Movie Nation

Eye-contact is how it begins — a shared glance on the subway, maybe followed by a smile but always cranked up from a glance to a penetrating stare.

Brandon, played with a chilling allure by Michael Fassbender, is an old hand at this game — hands touching, not by accident, a gaze so nakedly predatory that a pretty woman might be moved to shift in her seat, cross her legs and get off at the next stop. But not always. Sometimes — oftentimes — there’s sex.

And when there isn’t, Brandon is compulsively going at it in front of his porn-playing laptop, in the shower or the restroom at the office. This isn’t sex. This isn’t normal. He knows it, and this is his “Shame.”

The latest collaboration between British artist-turned-filmmaker Steve McQueen and Fassbender — their “Hunger” was as close to the IRA prison hunger strikes as anyone would care to get — is a creepy but poignant descent into sexual dysfunction. Brandon must have conquests, must find hookers he can hire by the pair, must have voyeuristic assignations in high-rise hotel windows. Sex is beyond compulsion, beyond obsession for him.

It’s interfering with work, causing him to prey on women who reject his womanizing boss (James Badge Dale), worried all the while about what manner of porn others will spy on his work computer.

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There is so much “business” that the fourth big comic book movie adaptation of the summer has to take care of that frankly, it’s astounding that director Joe “Jumanji” Johnston is able to take care of it all, and with style.

“Captain America” has to connect this World War II era hero to modern times. The movie has to tie into all the other Marvel comic book movies that are part of “The Avengers,” because as the title implies, the good captain is “The First Avenger.” It has to deliver the origin myth — how Captain America was born out of a “super soldier” experiment during WWII. The film has to back-engineer its way into the meeting between the Captain (Chris Evans) and the Avenger leader we know as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and give us a credible version of future Iron Man Tony Stark’s inventor dad,  Howard Stark.

And it has to be fun.

It is. The fourth comic book movie of the summer is the best comic book movie of the summer. Johnston has delivered a light, clever and deftly balanced adventure picture with real lump in the throat nostalgia, with Nazis –who make the best villains, and with loving references to “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

The movie’s first trick was turning hunky Chris Evans (“Fantastic Four,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”) into what the ads in the back of comic books used to call  “a 98 pound weakling.” They digitally “Benjamin Button” the guy into Steve Rogers, scrawny shrimp. But with World War II in full fury, Rogers is determined to serve his country, even if that country’s military rejects him as “4F,” unfit physically. He signs up for a special unit to be turned, thanks to a serum by Dr. Erkine (Stanley Tucci, in a kitschy accent), into super soldiers.

“Zo, you vant to go overzees and fight ze Nazis?”

Erskine picks Rogers because he keeps on fighting hopeless odds when he knows he’s right, and “He’s not a bully.” Rogers sticks up for the little guy.

America needs super soldiers because those pesky Nazis already have one. Johann Schmidt is played by that villain’s villain, Hugo Weaving (“The Matrix”). Schmidt’s Hydra organization is developing super weapons and other super soldiers. And Schmidt has his hands on the Norse god Odin’s legendary source of power.
“And de fuhrer digs for trinkets in ze desert,” Schmidt smirks in contempt.

It’s a good thing the only American super soldier is ready to chase him, because Indiana Jones doesn’t appear to be available, being in the desert, digging for trinkets.

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There is so much “business” that the fourth big comic book movie adaptation of the summer has to take care of that frankly, it’s astounding that director Joe “Jumanji” Johnston is able to take care of it all, and with style.

“Captain America” has to connect this World War II era hero to modern times. The movie has to tie into all the other Marvel comic book movies that are part of “The Avengers,” because as the title implies, the good captain is “The First Avenger.” It has to deliver the origin myth — how Captain America was born out of a “super soldier” experiment during WWII. The film has to back-engineer its way into the meeting between the Captain (Chris Evans) and the Avenger leader we know as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and give us a credible version of future Iron Man Tony Stark’s inventor dad,  Howard Stark.

And it has to be fun.

