Mad Max: Fury Road

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: George Miller/Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult and Hughes Keays-Byrne

Mad Max returns though in this incarnation, the august Tom Hardy assumes the character we have all come to know (and love?). Director George Miller, Master of all Automotive Carnage, also returns to the series he has made iconic in the action film genre. Mad Max: Fury Road comes with requisite car chases, guns, post-apocalyptic, ghoulish villains and nary a moment of pause in all its fury. Aside from a few CGI moments, we mostly see intricately orchestrated action scenes, which is quite a relief. Though Miller's film is fun, somehow it lacks The Road Warrior's sense of purpose and urgency. In that film, Max has to deliver petrol across a deserty expanse while fighting off frightening legions of creeps and grotesqueries. The new film features a deserty drive and battles with freaks of every variety but somehow I had to keep reminding myself it was all for some purpose.

The new bad guy, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), is such an over-the-top character conception he makes Lord Humungous seem timidly imagined. A wild shock of white hair and a mask that gives him the terrifying countenance of a grinning skeleton abets Joe's tyrannical presence; an appearance designed for maximum intimidation.

We see Max trying to outrun Joe's minions on the open road as the film begins. We figure Max is up to his old tricks; surviving by his wits, his wheels and his capacity to return in kind everything Joe's albino-ish skinhead minions can mete out. Max is overtaken and captured, where he is imprisoned in a fortress-like canyon. He manages to escape after some brawling but is eventually subdued. Meanwhile, a tough-looking woman in Joe's service; Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), is assigned a mission driving a rig for a fuel run. After leaving the canyon fortress, she deviates from her task and the road with her multi-vehicled escort in hot pursuit. Strapped to the grill of one such vehicle in a sacrificial manner is Max, who awaits an almost certain violent death by collision. Only a short time later, Joe mobilizes a fleet of ludicrously and lethally modified vehicles to give chase to the wayward Furiosa.

Why would Furiosa willingly incur Joe's wrath by taking flight? We learn the answer to that question in time but as she races into the desert and into the angriest dust storm you will ever see, Joe's minions do their level best to bring her vehicle to a halt.

In a post-apocalyptic world where gasoline is a priceless commodity, giving chase with a fleet of cars seems to betray an inconsistent and implausible attitude about the cavalier usage of fuel but so it goes.

Furiosa manages to fight off the escort but not before a collision with the car holding Max frees him. Well, almost. Having outlasted the escort--and the asphyxiating dust storm, Furiosa's rig comes to a stop. A skin-head named Nux (Nicholas Hoult), who managed to attach himself to her vehicle before being flung from it, lies unconscious in the sand. Emerging from the rig with Furiosa are several beautiful, vestal virgin-like women. We learn the women, who are wives of sorts to Joe, have escaped with Furiosa's help and are to be taken to the Green Place; an Edenic land of bounty that may or may not exist. But Max holds Furiosa and the women at gunpoint, demanding they remove the metallic mask over his mouth. A brawl breaks out between Max and the women while Nux, waking from sand, joins the fray. The fight is wonderfully choreographed and as elaborate as any of the car chase sequences.

After the hostilities, Max and Furiosa arrive at an uneasy detente. Seeing Joe's forces racing furiously toward them in the distance, they drive on.

As Joe's gang begins to gain on Furiosa's rig, other marauding clans join the chase. A detour into a dangerous canyon, where yet another clan on motorcycles menace Max and Furiosa, allows them means to escape when rocky rubble bars their pursuer's path.

In time, Furiosa, Max, and their new ally Nux decide-with bewildering reasoning--to attack Joe's fortress, which means battling he and his newly augmented force en route. This plot development seems hair-brained and hard to swallow but I suppose Miller needed some sort of narrative device to force a showdown. At this point in the film, I felt its already flimsy logic had completely come undone but if you can accept a story where gasoline and bullets seem to be in infinite abundance despite knowledge to the contrary, I suppose one can accept anything.

I don't know that Miller expects us to derive much meaning from the nightmarish world we see onscreen but not having a point is maybe the point of the Mad Max films. Who is Max now? Do we care? Is he merely a bad-ass who will never find peace in a world where Darwinian socialism has run amok?

I don't think Miller does much with Max's character but Furiosa seems more interesting. We get a little back-story on her and we learn that she, like Max and many others, has endured hardship and loss in her life. The fact that her missing lower arm doesn't squelch her gritty toughness says much about her. Furiosa is not a woman who needs Max or anyone else. It's also interesting to find she knows her rig inside and out and is ingenious enough to devise an intricate series of kill switches to thwart would-be car-jackers. I really liked Charlize Theron in her role as Furiosa. She is unafraid to mute her good looks to play the ragged and dirty hellioness-of-the road but still manages to bring a fun, feminized element to the story.

Tom Hardy, with his rugged features and action film credentials, seems like a logical choice to play Max. Max's laconic nature seems well-suited for the taciturn actor. Whether he can make Max his own is contingent on Miller's plans for furthering the series.

