Movie Nation

“My Dead Boyfriend” forces us, once again, to consider the strange case of Heather Graham.

Perpetually perky, she’s a leggy former child star whose credits range from “Twin Peaks” and “Growing Pains” to “Drugstore Cowboys” and Boogie Nights,” “Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer” to many a sad hooker turn in films like “The Hangover”

She’s never quite broken through, and now, at 46, she’s playing a New York “type” whose personality traits and life achievements suggest the character is about half her age.

Narrator/heroine “Mary” has never come close to getting it together. She’s been in bands, she’s had dead-end jobs. And she’s been living with this “poet,” Primo (John Corbett, many miles past “Northern Exposure,””My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “Sex and the City”). And she’s come home after getting fired from her latest job to find him dead, splayed out in front of the TV.

She jokes with the cops who come to investigate about how he “caught me on the rebound,” and was more of a “temp boyfriend like I was between gigs.”

Primo’s pushy and aged mother (Viola Harris) insists on his cremation and insists Mary dispose of the ashes. Her similarly hapless BFF Zoe (Katherine Moenig) has no solutions, and this creepy childhood “neighbor” (Griffin Dunne) who keeps showing up have no suggestions about how to handle all this.

So Mary digs into Primo’s past, visiting strip clubs, drag bars, tracking down some greater love of his life to give the ashes to. One former lover, the French art dealer Helene (Gina Gershon, having a laugh) has the most clues.

“How deed he die?”

“Had a bad heart.”

“Zas ees true.”

Primo was a faithless lover, a painter, a choreographer, maybe even a filmmaker. And as Mary digs and digs, she finds herself hurled into the band of one ex (Martha Millan, abrasively amusing) and totally thrown by this lazy lout whose death starts to feel more life another piece of performance art in a life spent dabbling and posing in the arts.

Andre Ward stands out as a drag queen with lots of answers and a vampy, cliched stage age — “If I could love…I would love you ALL.”

A laugh pops up, here and there, as surprised to be in the movie as we are to find it there. Mostly, though, one is struck by all these actors having a lark, playing versions of the sorts of roles they would have/should have played 20 years ago in an story that’s inexplicably a 1999 period piece.

And Graham? Still wearing the short shorts, the shorter skirts, the knee socks and the wider than wide eyes. She and “My Dead Boyfriend” aren’t exactly bad, they’re just out of place and out of time.

But at least she’s not playing another hooker.

MPAA Rating:R for language and sexual content

Cast: Heather Graham, Katherine Moennig, John Corbett, Scott Michael Foster, Martha Millan, Griffin Dunne, Gina Gershon

Credits:Directed by Anthony Edwards, script by Billy Morrissette, based on a novel by Arthur Nersesian. A Momentum– release.

Running time:1:27

The Brits and their leading acolytes, the Anglophiles of American public broadcasting, must be at their wits’ end, hunting up the next droll, costume-bedecked Brit dramedy of sex, class, wit and houses big enough to have names. But the next “Downton Abbey” might be in the non-fictional life of the author of one of the greatest earlier TV serials to cross from Brit TV to PBS — Evelyn Waugh, author of “Brideshead Revisited.”

Philip Eade’s new Waugh biography “A Life Revisited” is maddeningly cavalier with dates, and overly reliant on one having read the earlier Waugh biographies (and incomplete autobiography), too snooty to do a decent job of recapping the works that made Waugh famous, just concerned with the road to fame, and the infamy that followed.

He may not have been, as his son insisted, “the funniest man” of the 20th century. But Waugh came close, a middle class snob who idolized and ridiculed the Noel Coward classes like no one before or since. He was P.G. Wodehouse with a literary mien, a cultural observer/satirist who introduced all sorts of upper class “Upstairs/Downstairs” cliches into the zeitgeist, mainly the foibles of those who lived “upstairs.”

