Flickread: Not to be Missed: Fifty-Four Favorites From a Lifetime of Film

Author: Kenneth Turan

Manning the film critic post for the L.A. Times since 1991, Kenneth Turan's eminence among the nation's best critics is a given. Any pan or rave from Turan carries more weight and credibility than most critics and his love for the cinema is beyond question.

Turan earned a certain measure of fame--or notoriety--depending on one's point of view, for having the audacity (note my sarcasm) to pan James Cameron's Titanic; one of the few critics who had the perspicacity to do so. Turan's negative review incurred the wrath of uber-jackass Cameron, who couldn't tolerate anyone dissing his bloated, theme-park ride of a film. Cameron's vengeful attack on Turan included an attempt to have the critic fired from the L.A. Times, which exposed the director's vindictive pettiness. Turan described the film as being so bad "it almost makes you weep in frustration." Hooray for Turan.

Growing up in an observant Jewish family, Turan's father wasn't always tolerant of his son's Saturday afternoon movie excursions but the future critic mentions risking his father's ire to see Kirk Douglas in Ulysses. With access to the cinema severely limited, Turan fondly recalls time blissfully spent watching movies on television. Shaping his cinephiliac path further were the weekend, college campus films Turan devoured during his undergraduate life at Swarthmore. A key to his eventual career as a critic was choosing journalism as a graduate school pursuit at Columbia, where a seminar in film by famed New York film critic Judith Crist inspired Turan to choose film criticism as a vocation. Turan speaks glowingly of Crist's influence; "She was the first to make me believe I could do this work professionally..." Stints with the Washington Post, where Turan first cut his teeth as a film critic and a magazine called Progressive led him eventually to his role as the incumbent critic at the L.A. Times.

Turan's wonderful new book isn't about his feud with Cameron or anything as forgettable as Titanic, but about his favorite films; a list that spans the entire history of cinema. Many critics have compiled their film-favorites in book form before (which are always fun) and though Turan has written on film previously, (Never Coming to a Theater Near You and Now in Theaters Everywhere, to name a few) he had yet to offer his own list.

Listmania has been a pandemic for some time and if you're like me, you avoid the endless lists found on Amazon and IMDB but it is always worthwhile to read a professional film critic's two-cents on movies and learn why some films are granted status on one's list while others suffer omission.

One finds on Turan's list some favorites one might on another major critic's selection, such as Casablanca and The Godfather but what often distinguishes a selection are the unexpected and offbeat. Turan offers both, which he covers in brief but engaging commentaries.

Turan explains his choices, which the reader will gather are not representative of the best but his favorites--a critical distinction. Beginning with the first decade of the 20th century with the french film Fantomas, Turan chooses several films from every decade; completing his journey in the first decade of our current century. He mixes personal views with anecdotal film history to make compelling prose. Of course the beauty of a book like Not to be Missed is its subjectivity and how one compares or contrasts one's own favorites with that of the author's.

The list continues with the 1920s' and Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. and Pass the Gravy, a 1928 release by director Fred R. Guiol; a film I hated to admit I knew nothing about. One of the many pleasures of Turan's book is the feeling of being on a tour of a great museum curated by the tour-guide himself and having one's appreciation expanded with the inclusion of a work not normally celebrated by the mainstream.

Turan moves into the 30s' with Mervyn LeRoy's I Am a Fugiive From a Chain Gang and Victor Fleming's Bombshell, which share space with The Dybbuk and a Leo McCarey double feature Make Way for Tomorrow and Love Affair. While enjoying Turan's thoughtful reflections, I found myself keeping a list of the films I hadn't seen for later viewing.

The 40s' and 50s' are the decades most represented in the book, with eleven and twelve, respectively, which makes sense; film-lovers tend to love the films from their formative years the most though Turan gives the first decade of the 21st century strong consideration. Again, the famous and widely regarded mingle with the more obscure. For the 40s', the justly praised The Third Man is among a group that includes Random Harvest; a film Turan loves but which elicited dismissive reviews from some critics, like the famous Bosely Crowther, who wrote it off as "a strangely empty film." In spite of critical indifference, Turan provides us with the astonishing fact that the film played Radio City Music Hall for a record-setting twelve weeks, with additional screenings scheduled to satisfy public demand.

The 60s' are represented by the mostly oddball (and terrific) while the 70s', though considered its own golden age in cinema, has only two entries in the collection: The Godfather and Chinatown, which might disappoint those who hold that decade in high regard (like me). The 80s' selections are few as well but, as one is wont to find in Turan's book, hardly predictable. I was relieved to find only one film in the 90s' and the new century I hadn't seen. Another of the book's attributes is how it stokes one's desire to not only see what one hasn't, but to revisit those one has. The book concludes unpredictably with two final selections from a great master of the past.

A smattering of Turan's piquant observations and opinions:

On Children of Paradise:
"In many ways the most classic of classic French films, with a climax that astonishes no matter how many times it's seen, Children of Paradise is a miracle many time over. As a piece of romantic/dramatic cinema, its peers are few, its superiors simply nonexistent."

On Vertigo
"Now, after multiple viewings spaced out over decades, Vertigo stands out in my mind as what it probably always was, an audacious, brilliantly twisted movie, infused with touches of genius and of madness. A disturbing meditation on the interconnectedness of love and obsession disguised as a penny dreadful shocker, a Tristan and Isolde-style romance of lovers doomed by their passion for each other, it's more impressive today than when it debuted because of several interconnected factors."

On The Godfather
"It's not only that this film, like those sixteenth-century dramas (Shakespearean), can be watched repeatedly without loss of interest. Its that The Godfather is overflowing with life, rich with all the grand emotions and vital juices of existence, up to and including blood."

On Unforgiven
"Simultaneously heroic and nihilistic, reeking of myth and morality but modern as they come, this is a Western for those who know and cherish the form...it was obvious that this was not cowboy business as usual."

On meeting Orson Welles
"When I was brought over and introduced, I told Welles what I felt, that he was the greatest of American film directors. Then I added, in a sense apologizing for wasting his time with so commonplace and pedestrian a sentiment, "But you probably hear that all the time." Welles hadn't responded to my first sentence, but he put his head back and literally roared with laughter at the second. "You can't" he said with conviction born of experience, "hear that too often."

As a fun read for the more casual film-lover or any cinephile, Not to Be Missed is a worthy addition to any bookshelf of film writings. It is readible, intelligent, thoughtfully arranged and it could easily serve as a reference or simply as a source for those who need something to stimulate a late-night what can I watch? dilemma.

Not to Be Missed: Fifty-Four Favorites From a Lifetime of Film

I Origins

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Mike Cahill/Starring: Michael Pitt, Brit Marling, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Steven Yeun and Archie Panjabi

Mike Cahill has quickly established himself as an original and visionary talent; first with his otherworldly (no pun intended) beautiful Another Earth and now with I Origins; an equally trippy and cerebral film that I fear will get overlooked in the mushroom cloud of multiplex fallout.

Cahill's film tends to shift gears at times, pulling us away from one comfortable, narrative thread while leading us to another. Where it begins and where it ends involves a metaphorical voyage, one that touches on spirituality and science and reason. It asks the skeptical viewer (like myself) to consider how a spiritual reality may exist beyond our senses, particularly sight, which figures prominently in the film.

Michael Pitt plays a molecular biologist named Ian who leads a team of young fellow biologists in a research project dealing with the eye and and its evolutionary development. He informs his new assistant Karen (the always beautiful and always beautifully mysterious Brit Marling) his research is motivated by a desire to show intelligent-design proponents that the eye is in fact a product of evolution. Ian's disdain for everything religious is quickly asserted early in the movie. The eye and sight--in their literal and more symbolic sense--are major narrative components. Ian's research leads him to photograph and collect visual samples of random subjects eyes, which sometimes betrays a fascination beyond his scientific interest.

