Like Father, Like Son (2013)

"Like Father, Like Son," with Masaharu Fukuyama (l.) and
Machico Ono.

A pair of six-year-olds switched at birth forces two families together in the Japanese film “Like Father, Like Son,” a sensitive and intriguing examination of parental influence and early childhood written, directed and edited by Hirokazu Kore-eda.

The movie begins by introducing us to an affluent young couple living in an upscale high rise in downtown Tokyo. The father, Ryota (Masaharu Fukuyama) is an ambitious, pragmatic young architect who, like his austere father before him, puts business first and family second. Ergo, instructing his young son Keita (Keita Ninomiya), a wide-eyed six-year-old, to practice playing piano is more about learning responsibility and discipline than having fun. That leaves the caring, over-protective mother, Midori (Machiko Ono) worried that little Keita could miss out on being a kid by having to grow up too fast.

Regardless, the couple’s world is turned inside out when an urgent call from the hospital leads to a visit in which they are informed that Keito isn’t their biological son. Soon, a hasty meeting between both families is arranged and lawyers are brought in. Eventually, both sets of parents will have to make an agonizing decision whether to switch the children.

Along with the obvious psychological themes, Kore-eda tosses in some socioeconomical complexities by making the second family a middle income couple from a working class neighborhood. The mother (Lily Franky) works part-time; the father, Yoko (Yukari Saiki) is an ebullient shopkeeper whose tousled hair and threadbare Hawaiian shirts allude both to his engagingly laidback style and modest means. The couple has three young kids, including Ryota’s biological son, Ryusei (Shogen Hwang), an energetic lad who enjoys flying kites with his dad.

Exchanging the boys on weekends proves to be equal parts revealing and awkward for both kids and adults. Perhaps not surprisingly, the kids turn out to be remarkably adaptable; on the other hand, the adults discover elements about their parenting both unexpected and sometimes painful. For instance, while Midori’s strong, motherly bond with Keito is palpable as she struggles in letting go, it underlines the emotion missing in Ryota’s relationship with his son.

A key scene at the end takes place between Keito and Ryota. After finally switching the kids, the families unexpectedly reunite, but the visit is unsettling for Keito and he runs away. When Ryota catches up with the boy, he tries to tell him about some of the ways he misses him and about how he wishes he would have been a better father for those six years. The scene is heart-tugging, warm and unabashedly sentimental in addition to being implausible and contrived.

Why would Keito’s first instinct be to run away instead of, say, first embracing his mother? Kore-eda is perhaps suggesting that running away is the boy’s way of appearing independent—hiding emotion the same way his driven, icy father has taught himself to—but to imply a six-year-old has the capacity for such intricate emotion is far-fetched.

Still, “Like Father, Like Son” works as an optimistic, life-affirming tale about how two otherwise disparate families become close friends in unlikely circumstances. Whether the director’s melodramatic payoff owes more to sincere filmmaking or crafty artifice is open to debate, but in a film with so many difficult questions and so few simple answers, maybe that’s the point.

Jurassic World (2015)

They're Back!: Dinosaurs are on the loose again in "Jurassic World."

After more than a decade of rumors and false starts, “Jurassic World,” the latest in the “Jurassic Park” series, finally hit screens over the summer. This fourth installment is more of a reboot than a sequel, which explains why it always seems less like a movie than one long, extended beginning.

The seamless, computer-generated special effects are striking, but the new dinosaur epic—helmed by director Colin Trevorrow, taking over for the reins from Steven Spielberg—ultimately lands with more of a thud than a roar, done in by familiar, well-worn characterizations and a shallow screenplay (stitched together by four writers) that has some interesting ideas but lacks the ambition to pull them off.

The action returns to the remote island where the dinosaur theme park from the original has been refurbished and reopened, showing two distinct sides—the outside, where bright, sunny spaces are flooded with kids and excited crowds; and a dark, cavernous inside, where a team of employees control things through a huge electronic wall of monitors and blinking lights.

This, of course, is necessary to manage the toothy, prehistoric beasts roaming beyond the towering concrete walls. The fearsome T-Rex ruled the earlier pictures, but the star this time is the formidable and mysterious Indominus-Rex, a one of a kind species with a few tweaks—it can change color and sense heat—that suggest a massive carnivore crossed with the creature from “Predator.”

Trouble starts when the white coats underestimate the high intelligence of the Indominus, and by the time they finish connecting the dots, the Frankenstien-osaur has escaped and begun a dangerous rampage. It’s up to Navy man turned dinosaur whisperer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), and park operations manager Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) to save the day. Those seeking a jolt of romantic tension to go along with the mayhem, don’t worry, Claire is also Owen’s mercurial girlfriend.

For the most part, Trevorrow keeps the movie humming along like a genre machine, but certain Spielbergian derivations—like an overly sentimental subplot involving a troubled marriage, a pair of young siblings, and sappy family bonding during crisis—suggest a director playing it safe rather than expressing a style of his own.

