Movie Nation

At a cabin in the mountains, six old friends get together to talk about the old times and drink a lot of shots as they do.

But there’s a nut in a mask. With a knife. And a hammer. And a noose. And a machete. And gasoline. And a grudge.

“The 6th Friend” is a slow — VERY slow — “pick them off, one by one” thriller with an attempt at a feminist twist.

THIS time the victimized women are empowered. THIS time women wrote the nut-with-a-knife story. THIS time a woman directs it.

But this make-work project for some under-utilized LA actresses lacks the characters, dialogue and plotting to come off. Sure, there are mildly-inventive ways for offing the various characters. It’s just that by the time the picture gets down to business, it lacks the nerve to go all in.

In slasher pictures, there’s no mincing around the arterial spray.

And with that many characters, taking your sweet time, rarely getting a hint of urgency in the proceedings for those who have survived the latest attack, never getting the proper shock and slack-jawed terror out of your actresses, the fatal filmmaking failings pile up.

“The 6th Friend” begins with a party that gets out of hand. Joey, Melissa, Sahara, Heather, Becca and Katie are well into their tequila shots and “Wooooooooos” when a dealer shows up to add a little acid to the proceedings.

That dealer, Tyler (David Villada) has tattoos and a scowl that make Joey (Jamie Bernadette, who co-wrote the script) paranoid, even without acid. The fact that he likes to party with a skull mask doubles the fear factor.

Something happens, there’s a lot of blood and the cops question everybody.

Five years later, Joey is still haunted by that night. But actress and BFF Melissa (Chantelle Albers) “kidnaps” her for a weekend getaway. Turns out, it’s a reunion. The others, women who are more or less “moving on” with their lives, want Joey to get with the program and get over it, too.

Joey freaks out a bit. And as the alcohol pours and the wild rumpus never quite starts, an ugly fact comes out. Virtually all of them have “seen” Tyler lately — in the mask, watching them. And that just cannot be.

As the flashbacks tip us as to what happened, the women share their fears and contribute little slivers of back-story to “that night,” even as their situation — out there, in the woods, with someone, someTHING, stalking them — worsens and suspense rises.

Only it doesn’t.

Veteran TV Lifetime/Hallmark director (” A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale”) Letia Clouston, who co-wrote the script, has no real feel for horror, what builds suspense or delivers thrills. Co-writer Bernadette concentrated on the “write myself a star vehicle” aspects without getting a handle on the genre or the form either.

It’s a horror tale with under-digested digs at reality TV, the broad definition of “celebrity” and the sorts of people who crave it, grafted on.

When loud and boisterous “H-Bomb” Heather (veteran character actress Dominique Swain) is leading them all on a half-running escape from “Camp Rape My Face” to the vehicles parked outside — “Let’s take my car. It’s more expensive!” — the funny line dies of loneliness.

Sahara (New Zealander Tania Nolan) is the lone character to achieve gasping, wide-eyed terror.

When Becca (Monique Rosario) turns out to be gay, she simply must be a lesbian badass cliche.

And those are the players who register.

Hiding “what happened” from the viewer is a futile gesture, as we figure it out quite quickly. And any supernatural suggestion of the nature of the menace is left to wither as well.

Long before the dawdling-between-murder-attempt scenes, this movie wastes half its screen time with chatter that inadequately suggests “bonding” (discussing license to call someone “bitches,” a tedious “Good night” shout-a-thon from bedroom to bedroom).

Still, the opening tequila and acid blast works and a couple of the struggles with the masked killer are heart-pounding. Joey hurls herself into saving others, holding up a friend being hung even as the killer is dousing them both with gasoline. She won’t run away and leave her to die.

Oddly, the masked murderer keeps giving her time to do this.

I’ve never considered horror my genre, but I see a lot of it and a few decades of reviewing have shown me what works and how. “The 6th Friend” — even the title is half-baked — has some cool effects (the LSD scenes, the bloody makeup) and a promising set-up — #MeToo moment that went wrong, went too far, with a piper who must be paid.

But with pretty much everybody involved more interested in the flippant elements of the story, there’s nobody to provide the fear and nobody adequately responding to it. It’s a horror picture that can’t quite find the laughs it is going for and never, for more than a moment or two, provides frights.

MPAA Rating: unrated, bloody violence

Cast: Jamie Bernadette, Chantelle Albers, Dominique Swain, Jessica Morris, Tania Nola, Monique Rosario

Credits: Directed by Letia Clouston, script by Jamie Bernadette and Letia Cloutston. An Asylum release.

