Movie Nation

So here’s what we know about this one. Clint Eastwood, who had basically retired, finds a third act in his directing life with heartland America military true stories.

After “American Sniper,” he casts the real American heroes who stopped a terrorist attack in its tracks on “The 15:17 to Paris,” where U.S. soldiers on leave stopped an armed attacker from carrying out an attack on a French train.

It’s a Feb. movie. Not when Oscar contenders of potential blockbusters are released. “Ghost Rider,” sure. “Gnomeo & Juliet?” Why not?

And they’re not screening it widely. Florida has three NFL cities, two NBA cities, for instance. One showing in the entire state. Tampa.

Embargo? 9 am Thursday, 8-10 hours before the first showing.

Not exactly ringing votes of confidence. But we’ll see. Good story, good director, it could surprise. And reach an audience outside of its elderly Fox News target demo.

At least, that’s what this trailer suggests. A Summer “Die Hard” knockoff. With kids. And a hero with an artificial leg.

Major style points to the makers of “Dear Dictator” for finding, sixty-plus years and 150 or so credits into his career, something truly different for Sir Michael Caine to play.

A Castro-like Caribbean communist dictator? No, he doesn’t do a Latin accent. He’s a knight and two-time Oscar winner, one of the greatest film stars of all time. He doesn’t need to.

The movie? Well, if the filmmakers were as ballsy in scripting it as they were in asking Michael Caine to co-star in it, they’d have had something.

“Dictator” is a daft comedy about a high school rebel, played with sullen, pouty relish by Odeya Rush, who becomes pen pals with a Latin American tyrant just to irk her classmates, annoy her bad-decisions-specialist single mom (Katie Holmes, OUT there) and alarm the hippy social studies teacher (Jason Biggs) who assigned it.

Tatiana (Rush, of “Lady Bird”) wears camouflage shirts and platform combat boots and a bad attitude every day of her sophomore year in high school. She disapproves of her ulfiltered “skank mom,” the “biggest slut in the game” of love. Mom’s a dental hygienist who submits to foot lickings by her married dentist boss (Seth Green).

At school, Tatiana is such an outcast she’s subject to the charms of handsome fundamentalist Benny (Jackson Beard), who tempts her with Bible tracts detailing the parameters and decor of Hell. Which is catnip to her.

And when that “correspond with somebody you see as a role model” social studies assignment come up, she’s got one more way to lash out. Anton Vincent, bearded dictator of a backward, poor island nation that his family has been repressing for generations, is just the ticket.

“I admire his style,” she sneers. “Dictators get such a bad rap.”

And Vincent? With U.S. backed rebels threatening his hold on his sanctioned and embargoed island, he’s just happy to get a nice note from the kid.

“Dear Tatitiana, Welcome to the Revolution!”

They swap notes of mutual admiration until the coup occurs. Anton, needing somewhere to lay low, slips into the U.S. and into their house, where he upends their lives.

Co-writer/directors Lisa Addario, Joe Syracuse (“Amateur Night”) set this up as a fish-out-of-water comedy, but don’t find nearly enough about American suburbia for Anton to be shocked about. Mowing the lawn, confused by the neighbors for “Jose the Yard Man?” 

What they strike gold with is in having the general/president for life school the kid in how to seize control of her school, upending the social order and cracking the mean girls who run it.

“How is it that the few always rule the many?” he asks. “Factions.” In high school, they’re called cliques.

“Take out the leaders,” he teaches. “Foment unrest. Assume authority.”

The high school “types” are both recognizable and believable. None of these “straight from the runway to a film role” supermodels in the making in this cast. The filmmakers, who have been in the business for decades, still manage some sharply observed high school slang. “Whale tails” and “Red Lobstering” somebody make their screen debuts.

The inept violence and poverty of the General’s rule at home is played for laughs, but not broadly enough. And his many over-the-top suggestions for changing Tatiana (and her mom’s) lives, the ruthlessness with which tyrants follow those three listed rules and cling to power afterwards, is a tad toothless.

That gives “Dear Dictator” the feel of a pulled-punch, a movie that could have gone to far more dangerous places than it does. Read that “Take out the leaders” instruction line again and see if there isn’t a bumbling orange-haired authoritarian it reminds you of.

