The Equalizer

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Antoine Fuqua/Starring: Denzel Washington, Marton Czokas, Chloe Grace Moretz, Bill Pullman and Melissa Leo

What is there that Robert McCall, the mysterious habitue of a neighborhood cafe and employee of a home improvement store can't do? He dispenses health tips to his fellow employees, helps train an overweight co-worker for a security guard test and generously offers inspirational, you-can-be-whatever-you-want-to-be advice to a call girl seeking a better life. He lives his life in an orderly manner that would make most obsessive-compulsives shudder. Not enough for you? Well, he also has little patience for the profanity his Home-Mart colleagues utter and chides them for their junk-food intake. The man is so good and straight he urinates holy water.

Oh, and one more thing; he can also thrash (to put it mildly) a room full of Russian underworld slimes who threaten his call girl friend Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz), with a frightening array of martial arts and weapon skills and can repurpose mundane home-improvement merchandise for lethal ends.

Can such a man possibly exist in this world? In this dimension? In director Antoine Fuqua's (Training Day) world, he can.

The Equalizer, Fuqua's monumentally silly action flick, is enjoyable at times but if gritty realism is your thing, then brother (or sister), you've come to the wrong place. It features yet another character so common in multiplexes these days; a seemingly ordinary man who happens to be a former CIA operative; one who has retained his deadly training.

Denzel Washington plays the aforementioned Robert McCall, a man with god-like unflappability who lives alone and leads a life that is deceptively prosaic. He works a shift at Home Mart while his insomniac evenings leads him to his local cafe, where he habitually occupies the same seat and drinks tea made from a teabag he carries on his person. McCall arranges the book he brings along, the silverware and his napkin just right; leaving nothing to casual randomness. His book is The Old Man and the Sea; a selection chosen from a 100-Novels-Everyone-Should-Read list that his former wife worked most of her way through. He chats about Hemingway's novel with Teri, who like McCall, is a cafe regular.

After seeing Teri sitting at the counter on consecutive nights, McCall discovers she is being pimped by a Russian scumbag named Vladimir. Ever the paladin, McCall offers to buy Teri's freedom from Vladimir after he sees her battered face following a beating she suffered at the Russian's hands.

McCall bravely enters Vladimir's office one night to bargain; offering a hefty sum. Vladimir and his minions are naturally contemptuous of McCall and his offer. Before McCall leaves the office, he locks the door then scans Vladimir's men in an almost-scientific manner before unleashing death; sparing no gruesome or sadistic means to accomplish his bloody goal.

McCall's brutal dispatch of Vladimir and his men comes to the attention of their boss, who deploys another heavily tatooed Russian named Teddy (Marton Csokas) to find the man responsible for the carnage. Teddy's specialty is troubleshooting for the underworld overlord and he executes his mission in a psychotically impassive, amoral and vicious manner, suffering no impediments.

The film becomes a cat and mouse game between Teddy and McCall that proceeds in a predictable, mechanical fashion until the preposterous final showdown inside the Home Mart, where Teddy's thugs hold McCall's fellow employees hostage. Once McCall arrives, you can guess the rest.

The one and only scene I found deliriously entertaining was McCall's confrontation with Vladimir and his men. The fact that he actually times the violent bloodletting speaks volumes about his obsession for order. Alas, the rest of the movie is what it is.

I can't account for the casting of Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman, who have brief, thankless and bland roles as McCall's former associates. As talented as Denzel Washington is, he is no stranger to slumming, but this script is even more of a slum-stroll than he's accustomed to. Chloe Grace Moretz's role as the hooker-with-musical-ambitions is as thin as frost while Marton Csokas' tattooed torso probably has more detail than his character description.

As always with films like The Equalizer, absurdities in narrative and character are taken a bit too seriously. The film could have used some of the self-aware silliness we find in The Expendables series.

Hey, at least we finally have a hero who reads books! Why has that never happened before? I guess it's pretty tough to imagine Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzeneggar or Bruce Willis cracking the spine of Don Quixote--one of the other books McCall enjoys in the cafe.

Was I mistaken in believing a sequel was hinted at? Why bother speculating; it's as certain as a sunrise.

The Maze Runner

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Wes Ball/Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Will Poulter, Blake Cooper, Thomas Brodie Sangster, Kaya Scodelario and Patricia Clarkson

Continuing the teens-in-dystopia story trend, Wes Ball's first feature film The Maze Runner bucks the reverse gender type-casting we've seen in The Hunger Games and Divergent with it's legion of male characters.

Movie audiences are threatened with genre-fatigue and if the thought of sitting through one more film of this stripe induces groaning, one can breath easier knowing The Maze Runner brings something new and thrilling to the table.
Some elements of the genre are familiar; the young individual's struggle against a government or Big Brother-like entity he or she is almost powerless to comprehend or effectively fight; the struggle to prove oneself to peers, and the realization that said individual is exceptional in some way, which is revealed in the course of the story.

But Wes Ball's film, unlike its aforementioned cousins, relies heavily on mystery; much of it cleverly witheld from the audience until late in the story. The who or what behind the mystery is what fuels the narrative engine; keeping us riveted and engaged.

Dylan O'Brien plays Thomas, a young man suddenly deposited into a community of males mostly his age by way of an elevator that rises from below ground to the surface of what is called The Glade. Thomas is unable to offer the boys who pull him from the lift his name, for it is common for new arrivals to not remember their names or identities.

What exactly is The Glade? We (and Thomas) learn it is a lush, sprawling plot of land bounded by towerering walls of impenetrable-looking concrete the inhabitants can neither see over or climb. This strange place serves as a kind of prison whose purpose and design the boys/young men have yet to fathom.

Thomas meets the community leader Gally (Will Poulter); who is efficient, orderly and intolerant of anything or anyone that upsets the order he's helped maintain.

Life in the Glade seems utopian; the community grows its own crops, builds its own shelters and respects Gally's de facto leadership. But no utopia can truly be regarded as such when its inhabitants are denied access to the outer world, which is what motivates Thomas when he sees what appears to be an opening in one section of the massive, concrete wall. Before he can enter, he is stopped and warned about what lies outside the Glade. We learn an intricate maze, whose walls shift nightly, denies the boys escape from whatever and wherever they find themselves. Patrolling the maze are cyborg-like creatures called Grievers; a kind of spider-scorpion hybrid who are fast, nearly indestructible and deadly. As someone ominously states; noone has ever encountered a Griever and lived to tell the tale.

In the community, a group with a specific skill set are Maze-runners, who explore the maze daily in hopes of finding a way out. After Thomas defies the community rule about not venturing out into the maze, he encounters a Griever and barely escapes, though another runner is "stung" and nearly killed. Thomas' action earns him Gally's wrath, thus creating an adversarial relationship between the two young men. Gally sees Thomas' arrival as something inimical to the community while Thomas sees Gally's disdain for everything that disturbs the status quo as dangerous complacency. Thomas' regard for Gally is very reasonable, considering the leader's risk-aversion and his stubborn refusal to organize a more proactive escape.

One day, the community's attention is drawn to the lift and the arrival of another abductee. This time it is a female; one who knows Thomas' name, which perplexes and renders everyone suspicious. Elements from Thomas' past begin to appear in his dreams and memories and the young woman, Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) appears in his recollections, though he is as baffled as his Glade-mates as to the significance of her presence.

The film dispenses expository information thriftily, which helps stoke our curiosity. It is also refreshing to see characters employ their reasoning and wits as they close in on the mystery of the maze and who has plotted the Glade inhabitants' abduction. If the film has a socio-political agenda, it may be allegorized in the final shot, which carries a subtle, environmental message.

I can say no more about the plot lest I expose the mystery but I will say Thomas learns he and Teresa were unwitting or not-so-unwitting participants in theirs and the community's abduction.

