Good Efficient Butchery

SUDDENLY
(Canada - 2013)

Yes, this is indeed a remake of the cult classic 1954 presidential assassination thriller that was unseen for many years but is now a public domain staple. The original SUDDENLY was MIA from 1963 until the late 1980s after star Frank Sinatra erroneously believed that Lee Harvey Oswald had watched it on TV less than a month before the assassination of JFK and had the film pulled from circulation. SUDDENLY resurfaced around the same time as the Chairman resurrected another long-dormant film of his that dealt with politics and assassination--the much better-known THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962). This Canadian-made remake doesn't bring much new to the table other than F-bombs, cell phones, a Barack Obama lookalike, and the unlikely Uwe Boll in the director's chair. SUDDENLY '13 finds Boll in rare hired-gun mode, working away from his usual producing partners and assorted enablers but bringing a few old and presumably financially-strapped pals along for the ride. Ray Liotta, somehow working with Boll again after 2008's IN THE NAME OF THE KING, stars as a booze-addled deputy sheriff who ends up in the middle of a plot to assassinate the President when his motorcade's drive through the small town of Suddenly is preceded by a team of shady, professional assassins disguised as Secret Service agents. They're led by Baron (ASSAULT ON WALL STREET's Dominic Purcell, Boll's current favorite actor, also in the upcoming IN THE NAME OF THE KING 3), a disgruntled Iraq War vet with a vendetta against the US government. Liotta's character is a vet as well, and has been wallowing in an alcoholic haze since he accidentally killed his war hero best friend. Liotta now pines for his buddy's widow (Erin Karpluk, also of ASSAULT ON WALL STREET) and is a dad of sorts to her troublemaking, Bieber-coiffed son (Cole Coker), who sports the improbable nickname "Pidge," which may have been quaint and nice and wholesome in 1954 but is just asking to be bullied in 2013.

As far as Boll joints go, SUDDENLY is, relatively speaking, one of the "better" ones. It's fairly straightforward and Boll avoids his tendency to poke people with sticks to get a reaction (the closest he comes to ruffling any feathers is presenting the president as "Obama-esque," though the actor looks like an Obama who might appear in a jokey local TV spot for a used car dealer). The problem is that even though Boll got to hang out with his friends (regulars like Michael Pare and Brendan Fletcher also turn up), he isn't really into the gig here. SUDDENLY is dull and slowly-paced, rarely suspenseful, and if it weren't for the profanity, it could easily be a TV-movie. Purcell fares a bit better here than in some of his other recent films, where he's little more than a lumbering lummox, but that sort of plays to his advantage in SUDDENLY. Liotta doesn't try any harder than he needs to, but he looks pretty convincing when his character is completely hammered. Whether he was going all Method as an excuse to cope with the trauma of once again finding himself on an Uwe Boll set is anyone's guess, but he looks legitimately shitfaced throughout. Bland and forgettable, SUDDENLY shows that, if nothing else, Boll can handle generic assignments if he ever chooses to quit making a bad-movie spectacle of himself. (Unrated, 90 mins)

BREAKOUT
(Canada - 2013)

Wasn't Brendan Fraser an A-lister just a few years ago? What happened? Was FURRY VENGEANCE that bad? Other than voicing the hero in the recent animated film ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH, his recent output is pretty dire: 2013 saw very limited theatrical runs for STAND OFF (shelved for two years) and the awful PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES, and now BREAKOUT has skipped theaters completely. BREAKOUT is written and directed by Canadian exploitation vet Damian Lee, who made 1989's FOOD OF THE GODS 2 and a bunch of DTV Jeff Wincott movies in the '90s. He worked sporadically in the '00s but has been busy the last few years with bigger actors in films that have been duds nonetheless (like A DARK TRUTH with Andy Garcia and Forest Whitaker), as they were still directed by Damian Lee. At this rate, it's only a matter of time before Fraser is hooking up with Uwe Boll, and they already have a mutual friend since busy Boll man-crush Dominic Purcell is conveniently onboard here. The idiotic BREAKOUT has fugitive Purcell on the run to Canada with his mentally-challenged brother (Ethan Suplee), when two kayaking teens (Holly Deveaux, Christian Martyn) witness Purcell killing a guy. The kids are on a camping trip with their dad's friend (Daniel Kash). Their dad is Fraser, an environmental activist who's been in prison for the last seven years after accidentally killing someone during a scuffle at a protest. Purcell kills Kash and pursues the kids through the woods. Meanwhile, their mom (Amy Price-Francis) visits Fraser to tell him what's going on, and Fraser is able to conveniently walk away from a work furlough cleaning up in the very woods where Purcell is maniacally hunting the kids. Fraser manages to quickly find the kids, proves to be a natural at operating a shotgun with one hand, and so begins a cat-and-mouse game with Purcell while the kind-hearted Suplee finds Deveaux's dropped cell phone and spends the rest of the film talking to Fraser's ex, convinced he's talking to his late mother.

It's mostly implausible nonsense with a really bad performance by Fraser, who does little more than yell "Run!,""Go!,""Gaaah!,""Aaaah!," and "Waaaah!" I've never been a huge Fraser fan but I never really had a problem with him. He was fine in his early roles like SCHOOL TIES and showed some range with GODS AND MONSTERS, and maybe it's that he's been bolstered by big budgets during that decade-or-so run in big event movies like THE MUMMY, but now, in his mid-40s, between this and PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES (I haven't seen STAND OFF), he's suddenly become an absolutely terrible actor. He's so bad here that he makes Purcell look OK, and both of them are upstaged by a surprisingly credible, sympathetic performance by Suplee, who's the only one of the three main actors who appears to be trying. Indifferently directed by Lee (check out the wrong placement of a "Seven years later" caption in the beginning; it's shown during the prologue, which is still taking place seven years before the main plot; was anyone paying attention?) and with little logic or suspense, BREAKOUT is probably a career-low for Fraser, who finds himself in the same boat as former '90s/'00s sure things Nicolas Cage and John Cusack. Did Fraser burn some bridges somewhere? Piss off the wrong studio exec? Did that Golden Globes spaz attack become a scarlet letter? Or is it just simply a slump that many actors experience? (R, 89 mins)

FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY
(US/Czech Republic/The Netherlands - 2013)

There's two things that simply need to end, and end now, when it comes to the horror genre: 1) found-footage films, and 2) prefab hipster/horror scenester cult movies. FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY gives us both in one dull, shrill, shrieking, headache-inducing, shaky-cam package. Earning generally positive reviews and currently sporting a baffling 71% on Rotten Tomatoes, FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY is the kind of horror flick with a seemingly irresistible premise but the filmmakers don't know what do with any of it and make one ill-advised decision after another. Since they bungle the found-footage aspect in record time (and it makes no sense that stuff supposedly shot in the 1940s would look crisp and modern and be 16:9, but I digress), director Richard Raaphorst (the abandoned zombie film WORST CASE SCENARIO) and writers Chris W. Mitchell and Miguel Tejada-Flores might've been better off just making a straightforward, old-school horror movie without all the found-footage bullshit. All we get for nearly an hour are thickly-accented Russian soldiers (speaking English, of course) behind enemy lines, walking around and yelling at each other before they encounter an abandoned warehouse where one Viktor Frankenstein (Karel Roden) is carrying on the work of his famous grandfather. Soon, the soldiers are battling Frankenstein's "zombots"--steampunk-inspired creatures pieced together from body parts and machines. How difficult would it have been to make this a fun, freewheeling horror film? It tries to go for an anarchic, early Sam Raimi/Peter Jackson vibe but doesn't give its actors anything more to do other than run around and yell, practically turning the film into a combination of a video game and a door-slamming farce by the end. It's not scary, it's not funny, and it wastes an enthusiastic performance by veteran character actor Roden, who tries hard but isn't onscreen long enough to accomplish anything. Obviously, some people liked this but I found it excruciating. THE FRANKENSTEIN THEORY might actually be better. (R, 84 mins)

GRAVITY
(US - 2013)

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Written by Alfonso Cuaron and Jonas Cuaron. Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, voices of Ed Harris, Phaldut Sharma. (PG-13, 91 mins)

Not since Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) has space looked as convincingly vast and felt so real as in Alfonso Cuaron's stunning GRAVITY, a triumph of CGI done right that unquestionably raises the bar in a way that very few films do in this era. The story itself isn't very complicated: Three astronauts on a spacewalk to repair a scanner on the Hubble Telescope are hit by debris from an exploded Russian satellite. One, Shariff (Phaldut Sharma) is killed along with the crew inside the shuttle. This leaves two survivors: veteran NASA rock star Lt. Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), who's a rookie on her first mission. The shuttle and the Hubble are destroyed and the cool, experienced Kowalski, forever telling the same exaggerated stories of his personal exploits to mission control in Houston (voiced by Ed Harris), gets serious and tries to keep Stone calm while improvising a plan to drift to the International Space Station with little booster power and with both survivors running out of oxygen.

To say any more about the plot would spoil the drama that unfolds in the script by Cuaron and his son Jonas. GRAVITY has been compared to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY but it doesn't have the same philosophical depth that the Kubrick film offered. GRAVITY's strengths lie in taking CGI imagery to places unexplored until now. The term "game-changer" is thrown about with wild abandon these days, but it applies here. Opening with a continuous 17-minute shot (as CHILDREN OF MEN demonstrated, Cuaron is a master of long takes, or at the very least, seamless editing), we're introduced to the three astronauts going about their business--Kowalski and Shariff joking with each other and with mission control, Stone hard at work while battling the hangover-like lethargy of one's first time in space--the camera constantly floating around the actors and the structures, with Earth and open space lingering in the background. Cuaron and THE TREE OF LIFE cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (veteran cinematographer Michael Seresin is also credited with "additional photography") manage to make space look simultaneously vast and claustrophobic, and once communication with Houston is cut off (they continue to radio Houston "in the blind" in case they actually can hear them), there's almost no sound other than the dialogue, the actors' breathing, and the effectively eerie electronic score by Steven Price.

Clooney doesn't have to do much other than be "George Clooney," so it's Bullock who does the dramatic heavy lifting in one of her best performances. Venturing into space to cut herself as far off from humanity as possible after finding herself unable to cope with an unbearable tragedy, Bullock's Stone is aptly-named. During small-talk with Kowalski, she says her favorite thing is silence, which is initially taken as a sarcastic jab at his endless chattiness, but is eventually revealed to have a much more painful cause. As the script presents the protagonists with one increasingly difficult, life-threatening, and nerve-shredding obstacle after another, it's no surprise in a major Hollywood movie that Stone will eventually find her inner strength and summon the will to survive, but the writing isn't really meant to break any new ground (of course, this is Kowalski's "one last mission before retiring," though he never specifically states he's "getting too old for this shit"). The achievements here are of sight and sound. So much of today's CGI is slapdash and only serves to call out the artifice of the surroundings, but watching GRAVITY, it actually looks like Cuaron took his stars and a crew into space and shot on location. Of course, this only goes to show that CGI can look great if enough time and care is put into it, and it's used for legitimate purposes rather than time-saving, penny-pinching bullshit. It's amazing that such a widely-utilized technology has only been mastered by a small handful of filmmakers. Even the 3-D post-conversion looks as good as a film actually shot in 3-D, further proof that things don't have to look as crappy as they often do. Shot in 2011 and with its original fall 2012 release date delayed a year to allow Cuaron the time he needed to get it right, GRAVITY sets new standards in CGI and effects wizardry and is the kind of immersive audio/visual experience that should be seen on the largest screen possible.

DRACULA
(Italy/Spain/France - 2012; 2013 US release)

Directed by Dario Argento. Written by Dario Argento, Antonio Tentori, Stefano Piani, Enrique Cerezo. Cast: Thomas Kretschmann, Rutger Hauer, Asia Argento, Marta Gastini, Unax Ugalde, Miriam Giovanelli, Mariacristina Heller, Augusto Zucchi, Franco Guido Ravera, Giuseppe Loconsole, Giovanni Franzoni, Christian Burruano. (Unrated, 110 mins)

By now, there's no longer a question of whether a new Dario Argento film will be the comeback that his devoted fans have been anticipating for years. No, we now know not to expect it. The Dario Argento of today is not the Dario Argento who gave us an incredible run of classic Italian horror films from 1970 to 1987. Films like DEEP RED (1975), SUSPIRIA (1977), INFERNO (1980), and TENEBRE (1982) have transcended their cult status and are commonly embraced even by mainstream critics as important and influential films. After 1987's OPERA, it's been a near-continuous downward spiral for the legendary horror icon, with only 1996's THE STENDHAL SYNDROME standing as his last all-around good movie, and that's only if you watch the Italian-language version with English subtitles and even then, it suffers from Argento's then-21-year-old daughter Asia being completely miscast as a driven detective pursuing a serial killer (she could pull the role off now in her late 30s). Based on my love for his past classics, I've graded these Argento "lost years" on a generous curve, even finding things to appreciate in much-maligned films like THE CARD PLAYER (2004), DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? (2005), and MOTHER OF TEARS (2007). But it's getting harder and harder for even a superfan/apologist like myself to keep making excuses, and after 2009's disastrous GIALLO, I gave up--not on watching new Argento films, but on the notion of expecting anything from them. The biggest problem with Argento's output over the last two decades is that, with each new film, they feel less and less like the work of their maker. MOTHER OF TEARS, his belated conclusion to the "Three Mothers" trilogy that started with SUSPIRIA and INFERNO, felt like a generic horror film that could've been made by anybody. It certainly didn't feel like an Argento film. The tracking shots, the inventive murders, and the grandiose set pieces of the past were nowhere to be found. And even something like THE CARD PLAYER felt like a gorier-than-usual TV police procedural that may as well have been called CSI: ROME. The last Argento film to feel like an Argento film was probably 2001's SLEEPLESS, which wasn't really anything special but was at least unmistakably Argento in its execution.

Irene Miracle in INFERNO

By now, in 2013, it's dispiritingly clear that Argento is never going to have another SUSPIRIA. He's never going to make another INFERNO. He may never even have another SLEEPLESS. His best days are behind him and they're not coming back. He's not the same filmmaker. Filmmakers both old and new continue to mimic the style of Argento's essential work (Brian De Palma's recent PASSION had a shot that was blatantly lifted from TENEBRE, and it's not the first time he's done it). Argento's films used to have a look, mood, and feel all their own. Now, his movies feel like everyone else's. He's still active, he still wants to work, but the fire's gone. The only way to approach anything new by him is to go in with the lowest possible expectations and let the chips fall where they may. If it were most other filmmakers, the solution would be simple: if his movies suck, then stop watching them. But Argento is different. There was a time when he was unstoppable. There was a time when he was the arguably the greatest living horror filmmaker. Anyone who appreciates his accomplishments and his significance to the horror genre can't just turn their back on him. Even if his bad films outnumber his good ones (and I think they do at this point), he's still Dario Argento. So, every few years, he makes a new movie and people wonder "Will this be the comeback?" But we know the answer and we brace ourselves and try to find something good in the latest work of a legend who's simply lost his mojo and shows no signs of getting it back. Good directors make bad movies all the time. It just hurts to see Argento floundering like this for the better part of 25 years. It would be a lot easier on the fans and even Argento himself if he just retired and enjoyed his emeritus status on the convention circuit and on horror documentaries, where everyone will just remember the good times and it'll be like nothing after 1987 ever happened.

