2 hour 45 minutes running time. He takes a dig at the pre-KKK as the idiot cowards they were and are, but the scene is overlong and kills an otherwise tense encounter between the racists and our heroes. More scenes throughout play overlong or repeat themselves over and over again.

Further, his main characters are not strong enough, nor his plot strands or dialogue. No one here reaches the deep well of Waltz’s Nazi in “Basterds,” or Samuel L. Jackson’s hit man in “Pulp Fiction.” Except for Django’s rebirth as a killer throwing hate and bullets back in the faces of his oppressors, no one else moves an inch forward or backward. We get two over-the-top bloody shoot-outs in the same room split apart by a half-hour in which Tarantino drags his ass around as a slave trader with an Australian accent worse than I could ever mimic. 

In “Basterds,” Tarantino staged a key scene around a dinner and ratcheted the tension so tight, just as my heart was about to explode, his mayhem onscreen exploded. Here, during the big dinner scene, the air lets out, the talk drags on for 20 minutes, then the carnage hits. Then more talk. Then more carnage. Then more talk. Tarantino seems to have written a screenplay in which no idea was bad, and he could not depart with a page. 

So many grand ideas go unrealized. For the first time, I second-guessed Tarantino’s leadership as the Cinema God. See: DiCaprio’s sick twist prince -– and by gosh, he is damn good as a hothead-maniac -– runs a slave gladiator camp. He enjoys watching men of color kill each other in forced do-or-die sport, and his character demands a certain … repayment. Yes, he dies. But that death is cheap, quick, and with no deep wit.

But the real disappointment for me is Kerry Washington as the wife of Django. Great actress. Wonderful. But she is given nothing to do but react -- scream, run, serve, faint, and stand still when a gun is at her head -– after a lengthy buildup that promises a bad ass woman of fire. I wanted to her bash in skulls with the wine picture she is forced to carry, scream and tear apart people. Tarantino bares her body and scars, but not her inner-raging soul, and damn hardy, I know Broomhilda (her name) has one. I hardly believed this character came from the same mind that wrote “Jackie Brown” and “Basterds.” Or the “Kill Bill” series. Tarantino loves women in the best way.

I’m being far too negative. This is not a bad movie. It screams genius, daring, red-faced anger for great lengths. The acting is aces all around (Foxx is deadly cool, and Waltz is clearly relishing every line and twist of his beard), and Samuel L. Jackson re-creates the entire character of the “house slave” as a villain named Stephen. He’s no -– get that name, step n’ fetch it character -– but the true brute force behind Candie’s world. Watch him stand tall at the end.

Tarantino spends so much time making homage to spaghetti-western troupes and bringing in cameos (Johan Hill, Bruce Dern), I wished he focused more on Jackson’s traitor of all traitors, a bent-back man who is a far better power player and con man than Waltz’s bounty hunter. I would have watched another our of Jackson and Foxx going at each other. And sat in fear and awe. Nonetheless, this is near-unshakable film, and Tarantino knows it. Genius? Classic? Must own? No to all three. But unshakable, for sure.

After taking on fantasy Jewish revenge on Hitler, and now putting an African-American in a saddle with guns blasting racist Southerners, one has to wonder where QT will go next: A grindhouse take on Jesus? Or back to gangster-types? Tarantino still remains the most-surprising American filmmaker of our time. Whatever he does next, I’ll be there, eyes wide open. B

Lincoln (2012)

“I could write shorter sermons, but when I get started I’m too lazy to stop,” said Abraham Lincoln, 150 years ago and quoting a rhetorical preacher.  

What better motive to be brief: Working from a screenplay by Tony Kushner (“Angles in America”), Steven Spielberg’s near-miraculous masterpiece “Lincoln” isn’t a full-life bio-pic of the 16^th president, but a careful, smart study of the man’s final months in office as he tried to end the Civil War and pass the 13^th amendment fully abolishing slavery, fearful his Emancipation Proclamation will fall useless once the nation re-unites. 

“Lincoln” –- at its most basic -- may be about legislation, yet it plays out as the most nail-biting, and, yes, funny thriller of our time, for no reason more so than this is about the true, ugly birth of America, where all men are created equal. (Women waited longer for equality; the gay population still waits its turn, Kushner makes apparent.) 

Leaving behind old tricks and sentimental streaks found even in “Schindler’s List,” Spielberg has made a time-capsule story where the fights inside smoky rooms seem like found-footage from 1865. With our nation again deeply divided over everything from budgets to gun control, “Lincoln” almost seems a warped, darkly ironic mirror and wake-up call for today.  

