Jesse Pinkman

What a grand creation is Breaking Bad's Jesse Pinkman. Stuttering syncopation, juvenile bravado and arrested emotion wrapped in B-boy swagger. How I loved listening to this guy talk.  All frenzy and ellipses. Pinkman would offer rapid-fire delivery that merged hip-hop and Valley Boy and then stop, leaving one word dangling ... alone. It was  like jazz riffing. As with the other major characters on this remarkable show, Pinkman was a neurotic enigma. And we were left to wonder, or not, how he came to be who he was. Why was he so viscerally homophobic? Was it street hustle or overcompensation? Why did he break bad so early? One thing was clear to me -- Jesse had two, true loves in the series. Both he lost to drugs -- Jane and Walter. Yeah, he cared deeply for Andrea and Brock Cantillo, but by the time he met the young mother and her son he had already been transformed into the "Bad Guy." His attachment to them was not about love but about redemption. But Jesse LOVED Jane Margolis. She cut through all of his residual Cap'n Cook BS and found the kid who loved to draw and imagined that he was special, in some way. She affirmed him and, yes, hurt him, and he loved her deeply. Walt he loved despite the manipulation and condescension. He loved Walt because Mr. White wanted him to be better, to try harder, to apply himself dammit. And when Walt hurt Jesse, turned on him, or let him down, the wound went deep. Pinkman's most powerful scene, at least to me, was delivered in Season Three from the hospital bed, as he was recovering from Hank Schrader's beat down. His denunciation of Walt's million dollar offer was his moment to hurt Mr. White in the way that he, Jesse, had been hurt so many times in his life -- by rejection. "You don't give a SHIT about me," Jesse spat, his face horribly swollen. It was a masterful performance by Aaron Paul, who truly deserved every accolade he's received for his work in this series.

Hank Schrader

Fans of Breaking Bad know DEA agent Hank Schrader, brother-in-law of Walter White aka drug lord Heisenberg. Recent reports attributing the high rate of suicide among men under 50 to their feelings of isolation reminded me of Hank and that character's obsessiveness, insecurities and anxiety. Hank was a lumbering mess of blustering impropriety whose apparent lack of an off-switch hid his nagging lack of confidence. He was an insightful investigator who refused to dig into his own dysfunction. Series creator Vince Gilligan never explained why Hank (or any other major character for that matter) was the way he was. Hank was Hank -- a fine drug enforcement agent who in Season Three was crippled less by the unsuccessful hit by the Salamanca cousins than his own brutalizing rage and self-pity. His wife, Marie, was his occasional confidante but he kept his most important and crucial demon battles to himself -- even after he discovered Walt's big secret. Keeping up appearances, as he told fellow DEA agent Steve Gomez, was of utmost importance. Living that code nearly killed him. Such a rich and remarkable character.

Marie Schrader

Vince Gilligan wasn't much interested in examining the emotional and psychological pathology woven throughout  Breaking Bad.  In fact, Gilligan wasn't much interested in explaining much of anything in the world he created, aside from Walt's cancer, and even then little screen time was given to the man's illness and treatment, lending early credence to Walt's final season confession that his meth cook exploits were all about him.  And, of course, as with much of what was presented in this brilliant show, the lack of exposition was deliberate and, to me, intriguing. Once Walt's cancer was arrested and he was off to the races with Jesse and Gus and the rest, the damaged psyches of the show's other characters were thrown into greater relief. Walt's sister-in-law Marie (Betsy Brandt) was such a bundle of repression and rage that her venomous meltdown after husband Hank's shooting was, at least to me, the character's most revelatory moment. It was clear to me that Marie was blistered by her resentment of her husband, his work, her work, her sister, and all of life, really. Oh, if she could only get that townhouse in Georgetown. Not a single moment was spent explaining this spiteful woman, in an effort to get us to understand her. She was who she was -- a bewildered, isolated, kleptomaniac out to piss off the world that had dealt her a handful of nothing.

Walter Jr.

