In Theaters: LOCKOUT (2012)

LOCKOUT
(2012/France-Ireland)

Directed by Stephen Saint Leger & James Mather.  Written by Stephen Saint Leger, James Mather, Luc Besson.  Cast: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Vincent Regan, Peter Stormare, Lennie James, Joseph Gilgun, Jacky Ido, Tim Plester, Peter Hudson. (PG-13, 94 mins)

LOCKOUT is another enjoyably brainless outing from the Luc Besson action factory.  The film owes such a debt to ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK that John Carpenter probably deserves a co-story credit.  It's loud and dumb and the cliches are too plentiful to count, but it's the kind of entertaining cinematic junk food that will do OK in theaters before a long and healthy life in near-constant weekend rotation on TNT for many years to come.

"Call me Snake.  Er, uh, I mean Snow."

In Washington DC 2078, disgraced CIA agent Snow (Guy Pearce as Kurt Russell) is framed for the murder of another agent and sentenced to 30 years at MS-One, a supermax prison hovering far above Earth.  Inmates are in a state of hibernative stasis and everything is carefully monitored by on-site security and medical staff and by a space station that's home to the L.O.P.D. (Low Orbit Police Department).  Meanwhile, Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace), First Daughter to the 56th President of the United States (Peter Hudson) is on a humanitarian fact-finding mission to MS-One to assess the stasis conditions of the prisoners.  Of course, one awakened inmate (Joseph Gilgun) being interviewed by Emilie manages to steal a gun from a Secret Service agent and orders the control room to wake everyone up.  Now the prisoners, led by Gilgun's infinitely more intelligent brother (Vincent Regan), have commandeered MS-One and taken Emilie and the civilians hostage.  President Warnock won't send the Marines to attack because his daughter is up there, so Secret Service chief Langral (Peter Stormare as Lee Van Cleef) opts to send...you guessed it...Snow!  Because he's the best there is...but he's a loose cannon!  (A line present in the trailer, yet tragically absent from the film).  Snow manages to get into MS-One, both to find and rescue Emilie and to find Mace (Tim Plester), his framed partner who knows the whereabouts of a briefcase that could prove Snow's innocence.

Maggie Grace, taken again in LOCKOUT

LOCKOUT is the kind of guilty pleasure actioner where you get a wisecracking lawman hero named Snow who has a partner named Mace.  To his immense credit, a seriously bulked-up Pearce, generally not one to cut loose on screen, clearly knows how ridiculous the whole thing is and just has fun with it.  Some of his one-liners are groaners, but Pearce sells it and makes an inherently stupid movie pretty watchable.  The biggest mistake that directors/co-writer Stephen Saint Leger and James Mather make is giving far too much screen time to the hammy histrionics of Gilgun, who delivers what's already the frontrunner for 2012's most irritating performance.  I'm sure they told him to go for "scene-stealing," but it's more like "scene-killing."  The production design is impressively bleak in a future-dystopia sort-of way that shooting in Serbia probably greatly aided.  Things are almost derailed during a chase sequence early on, as the police pursue a motorcycle-riding Snow.  It may be the most incoherently-staged sequence of its kind, an incomprehensible blur of shaky-cam and inexcusably horrible CGI that's so bad that the sequence actually looks incomplete.  Thankfully, it picks up after that.

Joseph Gilgun delivers what may go down as
2012's most gratingly annoying performance.

I'm not saying LOCKOUT is a very good movie or that anyone needs to run out and see it.  But I mostly had a good time with it, primarily because it knows it's garbage and seems perfectly fine with that.  It knows it's ripping off ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981), DIE HARD (1988), FORTRESS (1993), and the little-seen and even less-remembered SPACERAGE (1986) and STAR SLAMMER (also 1986).  Already released in Europe, the film was trimmed by a few seconds to secure a PG-13 rating, which is kind of lame but has no real effect on things, even if you can tell exactly where the cut took place.  I'm sure we'll get the inevitable "Unrated Director's Cut" on dvd and blu-ray.

