The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)

Last Arrow: Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen
 in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2."

The battle for Panem reaches its finale in “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2,” the mostly compelling, if sometimes tepid conclusion to the cinematic saga based on the novels of Suzanne Collins.

Once again directed by Francis Lawrence—who took over the reins of the franchise after the first installment—the story resumes with Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) leading a gang of rebels on a mission to invade the Capitol and, by her own iconic bow and arrow, assassinate its ruthless leader.

Naturally, there are plenty of obstacles along the way. The Capitol landscape comes riddled with lethal booby traps, the most elaborate of which is a city square sealed off and flooded in inky oil in an attempt to drown the plucky heroine and her charges. Later, when the characters take their trek underground, they encounter vicious so-called mutts (computer-generated creatures that suggest a cross between faceless extraterrestrials and a gruesome team of flying trapeze artists) guarding the murky sewers by the dozens.

Along with frequent bursts of violence, Katniss’ fractured relationship with Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), her District 12 partner and love interest, provides an undercurrent of emotional conflict with an edge of menace. Peeta, who unwittingly attacked and nearly killed Katniss after being captured by the enemy and brainwashed at the end of the previous film, here resembles a soldier left shell shocked by war, seemingly normal yet potentially dangerous. “Sometimes I’m alert,” he says, “other times, it’s like I’m sleepwalking.”

Similarly, the whole movie has a tendency to be soporific, as if the fight has outlasted the characters. Action sequences are highly charged and sometimes exciting, but there’s a feeling that everyone is battle fatigued and tired. Rejected by his people, the once evil and menacing President Snow (Donald Sutherland) is now almost a sympathetic figure, stricken with illness and pale like a ghost; even Katniss, once mighty with resolve, seems worn out and subdued, as if the horrors she’s experienced—along with those she dreads—have drained the life from her.

In the film’s overly sentimental last scene, a future Katniss talks about what she does to combat the nightmares from her past, a recurring strategy that involves looking for the good in people. “It gets a little tedious at times,” she admits. Perhaps it’s a similar sense of tediousness—of the inevitable misery, loss and futility of war—that causes “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2” to land with more of a thud than a roar. Maybe it’s even true that it should.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)

(From left to right) Woody Allen, David Ogden Stiers
and Helen Hunt in "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion."

Now seems like the perfect time to revisit writer/director Woody Allen’s “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.” This year marks the 15th anniversary of the picture’s 2001 release, and it’s currently available to stream over the Netflix platform. More interestingly, the film has gained a somewhat dubious reputation in large part because Allen himself has labeled it as ‘perhaps his worst movie,’ making it certainly worthy of another look.

The film takes place in 1940 and features Allen as C.W. Briggs, a longtime insurance investigator whose messy workspace at his sprawling New York office is overhauled, much to his displeasure, by a new hotshot efficiency expert, Betty Ann Fitzgerald (a splendidly acerbic and funny Helen Hunt), whose modern way of doing things conflicts with his antiquated methods.

The two characters immediately loathe one another, and conversations are highlighted by a heavy dose of sarcastic quips and barbs leveled back and forth like tennis volleys. “Who do you think I am,” Fitzgerald exclaims during their first meeting, “some peroxide little stenographer with her brains in her sweater whose rear end you pinch?”

“Pinch it? I couldn’t get my arms around it,” Briggs fires back, Groucho Marx-style. For her part, she peppers him with a barrage of insults (roach, inchworm, mouse, weasel) demeaning his smallish stature throughout.

The plot twists begin at an employee dinner, where Briggs and Fitzgerald are summoned to the stage by a bizarre magician (David Ogden Stiers) who waves a tiny scorpion pendant in front of their faces and uses a pair of code words (Constantinople and Madagascar) to plunge them into deep hypnosis. Later, the tricky swindler puts Briggs into a trance over the phone, this time using him as a proxy to prowl around town like a zombie plundering expensive jewels.

When the insurance company is forced to examine the case, the clues point back to Briggs. Flummoxed, Briggs finds himself on the run for robberies he committed but has no memory of, with Fitzgerald eventually becoming an unwitting accomplice after hearing the magic word.

Charlize Theron in Woody Allen's funny, underrated
screwball comedy "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion."

“Curse of the Jade Scorpion” is a charming, breezy and consistently funny screwball comedy and a playful valentine to film noir. At one point, when acting on a hunch, Briggs credits “the little man that lives inside me,” a line that seems inspired by Edward G. Robinson’s memorable turn as an insurance man who uncovers Fred MacMurray and femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck’s twisted scheme of romance and murder in Billy Wilder’s masterful crime drama “Double Indemnity” (1944).

Allen has said that he believes casting himself as the lead in “Curse” was a mistake, but nothing could be further from the truth. Consider a moment early on, when Briggs is in the midst of an argument with Fitzgerald, demanding that she return some files to his office. “Or what?” she commands.

