Movie Nation

Gena Rowlands had a late life blockbuster, “The Notebook,” which made for a fine curtain call on a career that spanned half a century.

She played the older version of Rachel McAdams in a teary eyed romance about a devoted husband (James Garner) who reads to her of a great love story that they both lived through but which she — suffering from dementia — has forgotten.

Not bad. But she made her best films with her indie icon husband John Cassavettes in their salad days.

And the couple of times I interviewed her over the years all I wanted to talk about was “Gloria.”

Playing a former mob moll sucked into caring for the child of a mob accountant, whose entire family is then slaughtered with only Gloria standing between the kid and the same fate, she was uncharacteristically fierce in the part.

I love this fan-made trailer to the hard nosed but sentimental thriller, which came out in 1980.

I made her repeat her iconic line, after she’s just shot up another bunch of gangsters out to clean house, if memory serves.

“Let a WOMAN beat ya,” she bellowed, and laughed, both in the film and in that interview.

She collected a couple of Oscar nominations over the decades, worked with great directors and on TV, had Pedro Almodovar’s most famous film dedicated to her and showed up at film festivals to keep her late husband’s legacy alive by doing Q &As about his movies with his other frequent collaborator, Seymour Cassell.

She showed a Cassavettes classic at the Florida Film Festival some years back and entertained adoring fans afterwards.

But whatever else Rowland played, all the other honors she earned in her storied career, “Gloria” was the role a film buff never forgets.

Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s “Rob Peace” surfs the ebb and flow of one life in making an age-old point about race and life in America. Simply put, it underscores the message of generations of TV ads for The United Negro College Fund — “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste.”

Here, we’re told a true story (base don a Jeff Hobbs biography) of a brilliant, focused mind aimed at a life of “curing cancer,” but redirected, time and again, by the demands of growing up Black in New Jersey.

We meet Robert DeShaun Peace (Jelani Dacres) as a seven year old math whiz, dazzling his Dad (Ejiofor) with his ability to work out baseball batting averages, his mother’s (Mary J. Blige) family budget and the like, a child who lives for Dad’s weekly visits.

His first memory, he narrates, is of “the day my father’s house burned down,” “the last day I remember being a child.”

He recalls an informal ball game listening party on the stoop of his mother’s apartment complex, the older neighbor who figures he’s “the cavalry that’s going to turn this neighborhood around.” His father’s old Lincoln broke down that day and limited where this weekly visit would wind up. But the kid noted his personable father Skeet’s circle of friends and connections, and the lesson Dad imparts from that.

“You look out for people” and someday they’ll “look out for you.”

There was a revolver, shots fired and a fire. And next thing he knows, Dad is in jail for a double homocide.

Hired-cook Mom vows to do whatever it takes to get Shaun into private school, to have Shaun use “your first name” so that he’s not associated with his father’s incarceration by anyone he meets. The kid’s fascination with the race-and-class-blind cut-and-dried truths of science will take a lifelong back seat to his father’s pleas — to a very young, impressionable and smart child — that he “get me out.”

Shaun will be Rob, and he will take on his father’s case, his crumbling neighborhood and the limited expectations of his circumstances because he’s the family hero on horseback and “the cavalry’s coming.”

Getting into all-Black parochial school St. Benedict’s is step one, where the kind priest in charge (Michael Kelly) makes sure the boys there learn the school motto — “Whatever hurts my brother hurts me.” Getting the grades and class achievements it takes to get into a great college is step two.

Dad’s case? There’s evidence that the State ignored, allegations of a murder weapon switch, enough for an appeal. “I can file that for you,” teenaged Rob (Jay Will) reassures his increasingly desperate father.

Yale? Whatever race or class challenges face him there, Rob’s obvious talent trumps them. He assures his classmates of color (Camilla Cabello, Caleb Eberhart, etc.) that “race” isn’t an issue there.

“I’m not about to keep my guard up if nobody’s swinging” at him, he chuckles.

Ejiofor’s film goes to great pains to avoid the “white savior” trap, emphasizing the American meritocracy that theoretically should celebrate brilliant minds like Rob. The priest, the college professor (Mare Winningham) who recognize his talent do what we’d expect people trained to nuture talent do.

But as Rob tells his story in voice-over narration taken from his grad school application essay, we see the many ways he’s been on his own and how he has to use that brilliance to add potency to marijuana he and a couple of classmates cook-up for the cash needed for school and to finance his father’s appeal.

Rob will parlay that into a long-gestating house-flipping scheme back home in East Orange, because that’s another thing that brilliant mind sees before everyone else. And as he does all this, he will bring change to his world and forever alter the lives of the friends who throw in with him.