His own miracle maker, Daniel Day-Lewis brings Lincoln to life in astonishing detail –- high voice, striking bouts of anger and compassion, an endless tenacity for jokes and asides that charm some men and drive others mad. Day-Lewis again has topped himself, even with his volcanic performance in “There Will Be Blood.” 

This is no liberal party, though: There’s a scene where Day-Lweis as Lincoln is placed across from famed abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), and the latter barks, “It’s called leadership, you should try it for a change.” That is a blistering order to Obama. (And, yes, the movie nails that it was Democrats in the oh-so-wrong here, reluctant to see slavery fall, whilst Republicans -- liberal ones -- fought to end it. Dems were conservatives back then. Irony.)

The acting all around is the best of the year, the cast inspired by the script, the ideals on screen by Kushner? Who knows. Enjoy it. This good a cast is rare. Jones and Sally Field (as Mary Todd) are equal to Day-Lewis at every turn to the point when husband and wife rip each other over son Willie’s death, the audience -– I –- felt as if I were a eavesdropper. 

Even 10 minutes too long past a poignant stopping point, this is -- for now -- the Best Film of 2012, worthy of a long sermon and national viewing and consideration. And here I stop, not too lazy. A

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

Abe Lincoln is hot in Hollywood. The 16^th prez stars in two big films this year. Suck it, Spider-Man. Don’t cheer yet, historians. “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is a mash-up of history (as in U.S.) and Stoker (as in Bram) with an ax-wielding, head-chomping hero in a stove-pipe hat killin’ vamps. Written by the book’s author, Seth Grahame-Smith, and directed by Timor Bekmanbetov (“Wanted”) with master of ironic goth horror Tim Burton as producer, “AL:VH” ought to be the funniest, bloodiest blast of 2012, especially with our over-the-top election year, but it’s a dud. I dig the joke of ol’ honest Abe (Broadway vet Benjamin Walker) as a badass out for blood, but the film suggests with grim faux seriousness the South used slavery as a guise, with Africans as food a’plenty for Dixie vamps. Stick that joke on the Holocaust and try and laugh. But that’s a side issue. This is an ugly, cheap-looking film with CGI effects barely out of test stage, including a foot chase through a horse stampede and a train ride from hell so ineptly staged I thought this flick an episode of “Punk’d.” On the viewer. Talk about a head shot. C-

Bound for Glory (1976)

“Bound for Glory” is a movie the GOP might wish banned, a tribute to the American Union spirit that defied billy-club work-crew bosses during the long Great Depression. Men such as Woody Guthrie and thousands of fruit pickers – paid pennies per bushel for exhausting work – were the first to Take Our Country Back, and “Glory” tells this biopic story of the leftist singer in such wonderful detail, one might think this a documentary. Hal Ashby (“Harold and Maude”) directs with a keen eye and ear, and as the man who wrote “This Land is Your Land,” David Carradine is soulful and serene. It’s a must-watch as we head toward an election held fast by corporate-controlled puppets that have no regard for anyone but their rich peers. Yet, this is no leftist orgy. Guthrie is a womanizer, too selfish to recognize his family. It’s a sharp message from Ashby and Carradine, troubled men themselves. Ronny Cox (“Total Recall”) as a unionizer dazzled by fame is marvelous. The cinematography recalls Dorothea Lange. A-

Anonymous (2011)

“Anonymous” plays on the theory that Shakespeare wrote no play, poem, sonnet, or even a letter to mom. Here, he is portrayed as an alcoholic half-literate naïf actor. The real author of “Romeo and Juliet,” et al – according to this Roland Emmerich-directed flick -- was Edward de Verve, a Brit royal who dare not put his name to literature, then marked as heretical by the Protestant Church. The film is densely plotted as we start in present day, jump to the 1500s, following Edward’s shuffled deck tragic life, and back again. The edit jumps and myriad of characters are too numerous, and the script shreds many facts to oblivion, especially concerning Christopher Marlowe, and Edward’s alleged anonymity, which actually isn’t true. Another grind: The film smacks of elitism, arguing that middle-class Shakespeare could never have the talent of a rich royal. Really? But it’s a juicy, well-staged conspiracy drama that scores when showing how then-audiences cheered, booed, and stormed the stage in rage at the plays we know well, and its portrayal of the Church as a power-mad entity unsurpassed in corruption. Rhys Ivans plays Edward with a striking sadness, a man eternally haunted by hunchbacked men of God. B-