“Or what?” he asks, awkwardly. “This is the question you…ask me? Or…or what? … Or what? Are you…saying ‘or what’ to me?” The intimidated, halting way that Allen recites these lines— all nervous gestures, turning his head off screen and pausing as if searching for stingers—is ingeniously nuanced and subtly hilarious. Anyone familiar with Woody Allen knows there’s no one else in movies who could act quite this way. It’s one of his funniest performances.

The film isn’t flawless. Dan Aykroyd is interminably dull as the cheating boss whose fling with Fitzgerald fizzles, opening the door for her and Briggs to become an unlikely couple; and Charlize Theron is underused as a slinky, smoky blonde who prefers seducing athletic types but gets Briggs instead.

Still, it’s not nearly enough to compromise this consistently fun and entertaining romp. “My instincts aren’t infallible,” Briggs says near the end. If Allen’s instincts are right about “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion” being his worst movie, it clearly means it’s ok to be wrong sometimes.

Lolo (2016)

About two-thirds of the way through “Lolo,” the title character, a struggling, smug young artist still living at home, is having a conversation with his mother’s new boyfriend about their living arrangement. Although mom has already given him the boot, the son attempts to save face by convincing the boyfriend that moving out was his idea. “I need my space,” he says. “We're not gonna play blended families like some dumb American comedy.”

Julie Delpy (center) directed and stars in "Lolo" with
Dany Boon (left) and Vincent Lacoste.

The line is meant to be ironic but falls flat because the movie—a mildly amusing, increasingly tedious French romantic comedy about a 40-year-old divorced mom looking for love while her emotionally needy son still competes for her attention—essentially becomes what it parodies, devolving into familiar clichés instead of discovering something fresh to say.

It’s a shame, considering “Lolo” was directed and co-written by Julie Delpy, who also plays the mom and is the talented, radiant French star of many enduring, intellectually challenging films—from Richard Linklater’s smart, sensitive “Before Sunrise” trilogy; to “White,” the darkly funny and brilliant middle chapter of the late Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski’s contemplative, masterful Three Colors trilogy.

Delpy does get some pretty good performances from her cast. Dany Boon is endearing as Jean-Rene, the computer geek who falls in love with Delpy’s character, Violette, an exec on the chic Parisian fashion scene; Karin Viard is the sassy Ariane, Violette’s sexually candid best friend; and Vincent Lacoste is effective as Lolo, the duplicitous, clingy son with a sinister, half-realized Oedipus complex.

But the film’s sense of humor is more sophomoric and vulgar than inspired or funny. The ways in which the devious Lolo attempts to sabotage his mother’s relationship with a series of cruel practical jokes leveled at Jean-Rene—spreading itching powder onto his clothes, slipping a tranquilizer into his drink at a party, sending a pair of hookers into his room while he’s sleeping—demonstrate that the infantile comedy here never really rises above sitcom level.

About the only thing the movie proves is that, touché, the French can make dumb American comedies just as well as Americans.

Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)

A scene from "Shaun the Sheep Movie," the new animated
movie from the makers of "Wallace & Gromit."

Plunged into a state of ennui from the clockwork daily routine of farm life, an enterprising, slightly mischievous young sheep figures out a way for him and his friends to avoid the farmer’s clippers and get a day off to sit on the couch, watch TV and eat snacks in “Shaun the Sheep Movie,” the delightful, funny and imaginative latest work from Aardman Animations, the wildly talented team out of Bristol, England behind such stop-motion gems as “Wallace & Gromit” (about an absent-minded Brit and his faithful dog) and “Chicken Run” (a cartoon version of “The Great Escape”).

The plan, of course, doesn’t go smoothly. Shaun and the rest of the flock from Mossy Bottom Farm end up sending their owner on a wild ride to the Big City, as it’s called, where he crashes and winds up with a case of amnesia. The sheep travel to retrieve the farmer, but are threatened with capture by a relentless animal control agent, who wants to lock them up in dark, gloomy cells with other stray animals and hilariously wayward pets—menacing dogs, a cat version of Hannibal Lecter, and a melancholy, harmonica-playing goldfish.

Along the way, Shaun is joined by a flurry of quirky, wonderfully distinct characters—all with the big, expressive eyes that are an Aardman trademark. There’s Bitzker, the farmer’s sheepdog, a shepherd with a weakness for bones and a skepticism that suggests Gromit; Slip, a lonely, lovable homeless dog with scraggly features; Timmy, a tiny sheep who looks up to Shaun; and Shirley, a sheep so large that items disappear under her round, cottony coat.

Most strikingly, there is no dialogue in “Shaun the Sheep.” The characters communicate almost entirely through facial expressions and physical gestures. It’s like a stop-motion silent film, with sounds limited to indecipherable murmurs and mumbles, grunts and groans, sighs and sometimes whistles. And since so much depends on the movie functioning in visual terms, its success is a celebration of the storytelling power of imagery and movement.