The performances are sound. I especially liked Will Poulter as Gally; the Glade's source of menace and oppression. Dylan O'Brien also acquits himself well, giving us our first male Katniss Everdeen.

A plot-driven film like The Maze Runner tends not to place a high premium on visuals but the CGI-rendered Maze and Grievers look substantial and convincing.

The reasons behind the maze and the abductions stretch and strain plausibility but it is intriguing and we learn the whole story is but a teaser for the next installment in what will be--gasp!--a franchise. But unlike Divergent, whose future iterations threaten audiences with future drowsiness, The Maze Runner stimulates more curiosity and questions. Whether they can be satisfactorily answered is up to the filmmakers. We care what happens to the characters--an always elusive but crucial consideration when crafting a franchise. If a ludicrous plot fails the audience, a film can still be redeemed with compelling characters who think and feel. And if the creators of the Maze Runner franchise commit this seemingly obvious idea to heart and head, failure will most likely not be an option.

Before Snowfall

Director: Hisham Zaman/Starring: Abdullah Taher, Suzan Ilir and Bahar Ozen

Hisham Zaman's Before Snowfall is a brilliant jewel; a singular gem both original and captivating. It seems all the more incredible when one considers the extraordinary performances by the non-professional cast. That the story begins with the beauty of arid, deserty Iraqi-Kurdistan, unfolds in the blighted, city-streets of Istanbul and ends in a Norwegian wintry countryside is a testament to Zaman's feverish and expansive imagination. His film is unsentimental, immediate and powerful.

Zaman's film makes us a travelling companion to the protagonist Siyar (Abdullah Taher), a young man shouldering man-of-the-family duties for his mother and two sisters in a small village in Iraqi-Kurdistan. This rural world seems so far removed from that of iPads, iPhones and Twitter it could just as well be Alpha Centauri as a middle-eastern country.

Siyar's sister Nermin (Bahar Ozen), is to be married to the son of a wealthy and influential Kurd named Aga (Mohammed Tejir). Aga arrives in a convoy of cars and is attended by an intimidating entourage of male relatives, who are hosted by Siyar's family. It is particularly unnerving to see the young Siyar face a group of older men as they negotiate his sister Nermin's marriage to Aga's son.

Siyar discovers his sister is seeing a man not her fiance and before he can put a stop to the assignations, Nermin and her lover flee the village. Facing familial disgrace and dishonor, Siyar travels to Istanbul, where he learns his sister has taken up residence with her lover. With the powerful Aga's resources and information, Siyar is able to follow leads and gather information as to her whereabouts. It is tacitly acknowledged by all concerned that he means to kill Nermin to restore family honor.

Taher was well-cast. His intense, burning eyes and penetrating gaze are a perfect compliment to his monomaniacal committment to his mission, which he pursues with demonic determination.

After an associate of Aga's provides Siyar a room in a run-down hotel, he continues his search but with little luck. One day, while buying food from a street vendor, he is robbed by two street urchins, one of whom he chases with the same determination that brought him to Istanbul. After catching the thief, he learns his would-be robber is actually a girl named Evin, who he eventually befriends.

While Siyar searches for his sister, he is introduced to Evin's hardscrabble life; an existence defined by slumlife and petty theft.

Siyar manages to track Nermin, who sees that her knife-wielding brother means to kill her. In spite of Siyar's efforts, his sister manages a narrow escape. The next day, Siyar discovers his sister has left Istanbul for Berlin. When Evin learns of his imminent departure, she asks to follow him to Berlin, where she hopes find her father.

Their passage to Berlin comes only after a series of struggles, which are accomplished by dangerous, clandestine means. As they and other refugees brave the harrowing obstacles along the way, they are captured in a Greek forest by police who demand the name of their smuggler. Trying to spare Evin the police officers' humiliating demand to strip, Siyar names the smugglers; an act that will carry devastating repercussions.

Siyar discovers his sister has eluded him yet again in Berlin, which means crossing another border and searching another city; this time Oslo. Meanwhile, Siyar and Evin find her father, which proves to be a heart-rending disappointment. As a romantic attachment to Siyar burgeons, Evin follows him on his north-bound quest.

While Siyar meets with another contact in Oslo, a casual meeting between Evin and a stranger proves to be very ominous.

Siyar's search leads to an inevitable, unforeseen and tragic conclusion. We see how the fallout from Nermin's defiant disregard for tradition has a far-reaching, powerful and life-altering effect on her family and indirectly, Evin's relationship with Siyar.

I've seen few films in 2014 as good as Before Snowfall. It is a film with startling contrasts: The innocence of the rural vs the worldly experience of the urban, traditional values vs protean, moral relativism and circumscribed female freedom vs more unbounded female liberties, to mention a few.

The film also has us consider how Siyar is rigidly tethered to hidebound, cultural, moral codes; suffocating rules from which Nermin hopes to flee. How this morality is unreasonably conceived, dictated and enforced by males leaves Siyar, Nermin and their younger sister with little self-determination and few means to liberate themselves from said rules they are unable or unwilling to defy. Of course this can be weighed against Siyar and his culture's sacrosanct regard for family honor, whose transgression provides a reasonable pretext to kill--even family members.

It is also mind-boggling to measure the impact of Nermin's refusal to allow two parties of men to determine her future. More so is Siyar's fierce, unwavering pursuit of his goal and how the code he risks his life to protect and uphold clashes with the crude don't snitch code of the street.

Talented directors can coax a terrific performance from anyone; professionals and non-professionals alike. Zaman does so with consummate skill.

There is much about the film's visuals that will leave a lasting impression. Images of desert beauty mingle with shots of slum-decay and seedy, filthy backstreets. The opening scene of Siyar being mummified in plastic wrap in preparation for a smuggling is unforgettably surreal.
Before Snowfall is a masterfully told story; one not likely to take flight from someone's memory or imagination. It is a universe unto itself, one whose limitless reaches invite limitless interpretations.

Pride

:**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Matthew Warchus/Starring: Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West and Paddy Considine

Based on the true story of the 1984 UK miner's strike, Pride dramatizes the unlikely alliance of the gay/lesbian group known as LGSM (Lesbian, Gays Support the Miners) and a Welsh mining town and the conflict that arose from the two disparate cultures uniting for a purpose. Identifying with the miner's mistreatment in the hands of an unsympathetic Thatcherite government, the LGSM starts a campaign to raise money for the strikers.

Led by a charismatic, young, gay man named Mark (Ben Schnetzer), the LGSM is formed as an activist group whose first campaign is to raise money for families of striking miners. The small group claims a gay/lesbian London bookstore as their center of operations.

The film firmly establishes the vehement anti-gay/lesbian climate of early mid-1980s'; showing us people who are very familiar with the hostility and violence their culture sometimes arouses.

The group chooses a small, Welsh mining town as a recipient of their fund-raising but are apprehensive; harboring no illusions about the virulent resistance they will most likely encounter. After the LGSM acquire a van to transport them to Wales, a young member of the group named Joe (George McKay) deceives his conservative parents into believing his trip is nothing more than a school-related school baking class. We know sooner or later his deception will be exposed, which adds a pinch of tension to a story already fraught.

As the group makes their way to the Welsh burg, the townsfolk prepare for LGSM's arrival. Though many are hospitably inclined, some fear the group and what they represent. Undaunted by anti-gay sentiment, some members of the community, lead by town representative Dai (Paddy Considine) embrace the group's altruistic agenda and their identity. Among the sympathetic citizens are Cliff (Bill Nighy) and Hefina (Imelda Staunton), who wield a certain measure of influence in the town.

The miners are naturally suspicious of the LGSM and some, as we might expect, are hostile but as the strike wears on and the miner's hardships mount, the town slowly begins to warm to the group and welcome their fundraising efforts.

While the group shuttles between London and Wales, Joe continues his deception until his mother uncovers evidence of his double life, which leads predictably to his alienation from his home. If the group is forced to contend with domestic intolerance, they also have to deal with the relatively new threat of AIDS, which hovers menacingly over the gay community.