Some of the best moments include the ostensible villain, Vic Hoskins, colorfully played by a thankless Vincent D’Onofrio. As head of security operations for the park, Hoskins seeks to harness dinosaurs, especially the powerful and versatile Indominus, as secret military weapons, a notion that strikes the animal-loving Owen as appalling and immoral.

Eventually, D’Onofrio is chomped by one of his snarling, would-be agents of war, but not before he lends a smarmy, sinister edge to a movie populated by mostly hollow, generic do-gooders. Even an evil soul is better than no soul at all.

Safelight (2015)

Juno Temple and Even Peters in "Safelight."

Much of “Safelight” takes place somewhere in the remote corners of Southern California’s desolate Mojave Desert, where a lonely 17-year-old named Charles (Evan Peters, his messy, curly hair making him reminiscent of Jessie Eisenberg) limps to school during the day and helps run a dusty truck stop at night. Born slightly crippled, he walks by dragging one foot, a shortcoming that leaves him painfully self-conscious as well as a target for random—and manipulative—ambushes by sadistic bullies.

Charles’ only apparent happiness comes with his passion for photography (the title is a reference to lighthouses, his favorite subject), but that changes when he meets Vicki (Juno Temple), the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold occupying one of the dingy motel rooms next door. Vicki surprises Charles by looking beyond his physical appearance and treating him with compassion and sensitivity, two things sorely lacking in her current arrangement with a drunken, sleazy pimp (Kevin Alejandro) who abuses her.

The wholly inauspicious debut of writer-director Tony Aloupis, “Safelight” is extensively clichéd and mind-numbingly predictable. At the middling center, Vicki and Charles’ tentative friendship grows—she drives him to lighthouses to take pictures—but too often along the fringes, a well-worn series of familiar subplots dominate.

Charles’ single father (raspy-voiced Jason Beghe), weak and suffering from an unknown ailment, dies; middle-aged Peg (Christine Lahti), a divorcee and Charles’ boss at the truck stop, steps in to provide motherly comfort and encouragement; Vicki, desperate to reconnect with family, has an uncomfortable reunion with her two younger sisters; and the ugly, misogynistic pimp, who has no friends, increasingly seethes with jealousy and rage, setting the table for an inevitably violent showdown.

“Safelight” is one of those movies meant to be watched after the late, late show. The one-dimensional characters and predictable story make it easy to follow even if the viewer, lulled by the sleepy setting and languid pace, repeatedly dozes off on the couch. Although, falling asleep altogether would be the much more logical outcome.

How I Live Now (2013)

Saoirse Ronan (l.) and Harley Bird in "How I Live Now."

Sex with a cousin rarely qualifies as an erudite strategy to address raging teenage hormones, but for problematic Daisy, the young protagonist in the nuclear war drama “How I Live Now,” falling in love is, surprisingly enough, the least of her worries.

As portrayed by the Irish actress Saoirse (pronounced ‘Sersha’) Ronan, Daisy is a troubled 16-year-old American from a fractured family (her mother died and she’s not close with her father) who goes to live with her aunt and three cousins at their home in the sprawling English countryside. The friendly trio of cousins consist of a laconic elder brother named Eddie (George MacKay), his more energetic younger brother, Isaac (Tom Holland), and their spirited little sister, Piper (Harley Bird).

The pretty but irascible Daisy brings along some additional baggage in the form of excess cynicism and an unhealthy addiction to diet pills, but for the most part remains just an archetypal moody teenager, depressed and distant. Gradually, she gives in to her cousins’ relentless attempts at socializing, first by opening up to the pleasures of the landscape and then by developing a relationship with the gentle, quietly fascinating Eddie.

But you get the sense during the opening credits—in which Daisy is seen slowly making her way through security at Heathrow airport and the TV is covering the latest terror attack—that this fragile utopia won’t last. Indeed, world problems eventually haunt “How I Live Now,” when word arrives that war has begun.

Moments after a nuclear bomb is set off, the film’s bright, lush milieu—with its acres of rolling green hills, tree-lined forests, and fresh, unblemished swimming ponds—is darkened by radiation fallout, smoke from explosions, machine gun fire and death. The family is separated but during the chaos of martial law, Daisy and young Piper are able to escape. From here, the film largely follows their quest for survival and search for their cousins.

Directed by Kevin MacDonald, “How I Live Now” is well made and visually polished—the stark lighting, by cinematographer Franz Lustig, is impressive, with its mix of warm ambers and icy blues—but the horrors-of-war story is dreary and familiar territory.

