Room (2015)

I dug Emma Donoghue’s smash-hit book “Room,” The film, with a screenplay by Donoghue herself, is actually -– get this -– even better. Jack (Jacob Tremblay) is newly 5 and desperately curious about life, but his world is the interior of a backyard shed. He is a prisoner, as is his mother (Brie Larson), held by a man known as “Old Nick.” Ma was taken 7 years before off the street, and has since lived in solitude, her only companion a child by rape. Ma adores Jack, her salvation. But Ma’s soothing lies are unraveling, as is her sanity as Jack grows and Room seems to shrink. “Room” is horrifying in its depiction of the hovel, the effect of rape, malnutrition, isolation, and claustrophobia, before it really turns the screws after. Larson and Tremblay do a masterful job of telegraphing every pain and small joy, and its Donoghue’s dialogue that sells it. Sparse. Sharp. Smart. Even more so than the book, Donoghue and director Lenny Abrahamson know trauma stays with us, it cannot be fully shaken, it destroys families, splits parents. Easy answers? None. Larson and Tremblay deserve every accolade coming. Donoghue, too. A

The Sugarland Express (1974)

I marvel at Steven Spielberg’s debut theatrical film: “The Sugarland Express,” a fictionalized take on an outlaw Texas couple (William Atherton and Goldie Hawn) on the run from hundreds of Texas cops as they seek their stolen toddler, now in state custody to an old couple out of GOP Weekly. Dad (Atherton) is just in early release from prison when Mom (Hawn) breaks him out comedy-like to get their boy, high-jacking an elderly couple’s car. She knows she’ll hold her baby. He knows they’ll die first, but he’s too in love to say “No.” Even the cop they take hostage feels bad for the duo. Forty years on, Spielberg’s film vibes with wonders – dig the scenes where we follow a tense screaming match via radio from inside a car, the camera roving about like a passenger, and the way he mixes in equal parts America’s outlaw romance and right-wing NRA types who shoot first and keep shooting. This is still timely. Hawn is so fantastically in the moment, and Atherton -– he found fame playing assholes in “Die Hard” and “Ghostbusters” –- is pure American Guy, stuck between choosing life and his blonde, and, well, there is no choice. Wife. A

Misery (1990)

Director Rob Reiner takes on Stephen King in a funny, dark take of the horror author’s “Misery,” the story every artist must fear: What if you were immobilized and taken hostage by your No. 1 Fan who also happens to be a psychotic lunatic? That’s what happens when world-famous author Paul Sheldon (James Caan) crashes his pretty car during a snow storm, and to the rescue is crazy, lonely, book-loving RN Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates). You know the rest: Annie infamously swings a sledgehammer when she learns Paul has “killed” his famous heroine, Misery. Crack! Get me rewrite! I loved King’s claustrophobic nightmare book which never leaves Paul’s trapped view. Here, Reiner and screen adapter William Goldman (he also adapted “Princess Bride”) regularly visit the nearby sheriff and his wife (Richard Farnsworth and Frances Sternhagen). While the move kills the suspense, it adds humor as we watch the couples bounce off each other. The casting is genius: Tough guy Caan plays a weak jerk and Bates wins Oscar gold as the deeply insane and vastly sad Wilkes. I loved hating Annie's cock-a-doodie guts. B+

The Perfect Host (2011)

“The Perfect Host” is a home-invasion flick – I have seen several recently, why I don’t know - - that flips the genre rules with pitch-black comedy galore, before a third-act switcheroo stumbles hard and fast. We open on a guy (Clayne Crawford) who’s just used a silly Hunter S. Thompson disguise to rob a L.A. bank, only to get robbed by a young woman at a drug store. The flummoxed guy then decides to crash a nearby house, taking a hostage. He choices an artsy-fartsy home owned by a waif of a man (David Hyde Pierce of “Frasier”) who starts out prissy weak and then evolves ape shit crazy. Oops. I won’t say more, except to repeat that the ending tanks with a character reveal that thuds like a bad game of telephone. Pearce lets loose with a twisted grin, purposefully playing off the Niles we all love. If writer/ director Nick Tomnay’s Sundance hit ended 20 minutes sooner, it could have been perfectly fun. B-