Movie Nation

“Well, as Bertrand Russell said, ‘people in a democracy tend to think they have less to fear from a stupid man than an intelligent one.’ Actually, it’s the other way around. It’s the stupid man.” — Henry Fonda as presidential candidate William Russell in “The Best Man” (1964) On TCM at the moment.

A pro-wrestling comedy co-produced with WWE and starring Dwayne Johnson, as he was in his PREVIOUS life?

The Rock’s  little comic tirade here is one of the funniest speeches he’s ever put on screen. And he’s been funny, a LOT, in action comedies, kids’ comedies and comedy comedies.

So we are intrigued. “Fighting With My Family” was directed by Ricky Gervais’s funnier half, Stephen Merchant, and co-stars Lena Headey. Hey, anything to keep the guy from taking that “Fast and Furious” or “San Andreas/Rampage” money.

Have a laugh at this.

That’s the only funny thing about James Franco’s Jones for too young if not under-age women and girls. 

He works so much, compulsively some would say, that when his reputation blew up last Oscar season, there were films in the can that nobody could do anything about — plenty of them.

His #MeToo implosion left a LOT of movies in limbo Because his MO was to pursue a LOT of supporting roles in films with lower budgets, which often put him in proximity to young and unknown talent he could prey upon.

That isn’t entirely the case with “Kin,” a sci-fi thriller about a kid (Miles Truitt) who finds a mysterious weapon in an abandoned warehouse, and he and his adoptive brother (Jack Reynor) are soon on the run from supersoldiers and a bad guy (Franco).

Zoe Kravitz and Dennis Quaid also star in this Summit/Lionsgate release, due to be dumped on that favorite trash heap of Cinema with No Hope for Breakout Success — Aug. 31.

That’s what Deadline.com is reporting, based on its earliest projections.

It could be off, as they had not updated the Thursday night preview take from the West Coast. But “Infinity War” opened to $38 million or so overseas, and appeared to have $45 million within reach with their last update.

The numbers will be fudged a bit during the day Friday, but that’s roughly $20 million more than “Black Panther,” which opened strong and stayed hot for six weeks.

That’s on a par with “The Last Jedi,” which did $45 (and that turned out to be a huge piece of its opening weekend take, a movie that tailed off basically after opening night), but far less than the biggest “Star Wars” Thursday night opening ever ($57 million).

That puts the film on track for a $200-210 million weekend.

Reviews haven’t been as strong for this non-Joss Whedon picture, but the hype is high even if the product is inferior. 

Word of mouth might help, or hurt.

Box Office Mojo figures “Infinity” might hit $230 million this weekend, with studio projections coming in at a more modest (ahem) $210 million. The weekend record still belongs to “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($248).

Box Office Guru is projecting the take at $235 for opening weekend.

It’s opening on over 4470 screens, THAT is close to a record. It will swallow whole multiplexes, chase “Black Panther” off many of its remaining screens (and “Tomb Raider,” etc.)

But remember, “Age of Ultron,” the last “Avengers” movie, opened lower than the first. So hype may lift this one to the stratosphere, and while nobody is guessing this beast will under-perform “Ultron” ($191), that bit of analysis is out there. Sequels used to traditionally underperform their antecedents.

In any event, I am guessing this one will shoot its wad by Sat., and be dramatically off next weekend. A “Last Jedi” sized fall-off.

Jessica Chastain, Michael Greyeyes, Ciaran Hinds and Oscar winner Sam Rockwell star in this A24 (shorthand for GOOD FILM) culture clash/fish-out-of-water story of a painter, Catherine Weldon, who ventured West to capture the last great chiefs of the plains before they were all gone. “Woman Walks Ahead” was directed by British TV mainstay Susanna White (“Bleak House”) and opens June 29.

There’s an eye-opening line in “Avengers: Infinity War” in which a character is asked who his “Master” is, and he cracks something about “You expecting me to say ‘Jesus?'” or some such.

Cannot find the exact quote in my notes, but it gets a laugh.

Which makes the film’s other tidbit of Christian theology — Thor, Loki, Thanos, remember, are gods or what passes for them in comic books and comic book movies — seem like more than a coincidence.

Once you’ve seen the film and its use of this cool and apparently easily acquired effect, tell me Kirk Cameron & his “Left Behind” cohorts wouldn’t have GoFundMe approached every superchurch, from Hillsong on down the line, to pay for its use.

So, are we watching a comic book spin on The Rapture in “Infinity War”?

Looks good. Casting a top flight actor can help. Not a guy known for his light touch, but “Venom” won’t require much of that. This is the first teaser to the October release, co-starring Oscar winner Michelle Williams. Ruben Fleischer of “Zombieland” directed it, so that’s promising.

Ordinary rules of drama don’t apply in the Marvel Universe, so expecting “Avengers: Infinity War” to build suspense, reach a climax and deliver some sort of conclusion is just…unreasonable.