The son of an editor, a man to whom many a volume of lit from the early 20th century was dedicated, brother of a published author, descended from other writers, he took to “the family business” like no other, and produced “Scoop,” “The Loved One,” “Brideshead Revisited” and other classics of the ’30s-50s.

Eade recaptures the child’s annoyance at his theatrical father, his social striving, his boy buggering boys’ school boy school days (come to full flower in college). An academic under-achiever, Waugh built his novels on the sons of lords and dames and all the nonsensicals of British nobility. He observed, changed the names, and skewered one and all in books that made many a future House of Lords lout blush.

Waugh served in World War II rather the way “gentlemen” (like his love/hate pal, Randolph Churchill, Winston’s son) did, with posh appointments to elite units, leadership imposed by class, danger faced (on just a couple of occasions) with a stiff upper lip.

He married, divorced, converted to Catholicism, remarried, pursued women single and married, cozied up to a ditzy Pope to get an annulment, and fathered children like they were going out of style.He comes off as superstitious, a Catholic apologist who thought nothing of upbraiding peers who had the temerity to be atheists, and a loyal friend to the likes of Graham Greene and Ian Fleming, or at least his wife.

He was not quite a bounder, but a lousy parent, a mean and frequent drunk and part of a tiny elite that seemed to watch out for each other as they surfed the waves of war, woe and post-war “welfarism.”

And at every step of the way, the man was quotable.

“Of children as of procreation— the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable.”

“Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.”

“There is a great deal to be said for the Arts. For one thing they offer the only career in which commercial failure is not necessarily discreditable.”

“Anyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums who find prison so soul-destroying.”

“He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.”

“O God, make me good, but not yet.”

“His strongest tastes were negative. He abhorred plastics, Picasso, sunbathing and jazz — everything in fact that had happened in his own lifetime.”

He’d make the great subject for a serial autobiography, weaving in and out of the history of WWI boys’ schools to fascist sympathizer/bigot/anti-Semite to WWII “hero” to Great Man of British Letters. I envision a “Man Who Came to Dinner” take, with say Eddie Marsan or David Wenham — nobody too pretty, mind you. None of this McAvoy or Garfield casting. Maybe Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne or Ben Whishaw.

Skewering, flirting, shocking and mocking. Waugh is a natural for a mini series. All his life experiences leading up to his “masterpiece,” “Brideshead,” which captures class, Catholicism, homo/bisexuality and WWII officer corps heroics in one tale.

What say you, PBS?

Reviews for both the second Jack Reacher movie and the first Tyler Perry “Madea” movie in three years aren’t giving them a boost.

But with Tom Cruise teetering on the brink of irrelevance — action stars lose their audience after 50, unless they’re named Eastwood — every misstep is a threat to his status as someone who can open a picture and his high-priced quote. I figured this potential franchise-killing “Reacher” bust might be it.

But by midnight Sunday, he’ll have pulled in maybe $25 million or so for Paramount. Novelist Lee Child fans were irate when Cruise got the gig (Reacher is described as being Liam Neeson-sized in Child’s books). Their fears seemed exaggerated, but this movie is a formulaic compromise, start to finish. It’ll probably earn under $50 in the US, when all is said and done.

Tyler Perry and his most famous creation were seriously overexposed by 2010. But a few years’ absence and some funny TV ads had fans hoping he’d deliver the goods with “A Madea Halloween.” We all went to check it out Thursday and Friday, and the film should clear $23 million by Sunday night. But his cheapness and credit hogging and the fact he’s simply run out of jokes for her work against the film, and his movies always have the steepest drop off the second weekend.  Figure he might clear $40 or so with this one by the end of its run.

The best-reviewed (perhaps a tad over-rated) film of the weekend is the “Ouija” prequel, which turns a pretty good cast loose on a back-engineered tale of how spiritual investigator Paulina Zander (Lin Shaye in the original film) was first exposed to the supernatural. It’s underwhelming the box office. Anybody who’s seen the trailers has seen the movie. A bit over $12 million for it on opening weekend.