Running time: 1:25

How did Groucho warn us?

“I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”

He wasn’t talking about fraternities, but he could have been. Those are words to live by.

And when every frat on campus is ignoring, dismissing or rebuffing you — “This is a closed rush party, man….You guys are WEIRD.” — well, maybe you ought to be suspicious.

The hot coed (Erica Boozer) who purrs, “If you’re not doing anything, you should come by” and jotting an address on your palm?

Maybe it’s just a prank. Maybe it’s worse. And when the remote “social club” house (“We’re not a fraternity!”) is led by preppy punks with Brett Kavanaugh eyes, be afraid. Be very afraid.

“Pledge” is a bloody, nervy and lean thriller about “hazing” taken to its logical extreme. If you’re OK with torturing somebody so that the “shared experience” will “bond” you to your “brothers,” maybe there’s a little sociopath in you, Pledge.

Justin, Ethan and David (Zachery Byrd, Phillip Andre Botello and screenwriter Zack Weiner) are three “Big Bang Theory” nerds blundering their way through bacchanals and “Day Drink” rush week parties at their new college, when opportunity knocks.

The “party” at the remote unnamed not-a-frat-house has nubile coeds, drugs, endless “shots” three leaders of that club with the aforementioned Kavanaugh-eyes.

Ricky (Cameron Cowperthwaite) charms them, but cannot hide his edge.

Bret (Jesse Pimentel) doesn’t even try to hide the scary. And Max (Aaron Dalla Villa)? The psychopath vibe is strong with this one.

But desperate. always-tries-too-hard David, his two new pals and two other pledges accept the invitation to return.

“Thank you, sir. Bless your heart.”

“Your future is going to be so f—–g bright, you’re going to have to wear sunglasses to look in the mirror!”

There is no skepticism, barely a flinch among the five would-be “members.” They submit to a 48 hour hazing in which “you will be tested physically, mentally, emotionally.”

And that’s when the horror starts. The hazers name David “president,” and then force him to make his first executive decision —  “Do we brand you, or everybody else?”

Zack Weiner’s simple, formulaic script works by staying right on the cusp of reality. Branding still goes on, almost certainly not as savagely as this. Fraternities degrade women, as a matter of course, and demean and dehumanize pledges as indoctrination.

And the go-along-with-it lemmings who join put up with it.

“We’re gonna brand you for all the right REASONS!”

These guys — Max in particular — are sadists, probably racists (Ethan gets a “How’bout you, Spike Lee?” query when it’s his turn).

And the pledges — compliant, young and shocked, just take it. Five freshmen and not one of them asks to see the members’ brands?

The branding is just the start to the torture.

“We’re looking for your breaking point, gentlemen. Because GREAT men don’t have one.”

By the time some of the guys realize they’re in over their heads, it’s too late.

The performances have a nice whimper until you’ve had enough quality, with Weiner writing himself the biggest character arc and Dalla Villa of TV’s “Duels” standing out as a short guy even the biggest pledge (Byrd) would fear.

Weiner and director Daniel Robbins (“Uncaged”) move “Pledge” along so briskly that the viewer, like the trapped pledges, have little time to consider their options and plot their escape. They are five facing off with three. Granted, the three are pretty violent and the freshmen are understandably cowed, but resisting and maybe not running away UPSTAIRS should enter into their thinking, at some point.

There’s a blunt efficiency to the escalating violence, and an eyes-averting cringe-worthiness to some of the torture.

If you like thrillers that don’t waste your time and have a natural mistrust of any “fraternity” that would want you as a member, “Pledge” is right up your alley.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence

Cast:  Zachery Byrd, Phillip Andre Botello, Aaron Dalla Villa, Zack Weiner, Erica Boozer, Cameron Cowperthwaite

Credits: Directed by Daniel Robbins, script by Zack Weiner.  An IFC Midnight release.

Running time: 1:18

The 76th Golden Globes are in the books, for what they’re worth. And they’ve honored this year’s “Driving Miss Daisy” “Can’t we all just get along?” movie about race, they prefer Queen to Bradley Cooper’s country and western and they’ve not allowed themselves to succumb to Gaga fever.

“Green Book” came away the big winner, in my opinion, with a best picture (comedy or musical) award, acting and screenwriting honors.

Will Glenn Close FINALLY get an Oscar after rolling up the Golden Globe for best actress in “The Wife?” Call her the favorite. For now. She beat Lady Gaga, so much respect for that. Not a hater (“DOWN goes GAGA!”), but Gaga isn’t in the same league with anybody else nominated for that award this year. Or most years. Not even as good as Bette Midler in “The Rose,” the best analog to her performance.