More depressing is the way the script assigns a teenager to fight for her life against dangerous forces, a tactic that sounds a lot like a crass attempt to hitch a ride on the success of the recent blockbuster, “The Hunger Games.” (Also like “Hunger Games,” “How I Live Now” is based on a young adult novel by Meg Rosoff.) And while the platinum blonde, blue-eyed Ronan does what she can as the plucky heroine, it’s not enough to escape from the shadow of the formidably resourceful Katniss Everdeen.

But then again, give her a bow and arrow and who knows?

Unexpected (2015)

Cobie Smulders (l.) and Gail Bean in "Unexpected."

Directed and co-written by Kris Swanberg, wife of indie filmmaker Joe Swanberg, “Unexpected” is a surprisingly deft and unassuming slice of life tale of two simultaneous, unplanned pregnancies involving a teacher and one of her students.

Filmed in Chicago, the movie stars the regal and appealing Cobie Smulders—establishing herself as a legitimate movie star after a long run on TVs “How I Met Your Mother”—as Sam Abbott, an ambitious and successful high school science teacher working at a public school located in West Englewood, one of the city’s impoverished, minority neighborhoods. Shortly after realizing she’s pregnant, Sam lets her students in on the secret by affiliating a classroom garbage can with an episode of morning sickness.

Meanwhile, one of Sam’s best students is a bright and promising senior named Jasmine (newcomer Gail Bean, in a wonderful and strikingly polished performance), who has also found herself dealing with an unanticipated baby bump. The timing is unfortunate; Jasmine has a stellar GPA and a chance to study at the University of Illinois, but she can’t afford to live off campus and the school can’t accommodate her needs.

The film is largely about how a deeper bond grows between Sam and Jasmine as they each confront difficult decisions and wholesale life changes. Their relationship begins as teacher and student and evolves into one between two mature, intelligent adults.

Having been a Chicago public school teacher herself before becoming a filmmaker, Swanberg—who studied film at Southern Illinois and earned a Master’s in education at DePaul—seems uniquely qualified to tell a story about a foundering inner city school, an idea no doubt inspired by the highly controversial, real-life account of 50 underperforming CPS schools being recently shuttered or consolidated as a cost cutting measure.

Swanson has collaborated with her husband on some prior projects, but this is one of her first solo efforts as a director. Though “Unexpected” deals with some complex, underlying socio-economical themes, Swanson confidently steers the film in a way that rarely feels heavy-handed or manipulative.

However, especially considering the film is so timely when it comes to its education headlines, the one glaring omission is some hint at the plague of gun violence that haunts the south side of the Windy City. It sounds cynical, but without a subtle allusion to this dark, dangerous reality—a shriek of distant bullets, the wail of an ambulance siren, a few slowly patrolling police cars—the film loses some verisimilitude.

But putting aside its inexplicably overblown idealism, the movie is brimming with honesty, warmth and life. There are also the fine performances, especially from Bean and the suddenly expressive and touching Smulders, who recovers nicely from a mean-spirited turn in “Results,” the lifeless would-be rom-com about fitness trainers also released this year.

True to its title, “Unexpected” is a refreshing surprise.

Still Alice (2014)

'Still' Good: Julianne Moore struggles to hold on to memories.

There’s a thrilling moment in “Still Alice” in which the title character, Alice Howland (Julianne Moore, in her Oscar-winning performance), has just finished one of her frequent runs on the campus of Columbia University, where she works as a linguistics professor. The imagery in this early scene unfolds like a puzzle—if you didn’t already know that the movie was about a character dealing with a diagnosis of early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease, it might be fun to guess.

As the scene continues, Alice stops and breathlessly surveys her surroundings, which appear as a hazy blur in the distance. Cut to a shot of Alice, whose initial expression of surprise crosses into fear as the camera begins to slowly swirl around her. It’s only after a few deep breaths that the world, literally, comes back into focus. For the brainy Alice, who’s only 50 and not accustomed to being lost, the thought of suddenly being cornered in a confused fog is highly disconcerting.

From this point, the fact that the film’s look settles down into something familiar and routine is a bit of a letdown. In cinema when the subject is illness, there’s a lot of latitude to be visually ambitious—Ingmar Bergman’s “Cries and Whispers” comes to mind—but co-directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (who also teamed up to write the screenplay, from a novel of the same name by Lisa Genova) take a mostly bland, televisual approach.

While imperfect, “Still Alice” remains effective and has a lot to appreciate, namely the performances. Besides Moore’s characteristically impressive work, there’s Alec Baldwin as her loving but career-minded husband John, a doctor struggling to balance caring for his wife with new job opportunities; Kristen Stewart in a sharp turn as Lydia, youngest of two daughters and an aspiring actress who eventually moves back home from California to look after her mom; and Kate Bosworth, underused as older daughter Anna, who learns she has the gene to eventually inherit her mother’s disease but is oddly left on the fringes of the story.

