Movie Nation

Natalie Dormer escapes the sexpot ghetto the movies (“Rush”) and TV (“The Tudors”, “Game of Thrones”) tried to sentence her to with “The Forest,” a ghost story about twins — one lost, perhaps suicidal, the other hunting for her sibling.

“Forest” is what we call “a January horror movie,” promising only a couple of hair-raising moments. But Dormer acquits herself tolerably, and the Japanese setting doesn’t hurt.

That’s where Aokigahara Forest sits, at the base of Mount Fuji.  And that’s this movie’s $12 million (its opening weekend take) idea. There is a real forest so popular as a suicide destination that it world famous for it, and there is a semi-formal infrastructure to deal with it.

Three screenwriters and first-time feature director Jason Zada (he scripted “The Houses October Built”) play around with that when Sarah (Dormer) arrives there.They find jokes in the locals’ matter-of-fact treatment of suicide. A country whose population is shrinking and aging and remains determined to take the whales down the tubes with them? The resignation about suicide fits.

Sarah’s twin sister, an English teacher living in Japan, went missing in the forest. Everybody fears the worst. But Sarah has twinsense.

“She’s not dead,” she says. She’s sure of it.

But the forest is both a bucolic and a haunted place. It has rules. And even though Sarah has a guide (Yukiyoshi Ozawa) and a hunky travel writer (Taylor Kinney) with her on her search, she should follow those rules.

“Never leave the path.” Don’t go in “with sadness in your heart.” The forest messes with that sadness. Sarah breaks the rules.

Simple camera angles, a little makeup and hair dye and slightly altered accents make Dormer convincing as American twins. She plays the rising paranoia and moments of terror adequately, if not quite compellingly.

The best scenes are when Sarah is invited downstairs where a receptionist at the park office is sure they have her sister.

“What is this place?”

Dramatic pause.

“The basement.”

The body? It’s not Jess, the sister. Not to worry. There’s always tomorrow, the helpful Japanese lady says.

“Come back. More bodies.”

There isn’t much more to this than that — a couple of frights, a growing suspicion, and some dry jokes. Kudos to Dormer for getting a paid vacation to Japan, and not having to strip to play it.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for disturbing thematic content and images

Cast: Natalie Dormer, Taylor Kinney, Yukiyoshi Ozawa

Credits: Directed by Jason Zada, script by Nick Antosca , Sarah Cornwell and Ben Ketai. A Gramercy release.

Running time: 1:33

A Dreamworks animator from Hong Kong and a Taiwanese screenwriter teamed up for China’s biggest home-grown animation hit, “Monster Hunt.”

A monsters and martial arts mashup, it arrives on American shores as an animation/live action combo that loses something in translation — despite a heaping helping of Dreamworks touches — cute monsters and bodily function gags — and Chinese martial arts slapstick and wirework stunts.

In an ancient age, humans are at war with the monsters in their midst. And there’s infighting among the monsters themselves. A pregnant old queen slips her last egg to an unwitting peasant restaurateur Song Tianyin (Boran Ling). The monster-hunter second class Lily (Baihe Bai) becomes his protector,even as she tries to bag enough monsters in her own right to claim a promotion.

Opposing them is rival monster hunter Gao (Eric Tsang), who aims to claim the infant “king” monster as his own after the eggs hatches.

It’s a comedy of Shrek-like trolls, porcupines with helicopter-blades for hair and heaping hulks that menace one and all. The “good” monsters, capable of donning human disguises, could easily live in peace with people. If they weren’t so cunning and so fond of ordering “human liver” from shocked restaurant waiters.

There’s a goofy charm to some sequences, and Baihe Bai is a mean hand with a whip and no stranger to wirework “flying” kicks and the like. The brawls are just cute enough to pass for kid-friendly. The “humans and monsters can live in peace” is very “How to Train Your Dragon,” which is among director Raman Hui’s TV credits.

The animation? Nothing to write home about — sort of “Pixar 2.0” — not remotely state-of-the-art. And the inclusion of nonsense songs sung in “Monster language” add nothing.

There’s a grisly touch to several scenes that points to a culture clash, even when dubbed (it’s being shown in both English-dubbed and original Cantonese versions). Humans eat monsters, too, among other delicacies.

Why DO you suppose there are puppies for sale in the open air meat market scene?

Take it as a transitional comedy for kids about to outgrow “Kung Fu Panda” and keep your expectations low — very low — and you won’t mind it.

 
MPAA Rating: unrated, with violence, bodily function jokes

Cast: Baihe Bai, Boran Jing, Eric Tsang
Credits: Directed by Raman Hui, script by Alan Yuen. A FilmRise release.