Regina King won best supporting actress for “If Beale Street Could Talk,” and Mahershala Ali took home the Globe for best supporting actor for “Green Book.”

And the Oscar fight could very well boil down to Ali (a best supporting actor winner for “Green Book,” but he could turn up as a lead) vs. Christian Bale, a winner in the “comedy” category for “Vice.” Rami Malek gets into the mix with a win for his Freddie Mercury turn in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which also won the best picture/musical or comedy honors. Those three seem like certain Oscar nominees, though I fervently hope Willem Dafoe (“At Eternity’s Gate”) and Robert Redford (“The Old Man and the Gun”) have sentimental nominations coming their way from the Academy.

I guess slapping “A Star is Born” into the drama category didn’t exactly pay dividends for Bradley Cooper and Warners. Sure, they want their picture taken seriously and Oscar-campaigned as such. But you have to figure a LOT of wind has left those sails after last night.

Lady Gaga’s Oscar may be inevitable. Her Globe certainly seemed to be. And IT DID NOT HAPPEN. But we’ll see.

Olivia Colman of “The Favourite” was a delight, but in no way a lead performance. She won best actress in a comedy for that film, in SUPPORT of Oscar winning leads Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone.

There’s been a lot of kvetching and hand-wringing among the Internet chattering classes about which films “should” be getting all the attention this year, and which ones the older, less discerning Golden Globes voters went for.

Some years, three of any four people off the street could predict the Oscars as well as “the experts.” Predicting them has become a lesser science. But these self-appointed (Aren’t we all?) experts are taking shots in the dark some years, and this year may be one of those. The shrill complaining has been deafening and all over Twitter.

The more aged the film writer/Awards prognosticator, the happier he was. 

The Academy Awards have traditionally been regarded as “middlebrow,” endorsing “big” films, “important” films and “prestige pictures” as well as — on occasion — the very best films of a given year. Not always. The Globes? “Middlebrow” is their middle name. Oscars are handed out by richer folks with a bigger stake in the prizes, and supposedly higher minded than mere critics’ groups or whatever the Globes’ membership looks like in a given year. The Oscars are about art, or listening to what others have told them “art” is.

No, “Black Panther” isn’t a contender (lowbrow generic comic book blockbuster, emphasis on “generic”). I don’t care what the PGA says. Yes, “Green Book” is “safe” and comfort food for white audiences. “Bohemian” is a lot less ambitious than “A Star is Born,” but more fun, etc. No, panning Lady Gaga’s acting doesn’t make you a hater, dismissive of her social/political/fashion stances (OK, the latter? Sure. This ain’t the MTV Video Music Awards, dear.).

But really, we’re doing most of our arguing about 2.5/3 star movies. The stand-out films of this year are “The Favourite,” “Ben is Back,” “First Man,” “Leave no Trace,” “First Reformed” and “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

“BlackKklansman” and “The Mule” and “Mary Poppins Returns” and “The Wife” and “Mary Queen of Scots” and “Can You Ever Forgive Me” and “Boy Erased” and “Bohemian” and “Vice” and “A Star is Born” and “Roma” are all flawed but worthwhile (more or less) contenders.  We could be talking about “At Eternity’s Gate” or “The Old Man and the Gun” or “Widows” or what have you — a lot of decent but not dazzling movies this year, virtually nothing that we’ll look back on with awe in two years’ time.

Hell, they gave the Oscar for best picture last year to “The Shape of Water,” which became a cultural punchline the moment it happened. So no, the “best picture,” the one that will stand the test of time, isn’t likely to be honored by the Academy. Indie Spirit Awards? Sure.

But if the Oscars follow the Globes, movies we’ll watch again on HBO or streaming, etc. have an actual shot.

Alfonso Cuaron won the Golden Globe for best director. Will that “Roma” win repeat at the Oscars? Quite possibly. As “Best directors direct best pictures,” we’ll have to watch the DGA Awards to see if he’s a lock. “Roma” won best foreign language film at the Globes, which it could very well take at the Academy Awards. A film with no nominatable actors is not likely to win best picture, so expectations for that one should drop (The SAG Award nominations doused that flame weeks ago). Or should.

I think “Roma” is the most over-rated movie of the year. Well, after “Spider-Verse.”

“Roma” may have peaked here, but even though I was underwhelmed by that one, Cuaron may have best director  inevitability. I have said before and will repeat here, the moment the Academy gives a middling Netflix streaming “epic” the Best Picture Oscar, the game is up for them.