Much of the film chronicles various stages of Alice’s illness. There are good days, such as a lovely scene in which Alice and Lydia go for a walk at a beach on Long Island and mom acts like her old self, needling Lydia about going college and having a back-up plan in case acting doesn’t work out; and bad days, such as a heartbreaking scene where Alice frantically searches at home for the bathroom and freezes in panic when she can’t find it.

There is unexpected humor, too, such as when Alice pouts about reading the same page of “Moby Dick” over and over. John suggests something lighter and Alice, in a moment of hilarious, self-deprecating clarity quips, “What, like ‘The Cat it the Hat?’” Ultimately, “Still Alice” seems less a story about disease than a story about a family’s commitment and love for each another.

There are some moments of manipulative melodrama—planning ahead, Alice uploads a video to herself with instructions on taking a bottle of sleeping pills for when she gets too sick, and inevitably stumbles upon it later—but otherwise the film is careful about being too preachy or exploiting the circumstances for false sentiment and maudlin payoffs. Perhaps the most genuinely moving scene occurs when Alice gives a speech on Alzheimer’s at a medical convention and her voice quakes when she talks about her love of communication.

Indeed, it’s a sad irony that much of Alice’s life and success has to do with a fascination with words, and that by the end she has almost none of them left to say.

Jack & Diane (2012)

Riley Keough and Juno Temple in "Jack & Diane."

The dominant images of “Jack & Diane”—nosebleeds, facial cuts, vomiting, people sitting on toilets—all suggest unpleasant bodily fluids flowing. Although the movie was filmed in and around Brooklyn, N.Y., its favorite location seems to be the bathroom.

The film—a confused, queasy mix of horror and teen romance involving two young women and bizarre visions of werewolves—appears to be inspired in some part by the “Twilight” franchise. Furthermore, the strange idea of lesbianism hooking up with lycanthropy seems to be independent writer-director Bradley Rust Gray’s ill-advised way of making the material more edgy and mainstream.

Though they are about the same age, Diane (Juno Temple) plays the naïve, sexy nymphet to the short-haired, boyish and ostensibly more experienced Jack (Riley Keough). The couple’s initial encounters are oddly associated with pain (Diane gets a nosebleed and Jack gets hit by a car), a gimmick that seems meant to suggest vicissitudes in their relationship—ranging from clichéd to maddeningly incomprehensible—that lie ahead.

Out of the little that happens in this ponderous and overlong film, nothing is more fraught with unease than the couple’s attempts at love making, which are either interrupted by a snarling wolf man that looks borrowed from an 80s movie (like “The Howling” or “Silver Bullet”), or haunted by creepy cutaways that feature gooey body parts in grotesque close-ups. For what it’s worth, the latter is done using stop-motion animation supplied by the talented Quay Brothers, creators of the intriguing (and much better) short film, “Street of Crocodiles.”

“Jack & Diane” is a considerable step back for Rust Gray, who showed promise with his subtle and contemplative 2009 film, “The Exploding Girl.”

The Descendants (2011)

George Clooney (left), Shailene Woodley (middle) and
Amara Miller star in "The Descendants."

In “The Descendants”—director Alexander Payne's sad, smart and wonderful chronicle of a family in crisis—George Clooney plays Matt King, an attorney and husband living in Hawaii who learns that his wife, Elizabeth, has been having an affair and was prepared to leave him.

Matt doesn't get the news from his wife, but from Alex (Shailene Woodley), his cynical and detached 17-year-old daughter who is plucked from boarding school early on in the film. There is one more daughter, 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller), small and sensitive but, like her older sister, precocious and feisty and sometimes overly crude. The family is brought together by an emergency; Elizabeth is in the hospital with a serious head injury suffered while water skiing. She’s in a coma and doctors inform Matt that she’s not going to wake up.

Meanwhile, Matt is the lone trustee to a large, lucrative swath of land on Kauai currently held in a trust. The trust is due to expire and several of Matt’s relatives, like the affably duplicitous Cousin Hugh (Beau Bridges), want him to sign the multimillion dollar rights over to a developer. Despite the imminent payday, Matt isn’t so sure he wants to spoil pristine land that’s been in the family for generations.

But much of what drives the film remains closer to home. Alex acknowledges that her alienation largely has to do with the hurt in learning of her mother’s deceit and unfaithfulness. Now, like her father, she is forced to deal with this anger and betrayal in the midst of devastating pain. Her mother will never have the opportunity to say she’s sorry, so the family will have to decide on their own whether to forgive her.

Matt decides he needs to find Elizabeth’s cheating sidekick—a slippery real estate agent named Brian (Matthew Lillard)—reasoning that if he cared enough about Elizabeth to have an affair, he should care enough to say goodbye. Matt also meets Brian’s wife, Julie (Judy Greer), and the two seem to share a spark of chemistry even before any secrets are revealed. In a lesser movie, Matt would pull a cheap stunt like sleeping with Julie to get revenge on Brian. But “The Descendants” is more intelligent and grown up.