He may guard his family “secret,” reluctant even to reveal his father’s imprisonment even to his Yale girlfriend (Cabello). He may be shaken by the degree to which his father expects his genius son to save him. But Rob somehow rolls with it, shrugging off the culture clashes inherent in an institution like Yale, bringing people together on schemes that don’t just result in ready cash, but put everybody on the same side pushing towards a common goal.

Ejiofor’s film struggles to contain all that ambition, a working poor kid who starts to improve his world while still an undergrad, a college science student navigating a legal system fraught with lazy prosecutors, corrupt cops and judges drunk on their own power, even the ones inclined to see the “rigged” system’s injustices.

Will, of TV’s “Tulsa King” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” holds his own with his Oscar-nominated writer-director co-star Ejiofor, and impresses in every scene. It’s no easy feat, conveying confidence and intelligence that sees beyond the simple inexperience of youth and limitations of class.

Rob can be cocky about his prospects in ways that persuade others to join his ventures. But they also see his sense of decency, the fairness and “We’re all in this together” ethos that supercedes any competitive edge he might be hiding.

“Rob Peace” meanders as it tries to get all this in. Narration as framework aside, it can be hard to keep track of this or that “prize” that Rob turns his eye towards.

But Will, Ejiofor and Blige, as a mother who never wavers from what she sees as her primary duty, make this odyssey feel personal and the pitfalls we see coming and ever-mounting life tests seem surmountable if only this brilliant mind isn’t wasted by an America reluctant to embrace “Whatever hurts my brother hurts me.”

Rating: R, violence, drug abuse, profanity

Cast: Jay Will, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mary J. Blige, Camilla Cabello, Juan Castono, Curt Morlaye, Caleb Eberhardt, Michael Kelly and Mare Winningham.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor, based on a book by Jeff Hobbs. A Republic Pictures/Paramount release.

Running time: 1:57

“The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe” is nothing of the sort.

But give it to the stoners who sat around a barbie and dreamed-up this daft would-be-romp. Mixing live-action surfing footage in with a loopy sci-fi story “acted” out by plastic action figures based on today’s most famous wave riders is a novel way of getting around casting actors, building sets, staging fights and Aussie beers busts and what not.

It’s kind of shambolic, half-assed and terrible, but almost amusing in the right frame of mind (altered) and with the right audience (surfers).

A “Road Warrior” cast-off narrator (Luke Hemsworth) tells us of a future when a virus has wiped out much life on Earth, and “all memory that surfing existed.” But the surf god Huey (Ronnie Blakely‘s voice and action figure) charges surfer Mick Fanning and World Surf League commentator Joe Turpel (sometimes in action figure form, sometimes as a unicorn) to assemble half a dozen former surfers, convince them that this sport once existed and get them on film.

“The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe” will remind the world, especially surfers, of what they’re missing.

After they’ve considered the ethical consequences of “maybe we shouldn’t make this movie. Maybe we should keep these waves to ourselves,” they dive into their quest, wrestling assorted “patchouli-smelling hippy f—sticks” now acting as rock stars and “Circus” yurt bar owners that they used to be Jack Freestone, Mason Ho, Griffin Colapinto and others “who f—–g dominated” the sport the world forgot about.

A villain and a vaccine played a part in this anti-surf calamity, so at lease they got the “f—sticks” part right. And naturally, The GOAT may have to be consulted before all is said and done.

With plastic action figure nudity, scalogical humor and mock (plastic) violence, it’s harmless enough, save for that RFJ-Jr. “vaccine” phobia peddled to rubes element. The surf pop, surf folk and surf hip hop ditties are OK, and the surf slang and thick dose of Oz accents makes even limp lines kind of funny, here and there.

“All this time I’ve been eating sand and grating cheese on my abs when I could have been surfing!”

Yeah, mate. Talk about misplaced priorities.

Rating: unrated, gory doll violence, doll nudity and lots of profanity

Cast: The voices of Mick Fanning, Joe Turpel, Ronnie Blakely, Mason Ho, Griffin Colapinto, Vaughan Blakey and Kelly Slater, with Luke Hemsworth

Credits: Directed by Vaughan Blakey and Nick Pollet, scripted by Nick Pollet. A Blue Fox release.

Running time: 1:22

The couple can’t miss them, a bearded old man and a small boy eating street food, then curling up under cardboard when night falls just on the other side of the gate that guards the couple’s middle class bungalow.

They’re childless, we can see, and while the charity — food, and then shelter — they extend to Grandpa Lolo and “The Kid” is certainly borne of compassion, there might be something else they can do to “help” this tiny homeless Filipino family on their doorstep.

Maybe they can “adopt” the boy? Just a thought.