Though the story takes place in the mid-80s', which isn't that far in the past, it is astonishing to see how far the western world has come in its attitudes about gay/lesbian rights. If all the battles have yet to be won, at least the film serves as a progress yardmarker.

The British have created a kind of niche for films like Pride; stories that deal with socio-political events but with the eccentric humor for which the English are known. Made in Dagenham and Pirate Radio are but a couple of examples.

I may have chuckled a couple of times but I found the drama a bit more compelling. Though the story is based on fact, it feels like everything about it is canned. I felt I needed only an impression of the characters to chart their actions and behaviors.

The performances are quite good. Ben Schnetzer is quite terrific as the determined realist of the group while Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton are ever exceptional. Paddy Considine could play a pencil sharpener convincingly and make it compelling while Dominic West is also good as the elder gay man of the group who has endured too much intolerance to be altogether optimistic.

The end titles give us biographical information about what became of the various personalities; some successful in various causes, others tragically lost to AIDS. But in spite of the subject matter and its connection to real history, the film just seems like a well-done project rather than something excellently-done. The audience it will play to is the choir so it won't disappoint but won't please either. I would rather come away from a film hating it than feeling etherized indifference, which is my emotional response to Pride. It's an important story about issues that matter even now but that doesn't grant the movie free passage to the empyrean of dramatic/comedic excellence.

If the film had been American, the score would include triumphant orchestral blasts to queue our feelings of elation. That's really all that's missing from the film but bless the Brits for at least avoiding that annoying tendency.

A brother of mine used to say "It's there" whenever he was asked to express an opinion about something he for which he felt a passionate indifference. To assess Pride, one might say:

"It's not bad."
"It's not good."
"It's there."

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Ned Benson/Starring: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Viola Davis, William Hurt, Isabelle Huppert, Bill Hader and Ciaran Hinds

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them is a variation of the film's two other incarnations; Her and Him, which tells the same story but from the different perspectives of the respective characters.

The film already suffers from an unfortunate title. If one had never seen a preview for director Ned Benson's feature film debut, one could think the story a sequel to the Yellow Submarine or a film related to the Beatles.

Jessica Chastain plays Eleanor Rigby, who was christened so after her father showed up for a Beatles reunion that turned out to be a hoax. I guess we can be grateful she wasn't named after some other Beatles' song; I don't think The Disappearance of Rocky Raccoon carries the same gravitas.

After the opening scene where we see Eleanor and her husband Conor Ludlow (James McAvoy) being carried away in the throes of love, we're immediately jarred by what follows. We see Eleanor in an over-the-shoulder shot as she walks along a bridge. She stops, then disappears offscreen. A bystander becomes horrified at what he sees and runs to prevent what becomes a suicide attempt though he fails to reach her in time. She narrowly escapes death after she is pulled from her would-be watery grave.

At this point we don't know why someone so in love would try to off themselves and it is to Benson's credit that he witholds the information, which keeps us intensely curious.

Eleanor, in a delicate emotional state, returns to her parents suburban home to convalesce. Her parents; Julian and Mary Rigby (William Hurt and Isabelle Huppert, respectively) her sister Katy and her nephew provide emotional support as Eleanor recovers.

Meanwhile, her estranged husband Conor desperately tries to keep his failing restaurant in the city afloat but he finds it difficult when his friend and underachieving, uninspired and apathetic chef Stuart (Bill Hader) is more an obstruction than an asset.

As Conor tries to reestablish contact with his wife, Eleanor tries to distract herself by enrolling in a class at city college. Her professor, Lillian Friedman (Viola Davis) was once a colleague of her father's. Lillian is suspicious of Eleanor's motives for taking her course, thinking it might be a lark but accepts her anyway. The two form a friendship over the course of the semester, meeting for coffee after class.

During a moment of subtle exposition, we learn the motive behind Eleanor's suicide attempt: the tragic death of her infant son.

The film does well introducing so many characters; arranging them like satellites around the main protagonists. Eleanor is drawn into the dramas of her family, which are slowly teased out; her father's fear of not providing proper paternal support, her mother's regret about giving up her music to raise a family and her sister Katy's single parent status. But we also learn a little about the people in Conor's life, particularly his father Spencer (Ciaran Hinds); a successful restaurateur who is the object of his son's scorn for his supposed disregard for Conor's mother.

One might think the loss of a child and the subsequent frayed marriage would be enough drama for one film but story insists everyone have their story, which deal with themes of parenting or the lack thereof. This poses a problem for the director; we're asked to feel empathy for so many characters whose stories deserve more time and attention than the film can possibly devote. Though Viola Davis is a powerful presence and her character worthy of screentime, Professor Friedman is little more than a repository of world-weary wisdom for Eleanor but in the end, she dispenses very little that is useful. The same problem applies to the other supporting actors; the three H's: Hurt, Huppert and Hinds, whose stock-in-trade is playing well-rounded characters with depth. If you cast actors as talented as H3, you better serve them characters deep as the Marianas Trench. But given their limited screentime, they are still fun to watch.

The same can be said of Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy. Chastain is a riveting presence in any film. Her luminous beauty and striking red hair almost distract us from her performance, which is typically accomplished. James McAvoy is equally fine but the film as a whole doesn't utilize any of the considerable talents to great effect. It creates interesting situations and backstories but somehow it only touches on them timidly.

It's an error in judgement to sell this movie as a romance. A critic's endorsement is seen on many of the movie posters for the film that read "One of the most romantic love stories ever." Aside from being ridiculous, hyperbolic praise, the statement is also misleading. I wouldn't call a film about a couple dealing with death of their infant a romantic love story, would you? Not that a movie of this ilk needs to avoid romance altogether but this isn't Roman Holiday. Maybe I'm being too unreasonable.

And I have no idea what the Beatles' song has to do with the themes or the narrative in the movie. The use of an iconic rock song in the title smacks of a gimmicky ploy to lure a certain audience. Aside from a few references, the song plays no thematic role in the film.

But ultimately, the problem with the film isn't its silly title. One of the film's major failings is its inability to make one feel anything--aside from a little pity--for Eleanor and Conor's emotional plight and shaky marriage. But I felt little else. I wasn't even interested in the will-they, won't--they issue the final scene addresses definitively.

The song Eleanor Rigby asks, "All the lonely people, where do they all belong?" My response: in a movie that isn't emotionally flat; one better suited to the considerable talents of the cast.

The Skeleton Twins

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Craig Johnson/Starring: Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Ty Burrell and Luke Wilson

The Skeleton Twins is pure independent cinema in every atom of every frame. That isn't a knock but it often feels like it was fitted for an independent film suit before it became a movie. But director Craig Johnson's film can't be shrugged off or dismissed as cliched independent fare, for it is humorously morose and terrifically acted. One might expect Saturday Night Live alums Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader to be in over their heads playing twins who have suicidal issues but the most refreshing surprise about the film are the performances, which are affecting, sometimes funny and convincingly somber.

Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are Milo and Maggie; said twins whose relationship has been displaced by time and geography. We learn the twins haven't seen one another for ten years; estranged not from rancor or a slight but from the natural drift siblings experience over time.

Maggie has just been called to L.A. from her suburban, New York home to be at her brother's side after his failed suicide attempt. It seems a little too coincidental that Maggie should be contemplating suicide just when she receives the phone call about her brother but it's plausible enough, given the eery, almost supernatural bonds twins often share.

She invites him to stay with her in New York and is welcomed by Maggie's husband Lance (Luke Wilson), who seems to be the complete anithesis of everything gay in Milo's personality. As Milo settles into his stay, the siblings and Lance are joined one night for dinner by their new age-besotted mother Judy (Joanna Gleason), whose hokey, spiritual nonsense the twins regard with little more than weary contempt. Maggie makes a point of expressing her disdain for Judy's lousy maternal record, which her mother acknowledges but without contrition. During the course of the film, we learn Milo and Maggie's father committed suicide; a family tragedy from which the twins inherit much psychological baggage.

