Movie Nation

There is an Orlando that exists in the very shadow of the theme parks that make the city America’s Vacationland.

It’s the Orlando of the young service-sector poor, transients — many with children. They wait on the tourists, clean their toilets. And those are the lucky ones. A few too many bad choices about drugs, tattoos and appearance and even those jobs are hard to get. Preying on tourists becomes their last option.

Most can’t buy a home, and when they do, they have to abandon it. Childcare is left to chance, unless the state gets wind of it.

That’s the gritty side of “The City Beautiful” that movies have only hinted at — the fruit stands, “discount” ticket kiosks, souvenir shops, C-list attractions and seedy fifth-hand motels of “Monster” and “99 Homes.”

This Orlando — suburban, run-down Kissimmee to be precise — is where the adorable, reckless foul-mouthed imps of “The Florida Project” raise themselves. Writer-director Sean Baker has followed his riotously raw filmed-on-a-cellphone “Tangerine” with a poem to childhood mischief, imagination and acquired coping skills set within sight of Every Child’s Fantasy Vacation — Disney World.

Moonee, played with an unfiltered exuberance by discovery Brooklynn Prince, is the leader of the pack. If there’s a spitting contest to be staged, a profane shout-off with adults to be engaged, a utility room at the Futureland Inn where she and her running mates (Christopher Rivera, Aiden Malik) are never supposed to enter, she’s the instigator.

Broken families and broke families reside there, scraping together the $38 a night to sleep, cook, smoke and socialize by the pool of this dead-end of the tourist corridor, where garish purple paint long ago took the place of actual maintenance.

Not that Bobby, the manager, wants it that way. It’s a terrible job — dealing with brawls in the parking lot, hookers setting up shop, residents who can’t pay their bills and won’t follow the rules. But he does it. And if it “takes a village” to raise Moonee’s pack of free-range six year-olds, they could do worse than Bobby, given sympathy and forbearance by Willem Dafoe, in one of his sweetest performances ever.

Whatever minimal supervision his residents — who must skirt “residency” rules, with his help — can’t be bothered to give their kids, Bobby is there, a last line of defense against accidents, eviction and the sorts of predators who find their way anywhere children are gathered in great numbers.

Bobby is the kids’ “Catcher in the Rye.”

The parents range from the competent working poor, mothers and grandmothers, to Halley, Moonee’s mom. And meeting her, you see where Moonee got her mouth and shudder for her future. Bria Vinaite’s not just playing a strip-club trash stereotype, she is a loving incompetent, an impulsive child herself with just enough native cunning to keep them going, week to week.

It’s Moonee and her gang that the movie tracks, from farm fields with cows to the ice cream stand where they hustle free treats, burping contests, finding the magic of humming into a fan, flipping off tourists who take off for those annoying helicopter flights over Orlando’s Big Three theme parks.

It’s Moonee who shows newcomer Jancey (Valeria Cotto) the lay of the land, her new playground.

“This is where we get free ice cream…The man who lives in here gets arrested a lot…Nobody uses the elevator ’cause it smells like pee.”

They’re not just pals, they’re co-conspirators, ranging far beyond what today’s parenting code would consider safe, water-ballooning tourists, playing with matches in abandoned condo projects, cursing like teenagers and keeping mum about their activities.

“We’re just playin’!” A second query from any adult gets a “You’re not the boss of me!” And worse.

Halley, covered in tattoos and piercings, cursing her bad “luck” for not being able to hold a strip club job or get work in “the parks,” keeps a foul temper barely in check with weed and a “Just chill” comeback at every complaint Bobby brings to her door.

Baker peoples this world with hotheads and hangers-on, elderly nude sunbathers and traveling perverts. But he never loses track of those kids, watching them misbehave and take stupid risks, witnessing, as they do, their parents’ careless, sometimes violent behavior. “The Florida Project” maintains a harrowing sense of suspense about those moppets. What, among the smorgasbord of accidents waiting to happen, will be the one that tips them off the razor’s edge they and their parents live on?

Baker documents the nuts-and-bolts of this level of poverty in this part of the world, filling in where “Monster” and the housing crisis drama “99 Homes” merely introduced us to it. That alone makes “The Florida Project” one of the best pictures of 2017.

But rarely has a movie gone as deep into the magical resiliency and adaptability of childhood. As cute as these kids are, as resourceful as any six year-old not in school could be, you fear for them — not just for their risky present, but their cycle-of-poverty future.