I never really warmed up to Breaking Bad's Walter Jr. aka Flynn (R.J. Mitte) though friends of mine say he was everything from the moral core of the otherwise sick White household to the innocent victim of his parents' disabling dysfunction. I didn't agree with these characterizations because I always felt those calls were too easy and conventional for a series that was anything but. I've been re-watching the series lately and I have a better idea of where I am with Walter Jr. now, and it actually has more to do with all of the other players in the drama than with him. Like other minor characters (and I mean minor as in age and not necessarily importance) on television, Walter Jr. was not an active player; he responded to what the loony adults around him did, often with irritation and opprobrium. That's not to say he was unimportant,  just that he was not an agent and so it was difficult for me to emotionally invest in him. I never really knew what he wanted from life except a "car" and a "six pack of beer." His only friend, Louis, was a cipher, without context or connections. The only time we saw Walter Jr. with other friends, they were trying to get an adult to cop beer for them. Their interaction was brief and unproductive and we never saw the friends again. In short, Walter Jr. was a device. He was a tool (and in this case I mean both in attitude and in application). Maybe the audience was to take his cerebral palsy as the reason for his ill-temper and snarkiness.  I had a tough time buying it. I thought the kid was a prick and probably would have been even if he did not have those challenges. I did buy that he was the reason his parents were so indulgent, and used him as a chip to control one another and their in-laws. It actually may be a common occurrence that people use their children to threaten one another in this way. If so, I think that is terribly sad. But, in the case of Breaking Bad, because Walter Jr. was someone to be indulged and protected, I don't think Skyler and Walt Sr. ever felt like his parents, this was probably more true of Walter than of Skyler. The dynamic between Walter Jr. and Uncle Hank is revelatory, and contributed to Walt Sr.'s rashness and monomaniacal drive to outsmart his DEA agent brother-in-law.  I also thought the bonding that developed between Walter Sr. and his meth cook partner and surrogate son, Jesse Pinkman, was compensation for the disconnection he felt with his own son, who seemed to prefer another "dad" to him.

Shame

Exchanges with friends about the reporting of the Ferguson crisis has made me wonder if what so many people loathe about Fox News is the apparent lack of shame on display. The barometer that used to help us gauge our behavior toward family, friends and strangers seems to be disappearing (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/shrinkwrapped/201103/shame-third-pillar-civilization).  Shame kept us from telling lies or misbehaving for fear of discovery and humiliation. Being accused of being unfair or unkind was enough to elicit apologies or requests to make amends. Now, such accusations are noise lost in the ether. Caught in a lie? We were misunderstood or taken out of context. Caught in wrongdoing? Blame others. Offend someone? It's their fault for being sensitive or for provoking us. Do what earns. Scapegoat. Spew utter nonsense and walk away, much like Philip Seymour Hoffman's character in The Master. The scene in which Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd had the luckless, rageaholic Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) walk back and forth from a wall to a window in a ridiculous search for meaning was a chilling representation of shameless mind-control and puppetry. That was fiction. What we are seeing on display on TV is real and heaven help us.

Boyhood

Richard Linklater's films (my favorites are Before Sunrise and Waking Life) are about transcendent moments, some strung together into a life and others isolated, singular but no less important. His remarkable new film, Boyhood, is a collection of transcendent moments in the life of a Texas kid, Mason, played over the course of the movie's 12 years by Ellar Coltrane, in a performance that will certainly be recognized as special come award season. That Linklater and the principal members of the cast (Coltrane, Patricia Arquette as Mason's mom, Ethan Hawke as his ragtag father and Linklater's own daughter Lorelei as Mason's pain-in-the-ass sister) committed a dozen years to this project is enough to get the attention of serious filmgoers ready to marvel at such a feat and to forgive narrative holes and continuity gaffes. The surprising thing about Boyhood, which opens on a daydreaming 6-year-old Mason and closes with a buzzed and uncharaceristically cogent 18-year-old Mason, is virtually free of such lapses. What an achievement. Because the 2 1/2-hour film tracks Mason's formative years, it is, by necessity, episodic. But the episodes are rich and resonant, funny, frightening, unsettling, sad and always thought-provoking. Yes, the film is about Mason being shaped by the folks in his life -- most of them terribly unhappy people -- and the complex and, understandably, dour and listless young man he seems to become. But it is also about human imperfection. In fact, the film, to me, is about those beautiful imperfections in the people we love and who love us, the imperfections in the moments the universe gives us that can, nonetheless, be satisfying. Very highly recommended.