The more effective French poster art

New on DVD/Blu-ray: INTO THE ABYSS (2011), SLEEPING BEAUTY (2011), THE DARKEST HOUR (2011)

INTO THE ABYSS
(2011/US-UK-Germany)

Werner Herzog's latest documentary is an examination of capital punishment in America and has some fleeting moments of undeniable power, but suffers from a lack of focus and no real expansion on Herzog's personal point of being against the death penalty.  Originally conceived as a look at five different capital punishment cases, Herzog narrowed it down to one for a feature film, and the rest became episodes of the Investigation Discovery TV mini-series ON DEATH ROW.  INTO THE ABYSS looks at convicted killers Michael Perry and Jason Burkett, who murdered three people in Conroe, TX in 2001.  Perry and Burkett killed nurse Sandra Stotler in a home invasion because they wanted her Camaro.  After disposing of the body in a lake, they returned and waited for her son Adam to return home, then killed him and his friend Jeremy Richardson.  It only took police a matter of days to figure out that they were responsible.  Perry and Burkett, not the brightest sorts, were driving around in the Stotler vehicles, claiming to some that they bought them with a $4000 winning lottery ticket, while openly bragging to others that they killed three people and stole their cars. A cigarette butt with Perry's DNA was found under Adam Stotler's body in a wooded area where they'd disposed of it.  And at some point between the murders and being apprehended, Perry needed to go to the hospital and used Adam's ID and was calling himself "Adam Stotler," who hadn't been seen in nearly a week. 

But oddly, once Herzog begins interviewing the subjects, with occasional exceptions, the film starts spinning its wheels.  He's not trying to exonerate anyone, as Errol Morris was in THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988) or as Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky were with the PARADISE LOST films There's absolutely no doubt that Perry and Burkett committed these crimes.  Herzog states he's against the death penalty and flat out tells Perry, interviewed eight days from his July 1, 2010 execution, that he doesn't like him but respects him enough as human being that he shouldn't be executed.  Through interviews with Perry, Burkett, Burkett's incarcerated father, and relatives of the victims, we see that pretty much everyone in Conroe comes from a broken home with much tragedy in their lives.  Like CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, INTO THE ABYSS feels like a 45-minute TV documentary special stretched out to feature length.  Tedium occasionally sets in as Herzog makes his points and belabors them with interview footage that supports his thesis.  I found that the best moments of INTO THE ABYSS are the ones where no one is talking:  the way Herzog incorporates the truly disturbing police crime scene video into the early part of the film.  We see the dead bodies of the Stotlers and Richardson, as they were found, and Sandra Stotler's house, with blood spatter on the walls, the TV still on, dirty dishes in the sink, a baking sheet half filled with dough as she was in the middle of baking cookies when Burkett rang the doorbell.  Or, a decade later, Sandra Stotler's red Camaro, the reason three people were brutally murdered, weather-beaten and still sitting in a police impound lot, where it had to be moved once because a tree grew under and through it in the previous spot where it was parked.  Or Herzog's camera slowly panning across the graves in a prison cemetery for those executed.  These chilling moments are without question the most hauntingly effective in INTO THE ABYSS, because other than saying "I'm against capital punishment," Herzog really isn't saying anything at all.  Lip service is paid to the fact that Texas administers more executions than any other state...why not examine that?  (PG-13, 107 mins; also available on Netflix streaming)




SLEEPING BEAUTY
(2011/Australia)

