Movie Nation

Good to very good reviews for the two films going into wide release this weekend.

“Big Hero 6” shakes up the best animated film Oscar race, a Disney/Marvel cartoon that preps children for superhero movies.

Yeah, Disney and Marvel are ensuring that future generations love those men and women in tights.

Not bad, pretty good I thought. Reviews are running more enthusiastic than that, by a hair. The anything anime is good crowd is all over this one.

“Interstellar” is, as one could have predicted (many did), a divisive overlong sci-fi epic. Christopher Nolan’s film is earning vigorous hatred from some, embracing appreciation for its intellectual ambition among others. Me, for instance. Very smart movie that talks about relativity and time and black holes and singularity in ways “The Big Bang Theory” never could.

Gorgeous effects, heartfelt performances. As good as most of the best Nolan pictures, and certainly his farthest-reaching. Thin the middle part out, simplify the plot and he’s got a near masterpiece. Cerebral and action packed. Very “2001.”

The other films opening this weekend are in limited release. I’ve seen “The Theory of Everything” and will post on it shortly, “On Any Sunday: The Next Chapter” is getting mixed notices (deservedly so). It’s a sequel to a great motorcycle racing doc from the ’70s.

Pundit, wag, TV wit, anchorman, William & Mary alumnus, AARP recruit, that rare bird known as a Jewish New Yorker, and now movie director.

I’m interviewing Jon Stewart about his film directing debut, “Rosewater,” and as always, I’m looking for suggested lines of questioning.

“Rosewater” is about an ex-pat Iranian journalist imprisoned after reporting on the Green Revolution, and appearing on “The Daily Show.” It’s a compelling story and a slick job of directing, which considering Stewart’s own cinematic career, is a delightful surprise. I’ll be asking him where he learned how to do that, but I need more. Much more. From you.

Questions for J. Stew? Post them as comments below, and thanks for the help.

I’ve been a fan of Laura Dern forever — from the David Lynch years (“Blue Velvet,” Wild at Heart”) to “Rambling Rose” to “Citizen Ruth” (my favorite of hers) to “The Rocket Boys.”

“Wild” is a Reese Witherspoon Oscar contender, a tale of a young woman who tries to find direction in her drug-addled, loose living life by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, in its entirety.

It is Reese’s movie, and she’s the serious contender in it. But the heart of the picture is the vivacious, optimistic mother her character remembers in flashback after flashback. Here’s a girl gone bad trying to live up to the woman her abused, broke single mom knew she could become.

Questions for Laura Dern? Because she’s the next profile I’m prepping, interview I’m doing. Post them as comments below.

“Big Hero 6″ is Walt Disney Animation’s lovely and sometimes touching attempt to do anime with computer-generated animation. Based on Marvel comic book characters, it’s a story-driven kid-pleasing mashup of plots, situations and ideas from scads of earlier tales of misfits battling a super villain.

It’s lightly amusing, even though it isn’t about the gags. It’s a potential franchise-starter, even though it rarely feels that cynical. And when it hits its sentimental third-act sweet spot, you will be touched. That rampant display of heart makes this the best message-driven cartoon since “Wall-E.”

In the not-distant future San Francisco has morphed into San Fransokyo, a pan-Asian megalopolis where young genius Hiro Tamada (Ryan Potter) wastes his talent building robots for “Bot Fighting,” which he then gambles on. He’s just been convinced to go to college with his brilliant brother Tadashi at the “Nerd University” where all the sharpest minds, led by the legendary Dr. Callahan (James Cromwell), are inventing the future.

Hiro’s foot in the door? Microrobots that clump into whatever their controller needs them to be — structures, transportation, “the only limit is your imagination.”

But Tadashi and Callahan die in a fire, and the only thing that pulls Hiro out of his grief is his brother’s legacy, a prototype semi-inflatable “personal healthcare attendant” robot named Baymax.