But filmmaking is in his blood, so the now-73-year-old Argento soldiers on. His latest, DRACULA, was shot in stereoscopic 3-D and is getting a limited release in the US by IFC Films, a year after its release in Europe. Argento's last crack at classic horror was 1998's apocalyptically awful PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, almost unanimously reviled as his career nadir (it's no accident that SLEEPLESS was hailed as a "back to basics" thriller, almost as if he was apologizing for PHANTOM). Approaching DRACULA with the lowest expectations, the answer is yes, it's better than PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, but so are things like identity theft, herpes, tetanus, and the Jacksonville Jaguars. But, as is the case with Argento's recent output, it doesn't feel anything like Dario Argento. With its sometimes gratuitous nudity and abundance of Asylum-level CGI, it seems like "Dario Argento's DRACULA" could just as easily be called "Jim Wynorski's DRACULA" and no one would know the difference. Watching Argento's DRACULA as if it's premiering on SyFy in prime time on a Saturday night, it's acceptable enough and sometimes entertaining in a cheesy way. But there's nothing here that says "Dario Argento," unless you count his continued insistence on putting Asia in nude scenes, which used to feel weird (especially a topless shot in 1993's TRAUMA when she was still a teenager), but now it's just expected (yes, she has two nude scenes here). Where is Dario Argento? Does he even enjoy making movies anymore? Where are the elaborate set pieces and the creative kills? Where are the intricately choreographed tracking shots? The garish colors? The killer soundtracks? They're not here, and they haven't been for several years. Even having old collaborators like cinematographer Luciano Tovoli (remember that Louma crane shot in TENEBRE?), effects master Sergio Stivaletti, and a score by Goblin's Claudio Simonetti (that doesn't sound like Goblin or Simonetti, by the way) on board does nothing to convey that singularly unique Argento feeling. Are they all out to lunch? Are they all just punching a clock? Are any of them cognizant of their past accomplishments?

DRACULA follows the basic template of Bram Stoker's novel, with minor and often major tweaking throughout. Jonathan Harker (Unax Ugalde) arrives in the village of Passo Borgo to catalog the library of Count Dracula (Thomas Kretschmann, who previously worked with Dario and Asia on STENDHAL). Dracula and his busty vampiric minion Tania (Miriam Giovanelli) take turns biting Harker, who then disappears. Meanwhile, his wife Mina (Marta Gastini) arrives in the village and reconnects with her old friend Lucy Kisslinger (Asia Argento), the daughter of the mayor (Augusto Zucchi). Lucy is soon vampirized by Dracula and convinces Mina to go to the castle to look for Harker. Sensing danger, Lucy consults the local priest (Franco Guido Ravera), who summons psychiatrist and vampire expert Dr. Van Helsing (Rutger Hauer), who has battled Dracula before.

Aside from some character name changes, the essential plot is there--Giovanni Franzoni is Renfield; Dracula scales an exterior wall like a lizard; Kretschmann gets to gravely intone "Children of the night...what music they make"--but for every clever departure like Dracula having a deal in place with the village elders for them to look the other way while he goes about his business, there's ten howlers that have you shaking your head in disbelief. Chief among them is Dracula's ability to shapeshift into an owl (the Drac-owl attacks Tania in the opening scene in a way that looks suspiciously like Argento's tribute to THE COLBERT REPORT), a swarm of flies, and, in the silliest scene of Argento's career (yes, even sillier than a climactic online poker showdown in THE CARD PLAYER), a giant, human-sized mantis. Kretschmann is an OK Dracula, though it's hard to take him seriously when he gets all emo with Mina and actually utters the line "I am nothing but an out-of-tune chord in the divine symphony." Hauer is possibly cinema's dullest Van Helsing. Peter Cushing owns this character on film, but even when the vampire hunter was portrayed as an old man by the likes of Edward Van Sloan in the 1931 DRACULA or by Laurence Olivier in the 1979 version, he was a quick-witted, energetic guy. Hauer turns up 75 minutes in and plays him as half-asleep, and his halting, stumbling delivery sounds like he's being fed the lines and is hearing them for the first time. There's a couple of scenes where he's talking to Gastini but looking off to the side as if reading cue cards. All due props for NIGHTHAWKS, BLADE RUNNER, and THE HITCHER, but Hauer's having a really off-day here and turns in a terrible performance. Between the dubious, bush-league CGI splatter, the shapeshifting silliness, the ludicrous dialogue, the ornate but too-stagy sets, Hauer apparently guzzling ZzzQuil between takes, and the awkward dubbing of the supporting cast (Kretschmann, Hauer, Argento, and Gastini use their own voices; everyone else is dubbed, often badly), the possibility crosses your mind that Argento is trying to be funny and something's just getting lost in the translation. But no, that's not the case. This is just how newer Argento movies are.

I guess in the overall big picture, DRACULA is a better film than GIALLO and it's certainly an improvement on PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. But that's really all you can say about it. It's not as bad as its reputation, but it's not very good, either. With rare exception (Dracula's massacre of the cowardly village elders is a nicely-done scene), anything entertaining or memorable in DRACULA is entertaining or memorable for the wrong reasons. Imagine if the Dario Argento of 30 years ago did his own unique spin on DRACULA. Hell, an in-his-prime Hauer could've played the title role, and he would've been terrific. That's a film we'd still be talking about today. Argento's got several undisputed classics to his name and those can never be taken away from him. But it's hard to ignore the fact that 25 years of almost completely subpar output has more than slightly diminished his reputation. I think I'll watch DEEP RED or INFERNO again. (VOD version is not in 3-D)

EUROPA REPORT
(US/China - 2013)

With technical advisors from NASA and Lockheed Martin and stock footage of Neil deGrasse Tyson to establish its bona fides as a "thinking person's sci-fi film," EUROPA REPORT offers a bit more to chew on than most commercial space operas...for a while, at least. It's also one of the rare found footage films that sticks to the conceit and doesn't start cheating when it gets backed into a corner. It relies on hard science and expects the viewer to keep up, probably why it wasn't given a wide release but has already developed a small cult following. It only falters a bit near the end when it seems to make concessions by showing what it feels it has an obligation to show. What's supposed to be a big reveal feels a bit underwhelming, but it's a small issue with a mostly thoughtful, first-rate sci-fi film. The Europa One is a privately-funded exploration to find evidence of life on Europa, one of the Galilean moons of Jupiter, where scientists believe water exists under the surface. Europa One loses contact with Earth for an extended period of time over a year into the mission, and the film consists of "recently declassified footage" being made available so that the fragmented story of their journey can finally be pieced together.

Director Sebastian Cordero (CRONICAS) and writer Philip Gelatt do some jumping back and forth with the footage that's a bit confusing for a while until things start falling into place. After that, they do an excellent job of keeping the various cameras and varying viewpoints coherent. There isn't much in the way of character development except for engineer James (DISTRICT 9's Sharlto Copley) feeling homesick and missing his wife and kids. Everyone else seems to put the mission first, right down to their ability to carry on even after mishaps result in a death or two. These two tragedies are expertly handled by Cordero but it's hard to ignore that both happen because the people involved weren't following orders, regardless of how heartbreaking the first one is and how well-played it is by the actor involved. The international cast also includes Daniel Wu as the mission commander, Anamaria Marinca as the second-in-command, Christian Camargo and Karolina Wydra as science officers, and Michael Nyqvist (star of the original GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO) as the chief engineer. Embeth Davidtz, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., and the unlikely Dan Fogler play the scientists on Earth overseeing the mission. With minimal special effects and a focus on dialogue rather than action and explosions, EUROPA REPORT probably won't fly with the sci-fi blockbuster crowd, but even with its minor flaws, it's an interesting little gem that should appeal to fans of films like Danny Boyle's SUNSHINE and Duncan Jones' MOON. (PG-13, 90 mins)

NOTHING LEFT TO FEAR
(US - 2013)

Released to a few "select" theaters four days before its DVD street date in a typical Anchor Bay dump job, NOTHING LEFT TO FEAR is an extremely derivative, uninspired horror film that marks the feature directorial debut of Gore Verbinski protégé Anthony Leonardi III, who was a storyboard artist on PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END, RANGO, and THE LONE RANGER. Leonardi and screenwriter Jonathan W.C. Mills get off to a decent start with a set-up straight out of a 1970s fright flick. Pastor Dan (James Tupper), wife Wendy (top-billed Anne Heche, who has little to do), teenage daughters Rebecca (28-year-old Rebekah Brandes) and Mary (Jennifer Stone), and young son Christopher (Carter Cabassa) arrive in the rural nowhere of Stull, where Dan is taking over the parish of folksy retiring pastor Kingsman (Clancy Brown). The residents of Stull welcome Dan and clan with open arms, and Rebecca finds herself falling for local farmhand Noah (Ethan Peck, who looks a lot like his grandpa Gregory but the similarities end there), but things slowly get sinister. I say "slowly," because Leonardi slow-burns this to a ridiculous degree. It's nearly an hour into the film and Dan and Wendy are still getting to know their new neighbors. There's a difference between "lulling and manipulating the audience with a mounting sense of unease" (see THE EXORCIST or THE SHINING) and "dicking around and wasting time" (anything by Ti West that's not called THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL), and too many of today's budding horror filmmakers are doing it wrong by mistaking the latter for the former. Anyway, Noah and Pastor Kingsman spend a lot of time arguing, with Kingsman demanding Noah do what's expected of him, and Noah feeling guilty. Soon, Mary is possessed by some demonic spirit (Disney fans might want to see WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE co-star Stone turning all haggy and vomiting black goo all over the place) and it's apparent that the family was lured to Stull to be some kind of sacrifice. Obviously, they've never seen THE WICKER MAN.

With the pace dragging the way it does, Leonardi and Mills also find plenty of time to crib from JU-ON and RINGU with Mary's herky-jerky CGI possession histrionics, plus M. Night Shyamalan's THE VILLAGE, Wes Craven's DEADLY BLESSING and even Lucio Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD. The Stull of the film is based on Stull, KS, a tiny town just outside of Topeka that's reputed, according to urban legend, to be a gateway to Hell. But NOTHING LEFT TO FEAR never explores that nor does it really find its own voice, plodding along until its lame twist when there's nothing left to rip off. Tired, forgettable, and unrelentingly dull, NOTHING LEFT TO FEAR marks an inauspicious producing debut for former Guns N' Roses guitarist and aspiring movie mogul Slash, who also co-wrote the score, taking none of his signature sound and instead infusing it with the same level of bland facelessness as the film it accompanies. (R, 100 mins)

MACHETE KILLS
(US/Russia - 2013)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez. Written by Kyle Ward. Cast: Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Mel Gibson, Demian Bichir, Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard, Antonio Banderas, Lady Gaga, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Walton Goggins, Vanessa Hudgens, Jessica Alba, Alexa Vega, William Sadler, Tom Savini, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Marko Zaror, Electra Avellan, Elise Avellan, Marci Madison, and introducing Carlos Estevez. (R, 107 mins)

Originating as one of the fake trailers in Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's GRINDHOUSE (2007), MACHETE was spun off into its own film in 2010, finally giving the great Danny Trejo the spotlight in his own project. The resulting film, parodying the same grindhouse aura of GRINDHOUSE, was gleefully over-the-top trash with everyone from Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Lohan, and Robert De Niro on hand to make fun of themselves. MACHETE KILLS is more of the same, only sillier, if that's even possible. Rodriguez isn't so much emulating '70s grindhouse trash anymore as much as he's just making a ludicrous parody of action movies. There's a good amount of laughs and some even more self-deprecating casting, but it's all just too much. Running a gaseous 107 minutes, Rodriguez gets pretty self-indulgent with MACHETE KILLS, and it probably would've been better if it had been 20-30 minutes shorter, making it more in line with what it's supposed to be riffing.

After seeing his partner and lover Sartana (Jessica Alba) killed while on a covert government mission, Machete is summoned to the White House and assigned by President Rathcock ("introducing Carlos Estevez") to go into Mexico and kill Mendez (Demian Bichir), a revolutionary with a split personality who has a nuclear missle aimed at Washington, DC that's wired to his heart and will launch if his heart stops beating. During their confrontation, Mendez's evil personality pulls the pin on the heart device, giving Machete 24 hours to dismantle it, which requires the two of them crossing the border into the US (as the film briefly turns into an "...if they don't kill each other first! mismatched-buddy movie) to find the only man who can do it: megalomaniacal multi-billionaire weapons manufacturer and global terrorist Luther Voz (Mel Gibson). Voz designed the detonator and has even bigger plans beyond nuking Washington: he's got a space station hovering above the planet and will be populating it with the richest of the rich after starting a series of global catastrophes. With crazed, gun-barrel-breasted madam Desdemona (a scenery-chewing Sofia Vergara) and elusive assassin La Chamaleon (alternately played by Walton Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr, Lady Gaga, and Antonio Banderas) in hot pursuit, Machete gets help from sexy undercover agent Miss San Antonio (Amber Heard), and his old cohort Luz (Michelle Rodriguez) to thwart Voz's nefarious plan of taking over the galaxy.

Filled with intentionally dubious-looking CGI and ridiculous levels of violence and gore, MACHETE KILLS is dumb fun, which is the whole point. But there's no denying that it starts to drag after a while and you wonder if maybe this should've been left as a trailer. A lot of it is repetitious and could've been trimmed down, like the whole subplot with William Sadler as a racist sheriff on the Arizona border, who keeps calling Machete "Taco." The character of "La Chamaleon" is funny, but Rodriguez and screenwriter Kyle Ward don't do much with it other than put increasingly unlikely actors in the role for a scene before they disappear. Only Trejo appears throughout the film, and it's obvious that everyone else dropped by as their schedule allowed ("Carlos Estevez" never interacts with any other cast members--he and Trejo are never in the same shot together--and he actually looks CGI'd in his final scene). Stone-faced Trejo is still a badass Machete and his emotionless delivery of lines like "Machete don't Tweet" are never not funny. Between this and his role as the main villain in the upcoming THE EXPENDABLES 3, it's clear that the far-beyond-damage control Gibson is throwing in the towel and diving right into the self-parody phase of his career, probably because there's no other offers coming his way, but still, it's amusing seeing him on a huge set straight out of MOONRAKER and wearing a Darth Vader-like space cape. Thanks to Trejo and some stars checking their egos at the door, MACHETE KILLS is enjoyable and the actors are having a blast, but there's just too much of it. It overstays its welcome and simply doesn't know when to quit. Hopefully, Rodriguez can rein it in a little and keep it to more sensible 85-90 minutes if and when he gets around to the promised third entry whose trailer is featured at the beginning of the film: MACHETE KILLS AGAIN...IN SPACE!

THE MONSTER CLUB

(UK - 1981)

Directed by Roy Ward Baker. Written by Edward and Valerie Abraham. Cast: Vincent Price, Donald Pleasence, John Carradine, Stuart Whitman, Richard Johnson, Barbara Kellermann, Britt Ekland, Simon Ward, Anthony Valentine, Patrick Magee, Anthony Steel, James Laurenson, Geoffrey Bayldon, Warren Saire, Lesley Dunlop, Fran Fullenwider, The Viewers, B.A. Robertson, Night, The Pretty Things. (Unrated, 98 mins)

Anthology, or portmanteau horror films weren't a new concept when they became hugely popular in the 1960s. 1945's DEAD OF NIGHT, anchored by the classic ventriloquist dummy segment with Michael Redgrave, established the template, Roger Corman's Poe anthology TALES OF TERROR (1962) was a big hit, and TV series such as ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, THRILLER, THE OUTER LIMITS, and THE TWILIGHT ZONE got fans accustomed to compact, 30-minute stories. But when the British company Amicus, led by Max J. Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky, produced 1965's DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, the style really took off, generating many similar, frequently star-studded anthology outings with titles like TORTURE GARDEN (1967), THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1970), ASYLUM (1972), TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972) and THE VAULT OF HORROR (1973). By the mid-1970s, the subgenre's popularity began to fade, with lesser titles like TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS (1973) and FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (1974) paling in comparison to the anthology's heyday. With shocking horror films like THE EXORCIST (1973) and THE OMEN (1976) rendering classic horror passé with 1970s moviegoers, the omnibus film of the Amicus sort quietly faded away, much like Amicus itself as Subotsky (1921-1991) and Rosenberg (1914-2004) parted ways in the mid-1970s. Similar to the in-name-only resurrection of the legendary British horror house Hammer, the Amicus name would be revived in the 2000s, but we haven't heard much from it other than Stuart Gordon's STUCK (2008) and the atrocious 2009 remake of Larry Cohen's 1974 cult classic IT'S ALIVE. As far as the British anthologies go, a few stragglers wandered in, like 1977's Canadian/British feline-centric collection THE UNCANNY, but by this time, audiences moved on.