Australian novelist Julia Leigh makes her directing debut with this maddeningly indecipherable, Jane Campion-presented look at the enigmatic Lucy (SUCKER PUNCH's Emily Browning), a college student working multiple jobs.  She goes to class, works in a cafe, does some secretarial duty in an office, earns money from being a medical test subject, and is a part-time prostitute by night.  She also gets a job as a semi-nude wine server at dinner parties for a group of rich weirdos at an EYES WIDE SHUT-type mansion where the rest of the topless serving team look like they just walked out of a Robert Palmer video gone S&M.  Her boss at this "service," Clara (Rachael Blake, eerily channeling Charlotte Rampling) gets her a side gig for the same old pervs where she's given a sedative that knocks her out for eight hours, during which time the client can do whatever he wants with her aside from vaginal penetration.  Leigh fills the film with obscure symbolism (berries spilling from Lucy's hand!) and shoots it in a very claustrophobic, non-cinematic style with static, stationary shots and very limited camera movement.  It goes nowhere fast, though Browning should be given props for an often daring performance as she lies motionless while several veteran Australian character actors (including Hugh Keays-Byrne, aka MAD MAX's "Toecutter") strip completely nude (for those who've waited patiently for a shot of Chris Haywood's taint, your prayers have been answered) and climb on top of her, fondle her, lick her, cradle her like a baby, sadistically burn her with a cigarette, etc.  But what's the point?  Lucy remains a cipher throughout.  She has no friends other than an alcoholic shut-in (Ewen Leslie), seems to be juggling a series of lies to all her acquaintances, and as such, it proves difficult to get to the heart of a protagonist who has no core. We don't know Lucy, what she is, who she is, how she came to be, or why she does what she does.  Add to all of that a frustratingly ambiguous ending that resolves nothing, and you end up with a highbrow, pretentious Skinemax flick that's as impenetrable as its heroine when she's on duty.  (Unrated, 102 mins; also available on Netflix streaming)



THE DARKEST HOUR
(2011/US)

Director Chris Gorak's 2007 debut RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR was a terrifying dirty-bombs-going-off-in-L.A. paranoia thriller that served as an introduction to a promising filmmaker.  Now working with a much bigger budget and increasingly irrelevant NIGHT WATCH auteur-turned-Hollywood hack Timur Bekmambetov, Gorak delivers a shit-the-bed sophomore slump of the lowest order with THE DARKEST HOUR, one of the least scary horror films you'll ever see, indifferently acted by a bored cast of talented actors who shouldn't be this cynically coasting so early in their careers.  Emile Hirsch (already a long way from INTO THE WILD) and Max Minghella are two douchebag software designers trying to close a deal in Moscow when the city is attacked by...lights?  They're actually tiny aliens housed by a protective outer field, and...well, who gives a shit, really?  Hirsch and Minghella end up on the run from the aliens with vacationing American Olivia Thirlby and Australian Rachael Taylor, plus Swedish asshole Joel Kinnaman (probably the best thing about the TV series THE KILLING), who screwed Hirsch and Minghella out of their business deal.  Combining elements of at least ten other better movies, THE DARKEST HOUR is terribly-written (by Jon Spaihts, one of the writers of Ridley Scott's eagerly-anticipated PROMETHEUS), badly-acted, thoroughly lacking in suspense or scares, sluggishly paced, and frankly, boring as hell.  It's bad.  I'm talking SKYLINE bad.  Plus, bottom-of-the-barrel visual effects and shoddy greenscreen that had to look even worse in theaters when this played in 3D.  An utter waste of time.  (PG-13, 89 mins).

Cult Classics Revisited: THE SICILIAN CLAN (1969)

THE SICILIAN CLAN
(1969/France)

Directed by Henri Verneuil.  Written by Henri Verneuil, Jose Giovanni, Pierre Pelegri.  Cast: Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura, Irina Demick, Amedeo Nazzari, Sydney Chaplin, Philippe Baronnet, Yves Lefebvre, Marc Porel, Gerard Buhr, Sally Nesbitt, Edward Meeks, Leopoldo Trieste, Sabine Sun. (PG, 118 mins)

