Big Bad Wolves

Director: Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, Starring: Lior Ashkenazi, Rotem Keinan, Tzahi Grad

A young girl is brutally tortured and murdered; her headless corpse a gruesome puzzle for the Israeli police force to suss out. Convinced he has the perpetrator, a detective named Micki (Lior Ashkenazi), attempts to elicit a confession from the suspect (Rotem Keinan) by thuggish, brutal means, administered by two law enforcement personnel untroubled by due process. Unfortunately for Micki, a young boy stealthily records the beating and subsequently posts the video online; its viral life assured. Micki's interrogation comes to the attention of the police chief, who threatens to demote him to traffic duty if what he suspects is true. It isn't long before the interrogation is exposed, which leads to Micki's temporary dismissal, though the chief doesn't discourage him from pursuing the suspect extracurricularly.
While Micki places the suspect under his own surveillance, we see another man, Gidi (Tzahi Grad) practicing his own on the same suspect. Before long, Micki and Gidi run afoul of one another. While Micki forces the suspect to dig a grave in a wooded, secluded area, Gidi strikes Micki on the head with a shovel; knocking him unconcious. The suspect, believing his saviour has an altruistic purpose, thanks him then receives an identical blow. Both Micki and the suspect find themselves prisoners in Gidi's newly purchased home. The criterion for selecting said house was its remoteness and a virtually sound-proofed basement. Before Gidi captures both men, we see Gidi setting up a chair with jerry-rigged arm straps and a table with an array of tools for smashing and cutting. Micki wakes to find the suspect bound and gagged in the chair while Gidi divulges his purpose. He explains that Micki merely got in the way of his hunt for the man who he believes murdered his daughter. Wanting only to know where his daughter's head is buried, Gidi intends to torture his victim, employing the same means the suspect used on his daughter. Micki is uneasy about brutalizing the suspect; his absolute guilt unestablished. Gidi will have none of it as he presses forward with his vengeful agenda. The story then becomes a did he or didn't he do it as we're left to guess the suspect's guilt.

What is odd about the movie is its restless tone, which is one moment dramatic the next almost farcical and then darkly humorous. Directors Kehsales and Papushado manage to wrangle them all to create what Quentin Tarantino called the "Best Movie of 2013."
One might feel queasy laughing when not cringing from the sometimes graphic torture scenes. A few moments where Gidi holds a hammer aloft or clippers poised to cut, his phone rings; his mother on the other end. Such a quick transition from horror to humor is handled deftly, keeping the audience off-balance and forcing us to feel the anticipation and dread the suspect feels. It is particularly interesting that the suspect becomes a sympathetic character while Gidi becomes the film's violent antagonist. This shift continues when Gidi's father inadvertently happens upon his basement. Horrified at first, he takes on his son's mission; applying a blow-torch to the suspect's chest then later accidentally eating cake Gidi spiked with a soporific; falling to the floor comically as a shackled Micki tries to extricate himself.

The story continues until its climactic end, when the mystery is clarified but a final shot of a girl held within a doorless room denies us a happy, satisfying conclusion.
One will recognize the ever-excellent Lior Ashkenazi from Late Marriage and Walk on Water and Dvir Benedek from the comedy A Matter of Size but a lion's share of the exceptional acting goes to Tzahi Grad, whose performance must walk precariously between the comic and the menacing.

Big Bad Wolves is something to see though not everyone's taste. Israeli films rarely play anywhere but art houses but one might not even find the movie there; it will unfortunately find itself too soon on DVD. I'm lucky I caught it at my local cinema.

Jodorowsky's Dune

Director: Frank Pavich, Interviews with Alejandro Jodorowsky, Michel Seydoux, H.R. Giger

Two words that are a bugbear of history are what if? They tend to haunt the art world too: what if the majority of Sophocles plays weren't consumed in the fire that destroyed the Alexandrian library, or what if Kafka's friend had acceded to the author's wishes that his work never be published posthumously or what if Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis had collaborated as the two musicians once intended? Fortunately Kafka's friend didn't listen but for the others, we can only imagine.

Jodorowsky's Dune is another massive What If and one that is fascinating to contemplate. Director Frank Pavich explores the history behind Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky's ill-fated attempt to bring Frank Herbert's Dune to the screen and what we learn is painful and frustrating.

Jodorowsky, known for surreal fare like El Topo and Holy Mountain, was approached with Dune as a possible film project and though he hadn't read it himself, he immediately gravitated to the idea. Burning with inspiration, Jodorowsky set out to enlist not only the best talent, but those he felt had a spiritual compatibility with his vision. Among the august collaborators were H.R. Giger, special effects whiz Dan O' Bannon, comic illustrator Chris Foss, and the (then) still-ascending Pink Floyd. In casting actors, Jodorowsky was no less ambitious: Salvador Dali, Orson Welles and Mick Jagger.

Rights to the novel were secured, storyboards were drawn up and pre-production commenced. All Jodorowsky needed was a Hollywood budget so meetings with major studios were secured. A $15 million dollar budget--enormous but not obscene by 70s' standards--was proposed. Though studios were impressed with Jodorowsky's adaptation, storyboards and the otherworldly designs, they wouldn't trust a massive undertaking to someone like the Chilean director. Everyone interviewed, critics and those connected to the project, agreed Jodorowsky's film would have been one of the most important and seminal films in history. If that seems like ludicrous hyperbole, consider the evidence the movie provides for how Hollywood borrowed, stole and re-purposed Jodorowsky's production designs and design team. H.R.Giger's designs were seen in Alien and more recently Prometheus, costumes inspired movies like Flash Gordon and elements of the story can be seen reworked in Raiders of the Lost Ark; to name but a few films. Even in storyboard, Jodorowsky's film is breathtaking, as are the costumes and spaceship designs.

Pavich's documentary also brings interesting, anecdotal, pre-production tid-bits to life. We learn Dali wanted to be paid an exorbitant sum just to be known as the highest paid actor in the industry while Orson Welles had to be coaxed with the promise of daily meals prepared by a french restaurant he loved. Jodorowsky had an easier time with Mick Jagger, who actually approached him about being in one of his films.

Film critics discuss Hollywood's aversion to Jodorowsky's project; one posits the theory that the film frightened Hollywood; studio heads aware the film could be revolutionary and usher in sweeping changes to how films looked and were made.

