On Blu-ray/DVD: THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER (2017); CROOKED HOUSE (2017); and BEYOND SKYLINE (2017)

THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER
(UK/Ireland - 2017)

Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos (DOGTOOTH) reteams with his LOBSTER star Colin Farrell for this brilliant mindfuck that puts Greek myth and tragedy into modern American suburbia and turns it into a dark and disturbing arthouse horror film. Shot and set in Cincinnati, OH, one of the most quintessentially midwest American cities, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER takes its time, building tension, and methodically tightening its grip. Farrell is Dr. Steven Murphy, a renowned cardiologist with a wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman, who starred with Farrell in last year's THE BEGUILED, which was shot after SACRED DEER but released first), teenage daughter Kim (Raffey Cassidy) and young son Bob (Sunny Suljic). Unbeknownst to his family, Steven frequently meets with Martin (DUNKIRK's Barry Keoghan), a polite but troubled 16-year-old. The nature of their relationship isn't revealed until much later, but it appears to be a Big Brother or a mentor-type situation, as Martin's father is dead and his mother (Alicia Silverstone) doesn't seem to be all there in the two years since his passing. After Steven invites Martin to meet his family, the boy's neediness escalates and he starts showing up at Steven's office unannounced, demanding he come to his mother's house for dinner, watch GROUNDHOG DAY with him ("It was my dad's favorite movie") and psychologically manipulating and slowly seducing Kim. Then Martin drops the hammer and Steven is forced to contend with the extent of what the awkward teenager has in store for him and his family.

To say anymore would involve far too many spoilers, but THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER is hypnotic in ways we rarely see since the loss of Stanley Kubrick. The shot compositions, the long, static takes, and the cold, antiseptic interiors of the hospital and the Steadicam prowling its endless hallways like some sort of Overlook Medical Center all cast that vividly Kubrick spell, at least until the third act when things take a more pronounced Michael Haneke-inspired turn. Lanthimos has fashioned a film that is stilted and awkward by design. These characters are recognizably typical American people but they often talk like they're from another world, effectively emphasizing and almost darkly satirizing the cold detachment so vital to Kubrick. People say inappropriate things with little or no provocation: everyone is fixated on Steven's "beautiful" hands and they're mentioned in practically every other scene. "Do you have hair under your arms?" Bob asks Martin. It's the kind of movie where Martin's mother will start sucking Steven's thumb after he declines dessert and when he's uncomfortable and tries to leave, she sternly intones "I won't let you leave until you've tried my tart." It's the kind of movie where Steven impulsively tells his nine-year-old son that as a child, he once jerked off his drunk, passed-out stepfather ("The sheets were covered in sperm..."). And what prompts Steven to tell a colleague (Bill Camp) at a swanky gala hospital event "Our daughter started menstruating last week..."? Dysfunction is everywhere and the perfection of the American dream is all surface. Steven and Anna love one another but their sex life is bizarre--she strips and lies motionless, almost corpse-like, while he gropes himself, and it's a technique Kim mimics when she tries to initiate her idea of sex with an uninterested Martin, indicating that she's probably watched her parents. The film pulls no punches with its harrowing finale, and like any Lanthimos film, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER is decidedly not for everyone (it's closer in spirit to DOGTOOTH than the darkly comedic THE LOBSTER, the latter seeming downright commercial in retrospect). But it's filled with outstanding performances by actors tasked with difficult roles (especially the quietly remarkable turn by Keoghan, who's even better here than he was as the doomed George in DUNKIRK), spellbinding camera work and cinematography by Thimios Bakatakis, and a unique and uncompromising vision on the part of its creators. Lanthimos is one of the masters of today's cinema. (R, 121 mins)



CROOKED HOUSE
(UK - 2017)

Kenneth Branagh's middling remake of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS became a surprise hit in the fall of 2017, but another Agatha Christie adaptation arrived a couple of weeks later and no one knew about it. That's a shame because CROOKED HOUSE, while still flawed, is an overall better film despite Sony's apparent disinterest in promoting it, opting to dump it on 16 screens and VOD with no publicity at all (it wasn't even a theatrical release in the UK, where it premiered on Channel 5). Christie's novel, published in 1949, has fallen through the cracks over the decades even though it was one of the legendary writer's personal favorites of her work. She was especially proud of the incredibly uncompromising ending, which could be why there's never been a CROOKED HOUSE movie until now (there was a four-part BBC radio drama in 2008), and why this adaptation might've been a tough sell for mainstream audiences, even with the presence of some fine actors and a script co-written by GOSFORD PARK screenwriter and DOWNTON ABBEY creator Julian Fellowes. Fellowes' screenplay dated back to 2011, when Neil LaBute was originally attached to direct and Julie Andrews, Gabriel Byrne, and Gemma Arterton set to star. That fell apart in pre-production and the film eventually got made several years later with Gilles Paquet-Brenner (SARAH'S KEY, DARK PLACES) at the helm, reworking Fellowes' script (RAPA NUI writer Tim Rose Price is also credited) and losing all of the initially attached cast. Crooked House is populated by some of Christie's most loathsome characters, whose narcissism and misanthropy are obviously what initially drew LaBute (IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS) to the project. Paquet-Brenner tones that down a bit, but CROOKED HOUSE still contains some of the most bitterly sniping repartee in any Christie work.