Guardians of the Galaxy

James Gunn's Marvel-ous story of intergalactic upheaval, menace and piracy, Guardians of the Galaxy, answers the question "what does a 'comic' genius do after creating scores of heroic characters who battle evil across time, space and dimensions?" Increase the wattage, spoof what has come before and add a sticky Top 40 soundtrack to underscore the chaos. Guardians is the latest in Marvel Comics Hollywood barrage of cartoons to cinema and stars a perfectly affable, though peculiarly familiar, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, a scavenger / thief who is chasing a mysterious orb that a half dozen other unsavory creatures and fiends are also hunting. When I say Pratt is familiar, I don't mean he's a familiar face though he is that, best known for Parks and Recreation. I mean he has a familiar affect -- I call him "hip, white dancing dude. " The film itself traces Pratt to his most obvious progenitor -- Kevin Bacon in Footloose.  He's rascally, glib, slick and irrepressible. Though ostensibly about space travel and epic battles, Guardians is actually more interested in reflecting modern society back to itself. Nearly everything in the film has a "real world" referent, and most of the fun of the film, at least to this viewer, was making the connections. I mean, honestly, what are we to make of a barbarous alien being who does not understand nuance, irony or metaphor (David Bautista)? We are to go with it, reveling in the construct of a humorless, brutal literalist and thinking if we put a Roman collar on him he might pass for clergy. What are we to make of a living tree (voiced by Vin Diesel) whose only words are a simple statement of his existence -- "I am groot" -- but who can be understood only by his trusted companion, a bad-ass, amped-up talking racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper)? Love comes in all shapes and sizes. And what of the pea-green assassin (Zoe Saldana) who is drawn to Quill's '80s AOR mixed tape but resists his pelvic seduction? I'll leave that one open. It's all fabulous and fun. Highly recommended with a body count in the billions and billions.

Begin Again

Irish writer / director John Carney's Once was one of the cinematic highlights of 2006 for me. The story of a lovelorn Irish busker who meets and falls in love with a Polish pianist on the streets of Dublin, that film's exquisitely anguished tunes were by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, who also starred. The film was turned into a Broadway sensation, as well. Carney's latest film, Begin Again, also features lovelorn musicians but this time the film's troubled romances are trumped by the movie's amazing exuberance. Keira Knightley plays Gretta, a British songwriter with a lovely, breathy Jewel-like voice, who has been penning songs for and with boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine of Maroon 5), with whom she has been living for five years before they arrive in New York City for Dave's big recording gig. Gretta, not unpredictably, is all support and optimism and so is, predictably, devastated when Dave returns from L.A. and in the most passive-aggressive display I've seen on film in quite a while plays her a song he wrote on the road to another woman. Gretta departs and bunks with her old mate and fellow busker Steve (the wonderful James Corden), who talks her into doing a few minutes at open mike and that's when the magic really begins. In the audience, nursing disillusion and dissolution, is Dan, an A&R man who has been run off from the label he started with friend Saul (Mos Def billed as Yasiin Bey). After Gretta receives a lukewarm reception from Saul, she and Dan concoct a scheme to record her songs -- each one beautiful pop blossoms, both musically and lyrically -- in various sites around Manhattan. They gather a posse of performers and in the grand tradition of old Hollywood musicals "put on a show." Mark Ruffalo as Dan never hits a wrong note though he does not actually perform any  music in the picture. Rufallo is such a reliable actor, and he and Knightley have several wonderful moments in this wonderful film. Their scene with the audio splitter as they walk through the city listening to Sinatra is pure gold. The lesson of this tender picture is:  If you've been hurt surround yourself with people who care about you, make some music and begin again. Highly recommended.

Snowpiercer

Joon-ho Bong's Snowpiercer is a dazzling amalgam of cinematic styles and sensibilities. Based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige, Snowpiercer takes place in the near future, after an attempt to reverse global warming freezes most of the life on the planet. Survivors are holed up in various compartments on a perpetual, high-speed train that traverses the globe. The further you move from the rear of the train forward, the greater the splendor of your life. The unwashed hordes in the rear car stage a rebellion under the leadership of grimey idealist Curtis (Chris Evans of Captain America), his idolizing buddy Edgar (Jamie Bell of Jumper) and their aged leader Gilliam (John Hurt) and aided by the intrepid Tanya (Octavia Spencer) and the ginger-headed Andrew (Ewen Bremner). They know they must fight their way to the engine room and wrest control from the train's builder, Mr. Wilford, who undoubtedly would resist the coup. To get the ball rolling, they must enlist the help of "hibernating" junkie / designer Minsoo (Korean actor Kang-ho Song) who will only work if he's supplied with chemical incentives. Once the revolution begins, blood flows and the body count mounts in a most surreal fashion. Bong is best known to me as the director of a fresh and fantastic monster movie from 2006, The Host, which also was an environmental cautionary tale. Like that film, Snowpiercer is a blend of terror and humor, which often works but occasionally is too broad and throws off the tenor of the film. Tilda Swinton, who enhances every film she's in, is marvelous as Wilford's officious spokeswoman Mason, sent to suppress the uprising. This hyper-violent affair is recommended, but is not for the squeamish or those who are averse to moral ambiguity.

