Gimme Shelter (1970)

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

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

My Absolute Favorite Film has a new calling card. “The Night of the Hunter” is a stark black-and-white Southern gothic horror about a serial killer preacher (Robert Mitchum) who sets his demonic eyes on a widow (Shelley Winters) and her children (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce) as he seeks stolen money. Mitchum’s Rev. Harry Powell is film’s greatest villain, a singer of hymns who talks to God, assured his evil deeds are natural. “There’s plenty of killings in your book.” The genius realization: Charles Laughton directs this masterpiece for the child in us all, especially those of us who when young were suspicious of all those churchy smiles. “Hunter” is a child’s worst nightmare: Rooms boast crazed geometric shapes, wild animals loom gigantic, mother dies, rivers flow backward, and streetlamps throw evil shadows on walls. Mitchum’s preacher -- one hand tattooed LOVE, the other marked HATE -- turns faith into a war on every innocent soul. If the final closing words of reassurance from Lilian Gish’s kindly matriarch go on too long, it is not for the benefit of the terrified, surviving children on screen, but us in the audience. An absolute perfect marvel for soul, heart, and mind. A+

Nightcrawler (2014)

Imagine a dead serious “Network” written in the darkest pit of humanity, all humor strangled by an utter lack of empathy, with the journalism game run by any dick with a camera. That’s “Nightcrawler.” Jake Gyllenhaal plays Louis Bloom, a petty thief who one night finds his calling: Filming accidents, murders, house fires, and drive-bys, the fresher the gore the better for a top TV news slot. His “employer” is LA’s lowest-rated station, a bottom feeder with the mantra of fear sells. His “boss” is the vampire-hour editor (Renee Russo) who knows her middle age means job death. Bloom speaks in Internet PR babble, product comments, and tweets, using a deflated voice and spouting his love of accounting. He vibes Leo Bloom from “The Producers,” if Bloom had no soul. (Not Joyce Bloom.) Looking starved with bulging eyes, Gyllenhaal is a monster of success as he places civilians and police in harm’s way for a sell. Director/writer Dan Gilroy never judges, he shows us a mirror of journalism endlessly sinking in its race to hit ratings and print money, where cameras are as dangerous as guns. This is the world “Network” warned us about. A-

The Purge (2013)

“The Purge” is horror with a nasty serving of satire that slashes at the Tea Party elites who think wealth makes them holier than anyone below them, and yet angry at anyone who dares have a bigger house or a nicer car. I dug it. Ethan Hawke plays a self-satisfied hawker of home security devices in year 2022 of a post right-wing-revolution “New” America. Money is God. Guns are the Holy Son. The NRA might be running the show. One day each year, true “patriots” –- the haves -– are allowed (encouraged) to rape and murder at will, with the bottom of the economic chain the true target. But, Hawke’s quirky liberal teen son (Max Burkholder) opens the family fortress to a hunted veteran and soon preppy masked hunters come house crashing. (The sociopathic leader is unfailingly polite and dressed in a blazer with a haircut that screams edgy Young Republican. I knew assholes like him in college.) Writer/director James DeMonaco might not have a great film, but it’s daring, even if the end has too many pointers and Lena Headey’s wife remains flat. (I had hopes the “good” son might turn a shocking path, but did not happen.) B

The Oxford Murders (2008)

There is much to laugh at in “The Oxford Murders,” a serial murder thriller mixing in philosophy, math, and Frodo (Elijah Wood) as a hunk of smooth manliness wooing the English ladies with spaghetti and meatball themed sex. Not intended as a comedy, this flick is hilarious. Wood stars an American student who puts all his life into entering Oxford U to study under John Hunt’s wild-haired fruit loop professor’s logic class only to learn after his arrival on campus that the professor has retired from teaching. The kid is stunned. Really? Adults wrote and directed. The adults are Jorge Guerricaechevarria and Álex de la Iglesia (real names?) and they dish up all the genre thriller clichés sprinkled with inane philosophical babble and algorithm riddles that only nerds must think clever, with Wood – I must mention this again – as the stud wooing woman thrillingly open to pasta experimentation. Might all this be satire? Dig Jim Carter’s inspector who slowly catches on that serial murderers kill multiple victims. Dud. D+

Suspicion (1941)