Charles Hayward (Max Irons) is a British spy-turned-private eye in 1950s London (the film moves the book's setting ahead about a decade). He's hired by former flame Sophia Leonides (Stefanie Martini) to investigate the death of her grandfather Aristide (Gino Picciano), an obscenely wealthy tycoon and diabetic who was poisoned when his insulin was replaced with clear liquid eye medication. The chief suspect is his young trophy wife Brenda (Christina Hendricks), a Vegas showgirl who's of course treated with disdain and scorn by his greedy heirs, all of whom stay at the gargantuan family mansion to form one of the most dysfunctional families in the Christie universe. There's Aristide's eldest son and Sophia's father Philip (Julian Sands) and his washed-up ham actress wife Magda (Gillian Anderson); their obnoxious teenage son Eustace (Preston Nyman) and already cynical young daughter Josephine (Honor Kneafsey); Aristide's pompous youngest son Roger (Christian McKay) and his wife Clemency (Amanda Abbington); and Lady Edith (Glenn Close), the spinster sister of Aristide's late first wife and the only remotely likable one of the bunch aside from the wise-beyond-her-years Josephine. Lady Edith knows the entire family is a scheming nest of vipers and tries to help Hayward in his investigation, which is eventually taken over by dogged Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Taverner (Terence Stamp), who decides Hayward's feelings for Sophia are compromising his ability to handle things on his own. Like THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM, another recent British period mystery, CROOKED HOUSE starts out clunky and uneven but gets much better as it goes along, especially once Taverner takes charge and puts his foot down with this family of assholes. The film gets a big boost from Stamp, who still can still command the screen and is a much more interesting actor than the bland Irons (the dreadful BITTER HARVEST), who's just not believable as a former spy and has a way to go before he's on the level of his dad Jeremy. CROOKED HOUSE admirably doesn't cushion the blow of its ending, but part of me wonders how astonishingly mean-spirited this would've been in the hands of Neil LaBute. As it is, the film stumbles a bit in its first half, with uninteresting flashbacks to Hayward's romance with Sophia in Cairo (who cares?), but once an attempt is made on young Josephine's life and Stamp's Taverner has had it with everyone, it turns into a reasonably solid film that's worth seeing. (PG-13, 115 mins)



BEYOND SKYLINE
(US/China/UK/Canada/Singapore - 2017)

Offering further proof that anything can get a sequel in today's global market, BEYOND SKYLINE arrives seven long years after everyone instantly forgot about SKYLINE, a dismal Brett Ratner-produced alien invasion saga that nevertheless made back its paltry budget and was a big success in Asia, so here we are. Shot in late 2014 and into early 2015, BEYOND SKYLINE didn't enjoy the wide release, multiplex exposure its predecessor was given, instead bowing on VOD with the lowest possible expectations. But strange things can happen when nobody's looking, and while it's not a great movie by any means, BEYOND SKYLINE is a vast improvement, functioning as a de facto mulligan with the original film's writer Liam O'Donnell getting behind the camera (replacing veteran visual effects guys The Brothers Strause, still onboard as two of 29 credited producers) to do it right this time. You can almost sense O'Donnell's eagerness to wipe the slate clean since the two holdover characters from the original (played by different actors here) are killed off almost immediately,  shifting the focus to the PURGE franchise's Frank Grillo as Mark, a lone wolf, alcoholic, widower cop (is there any other kind?) and his rebellious teenage son Trent (Jonny Weston) caught up in the alien invasion. Stuck in the underground subway tunnels, Mark and Trent team up with a few others, including transit employee Audrey (Bojana Novakovic) and homeless guy Sarge (Antonio Fargas), to evade the aliens but they end up being sucked into a hovering ship anyway, where Trent gets his brain ripped out and planted into an alien, thus reborn as an otherworldly species. While in the ship, Mark encounters Elaine, the pregnant survivor from the first film (Samantha Jean replaces Scottie Thompson) whose child is born with alien DNA after fiance Jarrod (Tony Black replaces Eric Balfour) was made part-alien after a brainectomy. Elaine dies giving birth, and Alien Jarrod sabotages the ship, which crashes in Laos, where Mark and Audrey meet a small band of resistance fighters led by Sua (Indonesian action star Iko Uwais). Oddball scientist Harper (Callan Mulvey) surmises that the alien blood of Elaine's child, who's growing at an accelerated rate and looks three years old after two days, might be the key to defeating the aliens, but in the meantime, Mark and Audrey team up with Sua, his sister Kanya (Pamelyn Chee), and eccentric warrior The Chief (Yayan Ruhian) for some one-on-one martial arts showdowns with the invaders, at which point the film moves from THE PURGE: SKYLINE to THE RAID: SKYLINE.