The caper thriller THE SICILIAN CLAN was hugely popular in its native France due in large part to its starring three of the biggest names in French cinema:  the iconic Alain Delon, Italian tough guy Lino Ventura, and the legendary, beloved Jean Gabin, whose career dated back to the silent era and was voluntarily put on hold when he chose to fight in WWII.  Directed and co-written by the underrated Henri Verneuil (1920-2002), THE SICILIAN CLAN takes its time getting revved up, but once it does, it's a riveting, exciting heist flick that ranks among the best of that crowded 1960s subgenre.  20th Century Fox released it in the US in 1970 (with a bit more nudity that you'd expect in a PG-rated film, but perhaps we weren't as reactionary and prudish back then) and it was a moderate success in its subtitled French-language version.  An English-language version was also prepared, possibly for theatrical release as well but likely for TV airings (it's the dubbed version that occasionaly plays on Fox Movie Channel and HBO), and according to IMDb, the entire film was made in three languages (French, English, and Italian).  That seems like a questionable claim, as prevalent as dubbing was during that period.  At any rate, most of the actors appear to be mouthing in English most of the time (Delon dubs himself, but I doubt Gabin does, and Ventura definitely doesn't).  What's odd is that THE SICILIAN CLAN has never received an official home video release in the US.  It's not on DVD or Blu-ray and it was never released on VHS.  This film is far too entertaining to be relegated to 6:00 am showings in pan & scan format on one of the lesser-watched HBO channels.  In this era of cult films being made available via manufactured-on-demand programs like Warner Archive, MGM Limited Edition, and Twilight Time, a major-studio release like THE SICILIAN CLAN is a prime example of the kind of under-the-radar gem for which those labels were created.

Jean Gabin as Vittorio Manalese

The complex, globe-trotting story begins with criminal Roger Sartet (Delon) being sent to prison for a jewelry store robbery and the subsequent killing of two police officers.  He manages a daring escape--while in transit to the prison--with the help of the Manalese crime family.  Sautet tempts Vittorio (Gabin), the head of the family, with a heist of diamonds on display in a museum.  Vittorio and his sons find the deal too sweet to pass up, but they don't trust Sartet and keep him on a tight leash.  That doesn't stop Sartet from fooling around with Vittorio's sultry daughter-in-law Jeanne (Irina Demick).  Vittorio, after consulting with his New York mob associate Tony Nicosia (Amedeo Nazzari) deems the museum heist too risky and they instead opt to grab the diamonds while they're being transported from Paris to New York City.  Of course this takes intricate planning, which is always jeopardized when no one trusts anyone else and the guy Tony sends to help them pilot the plane once they take it over is Jack (Sydney Chaplin), an unreliable alcoholic.  Plus, dogged Inspector Le Goff (Ventura) is behind them every step of the way.

Delon, Gabin, and Ventura in a publicity shot

Filled with a generous amount of humor and some truly inventive set pieces, THE SICILIAN CLAN is a terrific thriller that deserves to be better known today.  The long sequence aboard the plane takes up about 30 minutes of screen time and is a magnificently-done exercise is suspense and tension, even with some occasionally iffy rearscreen projection work.  This bit, with Jack's landing of the plane on an under-construction highway outside of Manhattan, probably called for the kind of over-the-top destruction that 1969 visual effects weren't capable of delivering, but it still works.  Also aiding the film greatly is a marvelously catchy score by Ennio Morricone (you'll be humming the action theme for days), that's dampened only by the overuse of a "boing!" that seems more suited for one of Terence Hill's comedic westerns of the time.  And even dubbed, the screen presence of the actors resonates beautifully.  Delon, the top star in France at the time, takes a backseat for much of the film, almost stepping aside in respectful deference to Gabin, who's really the star here (and Verneuil gives him a grand entrance) and commands the screen even when he's just standing there watching someone.  Ventura, a veteran Italian actor who found fame in French cinema in the 1960s, doesn't get as much to do, but he makes the most of it with his incredulous looks when he knows he's being lied to, and an amusing running gag about his attempts to quit smoking.

Irina Demick, just because

Perhaps one reason THE SICILIAN CLAN is largely forgotten outside of cult circles--other than its infrequent cable airings, its lack of availability outside of the bootleg circuit, and that it came at the end of the Euroheist cycle--is because it lacks the arthouse merit that say, the rediscovered works of Jean-Pierre Melville exhibit.  It plays a lot like a commercial, popcorn version of a Melville crime film (Delon and Ventura had both been in Melville films prior to this), but doesn't purport to be anything but escapist entertainment.  It's not serious.  Now I'm not putting Verneuil on Melville's level, but the guy made some good films--1968's GUNS FOR SAN SEBASTIAN, 1973's NIGHT FLIGHT FROM MOSCOW, and I haven't seen 1975's FEAR OVER THE CITY, but it's highly regarded by fans of French action--and might be worthy of some study, perhaps not as an auteur who influenced future filmmakers but as a reliable and skilled journeyman who knew how to put an entertaining picture together and did his job well.