Much like Wallace & Gromit, which began as a series of short films before inspiring a feature-length movie in 2005, Shaun started small, first with a supporting role in “A Close Shave” in 1995, then as a series in 2007 for British television. The wunderkind behind these worlds is Nick Park, who created the characters and directed the films. This time, Park is signed on as executive producer, turning over the directing reins to fellow Aardman players Mark Burton and Richard Starzak, who also co-wrote the screenplay.

Still, it’s likely Park had plenty of influence on the collective vision. Regardless of who’s at the controls, nowhere else in movies is stop-motion animation done with such consistent beauty, humor and warmth. “Shaun the Sheep Movie” is another splendid example of the Aardman team operating at the peak of their creative powers.

Magic in the Moonlight (2014)

Making 'Magic': Emma Stone and Colin Firth in
Woody Allen's "Magic in the Moonlight."

The magic in Woody Allen’s “Magic in the Moonlight” is meant to be celestial, referring to the seemingly perfect way the stars line up and twinkle in the sky on a clear night. “You think that's menacing?” a character asks while contemplating the vast and mysteriously beautiful cosmos in one such composition. “I think it's pretty romantic.”

Actually, it may have more to do with how the main characters in this slight but charming romantic comedy—in which a famous, insufferably pompous illusionist from upper class Europe falls in love with a naive, dime store clairvoyant from Kalamazoo—manage to be so likable despite being, essentially, a pair of scoundrels.

The movie opens in Berlin in 1929, where Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth) is finishing up another performance as the eminent magician Wei Ling Soo, who stuns audiences with such gimmicks as sawing people in half and vanishing enormous pachyderms. Backstage, in between removing his Chinese regalia and barking criticisms at his subordinates, Stanley greets an old friend and fellow illusionist, the duplicitous Howard Burkin (Simon McBurney), who brings a challenge to debunk a young medium poised to use her mystic powers to swindle a rich widow.

The action shifts to the French Riviera, where a fetching, flamingly red-haired clairvoyant named Sophie Baker (Emma Stone) has set up shop at the posh home of an old matriarch desperate for various assurances about her dearly departed. Stanley arrives, incredulous and curmudgeonly, and immediately begins hurling contemptuous witticisms at Sophie in an effort to discredit her. “My visions are cloudy,” she says at one point. “Are they cumulous clouds or cirrus,” he quips.

But Sophie turns out to be a tough nut to crack, and part of the fun is that the more deep secrets she reveals by gazing into the great unknown with her big eyes, the more the perpetually cynical Stanley—clearly representing the erudite, faithless intellectual that Allen would usually play—begins to believe in all the spiritual hokum he’s been dismissing. Plus, he’s falling in love with her.

One of the pleasures of the film is the way Firth and Stone stir up an unlikely chemistry with a playful mixture of insults, mischief and scandal. It’s an implausible romance that recalls the mismatched leads in some of the venerable screwball comedies of Ernst Lubitsch (“Trouble in Paradise”) and Howard Hawks (“His Girl Friday”). Notable supporting performances include Eileen Atkins as Stanley’s lovable and unapologetically pretentious Aunt Vanessa; and Hamish Linklater as a warbling, ukulele-playing heir hopelessly smitten with Sophie.

Allen’s visuals and signature long takes are radiant. Especially sumptuous are lush scenes of the French countryside near dusk, with the setting sun imbuing everything with a warm, amber glow. Perhaps the best moment, however, takes place when Stanley and Sophie dash into an observatory during a thunderstorm, a scene that echoes Allen and Diane Keaton at the beginning of their romance in “Manhattan.”

And the soundtrack, a proverbial joy in any Allen film, is a gloriously mellifluous valentine to hot jazz greats of the era—the burgeoning Cole Porter and the inimitable Bix Beiderbecke in this case taking center stage. “Magic in the Moonlight” may not be in the upper class of Allen’s oeuvre, but it certainly is fun to watch and a considerable delight to listen to.

Deathgasm (2015)

Milo Cawthorne (left) and James Blake battle demons
in the gleefully gory horror/comedy "Deathgasm."

A group of young, misfit heavy metal enthusiasts form a rock band and after playing some mysterious pages of music passed on by a reclusive former idol with sinister connections to the other side, unwittingly summon evil, soul snatching demons from beyond in “Deathgasm,” a gleefully gory and frequently funny horror comedy out of New Zealand, written and directed by Jason Lei Howden, making his feature debut.

Before venturing out on his own, Howden worked as a visual effects artist on films like “The Hobbit,” directed by fellow New Zealander Peter Jackson. Watching “Deathgasm,” it’s easy to spot Jackson’s influence—the film has notes of the absurd, irreverent style of Jackson’s early, low-budget efforts like the screwball sci-fi cult hit “Bad Taste” (1987), and the zombie gross out fest “Dead Alive” (1992). It’s also a riotous, maniacally entertaining romp.

When his drug-addled mother is sent away to a mental hospital after a meth bender, teenage Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) is forced to live with his undesirable extended family, including a fanatically religious uncle who thinks all rock music is Satanic and a sociopathic cousin who’s a sadistic bully. One day at the local record store, Brodie meets a rebellious fellow metal head named Zakk (James Blake), and along with two more friends, they go from garage grunge band to saving the town from zombies.