Considering its $15 million budget and a couple of dubious-looking CGI explosions, BEYOND SKYLINE looks as convincingly "big" as any over-budgeted Hollywood blockbuster opening on 3000 screens. Once again, Grillo is a believably hard-as-nails tough guy hero and things get pretty good once RAID stars Uwais and Ruhian turn up midway through. Aside from needing to look at SKYLINE's Wikipedia page because I had no memory of the Elaine/Jarrod storyline, BEYOND SKYLINE pretty much works as a standalone film, and one that's surprisingly engaging considering how needlessly convoluted it is and how bad SKYLINE was (have you ever met a SKYLINE fan?). O'Donnell takes too long getting to them, but anything goes once Uwais and Ruhian are introduced, and when you add Grillo into the mix (which is interesting since Grillo was at one time attached to the still-unmade American remake of THE RAID), along with some unabashed, over-the-top R-rated violence, BEYOND SKYLINE becomes something SKYLINE never was: entertaining. (R, 106 mins)

On Netflix: WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY (2017)

WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY
(France/US/Belgium - 2017)

Directed by Tommy Wirkola. Written by Max Botkin and Kerry Williamson. Cast: Noomi Rapace, Willem Dafoe, Glenn Close, Marwan Kenzari, Clara Read, Christian Rubeck, Pal Sverre Hagen, Tomiwa Edun, Cassie Clare, Cameron Jack. (Unrated, 124 mins)

Noomi Rapace's intensely committed performance was the only good thing about the recent sci-fi film RUPTURE, and if you were impressed by her work there, then you need to see the Netflix Original movie WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY, the latest from Norwegian cult director Tommy Wirkola. Wirkola, best known for his two DEAD SNOW zombie movies, is making his first English-language film since his one-off attempt at helming a Hollywood blockbuster with 2013's long-delayed, problem-plagued HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS. But seven Noomi Rapaces are pretty much the whole show with WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY, a high-concept dystopian sci-fi thriller set in a future society where overpopulation, climate change, and worldwide drought have destroyed the agricultural system. Genetically modified crops create enough food to keep people fed, but they've also led to a spike in multiple births and genetic defects. This prompts political activist Dr. Nicolette Cayman (Glenn Close) to create the Child Allocation Act, with the slogan "One Child, One Earth." In this new Orwellian world of constant surveillance and social control, multiple births are so common that one child becomes the law of the land. The parents can keep the firstborn, but the others are placed in Cryo Sleep, a process that puts them in a state of hibernation until the world's climate, population, and food concerns are properly addressed and the world is a better and more healthy place. As stated by one TV talking head, it's not a perfect solution, but "It may give us some time."

Shortly after the CAA is passed in 2043, an unmarried, single woman named Karen Settman dies giving birth to septuplets. Her doctor is a friend and notifies her estranged father Terrence (Willem Dafoe), an intellectual who's opposed to Cayman's CAA law. Terrence names each of the girls after a day of the week--Monday through Sunday--and secretly takes them home with him, reconstructing his residence as a fortress-like bunker with a secret room for his granddaughters to hide should anyone show up unannounced. As the girls grow (the septuplets at elementary school age are played by Clara Read), Terrence instructs them that in public, they are be known as "Karen Settman," and that "Karen" is to be portrayed by a different one of them on the specific day of the week for which she's named. This requires nightly meetings to keep up the ruse, but it's the only way for Terrence to get the girls acclimated to the outside world without exposing them, though their developing personalities make things difficult, especially when rebellious Thursday sneaks out of the house on a Saturday and disappears for several hours, returning home after losing the tip of her right index finger in a skateboarding accident. Of course, in the increasingly insane context of WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY, this requires Terrence to slice off the right index fingertip of the other six girls in order to maintain the illusion of "Karen Settman."  Yes, it's that kind of movie.