Running time: 1:51

All you need for a good thriller are some striking settings and two very good actors debating, posturing and convincing us they want to kill each other.

“Mojave” reminds us that Garrett Hedlund is better than many of the movies (“Tron”) he’s been in, and that Oscar Isaac is a lot better than his first-ever hammy/bad turn, in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

Hedlund, in full Johnny Depp mode (greasy hair, scraggly beard) plays a film business heavyweight, a self-destructive actor who wants to “be like Byron.” Or something. He wanders off into the desert to find…himself? A reason to go on? A reason to kill himself?

Isaac, all smirk and glower and very bad teeth, is the drifter the actor encounters out beyond Joshua Tree. The drifter is armed, in a duster and cowboy hat. He could easily be mistaken for The Devil. That’s an opinion The Actor offers, out loud.

“Wanna sell your soul?” The Drifter jokes.

“Whattaya got?”

The Drifter is a philosopher, a literary wit, “John Stuart Mill level” smart. “I was tested!” His quips reveal that he’s almost as showbiz savvy as the actor.

“Jesus come out of…not this desert, another one,” he jokes again. But The Actor isn’t fooled by the charm. He’s got The Drifter’s gun, and he’s not giving it back.

“Desert’s no place to be cut,” our villain hisses, drawing a Bowie knife.

Their first fight leads to a shooting, a death, and then a stalking. The Actor escapes back to civilization, The Drifter tracks him through clues The Actor leaves — contacts (a hedonist hustler/producer, played by Mark Wahlberg, a sleazy agent-lawyer played by Walton Goggins).

As a screenwriter, few have worn their “go-to move” as plainly as this film’s writer/director, William Monahan. He’s a “cell-phone scripter,” whose “The Departed” and “Body of Lies” and “The Gambler” are so reliant on phone conversations that the plot device has become his crutch.

It’s a cost-effective trick. Write a lot of heated, colorful conversations — threats, negotiations — conducted by phone. Talk big-names into a minimum commitment role. They don’t even have to be there at the same time as the other stars. Build your movie around name actors having phone arguments.

That’s in evidence here. Wahlberg and Goggins are mostly in the movie via phones.

But the meat of “Mojave” is in the moments Hedlund and Isaac stare each other down, make veiled threats even as they’re thinking through how they can make good on those threats. They debate “the duality of Man,” the fluid nature of justice and “truth” and each one’s skill at avoiding both. Because in court, “truth” is “the fictional narrative that makes the most sense.”

The players and their flinty, smart dialogue make this lean movie the screen equivalent of bleached bones in the desert sand — bones with just enough meat on them to lure us in.

MPAA Rating: R for language and some violence

Cast: Garrett Hedlund, Oscar Isaac, Mark Wahlberg, Walton Goggins
Credits: Written and directed by William Monahan. An A24 elease.

Running time: 1:33

An old quote attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, I think, justified his thinking that “Gone With the Wind” would flop. “No movie about the Civil War ever made a dime.”

This coming summer, we’ll see if that still holds (as it has, mostly, for every film outside of “GWTW” and “Birth of a Nation.” “The Free State of Jones” has lower stakes, but could be that rare stumble in Matthew McConaughey’s post-“Lincoln Lawyer” career.

STX, a 2014 studio startup with multiple theater chain backing and “The Gift,” and the remake of “Secret in their Eyes” as their track record, got Gary “Seabiscuit” Ross to direct Matthew McConaughey in the second version of a small county in Mississippi’s revolt against the Confederacy in the middle of the Civil War. Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Keri Russell also star.

McConaughey plays Newton Knight, who led the revolt.

Van Heflin starred in a 1948 version of the story, based on a historical novel about Knight and the revolt — “Tap Roots.” The new one will emphasize the anti-slavery rebels vs. the cotton plantation owners’
“one percent” in open, armed conflict. The trailer to “Free State of Jones” popped up during NFL playoff games Saturday.

“The Revenant,” one of the best pictures of 2015, opens wide this weekend. Will it top “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” the world-beating blockbuster rehash that is decidedly NOT one of the best movies of 2015 on its opening weekend?

Sunday may be the most telling day.
Friday put “Revenant” on track to take in over $38 million dollars this weekend. Huge for a frontier tale, not a franchise, not a comic book adaptation, non-Western Western starring Leonard “And the Oscar goes to” DiCaprio.

When buzz on a picture is this good, we don’t have to call it hype. Great film. See it. And if you do, it could narrowly nudge the “glib facsimile” “Force Awakens” ($35-37 million) into second place.