Baymax is a great sight gag — a bloated “walking marshmallow” with a kindly, insistent bedside manner. But he has skills that lead Hiro to conclude his brother was murdered, perhaps by a “supervillain,” and that Baymax can help him find the killer.

The “misfits” who help them are his brother’s inventive classmates — nicknamed Go Go (Jamie Chung), Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez) and Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.) by the goofball Freddy (T.J. Miller doing his best “Shaggy”).

Yes, most every ingredient does seem created by a marketing committee, from the post-racial cast to the merchandise-friendly aggregation of robots and special skills humans.

But Baymax is more than just a ginger-footed joke who masters the fist-bump in the most adorable way, more than a huggable toy showing up in time for Christmas. He responds to cries of pain. He exists to protect, comfort, diagnose and heal. And it takes all of Hiro’s vengeful hatred to turn him from fluffy nurturer into an armored warrior capable of facing down this Kabuki masked villain who may be responsible for Tadashi’s death.

The messages are overwhelmingly positive, from “I’m not giving up on you” to “Seatbelts save lives.” It’s a Marvel movie, so look for a Stan Lee cameo as well as the obligatory “outcasts” storyline. As story and characters go, this is a PG and Earthbound “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

It’s manipulative and overlong, too loud and “Incredibles” action-packed for the very young. But the manipulation errs on the side of mercy, compassion, sacrifice and humanity.

And the tone for “Hero” is actually set by a jewel of a Disney short attached to it. “Feast” is an almost wordless, verge-of-tears comic look at a dog’s life, from starving on the street to wallowing in his new master’s junkfood, to the dietary challenges of dating and marriage. It’s just adorable.

MPAA Rating: PG for action and peril, some rude humor, and thematic elements.

Cast: The voices of Ryan Potter, Scot Adsit, Maya Rudolph, Genesis Rodriguez, Damon Wayans, Jr., T.J. Miller, Alan Tudyk and James Cromwell

Credits: Directed by Don Hall, Chris Williams. Written by Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson and Jordan Roberts, based on the comic book. A Walt Disney release.

Running time: 1:42

For my money, A24 is a studio on the rise. Arresting, offbeat releases, challenging sci-fi, generally smart and surprising fare across the board.

“Under the Skin” with Scarlett J., “Enemy,” a Jake Gyllenhaal puzzle picture, “Locke,” “Spring Breakers,” “The Bling Ring,” “Laggies,” “Life After Beth,” striking films for the most part. They’ve been in business two years as a distributor, and they’re making a mark.

“Ex Machina” gives us Domhnall Gleason as a man tasked with “testing” the next big leap in human/computer interfaces, a femme bot who grows more human the longer the test goes on. Alicia Vikander is the robot, Oscar Isaac is the designer. A striking trailer that seems to me to be the A24 house style, in terms of tone. Check it out.