Flash forward to 2073, and Terrence's absence at this point indicates he's passed on during the narrative jump. Karen Settman has a good job at a financial institution and the seven siblings still live together and still have nightly meetings going over every aspect of their day. After 30 years of this, bickering is common and resentment is setting in as each wants their own life outside of being "Karen Settman." Being the oldest, Monday is the de facto "leader" of the septuplets, and each one has, not surprisingly, developed their own distinct personalities--Saturday is the blonde party girl, Friday is the mousy, wallflower computer nerd, Thursday is a short-haired, masculine tough girl. Monday doesn't return home from work one Monday, and when Tuesday goes about "Karen"'s day on Tuesday, she's hauled into the Child Allocation Act headquarters, where agents have obviously been tipped off by someone that she's one of seven, also hinting that they've got Monday in custody. Before long, Wednesday through Sunday are evading government assassins, dealing with a secret Monday paramour (Marwan Kenzari), and uncovering evidence that one of them may have sold the others out to Cayman, who's about to launch a Presidential campaign based on her successful handling of the world's overpopulation, which itself leads to a labyrinthine conspiracy to bury some horrible secrets.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY gets a little too muddled for its own good as it goes on, especially when it comes to the exact intent of one of the main characters, but its imaginatively goofy premise, the seamless visual trickery of seven Rapaces interacting with one another, the effectively cold, dystopian, CHILDREN OF MEN atmosphere (this was shot in Romania), the hyperviolent  DREDD-level splatter of the shootouts, the BOURNE-esque intensity of the action sequences, and the way Rapace vividly brings all seven sisters to life in distinct ways makes this far more entertaining than you might expect. Ten years ago, this would've been a huge summer movie that probably would've been directed by Ridley or Tony Scott, but as it stands today, it's one of the better Netflix Originals to come down the pike in a while, even if the story sort-of loses itself near the end and it might leave you wanting more in terms of the scenes with Terrence. I don't know about you, but when Wirkola skips from Terrence looking at his newborn granddaughters to all of them being seven years old, I kinda wanted to see Grandpa Willem handling seven screaming babies or watching him navigate the Terrible Twos. It's a totalitarian society with cameras and scanners everywhere--didn't anyone notice him buying a lot of diapers? Did his neighbors not hear anything? WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY runs 124 minutes and yet it still feels like it's been cut down, especially when it comes to Dafoe's character, and if you're aware that Robert Wagner had his entire role cut from the finished film (he's still listed in the credits on IMDb, and there's also a publicity still of him with Close). It's got some hiccups in the second half and can't stand up under any serious scrutiny, but if you don't ask questions and just roll with the craziness, WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY is an engagingly batshit blast that's certain to become a word-of-mouth hit for Netflix viewers very soon.

In Theaters/On VOD: THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS (2016)

THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS
(UK - 2016; US release 2017)

Directed by Colm McCarthy. Written by Mike Carey. Cast: Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine, Glenn Close, Sennia Nanua, Anamaria Marinca, Fisayo Akinade, Anthony Welsh, Dominique Tipper. (R, 111 mins)

Based on the 2014 novel and scripted by its author M.R. Carey, THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS is one of the more thoughtful and intelligent offerings in the overcrowded zombie genre, approaching its subject from a unique perspective and benefiting from refreshingly unpredictable and very human character arcs. Set in an apocalyptic, near-future England, the film opens in a bunker at a military installation where restrained children are kept in maximum security cells before being taken to their lessons restrained in wheelchairs. The soldiers point guns at them at all times and don't engage in conversation, even though young Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is polite, articulate, and eager to please. Outside the gates of the base, hordes of zombies, or "hungries," linger about, ferociously seeking any kind of food and turned into mindless flesh-eaters by a deadly fungal virus that spread across the globe. The children being kept at the base are second generation "hungries" who transformed in utero and burrowed out of their mothers' wombs after devouring their insides. The virus is transmitted through bites and body fluids, but the second generation hungries--the children--still display the capacity for humanity. They're able to talk and learn and their feral side only comes out when they're hungry (they're fed live worms) and catch the scent of a human. The soldiers and the others running the base cover themselves in a blocker gel that stifles their scent, but that still doesn't provide enough security for Sgt. Parks (Paddy Considine) who simply regards them as inhuman hungries and doesn't care about their more human side seen by their teacher Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton). Helen is in the minority with her views on attempting to treat the second generation hungries like children, especially when it comes to Dr. Caldwell (Glenn Close), the research scientist working on a vaccine for the virus, which often involves killing and dissecting the young hungries. "They're children!" Helen argues, with Caldwell countering "They present as children!"

