The Grouchy Editor

Tiny

 

There’s something romantic about chucking it all and adopting a back-to-nature existence, but I’m not sure I could follow the example of the young couple in Tiny who spend a year building a 130-square-foot cabin to call home in Colorado.  They filmed their project, which is part of a “tiny house” movement in which ecologically minded (or financially strapped) folk build and live in miniature homes.  It’s a fantasy with allure, but — there’s not enough room for my books.  Give me Dick Proenneke’s cabin in Alaska, or perhaps Jim Rockford’s trailer on the beach – small, certainly, but not that small.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B+

 

 *****

 

Black Rock

 

It’s “girls’ night out” from hell for three women whose bonding trip to a deserted isle goes sour when they encounter some Iraq war vets.  Rock asks some good questions: Is a woman ever partly responsible for her own sexual assault? Is every military veteran deserving of our respect?  But after an intriguing setup, director-writer-star Katie Aselton’s story degenerates into a silly, quite literal, battle of the sexes.   Release: 2013  Grade:  B-

 

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Birth of the Living Dead

 

The best part of this “making of” documentary is the gee-whiz good humor of filmmaker George A. Romero who, 46 years after the release of Night of the Living Dead, still gets a kick out of the fact that so many people have seen — and loved — his little Pittsburgh-based movie.  Romero is a much better salesman than some of the gassy windbags who are also interviewed and who seem hell-bent on attributing way too much cultural significance to what is, after all, a low-budget horror film.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B 

 

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Don Jon 

         

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Jon, a shallow bartender who is addicted to porn. Scarlett Johansson is the spoiled “princess” who wants Jon under her thumb, and Julianne Moore is a lonely widow out to save him from both porn and bad relationships.  The message is a good one, but unless you buy into the Gordon-Levitt and Moore hook-up – I didn’t – it falls a bit short as romantic comedy.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B

 

 

Captain Phillips

 

Hollywood has always been good at producing the fact-based action movie – provided the script isn’t too beholden to actual facts.  I have no idea how accurate Captain Phillips is as it dramatizes a 2009 cargo-ship hijacking off the coast of Somalia, but it’s tense and exciting – think Dog Day Afternoon on the high seas – and Tom Hanks’s captain is, as Hanks characters so often are, a man you can cheer for.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B+

 

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Klown

         

This Danish road-trip comedy recalls old-fashioned American slapstick, the type of goofiness we used to get from Laurel and Hardy – but with one big difference:  The sight gags, often hilarious, are also rated X.  Danish TV comics Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen star as oil-and-water pals who embark on a male-bonding wilderness trip that goes awry thanks to their own ineptitude and a 12-year-old boy who tags along for the ride.  Release:  2010  Grade:  B

 

 

        

 

Canadian actress Tinsel Korey plays a troubled bookseller going through hell at work and at home – but who, or what, is responsible for that hell?  Stained tested my tolerance for the “it was only a dream” school of filmmaking, in which the viewer is never quite sure if what he sees happening is, in fact, really happening, and it doesn’t help that the first half of this psychological horror-show is slow.  On the plus side, Korey is good as a woman who doesn’t handle stress particularly well.   Release: 2010  Grade:  B-

 

 

The Woman

 

 

Well, The Woman ain’t boring.   I’m not entirely sure what the movie is – black comedy, feminist revenge flick, unpleasant gorefest – because it’s a tonal mess, but it ain’t boring.  Sean Bridgers plays Henry Higgins from Hell, a country lawyer named Cleek who keeps his family in check with a mix of condescension, threats, and old-fashioned whuppings.  One fateful day Cleek spots a primitive woman in the wilds of Massachusetts (yes, apparently there are wilds in Massachusetts), decides to take her home with him, and then … I can’t explain it.  But it ain’t boring.  Release:  2011  Grade:  B

 

 

Passion

 

 

Thirty years ago, Brian De Palma was king of the erotic thriller.  Today … not so much.  It’s a shame because Passion is certainly watchable and bears De Palma’s distinctive visuals and soundtrack.  But the story, in which a corporate cat-fight between executive Rachel McAdams and subordinate Noomi Rapace turns deadly, is confusing and illogical.  In De Palma movies of yore such narrative lapses were both minor and overshadowed by the man’s dazzling direction.  Not anymore.  Release:  2012  Grade:  C+