The film itself felt at times like a self-parody and self-satire with its hyperbolic mayhem and cartoonishly malevolent villains. I still had fun watching it but wasn't blown away as I was with The Road Warrior, which I feel is still the best of the series. The film didn't bring a definitively end to the saga so it seems open-ended. Will Max ever find peace? Will he find sanctuary from the reigning chaos of his world? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Miller's film is well made but it didn't quicken my pulse. The choreographed action scenes are still impressive but Mad Max: Fury Road is more a technical achievement than an electrifying action movie. I've seen all the ghouls before and the car chases to nowhere but somehow nothing managed to stick. Miller can be commended for his old school approach to action movie-making but maybe Max's retirement is nigh.

Far From the Madding Crowd

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Thomas Vinterberg/Starring: Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge and Juno Temple

With costume dramas, one never knows what one will get. Will the film be a dry, airless Merchant/Ivory production or will it be a visually sumptuous delight, like Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility? It's nearly impossible to predict. But with a talented director like Thomas Vinterberg (Celebration, The Hunt) behind the camera, one can be sure the adaptation will be anything but two hours of stilted dialogue and ladies with bonnets resting daintily on their silky curls.

Given the fact the film is an interpretation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel, we have a good idea of what we will see. But as it's heroine, Bathsheba Everdene (an excellent Carey Mulligan) is keen to express in the film; "It is my intention to astonish you all." One could just as easily believe the mission statement belongs to Vinterberg. In sharing his heroine's resolution; his Far From the Madding Crowd achieves nothing less. Though other versions of Hardy's novel have found their way to the screen, Vinterberg's makes its own statement, visually and dramatically.

Set in rural England in the 1870s', the story's main persona--Bathsheba, inherits a manor; replete with a considerable staff. Bathsheba is hardly a typical landowner for the times, as we see when she attends an auction to sell the bounty of her farm. The exclusively male buyers and sellers look askance at Bathsheba; almost insulted by a woman's presence. But Bathsheba is no shrinking flower nor anyone's patsy; she proves to be a shrewd business person, as one buyer discovers.

We also meet Gabriel Oak (the limitless Matthias Schoenaerts), a hard-working farmer whose property abuts Bathsheba's. Gabriel meets his comely neighbor one day while tending to his vast flock of sheep and is instantly smitten. He wastes little time proposing marriage to her in his forthright manner, which startles Bathsheba. Though she isn't immune to Gabriel's rugged handsomeness, she is quick to assert her staunch independence which comes with an aversion to marriage. In a coquettish moment, she tells Gabriel that he lacks the means to tame her. Dejected, Gabriel walks away.

Not soon after, Gabriel experiences a devastating loss when one of his dogs drives his entire flock off a cliff before he can intervene. An image of golden, morning sunlight bathing a beach littered with sheep carcasses is a fascinating juxtaposition of beauty and grisly death.

Unable to recover financially from his loss, Gabriel is forced to sell his property, leaving him with little choice but to earn a wage on another farm. That he finds himself a shepherd on Bathsheba's estate is one of the story's bitter ironies.

But Gabriel isn't the only landowner who succumbs to Bathsheba's charms, for a William Boldwood (Michael Sheen, terrific as always), whose sprawling estate betrays considerable bounty, also wastes little time proposing marriage. Like Gabriel, William's offer of comfort and prosperity is countered by Bathsheba's articulated disdain for marriage.

Though Bathsheba seems steadfast in her determination to be unwed, a young, handsome soldier named Francis Troy (Tom Sturridge) changes her mind. Startling Bathsheba one night in the forest, he immediately makes his attraction known, causing her to shrink from his advances. But in the days ahead, his good looks and seductive power overcome her, which make marriage inevitable. Gabriel, ever the friend, warns her about Francis; knowing something of his past. Thoroughly charmed by the young soldier, Bathsheba dismisses his reservations.

Earlier in the story, we watched as Francis' wedding to a young beauty named Fanny Robin (Juno Temple) was aborted when the bride inadvertently arrived at the wrong church. Believing himself to be rejected, Francis leaves the church in humiliation and heartbreak. Knowing this, it is easy to regard Bathsheba's marriage to Francis with trepidation.

Gabriel's warning proves to be prophetic, for Francis becomes the most undesirable husband. Showing little but contempt for farm-life and frittering Bathsheba's income on gambling, Francis' life becomes one of dissipation and idleness. But a chance meeting in town with his erstwhile fiance, Fanny Robbin, reawakens his passion for the young woman. Fanny tells Francis the baby she carries is his, which spurs him to action. He promises to help rescue her from the loathsome mendicant's life in which she finds herself. In promising Fanny money to relieve her direly stressed condition, Francis runs afoul of Bathsheba, who questions his need for more money.