I get the sense that “A Star is Born” overplayed its hand — expecting best picture and best director Globes (no sweat), maybe even best actor/actress prizes. The Globes shot that picture’s Oscar chances in the foot.

“Green Book” got one of the Farrelly brothers a piece of the best screenplay prize, and that’s not likely to repeat itself at the Academy Awards.

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” won best animated film. Will the Academy go that route, when “Isle of Dogs” was easily the best animated film of last year? It’s not coincidence that “Spider-Man” is the last animated release of 2019 and the Globes’ voters — known for “whatever just crossed my field of view” opinionating — picked that.

“First Man” collected best score, while “Shallow” from “A Star is Born” won best song.

The Golden Globes and Oscars have achieved near parity, thanks to shrinking Oscar TV audiences and the Ricky Gervais/Tina and Amy boosted Hollywood Foreign Press Association show. The “Oscar bounce” at the box office is still worth more than the Globes one, though.

The Globes, standing so far apart from the Emmys and infamous for honoring “the new” in terms of TV, and the “usual suspects,” probably enjoy just as much prestige on the TV side as the “official” inside-the-business Emmy Awards, as an honor and as a telecast. They’re still the minor leagues in terms of film acting/directing honors, but with the future of media blurring film/TV/streaming etc., the Globes are better set for the future than the aging, fading hidebound Academy Awards.

For years, much of Oscar’s juggling of announcements, broadening of categories, etc. has been aimed at blunting the under-credentialed “Hollywood foreign press” that covers entertainment from stealing the various Hollywood guilds’ voting/award-giving and TV audience attracting power and prestige.

So take Sunday night’s results with a grain of salt, and a round of applause. The Globes stand alone, and while “Green Book” and “Bohemian” and others earned their share of Awards Season glory, I do wonder if “Mary Poppins Returns,” “A Star is Born,” “Isle of Dogs,” “If Beale Street Could Talk” or “Leave No Trace” (an Indie Spirit winner?) have Oscar nominations and even Oscar wins headed their way.

Nicole Kidman’s buzzed about “Destroyer” performance is peaking too late for the Globes. Not for the Oscars. But if we don’t see nominations for her, for “Ben is Back” or “Boy Erased” or “Beale Street” et al, you’ll be able to pass that off as inept marketing/campaigning by the studios that got their hands on the films.

The smart play this Monday AM is for studios to grab more screens for “Green Book,” which has disappeared from theaters, this coming Friday. I have tried to take the girlfriend to that one for a couple of weeks, and no luck. It’s all but disappeared from the first run marketplace.

And “Bohemian Rhapsody” could pass “A Star is Born” at the US box office if there’s any Golden Globes Bounce. Barely $10 million separates them, and the more fun film won last night.

In ANY event, a less “predictable” Oscars would make a watchable Oscars (the Globes were littered with “upsets,” according to some who had already signed over the pink slip to “Star is Born”).

Voting for the Oscar nominations gets underway MONDAY, and the Globes can’t help but influence that winnowing of “the field” into the nominees balloting by the Academy. Publicity and attention should change the playing field.

After a week of voting, the Oscar nominations will be announced Jan. 22, so we’ll see how the Main Event plays out now that the early primaries are out of the way.

“Perfect Strangers,” or “Perfectos Desconocidos,” is a Mexican remake of an Italian dinner party gone wrong dramedy of the same title.

There was also a 2017 Argentine version of this chatty, lightly corrosive riff on “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with a cell phone era twist. Seven old friends, enjoying wine and good company, take a dare on how many of each other’s “secrets” they know, and park their cell phones in the middle of the dinner table. Every call, text message or email they must share with the entire party.

“What kind of game is this?” the host, Antonio (Bruno Bichir of “Sicario II”) pleads.

“A FUN one!” his brittle wife Eva (Cecilia Suárez of “The Air I Breathe”) snaps. “Like Russian Roulette!”

Antonio is doing the cooking for this holiday season lunar eclipse get together. Eva’s a judgmental psychotherapist whose insults are borne by their friends. Because as the wags always say, “A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the show.”

Eva is at war with their 16 year-old, sexually curious daughter Nina, who always turns to Dad when the chips are down.

Flora and Ernesto (Mariana Treviño and Miguel Rodarte) are on even frostier terms. He’s secretly texting his paramour in the toilet, and not so secretly forgetting to wash his hands afterwards. She drinks on the sly, and gets a text message that has her removing her panties and leaving them at home.

Mario and Ana (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ana Claudia Talancón) are newlyweds who cannot keep their hands, tongues and other appendages off one another.