“The Forest,” a widely-trashed January horror opening, will manage a passable $12 million opening weekend.

“Revenant” should pass Tarantino’s tepid Western “Hateful Eight” by midweek.

“Daddy’s Home” may be clobbering “Sisters,” but they’re both making bank. The holiday comedies sit at $115 (Will F. and Mark W.) and $73 (Amy and Tina).

“Big Short” is holding up, “Joy” is fading, “Concussion?” Nobody remembers it’s still playing.

There is nobility and purpose in work — any work. Giving any job your best is a worthy goal to carry through life.

And it’s always generous when an actor with a name lends some of that name-recognition to a filmmaker and film project with none.

But Jason Patric — Jason PATRIC? — co-starring in a limited budget/limited release horror picture? Man, what happened?

“The Abandoned” happened. To Jason Patric. He’s not even the star of it (co-star), but his presence classes up this tepid psychological/supernatural thriller, un unstable woman in a haunted house tale that begins with little promise and ends with even less.

Louisa Krause is Julia — “Just call me Streak.” She’s medicated. She’s in school. She’s got to keep this new night watch job if she wants to get her daughter back.

But the watching goes on in a baroque monstrosity of an unfinished condo complex. The interiors look like the lobby of assorted Gilded Age New York hotels, or maybe Grand Central Station. It was never occupied, and the real estate bust shuttered it.

The young-and-dainty Julia has to keep things secure, monitor the wall of video monitors and occasionally do a walk-through, wearing a camera/microphone headset. That’s so her partner can see where she is and communicate with her.

But the partner is a bitter, sarcastic and sadistic practical joker who keeps porn pasted on his desk and a bottle in his pocket.

“Games? I don’t play GAMES.”

Patric plays Cooper as short-tempered, smart and mean.

“What’s your story?” incites a calm, furious tirade about “community college girls” hired, briefly, for a job they’re ill-suited for. But “Streak” insists she’s made of sterner stuff.

“I like the night.”

That doesn’t explain the deep end she plunges from when Cooper shuts her up in a lightless elevator. Or the voices she hears there, and in every other spooky corner of this vast piece of prime real estate.

The script quickly abandons Cooper’s acrid edge, as he reveals his inner and outer pain, and tries to understand Julia’s. Something is going bump in the night. Something happened here, years before. Someone, and we’re not talking about the homeless guy (Mark Margolis) she let in, is shutting doors behind her and creeping her out.

The film gives up any sense of mystery about who or what is behind Julia’s experiences. She sees things in mirrors, and we see human (ish) creatures on the ceilings. Maybe it’s all in her head, but making Cooper more of a suspect would have helped spook this thing up.

The closed-circuit video gimmick is wasted, as is Patric, a long way removed from “In the Valley of Elah” and “Rush.”

The few scary situations are more a product of mood lighting than acting and editing, which is usually better applied to build tension.

“The Abandoned” leaves us in the lurch, wondering at the nonsensical ending exactly what we wondered at the beginning. Jason Patric — Jason PATRIC? Man, what happened?

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence

Cast: Louisa Krause, Jason Patric, Mark Margolis
Credits: Directed by Eytan Rockaway, script by Ido Fluk. An IFC Midngith release.

Running time: 1:26

A reliable formula for getting your indie drama made is to write a lot of small, chewy parts that several good actors will want to sink their teeth into.

Another part of the formula involves having access to those good actors. Which is why more than a few such films are made by actors themselves — the peer-to-peer approach.

So actor/director Tim Blake Nelson (“O Brother Where Art Thou,” “O”) had a couple of legs up getting his “Anesthesia” filmed and released to theaters. And good for him.

The movie, a multi-character melodramatic puzzle that resolves itself in convenient, soap opera fashion, is very much a mixed bag, as is the cast. But there’s just enough there — or almost just enough, anyway.

Sam Waterston plays a college philosophy professor on the verge of retirement. His every action is a bit of calculated “good.” His every sentence seems to quote Nietzche, St. Augustin, Shakespeare or Montaigne. So it’s troubling that we meet him and he is promptly stabbed.

New York, you see.

Corey Stoll and Mickey Summer are the couple who find him, bleeding, in the foyer of their apartment building. Kristen Stewart is the professor’s  “brilliant, but troubled…inscrutable” student. Tim Blake Nelson is the professor’s son, whose wife (Jessica Hecht) has just discovered she has cancer. Their kids (Hannah Marks and Ben Konigsberg) are bright but oblivious, diving into pot.

There’s also a well-read junkie (K. Todd Freeman) whose childhood friend, now a rich lawyer (Michael Kenneth Williams) is willing to hire “muscle” to get the guy into rehab.