Made during a period when theaters were filled with gory, post-HALLOWEEN/FRIDAY THE 13TH slasher films and the groundbreaking special effects of ALIEN, THE HOWLING, and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, and featuring a cast of geriatric and/or past-their-prime actors, it's little wonder that the tardy anthology THE MONSTER CLUB failed to attract a US distributor, going straight to syndicated TV and appearing on VHS a few years later. An Amicus production in every way except by name, THE MONSTER CLUB, recently released in a beautiful transfer on Blu-ray and DVD by Scorpion, was an adaptation of three stories in British horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes' 1975 collection of the same name. Directed by Amicus and Hammer vet Roy Ward Baker, the film stars John Carradine as Chetwynd-Hayes, who's bitten by an affable vampire named Eramus (Vincent Price) and taken to the secret Monster Club, a hangout for ghouls, monsters, and new-wave bands, where Eramus tells him three horrific stories to inspire his writing. In the first, Simon Ward is a scheming shitbag who badgers his girlfriend (Barbara Kellermann) into answering a newspaper ad seeking someone to help catalog a library, figuring there's expensive goodies to steal and fence. The homeowner (James Laurenson), a sensitive, lonely shut-in, turns out to be a "shadmock," a supernatural creature who emits a lethal whistling sound when angered. In the more comedic second tale, Richard Johnson is a vampire quietly going about his nocturnal routine as his loving wife (Britt Ekland) keeps his secret even from their bullied son (Warren Saire). The son has been befriended by a concerned priest (Donald Pleasence), who's really the leader of a squad of vampire hunters from the government's "Blood Crimes" unit. The final story has a frustrated movie director (Stuart Whitman) location-scouting for a gothic horror film and stumbling on a creepy village populated by grave-desecrating, cannibalistic ghouls led by Patrick Magee (in one of his last roles) and figuring out too late that he's their next intended feast.

Occasionally eerie but never taking itself very seriously, THE MONSTER CLUB certainly won't go down as an essential British anthology horror flick, but even with some cheesy humor and some dated songs, time has been surprisingly kind to it. While there might not have been a place for it in American movie theaters in 1981, TV audiences were much more welcoming with it, likely because young horror fans were already watching movies with Price and Carradine (and Karloff, Lugosi, Lee, Cushing, etc) on Saturday afternoon and late-night "Creature Features." There's nothing in the way of gore other than one rather icky result of a shadmocking, and even some near-nudity gets obscured and turned into an animated joke. In those respects, it's quaintly old-fashioned, but also nothing that 1981 audiences wanted to see on the big screen. The biggest concession THE MONSTER CLUB makes to "the kids" is the inclusion of some extended musical interludes featuring songs by UB40 and onscreen appearances by the short-lived Night, and The Pretty Things, who had just reunited and contributed the title track as Price and Carradine can be seen busting moves on the Monster Club's dance floor (with Price almost grinding on a large actress named Fran Fullenwider). Carradine seems a bit miscast and more than a little bewildered (Peter Cushing would've been perfect; Christopher Lee was approached for the role and reportedly declined when he heard the title), but Price is clearly having fun with his sole big-screen appearance as a vampire.

While some of THE MONSTER CLUB's humor is corny by design (especially in the second story, though the predicament Pleasence ultimately finds himself in is a rather ingenious development that's legitimately laugh-out-loud funny), some of it is surprisingly witty, with Price's vampire complaining that his kind find it hard to do their thing because of so many horror movies ruining things for them ("Everybody knows about garlic and stakes through the heart!"), and when Anthony Steel appears as a producer of vampire films named "Lintom Busotsky," Carradine exclaims "A vampire film producer?" to which Price quips "Aren't they all?" There's also some unexpectedly sharp and cynical social commentary near the end when Price's Eramus nominates Chetwynd-Hayes to become the Monster Club's newest member, explaining that humans, with their guns, their wars, their anger, and their endless bloodlust and propensity for murder, are perhaps the biggest monsters of all. None of this is to say that THE MONSTER CLUB is filled with deep insight, but it is better than its reputation as the last gasp of a dying subgenre. Anthology films didn't go away--they just changed shape: George A. Romero's CREEPSHOW was in theaters the next year, Price would similarly appear in the wraparound segments of the much more grisly 1987 horror omnibus THE OFFSPRING (aka FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM), and more recently, the two V/H/S films and THE ABCs OF DEATH have found an audience with newer and apparently more lenient horror fans. But THE MONSTER CLUB was the last of its kind: the British portmanteau rooted in classic horror. Fittingly, it was also the last feature film directed by Baker (1916-2010), whose career began with Hollywood fare like the Marilyn Monroe thriller DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK (1952). He's best known among serious cineastes for the Titanic classic A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (1958), but not long after that, he became a go-to horror guy for Hammer and Amicus, helming such genre favorites as FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH (1967) and THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (1970), among many others. After THE MONSTER CLUB, Baker moved into British television until retiring in the early 1990s. Late in his life and still sharp and full of stories, he contributed several commentary tracks on DVD releases of some of his classic horror films.

Scorpion's Blu-ray, framed at 1.78, really is the best this film has ever looked (despite their usual packaging typos, like "R. Chetwood-Hayes" and "Milton Dubotsky"), and it features two outstanding extras courtesy of journalist/historian/close Price friend David Del Valle, including an audio interview and an hour-long, career-spanning 1987 interview for Del Valle's public access show THE SINISTER IMAGE. Price, taking a little time to plug Lindsay Anderson's just-released THE WHALES OF AUGUST, is very much the elegant raconteur here, candidly talking about his classic films and his old and, in some cases, departed Hollywood friends. This same interview, previously released as its own DVD by Image, is featured on Shout Factory's upcoming Price box set from his AIP/Poe days.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
(US - 2013)

Directed by Paul Greengrass. Written by Billy Ray. Cast: Tom Hanks, Catherine Keener, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, Mahat M. Ali, Michael Chernus, David Warshofsky, Chris Mulkey, Corey Johnson, Yul Vazquez, Max Martini. (PG-13, 134 mins)

Paul Greengrass brings the harrowing immediacy of BLOODY SUNDAY and UNITED 93 and the relentless pace of THE BOURNE SUPREMACY and THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM to this dramatization of the hostage ordeal of Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks). Phillips was the captain of the American cargo ship Maersk Alabama when it was boarded by four Somali pirates while en route from Oman to Kenya in April 2009. When his crew manages to capture pirate leader Muse (Barkhad Abdi), they get some leverage to convince his cohorts to let Phillips go, but the exchange is botched and the four pirates end up taking Phillips with them in the Alabama lifeboat, with the ship itself closely trailing them. Eventually, Seal Team Six is dispatched and a full-scale military operation is launched to rescue Phillips from his captors before they can get him to Somalia.

Like any film "based on a true story," dramatic license is used and liberties taken. Controversies erupted shortly before the film was released as Maersk Alabama crew members began strongly disputing the way the film presents the events and, specifically, Captain Phillips. Hanks portrays the captain as a stickler--fair and just, and one of the team, but he's all business. He takes e-mail warnings of piracy threats seriously and runs the crew through a drill just before a first failed attack by a larger crew accompanying Muse. Not so, say some crew members, who paint a picture of Phillips as vain, arrogant, and even having a "death wish," intentionally steering them into dangerous waters known for pirate attacks. They claim Phillips ignored the warnings and during the first of two attacks (as opposed to one presented in the film), insisted on finishing a lifeboat drill with the crew as the pirates approached the ship. Eleven crew members of the Alabama are suing the Maersk line for Phillips'"willful, wanton, and conscious disregard" for their safety.

There's two sides to every story and the fact is, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is not a documentary. It's Hollywood entertainment first and foremost and if Phillips isn't the heroic figure that Greengrass and screenwriter Billy Ray (SHATTERED GLASS, BREACH) depict, it would hardly be the first time that a real-life event was fictionalized for entertainment purposes. In the film, the Maersk crew respect Phillips, and he only raises his voice when confronted with irate crew members who "didn't sign on for this" (but they quickly pull together and rally behind him), and prior to the attack, when he passive-aggressively informs some union guys that they're taking too long on a coffee break. Regardless of any alleged liberties taken, the film is a grueling nail-biter of the highest order, with Hanks turning in one of the most subtly powerful performances of his career. It's one that really crescendos into an emotionally draining finale when Hanks displays what might be the best ten minutes he's ever had onscreen. Even knowing the controversies going in, and trying not to compare the possibly very flawed real-life Captain Phillips with the idealized, American everyman "Captain Phillips" being played by Hanks, it's impossible to not get sucked in by the actor's stunning work in this scene. It's the kind of scene--like Jessica Chastain's outburst to her boss in ZERO DARK THIRTY--that guarantees an Oscar nomination.

The Alabama crew features some veteran character actors like Chris Mulkey and David Warshofsky, but other than Hanks, the focus is on the four novice actors who play the pirates: Abdi as Muse, Barkhad Abdirahman as the teenaged Bilal, Mahat M. Ali as Elmi, and Faysal Ahmed as Najee. Recruited in concentrated Somali immigrant enclaves in Minnesota, these four newcomers hold their own with the two-time Oscar-winner. Muse is a reluctant pirate, only doing it because of the lack of opportunities and a need to impress their powerful warlord. He just wants money and goods and has no real desire to harm anyone, which contrasts sharply with the bloodthirsty Najee. You know how every cinematic hostage situation has the one guy with a bad temper and an itchy trigger finger who fucks it up for everyone else when things are going smoothly? That's Najee's function here.

Given the current legal proceedings against the Maersk line and the allegations against Phillips, it's clear that the Captain Phillips story is far from over, but as its own Hollywood suspense thriller, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, after some strangely clunky, ham-fisted foreshadowing in an opening scene with Phillips being dropped off at the airport by his wife (Catherine Keener), is one of the year's most intense and ultimately emotional films. By the time the Somalis attack the Alabama--both the failed first attempt and the successful second--in a pair of heart-pounding, drawn-out sequences where no detail is left unaddressed, you'll be hooked.

MANIAC
(France/US - 2013)

William Lustig's MANIAC (1980) is so representative of both '80s splatter and the grimy NYC sleaze of its era that a present-day remake seems like a hapless, watered-down proposition from the get-go. Written and produced by Alexandre Aja and directed by Aja protégé Franck Khalfoun (P2), the 2013 version of MANIAC doesn't top Lustig's original, but it at least tries to be its own film and shows an obvious affinity for its source. Moving the setting from NYC to some of the seedier parts of downtown Los Angeles doesn't really replicate that scuzzy feeling, but it sort-of suffices, as homicidal Frank (Elijah Wood in the iconic Joe Spinell role) slices and dices his way through a bevy of beautiful women he meets on dating sites, scalping them to adorn the mannequins in the fly-infested apartment behind his restoration shop. Frank is dealing with unresolved mother issues, having endured a traumatic childhood that saw him witnessing Mom (America Olivo) abusing drugs and sleeping with numerous random men (the shot of her snorting coke while screwing two guys and catching young Frank watching her as she whispers "Mommy loves you" is undeniably haunting). Frank meets French photographer Anna (Nora Arzeneder), whose specialty is, conveniently enough, mannequins (which seems like an easy way for her to overlook Frank's bizarre demeanor and his creepy collection; in a way, it's just as implausible as the schlubby, greasy Spinell attracting the attention of someone like Caroline Munro in the original), and, of course, becomes fixated on her.

The biggest change this new film makes is shooting it almost entirely from Frank's POV. Wood primarily turns up as reflections in mirrors and windows, except for a few times when Khalfoun inexplicably bungles it and swings the camera around to show Frank actually killing people. The POV is a nice touch, so it doesn't make sense and it's completely intrusive when Khalfoun breaks it, and it seems to have been done only to give Wood more screen time as he'd otherwise barely be visible. Still, as far as remakes go, MANIAC '13 isn't bad, however unnecessary it may be. The makeup effects by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger are a nice mix of CGI and practical, with the blood looking appropriately wet and the flesh moist instead of completely cartoonish and badly-digitized. When he sticks to the Frank POV, Khalfoun stages some nicely-done murder sequences, particularly the first one with the way the knife enters the frame. Frank, who suffers from migraines, is also frequently sickened by his actions, which gives Khalfoun a good excuse for a suitably gross POV puking shot into a toilet. I guess if MANIAC had to be remade, this turned out as good as it could've turned out, and the music score by "Rob" is a standout. Face it, this could've just as easily been a neutered, PG-13, in-name-only revamp instead of the unrated gorefest that it is. It's an admirable effort, better than anything with the name "Alexandre Aja" attached to it should be, and Wood gives it his all, but when I feel like watching MANIAC, I'm going with Joe Spinell. (Unrated, 89 mins, also streaming on Netflix)

THE COLONY
(Canada - 2013)

Despite some occasionally effective location work at a decommissioned NORAD station, this tepid post-apocalyptic horror film is largely an uninspired coast that relies on clichés you've seen a hundred times in other, better movies. In 2045, weather machines constructed to combat the sweltering effects of climate change malfunction and bring about an ice age, putting the entire planet in a deep freeze with never-ending snow. Most of humanity has died off, but the few survivors find refuge in abandoned military facilities called "colonies," where food is scarce and illness rampant. Even a common cold is enough to have someone banished to the elements or, if they choose, killed. After receiving a distress call from nearby Colony 5, Colony 7 leader Briggs (Laurence Fishburne) takes Sam (Kevin Zegers) and Graydon (Atticus Mitchell) on an expedition to investigate. They find a crazed, lone survivor (Julian Richings), who tells them that everyone has been killed. The Colony 7 guys investigate and find what's left of Colony 5 overrun by a band of marauding, feral cannibals who have decided that human flesh is the answer to their food shortage. Of course, the cannibals follow them back to Colony 7, where they also have to deal with Mason (Bill Paxton), a trigger-happy psycho who's taken over the leadership role in Briggs' absence and is only interested in thinning the herd so there's less mouths to feed.

I'm a sucker for a good cold, snowy, icy horror flick, but THE COLONY fails to take its place aside such iconic titles as THE SHINING or either version of THE THING. It isn't even in the same league as WHITEOUT or the recent prequel THE THING. At least WHITEOUT went to the trouble of CGI-ing some visible breath for the actors in the exterior scenes. The interiors of the closed-up NORAD facility make a good location, but THE COLONY falls apart whenever anyone walks outside. Everything is unconvincingly green-screened and cartoonishly CGI'd. You never feel for one moment that these actors are out in the elements and not in a comfortable, climate-controlled studio standing in front of a screen. The best kind of CGI is the kind that doesn't call attention to itself, and the CGI here is basically wearing a bright, flashing neon sign. And once the cannibals make their way to the colony, the whole thing becomes yet another John Carpenter-styled siege scenario and a sort-of ASSAULT ON COLONY 7. The film is directed by Jeff Renfroe, who primarily works in TV these days but previously made a pair of interesting and little-seen indies: 2004's Euro-dystopian PARANOIA 1.0 has Jeremy Sisto as a computer programmer who starts cracking up when mysterious packages keep appearing at his door, and 2007's CIVIC DUTY stars Peter Krause in an intense performance as a laid-off accountant with nothing but time on his hands, spending his days watching cable news and becoming increasingly obsessed with his new neighbor--a Muslim grad student--and convincing himself that the guy is a terrorist. Both of these films have a powerful sense of paranoia and claustrophobia that would seem to be ideal for THE COLONY, but the artifice of the whole production design just keeps you at a distance. While the film works best when it stays indoors, it has nothing unique or substantive to offer, doesn't even make any valid points on an environmental level, and exists only to provide easy paychecks for Fishburne and Paxton. It took four screenwriters to come up with this? (R, 94 mins)

THE EAST
(US - 2013)

Actress/screenwriter Brit Marling has made a name for herself on the indie and festival circuits over the last couple of years with 2011's ANOTHER EARTH (directed by Mike Cahill) and 2012's SOUND OF MY VOICE (directed by Zal Batmanglij). Marling and Batmanglij team up again with THE EAST, which finds the creative pair getting a sizable budget boost courtesy of A-list producers Ridley Scott and Michael Costigan, and falling flat on their faces, with a story that travels a path that's too structurally similar to SOUND OF MY VOICE. And where VOICE and ANOTHER EARTH were science fiction stories that could explain away some of the more outlandish plot elements, Marling seems to struggle when the plot is based in the real world and without a fantastic angle. Marling stars as Sarah, a former FBI agent who lands a gig at a private company specializing in corporate espionage. Her boss (Patricia Clarkson), hired by big money clients, assigns her to infiltrate The East, a domestic eco-terrorism outfit that's been targeting CEOs and various corporate big shots with such acts as flooding an oil honcho's house with crude after his company causes a massive oil spill. In the first of many embarrassingly simplistic developments straight out of Plot Convenience Playhouse, it takes Sarah about a day to get into The East's inner circle, which she manages to accomplish via Craigslist and hanging out with some acoustic guitar-strumming hippies on the shore. Of course she finds herself drawn to their charismatic leader Benji (Alexander Skarsgard) and comes to agree with The East's philosophies and practices (at times, with their straitjacket dinners and off-kilter rounds of Spin the Bottle--"May I hug you for one minute?"--they seem more like a cult), taking part in their projects (called "jams"), and her happy life with her nice but boring boyfriend (Jason Ritter) falls apart as she ignores her boss' most vital piece of advice: "Do not get soft."