Korengal

Journalists and filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington were imbedded in an airborne platoon stationed in a grim valley in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. In 2010, they released the riveting and critically acclaimed documentary, Restrepo, about the lives of the members of a combat team. Korengal is the second, and likely last, installment in the series. But, because of the nature of war, those who wage it and those who are sent to fight, the series could be extended indefinitely. Korengal includes footage Junger and Hetherington shot with the soldiers in their mountain encampment and in the villages in the valley from which the film takes its name, post-deployment studio interviews (the faces of each subject is framed in extreme close-up) and other material shot by the troops themselves.Though the sentiments shared by the men -- most of whom also appeared in Restrepo -- are now familiar, their comments about duty and fear are no less compelling. One of the most intriguing parts of the film is a long section toward the middle in which the members of the platoon talk candidly about the rush the get during firefights with the enemy. Admittedly, they say, a lot of the enjoyment comes from the relief skirmishes offer from the stretches of stultifying boredom. But, they add, they have lost members of the platoon to enemy shells and mortars during firefights. Director Junger has written dozens of articles about the bond the trials forge between men and strikes those chords about brotherhood and sacrifice in Korengal. Highly recommended. Strong language but no blood.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The wonder of Matt Reeves's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is not in the narrative -- which is familiar -- but in the execution. This, of course, means it will not win Best Picture but it will be lauded for the unquestionable artistry that is on display. The wonder of the movie begins and ends with the amazing Andy Serkis, who carries the picture as Caesar, the leader of a nation of biologically enhanced apes living peacefully in Oakland after humankind nearly eradicates itself by "monkeying around" with viruses and microbes in labs in San Francisco. All of this was introduced in 2011 in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, in which Serkis, CGI'd down to the wrinkles in his brow, showed us what real acting looked like. It's not about declamation but the expressiveness that resides in gesture. He delivers again in Dawn. The human element in the picture -- kind-hearted envoy Jason Clarke, equally kind-hearted nurse Keri Russell, the distrustful and desperate human leader Gary Oldman, and the bitter and trigger-happy crew member Kirk Acevedo -- while not negligible does not compare to the movie's simian cast -- played by Serkis, Toby Kebbell as the mad and traitorous Koba, Nick Thurston as Caesar's disillusioned and naive son Blue Eyes, and Karin Konoval as the wise orangutan teacher Maurice. Matt Reeves's Dawn overflows with stunning images of apes swinging through the trees, scaling scaffolding, and storming barricades and quite a few quiet moments of genuine tenderness that approach sentimental but do not cross the line. Highly recommended but violent and could be distressing for children.

The Immigrant

James Gray's beautiful and mesmerizing film The Immigrant features two Oscar-caliber performances in a powerful story of one Eastern European woman's struggles after coming to America. Marion Cotillard is Ewa a Polish nurse and seamstress who arrives at Ellis Island with her sister Magda but through the connivance of a charming stranger, a superlative Joaquin Phoenix, she is quickly separated from her sister and swept up in the man's world of speakeasies and brothels. Both actors, personal favorites of mine, deliver stellar performance in roles that are not showy but brimming with intelligence and control. An early scene in which Phoenix's Bruno upbraids Ewa for resisting his advances is so wonderfully written (Gray and Ric Menello) and acted that it resonates throughout the film. In three or four minutes we understand Bruno's perfidy and Ewa's entrapment. It's frightening and heartbreaking and splendid. The film is shot mostly in sepia and muted grays, which makes Ewa's donning of the harlot's crimson lipstick all the more stunning and tragic. Gray, who has worked with Phoenix on a number of other films (The Yards, We Own the Night), has crafted an important tale of the desperation and hope that drive many to our shores or across our borders. Cotillard's Ewa is an emblem. She accepts what she must do to finally obtain American freedom that she and her sister traveled so far for. As she tells her aunt in one of the film's most riveting scenes, she has done sinful things but she had to survive. And in that realization and acceptance is the film's message. Some of the wretched refuse yearning to be free did -- and do -- unspeakable things to get here and stay here. The cast also includes Jeremy Renner as Bruno's cousin, Orlando the magician, who falls for Ewa which sets him on collision course with his cousin. Highly recommended.