As Bathsheba's marriage deteriorates, Francis disappears, leaving everyone to think the worst. Believing Bathsheba to be eligible, Boldwood throws an elaborate party to renew his courtship but his hopes are dashed when Bathsheba reiterates her desire not to marry him. Outside the party, Bathsheba discovers a figure emerging from the darkness, which we see is Francis. Unchastened by his disappearance, his aggressive demands of Bathsheba lead to a violent confrontation that prompts a despondent Boldwood to take desperate action, with catastrophic consequences.

I fell into Vinterberg's story and kept falling. He did astonish and in many ways. Beautiful camera work, performances from several very fine actors and a masterful use of color made Vinterberg's film a fully imagined and aesthetically realized work.

I found Mulligan to be a superb Bathsheba. Mulligan has the kind of face that would drown in innocence if not for fiercely intelligent eyes to counter the onslaught. Bathsheba is at once aware of herself and her unique position of privilege in a male-dominated society but is also naive when it comes to matters of the heart, as her terrible relationship with Francis attests. Mulligan captures this contradiction beautifully.

Schoenaerts is quickly becoming one of cinema's premier actors. In the past few years, I've seen him in wildly divergent roles: as a pugilist in Rust and Bone, as the heavy in last year's The Drop and now as the Job-like Gabriel Oak. What is particularly astonishing about Schoenaerts is his ability to affect accents without a trace of his native Belgian in his voice.

Does Bathsheba maintain her independence after battling for its preservation for so long? Does Hardy and hence, Vinterberg, fail her by having her become love's prey? Does she betray her ideals? Though the story finds a happy ending, I couldn't help but think so, as I'm sure other movie-goers will as well.

I doubt Far From the Madding Crowd will make much of a splash, but I found it absorbing and nicely done. I was glad to be spared the Masterpiece Theater treatment; its cinematic value was very conspicuous. See it while you can in a theater before the T.V. screen denigrates everything that gives it distinction.

Welcome to Me

**Spoiler Alert**

Director Shira Piven/Starring: Kristen Wiig, Wes Bentley, Joan Cusack, Jennifer Jason Leigh, James Marsden, Tim Robbins, Linda Cardellini and Thomas Mann

Shira Piven's Welcome to Me is one of those films that is so self-consciously weird that its weirdness becomes a tiresome contrivance. It goes well out of its way to be strange but at times it can elicit a chuckle when it isn't trying too hard to be bizarre. Director Shira Piven's film makes a reasonably good entrance, only to stumble then drag itself to a whimsical end.

Kristen Wiig plays Alice Klieg, a manic-depressive living in the fictional southern Californian town of Palm Desert. She spends part of her days in therapy, where Dr. Daryl Moffet (Tim Robbins) administers psychiatric guidance and prescriptions. The other part are spent in front of the T.V., idolizing Oprah Winfrey; lip-syncing her on-screen patter and gleaning morsels of Oprah-wisdom dispensed on air.

Among Alice's possessions are small stacks of losing lottery tickets. In an early scene, Alice tunes in to a televised lottery drawing. As the numbers are called, we see that Alice has won the $86 million (actually a lesser amount for a lump sum) jackpot. Ecstatic and dumbfounded, she can barely breath the words "I'm a winner" into the phone to claim the prize. True to her eccentric nature, she makes a hotel casino her second home then gathers her family and friends for a celebratory meal.

Enthralled with Oprah and her inspirational words, Alice and her friend Gina (Linda Cardellini), visit a live taping of an infomercial at a local T.V. station. During the show, when the host Gabe Ruskin (Wes Bentley) asks for a volunteer to demonstrate a product's effectiveness, Alice is only too eager to walk on stage. The show producer and staff in the booth express dismay when the erratic Alice, commandeers the show with her off-the-wall volatility.

Afterwards, the two brothers who control the station's content; Gabe and Rich Ruskin (James Marsden) invite Alice into their conference room to meet with the production staff. In the course of discussion, Alice lets it be known she wants her own show and when asked what it would be about, she says, "me." Of course the staff, including producer Dawn Hurley (Joan Cusack) and Deb Moseley (Jennifer Jason Leigh) voice their objections, only to be silenced by Alice's $15 million dollar check, which covers the projected production cost of her show.

I don't know about other film-goers, but I always find it excruciating to watch a film about a lottery winner who is hell-bent on squandering his/her fortune on frivolous nonsense. At this point in the film, the total and imminent exhaustion of the fortune seems like a fait accompli.

The show, with its zeitgeist-appropriate title Welcome to Me is naturally a bizarre spectacle that could have been the brainchild of David Lynch and Luis Bunuel.

The show begins with Alice arriving on a swan followed by re-enactments of slights suffered by Alice during her life, which share air-time with cooking segments featuring outlandish and unpalatable culinary creations, like a frosting-topped meatloaf. The staff, looking on in the booth, watch incredulously. The show manages to draw viewers and even a few admirers.

Gabe begins to have qualms about his brother's willingness to exploit Alice. Before long, Gabe and Alice begin a romance, which catches a snag during one of her rage-filled, flights of mental instability. Her erratic behavior and emotional vulnerability begin to impair her judgement. Alice has a fling with a fawning fan named Rainer Ybarra (Thomas Mann) which doesn't escape Gabe's notice.