Teary-eyed Lolo (Joel Torre) sees the good life they can offer the school age moppet (Euwenn Mikael Aleta) in his care. His grandson will have a chance at a real life, school, a future. He reluctantly accepts over the crying jag The Kid greets this news with. It’s for the best.

But later that night, in pyjamas, drying his tears, the kid stuffs a bag with electronics and valuables, slips out and they’re off. It’s another evening’s perfect con for “Lolo and the Kid.”

Filipino writer-director Benedict Mique (“Monday First Screening”) leans hard on the sentimental in this picareseque street scene. These two are pros — cynical, experienced hustlers, but Torre’s performance as Lolo convinces us, and this childless couple, that gay couple, that rich former street urchin who made good, that he’s a “grandpa” who can see each offer (cash included) would almost certainly be the best thing for this child who turns out to NOT be his grandson.

But every time, the kid does his part, doors are unlocked, loot is grabbed, their long-suffering fence (David Minemoto) is cheated when they sell laptops and the like to fuel their amusement park, binge-eating, karaoke bar and hotel room daily routine as scam artists.

Well, almost every time.

There’s teaching going on, as Lolo instructs that the world is divided into “those who cheat and those who get cheated (in Filipino and English).” Who needs school? “Everything you’d learn in school you can learn on the streets!”

Mique may set us up nicely for that first fake-out. But as he pulls comic and satiric punches with most of these heists, we know he sees “maudlin” as the only logical direction to take this thing.

The victims aren’t Chaplinesque objects of scorn or fun as haste-to-adopt-or-not, they each seem to have the boy’s best intentions at heart.

The funniest exchanges are with “Fatty” the stolen goods-buying pawner/”fence.” But the song the 50something and little boy (he looks 8 or 9) duet to at the karaoke bar is worth a giggle, if you remember “Kenny Rogers’ Greatest Hits.” And the kid trying to sneak a sip of the beer Lolo indulges in earns a comical lecture that jabs Aussie and New Zealand tourists.

Booze now, and “what’s next? Drugs? Sex? RUGBY?”

Torre’s a sturdy presence holding the story together, but the lack of surprises and fear of getting too “edgy” undo a promising portrait of street life among the “cheaters” who start to feel the “cheated” may have something to offer beyond what they can steal from them.

Rating: TV-MA, theft, an accident, profanity

Cast: Joel Torre, Euwenn Mikael Aleta, David Minemoto and Iza Calzado

Credits: Scripted and directed by Benedict Mique. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:37

Ayo Edebiri, Carlos Jacott and Harris Yulin also star in this improbable tale of trying to become the person you always meant to be Via time travel and “a black hole growing in the middle of her body.”

Sept. 20.

Bullied for her weight until she meets someone who shows her how to “own” it, this uplifting comedy stars Mia Kaplan as the teen designer/dressmaker and Jemima Yevu as the classmate who opens her eyes.

Missy Pyle, Jolene Purdy and Rainn Wilson play the supportive adults in this Sept 27 release.

This trailer is gloom and doom and dark and bloody.

With fanboy/fangirl fave Aaron TJ in the title role, and Russell Crowe playing the father who taught him violence, this should be quite the holiday…treat.

Ariana DuBose is Calypso, Alessandro Nivola is the heavy.

“Venom” and “Deadpool” without the laughs?

Has enough of a “Wolverine” vibe — snow and slaughter, a Russian prison etc. — to pique the curiosity.

Well doesn’t this look plucky and heart warming? I bet Greg Kinnear cries. Or makes us cry.

This opens August 30

It’s almost always funny when the subject of a surprise party belts the person who planned the party in the eye the moment they’re shocked with the shout of “SURPRISE!”

“I guess those cardio kick-boxing lessons paid off!” another guest at the party might say, as more than one does in the propose-during-a-surprise-party rom-com “Surprise!”

“Surprise!” is a comedy of spoiled surprises, dashed-expectations, complications that range from silly to serious all served up by a cast that enlarges every time the damned doorbell rings.

Good God, it’s cluttered.

Director and co-writer Nate Hapke turns up in the cast as the most insufferable guest at this awkward fete filled with sibling rivarry, competing agendas and scheming support groups trying to “help” our prespective bride and groom figure out what’s going on and whether or not it’s a good idea.

There are little moments that amuse — the would-be bride Jane (Melanie Thompson) landing that haymaker on her suitor, party-planner and ring-offerer Ethan (Bryce Harrow).

The complications are way over the top. Ethan has a total of three brothers — by a couple of different mothers. Jane’s got two siblings who each take their shot at stealing her “special day” from her, if only by accident.

