Movie Nation

“Masters of the Air” is an overarching, sometimes over-reaching portrayal of America’s part in the Air War in Europe from the same production team that told the historical World War II stories “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.”

Like those series, “Air” focuses on a couple of groups of real-life pilots — survivors and victims of the war — and goes to painstaking detail to recreate the horror these men faced, especially in the early months of daylight “precision” bombing carried out by American B-17s which were too vulnerable, it turned out, to be named “Flying Fortresses.”

Over a third of these big-for-their-day bombers put into action were lost in combat. From the start, crews had to serve a minimum of 25 combat missions in order to earn the right to go home. And very few did.

The everyday horrors included sudden death or wounding by anti-aircraft shrapnel or air-to-air rockets, planes and bodies riddled by fighter-plane bullets, air-to-air collisions and mortally wounded aircraft tumbling and disintegrating out of the sky, not often in the graceful, smoke-trailing arcs of “Did you see any (para) chutes?” most often depicted in the movies.

The men of the 100th Bomb Group, “The Bloody Hundredth,” flying out of England, saw friends and comrades killed in front of them almost every time they flew. They’d wait on the ground, scanning the skies for stragglers that might not make it back. And then, they’d have to climb back in their tough but vulnerable Boeing bombers and face the terror again.

Some 70,000 were killed or wounded in this service. The best American museum to these warriors and their work might be The Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum just south of Savannah, Georgia on I-95. I highly recommend it.

The series is built around a handful of characters — friends  Maj. Gale ‘Buck’ Cleven, given a Clark Gablesque swagger by Austin Butler (“Elvis”), and the loyal and headstrong Major John “Bucky” Egan, played by Callum Turner of “The Boys and the Boat,” Fantastic Beasts” and in the headlines these days for dating pop starlet Dua Lipa.

“Masters of the Air” is “overarching” in the ways it synthesizes many movies about the war in its episodic stories, the action depicted, theaters of combat and consequences and stakes of the war discussed.

It’s got “Memphis Belle” and “Twelve O’Clock High” elements, “Stalag 17” in the P.O.W. experience, “The Holocaust” is touched on and “Red Tails” — Black pilots serving in World War II — are celebrated.

There’s also a hint of war service romance between the Yanks and the local ladies, with Bel Powley playing the uniformed Every Servicewoman, the very embodiment of British pluck.

“Don’t you sleep?”

“After we’ve WON!”

We follow the first 1942 air crews to shuttle their bombers from America to Greenland and then to Britain, with airsick-every-time-he-goes-up navigator Harry Crosby (Anthony Boyle) almost directing his crew straight into occupied France.

We take off and head into the unknown with them as they fly their first missions and first experience flak and fighters, which pass by in a blur rarely depicted in WWII air combat films. A 250 miles per hour bomber was little match for 400 mph+ fighters.

Missions go right, and men die. Missions go very wrong, and more men die. Unlike “Band of Brothers,” there’s no in-our-ranks villain here. Over-complicated missions and blunders in command aren’t laid at the feet of the kutzes in charge. There’s a bit of debate between Brits and Yanks over the costly, idealistic American daytime “military targets only” approach, and the British nighttime “proximity” bombing, which later research suggests was what came closest to speeding the end of the war.

The dames just melt in the presence of Paul Newman’s laconic title character in “Harper,” a serio-comic detective thriller filmed when Newman was at his peak, but a film never regarded as one of his best. Because it isn’t.

“Dames” as an expression had gone out of fashion by the time this William Goldman adaptation of a Ross MacDonald book came out. It’s still something of a throwback picture — smart-assed and half “hip,” but old-fashioned touches abound.

Rear-projection was passe, and day-for-night filming was fading from use, which didn’t keep director Jack Smight from clumsily trotting it out (It’s “night” and no car lights are on.). He was a “Twilight Zone” veteran who’d make lots of TV, and bloated ’70s actioners like “Airport ’75” and “Midway” before retiring well short of ever achieving critic Andrew Sarris’s vaunted “pantheon.”

But watching Newman hardboil his way through a sea of swans, tough but fearful, physically overmatched (he rarely came off “shorter” on the screen) but quick on the uptake, quicker on the comeback, is pure Newmanesque pleasure.