Caine and his stunt double give fair value here, the diminutive Rush is a rising star and Holmes, sharing the screen with her “Batman Begins” co-star, hurls herself at this woman as if she’s auditioning for her cable TV comeback.

Because “Dear Dictator,” as funny as it is (in spots), just isn’t it.

MPAA Rating: unrated, comic executions, adult situations, profanity

Cast: Odeya Rush, Michael Caine, Katie Holmes. Jason Biggs.

Credits: Written and directed by  Lisa Addario, Joe Syracuse. A Cinedigm release.

Running time: 1:30

These back-engineered “Star Wars” movies seem to have more promise than whatever direction Disney is taking the main post-Skywalker storyline.

To me, at least.

Back engineering Harrison Ford? Trickier.

“Solo: A Star Wars Story” has an interesting cast, familiar action beats, the suggestion of a “pilot” gone “rogue.” Probably a lovable rogue.

Stole his last name from a popular 1960s spy show on TV.

If they REALLY want to do something novel with this sort of story, I’d build it around Lando Calrissian, as “When Han Met Lando” is a lot more interesting and unfamiliar even than when Han Met  Chewie. I see some of that here. But at least there’s a little hope built into this one.

Alden Ehrenreich as Han, Donald Glover as Lando, with Woody Harrelson and Emilia Clarke and Paul Bettany. And since Ron Howard is directing — a special appearance by Clint Howard.

Jon Kasdan, I am sure, “EARNED” the right to co-script this with his dad, screenwriter/director Lawrence Kasdan. No nepotism involved there.

May 25 is when it opens.

More dinosaurs, the hint of “science” creating a “new” species, even deadlier, more Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, more young folks in peril.

And Toby Jones. But no…Jeff…Goldblum.

No, Tom Cruise is not getting “too old for this s—.”

Alec Baldwin, Angela Bassett, Ving, Simon…yeah. Henry Cavill as a villain? I buy it.

When “Ishtar,” one of the most expensive comedies ever made and a flop, to boot, came out, Dustin Hoffman defended it by saying this.

“A baby doesn’t know how rich his parents are!”

How much a movie cost can hinder our enjoyment of it, but shouldn’t. And that cuts both ways. We celebrate “El Mariachi,” “Slacker,” “Tangerine” and “The Blair Witch Project” at least in part because well, heck, look what they did without any money.

“From Hollywood to Rose” is an occasionally amusing LA bus trip comedy that strains and strains to achieve “charming.” Stock characters with an occasional twist, a daft heroine who could pass for shopping cart lady crazy, it upends a couple of expectations and finds a couple of good laughs.

Ignore the back story that the filmmakers made this micro-budget movie in the home of the movies for less than $200,000 and the city bus-bound, stagey (lots of characters enter the story, do monologues, and exit) laugher wouldn’t warrant much more than a passing thought, or a “Let’s try this out” gander on Netflix.

I mean, aside from an implicit slap at Hollywood for throwing cash at plenty of comedies that cost 500 to 1,000 times more than this, most of which are no funnier, dwelling on its cost gets it graded on the curve. And the script, characters and players who perform it often aren’t up to snuff.

  Eve Annenberg (“Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish”) is our unnamed heroine, stumbling to a Hollywood Blvd. bus stop in the middle of the night in a cheap wedding dress, cats-eye glasses and a lot of makeup that’s run down her face thanks to tears. During a night-long odyssey, she flees that part of town for another, making her way home or wherever else her not-thinking-straight impulses send her.

At first she doesn’t speak, and even after she starts blabbing, she’s mainly reacting to those she meets, an improbably odd cross-section of Late Night La La Land. The loud, indiscreet coed chattering and over-sharing on her cell phone, the businessman (or so dressed) out for a middle-of-the-night commute, the tattooed, muscle-bound biker, the mouthy, rude Chinese woman who gets her back up when her pidgin English gives her away as an immigrant (Chia Chen), bickering drag queens and two chivalrous nerds (Bradley Herman, Maxx Maulion), most of them start weirdly one-sided chats with her.

The polite ones try to avoid prying.