New on Netflix streaming: UNDOCUMENTED (2011), DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND (2010), SAINT NICK (2010)

UNDOCUMENTED
(2011/US)

It was only a matter of time before the subject of right-wing extremism became the basis for a horror film, and UNDOCUMENTED has some intriguing ideas but doesn't really do much with them.  A documentary filmmaker (Scott Mechlowicz) and his crew tag along with a group of Mexicans illegally crossing the border into the US.  Once they're across and in New Mexico, they're abducted by a far-right militia group and taken to a compound, where the leader, X (Peter Stormare, relying on his distinctive voice as his face is obscured by a mesh hood for 99% of his screen time), makes Mechlowicz change the focus of his film to what goes on at the compound.  Fed up with illegal immigration and the perceived disrespect of America, X and his followers, many of whom are naturalized citizens, proceed to torture and kill the illegals, using some of them for organ harvesting for rich American clients (that plot again?).  There's a potentially interesting story here, but director/co-writer Chris Peckover too often focuses instead on the past-its-sell-by-date torture porn angle, making UNDOCUMENTED come off less like a topical horror film with a message and more like what might happen if Eli Roth remade EL NORTE.  (Unrated, 96 mins)


DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND
(2010/UK)

Absolutely dreadful, shamelessly derivative British zombie outing may as well be titled 28 RIPOFFS LATER.  Here, its sprinting dead are the result of a company called N-Gen testing an over-the-counter energy booster on 30,000 volunteers.  29,999 turn into flesh-eating ghouls with the sudden ability to engage in agile parkour and free-running.  No, really.  Maybe this was supposed to be a spoof and they forgot the jokes?  "Hey, it's like DISTRICT B13, but with zombies!" is the kind of idea that sounds awesome until your high wears off.  One volunteer (THE DESCENT's MyAnna Buring) is immune and the unscrupulous N-Gen CEO (Colin Salmon) sends hard-bitten (and zombie-bitten, but he has a temporary vaccine) mercenary hitman (Craig Fairbrass) to find her.  There's also Buring's sprung con brother (Danny Dyer, trying to sound badass but sounding more like Bob Hoskins after oral surgery), his pal (DOOMSDAY's Craig Conway), and a few others who, courtesy of the screenwriters at Plot Convenience Playhouse, all end up in the outskirts of London, barricaded in a garage to stave off the hordes of the infected.  Filled with ludicrous contrivances (amazing how Fairbrass literally stumbles upon, in the middle of nowhere, the very place Buring is hiding), ugly digital video cinematography, headache-inducing shaky-cam and fast cutting that renders most of the action incomprehensible, numerous characters that director Mark McQueen forgets about for long stretches (plus a pointless comic relief cameo by DOG SOLDIERS' Sean Pertwee), and a bored cast that looks like they're waiting around for Neil Marshall to put them in a better movie, DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND is the absolute pits.  Forget it.  (Unrated, 97 mins)


SAINT NICK
aka SAINT
(2010/The Netherlands)

This yuletide fright flick from Dutch horror master Dick Maas (THE LIFT, AMSTERDAMNED) no doubt plays much better on DVD where you can choose the original Dutch audio track.  The version streaming on Netflix is the badly-dubbed English track, and it's distracting, to say the least.  Maas explores the darker side of the holiday season in a 1492 prologue where evil bishop Niklas (Maas regular Huub Stapel) and his evil minions the Black Petes regularly rape and pillage their way through the village until they're all burned alive by the fed-up townspeople.  Now, every 32 years (or 23...the dubbers can't keep it straight, and the years referenced don't add up either way) on December 5, St. Nick returns to exact his vengeance.  Cut to 2010 Amsterdam, as St. Nick returns for his killing spree.  In spite of all the gory killings, most regard St. Nick as a myth, except for high-strung detective Goert (Bert Luppes), who gets suspended from duty while the clueless cops blame the killings on local teen Frank (Egbert Jan Weeber).  So, of course, the two of them have to reluctantly join forces to defeat the ghost of the evil St. Nick. If you can get by the abysmal dubbing, SAINT NICK is a pretty good time, depending on your tolerance for splatter and general bad taste.  A lot of the killings are played for laughs and done in the over-the-top style of early Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson.   You can get the general plot and enjoy the dark-humored, blood-soaked mayhem, but Netflix really should look into streaming the Dutch audio with English subtitles instead of the slapdash and extremely awkward English dub, where none of the voices seem to fit the actors.  Good fun as long as no one's talking. (Unrated, 88 mins).