Ian falls for a woman he meets at a Halloween party named Sofi (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey). It's fitting that we only see her eyes and even more appropriate that Ian is entranced by them. He asks if he can photograph her eyes, explaining his research while mentioning the fact that eyes, like fingerprints, bear their own unique characteristics. A brisk courtship ensues, leading them headlong into marriage. At the same time, Ian and Karen take on an important research project that, if successful, will conclusively prove Ian's eye-theory. It also means fame and acclaim are almost assured.

During a tender moment between Ian and Sofi, she mentions how she seems to know him from before, as if they met in the past. The idea of reincarnation is danced around but never mentioned. Ian tells her, in a kind of playful manner, that at the moment of the Big Bang, when all matter was compressed into an infinitesimally small space, their atoms knew each other and always liked one another. This seemingly light moment becomes a theme in the film whereby science and the fanciful mingle, if not merge.

Ian explains to Sofi that the experiment involves a worm--an organism selected after a painstaking search--which lacks a biological propensity for sight. Ian and Karen want to biologically modify it to detect light, and essentially see. Sofi naturally is wary of the experiment, citing ethical concerns like what right the scientists have to play god. Sofi also uses the idea of the worm gaining sight as a thought experiment. She asks Ian if he would step through a door if it meant gaining awareness of a spiritual light, much the way the worm will with the gift of visual sense. Her door question and the door motif will play a thematic role in the film; first tragically then transcendentally. More on that later.

Addressing Ian's hostility to spirituality, Sofi also says that ability to perceive light might be no different than someone having the ability to perceive the spriritual world around them--a very interesting concept.

Cahill keeps our minds active and alert, as the audience must keep the narrative and the film's weighty ideas before them.

Sofi is naturally wary of Karen and any romantic potential her working relationship with Ian might carry. While one woman pulls Ian in a spiritual direction, the other, spending long hours in the lab, pulls him in the other direction; the world of data and empirical evidence. When Karen excitedly phones Ian to confirm their experiment's success, he asks Sofi to join him in the lab to share their success.

A chain of events, initiated by Karen's summoning Ian to the lab, leads to an incident involving an elevator, where a dangerous malfunction traps Ian and Sofi; forcing him to pry open the doors and climb to safety. Sofi is sluggish in receiving Ian's hand to hoist her up and out. When she is finally extricated, the elevator plummets to the bottom of the shaft. As Ian embraces Sofi, he discovers his hands are bloody and when the camera pulls back, we see that her legs have been severed by the falling elevator. Again, the door motif surfaces although in a tragically ironic way.

As Ian grieves, he also avoids his research until one day, while making a rare appearance in the lab, Karen offers a consolable embrace, which immediately becomes a passionate kiss. This inevitably leads to a new romance, marriage and later a child.

The film veers into the strange and creepy when the couple allow the doctor attending their child's birth to run a biometric exam, which involves photographing their baby's eyes. In doing so, they discover their child's eyes share a match with another person, which we and the couple know is an impossibility. The bizarre development leads them to a search that reveals several people share the same eye pattern, including Sofi and a young girl in India. Intrigued and incredulous, Ian flies to India to find the little girl whose eyes may match Sofi's. There he meets a woman named Priya Varma (a radiant Archie Panjabi), who runs a charity organization serving needy children, particularly the little girl he seeks. When weeks of searching seem hopeless and fruitless, Ian manages to find the girl. After running tests on the girl, which yield disappointing results, he feels his journey has been for naught. But as he leaves the hotel with the little girl in hand, something seemingly impossible but wonderful happens, which challenges not only Ian's conception of reality but ours as well.

The ending was a touching conclusion to an odd film. Even for a skeptic like myself, it is refreshing to see a movie appeal persuasively to the intellect rather than peddle fuzzy and hokey new ageisms or rigid religious dogmas to articulate its message.

It seems entirely natural that Michael Pitt and Brit Marling would be cast together, as they tend to be selective in choosing roles. Both specialize in playing odd-ball characters and they play them very well. Both Astrid Bergès-Frisbey and Archie Panjab are strong in supporting roles; lending credibility to a story that could have derailed into something incoherent.

If Cahill believes the eyes are the windows to the soul, he may also believe they aren't necessarily windows to a world beyond our perception. In the end, Ian takes a moving, sensorial leap of faith, almost making believers of skeptics. I Origins takes an artistic leap; one that lifts the film from the merely cerebral to the poetic. Always the pessimist, I can't believe Cahill's film will find an audience anywhere but on DVD, which is unfortunate, because it deserves a larger audience; one that doesn't mind thinking for a change.

A Most Wanted Man

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Anton Corbijn/Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Willem Dafoe, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright, Nina Hoss, Daniel Bruhl and Grigoriy Dobrygin

The opening titles in A Most Wanted Man tell us that after 9/11, Germany stepped up its anti-terrorist efforts, particularly in the port city of Hamburg. It was there that Mohammed Atta, one of the key architects of the World Trade Center attacks, orchestrated the horrific events that shook the world.

Corbijn's film, based on John le Carre's novel, tells the story of Gunther Bachmann (played by the late and very great Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a German anti-terrorist, anti-spy operative whose team has received word that a half-Russian, half-Chechen immigrant named Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) has turned up in Hamburg. Karpov, a Muslim who Bachmann believes may be connected to a Muslim terrorist cell, wanders the streets dressed in ragged clothes. His comings and goings are closely monitored by Bachmann and his team, as well as the local authorities and the U.S. government; who are represented by an anti-terrorist operative named Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright).

Bachmann and the head of the local law enforcement are not exactly simpatico; the former regards the latter with open contempt. While Sullivan becomes involved in Karpov's movements, she too shares an uneasy and mildly-adversarial relationship with Bachmann.

A German lawyer named Annabel Richter (played convincingly by none other than Rachel McAdams) who helps refugees seeking political asylum, comes to his aid. Aware that his origins and familial connections will no doubt draw the attention of the authorities, Richter finds Karpov temporary lodgings with a Turkish family. She learns Karpov's father was an associate of a German banker, whose son, Tommy Brue has inherited his own father's position as head of the bank. Richter and Karpov seek out Brue to claim money the Chechen's father left for him. The father was an officer in the Russian army and it is known by all that the money he bequeaths was acquired by illicit means.

Before long, Bachmann and his team find and apprehend Karpov and Richter. It is revealed that Karpov was tortured by the Russians--his grisly scars compelling proof--and is in no way a terrorist. Rejecting his inheritance, Karpov hopes to use the money for good and in doing so, helps set in motion an elaborate operation to ensnare a peaceful Muslim scholar named Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi) whose travel itinerary may be masking terrorist activity. Using his inheritance as a lure to help capture the scholar, a meeting is arranged whereby Karpov offers Abdullah a list of Muslim charities to whom he wishes to donate his money.

Because this is based on a le Carre novel, not everyone's actions are motivated soley by political or ideological concerns. A source of ignominy in Bachmann's past is a botched operation in Beirut; a failure Sullivan and others are only too quick to wield as a weapon of humiliation. He sees the success in the current operation as a means to redemption; to erase his failure.

As Karpov becomes a pawn in the operation and Abdullah the prey, interactions between Bachmann, the local police chief and Sullivan reflect mutual mistrust and competitive contempt.

Corbijn manages the intricacies of the story with skill; keeping the plot simmering and always moving forward without overwhelming the viewer with expository information. Like many spy films, Corbijn reaches for the visual default of grays and a muted color palette but it works, particularly for a location such as Hamburg.

It is particularly sad to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman in his last role. His riveting performance reminds us how poorer American cinema will be without him. As was his wont throughout his career, he never left the viewer doubting he was who he portrayed. His role as Gunther Bachmann is no exception.
The rest of the cast are no less top notch, especially McAdams, who seems to have left saccharine romantic-comedies behind her, at least for the moment. Dafoe always rivets one's attention while the exceptional German actors Nina Hoss and Daniel Bruhl lend their considerable talents to the drama. Though Hoss is terrific in a secondary role, I wish Bruhl had been given a more substantial part; his appearance seems more like a cameo.