22 Jump Street

It is to be presumed that the audience for Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's 22 Jump Street skews young even though the film's cleverness would resonate most with folks who remember those simmering buddy police television series from the '70s like Adam 12 and The Rookies. In those series, the female characters, while not totally ancillary, were decidedly second-tier. The True Romance was between these women's boyfriends and spouses and their partners in the squad car. 22 Jump Street, and its predecessor 21 Jump Street, parody the '80s series by pushing the entire genre over a cliff to hilarious effect. Jonah Hill (Schmidt, the smart, fat one) and Channing Tatum (Jenko, the dumb, pretty one) reprise their roles as improbable cops in some fictitious California city who go undercover in a high school in the 2012 film and a college in this one to stamp out the narcotic trade that's preying on the community's youths. Hill and Tatum have enormous chemistry and their juvenile co-dependency makes for some of the sharpest observations about relationships this highly observant film has to offer. Ice Cube plays their commanding office, Capt. Dickson, whose part consists almost entirely of blasting everyone within earshot with profanity and threats. Much like that other summer release Neighbors, 22 Jump Street overflows with sexual references and hints of homoeroticism that fans of this genre (I don't know the name but it's leading perpetrators are Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen and their crew) have come to expect, if not demand. Highly recommended but not for youngsters.

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Dean DeBlois's sequel to the popular How to Train Your Dragon (2010)  is a high-flying and high-minded animated adventure that picks up the story of Hiccup, the intrepid young Viking dragon-tamer voiced by Jay Beruchel, and assorted Nordic folks of his island village Berk after they've made peace with the once-feared but now petted beasties of the title.I quite liked the mix of whimsy and dread in the first film, and was thrilled to see the sequel (a third is planned for 2016) expands this magical world beyond the delightfully intricate backdrop of the village to explore new astoundingly beautiful territories. (The aerial scene that opens this thoroughly entertaining film is breathtaking. Do see it in 3D.) When the film opens, Hiccup, an aeronautical genius and son of the village chief, Stoick (voiced by Gerard Butler), is on a mission with his loyal dragon companion Toothless, a rare Night Fury, to make all of the dragons friends of man (and vice versa) but on one of his excursions he is confronted by a crew of wranglers in the employ of one of the ruthless villain Drago (Djimon Hounsou), who means to rule the world with a dragon army. When told of Drago's plot, Stoick decides to protect his own and put Berk under lockdown, but  Hiccup and girlfriend Astrid (America Ferrera) slip out to try to change Drago's mind. While they are out Astrid is captured by the wranglers and Hiccup is intercepted by a kindred spirit and therein lies the heart of this surprising and touching film. Highly recommended though it contains frightening scenes of destruction and the death of major character and so might be too much for the little ones.

The Fault in Our Stars

In the 44 years since that bestseller turned movie Love Story made diseased young love a popular culture commodity, writers and filmmakers have dispensed with dramatic buildup and have been introducing audiences to characters and their maladies almost immediately. Once TB (or consumption) was reserved for the Third Act, sweeping in to usher one character or other into the wings. But no longer. That writers and directors no long wait has made leukemia or lymphoma or senility or HIV a character in the given story, the villain at whom we boo and hiss. Josh Boone's film adaptation of John Green's teen tale of love in the age of cancer stars Shailene Woodley (The Descendants, The Spectacular Now) and Ansel Elgort (Divergent) as young people living with cancer who meet in support group and fall in love despite Hazel's failing lungs and world-weariness. Elgort's Gus is a ray of single-amputee sunshine whose outlook is blisteringly optimistic. Hazel is soon walking toward the light. The story's centerpiece is a trip that takes Hazel, Gus and Hazel's mom (a luminous Laura Dern) to visit Hazel's favorite novelist (Willem Dafoe), a recluse living in Amsterdam, so that she and Gus, who one suspects loves the man's enigmatic book because Gus loves the girl, might experience some closure. Woodley, a fine young actress who is becoming an old pro at playing distressed teens, carries this solid picture, which is hobbled just a bit by Elgort's odd two-dimensionality. It's not so much that he's bad, because he's quite good. It's more the case that he's danseur noble to Woodley's prima ballerina, which is an interesting dynamic to watch particularly during the Third Act. Because Woodley is so good, Elgort's Gus seems under-modulated or fuzzy. Still, it's a solid picture, for those who like their teen angst served raw. Recommended but it's a real weepy woo-woo.