Lew Harper is a gumshoe cliche, a not-that-successful PI who lives in a two room flat, dozing off with the TV on. He drives a half-primered ’55 Porsche 356 convertible and before we meet the almost-ex (Janet Leigh) we’ve guessed he’s going through a divorce.

But thanks to an old pal Albert (Arthur Hill), he catches a break. A rich paraplegic (Lauren Bacall) wants him to track down her oft-wandering husband. Her husband’s private pilot (Robert Wagner) might be a help. Her stepdaughter, the vivacious Miranda (Pamela Tiffin) probably won’t. She’s smitten with the pilot and might be interested in Mr. Bright Blue Eyes just enough to make the flyboy jealous.

Harper’s hunt will take him to a lot of bars, one where a faded screen starlet (Shelley Winters) will need to be flirted with and plyed with drinks, another where a junky singer (Julie Harris) presides at the piano.

There’s also a cult leader (“Cool Hand Luke’s” tormentor, Strother Martin!) and the “fat” starlet’s menacing gay husband (Robert Webber) to contend with, as well as cops (Newman’s “The Sting” co star Harold Gould) to insult.

“I used to be a sheriff, till I pass my literacy test.”

Harper’s got a mouth on him, and considering he’s dealing with possible kidnapping, murder, human trafficking, cult leaders and goons, that’s always going to get him into trouble.

“You gotta way of starting conversations that end conversation.”

“Molli and Max in the Future” is exactly what it set out to be, an instant “cult” film, a zippy, low-budget sci-fi rom-com riff on “When Harry Met Sally” designed to play as a “midnight movie” at your favorite art film cineplex.

The brainchild and debut feature of self-described absurdist Michael Lukk Litwak, “Future” doesn’t reinvent the future so much as comically re-imagine it in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy/Futurama” fashion.

In characters, situations, structure and shot selection, it’s an overt homage to “When Harry Met Sally,” without the “I’ll have what she’s having” boffo laughs. But as it riffs through relationships, religion, right-wing populist politics, cyber-celebrity and futuresport, there’s a reasonably steady flow of chuckles even if it bogs down a bit before reaching for a bigger finish than it delivers.

They meet in an accident — not involving cars, but in deep-space coupes bouncing through the asteroid belt. Molli (Zosia Mamet, of “Girls,” daughter of you-know-her and you-know-who) is a bit of a flake — not exactly bubbly, but she’s out here “harvesting (magic) crystals,” a part of her religion. Max (Aristotle Athari, did a season of “Saturday Night Live”) is a realist, a tinkerer trying to avoid going into his father’s line of work.

She’s forced to give him a lift back to Megalopolis. But he’s actually from Oceanus.

“It’s really beautiful” she notes. “Really? You can’t spell ‘Oceanus’ without ‘anus.'”

Max hides the fact that he’s a genocide survivor, one of the fish people.

“You should be proud of your gills! They’re beautiful.”

“It’s like having two vaginas on your collarbone. NOT beautiful

Their fizzy, bantering on-and-off “relationship” traverses space and time in arbitrary chapters in which she joins a cult and has sex with the manipulative and tentacled cult leader Moebius (Okieriete Onaodowan).

“Are we in a cult?” Molli asks fellow cultist Walter (Arturo Castro). “Oh yeah,” he replies. “There was a documentary about us!”

Max invents his way into his favorite sport, exoskeleten robot brawling. Molli canvases for a hapless but humane and smart woman running for Galactic Emperor against a monstrously cruel, vulgar populist — Turboschmuck (Michael Chernus).

And every now and then, sometimes mid-relationship, sometimes between relationships, Molli reconnects with Max like Harry kept running into Sally.

The movie’s many sources for comedy are obvious, but subtly delivered. Cyber-dating and cyberspace notoriety, religious fads and sexual identity and technology — Max builds a “sentient robot” partner for himself (Erin Darke) at one point — all are subject to mockery.

The gender roles are reversed from “When Harry Met Sally,” as Molli is more pro-sex, and also impulsive and a little gullible. Max is cynical but a romantic at heart.

When this picture works, it skips by on a frothy jazz-scored tour of a lot of cool and we’re sure super inexpensive effects, models and sets, which have the soundstagey glow of “Barbarella” or the films of Canadian avant garde wit Guy Maddin (“The Saddest Music in the World”).

When “Molli and Max” doesn’t work, the reach for laughs is obvious and the satiric jabs feel strained.