The end seems inevitable and is a crushing twist; leaving us wondering who the good guys just might be. I really enjoyed everything about A Most Wanted Man. That it serves as a kind of curtain call for Hoffman seems appropriate, given his tremendous performance. The titles that appear onscreen after the film pay tribute to him. I wish his performance could have been one more in an ongoing career but at least Hoffman went out as he came into the movie scene: wearing his character's skin as his own. I'm glad his last appearance was in something as engaging and wonderfully crafted as Corbijn's film.

Lucy

The following is an excerpt from an emergency call from Al's Omniflick to 911 Cinema Emergency. It is reproduced here verbatim.

AL

(Desperate, as if out of breath)

Hello...Hello?!

Person on Phone

Yes, 9-1-1 Cinema Emergency, how can we help you?

AL

Yeah, I think I just saw a Luc Besson movie and I'm having trouble breathing.

911

How can you be sure, sir?

AL

Huh...what? What do you mean?

911

I mean, how do you know it was a Luc Besson movie causing your symptoms?

AL

What the hell else would it be?!

911

You need to calm down sir. At this time of year, any number of movies or directors could be causing your symptoms.

AL

Really?

911

Yes, especially lately. You don't know how many callers have complained about Michael Bay Delirium.

AL

What is that; is there really such a thing?

911

Of course, it always happens with the release of any of his films. People with normal intelligence experience oxygen-loss in their brains. Because of The Transformers, we've been inundated with calls. The problem is, not only do people need immediate medical attention, they also want their money back. That we just don't do.

AL

Geez...I'm glad I skipped that one.

911

Yeah, you'll be glad you did. The people who actually enjoy his movies have a special immunity to the Delirium; we think it's due to a severe gray-matter deficiency. Funny, his fans seem to be happy that way. Can't figure that one. Anyway...back to your problem.

AL

Oh...yeah, my problem. Luc Besson.

911

Yes, so let me determine if it's a true Luc Besson problem. Were there women in either mini-skirts or tube dresses?

AL

Hey...yeah, now that you mention it, Scarlett Johansson was wearing a tube dress at one point in the film.

911

And high heels?

AL

Of course.

911

Was she holding a gun at any time?

AL

Yes, and often, as a matter of fact.

911

Did you experience an appalling lack of character development, with senseless shooting and mayhem?

AL

Yeah, yeah, I did!

911

Sir, I hate to say this, but yes, you have just seen a Luc Besson film and worse, you actually paid for it. Can you describe the plot for me? Wait...let me just say this in case anyone is listening in on the conversation: **Spoiler Alert**

AL

I'll try. You see, Scarlett Johansson plays this young woman named Lucy who happens to be studying in Taipei, Taiwan, though I don't know what. Her friend, a seedy-looking slob, tricks her into giving a suitcase--which he says are papers--to someone named Mr. Jang inside an office building. When a gaggle of armed gunmen come down to the lobby to meet her, they shoot her friend, force her into an elevator and the next thing she knows she is being held captive by said Mr. Jang, a local crime lord.

911

Doesn't sound so bad so far.

AL

Let me finish...Though Lucy fears for her life after seeing dead bodies in Mr. Jang's office, we learn that he has recruited her (to put it lightly) and three men to be drug mules. Lucy had just been knocked unconcious by one of Mr. Jang's thugs and upon awakening, she finds her lower left abdomen wrapped in bandages. Turns out they have already placed the contraband inside her and have done the same to the others. While spending time in a cell, a guard who tries to get jiggy with Lucy is rebuffed, which enrages him, leading to some vicious kicks to the area where the drug is sown up. She begins to feel funny shortly thereafter. We see the interior of her body, where the plastic bag holding the drug has been perforated, causing the substance to seep into her bloodstream. She discovers, after shaking violently, that she has heightened, super-hero like agility and intellect, which allow her to kill her captors and escape the building.

911

Still doesn't sound too bad.

AL

Yeah, well, let me continue. Anyway, Lucy forces a cabby at gunpoint to drive her to a hospital. Once there, she coerces a surgeon to remove the bag from her body, which hasn't totally lost its blue contents. When the doctor asks her what the drug is, she says it's CHP4--I think I got that right--which is a substance pregnant women's bodies manufacture to accelerate the fetus' bone and body growth inside the womb. As the doctor explains, the chemical's effect on the fetus is like an atom bomb.

911

So let me guess, the drug enhances her intellect, allowing her to access the 90% of the brain we don't use, right?

AL

Not right away. The film's intertitles keep a tally on how much of her brain she is actually using, which climbs as the story progresses. The film actually begins with a lecture, given by a Professor named Norman (Morgan Freeman), who has a theory he has posited about what we might experience if we were to gain access to unused regions of the brain. What he suggests is pure hokum. If you didn't already know, the whole idea about humans using only 10% of their brains is a myth, but then again, this is a Besson film.

911

I've dealt with enough Besson cases to know how it proceeds from here. Lucy wants to find the other mules to prevent distribution of CHP4, so she uses her new extraordinary powers, heigtened memory and perception to track them. Was there also a scene where she's typing feverishly, absorbing data at a computer's pace?

AL

Yeah...on a plane and not just on one laptop but two!

911

Look, I don't want to go on all night about the plot but does she retrieve the drug and find the professor and gain 100% brain power?

AL

Yeah, she finds the stuff and has to elude Mr. Jang and his minions when they come to Paris looking for the drug. She also dazzles the Professor and his colleagues with some superhuman shenanigans.

911

Anything cool happen when she hits 100%?

AL

Yeah, kind of. She experiences reverse time travel, which allows her to cross the far reaches of space to the origins of the universe, which should have been a breathtaking sequence but really just rips-off the infinity trip from 2001: A Space Odyssey and some Terrence Malick stuff from The Tree of Life.

911

And what wisdom or divine knowledge does she glean from her experience? Anything mind-boggling?

AL

(sighing)

Not really. When the film began, we heard Lucy say offscreen that we've had life on the planet for a billion years. She then asks, what have we done with it? At the end, she repeats the question, as if to give us profound food for thought, but it really comes off as a freshmen college student's lame philosophy thesis. Her last message, before she vanishes into the great beyond, or wherever the hell she goes, is I AM EVERYWHERE.

911

Is he kidding with that crap?

AL

What, I thought you were used to this stuff from Besson?

911

Yeah, but that's even too trite for a hack such as he. (Pause) Are you feeling better now?

AL

I guess a little. Will this scary feeling of asphyxiation go away?

911

Yeah, all you really needed was to talk it through. But in the meantime, you should watch an Orson Welles flick or maybe some Bunuel, if you have any.

AL

Thanks, I will.

911

Have you learned your lesson?

AL

No, probably not. I'm sure I'll forget and find myself paying to see Besson's next one, whenever that might be.

911

Oh, brother. You cinephiles are all the same: as thick as bricks. Before I go, do you have an Al's Omniflick t-shirt for my troubles?

AL

T-shirt?! Geez-Louise, I just started this thing back in February. Can you at least wait until I have 10,000 hits before we start talking about t-shirts?

911

Alright, nevermind.

We hear the definitive sound of a phone connection disrupted.

Director: Luc Besson/Starring: Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman

A Hard Day's Night: 50th Anniversary Re-Release

Director: Richard Lester/Starring: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Wilfrid Brambell, Victor Spinetti, Norman Rossington and John Junkin

If you're like me, though you've seen one of your favorite films countless times, you often wish you could experience it again as you did the first time. I feel that way about a A Hard Day's Night. Though I've seen it a few dozen times, on video, DVD and on the big screen, I'm never surprised at how well its exuberance, its anarchic kineticism and infectious wit dodge time's unforgiving judgements.