What if becomes If Only, as if only someone in Hollywood would have had the guts and vision to greenlight the project. We're left feeling the frustration Jodorowsky and his collaborators must have endured, especially after learning another production would be made, with David Lynch in the directorial seat. With no ill-will to Lynch, Jodorowsky expresses relief after viewing the 1984 Dune, bearing witness to its awfulness.

That Jodorowsky isn't bitter or doesn't seem to be, is a surprise; knowing what didn't get made was plundered by other filmmakers and other productions, like a new Lamborghini being junked and used for its precious parts.

We'll never know what Jodorowsky's film would have looked like or if it would have lived up to his towering ambitions, but the sheer idea of it seems grander than all the film's it inspired and most films made by the Hollywood system. If only...

The Other Woman

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Nick Cassavetes, Starring: Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Don Johnson, Kate Upton and Nicki Minaj

I had just come from seeing John Turturro's incoherent, parody of a movie, Fading Gigolo and thought my day couldn't get worse. My hopes were premature.

I've never been a fan of Nick Cassvetes work. His films (for me) are either mediocre or embarrassing or both. The Other Woman is a new low in his career; an excruciatingly unfunny, viscerally stupid, IQ-corrosive that never seems to end.

Working from a script by first time screen-scribe Melissa Stack, The Other Woman tells the story of three women who all learn they have been had by the same man. Kate King (Leslie Mann), is the woman married to a jerk; Mark (played by Nicolaj Coster-Waldau) who romances a woman Carly Whitten (Cameron Diaz), never telling her of his marriage. The two women discover his duplicity then bond, forming an awkward friendship. But it isn't long before they discover Kate's husband is romancing yet another woman; a blonde bomshell named Amber (Kate Upton). Kate and Carly bring Amber into their fold by announcing she too is yet another victim. The three women then hatch a series of schemes to avenge themselves and also to bring Mark's shady financial dealings to light.

I usually find Cameron Diaz the most annoying presence in any film but what does it say about a movie when she is the most charming person in it? Leslie Mann aquits herself well in her husband Judd Apatow's films but is less interesting with other's material. Here she is so ear-splittingly shrill, one wonders how she charmed her husband to the altar. The series of slapsticky scenes where she is falling all over Diaz are something of musty, Laverne and Shirley comedy bits that weren't amusing then either. Kate Upton brings absolutely nothing to the table in terms of comedic timing or physical comedy. Her performance is hopelessly bland but then again, she has little to work with. She's supposed to be the beauty all women despise and fear but she radiates little heat or magnetism. And Nicky Minaj is a puzzling casting choice. Other than her current popularity, I wondered what got into Cassavetes' head to cast her as Carly's administrative assistant. Her voice is so grating, I was reminded of a creaky door hinge whenever she opened her mouth. Cassavetes also seemed to enjoy accentuating Minaj's ample posterior. Maybe he found it more expressive than her acting.

Nothing in the plot to ruin Mark is all that clever or funny; laxative in a drink, estrogen in Mark's morning smoothie, and hair-removal gel in his shampoo. Where is the dark, vengeful, hell-hath-no-fury, female psyche with its cunning menace, personified as Linda Fiorentino's nether-siren in The Last Seduction or the legions of noir femme-fatales of yore? Surely a little dark humor wouldn't hurt a comedy.

I try to resist the silly hyperbolizing moviegoers are susceptible to when they love or hate a movie but it's difficult to refrain from it myself after seeing something like The Other Woman. To call the movie garbage might be exaggeration better left to others so I'll resort to euphemism by calling it unrecyclable, noxious, waste material.

And leave it at that.

Heaven is for Real....Suckers?

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Randall Wallace, Starring: Greg Kinnear, Thomas Haden Church, Margo Martindale and Kelly Reilly

Based on Todd Burpo's New York Times bestseller of the same name, Heaven is for Real is part of a recent trend of religiously themed films coming out of Hollywood: Son of God, Noah, and God is Not Dead, with Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings slated for a December release.

Heaven is for Real tells the story of Todd Burpo and his family, who reside in a small, farming community in Imperial, Nebraska. After his son Colton (Connor Corum), experiences a near-death experience while in the hospital battling a severe fever, he begins to talk casually about seeing angels and visiting heaven. His father, who is a minister in the community church (played earnestly by Greg Kinnear), begins to take his son's accounts seriously. When Todd begins to incorporate his son's experiences into his Sunday sermons, it makes members of the congregation uneasy and his wife a little annoyed. Beset by hospital bills and Todd's shaky income from his garage door installation business, his wife feels his focus should remain on their financial woes, not their son's heavenly preoccupations.

A weepy, tender score accompanies nearly every scene until it almost becomes deafening; its maudlin violins a cue that the movie won't offend or upset the frail sensibilities of the audience. Everyone in Imperial seems so unbelievably upbeat and friendly they make Up With People seem like bitter cynics.

While others dismiss their son's experiences as imaginative ravings, Todd is convinced his son's visions are real when Colton tells him about seeing his dead grandfather in heaven. Todd shows him a picture of his grandfather as an elderly man which Colton doesn't recognize until he is shown another photo of him in his younger years. Colton identifies the man as the one he had seen, informing his dad that in heaven, "everyone is young." What exactly constitutes "young" in heaven is anyone's guess. Colton also shocks his skeptical mother later when he mentions his "other sister," a baby the Colton's lost in the womb and whose gender was never disclosed to the family. Todd's wife Sonja (Kelly Reilly), has been grieving the loss of her daughter, so when Colton talks of his sister--someone he couldn't have possibly known about--his mother begins to believe her son.

Heaven is for Real isn't the appallingly witless mess God is Not Dead was, but it has it's share of eye-rolling nonsense that will guarantee a chuckle, if not a guffaw.
One such scene finds Todd questioning his son about his heavenly visits. In recalling one incident, Colton describes a visit to the church where his father preaches. While Colton sits alone in a pew, the wall behind the altar dissolves into serene clouds and sky. Angels appear, singing, which prompts Colton to ask them if they might sing We Will Rock You to which they respond with laughter. The scene is cloyingly cute but it only worsens when we see someone dressed in white robes approach Colton in the aisle. You got to be kidding me, I thought; weren't the angels enough? No, we get his holiness too though we don't see his face. More on that later.

Given Todd Burpo's financial troubles, you'd think the angels might provide Colton something useful, like winning lottery numbers rather than stupid warbling. The deceased family members Colton sees don't seem to be any more useful.