Marling seems to have gotten soft with THE EAST. Even with the formulaic plotting, it still could've been a solid, entertaining thriller. But with the soapboxing (Sarah becomes a dumpster-diving freegan simply because Marling did that for a while as well) and the fact that, as a writer, the proselytizing Marling stacks the deck in The East's favor, even when they're crossing lines and doing some very bad things (like poisoning the board of directors of a pharmaceutical company), it's hard to really accept a lot of what transpires. Look, I hate the sociopathic, profit-above-all mentality of these companies as well, but two wrongs don't make a right, and The East aren't meant to be idealized. This should be a film with no heroes. Explore that. Explore the inner conflict instead of having Sarah merrily abandon everything. Or at least have her abandon everything in a realistic fashion. The idea that the driven, ambitious Sarah is willing to drop her promising career, devoted boyfriend, and happy life in general to fall in with The East as quickly as she does is a metamorphosis that serves the filmmakers' agenda rather than the story. The character arc is never believable for a second, and the third-act twist with the reveal of The East's final "jam" is only a surprise if you've never seen a movie before. There are a few good scenes--fanatical East member Izzy (Ellen Page) forcing her chemical company CEO dad (Jamey Sheridan) and a company spokesperson to jump in toxic, polluted water is a memorable moment--and the potential was there for a good thriller, but Marling and Batmanglij can't stop shouting "MESSAGE!" long enough to focus on what's important. Much like SOUND OF MY VOICE, THE EAST deals with an outsider infiltrating a secret organization (in SOUND, Marling played a manipulative cult leader who claimed to be from the future), but a bigger budget doesn't mean a better movie. ANOTHER EARTH and SOUND OF MY VOICE were both original, intricate, and thought-provoking puzzles that established Marling as a major new indie talent both as an actress and a writer. The studio-backed THE EAST, on the other hand, is clichéd, trite, and just plain dumb. Welcome to Hollywood. This is a rare case where you wish the suits would've intervened and taken the movie away from its makers. (PG-13, 116 mins)

ESCAPE PLAN
(US - 2013)

Directed by Mikael Hafstrom. Written by Miles Chapman and Arnell Jesko. Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, Vincent D'Onofrio, Amy Ryan, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Sam Neill, Vinnie Jones, Faran Tahir, Graham Beckel, Matt Gerald, Caitriona Balfe. (R, 115 mins)

Though THE EXPENDABLES and its sequel proved to be surprise hits, they failed to kickstart a geriatric action movement for aging warhorses like 67-year-old Sylvester Stallone and 66-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger. Their early 2013 solo releases--BULLET TO THE HEAD and THE LAST STAND, respectively--tanked at the box office as audiences stayed far away despite generally positive reviews for both. The sad fact is that teenagers make up most of the theatrical audience, and kids today aren't really interested in what '80s action icons are doing. Hell, they won't even go see Jason Statham movies at this point, and he's only 46. Much like aging rock bands going out on four-band package tours, these dinosaur action fossils only seem to generate some box office when they're all together, hence, next summer's EXPENDABLES 3. For fans of these guys in their prime, these things are a blast. I can't think of a more giddy moment in a 2012 movie than Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis standing side-by-side with guns blazing in THE EXPENDABLES 2. If you can't get behind that, then we don't have anything more to discuss.

Here, Stallone is Ray Breslin, who makes a lucrative living breaking out of prisons. A legend in his field, Breslin literally wrote the book on correctional facility security measures. His business partner Lester (Vincent D'Onofrio) presents him with an offer for double their usual fee: incarceration at The Tomb (the film's original title), an off-the-grid, privately-funded, state-of-the-art facility that houses the worst of the worst. Going in undercover as a South American terrorist named Porthos, Breslin immediately tangles with Warden Hobbes (Jim Caviezel) and his crew of masked security guards led by Drake (Vinnie Jones, cast radically against type as "Vinnie Jones"). But he finds an ally in Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger), who's been dumped into The Tomb for his association with his boss, an international criminal named Mannheim. After trading barbs and busting one another's balls, Breslin and Rottmayer concoct an elaborate escape plan (duh) when Breslin learns that someone has paid big money to keep him locked in The Tomb so he'll disappear for good.

ESCAPE PLAN obviously doesn't compare with the best from these fellas' heyday, but if you miss the feeling of old-school '80s action, it gets the job done. It may be a tad longish at 115 minutes, and it could probably use a more appropriate director than Swedish journeyman Mikael Hafstrom (DERAILED, 1408, THE RITE), who does a workmanlike job but doesn't really bring a lot to the proceedings (why isn't Isaac Florentine getting a job like this?), but it's undeniable fun. Hafstrom at least has the sense to somehow get the two stars dangling from a chopper for the climax. Stallone and Schwarzenegger work so well together that you wish they'd teamed up two decades ago and spared Stallone from the likes of STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT. Stallone glowers and grumbles his way through the film, surprisingly letting Schwarzenegger be the showy comic relief and the Governator runs with it, whether he's starting fights and insulting other inmates, getting thrown in lockdown and ranting in German, or telling Breslin "You hit like a vegetarian." Schwarzenegger even gets the film's best moment, grabbing a machine gun (Hafstrom gives him a close up of his eyes squinting) and turning around in slo-mo as he starts blasting Hobbes' goonish guards.

The big guys are obviously the show here, but there's a sizable supporting cast of reliable pros, and 50 Cent. Fiddy and Amy Ryan play Breslin's associates, and it's nice to see Sam Neill on the big screen again, even if it's in a thankless role as the prison doctor. As far as movie wardens go, Caviezel is an appropriately sneering, cartoonish bad guy, snapping his fingers at the guards in lieu of giving orders and introduced tending to his butterfly collection and prissily dusting lint from his perfectly-pressed suit. D'Onofrio turns in yet another mannered, tic-heavy turn as Lester, sporting a goofy fedora, a grating "Da Bearsss!" accent, and constantly squirting hand sanitizer into his palm. When's the last time D'Onofrio gave a real performance in anything? The guy's done some great work (admittedly, when you start with FULL METAL JACKET, you set the bar pretty high), but since his divisive run on LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT (I thought he was terrific), it seems like everything he's done is filled with exaggerated accents, off-the-wall quirks, fidgeting, and a crutch-like reliance on props as a way of establishing a character. D'Onofrio's the kind of actor who needs a strong director to rein him in, and he rarely gets it. Some of his recent overdone turns in films like CHAINED and PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES make his work as noseless meth kingpin Pooh Bear in THE SALTON SEA look restrained and low-key by comparison. When did he throw it all away to become the Nicolas Cage of supporting actors?

I dug ESCAPE PLAN, but I'm admittedly grading it on a curve. It's nowhere near the level of the best work of either of its stars (and even they fall victim to trends with some janky CGI in the second half, but it's not a deal-breaker) and it gets by largely on their presence alone. But it's just nice to see these guys still headlining action movies at their age. There isn't much in the way of star power at the multiplex these days--sure, you've got the occasional George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, or Brad Pitt, but when's the last time you heard anyone say 'That new Chris Hemsworth movie ruled!"? When's the last time you were standing in line at the concession stand and overheard someone declare "I never miss a Chris Pine movie!"? Where are the big screen action stars? There's only franchises and brands. Like going to see a past-their-prime band at a small club instead of the arenas they once played, a new Stallone/Schwarzenegger flick is a nostalgia trip dismissed by many, but as long as they keep offering them, they can count me in.

CARRIE
(US - 2013)

Directed by Kimberly Peirce. Written by Lawrence D. Cohen and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Cast: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday, Gabriella Wilde, Alex Russell, Ansel Elgort, Barry Shabaka Henley, Hart Bochner, Zoe Belkin, Samantha Weinstein. (R, 98 mins)

(SPOILERS DISCUSSED THROUGHOUT)

The latest Hollywood horror remake is as unnecessary as you'd expect, despite the involvement of BOYS DON'T CRY and STOP-LOSS director Kimberly Peirce, helming just her third film in 14 years. Considering how little she brings to the table here, one must be forced to assume that she simply needed the money. This "re-imagining" of the 1974 Stephen King novel and 1976 Brian De Palma film (there was also a 2002 made-for-TV remake, and the less said about 1999's THE RAGE: CARRIE 2, the better) is about as perfunctory and go-through-the-motions as it gets, remaining watchable and never dull but also never justifying its existence. It utilizes enough of the 1976 film that its screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen shares a presumably WGA-mandated credit with playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who must share the blame with Peirce for its complete collapse in the home stretch.

The now-familiar story of bullied, telekinetic Carrie White (played here by Chloe Grace Moretz), her religious-fanatic mother Margaret (Julianne Moore), and a prom prank that goes horribly awry was turned into such an iconic classic by De Palma that Peirce seems to throw in the towel from the start. CARRIE '13 seems to be sprinting past the details, glossing over dramatic and character developments as if to say "Well, you've seen the original enough times, so you know what happens here." It's almost like it's Cliffs Notes-ing its way through the proceedings. As a result, there's no tension. There's no suspense. When bitchy Chris Hargenson (Portia Doubleday) and dirtbag boyfriend Billy Nolan (Alex Russell) dump the bucket of pig's blood on Carrie at the prom, De Palma's depiction was a stylish, elaborately-choreographed masterwork of stomach-knotting anticipation and dread. Here...it just gets dumped. It's a lose-lose for Peirce: she can't mimic De Palma's split diopters and split-screens without getting shit for it, and his work was so good that it can't be topped, so she's forced to just dump it in the blandest way possible. She tries to gussy it up by replaying it three times but it serves no purpose. There's not even the "They're all gonna laugh at you!" refrain. This problem occurs time and again throughout CARRIE '13. Everything effective under De Palma is neutered or outright absent here. But could it have turned out any other way?

Peirce and Aguirre-Sacasa do include a few elements from King's novel that didn't make it into De Palma's version: there's a brief shot of a court inquiry where Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde) is being questioned, Chris' big-shot lawyer dad (Hart Bochner sighting!) unsuccessfully tries to throw his weight around with the principal (Barry Shabaka Henley) after his daughter is suspended from school, and gym teacher Miss Desjardin (Judy Greer) gets her original name back and survives Carrie's prom rampage (Betty Buckley played her as "Miss Collins" and got killed), but they also make the curious decision to tone down the character of Margaret. This could be because Piper Laurie played it just crazy enough without going over-the-top that Moore saw no way to improve on it from that angle. Moore is fine in the role, but Margaret is really less of a menace here than she is in the 1976 film and in the book. In King and De Palma, Margaret fears her daughter but also despises her and her burgeoning womanhood, "the blood," and "the boys who come sniffing like dogs, grinning and slobbering to find out where that smell is." Laurie's interpretation of the character was intimidating and terrifying, where Moore plays Margaret as more overprotective and demonstrates far more affection than she shows in the book or in Laurie's Oscar-nominated performance.

There's no problems with Moretz in terms of her performance, but at the risk of simplifying things, she's too attractive to play Carrie, and slouching her shoulders, hiding behind her hair, and wearing frumpy garments isn't going to disguise that. She's a terrific young actress, but she's just not right for this role. Even Sissy Spacek--also Oscar-nominated--didn't fit King's description of a "chunky" Carrie, and while De Palma didn't cast someone overweight in the role, she was one of those actresses who thrived in the 1970s when unconventional looks were acceptable. Spacek is not someone who's conventionally "hot" by a standard textbook Hollywood definition, either in the 1970s or now. She has an unconventional beauty to her but she also had a plain, "odd" quality that was well-utilized by De Palma and other directors like Terrence Malick in 1973's BADLANDS and Robert Altman in 1977's 3 WOMEN (even MAY star and horror/cult figure Angela Bettis, in the 2002 version, has an unusual look to her to that made her a believable Carrie). Moretz looks gorgeous even when she's trying not to be. By the time we get to the prom rampage, Moretz's Carrie starts behaving like someone who's seen CARRIE. Instead of slowly walking through the gym and wreaking her vengeance, Moretz has been directed to wildly contort and symphonically gesticulate with wild-eyed abandon, looking more like a villain in the climax of an X-MEN movie than Carrie.

It's the prom where the film really starts to fall apart, despite newcomer Elgort's surprisingly sensitive interpretation of Tommy Ross, though he may not have William Katt's legendary locks (perhaps one improvement this film makes is ensuring the audience knows Tommy has been killed by the bucket hitting his head; Tommy's fate always seemed vague in De Palma's film until it's mentioned in passing near the end). In the book, nearly everyone was killed, and De Palma even killed off the sympathetic gym teacher after Carrie imagined her laughing at her. Here, Carrie kills a few people and most seem to escape. But Peirce and Aguirre-Sacasa save the worst for last, as they inexplicably have Sue show up at the White home after Carrie kills her mother. They have a conversation and Carrie sees Sue wasn't involved in the prank, and tells her "You're going to have a girl." Yes, Sue is now pregnant with Tommy's child (hinted at but never overtly stated by King, as Sue either gets her period or miscarries near the end of the novel) and Carrie has somehow developed psychic abilities. Does this have anything to do with Carrie's ability to move things? If so, then why wasn't she able to see the prank that was about to happen?

CARRIE '13 is competently-made and there's nothing wrong with the actors. The biggest issue is the same as with most other horror remakes: it just doesn't need to exist. With one exception (Tommy's death scene), it doesn't improve on anything, it isn't better-directed, the ending can't be anything but lame compared to De Palma's, the CGI visual effects are less convincing than the practical ones from 37 years ago, and the usually reliable Marco Beltrami offers a snoozer of a score in place of the unforgettable Pino Donaggio cues in the 1976 version. All it really adds are newer fashions, cell phones, Chris posting a video of the shower incident on YouTube, and one already-dated mention of Tim Tebow. De Palma's film is one that's been talked about and revered for nearly 40 years. Will anyone remember this remake 40 days from now?