“Keeping up With the Joneses” is proof that Zach Galifianakis can’t open a movie, Jon Hamm and Isla Fisher aren’t a help and the new Wonder Woman Gal Gadot isn’t yet box office. A poorly reviewed comic thriller, following the “Masterminds” debacle (also starring Zach, alas) it is bombing — $6 million this weekend.

Kevin Hart’s concert film days may be over as “What Now” is dying off faster than the honeybees. “Girl on the Train” is holding strong, “The Accountant” is headed to a $65-75 million or so take, all-in. “Deep Water Horizon” will clear $65 by next weekend.

Oh Madea, how we’ve missed you.

No. Seriously. Unless you are into getting your fixes direct-to-video, Tyler Perry’s alter-ego has been MIA from movie screens for three years.

And “Boo! A Madea Halloween” (Haller-ween?) has TV commercials that make you long for the big-boned gal’s heydays. Maybe a Halloween movie, a Madea “Scary Movie” with all sorts of slapstick, effects and big scary sight gags could breathe a little life into dude in a dress.

“You know black people scared of everything,” as Madea herself declares.

But the same problems curse “Boo!” as the last half-dozen Madea movies. Perry tries to get by without effects, without sight gags. It’s a comedy of words — rants, profane tirades, riffs. And Perry is running short on those. Funny ones, anyway.

He writes long, windy spiels and wordy old folks roundtables ranting about “kids today” and “back when I was strippin'” and the joys of medical marijuana — “I got me a PRESCRIPTION!” He works in his homilies about raising kids, the N-word, corporal punishment and avoiding religion while invoking “Jesus” in any situation of stress. “Boo!” is a “spare the rod, spoil the teen” life lesson from He who has Raised No kids.

Perry strains to put Madea into a college comedy about randy teens trying to get in trouble at a frat party on Halloween night, a cumbersome plot device that adds 40 clumsy minutes to the running time, and zero laughs.

In short, there is no truth in advertising. The only laughs are in the trailer. And Madea and her Crew get them.

Perry plays Brian, father of flirty-tarty teen Tiffany (Diamond White), who longs to run with Bella Thorne’s cut-off top/short skirt crowd at Catholic school. They’re all invited to an Atlanta frat party Halloween night. Brian summons his dad (Perry, as “Joe”), and his Aunt Madea, Madea’s pal Bam (Cassi White) and Joe’s crazy gal Hattie (Patrice Lovely) to babysit and keep the teens out of trouble.

And thank God he does, because they only show up 12 minutes in, and proceed to regale us with scenes about pot, accounts of their various surgeries and “kids these days.” Madea dominates the talk, goosing the conversation forward with “Go the hell on” and “Show some apolegection!” and”Little love tap never hurt nobody.”

Scary clowns are dominating the trick or treating, though the odd kid dolled up as a cow shows up.

“Got that kid dressed like chocolate milk in a box. He needs to be trick-or-treating for a damn treadmill!”

Misbehaving teens sneak out, Madea gets manhandled trying to rescue them, then mad, then scared, then MADDER. And frat boy pranks are played.

The group scenes with the bug-eyed White and racially ambiguous Lovely are loud and riotous. And everything that ties them together is cut-rate and in need of editing/workshopping/rewrites. Perry’s lack of effort in writing the scenes he isn’t in has become more obvious with each Madea movie.

All those years with Madea not on the big screen haven’t changed Atlanta’s mogul’s business model. He’s still doing everything cut-rate, still not sharing credit or spending money on joke writers. Sad thing, because the big guy with the cross-dressing fetish is fresh out of jokes. Madea is damn near played out.