Subpar Alfred Hitchock still outpaces 90 percent of anything made in Hollywood 70 years ago or now. But romance-thriller “Suspicion” is a stiff. I swear Hitchcock was bored making it, because I was bored watching it, and that’s a tall order since “Suspicion” stars Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. Apologies to the master and stars. History says morality-cop conservative censors –- Hays Code –- killed this tale before film was set to camera. I believe it. Plot: Wealthy gal Fontaine falls in love with wealthy party boy lothario (Grant) who turns out not to be rich, but a gambling, lying, thieving heel who gets away with such deeds because he’s Cary fuckin’ Grant. When hubby’s best pal –- who is wealthy -- eventually (a long eventually) turns up dead, wifey fears for her own life. Cue scariest glass of milk ever. Cue ... nothing happens. Look, some scenes rock -- that glowing milk, the play of shadows as a bird cage -- but this is a slog, and a sexist drudge as it plasters a heroine who must learn to keep her trap shut and not doubt her crap-o hubs. Because he’s Cary Grant. B-

Badlands (1973)

In love with Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” on my first viewing years back, I sought out his earlier effort, “Badlands.” Its brilliance knocked me off guard. Fictionalizing a true killing spree, “Badlands” has Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as lovers on the run in 1950s Midwest America, he a smooth, detached murderer, and she a teen who is more shockingly indifferent than innocent. Kit (Sheen) is late 20s and collects trash for a job until he no longer wants to, and he falls for high school teen Holly (Spacek). Her father objects and coldly kills the family pet as punishment, and that prompts Kit to kill him. Many more bodies pile up as the duo head from South Dakota to Montana, back roads and dirt. The killing of the dog hit hard this time: Holly has no reaction, and as Kit murders, she barely lodges a gasp, talking up pet birds with a gut-shot man who is bleeding out. Beyond all the romance, music and desert beauty on display, Malick has made a genius film about an America that stares unblinking and not a little amused at death. Forty years on, we’ve reached this stark reality every single day. A+

House of Wax (1953) and House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Vincent Price, with his abyss of a voice and those dead-stare eyes that play like daggers, remains the King of Horror Movies in my book. He has no successor. Two of his earliest flicks are “House of Wax” and “House on Haunted Hill,” with Price as an oddball NYC artist driven to sinister deeds after his wax museum is torched and he builds anew with a shocking sicko canvas, and then as a rich mystery host to a party at a haunted California mansion that promises $10,000 to any guest who survives a creepy lock-in. “Wax” -– itself a remake remade many times -– is classic with its ghoulish madman taking bodies, alive and not, and how the camera just sits on wax faces as they melt in fire. The then-new 3-D gimmicks may once have dazzled but now only seem silly, but never mind that. Imagine 1950s kids screaming horror at this nasty fun tale. “House” is too wink-wink meta, from its dumb opening to the nudge-nudge fourth-wall-busting asides. Sure it has several scares, and Price struts around deflating every other man within range, but even for corn, it’s all quite lame and forgetful. Not “Wax.” Wax: A- House: B-

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

“The Postman Always Rings Twice” comes from the same writer who gave us “Double Indemnity,” and the film plots play similar games: A guy (John Garfied) with no ties finds himself tied up with the married woman (Lana Turner) of a much older man who seems more Daddy than Hubby, and Daddy’s gotta go. For money and sex. Back up on that sentence, there’s just kissing here. This was the 40s after all. The first shot shows “Man Wanted” sign outside a roadside diner/ gas station, a riotous gag as the husband (Cecil Kellaway) is looking for help to run the quaint business, while wife is looking to take over the place and trade up her bed partner. Turner’s broad is playing from the go: When she drops her lipstick at Garfield’s feet in her introductory scene, it’s no accident it rolls far. The acting is aces and daggers, with Hume Cronyn (“Coccoon”) slashing deepest as a sleazy lawyer. True classic? Ehh. I hate the final scene as someone must morally and logically flip-flop with out-of-this-world gymnastic skills in order to meet the Hayes Code of the day that all criminals must be contrite, and then die. This was the 40s... A-

Double Indemnity (1944)