DISCONNECT
(US - 2013)

DISCONNECT falls squarely into that post-CRASH "everything is connected" ensemble subgenre but stands out for being notably less pompous and sanctimonious than most. It certainly deserved better treatment than getting dumped on just 180 screens at its widest release. Directed by Henry-Alex Rubin (best known for the documentary MURDERBALL), the film offers the standard selection of disparate characters whose lives converge in unexpected and tragic ways: in the most compelling storyline, troublemaking teens Jason (UNDER THE DOME's Colin Ford) and Frye (Aviad Bernstein) set up a fake Facebook profile for a "Jessica," striking up an online relationship with lonely, artistic outcast Ben (Jonah Bobo), eventually coercing him into sending a nude selfie, which they forward to everyone at school; Jason's widower father Mike (Frank Grillo) is a freelance cyber-security investigator who's hired by Derek (Alexander Skarsgard) and Cindy (Paula Patton), a married couple struggling with the death of their infant son, after their finances have been drained by an identity theft traced to Schumacher (Michael Nyqvist), a grief chatroom friend of Cindy's who recently lost his wife to cancer; Ben's father Rich (Jason Bateman) is a lawyer who becomes obsessed with finding who's responsible for harassing his son; and Rich briefly figures into the film's least interesting plotline, when he's hired by a TV station to represent Nina (Andrea Riseborough), an ambitious reporter who gets in over her head when she does a profile on an internet sex worker (Max Thieriot), who's inadvertently being used to lure minors into the profession. All of the plot threads have an internet angle, and the idea that we're all too plugged in and--wait for it--disconnected is a notion that could've been hammered over our heads in the most unsubtle ways imaginable, but DISCONNECT does nice job of not screaming "MESSAGE!" and the performances, particularly Bateman's, are quite good. It wraps up a little too neat and tidy by the end, and it's a bit beyond fashionably late as far as this type of film goes, which is probably why it wasn't given much of a chance, but DISCONNECT is better than a lot of its ilk. (R, 116 mins)

BLOOD

(UK - 2013)

Veteran British TV producer/writer Bill Gallagher (LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD) scripted this remake of his 2004 BBC series CONVICTION, taking a six-part story and a new cast and streamlining it down to 90 minutes. Not having seen CONVICTION, BLOOD works fine on its own except for one questionable plot gimmick. It obviously jettisons tons of character development but retains the core tenets of CONVICTION: two sibling detective partners, Joe (Paul Bettany) and Chrissie Fairburn (Stephen Graham) are part of a team investigating the brutal stabbing death of a 15-year-old girl. They immediately suspect local creep Jason Buleigh (Ben Crompton), who smirks his way through their questioning and all but admits his guilt but there isn't enough evidence to hold him. After a few too many drinks at his wedding anniversary party, Joe sends his wife home and he and Chrissie pack their drunk, Alzheimer's-addled ex-cop dad Lenny (Brian Cox) into the car and pick up Jason. While Lenny sleeps it off in the back seat, Joe makes Jason dig a hole on the shore while Chrissie watches. Tempers flare and Joe hits Jason in the head with the shovel, killing him. They bury the body and try to get on with their lives, hoping that everyone will think Jason just skipped town. But then perceptive, loner detective Robert Seymoore (Mark Strong) uncovers evidence that implicates two teenage boys in the girl's death, and they confess, fully exonerating Jason. Chrissie can't live with the guilt, while Joe does everything possible to keep their secret buried. Meanwhile, with occasional flashes of reliable memory amidst his dementia, Lenny remembers bits and pieces of the incident, during which he was drifting in and out of sleep, and can't figure out why he has Jason's bus pass--with his picture on it--which Jason dropped in the back seat of Joe's car. Noticing how strangely the brothers are acting, Seymoore slowly starts to put the whole story together.

Filmed in the gray, rainy areas of Wirral and Liverpool, BLOOD has a dreary, hopeless aura throughout. Gallagher and director Nick Murphy (THE AWAKENING) generate much suspense out of the brothers' situation, with Bettany getting more crazed-looking and desperate with each new scene, to the point where his Joe frequently looks like a monster. Graham, currently seen as Al Capone on BOARDWALK EMPIRE and sort-of the bulldoggish Bob Hoskins of his generation, is outstanding as Chrissie, so overcome with guilt that he can barely function and can't stop bursting into tears. Bettany and Graham don't really look like brothers at all, but they're both good enough--Graham, in particular--that you can overlook it rather quickly. BLOOD isn't necessarily a very creative film and you've seen its type many times before, but it's a well-acted and solidly-crafted suspense thriller that's weakened only by a needless plot device where Joe's guilt is represented by him imagining conversations with Jason. It's apparently exclusive to the remake and was perhaps Gallagher's way of condensing material to build the Joe character, but it's the only element of BLOOD that comes off as hokey. (Unrated, 92 mins)

HAMMER OF THE GODS
(UK - 2013)

This Viking saga is appropriately brutal and bloody but isn't anywhere nearly as interesting as an average episode of similarly-styled cable TV series like GAME OF THRONES or VIKINGS. In 871 A.D., the dying King Bagsecg (James Cosmo, THRONES' Jeor Mormont) finds his Viking kingdom threatened by the Saxons. He sends his second son, the warrior Steinar (Charlie Bewley from the TWILIGHT series), in search of his banished eldest son Hakan (Elliot Cowan), so he can make his rightful claim to the throne and help rebuild the kingdom to its full glory. Steinar, accompanied by his motley crew of sidekicks, including Hagan (Clive Standen, who co-stars in VIKINGS), makes his way through Saxon lands in search of his brother, facing various obstacles and recruiting other warriors along the way, such as the gregarious Ivar (Ivan Kaye, also on VIKINGS). Eventually, Steinar is captured and brought to meet his estranged brother as the film becomes a Viking redux of APOCALYPSE NOW, with Hakan a now-insane despot, out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. All of this leads to a one-on-one, brotherly brawl with a bunch of biting and eye-gouging. Busy and awesomely-named British TV director Farren Blackburn (THE FADES, LUTHER, DOCTOR WHO) stages some OK action scenes and there's plentiful gore if that's what you're after, but the pace is slack and none of Steinar's adventures are all that interesting. The contemporary score is intrusive and the script by Matthew Read (no stranger to Viking fare, as he co-wrote Nicolas Winding Refn's brilliant VALHALLA RISING) is awful, filled with anachronistic verbiage like "crap,""cuntfuck," and "Go fuck yourself." The way the film ends makes it ultimately feel like a pilot for a TV series, and though I don't think it is, I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case. At any rate, HAMMER OF THE GODS, which grossed a whopping $641 during its two-screen US theatrical run, is boring, uninspired, and out of ideas long before it starts ripping off Joseph Conrad and Francis Ford Coppola, and your plans for watching it should be terminated with extreme prejudice. (R, 98 mins, also streaming on Netflix)

THE COUNSELOR

(US/UK - 2013)

Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Cormac McCarthy. Cast: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, Ruben Blades, Sam Spruell, Dean Norris, John Leguizamo, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell, Goran Visnjic, Natalie Dormer, Richard Cabral, Richard Brake, Andrea Deck, Giannina Facio. (R, 117 mins)

Though it's destined to go down in history as the movie where Cameron Diaz fucks a car, THE COUNSELOR is the kind of film that will probably play better on repeat viewings, when it's not hindered by trailer-generated, commercial expectations and its odd rhythms and reams of dialogue can be more closely studied and pondered. The film is directed by Ridley Scott, but like its protagonist, Scott is more of a middleman here in deference to Pulitzer Prize-winning literary icon Cormac McCarthy, penning his first original screenplay at the age of 80, though I suspect he's had this one lying around in outline form for a while. Past McCarthy works like No Country for Old Men and The Road were made into acclaimed films, but the author didn't have a hand in their scripts. McCarthy's prose is such that it doesn't translate well to the screen and needs a screenwriter to pare it down and make it more cinematic (Tommy Lee Jones' monologue at the end of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN being an exception). McCarthy's COUNSELOR script lets his characters talk and philosophize about sex, greed, the nature of manhood, and other moral and ethical quandaries for what are probably pages on end. It's frequently ponderous and pretentious, but with the camera fixated on the actors for long stretches while they speak McCarthy's prose, one can see the appeal for the A-list cast. Never mind that most people generally don't talk the way McCarthy's script has them talking. THE COUNSELOR has some rewards for the informed or for McCarthy disciples, but the impatient or those expecting a commercial action thriller will find it a frustrating couple of hours (I counted two walkouts at a weekday afternoon screening to an audience of about ten, both not long after the "Cameron Diaz fucks a car" scene at the midway point). The reviews have been overwhelmingly negative and while I concede that McCarthy's script probably could've used a neutral editor or at least an uncredited rewrite, it's not the dumpster fire that many have made it out to be. And like many misunderstood films, I'm convinced it will find some appreciation over time, probably sooner rather than later.

It seems like every fall, we get a major nationwide release with a cleverly-assembled trailer to make it look a bit like something that it's not. Last year, it was the criminally underappreciated KILLING THEM SOFTLY, a Brad Pitt vehicle where Pitt didn't even appear until a third of the way in (it's interesting to note that Pitt turns up in THE COUNSELOR in a supporting role). A couple of years back, THE AMERICAN was sold as an action-packed thriller when it turned out to be a somber, meditative, and very European, Jean-Pierre Melville-inspired character study with long, silent stretches of George Clooney looking glum, prompting quite possibly the funniest bit of moviegoer rage I've ever witnessed when an elderly woman shouted "Hang the director!" as the closing credits started rolling. Those are fine films that play even better once you know what to expect from them. THE COUNSELOR is undoubtedly a flawed work, and it hits and misses in equal measure. But it has its moments. And car-fucking.

Michael Fassbender stars as a nameless El Paso attorney, referred to only as "Counselor." He's got a fiancée, Laura (a miscast Penelope Cruz, about a decade or more too old for her role) and a promising legal practice, but he's also got bigger monetary ambitions. He wants to be rich now and finds a chance with his pal Reiner (Javier Bardem), a flashy club owner who's also on the payroll of a Mexican cartel operating just over the border. Reiner is the kind of guy who makes sure everyone knows he's a player, from his garish wardrobe to his two pet cheetahs to his sexed-up girlfriend Malkina (Diaz), a woman who knows what she wants and knows just how to get it. The Counselor is seduced by this lifestyle and gets involved in a $20 million drug buy that goes predictably awry when a money mule known as "The Green Hornet" (Richard Cabral) is decapitated by a rival cartel and the merchandise, being transported in a septic truck full of human waste, keeps changing hands. The mule happens to be the son of Ruth (Rosie Perez), an incarcerated woman whose court-appointed attorney is--you guessed it--the Counselor. Westray (Pitt), another middleman, ominously tells the Counselor that the cartel "has heard of coincidences but doesn't believe in them," and they're convinced that the Counselor--the new guy brought in by Reiner and Westray--has cooked up a plan to screw them out of $20 million and now they all have a price on their heads. Literally, as Reiner warns him early on to "not take decapitations personally...it's just business."

That sounds like the plot for a kickass thriller, and in some spots, THE COUNSELOR really gets some suspenseful momentum going, especially when the shit hits the fan and the justifiably paranoid Counselor, who foolishly thought he could enter a business arrangement with a drug cartel and emerge unscathed (as Westray tells him, "You're involved!"), starts freaking out and Westray wants nothing more to do with him. The Counselor already has a spotty reputation as a lawyer (there's one scene where a bitter former client played by Toby Kebbell angrily confronts him and warns Laura that her fiance has a habit of throwing people under the bus), and can't handle it when he's the one being unfairly blamed and hung out to dry. But McCarthy isn't so much interested in that as much as he wants to explore the psychological motivation of guys like The Counselor and Reiner, which can essentially be summed up by "pussy." There's a lot of male insecurities being explored in THE COUNSELOR as well as some outright misogyny, particularly with the depiction of Malkina as a ruthless man-eater. So, a lot of the long conversations between the Counselor and Reiner deal with this sort-of self-analytical inadequacy masked as male braggadocio, with Reiner calling women "an expensive habit." At times, it feels like a drug cartel thriller written by Neil LaBute.

While McCarthy's dialogue is frequently cumbersome--Diaz's final monologue is ramblingly incoherent and some of her femme fatale talk a bit too pulpy (Reiner: "Are you really that cold?" Malkina: "The truth has no temperature"), there are some tacky one-liners that get some big, if inappropriate laughs--when Ruth asks the Counselor to pay her son's $400 speeding ticket and offers a blowjob as compensation, the Counselor replies "Then you'd still owe me $380," and Westray tells a joke that goes "How do you know Jesus wasn't born in Mexico? Because he couldn't find three wise men or a virgin." And regardless of whether you laugh out loud or are utterly appalled, Reiner's recounting of Malkina removing her knickers and spread-eagle masturbating against the windshield of his convertible with him in the front seat ("it was like a catfish...one of those bottom-feeders sliding down the aquarium glass") is one of Bardem's finest career moments.

After PROMETHEUS, Scott's often personal, reflective revisit to the ALIEN universe that felt a bit too studio-compromised in its second half, it's interesting that the famed filmmaker would take a sort-of secondary role in something like THE COUNSELOR. Sure, he brings a sense of style and composition to the look of the film, but this is ultimately more McCarthy than Scott. At 75, Scott is still cranking movies out on an almost annual basis (he directed eight films from 2000-2009, and THE COUNSELOR is his third since 2010, with a fourth, the Showtime movie THE VATICAN, set to air by year's end), and THE COUNSELOR is one of the least predictable and most difficult to categorize works in Scott's storied career. You could say THE COUNSELOR is a muddled mess and you wouldn't exactly be wrong. But it's a film whose rewards perhaps aren't as apparent after one viewing. Once the dust from the toxic reviews and the audience antipathy settles, this, like KILLING THEM SOFTLY, which is already enjoying an improved rep just a year after bombing in theaters, will find appreciation and respect on its own bizarre terms. Either that, or maybe I'm giving it too much credit and Scott and McCarthy are just a couple of dirty old men.

BYZANTIUM
(Ireland/UK - 2013)

Many reviews of Neil Jordan's vampire film BYZANTIUM said it felt like the director was taking a second pass at his 1994 big-screen version of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. Considering the film's past/present structure, that's a valid statement but it doesn't really represent the whole film. BYZANTIUM, scripted by Moira Buffini and based on her play, is frequently derivative in the way it feels like it belongs in the same Anne Rice universe but also in its similarities to the Swedish vampire hit LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008). It manages to become its own beast, so to speak, and despite the occasionally slow pacing, the overlength, and the sometimes confusing structure, it overcomes its obstacles and ends up an interesting if inconsistent work. Clara (Gemma Arterton) and Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) are a mother-daughter vampire pair passing themselves off as sisters in present-day London. Clara works as a stripper, procuring her own victims among the drunk and belligerent men for whom she provides lap dances and, if the money's right, sexual services. Where Clara is ruthless and does what she needs to do for nourishment and money, the sympathetic Eleanor is quiet and withdrawn, feeding on humans but only those who are already about to die and who ask her to end their pain. When a mystery man from their past turns up asking questions, Clara decapitates him and the two flee to a downtrodden seaside resort town that Eleanor senses they've visited before. There, Clara latches on to lonely, schlubby Noel (Daniel Mays), who recently inherited a rundown hotel from his late mother. She turns the hotel into a brothel called Byzantium as local men gradually start to vanish. Fed up with her mother's lifestyle, Eleanor goes off to school and tries to live as normal a life as possible, befriending sickly Frank (the perpetually sickly-looking Caleb Landry Jones of ANTIVIRAL) and writing down her story for him. Frank gives the memoir to their creative writing teacher (Tom Hollander) and soon, more men from Clara's past are on the scene. In Eleanor's story, we learn that she and her mother are over 200 years old and that Clara was a prostitute servicing some Napoleonic-era soldiers who were part of a vampire order called the Pointed Nails of Justice. Clara tricked her way into joining this He-Man Woman-Haters Club, and they've been after her and her daughter since.

BYZANTIUM has a great opening half hour, but then meanders a bit when it gets bogged down in the 200 years ago backstory and even more when one of the soldiers (Jonny Lee Miller) tells his own story within the flashback. It picks up again in the home stretch, but the final scene between Clara and Eleanor feels rushed considering the emotional buildup to it, as one interpretation of the film could be as a metaphor for a concerned mother (it's not often you see vampires being concerned about money and keeping a roof over their head) learning to let go of her child. Even with its problems (sorry, but "Pointed Nails of Justice" just sounds too goofy for a serious film), it's just nice to see a vampire film for adults that isn't populated with brooding hotties headed straight for the Teen Choice Awards. A terrific Arterton has the showier role, attacking it with sometimes feverish gusto while avoiding the easy pitfall taking it over-the-top, but it's Ronan's Eleanor who's at the heart of BYZANTIUM, effectively conveying the human side of vampirism, showing no malice or desire to harm anyone and struggling with the anguished burden of eternal life. With one foot in the arthouse and the other in the multiplex, BYZANTIUM sometimes takes on too much and becomes too unwieldy for its own good, but it's an interesting take on the vampire genre that will certainly find a cult following rather quickly. (R, 118 mins)

FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD
(US - 2013)

Ostensibly a sequel to FRIGHT NIGHT (2011), which was a remake of FRIGHT NIGHT (1985), FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD has nothing to do with FRIGHT NIGHT (2011) and is actually another remake of FRIGHT NIGHT (1985), with elements of that film's sequel FRIGHT NIGHT PART 2 (1989). Does that make sense? Just by breaking that down, I put more thought into FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD than the filmmakers did. Directed by Eduardo Rodriguez (STASH HOUSE) and written by Matt Venne, whose screenplays for WHITE NOISE 2 and MIRRORS 2 have apparently made him the go-to guy for in-name-only DTV sequels, this "sequel" has hero Charley Brewster (Will Payne) pining for his ex Amy (Sacha Parkinson) while they, and his buddy Evil Ed (Chris Waller) are on some group exchange student sojourn to Romania, where production services can be cheaply procured by budget-conscious Hollywood studios unwilling to spend any more coin on a Will "Who?" Payne-headlined movie than is absolutely necessary. They're attending a seminar on European art history taught by the sexy Prof. Gerri Dandridge (Jaime Murray of HUSTLE and DEFIANCE), who, of course, is a vampire but Charley can't prove it to anyone.

