Movie Nation

“Annie,” a musical that the decades have rendered into a punchline, is modernized, made more streetwise and brought back to life in a production backed by Jay Z and various members of the Will and Jada Pinkett Smith empire.

The new “Annie” is intimate and hip, sarcastic and flip. It opens by mocking the cliched redheaded cheerfulness of the Depression Era comic strip, and proceeds to give the little orphan — “Not an orphan. I’m a foster kid!” — sass to go along with a heart so big it melts all of New York.

Quvenzhane Wallis, that wonder of a child actress from “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” is no tap dancing Broadway baby with a voice built to reach the balcony. But director Will Gluck and the producers tailor this production to her talents, and it pays dividends.

Annie has charisma enough to turn a school report on Franklin Roosevelt into a performance piece, with her classmates keeping the beat. She charms her “Hard Knock Life” roommates at the foster home, but not the wannabe who collects checks from the state to take care of them all. Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz, vamping it up) has never gotten over being kicked out of C & C Music Factory in the ’90s. She’s a bitter drunk who shrieks at the five kids she cares for entertainment.

Meanwhile, Daddy Warbucks has been transformed into Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx), a cell phone magnate who sees his run for mayor as a chance to grow his business. He’s a Purell addict, fretting about having to meet people and, you know, get germs.

“Whoa whoa,” he gripes to his campaign manager Guy (Bobby Cannavale) and his assistant Grace (Rose Byrne). “I gotta feed hobos?”

Stacks is a victim of his own spit-takes at every event where he has to eat soup kitchen food. But if viral videos can drag him down in the polls, video of him scooping Annie out of danger in traffic brings him up. Guy convinces Stacks to take in the kid and get as many photos of “Little Orphan Annie” as he can.

All Annie wants to do is find her real parents, visiting the restaurant where she was abandoned years before, waiting and hoping.

Gluck (“Easy A”) keeps the pace brisk through the early acts. Some songs from the stage musical are moved offstage but kept as part of the texture, sung by pop singers such as Sia (who also composed new tunes for the film) and Halli Cauthery. Others are transformed into marvels of kid-friendly choreography. Byrne and Wallis surprise in the giddy duet “I Think I’m Gonna to Like It Here,” shot on the roof of Stacks’ automated penthouse. Diaz is fearlessly mean in “Little Girls” and she and Cannavale kill “Easy Street.” Foxx is a proven crooner who shows a kid-friendly side in his duets with Wallis, who is blessed with a pleasant natural voice, if not one that’s ready for her own record contract — yet.

The banter is clever. We’re reminded that Sandy, the dog, shares the name with a certain storm. And the picture is peppered with cameos — Patricia Clarkson as a customer burned by Stacks’ cellphones, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis star in a movie whose premiere the rich guy and the orphan attend, and Michael J. Fox endorses Stacks’ mayoral race opponent.

Even with all this sparkle, the film staggers through its third act. By then, the script has rubbed the rough edges off the villains and made whatever point it was going to make several times over.

But it’s nice to see “Annie” find life beyond the bright red dress, the curly red wigs and generations of stage moms shoving their little darlings into the spotlight to belt out that something — I forget exactly what — “is only a day away.”

MPAA Rating: PG for some mild language and rude humor

Cast: Quvenzhane Wallis, Jamie Foxx, Rose Byrne, Cameron Diaz, Bobby Cannavale

Credits: Directed by Will Gluck, , screenplay by Will Gluck and Aline Brosh McKenna, based on the stage musical (book by Thomas Meehan) and the comic strip “Little Orphan Annie” by Harold Gray. A Sony release.

Running time: 1:58

So, 2014 in film — a good year for movies, or a weak one?

Well, any calendar year that packs two must-see genre-benders starring Scarlett Johansson — you read that right — can’t be all bad. “Under the Skin” and “Lucy” were all that.

Any year that produces two stunning turns as different as “Locke” and “The Drop” by Tom Hardy demands recognition.

Any year that brings back Michael Keaton (“Birdman”) and Jon Favreau (“Chef”), makes Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Chris Pratt movie stars and tosses dirt on the coffins on Adam Sandler and Tyler Perry must be remembered. Any year in which Vin Diesel (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) gives his best performance in animated form, with just three (OK, FOUR) words of dialogue, has to be savored.