There is no closure with this Neverending Story, because if Disney wasn’t going to let “Toy Story” or “Pirates of the Caribbean” slip free of the death grip the accountants have on them, what hope did Marvel’s ever-expanding comic book cast of costumed cocks-of-the-walk have? So story arc is dispensed with for a colorful collection of action beats, sentimental fan-favorite moments and other Easter Eggs for the faithful.

“Infinity War” is a generally joyless mash up of “Avengers” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” where much of the fun–what little there is — is in “Name that Movie Antecedent.” A little “Lord of the Rings” here, a dollop of “Star Wars” there — self-sacrifice, romance, more self-sacrifice, more “Lord of the Rings” borrowings, etc.

Directed without a whit of style by two place-holder directors — Joe and Anthony Russo — of the “Harry Potter and We Can Save a Bundle by Just Letting This David Yates Hack Make the Trains Run on Time” variety, “Infinity” has moments of warmth, witty lines here and there, one very special effect (and one cringingly bad one), some passable performances amid several career-lows among the stellar cast.

It is, as its title promises, merely the latest set-up for the NEXT installment in this slam-bang superhero soap opera. Going on into infinity.

But I was moved by the parade of actors passing before mine eyes in the two hours and thirty-five sometimes dull and repetitive minutes, and the passage of time. Greying Robert Downey Jr., burning off the flower of youth and the comeback from unemployable drug-addicted hell to be sentenced to endless Iron Man iterations, Mark Ruffalo, making us forget how dazzled we were at the idea of an empathetic actor taking on The Incredible Hulk (this is Ruffalo’s worst performance ever), the novelty of seeing two Sherlock Holmes (Downey and Benedict Cumberbatch) slinging cutting one-liners at each other as Spoiled Arms Merchant Tony Stark and his new BFF, the mesmerizing Doctor Strange.

Downey is still delivering fair value here, but Cumberbatch is at a loss, playing a fifth banana in a movie that demands too little of him.

Then Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany have a touching moment, as Scarlet Witch and the computer entity come to life, “Vision,” and you remember why Marvel insisted on hiring very good actors for these things. Zoe Saldana takes her stab at pathos and Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow takes Downey’s Tony Stark down a notch or two.

That’s when the great Chadwick Boseman reprises his Black Panther turn, and you wish this crowd was watching his Thurgood Marshall, James Brown or Jackie Robinson. The accent, the feeble commitment to being a bit player here make this his weakest performance as well.

Am I sitting on the fence on this one, after giving “Black Panther” the formulaic benefit of the doubt with a nod to its cultural significance? Hell no.

Like far too many of these films, “Infinity'” isn’t really “about” anything — unless you think the villain’s thoughtful consideration of universal eugenics “deep.”

Thor and his people take a bloody beat-down from universal nemesis (a Greek Titan, in essence) Thanos and his minions. Thanos is a digital giant Josh Brolin with metallic gauntlet and a huge, scrotum-wrinkled chin which one and all comment on. His minions?

“Hear ye and rejoice! You are about to die at the hands of Thanos!”

The Avengers, “Earth’s mightiest heroes.” — “Like Kevin Bacon?” “NO.” — have met their match.

Team Titan is too much for mere Avengers to handle. “We’re gonna need help” is what the over-matched heroes in movies like this have always said. Thus, The Guardians show up. Thus, Thor needs a hand getting a fresh hammer.

Maybe put in a call to Wakanda. Make Captain America Great Again. Etc.

The kid playing Spider-Man (Tom Holland) grows on you, the Star Lord (Chris Pratt) is fast wearing out his welcome. Rocket the Racoon, whom Thor keeps calling “Rabbit,” has run out of things to do or say.

But everybody gets their one-liners, most get their Big Scene. Most, but not all.

As such scenes have to come in the middle of fights, that means the Ladies of Marvel (Scarlett J., Elizabeth O., Danai Gurira (Wakanda’s Finest) and Saldana) get their due in mid brawl.

There’s something at stake here. Characters die.

The funny people are as funny as usual — Dave Bautista has a boy crush on Thor — “It’s like a Pirate had a baby with…an Angel!”

Pom Klementieff, the pale wide-eyed mentalist Mantis, is a delight.

You forget Brolin’s stuck in a stolid, hulking digitally-rendered giant version of himself, that’s how subtle his voice-acting is. But you forget what it was you loved about Ruffalo’s take on The Hulk as well.

I’ve taken to comparing these pictures to Bollywood movies, where excess is best and giving people what they want isn’t enough, giving them MORE of what they want is how you fill two and a half hours of screen time.

“Infinity War” is all that, and then some, from its grim open to an end that isn’t so much a  climax as a “petering out.” Call it “Marvel’s ‘Empire Strikes Back’ if you want. I don’t see it. The script spoils the big “sacrifice” moments by encoring them, the “story” is more snatches of this and that — flashbacks, set-piece brawls or what have you.

It’s “Lord of the Rings,” with crystals instead of rings, metal-working dwarves and pop culture references — “Remember that old, old movie, ‘Aliens’?” and “Rubber Band Man” — aimed at a certain audience to get a certain response — mainly high-fives from those who figure they “get” the joke.

And it’s not about anything, except setting up the next box office bonanza.

Maybe “Deadpool 2” will be better.