As the show continues on its weird course and Alice's un-medicated self holds the production staff captive, her self-involved antics begin to wear on her loved ones, particularly her best friend Gina.

I suppose Piven's film is commentary on the narcissism gripping the country and it makes a convincing case of its pandemic reach. Approaching the topic with absurdist humor is a good way to go but the film asphyxiates in its weirdness. Don't get me wrong; I like weird but when it's a film's selling point rather than an element of its storytelling, it becomes a tiresome affectation, as it is here. As the story progresses, Alice's condition becomes less funny and more tedious.

A film like Welcome to Me could only end happily, which it does. Alice comes to acknowledge her ego-centrism and makes an extraordinarily selfless gesture to her best friend Gina.

The supporting cast was quite terrific when given their time though most are consigned to straight-men roles. When you have actors like Robbins and Cusack; who wield considerable comedic ability, exiled to the margins, it becomes a liability.

As previously stated, the film generates a modicum of laughs but I mostly found the movie to be a one-note joke. If manic-depressive narcissists are your company of choice, then Piven's film is for you. I suppose there is a better comedy out there dealing with this small cross-section of American society but that's another film. At least this one makes a case for not skipping one's meds.

The D Train

**Spoiler Alert**

Directors: Andrew Mogel, Jarrad Paul/Starring: Jack Black, James Marsden, Kathryn Hahn, Jeffrey Tambor and Mike White

Many people carry some residual high school anxieties in their psyche; the fear of alienation, being hopelessly uncool and probably worst of all, the sentence of social pariahdom. And for many, the high school experience stigmatizes one almost permanently. Though most people I know (including myself) would rather be water-boarded than attend any school reunion, others find the idea appealing.

Dan Landsman (Jack Black), the self-appointed chairman of his high school reunion committee, pursues the task of organizing his class reunion with passionate earnestness. Unfortunately, his fellow committee members (who are also former classmates), treat him with the same low regard he probably endured in high school. When the film begins, we see him setting up an ad hoc committee call center with dedicated meticulousness; setting out donuts and setting up phones for his peers. When he mentions going out for a beer with the committee after an evening of cold calling classmates, the others casually decline his offer. But on his way home, he sees the committee members enter a bar together.

At home, we see Dan enjoy a more favorable estimation from his wife Stacey (an excellent Kathryn Hahn) and his son Zach (Russell Posner).

One evening, while watching T.V., Dan sees an ad for Banana Boat tanning lotion. The spot features a beef-cakey life-guard monitoring a busy beach. Dan realizes the lifeguard is none other than his former classmate Oliver Lawless (a very excellent James Marsden). Excited, Dan annoys Stacey by rousing her from her sleep to show her the ad, only to be scolded harshly.

Seeing Oliver inspires a plan in which Dan will fly to L.A. to convince the actor to attend the reunion. Imagining himself walking into the reunion with a very hip-looking Oliver; gaining social prestige and maybe respect from his classmates only strengthens his resolve. Of course the plan entails some measure of prevarication, as Dan explains to Stacey that his week-long mission to L.A. is a business while he proposes the trip to his boss Bill (the always amusing Jeffrey Tambor) as a bold initiative to lure a new client for the consulting business. The plan backfires when Bill insists he join Dan on the trip, for which no amount of dissuasion from the latter will discourage the former. The fact that Dan would lie to both his boss and his wife then create a situation in L.A. that demands he fake a meeting with a fictitious client is plausible if Dan's reunion anxieties are severe, which they are. Does Dan seem like the type of person who would cast discretion and common sense to the wind in a reckless pursuit of something so seemingly trivial? Not really, but we read of stranger acts undertaken by people who are otherwise levelheaded and risk-averse.

The obsession to sell the reunion idea to Oliver has unfortunate consequences at home; Dan begins to ignore Zach and his girl troubles; a neglected issue which has long-reaching ramifications.

Directors Mogel and Paul, who also co-penned the script, set up a juicy, tension-filled scenario (if not entirely believable) where Dan's job, marriage, father/son relations and his shaky standing with the reunion committee are all highly jeopardized.

In L.A., Dan meets Oliver for drinks and clubbing. Sporting trendy facial hair to offset his inveterate un-coolness, Dan also affects cool dude patter in his attempt to cajole Oliver into attending the reunion. While Bill spends time in his hotel room, preparing for a phantom meeting, Dan and Oliver party ferociously, making the club rounds, drinking heavily and partaking of a powdery substance in the process. Unfortunately for Dan, Oliver casually dismisses the reunion idea.

Over a few days course, we begin to see how Dan's lofty estimation of Oliver grows out of proportion. In an attempt to impress Dan and create the illusion of celebrity, Oliver pretends to know Dermott Mulroney (yes, the real Dermott Mulroney), who they spot sitting in a booth; his entourage very present. Mulroney is naturally puzzled after Oliver initiates conversation. The ruse works. Oliver returns to an admiring Dan, who sees him as someone herculean.