As Milo finds himself back in his hometown, he visits a former lover, Rich (an excellent Ty Burrell); a former school teacher now bookstore manager. Rich lost his teaching job after his illicit affair with Milo, who was a mere teen-ager at the time. Though the scandal was kept underwraps, Milo's feelings for Rich endure. Rich's reaction to Milo's presence is dismissively hostile, especially after he makes his huband/father status known to him. This hardly discourages Milo as continues to pursue his former lover throughout the story.

We discover Maggie is no happier in her life. Her repeated efforts to have children with Lance have come to naught, which we learn she has sabotaged by secretly taking birth control pills. Though Lance is a good husband--though blandly so--Maggie's dissatisfaction with her marriage is palpable. Maggie also takes classes as an anodyne to the boredom suburban life visits on her. One such class leads to a romance that develops between Maggie and her scuba-diving instructor; a handsome, tattooed Australian or the male incarnation of everything a bored, unfulfilled housewife might desire.

As the story progresses, we see how screwed-up and unhappy the twins are and how they only have objective clarity when considering the other's problems, never their own. Maggie becomes incensed when she learns Milo is seeing his former teacher; a person she sees as seedy while Milo can't understand why his sister witholds truths about her marriage and reluctance to be a mother from Lance.

Some very interesting developments arise. Instead of the film building to a sentimental explosion of forced, tidy outcomes, more unhappy upheaval ensues. A crumb of hope remains but the story clings to messy, open-endedness, which feels truer to life.

We expect Wiig and Hader to handle the film's funnier moments, which they execute with ease but I didn't expect the actors to negotiate the gloomier, more dramatic scenes with power and restraint. Ty Burrell brings so much to the film; his scenes with Hader have urgency, longing and the shame of a life lived dishonestly.

The film makes an honest assessment of the characters and though they seem weighted down by their problems, they are never less than real and make very stupid and very human decisions for which we can empathize. In Craig Johnson's film, we're never allowed to rest where Milo and Maggie are concerned. They are volatile and we're never quite sure how they'll respond to disappointment or the more tragic realities of their lives. Wiig and Hader's performances make for a satisfying film experience even after an ending that seems a little deus ex machina. If it's the film's most glaring misstep, it doesn't scuttle or trivialize what comes before.

Force Majeure

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Ruben Ostlund/Starring: Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Clara Wettergren, Vincent Wettergren and Kristofer Hivju

Force Majeure takes us to so many surreal and wonderful places one might not expect from a film set at a ski resort in the French Alps. Amid breathtaking alpine tableaus and eerily deserted hotel interiors plays a fascinating psychological drama.

Though the film begins with a Swedish family's seemingly mundane ski trip, what slowly unfolds is the wife's alarm at what she perceives is a lack of masculine and fatherly resolve in her husband, which the film uses as a springboard to examine society's perceptions of said masculinity and the male's role as protector in parenting and times of crisis. How society demands its males to be unreasonably heroic in life-threatening situations, despite the very powerful human instinct for self-preservation is a theme very much on Director Ostlund's radar.

The opening scenes of the family being photographed on the slopes of a ski run is a family in its deceptively happy moment of repose. During a mid-day meal on the hotel patio, with a soaring and stunning but ominous snow-packed mountain filling every patron's view, we hear the howitzer-like report of the air-cannons that create artificial avalanches to control dangerous accumulation of snow. As a ferocious wall of snow rushes with frightening velocity down the mountain and toward the lunching patrons, we hear the patron's fearful cries. And as the avalanche smashes forcefully but harmlessly into the building, the dining area is enveloped in a blinding fog of snow and mist, creating a white-out. From behind the powdery curtain we hear the terrified shriek of the parent's daughter and the anguished cries of other patrons.

The scenes following the near-catastrophe show the family resting and returning to the more pleasurable concerns of their vacation. But as the topic of the near-disaster is broached, Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) the wife and mother, begins questioning and censuring her husband Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke) for not coming to the aid of his children during the avalanche's harrowing moments. Tomas rationalizes his behavior, which lays the foundation for more resentment.

Intertitles track the passing days of the vacation as Ebba's shame for her husband's behavior begins to consume her; sometimes finding expression at inconvenient moments. During a dinner with a man and woman who the couple casually meet on the slopes, Ebba's anger and animosity bubbles then erupts, drawing the bewildered couple into the radius of her invective.

The avalanche-incident continues to haunt Tomas and vex Ebba which leaves the children to endure emotional, collateral damage.

The images that accompany the drama are often surreal, casting the narrative in something simultaneously real and fantasy-like. Ski-lift rides pass silently against white, snowy backdrops in which all color and objects are washed from the screen, creating a kind of white void. Medium and long shots of the hotel's interior are equally strange and often reflect the point-of-view of a mysterious maintenance man; a voyeuristic audience-of-one whose silent observations of the family are oddly comical.

The couple are soon joined by their friend Mats (Kristofer Hivju) and his girlfriend, who are soon subjected to Ebba's angry avalanche account of Tomas' supposedly selfish, un-manly regard. Mats defense of Tomas comes off as desperate pleading rather than cogent support for his friend's actions. Later, while Mats and his girlfriend lie in bed, reflecting on Ebba's accusatory tirade, he endures the same challenge to his manhood when she makes a provocative statement about how Mats might react in an identical crisis.

As the vacation drags on, the family begins to emotionally unravel, which prompts Ebba to manufacture a crisis; a kind of machismo test Tomas must pass to regain his wife's respect. And in the final sequence, during a nail-biting bus ride down the mountain, Tomas' earns a measure of vindication for his seemingly unforgivable act of cowardice during the avalanche.

Ostlund's thoughtful examination of heroic masculinity is absorbing and asks much of our critical thinking. The title, which literally means superior strength is an ironic nod to the themes on male gender roles Ostlund pursues through most of the film.

I found the film absorbing and the characters superbly portrayed. Kuhnke and Kongsli offer searing performances while Kristofer Hivju's striking appearance of wild, viking-like red hair and raging beard make him seem like some ideal of manhood sprung forth from the couple's imagination.

Beautifully shot, the alpine milieu is like a alien moon from the far side of Saturn. The wintry abyss that threatens to engulf the family also leaves us with the odd illusion of them being untethered to any earthly reality. Sound also plays a key role in the film. The booming sounds emitted from the air cannons are a jarring contrast to the eerie silence that blankets the mountain.

There are many metaphors and themes to parse, which Force Majeure offers in psychological abundance. Ostlund's film is a cerebral adventure with a few moments of hair-raising terror to keep an audience rapt and engaged. It's also a complete film; one that stimulates analytical thought and rich, deep emotions.

Love is Strange

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Ira Sachs/Starring: John Lithgow, Alfred Molina and Marisa Tomei

Love is Strange isn't a love story as Hollywood narrowly defines the genre but it is a love story nevertheless.

From an original script by director Ira Sachs and screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias, Love is Strange tells the story of Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina), a couple of 39 years who decide the time has come to tie the knot. Following their nuptials, the couple find themselves in financial, occupational, and residential binds when Ben loses his music teaching job at a Catholic School. The two also find they have to vacate their apartment, which necessitates being separately re-located while they work out job and housing problems.

While George takes up lodging with his gay neighbors, Ben is forced to live with his nephew in an apartment with minimal spare space.

One might think of George's living situation with gay neighbors as an ideal, short-term arrangement but he soon finds the couple's mania for entertaining irksome, particularly when he arrives home in the evenings weary and in need of quiet.