New from Warner Archive, Special Eurocult Edition: THE CATS (1968) and HATE FOR HATE (1967)

THE CATS
aka THE BASTARD
(1968/Italy-France-Germany)

THE CATS, an odd alternate title for what was originally released as THE BASTARD, is exactly the kind of bizarre cult item that makes Warner Archive and the manufactured-on-demand concept so appealing to fans of strange and forgotten cinema.  This obscure heist flick from Italian director Duccio Tessari, shot mostly in Arizona and New Mexico, pits a dysfunctional family of criminals against each other when siblings Jason (Giuliano Gemma) and older brother Adam (Klaus Kinski) start feuding over a stash of diamonds.  Adam not only steals Jason's girlfriend (Margaret Lee), but also has the tendons in his baby brother's right hand severed just to show him who's boss. Milk-drinking Jason plots his revenge while the brothers' boozehag mom Martha (Rita Hayworth) rants, raves, and feeds her cats Purina Cat Chow doused in whiskey. With an opening credits song sung in over-the-top fashion by Nicole Croiselle ("You knooooow he's a baaaaastard!"), a groovy score by Michel Magne, awesome fashions (Kinski's sunglasses are killer), an armored car heist pulled off with mannequins dressed in security uniforms, Gemma dubbed by the same guy who years later revoiced Lou Ferrigno in HERCULES, Hayworth chewing the scenery, often surrounded by old B&W glossy shots of herself in her Hollywood prime (was this her idea?  How depressing is that?), an out-of-nowhere natural disaster, and Claudine Auger cast as an improbably sexy Arizona rancher, the often demented THE CATS is a real find.  The climax seems a little abrupt and oddly-assembled, enough so that I can't tell if it was an artistic decision or something that was done out of unexpected necessity.  Also with familiar Eurocult faces like Umberto Raho, Serge Marquand, Dan Van Husen (sporting some incredible facial hair), and Lorenzo Robledo, and effective use of Arizona/New Mexico desert highway location shooting.  Warner Archive's DVD is 1.78:1 anamorphic (though the packaging lists it as 1.85:1), and looks quite nice after the somewhat battered opening credits, which are from the Italian print, with the title I BASTARDI and Gemma top-billed, with Hayworth listed at the end.  The US prints rearrange the credits to give Hayworth top billing.  The Italian print was probably the best source, though once the film starts, it is the English-dubbed version.  IMDb lists this as 102 minutes, but this DVD runs 93, so it's possible there's a longer European version.  Warner Archive's DVD is R-rated and doesn't appear to be missing any objectionable material, as there's violence, profanity, and nudity from both Gemma and Lee. (R, 93 mins)

HATE FOR HATE
(1967/Italy)