As he showed in “Sideways” and “About Schmidt,” Alexander Payne is strikingly efficacious at weaving subtle humor into intimate, melancholy stories about infidelity and suffering. Although he’s drifted from the darkly ironic, brilliantly funny satire of “Election,” Payne’s films have become more naturalistic and human and few filmmakers are able to make you care more about characters.

“The Descendants” was based on a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings. It’s a film filled with agonizing situations and painful revelations, but even though the characters are sometimes roiling in confusion and frustration, there’s never a hint of melodrama or overplaying, no formulaic outbursts or clichéd subplots. Instead, conflicts are handled with patience and restraint.

When there is a moment of genuine emotional release, Payne handles it masterfully, as is the case when Matt first informs Alex of the grim prognosis of her mother. Alex is swimming outside in the pool. At this point, she is still furious with her mother, but hasn’t contemplated the specter of death. It’s the worst news of her young life.

Alex pauses and slowly sinks beneath the surface. Payne’s camera goes underwater with her, where she clenches her hands tightly against her face and begins to sob before swimming distraughtly towards the other end of the pool. It’s a delirious, powerfully moving image—one of the most heartbreaking in recent memory—and because of Payne’s direction and Woodley’s performance, it’s also beautifully lyrical and positively exquisite.

The Brass Teapot (2013)

Tempest in a 'Teapot': Juno Temple in "The Brass Teapot."

Juno Temple, the fetching British actress, Indie-movie ingénue and Hayden Panettiere look-alike, plays a poor but happy young newlywed in first-time director Ramaa Mosley's “The Brass Teapot,” a sometimes funny but ultimately uneven comic fantasy about post recession struggles and the evil influence of vast capital gains.

Living in a modest house somewhere in Indiana (the movie was actually shot in Upstate New York), the seemingly blissful union of Alice (Temple) and John (Michael Angarano) is tested by a shrinking job market and vaguely mounting money worries. While John spends the day bottling up frustrations as a middling call center employee—riding a bike to work and absorbing constant abuse from his loathsome boss—Alice has yet to find an opportunity to trade in her college degree for a substantial salary.

Fortunately, when the couple somehow avoids evisceration after a truck smashes into their tiny Pinto, it spells the beginning of a lucky streak. Sure enough, Alice shakes off the accident and heads into a roadside antiques store, stealing a shiny brass teapot that catches her eye. Naturally, the teapot turns out to have magical powers, but instead of a genie popping out granting wishes, the ancient gizmo dispenses crisp hundred-dollar bills whenever the couple hurts themselves.

Soon the couple finds all sorts of unique ways to bash and bruise each other in order to cash in. And the more they pummel themselves—Alice batters John with devastating haymakers, burns herself with a curling iron and punches a hole through a kitchen cabinet—the more greenbacks come spitting out of the teapot like some sadistic fountain. Early on, the movie gets a lot of laughs by playing much of the violence for broad slapstick.

But amidst the painful revelry, there are ominous corners in Tim Macy’s screenplay. “This will end badly,” John warns before the couple is consumed by greed. Eventually, they ditch their humble lodgings, along with any sense of fiscal restraint, and move into a lavish mansion in an upscale part of town. They also leave old friends behind and take up with snobby new ones.

There’s an intriguing moral dilemma and a touch of social commentary at work here, but Mosley seems hesitant to explore anything subtle or personal. The closest the movie gets to a psychological subtext occurs when Alice and John, confronted with inexplicably dwindling payouts, realize that the teapot will now only reward them for leveling emotional pain at each other.

The revelations that follow—a string of hurtful secrets detailing everything from personality flaws to infidelity—threaten to compromise their marriage. Meanwhile, Mosley’s use of metaphoric storm clouds gathering and looming over the characters adds an unexpected visual flourish.

But Mosley abandons a chance to steer the material towards legitimate dark comedy. Instead, the film gets bogged down by a tedious plot involving a pair of false-bearded Jewish goons trying to reclaim the teapot, bumbling redneck villains trying to steal it, and a cryptic Chinese emissary wanting to take it away.

By the time the movie gets to its surprisingly angry, exaggerated climax—a bloody gun battle that has shadings of Tarantino without any of the style—the slapstick comedy that worked in the first hour has long since grinded into excess and the overwhelming feeling is more resignation than redemption. “The Brass Teapot” goes to great lengths introducing possibilities, but never far enough to realize them.

Corpse Bride (2005)

Helena Bonham Carter voices the title character in
Tim Burton's 2005 stop-motion animated film.

Just in time for Halloween, Tim Burton's “Corpse Bride” arrives on the Netflix streaming platform during the month of October. It's also the ten year anniversary of the stylish and often amusing stop-motion animated film from 2005.