“Double Indemnity” is the film noir classic before there was such a genre. It forced extramarital sex and murder onto 1940s America, a place not used to seeing its own sin displayed onscreen. It’s a miracle the film ever got made. (Confused? If you tune in Fox News or vote Republican, then you know all about ignoring sin and fact. Please, go away.) I digress. This classic follows a greedy salesman (Fred MacMurray) out to dump unneeded car insurance on a rich prick, but instead gets sucked in by the man’s amoral wife (Barbara Stanwyck, has there been a deadlier/cooler actress?) who sees opportunity: Off hubby, get fucked on the side, and get rich. I will not spill plot, or the inevitable (government-forced) ending, but marvel at every beautiful cruel act. Billy Wilder made this gem, and he knows gems, and this may be his best. The lead actors kill as immoral shits you want to see die, but truly fantasize about. Best asset: Regular Hollywood tough guy Edward G. Robinson as the hero and book nerd! Dig his angry geek tirade against low-IQ insurance dweebs, and witness acting at its greatest. One of the true Hollywood greats, a must watch. A+

Dirty Wars (2013)

“Dirty Wars” will enrage any American with a soul. It’s a grueling and honest Come to Jesus documentary on the U.S. military’s expanding War on Terror, with no bounds, boundaries, or accountability. Journalist Jeremy Scahill is our sole guide as he leaves U.S.-approved field reporting and ventures into rural Afghan homes to investigate raids by the secretive Joint Special Operations Command. During one such hit, nearly an entire family is killed, including women, a child, and a police chief. The distraught relatives have video footage of troops carving bullets out of the dying victims. Our leaders shrug, so what? Scahill asks why, digs deep, finds informants and threats, hits brick walls, and finds more war horror -– the assassination of a teenager -– and a direct line to the White House. Once the promised hope of liberals, Obama has outpaced Bush in secrecy and a body county unknowable and unexplainable. “Dirty” is a stellar work of journalism, and yet double-edged: Overly dramatic footage of Scahill typing in the dark of his apartment whiffs of Hollywood drama. But how else to tell this story? We need Scahill’s ego and hunger, because we’ll get the truth no other way. A-

The Lord of the Flies (1963)

“The Lord of the Flies” is a surreal yet documentary-like, micro-budgeted stark black-and-white staging of William Golding’s novel of children stranded on a Pacific island, left to their own wild imaginations and ultimately violent tendencies. As with the book, this is a stellar display of that animal (weak or cruel) inside all of us, and the great lie of childhood innocence. The boys here set out to mimic adults, and they do well at it. Look at the body count. There’s something about director Peter Brooks’ wonky sound-recording and often haphazard cinematography that makes this feel less like an adaptation that a capturing of the novel, from the nonsensical dialogue the children trade in, to the “take my ball home” with a slice of pulverizing violence. Brooks funded much of the production, having the cast live on an island for real. Genius. Daring. Hugh Edwards breaks hearts as Piggy, the boy who trusts too much, while Tom Chapin terrifies as Jack, the monster who feels it’s his God-given right to rule the weak. Very modern Republican. At 50 years old, “Lord” is still a tough watch as anything recent, including the tepid 1990 remake. A

Side Effects (2013)

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

Gosford Park (2001)

Robert Altman’s art-house hit “Gosford Park” has been high in interest for the past three years thanks to Brit series “Downton Abbey,” both written by Julian Fellowes and concerning early 20^th century England where wealthy, connected families made caste system upstairs/downstairs a way of home, and of thought. 

Here, an aging benefactor (Michael Gambon) hosts a shooting/dinner party, bringing in family, friends, and hangers-on from local lands and across the pond in America. After the feast, a hunt, and other stuff you or I don’t ever do, the old man ends up murdered, and suspicion abounds. 

Among the cast: Kristin Scott Thomas as the wife, Maggie Smith as an (imagine!) uppity bird, Ryan Philippe and Clive Owen as footmen, Bob Balaban as a filmmaker, and Helen Mirren as a head house-woman. 

“Park” is purposefully slow as we follow these people in their routines before the murder pops every one’s bubble. Watching the film now, it’s a cool gift to see characters and dialogue lifted for “Downton,” and Stephen Fry brings the comedy as a bumbling detective. But it’s often a check-your-watch sit. 