Ethan’s older brother Mack (Rob Harrow) resents little brother Ethan one-upping him, and securing granny’s ring to propose with. So he shows up with a dizzy pixie named Ashleigh (Jamie Miller) instead of the longtime love Ashley (Charlie Carr), who also shows up, but with “Rebound Roger” (Justin Sorvillo).

Virginal younger brother Clark (Aaron Sanders) is assigned to photograph everyone and every “moment” and lusts after every woman in the party as he does. Older brother Walt (Lee Shorten) may be here to save the day, or at least drag a chihuahua from the rescue group he works for to foist on Jane as a birthday gift.

Cait (Marissa Hood) is gay, flying solo today for reasons unknown and is the first to sense that “something is up.”

Because Ethan hasn’t tipped anybody but his siblings that he’s going to propose. He hasn’t even gotten the basic go-ahead to pursue this idea of “marriage” from Jane.

Once Jane’s posse has their suspicions, Ethan’s brothers want to know what they know, and vice versa.

Other guests are in the dark as all this lame “intel gathering” goes on.

And what better way to top the day off than by having Granny come by and throw another monkey wrench into Ethan’s plans?

Serious issues like Dad’s string of faithless marriages — “We all turn into our parents eventually.” — mix with the trivial as the doorbell and phone keep ringing as this ex drops in, that happy couple shows up newly-engaged or another one announces they’re “expecting.”

Any combination of five or so of these disparate threads could have been teased into something funny.

Hapke & Co. keep piling on ideas and characters who might have a promising moment, a quirky character trait worth indulging or developing into something funny.

A “How seriously should ANYbody take Bon Jovi?” running gag shows promise.

“Hey, NO ONE understands the human heart like JBJ!”

But the screenplay never gets past that “workshop this into something sharper” stage, and the many players never transcend that “promising introduction” that their characters are given.

Rating: unrated, PG-ish

Cast: Melanie Thompson, Bryce Harrow, Marissa Hood, Rob Harrow, Charlie Carr, Aaron Sanders, Nate Hapke, Jamie Miller, Lee Shorten

Credits: Directed by Nate Hapke, scripted by Nate Hapke and Rosie Grace. A Freestyle release.

Running time: 1:31

“The Beast Within” is a stylish, allegorical werewolf thriller that toys with its mysteries but can never escape the absurdity that clumsy plotting built into it.

Alexander J. Farrell’s British woodslands tale is seen through the eyes of a child. Willow (Caoilinn Springall) lives in a remote highlands compound (actually Yorkshire) with her mother (Ashleigh Cummings of “The Goldfinch”), father (Kit Harington) and grandpa (Harington’s “Game of Thrones” co-star James Cosmo).

It’s a not-quite-idyllic life, with no school and her needing daily doses from an oxygen tank. And every so often, Mum bundles up Dad in a fur rug, stuffs a squealing pig into the Land Rover and heads off deep into the woods for…something.

A prologue tipped us off that this is werewolf country and that we’d be watching a werewolf tale. Free-spirited mother Imogen, who changes into a dress whenever she and Willow skip off to town for supplies, seems unhappy. Grandpa knows this.

Dad? He’s an old school wood-cutter — apparently. “I’m KING of this Forest,” he bellows playfully to his child. But he has his dark side.

“Mummy?”

“Yes sweetheart?”

“Are we SAFE?”

Willow sees Dad’s mood swings. Or does she dream them? They have him naked, in a ruined stone holding pen, transforming into a werewolf, his wife unleashing him on yet another hapless pig.

The allegory laid out here is obvious once you take in the nature of the marriage. But director and co-writer Alexander J. Farrell (“Refugee”) teases us with the supernaturalism of it all.

As we see the parents leave for anothe pig-sacrifice deep into the forest, Willow somehow shows up at the place where they park to witness the horrors Daddy Noah commits. For a minute there, I wondered if Willow was a werewolf. How else could a nine year-old on OXYGEN chase them miles away from the house?

The picture’s haphazard long before the third act botches its allegory and undercuts any hope of rising suspense as it defies all common sense, time and again. Our co-writer/director clutters his plot with red herrings.

He breaks Chekhov’s Gun Principle, taking pains to introduce Grandpa’s gun, then dispensing with it in the silliest fashion possible.

The performances are more effective than affecting, although every player has her or his “moment.” There are interesting ideas thrown in, but they’re bandied about, not really addressed or dealt with.

The finale reaches a somewhat satisfying “werewolf” climax, then staggers into “in case you missed the allegory” explanations.

The result is more frustrating than anything else.

Rating: R, violence, nudity

Cast: Kit Harington, Ashleigh Cummings, James Cosmo and Caoilinn Springall

Credits: Directed by Alexander J. Farrell, scripted by Greer Ellison and Alexander J Farrell. A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 1:37