It probably goes without saying that United Artists' interest in this film was strictly as a cash-cow to exploit what it must have thought was merely a fad. That it got something enduring and classic can be credited not only to the Beatle's genius but to that of director Richard Lester.

Having seen Lester's funny, offbeat short films, the Beatles thought the director the most obvious choice to capture the band's irreverent humor, which he did most expertly. In addition, Lester also documented the phenomenon of Beatlemania and its impact on the world's youth.

It is also fortunate for us that he chose to film in black and white; which gives the film a look of newsreel realism--a quality that has most likely contributed to its timelessness.
The film isn't anchored to plot considerations, as screenwriter Alun Owen dispensed with a linear narrative in favor of a more naturalistic approach; drawing from the Beatles' real-life experiences, which lend verisimilitude to the story. If the action can be said to be impelled by any motivation, it is a train-ride to a television studio to perform before an audience. The film relies solely on the antics of the band and its two managers, Norm (Norman Rossington) and Shake (John Junkin) who are caught up in the hilarity. Wilfrid Brambell, who plays Paul's grandfather, is the perfect comedic foil to the band; sowing discord and mischief in every situation.

The song sequences are beautifully filmed, allowing the Beatles' music to provide momentary relief from the story's feverish pace. Of course the Can't Buy Me Love sequence has come to represent the chaotic spirit of Beatlemania and the film's euphoric power. At the screening I attended recently, the band's burst through the studio doors and frantic sprint down the fire escape steps drew riotous applause. The reaction is a testament to the scene's (and the film's) ability to excite and titilate.

Every random encounter with studio personnel is an opportunity for the band to crack wise and showcase the Beatles' instinctual, comedic abilities. Interaction with the T.V. director, amusingly played by Victor Spinetti, pays humorous dividends. George happening upon a marketing office and a focus group campaign, John and a case of mistaken identity, and Ringo's AWOL all give the film an extemporaneous flavor. We can't be separated from the members for a second, feeling we might miss out on the fun of every situation.

As the film ends with the band being whisked away for their next adventure, I still experience that terrible feeling of being left behind. The overwhelming urge to follow the band and the feeling of wanting more are still palpable. I suppose I will always feel that way when I see the movie.

A Hard Day's Night, like the Beatles' music, will most likely never get creaky and irrelevent. The film's intoxicating restlessness; its images and irrepressible energy are not only its attributes but its trademarks and its comforting to know they are still intact. In his review from the mid-90s', Roger Ebert had this to say about the film: After more than three decades, it has not aged and is not dated; it stands outside its time, its genre and even rock. It is one of the great life-affirming landmarks of the movies. Almost two decades after his review, I can say his words still apply. They still may in another two. It's almost assured.

Boyhood

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Richard Linklater/Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke and Lorelei Linklater

Boyhood arrives on a golden chariot of hype into this Summer season of CGI apes and 3D, 2D and Real-D drivel, which makes it seem entirely out of place and maybe unwelcome. But make no mistake; it may be a Summer movie-misfit, but it is far from being unwelcome. Linklater's film more than than lives up to its hype. I left the theater feeling--something not normally experienced in theaters at this time of year. The variety of emotions it elicited were somewhat contradictory; elation, melancholy, hope and optimism and maybe unbearable sadness.

It is hardly a mystery that the movie was essentially 12 years in the making, capturing the fictitious lives of a small family--but mostly a boy's--in that span. That Linklater is able to employ this narrative device in telling such a seemingly simple story in an engaging and resonant manner, is quite a feat.

Set in various Texas towns and cities, Boyhood tells the story of how a family, consisting of a boy named Mason (an excellent Ellar Coltrane) and his mother (an equally excellent Patricia Arquette) and sister Samantha (Linklater's daughter Lorelei) eke out a very modest existence in their shabby Austin home. Mason is six-year's old when the story begins; his sister only a smidgen older. They share a room and fight and cry like little children do and will. Their mother is divorced from the children's father (an excellent Ethan Hawke), who has recently returned from a job gig in Alaska. Though he is an amiable, loving father, he is also not entirely reliable and has been woefully absent for extended periods from his children's lives. To be near the children's grandmother, the mother moves the family to Houston, the first in many relocations. The father's re-emergence comes on the heels of the mother's burgeoning romance with her college professor Bill (Marco Perella), who has two kids of his own. The two families eventually merge into a happy unit, with Mason's father visiting every fortnight.

The magic spell Linklater casts; showing the characters (and actors) aging before our eyes, starts to take effect. As the story unfolds and the characters/actors age, we see change materialize onscreen and it is astonishing. Mason and his family show signs of not only physical growth but the dramatic effects of experience and maturity. Linklater accomplishes this so seamlessly, without calling attention to what seems like a special effect but what is really skillful editing.

The peaceable, familial arrangement is eventually disrupted by Bill's drinking and disturbing bouts of rage, which eventually drives the mother and the kids away. Mason and Samantha's separation from their step-siblings is heartbreaking, which we feel acutely as their mother's fleeing vehicle pulls away from the house and once again, into disquieting uncertainty. While the mother and children grapple with their lives, the father struggles with elusive maturity and relationships of his own.

Coltrane inhabits his character so thoroughly it could scarcely be called acting. He isn't alone in this regard; Arquette, Linklater and Hawke also become fully-realized, fully-developed people we see and know in the real world. One of the great strengths of the film, which also reflects Richard Linklater's ability as a filmmaker, is its ability to draw us into the lives of unremarkable people who nonetheless become unique by virtue of their resilience in the face of change and adversity, which not only makes them very American, but something very human.

If Boyhood didn't have moving characters and an immersive story, the aging we see onscreen might be dismissed as a frivolous gimmick, something momentarily amusing. In Linklater's hands, it becomes something sublime; a narrative method by which an individual's growth can almost be seen like tree-rings.

In one of the most sobering scenes I've seen in a film this year, we see Mason packing for college while his mother sits pensively, watching her son discard and retain possessions. The full reality of the situation--her time with her children effectively at an end and her relationship with them as adults just beggining--impacts her viscerally, which leaves her sobbing almost uncontrollably. What she feels is not only the wrench of separation and the anxiety of an empty nest, but a kind of despairing is-this-it? moment. She says (paraphrasing) "I thought there would be more to this;" which elicited an empathetic, powerful reaction from me; bordering on tears.

The film ends with Mason in transition; his college life before him and the promise of relationships ahead. What has he learned? What will become of him? Whatever happens, we can be grateful to Linklater for lovingly and painstakingly exploring the character's life for twelve years, which is distilled into an absorbing two-hour and forty-minute film.

Boyhood has evoked comparisons to Michael Apted's Up series but seeing Linklater's film brought to mind photographer Nicholas Nixon's beautiful Brown Sisters series. Capturing portraits of four sisters together, once-a-year over a 35 year span, one sees how life and experiences mold and shape one's face, body and spirit. What is fascinating to behold are the small triumphs and disappointments; the good and bad years that hew grooves and wrinkles upon one's visage; telling stories beyond our immediate perception. If Boyhood isn't an answer to Nixon's masterwork, it certainly reaches for the same effect. And if Apted and Nixon documented their subjects in fact, Linklater approaches his in narrative; achieving something singular, moving and memorable.

The Purge: Anarchy

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: James DeMonaco/Starring: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zach Gilford, Keile Sanchez and Zoe Soul

On the heels of the silly The Purge comes The Purge: Anarchy which matches the first's silliness quotient but manages to be entertaining if one simply ingests the preposterous plot like marshmallow fluff. If you've come seeking biting commentary on the socio-political climate in America, you might be in for an interminable 103 minutes. I wondered near the end of the movie why the story had to be so heavy-handed and obvious about its political grudges but then I caught a glimpse of the producer's credit, which read: Michael Bay. I ceased to wonder shortly thereafter. If that name doesn't immediately subtract 50 IQ points when conjured, it might be because your brain is encased in protective lead.