The best work by an actress was Julianne Moore’s subtle, human and affecting turn in — yes, an affliction picture” — “Still Alice.” Patricia Arquette makes a grand journey through single motherhood in “Boyhood.” But Meryl Streep is in amazing voice and playful demeanor in “Into the Woods.” Hilary Swank was period perfect in “The Homesman.” And Reese Witherspoon’s unadorned performance in “Wild” is worthy of its “Oscar bait” label.

And Gugu Mbatha-Raw? As Kenneth Tynan famously put it about a star of an earlier era, “What, when drunk, one sees in other women, one sees in Garbo sober.” That goes for Gugu.

Hardy had the best year among actors, though Eddie Redmayne’s transformation into Stephen Hawking (“The Theory of Everything”) was stunning, Keaton and Edward Norton dazzled as nasty versions of the worst rumors we’ve heard about their “real” personalities in “Birdman” and J.K. Simmons was in a (probably supporting) actor class by himself in “Whiplash.”

And if you missed “Get on Up,” you missed Chadwick Boseman’s playful megalomaniac take on James Brown. Netflix it.

Best documentary? Critics and Hollywood may have already given this to one of their own — the Roger Ebert biography “Life Itself.” Lovely, long and thorough film. And there’s buzz for “Citizenfour,” an “important” but dull behind-the-scenes look at Edward Snowden as NSA-gate broke. But I was more taken with James Keach’s film of singer Glen Campbell’s battle with Alzheimer’s and his last hurrah tour, “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me.” Moving, funny and very touching.

Best horror film? “The Babadook,” a demonic assault on a small “knowing” child and his widowed mother, or mom’s mania at the child whose birth caused the death of her husband?

We’ll let the Academy pick a best foreign language film between the darkly funny Swedish dissection of marriage “Force Majeure,” and the austere Polish Holocaust mystery “Ida.” It’ll be close.

Not the greatest year for animation, but “The Lego Movie,” “Boxtrolls,” “The Book of Life” and “Big Hero 6” should fill out the three picture Best Animated Film Oscar field, with one decent film left out.

The best Hollywood features? You could make a good claim to how great this year was just using titles that begin with the letter “B” — “Belle,” “Boyhood,” “Birdman,” “Big Eyes.” Or build a list out of excellent film biographies. The year was packed with them. But I think these ten will do, for starters.

“Boyhood” — Richard Linklater’s decade-in-the-making survey of American childhood is the last coming-of-age picture we need ever see. Linklater’s unfussy style perfectly married to this subject, his eye for new talent (Ellar Coltrane) is as sharp as anyone’s as his spot-on casting of Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, who wear their years and miles with pride as the decade progresses, seems like the work of not just an indie pioneer, but of a national treasure.

“Whiplash” — Miles Teller beat the drums until his palms bled, but only J.K. Simmons, as the sadistic, abusive jazz purist band teacher, could convince him and us that’s a righteous pursuit.

“Birdman” — A comical indictment of celebrity, comic book movie stardom and the bad reputations Michael Keaton and Edward Norton have earned are spun into Alejandro González Iñárritu’s giddy classic.

“The Theory of Everything” — Watch this and “Interstellar” the same weekend, and you’ll have a pretty good layman’s understanding of space-time. Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones recreate a very complicated, supportive and curious marriage, giving this Stephen Hawking bio-pic an air of mystery that adds to is appeal.

“Belle” — Gugu Mbatha-Raw is both the naive young black woman, raised among the British gentry, whose eyes are opened — with ours — to the demoralizing horrors of the slave trade. There’s a nobility to her performance that matches the curious, questioning character’s upbringing. Being raised by the great Tom Wilkinson, as 18th century England’s greatest jurist, rubs off.

“Wild” — Maybe it’s the ex-backpacker in me, appreciating every mistake Reese Witherspoon makes as Cheryl Strayed, a lost-soul-hiking-her-way-to-sanity. Maybe it’s Laura Dern’s wounded but always hopeful supporting turn as the junky Cheryl’s mom, and the message — “Be the person your mother hoped you would be.” Whatever it was, it works, first frame to last.