Passable but rather ordinary spaghetti western lists Fernando Di Leo and Bruno Corbucci among its screenwriters, but journeyman director Domenico Paolella lacks the style and wit of a Sergio Leone or Sergio Corbucci.  The overly-convoluted story centers on two men: bank robber Cooper (John Ireland) and scruffy aspiring artist Miguel (Antonio Sabato), whose paths keep crossing after a chance encounter at a bank Cooper is robbing.  Miguel is erroneously named as an accomplice of Cooper, who was doing the proverbial One Last Job to take his wife and daughter and start a new life.  The real villain is Moxon (Mirko Ellis), Cooper's murderous partner who unsuccessfully tries to kill Cooper and take his share.  Moxon gets away, Cooper is imprisoned and contracts malaria, and Miguel is set free thanks to his friendship with rich one-legged bandito Coyote (Fernando Sancho).  The dying Cooper escapes from prison and goes after Moxon, who's kidnapped his wife and daughter, and Moxon, meanwhile goes after Miguel because he thinks he has the loot.  Eventually, Cooper and Miguel form the required Leone-esque "unholy alliance" to take on Moxon and his gang.  Despite the film's Italian origins and its familiar dubbed voices (Ireland is dubbed by Ed Mannix, Sancho by Tony La Penna, and Robert Spafford and Carolynn De Fonseca are audible elsewhere), this feels more in line with a more traditional Hollywood western than a spaghetti western, which seems fitting as Ireland had worked with the likes of John Ford and Howard Hawks back in the 1940s.  Even Willy Brezza's score lacks the Ennio Morricone eccentricity and sounds more like a network TV cowboy show.  That's not to say it's bad, because it's a watchable time filler, but if you're looking for a forgotten spaghetti classic salvaged by Warner Archive, this isn't it.  The 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer (listed as 1.85:1 on the packaging) shows some age but is in generally good condition. (Unrated, 92 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: WAR HORSE (2011), COLUMBUS CIRCLE (2012)

WAR HORSE
(2011/US)

Steven Spielberg considers his film version of Michael Morpurgo's 1982 novel and Nick Stafford's 2007 play to be his "John Ford movie," and that's pretty accurate. WAR HORSE is the kind of grand, majestic, unabashedly sentimental epic that simply doesn't get made any more.  Yes, it's maudlin and manipulative, but it's also beautifully made, with stunning imagery throughout, and a love of cinema that comes through in every scene.  The story of an exceptionally gifted thoroughbred named Joey, trained by young Albie Narracott (Jeremy Irvine), and sold by his loving but financially-strapped father (Peter Mullan) to the British Army at the start of the Great War is one that shamelessly tugs on the heartstrings.  It's easy to be jaded and cynical when it comes to cinema these days, but Spielberg pulls this off so well that if you aren't a believer by the end, then there's really no hope for you.  We follow Joey on his episodic journey through the chaos of WWI and a succession of brief masters like a military officer (Tom Hiddleston), a pair of German brothers (David Kross, Leonard Carow), a young French girl (Celine Buckens) and her grandfather (Niels Arestrup) and so on.  When an injured Joey is trapped by barbed wire on a battlefield, he even manages to make a British soldier and a German soldier emerge from their respective trenches, setting aside the war for a few minutes as they work together to free him.  Albie, meanwhile, has enlisted and is fighting in the trenches.  Will he and Joey find each other?  Of course they will.  You know that already.  And even when you know it's coming, Spielberg films it just right, with the John Williams score swelling at just the right time...not a dry eye in the house.

There have been times where Spielberg's sentimental streak has worked against him (the last half hour of A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE comes to mind), and there are countless different ways this could've been a laughable disaster in the wrong hands, but Spielberg is at the top of his game here, and in scene after scene, WAR HORSE serves as yet another reinforcement of why Spielberg is Spielberg.  By his lofty record at the box office, this wasn't a huge hit, topping out at just under $80 million in the US, but along with 2005's MUNICH, it's probably his best film since SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.   The terrific cast also includes Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Toby Kebbell, Liam Cunningham, Eddie Marsan, and Benedict Cumberbatch.  (PG-13, 146 mins)



COLUMBUS CIRCLE
(2012/US)

