Movie Nation

Documentary filmmaking rewards the obsessive.
You have to be obsessed to dive into and put in the endless hours to finish your film, often in the thin hopes that PBS, a cable channel or Netflix will show it to the tiny audience that such films typically lure. And often, the most arresting subjects are obsessive themselves — obsessive Scrabble players (movie watchers (“Cinemania”), crackpot hermits who write long, psychotic unpublished (and unpublishable novels (“In the Realms of the Unreal”).
And then there are the quirkier, seemingly more normal obsessives who play with dolls and make art with them. “Marwencol” (2010) was about a brain-injured war vet who posed dolls in this vast, elaborate and fictional World War II town he created in his yard, then photographed as art.
“Magical Universe” is about an old man in Maine who does dioramas with Barbie dolls and then photographs them. Al Carbee had become something of a local celebrity/local character in Saco, Maine — stuffing a huge old house with art — dioramas and collages, photographs and sketches, paintings and the like.
He stuffed a huge barn, “the biggest in Maine,” with more of it. He pulled the barn down and moved it up against his house so he could create a vast, odd and self-absorbed gallery of his works. He dug a tunnel in his basement to create more space for this stuff.
Filmmaker Jeremy Workman was tipped off about him, made a short film and became a lifelong pen pal of Carbee’s. “Pen pal” means that Workman was subjected to hundreds of long, rambling stream-of-consciousness/narrate-the-minutia-of-my-day letters and self-absorbed videotapes.
And Workman maintained the connection, even if Carbee came off as “unsettling” and his letters as “the rants of some crazy person.”
Workman’s girlfriend Astrid also appears in the film, an exotic blond who becomes something of a fresh obsession for Carbee. She chastises the filmmaker for the way he characterizes Carbee, first in his short film and now (by extension) in this feature length treatment.
“You’re making a strong statement that he is weird.”
Well, yeah. “Magical Universe” feels like a visit to a hoarder masquerading as an artist. But wandering through the vast collage that was Carbee’s house, you can understand Workman’s mixed feelings. The film serves to validate the art, in an age where “art” can be anything with a good back story. But the viewer sits through these 80 minutes feeling like an armchair psychotherapist.
Carbee comes off as a narcissist who figured his every random thought was worth preserving on film, paper or painting.
He was a creator, sure. But Workman’s film feels exploitative, and the filmmaker cannot help but make Carbee look a little creepy and a bit pathetic. The only thing that eases your conscience watching “Magical Universe” is the difficulty in deciding, “Who was using whom here?”

MPAA Rating: unrated, adult themes
Cast: Al Carbee,Jeremy Workman and Astrid von Ussar
Credits: Written and directed by Jeremy Workman. A Sundance Selects release.
Running time: 1:20

That miss-or-hit collection of horror shorts, “The ABCs of Death” becomes more hit or miss with its sequel, “ABCs of Death 2.”
Not to be confused with the similar “VHS” horror omnibus, “ABCs” gives up-and-coming horror writer-directors — more than 26, as many work in teams — a letter of the alphabet which they then turn into a word and build a four to five minute tale of death.
So we get director Hajime Ohata’s “O is for Ochlocracy,” a word which means mob rule. In this case, it’s rule by zombies who bring a zombie killer to trial for…wait for it…killing zombies.
The length means the filmmakers have to find a clever concept, a couple of decent shocks, and a great punchline. And the good ones do.
“B is for Badger” has actor-director Julian Barratt (“The Mighty Boosh”) playing a bullying nature show host whose hapless crew watches helplessly as the badger, supposedly driven away by a nearby nuclear power plant, turns out to be still there, much stronger and even more irritable than the host.
A Japanese teenage girl’s psychotic fantasy of what to do about her awful parents, who neglect her and her dog, becomes ‘s Sôichi Umezawa deliciously dark “Y is for Youth.”
“N is for Nexus” (Larry Fessenden) cleverly sends a dating couple, in costume, kiddie trick-or-treaters and a distracted, crossword-puzzle addict cabbie into a busy intersection on Halloween.
A few of the shorts are weak but watchable with filmmakers who seem to have a juvenile attachment to female nudity. It’s why boys go to film school — many of them, anyway. And a couple of the “ABCs” are student film amateurish, though not E.L. Katz’s nicely conceived “A is for Amateur.” A would-be hitman fantasizes “a job” — taking out a drug dealer by crawling through the duct work of his nude-girls-filled lair. Then the hitman gets to work, and we see what the movies never show you — how duct work was never made to be crawled through, all jagged sheet metal, with pointy screws more of a menace than vermin.
As with all of these shorts collections, the idea is to make a statement film and get a directing deal. But we the viewers also find names to try and remember, filmmakers worth watching for. Because you never know who the next Joon-Ho Bong (“The Host”) or Juan Antonio Bayona (“The Orphanage”) will be. A couple of them might make the grade after learning their “ABCs.”