 

 

Short Term 12

     

 

Looking for something that all of the critics love?  Short Term 12 has a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and for good reason.  This little film about a handful of young counselors at a home for at-risk teens worried me at first, because it initially carries a whiff of Afterschool Special.  Uh-oh, I thought, it’s one of those earnest “good for you” movies.  But I was wrong. Unlike just about every other Hollywood release, Short Term 12 is neither cynical and snarky nor sappy and stupid.  It’s smart and moving.  And lead actress Brie Larson is a real standout.  Release:  2013  Grade: A-

 

 

  

 

Stardom puts the spotlight on vocalists who came close to the music-industry brass ring but, either through hard luck or, in some cases, because they didn’t really want it, missed out on solo stardom.  There is a lot of great music in this Oscar-winning tribute to backup singers – but not, really, all that much drama.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B-

 

 

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A quote in the ads for this film informs us that Jailbait is “in the vein of Orange Is the New Black.”  Uh, no, it isn’t.  It’s “in the vein” of trashy ’70s women-in-prison flicks like The Big Doll House.  Mostly it’s just writer-director Jared Cohn filming his girlfriend, actress Sara Malakul Lane, in one degrading nude scene after another. Lane, who was about 30 when this was shot, plays a “juvenile” sent to a detention center for young girls, which of course entails rape, shower scenes, more rape, and lesbian sex.  Lane does look good naked (she also looks 30),  but unlike those ’70s B-movies, this jail drama is a bore.  Release:  2013  Grade:  D

 

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                                       Excision

   

 

It might test your tolerance for gross-out visuals, and I thought the ending was lame, but the witty horror-comedy Excision is also an amusing battle of wills between teenage social outcast Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord) and her mother, the uber-controlling Phyllis (Traci Lords).  Marlee Matlin, Ray Wise, Malcolm McDowell and John Waters lend support.  Release:  2012  Grade:  B

 

          

 

 

*****

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Penthouse North (aka Blindsided)

 

 

 

Jug Face

 

 

 

Chop

 

Lance is a former drug addict trying to get his act together.  Problem is, he’s offended someone, and that someone has a bone to pick with Lance — quite literally, as it turns out, and Lance’s life soon becomes a nightmare of blackmail, torture, and missing fingers.  For awhile, when Lance is toyed with by a stranger who refuses to tell him what he’s done wrong, Chop is delicious black comedy, and actors Will Keenan and Timothy Muskatell are amusing duelists.  But then director Trent Haaga decides to cater to the gore-lovers in our midst, and the film devolves into a live-action Itchy & Scratchy Show.  Release:  2011  Grade:  C+

 

*****

 

House of Tolerance

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A visual feast — and not just because of the female flesh on display.  The bordello sets, art direction, and leisurely pace capture a bygone world (1899-1900) that’s both seductive and soulless, as director Bertrand Bonello concentrates on the cloistered, dead-end lives of a dozen high-class Parisian prostitutes and their indentured servitude to wealthy clients.  The photography is gorgeous and the actors are top-notch, but the movie itself, like transactions in a fancy brothel, is a bit cold.  Release:  2011  Grade:  B+

 

*****

 

Cottage Country

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Must be tough living next door to the country that is home to Hollywood, the world’s premiere manufacturer of motion pictures.  That might give the film industry in your own country an inferiority complex.  I don’t know how else to explain Canada, which cranks out the most peculiar movies.  Cottage Country is a black comedy — in theory — about an engaged couple caught up in grisly murders at a rustic lakeside retreat, but its mix of yuks and yuck is a herky-jerky mess.  Release:  2013  Grade:  C-

 

*****

 

Sister

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Sister is one of those slice-of-life dramas that rise or fall depending on how much emotion you invest in the main characters.  In this case, we watch as a family of two — 12-year-old Simon and twentysomething Louise — struggle to get by in the shadow of a posh Swiss mountain resort, Simon by stealing from rich guests and Louise by, well, not much.  I cared about the two of them, a bit, but not enough to compensate for the film’s slow stretches and a fairly predictable plot.  Release:  2012  Grade:  B- 