Immortals (2011)

The first shots of “Immortals” are breathtaking in their 3D glory. We open on a massive stone cube and we then swoop in to see black-grime-covered men, lined up perfectly, their heads held in metallic clamps, their teeth clenching rods. It’s another startling image from director Tarsem Singh, the visual artist who made “The Cell,” a flick that took us inside the mind of a serial killer. There’s not much on anyone’s mind here, just insanely buff guys clanging swords and spears – hey, nothing gay here – during the ancient days of Greece. You know the tale: After his family dies, mad King Hyperion calls war on the gods and slays thousands of people as an attention grabber. The brave peasant Theseus -- who is the son of an earthly woman and a god, does that sound familiar? -- must stop him. The talking bits are ridiculously serious and full of blowhard boasts, especially when our hero rallies his troops “Braveheart”-style, but the blood-soaked action is something to behold. Henry Cavill, soon to be Superman, is the stalwart hero. Mickey Rourke is Hyperion, a bit too cool and ironic. From the makers of “300,” but not nearly as bloodily cathartic. B-

J. Edgar (2011)

John Edgar Hoover was one of our nation’s most powerful guardians, who created the FBI, championed fingerprinting as a form of identification, and launched the very notion of criminal forensics. He remains the Holy Trinity of U.S. law enforcement. He did great things. He also was a control freak who drove his patriotic cop zeal so far up the flagpole, it turned from love of country to illegal and immoral bludgeon tactics not out of place in the Communist Russia that Hoover so loathed. His hunch or mood was law, the law be damned. He did terrible things. He kept files on and blackmailed presidents, Hollywood stars and corporate tycoons. How the hell can a movie about him be boring?!? This is it.

“J. Edgar,” the latest cinematic effort from Clint Eastwood, is a dead-eyed, soulless, filmed in shit-colored browns biopic unworthy of the man in the title. Directed by Eastwood and written by Dustin Lance Black – a gay leftist who penned “Milk” – this film should explode off the screen, polarize, and burn our conceptions. Recall “Nixon” or “Malcolm X.” They had balls. No balls here. Tackling Hoover is a tall order. No film could ever get it all. I could not do it. That anyone could try is surely of respect. But no love.

Black goes bust from the start as old Hoover is dictating the narrative of his life to various underlings, for a book of some sort, spilling his secrets… Wait, what? Hoover spill secrets? No. Worse, the agents question Hoover’s accuracy. Bullshit. No one questioned him. Still worse, the story jumps timelines throughout, Hoover at 70 at 19 at 35 at Gate 6F, and the edits kill all momentum. The scene of JFK’s assassination carries the impact of a burned pizza. As does the Lindbergh baby murder. That case is sliced and diced throughout the film. All the history and fascinating crime talk sinks. More bullshit: When Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover dons a dress as his dead mother – yes, we go there – it’s a cheap potshot of a rumor long disproved. And also hilarious, a contender for worse scene of the year. No joke.

And, yes, the film eyes Hoover’s debated sexuality, and as much as “J” tries to tackle the homosexuality slant as tippy-toes as possible, it’s undone by Armie Hammer (“Social Network”) who plays Clyde Tolson, Hoover’s confidant and reported lover as a wide-eyed swish. A cruel word, but it fits. It is not all bad. Black writes some beautiful bits about the absolute forbidden gay life of the time, a period all of our GOP presidential candidates long to bring back, and tells of a boy Hoover knew who committed suicide because he was bullied. As a gay. Judi Dench is Hoover's Bible-thumper bigot mom who says better dead than queer. Great performance, her psychologically whipping her boy because he dislikes girls. But, damn, does he have to dress like her? Is that not counter-productive, for gays, for Black? Such stereotype?

DiCaprio plays Hoover with all the Oscar Nomination power he can muster, and for that I never forgot I was watching a performance. (Dig Penn as Harvey Milk. Effortless.) DiCaprio is a fine actor -- he is -- but he does not have the gravitas, the sheer power that Hoover must have exulted, the fear factor. Not here. That said, Leo nails one scene where he declares his love for Tolson to himself. No sex, though, as Hoover is too repressed, or is it Eastwood? Whatever. Does not matter. When our two stars play old, they toddle around like drama majors doing “Odd Couple,” each smothered in terrible makeup. All the drama, gay and straight, seeps away.