Every child’s fantasy might be to live at Disney World. Every parent’s nightmare would be to live near it, without the resources, job and prospects to ever take that child to “The Happiest Place on Earth.” “The Projects,” be they in Chicago, Houston or Orlando, are no place for dreamers.

Roger Moore talks with the filmmakers about Greater Orlando, “Cinderella’s Slums” and the inspiration for “The Florida Project” for Orlando Magazine — linked here. 

MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, disturbing behavior, sexual references and some drug material.

Cast: Willem Dafoe, Brooklynn Prince, Valeria Cotto, Bria Vinaite, Christopher Rivera, Caleb Landry Jones

Credits: Directed by Sean Baker, written by Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch. An A24 release.

Running time: 1:55

Oscar bait? To be sure. Gary Oldman goes for spot-on impersonation of the English bulldog who led Britain through World War II, with Kristen Scott-Thomas as Lady Churchill and the omnipresent Ben Mendelsohn as the King George of “The King’s Speech.”

Nov. 22 we see “Darkest Hour,” a parallel tale to “Dunkirk,” full of political intrigues, strong drink and epic speeches.

Two well-heeled strangers, trapped in Idaho before a blizzard hits, charter a plane to Denver. It goes down in the Rocky Mountain wilderness and they’re forced to depend on each other, blend clashing personalities, to survive.

That’s the premise of “The Mountain Between Us.”

Now, take a moment to imagine the dramatic possibilities. See the potential sore spots for friction, and guess the obstacles, the action beats a “lost in in the mountains in winter” romantic thriller.

Then throw out any of your best ideas for friction and pat yourself on the back for every hoary survival film cliche and coincidence you can think of, because that’s what this movie, based on a Charles Martin novel, throws at us.

It’s an interminable movie that as our thrown-together couple face injury, cold, frostbite, sliding off a cliff, mountain lions and yes — a frozen lake (Craaaaaack) and bear-traps (SNAP) — and find time to um, bond, inspires “Oh just get ON with it” shouting at the screen.

Yes, it’s “The English Patient in Winter.”

Oscar winner Kate Winslet and Oscar bait Idris Elba are the two stranded travelers. She’s a freelance photographer about to miss her wedding. He’s a neurosurgeon with a young patient depending on him back East.

The skies may be clear, but there’s a blizzard bearing down on Boise. The airlines aren’t flying, but ol’ Walter (Beau Bridges) can get them out. “Flew F-5s in Vi–ET Nam,” he drawls. “Log as nobody’s shootin’ at me, I’m home free.”

Famous not-quite-last-words. Before you can say “Alive!”, they’ve plowed into a mountain with no flight plan filed, nobody knowing they left much less where they went. All the antsy Alex (busted foot) and Dr. Ben have is each other, and Walter’s yellow lab.

The sudsy set-up is that we root for them — to survive and connect — and fear for the dog. As the story was adapted by J. Mills Goodloe, who gave us “Everything, Everything” and “The Best of Me,” we know there’ll be plenty of sap in this corner of the Rockies.

The dynamic of pitching two willful, smart cookies into this situation pays almost no dividends, even though they’re each out of their element. He’s a man of discipline, science and a “system,” which will spring into action now that they’re missing. She’s quick to grasp the worst case scenario.

“Systems fail.”

He’s careful, tentative. She’s “reckless.”

It’ll never work out. Until, as they (at her insistence) start trekking out, their hikes peppered with intimately confessional conversations to take their minds off the starvation they might face and the dog they might lose.

Exhaustion, hunger and desperation never figure into the story or the performances. Whatever Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad brought to his breakout film, “Paradise Now,” he’s way out of his element here. The scenery is stunning, but not breathtaking enough to hide the fact that reality rarely intrudes into each head-slapping coincidence or, for that matter, the make-up trailer.

Both players make the best of things, rarely letting on that they know this is a Nicholas Sparks beach novel without the beach. Whatever drew Winslet to it, “Mountain” makes you wonder if the supposed hot-ticket Elba (“The Dark Tower”) will ever get a mainstream film that justifies his stardom.

Or if what he really needs is to change agents.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for a scene of sexuality, peril, injury images, and brief strong language

Cast: Kate Winslet, Idris Elba, Beau Bridges

Credits : Directed by Hany Abu-Assad script by J. Mills Goodloe, based on the Charles Martin novel. A 20th Century Fox release.

Running time: 1:44

This was a pretty notorious kidnapping case when it happened back in 1973. A Getty grandson nabbed, the kid’s mother is “not a real Getty” and the Patriarch (Kevin Spacey) isn’t likely to pay ransom.