Wish it wasn’t so, as I still find the character brash and cranky fun. But until Perry parts with a nickel and brings in funny people to goose his ideas into something wittier, Madea isn’t MIA, she’s DOA.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for drug use and references, suggestive content, language, some horror images and thematic material

Cast: Tyler Perry, Cassi White, Patrice Lovely, Diamond White, Bella Thorne

Credits:Written and directed by Tyler Perry. A Lionsgate release.

Running time: 1:43

The only reason the X-Men franchise was never less than half-interesting was Hugh Jackman’s iconic — yes, that’s the right word — portrayal of Wolverine. From the very first X-Men film, he was the magnetic center, a very good actor turning a comic book character into flesh and bone and metal talons. Impossible to think of anybody else in that part, now.

I’ve enjoyed the iterations of Magneto and Xavier through the franchise films and its prequels, but Wolverine is still the draw. And letting him age out of the part is gutsy and inspired. They never let James Bond get old, world-weary and grizzled. Same with “The Terminator,” for that matter.

Wolverine deserves better. Fox is sending him off, it would appear, with some class. “Logan,” the furry one’s real name, opens March 3.

“Max Steel” isn’t the utter abortion that it’s terrible Metacritic/Rottentomatoes ratings suggests it must be.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for some sci-fi action violence

Cast: Ben Winchell, Maria Bello, Andy Garcia, Ana Villafane, the voice of Josh Brener
Credits: Directed by Stewart Hendler, script by Christopher Yost. An Open Road release.

Running time:

Vigorous, violent, and would you believe…cute?

With “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back,” Tom Cruise & Co. take the popular Lee Child character and franchise and stick a gun in its mouth.

Cruise and his “thirtysomething” co-conspirators — a cheap shot, but hey, “Glory” and “Defiance” take a back seat in director Edward Zwick’s ouevre when he’s working on the script with longtime partner Marshall Herskovitz — take a lean, stoic man of action and have him bickering with a soldier (Cobie Smulders) he’s trying to rescue over who should take care of this annoying teen (Danika Yarosh).

Seriously. And sorry, teens. You’re all kind of annoying…in the movies.

Reacher (Cruise, who produced this as well) is headed to D.C., a drifter living, we assume, off his Army pension. He wants to meet this officer in the military police/Judge Advocates General department who’s helped him and who sounds sexy on the phone (Smulders).

But there are contractors out to kill her, and it turns out, him. They know about some girl (Yaroush) who claims to be his daughter. And they aren’t fooling around. They dress in black, the hit-man’s choice (Patrick Heusinger is “The Hunter”) and stalk Reacher in black SUVs , purchased wherever black suits and machine guns with silencers are sold.

And they frame Reacher for every death that happens during their pursuit. He has to tease out who is behind this, what they want and what their monetary angle, and figure out a way to get this movie to New Orleans.

Where production incentives make setting your story during Mardi Gras worth your while.

This isn’t the most interesting character Cruise has ever played, just a tougher Clint Eastwood-quiet brute who broods, tells bad guys which limbs he’s going to break and makes a show out of not being addressed by his former rank — Major.

It’s “EX-major.” Or “Just Reacher, I’m a civilian now.”

The Army and all its contractor scandals and those who would kill to cover them up keep pulling him back. And in that milieu, we get to hear how “You’re a LEGEND around here” and “they ran outta medals” when it comes to Reacher.

The movie starts with a brawl we don’t see, progresses to epic fights with bad guys (apparently) reluctant to draw their guns, and shootouts. Cruise’s ageing Reacher punches through car windows, drops legions of bad guys and ambles toward a final showdown.

And they drag along this kid the bad guys might want to hurt because she might be connected to Reacher, allowing Cruise to play a guy who has no idea how to parent. And he bickers, without irony, wit or sarcasm, with Major Turner (Smulders) over who should stay in the hotel and watch the kid. Because, you know, women, even Army badasses, must have maternal instincts, right?