MPAA Rating: unrated, with graphic violence, gore, nudity, drug abuse
Cast: Scores of players, none of great note (yet)
Credits: Written and directed by over 26 different filmmakers. A Magnet release.
Running time: 2:03

The die was for Jon Cryer way back when “Pretty in Pink” launched him in the movies.
He’d always be the doormat, the witty loser who never gets the girl.
All he had to look forward to was getting older and balder, and better character names than the one John Hughes saddled him with — “Ducky.”
His niche has served him well as second banana all those years on “Two and a Half Men.” And here he is, still lovelorn and comically sad in “Hit by Lightning.”
As Ricky, the balding 40 year-old chain restaurant manager, he laments to his BFF Seth (Will Sasso) that they’re the last two guys from their high school class to marry.
And even though he knows the odds are long, even though he’s a nonbeliever who drinks and swears like Cryer never could on TV, he prays to God that he will “Find my soulmate…before I’m hit by lightning.”
The answer might be eHappily, an online dating service. That’s where his profile, in search of his “heartner,” lures Danita (Stephanie Szostak) into a date.
She’s beautiful, a “10,” and as Seth says, Ricky is just a “four” — even with that spray-on hair covering his bald spot. She’s nervous, a little on edge, but eager and into him. It’s only after the sex — MUCH later — that she blurts out that she’s married, that “My husband would KILL me” if she ever left, and that Ricky should help her kill him.
Whoa.
Ricky, in the film’s primary leap of illogic, doesn’t have to think twice before agreeing. Yeah, he’s that lonely.
It is up to the annoying lump Seth to set him straight. He shows him “Body Heat,” starring “Will Hurt, and Kathleen Turner, back when she still looked like a chick.” And “Wild Things.” This Danita is bad news, a regular “femme fatal.”
“That’s fa-TALE.”
Such is the nature of the humor in this comedy, written and directed by Ricky Blitt.
Sasso, who once starred in TV’s “$#*! My Dad Says,” tries the hardest, playing the loser who doesn’t know he’s a loser, dragging the pal he nicknamed “Hog” (better than Ducky, sort of) out of his shell, then shoving him back in it when Hog crosses the line.
Szostak (“Iron Man 3,” “The Sopranos”) is mainly just a nervous pretty French face for Ricky to obsess over. This part called for a lot more Sofia Vergara.
Cryer sort of shrugs and bears it, the way he does on TV only with less sex and more profanity, and the chance of violence hanging over the proceedings as Ricky/Hog meets the husband (Jed Rees). He starts to wonder if the man is the monster Danita portrays him as, or if she’s just leading them both to their doom.
Not that the script ever makes us care. Slow-witted and slowly paced, with characters kept at arm’s length, our biggest concern is not whether Ricky will indeed be “Hit by Lightning,” but whether anybody will find a spark of life in this corpse of a comedy.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with gun violence, sexual situations, profanity
Cast: Jon Cryer, Stephanie Szostak, Will Sasso, Jed Rees
Credits: Written and directed by Ricky Blitt. A Phase4 Films release.
Running time: 1:25

We’ve spoken before, back when Mark Strong was first making a mark in Hollywood films — staring down Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes, In “Young Victoria,” in “Body of “Lies” and “Syriana.”

Since then, he’s codified the Great Brit Villain, taking the mantle from Sir Ben Kingsley and running with it, which is why he and Ben and Tom “Loki” Hiddleston were the natural choices for Jaguar’s “Brit Villain” ad campaign. A hoot, that is.

He has “Kingsman” coming up, and “Before I Go to Sleep” opening this weekend.

Questions for the bad guy of “Kick-Ass,” the vexation of Brendan Gleeson’s “The Guard”? Comment below, and thanks for the help.

“Interstellar” promises to be high end, brainy sci-fi with a lot of sentiment (judging from the trailers) and a trio of empathetic Oscar winners (McConaughey, Hathaway, Caine) bringing it all home.

And since it’s a Christopher “Inception” Nolan film, expectations for it are insanely high. We expect no less than an out-of-body experience. We expect Michael Caine to get choked up. We expect the space flight and space scenes to make “Gravity” red from embarrassment.

We expect it to be smart, with some heart. And “Dark Night” dark. “Memento” cryptic. Cautionary, about a planet in peril. Pity it’s coming out after Election Day.

And the studio, Paramount, is not showing it to critics until the Monday before its Wed. opening.

There’s something to be said for preserving the surprise, the magic of a film. But studios almost NEVER set out to do that when they hold a movie back this long. They don’t hide what they’re proud of.