Ben's situation presents a greater difficulty, for the retired artist finds himself sharing his nephew's teenage son's room, which leads to inevitable conflict. It also doesn't help that his nephew's wife Kate (Marisa Tomei), is a moderately successful writer who is home during the day and whose forbearance is worn thin by Ben's need for conversation. Ben is also a little clueless about how his chatter intrudes upon Kate's need for meditative, writerly silence. But he also finds his presence presents another kind of inconvenience, for he becomes both an active and passive participant in Kate and her husband's troubles with their teenage son Joey (Charlie Tahan). As Joey's behavior becomes increasingly rebellious and hostile, his parents are at a loss to fashion a solution. Ben becomes the target of more than one of Joey's venomous verbal attacks but he is perceptive enough to recognize the problem and the solution, while Kate and her husband remain baffled.

And while the two men suffer the inconveniences of being interlopers, their problems are compounded by the difficulties of finding a new home, which proves exceedingly difficult. With only Ben's social security as income, they find the search for low-rent apartments a protracted battle against the red-tape of city government. Another issue is the discrimination George faces after being fired from the Catholic school, which betrays the church's intolerant attitude toward gays.

The film's mode of propulsion lay in the performances. Filmed mostly in snug interiors that incarcerate the characters; it's the acting that rivets our attention. Crack actors like Lithgow and Molina make us believe they are a couple who have shared a life of nearly 40 years. A terrific scene where George instructs a young student on the finer points of playing Chopin, shows him distracted and pensive as he considers his and Ben's situation, which is more than just finances and itinerancy. As the little girl plays for George, we can almost hear him contemplating his and Ben's mortality and the imminent parting both must face.

Marisa Tomei is quite good as the put-upon wife, mother and relative whose patience begins to fray everyday Ben inhabits her sanctum, while young Charlie Tahan is affective as a troubled teen who eventually recognizes Ben's small but powerful impact on his life.

I imagine the budget was miniscule but what did the actors need but a few locations and a few interiors to give us something to hold our attention?

It goes without saying that Love is Strange won't enjoy a wide release, which is too bad. But given its limited release and its probable low-life expectancy in theaters, most viewers will have to enjoy it on DVD--hardly consolation but better than oblivion.

The Drop

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Michaël R. Roskam/Starring: Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini and Noomi Rapace

Based on a short story by Dennis Lehane, The Drop is a taut, gritty drama that sustains an atmosphere of anxiety and relentless dread. Director Michael R. Roskam keeps the story burning at a white-hot pitch while Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini and Noomi Rapace match the film's intensity with bravura performances.

Tom Hardy plays Bob Saginowski, who, with his cousin Marv (the late, great James Gandolfini), run a bar that operates as a drop-off for Chechen mobster's ill-gotten money. The bar's former owner was Marv himself; a once-respected and feared underworld figure whose subservient status as the Chechen's safety-deposit box causes not a little pique. Bob and Marv are no strangers to the dangerous and deadly world around them, but one can't help but feel unnerved as they do when the very menacing Chechens come to collect the drops.

After the drop money is robbed one night at the bar, we learn the heist was arranged by Marv himself as a prelude to a bigger score he has planned. When the Chechens learn the drop has been stolen, their terse demand that the money be found carries a tacit threat both Marv and Bob understand and respect.

While walking home one night, Bob hears a whimper coming from a trashcan resting in a residential yard. Looking inside, he finds a pit bull puppy who has been abused and abandoned. The act draws the attention of the woman who lives in the home, who comes rushing out to see Bob comforting the puppy. Bob reaches out to the woman named Nadia (Noomi Rapace) for help, which she reluctantly offers. Nadia balks when he offers her the dog but she agrees to watch him for a few days while Bob contemplates an alternative to keeping him. When Nadia loses her waitressing job, she asks Bob for a job caring for the dog when he's at work, which he agrees to. A romance slowly forms between Nadia and Bob as he begins to warm to the puppy.

But nothing in Bob's world is free-from-threats, for a shadowy, low-life named Eric Deeds (terrifically played by Matthias Schoenaerts, co-star of the acclaimed Rust and Bone) begins asking about the dog; even showing up at Bob's house to demand the puppy's return. Citing paperwork and a computer chip embedded under the dog's skin as proof of ownership, Bob naturally refuses. The dog's batter state is Bob's reasonable rationale for keeping the little canine. When Deeds asks that Bob pay him $10,000 for the dog, he also threatens to have the police intervene, and carrying the threat further, he mentions how he may "forget to feed the dog" once he regains ownership. In time, Bob learns that Deeds is Nadia's ex-boyfriend, which only intensifies an already overwrought situation.

A Chechen mobster breathing down Bob and Marv's necks, Eric Deeds' creepy stalking and a dog imperiled make for a nerve-racking narrative stew. Bob's imminent showdown with Deeds and Marv's hair-brained scheme to steal the sizeable Super Bowl drop dovetail in a climactic finale.

There is so much to like and admire about The Drop. All the performances are exceptional. Tom Hardy is an endlessly fascinating actor. Not only is his Brooklynese accent sound, but he never overplays his character. Bob's superhuman unflappability, seems imperturbable until late in the film. Gandolfini could play men like Marv blindfolded but he didn't cruise through the role. He finds the virtues and moral failings in Marv that make him both sympathetic and treacherous.
Rapace is a specialist in portraying intensity and wounded beauty. Being paired with Hardy seems very natural. Both can play characters whose violent emotions simmer just below the surface.

But it isn't only the principal cast who excels. Matthias Schoenaerts is a scary presence and like foreign actors Hardy and Rapace, handles his accent expertly without sacrificing performance. For the few scenes Michael Aronov appears as the Chechen mobster Chovka, he is difficult to forget and is absolutely frightening. Like Schoenaerts, he doesn't have to actually be violent to leave the audience feeling uneasy and thoroughly intimidated.

Roskam captures the grime of Brooklyn backstreets and a dark, seedy, warehouse district, which seem light-years removed from gentrified Manhattan often seen in the background.

The story isn't perfect but for a short-story adaptation stretched to feature-film length, it holds together well. The Drop isn't only an effective crime film but an ideal herald for the fall film season. It's also a reminder that James Gandolfini's passing was a tremendous loss to the world of cinema.

This is Where I Leave You

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Shawn Levy/Starring: Justin Bateman, Jane Fonda, Rose Byrne, Tina Fey, Kathryn Hahn, Adam Driver, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant and Corey Stoll

I wonder if Hollywood will ever tire of comedy/dramas centered around families gathering at a funerals. I've seen three such films this year: the awful August: Osage County, the awfuler Lullaby (which employs a dying father as motivation for a family to gather) and now This is Where I Leave You, which is not the awfulest of the tribe but pretty damn close. All the films use the done-to-death funeral plot contrivance as a way for characters to air out grievances, address past wrongs and renew old familial feuds.

Shawn Levy's film, based on a novel by Jonathan Tropper, employs all the familiar aforementioned narrative traits. And like other movies of this breed, it becomes unbearably monotonous...and fast. That Levy assembled such a talented cast for this nonsense is quite impressive but it becomes less so when it becomes clear they have nothing to say, though they say it compulsively. Whenever anyone feels the need to verbalize, which is frequently, they spew stagy dialogue where everyone has a pithy rejoinder to a smart-ass or self-consciously inappropriate comment.

The story centers on Justin Bateman's character Judd Altman; a producer of a popular shock-jock radio show whose star Wade Beaufort (Dax Shepard) is the Platonic ideal of jerkitude. When Judd arrives home early one day with a birthday cake for his wife, he finds Wade in bed with his wife. If that isn't enough of a cross to bear, he also receives a phone call from his sister Wendy (Tina Fey), informing him of their father's death.

As Judd's family gathers for the funeral, we meet each member and become acquainted with their quirks, personal issues and internecine, sibling strife.