Another curious scene is Todd's meeting with a psychologist to discuss his son's otherworldly experiences. Of course the doctor comes off as cold and unsympathetic-the typical characterization of science and scientists as hopelessly out of touch with the spiritual world-but later Todd mentions something Einstein said to buttress an argument for Colton's experiences. The religious want it both ways, I guess.

It all ends as one would expect; the congregation forgives Todd his talk of Colton's heaven though we never learn what became of the Burpo family's financial woes. The outcome is more violins, familial well-being, vast fields of golden wheat, peace and harmony, and not a problem in sight.

Wait a minute; what does Jesus look like? Let's get back to that. We see his robes in church but not his divine visage. In the final moments of the film, we see Todd sitting on the back porch as his children play; his attention riveted on an internet story of a girl who had an experience much like Colton's. A video of the girl painting a portrait reveals Jesus' face. When Todd shows the face to Colton, the boy says "Yeah, that's what he looks like." The audience might share my surprise to learn that Jesus is a dead ringer for Kenny Loggins! That's right; when you die, you'll be greeted at the pearly gates by one half of the 70s' pop duo Loggins and Messina.

Needless to say I left the theater trying hopelessly to suppress a giggle.

Transcendence

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Wally Pfister, Starring: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany and Morgan Freeman

Wally Pfister, mostly known heretofore as a cinematographer, tackles a directorial role for Transcendence, a sci-fi tale about hubris, the ominous encroachment of artificial intelligence technology as well as the dominance of computers in our daily lives.

Johnny Depp plays Will Caster, a leader in artificial intelligence technology and researcher who has designed a computer that is highly intelligent and virtually self-aware. His colleague and life-partner, Evelyn Caster (Rebecca Hall), assists him in his research while colleagues Max Waters (Paul Bettany) and Joseph Tagger (Morgan Freeman), are part of a tech-movement that hope to create computers with superior artificial intelligence that overcome human limitations which Caster calls Transcendence.

Meanwhile, an anti-technology, terrorist organization known as R.I.F.T. isn't beyond employing violence to stop Caster and his colleagues from turning the world into a techno-cyber hell they believe will result from his work. One R.I.F.T. member (Lukas Haas) approaches Caster after a speech on artificial intelligence, levels a gun barrel at him and shoots, wounding him. The gunman takes his own life but the search for the members of the organization commences; led by an FBI Agent named Buchanan (Cillian Murphy).

Recovering from his wound, a doctor informs Caster the bullet that penetrated his abdomen was laced with Pollonium, a lethal radioactive substance whose effects on the human body are irreversible. Caster then becomes determined to spend quality time with his wife his last month alive. While Evelyn Caster and Max tend to Caster's physical decline, they hatch a plan to upload they dying man's neural activity into a computer, thus preserving his consciousness as Will had once achieved with a monkey.

Following Will's death, Max and Evelyn return to their hideout, away from R.I.F.T.'s prying eyes to test the efficacy of their work. At first the test yields nothing but as they prepare to wipe the files, they discover Will has made contact; his words "Anyone there?" appear brightly on the screen. Evelyn is ecstatic, feeling she has saved part of her husband though he resides in a cyber-limbo. It isn't long before Will informs Evelyn he needs more space with which to expand and transcend. Warned by Max that Will's demand to be connected to Wall Street smacks of an ominous power grab, Evelyn ignores his admonition and proceeds with Caster's demands. To facilitate Evelyn's tasks, he uses his reach of web resources to amass a sizeable bank account for her. He then selects an isolated, desert town to build an underground facility to house his prodigious, god-like "mind." Cyber-Caster begins to develop extraordinary abilities, such as healing wounds and regenerating damaged bodily tissues. This seems a benign and humanitarian gesture until Evelyn becomes privy to his plans to also control those in his care. His power reaches its apex when he begins to control the weather, causing micro-nano units to fall from the sky. Aware of what Caster has become, Max and Tagger join members of R.I.F.T. and the FBI to destroy him before he expands his control.

The allegory of technology developing beyond human control is nothing new though here it wears a different face, so to speak.

My problem with the movie isn't with the performances or the direction but with a conception of an artificial intelligence that falls short of being "supreme." Other than regenerating living matter, Cyber-Caster's agenda seems shockingly limited, given the power he has attained. You mean to tell me that a higher intelligence wouldn't seize control of the military's computerized launch codes or control the grid or manipulate financial data to control markets worldwide? What threat does he really pose other than enslaving town locals? Why doesn't he just seize control of Facebook and Twitter; social media that truly do enslave?

The movie is bookended with scenes of the aftermath of Caster's demise; a dead power grid and a nation reduced to a scavenging-gathering status, struggling to survive. It is all mildly entertaining but one might shrug one's shoulders afterward and say, "okay, whatever," and move on, as the movie is unable to resonate or offer intellectual sustenance. If Transcendence wants to inspire thought or serve as a cautionary tale, it does so weakly and unconvincingly. If it only were transcendent...

Locke

**Spoiler Alert**

Directed by: Steven Knight, Starring: Tom Hardy

An ambitious, original film like Steven Knight's Locke asks the audience to invest time and emotions on a story told completely within the confines of a car, which could have just as easily been set in a sensory-deprivation tank for the minimal sound and visual stimuli we are presented. In said hermetically-sealed environment is Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy); a man who has just driven away from a major construction project--for which he acts as a foreman--and his wife and family. Why would a man abandon a life of security, step into his vehicle and drive away into the abyss of night, his destination known only to him?

It is only a matter of time before we learn just what Locke has in mind. A celebratory, post-project dalliance from the year before leaves him the father of a child with an emotionally fragile woman he barely knows. The very evening he leaves his job and family is also the night the woman is to give birth to his child and he is determined to be there at her side when it happens.

Along the way we hear Locke cooly inform his wife of the one night stand and the child the woman is to bear, which is of course met with astonished silence. He also informs the construction project leader that he won't be present the next day for what will be the most important day in Locke's career. The leader reminds him several hundred million dollars is at stake but Locke, as calmly as he addressed his wife of his infidelity, tells the leader he will insure the project continues as planned with a colleague as surrogate. The leader is of course apoplectic and after a volley of phone calls to the project leader, Locke is dismissed from his position. With an Olympian devotion to duty, Locke contacts colleagues to assist him in his mission though he finds the task exceedingly difficult.