We figure out what’s going on long before Reacher, and whatever cool value there is in the rough justice of Reacher’s beat-downs or the logistics of living off the grid, on the lam, stealing mini-vans and cell-phones, evaporates with every idiotic thing the sassy, brassy teen says or (predictably) does.

When it works, it works. But if this character and this franchise are to survive, “Never Go Back” needs to be a promise Reacher makes — about ever playing a parent again.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of violence and action, some bloody images, language and thematic elements)

Cast:Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger

Credits:Directed by Edward Zwick, script by Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz, Richard Wenk. A Paramount release.

Running time: 1:58

The first teaser for the GOTG sequel (“Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2”) is nostalgic — for the first film and its judicious use of Blue Swede and “Hooked on a Feeling.”

They’re not giving us much, which is no real warning sign. But the first film was both unexpected and breathlessly anticipated. The second won’t have the element of surprise going for it. We’ve seen Mr. Pratt’s shtick, know Bradley Cooper’s raccoon voice and appreciate Zoe “Never Met a Franchise I Won’t Do” Saldana’s badass presence. Michael Rooker at his funniest. But Dave Bautista can’t be the sleeper but once.

It’ll make a mint. Will it be any good?

But Sly? Kurt Russell? Nathan Fillion? Let’s just say we’re intrugued, and withholding high hopes. Effects didn’t sell it, story didn’t either. Comedy and chemistry did.

“Ouija: Origin of Evil” makes you appreciate the fine art of cutting a movie trailer.

You’ve got to show us enough to want to buy a ticket, but you don’t want to spoil all your surprises and effects.

This is a movie that gives away most of its secrets in its trailers, and somewhat ruins its impact by spending much of its third act over-explaining how this “House of Evil Where Playing with a Ouija Board Can Get You Killed” came to be.

But this amusing and occasionally hair-raising thriller still delivers the chills and giggles, and joins the growing honor roll of a new Hollywood Golden Age of Horror. Read through the credits of films from “Insidious” to “The Visitor,” “The Conjuring” to the “Amityville Horror” revivals. There’s a lot of overlap in producers and house styles.

They’re hiring good actors and turning them loose on scary movies. And good actors know how to register shock and awe, and how.

“Origin of Evil” is a “Ouija” prequel, an improvement on the original film — which had kids playing with a dusty old Ouija board game, breaking its rules, and paying a deadly price.

Those rules again? “Never play alone. Never play in a graveyard.” And “always say good-bye” to the spirits you’ve contacted.

In 1967, Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser) makes her living as a spiritualist, someone who will contact the dead in order to help the living. “We help people,” she explains to her daughters, who assist her in the various con-job effects (doors opening, candles blowing out, etc.). “We heal their hearts.”

But when rebellious teen Lina (Paulina, for those inclined to do character research) plays a new board game with her pals, Mom picks up a Ouija (by Hasbro!) and figures to add it to their afterlife services menu. Lina (Annalise Basso) isn’t keen on it. Little Doris (Lulu Wilson) starts hearing voices and acting strangely.

Adding to the milieu is the fact that Alice is recently widowed, that the kids miss and long to talk to their daddy (Doris prays to him). Alice is broke and about to lose their spooky old house.

And the girls are in Catholic school, where helpful Father Tom (Henry “E.T.” Thomas) is worried about their grades and their spiritual well-being, but open-minded enough to wonder if they’re messing with things they cannot control or fathom.

Reaser (“The Twilight Saga,” “Sweet Land”) is impressively wide-eyed when her daughter turns out to be capable of actually doing what she herself has always faked. Thomas, in his best role in decades, makes Father Tom as interesting as the script allows. Watch the way he tries to roll-back Lina’s raging 15 year-old hormones with relation to the handsome and attentive Mikey (Parker Mack).

“Boys his age require discouragement. Makes them better men, in the long run.”

The rising threat from the game, the too-obvious black-spandex clad spooks Doris sees and the climax play according to formula. The finale is drawn-out anti-climactic And as I’ve mentioned, we’ve seen most of the effects in the trailers.