Caldwell is about to vivisect Melanie when Helen intervenes and the marauding hungries outside tear down the barrier and overtake the base. Almost everyone is slaughtered, with Caldwell, Parks, Helen, Private Kieran (Fisayo Akinade), and Melanie getting away, Melanie kept on top of the transport vehicle, restrained and wearing a clear Hannibal Lecter-type muzzle shield. It's here that THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS settles into a more comparatively routine, sprinting undead 28 DAYS/WEEKS LATER situation, with the small band of survivors making their way across the apocalyptic landscape that was once England (aerial views were shot by drones flown over the abandoned Chernobyl town of Pripyat), though Carey and veteran British TV director Colm McCarthy (RIPPER STREET, PEAKY BLINDERS) offer enough unique elements to keep things from feeling too rote and stale. The relationship that develops between Melanie and the others is unexpected, with even the hard-bitten Parks begrudgingly seeing the girl's human side after she does numerous things to help them, such as scouting paths to safe places since the hungries will leave her alone. THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS gets a lot from an often-remarkable debut performance from young Nanua. She's terrifying when her feral instincts take over and quite touching in fleeting instances where she's allowed to be a kid (Melanie's utter joy in putting on a pair of sneakers and communicating with Parks over a walkie-talkie is very nicely played by Nanua). Even Close's ostensible antagonist displays signs of empathy as their journey goes on, no matter how heartlessly matter-of-fact she is at times (Close spitting out "Was that cathartic?" when Caldwell is cracked across the face by Helen is a highlight). It's hard to do anything original with the zombie genre at this point, and indeed, a lot of the scenes play like any random episode of THE WALKING DEAD. But with a quartet of strong performances at its core (not to mention the sight of Glenn Close killing zombies) and some original ideas in its foundation as well its ultimate revelation, THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS manages to separate itself from the rest of the horde.

In Theaters: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
(US - 2014)

Directed by James Gunn. Written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman. Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Lee Pace, Glenn Close, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Rooker, Djimon Hounsou, Karen Gillan, John C. Reilly, Gregg Henry, Peter Serafinowicz, Christopher Fairbank, Sean Gunn, Tomas Arana, Krystian Godlewski, Laura Haddock, Wyatt Oleff, Alexis Denisof, Ralph Ineson. (PG-13, 121 mins)

In keeping with the recent tradition of Marvel installments being tailored to the stylings of their directors--Shane Black's IRON MAN 3 and Anthony & Joe Russo's CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER--James Gunn fashions GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY as very much his own film in the guise of a Marvel production and the results are fantastic. Starting his career by scripting Troma's TROMEO & JULIET (1996), Gunn moved on to Hollywood and penned the two SCOOBY-DOO movies before making a name for himself by writing Zack Snyder's surprisingly good 2004 remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD. That got Gunn his first feature directing gig, 2006's tragically underappreciated and wonderfully oozy and slimy SLITHER. Never the most prolific of writers or directors, Gunn resurfaced five years later with the dark-humored indie SUPER and again with a segment in last year's awful MOVIE 43. Gunn seems an unlikely choice for Marvel, but really, it's that kind of outside-the-box thinking--turning IRON MAN 3 into a smartass Shane Black movie or CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER into the superhero version of a '70s paranoia thriller--that's made much of their recent run of films so successful. As someone who's not a comic book guy, I take these kinds of films at face value for what they are in and of themselves, not where they fit in the Marvel universe or how faithful they are or whatever. That said, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is the best Marvel movie I've seen.  It's the best movie of the summer.  And it may very well be the STAR WARS of its generation, a film that helps shape a childhood with its spectacle and imagination. Yeah...it's that good.

Moviegoers of a certain age--I'm 41--look back fondly on the films of their youth, sometimes inducing sentimentality that's not really warranted. Let's face it, folks: not every '80s movie is a "classic." But to be someone who saw the STAR WARS movies, and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and E.T., and a lot of those timeless blockbusters in theaters, on their first runs when they were kids--it shaped you. You don't forget the first time you experience those movies. Seen-it-all-cineastes who have a sort of multiplex misanthropia--I include myself in that category--often sound like bitter old men lamenting how today's special effects-heavy blockbusters just aren't like they used to be. People still talk about those older movies today. Who's going to be talking about the fourth TRANSFORMERS movie or the second AMAZING SPIDER-MAN three decades from now? My point is this: watching GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY took me back to that time in a way that no film in recent memory has. It's a genuinely great crowd-pleaser of the classic sort: it's clever, it's funny, it's filled with action, and it's made with affection. This wasn't a job for Gunn--it was a labor of love. You can feel it in every scene. You can see a committed cast rallying behind their director, believing in his vision. Today's blockbusters have lost touch with that sense of commitment, and people have grown accustomed to the clock-punching soullessness and predictability of most of them and continue to see them out of...obligation? I'm not aware of a single person who was enthused about THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 a few months back, and yet it still grossed $200 million in the US. Enough people flocked to TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION for it to gross nearly $1 billion worldwide so far, but has anyone really enjoyed it?  With any luck, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY will remind moviegoers of how things used to be and how they still should be, but you can't help but wonder if today's audiences have become so conditioned to accept mediocrity that they'll fail to appreciate what Gunn has accomplished here.