A lot’s riding on it, expectations are a bear to contend with. And yet, the movie could use the buffering of glowing reviews. If indeed it is worthy of them.

The trailers don’t give enough away to make me swoon. How about you? I just started to wonder about the whole hold-it-to-the-last minute strategy, which smells more like “Da Vinci Code” than any “zero spoilers” impulse.

And for those a little light on their cinema history, here’s a reminder. John Ford and Hitchcock, Scorsese, Woody and David Lean all had their bad outings, movies that overreached or under-reached by pandering.

Nolan is may or may not be in their league, and he is overdue for a stumble.

So here we have The Mouse taking its shot at creating its own CG animation anime project, perhaps a Franchise.

Japanese-American characters, cuddly, sentimental (a dead big hero brother, from the looks of the trailer), supervillains, puberty jokes.

The second trailer gets more of what it’s about on the screen. But we’ll see. “Big Hero 6” opens the first week in Nov.

Universal’s low-budget/no-budget horror strategy is paying dividends this fall, as they’re set to break even on “Ouija” within days of opening. Deadline.com figures that, based on Friday’s $8 million+ take, it’ll manage about $19 million.

Unless Friday’s filmgoers warn off those planning on catching it Saturday. Dreadfully acted horror film with nary a fright in it.

“John Wick” almost constitutes a comeback for Keanu Reeves. A hitman thriller in the “Sin City” vein, a complete world of mobsters, hitmen, Hitmen Hotels and the like, it shows the mellow man in action and makes great use of him. It is headed towards a $15 million opening. The reviews are a bit over the top, decent film, mostly good performance by the lead, GREAT villain and nice support work by Willem Dafoe and Adrienne Paliki.

“Fury” fell off, “Gone Girl” is well over $120, “The Book of Life” is holding audience but underperforming, still.  It will be lucky to hit $50. Bad year for animation. Even when the quality is there, as with this one and “Boxtrolls,” parents aren’t shelling out the cash to 3D their kids into these films.

And Bill Murray’s cutesie little star vehicle, “St. Vincent,” is opening HUGE as it goes wide.  For a boutique studio film, anyway. It will settle in at number 6, and manage $8-9 million. Murray is set up now as a resident of “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 3” when that comes around. Adorable in his dotage.

“Ouija” is a dead teenager movie aimed squarely at a teen audience.
Universal’s effort to reclaim its place as the Home for Horror takes a step backward with this duller-than-dull 89 minutes of your life you’ll never get back. Frankly, the board game is scarier, but only if you break the rules.
“Never play alone…never play in a graveyard…always say ‘Good-bye.'”
As kids, Debbie (Shelley Hennig) and Lainie (Olivia Cooke) knew that. But as a teen, Debbie’s picked up a board, toyed with the magical “unseen hand” planchette, with its eye hole for spying ghosts. Next thing you know, she’s hung herself.
Lainie is beside herself. Well, not exactly. Ms. Cooke, the star of this cast of pretty bland young things, rarely suggests much emotion at all. And the others take their lead from her.
Because of course there are others. Lainie wants some closure, so she picks up Debbie’s board, rounds up her boyfriend (Daren Kagasoff), her Goth-brat sister (Ana Coto), the dead girl’s beau (Douglas Smith) and the exotic Isabelle (Bianca A. Santos) for a little seance.
When they chat, “As friends we gather, hearts are true, spirits near, we call to you,” and doors creak open and chairs slide away from the table, kids being kids, they don’t take the hint.
Lainie’s housekeeper, Nona (Vivis Colombetti) adds a warning.
“Do not go seeking answers from the dead.”
Death and terror ensue.
Three horror movies (she was in “The Signal,” “The Quiet Ones”) and one horror TV series (“Bates Motel”) into her career, and poor Ms. Cooke still doesn’t show any sign that she has what it takes to become a Scream Queen. She treats the supernatural goings on, the shock of seeing friends die and the lack of adults aware of what the kids are going through with little more than a pert little shrug.
Nobody else makes much of an impression, even horror vet and studio chief sibling Lin Shaye (“2001 Maniacs”).
The effects are generally as simple as the far superior ghost story “Annabelle,” which looks like “Psycho” when compared to “Ouija,” a cynical attempt to spend almost no money and cash in on board game sales.
But seriously, who’d buy that game after this? And after “Ouija” and “Dracula Untold,” who will buy Universal as a serious home for horror? Tod Browning and Bela Lugosi are rolling in their graves.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for disturbing violent content, frightening horror images, and thematic material
Cast: Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Daren Kagasoff, Lin Shaye, Bianca A. Santos, Shelley Hennig
Credits: Directed by Stiles White, written by Juliet Snowden and Stiles White. A Universal release.
Running time: 1:29