He also spends his time on the phone to his wife and son; the former can't forgive Locke, in spite of his repeated pleas for understanding while the latter, ignorant of what has transpired between his mother and father, is crestfallen when his dad tells him he won't be home to watch the football game with the family. It is heartbreaking to hear his son's plaintive appeals as the dissolution of Locke's family seems all but assured.

And finally, Locke must also contend with the woman who will bear his child. Her anxious, frightened voice on the phone is as emotionally trying to Locke as it is to the audience but even to her he maintains a collected demeanor and in his stark honesty, he informs her he can't love her because he barely knows her.

What develops between the three scenarios makes for a hairy, nail-biting drama and what is particularly mind-boggling about it all is that it takes place inside a moving car; only the voices of Locke's associates and family characterize their offscreen identities. This is an ambitious role for Hardy and one his talent is more than equal to. His performance is the film and it is crucial in creating tension in what is essentially a chamber piece. He is natural and restrained, only erupting occasionally when his problems become a little too sticky. He is also granted a soliloquy of sorts when he sometimes addresses the empty, rear seat angrily, as if his father were there, which provides a psychological backstory and a motivation.

Knight also works with limitations but manages to make the passing vehicles and lights a dramatic tableau. We sometimes see Locke within the confines of the car and sometimes outside the vehicle, looking in; allowing us to regard him with and without the interceding glass medium.

And how does Locke resolve his many problems in his seemingly endless drive? All I will say is that he loses and wins, though the viewer must assess that statement's accuracy and decide in what proportions he is awarded and penalized. And is his determination to do the ethical and moral thing equal to the loss of family and job? Again, the viewer must decide and in posing the question, Knight rewards us with so much with so many self-imposed narrative limitations.

The Railway Man

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jonathan Teplitzky, Starring: Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman and Stellan Skarsgard

Early 80s' England, a middle-age man meets an attractive woman on a train. After some conversation, it's immediately apparent they have fallen for one another. In spite of this, the man exits the train at the first stop and realizing he may have made a grievous error, meets the woman down the line and in doing so, begins a deliriously happy courtship and marriage. Or so we think.

It isn't long after they've set up their domicile before Patti, the wife,(Nicole Kidman) finds her husband Eric (Colin Firth) writhing on the floor in agony and it isn't long before we learn the cause of such suffering. Patti discovers Eric was once a prisoner of war in the pacific theater in WWII, more specifically southeast asia. Eric's reticence about his experiences leads her to his friend and former fellow prisoner Finlay (Stellan Skarsgard), who divulges what he and Eric and others endured at the hands of the Japanese in a labor camp.

Eric and Finlay were part of an army engineering group whose skills the Japanese enlisted in the camp but the engineer's cooperation only goes so far as they use their considerable technical skills to craft a radio to receive allied news of the war's progress. Learning from a British broadcast that the Germans are losing ground in the European theater, morale surges. The engineers become determined to spread the news to the British troops and native laborers, who were unlucky enough not to be spared the punishing, torturous, back-breaking work on the railway the Japanese hope to build through the Burmese jungles and mountains. Eric's formidable knowledge of trains enables him to enlighten his fellow engineers that the railway system the Japanese are determined to build was once considered by British engineers but upon surveying the Burmese terrain and landscape, dismissed the idea as a work of brutality. He also informs them that such a project couldn't be accomplished by laborers alone; only an army could carry out the task. Eric's information, supported by his calculations, is met with anxious expressions by his colleagues. His ominous declaration is confirmed when he sees the British army regulars working under savage conditions on the railway. He even meets his former commanding officer on the labor crew as they dig through a hill of rock in the sweltering sun. The officer's face is one of exhaustion and madness as his blank stare reveals his mental and physical deterioration.

The radio is soon discovered, which brings the engineers before Japanese disciplinary officers. Seeing a fellow engineer endure a barbaric beating, Eric steps forward to accept culpability for the infraction. This leads to unspeakable torture and cruelty, but Finlay's account can only go so far, for even he doesn't know what Eric endured at the hands of the Japanese officers. He warns Patti that an attempt to force Eric to recollect might be fruitless and she could never hope to understand what he suffered. Undeterred, she presses on, hoping to understand what the Japanese visited upon Eric's mind and body. Ultimately we see what he suffered: severe beatings on his body with what resembles a hard axe-handle and often on broken bones in the process of healing. He also undergoes what is the Japanese version of waterboarding; a horrific and disturbing scene in the film. Though the Japanese officers are mostly single-mindedly sadistic in their methods, one officer shows compassion though he dare not express it to the soldiers intent on torturing Eric.

It is clear what happened 40 years earlier hasn't passed from the minds of those that shared Eric's imprisonment, for Finlay makes a statement by hanging himself above railway tracks (a poorly deployed, symbolically heavy-handed image). The act also serves as a warning to Eric about the perils of leaving the past unaddressed. Before Finlay's suicide, he gives Eric an article from a newspaper overseas about the officer who presided over Eric's torture; now a tour guide at the very labor camp where the British soldiers were held. As a way to face his grim past, Eric travels to the camp, now a tourist destination, to confront his former nemesis.

The film is based on Eric Lomax's real war and post-war experiences. The performances from the cast are powerful and affecting, particularly Firth's, who shows Eric's anguish and controlled rage when confronting his former interrogator. The actors cast in the roles of the principle character's younger selves are also exceptional. As the film swings from the war to present and back again, we see how deep, emotional scars he bears in middle-age are as raw as the physical torture was excruciating.

Most of The Railway Man works; the story is riveting and Eric Lomax's experiences make for a poignant film, though I don't think it wears the mantle of greatness. It is definitely worth the time and emotional commitment.

Under The Skin

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jonathan Glazer, Starring: Scarlett Johansson

Jonathan Glazer seems to be a director always working in that twilight of universal recognition and an area just below the radar, and though he doesn't have many films under his belt, he can always be trusted to deliver something dark and engaging. Sexy Beast unleashed a frightening psychotic, expertly played by Ben Kingsley and in the seldom seen and unjustly forgotten Birth, a child claimed the attention of a couple and family with a creepy agenda. In the aptly titled Under the Skin, Glazer offers us something abstract, darkly poetic, sometimes abstruse and offbeat.

Scarlett Johansson stars as an entity who assumes the body of a human female. With the help of a mysterious sidekick, she drives around a Scottish town, looking for males wandering alone. Luring them into her van, she drives them to the interior of a shabby building with the promise of sex. Her sidekick speeds around in his motorcycle, abbetting her act though we never learn what they specifically seek or why.