“Big Eyes” — If you’re going to make a bio-pic of Margaret Keane, who secretly painted all those pie-eyed pop art waifs in the ’60s, you could do worse than casting Amy Adams. If you’re going to title it “Big Eyes,” you cannot make it without her. A surprise and a feel-good delight from Tim Burton, of all people.

“Calvary” — Brendan Gleeson was born to play an Irish priest, comically disrespected by one and all in his tiny parrish, and then threatened with death by someone the Church has wronged. Writer-director John Michael McDonagh is closing the gap with his more famous brother Martin McDonagh. And they both have the good sense to have the Great Gleeson as their muse.

“The Drop” — My favorite Tom Hardy picture of 2014 had him as a dull Brooklyn bartender whose life is upended when his crooked boss (James Gandolfini, in a final performance of cruel vulnerability) crosses the wrong bad guys. Another great adaptation based on a Denis Lehane “Gone Baby Gone” crime novel. Go figure.

“Interstellar” — People are still arguing about this delirious mashup of conventional sci-fi thriller and relativity Power Point presentation. Even astronomer Neil deGrasse-Tyson ws moved to tweet and tweet again on the solid science of Christopher Nolan’s trippy riff on “2001.” And even Tyson must have been moved by Matthew McConaghey’s soulful performance as an astronaut with the fate of human survival on his shoulders, and the “think long term” message of this cautionary thriller.

And shoot, that’s ten, meaning I can’t get into “The Homesman, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Locke,” or the fine bio-pics “The Imitation Game” or “Mr. Turner.” But maybe they’re on your list.

No matter what the beer distributors and limo drivers of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association say, honoring the young star with the title role with a nomination, I don’t have high hopes for this “Annie” updating. The original was creaky and hopelessly dated, but had a couple of good tunes and worked in its time.

How hip can you make Little Orphan Annie?

But we’ll see. Jamie Foxx et. al will do their best to bring it, and Ms. Wallis is a charmer.

“Exodus: Gods and Kings,” the entertaining, action-packed Ridley Scott epic about the (mythic) Jewish escape from slavery in Egypt, was always going to have a hard time reaching the faithful.

It’s not airy-fairy mystical like “Noah,” but its Biblical literalness isn’t on a par with the Old Testament/King James version of the story, “The Ten Commandments.” And some preachers are going to be railing about the idea that Moses sees and hears the voice of God as a testy, vengeful child — with a British accent.

Others complained about the “all white cast.” Especially amongst the Egyptians. I’m not sure how you avoid that minefield in this day and age. A movie in which a white prophet’s white God drowns tens of thousands of black people in the Red Sea won’t go over, either.

In any event, the effects and all-star cast drew more than the curious as it earned close to $9 million on Friday. Deadline.com projects it to hit $24-25 million by midnight Sunday.  Reviews won’t help it, though I took it at face value and found the God Child thing ingenious.

Overwhelmingly positive reviews didn’t convince Paramount that Chris Rock is box office, so they opened “Top Five,” his best film ever, on under 1,000 screens. It is headed towards a modest $6-7 million at the box office this weekend. Decent for the number of screens, but that won’t cover cameo star Adam Sandler’s green fees or Jerry Seinfeld’s car collection’s oil changes.

“Hunger Games: Mockingjay” is falling off steeply after making a boatload of cash.

“Wild,” the Reese Witherspoon “Eat, Hike, Love” drama about a promiscuous junkie’s long hike to straighten out her life, added screens and cracked the top ten. It’s tied with “Birdman.” “The Imitation Game” and “Foxcatcher” still haven’t rolled out wider after their SAG and Golden Globe nominations. They’re missing the bounce. Maybe next week.

Reopening “”Nightcrawler” last weekend hasn’t paid great dividends, but perhaps audience will build Sat. and Sunday post-Globes/SAG nominations.