Ridley Scott directed, with Michelle Williams as the woman who just wants her kid back, Mark Wahlberg as the family intermediary and Charlie Plummer as the young Getty whose life is in the hands of terrorists. Look for “All the Money in the World” Dec. 8.

Ok, that’s a mean headline, and this IS a Noah Baumbach film. And with that cast, it could be funny.

Netflix aims considerably higher in its “Let’s Be in the Adam Sandler Business” strategy with “The Meyerwitz Stories.” Not really a laugh in this trailer — maybe one. We’ll see for ourselves on Netflix Oct. 13. 

Granted, Owen Wilson’s been in the rear view mirror for a decade, and Ed Helms’ window to stardom was a pretty narrow one.

But Glenn Close as a randy mom from “the ’70s, man,” and Christopher Walken, Ving Rhames, J.K. Simmons and Terry Bradshaw are the possible father figure.

R-rated “Let’s find Dad” comedy, with Katt Williams and Harry Shearer, just in time for Christmas.

In America, we chart the sea changes in our culture through sport. Seminal figures from Jackie to Fernando, Babe to Althea, signal to us that our world is different or, in some cases, make it different all on their own.

“Battle of the Sexes” gives one of those icons her due. It’s not that we’ve forgotten Billie Jean King, a champion whose march to the top heralded the beginning of a golden age of American tennis. But it’s worth remembering, too, her place in feminist history and the blows she struck against sexism and for equal rights and the cartoonish spectacle of a match that made it all possible.

There was a TV movie of almost 20 years ago, “When Billie Beat Bobby,” that got the hilarious hoopla of the 1973 Billie Jean vs. Bobby Riggs match right. What “Little Miss Sunshine” directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton and “Slumdog Millionaire” screenwriter Simon Beaufoy go for in “Battle of the Sexes” is to connect that match with King’s sexual awakening as a gay woman, and America’s changing attitudes towards that.

And by casting the hard-not-to-be-adorable Steve Carell as the self-promoting “male chauvinist pig” Riggs, they’ve produced a picture that’s alternately giddy and touching, with its heart coming from a budding romance and many of its laughs from the naked, reflexive sexism of the era.

When the most jaw-dropping moment of your movie is special effect footage of the grandiloquent popinjay Howard Cosell draping his patronizing arm over tennis star and commentator for The Big Match Rosie Casals (Natalie Morales) as she delivers her take on the battle, one can’t help but marvel at how apt Madison Avenue’s most famous cigarette slogan of the day still is.

“You’ve come a long way, baby.”

Emma Stone, bronzed and hair-bobbed if not muscular enough to suggest the real King’s athleticism, lets us see the vulnerability beneath the steely competitor. When tennis boss Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman) identifies himself as the true villain of the piece, refusing to pay women anything remotely like what male players earn at American tournaments, Stone’s King doesn’t wilt, weep or swear.

She starts her own tour. Or puts her manager (Sarah Silverman at her feistiest) on it. She talks most of the best women’s players into joining them, and that cigarette company with the sexy slogan, Virginia Slims, sponsors it.

Riggs is a long-faded star who was one of the greatest players of his era, a mind-gaming hustler who won major titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles in his day. Now, he’s a hilariously unrepentant gambler. He plays cards with his therapist and leads a revolt in his Gambler’s Anonymous meeting.

“Why should we give up the one thing in life we really love?”

His wealthy wife has had enough of this, but in casting Elisabeth Shue in that part, the filmmakers play up the lovable rascal in Riggs. We see him through her amusingly infuriated eyes.

One hustle too many (he wins a Rolls Royce from a rich mark) and she kicks him out. But he sees the Virginia Slims tennis revolt as opportunity. The 55 year-old who plays comic handicapped matches in raingear, wearing scuba fins, or in Little Bo Peep outfits (complete with sheep) will play the top ranked woman player in a hyped big money exhibition match.

Billie Jean isn’t having it. So he plays Australian champ (and new mother) Margaret Court (Jessica McNamee), portrayed here as mercenary and judgmental.

What’s she judging? Billie Jean’s succumbed to the flirtations of an LA hairdresser (the great Andrea Riseborough) and taken her on tour with them. Legendary tennis fashion designer Cuthbert “Ted” Tinling ( Alan Cumming, perfect) may have his Sapphic sister’s back. But Court disapproves, and knows the world would, too.

All of this is folded into events leading up to The Big Match, and while the sexual component does add gravitas and romance to the story, it tends to slacken the pace. The picture plays long, as not all the buildup to the finale has momentum built into it.