Edge of Tomorrow

Doug Liman's contribution to the original Bourne Trilogy, The Bourne Identity, was the only one of the three that kept a sense of humor amidst the explosions, flying fists and vehicle chases. Liman's latest film, Edge of Tomorrow, displays his penchant for spicing his war with wit. Tom Cruise stars as Major Cage, an Army public information officer who has been managing promotions for the global campaign against alien hordes of whirling biomechanical demons that have taken over Europe. Emily Blunt plays Sgt. Vrataski, the poster girl for the resistance. She is also called the Angel of Verdun because she led a seemingly successful battle against the alien invaders in France. When Cage refuses to suit up and actually join the fight he has been spinning, he is busted down to a private and impressed into the ranks of a unit that will be taking a beachhead the next morning. Unwilling and untrained, Cage is soon killed, along with everyone else, after landing. He is drenched in the blood of the time-shifting aliens and finds himself living the day of the attack over and over once he is killed. During one of the early iterations of this horror, he encounters Vrataski who becomes his cohort and teacher because she had met a similar fate earlier but had since lost the ability to "reset" the day. Her coaching of Cage through his agonizing training are some of the film's funniest moments. The ever-dependable Bill Paxton (Aliens, Big Love) and Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) deliver finely accented performances as a no-nonsense master sergeant and the general officer in charge of the doomed invasion. Highly recommended.

Belle

The enchantment in Amma Asante's Belle is in the title character's face. Asante trains her camera on Gugu Mbatha-Raw's eyes, which signal brilliantly flattery and fear, intimidation and indignation, rage and romance -- the range of emotions she goes through as the illegitimate, biracial daughter of a British naval officer in 18th century England who is left in the care of the officer's aristocratic uncle and aunt. The child, Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay, but called Dido (not Belle, as the title would suggest), is reared in splendor but relegated to a station lower than the other residents of the estate where she lives -- her loving cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon), her spinster aunt Mary (Penelope Alice Wilton) and the Lord and Lady Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson). Screenwriter Misan Sagay has crafted parallel story lines based on the true story of Lady Lindsay. One involves the intrigues surrounding Lady Elizabeth's debut in London society as the impoverished though cultured and cherished niece of the Mansfields. The other concerns a case that Lord Mansfield will be ruling on as Lord Chief Justice that involves the suspicious drowning of slaves by a ship's captain. The young and fiery son of a local minister comes to clerk for Mansfield and falls captive to Dido's beauty and she to his passionate resolution to end slavery. The young squire, Daviner, is played by Sam Reid, whom I recently saw in another fine British film, The Railway Man. The chemistry between Dido and the ardent Davinier is undeniable and their courtship is handled with grace. It's a splendid film, sensitively pitched, and uses human servitude to explore questions of identity, honor and justice, writ large and small. Highly recommended.

Maleficent

Veteran visual artist Robert Stromberg's Maleficent is a supremely efficient and dazzling motion picture. It presents the origins story of the evil queen from the Sleeping Beauty story economically, narratively, but with an extravagance of visual embellishments -- the grandest being star Angelina Jolie's cheekbones. They're absolutely amazing -- witchy and old Hollywood. In fact, every shot of the queen is wondrous. Jolie, one of the producers of the film, plays the wronged queen of the fairies and guardian of the creatures living in the magical moors that are threatened by greedy humans. (Yes, the parallel to Jolie's philanthropic work in developing nations is stark.) Spurned and dewinged by a man she foolishly trusted, Maleficent curses the daughter of the man whose treachery wins him the throne (Sharlto Copley). The queen's infamous curse is that on her 16th birthday the Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) would prick her finger on a spinning wheel's needle and fall into a death-like sleep. Over the course of those 16 years, however, Maleficent and her raven helper (Sam Riley) watch after the child who has been entrusted to the care of three inept and disputatious pixies (Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton and Juno Temple) living in a cottage in an enchanted wood. The child touches the bitter queen's heart but nothing can reverse the curse but a true-love's kiss. It's an interesting twist but I'm not sure if young children, who will love the animation, will pick up on the film's message about the nature and meaning of love and devotion. Recommended.