This mostly follows the template of Tom Holland's 1985 classic, with the twist of turning Jerry Dandridge (previously played by Chris Sarandon in 1985 and Colin Farrell in 2011) into "Gerri" Dandridge and utilizing both the legend of Elizabeth Bathory and riffing on Julie Carmen's "Regine Dandridge" (Jerry's vengeful vampire sister) from FRIGHT NIGHT PART 2 (1989). It's all a rather slipshod affair with a mostly uninteresting cast (only British TV vet Murray seems above the material), and thoroughly unlikable characters. Waller plays Evil Ed as a smirking douchebag until the plot requires him to be a horror geek, and Peter Vincent, so brilliantly played by Roddy McDowall as a has-been TV horror host in the 1985 film (in a performance that, believe it or not, briefly generated some Supporting Actor Oscar buzz) and acceptably by David Tennant as a Vegas magician in 2011, is here a cynical, hard-drinking, asshole reality-TV monster hunter played by Sean Power. It's hard to imagine McDowall's Peter Vincent telling a vampirized Evil Ed to "Kiss the cross, bitch!" which is pretty much the level of this loud, stupid, and boring film. The only real surprise FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD offers is Evil Ed telling the Bathory story and having it play out onscreen in animated graphic novel form. It doesn't really serve a purpose, but it's something, I guess. Bland actors, dull performances (in their defense, they're all British or Irish and with the exception of Murray, using American accents), and the mandatory shitty CGI splatter. What a forgettable, pointless waste of time. (Unrated, 99 mins)

THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD
(Italy - 1964)

Written and directed by Warren Kiefer. Cast: Christopher Lee, Gaia Germani, Philippe Leroy, Mirko Valentin, Donald Sutherland, Anthony Martin (Antonio De Martino), Jack Stany (Jacques Stany), Luke Pigozzi (Luciano Pigozzi), David Pappas (Renato Terra), Lewis Bonos (Luigi Bonos), Ike Pallacn (Ennio Antonelli). (Unrated, 90 mins)

Trailblazing directors like Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava ushered in a series of Italian-made, Gothic-styled horror films throughout the early '60s. These are thought to have been inspired by the success of Hammer Films' THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) and HORROR OF DRACULA (1958), as well as Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe cycle, but though it wasn't released in the UK until 1960 and the US in 1963, Freda's 1957 film I VAMPIRI (partially directed by Bava) was made at roughly the same time the British horror cycle kicked off, and preceded Corman's Poe films by three years. Freda also directed the 1962 classic THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK and its 1963 sequel THE GHOST, while Bava made his name with the legendary BLACK SUNDAY (1960) and THE WHIP AND THE BODY, aka WHAT! (1963). As is the norm with trends in Italian genre cinema, other journeyman directors took stabs at the Gothic scene filled with haunted castles and dark family secrets: Antonio Margheriti's HORROR CASTLE aka THE VIRGIN OF NUREMBERG (1963), CASTLE OF BLOOD (1964), and THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH (also 1964); Mario Caiano's NIGHTMARE CASTLE (1965); Camilo Mastrocinque's TERROR IN THE CRYPT (1964); and Massimo Pupillo's BLOODY PIT OF HORROR (1965) just to name a few.

After a decade in bit parts and small supporting roles, Christopher Lee finally became a star with THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HORROR OF DRACULA, and hasn't stopped working since. Shortly after finding stardom, he tested the waters of the Italian film industry with the 1959 vampire spoof UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE and Bava's HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961). Over 1963 and 1964, Lee starred in five Italian-made Gothic horror films: Giuseppe Veggezzi's little-seen and presumed-lost KATARSIS, Margheriti's HORROR CASTLE, Bava's THE WHIP AND THE BODY, Mastrocinque's TERROR IN THE CRYPT, and finally, THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD. LIVING DEAD isn't the best of Lee's contributions to the Italian Gothic cycle (that would be THE WHIP AND THE BODY), but its fascinating backstory, confusion over exactly who directed it, and that it features the film debut of an unknown Donald Sutherland in two roles (more on that in a bit), have combined to keep its cult status going for nearly 50 years.

It's hard to pin down exactly what happened behind the scenes on THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD, since even reputable sources--from IMDb to TCM.com--are riddled with incorrect information. For years, Herbert Wise was considered the director of the film. But "Herbert Wise" was a pseudonym for Luciano Ricci. Using pseudonyms was a very common practice for Italian directors during this period, in order to make the films seem more British or American (Freda was frequently credited as "Robert Hampton"; Margheriti started going by "Anthony M. Dawson" and stayed that way for the rest of his career; Bava is credited as "John M. Old" on THE WHIP AND THE BODY). Ricci/"Wise" was credited on European prints while Warren Kiefer was credited on the US release. Years of confusion and the use of pseudonyms perpetuated the myth that "Warren Kiefer" was a pseudonym for a Lorenzo Sabatini, when in fact, it was the other way around. Kiefer (1929-sometime in the early 2000s) was an American writer and documentary filmmaker who ended up in Europe by the early 1960s and met expat American producer Paul Maslansky, who would return to the US in the 1970s and go on to have his biggest success overseeing the POLICE ACADEMY franchise. Maslansky and Kiefer conceived the LIVING DEAD story and Kiefer ended up directing the film. Ricci/"Wise" was actually the assistant director but was given full directing credit on the Italian prints for quota purposes, to satisfy a government subsidies requirement that the director be Italian. Further complicating the issue is that Maslansky hired 21-year-old Michael Reeves to handle the second unit and make some uncredited script contributions. Maslansky met Reeves during the filming of the 1964 Richard Widmark/Sidney Poitier epic THE LONG SHIPS, where Maslansky was an assistant to the producer and Reeves was hired on as a low-level directorial assistant. Reeves would go on to direct 1968's WITCHFINDER GENERAL before his tragic death from a barbiturate overdose in 1969 at just 25 years of age. Reeves' untimely death and small body of work have made him the sort-of Kurt Cobain of British horror and there's been no shortage of "What might've been?" hypotheticals about how his career--taking off after the stunning WITCHFINDER--would've panned out had he lived. The Reeves legend further fanned the flames of bewilderment over who did what on THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD. Reeves fans, of course, claim that all of the good stuff in LIVING DEAD was directed by him. Even if his duties were limited to running the second unit and punching up the script a bit, Reeves made enough of a good impression on Maslansky for the producer to give him his first shot at directing his own film with 1966's THE SHE-BEAST.

But the last word should probably go to Donald Sutherland, who has said in interviews over the years that he named his son Kiefer (born in 1966) after the director of his first film. Warren Kiefer made a few more films in Italy, sometimes utilizing the "Lorenzo Sabatini" name to, oddly enough, make them appear more Italian, and eventually became a novelist. He was tracked down for an interview not long before his death--an interview that featured a photo of him directing some actors on the set--and explained that he directed THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD, that Ricci was his assistant, and that Reeves worked on the second unit. Sutherland naming his son after Kiefer would seem to corroborate at least the "Warren Kiefer was the real director" claim. Turner Classic Movies recently aired an unfortunately subpar print (widescreen, but blurry and improperly-framed--probably from fake letterboxing--with the tops of everyone's heads cut off) that credited Kiefer as the director in one of three different spellings: he has a story credit as "Warren Kiefer," a screenplay credit as "Warren Keifer," and a director credit as "Warren Kieffer."

The film has a traveling circus troupe led by siblings Laura (Gaia Germani) and Bruno (Jacques Stany) being invited to the castle of area nobleman Count Drago (a gaunt Lee, sporting dark circles under his eyes and a hipster goatee). En route, they're joined by Eric (Philippe Leroy), an officer whose horse was stolen by troupe member Dart (Luciano Pigozzi), and they're accosted by a hideous, hunchbacked old witch who warns them to avoid "The Castle of the Living Dead." That the witch is played a dubbed Sutherland in drag is probably the biggest attraction to this for cult horror fans. Sutherland also turns up later, dubbing himself and mugging shamelessly as Sgt. Paul, a doofus police official who functions as Drago's flunky and the film's comic relief. Once at Drago's castle, the circus folks find themselves the unwitting victims in their host's diabolical scheme. With the help of his evil henchman Sandro (Mirko Valentin, who co-starred with Lee in HORROR CASTLE), Drago has created a serum derived from tropical plant secretions that causes the victim to freeze in place, dying immediately. Drago has what is assumed to be a taxidermy hobby but it's actually animals he's killed with the serum, and he's ready to try it on humans.

The plot is silly, to put it mildly, and Leroy's Eric is a pretty dense hero who takes forever to figure out what Drago's up to. Even when Drago tells him all about the serum and the animals he's used it on, the most Eric can muster is an indifferent "Oh?" Utilizing black & white, Kiefer and cinematographer Aldo Tonti have a nice Gothic look to the whole thing, filled with ominous shadows and howling winds, and it would probably look terrific in a properly remastered version instead of the shit sandwich of a print TCM aired. There's one incredibly striking shot late in the film that ranks with the macabre best of Bava: the discovery of the corpse of Drago's late wife, propped up in bed, perfectly still, head positioned toward a handheld mirror in her right hand as if frozen in time, admiring her own beauty for all eternity...as spiders crawl over her and rats gnaw on her fingers.

Lee, on set for ten of the film's 24-day shooting schedule, is good as Count Drago (a name in no way meant to invoke his fame as Count Dracula), and unlike some of his Italian and German films from this period, he actually dubs himself, which is important when you have a voice as distinctive as Christopher Lee's. The voices used to dub him in HORROR CASTLE, THE WHIP AND THE BODY, and especially the 1962 German film SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY NECKLACE were distractingly inappropriate at best and complete deal-breakers at worst. Lee and Maslansky became friends during the making of LIVING DEAD, with Lee acting in several future Maslansky productions, including RAW MEAT (1973), CIRCLE OF IRON (1978), THE SALAMANDER (1981), HONEYMOON ACADEMY (1990), and the unfortunate POLICE ACADEMY: MISSION TO MOSCOW (1994), a sequel so dire that even Bubba Smith opted out of it. This would be Lee's last Italian film of this period, as he would soon return to the UK for such iconic classics as DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1965) and DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965), which also co-starred Sutherland. The Canadian Sutherland would work in British TV for a few years before getting his big break as one of THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967) and becoming a full-fledged Hollywood A-lister with 1970's MASH.

The surplus of erroneous information that's out there regarding THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD even extends to the cast: one of the circus troupe members is a dwarf named Nick, played by Italian actor Antonio De Martino, who's credited as "Anthony Martin." De Martino only acted in a couple of other films, but going as "Anthony Martin" in this one has led some to confuse him with Skip Martin, another actor of short stature from that period, best known as Hop-Toad in Roger Corman's THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964) as well as from other prominent roles in CIRCUS OF FEAR (1966) and VAMPIRE CIRCUS (1972). The surname and the recurring circus motif are certainly noteworthy coincidences, and to their credit, IMDb hasn't confused the actors, but there's a lot of sources out there--including the otherwise reliable Warren Kiefer piece linked a few paragraphs up--that think Antonio De Martino/"Anthony Martin" and Skip Martin are the same person, when a look at photos of each pretty definitively show that they aren't.

Antonio De Martino/"Anthony Martin"

Skip Martin

Also causing confusion: Lee's 1967 film TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM has numerous alternate titles, one of which is CASTLE OF THE WALKING DEAD. Lee's 1973 film NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT, the sole, misfired effort by his short-lived production company Charlemagne, went by a ton of different titles in any effort whatsoever to make the dull thriller appealing to audiences, including THE DEVIL'S UNDEAD, THE RESURRECTION SYNDICATE, and...wait for it...THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD, which is especially odd considering there's neither a castle nor living dead in the film.

THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD--the real CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD--was released in the US in 1965 by Woolner Brothers before making a quick turnaround to the small screen as part of an AIP-TV syndication package, and it was a late-night/Saturday afternoon Creature Feature fixture well into the '80s. It isn't a great film by any means--though a better transfer prepared with some care would go far in pleading its case--but there's enough history to it that it's worth a look on that alone. It's definitely required viewing for fans/completists of Lee, Sutherland, Reeves, and Italian horror of that period, and is almost worth seeing just for the scene with Drago's wife or any scene with Sutherland as the witch. His first time on the big screen and he was lucky enough to get a director who would indulge his sometimes hammy tendencies right out of the gate. Obviously, this meant a lot to the young actor, who held his first film director in high enough regard to name his son after him. And as far as who directed the film, it's worth noting that Kiefer Sutherland isn't named "Reeves Sutherland,""Ricci Sutherland," or "Sabatini Sutherland."

LAST VEGAS
(US - 2013)

Directed by Jon Turtletaub. Written by Dan Fogelman. Cast: Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline, Mary Steenburgen, Romany Malco, Jerry Ferrara, Joanna Gleason, Roger Bart, Michael Ealy, Bre Blair, April Billingsley. (PG-13, 105 mins)

LAST VEGAS makes it pretty easy to just think of it as GRUMPY OLD HANGOVER and doesn't try much harder than it needs to, but if you approach it as nothing more than harmless entertainment, you might find yourself laughing quite a bit. Old people being raunchy or doing youthful things are formulas that are always fodder for cheap laughs, but with five Oscar-winners on board, the film can coast on their history and screen presence alone. There's also occasional bits of heart and poignancy amidst the easy and predictable old age jokes. Wisely keeping it at a PG-13 considering that the target audience really isn't into grossout humor, LAST VEGAS accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do: great actors we've known for decades working together for the first time and clearly enjoying themselves. Sure, it's nobody's best movie, but it's hard to dislike.

Four best friends of 60 years are reunited for a Vegas bachelor party when one--wealthy, over-tanned bachelor Billy (Michael Douglas) is marrying a woman nearly 40 years younger. Twice-divorced Archie (Morgan Freeman) is recovering from a stroke and living with his overprotective son (Michael Ealy). Sam (Kevin Kline) has had a knee and hip replacement and is bored with Florida retirement. Paddy (Robert De Niro) lost his wife to cancer a year earlier, spends his days in his bathrobe watching TV, and is still angry with Billy for not being able to make the funeral. Once together, old resentments between Billy and Paddy expectedly resurface, especially considering that Paddy's late wife was in love with both of them 40 years earlier and chose Paddy. Things hit a bump in the road when the guys meet a lounge singer (Mary Steenburgen), whose bright presence brings Paddy out of his shell but also has Billy questioning whether marrying someone so young is a good idea.

The emotional core of LAST VEGAS is the rocky relationship between Billy and Paddy, with Archie and Sam providing much of the sillier comedy. Kline's Sam, in particular, gets some of the best bits and a lot of his one-liners feel improvised by the actor ("A blowjob's not out of the question!"). Given a condom and permission by his wife (Joanna Gleason) to cheat if it brings some spark back into his life (they say age is just a number, and 66-year-old Kline and 63-year-old Gleason both seem too spry and energetic to be living in a retirement community where everyone looks 90), the mild-mannered Sam basically tells every attractive young woman in sight that he's available. Freeman's Archie just wants to live it up, gambling, dancing, guzzling vodka & Red Bull and just enjoying being away from his loving but sheltering son (one of the film's more amusing jokes is Archie's phone playing Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" as the ringtone when his son calls). There's very little here that you don't expect, and director Jon Turtletaub and writer Dan Fogelman (CARS, THE GUILT TRIP) take some easy shots like Viagra jokes, Sam not being able to figure out how to pop the trunk on a rental car, old people eating dinner at 4:00 pm, LMFAO's Redfoo shaking his junk in Paddy's face, the guys briefly pretending to be mobsters (because that's apparently a requirement for any De Niro comedy), with retired accountant Sam saying "They call me Sammy the Stove...cuz I cook da books!" or Sam taking off his glasses in a bar so he'll appear younger, only to end up hitting on a drag queen (Roger Bart), but there's also some genuine emotion at times. Douglas (now at the same age as dad Kirk when he was in a Red Hot Chili Peppers mosh pit in 1986's TOUGH GUYS) has a great scene where he says his 40-year-old brain can't process that his body is 70 and the ride is winding down, and it's quite effective considering his recent health issues. And it does a nice job of capturing the rhythms and the shorthand conversation of lifelong friends with typical elderly health problems (Billy, calling Archie on the phone: "Archie, it's Billy!" Archie: "Oh God...is it your prostate?"). It's also hard to dislike any movie with a self-deprecating cameo by 50 Cent, turning in his finest film work yet playing himself, knocking on the door of the guys' penthouse suite and asking them to turn the music down.