Once the victims enter the building, they disrobe as they follow slowly behind the entity. The large room they enter is completely black and empty; only the bodies are visible. Luring them further, the victims slowly sink into what resembles a black pool of crude oil until they completely submerge. They don't cry out or struggle, as if in a trance, while the entity walks on, never sinking herself. Later we see what becomes of her victims: they don't asphyxiate in the viscous substance as we might expect but instead awaken to find themselves unable to extricate themselves as they watch the entity receding on the surface. The victims then undergo a kind of transformation; their bodies become a kind of wispy, epidermal remnant.

We hear almost no dialogue in the film and what the Scottish characters do speak is barely understood. The film could have used subtitles. Only the entity's British accent comes across audibly. No matter; I think Glazer intentionally makes the Scottish brogue difficult to decipher to muddy the human/alien distinction. Humans appear as strange and alien as the entity. It is interesting that we never see an "alien" but something shrouded in human skin--a subtle metaphor for alienation? Commentary on the dehumanization of women in our society; humans regarded only for their external, physical projections? Interpretations can flourish.

The entity looks at the world with a stoic, scientific curiosity. As the film progesses, she begins to sympathize with her victims; no longer leading them to their peril but forming a more human bond with them until she becomes prey herself. In one scene, a man with a facial deformation is treated tenderly until he too meets his viscid fate.

The role of the entity is a markedly different character for Johansson than her current, Captain America acting incarnation and is, of course more ambitious. In Captain America she's little more than a siren in form-fitting leather whereas her character here uses her feminine allure more as a means to an end.

Glazer's camera work shows a more mature, aesthetically assured growth. The opening shot of concentric circles; an abstract, visual melding of the human and entity would be the envy of Kubrick, as would the blackened room where the men meet their strange doom.

I really like and admire Under the Skin, which are not always compatible, emotional reactions one has to a film. I think Glazer is an exceptional director and one who will no doubt astonish us again. The film leaves much room for reflection about what we've seen and what we must interpret.

Draft Day

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Ivan Reitman, Starring: Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Frank Langella and Dennis Leary

No one would ever confuse Ivan Reitman for Alain Resnais or Luis Bunuel; nuance and penetrating character studies aren't his forte. No one would also confuse Draft Day for Moneyball; Bennett Miller's terrific, wonky, thinking man's baseball film that had no love-for-the-game prerequisite. I can't imagine anyone enjoying Draft Day who isn't a football fan. I heard a young woman chattering away with her male companion during the film but judging from her comments, she wasn't much interested in the intricacies of NFL player trade and acquisition. So what would draw one to a movie heavy on draft and trade arcana? It couldn't be the relationship between Cleveland Browns General Manager Sonny Weaver Jr. (Kevin Costner) and a team executive named Ali (Jennifer Garner); though cute and pleasing to the eye, is all gravy and no mash potatoes. It also couldn't be Sonny's tempestuous relationship with his mother Barb (Ellen Burstyn), which flickers but doesn't burn.

Fortunately for me, I am a football fan and enjoyed the cutthroat dealings between NFL general managers as they fight for draft day pole positions, which a consummate professional like Kevin Costner makes fascinating with his natural acting and thermal charisma.

Writers Scott Rothman and Rajiv Joseph spoil Costner with dialogue crafted to demonstrate Sonny's cunning as he wheels and deals but they seem lost when it comes to the Sonny/Ali relationship; which has the added wrinkle of her pregnancy to complicate Sonny's life. Granted, the story takes place in one day but the relationship demands more than a hurried, on the fly, series of closet discussions a pesky administrative assistant keeps interrupting.

During draft day, Sonny is coerced into trading up to the number one position by the Brown's no-nonsense owner Anthony Molina (Frank Langella), who casually issues an ultimatum which might cost the GM his job. Sonny proposes a deal with the Seattle Seahawks GM, which is so weighted in the latter's favor that it strains (though doesn't shatter) plausibility. Sonny must give up the Browns' number one picks for the next three years for the top spot in the draft. It is implicit the number one pick is for a stud quarterback named Bo Callahan; a player most teams salivate over and like Sonny, are willing to sacrifice players and future picks to acquire.

The Brown's fans are livid when they learn Sonny has traded away their future on a player he discovers may have character issues, or as his mother puts it: "You sold a cow for magic beans?!" Molina on the other hand, is ecstatic over the trade and at the possibility the Browns may draft Callahan. Two other potential draftees and their agents woo Sonny; hoping to land lucrative, first-round contracts though his staff and the media are all screaming for Callahan.

We also learn Sonny's late father was a legendary Browns' coach and one he had to fire, causing him regret and much angst. The current Browns' coach; Penn (Dennis Leary; wonderfully cast) wavers in his support for Sonny; threatening to withhold his support when he discovers the three key draft picks might be traded away.

The drama mounts as the NFL Draft approaches and all of Sonny's problems appear conspiratorial: possible dismissal from his position, his pregnant girlfriend unhappy with a lack of commitment, fan rage, coach and staff mutiny, agents and prospective draftees breathing down his neck and his credibility as a GM hanging in the balance.

And in spite of Reitman's contrivances and Moneyball pretensions, Draft Day doesn't really work but it is fun to watch; again, Costner is the key. Every-time he speaks, we listen and believe he could be a General Manager and someone many would heed. When we aren't listening to Sonny, the other characters seem like Lego people; assembled, colorful and plastic. The director who gave us a comic classic like Ghostbusters may be out of his league, so to speak, in trying to show us a cross section of a professional sports general manager's day but the film will please football fans and it has a stamp of timeliness as the REAL NFL draft rapidly approaches. And if you aren't a football fan, well, at least you have your choice of eye-eclairs like Costner and Garner.

Joe

**Spoiler Alert**

David Gordon Green Dir. Starring: Nicolas Cage and Tye Sheridan.

Joe is so gritty one could easily mistake the images and setting for a documentary in its depiction of those existing marginally in the ever-expanding numbers of the destitute and poor.

David Gordon Green is not a director to shy away from that world; having explored it in films like George Washington and Prince Avalanche. Nicolas Cage summons his acting jinn for a refreshing change and he performs capably as an ex-con who leads a crew hired to poison trees for a private residence to make room for more "useful" trees. Joe's situation is only slightly better than those who work under him; he drives a shabby truck and spends his days either patronizing a local brothel, (which must be the most forlorn whorehouse I've ever seen in a movie), hanging his head in a local bar, or numbing his senses with senseless T.V.