It’s not unusual for a documentary filmmaker to keep herself out of the story he or she is telling, even if the filmmaker is asking questions of the subject of the movie.
But there’s something special about Laura Poitras’s self-omission from “Citizenfour.” Her documentary is about Edward Snowden, the man who revealed the extent the National Security Agency (NSA) was electronically spying on Americans and the world after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Poitras was a key figure in getting Snowden’s story out, and her film is an “as it happens” account of Snowden’s bombshell. She was in his Hong Kong hotel room with him, helping tell his story on video, capturing Snowden as he was questioned by journalist Glenn Greenwald and others for the stories that would rattle the U.S. security establishment and startle those Americans concerned with issues of Internet and cell-phone privacy.
Everybody else is on camera here, but no glimpse of Poitras. Snowden tells her and Greenwald that the moment the first words of his tale are published, he and they will be found. The paranoia is palpable throughout “Citizenfour,” in every encrypted email exchange between Snowden and Poitras, in every meeting with the lawyers who rushed to Snowden’s aide, in every Snowden warning about “the greatest weapon for oppression in the history of the world” and the ways this data gathering is “the wronging of the American people.”
Snowden, sitting down here for the longest series of video interviews he’s given, comes off as less the reckless crackpot that he was painted as being by the mainstream media. He’s calm, resigned he says, again and again, to his fate. He expects to go to prison, he claims, again and again. He has the peaceful countenance of a martyr.’
Of course, he didn’t go to prison, he fled to Russia, which has been working to revive the Cold War that drove U.S. intelligence gathering for over 30 years. And for all the impact Greenwald and others unleashing Snowden’s revelations on the world has had, it’s hard to say much has changed. But that’s a discussion better left to experts on security, terrorism and Constitutional matters.
Poitras has delivered an important filmed argument, made by Snowden and Greenwald, that what we used to call “freedom” is now more narrowly defined as “privacy.” And it’s gone as the Intelligence State has evolved into a Kafka-esque nightmare of surveillance, bulk data collection and spying, much of it aided by phone companies and web operations.
But important as “Citizenfour” is, as sane as Snowden comes off and as sober-minded as the sometimes shrill Greenwald is presented here, the movie is never more than quietly chilling background noise. The soft-spoken Snowden drones on and one to Greenwald and Poitras, and the filmmaker does little to illustrate, underline or breathe life into the charges Snowden is making and their real-life consequences. Other experts pop up, mostly on panel discussions, as if Poitras was afraid to ID herself to everyone and anyone connected to this subject.
She fled to Berlin during the filmmaking — so concerned was she that her footage would be seized. If nothing else, we get a taste for how paranoid — perhaps justifiably — people covering the NSA and its misdeeds can get.
The precautions ensured that Snowden’s story got out, and that he slipped from the reach of American justice, which had notions of trying him through dated sedition and state secrets theft statutes. But the idea that these people feared for their lives seems melodramatic.
Greenwald, living on the edge of the Brazilian jungle, Snowden hiding out in Moscow and Poitras, wherever she is now that her movie is done, may be right to worry about how our electronic trails can be used against us by people paying more attention to that than we’d realized. They never come off as naive for fearing the consequences of their actions.
But this somewhat dull and seriously context-free film (this practice began as an effort to thwart the next 9/11) isn’t much more interesting than the original data dump itself. It needs less wonky analysis and more dramatic representations of what this wide surveillance net means and what it could mean if used by a government with a more zealous interest in suppressing dissent.

MPAA Rating: R for language

Cast: Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Appelbaum, Julian Assange, William Binney

Credits: Written and directed by Laura Poitras. A Radius/TWC release.

Running time: 2:04

He’s got two Oscars and is Tarantino’s go to villain or anti hero. He’s the new Bond villain. He’s the grinning Teutonic beast we all love to hate.

But Christoph Waltz’s best work might be charming sweet little Amy Adams into marrying him and painting works that he markets and then takes credit for in Tim Burton’s entertaining “Big Eyes.”

Walter Keane taught Andy Warhol it’s about the pose, the backstory, the hype, “the new” and the commodity that art is. He turned wife Margaret’s “Big Eyed Waif” paintings — they look like Spielbergian aliens to me — into a hip thing, then a popular thing and then a fortune generator. And took credit for painting the works, too.

I’ve never talked to Waltz before, so this should be interesting.

Questions for Christoph Waltz? Comment below, and thanks for the suggestions.