The Railway Man

Jonathan Teplitzky's film The Railway Man is a painful and highly affecting treatment of the true story of British World War II prisoner Eric Lomax, who along with scores of other Allied soldiers helped to build a railway from Thailand to Burma for their Japanese captors. Lomax (Jeremy Irvine) is discovered with a radio receiver he built from spare parts scavenged before the British surrender of Singapore and also connected to a map of the railway that he hid in a latrine. He is then beaten and starved by interrogators, led by the young "interpreter" Nagase. The scenes of his torture are nearly unwatchable but one must if one is to feel the full power of the film's conclusion. Most of the picture is told in flashback as Lomax, 35 years after the war, meets a lovely woman named Patti on a train to the Scottish Highlands. He is smitten, pursues her and they marry for she is taken by this rumpled, strange but loving fellow who seems fixated with train schedules. Soon after taking up house, Patti discovers Eric's wounds but only suspects how deep they go for he does not talk about them. The elder Lomax is played by Colin Firth (The King's Speech) with all of the classical discipline we have come to expect from this fine actor. And Nicole Kidman, whose screen work has always been interesting if uneven, has matured from girlish beauty into striking loveliness as Patti. Their friend and Lomax's fellow POW Finlay (Stellan Skarsgard) warns Patti about the danger of probing into the regions that Lomax has guarded so carefully. But Patti is determined and it is that determination and sudden and surprising act by Finlay that lead to the confrontation between Lomax and Nagase that is the final act of the film. Though not a perfect film,  questions about the prisoners' liberation and Lomax's life before Patti are not answered,The Railway Man is human without being sentimental and it carries an important message. Highly recommended but some scenes of prisoner torture, including water boarding, are nearly unbearable.

Neighbors

Nicholas Stoller's Neighbors flexes the same kind of comedic homoeroticism  that has made wealthy men of writer / director Judd Apatow and his stable of actors, principally Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill. Though Apatow is not formally associated with this picture, the doughy Rogen stars along with the adonic Zac Efron as the neighbors of the title. Rogen and Rose Byrne play new parents living the American Dream in a college town when the Delta Psi Beta men and their coterie of busty babes move in next door. Rogen's Mac and Efron's Ted become quick "bros" but then after too many late night frat parties and a call to the local constabulary they declare war. Once the barrages of penis jokes, simulated (and actual) intercourse and references to ejaculate are unleashed, there's no turning back. And for the audience you either go along for the ride or cover your eyes and ears. Perhaps it is true as some have written that once you've passed through the dense cloud of sex and drug references you will discover the film's deeper message about maturity and responsibility. I can't attest to that because Stoller has dialed the outrageous meter up to 11 and the quiet pillow-talk between two stoned parents tagged on the end just seems a bit, er, anticlimactic after 100 minutes of unspeakable vulgarity. Recommended but not for youngsters or oldsters who can't take a joke.

Chef

Jon Favreau parlayed his wit and affability into an interesting interview program back in 2001 called Dinner For Five. The idea was for Favreau, known at the time mainly for his acting in Swingers, to talk shop with four friends who were also in show business. The conversations were not all riveting but the notion of gathering around the dinner table to talk about common passions is appealing (My Dinner with Favreau?). Food and passion are at the center of Favreau's latest film, Chef, a nicely constructed tale of family, friends, fortunes and forgiveness that features some of the most lovingly crafted scenes of food preparation I've seen since Babette's Feast (1987). Favreau, who is writer and director of this delightful picture, stars as L.A chef Carl Casper, who runs the kitchen of a high-dollar boite owned by the unimaginative Riva (Dustin Hoffman). Casper wants to explore the culinary landscape but is shutdown by Riva and, subsequently, is pummeled by a local food blogger who describes Casper's cuisine as "cloying." Though Casper is professionally stunted that's nothing compared with the disappointment he feels in his relationship with his 10-year-old son, Percy (a perfectly casted Emjay Anthony), who delivers many of the film's most genuinely touching and insightful moments. Favreau gets enormous (and enormously loving) support in this venture from John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale and Sofia Vergara. I'm disappointed that Scarlett Johansson was cast in a relatively small role that did not require the amperage that she inevitably brings. Highly recommended but be sure to eat before you go.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Peter Dinklage makes cinematic hay of the delectable role of Bolivar Trask, a scientist intent on protecting the human race from an inevitable mutant uprising in Bryan Singer's enjoyable but perplexing X-Men: Days of Future Past. Dinklage, best known as Game of Thrones' Tyrion Lannister, dominates the crowded film that stars, to varying degrees, Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence in a curvy, spectral time-travel tale that sends Jackman's Wolverine back to the '70s to avert Trask's murder at the hands of Lawrence's blue shape-shifter Mystique, a killing that would lead to the eventual annihilation of mutants and their supporters. The film is all reliably weird and nonsensical, and Singer's signature comic relief is delivered by American Horror Story's Evan Peters as the jokey kleptomaniac Quicksilver. X-men veterans Patrick Stewart, Ian MacKellan, Halle Berry and Shawn Ashmore are more or less placeholders. Oddly, Anna Paquin who has played Rogue in the previous films gets star billing and is seen for maybe 10 seconds at the end of the film. Recommended.