And they all arrive before Pepe (Franky Martin), gossiping shamelessly about who he’ll bring to the party. He’s a soccer coach with a Mini Cooper and a “wealthy hobo” fashion sense.

Every character is introduced to the soapy thrum of a melodramatic string section. Something dark is coming, or perhaps something dark and funny.

The banter, leaning entirely on the 2016 Italian film’s original script, is lively, sexy and tetchy. Cracks about Pepe’s ex, nicknamed “Shrillary,” rhymes (in Spanish, with English subtitles) relating how women must dress for parties — “Girls in red are great in bed, Girls in blue…” “Don’t get DISGUSTING!” — how men are like PCs (“unreliable,” cheap, etc.) and women are “Macs — fast, intelligent, elegant,” and “they cost a fortune and are only compatible among themselves” give “Perfect” a bit of a bounce to it.

Then the phones come out, the “death of privacy” is bemoaned and Eva offers how a phone is now “the black box of our lives. It’s all on there…Many couples would IMPLODE” if they swapped theirs.

Thus the game the shrewish shrink proposes. And as the wine flows and the lasagna is served, let that game begin. Pranks ensue, terrible misunderstandings, blame cast about.

“Maybe it was AUTO-correct!”

As unexpected quotes from hotels and nursing homes roll in, jewelry purchases are revealed (a trite convention of cheating movies), a character tries to avoid having his paramour’s nightly naughty pic exposed and job hunts or expanding an Uber franchise is broadcast via speaker phone, dinner guests try to get their stories straight, to explain away strangers whom they’ve given the license to speak on intimate terms with them.

The moon turns blood red and people get their backs up, even the sober ones.

It’s a very theatrical set-up, which is why it’s a pity Edward Albee didn’t live long enough to re-think “Virginia Woolf” with a cell-phone gimmick to it. The conversations range from teasing and pleading to corrosive accusations and drunken lies covering up earlier lives.

The merits of psychotherapy are hashed out — “Why tell a stranger your problems? That’s what friends are for!” All as we’re watching intimate friends who ALL have secrets face having those bared for the party.

There are funny moments, mostly verbal (tricky if you don’t speak Spanish, as the film has white subtitles which wash out on lots of white backdrops).  There are bitter turns.

And we’re treated to a genuinely touching, absurdly-intimate parent-child conversation relished by all over the speaker phone, a heroic moment of sanity swamped in a sea of cheating, double-dealing and “big” revelations.

It’s more tame than daring, at least that’s how “Perfect Strangers” plays north of the border. And the resolution is abrupt and unsatisfying.

But the actors are uniformly superb, with Suárez and Bichir standing out. The sophistication of the characters, the mania for keeping secrets that maybe aren’t worth the effort and the sharp and sharply funny words (and sharp elbows) explain why these “Perfectos Desconocidos” stay connected and stay friends through all the loss of privacy and exposure that letting others study their “black boxes” allows.

They still enjoy the show.

MPAA Rating: unrated, alcohol abuse, sexual conversations, mild violence

Cast: Cecilia Suárez, Bruno Bichir, Ana Claudia Talancón, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Franky Martín, Mariana Treviño

Credits: Manolo Caro, script by  Filippo Bologna and Paolo Costella, based on their Italian film, “Perfect Strangers.”   A Pantelion release.

Running time: 1:44

“If Beale Street Could Talk” is a movie that aches.

There’s a romantic ache to the love affair at its heart, coupled with the pained despair of struggling against a racist system that has broken or bent generations that have run afoul of it.

Equal parts playful and sweet, dark and bitter, it froths over with with poetic theatricality of novelist, social critic and gay black man of the 1960s James Baldwin.

It’s the second legitimate Oscar contender from writer-director Barry Jenkins. This is his period-piece social commentary-as-romantic-melodrama follow-up to “Moonlight.” “Beale Street” illustrates the difference between a work of cultural significance in a cultural moment — “Black Panther,” for example — and a movie of cultural consequence.

“Beale Street” is one of the best films of 2018.

It’s the story of Tish and Fonnie (Kiki Layne and Stephan James) friends since childhood, growing up along Banks Street in Manhattan’s West Village. They grew up to know, trust and now — as she is 19 and he is 22 — love each other. They’re getting married.

But prison bars separate them as Tish brings Fonny (Alfonzo) this biggest news of their lives. She’s pregnant.

Flashbacks show us their gentle, gradual courtship and the fateful chain of events that have him railroaded into jail, a broke artisan and artist “forced to pay for proving” his innocence despite having both an alibi and geographic disconnection from the crime and the obvious prejudice of a cop with a grudge and a story full of holes.