At this point in the film, the story takes a risk I found to be pretty mind-blowing for multiplex fare. In the afterglow of the evening, Dan finds himself in Oliver's shabby apartment. As the two trade bro-talk, they find themselves standing closer and closer until the two spontaneously embrace then engage in a passionate kiss. Where it leads we can guess as the two men wake then next morning; side by side. Though Oliver is unphased by the encounter, the act leaves Dan shaken and confused.

On the Bill front, Oliver pretends to be the client the two men are supposed to meet. Just when Oliver pretends to kill a deal that might free Dan from a potential disaster, the actor gets caught up in the emotional excitement of the deal. In a moment of detrimental spontaneity, he agrees to Bill's deal.

Returning home, Dan faces personal and professional ruin as his ruse is tenuously maintained while the emotional aftershocks of sex begins to wildly affect his behavior. Dan tries to discourage Oliver from attending the reunion for fear of their secret becoming public consumption. To his dismay, he discovers his erstwhile lover is dead set on attending.

In the second half of the film, we see Dan trying to put his family back together, dealing with possible job loss while a major confrontation at the reunion turns the event on its head.

I was particularly taken with the performances, especially James Marsden's and Jack Black's. Marsden hasn't really had the opportunity to shine in any film but he does so here. Jack Black has shown he has the acting chops to take on dramatic roles; an opportunity he doesn't waste as the socially vilified Dan Landsman.

Though we live in slightly enlightened times, the sex scene remains a surprise. The filmmakers don't treat the act as something freakish but as something two non-gay men might enjoy given the circumstances. And the secret they share doesn't crowd out the rest of the story, which deals with other issues, most notably Dan's search for social redemption and its lack of proportion in meaning to the idea of marriage and family.

I was a little disappointed to find the film didn't arrive at any great truth. Dan learns he must appreciate what he has, namely his wife and son but is it that all? Given what's transpired, it's hard to imagine someone would glean such prosaic wisdom from something out of the ordinary. How does the fling and the cataclysmic reunion affect him? Does the film give us a convincing clue?

I did find the final scene between Dan and Oliver refreshingly honest. What is obvious to everyone and the audience is articulated by Oliver as he disabuses Dan of his greatest illusions; his lack of celebrity status and his faked encounter with Dermott Mulroney.

I was taken in by the story; it offered something unusual and was a radical departure from traditional Hollywood fare. I didn't find the film to be hilarious but was amusing at times and if it doesn't posit anything profound, it also refuses to be business as usual. It takes the familiar suburban milieu with its stock inhabitants then wrenches it; defying the ordinary.

The D-Train is a Spring surprise. But my prognosis for the film is total and complete burial. In this cinema season where blockbusters crowd out anything with a modest budget and little marketing muscle, a film like Mogel and Paul's will lose out to costumed super things whose success is all but forcibly assured. Theirs isn't a great film but for first-time directors, it is a helluva start. I say see it before theater managers hurry the film canisters on UPS trucks and ship them back to the studio. I guess I should give the studio itself credit for letting it exist, albeit briefly, in cineplex venues. Will this happen again? Who knows? But sometimes anomalies morph into something commonplace. We'll wait and see.

In the Name of My Daughter (L'homme qu'on aimait trop)

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Andre Techine/Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Guillaume Canet and Adele Haenel

In the Name of My Daughter isn't exactly a murder mystery nor is it what we might call a crime film here in America. What it is is Andre Techine's version of a crime drama, though that only becomes apparent a little more than half-way through its 116 minutes. Rather than sensationalizing the story, Techine narrows his narrative focus to a psychological triangle, while also leaving us to guess the fate of a woman whose disappearance all but incriminates her lover.

Though based on a true story, Techine is unable harness its dark, real-world, dramatic potential and what's left is nothing more than a news story with psychological embellishment.

Adapted from a book by Jean-Charles Le Roux, In the Name of My Daughter tells the story of Renee Le Roux (Catherine Deneuve); vice-president of a Cote d'azur casino in the 1970s'. Trying to save what is a failing establishment, she promotes her cunning and sometimes ruthless lawyer, Maurice Agnelet (Guillaume Canet) to that of a consultant. Maurice immediately flexes his Machiavellian muscle by helping Renee remove a key figure in the casino management; an incompetent who permits a gang of underworld figures to cheat the casino out of a few million dollars.

As Renee jockeys for the casino presidency, her daughter Agnes shows up to demand her inheritance from her father's will; which will enable her to open her own store. Renee resists her daughter's pleas but Agnes is able to secure alternate funding.

Agnes and Maurice make contact one day during her swimming constitutional (her frequent water-excursions play a somewhat significant role in the film). Through mildly flirtatious conversation, Maurice initiates his slow seduction though Agnes proves to be a difficult catch. It is interesting to note that Maurice's last name means "little lamb" while Agnes is derived from the Latin word for lamb. Agnes is quick to point out the incompatibility of his last name and his ambitious nature. The observation proves to be truer than she can imagine.