The story takes place in 2023 America, some years after the first film. The Purge; the government's bizarre solution to cleansing America of its aggression and violence, is a ritual whereby all violent crime--including murder--is legal for eight hours, one night of the year.

As the film begins, we learn the Purge is but two hours away, which prompts everyone not participating to hurry home behind (hopefully) locked, reinforced doors and barred or sealed windows. Frank Grillo, an emerging action-movie star with tough-guy charisma, plays a mysterious man who keeps an arsenal in his apartment. Is he a former cop? Soldier? We don't know, but we can ascertain from his weapons and granite biceps he means business.

Also making haste to be home is Eva Sanchez (Carmen Ejogo), a diner waitress who wants to hit up the owner for a raise, which will help pay for her father's medication. She arrives home to be with her teenage daughter Cali (Zoe Soul-great name!) and said father (John Beasley) who are busy preparing for what is called the Commencement; the beginning of the Purge.

Figuring into this multi-character salad are Shane and Liz (Zack Gilford and Keile Sanchez), a young couple about to announce their break-up to his sister (why this would be something his sister would need to know before the Purge is anybody's guess) when their car stalls on a bridge. The couple had earlier encountered a scary group of masked, African-American men who silently menaced them in a store parking-lot. The couple realizes, while stranded on the bridge, their car was sabotaged earlier by the masked men; an effective means to keeping the couple on the street.

While those not Purging barricade themselves indoors, the mysterious man sets out into the dangerous streets in a Mad Max-like armoured muscle car. Why he would deliberately expose himself to danger is revealed later in the film.

We see that Eva's father has left the apartment, then strangely enters a limousine. Sometime later we see him sitting in a chair inside the home of a wealthy, white family. A letter he's left behind explains that he has sold himself as a Purge victim for a substantial sum that will help his daughter and granddaughter.

Only a short-time later, Eva and her daughter's modest sanctum is violated first by the doorman; who is angry about being allegedly dissed by the two woman, then by men in military uniforms, who drag the two out into the street. As Eva and her daughter are being jerked toward the government semi-trucks, the mysterious man comes to their rescue, dispatching the armed soldiers. Shane and Liz happen upon the group while running desperately through the streets, seeking sanctuary from the the masked men. The mysterious man then finds himself the reluctant caretaker of the mother and daughter and Shane and Liz. Promising the mysterious man a car to replace his own, which was left incapacitated by armor-piercing bullets fired by one of the soldiers, the group makes its way to Eva's friend's home where a suitable auto awaits. To reach their destination will mean overcoming what the Purge promises; violence and death.

I thought this was a fun development; somewhat reminiscent of Escape from New York and The Warriors, as the group navigates through a deadly, urban labyrinth to reach their objective. It also gives us an opportunity to care about them as characters, as broadly-drawn as they are.

Though the group is mostly indifferent to the Purge, Cali is vehemently opposed, seeing it as a way to eliminate the poor to secure the wealthy elite's way of life. Again, the film's clumsily conspicuous way of managing this commentary on the economic state in America almost becomes a theme. The film's message always rings loud and clear, particularly in a scene where a white-collar Purge victim is crucified above the door of a city bank. One of the characters mumbles something about how he got what he deserved, which makes the scene more humorous than trenchant.

Question: if all crime is legal for eight hours, why bother murdering people when one could busy oneself removing bars and other obstructions from the doors of commercial establishments (with a tow-chain and a Ford F-150 maybe?), thus allowing one access to store safes and merchandise? In something as criminally permissive as the Purge, one could legally steal anything. If theft is legal, then it stands to reason one could reasonably claim money and items were legitmately obtained. Maybe the filmmakers thought this idea denied the viewers their fix of violence and blood. Too bad; it seems like it would be a more constructive use of one's Purge time.

As the film moves along, we learn the masked Purgers who were pursuing Shane and Liz earlier are not participants but a group who round up non-Purgers on the street for sale to the wealthy in the city, who hunt them for sport. We're also finally made privy to the military's interest in the Purge; leader explains that people were becoming unwilling to kill one another, which necessitated the government's violent intervention.

The story continues to a violent climax, as expected, where we finally learn the mysterious man's motive for joining the Purge, which is one of the few plot developments that makes sense.

I particularly enjoyed Frank Grillo's performance and wished his character would have been fleshed out a bit more. The performances, especially Ejogo and Soul's, were convincing and managed to remain untarnished by the plot-absurdities the film sometimes stumbled over. I think Grillo may have a future as an action star, or at least the lead in the next installment. Will there be a next? Some post-narrative subtitles on the screen hint as much.

The Purge: Anarchy certainly isn't a winner, but it was fun when not being unintentionally dopey. It has something on its mind, but how that message is administered is something akin to a piano dropping on a sidewalk from a ten story building. If the film were distributed in the welter of the late-year, award-grubbing movie season, its monumentally modest ambitions would be shockingly glaring. But in my abysmally low expectations of the Summer movie season, it has many peers, so it isn't exactly the worst of the lot. At least Michael Bay knows its place.

Sex Tape

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jake Kasdan/Starring: Jason Segel, Cameron Diaz, Rob Lowe, Rob Corddry, Ellie Kemper and Jack Black

The first question that popped into my head when seeing Jake Kasdan's Sex Tape was: could this movie be as criminally stupid as the annoying trailer? The answer to that burning question is an emphatic YES. I thought I'd already seen the year's most witless comedy in The Other Woman, which coincidentally also starred the gratingly unfunny and comedically inept (in my opinion) Cameron Diaz. At least she was tolerable in Kasdan's Bad Teacher, as was Jason Segel, whose charm and writing talent have started to erode since Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Diaz and Segel play Annie and Jay, suburban parents whose parental and career priorities have sapped their sex life of passion and frequency. The opening scenes of the film are a montage of Annie and Jay in college and their once-hot sex life that burned like a furnace. We're brought to the present shortly thereafter and their lives with two kids as they lament and ponder their marriage's carnal deficit.

Hoping to rekindle their passion, the couple decide to film themselves in a sex tape, which Jay absentmindely forgets to delete from his hard-drive. It doesn't help that Jay has given several people iPads with song lists inspired by his job as a DJ, which all have the transmitted tape on them. Mortified, Annie and Jay set out to steal back the iPads to prevent viral dissemination.

I didn't mind the narrative set-up; as unimaginative as it was, but everything that follows can't do for the film what the couple's tape does for their sex-life.

Realizing their best friends Robby and Tess (Rob Corddry and Ellie Kemper, respectively) might have the tape on the iPad presented them, Jay and Annie set out to retrieve it from the couple. After an unfunny situation at the door, where Annie and Jay try to determine whether the couple has actually seen the tape, they break down and explain their embarrassing predicament. Corddry and Kemper can do little more with the script and situation than Siegel and Diaz, which makes for a tedious, protracted scene.

While at Robby and Tess' house, Jay learns the couple's son Howard (Harrison Holzer) has discovered the tape, which he threatens to spread online if Jay doesn't cough-up $25,000; a sum beyond his reach. Jay tries to alert Robby to his son's extortionist plan, but finds his disclosure promptly dismissed. That Robby and Tess could parent a little creep like Howard I guess didn't strike the screenwriters as odd but whatever; it's silly to grouse about such things in a film like this.

Jay and Annie also realize the CEO of the company that wants to buy her mostly wholesome, women-friendly blog on motherhood, has one of the iPads; which has the potential to jeopardize her deal. Rob Lowe plays said CEO Hank, who is a little bewildered when the couple show up at his door, pretending to collect for a charity for children with enlarged kidneys--another uninspired bit that thuds all around. Annie uses Jay's fictive diarrhea (which annoys him--and maybe us) as a pretext for him to conduct an iPad search of the premises. As Jay searches frantically, a vicious german shepherd tries repeatedly to maul him in scenes that reek of tiredness, including one where he lures the dog onto a rapidly-moving treadmill, which sends it crashing into a wall. Meanwhile Hank plies Annie with cocaine, hoping to cozy up to her. Soon, Robby and Tess arrive and what should be opportunities for hysterical farce just play without any wit or fun.