Much of the enjoyment involves the inventive ways in which the heroes dispose of their undead adversaries. Some of the most menacing weapons—saw blades, power tools, automobile parts, and a piece of landscaping equipment used against a particular area of the male anatomy—lead to comically exaggerated death scenes and gruesomely disemboweled victims spewing fountains of blood.

Kimberley Crossman

Meanwhile, Howden’s exuberant visual technique—darting camera movements, bizarre camera angles, and delirious point of view shots (like a toothy perspective coming from inside the mouth of a demon as it lunges toward one of the heroes)—suggests Sam Raimi’s seminal horror comedy series, “The Evil Dead,” while generating just enough fun on its own.

It’s almost embarrassing to admit that some real themes emerge from the oozing, blood-soaked tableau, like the way Brodie uses heavy metal to mask deeper feelings of teen angst, such as his inability to communicate with adults and painfully shy way around girls. He’s stunned when Medina (Kimberley Crossman), a popular girl from school, turns out to be sensitive and willing to talk to him long enough that a disarming sweetness develops.

But Medina seems to have her own problems fitting in. Sometimes beauty, popularity and perfection can be just as suffocating as being an outcast music geek; and a girl just needs an outlet to vent her frustrations. That’s when joining a contact sport like rugby or field hockey comes in handy, but if those options aren’t available, wielding an axe blade against charging zombies and slicing them apart like pieces of cheese works too.

Brooklyn (2015)

New York State of Mind: Saoirse Ronan stars in "Brooklyn"

Exquisitely emotional, visually lyrical, and meticulously well-observed, “Brooklyn”—directed by John Crowley, written by Nick Hornby and adapted from the novel of the same name by Colm Toiben—is easily one of the best movies about leaving home to start a new life to come along in a while.

The film, set in 1951, follows the path of a young Irish woman, Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), from her roots in a small town in Southeast Ireland to the densely populated New York borough of the title, where opportunities exist—she has a room at a boarding house and a job waiting, courtesy of the kindly Irish priest, Father Flood (Jim Broadbent), who has sponsored her—that otherwise didn’t back home.

Across the ocean, fresh experiences, tentative friendships and eventually a sweet romance with a short, affable Italian man (Emory Cohen) develop, but not before Eilis, having left her mom and sister behind as well as the comfort of familiarity, deals with crushing spells of isolation in this strange, beautiful, crowded new world.

Intricately and ingeniously multilayered, “Brooklyn” is part love story, part coming of age chronicle and in many ways a subtle, stunningly well-realized essay about the sting of homesickness, a malaise the affects of which aren’t limited to the main character.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the best scene takes place when Eilis, helping to serve food to a group of elderly Irish immigrants during Christmas, stands by when one of them sings Casadh an Tsúgáin (The Twisting of the Rope), a traditional Irish lament that brings the old men to tears with sad reminders of being young, falling in love, and dreaming of home.

“These are the men who built the bridges, the tunnels, the highways,” Father Flood says. Although it focuses on one Irish girl moving to New York, since many others were doing the same thing in the 1950s, “Brooklyn” is also a remarkable cinematic document, a nostalgic glimpse of how America began.

Material this compelling is capable of overwhelming an indiscriminate director. But Crowley, who is also Irish, brings a firm grasp and personal vision to the proceedings with a style—long takes, loose framing, luminous lighting, stirring establishing shots—that gives the actors room to breathe while lending the film a distinctive sense of immediacy, honesty and warmth.

Saoirse Ronan and Emory Cohen in "Brooklyn"

When Crowley does use a close-up, “Brooklyn” soars because it’s usually the highly expressive Ronan—brilliantly conveying Eilis' combination of vulnerability and strength with her thoughtful eyes and soft smile—dominating both the lens and our emotions.

“Brooklyn” is another triumph for Hornby, who also adapted the screenplay for the masterful “Wild” with Reese Witherspoon. Both stories are about young women on epic, individual journeys. And even though they have substantial differences, some fascinating parallels remain.

Where the introspective protagonist of “Wild” takes on a grueling, thousand-mile hike up the Pacific Crest Trail with only a backpack, a notebook, and a head full of painful memories, the heroine in “Brooklyn” leaves her homeland to be surrounded by denizens in a noisy milieu swarming with action and life. Along the way, each character confronts different kinds of loneliness, profound sadness, and finally resolve.

There are some twists and surprises, some welcome and others superfluous, but it’s not enough to compromise this moving, exquisitely melancholy piece of work. As much as “Brooklyn” is a story about coming and going, it's also a lyrical metaphor for navigating the undulating, wildly unpredictable vicissitudes of growing up.