“Excuse me, miss. Did you ever see ‘The Graduate?'”

Yeah, she’s running away from her own wedding. Or could be. And opening her mouth and her purse (with a “fish” night light in it) suggests she’s touched in the head. Mostly though, the strangers sound her out by making a quick sketch of their own story, hopes, etc.

A woman her age over-shares about her own failed marriage, the muscle-bound biker comforts her choice of dresses and shockingly, knows the crinkly fabric tulle when he sees it. A strung-out bus driver launches into a monologue that sounds like something out of every bad “readers theater” performance you’ve ever heard.

“Y’know what I wanted to do when I was a kid?”

Our runaway bride’s sanity is reassured by the nerds, two bemused observers of the passing human comedy who bicker endlessly about “Batman” and “Blade Runner,” and their relative merits.

“First of all, you’re an IDIOT. Second, ‘Batman’s’ not a cartoon, he’s a SUPER hero!”

The bride knows “Blade Runner,” although her rambling recollection of her relationship to it does nothing to advocate her sanity. She knows Bruce Lee movies, too.

There’s a wildly improbable encounter or two with others from her wedding party, missed buses, eye rolls from some passengers, cringes from others and a stop-off for a food fight.

Through it all, the runaway bride’s makeup miraculously renews itself, the dress endures unspeakable indignities and you learn to appreciate the randomness of the public transportation set.

Like the “real” shopping cart homeless lady who knows where the only all-night yogurt place is, the nerds who know every all-night burrito stand in their corner of LA, and that flash-back suffering “tulle” expert, who looks like Dave Bautista and sounds like Sean Hayes .

Co-directors Liz Graham and Matt Jacobs (he wrote it, too) never let us fear for anybody’s safety, and never for one second let us doubt that the bride will change her mind about getting home to Culver City and instead go where any self-respecting Angelino would end her crosstown bus odyssey — to the beach.

I appreciated its randomness, the underlying sweetness, even if too many of the monologues were more grating than charming. And the novel setting, while it doesn’t show us as much of the city as we’ve never seen (I’ve ridden the bus along these routes a few times) on screen, does count for something.

But “From Hollywood to Rose” doesn’t amount to much more than maybe four good laughs, a few grins and a lot of eye-rolls. And how little it cost doesn’t figure into it.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with profanity.

Cast: Eve Annenberg, Bradley Herman, Maxx Maulion, Chia Chen

Credits: Directed by Liz Graham, Matt Jacobs, script by Matt Jacobs. An Indie Rights release.

Running Time: 1:24

Reporters tried to get Uma Thurman to talk about Harvey Weinstein and the whole Miramax Sexual Assaultworks last fall, when all this stuff came out.

But no. Ms. Thurman would not bite. The seething “No comment” didn’t mean she wouldn’t talk about her own experiences with Weinstein, to whom she owes the greatest successes of her career. It just meant that she’s Hollywood cagey first, victim second. As in, let’s wait and give myself the biggest boost I possibly can with a prestige column (by Maureen Dowd) in the New York Times.

Cynical, calculating? You bet. We’d expect no less.

Harvey assaulted her, she says. He wasn’t the first to do that, either.

And then there was what Quentin Tarantino did to her, folding her into a not-quite-road-worthy Karmann Ghia (vintage VW convertible) in “Kill Bill Vol. 2.” It went a little worse than the scenes where Tarantino choked her and spat on her (off-camera, part of the action of the film he reserved for himself, she avers).

The footage of the wreck of the Karmann Ghia has finally been released by QT (It’s linked on the Times column). Scary enough. The cars weren’t that safe when new. Long before Dieselgate, VW stood for “The Very Worst Place to be in an accident.” She says she has health/back issues related to that to this day. Suffering for her art, indeed.

When I got my ticket for “Winchester” Thursday night at the Regal Winter Park Village 20, long established as Orlando’s finest movie complex, I was hardly an audience of one. The film’s first showing played to about a one third house.

Horror fans like to catch their buzz before reviews or bad word of mouth convinces them not to.  “Winchester,” hidden from critics by CBS and Lionsgate, had neither.