Sure, like THE BUCKET LIST, another geriatric-aimed comedy from the recent past, LAST VEGAS is slight and relies completely on its stars, but they're too good for it to not work. Douglas, De Niro, Freeman, Kline, and Steenburgen have a welcome familiarity to each of them that makes the film go down like comfort food. Yeah, it's easy for jaded cineastes to lament that De Niro's been phoning it in for a while but, like his co-stars, he's obviously having some fun here. For fans who have grown old along with these actors for the last 30-40 years (though Freeman and Kline didn't come to prominence until the '80s), it's nice to see them still getting it done and not having lost a bit of their star power. Is it WALL STREET, TAXI DRIVER, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, or A FISH CALLED WANDA? Of course not, but it doesn't have to be. What it does is respect its actors and their legacies enough to not ask them to embarrass themselves, which was a very definite possibility. Cinesnobs need to check the cynicism at the door with this one. It is what it is--it's pretty consistently funny and it gives its intended audience what they came to see.

ALL IS LOST
(US - 2013)

Written and directed by J.C. Chandor. Cast: Robert Redford. (PG-13, 105 mins)

A stellar late-career achievement for 77-year-old Robert Redford, ALL IS LOST contains the most sparse use of dialogue of any major release since THE ARTIST. Redford is the entire cast in this harrowing saga of a man adrift in a yacht in the Indian Ocean. The film opens with an unseen Redford narrating a letter written by the character: "I'm sorry. I know that means little at this point, but I tried." Cut to eight days earlier, as Redford is stirred awake by a stray shipping container colliding with the yacht and creating a hole in the hull. Water pours in, but Redford (the character is billed as "Our Man") calmly and methodically goes to work patching the hole and draining the water from the boat. Most of his equipment is damaged and he's unable to radio for help. He's soon faced with inclement weather and a torrential storm, which capsizes the yacht and damages it beyond repair. He opts for the life raft with little rations or hope of imminent rescue, using his nautical skills to chart when he'll drift into commercial shipping territory and out of the open water.

ALL IS LOST sounds like it would be a dull and dry CAST AWAY retread, but in the hands of writer/director J.C. Chandor (MARGIN CALL), it's fast-paced and exciting. Every creak and gurgle in the sinking yacht and every splashing wave ratchets up the tension. Its only real stumble is some typically unconvincing greenscreen CGI during a storm when Redford is trying to steer the yacht. Of course, it's Redford, in his best role in years, that makes it work as well as it does. We learn very little about "Our Man," other than what we can deduce: he's regretful of past decisions that have hurt loved ones, he's resourceful, and he prefers (or accepts) solitude. With a career going back over 50 years, Redford's never been a showy actor known for "big" scenes or iconic one-liners (his only Oscar nomination for acting came for 1973's THE STING; he lost to Jack Lemmon in SAVE THE TIGER). Among his legendary contemporaries who hit their stride in the 1970s, Redford doesn't have a "You talkin' to me?" or "You can't handle the truth!" or "Hoo-aaah!" or "Go ahead, make my day" moment for his career highlight reel. His acting style has always been sparse and his work in ALL IS LOST is about as internalized as it gets. Chandor stays focused on the actor throughout, letting Redford's actions, his eyes, and the lines in his aged face tell the story. Of any living legends, De Niro, Nicholson, Pacino, or Eastwood couldn't have played this part as effectively. I could see Paul Newman pulling it off if it had it been made 10 or 15 years ago, and again, his acting style was similar to Redford's. But you don't hire those other guys so they can be quiet. On his Facebook page, filmmaker Rod Lurie, who directed Redford in 2001's THE LAST CASTLE, praised his performance in ALL IS LOST and wrote that "When we made THE LAST CASTLE, Bob sat down with me and we went through the script page by page, and he took a red marker and started crossing off lines and whole sections of his dialogue, saying 'I can sell this without saying it.'" And other than the brief opening voiceover, two failed attempts at calling for help on the radio and a cry for help at a passing ship that doesn't see him, the only dialogue Redford has is, after several days at sea and reaching his breaking point, an anguished and enraged "FUUUUUUUUUCK!" which may very well be his YouTube-worthy moment of over-the-top emoting.

12 YEARS A SLAVE
(US/UK - 2013)

Directed by Steve McQueen. Written by John Ridley. Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Alfre Woodard, Sarah Paulson, Lupita Nyong'o, Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam, Garret Dillahunt, Adepero Oduye, Michael Kenneth Williams, J.D. Evermore, Andy Dylan, Kelsey Scott, Quevenzhane Wallis, Bill Camp, Chris Chalk, Tony Bentley, Christopher Berry, Liza J. Bennett. (R, 134 mins)

Solomon Northrup's 1853 memoir is adapted into a typically brutal and unflinching offering from British filmmaker Steve McQueen, who previously gave us the similarly harrowing hunger-strike chronicle HUNGER (2008) and the NC-17 sex addiction drama SHAME (2011). McQueen has already made his mark as a noteworthy modern filmmaker, but 12 YEARS A SLAVE shows he can make a commercial, mainstream film without watering down his pursuit of graphic and ugly realism. This is a gut-wrenching, upsetting, and horrifying film, and arguably the most unblinking, in-your-face depiction of slavery that you're likely to see. It's not hyperbole to compare it to SCHINDLER'S LIST as the final cinematic word on a specific subject.

Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Northrup, a free black man in 1841 Saratoga, known and respected throughout the community as a violinist, artist, and family man. When his wife is out of town with their two children, Solomon meets two circus performers (Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam), who talk him into taking a lucrative gig in Washington, D.C. They get him drunk and he wakes up chained in a room. Rechristened Platt, Solomon is taken to Louisiana and sold to plantation owner William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). Ford is a slave owner, but is relatively kindly, and respects "Platt" for his obvious intelligence and his construction skills after he takes charge of devising a more efficient waterway transport for him. This angers Tibeats (Paul Dano), a sadistic Ford plantation overseer who tries to lynch Platt after starting a fight with him and embarrassingly losing. Realizing he can't have Platt and Tibeats working together, Ford transfers the debt of Platt's acquisition to cotton plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender, who starred in HUNGER and SHAME). Epps and his wife (Sarah Paulson) are a monstrous couple, abusive to their slaves, whipping them if they fall short of the 200 lb/day cotton quota. Epps has also been forcing himself on slave Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o), which causes her to be a constant target of Mistress Epps' jealous rages. Before arriving at Epps' plantation, Solomon/Platt repeatedly tries to explain that he's a free man, but it only gets him into trouble, as does his inability to stand idly by while those around him are being treated so unjustly.

Working from a script by John Ridley (THREE KINGS, UNDERCOVER BROTHER, RED TAILS), McQueen pulls no punches with 12 YEARS A SLAVE. The language and imagery are harsh, as they should be (Patsey is given the most vicious whipping this side of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST). It's hard not to get angry as Solomon is let down by nearly everyone: the circus performers (it's odd to see SNL standout Taran Killam as one of the film's chief villains), people in positions of power who won't listen to him, even the kindly Ford, who cares about Platt to some extent but still puts profits before the slave's well-being. When Platt pleads with Ford to not give him to Epps and starts to explain that he's a free man from Saratoga, Ford can only say "I don't want to know." When Solomon/Platt is sold to the Fords along with Eliza (Adepero Oduye), a single mother who has her two children taken away from her by a cruel slave trader (Paul Giamatti), Eliza can't stop crying, and Ford's wife (Liza J. Bennett) brushes her off with "Get some sleep and some food and you'll forget those children soon enough."

12 YEARS A SLAVE features career-best work from Ejiofor, and Fassbender, who should've gotten Oscar nods for both HUNGER and SHAME, turns in yet another performance that demonstrates he's one of the best actors at work today. Where most directors handling a subject like this would have the villains played as cackling moustache-twirlers, McQueen makes them ugly and real. Fassbender and Paulson create one of the most loathsome screen couples in ages. I also liked what McQueen did with Cumberbatch's Ford, presenting him as conflicted about his feelings but still cynically putting himself and his money first. There's a number of familiar faces in smaller roles: Alfre Woodard as a former slave who pragmatically became a plantation mistress; Michael Kenneth Williams (BOARDWALK EMPIRE's Chalky White) as a too-small bit as a rebellious slave; and Brad Pitt as Bass, a Canadian carpenter who warns Epps that the slave owner's day of reckoning is coming. Difficult to watch and impossible to forget, 12 YEARS A SLAVE suffers from occasionally stilted dialogue but is otherwise masterful moviemaking and one of the year's best films.

LOVELACE
(US - 2013)

A biopic of 1970s XXX icon Linda Lovelace that plays as if the entire script was just a bullet-pointed outline, LOVELACE is so shallow, glossed-over, and obvious that it makes her Wikipedia page look like a model of diligent, Pulitzer-worthy research. Judging from the amount of recognizable names who have blink-and-you'll-miss-them cameos (Chloe Sevigny's name is prominently displayed on the poster, but she has literally one second of screen time as a journalist--I timed it), it's possible that a longer, more BOOGIE NIGHTS-styled screenplay was written and filmed. As it is at 90 minutes, it feels like a film that was gutted in the editing stage. Every character is a caricature and most of the actors aren't onscreen long enough to make any impression, though Amanda Seyfried tries her best to make it work. The film opens in 1970, with 21-year-old Linda Boreman (Seyfried) living with her parents--security guard John (Robert Patrick) and control-freak Dorothy (Sharon Stone)--in Davie, FL. Linda meets charming bar owner Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard) and she quickly runs off and marries him. Chuck has a coke-fueled dark side, always strapped for cash, abusing Linda and goading her into mob-funded porn after schooling her in the intricacies of fellatio. This leads to the 1972's DEEP THROAT and a subsequent media frenzy over the controversial, groundbreaking adult film . Of course, Linda gets all the attention--from fans, from the producers (Chris Noth and Bobby Cannavale), and from Hugh Hefner (James Franco)--which drives Chuck to more violent and abusive acts, including pimping Linda out to traveling businessmen, doctors at conventions, and anyone willing to pay. He even allows a group of men to gang-rape her in a hotel room while he waits in the hallway.

Gerard Damiano (played here by Hank Azaria), the director of DEEP THROAT, died in 2008, but his son Gerard Jr denounced LOVELACE shortly after the film's limited release ($356,000 on 118 screens), saying it doesn't paint an accurate picture of his father or the making of DEEP THROAT. A few potent examples of horrifically antiquated attitudes pop up in the ensuing wreckage: Linda asking her mother for help and being told to go home and obey her husband; and some cops driving up on Traynor and a bruised, bloodied Linda fighting in the street, seeing that she's who she is and blaming the victim, telling Traynor "Sir, take her home and clean her up" as one asks for her autograph. But otherwise, the entire film is so hurried and cut so fast (and not in a "last third of GOODFELLAS" kind-of way), that it plays like you're watching a long "Previously on..." recap before the latest episode of a series called LOVELACE. Screenwriter Andy Bellin (who wrote the excellent and unseen 2011 film TRUST), and directors Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman (who previously collaborated on acclaimed documentaries like 1989's COMMON THREADS: STORIES FROM THE QUILT and 1995's THE CELLULOID CLOSET, and Epstein directed 1984's THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK) are in such a mad rush to tell this story that none of these characters have a chance to get established. It plays fast and loose with facts, completely disregarding Lovelace's post-DEEP THROAT drug addiction because they're afraid she might look bad (her two children are credited as technical advisors). This LOVELACE is only interested in being an R-rated Lifetime movie about a battered wife. Granted, that's a major part of the story, but shouldn't this go--pardon the pun--deeper? Seyfried sinks her teeth into the role, probably thinking she'd be in a more honest and courageous film instead of the resulting one that gets bogged down with distracting cameos: in addition to Sevigny in perhaps the most frivolous role a past Oscar nominee has ever been given, Wes Bentley has one scene as a photographer; Eric Roberts shows up for maybe 25 seconds because he was in the similar STAR 80, and there's also small roles for Juno Temple, Debi Mazar, and Adam Brody as Harry Reems. Sarah Jessica Parker's performance as Gloria Steinem was cut out entirely. Stone and Patrick do some nice work with what they're given (Patrick is heartbreaking in one very good scene where he answers an early-morning phone call from Linda and tears well in his eyes as he quietly, sadly tells her "I saw your movie...did we do something wrong?"), and the production design is strong (perhaps Cannon cover band Millennium Films used the same '70s scenery on THE ICEMAN), but there's some really sloppy period detail elsewhere. As the film opens in 1970, Chuck is talking about THE FRENCH CONNECTION (released in 1971) and listening to Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," which wasn't recorded until 1975 and became a hit in 1976. Those are the least of LOVELACE's problems, but they're just two small indicators of its paper-thin carelessness, but to somewhat defend the filmmakers, there's a lot of red flags signaling that this thing was just massacred in post-production, so it's a legitimate possibility that this mess isn't entirely their fault. (R, 93 mins)

SYRUP
(US - 2013)

Despite cult novelist Max Barry co-writing this adaptation of his 1999 debut, SYRUP the movie ends up fairly neutered and toothless. It eliminates several characters and, for obvious reasons, the centrality of Coca-Cola to the plot, but it also loses much of its sharpness and bite. On the page, Barry is a master satirist with a keen eye on global corporatization, advertising, and the shallow importance of image (his 2003 corporate dystopia novel Jennifer Government, optioned by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney but thus far never made into a film, is probably his masterpiece). On the screen, however, SYRUP only occasionally displays its source's cleverness and razor-sharp wit, instead devoting far too much time to a dull romantic subplot that never leads anywhere. In a not-too-far-from-reality NYC where image and branding are everything, aspiring marketing wiz Scat (Shiloh Fernandez) pitches a sure thing to an icy Addy Cola executive named 6 (Amber Heard): a new energy drink called Fukk. 6 takes on Scat as a partner but cuts him out of the deal, bringing Scat's silent, wears-shades-24/7 roommate Sneaky Pete (Kellan Lutz) onboard instead. 6 feels guilty, even though it's "just business," and when Sneaky Pete becomes a media sensation, she finds her star dimming with Addy execs and brings Scat back on for a new marketing campaign that presents people trying to steal cans of Fukk and having a Fukk vending machine fall on them. When a dumb teenager is killed imitating what he saw in the ad, 6 and Scat are thrown under the bus and team up with rival cola company to create Kok, which Scat pitches as a celebrity beverage that the average person can't attain, thereby driving up its value. In one of the film's few moments that accurately reflects the tone of the book, Scat explains to the CEO that "the success of this product depends on people being shallow, superficial, self-absorbed, greedy, and desperate for attention."