It is. The fourth comic book movie of the summer is the best comic book movie of the summer. Johnston has delivered a light, clever and deftly balanced adventure picture with real lump in the throat nostalgia, with Nazis –who make the best villains, and with loving references to “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

The movie’s first trick was turning hunky Chris Evans (“Fantastic Four,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”) into what the ads in the back of comic books used to call  “a 98 pound weakling.” They digitally “Benjamin Button” the guy into Steve Rogers, scrawny shrimp. But with World War II in full fury, Rogers is determined to serve his country, even if that country’s military rejects him as “4F,” unfit physically. He signs up for a special unit to be turned, thanks to a serum by Dr. Erkine (Stanley Tucci, in a kitschy accent), into super soldiers.

“Zo, you vant to go overzees and fight ze Nazis?”

Erskine picks Rogers because he keeps on fighting hopeless odds when he knows he’s right, and “He’s not a bully.” Rogers sticks up for the little guy.

America needs super soldiers because those pesky Nazis already have one. Johann Schmidt is played by that villain’s villain, Hugo Weaving (“The Matrix”). Schmidt’s Hydra organization is developing super weapons and other super soldiers. And Schmidt has his hands on the Norse god Odin’s legendary source of power.
“And de fuhrer digs for trinkets in ze desert,” Schmidt smirks in contempt.

It’s a good thing the only American super soldier is ready to chase him, because Indiana Jones doesn’t appear to be available, being in the desert, digging for trinkets.

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Daniel Radcliffe acquits himself reasonably well in his first adult big screen role, a man haunted by “The Woman in Black.”

He plays a young lawyer, a single father and widower with enough conviction to make this spooky period piece credible, though one might wish for a little more fear in the character and in his performance when confronted by the sinister and the supernatural.

I guess once you’ve faced down Lord Voldemort, you “ain’t afraid of no ghosts.”

Arthur Kipps is a failing young barrister in the Britain of the early ’20s. He still grieves for his wife, who died in childbirth, and pays a little too much attention to the spiritualist ads in his local newspaper. That’s mhow much he longs to see her again.

But he has a young son to support, so he seizes one last chance to prove himself– a trek to the north of Britain, to the marshy east coast where he must rummage through the papers of a family whose long-abandoned mansion — Eel Marsh — is to be sold.

The residents of the dank, grey and backward little village of Crythin Gifford aren’t very welcoming. There’s no room at the inn, no smile at any door. They want him gone, and quick. And since the film’s opening scene shows three village girls hurl themselves out of a window, we know there’s tragedy there.

Only the county’s wealthiest man, Samuel Daily (Ciaran Hinds) will give Arthur the time of day. He hints at an explanation for the apparition Arthur has seen at Eel Marsh, but he dismisses it.

“Don’t go chasing shadows, Arthur.”

Naturally, that’s exactly what Arthur does. The house — on an island surrounded by the incoming tide several times a day, he is stranded there with a jumble of papers, cobwebs and candles for long stretches of time. And no thump of a rocking chair of glimpse of a wraith in black mourning dress can go uninvestigated.

There’s a lot of atmosphere, but not a lot of urgency to this James Watkins (“Eden Lake”) film. The back story may be only  sketched in, but the thoroughly chilling jolts are handled in the most hair raising ways. I love the way he uses the simplest effects — the way Arthur, holding a candle, is followed across the room through the reflection of the candle on an old doll’s glass eye, a simple look of doomed resignation on a child’s face, an unearthly hand slapped against a window. Oscar nominee Janet McTeer (“Albert Nobbs”) is a special effect herself, playing the mercurial, mad Mrs. Daily.

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Men on opposing sides of war find their shared humanity in their love of animals in “War Horse,” Steven Spielberg’s sentimental epic about a country thoroughbred who travels from the fields of Devonshire to the trenches of the Somme in World War I.

The film — based on a play that was based on Michael Morpurgo’s children’s book — is a tale told on a vast canvas, with a wide array of characters — each of whom develops a connection to “Joey,” one of the prettiest equines ever to grace the silver screen. But that crowded hodge-podge of characters fritters away the potential poignancy as we’re taken away from the story’s heart and soul — a boy and his horse.

Albert, played by newcomer Jeremy Irvine, has been in love with this horse since first he was a foal. The animal is of little use in farm country in pre-World War I Britain. He’s a racing stallion in a hardscrabble land where draft horses are all anyone wants. But his drunken, proud and war-hobbled dad (Peter Mullan) buys the colt at an auction and Albert gets to train him, to show the farm folk and snooty landlord (David Thewlis) what Joey can do with a plow. 

“You keep looking after Joey and he’ll keep looking after you,” his mom (Emily Watson) counsels.