But the players make it likeable and allow the jokes to whizz by. It’s also lovely-to-look-at and laughably weird enough to play, which is all we’ve ever wanted in a Midnight Movie.

Rating: unrated, profanity

Cast: Zosia Mamet, Aristotle Athari, Erin Darke, Okieriete Onaodowan, Arturo Castro, Paloma Garcia-Lee and Michael Chernus.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Michael Lukk Litwak. A Level 33 release.

Running time: 1:34

Generations of WWII movies have served up endless repeats of the same old songs from the era — “In the Mood,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” a little Glen Miller, a bit of Artie Shaw, a touch of “We’ll Meet Again, Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When.”

But this new Apple TV air war in Europe series, which I will be reviewing in a day or two (premieres Friday), scrounged up an oddity. And you know me and musical oddities.

This is not an anarchonism, let me hasten to add. I may wonder when the acronym “MIA” came into use, or the phrase “wheels up” came to be used as a military departure time. But Our Man Woody wrote this little anti fascist ditty right in the middle of all that fuss and bother.

It’s an odd song to have a young woman sing to the Yanks and Brits in a party “over there” in “The War.” She sings it almost as a lament.

The message? Timeless.

No?

Me either. And I watched a LOT of docs this year. But what is out there and available to be seen never or at least rarely correlates with the Academy’s docs branch.

An occasional exception proves the rule, but these folks are in a bubble all their own. All five docs this year are from overseas, which is not an issue in and of itself. The documentary boom that cheap cameras (even cell phones) and the rise of video podcasts and streaming platforms to show them has heralded wasn’t limited to North America.

But there were docs with genuine pop appeal this year, moving and well-made films with a domestic and international audience.

Instead, here are the nominees.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM

“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”

“The Eternal Memory”

“Four Daughters”

“To Kill a Tiger”

“20 Days in Mariupol”

A couple of them I’ve heard of. But none of the 100+ docs that I reviewed — all of them with distribution — made this list.

From “The Hollywood Reporter.”

” No Oscar category was more surprising this year than best documentary feature. The two films that most experts believed would stand the best shot of winning, if nominated by the documentary branch and offered up to the full Academy, were Matthew Heineman’s American Symphony and Davis Guggenheim’s Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, and neither made the final five. This sort of thing has happened so many times in recent years — with Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Jane, Life Itself, Three Identical Strangers, Apollo 11 and others — that it really needs to be addressed.“

The director of “Sound of Freedom” is behind the camera for this New York “Five Points” rathole 19th period piece.

John Lithgow and David Morse support Cristiana Dell’Anna in the title role, that of Francesca Cabrini.

Wonder if they’ll get into the fact that an infamous Chicago housing project, Cabrini-Green,” was named for her? Not that how it turned out is her fault.

March 8, we’ll find out.

Henry Golding, Lucy Liu, Jo Koy, Sherry Cola, Bowen Yang, Sandra Oh and Michelle Yeoh provide the voices for this one, which has impressive looking effects and kind of dated CGI human character renderings.

Could be cute.

Feb. 2.

Too many movies put one through a filmgoers’ version of Elizabeth Kübler Ross’s “Stages of Grief” while you’re watching them.

You go from “This might be good” to “This COULD be OK,” and then “It’s not half bad” to “It might rally at the end” and wind up at “What were they thinking?”

“Caged Wings,” which had the far more poetic title “Mi soledad tiene alas” in Spain (It’s in Spanish with English subtitles, not yet dubbed) — “My Loneliness Has Wings” — is such a film. It begins with promise, immerses us in a milieu, sets up possible romance, big dreams and ugly challenges, but staggers into potholes and stumbles into formulaic pandering on its way towards utter disappointment.

Actor turned director Mario Casas conceived his writing/directing debut as a star vehicle for younger brother Óscar Casas, who plays a graffiti artist with “The Next Banksy” street-art aspirations. The casting and the story kind of works up until things let you know this isn’t working out.

“Dan” lives with and dotes on his aged grandmother by day. But at night, he’s out “tagging,” almost always with his confederates, grocery cashier Vio, short for Violetta (Candela González) and vain, hotheaded hustler/playa Reno (Farid Bechara).

But this “Jules et Jim” trio has other after hours activities. They like clubbing, have a favorite Barcelona dance bar, and they finance it all with smash and grab robberies that involve car theft and motoring off with other people’s scooters in the bargain.