Miss Meadows (2014)

Katie Holmes plays a peculiar vigilante in "Miss Meadows"

During the opening scene of “Miss Meadows,” the title character played by Katie Holmes is taking a stroll through her quaint Ohio town—the kind of tree-lined utopia where birds are gently chirping and it’s quiet enough to see a pair of fawns casually prance across a lawn—when suddenly a creepy guy pulls up in a pickup truck and begins to threaten her. Undaunted, she pulls out a short barrel pistol from her tiny purse and shoots him dead without a flicker of emotion.

It’s not exactly the same as discovering a severed human ear in a field, but the way an idyllic, peaceful neighborhood is abruptly jarred by violence is reminiscent of that notorious first sequence of David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet.”

Written and directed by Karen Leigh Hopkins, “Miss Meadows” is also a close cousin to the “Death Wish” films, with the titular heroine—who doubles as an elementary school teacher and wears clothes (white gloves, bar shoes) that make her look like she stepped out a 50s sitcom—fearlessly protecting the suburbs from bad guys the way Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey covered the inner city. She’s similarly conflicted, we learn, when a lurid flashback reveals that as a child, she witnessed her mother being slain in a drive-by shooting.

As the body count rises, the dull town sheriff (inertly played James Badge Dale) arrives and instead of arresting Meadows predictably falls in love with her, believing their strange, quickly evolving romance—she gets pregnant during an embarrassingly comic sex scene and they later agree to get married—will turn the deranged sociopath into a suitable housewife and mother. Meanwhile, a sinister looking ex-con moves into the neighborhood and starts skulking around the kids at school, setting up an inevitable showdown with Meadows.

“Miss Meadows” is an intriguing but ultimately messy mix of style and tone, hitting notes of dark comedy and folding in awkward bits of social commentary that feel forced and preachy rather than genuinely edgy or provocative. The usually sunny Holmes gamely takes the lead, but the bizarre vigilante satire has her treading murky waters. There’s ideas and an attitude here, but not enough cohesion.

Spotlight (2015)

From left: Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Brian d'Arcy
Adams, Michael Keaton and John Slattery in "Spotlight."

The most ironic moment in “Spotlight” takes place when a priest, worried that the internet might be providing too much information, laments during a sermon. “Knowledge is one thing,” he cautions, “but faith is another.” Most among his congregation nod along approvingly, but Sacha Pheiffer, a reporter for the Boston Globe, looks on with a mixture of disillusionment and incredulity. She knows hypocrisy when she sees it.

By this point, Pheiffer and her colleagues have figured out that the leader of the Boston Archdiocese, Cardinal Bernard Law, reportedly knew that one of his priests, Fr. John Geoghan, had a history of predatory child molestation. But rather than removing Geoghan from the priesthood, Law shuffled him from parish to parish for years, where his abuse continued.

Directed by Tom McCarthy from a script by McCarthy and Josh Singer, “Spotlight” takes its name from the team of investigative reporters—including Pheiffer (Rachel McAdams), Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) and editor Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton)—who broke the lid off the watershed case with a comprehensive and blistering series of articles in 2002.

Using the Geoghan case as a springboard, the Globe ultimately revealed that more than 80 priests in the Boston Archdiocese committed various acts of rape and pedophilia on hundreds children over three decades, crimes the Church carefully kept out of public view by paying out hush money to scores of victims and seizing official documents. The newspaper eventually published over 600 articles about the scandal and won the Pulitzer Prize.

“Spotlight” is really like two great movies—one is an infuriating, spellbinding document of the most deeply immoral and sinister chapter in the Catholic Church’s history; the other is a soaring, rapturous love letter to the newspaper business itself and a celebration of passionate, professional journalism.

Watching the smart, savvy reporters in this movie painstakingly doing their work—in the office on a Sunday, working from home, researching in the library until it closes, jotting down notes, making phone calls, checking facts, knocking on doors, interviewing subjects, taking more notes—one is reminded of Orson Welles in “Citizen Kane” when he took over at the New York Inquirer and justified turning his new publisher’s office into his personal apartment by declaring, quite succinctly, that the news goes on for 24 hours a day.

There's a wonderful shot that celebrates the subtle, vibrant pulse of a daily city newspaper. Walter is chatting with editor Ben Bradlee (John Slattery) about the story. In between them, at the far end of the newsroom, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber)—the Globe’s intrepid, unpretentious new chief editor—sits in his office late in the day, still working.

Baron, a strikingly composed, baritone-voiced outsider who daringly suggested the Globe take on the church in the first place, is perhaps the unsung hero of the film. At a time when the internet was already beginning to chip away at advertising revenues and the newsroom was staring at cutbacks, Baron committed resources to an important story and showed his faith in the value of essential journalism.

“Spotlight” is a reminder of the measure of stories the public gets when honest and talented reporters are doing their jobs. It’s also about what happens when a venerable daily newspaper functioning at a high level—telling important truths, letting people know what's going on, holding suspects accountable, and just being a responsible citizen—becomes the eyes and ears, the legitimate moral center, of an American city.

Inside Out (2015)

Mind Games: Core emotions--Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust
and Joy--at the controls of a young girl in "Inside Out."