 

*****

 

Deep Water

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In 1968, while competing in a sailing race around the globe, a mild-mannered businessman named Donald Crowhurst encountered problems with his boat.  Buckling to intense personal and professional pressures, and with no hope of winning the race, for a time Crowhurst managed to excite a breathless British press (and the world) by posting false progress reports.  Today, Crowhurst is a historical footnote, but this documentary about an English everyman who bit off more than he could chew, with tragic results, is both sad and thought-provoking.  Release:   2006  Grade:  B+

 

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You’re Next

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Anyone who subscribes to a movie-streaming service like Netflix can tell you this:  There is no shortage of low-budget horror flicks.  To stand apart, a good chiller must either offer something new (The Blair Witch Project) or excel at generating suspense (anything from director James Wan).  You’re Next, yet another home-invasion story, does neither.  It has decent production values and competent acting, but like too many films in this genre, it substitutes gore for genuine fear and dishes up characters who do unbelievably stupid things.  Release:  2013  Grade:  C- 

 

*****

 

Prisoners

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I am imagining a pre-production meeting for Prisoners.  Suit A:  “Excellent story.  Two daughters go missing and we then explore the grief of their families.”  Suit B:  “Sure, but that’s not enough.  Audiences expect thrills, so let’s toss in a convoluted serial-kidnapper angle.  And we need some snakes in the movie.”  Suit C:  “Sounds good, but young people want blood and guts, so let’s include some graphic torture scenes.”  And so we got Prisoners, a good-looking, well-acted production that’s too clever by half and too long by about 30 minutes.  Snakes?  My eyes are still rolling.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B

 

*****

 

Insidious:  Chapter 2

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I’ve praised director James Wan (see above), but I’m going to stop doing that because after watching this tepid sequel to Wan’s creepy Insidious, it’s clear that he’s lost his mojo.  Uninspired and clichéd (pianos play themselves; battery-powered toys turn themselves on), Insidious: Chapter 2 finds the Lambert family once again beset by evil spirits — and Wan recycling scare tactics from better chillers, including his own.  Release:  2013  Grade:  C

 

*****

 

North Face

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I have no idea how much of this fact-based German film about an ill-fated mountain-climbing expedition involves stunt work, or how much of it is special effects, but the result is hair-raising — especially if you have a fear of heights.  A subplot about Austrian-German loyalty to Hitler in 1936 is distracting, but once the characters begin climbing the mountain … damn.  Release:  2008  Grade:  B+

 

*****

 

The Bling Ring

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“The Bling Ring,” in case you’ve forgotten, was a band of young Californians who gained notoriety for burglarizing the homes of Hollywood’s rich and famous, including Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.  Sofia Coppola’s film is curiously flat yet watchable.  We observe these vapid young people as they observe (and burgle) their celebrity role models — and none of us learn a thing of value.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B-

 

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Robot & Frank 

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Sometimes silly but always engaging, Robot & Frank is a showcase for 74-year-old Frank Langella.  Langella plays a grumpy, unreformed burglar whose adult son comes up with an antidote for dad’s failing memory:  a caregiver robot.  The movie is ostensibly science fiction, but its theme is human memory — and the loss of it.  What makes Robot stumble is its desire to add thrills to the mix, including a lame heist sequence.  Release:  2012  Grade:  B

 

*****

 

The Conjuring

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One day, someone will give director James Wan a quality script and he might produce a horror classic.  Wan, who gave us Insidious and now this film, is a master at staging and framing shots for maximum shock value — the first half of Conjuring boasts some of the scariest scenes I’ve watched in ages.  Unfortunately, once a pair of demonologists (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) show up to clear a family’s house of evil spirits, the screenplay devolves into clumsy dialogue and rip-offs of better films like The Exorcist and Poltergeist.  Still … those first 45 minutes are chilling.  Release:  2013  Grade:  B+

 

*****

 

Oldboy

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A man wakes up in a hotel room with no clue how he got there and no idea that he will be imprisoned there for the next 15 years — and that’s just the beginning of his ordeal.  Korean director Park Chan-wook’s trippy revenge-mystery doesn’t always make sense, and it’s a tad too long, but it’s hard to take your eyes off the screen.  And a twist near the end is a real whopper.  Release:  2003  Grade:  B+