Vio may be sweet on Dan, but he’s an artist with dreams of joining a street-art commune in Berlin. When somebody asks, he refers to her as his “sister.” So that might be a non-starter.

But it all goes to hell in a hurry anyway, when Granny dies and Dan’s psychotic goon of a father (Farncisco Boira) gets out of prison. These kids are all from rough childhoods and learned their values honestly. But honestly, when Dan’s old man gets out and ransacks Granny’s apartment to steal Dan’s loot, Dan has no real option but fleeing.

“From now on, I’m in charge,” the hardened, tattoo-covered ex-con announces.

The three 20ish friends never use the phrase “one last job,” but that’s the vibe we get from this smash-and-grab they go for — just a way for Dan, maybe Vio as well, to finance their escape to Berlin. It doesn’t go as planned because in the movies, heists almost never do if the plot demands it.

The street-tough artist plot is a worn one, but the young audience for a film like this wouldn’t mind that. The execution — meandering middle acts, the predictable plot turns and naked pandering in the finale — should give anybody pause, no matter how young and cool and good-looking their anti-heroes seem to be.

Casas the director puts Casas the sibling/actor through a few looks. The inspired artiste is about as convincing as the shy, confused Romeo. The kid is handsome, without a lot of screen presence.

The cause-and-effect of Dan’s temperament is so obvious we don’t need Vio to react to his beating of a bodega owner who abuses his little boy by shouting “Do you see yourself” in the kid being beaten?

Yeah. He does.

And that’s not the worst of it.

But as I said, “Caged Wings” starts with promise, gives us a taste of Barcelona’s rough life — a tiny taste — before a wish fulfillment fantasy kicks in and we see glimpse the regret we know we’ll suffer after wasting our time with this.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, drug use, sex, profanity

Cast: Óscar Casas, Candela González, Farid Bechara and Francisco Boira

Credits: Directed by Mario Casas, scripted by Mario Casas and Déborah François. A Warner Brothers/Netflix release.

Running time: 1:42

“The Zone of Interest,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Creator,” America Ferrara in “Barbie” and Colman Domingo’s turn in “Rustin” were among the surprises that turned up when nominations to the 96th Academy Awards were announced by Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid in Beverly Hills this morning.

America Ferrara was a surprise nominee for best supporting actress in the beloved blockbuster “Barbie,” and Ryan Gosling — as expected — landed a best supporting actor nomination. But Margot Robbie wasn’t nominated for best actress in the title role, nor was her director, Greta Gerwig.

Bradley Cooper was nominated for best actor and best original screenplay in “Maestro,”which was also nominated in the ten-film field for best picture this year. But Cooper wasn’t nominated as best director.

The Best Picture nominees are “American Fiction,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Barbie,” “The Holdovers,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Maestro,” the favorite — “Oppenheimer,” “Past Lives,” “Poor Things,” and the Holocaust chiller “The Zone of Interest.”

Ricky Gervais probably has a joke about that last one.

For those keeping score at home, “Oppenheimer” leads the field with 13 nominations, “Poor Things” garnered 11, “Killers of the Flower Moon” grabbed 10 and “Barbie” landed eight.

The full list of nominees can be found here.

It’s a pretty diverse selection of nominees, driven in part — as Academy President Janet Yang suggested — by their enlarged 11,000 voting members in 93 countries. While there may not be another “#Oscarsowhite” protest, the lack of Asian representation stands out.

The Best Actress nominees are “Nyad” star Annette Bening, “Killers of the Flower Moon” newcomer Lily Gladstone, Sandra Hüller of “Anatomy of a Fall,” Oscar winner Emma Stone for laying it all out there in “Poor Things” and Carey Mulligan’s lovely, long-suffering wife turn in “Maestro” was honored with a nomination.

The Best Actor nominations are led by Domingo’s terrific performance as a forgotten gay Civil Rights icon and March on Washington organizer, “Rustin,” Cooper’s turn as Bernstein in “Maestro,” Golden Globe winner Paul Giamatti’s work in “The Holdovers,” Cillian Murphy as “Oppenheimer” and Jeffrey Wright‘s droll dance through “American Fiction.”

Domingo’s had quite a year, and Murphy, Giamatti and Wright have had great careers. Somebody worthy will win this one. A Cooper win might make up for the sting of not earning a Best Director nomination.