(Is “Infinity War” mimicking The Rapture?”)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, language and some crude references.

Cast: Josh Brolin, Robert Downey Jr., Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Dave Bautista, Tom Hiddleston, Mark Ruffalo, Benedict Cumberbatch

Credits:Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, script by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely . A Marvel release.

Running time: 2:35

Yeah, the title is kind of nonsensical-agrammatical.

“Infinite War?” “Finite War?” No. I call “INFINITY WAR.”

The gang’s all here, and then some. The Marvels of Marvel, Avengers, Guardians, with Wakanda to the Wescue.

“Captain America” sequels directors Anthony and Joe Russo make the train run on time, two and half hours of “Give the people what they want,” the first of two Josh Brolin villain turns in Marvel movies (“Deadpool 2” anyone?).

So many characters to service, so much “help,” as in “We’re gonna need some help.” Let’s hope for a pleasant surprise, because this reeks of bloat, in the trailers, the credits, the direction this storyline has taken us into.

Fingers crossed.

The LA Riots burst around the principals of “Kings.” Franco-Turkish director Deniz Gamze Ergüven paints this signal event in modern American history in quick, impressionistic strokes. The camera jumps and jerks from vandalism and arson to an embattled LAPD, literally circling the wagons (sedans), trying to maintain control of his just piece of ground or that one.

The chaos is pulse-pounding and immediate, the images a combination of invented but recognizable violence with sketches of the real history mixed in around the edges. Want to know the pre-history of Black Lives Matter? It played out in South Central and on America’s TVs 26 years ago this month.

The movie she’s built around this maelstrom is melodramatic with the unmistakable stamp of reality, capturing a powder-keg of anger, resentment and racial tensions waiting to go off. “Kings” can be soppy and over-the-top, but it feels real, lived-in and self-destructively righteous — not unlike the riots themselves.

“Over-the-top” describes the anguish Oscar winner Halle Berry paints across her pained face for this film, and other recent thrillers (“Kidnap,””The Call”). Nobody does “manic” better.

She plays Millie Dunbar, a big-hearted over-committed woman who has filled her house with orphans. Millie can turn on the crazy eyes (another Berry specialty) when she needs them, intervening to save a kid she barely knows from arrest in another police “sweep” through her neighborhood, bringing him (Kalaan Walker) home to join her own and others she’s taken in — eight in all.

She scrambles through several side-hustles (baking Lemon Sprite bundt cakes) to keep home and hearth together.  It’s not enough. The kids fend for themselves, too often. There’s not enough to eat in the house and any new kids under their roof dilute her nurturing influence.

Her son Jesse (Lamar Johnson, good) has taken after her, “rescuing” cute but too-streetwise Niccole (Rachel Hilson, alternately sassy and scared stiff), a veteran shoplifter in a climate where Asian (Korean mostly) store owners have taken to brandishing firearms, and have recently killed one girl over a purloined bottle of orange juice.

Where are her parents? “They told me to get killed, but it hasn’t happened yet!”

Millie may start their days with a sweet wake-up kiss, but the house is a veritable scrum of kids, shouting and playing, bickering and not doing any of it quietly, leading to endless threats of “I’m calling Child Welfare” from the last white guy on the block (Daniel Craig), her irate neighbor.

The “white noise” in the movie comes from the omnipresent television sets, endless coverage of the city’s inequities, symbolized as the Rodney King arrest and video beat-down. When that all-white jury in suburbia acquitted the ill-tempered, brutish cops who bragged about what they’d done, all hell breaks loose.

Millie hysterically dashes in and out, trying to round up her brood, with some recruited onto the streets, younger ones watching the riots as a bit of TV unreality — “Did we miss the fun?” — and wanting to wander off and see the spectacle for themselves.

It’s loopy. It’s just nuts. And yet, that happened — a lot. You probably have to experience a hand-scrawled sign blocking this boulevard or that side street in person to believe it.

“Turn left or get shot.”

It’s not as relentless or fact-based as “Detroit,” with Craig’s hardass providing lighter touches. He may hate their noise, but push comes to shove, people will bend over backwards to shelter kids, or so we want to believe. Even the Only White Guy on the Block has some James Brown LPs to keep them amused.

“Say it loud!”

“Kings” got crucified by group-think at the Toronto Film Festival, and some of the abuse is understandable. It’s chaotic, mashed together, the sketching in can feel like surface gloss. The melodrama, like Berry, is entirely too much at times. You have to hand it to her, though. She does fraught with fear with a bracing gusto.

But the sprawl of it, the seeming disorganization, all work to its advantage and betray “Kings'”  ambition.  Ergüven wasn’t going for documentary, she was aiming for an impressionistic “feel” — terror, outrage, helplessness, a city and a system that aren’t built for you, even when you’re hurt, even when you’re in trouble.

Especially when you’re in trouble.

MPAA Rating: R for violence, sexual content/nudity, and language throughout.

Cast: Halle Berry, Daniel Craig, Lamar Johnson, Rachel Hilson

Credits: Written and directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven. An Orchard release.

Running time: 1:32