In a sequence that's an obvious nod to the opening of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, mercenary Ravager Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), who's given himself the name "Star Lord," acquires a mysterious orb for blue-skinned Ravager leader Yondu (Michael Rooker).  Said orb is also desired by Kree supervillain Ronan (Lee Pace), working in the employ of the feared Thanos (voiced by an uncredited Josh Brolin). Ronan dispatches Thanos' daughter Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to intercept the orb. Quill and Gamora have an epic scuffle that ends up involving bounty hunter Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a cynical, genetically-altered raccoon with anger management issues, and his plant/muscle Groot (voiced and motion-captured by Vin Diesel), a tree whose vocabulary is limited to "I am Groot." All four are rounded up and sentenced to The Kyln, a space prison, where they meet vengeance-obsessed and metaphor-impaired Drax (Dave Bautista), whose family was killed by Ronan. The quintet of outcasts and misfits form a classic unholy alliance as they very slowly learn to trust one another, taking on Ronan's forces and working to keep the orb--which has the power to destroy worlds--out of the hands of both Ronan and the greedy but good-natured Yondu, and returned to the galactic leader Nova Prime (Glenn Close), where it belongs.

Filled with nods to Lucas and Spielberg, and some blink-and-you'll-miss-them cameos (in addition to the requisite Stan Lee appearance, you'll also spot Troma chief Lloyd Kaufman and Gunn pal Nathan Fillion, and stick around through the end credits for the best one), GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is the summer movie to finally remind everyone what a summer movie should be. Funny without being snarky, using hit '70s singles without being ironic, and demonstrating some sincerely heartfelt affection for its characters, the film sends up the superhero/comic book genre while recalling the spirit of wonder and adventure that captivated moviegoers when STAR WARS became the phenomenon that not even 20th Century Fox was expecting. Laugh-out-loud funny but never slapsticky, GUARDIANS succeeds in working for both children and grown-up audiences (listen to all the adults in the theater laugh when Gamora tells Quill his ship his filthy and he says under his breath, "She has no idea...if I had a blacklight, this place would look like a Jackson Pollock painting"). Even the referential bits--so many films today think that just making the reference is good enough--are thoughtful and legitimately creative and funny: it's one thing to have the requisite "ragtag group of badasses walking in slo-mo" shot set to a classic rock tune (in this case, The Runaways' "Cherry Bomb"), but Gunn's take on it has Gamora yawning and Rocket adjusting his nutsack.  The leads are perfectly cast, Pratt is a smartass without being grating, and Cooper's vocal delivery of the hard-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside Rocket is spot-on (Gunn's brother Sean filled in as Rocket during filming to provide sight-lines and a model for the actors to look at; similarly, Krystian Godlewski was the surrogate Groot on-set until the effects were completed and Diesel's motion capture work was CGI'd in). Everyone else, from the supporting actors on down--even Gunn regular Gregg Henry--gets a moment to shine, and the film is so good that you don't even mind that the great Djimon Hounsou is saddled with a stock henchman role when he could've made a terrific Ronan himself.

Hollywood needs to take note. The summer blockbuster has lost its way. The budgets are too big and the results are too bland. Too much blurry CGI and too much shaky-cam. A movie needs to gross $200 million before it's not considered a "flop." And regardless of how popular it is, it's still out of theaters in three weeks. Remember when movies played at first-run theaters for months? GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and James Gunn are like curious visitors from another time and another place, arriving just in time to save the summer blockbuster from itself. You won't see a more infectiously fun, witty, and smart "big" movie this summer, and it's the best time I've had at the multiplex all year.

Summer of 1982: E.T. Dethroned (July 23, 1982)

It's easy to forget these days just how huge a star Burt Reynolds was in his prime, but perhaps the biggest testament to his popularity is that he's the one who finally, if only for a week, ended E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL's reign at the top of the box office in the summer of 1982.  And it wasn't just any Burt Reynolds movie. It wasn't a car chase comedy and it wasn't a cop thriller.  It was a Burt Reynolds musical: the big-screen version of the Broadway smash THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS.