His life becomes more complicated when a 15-year-old boy named Gary (Tye Sheridan) applies for a job on his crew. Joe discovers Gary's father Wade (Gary Poulter) is an abusive drunk who spends all and any available money on drink when he isn't beating Gary. Proving himself more than able for the job, Gary is hired but before long brings his father along, who manages to sow discord and get himself dismissed from the crew.

I have to say that Green found an unknown marvel in Gary Poulter; an Austin homeless man, who died tragically on the streets after filming concluded. His appearance and performance are so real he almost steals the film from Cage and Sheridan.

Joe also has to deal with a local bottom-dweller who shows up one day in his yard armed with a gun, with which he shoots Joe; wounding him. Joe recovers, becoming a sort of surrogate dad to Gary. Joe also has to resist the impulse to keep Wade from beating Gary to death. Eventually Joe runs afoul of the police, the town scumbag, and even Wade. It isn't long before Wade and scumbag join forces in a kill-Joe plot.

Green's film doesn't allow the characters relief or an escape from crushing poverty, thereby resisting sentimentality or a phony string of contrivances. He maintains a kind of a grim intensity throughout; tension building to a violent conclusion.

Cage and Sheridan are terrific but it is Poulter who is a revelation. He is frightening, sad and is full of contradictions. In one scene, Poulter follows a fellow drunkard to his hangout, hoping to share his wine but he instead strikes the man with a metal object; smashing his head; killing him. Afterward, he holds the man's head in his hands to kiss him in a strange act of empathy. The act is oddly beautiful; a gesture of love wed to an act of appalling violence. It is also strange that Poulter shares a tragic link to his character; a life imitating art coincidence.

A showdown between the principle characters comes to pass near the end of the film; a violent denouement that seems to be an inevitable end for denizens of an impoverished, violent environment. I liked the grit and grime of the film and Green's insistence we see this world; immersing us in a place most people would like to forget exists in America. Joe isn't a great film, but its raw look and feel, and its affecting performances, won't leave one's thoughts immediately after viewing.

The Last White Knight

Paul Saltzman, director of The Last White Knight, travelled from Canada in 1965 to Mississippi as a civil rights activist hoping to become involved in the voting drive for blacks, who had been intimidated, bullied and even murdered to deny them a basic, constitutional right. Already a hotbed of anti-black belligerence, the town of Greenwood was no different from any town in the south in its determination to keep blacks disenfranchised and politically marginalized.

Saltzman was accosted one day by a group of young, white Greenwood citizens; one of them being Delay de la Beckwith, son of the infamous Byron de la Beckwith; murderer of Medgar Evers. The confrontation prompted Delay to hit Saltzman in the face, causing him to flee in fear. Saltzman managed to outrun his assailants, living to accomplish his mission.

Many years later, well into our current century, Saltzman decided to reestablish contact with Delay in hopes of meeting with him for a sort of reconciliation. The two eventually come face to face for a series of meetings and for interviews, which form the narrative nucleus of The Last White Knight. Saltzman can be credited for initiating what makes a fascinating and also disquieting documentary.

The meeting also serves to personalize the history of the 1960s' civil rights movement in the south. Much of film covers familiar ground; the murders of Evers and the three civil rights workers Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner and the ever-present threat of violence but Saltzman also interviews black townspeople as well as members of the new KKK, who wouldn't agree to appear on film sans robes and hoods. Participants like Harry Belafonte, who served as an advisor to Martin Luther King and Mississippi residents like Morgan Freeman weigh in on past and present relations and what course they may take henceforth.

But it is the conversations between Delay de la Beckwith and Saltzman that make for exceptional viewing. Delay's onscreen, personable demeanor masks a deep-seated disdain for blacks, which hasn't wavered since his youth while Saltzman seeks a kind of rapprochement and maybe an admission that Delay's father was wrong to kill Evers. "The past is never dead. It's not even past," William Faulkner once said and it applies to Saltzman's film, which doesn't deceive us into believing race conflict is something quaint and of the 20th century. Though progress has been made, The Last White Knight shows us there's always ground still to be gained and a past to be appeased.

Finding Vivian Maier

Dir(s). John Maloof and Charlie Siskel

Director John Maloof was writing a history book when he felt he might need archival photographs to accompany the text. Attending an auction where sundry items were sold, Maloof discovers a cache of photographs and negatives he believes might aid him in his writing project. Unaware of what he might find, he looked over the negatives to discover extraordinary photography by a woman named Vivian Maier. Astounded by his discovery, he learns of a storage unit Maier kept, which Maloof acquires. Maloof also discovers Maier was deceased and was warned she photographer was a pack-rat. What he found inside may the first cultural discovery of this new century. Among odd collections of items like shoes and newspaper clippings were Maier's thousands of rolls of undeveloped photographs and film footage.

Excited by his find, Maloof went about contacting museums and professional photographers in an attempt to make her work known. It also inspired him to make Finding Vivian Maier, an absorbing documentary of an amazing talent whose work was very nearly consigned to oblivion if not for Maloof's efforts.

With some sleuthing, Maloof is also able to track down Maier's former employers and their children, who she served in a nanny capacity. We learn Maier spoke with a french accent, never married and was very eccentric. She covered her body in layers of clothing and always had a camera around her neck. Former children in her care describe outings where Vivian spent time photographing people and things and sometimes herself.

Her photographs capture reality; often the gritty honesty of people and places or objects. She was drawn to the downtrodden and the physically unglamorous and we learn from an employer she empathized with the poor and socially marginalized, who were also captured in her stunning photographs.

As for Vivian herself, what emerges also is a portrait of a very mysterious woman who not only had her peculiarities but dark episodes which sometimes degenerated into violence. A woman once in Maier's care recalls how Maier once held her down on the floor, her hands around the girl's neck; force-feeding her food. Another remembers her pathological fear of men and an incident where Maier felt herself threatened by a man's harmless gesture which led her to attack him, subjecting him to a concussion and hospitalization. Another bizarre idiosyncrasy was her french accent, which an acquaintance with an advanced degree in linguistics revealed as fake. The director turns to a genealogist in New York City to trace Maier's past only to discover she was born in New York. Though her mother was french, it becomes clear the linguist's claim bore the weight of legitimacy. Those who knew her say she was fiercely private; deflecting any and all questions about her past.