Godzilla (2014)

Not 10 minutes into Gareth Edwards' weirdly off-kilter remake of the 1954 classic Godzilla, stunt-casted Bryan Cranston delivers a cringe-inducing scene. He's an American nuclear engineer in Japan who is forced to shut the door on his slow-footed wife (Juliette Binoche) and her team as the belly of a nuclear reactor in full-meltdown fills with radioactive gas. It's a stunning wreck of a scene that introduces this stunning wreck of a movie. Edwards ably stages scenes of mayhem and destruction as Tokyo, Vegas and Frisco are reduced to rubble and kindling by the gargantuan deep sea lizard and his two leggy foes, the M.U.T.O.'s. British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, a big-eyed cipher, is the human star of the film, as the skeptical son of Cranston and Binoche's characters, who is a bomb disposal ace. Oddly, he never does actually get to show his bomb-defusing stuff, though, because he's too busy running toward or away from screaming monsters and screaming people. The real weakness in the film, IMO, is that we have no human villain to cheer against. It's tough to unload your animus on 300-foot-critters that humans created and who eat our weapons as if they were chili dogs. Reap, sow and all that jazz.The film also features the reliable David Strathairn as an admiral who is tasked with the destruction of the big battling baddies. His character is introduced in a truly bizarre tracking shot on the deck of an aircraft carrier as Strathairn's character addresses the crew, his back to the camera. When he finally turns to face the camera, I'm sure most of the folks in the audience were thinking, "Who the hell is he?" The picture is no biggie but see it if you must.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel has beautfiul, fractal intimacy, which is to say it is lovely, complex and cold. That is NOT to say it isn't entertaining because it is, quite delightful, because like those geometric puzzles that fascinate math-nerds, Grand Budapest's component parts -- script, art direction, cinematography and performances (principally Ralph Fiennes amd Tony Revolori) -- are precise and astounding. It's a technical marvel, much like the work of Peter Greenaway (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; The Pillow Book), but, alas, lacks an essential warmth. Recommended.

Noah

Three-quarters of the way through Darren Aronofsky's Noah, the titular character and his family are huddled in the ark with the remains of the world's critters and he retells the creation story. The story is fairly close to biblical text but the visual elements are pulled straight from the Evolutionist's Bible. It's a pretty neat trick. In fact, the entire film (which stars Russell Crowe as Noah and Jennifer Connelly as his wife, who was not given a name in Scripture but is called Naameh in the film) is tricky in that one is never sure of the point of this cagey retelling of The Flood. Has Aronofsky (a skilled visual artist, for sure) recast the ancient story of the Creator's great displeasure with his Creation (at least the human element of it) as an environmentalists' cautionary tale (the CGI animals are marvelous) or is it, like others of Aronofsky's films, a weird study of destruction and delusion. I must say I spent so much time trying to puzzle out this question that I never connected with any of the rage and emoting on the screen and there's plenty of it courtesy of Ray Winstone as the murderously carnivorous Tubal-cain and Emma Watson as another filmic construct Ila, the once-barren but then miraculously fertile wife of Noah's oldest son, the noble Shem, played by Douglas Booth). Crowe and Connelly (a compelling coupling in A Brilliant Mind) are good here -- he's all righteous stoicism and she's all weepy, loving connivance. Recommended but it's not a Sunday School lesson.