Hilary Altman (Jane Fonda), the family matriarch, has just lost her husband and though bereaved, wears mourning attire that highlights her newly augmented breasts. This becomes joke-fodder for the family, which left me feeling queasy. I don't know if it's a cultural norm with those of the Jewish persuasion, but we hear the Altman family make many explicit comments about sex, particularly when it involves siblings or the mother. I'm no prude, but I would think most families would find sharing comments about their mother's breasts and their brother's masturbatory habits taboo subjects. As Judd and his mother lay out a basement bed for his stay, Hilary's breasts dangle from her bathrobe. After urging his mother to cover up, she gently chides him for finding the sight of her breasts objectionable.

Judd's family and extended family arrive at Hilary's home with their respective life-baggage. Wendy's husband is emotionally unavailable and overly devoted to his career, brother Phillip (Adam Driver) is unemployed, unemployable and in therapy, and another brother Paul (Corey Stoll) is having trouble impregnating his wife while also struggling to maintain control of the family sporting goods business, of which the siblings all share part-ownership.

Phillip also has his therapist/girlfriend in tow; Tracy (Connie Britton), an older woman whose attraction to the younger man conflicts with her misgivings about his immaturity and penchant for seeing other women.

What one is wont to find in films of this variety are former classmates, crushes or friends the characters encounter. Judd runs into Penny (Rose Byrne), a former schoolmate for whom he develops a romantic interest. His volatile relationship with his wife of course complicates the attraction.
Wendy also has her romantic furnace stoked by family friend and sporting goods employee Horry Callen (Timothy Olyphant). Horry is afflicted with a mild mental impairment which stems from a head injury he received while in Wendy's company during an accident in the past. Like Judd's affection for Penny, Wendy's attraction to Horry fills an emotional void in her marriage and represents some unfinished, romantic business. Upon the first meetings between Judd and Penny and Wendy and Horry, we know intuitively--as if it were written in sky--where these sub-plot developments will lead.

It seems impossible to square Phillip's ability to charm women with his personality. How any woman could find such an a-hole supernova like Phillip attractive sorely tests our ability to suspend disbelief. Adam Driver seems to have no difficulty playing such obnoxious lunkheads, for only recently he played another in What If. I sincerely hope he strays from this pigeon-holing in the future otherwise he may not be able to play anything else convincingly.

It seems Jane Fonda can only appear in a film (these days, anyway) to show us how great she looks. Of course she can hardly be blamed for her character limitations when Hollywood has no idea how woman older than 40 behave and think. And they don't want to know. It is mind-blowing to consider Fonda is now 77 though her figure is that of someone less than half her age. If only someone could and would write her a character with some depth and dimension to challenge her beauty.

As the family occupies Hilary's house, animosities arise and secrets are unearthed. Most character's secrets seem to be revealed like clockwork; every 15 minutes or so, which are followed by blather like "why didn't you tell us/me?," and glib jokes and comments. When Hilary divulges her big secret near the end, it comes off more as a plot accessory rather than something plausibly organic. And what is typical of this genre is behavior that screams "though we're dysfunctional, aren't we so quirky and lovable?"

I saw the film with a capacity crowd, one that laughed uproariously at what I found to be somewhat clever but unfunny jokes or gags. Some aren't so clever. Paul's son's potty-training tendencies, which involve his hauling his potty around, are played for laughs but are just painfully cutesy.

A crowd's reaction is never a reliable gauge of a film's comedic or dramatic value. Though it is fun to watch a film with a large audience, collective laughter or applause can distort one's perception of the film. Over the din of laughter, I somehow managed to see through the formulae and the stock characterizations. I'm sure critics and other filmgoers will too.

I really wished I could have told the characters to shut up for five minutes. The noise generated by the family's incessant chatter made my head hurt. When smart-alecky jokes and jibes weren't being sprayed like buckshot, dime-store platitudes made reliable surrogates.

I may have to avoid films like This is Where I Leave You forever hereafter. But given my inability to ever learn a lesson, I could very well grouse next time too.

Art and Craft

Directors: Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker

If an unethical act doesn't qualify as a crime though said act causes a certain measure of harm to others, then to what extent can a person be deemed "guilty?" Directors Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker think the question worthy of reflection in their fascinating documentary Art and Craft. But though the question is of paramount importance, it remains a peripheral concern because the real subject of the film is the strange but extraordinary art forger Mark Landis. The film could better be categorized as a portrait (no pun intended) of a man who feels little remorse and no sense of criminality for his forgeries--at least as much as we can discern from observed behavior.

Landis is an excellent subject for a documentary; his motivations for what he does are legion but also opaque. As a diagnosed schizophrenic (among other trace psychological conditions), it is safe to say Landis' view of what he does is partly shaped by his mental illness. While there are many who dupe dealers and collectors with bogus art for profit, Landis may be the only forger who donates his forgeries philanthropically. After copying classics with extraordinary precision and care with art materials found at the local Hobby Lobby, Landis then presents his works to museums around the U.S. It is astonishing to see the list of reputable art museums who have benefitted from his "largess."

We learn much about his life, particularly his relationship with his mother. Her passing was a loss from which Landis has yet to recover. We also learn about the origins of his craft, which arose when the young Landis was left alone in hotel rooms with art books and drawing materials while his parents attended parties.

It would be foolhardy to attribute Landis' gifts to pure philanthropic zeal. He shares a story about a streak of mischief in his youth; of which his mother was well aware. As we see him visit museums, sometimes in disguise; we can assume his delight in making more mischief has hardly ebbed.

Though many museums were duped into accepting his forgeries, a former FBI agent refuses to categorize Landis' donations as a crime. Because he asks for no monetary remuneration for his work, he is cleared from any criminal wrongdoing.

Of course many of those deceived don't share the agent's perspective. One victim, a former registrar for a Cincinnati museum named Matthew Leininger, spends his his post-museum life obsessively tracking Landis' forgeries. The film presents Landis and Leininger as mouse and cat. It is almost inevitable that the two adversaries will meet and they do at a university exhibition of the forger's work. It is interesting to note that Leininger has his own mental issue--OCD--which creates a kind of psychological bond between the hunter and hunted one might normally find in a noir thriller.

Cullman, Grausman and Becker can be commended for finding a documentary subject no screenwriter could dream up. As much as we learn about Landis, we're left with a universe of puzzles to sort out, many of which the filmmakers wisely leave unaddressed and unsolved. Landis' motivations are also left for audience conjecture--an approach that makes for an engaging docu-mystery.

Though attendees at the university exhibition--Leininger among them--exhort Landis to pursue his own art, we don't believe for a moment he will do anything of the sort. The final shot in the film may corroborate that claim. Of course it's also possible the film will grant Landis a modicum of fame (or infamy), thus denying him further opportunities for deception. We shall see.

The Last of Robin Hood

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland/Starring: Kevin Kline, Dakota Fanning and Susan Sarandon

The Last of Robin Hood tells the true story of screen legend Errol Flynn's relationship with the underage Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning); an elicit affair abetted in part by Aadland's mother Florence (Susan Sarandon).

Kevin Kline is splendidly cast as the aging Errol Flynn whose best Hollywood years are behind him; a truth he sadly acknowledges in the film. Kline bears an uncanny resemblance to Flynn with his roguish mustache, which makes him physically ideal for the role.

Beverly is a young actress/dancer with show biz ambitions and when the film begins, she is seen walking on a movie lot to attend a rehearsal for a dance routine. Unbeknownst to Beverly, she is being watched by none other than Flynn himself from an office window across the street. Enchanted and fascinated by the young beauty, he follows her, then seeks her out inside the studio. Flynn introduces himself to Beverly, who is naturally taken with the star.

In a classic movie industry seduction, Flynn offers to become her mentor, which the young woman eagerly accepts. He asks her to audition a short time thereafter, which thrills her mother, who is besotted with fame and stardom.

On the car ride home from said audition, Flynn seizes an opportunity to kiss Beverly. Rather than responding with disgust, Beverly reciprocates.