Soon Maurice's ambitions get the best of him when Renee refuses to promote him to a more influential position in the casino. Angry and vindictive, he quits the casino to plot her downfall with the help of one of her rivals, Fratoni (Jean Corso). Fratoni's alleged ties to the underworld and his aggressive modus operandi of buying failing casinos, liquidating them then re-selling the property to developers makes him a formidable opponent. But Renee discovers that Fratoni and Maurice are hardly her only her only concerns. Agnes, weary of begging her mother for her share of the inheritance, accepts a deal, via Maurice's intercession, in which she will accept a payment equivalent to the amount of her inheritance from Fratoni in exchange for casting a vote against her mother's presidential bid at the next casino board meeting.

Of course Renee sees her daughter's deal-with-the-devil as a betrayal (it is), for which Agnes feels more than a just a little tortured ambivalence.

As Agnes and Maurice become lovers, he makes it clear to her that his interest in women doesn't extend beyond that of a mistress; a caveat she ignores to her own peril.

Ever mysterious and maybe dangerous, we are never sure of Maurice's motives and how far he'll go to get what he wants or to shed women who demand too much of his love and time. Guillaume Canet plays Maurice, not with hissing malevolence, but as a young opportunist out to get his slice of the pie. We feel and probably know Agnes will somehow be on the losing end of Maurice's machinations but it takes awhile for us to see who and what he may be. Techine's film is rather deliberate in its desire to get anywhere.

One scene that forebodes ill for Agnes is the scene in the bank where she and Maurice divide her payment from Fratoni. Maurice makes an arrangement whereby he can access her share without her consent (though she also has access to his, theoretically). Watching Maurice and Agnes in their respective, private safe-deposit box rooms may leave one feeling rather uneasy; knowing he probably has diabolical designs on her share.

In time, Fratoni gains control of the casino, which also means its swift demise; leaving Renee high and dry and her relationship with Agnes all but ruined. But Renee is hardly Maurice's only victim, for Agnes discovers falling for him means love unrequited and callous disregard.

Agnes' subsequent disappearance makes Maurice a prime suspect but as he tells a courtroom, no body means no crime. Without evidence to convict him, he flees France for Panama, where he begins a new life.

The story picks up decades later, where a gray-haired Renee petitions the courts to re-open the case against Maurice, which necessitates him being recalled from Panama. Much older and white-haired, he sits in the courtroom as the case commences.

Subtitles greet the eye before the credits, which tell of the trial's outcome and Maurice's fate. Is Maurice guilty? Techine is less interested in the answer than showing us the Maurice/Renee/Agnes triangle's corrosivity.

I admire Techine for his restrained approach in telling this story but what it needs is some venom; some Diabolique nastiness rather than tasteful even-handedness.

I don't mind that Techine didn't turn Maurice into Hannibal Lecter, but he seemed to depict him as a dreary cipher. Sure, he has some moments where his creepy manipulations make themselves known, but it wasn't enough. I did like the film's moral relativism; no one seems very virtuous, even the story's ultimate victim: Agnes.

I like Techine's films but don't know that I've ever loved them. I also don't know that I've ever felt compelled to re-visit the ones I have enjoyed but maybe a retrospective of his work would change my mind. In the Name of My Daughter is merely okay. For a French filmmaker, that word might seem unforgivably obscene but it applies. The word is handy when a film-goer feels passionately indifferent about a movie. To assign it a loftier honorific would be criminal.

The Salt of the Earth

Directors: Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado/With: Sebastiao Salgado

Sebastiao Salgado; a photographer of international renown, is the subject of Wim Wenders/Juliano Ribeiro Salgado's documentary The Salt of the Earth. The film is not only a biopic but a celebration of Salgado's extraordinary work, which at times is poetic and political but also otherworldly and searing. His photography documents humanity's suffering, savagery and brutality but he also captures nature's inherent beauty and humanity in its seemingly endless diversity. In chronicling Salgado's career, Wenders and Salgado's son Juliano tell a story of an artist with decidedly humanistic concerns.

Conversations with Salgado, personal recollections and images of his work mingle to form the film's principle content though Wenders and Juliano document beauty of their own as they follow the photographer to remote locations, often filming Salgado against a breathtaking expanse.

The film opens with Salgado's familiar pictorial of Brazilian gold miners swarming in a vast pit, where arms coated with dirt dig and bare backs haul sacks of earth. We hear Salgado provide narration as he explains how the work was often treacherous; miners hoisting sacks of dirt up ladders where one slip might have not only injured the fallen but also those beneath. Salgado's pictures show the inhumanity and the madness in man's unquenchable thirst for gold. We also see a surrealistically sinister, Bosch-like hell.

The film segues into Salgado's early life in a small Brazilian village. The dictatorship that came to power in 1960s' Brazil formed the political climate from which Salgado escaped when he left his village for Paris to study economics. There he meets his future wife Lelia and it is there that his passion for photography emerges serendipitously. Determined to pursue some kind of vocation behind the camera, he invests in the necessary equipment before taking on mercenary work as a wedding photographer. It isn't long before his artistic ambitions outgrow his modest wage-earning.