 

*****

 

Absentia

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Straight-to-video horror movies often share similar traits:  a few scary scenes; a good performance or two; and last but not least, a goofy script that sabotages much of what is positive about the film.  So it is with Absentia, in which residents of a Los Angeles neighborhood keep vanishing into a … oh, never mind.  But there are some chills here, and lead actress Katie Parker is appealing.  Release:  2011  Grade:  B-

 

*****

 

Everything or Nothing

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I suppose I expected something different from a documentary about the making of the James Bond movies, like more girls, gadgets, and guns.  Instead, Everything focuses on behind-the-scenes drama, in particular the clashing egos of producers Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli and Bond creator Ian Fleming.  It’s an interesting tale, just not as entertaining as the films themselves.  One noticeable absentee from the roster of interviewees:  Sean Connery.  Release:  2012  Grade:  B

 

*****

 

The Silence

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A young girl is raped and murdered in a field, the killer is not found, and 23 years later — to the day — another girl goes missing at the same spot.  The Silence is unusual in that it concentrates as much on the victims’ families as on the crime.  The result is a compelling drama from Germany, but also a thriller that’s a bit short on thrills.  Release:  2010  Grade:  B

 

*****

 

Grabbers

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In Bride of the Monster, there is an infamous scene in which poor, aging Bela Lugosi tussles with a rubber octopus.  There’s a similar scene in Grabbers, but with a difference:  This time, we are supposed to laugh.  This Irish horror-comedy about an island village besieged by monsters is an affectionate nod to silly B-movies past, but aside from a hilarious turn by Ruth Bradley as a drunken cop, the laughs are sporadic.  The real grabber here is the breathtaking Irish scenery.  Release:  2012  Grade:  B

 

*****

 

Talhotblond

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You’ve probably heard of “catfishing,” the pernicious practice of conning people by using fake Internet profiles.  Filmmaker Nev Schulman has made a career chronicling the phenomenon, beginning with his 2010 movie Catfish and continuing with an MTV series.  But this movie, similar in theme to Catfish, predates Schulman’s documentary and, for my money, is the better film because the stakes, murder, are much higher.  The final twist is a stunner.  Release:  2009  Grade:  B+

 

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Trick ‘r Treat

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At first, I thought this horror-comedy was an undisciplined mess.  But then a funny thing happened on my way to the graveyard:  I realized I had the wrong attitude.  I expected the story to make sense.  Big mistake.  You have to view it as a filmed nightmare, in which your sleeping brain jumps from one horrific scenario to the next – it’s a vampire dream … a serial-killer dream … a space alien dream.  Trick is a surrealistic treat.  Most impressive:  writer-director Michael Dougherty’s colorful, stylish visuals.  Release:   2007   Grade:   B+

 

*****

 

Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie

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Here’s a cautionary tale about what can happen when you obsessively compete with Daddy.  Downey, the son of a famed singer, was our original trash-talk TV host, a chain-smoking, foul-mouthed precursor to Limbaugh, Beck, et al – not to mention Jerry Springer.  But Downey’s fall was as fast and dramatic as his late ‘80s rise, and the whole saga is well documented in this film.  Release:  2013   Grade:  B+

 

*****

 

Maniac

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Elijah Wood again miscast, this time in a gory, unpleasant serial-killer remake.  Wood might be fine as a hobbit, but as a romantic leading man (The Oxford Murders) or a “terrifying” psycho (this film) … not so much.  The diminutive, child-like actor is simply too physically unthreatening – although he does have creepy eyes.  On the other hand, 50-year-old Jan Broberg proves that it’s never too late to bare a shapely ass for the camera.  Release:   2012   Grade:   C

 

*****

 

Olympus Has Fallen

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It’s Die Hard at the White House, but what was once a fresh concept — ballsy good guy vs. dozens of bad guys in a sealed-off setting, in this case Gerard Butler battling North Koreans in the president’s house — has gone stale.  Butler lacks Bruce Willis’s charm, the villain lacks Alan Rickman’s wit, and the whole film has a been-there-done-that feeling.  There are, however, lots of explosions — if that’s what floats your boat.  Release:   2013   Grade:   C