Later, a brief appearance by Jack Black as the man behind YouPorn offers the film some comedic spark, but only briefly.

What lesson Jay and Annie glean from their struggle is that though passion cools, what succeeds it is the love and companionship of family--a frightfully shopworn message (even if it may be true) Hollywood has peddled for years and serves as its fall-back moral. And what about a film that promises naughty fun but only teases with its PG-13 chasteness? Well, you get something like Sex Tape, with its high-concept, insistently bland story and comedically tone-deaf dialogue; a movie the creators probably imagined couldn't lose in the telling. How wrong they were.

As the Palaces Burn

Director: Don Argott

Though not new to theaters, As the Palaces Burn is a 2014 release from director Don Argott; heretofore known for standout films Last Days Here and The Art of the Steal. His latest is another foray into the world of heavy metal as we meet the band Lamb of God (not a christian-rock outfit), who are well-known to metal fans world-wide.

The first scene in the film is of lead singer Randy Blythe as he strolls the banks of a stream running through his hometown of Richmond, Virginia. He mentions how the stream often serves as a residence for the homeless and at one time, himself. As he wanders the water-side, Blythe discusses music's role in staying the clutches of jail and maybe death.

Argott's film isn't a traditional biopic; we don't get a comprehensive view of the band's history. Instead, we meet a band in one phase of its career. Lamb of God is a band that eschews all pretentiousness, the glitzy trappings of fame and are a group of guys that, given what we see, could very well be anyone's neighbor. We hear bass player John Campbell joking about driving a Prius and its lack of heavy metal glamour. Though the band is a Grammy nominee and has opened for Metallica, they retain an approachable, personable relationship with their fans.

Bandmembers weigh in on various subjects, ranging from Blythe's one-time alcohol dependency, which made him difficult to be around, to his eventual recovery and their fans, which they hold in the highest regard.

We meet a few of said devotees, including a Columbian taxi driver living a hardscrabble life in Bogota. We learn members of his family ill-advisedly joined Pablo Escobar's drug syndicate, only to die violently. This tragedy in the young man's life and his suffering is mitigated by Lamb of God's music; a source of inspiration and a means to dispel aggression. The same applies to another fan in India, a female supporter who suffers much scorn for her passion from a community whose rigid codes of behaviour permit women little freedom. We also hear from other Indian fans, many who have driven from great distances to see the band.

The band's identity is deftly and economically conveyed in little screen time. And just as one grows comfortable with the idea that we are viewing a conventional documentary portrait, the film morphs into something else. While on the 2012 tour, Lamb of God's stop in Prague was marred by the arrest of Randy Blythe for the alleged death of a fan during the band's 2010 tour. Unaware of the fan's death or the manslaughter charge during the intervening two years, Blythe and the band are flabbergasted. Blythe is arrested and held without bail. The tour is cut short while the band returns home to rally legal counsel--American and Czech, which incurs a considerable expense. The crisis strengthens the band's bond and resolve, as the members auction off gear and memorabilia to fund Blythe's defense.

The film's focus shifts to the case and how the band handles the adversity. As lawyers build his defense, we see video footage believed to be of the deceased fan at the concert which could have exonerated Blythe but another fan comes forward to identify himself as the subject of the video. Blythe says later he could have avoided the trial altogether, returning home without facing extradition but he chooses to face possible punitive measures and ultimately the victim's family.

The violence that reigns at Lamb of God shows and most heavy metal concerts in the way of mosh pits and head-banging is laid bare but we see in the video footage that Blythe merely assisted the security guard in pushing the fan back into the audience after he had climbed onstage. What looks like typical heavy metal fan mayhem takes a tragic turn when the fan injures himself then slips into a coma before dying a few days later.

The harrowing drama surrounding the trial and the emotional devastation it wreaks on Randy Blythe and the band effectively deglamourizes the rock-and-roll life many would rather see as romantic. Of course someone not a fan of heavy metal might draw the erroneous conclusion that injuries and death are common at concerts, when nothing could be further from the truth.

I liked Argott's film and came away impressed with the band and band-members. Their solidarity in the face of adversity, their concern for fan's welfare, their articulacy and inviolable integrity are all apparent. If the film has any flaw its lack of actual music. Brief concert clips and a few scenes with the bandmembers tooling around on their instruments are pretty much all we're allowed to hear. It may not have occurred to Argott that not everyone viewing the movie will be familiar with the music. I myself had only a passing knowledge of the band. The manslaughter trial is certainly a valid narrative approach but I would like to know something about the music that helped change Blythe's (and maybe the other bandmember's) lives. Argott's film comes dangerously close to becoming a VH-1 Behind the Music episode; a show famous for fetishizing band tragedies. But it doesn't.

As the Palaces Burn is definitely worth a viewing. It has energy, volcanic spirit and dark moments, both sad and tragic. One might come away a fan of Lamb of God; wanting more of their music. I myself am intrigued.

Third Person

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Paul Haggis/Starring: Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Adrian Brody, Mila Kunis, James Franco, Maria Bello, Kim Basinger, Loan Chabanol and Moran Atias

I wasn't a fan of Haggis' Oscar-winning film Crash; I found it overrated, over-cooked and underwritten and I have to say I had the same reaction to Third Person. Both boast show-offy multiple character plots which occasionally intersect but seem forced and often phony. His new film has an impressive cast and exciting locations: Rome, Paris and New York. Beautiful people in beautiful locations. Should be enough, right?

Liam Neeson plays Michael, a Pulitzer-prize winning author who is having an affair with a beautiful, younger woman named Anna (Olivia Wilde) who is both repelled by and attracted to the writer. As a writer herself, her interest in Michael isn't relegated to romance; she also seeks his authorial approbation, which he is reluctant to give after reading a short story she has submitted to him. Meanwhile, Michael is estranged from his wife Elaine (Kim Basinger) though he talks to her almost daily. She is well-aware of his affair with Anna but refuses to abandoned the marriage.

Another story is set in Rome, where a shady businessman Scott (Adrian Brody) steals fashion designs from top Italian designers for knock-offs manufactured in sweat-shops. He becomes involved with a gypsy woman (a culture known more appropriately as Roma) named Monika (Moran Atias), whose daughter is being held by Romanians. To get her daughter back, she must come up with 5,000 euros or risk her 8 year-old becoming a prostitute. Scott offers to help and in doing so, becomes hopelessly entangled in the dangerous effort to recover her daughter. As the story develops, it becomes increasingly clear Scott may be the target of an elaborate scam though he has fallen in love with Monika.

In yet another story, Mila Kunis' Julia is battling James Franco's Rick for visitation rights for her son, whose life she unintentionally imperiled when she demonstrated how he could possibly suffocate playing with a sleeping-bag. Though Rick is adamant about Julia not seeing the boy, Rick's girlfriend Sam sympathizes with the mother and eventually aids in her attempt to see him. Julia is her own worst enemy, as she can't hold a job for any period of time and is generally a mess. Assisting her legally is Theresa (Maria Bello); a tough, pragmatic lawyer who has little patience for Julia's irresponsibility.

You know Haggis will somehow have the various storylines and characters mingle in many contrived, unnatural ways. When Julia, working as a maid, scribbles an important address of where she is to meet her lawyer and Rick for a custody hearing, she accidentally leaves the paper in the hotel room, which just happens to be Michael's. He uses the same paper to write down his wife's phone number, which falls into Anna's hands then ultimately, back into Julia's later. Haggis works hard to make all this seem seamless, but like Crash, it screams overwrought plotting.