It all ends with Hoover dead and the files – the thousands of files Hoover kept – shredded. There is no substance to right now, the sheer horror of what a guy like Hoover could do with cell phones and the Internet. (Hey, with Gingrich as president, we may find out.) Eastwood, Black and DiCaprio would be better if the screenplay were shredded. Hoover, too. Check out the 1950s Hoover/Hollywood propaganda flick “The FBI Story.” It’s so hilariously opportunistic and blindly in love with Hoover’s ego, and the America is God, I consider it a comedy classic. It tells more about J. Edgar than “J. Edgar.” Our nation, too. Always right. Eastwood -- a favorite of my life and forever, no matter his faults -- is just sagging of late. C

Gangs of New York (2002)

I’ve re-watched “Gangs of New York” several times recently, and still come to the same conclusion I felt in 2002: It’s a powder keg film at its opening with Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson swinging axes and blades as 1840s rival gang leaders in New York’s Five Points, the sector of race, religion and pride ran over. Bill “The Butcher” Cutting – that’s Day Lewis – stands unbowed as Neeson’s Priest falls dead. I was slack-jawed then and now at the onscreen carnage. Yet, the film’s remainder never balances or even gels, making for a fascinating disappointment from director Martin Scorsese. The story dissolves in an odd (and literal) telegraphed narration as the Priest’s grown son (Leonardo DiCaprio) seeks vengeance against Cutting. A climatic riot/gang fight/naval attack is so spastic, we require text to pinpoint what’s going on. Too much. Not enough. It’s a tremendous telling of democratic America’s terrible, blood-soaked birth that Tea Party folks refuse to believe. (They actually think this nation began with freedom for all and biblical values, and want to go back.) It’s just not a satisfying film, feeling sliced even at 160 minutes. Day-Lewis is volcano, spewing a violent code of “honor” shocking in its depravity. DiCaprio wilts in his presence. B-

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

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)

Windi Murdoch has a mean right hook. Mess with husband Rupert and she will fuck you up. No joke. Awesome wife, she is. But movie producer? Not so much. Ms. Murdoch’s first foray into Hollywood is “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” a sufferable drama about four women suffering in modern day and 19th century China. What we learn: Friendships among women are good, sexism is bad, and foot-binding is really bad. Confession: I already knew all this going in.

The gist: In modern day Shanghai, successful businesswoman Nina (Li Bingbing) is set to move to New York when she learns estranged BFF Sophia (Gianna Junn) has been in a terrible accident. A distraught Nina rushes to the hospital to be by Sofia’s bedside. There, Nina finds a typed manuscript in Sophia’s belongings, an account of two women in 1800s China growing up and marrying in a society where women were mere son-bearing sex objects. I was never certain if the manuscript was fiction, or a historical record. I don’t care enough to know.

Director Wayne Wang (“The Joy Luck Club”) desperately wants us to care for these four women, but the heart just isn’t there. Nor the punch-in-the-gut drama. Riffing on “Godfather Part II” style editing, he cuts back and forth between past and present, making the audience work to keep up with what’s going on when, and who’s who, and giving us a clear choice in deciding which story is more boring. I vote for the modern tale as it was written fresh for the screen. It has female struggles that are just laughably bad, with high school drama galore and adult Sophia living in a “poverty” that half the modern world would kill to experience. The hokey English-written lines do not help.

The book, from which this film is based, focuses solely on the 1800s. Yet this historic portion is never allowed to dig deep. Yes, we see terrible sexism, and beatings, and cruel mothers-in-law, and it all happened to some one, but it has been played in a hundred other films. The editing does not help, denting emotional impact. Case in point, we witness a village massacre and the cold death of a child, but the scenes trip across the screen with a shrug, almost as if the script blankly stated “Insert Massacre Here.” The running villages scene could be stock footage for all I know. The music is standard issue, too.

Several unintended LOL moments derail this snoozer into distracting life: Hugh Jackman saunters on screen as a charismatic lounge singer because … I have no idea. Is he pals with fellow Aussie Rupert Murdoch? A woman near me yelled, “Oh, good! He’s gorgeous!” Worse still, the four women cross into each other’s time lines, because it’s … a trite liberal salute to women facing oppression throughout history? A stab at saying everything changes even as nothing changes? “Doctor Who” time travel? I have no idea. I burst out laughing, and others did near me, as two centuries-dead women with bound feet sipped coffee on an art deco high-rise patio. Not what Ms. Murdoch or Wang were going for, eh? D+