While Florence shows only a trace of suspicion when her daughter arrives home late, Beverly's father Herb (Patrick St. Esprit) remains wary of Flynn. When Herb learns Flynn has invited both women to New York, he first threatens to leave the family then acts on said threat shortly after. After the women spend some time with Flynn in New York, he comes clean about his love for Beverly, which at first incurs Florence's ire but her intoxication with fame and the film star's Hollywood stature stays her moral indignation.

As Flynn's career further declines, so does his health. And what Beverly and her mother had hoped would be a career boost becomes a series of very unprestigious movie roles. Her modest acting ability does nothing to help. Flynn directs her in a pro-Cuban revolution B-film set on location and tries to sell Stanley Kubrick on the idea of a Flynn/Aadland pairing for his film Lolita. Though Kubrick seems intrigued with the idea of casting Flynn (Flynn as Humbert Humbert--that would have been something!), he finds Beverly's screen-test less than impressive.

While her daughter's romance with Flynn rages, Florence drinks heavily and tells anyone who will listen about her friendship with Errol Flynn.

It's too bad the cast had such a serviceable script. Kline is terrific but apart from his amoral behaviour, he could be any playboy flaunting his taste for young girls. Dakota Fanning's role is the least tended to. Aside from a few moments that suggest Beverly has smarts and some wit, she is mostly a blank. Only Sarandon's character has any dimension, which she fleshes out with a skilled performance. Much of the dialogue and scenes lay flat which makes the movie seem more like a made-for-cable-T.V. production rather than something cinematic.

The film is tastefully chaste but it also never dips its toes into anything dark. Flynn confesses to being an SOB but it would have helped to demonstrate it more. Yes, it is enough that he was in a relationship with an underage girl--Beverly was 15 when they became a thing--but he seems too charming to be anything more than a drunken cad.

The film left an aftertaste like that of flat soda. It had some flavor but all the fizz and pop was sadly lacking. It also suffered from an unimaginative title.

Sometimes the worst response to a film is to have no response. Apathy is in many ways worse than contempt. This isn't a film that one will hate, merely one that might elicit a yawn and a stretch. I wish I could say more but what's the point?

Innocence

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Hilary Brougher/Starring: Sophie Curtis, Kelly Reilly, Graham Phillips and Linus Roache

Innocence is the greatest contribution to cinema in the last 75 years...

No, I'm kidding. If it were only that.

What it really is is a ridiculous time-waster made more so by a knee-slapper of a plot and a comatose performance by Sophie Curtis that wouldn't register as a blip on the most sensitive electrocardiograph. I thought she might be auditioning for a role as a doorframe but that requires acting skills beyond Curtis' range. I wish I could call what she appeared to be doing onscreen bad acting but it's something more akin to an episode of narcolepsy, though instead of falling asleep in the middle of sentences, she snoozes at the beginning and end of them too. Her character stays conscious long enough to attract a boy in school, but what he finds appealing about her mystifies me, for she radiates less heat than that of the refrigerator compartment that holds butter.

Curtis plays Beckett Warner, a teenage girl who loses her mother in a surfing accident during her family's beach holiday. Though an aneurysm is mentioned later as the cause, one could just as easily believe the mother willfully entered a shark's gullet to escape her hopelessly vacuous daughter.

Her grieving father, Miles (Linus Roache) moves the family to New York City, where he enrolls Beckett at Hamilton Prep, which seems very ordinary save for the all-female staff. The women, all sexy and youthful, gather regularly for a book group though they don't invite Beckett's father, who is a writer of some renown though it's never clear what it is he actually writes. The fact that he is a writer seems strange, given his terrible skills at Scrabble later in the film. Maybe we're meant to believe he writes pop-up books.

While Beckett contends with the loss of her mother, a fellow student commits suicide by leaping to her death from the school roof. Her body nearly crushes Beckett's as it smashes on the pavement. Concerned for her mental health, Beckett is taken into the care of the school nurse, Pamela Hamilton (Kelly Reilly, in a silly role); who also happens to be a descendant of the school's founder. Beckett also attends therapy sessions with the school shrink, Dr. Vera Kent (Sarita Choudhury). Pamela takes a special shine to Beckett and eventually becomes her father's lover.

Beckett befriends a classmate Jen Dunham (Sarah Sutherland), whose mother is a raging alcoholic and also a member of the book group. Beckett also strikes up a romance with one of the Hamilton boys, Tobey Crawford (Graham Phillips) whose mother is--you guessed it--a member of the mysterious book klatch.

Before long, Beckett discovers the book group is actually a witch's coven; one intent on sacrificing virgins like Beckett and her friend Jen for reasons I assume deal with prolonging their lives and preserving their beauty. I only hope they offered the girls free tuition; school costs are a killer these days.

Director Hilary Brougher fails to establish or generate a moment of fear or suspense. It doesn't help that her leading lady lacks the skill to emote convincingly during the few scenes she is actually required to do so. Kelly Reilly, who redeemed herself in the recently-released Calvary after an embarrassing turn in this year's Heaven is For Real (see my posting for that film in the April archive), is cursed again with a risible character. Doesn't it strike anyone as peculiar that a scion of the school's founder is relegated to the role of a nurse?

I should have brought a flashlight to the film because so many interior scenes--even in daylight--are shot in a dark, bluish-gray that don't establish a mood of mystery so much as stimulate speculation as to why the school hasn't paid its electric bill. As perplexing are the repeated shots of the night sky with full moons. A little Astronomy 101 might have educated the filmmakers about the unlikeliness, if not the improbability, of the appearance of so many full moons. I might have not noticed such niggling details if I had been absorbed in the story.

I really didn't care about Beckett or the ludicrous coven. Everything about the movie loudly proclaimed its own boneheadedness. Instead of sacrificing virgins, the coven might have been better off using their witchy magic to treat Beckett's Severe Personality Deficiency...or Sophie Curtis' underwhelming acting.

Where are you when we need you, Samantha Stephens?

As Above, So Below

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: John Erick Dowdle/Starring: Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge and Francois Civil

John Erick Dowdle, Director of Devil, revisits the realm of the supernatural with As Above, So Below; a technically accomplished, better than average film with imaginative sets and camera work. Though horror is the most durable of all movie genres, it consistently leaves one with low expectations. And even though the film's trailer promised more than your garden variety horror film in terms of offbeat story and locations, it also featured many elements that left me sighing.

Perdita Weeks plays Scarlet Marlowe, Doctor of Archaeology and Symbiology though her youth leaves one wondering how she had time to collect multiple Ph.Ds'. But no matter, I wouldn't let my enjoyment of the movie become slavishly shackled to the demands of realism.

We first see her being interviewed for a documentary. The documentarian, Benji (Edwin Hodge), follows her around during the film to give us another shaky, hand-held, first-person perspective of the action--a stylistic tic that's all the rage in horror these days. Early in the film, she discusses her quest to find the mythical Philosopher's Stone; an object sought by alchemists for centuries. The Stone is thought to be key in transmuting base metals to gold and bestowing eternal life on those who possess it.

We then see Scarlet disguised in an Arab woman's headdress as she makes her way by bus to a rural Iranian village. A frantic Iranian man leads her to a hole in the wall of his home, which she enters--in spite of his protestations--to a another tunnel which brings her face to face with ancient writings. She breaks through a wall to find a black statue of a bull, whose flanks are covered with more ancient writings, which she copies feverishly. Like Indiana Jones, Dr. Marlowe--which noone ever addresses her as in the film in spite of her impressive academic credentials--seems to have little professional regard for the integrity of archaeological sites, as one will see often during the film.

After her escape from Iran, we see her again in Paris as she seeks out a former boyfriend named George (Ben Feldman), who has the ability to translate the Aramaic writings found in the Iranian cave. She explains, as Benji films, that Ben likes to break into places of archaeological interest to restore damaged or non-working mechanical objects. When she first approaches him, George is busy restoring a centuries-old chime in a church tower. That both Scarlet and George think nothing of breaking the law to achieve their respective goals again says very little about their professional ethics.