It also becomes strange when we know Julia is working in the Parisian hotel where Michael and Anna are keeping rooms though her custody hearing is in New York. This isn't a filmmaker's embarassing flub but another plot device too clever for its own good. How she can be in two places at once becomes clear later in the film, as does the other oddities in the story. What also is brought to light is why the stories all share a common theme of children in extremis.

It is Michael and Anna's story that serves as the sun in this solar system. Michael's head-games, in which Anna is a willing participant, begin to grow tiresome as the two lovers are on again, off again while his wife pleads for his return. We also learn Anna has been hiding a secret; one that offers a cliched explanation as to why she prefers older men like Michael. It comes off as cheap Freudian fallback and is an eye-roller.

Eventually everything and everyone is absorbed in the denouement which is one more Haggis-ism I couldn't endure. I guess I give him points for the attempt.

Because the stories are labored, many of the actor's performances appear over-boiled, but the the final scenes may explain that as well. Noone in the cast comes off as all that sincere though they try hard to sell their characters. Neeson, a very skilled actor, has trouble playing a convincing writer. Though his publisher informs him the quality of his writing has declined and finds his latest work unpublishable, he writes a chapter of new novel, which shamelessly co-opts his lover's personal life as content. This is all fine and good, but Michael's prose is so hackneyed, it couldn't even pose a qualitative challenge to Judith Krantz, though his publisher doesn't seem to notice.

I think Haggis would like to manage the multiple character/storylines with the skill, precision and power Altman once did in films like Nashville or Short Cuts. Unfortunately he lacks that directors unerring instinct for character and plausible, multiple plot streams.

When everything wrapped and the credits scrolled, I left the theater thinking how stunning Olivia Wilde looked, then I thought about what I needed from the A&P.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Matt Reeves/Starring: Andy Serkis, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell and Judy Greer

Director Matt Reeves, of Cloverfield fame, captains the latest Planet of the Apes installment, which is set some years in the future. A monkey virus has wiped out a chunk of the world population while the self-emancipated apes from Rise of the Planet of the Apes thrive and multiply.

We see the ape community in their arboreal village, somewhere outside San Francisco, hunting as a pack and establishing their species quite nicely. Caesar (Andy Serkis), the ape's charismatic leader, lives in his own tree condo with his wife Cornelia (Judy Greer) and son. The familial unit has added a baby brother, so all seems well.

Though the apes live harmoniously in the forest, human struggle to survive in the virus-ravaged city. The uneasy peace that exists between the species is upheld more by a lack of contact than a negotiated pact.

The state of relations becomes complicated when the apes happen upon humans in the forest, which rouses the hairier primates into a frenzy. Wary of the humans, Caesar forcefully commands them to "Go," which reveals tha ape's aptitude for human speech. Frightened, the humans return to the city of San Francisco, which has been largely reclaimed by nature; with vines choking nearly every surface. Living without power, the humans hatch a plan to reboot it, which involves returning to the ape-infested, ape-controlled forest to locate the generator.

Meanwhile, a rogue ape named Koba, who despises the humans, hatches a plan of his own to depose Caesar and launch an assault on the humans. Koba finds a pretext, which involves shooting Caesar with a gun recently-acquired from the humans then strategically abandoning it. When the apes look for the culprit, they see the gun and assume the humans are the aggressors. Believing Caesar to be dead after the fall from his tree, the apes follow Koba as they lay seige to the city. They quickly gain ingress, eliminating every human they find.

The humans are led by Malcolm, Caesar's counterpart, who is eager to maintain peace at all costs though he finds the humans almost inevitably drawn into an armed conflict with the apes.

Violence and death ensue as Koba and the apes overwhelm the humans, driving them further into the city's recesses. What follows is not just a humans vs apes conflict but Caesar's struggle to restore his leadership

I could never understand the appeal of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which boasted impressive ape CGI but was really Hollywood's ploy to establish a franchise that movie-execs won't let die. The Charlton Heston movie spawned several film iterations and a 70s' T.V. series, but somehow Hollywood feels we need more. Tim Burton's wretched re-make of the original should have discouraged any further plans for resurrection but here we are again. Rise wasn't bad but left me yawning, just as Dawn has.

Though Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has something to say about something, I'm hard-pressed to know what the hell it is. In one scene Caesar, upon reflection, realizes the apes and humans have much in common. I thought, is this all you want to convey? Does this serve as the film's pearly-wisdom? And did it take 130 minutes of screentime and my twelve bucks to articulate that?

The performances are fine and the CGI-rendered simians are done well, but there is nary a plot development that can't be anticipated within the first 15 minutes. I thought San Francisco looked particularly good as a re-imagined nature-reclamation, but I've grown fatigued with post-apocalyptic, on-screen depictions of roadways clogged with cars and urban, structural atrophy. If Hollywood summer films aren't busy visiting Biblical destruction on cities, they're busy showing us New York or Paris or San Francisco as de-populated, decayed, concrete mausoleums.

Ten years ago, the now classic Napoleon Dynamite was released late Summer with a budget of $400,000. It was hilarious, offbeat, original and unforgettable with now-iconic characters. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has an Olympian budget of $170 million and apart from some cool visuals, has little else to recommend it. Somehow Hollywood never learns the crucial lessons. I don't know if anyone has ever crunched the numbers, but what the industry spends on Summer blockbusters must exceed the budgets of some third-world nations.

I'm fine with apes taking over. If they ever wrest control of the movie studios from the dull-witted committees overseeing productions, we might finally have a Planet of the Apes story I might be eager to see.

I propose the next film--already in pre-production--be titled After-Dawn but Just Before Mid-Morning and Noon Though Late-Afternoon Isn't Out of Question of the Planet of The Apes.
Yeah, I might pay to see that.

Calvary

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: John Michael McDonagh/Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly and M. Emmet Walsh

John Michael McDonagh follows up his irresistable The Guard with a darker, more dramatic film that is provocative and ultimately tragic. The exploration of morality and the Catholic church's struggle to stay relevant are the film's more salient concerns. It is a film that leaves you breathless and silently reflective with its power and its willingness to portray the church critically. It is also brave enough to examine the contradictions and incomprehensibilities of God and the Church and how both often fail to address both mundane and deeper issues that trouble those seeking psychic or spiritual succor.

The film wastes little time thrusting us into the story. Father James Lavelle (a superb Brendan Gleeson) is a priest in a small, Irish seaside town who receives a death threat during a confession. The confessor first reveals how he had been orally and anally raped repeatedly by a priest in his youth; a shocking confession which Father Lavelle is ill-prepared to hear. The confessor asks that the Father meet him on a beach in a week, at which time he will kill him. Father Lavelle doesn't panic or become hysterical but receives the threat calmly.

Lavelle eventually seeks advice from his superior; Bishop Montgomery, whose casual reaction is almost funny. The Bishop essentially leaves the matter to Lavelle's discretion. Though Lavelle tells the chief of police he is aware of the confessor's identity, it remains a mystery to us.

We meet the townsfolk who see Lavelle on a regular basis; some seeking advice or counsel while others seek absolution for crimes or thoughts of suicide.

Among those Lavelle hears out or dispenses advice to in his daily encounters are an aging American writer (M. Emmet Walsh), a young man with a feeble romantic life, a promiscuous woman named Veronica (Orla O'Rourke) who was recently abused by either her husband Jack (Chris O' Dowd) or by her lover Simon (Isaach De Bankole). Another is a wealthy, cynical, amoral man whose wife and kids have left him, a doctor who has little patience or tolerance for Lavelle's faith or the church, a foreign woman whose husband is killed in a local traffic accident, and an incarcerated serial killer whose insincere pleas for absolution anger Lavelle. Lavelle also contends with a young hustler who offers his services indiscriminately, a fellow priest whose lack of passion and integrity elicits an angry rebuke from Lavelle and his daughter Fiona, who has just recently attempted suicide.