Salgado's first project takes him back to South America for a photographic essay on laborers and the economically marginalized. The results are startling. Not only do we see the faces of those eking out a hardscrabble life but the stark environments they inhabit.

Ethnographic observation becomes a characteristic of his work as Salgado is welcomed into a Mexican village where music plays a significant role in the community. Interactive contact becomes part of his photographic wanderings.

We get a sense of Lelia's unwavering devotion and support, as Sebastiao's frequent absences become a minor problem for his family. Lelia and their infant son manage without him.

Wenders and Juliano's film vacillates between his photographic past and the present, as they follow Sebastiao to places far and remote, such as a deserted island near the Arctic circle. Hoping to photograph the island walruses, we see Sebastiao, Wenders and Juliano negotiate the cold, desolate landscape, only to be frustrated by a polar bear has frightened his subjects away.

We also see Salgado's work from his foray into Ethiopia in the 1980s' where he encountered the very grim famine that claimed many lives and ravaged the population. Among his unflinching representations are bodies emaciated by hunger and the corpses of those who lost the struggle. They are powerful images; ones that may cause one to turn one's head or shrink from their brutal truth. Salgado ventures into Mali, where he finds more of the same suffering; famine from severe drought.

Wenders and Juliano's cameras are often turned on framed photographs as Salgado discusses his work. As we gaze upon framed photos, Salgado's reflection sometimes appears in the glass; a fascinating visual whereby the artist's face is superimposed on his work.

The film continues with Salgado's photo essay of the Kuwait oil fields following the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s'. The burning oil wells left behind by Saddam Hussein's army created a hellish landscape where black clouds billowing angrily from derricks created a near-endless night. The oleaginous muck drenching the oil workers who feverishly battled the blazes becomes another powerful image in Salgado's lens as are the eery, frightening shots of the oil-drenched landscape.

Yet another photographic endeavor is his essay on those displaced by wars in Bosnia and Rwanda, which are no less powerful. It is sobering to hear Salgado speak pessimistically of humanity after completing his project. We can sympathize; we are able to see some of what caught his eye and it isn't pretty. As a viewer, one can appreciate his courage and willingness to document subject matter the world would rather turn away from.

The film concludes with Salgado's environmental work; behind the camera and beyond it. We see some images from nature that are quite lovely, as is his study of an Amazonian tribe. In a film bursting with memorable images, one of the most is of Salgado's home village. When he returns to find the once verdant hills barren and smothered in desert, he becomes determined to re-forest the landscape. To see dense forest replace dust and sand imparts a sense of hope to the audience, who might be nearly overcome with pessimism after seeing so much imagery steeped in war, death and starvation. His quest for reclamation becomes a cogent statement about proactivity but it also serves as an affective coda to an amazing film.

Though Juliano shares directorial credit, The Salt of the Earth could have only been made by a director with Wenders' visual sense. Wenders' Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire are themselves rich in arresting, otherworldly images, which makes him an obvious choice to co-direct a documentary on an exceptional photographer.

Wenders and Juliano let Sebastiao speak for his work, a sound and preferable alternative to talking head testimonials that might clutter a lesser filmmaker's work.

Wenders/Juliano leave us with something memorable; a film that tests our capacity to look upon the world's less-appealing truths and reflect on its heartbreaking beauty. We find in Sebastiao Salgado an artist and a humanitarian. He shows us human-conceived horrors without stifling his message with a scold's finger-wagging. He simply asks us to look and consider how our species permits more suffering and carnage than we care to acknowledge. The Salt of the Earth is a terrific film about an everyman with an extraordinary, compassionate eye.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Joss Whedon/Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson, James Spader (Voice), Paul Bettany, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders and Peggy Carter

Crash! Bang! Smash! Crack! Pow!--have I overlooked any other sound effect? With Avengers: The Age of Ultron, you get that and more. What carnage! What destruction! And unbelievable mayhem! And oh, yeah; the world somehow emerges intact though the real Marvel is how the world's greatest crime fighters manage to leave the rest of the planet rubble-free.

Joss Whedon is back with a super-hero assemblage whose popularity may soon eclipse the X-Men's. Though I've come to expect over-the-top, CGI wreckage and ear-punishing noise in the Summer blockbuster season, I find Whedon's variety to be quite fun. Of course it helps to have the Ministry of Mayhem: Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Dr. Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Nastasha Romanoff/Black Widow (the sensuous Scarlett Johansson) dispensing it in highly entertaining ways. But the group's peacetime bonding proves to be as entertaining as their violent outings.

It also helps that the cast has presence; a very necessary and indispensable super-hero quality, which helps sell the story and keep our eyes glued to the screen.

The film also has its share of funny banter, which ensures the movie doesn't stray too close to the too-serious, too-earnest precipice.