Universal dumped this minor-league suspense thriller directly to DVD after two years on the shelf and it's not hard to see why.  It's not that it's bad, but that it's entirely too predictable, with the twists telegraphed far too early and obviously by director George Gallo, who co-wrote the script with co-star Kevin Pollak.  Gallo (who gets a lifetime pass for scripting 1988's MIDNIGHT RUN) and Pollak are both known more for their comedic skills and don't really demonstrate a knack for Hitchcock knockoffs.  The film has an admirably old-fashioned feel to it, but the script is utterly lacking in any of the wit either of these guys have demonstrated in their past work, as well as any kind of central mystery.  There's a couple flashes of inspiration in the last 20 or so minutes, but it's not enough to lift this above the level of an uninspired LAW & ORDER episode.  All of that, in addition to a capable, perfectly acceptable, yet not exactly A-list cast that would've carried more marquee weight in 2002 instead of 2012, is ample evidence why this skipped theaters altogether.  COLUMBUS CIRCLE centers on an agoraphobic heiress (Selma Blair) who hasn't left her NYC penthouse apartment in 18 years.  When her neighbor dies in a fall that detective Giovanni Ribisi thinks might be a homicide, that apartment is rented by rich asshole Jason Lee and his abused wife Amy Smart.  Blair, hiding from a mysterious past, trusts only the concierge (Pollak) and her doctor (Beau Bridges), but cautiously forms a friendship with Smart, even though the sinister Lee clearly has something up his sleeve.  From the opening scene with a photo on the neighbor's bedside table, Gallo and Pollak seem all too eager to make this mystery as flimsy as the wobbly door going into Blair's penthouse.  Remove an F-bomb and this is weak TV-movie material from start to finish as Gallo and Pollak use every means short of spotlights and an air horn to point out every twist long before they happen.  Did Pollak learn nothing about plot twists and story construction when he co-starred in THE USUAL SUSPECTS?  Also with the venerable Robert Guillaume in a small role as a bookstore owner with an intricate knowledge of obscure family crests, rewarded for his time and effort by having his name misspelled "Giullaume" in the closing credits. (PG-13, 86 mins)

In Theaters: JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME (2012)

JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME
(2012/US)

Written and directed by Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass.  Cast: Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Susan Sarandon, Judy Greer, Rae Dawn Chong, Steve Zissis, Evan Ross.  (R, 82 mins)

The Duplass Brothers brought mumblecore to the almost-mainstream with the 2010 gem CYRUS and now return with the often very funny JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME.  Briskly-paced and too short to wear out its welcome at just 82 minutes, JEFF has an inspired opening half that loses momentum in the back end when it gets too whimsical, contrived, and precious for its own good. 

Jeff (a perfectly cast Jason Segel) is an aimless 30-year-old who lives in the basement of his widowed mom Sharon's (Susan Sarandon) house.  Unemployed and with no prospects, Jeff spends his days getting high, watching infomercials, and obsessing over M. Night Shyamalan's SIGNS.  Jeff believes everything in the universe is connected and nothing is coincidental.  Or something like that.  When his mom orders him to take a bus to Home Depot for wood glue to replace a broken shutter, Jeff ends up running into his older brother Pat (Ed Helms), who just enraged his frustrated wife Linda (Judy Greer) by buying a Porsche that they can't afford.  Pat manages a paint store, and doesn't understand Jeff's slacker lifestyle, but they end up on a surveillance mission when they see Linda out with a male co-worker (Steve Zissis).  Meanwhile, Sharon, who hasn't had a relationship since her husband died when the boys were teenagers, is at work, being IM'd by a secret admirer co-worker. 

JEFF's very set-up--the hero's obsession with signs and the interconnectivity of the universe--essentially tells you from the get-go that everything will tie together at the end with maximum contrivance.  And it does.  But there's a lot of good stuff on the way, including one of the funniest single-car crashes you'll ever see in a movie, and Pat in his Porsche, rocking out to the Spin Doctors' "Two Princes."  But a lot of it is cringe-worthy, especially the impromptu "kissing under a waterfall" moment, which is effectively when the film exits the real world and enters Whimsical Indie Feelgood Playland as the entire cast magically finds themselves in the same location for a climax that Ties Everything Together.  Mumblecore, even when it's made more accessible, never really has much to say, and neither does JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME.  It's pleasant and enjoyable, with fine performances are fine all around (it's great to see underemployed 1980s fixture Rae Dawn Chong, who still looks great and is very good as one of Sharon's work friends), and you leave the film smiling, even if you probably forget about it a few hours later.