For any befuddled parent that has ever been curious as to what’s going on inside the head of their child, “Inside Out”—the funny and furiously inventive latest entry from Pixar Animation Studios and director Pete Docter—intrepidly journeys behind the eyes of a smart, sensitive 11-year-old girl and opens up the curtains on a warm, wondrous new world full of splendidly offbeat characters, colorfully strange places and endlessly imaginative gadgets.

The main character, Riley (voice of Kiatlyn Dias), is an average, energetic kid from Minnesota whose days revolve around school, friends, hockey practice and spending time at home with her parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan). Her life by itself seems pretty mundane, but the magic of “Inside Out” is that what’s happening outside Riley’s head isn't half as interesting as what's going on inside.

That’s where Riley’s distinctly tinted core emotions have taken form. There’s Joy (Amy Poehler, perfectly cast), a yellow bundle of optimism who literally glows like sunshine; Sadness (Phyllis Smith, also terrific), a short, blue figure of depression; Anger (Lewis Black, very funny), a small, red box of grimaces and frowns whose head bursts into flames whenever he gets mad; Fear (Bill Hader), purple, fretful and bug-eyed; and Disgust (Mindy Kaling), green, sardonic and repulsed by anything gross.

The core emotions take up residence in a huge control room in Riley’s mind. There, they anchor and organize her thoughts, collecting memories in small, crystal balls colored for what mood they represent and storing them on towering shelves in cavernous spaces meant for short and long term memory. Beyond the control room are more wonderfully inspired places—floating lands called personality islands (there’s one each for imagination, honesty, and goofiness) symbolizing elements of Riley’s individuality; a deep, yawning abyss where forgotten memories end up; and a surrealistic room for abstract thought that Picasso would have admired.

When dad gets a new job and the family is forced to relocate to San Francisco, Riley confronts an unsettling combination of factors—the anxiety of a new school, having to make new friends, trying out for a new hockey team—that causes her to increasingly miss her old life in Minnesota. Clearly, the dramatic change of scenery leaves her homesick, flooded with melancholy feelings that even she doesn’t quite understand and has difficulty expressing.

Adjusting to a new school is just one of the sweeping changes
for Riley, the main character in Pixar's animated "Inside Out."

Meanwhile, the perpetually upbeat Joy has problems at the controls when Sadness begins touching Riley’s happy memories, turning the bright yellow bulbs to a gloomy blue. Before Joy figures out what’s really going on—that part of growing up requires Riley to need shades of both sadness and happiness to learn to cope with life’s challenging vicissitudes—she and Sadness are whipped from the control room and spend part of the film marooned in other areas of Riley’s mind, each of them visually delightful and highly original.

If “Inside Out” sounds like a carnival funhouse for the eyes, it is that but also a great deal more. Beyond the inventive visuals, amusing one-liners and hilarious sight gags lies an intelligent, perceptive essay about the complexities of being a preteen, the anxieties of communicating with adults, and the challenges of understanding our emotions.

Not since “Pinocchio” has there been an animated movie with such an incisive sense of childhood and such a profound grasp on the nature of growing up. Unlike that dark pit in Riley’s mind where mercurial memories go to be forgotten, the enduring brilliance of “Inside Out” ensures that it’s likely to be remembered—and adored—for a very long time to come.

The Forest (2016)

Natalie Dormer in "The Forest."

Haunted forests have suddenly become a regular subject for horror movies. Last time, we looked at “The Hallow,” a darkly atmospheric tale about an army of malevolent gremlins guarding an Irish forest from tree-cutting developers. Now, in “The Forest,” the setting shifts to Japan, where the dense woods underneath Mount Fuji come eerily shrouded in fog, madness and death.

Natalie Dormer plays Sara, a young American summoned to the far east when she learns that her twin sister Jess (also played by Dormer) went into the woods and didn't come out. It is assumed that Jess committed suicide, as this particular destination is known for such things. But Sara, insisting to have some kind of psychic connection to her sibling, believes her twin is indeed alive.

Once she arrives at the notorious forest, Sara resolves to begin searching for Jess, even against ominous warnings from locals that sinister spirits deep in the forest cause erratic behavior, possibly making her believe and see things that aren't there. Meanwhile, Taylor Kinney plays a seemingly innocuous journalist tagging along for a story, only to have his motives eventually called into question when Sara’s visions and suspicions unravel in a violent panic.

Directed by Jason Zada, the most effective scenes in “The Forest” take place during the few night scenes, when the screen is drenched in blackness and the action becomes increasingly claustrophobic. As Sara tries to find her way using a small cellphone light and Zada’s jittery camera bounces nervously, the movie evokes “The Blair Witch Project,” the indie shocker from the 90s known for achieving scares using striking minimalism.

The Aokigahara Forest, where the movie is filmed, is reportedly Japan’s most popular destination for suicides—a place where vengeful ghosts seek angry retribution on the living as payback for their own violent death. The premise seems ripe for a crackling ghost story, but “The Forest” is too caught up in its own silly narrative to be serious about either ghosts or suicide. It’s a missed opportunity.