The new movie doesn't waste a breath plunging the audience into action as the Avengers find themselves assaulting a fortress where the baddie Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) hides out with two of his genetically-engineered creations; the super-powered twins Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Strucker is in possession of Loki's staff; a powerful and dangerous item Thor intends to return to Asgard; home of the Norse gods. Of course we get to see the Avengers wield their distinctive powers as they pummel and brush aside soldiers en route to the fortress. And as they enter the compound, we also see what the evil twins Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver can do. Scarlet Witch's ability to use people's greatest fears against them and Quicksilver's light-speed kineticism present considerable problems for the Avengers but though they present a formidable defense, the Avengers manage to retrieve the staff and escape to their Tony Stark-designed headquarters in New York City.

The Avengers previous battle with aliens (see the first film) inspires Tony Stark to employ the staff's dark power--very ill-advised--to impart artificial intelligence to a robotic unit he intends to use to defend Earth from another threat of an alien invasion. Stark shares his idea only with Dr. Banner; thus circumventing team oversight. Before he can complete a prototype for his new project, the unit assumes control of his own creation and in doing so, a malevolent entity is formed: Ultron. Before it can be stopped, it destroys Stark's hyper-advanced cyber-assistant Jarvis and escapes. When the Avengers team learn Stark is behind its creation, they are more than a little furious. Stark's brainchild, though altruistically conceived, unleashes yet another danger they must overcome.

Whedon's film keeps a feverish pace; we barely have enough time to process expository information before more comes our way. Though its hyper-active, the film's break-neck speed manages to be bracing.

The Avengers find themselves racing around the globe to thwart Ultron's quest to upgrade himself and achieve invincibility; a goal partly realized when he seizes a supply of Vibranium; the strongest metal known to man (and the key material in Captain America's shield); whose indestructible quality he manages to harness for his robotic frame. Ultron, with the help of Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver (the twins' beef with the Avengers has its origins in the destruction of their village; an unexploded missile bearing Stark Industries name killed their family), manage to fight off the Avengers and in the process, the Scarlett Witch is able to play on their respective fears. Another indignity is visited on the team when Ultron steals Loki's staff.

As the Avengers lick their wounds, they find themselves hiding out in Hawkeye's secluded, country home (after Ultron's violent renovation of the Avengers Mansion) to rest and plan their next attack.

Here the film takes a more tender turn (believe it or not) as we--and the Avengers--learn of Hawkeyes' family and his expectant wife. A taste of Hawkeye's domestic bliss makes some of the other members wonder if they'll ever enjoy the same arrangement. But inter-member romance is also in the air, as Black Widow and Dr. Banner/Hulk show signs of mutual attraction though he is quick to warn her that his condition makes a relationship impossible.

Before the team (and the audience) is allowed further inertia, the heroes are off again, this time to South Korea, where they learn Ultron is intent on creating a new version of himself. The would-be Ultron; a synthetic/organic hybrid, will only render him more dangerous and deadly. As Ultron loads his consciousness into his new self, the Scarlet Witch penetrates its mind and discovers what Ultron has planned for the human race: complete and utter destruction. Horrified, the twins turn against him while the Avengers arrive to steal the new entity before Ultron can complete the transfer.

After more car-crashes and building demolition, the Avengers manage to escape with Ultron's creation and in doing so, they find themselves with a new ally and superhero.

The film's final battle pits the Avengers, the Maximoff twins and the new super-hero against Ultron and his robotic minions, as he sets his apocalyptic plan into action.

There is much to like about Whedon's film. I liked the sequence where the Hulk runs amok; an issue Stark must address with his super version of Iron Man. I also liked the movie's human dimension; family, romance, etc, which the film sorely needs.

What meaning we can glean from the Summer's first blockbuster may lie in its cynical view of technology. The idea of its application causing as much harm as good is eloquently expressed as we see Ultron vent his wrath on the planet. It is also very interesting to see Tony Stark/Iron Man become a villain in his own right as he conceals his Ultron project from the Avengers before nearly becoming an agent in mankind's destruction. Very nice twist.

I do have one question for Whedon: how can so much destruction not affect city and town infrastructures and do the Avengers foot the bill for it all? Just wondering.

Whedon's film is just the beginning of movie Summer's CGI extravaganzas and though we may be sick to death of it all come August, at least here it serves a story and doesn't entirely overwhelm the human element. The final battle left me a little weary of the chaos; just when I thought all of Ultron's robots had been vanquished, more appeared to be torn apart. It was an unnecessary prolongation but the producers (All thirteen of them! Yes, they outnumber the Avengers) may have felt another pause in the action may have caused a riot in the theater.

My summation: The Avengers: Age of Ultron is great fun. And if you're wondering (anyone who has seen the series won't) whether the film sets up the next iteration, have no fear. Can this franchise stand five films? If they can entertain like Whedon's latest, why not?

Will Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk and Hawkeye return? We'll find out in two years time. See you there.

Note to viewers: you may not want to wait for the end credits to pass as has become the custom with Marvel adaptations; the next antagonist makes an appearance after the main action.