The cast is marvelous, working for a film master sorely missed. B+

Charade (1963)

This. THIS is what “Tourist” -– the dull-flat romantic caper with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie -– wanted to be, and failed. Starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, with assist from George Kennedy, James Coburn, and Walter Matthau, twisty-turny, tongue-in-cheek thriller/comedy “Charade” follows a new divorcee (Hepburn) whose Parisian rich ex-husband turns up dead before the legal papers can be signed. Woe for her, because $250,000 is missing, and the cops and the crooks know in their blood Ms. Hepburn has it. Enter Grant’s slippery admitted conman who switches identities quicker than he does clothes, and this film -– directed by Stanley Donen (“Singin’ in the Rain”) -– is a hoot of 1960s cool/suave. The turncoats, betrayals, and reveals are played for suspense and laughs, alternating one after the other, none better than when a parade of men stalk into dead hubby’s funeral, studying and abusing the corpse, making sure he’s dead. Grant is old enough to be Hepburn’s father, but the “ick” factor is joked away, with Hepburn on top, so to speak, even if some of the “you’re-just-a-girl” shtick is sexist. Doesn’t distract, though, from this cinematic shell game. Hepburn shines, as always. B+

Arbitrage (2012)

Richard Gere is never bolder/better than when he plays an amoral cockup with sins to hide and a clock to beat. He is that and more in “Arbitage,” a timely thriller with Gere as a billionaire hedge fund manager who in one week sees a longtime financial fraud shell game crumble and accidentally kills his mistress in a crash, all while dodging police and his suspecting wife (Susan Sarandon). This is a 1 percenter who has been thieving and lying so long, the light of truth gets him sweating. But he knows the rigged system. That’s the twist in this ethics quagmire: We see-saw between wanting this pig nailed and wanting him to escape unharmed. Writer/director Nicholas Jarecki also takes an open shot at the real “takers” in this land –- not the poor or African-Americans or Hispanics as Fox News preaches, but the rich white Wall Street elite who own the banks. The scene where Gere’s CEO cluelessly asks a young black man who he has drawn into his scheme, “What’s an Applebee’s?” (The man wants to open a franchise), exemplifies modern American values. Money is all. A-

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Brad Pitt's grim crime thriller “Killing Them Softly” already has much box office notoriety: A money loser slapped with an “F” from CinemaScore. Hell with that. This is ballsy filmmaking of the highest order. Andrew Dominik -– who made “Assassination of Jesse James” with Pitt -– is behind “KSF” as director/writer, and he is not out to please anyone. We follow two low-end criminals (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) who rob a mafia-run card game, and escape with cash in hand and angry men in pursuit, one of them a world-weary hit man played by Pitt. “KSF” is set in 2008, during the economic meltdown and Obama/McCain election, and Dominik uses the panic and uncertainty of the time to explode the panic and uncertainty onscreen. There are no heroes, jokes, or happy endings. It’s a devastating punch about real criminal life, peppered with sad-sacks, drug-users, and average joes in over their heads. Not necessarily evil. Unintended fuck-ups. Dominik dares say our politicians, Wall Street bankers, and Founding Fathers are/were no different. It's the American way. Even a tedious slow-mo killing and oddball fireworks scene can’t hide that “KSF” is shockingly true cinematic art. A-

Bernie (2012)

The greatest indicator the rhythm is off in “Bernie,” a dark comedy about a real-life murder that rocked a Texas town 15 years ago, comes when a playground set is seized during a criminal investigation. The audience, in unison, let out a heartfelt, “awww” as two young girls watched their backyard kingdom be torn down by police. Outside of laughter at the people and hijinks on screen, it was the only other sign of human emotion I heard or felt. 

That’s how thin “Bernie” is. The film. Not the man. Bernie Tiede, is quite thick in the belly, as played by Jack Black, and as seen in real-life photos and video during the closing credits. 

Tiede was an assistant funeral home director during the 1990s in tiny Carthage, Texas, (even the name is ironic). Clearly gay in his every manner, Tiede became a local celebrity, a mascot if you will, to the good ol’ GOP-voting Christian folk there. Not just for his artistry of making the dead look good, but in his endless dedication to church, the local theater, baseball clubs, and his undying loyalty to the town’s widows. He even came to befriend the town’s one Ms. Scrooge (Shirley MacLaine), a vile control freak badger, set off her leash after the death of her wealthy husband. This is where the thrust of the film kicks in. She became Tiede’s Sugar Momma, he her Errand Boy. Things got ugly, and Tiede shot her. Four times. The town stood strong: Behind Bernie. Old lady? Fuggedaboudit.