Set in Europe during Victorian times, the simple story of an arranged marriage between two young people hits a snag when the timid hero, Victor (voice of Johnny Depp), bolts from a rehearsal ceremony and into the forest in a fit of nervousness. Trying to practice delivering his vows, he slips the bride’s ring onto a craggy tree branch that turns out to be the skeletal remains of Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), a former bride-to-be herself until her suitor turned out to be an evil, pilfering murderer.

This sets the stage for Burton's bizarre love triangle that alternates between two highly distinct worlds—one above, the other beyond the grave—as the perpetually frazzled Victor is eventually confronted with the choice between returning to his flesh-colored fiancée (Emily Watson) in the land of the living, or staying with his accidentally betrothed Emily, now tinted blue and decaying but still ebullient and loving, in the land of the dead.

As far as where it fits within Burton’s stop-motion oeuvre, “Corpse Bride” isn’t as inspired or imaginative as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and lacks both the thematic complexity and emotional depth of the masterful “Frankenweenie,” but it’s still an entertaining, comically morbid visual treat.

From Beyond: Victor (Johnny Depp) and Bonejangles
(Danny Elfman) get jazzy in "Corpse Bride."

Not surprisingly, Burton’s vision of the afterlife turns out to be more fun. While scenes of the living take place in stuffy mansions and unfold in dull, sepia tones, the land of the dead is a considerably more colorful and lively place. Much of the action takes place at a swinging nightclub called “The Ball and Socket,” where the music is loud and drinks flow—quite literally—right through you.

It’s here where the best moment of “Corpse Bride” arrives early on, when a singing, dancing, one-eyed skeleton in a derby hat named Bonejangles (voiced by Danny Elfman, Burton’s regular sound man) does his best Sammy Davis Jr., fronting a hip jazz band of assorted undead for an upbeat romp called “The Remains of the Day.”

The song is so good in fact that subsequent numbers turn up dead on arrival. Which, given the subject matter, is perhaps appropriate.

Me and Orson Welles (2013)

Christian McKay and Zac Efron in "Me and Orson Welles"

Despite a flashy performance at the middle, Richard Linklater's handsome but shallow “Me and Orson Welles”—a glimpse at the famous filmmaker's first work as a stage director for his fledgling repertory company—never quite lives up the lofty status of its venerable subject.

The movie was based on a novel of the same name by Robert Kaplow and is set in New York City in 1937, where a baby-faced 22-year-old Welles (Christian McKay) is tirelessly working his Mercury theater cast and crew—among them, Welles regular Joseph Cotton (James Tupper) and George Coulouris (Ben Chaplin)—ahead of their much-anticipated Broadway debut of “Julius Caesar.”

The title is inspired by the stormy relationship that develops between Welles and a young actor, Richard Samuels (Zac Efron, trying gamely to distance himself from his Disney channel teen heartthrob image), whom Welles makes an unlikely new star by casting him impetuously off the street. By taking Richard under his wing, the precocious Welles assumes the role of elder statesman, despite the fact that the men are separated by only a handful of years.

Trouble follows after Richard meets an eager young production assistant, Sonja (Claire Danes), and falls for her. Sonja likes Richard but idolizes the brilliant Welles, who steps in just when she begins to get cozy with the kid. The setup creates an awkward love triangle of sorts that boils over when Richard tries to expose the married Welles as an unctuous womanizer.

The movie might be adrift without McKay’s scene-chomping, cheerfully grandiose performance, capturing the manner, energy and aplomb of the charismatic, sometimes irascible Welles. But beyond the impressive affectation, there’s not much emotional depth; like much of “Me and Orson Welles,” the performance is showy but empty.

Linklater’s movie is a nice homage to Welles’ theater career, but what’s missing is much of an allusion to his great filmmaking work to come. Aside from a brief mention of “The Magnificant Ambersons,” there’s little to suggest his distinct use of mise-en-scene, ambitious visual style or virtuoso long takes.

“How the hell am I going to top this?” Welles says coyly near the end during thunderous applause for his show. Indeed, the boy genius—who would go on to direct “Citizen Kane” less than three years later—still had plenty of tricks up his sleeve. You might find yourself wanting to revisit one of them the more “Me and Orson Welles” fades into irrelevance.

Evil Dead (2013)

'Dead' On Arrival: Jane Levy is wasted
in a dreary, uninspired remake.

Of the several horror franchises being updated lately, perhaps none is more offensive and egregious than “Evil Dead,” an unnecessary and execrable remake that disgraces writer-director Sam Raimi's memorable, vastly superior low-budget splatter film of 1981. The new movie, the feature debut of Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez, retains a number of the plot details of the original but has none of the spirit or essence.

Once again, we meet five college students whose sojourn to a remote, decaying cabin deep in the woods turns nightmarish when they come across an ancient book full of menacing illustrations and dark secrets. Soon, one by one, they turn on each other—and turn into malevolent, bodily fluid-oozing demons—as they are overwhelmed by sinister forces.