A better story about Japanese ghosts, or yurei, can be found in Takashi Shimizu’s “Ju-on” and its American remake, “The Grudge,” which was visually scarier and had a dark subtext about the twisted consequences of raging anger and domestic violence. The biggest problem with “The Forest” is that it never feels half as haunting or disturbing as a documentary might be about the same subject.

The Hallow (2015)

Creature Feature: Bojana Novakovic tries to escape "The Hallow."

The gently rolling hills and lush forests of Ireland aren't as placid and picturesque as they seem in “The Hallow,” a messy and derivative but effectively grim and darkly atmospheric horror yarn that premiered at Sundance last year.

Mysterious busted windows and strange noises coming from deep in the forest force a young couple (Joseph Mawle and Bojana Novakovic) living with their infant son and a dog in a remote, decaying country house to call local authorities. But their concerns go unresolved. Out here, the policeman says, “things go bump in the night.” That line could have been read for cheap, easy laughs, but credit goes to first time director and co-screenwriter, Colin Hardy, for playing it straight and keeping the tone eerily serious.

Later, another character will talk ominously about the Hallow, a legend that has something to do with malevolent banshees and demonic fairies that live in the woods, kidnap babies, and don't like it when strangers move in. Eventually, the protagonists are stalked and terrorized by the forest creatures—hissing, shrieking, hideously deformed beings that suggest a cross between the Whomping Willow of “Harry Potter” and Gollum of “The Lord of the Rings.”

Hardy is an unapologetic fanboy of sci-fi and horror and “The Hallow” is peppered with allusions to popular films of the genre—the leathery book full of creepy illustrations evokes the flesh-bound volume from Sam Raimi’s wildly inventive “The Evil Dead”; the inky, black ooze that portends the monsters suggests “Aliens”; and the ability of the creatures to take over human hosts hints at “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Hardy also lovingly mentions Ray Harryhausen (“made me believe in monsters”) in the closing credits. It’s hard not to think of Ymir—the stop-motion animated, outer space creature who crash lands on Earth in Harryhausen’s dazzling, enduring “20 Million Miles to Earth”—as another inspiration for “The Hallow.”

It’s far from perfect—the noisy, chaotic second half undermines the measured sense of a growing, sinister tension in the first—but “The Hallow” has enough subtle creepiness and legitimate scares to be worth a look.

The Hunting Ground (2015)

Sexual assault on college campus is the subject of the
gripping documentary, "The Hunting Ground."

“The Hunting Ground” begins with blissful scenes of young people reacting joyously to acceptance letters from colleges and universities, institutions of higher learning they no doubt dreamt about attending, meeting new friends and sharing wonderful experiences together. Shortly later, however, the idyllic mood turns decidedly darker and more solemn, when more students, mostly women, begin tearfully recounting harrowing, nightmarish accounts of being sexually assaulted or raped on campus.

When it comes to memories gathered from college, these surely are not ones meant to last a lifetime. The fact that they do—and sometimes have tragic, heartbreaking consequences—is one of the haunting themes of “The Hunting Ground,” the furious, gripping and substantial new documentary from Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, the terrific team behind “The Invisible War” (which similarly examined sexual assault in the military), and “Outrage” (about scandal and political hypocrisy on Capitol Hill).

Combining victims’ testimony and bleak statistics, the movie paints a disturbing picture of shocking neglect and systemic abuse by universities. More than 16 percent of female students, the film explains, will experience some type of sexual harassment or assault during their time in college. While many victims are too ashamed and traumatized to even report crimes, those who do encounter an icy tangle of subterfuge, misinformation and victim-blaming from school administrators eager to sweep bad press—and its negative financial impact—under the rug.

The film targets popular and notorious fraternity houses where wild parties mixed with peer pressure and alcohol often lead to violent sexual crimes against women. Many universities have every reason to dismantle these victim farms, but they recoil because millions of dollars in annual donations come from alumni with loyal fraternity ties.

Then there are the front page stories, tales of wayward athletes shielded by powerful, lucrative sports programs. One of the film’s most provocative segments—the allegations of rape against star quarterback Jameis Winston while he attended Florida State University—unfolds like a thriller and will be familiar to anyone who has followed college football over the past few years. The victim became a target of vicious hatred by fellow students and the community around FSU; she dropped out of school in disgrace.

Meanwhile, at the center of “The Hunting Ground” is the heroic story of how two brave, smart students, Andrea Pino and Annie Clark—both victims of sexual assault while attending the University of North Carolina—filed a Title IX complaint against their school with the federal government. Using networking tools like social media and blogs, the case brought other victims across the country out of hiding while shining a national spotlight on the issue.

This is an angry, important chronicle about an ugly, epidemic scourge afflicting higher education. “The Hunting Ground” should be required viewing for all current and soon-to-be college students and their parents.