Shocking? Yes. But Richard Linklater, directing and co-writing, would rather laugh at the wild audacity of it all, and edits in interviews with real-life locals to the mix, showing the town as mentally lost as Tiede is in the “movie” portion. The tone is so broadly farcical nothing sticks. With Black’s eternal wink-wink personality and mincing gay lisp, I never grasped whether or not trapped-in the-closet Tiede was sincere and full of love, or playing people, full of rage, or some place between. Wearing a mask if you will, to go all Batman here. 

Person after person in those interviews dismiss Tiede as “queer,” or insists “he can’t be gay,” he’s too nice and decent. Surely he heard that awful talk, surely it hurt, and made him mad. Or did it? Did he bury his pain. We don’t know. As portrayed, Tiede has all the depth of Ziggy, to bring up another roundish guy. 

More so, there’s a strong, unpleasant whiff that Linklater, a Texan himself, is pulling a nasty fast-one on those interviewees, inviting them friendly-like to talk on camera and then editing their words to appear as rubes and hicks, or borderline senile. Were these people misled? I'd sure as hell would think, “Yes.”

“Fargo,” a far more dark comic tale of murder, had infinitely more emotion, and it’s fictional. The comparison is silly, that film is so sickly brilliant, and brilliant, but I shall not digress. In this tale, an old lady died, for real, and we get nothing. There’s no sense of loss here, mixed in with the comedy. Any sense of irony is lost. MacLaine, dropping a racist tirade as the old lady, makes it all too easy. Too neat. Ehhh.

Matthew McConaughey -- God bless him, is he becoming a character actor now, no more rom-coms? -- lifts the film as high as he can as a self-righteous, but right nonetheless, ADA who is dismayed at the turn of events. Yes, he’s also spinning comedy gold, but he’s also the only one asking, how would you react? Bernie, or the lady? C+

The Killer Elite (2011)

In “The Killer Elite,” Jason Statham is another badass with a temper, a gun, and a mission. Upfront: This is one of those “based on a true story” stories that screams bullshit! as the action spreads around the globe, double-crosses pile up, and Statham as assassin-for-hire Danny Bryce endures punishment so grim and commits stunts so brazen, they would kill all Three Stooges and Ethan Hunt. Story: A gravely ill sheikh strong arms Danny into offing the three Brit SAS agents who killed his brave sons, leaving pops with a sad-sack brat so nancy, he makes Fredo Corleone glower like, well, Jason Statham. If Danny says no, Poppa Sheik kills Robert De Niro, or rather a spry old spy played by Robert De Niro. The acting is aces, and the action all wrought iron hard curves and twists, but FML, newcomer writer Matt Sherring and director Gary McKendry go all tit-tit, blanching at violence, and mere seconds later dive into their next set-piece where Stathom rips apart packs of men. Brain drivel mediocre. Clive Owen -– stealing the film -- co-stars as an ugly spook who we only think is a villain. Alas, all bullshit. B-

Black Death (2010)

Few sights are as sick as some bigot spouting off about the evil of Islam, as they uphold the Christian Church as the Shining Symbol of Humanity. They should watch “Black Death,” a grisly horror-thriller about the mid-1300s Black Plaque that ravaged Europe. The power-mad Church calls the plague God’s punishment against the unfaithful, and the only way back to His (its) grace is absolute submission. (Sound familiar?) Eddie Redmayne plays a naïve monk conflicted about his oath to God who travels with several Christian soldiers to hunt an untouched village, for it must hold sinners. Director Christopher Smith and writer Dario Poloni don’t go simple, for that village has a blood thirst greater than the Church. Sean Bean is the head Soldier of Christ, and his demise is one for the Sean Bean Movie Death record books. Too bad Redmayne is so boyish he makes Tin-Tinseem like Jason Statham and fails huge at the darkest scenes that end this blackest of tales. Smart, tense, and wide-open as the similar-themed “Season ofthe Witch” is dull, dumb and CGI’d to hell, “Death” coolly reminds us that Men of God are rarely ever that. B