Netflix still scored big, as “Maestro” was joined by “Nyad,” which landed nominations for co-stars Jodie Foster and Bening, in the title role, Domingo’s “Rustin” turn, the Best Animated Feature nominee “Nimona” and “Society of the Snow” earned a Best Hair and Makeup nomination.

Snubs, those left out of possible, in some cases expected nominations? Julianne Moore (“May December”), Willem Dafoe (“Poor Things”), Claire Foy (“All of Us Strangers”), Taraji P. Henson (“The Color Purple”), Andrew Scott (“All of Us Strangers”) and Greta Lee (“Past Lives”) had earned buzz as contenders. There was talk of Leonardo DiCaprio meriting a nomination (“Killers of the Flower Moon”). Not from me, mind you.

Directors Alexander Payne (“The Holdovers”), Cooper (“Maestro”) and How-do-you-explain-this? Greta Gerwig for “Barbie” were left out.

I thought her fellow directors, who nominated her for the DGA award, loved Greta G?

Blitz Bazawule for “The Color Purple” and Todd Haynes for “May December” also could have been in the best director mix.

The Best Director field — Justine Triet (“Anatomy of a Fall,” not a fan), Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”) and Christopher Nolan for “Oppenheimer.”

When you give a nomination to Scorese for his slack, downbeat and most pedestrian looking picture in ages, somebody good is going to miss out on a little “life and career changing” recognition.

The Best Animated Feature Oscar might belong to Hiyao Miyazaki’s latest “farewell,” “The Boy and the Heron,” but he’ll have to wrestle it away from “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse,” Netflix’s “Nimona,” Pixar’s “Elemental” and “Robot Dreams.”

They forgot the striking “TMNT: Mutant Mayhem,” didn’t they?

Sound and visual effects threw love at “Mission: Impossible — Dead Recking, Part 1” and “The Creator,” which turned up in no other categories. “Godzilla Minus One” also got a Best Visual Effects nomination. “Napoleon” managed nominations for Best Costume and Best Visual Effects.

Best supporting actress will pit Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers”) against Danielle Brooks (“The Color Purple”), Emily Blunt (“Oppenheimer”), and past Oscar winner Jodie Foster, nominated for the coach/manager who sticks with Diana “Nyad.”

Best Supporting Actor features no Willem Dafoe (“Poor Things”) or Colman Domingo (“The Color Purple”), but does have sentimental favorite Robert Downey, Jr. (“Oppenheimer”), Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”), the much-Oscar-honored Robert DeNiro (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Mark Ruffalo, terrific in “Poor Things,” and my favorite, Sterling K. Brown in support of “brother” Wright in “American Fiction.”

I reviewed a lot of documentaries this year, figuring a couple would turn up as nominees. Naah. That corner of the Academy paddles its own canoe.

“The Color Purple” stands out as one of the bigger losers this Oscar season, and the holiday blockbuster “Wonka” managed to prance through the winter without a single technical, makeup, production design or whatever nomination. That’s a snub.

Best Original Screenplay features almost all serious-minded material. “Maestro,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Past Lives,” “The Holdovers” (OK, that’s comic enough) and “May December” are the contenders.

I’m most happy for Wright, a longtime favorite, and Bening, who is obnoxious and thrilling as an egomaniac jock/TV sports reporter not going gently into that good night. But I’m bummed for Dafoe, a great actor who never catches a break, and Tariji and Greta G., for not getting their due.

The 96th annual Academy Awards will be handed out on ABC-TV and online — Also on Youtube? — the evening of March 10.

Tom Ripley was a fictional creation of the Golden Age of the Homocidal Homosexual in literature and film (“Compulsion,” etc) and he remains Patricia Highsmith’s most famous creation.

Even though she herself — a lesbian — denied he was gay in the years after the publication of her 1955 novel. He was just murderously and sexually opportunistic, she said, the ultimate “imposter.” Readers and critics did not buy that. Well, the “imposter” label certainly rings true in any interpretation of the character.

Ripley was featured in the French classic “Purple Noon,” revived for “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” “Ripley’s Game” and “Ripley Underground.” And now Andrew Scott (“Spectre,” “All of Us Strangers”) brings him to life for a Netflix mini-series.

Dakota Fanning and John Malkvovich, who starred in “Ripley’s Game” over 20 years ago, also star.

April 4, this new, extended version of life with the self-inventing loner and killer premieres on Netflix.