Ridley Scott’s Biblical epic had critics — what, exactly? Missing “The Ten Commandments” (I could see that), mocking the idea that the voice Moses hears at the Burning Bush is actually a testy little British boy, disliking being reminding of Moses’ martial bent?

Reviews are weak for “Exodus: Gods and Kings” — across the board. I liked it more than most.  It’s entertaining, action packed and just secular enough to play to guys like me. God having a temper? Very Old Testament. God as vengeful tween? Cool.

I think you can make cases for and against this special effects extravaganza.

“Inherent Vice” is earning some of the weakest reviews of Paul Thomas Anderson’s career. Dopey, WAY too long (“Exodus” long), drifting on past its climax, it’s still fun to see Joaquin Phoenix playing Thomas Pynchon’s pothead private eye Doc Sportello, and Josh Brolin as the brutish, delusional Bigfoot, a cop who considers himself a “Renaissance Detective.” Sure. I liked it no more or less than anybody else.

I wasn’t a HUGE fan of Chris Rock’s amusing “Top Five.” Others seem impressed or dazzled by recycled riffs about “Planet of the Apes,” but the banter with Rosario Dawson, a deeply flawed but pretty and flirty reporter following the comic Rock plays around for the day, is sharp. The cameos, from Kevin Hart to Cedric Entertaining for Once to Jerry Seinfeld and even Adam Sandler, are a hoot.

It’s Rock’s best film, by far, which isn’t saying a lot. Very “Annie Hall” meets Jerry Seinfeld by way of Kevin Hart — raw, raunchy, rude and fun.

He’s an entrepreneur, actor with some clout and a former pop star (rapper seems an exaggeration) in search of pardons for his rough and violent and criminal teen years.

The last item will be old news by the time my profile of Mark Wahlberg runs, so we’ll talk more about gambling and his role in the remake of “The Gambler,” his most challenging acting role ever. As in the James Caan original, Wahlberg plays a college professor, a one-time novelist, addicted to gambling until he’s broke. Winning is OK, but it’s the losing — inevitable — that seems to get Jim Bennett’s motor running.

We’ve talked before. I remember catching Wahlberg on the golf course  to talk about “Invincible.” Funny, “Hang on, lemme make this putt, here.”

Anyway, he’s got lots of projects in the pipeline, big fat “Transformers” cash to spend.

Questions for Mark Wahlberg? Comment below, and thanks for the suggestions.

In the Euro-animated “Yellowbird,” an agoraphobic orphaned hatchling is entrusted with the task of leading a flock of bluebirds from Northern France to their winter home in Africa.
The animation is average, but it is the locations that sell this comic kiddie travelogue. It helps that the bird, sheltered from the outside world (or flying, for that matter) has no sense of direction. But attempting to save the bluebird patriarch (Danny Glover) from feral cats means he’s the one given those last, dying instructions.
“Trust yourself. You will find a path.”
That lack of direction means Yellowbird (voiced by Seth Green) has no idea where this “River of Fireflies”or other way points the small flock is supposed to pass over will be. He gets sidetracked into Holland, where a Dutch innkeeper owl (Elliott Gould) and his staff of rats try not to set them on the right course until they’ve rented them some rooms. There’s a sea crossing that has the flock — Dakota Fanning voices the cute bluebird who trusts Yellowbird, with Christine Baranski and Richard Kind also in the voice cast — imperiled. There are “Iron Birds” to be avoided, especially at high altitudes.
And they’re contending with seasons “out of kilter,”  unseasonal storms and polluted cities and the like.
The dialogue of the English language version of this French comedy is thin on laughs.
“Oh my God, I’ve got to MOLT. I can’t wear THIS color for autumn!”
Yellowbird must learn to face the world, “be tough” and embrace the unexplored world he’s traveling through.
It all adds up to perfectly banal kids’ entertainment, with just a single decent plot twist, a few cute lines and a tried and a couple of trite and true messages — “Trust yourself” and “stop polluting” stand out.

MPAA Rating: PG for mild peril

Cast: The voices of Seth Green, Dakota Fanning, Christine Baranski, Danny Glover, Elliott Gould

Credits: Directed by  Christian De Vita, written by Antoine Barraud, Cory Edwards. A Wrekin Hill release.

Running time: 1:30