And scenes set in the late ’60s present encompass Tish passing on the news to her parents, and to Fonny’s, and their struggles to free him from the maw of a system that even in James Baldwin’s time was ancient and established and geared towards mass incarceration of the black underclasses.

There’s not a lot of narrative drive to Jenkins’ film — just lovely, often languorous scenes reveling in Baldwin’s vibe and scored with Baldwin’s words.

The best of these are the warm moment when Tish, her sister (Teyonah Parris) and her mother (the formidable Regina King) break the news to her father. Joseph (Colman Domingo) has an easy, light manner which we’re sure will be tested by this pregnancy.

“Unbow your head, sisters!”

But Hennessy cognac, Mom’s charm and his utter devotion to his daughter upend expectations. When he tells Fonny’s father (Michael Beach), “You and me? We’bout to go out and get drunk,” their shared delight will bring you to tears.

But the warmth of that get together is gutted by Fonny’s gloved church-going mother (Aunjanue Ellis), who clears her throat with “I always knew you’d be the destruction of my son,” with her daughters chiming in with blame, judgement and invocations of Jesus.

Fonny’s already in jail, remember, facing “the death that awaited the children of our age.” He may “love me too much,” Tish narrates, hinting at the chain of events that bring him to the attention of the wrong, bad cop. But his mother’s brittle fury and everyone else’s reaction to it puncture the romance even if she fails to totally deflate it.

Jenkins leans heavily on voice-over narration as a crutch, but having Baldwin’s words — an opening title explains his and his characters’ connection to “Beale Street,” and just what that represents to the story’s unfortunate timelessness, that was going to be hard to resist.

He parks his camera in tight close-ups, giving star treatment to a generally little known cast (King and Beach are joined by Dave Franco, as a sympathetic Jewish landlord). Newcomer Layne in particular lets us see the burdens and hurt that Tish must cover with reassurances of love and devotion in what should be the happiest days of her life.

James, who played Jesse Owens in “Race” and John Lewis in “Selma,” plays the tender romantic side of Fonny and his embittered, hopeless imprisoned state with great feeling and skill.

Jenkins treats the story and writing with a reverence that weighs on the picture and contributes to its sometimes tedious pacing. Omnipresent narration adds to the gravitas of the piece, but also tends to slow it down. Some of the language feels anachronistic, and some situations — symptoms of pregnancy — have a naivete that remind us that there were blind spots in the great Baldwin’s life experience.

But “If Beale Street Could Talk” washes over you even as it is getting under your skin. And Jenkins has made it into a movie that is a period piece that too easily seems modern, as timely as this week’s #BlackLivesMatter moment. For all the resilience Baldwin and Jenkins show us here, it is the poet Langston Hughes’ line about “a dream deferred” that comes most easily to mind.

Fifty years, and lives young and old are still battered and shortened by the same conditions Baldwin saw in his lifetime, prompting him to move to Europe the moment he could. Fortunately for posterity, he could still hear his father’s Beale Street talking to him and to the ages.

MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexual content

Cast: Kiki Layne, Stephan James, Regina King, Colman Domingo, Teyonah Parris, Michael Beach, Aunjanue Ellis, Dave Franco

Credits: Written and directed by Barry Jenkins, based on the James Baldwin book. An Annapurna release.

Running time: 1:59

“Rockaway” is an sentimental coming-of-age melodrama, a personal tale of childhood in the ’90s that never gets the cutesie and edgy blend right.

It’s an ungainly hybrid — “Stand by Me” by way of  “The Sandlot” — without the writing or performers to pull off its imitation of either.

John (Maxwell Apple) grew up idolizing his big brother Anthony (Keidrich Sellati of “The Americans”). He was John’s protector, mentor and entertainer, the adult John (Frankie J. Alvarez) remembers in voice over narration.

And in that June of ’94, they both had “high hopes of a Knicks championship, and a plan to kill a man.”

The brothers live in Rockaway and worship the Knicks, one Knick in particular — undrafted, working class hero John Starks. Even at 8, John is all about the Starks wear — jerseys, the works.

Their dad (Wass Stevens of “House of Cards”) indulges him that, and brings home basketball trading cards after work. But let the kid tear a jersey playing, or dinner not be ready from waitress Mom (Marjan Neshat of “Sex and the City 2”) and somebody’s going to get hit.

“I promise I’ll never let him touch you or hurt you again,” young teen Anthony promises his brother. He entertains the younger kid with tales of “Mr. Dooh,” animated bits of the adventures of something that goes down the toilet.