Whatever Maier truly was is up for speculation but the excellence of her work is beyond question. Though Maloof brings her work to the attention of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and some other museums of renown, his discovery is met with interest but a shocking lack of action. Undeterred, Maloof organizes his own exhibitions, which are received with enthusiasm and wonder by attendees.

Time will tell if Maier's work will join the canon of photographic masters but it almost seems a certainty, given one expert's high appraisal of her work. We the audience are rewarded by Maloof's efforts to tell Maier's extraordinary story. Hopefully her name will become household, but if not, it won't be for the lack of Maloof's passionate labor.

The Lunchbox

**Spoiler Alert**

Dir. Ritesh Batra. Starring: Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur

I thought I had The Lunchbox pegged when I first watched the preview. It looked like a feel-good, light, Indian bauble but little more. I was surprised and pleased to find it defied my preconceptions.

Ritesh Batra's first feature-length film tells a story that relies heavily on three key performances and a deceptively simple story that weaves something both resonant and poetic.

As the film begins, we see the intricate process by which lunches are delivered to office workers in Mumbai. Bicycle, car, train--any and all manner of conveyance is employed to deliver the lunches, which are secured in small, distinctive, cloth bags.

With advice and sometimes ingredients provided from her aunt who lives above, Ila (Nimrat Kaur), spends her mornings preparing sumptuous lunches for her husband with such love and care, in hopes of rekindling her moribund marriage. Each day she is greeted at her door by the courier, who begins the arduous journey to the office.
Ila discovers one day that the lunches she has been preparing have been delivered to the wrong recipient.

Irrfan Khan-familiar to movie fans as the narrator of Life of Pi, plays a government number-cruncher named Saajan Fernandes, whose thirty-five years of service are about to end. He has also been assigned the task of training an irrepressibly friendly man named Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who he almost ignores on principle, in spite of the man's tenacious attempts to ingratiate himself to Saajan. A widower who lives alone, Saajan arrives home everyday to shoo away neighborhood kids who enjoy playing near his front gate.

Saajan receives Ila's lunches, finding the food's intoxicating aromas irresistable. Rather than return the lunches or correct the courier, he begins to enjoy them everyday; separating the silvery, metallic containers in which the food is stored from one another in what becomes a mid-day ritual. Ila soon learns her lunches are being consumed by someone other than her husband and begins leaving notes for the mysterious recipient in one of the containers. Saajan returns the notes, commenting on the food and eventually dispensing advice to Ila on her marital woes.

I thought I knew the direction the story would take: Saajan would strike up a friendship, then dabble in a flirtation and near romance before guiding Ila to a happy reconciliation with her husband. Only Saajan and Ila's epistolary friendship is evident from the previews, the rest of the film unfolds unpredictably.

Saajan's sad longing for his wife and his lonely evenings at home are paralleled by Ila's desperate attempts to reclaim her husband's affection, which fail miserably. As the deliveries continue, Saajan is soon sharing his food with Shaikh; who invites himself to the lunchtime table. Shaikh also falls under the spell of Ila's cooking and as a friendship develops between the two men, Shaikh invites Saajan to his home to sample some of what he believes to be his own exceptional cooking.

It is easy to see that food plays an integral role in the story. It serves as something to mend, to unite, to seduce and to express what words and physical gestures cannot. Food has taken on a symbolic role in films before. Babette's Feast is a notable example, but in Batra's film it takes on a more personal, urgent dimension. A scene where Ila and Saajan are to meet in a restaurant shows her waiting pensively for him to arrive. She drinks only water--eats nothing-and is stood up. We learn later that Saajan was actually in the restaurant but didn't make contact with her. It's interesting that the absence of food in a restaurant creates a wider gulf between them than the actual, vaster distance between Ila's kitchen and the lunchroom where Saajan enjoys her dishes.

The Lunchbox demonstrates Batra's directorial potential; his ability to coax exceptional performances from the cast and to tell a poignant story set in a few interiors with precision and economy. First feature films aren't normally so accomplished. It will be fun to see what he comes up with next.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

**Spoiler Alert**

Dirs. Anthony Russo, Joe Russo and Josh Wheedon. Starring Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Robert Redford.

Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America (Chris Evans), returns to the screen to take on the villainous Winter Soldier; a product of the post WWII Soviet government and a worthy, lethal adversary. Working with S.H.I.E.L.D., the secret government agency with an agenda to protect America at home and abroad, the Captain and the agency's leader Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) find they have suddenly become the targets of Hydra, a shadowy organization who have infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and are bent on world domination. Hydra agents, acting in the capacity of S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives, murder Fury and are hot on Captain America and The Black Widow's (Scarlett Johansson) heels. The Winter Soldier also joins the hunt and demonstrates his murderous potential with his super-strength and a solid, metallic appendage where his left arm used to be.

Rogers and The Black Widow enlist the help of a former american soldier, fresh from Iraq, named Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) who has access to a super, high-tech suit with wings which allows him to fly like a bird, or, in keeping more to his nickname: a falcon. The three elude the faux-S.H.I.E.L.D agents while also fending off the furious predations of the Winter Soldier in an attempt to thwart a Hydra attack on legions of individuals world-wide they feel are a threat to the organization. To accomplish this formidable task, they will employ military crafts with frightening, destructive force.

All the Marvel comics adaptations risk becoming what befell the Harry Potter series; where the individual films distinctness is erased by bland sameness. In recalling the Potter series, it's difficult to remember each film as anything but a regurgitation of what came before it. The same fate awaits the superhero movies Marvel churns out every year and now Captain America, which is still in its franchise infancy. The same computer-generated military crafts and mayhem that menace earth and mankind seem to be lifted from every other movie of its ilk and resemble much of what we see in previews for the forthcoming, cretinous dung Transformers.

I like elements of the movie: a new side-kick, Robert Redford as the duplicitous government official in the employ of Hydra, and the elevator fight scene where Rogers single-handedly gives S.H.I.E.L.D. agents a beat-down but overall, it all feels like I had eaten a bucket of chocolate bars and was feeling queasy from the after effects. It satisfies briefly but that feeling of contentment evaporates quickly en route to the exit.