But director Mike Flanagan, who did the haunted mirror thriller “Oculus,” makes great use of deep-focus close-ups, playing up the scariness of the youngest child.

And Reaser, Thomas, Basso and especially the demonically playful Miss Wilson play the Mike Flanagan, Jeff Howard script like a fiddle. They make “Ouija” stand out among the generations of Ouija-board using horror pictures — the first might have been “The Uninvited,” in 1944 — a spooky thriller that, like its characters, only gets into trouble when it breaks the rules. 

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for disturbing images, terror and thematic elements

Cast:Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso, Henry Thomas, Lulu Wilson, Parker Mack

Credits:Directed by Mike Flanagan, script by Mike Flanagan, Jeff Howard. A Universal release.

Running time: 1:39

You have to appreciate the high-mindedness of “Priceless,” a faith-based drama in which a “transporter” makes it his business to free Mexican women he’s unknowingly delivered into the Southwestern U.S. sex trade.

But other good intentions — director Ben Smallbone crafting a “star vehicle” for his hunky Nashville singer brother Joel — tend to trip this sluggish melodrama up.

Joel Smallbone stars as James, just a guy with anger issues driving a third hand box truck through the desert southwest. He used to be married, now he’s widowed. The truck used to be a U-Haul, now it’s got faded “party time” stickers, sort of hiding what he’s got inside.

He doesn’t know what his cargo is, doesn’t question the folks who give him fat wads of cash to do the driving, until he runs off the road and hears whimpering from the back. He breaks the lock, and voila — two young Mexican sisters appear (Bianca A. Santos, Amber Midthunder).

The film’s most honest moment has James slam the door shut, as if he doesn’t want to see what he’s a party to. He changes his mind, helps them clean up, even buys them fresh dresses. The film’s most dishonest moment comes at the point of delivery, when the recipient (Jim Parrack) shows up with a van full of women, and two roses for the girls.

James acts shocked. He’s not living up to his favorite tattoo — “Let all you do be done in love.” This is about sex, not love.

And he’s the only person on Earth who hasn’t figured out exactly what these two young women have been smuggled into the U.S. to do.

Veteran character actor David Koechner plays a blunt but sympathetic hotel manager who provides James with a motorcycle, then a car, to track down the smuggling ring. And he lays down the film’s faith-based message.

“The flames of tragedy can refine you.”

But Smallbone the director makes sure Smallbone the star gets the star treatment here. The most beautifully coiffed truck driver in North America frets with his forelock in most every shot. First thing he does after crashing his truck? Flip his perfectly trimmed hairdo out of his eyes.

James narrates, blankly, and acts as if there’s no real rush in saving these two “unspoiled” immigrants from their sex trade fates. Smallbone should be leaning into the frame, guiltily rushing hither and yon to “undo what I’ve done, somehow.”

Instead, he just comes off as a vain first-time leading man. The film just drags, content to stare longingly at Smallbone’s chiseled good looks and perfectly-trimmed stubble. The character arc, from “non-believer” to righteous man receiving his first “God shot,” is blase.

Koechner, consigned to comic jerk roles decades ago, may have relished his rare shot at a dramatic role. But there’s not a lot to the character, just motorcycles, a hat and other conveniences that will aid James in his quest.

“Priceless” isn’t a particularly dislikable film, just an exhausted one — a couple of scenes have sardonic bite, the final confrontation is staged with some thought.

As for the Smallbones (Joel is in the band King & Country with another sibling, Luke) sometimes, having a relative behind the camera “looking out for you” is a help. But sometimes, they’re just enablers playing to your vanity.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving human trafficking, and some violence

Cast: Joel Smallbone, Bianca A. Santos, David Koechner, Jim Parrack

Credits:Directed by Ben Smallbone, script by Chris Dowling, Tyler Poelle. A Roadside Attractions release.

Running time: 1:37