And Gretchen Mol is a rich, bored housewife who feuds with other rich, bored housewives, wonders if her husband is really traveling for “business” and drinks too much wine as she’s wondering.

They’re all people suffering in various ways, failing to connect in various others. There are good lines and great scenes — a just-dating couple disagreeing over having children, teens stumbling and giggling into their first lovemaking experience, the spoiled suburbanite (Mol, along with Waterston the stand-out performer here) fuming about “our entitlements,” and the legions of former New York career women reduced to sitting in pricey SUVs in the pickup line at their private school, bickering.

“What’s LEFT but polishing our children?”

Stewart seems to play the linchpin character, a coed struggling with loneliness and alienation. And although I’m a fan, she is weak, here. Her line readings play like rote recitations, rants about how she must “crave interaction” in an era where her peers cannot disconnect from their “devices,” which make all their decisions for them.

They must be under anesthesia, we can surmise. Too easily.

Shot in the overcast greys of late winter/early spring, Nelson’s actors pitch their performances that way, giving “Anesthesia” a narcotizing effect.

Which wasn’t exactly what he was going for. But the intellectual ambition, the showy “smart” dialogue and collectively quotable characters played by actors we respect make “Anesthesia” watchable, and its existence as an indie film that attracted this cast, won financing and made it into theaters easy to explain.

MPAA Rating:R for language, sexual content, drug use and brief violence

Cast: Sam Waterston, Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll, Glenn Close, K. Todd Freeman, Gretchen Moll, Michael Kenneth Williams, Tim Blake Nelson
Credits: Written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson. An IFC  release.

Running time: 1:29

The colors, the shadows pierced by unearthly shafts of light, the venal billionaire villain and the Shades of Vangelis score tell us this about “Synchronicity” before we have one hint about what it’s about.

This is a “Blade Runner” homage, a tribute to the over-designed underlit glories of early Ridley Scott films.

Screenwriter/director Jacob Gentry (“The Signal”) has crafted a mood-over-all time travel thriller with a paranoid inventor, a femme fatale and assorted “versions” of these characters manipulated by the “topological anomaly” that scientist Jim Beale (Chad McKnight) has discovered and is exploiting.

In the not-that-distant future, Beale and his team have created a “reversible wormhole in the fabric of the space-time continuum.”

Even if you know almost nobody ever uses that last phrase outside of science fiction movies, and you don’t understand, you’ve got to figure Jim is onto something.

That’s the thinking of his financier, played by Michael Ironside, one of the cinema’s greatest heavies. Jim’s got to outsmart the billionaire to keep control of this epoch-shaking invention. But who can he trust to help him?

“Synchronicity” is about paranoia and betrayals, real and imagined. And it’s about nerd lust, the kind of temptation that presents itself in the person of Abby (Brianne Davis). When she asks “Where did YOU just come from?” she might better be asking “When did you just come from?” Her curiosity is piqued.

Something about time travel makes it oh-so-friendly to manage in a micro-budget movie.

Think of the cut-rate thrillers, from “Primer” to the Spanish “Time Crimes,”  to say nothing of the scads of budget-conscious TV episodes and entire series that have managed something interesting in the genre without “Back to the Future” bucks.

That’s the stand-out trait of “Synchronicity,” the austere future cityscapes, the gloomy nights, the realistic-looking gear and “scientific method” approach to testing this new procedure/gadget on a planet, and then people.

Characters may bicker about the fates of Tesla and Edison — one, rich and famous, the other too late to get credit for his genius. Love and trust are given and withdrawn, depending on the relative level of paranoia. And characters are constantly running the risk of running into earlier — or later — versions of themselves, trying to tidy all this up.

“If I’m doing my math correctly, there’s a good chance I’m on my way here right now.”

McKnight suggests barely enough of a science nerd to be believable. Davis (“True Blood”) has a sexy mystery about her that suits the character’s uncertain standing. Is she guileless, or scheming? Abby’s attraction to Jim never feels real, so that’s given away too easily.

It all comes back to that look, the feel, Gentry was going for. That’s not enough, as the story gets lost in the murk and the relationships are never as clear as they should be simply because of the lack of light.

Think of the shocks of “Primer,” the intricate puzzle of “Los cronocrimenes (Time Crimes”). No matter how gorgeous “Synchronicity” looks, it can’t keep you from feeling this was an opportunity missed.

 
MPAA Rating: R for language including some sexual references

Cast: Chad McKnight, Brianne Davis, AJ Bowen, Michael Ironside
Credits: Written and directed by Jacob Gentry. A Magnet release.

Running time: 1:41