It's too bad Barry and director/co-writer Aram Rappaport spend so much time on the Will They or Won't They? romance between Scat and 6. It's not interesting and Heard and Fernandez have no chemistry. It's hard to tell who the intended audience for this is, but the film works best when it's making scathing digs at celebrity and image (when pitching Fukk to 6, Scat says the taste doesn't matter, people will convince themselves that they like it, and that "it's like drinking irony"), but those bits, so prevalent in the book, are few and far between here. Instead, Barry and Rappaport go for cheap and easy wordplay along the lines of "Why have a Fukk when you can down a Kok?" and a TV ad with Kirstie Alley exclaiming "Everybody wants a Fukk!" It's mostly a misfire, but as far as satirical looks at the advertising world go, it's a classic compared to something like BRANDED, but that's not exactly an endorsement. Boasting a $2.5 million budget, SYRUP was released on just one screen after two years on the shelf, grossing $663. It's too bad that, in adapting his book about a dumbed-down culture, Barry had to dumb it down himself. Sounds like a good subject for his next novel. (R, 90 mins)

INAPPROPRIATE COMEDY
(US - 2013)

If you've ever wondered what it would take to make MOVIE 43 look good, then behold the thoroughly excruciating INAPPROPRIATE COMEDY, a sketch comedy home movie directed by annoying ShamWow and Slap Chop pitchman Vince Offer. Before becoming an infomercial star, Offer tried his hand at KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE knockoffs with something called THE UNDERGROUND COMEDY MOVIE (1999), which boasted appearances by people like Karen Black, Slash, Michael Clarke Duncan, Gena Lee Nolin, and Joey Buttafuoco. Having failed to get the message that Hollywood wants nothing to do with him, Offer is back with this atrocity, which presents a series of unrelated and recurring skits that are seen as apps on Offer's tablet. We start with a topical 127 HOURS parody ("I've been down here for one hundred twentysomething hours...") before going to "Flirty Harry," a DIRTY HARRY spoof with Adrien Brody (yes, that Adrien Brody) as a gay cop in pink capris spouting tough-guy one-liners like "Go ahead, make me gay" and "Go ahead, blow me." Offer keeps up the winning streak with "Blackass," a thug parody of JACKASS, which basically involves white people being scared by gangstas. This is followed by "The Amazing Racist," where Ari Shaffir insults various races and ethnicities under the guise of a hidden camera show, taking potshots at Asian drivers by offering driving classes "for the round-eye impaired," then going to a Jewish market with a petition to get Jews to apologize for killing Jesus and offering a coupon for 50% off on rhinoplasties, and finally, confronting black people on a beach and offering them watermelon, fried chicken, basketballs, and a free, one-way boat trip back to Africa. There's also "Porno Review," where Rob Schneider and Michelle Rodriguez (yes, that Michelle Rodriguez) review porn flicks like SUSHI MAMA and SPERM LAKE while a guy in the row behind them jerks off into a tub of popcorn. The film is bookended by footage that Offer shot with Lindsay Lohan in 2010, imitating Marilyn Monroe's THE SEVEN-YEAR ITCH, standing over a subway grate as wind from a passing train blows her skirt up, and then opening fire on some invasive paparazzi.

This is bad. Like, Friedberg/Seltzer, DATE MOVIE/MEET THE SPARTANS bad. Shelved for two years and sloppily-assembled (Lohan's scenes were shot for a different Offer project that was never finished, and some footage is even borrowed from the 14-year-old UNDERGROUND COMEDY MOVIE) in what seems like Offer's bid to position himself as the Al Adamson of unwatchable sketch comedies, INAPPROPRIATE COMEDY actually manages to go its entire miserable duration without a single laugh. How do you spoof comedy reality shows? You can't spoof JACKASS because it's already funny. Offer and the writers (Brody among them!) think being offensive and "shocking" is the joke, much like Friedberg & Seltzer think making a reference is all that's required for something to be instantly hilarious. But beyond that, what the fuck is Adrien Brody doing in this and willingly accepting a writing credit? He's OK with this but tried to halt the US release of Dario Argento's GIALLO? You know who the only winner is with INAPPROPRIATE COMEDY? Cuba Gooding, Jr. Thanks to Brody's humiliating participation in this, Gooding's post-JERRY MAGUIRE slide is no longer the most embarrassing career immolation for an Academy Award winner. All is forgiven, Mr. Gooding. But Brody? What the hell? You've worked with the revered likes of Argento, Roman Polanski, Spike Lee, Peter Jackson, Terrence Malick, Wes Anderson, and Woody Allen. You like hanging out with Vince Offer? Fine. Do it on your own time. I expect to find Rob Schneider and Lindsay Lohan in something like this. But you have a reputation to uphold. Well, you had one. (R, 84 mins, also streaming on Netflix)

GRABBERS
(Ireland/UK - 2012; 2013 US release)

The Irish import GRABBERS is a throwback to the kind of fun, crowd-pleasing monster movies that you don't see much of these days. The pace lags at times and it doesn't balance the humor and horror as deftly as say, an Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg film, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable B-movie that's made for fans, by fans. After a strange object crashes into the sea off the coast of the small and distant Erin Island, three fisherman are killed by tentacled creatures who attack from the water. Meanwhile, the local Garda chief is going on vacation for two weeks, leaving the island's only other cop, depressed alcoholic O'Shea (Richard Coyle, from the recent PUSHER remake) in charge, with temporary fill-in Lisa (Ruth Bradley) on loan from the mainland. As the tentacled creatures--and their hatching eggs--are working their way to the island, drunk local fisherman Paddy (Lalor Roddy) manages to capture one of them after it starts to attack him but stops as if falling suddenly ill. When the same captured creature--dubbed a "grabber" by Paddy--attacks a drunk-on-duty O'Shea and again becomes violently ill, scientist Dr. Smith (Russell Tovey) deduces that the Grabbers are allergic to alcohol. With the waters too infested for help to come from the mainland, and with the Grabbers rapidly making their way to Erin Island to chow down on the locals, O'Shea comes up with the only way at his disposal to immediately take them on: have everyone on the island meet at the local pub and get completely shitfaced.

From the close proximity of the term "grabber" to "graboid," 1990's sleeper hit TREMORS is probably the foremost influence on GRABBERS. But there's also a lot of James Gunn's underappreciated 2006 gem SLITHER in there as well, plus JAWS and even some GREMLINS once the baby Grabbers hatch. There's also a hilarious ALIENS riff as a forklift-driving Lisa confronts a giant Grabber ("Get away from him, ya cunt!"). As if those weren't enough, the score by Christian Henson is equal parts John Williams, Danny Elfman, and Akira Ikufube. Coyle is a likable hero and he and Bradley make a good team--of course his O'Shea will grow up and her uptight Lisa will loosen up as the movie goes on. The CGI work on the Grabbers is surprisingly well-done and the overall feeling of GRABBERS is one of an old-school monster movie--the kind that would've been really popular in the late '80s. The gore is very minimal, and if you take away the F-and-C-bombs, it could easily be a PG-13 hit in 1988 from the Spielberg camp or from a director like a Joe Dante, a Robert Zemeckis, or maybe a Fred Dekker. Director Jon Wright and screenwriter Kevin Lehane demonstrate a strong affinity for this type of film and is shows from start to finish, even when the midsection drags a little more than it should. Suspenseful and with engaging characters and actors, and an occasionally sick sense of humor (I love the bit where a smarter-than-you'd-think Grabber uses a human as a puppet-on-a-string bait to lure a hapless islander out of his house), GRABBERS hits a lot more than it misses and fans will find it well worth their time. (Unrated, 94 mins)

DEALIN' WITH IDIOTS
(US - 2013)

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM's Jeff Garlin co-wrote, directed, and stars in this self-indulgent home movie that serves no real purpose other than allowing him to hang out with some of his comedy friends. There's a sharp satire to be made about aggressively over-involved parents sucking all the fun out of Little League baseball, but the dull and pointless DEALIN' WITH IDIOTS isn't it. Essentially playing himself, Garlin is Max, a comedian who can't believe the boorish behavior of some of the parents at his son's baseball games. So he decides to interview them individually to see if he can mine some material for a possible movie project. The rest of the film--other than a climactic meltdown that's easily the most painfully unfunny moment of Garlin's career--is Max meeting up with the parents and the coaches as Garlin steps aside and lets the various actors riff and improv. Imagine a Christopher Guest mockumentary where nearly every joke landed with a thud and you'll get some idea of what an endless slog this feels like. Some of the cast members provide fleeting moments of mild amusement: Richard Kind makes the line "Take a ride in my brand new Camry" sound funny, Fred Willard--whose presence just reminds you that Guest could've worked wonders with such a premise--really sells the term "charity romp," and Jami Gertz, wearing a shirt that reads "Team Mom," viciously nails the high-strung, helicopter-parenting, control-freak supermom who's just way too into it. But you know everyone's having an off-day when guys like J.B. Smoove and Bob Odenkirk just babble on without getting any laughs. Also with Gina Gershon and Kerri Kenney-Silver as lesbian parents, Nia Vardalos as Max's wife, Vardalos' husband Ian Gomez as the Little League commissioner Gordon, which gives Garlin a chance to make Batman references so forced and awkward that you can practically hear crickets chirping, and Timothy Olyphant as the ghost of Max's dad. Don't ask. Better yet, don't watch. Garlin's a funny guy and a great straight man, and his MARTY-inspired 2007 film I WANT SOMEONE TO EAT CHEESE WITH is a funny and heartfelt little sleeper, but DEALIN' WITH IDIOTS is just a DOA dud from the start. (Unrated, 87 mins)

FRANCES HA
(Brazil/US - 2013)

Since his acclaimed 1995 debut KICKING AND SCREAMING, writer/director Noah Baumbach has made a name for himself in indie circles but is probably still best known for his two screenwriting collaborations with friend Wes Anderson on the latter's THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (2004) and FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009). I've always found Baumbach the more interesting filmmaker, often coming off like the dark side of Anderson, though I realize I'm in the minority by not buying much of what Anderson is selling. Baumbach got a lot of attention for his devastating THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (2005), but his next film, MARGOT AT THE WEDDING (2007) proved too caustically abrasive for most audiences to handle, and though it features a career-best Nicole Kidman performance, it's almost unbearably uncomfortable at times, which is why it might be Baumbach's masterpiece. 2010's GREENBERG followed along those same lines, though the uncharacteristically dark Ben Stiller vehicle was stolen by co-star Greta Gerwig. Gerwig, generally considered the face of the indie "mumblecore" movement, brought out a more uplifting side to Baumbach's filmmaking that really resonates in the director's latest film, FRANCES HA, which Baumbach co-wrote with the actress.

Drawing inspiration from the French New Wave and Woody Allen, the black & white FRANCES HA is also a sort-of mumblecore ANNIE HALL, though comparisons to the HBO series GIRLS would probably be appropriate (Gerwig isn't the provocateur that Lena Dunham is). Frances (Gerwig) is a 27-year-old college graduate and aspiring dancer in NYC who can't seem to get her act together. Her shaky semblance of stability falls apart when she can't commit to moving in with her boyfriend, which ends the relationship, and then her best friend and roommate Sophie (Mickey Sumner, Sting's daughter) decides to move to Tribeca, an area Frances can't afford. Unable to pay the rent on her own, Frances jumps from one temporary living arrangement to another, starting with two platonic male friends, Lev (Adam Driver) and Benji (Michael Zegen), who share a $4000/month loft with apparent help from a parental allowance (unemployed Benji spends his days penning unsolicited scripts for SNL and a third GREMLINS movie), and moving on to a dance academy acquaintance (Grace Gummer, Meryl Streep's lookalike daughter). Frances often behaves erratically and seems emotionally stunted, and especially can't handle Sophie getting serious with boyfriend Patch (Patrick Heusinger), since she always felt the two of them were like "an old lesbian couple that doesn't have sex anymore." Sophie is ready for adulthood and Frances is not (one of Lev's friends tells Frances "You look a lot older than Sophie, but you act a lot younger"). Unlike past Baumbach protagonists, Frances seems to have his sympathy and even when she's frustrating and obnoxious, which is a lot of the time, Gerwig makes you like this character. She's struggling to find her place and like many of her friends, she's been coddled her entire life. Very few of these people have jobs that can support their lifestyles (for a far more bitterly misanthropic look at this very NYC phenomenon, check out the Williamsburg hipster/trust-fund-kid-eviscerating THE COMEDY). Perpetually irresponsible Frances impulsively flies off to Paris for two days--spending the bulk of it sleeping off the jetlag--simply because she got a new credit card in the mail. But she means well. Gerwig brings out the sweet side of Baumbach, never one to shy away from depicting people at their ugliest. She's an actress who can be off-putting when you first experience her style, but she's very good at balancing the charming and grating elements of a character's personality, and she does it without being "quirky." There's a lot of funny lines--Frances complaining about being poor and Benji telling her "You calling yourself poor is an insult to poor people," and Frances, allowed to smoke in Lev's apartment, quipping "This makes me feel like a bad mother in 1987"--but FRANCES HA (the title doesn't make sense until the very last shot) is perhaps a bit on the overrated side. It's a good film, but I'm just not sold on it being a great one. I'm not sure it's worthy of already being a Criterion Collection release, though that could be Baumbach's association with Criterion darling Anderson. (R, 86 mins, also available on Netflix streaming)

I DECLARE WAR
(Canada - 2013)

Mixing elements of STAND BY ME with LORD OF THE FLIES and the 1994 cult film WAR OF THE BUTTONS, the Canadian indie I DECLARE WAR offers an inventive concept and some disturbingly subversive imagery but eventually belabors its point into heavy-handedness. It's an interesting film, but I'm just not sure there's enough there to carry it to feature-length. Directed by Jason Lepeyre and Robert Wilson, and scripted by Lepeyre, I DECLARE WAR has a group of kids playing Capture the Flag in a wooded area. As if putting the viewer in the mindset of the kids, the directors show them firing guns and blowing each other away, but they're alive again after they count to ten. We know they're just playing with sticks and branches, but in their heads, they're using weaponry. Lepeyre's script also has them using war-movie jargon that's intermittently broken up by things like "Wanna come over after War?" One side is represented by the strategy-obsessed P.K. (Gage Munroe), a military history fanatic whose side has never lost. His opponent is Quinn (Aiden Gouveia), who's overthrown and "killed" (with a red water balloon "grenade") in a coup engineered by the angry Skinner (Michael Friend). Skinner takes P.K.'s best friend Kwon (Siam Yu) as a prisoner of war to lure P.K. to their base. Skinner uses "enhanced interrogation" on Kwon and clearly has a personal beef with both Kwon and P.K. and uses this day's game of Capture the Flag to exact his vengeance.

I DECLARE WAR showcases some fine young actors, all of whom are excellent, even if a major subplot about the one tomboyish female participant, Jess (Mackenzie Munro), is a bit hazy and not very fleshed-out (she has a crush on Quinn, imagining herself spending the afternoon with him as he appears as a "ghost" to her because he's "dead"--he actually just went home after Skinner "killed" him). But even when the script stumbles, the cast have a natural screen presence that's often quite remarkable. While they may not always succeed with their story, Lepeyre and Wilson did an outstanding job of picking their actors (Munroe is excellent as P.K., the kind of kid who bores all of his friends by making them watch PATTON when they come over to his house). There's a lot of strengths to I DECLARE WAR, but it's an allegorical story that would probably play much better as a short story than as a 90-minute film where, once the central conceit is established and you're over the shock of seeing kids mowing one another down in a "game," it just starts to feel overly contrived and keeps spinning its wheels to a certain degree. (Unrated, 94 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: SUDDENLY (2013); BREAKOUT (2013); and FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY (2013)

In Theaters: GRAVITY (2013)

In Theaters/On VOD: DRACULA (2013)

On DVD/Blu-ray: EUROPA REPORT (2013) and NOTHING LEFT TO FEAR (2013)

In Theaters: MACHETE KILLS (2013)

Cult Classics Revisited: THE MONSTER CLUB (1981)

In Theaters: CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (2013)

On DVD/Blu-ray: MANIAC (2013); THE COLONY (2013); and THE EAST (2013)

In Theaters: ESCAPE PLAN (2013)

In Theaters: CARRIE (2013)

On DVD/Blu-ray: DISCONNECT (2013); BLOOD (2013); and HAMMER OF THE GODS (2013)

In Theaters: THE COUNSELOR (2013)

On DVD/Blu-ray: BYZANTIUM (2013) and FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD (2013)

Cult Classics Revisited: THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD (1964)

In Theaters: LAST VEGAS (2013)

In Theaters: ALL IS LOST (2013)

In Theaters: 12 YEARS A SLAVE (2013)

On DVD/Blu-ray: LOVELACE (2013); SYRUP (2013); and INAPPROPRIATE COMEDY (2013)

On DVD/Blu-ray/Netflix streaming: GRABBERS (2013) and DEALIN' WITH IDIOTS (2013)

On DVD/Blu-ray: FRANCES HA (2013) and I DECLARE WAR (2013)