A fundamental pursuit of both films is to push the limits of Grand Guignol-like mayhem, but the secret to Raimi’s success lied in his fusion of Three Stooges-inspired slapstick and cartoonish violence to take the edge off the gore. This, along with Raimi’s other stylistic techniques—bizarre, tilted camera angles; deliriously exaggerated camera movements; creature and dismemberment effects using stop-motion animation evocative of Ray Harryhausen—helped form the foundation of what is now known as a paragon of horror-comedy.

Unfortunately, Alvarez plays it straight for the remake, and the result is a depressing mess of shock gore and bloody violence that has more in common with the tedious, forgettable die-by-numbers formula of slasher and torture films. At times, Alvarez seems to be aiming for the grisly, solemn style of Lucio Fulci (“The Beyond,” “The House by the Cemetery”), but it rings hollow without the Italian midnight movie master’s sense of atmospheric dread or a genuinely eerie soundtrack.

But perhaps the biggest absence in the new “Evil Dead” is someone like Bruce Campbell in the cast. With his combination of everyman good looks and deadpan irreverence, Campbell was Raimi’s wild card, an infectiously charismatic presence so integral to the series that it spawned two successful—sometimes brilliant—sequels and rose to cult movie-hero status. Conversely, the only recognizable face of the new “Evil Dead” is Jane Levy (of TV's “Suburgatory” and “Shameless”), but the promising young star is largely wasted in a role that requires her to spend half the time as a snarling, yellow-eyed fiend buried behind a mask of zombie makeup and locked up in the cellar.

Notably, Alvarez was tapped for the project after his short film, “Panic Attack,” gained buzz online. Incidentally, the 4-minute movie—a breezy slice of science fiction in which an army of giant alien robots invade and destroy the capital city in Alvarez's home country—is more fun and exciting than anything in the otherwise dismal and uninspired “Evil Dead.”

“Promise me you’ll stay with me until the end,” one character says to another early on in the film. Watching the new “Evil Dead” slog along in a dreary, humorless bloodbath of derivative excess, it’s not long before one might reason that some promises just aren't worth keeping.

Two Days, One Night (2014)

Difficult 'Days': Marion Cotillard (right) confronts coworkers
in the working class drama "Two Days, One Night."

The practice of big business cutting back on labor costs to improve bottom line statistics is nothing new. If a company believes it can make more money by eliminating workers without suffering any significant drop in productivity, you can bet that firings and layoffs will be a popular proposal in front of some board of directors.

It sounds cruel and heartless, but there are plenty of horror stories detailing similar things going on beyond office doors on top floors. However, what about a scenario in which the fate of a worker is not determined by executives wearing expensive suits and polished shoes, but instead is a decision thrust into the same middle class hands of other workers?

“Two Days, One Night,” a new movie written and directed by the Belgian filmmaking brothers, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, imagines such a situation in its tale of Sandra (the great French actress Marion Cotillard), a proletariat, thirty-something wife and mother who works at a company that produces solar panels. Upon returning from a leave of absence for an illness related to depression, she discovers that a vote has taken place among her colleagues to eliminate her job in favor of a large, one-time bonus for remaining workers.

The only way Sandra can save her job is to convince a majority of her coworkers (there are 16) to decline the bonus (one thousand euros each) so she can stay on the payroll. The movie unfolds by following her mortifying door to door trek to neighboring workmates, each time explaining her situation and modestly asking for their vote. The title refers to the last, tense weekend before a new vote on Monday morning determines her fate.

Sandra doesn’t beg or become hostile during these nervous moments; indeed, she is intelligent enough to understand that most people need the bonus for the same reason she needs her job. Consequently, as the days count down, the film becomes a fascinating, sometimes moving study of personalities and themes like class struggle, humanity and common decency. Cotillard’s tremulous, palpably agonizing performance as the blue collar heroine is outstanding.

For the most part, “Two Days, One Night” remains an honest and affecting piece of work, with the only serious miscalculation being a botched, then glossed-over suicide attempt that stretches believability and comes across as manipulative. Otherwise, the Dardenne’s realistic, almost documentary-like visual style—long takes and loose framing so multiple characters appear in a single composition—helps sustain a mood and look of solemn verisimilitude.

As Sandra glumly makes her way across the industrial landscape of Seraing, in the Belgian province of Liege where the movie was filmed, desperately campaigning for the last votes needed to keep her job, “Two Days, One Night” evokes Antonio’s frantic search for the stolen bike in Vittorio De Sica’s 1949 neorealist masterpiece, “The Bicycle Thief.”

While the situation was a lot more bleak in postwar Italy, in both movies, the line between suffering and success, between poverty and being able to make ends meet, pivots on man’s willingness—or lack thereof—to sacrifice material goods for the benefit of a fellow human being.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

Good "Friend": Keira Knightley and Steve Carell
fall in love one last time.

“Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” is an unlikely romantic comedy wrapped up in a grim, doomsday tale of mankind having only three weeks left to survive thanks to a runaway asteroid hurtling towards Earth.

Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, the movie opens in New York City where a soft-spoken insurance salesman named Dodge Petersen (Steve Carell) loses his wife when she abruptly abandons him after hearing the latest news about the impending apocalypse. Left all alone, Dodge wearily drags himself back to his empty apartment with only his sad memories to keep him company.

Meanwhile outside, the end of the world has seemingly splintered the harried denizens into categories ranging from suicidal (people hurling themselves out of windows), to destructive (streets become a dangerous snarl of rioters, looters and arsonists), to hedonistic (wild parties feature unlimited, guiltless sex and drugs).

Desperate to escape, Dodge leaves the Big Apple and heads for Delaware, where his onetime high school sweetheart, an enigmatic figure named Olivia, may still have feelings for him. Accompanying him is Penny (Keira Knightley), an attractive and amiably scatterbrained neighbor who hopes to travel to England to see her parents one last time.

It’s not a stretch to predict that Dodge and Penny will eventually fall in love, but what’s more interesting about their relationship is how the affection between them grows based largely on shared feelings of sadness and regret. Both are fresh from breakups (Penny just split with her boyfriend) and both feel a deep need to reconnect with parents (Dodge is still tormented by his dad leaving him as a child).

“Seeking” recovers from a messy first fifteen minutes—in which the madness and chaos of looming planetary destruction threatened to overwhelm any attempt at thoughtful introspection—and becomes a quiet contemplation of subtle themes, especially abandonment and loneliness. The romance between Dodge and Penny is like a gentle mingling of two lost, fragile souls, sweet and poignant. Even a cute, small dog that tags along with the two characters during the film has been deserted, having been left tied to Dodge’s foot when he passes out in the park at one point.

The key performances are highlights. Keira Knightley is warm and wonderful as the sometimes bubbly yet vulnerable Penny. And as the melancholy Dodge, the always impressive Steve Carell continues—along with “Dan in Real Life” and “Crazy, Stupid Love”—to establish himself as the latest likable everyman of the cinema, a Jimmy Stewart for the new millennium.

Despite being fairly fatalistic, “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” remains a genuinely sweet love story with a surprisingly original bend. These days, maybe you have to die to get a fresh idea in the movies.

Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)

Fun "Part": Katy Perry stars in her own pop-doc.

“How can you ever be too cartoony?” giggles Katy Perry early on in “Katy Perry: Part of Me,” a breezily entertaining pop-doc about the highly popular singer known as much for her wacky costumes and colorful sets as for her string of number one hits.

The movie, a half biopic, half concert film, features an array of footage of the amiable 28-year-old pop princess—on stage performances, backstage meet and greets, interviews and candid moments—during several stops on her exhaustive 127-show tour in 2011. Along the way, it chronicles Perry’s meteoric rise from anonymous gospel singer to international superstar.

Directed by Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, the most notable revelation emerges in the backstory of how a young girl from Santa Barbara, Calif. somehow went from being the daughter of religious parents (her mother and father are both pastors at a Pentecostal church) to the widely beloved artist of such hits as “I Kissed a Girl,” the lyrics of which—with its hints of sexual liberation, erotic curiosity and provocative playfulness—doesn’t exactly scream god-fearing conservative.

And yet, when Perry talks about her musical inspirations—like the edgy Canadian singer Alanis Morissette, whose dark, angry work helped define the alternative rock movement of the 90s—it's clear that the pop diva’s style is less about shedding her religious roots than about being the next generation’s voice of female empowerment.

Less interesting in “Part of Me” are the moments that focus on Perry’s personal life, such as a short marriage to the British actor Russell Brand. The couple’s breakup occurs during the tour and accounts for a few maudlin scenes of Perry, now tear-stained and devastated, trying to pull her emotions together at the last minute before a show.

Still, just as the star's marriage seems to dissolve in a flurry of heartbreaking texts, supportive messages come streaming from a gaggle of followers on Twitter, in a neat juxtaposition that allows the film to say something about the way modern communication instantly links fans and celebrities alike.

Of course, there’s plenty of music to both satiate hardcore fans and impress casual viewers. Perry’s brand of engaging bubble gum pop doesn’t have the versatility or depth of Madonna (another of Perry’s idols), but it is polished and infectious.

Like a lot of artists, Perry seems to save her best for the concert setting, feeding off the audience’s affection and enthusiasm with a mix of energy, swagger and confidence that makes her shine as brightly as her big, blue eyes. Even though she performs in a childlike, carnival world of swirling pastels and cotton candy colors, the way Katy Perry owns the stage makes her act at once smart as well as sweet.