Musicals weren't exactly a dominant genre in 1982 (and E.T. would reclaim the top spot a week later), and Reynolds even tried one once before--with disastrous results--in 1975's infamous bomb AT LONG LAST LOVE.  But the raunchy Broadway production was so popular, and he had a more than capable co-star in Dolly Parton, that, along with ANNIE, it proved to be one of the few successful musicals of its era.  And it was the last time for a long while that Reynolds tried something different.  As far back as 1972's DELIVERANCE, Reynolds showed he had the chops to be a serious actor who was always working (starring in four major films in 1975 alone) and always willing to stretch.  Even in misfires like 1975's HUSTLE, Reynolds rose above the material.  But then he had his biggest hit yet with 1977's SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, and he and director/buddy Hal Needham found a formula and they just stuck with it.  For the next several years, Reynolds was the biggest movie star in the world, and one of the busiest, with SMOKEY and SEMI-TOUGH (both 1977), directing and starring in the dark suicide comedy THE END (1978), reuniting with Needham for HOOPER (1978), SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II (1980), and THE CANNONBALL RUN (1981), plus the popular love story STARTING OVER (1979), the heist comedy ROUGH CUT (1980), PATERNITY (1981), and later in 1982, teaming up with Goldie Hawn in the romantic comedy BEST FRIENDS.  Reynolds was averaging three movies a year for several years, and given the longer theatrical runs in those days, there was hardly a time when a Burt Reynolds release wasn't in theaters.  The guy was everywhere.  He was huge and everybody loved him.  Burt Reynolds was the man.

But at some point, Reynolds' fans started to turn on him.  The movies kept coming, but people stopped going.  It's possible this turn can be traced back to 1981's SHARKY'S MACHINE, which he also directed.  A dark, melancholy modern film noir about Atlanta vice cops taking down a drug kingpin and one (Reynolds) falling in love with a high-class hooker (Rachel Ward), SHARKY'S MACHINE is, in some ways, a more focused, fully-realized version of HUSTLE, but it was expertly directed (with a legendary Dar Robinson stunt fall in the climax) and featured Reynolds' best performance since DELIVERANCE.  But critics weren't buying it and while it did OK in theaters, it wasn't the Burt that people wanted.  By Christmas 1981, people wanted the funny Burt.  They wanted car chases and wisecracks and the signature Burt laugh.  Reynolds didn't laugh much in SHARKY'S MACHINE, and his fans didn't want to see him as a lonely, sad-sack cop pining for a prostitute who's under the thumb of a sleazy crime lord (Vittorio Gassman).  Reynolds has only directed a handful of films, but as a filmmaker, SHARKY'S MACHINE is his masterpiece.  It's a great film that's only gotten better with age and in a perfect world, it would've done for him what UNFORGIVEN did for Clint Eastwood and established him as a serious artist.  By the time SHARKY'S MACHINE hit theaters, THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS was already in the can, but after that, Reynolds just started coasting.  He gave his fans what they wanted to the point where they didn't want it, or him, anymore.  In retrospect, it almost seems like his heart was broken after the cold response SHARKY'S MACHINE got.  Even its own studio seems to have forgotten about it:  Warner released it in a now out-of-print, VHS quality fullscreen DVD in the early days of the format.  There's been talk of a Warner Archive upgrade, but thus far, it hasn't happened.  At 76, Reynolds is still with us and in good health.  It's a mystery why there hasn't been a SHARKY'S MACHINE special edition with a Reynolds commentary.  Maybe they're not interested.  Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it.

Starting in 1983, Reynolds' credits just become ghastly:  nobody went to see Blake Edwards' THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN.  STROKER ACE (1983) and CANNONBALL RUN II (1984) are generally regarded as the two worst films from his heyday.  His seemingly can't-miss pairing with Clint Eastwood on 1984's CITY HEAT was a major disappointment for both actors, and a nightmare for Reynolds after a stunt gone wrong (Reynolds was hit in the face with a real chair instead of a breakaway prop one) resulted in his jaw being shattered, and a liquid diet caused an alarming drop in weight, which then led to AIDS rumors in tabloids and throughout Hollywood.  He directed and starred in 1985's box office dud STICK, which was shot before CITY HEAT, and as a result of his jaw injury and subsequent painkiller addiction, Reynolds was offscreen until 1987's troubled HEAT (which went through three directors, including one who got into an on-set altercation with Reynolds), but by then, his audience moved on.  In four years, he went from the biggest movie star in the world to has-been punchline.  HEAT bombed, as did MALONE later that year, and RENT-A-COP and SWITCHING CHANNELS (both 1988) and PHYSICAL EVIDENCE (1989).  1989's BREAKING IN was a low-budget indie that got Reynolds his best reviews in years, and he had a small-screen comeback with TV series like B.L. STRYKER and the popular EVENING SHADE.  Bankruptcy and a highly-publicized divorce from Loni Anderson constantly kept him in the tabloids.  Approaching 60, Reynolds slowly mounted a comeback as a character actor and got an Oscar nomination for his brilliant performance as porn filmmaker Jack Horner in 1997's BOOGIE NIGHTS.  A few decent roles came after that, but it still didn't lead to the career rebirth one would expect, or that Reynolds was likely anticipating.  Other than occasional TV guest spots on BURN NOTICE and ARCHER, he usually only appears in straight-to-DVD garbage, including an obligatory appearance in an Uwe Boll film. 