It is important to itemize the characters, because each has a unique relationship with Father Lavelle, with varying degrees of suspicion, contempt, cynicism, or trust. It is fascinating to see how low the Catholic church has sunk in most people's estimation and how little respect is accorded priests. Lavelle's committment to his faith is undeniable. His love and concern for those who seek his help is also without question but he is constantly the target of derision by most of the town.

As the days are counted off--with subtitles--to the fateful meeting, we see that almost any of the townspeople, save the women, could conceivably be the Confessor.

It would be reductive to interpret the film as anti-catholic. The film doesn't condemn the church but it doesn't spare it scorn and biting criticism (all justified) either. It also doesn't withhold bewilderment of how God can forsake his creations in horrific ways. In one scene where Lavelle sits in the local pub, the local doctor (Aidan Gillen) approaches his table to tell the Father about a three-year old boy who was once improperly anesthetized, which rendered the child deaf, dumb and paralyzed. The doctor asks Father Lavelle to imagine how frightening it must have been for the child to wake in a prison where he felt abandoned. Why the doctor would share such a horrific story perplexes the Father but it underscores how religion and the church ineffectively explain why a loving and merciful God could permit such a tragedy.

As the day approaches, Father Lavelle becomes the target of harrassment and violence. Someone burns the church to the ground though the townsfolk seem to be blithely unconcerned. Another grisly act is committed during the week; with culpability pointing to the Confessor but the film effectively blurs the distinction between those with a solid motive and those without.

We see that Father Lavelle's spiritual ministrations have a profound effect on some while others remain disdainful or suspicious. Every character's story is moving in its own way and how Father Lavelle contends with each not only demonstrates his versatility for dealing with an array of problems, but his capacity to suffer scorn and ridicule. He is a Christ-figure, to be sure; and his imminent meeting with the Confessor is his Calvary. The murder threat and the town's hostility are spiritual tests of sorts; trials that challenge his capacity to be compassionate and loving. That he has had his own troubled past with drink and neglecting his daughter makes his spiritual resolve all the more compelling.

McDonagh's camera work is striking. Stunning landscapes, captured in long shot and in slow moving aerial shots, coupled with subtle interior compositions, make for startling visual contrasts.

The numerous shots of the surrounding landscape, all visually arresting, present a kind of Biblical Eden where the storm and stresses of the character's lives play out. I liked the way McDonagh composed the actors; sometimes slightly off-center, near the frames periphery, which lent backgrounds and colors accentuation. We also see the same with outdoor cinematography, where faces and people share screen-space with the sea or a landscape.

Though the supporting cast is outstanding, it is Gleeson's exceptional presence around which everything and everyone seems to orbit. He wears his flaws and virtues and his unshakeable morality and integrity as he does his black, priestly vestments. The performance is astounding, one that will no doubt remain prominent when the year-end critical encomiums are lavishly showered on award nominees.

Calvary is something to see. It is a powerful, sometimes disturbing but achingly beautiful film that renders one thoughtfully silent but also exhilarated. It isn't often one gets to feel that way after a film.

Deliver Us From Evil

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Scott Derrickson/Starring: Eric Bana, Edgar Ramirez and Olivia Munn

Based on former NYPD officer Ralph Sarchie's book Beware the Night, Derrickson's film portrays Sarchie's experience with demonic possession while serving on the force. The always likeable Eric Bana plays Sarchie while a buff-looking Joel McHale plays his knife-wielding sidekick Butler. I'm more than a little weary of Based On horror flicks where we're supposed to believe the film subject's encounters have at least a whiff of reality behind them. Of course the director has no obligation to traffic in facts but it always seems a bit unfair to claim authenticity then play fast and loose with reality. No matter; it's always best to turn off one's skepticism and enjoy (if the filmmakers allow it). After-all, why do horror films need to be connected to real life events to be thrilling or scary? I think you get my point.

While Sarchie and Butler make the rounds, they are called to investigate a disturbing incident at the Bronx Zoo, where a mother has thrown her two-year old into the lion's pit. When they arrive, they learn the child was hospitalized and deemed in good condition but the mother; a highly-unstable-looking and tattered mess, sits on a park bench, awaiting questioning. When Sarchie tries to question her, she mutters the lyrics to the Doors song, Break on Through, though not with Jim Morrison's urgency. The woman becomes violent, biting Sarchie on the arm. While dealing with his injury, Sarchie and his fellow officers also see a shadowy figure inside the Lion's den who doesn't respond to repeated calls. When Sarchie gains access to the den to question the individual, he slips into the darkness. As he follows said person into the lion's inner-den, he comes face to face with two lions and narrowly escapes an attack.

The strange incident leads to a related-child abuse call which involves a man who seems to be connected to the Bronx Zoo incident. Later, Sarchie discovers the Zoo suspect and two other men were Iraq War veterans who now work as painters for the Zoo suspect's business. The leader of the outfit was on a painting job at the Zoo at the time of Sarchie's investigation. As Sarchie hunts down the leader, he meets a priest in plain clothes named Mendoza who believes the officer is on the trail of something sinister. Sarchie scoffs at talk of exorcisms and spirits but as the investigation unfolds, he begins to see the case does indeed involve a malevolent spirit; one the soldiers accidentally set free when entering a secret cave in Iraq.

The scares are very few and the stories and characters all have a patina of tiredness about them. I was more interested and impatient to learn what the soldiers actually encountered--expository information held from the audience until later in the film. Unfortunately it seems a little anti-climactic when it is revealed.

As brilliant as Friedkin's The Exorcist was and is, it has cursed every horror film dealing with demons and demonic possession ever since. A movie can't be made about the subject without tripping over Friedkin's film. Deliver Us From Evil even begins in Iraq, as The Exorcist did. Seemingly obligatory scenes where people speak in voices not their own, hiss and wear cuts and lesions on their bodies have all been done to bloody death. Why do demons bother possessing the bodies of inconsequential people? Why don't they ever inhabit the bodies of presidents and prime-ministers? One would think Satan and his minions would have a more pressing agenda than pestering a painting company. If the nether-world has time to kill, why not menace Starbucks' baristas or that annoying woman in the ads for Progressive Insurance?

As Mendoza and Sarchie get closer to the center of the mystery, the officer's wife and daughter become a target of the demonic painting company (I hate when that happens). The case then becomes personal for Sarchie as he desperately tries to find where the suspects are holding his family. The story culminates in a spirited (forgive the expression) exorcism, in which Sarchie and Mendoza hope to get the possessed group leader to reveal his wife and daughter's whereabouts; conducting the ritual inside a police interrogation room--a very implausible development but for the movie, kind of fun. The actual exorcism is the highlight of the film and very intense though not exactly scary. The same can be said for the rest of the movie. I found myself trying-not-very-hard to squelch yawns throughout much of the film. Maybe its exorcism-fatigue. I feel I've seen so many in the past decade I could conduct one myself.

Ancient Latin/Syrian writings found in the Iraqi cave are later explained as doors which evil entities can use to enter our world. The demonic group leaves said writings in various areas in the Bronx then paint over them to conceal the doors. One can see now why The Doors music was either mentioned or appeared on the soundtrack. This recalls the Denzel Washington movie Fallen where every spirit-infested individual sings the Stones' Time is on My Side. Didn't think I'd remember where you got the idea, eh Derrickson? I guess the damned have a thing for The Doors. I guess I'm one of them.

Eric Bana is good, as is his convincing Bronx accent, and the movie is far from campy but it just left me bored, bored, bored. Derrickson has dealt with demonic possession before in The Exorcism of Emily Rose so he's no stranger to the subject. He is deft at creating mood and providing a few (very few) frights but adapting a story that purports to be authentically supernatural isn't a free toll to chills and thrills. I stepped out into the multiplex lobby afterward, emerging not from a terrifying experience, but grateful the demon menacing Sarchie wouldn't see my glazed eyes and droopy eye-lids. Maybe I'll see him at Starbucks.