And Anthony keeps John on task with “The Plan.” It involves tennis balls and a busted light bulb in the basement. It’s his plan for killing their brute of a father.

Interrupting their “You and Me Against the World” reverie is a gang of nearby kids they throw in with. From the friendly and unrealistically nurturing Billy (Harrison Wittmeyer) to the mouthy and delusional Sal (Colin Critchley), Brian (Tanner Flood) to tough runt Dom (James DiGiacomo), they’re the sort that summer bonding over baseball, The Knicks, pranks and girls are made of.

At least in the movies.

There’s little new under the sun in genre pictures of this type, even mash-ups that involve a plan to commit murder (under-planned and played down). Writer-director John J. Budion may have intended this to be a personal memoir with an edge — with violence, the threat of greater violence, profanity. But even the edgier stuff feels pre-ordained and pre-digested.

The details of “coming of age” don’t change — girly magazines, flirting, standing up to bullies — even if the music does (hip hop, mostly). The NBA Finals that year had the lads’ attention, but were infamously interrupted by the most widely televised low-speed Bronco chase in history.

For all its dark intent, “Rockaway” settles into something more like “The Sandlot” without the laughs — or James Earl Jones — even though a character references “Stand By Me” to invite that comparison. This isn’t on those films’ level in any regard.

The kids aren’t a sparking crowd, a nice moment here and there but to a one their performances are pretty flat. Even punch lines are delivered in a rote monotone that suggests child actors with no flair for comedy, or one needing another take or two (low budget films don’t have that luxury) to “nail it.”

“I’m a talker. Most of the time, I don’t need somebody to talk to.”

“Hey Mom, guess what we did today?”

“Made a three point shot?”

“Saw BOOBIES!”

Budoin ambitiously adds animation, fantasy sequences where Anthony becomes a superhero, Dom grows a cinderblock for a fist and John Starks morphs into a rocket who can take little John away from his troubled family.

The script isn’t scintillating, and the attempts at “edge” are overwhelmed by efforts to rub that edge off. But the casting — of the adults, only Stevens makes an impression — which could have rescued “Rockaway,” or at least rendered it more watchable, is where Budion’s film fizzles.

Set your tale in New York, shoot in a city with access to the cream of America’s acting classes, and this was all you could attract? Kids who can’t hit a punchline with a cinderblock for a fist?

That’s a sign from above, that you screenplay needs more polish before showing it to casting directors.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, profanity, alcohol abuse

Cast: Keidrich Sellati, Maxwell Apple, James DiGiacomo, Marjan Neshat, Sophia Rose, Harrison Wittmeyer, Nolan Lyons, Colin Critchley, Tanner Flood, Wass Stevens

Credits: Written and directed by John J. Budion.  A Paladin release.

Running time: 1:24

Warners is still making mint by casting the right “Aquaman,” and humorously marketing the hell out of what most would consider a lesser hero of the DC Comic Book Universe.

Another $30 million+ this weekend? That’s what Deadline.com is saying after Friday’s boffo bank. Projections had been for a far more modest $25, maybe $26.

“Escape Room” managed to clear $17 million for Sony and in all likelihood, overtake Disney’s awards season blockbuster, “Mary Poppins Returns” (just under $17) for second place. Horror ALWAYS does well in the dead days of early January. Regular moviegoers have seen all the Oscar contenders, holdovers — and dive into the first thriller to get their attention.

And “Escape Room?” It’s not terrible, which always helps.

Michael Keaton’s “comeback” didn’t begin with “Birdman.” He was in “White Noise,” which made a lot of January noise and reintroduced him to fans and to the filmmakers who hired him afterwards. Producers were convinced he could still bring an audience.

“Spider-Verse” fades to fourth, “Mule” steadily closes in on $100 million, “Vice” rises to seventh.

No other “contender” is in the top ten, with “The Favourite” and “Marty Queen of Scots” sliding back into the second ten, and so on and so forth.

Golden Globes night is nigh, and “Vice” would be the only picture still in wide release (the animated “Ralph Breaks the Internet” shouldn’t win best animated feature, nor should “Spider-Verse,” but you never know) to benefit from a bounce from Hollywood’s Foreign Press endorsement. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is still making money though, and we hear the HFPA just loves Queen.

“Rhapsody” will need Globes/Oscar bounces to clear $200 million and catch its fellow “contender,” “A Star is Born.” 

He speaks in a dry, faintly effeminate monotone. And he speaks a lot. Guys who narrate their lives with an endless interior monologue do that.