But in his day, he was a movie star in the truest sense of the word, and THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS finds him at a time when he was still bringing his A-game.  Parton and director Colin Higgins were reuniting after their 1980 smash 9 TO 5, and longtime Reynolds pal Charles Durning got a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role as the Governor.  Reynolds' buddies Dom DeLuise and Jim Nabors also co-starred.  THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS grossed just under $70 million, making it the ninth highest-grossing film of 1982 and the most popular movie musical of the decade.

George Roy Hill's THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, based on the 1978 John Irving novel, also opened this weekend.  Irving's book was considered unfilmable by some, but Hill had shown an ability to meet that challenge before with his 1972 film version of Kurt Vonnegut's SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE.  Hill had several classics to his name--1969's BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, 1973's Best Picture Oscar winner THE STING, and the 1977 hockey comedy SLAP SHOT--and was working from a script by Steve Tesich, who won a Best Screenplay Oscar for 1979's BREAKING AWAY.  GARP was an important film for Robin Williams, in just his second starring film role after 1980's POPEYE and the TV series MORK & MINDY, which had wrapped up its fourth and final season earlier in the year.  Williams had many serious moments in this comedy-drama, but critics and audiences didn't seem quite ready to consider him anything but the wacky comedian they saw on TV, and much of GARP's acclaim went to two of Williams' co-stars:  John Lithgow as transsexual ex-football star Roberta Muldoon, and veteran stage actress Glenn Close, making her big-screen debut as Garp's mother.  Both Lithgow and Close received Supporting Oscar nominations for their work in GARP.  Close immediately proved to be the real deal, earning Oscar nominations for her first three films, and by 1989, she'd made eight films and received Oscar nominations for five of them.

Williams' gained his earliest notoriety when his Mork was a guest character on HAPPY DAYS, which led to the spinoff MORK & MINDY.  Another HAPPY DAYS cast member had a film opening this weekend with Scott Baio starring in the comedy ZAPPED.  Baio joined HAPPY DAYS in 1977 and had developed a following as Fonzie's cousin Chachi Arcola, introduced as a love interest for a maturing Joanie Cunningham (Erin Moran).  Joanie and Chachi's romance gave ABC the idea to give Moran and Baio their own show with JOANIE LOVES CHACHI, which was yanked after one season and the two actors returned to HAPPY DAYS until the show ended in 1984.  While Moran tried to get a big-screen career going with the Roger Corman-produced GALAXY OF TERROR (1981), ZAPPED teamed Baio with fellow ABC series stars Willie Aames (EIGHT IS ENOUGH) and Heather Thomas (THE FALL GUY).  Baio plays a science nerd who acquires telekinetic powers, leading to much wackiness and topless young women, which made ZAPPED a video store and cable TV favorite for the rest of the decade.  It also starred Felice Schachter (one of the original girls on the first season of THE FACTS OF LIFE), Merritt Butrick (STAR TREK II and soon to be on TV's SQUARE PEGS), cult-movie regular Irwin Keyes, veteran TV actress Sue Ann Langdon, all-purpose nerd Eddie Deezen, LaWanda "SANFORD & SON's Aunt Esther" Page, and the great Scatman Crothers.  ZAPPED led to the 1990 sequel ZAPPED AGAIN, with only Langdon returning from the 1982 film.  Baio and Aames would become friends and take their ZAPPED magic to the small-screen for the long-running CHARLES IN CHARGE.

Also in theaters was the great John Frankenheimer's action thriller THE CHALLENGE, which featured the badass teaming of Scott Glenn and Toshiro Mifune, paired up to take on a bunch of Japanese bad guys after a rare sword.  Co-written by John Sayles, THE CHALLENGE bombed in theaters and was made at a time when Frankenheimer (THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, THE TRAIN, SECONDS) was in a serious career slump and his battle with alcoholism took him to a personal low point.  Frankenheimer went into rehab after finishing THE CHALLENGE and slowly began to rebuild his stellar career, which was back in solid standing when he died in 2002.  THE CHALLENGE is hardly Frankenheimer's finest hour, but it's fast-moving and undeniably entertaining, and like ZAPPED, became a constant fixture on cable throughout the 1980s.  Glenn and the incredible Mifune make a great team, as evidenced in this YouTube clip of all of their CHALLENGE kills.

TOP 10 FILMS FOR THE WEEKEND OF JULY 23, 1982 (from www.boxofficemojo.com)

1.   THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS

2.   E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL

3.   YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE

4.   THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP

5.   RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (re-release)

6.   ROCKY III

7.   TRON

8.   POLTERGEIST

9.   SIX PACK

10. ANNIE