In “Belle,” Gugu Mbatha-Raw played a daughter of a slave raised to be a woman in polite society in 18th century Britain. She had to carry herself like a lady, in modest clothing Jane Austen would have recognized.
But in “Beyond the Lights,” she plays a hip hop starlet in the Beyonce/Miley/J. Lo mold, oozing sexuality. Mbatha-Raw dons short-shorts and high boots, halter tops and in one dress, all that covers her bosom is a carefully arranged gold chain. Was she ever embarrassed?
“It’s for THE CHARACTER,” she giggles. “I don’t know that I would care to own any of those clothes, or wear them in public. EVER.”
In shooting music videos that might put her character, Noni, in competition with Nicki Minaj for hip hop’s most risque, Mbatha-Raw had to get flirty-down-and-dirty, seizing attention the way many singers since Madonna have managed it — with a bump and a grind and outfits that are barely there. All in a day’s work, right?
“Well, it was a closed set,” Mbatha-Raw says. “And I decided that the clothes were a sort of armor, creating this character Noni plays. I don’t know if pop stars feel that way, but it’s kind of liberating, to wear something that you know is not you.”
Writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood says that her star, whom she cast long before “Belle” raised her profile, “knew exactly why” she was in those provocative costumes. “The less Noni wears, the less you see of her. That’s the idea here.”
Noni is a young British singer raised on the soul singing of Nina Simone. But the demands of the music business and her manager mother (Minnie Driver) are that she bump and grind and wear hair extensions and tons of makeup, fake fingernails and almost no clothes. Prince-Bythewood (“The Secret Life of Bees,” “Love & Basketball”) says Noni is not meant to feel comfortable in this world. “So I tried to make Gugu a little uncomfortable in the rehearsal process. We put together a list of songs she was allowed to dance to during dance rehearsals — the most ignorant, sexist, n-word shouting hip hop.”
Hip Hop guru The Dream would write and produce the music. Mbatha-Raw would work with choreographer Laurieann Gibson, who worked with Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry.
But none of this would have worked if their star, whose most prominent prior credit was a cute community college student role in “Larry Crown,” didn’t have some chops. The British Mbatha-Raw showed up with an American accent for her audition.
“I could see the finished movie, just in her audition,” Prince-Bythewood says. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her — so vulnerable.”
She’d let her be British in the part. But the whole fantasy would fall apart if the actress couldn’t sing.
“We had her sing Nina Simone’s ‘Blackbird,’ and I was just crossing my fingers, legs, everything, ‘PLEASE let her be able to hold a note.’ But she came from musical theater…
“We got her a vocal coach and changed that vibrato and that musical theater tone into R & B. She had to be edgier and rougher, so they beat the niceness out of her voice.”
The director, 45, didn’t know her star grew up on Nina Simone records, singing along with mom to “My Baby Just Cares for Me” since she was six. She’d done a dance piece at drama school set to Simone’s version of the classic anti-lynching ballad, “Strange Fruit.”
With Simone’s music playing a pivotal role in the film, this bit of casting was meant to be. Prince-Bythewood says she was inspired by Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe to create this “Bodyguard” romance between a rising pop star who attempts suicide and the cop (Nate Parker) who saves her. But it’s hard not to see more modern incarnations of female pop fame in the script — Beyonce (“OK, I LOVE her and have all of her albums.”) to Whitney, Britney, Rihanna and the late Aaliyah.
“There are cameras everywhere,” Prince-Bythewood says. “So once Noni is inside this pop star persona she’s pushing, a persona that isn’t authentic to her, she can NEVER turn it off…It’s got to be exhausting and that pushes some people over the edge.”
Mbatha-Raw is earning glowing reviews for her performance in “Beyond the Lights,” with Variety’s Andrew Barker echoing many in calling her “fierce…believably crafting a thoroughly modern, synthetic pop star without losing track of the organic human beneath.”
But the star is relieved that this is only a film. Having a good singing voice isn’t enough to send Mbatha-Raw in search of a record contract.
“That image — it takes so much WORK and so many people, a team to do hair and makeup and clothes and all that,” she says, laughing. “I had no idea. And everybody is always watching you waiting for some mistake. I think I’ll stick to acting, pursue all sorts of roles, and just try to stay out of the tabloids. This ‘pop celebrity’ thing. I don’t know. Not for me.”

Jake Gyllenhaal has a box office winner on his hands. Not a blockbuster, though. Deadline is extrapolating that a weak Friday (Halloween) will deliver a $12-13 million weekend.

“Nightcrawler” has great reviews and will no doubt do better on a day and night that aren’t Halloween — it could clear $13 and get into the mid-teens, with a little luck and a big Saturday.

“Ouija” is falling off and — 47-50% down. A $10 million weekend. “Fury” is limping toward a $75-80 million payoff when all is said and done. Another $8 million this weekend.

“St. Vincent” is turning into an indie hit for Bill Murray. It will clear $20 million by midweek.

“The Book of Life” will be lucky to be in the low $40s by the time “Big Hero 6” opens and sucks all the animated box office dough away from it.