Beaufoy makes up for this with some sharp dialogue, most of which is uttered by Cummings, such as the moment when King, upset, realizes this “not a match, a show,” is something she cannot dodge.

“What’s gotten into her?”

“Fate, sweetie, coming at her like a runaway train.”

Stone gives the formidable King the warmth to make her easy to root for. And Carell carries his half of the picture with the pathos of a faded star, willing to vamp away what little reputation he has left for one last stunt in the spotlight.

In the end, King is the embodiment of the change she wants to see in the world and Cosell is the relic of an age so alien that we laugh, in shock, at how commonplace his brand of “little lady” sexism was, way back then.

We’ve all come a long way, babies.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sexual content and partial nudity

Cast: Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Alan Cumming, Andrea Riseborough, Bill Pullman, Sarah Silverman

Credits: Directed by Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton, script by Simon Beaufoy. A Fox Searchlight release.

Running time: 2:01

Another sci-fi best seller — this one by Jeff VanderMeer — earns a big screen treatment, this time courtesy of Alex “Ex Machina” Garland.

“Annihilation” gives us an alien entity that doesn’t look like, oh, Klingons or Borg or humans in any way. It’s kind of the anti-“Arrival,” with Oscar Isaac as the missing husband Portman pines for, Jennifer Jason Leigh as the scientist/warrior on the hunt. This teaser trailer is awfully generic, mysterious but maddeningly familiar, and yet  creepy enough.

And then there’s the presence of dish-of-the-day candidates Tessa Thompson and Gina Rodriguez. Because, you know, “Ex Machina” made Alicia Vikander a star.

Look for “Annihilation” in February.

“I’m not psychic,” our young narrator reassures us. She’s just a near-savant at guessing numbers, cards, the right slot machine to toss a quarter into.

That’s a skill even a tween can use in Reno, Nevada.

Maybe she got it from her mama. But she (Jessica Collins) cannot tell her. She’s so developmentally disabled that her entire vocabulary is 22 words — one of them, her daughter’s name — Heidi.

The woman who looks after them both, Bernadette, may know something. But “B” is keeping it to herself. Which is why Heidi makes her escape — 12 years old and riding the bus from Reno to mysterious Liberty, New York in “So B. It,” a wan odyssey about disabilities, special abilities, looking for your history and changing your future by taking that one big risk.

Director Stephen Gyllenhaal (“Losing Isiah”), father of actors Maggie and Jake, returns to subjects similar to his disabled Debra Winger drama, “A Dangerous Woman” in adapting (with screenwriter Garry Williams) Sarah Weeks’ novel.

Mom is an adult child nicknamed “Precious,” full of love and eager to paint pictures of their happy “family.” But she can’t take care of herself, much less a child. Bernadette, given all the earthy mothering the great Alfre Woodard is famous for, cooks and cleans and dresses one and all, and home schools Heidi (Talitha Eliana Bateman, one of the child stars of “Annabelle: Creation”).

But that’s because Bernadette hasn’t left her Reno apartment in years. She’s agoraphobic.

Only our narrator is “normal.” And she’d like to know why that is, who her people are and where her mom is from. She has just enough clues, and a growing sense of independence from the ever-fearful “B.” A photograph and a town name send her on her way.

Odd big screen outing aside, Gyllenhaal has built his career on TV directing — episodes, and TV movies. And that’s how “So B. It” plays —  a film of pre-digested emotions, close-ups (TV loves close-ups) and yawn-inspiring revelations — small-screen melodrama.

Landing Jacinda Barrett, an Oscar winner (Cloris Leachman shines as a fellow bus passenger), the late John Heard (good value to the very end) and the Oscar-nominated Woodard speaks to his reputation.

But while there might be a movie in this material, the muted performances, muffled emotions and simple lack of dramatic sparks or surprises wastes the talents of one and all.

Young Miss Bateman never makes Heidi empathetic enough to warm up to. And as she is in most every scene, and narrating the story which skips back and forth — from the bus to the recent past, and then to the end of the trip — that hobbles the picture.

So, “Lifetime Original Movie,” here we come.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some thematic elements

Cast: Talitha Eliana Bateman, Alfre Woodard, John Heard, Jacinda Barrett, Jessica Collins, Cloris Leachman

Credits: Directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, script by Garry Williams, based on a novel by  Sarah Weeks. A Branded release.

Running time: 1:37

Gun-fetishizing, catch-phrasing, “Back in Black” set mayhem from a cranky old action star and a torture porn famous director. Yay.