What made the first Iron Man fun was Robert Downey Jr.'s flippant regard for authority and the humor in Tony Stark's approach to his superhero role. Unfortunately that film's charms are running low and every Marvel adaptation seems to be suffering from the same. In my estimation, Christopher Nolan's Batman series is the only complete and satisfying superhero franchise, with its freakishly frightening villains and its call for societal self-empowerment rather than law enforcement concentrated in the hands of one individual.

Though I'm a fan of Nolan's trilogy, my favorite superhero film of the 21st century (and man, are there gobs!) is Josh Trank's Chronicle. Eschewing the CGI-heavy, costumed-superhero-opera approach, Trank's film is understated, engaging and emotionally compelling. It accomplishes on a modest $12 million budget what Captain America: The Winter Soldier can't with its brobdingnagian $170 million expenditures. It's a film that violates Hollywood's spend more, think less ethos and deserves more than its cult status. I waited through Captain America's lengthy credits to see the teaser that always accompanies the Marvel adaptations and it's truly breathtaking how many personnel are involved in one superhero movie production. The credits alone could be franchise.

So again you might ask, why bother paying to see a whale like Captain America: Winter Soldier? Because sometimes I'm foolish enough to want a bucket of chocolate bars.

God's Not Dead

Dir. Harold Cronk. Starring: Shane Harper, Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain

Who in their right mind would willingly pay and sit through something like God's Not Dead; a simple-minded, ham-fisted drama about a god-fearing college freshman who takes on his atheist professor in a debate concerning the existence of god? Well, someone looking for laughs, which the film provides though unintentionally. As I always say, there's no comedy like a bad drama.

God's Not Dead isn't a movie so much as an overly long infomercial about how Jesus and God are the answer and how the atheist-leaning or religiously indifferent masses need to wake up and embrace the divine--or some such nonsense. In fact, the film's production value is something akin to your average TV ad for Cialis.

Like the forthcoming film Heaven is for Real, God's Not Dead suffers from an imaginative-title deficiency but that is only one of its myriad problems. The movie doesn't have time to waste on nuance; it's on a proselytizing jag and its targets are atheism, science and reason. The film's message can be summed up simply as:

Atheists bad.

Christians good.

A newly arrived freshman on a college campus named Josh Wheaton (Shane Harper) looks to enroll in a philosophy course taught by a professor with a reputation for his aggressive, opinion-squelching, defense of atheism, (played by former TV Hercules, Kevin Sorbo). Josh has already made clear his love for God (if the cross dangling from his neck already hasn't) and is undaunted by the professor's reputation.

Josh finds his first day in class to be disconcerting, for his professor plainly states that anyone who doesn't share his incontrovertible view of atheism will fail the class. Though the class seems to be a general philosophy course, somehow the professor's virulent atheism seems to be the only topic of discussion. The Professor's manner is so bullying and intimidating it's astonishing he isn't arrested for assault and battery. One wonders at this point if the filmmakers have actually taken a college philosophy course because no real professor would be so ferociously opinionated. The professor actually insists each student write "God is Dead" on a sheet of paper to ensure he or she receives a passing grade in the course (I'm not making this up)!

Of course our hero, ever-bland and humorless and played that way by Harper, resists; standing firmly on his principles (who can blame him; even I would resist a professor so single-minded; and I'm an atheist!). What follows could only be called a waste of valuable class time and an implausible plot-development as the Professor, played with haughty disdain by Sorbo, challenges the freshman to a God vs Atheism debate.

Josh's girlfriend and friends discourage him from challenging the professor, warning him a bad grade in the course will keep him from law school. The imminent debate is the centerpiece of the film though other characters and subplots contribute to the hooey.

One character is a lefty blogger named Amy Ryan, whose callous, unfeeling boyfriend Mark (Dean Cain) is the movie's greedy, white-collar jerk who can't even be bothered to visit his dementia-afflicted mother. The girlfriend's villain credentials are established early: A shot of her car bumper stickers reveal several liberal causes. Both characters serve as more examples of how angry and hateful the Godless are and how they are in dire need of Jesus' love.

Other characters include a young, Muslim woman who resists her father's demand that she wear a head-scarf in public, which she promptly removes on campus and a Chinese student who shares Josh's class and eventually his love for Jesus. For a brief moment, I thought the movie might at least recognize Mohammed and Buddha as other Gods but no; the Muslim woman's secret and dangerous devotion to Christianity is revealed later, earning her a forceful dismissal from home by her father, who couldn't be more Mullah-like in his intolerance. Got it; only Jesus will do.

Eventually, all the atheists or liberals in the film suffer some sort of comeuppance or as one would easily guess, a conversion. After all her sinister, liberal machinations, Amy is diagnosed with cancer, which she chooses to reveal to Mark at an elegant restaurant. Mark wins the Unbelievable Bastard Award for breaking up with Amy following her cancer disclosure. This didn't make me gasp so much as chuckle: not only do you receive a possible death-sentence from your doctor but your boyfriend uses cancer as legitimate pretext to dump your ass. Yes, Amy, that's what you get for being Godless.

The debate proceeds as one would expect with the usual arguments for and against God's existence but of course in the end, you know who prevails. And it isn't enough that Josh wins the debate and convinces the class of his righteous position, he must also elicit a confession from the professor about how he came to hate God. And that isn't enough, for the professor, on his way to find his God-fearing girlfriend who he had earlier offended with his intolerant ways, is struck by a car. While lying in the street, he accepts God into his life as a Reverend waits beside him. And how does the Reverend comfort the dying professor? One might expect him to say "Stay calm until help arrives" or "Don't worry, help is on the way," but no, the Reverend actually says (again, I'm not making this up) "You'll actually get to see God before we do."(!) Thanks Reverend, good to know my chance of surviving is roughly that of a snow cone in hell. Isn't God great?

The movie ends with Amy embracing Jesus' love, the professor's convenient disposal, the Chinese and Muslim student's conversions to faith and everyone converging at a Christian rock concert by the band Newsboys for spiritual uplift and God's love, which radiate white-hot from the arena.

With the closing credits is a list of dozens of legal cases where religious groups filed successful lawsuits against universities all across the country to allow the Word to be spread. Following the list we see an exhortation to spread more of said Word.

The list of legal cases seemed like a desperate attempt to convince audiences the demand for God's word is still strong in institutions of higher learning. In all actuality, it confirms the opposite: there is a growing resistance to having Christianity as a presence on college campuses.

Is God dead? If he's not, God's Not Dead is happy to inform us he's definitely in a coma and is trying to be resuscitated.