But war is declared and Dad has to sell the horse to an Army cavalry officer to pay the rent. Horse is wrenched from boy, and vice versa. At least Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston) is sympathetic.

“I’ll respect him and all the care you’ve taken with him,” the soldier promises. Think of the sale as a “lease,” he says. Joey will come back to Albert after the fighting “Over There.”

What follows after this 40 minute prologue is a magnificent and misguided cavalry charge that leads Joey on an odyssey that puts him first in German hands, then in the e care of a French teen and her grandpa, a pawn of war hauling ambulances and artillery and experiencing the horrors of No Man’s Land and the world’s first tanks.

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Aamir  Khan seems to be the one superstar of Indian film to consistently get his movies into the American export market. Ever since the cricket match during the Raj epic “Lagaan” (2001), his movies have shown up here reaching the vast Indian diaspora of North America.
But it’s hard to say if he’s choosing his subjects with more of an eye toward the West, or if these seemingly Westernized projects (“Like Stars on Earth” was one) are what sell back on the Subcontinent. But with every import, these polished, well-acted comedies and melodramas show more signs of Hollywood style storytelling.
“Talaash,” his latest, has him playing a troubled but dogged police inspector trying to get to the bottom of a freak auto accident that killed a famous Bollywood star. That takes the cop into the seedy underworld of Mumbai, meeting junkies, pimps and prostitutes, trying to wring the truth out of poor people who don’t see the police as looking out for their interests.
It doesn’t help that the cops are prone to slap around the powerless — beggars, etc. — when they want information.
Inspector Sekhawat broods over the case, and grieves for a son that drowned. He takes entirely too much interest in a glamorous hooker (Kareena Kapoor) who digs a man in a moustache. She has more than just information the inspector is interested in. His wife (Rani Mukerji) seeks solace in a medium who says she can speak to the dead child. The inspector keeps (chaste) company with a call girl.
So much of this case doesn’t add up. The dead star was in the bad part of town. He’d withdrawn a large sum of money. He didn’t have his driver or “spot boy” (assistant) with him. He had met a pimp, who is now laying low, trying to stay out of the investigation.
And he was rich and famous. What was he doing driving a Hyundai? OK, that’s more my question than one for the cops.

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“Liberal Arts” is to Josh Radnor what “The Five-Year Engagement” was to Jason Segel — a big screen extension of his small-screen “How I Met Your Mother” persona.
Radnor’s second outing as a writer/director/star has him playing an overly sensitive/overly lovelorn young professional living in nostalgia and a kind of aimless idealism.

His “Ted” is a bookish, snobby, 30something architect/college professor seeking Miss Perfect Match on TV, his Jesse in the film is a bookish, snobby 30something college admissions counselor who stumbles into Miss Perfect–She’s Entirely Too Young for You.” Quite the stretch.

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They’re young, they’re tourists and they want to go where nobody gets to go, to have an experience to brag about when they get home.
Visit Russia and Ukraine? You have GOT to sneak into long-off-limits radioactive dead zone around Chernobyl, the worst nuclear accident in history. When they hear rustling in one of the ruins they tour with their off-the-books guide Yuri, they are utterly freaked out when a real Russian bear bolts past them.
“Anyone else have a story like this?” Paul (Jonathan Sadowski) chortles. He’s the American living in the former USSR that five friends are visiting.
No, they don’t. And since “Chernobyl Diaries” is a horror picture, you immediately wonder who, in that sextet, will make it out to tell that story.
There are weird goings on in the ruins, the abandoned cars and overgrown forests that are the features of this desolate landscape.
“Are there people here?” one of the college coeds asks.
“Ees eeempossible,” Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko) declares.
Of course he’s wrong. Of course his rattletrap van, their “Mystery Machine” means of getting to the place, is sabotaged. Of course they’re stuck there, in the dark, where radioactive things go “bump” in the Chernobyl night. Of course they split up. Of course they start dying off.

Oren Peli, the guy behind “Paranormal Activity,” had a writing hand in “Chernobyl Diaries.” Thus, this standard-issue horror picture has a promising concept, at least. Pretty young tourists (Jesse McCartney, Olivia Dudley, Devin Kelly and Nathan Phillips among them) take an off-the-books trip to the forbidden zone around the worst nuclear accident in history and discover what has survived there.
The horror! The horror!

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