  Then the reviews came out and we had our first universally pounded picture of 2018. Friday, it was figured the old fashioned and generally unscary haunted house tale would win an un-competitive Super Bowl weekend, hands down. But the reviews — mine was the first published — took root, took hold and smothered that abomination in the crib.

Deadline.com is now projecting “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” the long distance runner of this winter’s box office, to rise back about “Maze Runner,” surpass “Winchester” and slide back into the top spot — another $11 million for Universal’s remake.

“Winchester” didn’t do enough business Friday to ensure it will clear $10 million, or even $9. Maybe Saturday will change that.

“The Post” is doing quite well, closing in on $75 million, with “The Shape of Water” barely outrunning its biggest Oscar challenger, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” within the top ten. “Darkest Hour” is the only other Oscar contender to show much box office strength.  “Water” is fading, “I, Tonya” has yet to catch fire, nor has “Phantom Thread,” and “Call Me By Your Name” was still-born.

And none of them reached the tens of millions “Dunkirk,” the actual Best Picture of 2017, did.

If you want to get your romantic comedy in front of the camera, you need a hook, a conceit that will sell it. It takes an experienced filmmaker, and a brave one, to abandon a treasured conceit when it becomes obvious it’s not generating laughs. It’s just getting in the way.

Comic actress turned director Whitney Cummings got “The Female Brain” made thanks, one can guess, to this hook. She plays a neurologist “looking inside your head” doing research on the differences between the sexes that can be traced to chemical or physiological factors, a sort of evolutionary “Women are from Venus, Men from Mars.”

“Brain” is an ensemble comedy starring some usually funny people weighed down by that conceit, a gimmicky long-running series of narrated discussions of the chemical and neurological reasons for human behaviors, reactions, wants and desires — each little narrated lecture illustrated by clips of old educational films, stop-motion animation, nature films and graphics.

Dr. Julia (Cummings) can explain away the “chemistry” she avoids having with one test subject, Kevin (Toby Kebbell) with a “You’re having dopamine withdrawal,” which is a serious buzz kill for a guy who just wants her to “stop talking and let me be a cutie pie.”

Lisa and Steven, played by Sofia Vergara and Deon Cole, are a long-married couple having trouble re-igniting the passion in their marriage. Lisa, being a woman, picks up on this and frets about it endlessly. It’s biological.

Lucy Punch and James Marsden play live-in lovers always quarreling over her efforts to polish, groom and perfect his appearance and life.

And most amusing of all might be pairing up just-traded NBA star Blake Griffin with SNL’s adenoidal neurotic, Cecily Strong.  They play a couple having problems that further illustrate the good doctor’s thesis that there are scientific explanations for why some women struggle in business, for instance. Zoe (Strong) is in advertising surrounded by Neanderthals, and she can’t be heard because women “avoid conflict, seek consensus,” and that might have something to do with brain development driven by evolution.

Cummings, an engaging if not exactly warm comedienne, is reaching for an “I can have it all” sort of empowering post feminist comedy. But it feels retrograde in its self-admitted stereotypes. Julia declares “I’m a girl” and strips off her blouse as if to prove it, but “I refuse to be a puppet of my neurochemicals.” The guy who is out of her class (Kevin is an electrician) sizes her up without having to put her in her own MRI.

“For someone who studies women you sure seem to hate being one.”

Sparks fly in some of their banter, though. Griffin handles himself well as the comic straight man interacting with Strong and Will Sasso (as an obsese physical therapist), a “molly” moment with the make-this-marriage-fresh folks (Vergara and Cole) almost takes off, and poor Marsden and Punch never really click when paired up.

Cummings, working from a Louann Brizendine book, has rendered romance clinical and forgotten to drop more sugar water in the Petri dish. She was too busy clinging to that “explain the brain” conceit to notice. The movie’s just not that damned funny.

MPAA Rating: unrated, drug abuse, sexual situations, profanity

Cast: Whitney Cummings, Sofia Vergara, Deon Cole, Toby Kebell, Cecily Strong, Jane Seymour, James Marsden, Lucy Punch, Blake Griffin

Credits: Directed by Whitney Cummings, script by Neal Brennan, Louann Brizendine and Whitney Cummings, based on Louann Brizendine’s book. An IFC release.

Running time: 1:38