Jobe “with an ‘e,'” “not the Biblical figure” lives and works in Manhattan, a 30something wraith on roller blades who makes deliveries — drugs, generally, “Molly” specifically — and ponders the nature of the universe — space, with its quasars and “all that s—”  because he needs to disconnect from his reality. He’s probably not using his product, in other words.

“It’s so mellow and trippy.  I’m actually making a sick manga about it.”

Sure he is.

“Jobe’z World” is dull and trippy day life in the life of a low-rent dealer, blading his wares to a collection of New York eccentrics — his regulars. It’s a decent enough idea, not the most novel or remotely as arty as this film treatment of it.

But it might have worked with a more compelling central character and a more fascinating performance of him by Jason Grisell.

The clients are given to pontificating, self-mythologizing and generally blowing Jobe’s mind on this rounds. There’s Ron (Stephen Payne), a not-quite-hermit survivalist, holed up in a bunker.

Jax (Jeremy O. Harris) is some kind of artist. I think. Rapper? His “flow” is something else. He’s seriously into his own head. Does he live with Jobe?

Zane (former child actor Owen Kline) is a would-be stand-up comic who just swapped his mother’s cookie jar for a fishing rod at the local thrift store. He’s imagining it as a “Southern lifestyle” thing, “Lake Woebegone” and all. He’s trying his luck in the East River.

Jobe needs to get through with work so he cook a meal for his mother, flying into JFK “literally any minute” now.

But the boss (Lindsay Burdge of “A Teacher”) has a special run for him to make. Jobe is to make a delivery to his idol, the lonely, faded screen star Royce (Theodore Bouloukos). And fanboy or not, Jobe’s wares make the bantering old man foam at the mouth and fade away. Well, the boss DID say the drugs he wanted were “worse than what killed MJ and Prince put together!”

Jobe finds himself fleeing the cops closing in on him, paparazzi who want his picture and his own demons, musing about “swarm intelligence” and facing his reckoning  — “the worst music ever made must be faced.”

There’s virtually nothing to this short, thin yet (barely) feature-length dramedy. A few funny lines wither in the dark and minutes upon minutes of screen time burn off space imagery and Jobe pondering the nature of it in his addled head.

Think of “Jobe’z World” as you doing your duty to a friend trying to kick and you’ll get  through it. Not without browsing through everything on your phone, though.

MPAA Rating: unrated, drug abuse, profanity

Cast: Jason Grisell, Owen Kline, Stephen Payne, Jeremy O. Harris, Lindsay Burdge, Theodore Bouloukos, Sean Price Williams, Keith Poulson, Jason Giampietro and Kate Lyn Sheil

Credits: Written and directed by Michael M. Bilandic.  A Jobeworkz release.

Running time: 1:07

If you like British romances, with British puns and a pug, consider “Patrick,” which is being pitched as “Pug Actually” in the trailers.

“Patrick” stars Beattie Edmondson (“Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie”) as the lovelorn and somewhat overwhelmed new teacher Sarah, dumped and with only an undisciplined pup for company.

But dogs, as anybody knows, are opposite sex magnets.

Ed Skrein is the love interest, and Jennifer Sanders, Bernard Cribbins and assorted English roses populate the supporting cast.

“Patrick” will be on screens, big and small, Feb. 15. 

Another big weekend for Warners’ “Aquaman,” which should dominate the box office until “Glass” opens and Oscar nominations give “Mary Poppins Returns” a boost.

Box Office Mojo figures another $26 million will be added to the DC comic book hero’s bottom line.

“Aquaman” will be well over $250 by midnight Sunday, on its way to $300 million US gross.

“Vice” is hanging around the top ten, despite pushback from all the awards hounds hoping to bully “Black Panther” into the best picture conversation.

“Escape Room” is the only wide release rolling out this weekend, although a few awards contenders will add theaters. I saw “Escape Room” with a nearly sold-out audience Thursday night, and it should crack the top 6, if not the top 5. $12 million says BO Mojo. 

The movie itself? Meh. Not utterly awful, but the longer it goes on, the worse it gets.

The most interesting picture opening this weekend is in limited release. If you’ve given up on Gerard Butler ever making another interesting choice as an actor, think again. He’s terrific in support of grizzled Scots character actor Peter Mullan in “The Vanishing,” a gritty mystery set among lighthouse keepers who went missing off Scotland early in the last century.

“Rust Creek” is middling, “State Like Sleep” has nothing to recommend it, “Communion” could be an Oscar nominated doc from Poland.