Victoria (2015)

Run Laia Run: Laia Costa on the move in "Victoria"

By now, “Victoria,” the internationally acclaimed German film by director Sebastian Schipper, is more famous for its technical distinction than its functions as a movie. The film—a sprawling crime drama about a bank robbery involving three delinquent young men and a naïve woman—was shot in a single continuous take on the quiet, pre-dawn streets of central Berlin.

The movie opens, rather inauspiciously, in a crowded subterranean nightclub pounding away with thrumming techno music, gyrating bodies, and pulsating strobe lights so relentless and unwatchable that the resulting discomfort amounts to a visual flogging. Eye strain aside, this is where we meet the eponymous Victoria (Laia Costa), a new resident of Berlin by way of Madrid, Spain.

Victoria doesn’t have any friends in Germany and doesn’t speak the language, but before all is said and done, she’ll meet a disparate group of English-speaking male bandits—Boxer (Franz Rogowski), a bald hothead who used to be in prison; Blinker (Burak Yigit), a curly-haired rogue named after a turn signal; and Sonne (Frederick Lau), a sensitive fellow that Victoria falls for—and accompany them on a dizzying and dangerous adventure through the city. There’s a tense meeting with gangsters, a daring if unlikely bank robbery, and a frantic police chase and bloody shootout.

Of course, all of this is done in real time. Counting three false starts, the entire shoot of “Victoria” took two and a half hours, beginning late one night and ending just after sunrise. The script, reportedly only twelve pages long, consists of mostly improvised dialogue. It’s an ambitious piece of filmmaking that’s remarkable in that it was pulled off at all. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the story isn’t very original, the characters aren’t especially interesting, and for all of its technical bravura, the blurry and often grainy visuals captured by cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen’s single, jittery hand-held camera just aren’t all that fun to look at.

It doesn’t help that “Victoria” takes forever to get going, padding its thin plot with a lot of superfluous filler. The first hour or so consists of extended scenes of the characters mind-numbing peregrinations around Berlin in the wee hours—robbing a convenient store, goofing around on the street, arguing at a café where Veronica works (apparently, she never sleeps). The movie plods on for 138 minutes, even though a more thoughtfully planned 98 would have been plenty.

“Birdman” is another prominent, recent example of the single take movie. Its director, Alejandro Iñárritu, memorably defended the approach saying, “We live our lives with no editing.” True enough. But in the case of “Victoria,” while spending time with drunk, derelict twenty-somethings can be fun for a short time, a little goes a long way.

Shelter (2015)

Jennifer Connelly plays a homeless New Yorker in "Shelter."

Coming as newspapers blare headlines about a New York City shelter system in such chaotic disarray that many of the city’s homeless would actually rather stay outside on the streets after dark rather than spending a hellish night inside—where belongings are often stolen and arguments among residents, many mentally ill, frequently lead to fights, stabbings and sometimes far worse—seems eerily timely for “Shelter,” the debut film by writer-director Paul Bettany.

The movie is mostly a sad, strange friendship between a homeless couple with similarly tragic histories—Tahir (Anthony Mackie), a melancholy immigrant from Nigeria whose wife and young son were casualties of war; and Hanna (Jennifer Connelly), a desperate, drug-addled woman whose world spiraled out of control when her husband, a soldier, was killed in battle.

At first, their connection is based less on attraction than a kind of mutual need. Their first significant encounter occurs one lonely night on the Brooklyn Bridge, when Tahir recognizes that Hannah is prepared to end it all with a final plunge into the murky East River. They begin an uneasy alliance after that, roaming the city in search of a handout or a place to stay.

When Hannah encounters an unlocked door on the roof of a building, the couple is afforded an extended, furtive stay in a posh apartment whose owners are away on vacation. Presented with the same opportunity, the typical intruder might grab as many valuables as possible and cash in at the nearest pawn shop. What this couple does instead—taking a hot shower, having a meal, sleeping in a clean bed—underlines the type of basic facilities and human dignity stripped from the everyday lives of the most poor.

While “Shelter” manages to be a stark and compelling chronicle of two people facing the cruel, daunting odds of life of the streets, it misses a chance to strike a more urgent note. Despite the title, very little of the action takes place in the cramped and violent shelters themselves; although Bettany does hint at the misplaced priorities of one facility during a scene in which Hannah, who has just missed curfew, is heartlessly turned away during dangerously cold weather.

Movies like this sometimes become a showcase for actors and Connelly (who is Bettany’s real life wife) shines, bravely throwing herself into a physically demanding and distinctly unglamorous role. Connelly seems genuinely fascinated with playing edgy, haunted characters—the hopelessly self-destructive addict of Darren Aronofsky’s brilliant “Requiem for a Dream”; the disillusioned foreclosure victim in “The House of Sand and Fog”—slowly slipping into nightmarish depths of pain and suffering.

The sad power in “Shelter” lies in the fact that there are many women—some elderly, frail and more vulnerable than Hannah—looking each day for a clue that society hasn’t forgotten them, hoping for a reason not to contemplate walking up to the edge of that bridge.