 

*****

 

Dirty Wars

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Journalist Jeremy Scahill looks into U.S. covert activity overseas, and the picture he paints isn’t pretty.  Scahill’s interviews with victims of collateral damage caused by military strikes – in particular by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the group responsible for killing bin Laden – are disturbing.  What taints this otherwise compelling documentary is the one-sidedness of the reporting:  Government response is either scant or missing in action.  Release:   2013   Grade:  B

 

*****

 

TWA Flight 800

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Evidence that conspiracy nuts might not always be nuts – and that our government has few compunctions about lying to us.  The documentary makes a strong case that Flight 800 was deliberately shot down on July 17, 1996 – scores of eyewitnesses describe missiles honing in on the plane – but it’s also a frustrating film in that no theories are proposed about the “why” of the catastrophe.  Do the filmmakers suspect terrorism, or perhaps a military mistake?  The movie also gets bogged down in technical jargon about melting nitrates, burning fuselages and other baffling terminology.  Release:   2013   Grade:  B

 

*****

 

The Purge

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An upper-middle-class family holes up in its gated community on “Purge Night,” an annual 12-hour window in which the government sanctions all crime – including murder.  Yes, it has a message about class warfare, and another message about violence in America, but it also has some genuinely tense invasion scenes.  Release:   2013   Grade:   B+

 

*****

 

Flight

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If your quarterback wins big games, would you care that he also has six illegitimate kids?  Flight is a smart film that asks a similar question:  How should we feel about our heroes when they are also deeply flawed?  Denzel Washington plays a pilot who pulls off a life-saving crash landing – but who also flies high in more ways than one.  The story is realistic and thought-provoking, yet Washington’s pilot is so self-assured, even cocky, that’s it’s difficult to much care about his fate.  Release:   2012   Grade:   B+

 

*****

 

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks

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Filmmaker Alex Gibney’s take on WikiLeaks, the online group devoted to uncovering secrets that powerful people would prefer you not know, and on Julian Assange, the weaselly Aussie who founded the organization, is riveting stuff.  The documentary touches on Assange’s legal battles – personal and professional – but mostly poses this question:  Where do you stand on freedom of the press vis-à-vis national security?  Judging from our government’s track record of lies and obfuscation, I’m going to side with the weaselly Aussie.  Release:   2013   Grade:   A-

 

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I Spit on Your Grave 2

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This is why Web sites like “Mr. Skin” exist.  If you have no desire to suffer through the ridiculous plot and unpleasant gore of a film like this, but you do think star Jemma Dallender is a hottie, “Mr. Skin” has screen grabs for you.  Dallender spends much of Spit 2 in the nude, playing a model who is raped, whisked to Bulgaria (don’t ask), and assaulted again before she escapes to exact revenge.  The most shocking thing here is the presence of actor Joe Absolom, who plays such a sweet guy on the British series Doc Martin.  His agent must have put his balls in a vise.  Release:   2013   Grade:   D-

 

*****

 

Movie 43

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I’m not convinced it was entirely a coincidence that, just two months after the release of Movie 43, esteemed film critic Roger Ebert was in his grave.  A lot of Hollywood A-List talent appears in this comic disaster, which relies almost exclusively on scatological “humor.”  There might be some 10-year-olds who enjoy this but, if so, I weep for America’s future.  Release:   2013   Grade:   F

 

*****

 

The Call

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Teen girl is abducted at the mall and stuffed into the trunk of a car, where her only link to the outside world is a cell-phone connection with 911 operator Halle Berry.  It’s realistic, pulse-pounding stuff – until the final half hour when, for reasons known only to the filmmakers, the plot goes all Silence of the Lambs on us.  Release:   2013    Grade:   B-

 

*****

 

Oblivion

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The problem with Oblivion, essentially a video game for the big screen, is that in between its glitzy CGI and action scenes we must endure:  a) flat characters, and b) a pretentious story that steals ideas from much better sci-fi films.  That’s the bad news.  The good news?  If you’ve just purchased a new high-def TV, it sure does look pretty.  Release:   2013   Grade:   B

 

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