George shows little patience for Scarlet's quest but assists her in translating the Aramaic writings which reveal the location of the Philospher's Stone that supposedly rests under the Parisian catacombs. After some Da Vinci Code/Indiana Jones-like clue decipherings, the two search for a young frenchman named Papillon (No, I'm not making his name up and no, he doesn't resemble Steve McQueen); played by Francois Civil, whose singular skill in finding the hidden passages of the catacombs makes him a logical choice to join Scarlet and George in their descent deep beneath Paris.

In spite of some implausibilities, the plot's potential is clearly laid out.

To sustain the first-person camera POV, Scarlet provides each member of the expedition mini-cameras to attach to their helmets. This frees Benji from being the lone perspective--a handy solution to problems filming in dark spaces with limited lighting. This is also a clever ploy to create more tension and drama.

The descent into the catacombs is not for the claustrophobic. A scene of Benji squeezing through a hole will make even the most unclaustrophobic squirm. I'm not sure how Dowdle filmed the scenes in the tunnels and catacombs, because they look authentic and really great--a nice technical achievement for which his cinematographer Leo Hinstin can share credit.

As the group descends deeper into the catacombs, Scarlet and George decipher more clues. And while the group makes their way into the darkness, eery, creepy sounds begin to unnerve them. A horror film's use of sound can be as effective as visuals in creating dread and terror, which Dowdle employs with consummate skill.

Along the way, encounters with nightmarish wraiths, apparitions and ghouls occur with some frequency.

Everything proceeds entertainingly. I think Dowdle could have exploited the setting for more scares. And things that menace in the dark never really threaten, which saps the film of chill potential. We see a hooded something wandering around down below but we have not a clue what it is and why it mostly ignores the group, which is disappointing.

Scarlet translates an inscription above a cave opening as "Abandon all hope ye who enter here,"-- which is of course what marks the entrance to Hell in Dante's Inferno. It's a fun touch but I hoped I might see something as deliciously nether-worldish as what gushes forth from Dante's epic poem. Creepy things do abound but nothing to suggest that of the Dark Lord.

The film suggests a figurative Hell where guilt forges manacles one cannot extricate oneself from in life. The characters address their psychological troubles near the end and speedily dispost of them in an unsatisfying manner. Dowdle's script never established any of the character's psychic baggage early on, so it's a little strange for it to arise out of nowhere.

I mostly enjoyed the movie until the screenplay called for Scarlet to do something I found unforgivably preposterous. Luckily said nonsense occurs late in the film. In the end, I hoped for a darker, O. Henry-like twist but the film stubborly settles for something more banal.

As Above, So Below didn't provide me an opportunity for shredding and evisceration. It was too ambitious to deride but not enough to praise equivocally. If the quality of the writing matched the production and sound design, Dowdle's film would have been something memorable but he should be commended for his originality and for loftier ambitions seldom seen in the horror genre.

As horror films tend to steal shamelessly from one another, As Above, So Below has the decency to make its own statement on its own terms. Unfortunately, the film will fade from theaters and skulk around on DVD, which will greatly diminish its visual strengths. Dowdle is a talented director; one who thinks outside the holding cell of genre cliches. I hope the film industry doesn't beat that out of him.

The Trip to Italy

Director: Michael Winterbottom/Starring: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon

I guess we can categorize The Trip to Italy as a sequel to Michael Winterbottom's The Trip though that seems to Hollywoodize something that is anything but a Tinseltown construct. Maybe follow-up is more apt. One could also call it a cinematic roman a clef, as the actors play themselves in situations with people who are anything but themselves. Whatever the designation, what we have are actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon returning for another road trip, this time in the stunningly beautiful Italian peninsula.

If one is familiar with the first film, one expects a kind of zany travelogue with the following indispensable characteristics: offbeat, amusing, and sometimes witty banter, beautiful scenery, visits to literary shrines or places of interest dealing with Romantic Poets, comments--often tongue-in-cheek--about said poets and of course food that triggers Pavolian salivations in the viewer.

If you found the two actors stimulating company in the first film, you may so again though some elements that made the former fun come dangerously close to being tiresome the second time around. However one feels about Coogan and Brydon as travel companions--which I'm sure would vary from viewer to viewer--would be made irrelevent by two of the film's solid attributes: delectible food and the Italian coast's seductive allure.

The film wastes little time immersing one in the story, as the film opens with Brydon and Coogan driving through rural, Northern Italy. Brydon has accepted another writing assignment for a London daily, which again is to be a melding of sights and exceptional dining.

We see them in a convertible Mini-Cooper--an ideal vehicle for touring Italy and a kind of third cast member--and as one might expect, we hear dueling impersonations of Michael Caine; a nod to the first film. Though I find Coogan and Brydon's Michael Caine impersonations to be nearly indistinguishable from the genuine article, I was hoping for something new. They still manage to make them funny, particularly in a scene when the two trade comments on Caine's role in Batman. Brydon does an uproariously funny impersonation of Caine's near-sobbing voice when he says "Master Wayne."

As the two actors make their way from Northern Italy to Rome, the two continue their repartee while stopping to see landmarks devoted to Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The two sometimes recite poetry and comment on the more salacious details of the poets' lives.

Winterbottom doesn't devote sustained screen-time to restaurant food preparation; we mostly see the amazing, culinary creations when plates are set before Coogan and Brydon. Though we don't always know exactly what is being served, our sense of taste is stimulated just the same.

During quieter moments in their respective hotel rooms, we hear the two men talking to loved ones on the phone, which reveal unhappy home lives. This serves as a sobering contrast to the merriment and gustatory pleasures the men enjoy, which create a kind of happy oblivion travellers often experience when removed from the routines of daily life.

As the actors make their way down along the Amalfi Coast and on to the ruins of Pompeii and to Naples itself, we see more wonderful cuisine, learn more about Byron and Shelley and hear more impersonations, which at this point, begin to grate. Brydon, though a talented mimic, always seems to be "on." It's difficult to discern his real voice from those he impersonates because Sean Connery, Al Pacino and Michael Caine (among others) always seem to be pouring out of his mouth. Though he has his funny moments, I don't know that I could stomach a long road trip--even one with incomparable vistas, with someone who seems compulsively entertaining. I don't know if Brydon is like his "character" in The Trip to Italy but I hope he isn't. Coogan is more thrifty with his impersonations. He devotes equal time to making witty comments and observations. And like the first film, he sometimes finds Brydon to be a bit much at times, particularly in a scene where the two men are looking over the petrified, ashen remains of a Pompeiian man who died in the Vesuvius eruption. Brydon imagines a dialogue with the corpse, which is amusing at first then plays too long, becoming wearisome. By the latter part of the film, one also begins to dread Al Pacino and Woody Allen impersonations, which never seem to let up.

A lovely long shot of Vesuvius and the Neapolitan coastline serves as a striking backdrop to the ferry-ride Brydon, Coogan and his newly-arrived family members enjoy on their way to the island of Capri.

The two were initially bound for Sicily but familial committments cut their trip short.

What's not to like about Winterbottom's film? Who wouldn't enjoy amazing cuisine, gorgeous scenery, some literary history, amusing company and a chance to tour Italy's otherworldly beautiful western coast? The sensation of being along for the ride; sharing a lunch or dinner table with Coogan and Brydon and being at their side in their touristy perambulations makes for an entertaining romp. I felt an overwhelming urge afterward to catch a flight to Italy; the allure is that powerful. We can mostly credit that reaction to Winterbottom and his cinematographer James Clarke, though Coogan and Brydon deserve some of the kill too.

Is there another trip in the cards? Could the south of France or Greece be next? Can we stand more of Brydon's pathological compulsion to impersonate every actor in the civilized world? I guess we'll have to wait and see.