Movie Nation

Icky in that “Human Centipede” way, as excruciating as any torture porn thriller, and damned ridiculous by the time all is said and done, the Spanish thriller “Dos” or “Two” sets up a simple, nasty problem and fails to engage us in helping the trapped couple solve it.

Two people wake up, naked and lying on top of one another in bed. He doesn’t know her. She doesn’t know him.

And the reason they can’t “disengage,” get up and sort this out is that they’re stitched together at the abdomen.

Sexy.

Furious minutes of mistrust open this relationship. Neither wants to be the first to give out a name.

“Who ARE you?” “Who the F— are YOU?” (in English, or in Spanish with optional subtitles).

Precious minutes slip by as her rage at “Why did you DO this to me?” is slow to abate.

“Tranquila,” sister. Think for a second. Who in the name of Santiago would do this to himself, just to hurt you?

They question each other, test out getting up and cope with immediate concerns — pain relief, thirst, hunger, bathroom breaks. And they try to figure out who did this, who is “watching” them (pain pills, etc., mysteriously appear whenever the lights go out).

Sara (Marina Gatell) wonders if her hateful husband is capable of this. David (Pablo Derqiui) is cagey about his work, his dating history and anybody he can think of with a motive to hurt him and this person he doesn’t recognize.

There’s volatile chemistry between the stars, but little urgency to what’s going on. The nature of the wound and how it connects them seems to shift to meet the needs of camera blocking. Yes, at some point, the fact that they’re nude and attractive 30somethings trumps the pain and terror of their situation. And every so often, the ugly wound is looked over, fresh injuries are suffered, fresh clues point them to some counter-measures to whoever did this awful thing to them.

Three people had a hand in the script to actress-turned-director Mar Targarona’s film, three writers who take on a “Saw” level puzzle and make solving it less important than each character’s seeming guilt over what they’re not revealing make us wonder “Did they bring this on themselves?”

It makes for a dull, illogical thriller that’s an excruciating 71 minutes, and not excruciating in a good way, either.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, nudity, sex, profanity

Cast: Marina Gatell, Pablo Derqui

Credits: Directed by Mar Targarona, scripted by Cuca Canals, Christian Molina and Mike Hostench. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:11

This opens February 4.

Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, Michael Pena, Donald Sutherland, the world’s ending and “Don’t Look Up” is no laughing matter to Mr. “2012” and “Independence Day,” Roland Emmerich.

The wrestling empire that is WWE dives even deeper into movies with “Rumble,” an animated film that they made through Paramount Animation, and had slated for theatrical release earlier this year.

“Rumble,” based on a graphic novel about a world where towering, monstrous kaiju wrestlers fight for “the Big Belt,” makes its way to audiences via Paramount+ instead.

It’s a good-looking, mindless romp aimed at the children of all ages who watch professional wrestling. Formulaic and silly, it might not be reason one to subscribe to the Kevin Costner network. But there are a couple of laughs and lots of utterly ridiculous “action” in the octagon where the Big Boys play.

“Are you ready to go out there and look RIDICULOUS tonight?” our coach asks our hero at one point.Yes. Yes he is. Why? Because “We do not CARE!”

That’s the stance Rayburn Jr. (Will Arnett voices him) has to take when the career-loser, son of a wrestling legend, is recruited by the daughter of his late father’s coach, Winnie (Geraldine Viswanathan), to get serious about the sport by learning to “dance” in the ring.

Winnie the coach’s big idea is to toss in paso dobles, pirouettes and the odd pas de deux with all the piledrivers and suplexes that wrestlers live by, even the 40 foot tall versions.

Wrestling-crazed Stoker-on-Avon has never been the same since the famed Coach Jimbo and his star kaiju Rayburn disappeared years before. A new local champ emerges, but Tentacular (Terry Crews) wins the title and promptly announces he’s “taking my talents to Slitherpool,” to wrestle “for someplace that matters.”

Stoker will lose its stadium unless Winnie can find somebody and train him to be the champ who saves their rep and the stadium that bears her dad’s name. That “somebody” turns out to be her dad’s most famous wrestler’s son.

Rayburn and Winnie have to bond and come up with tactics that will transform a career loser into a phenom and do it all before their beloved stadium becomes a parking lot.

Whatever the Rob Harrell graphic novel has going for it, this script envisions an entire world that revolves around wrestling, with fanatical fans taking on all the rituals and body paint tributes of hockey and football fans.

The cleverest touch? Having the matches called by the insufferable Mark Remy, voiced by the insufferable Stephen A. Smith of ESPN. Dancing in the ring?

“This is HARDLY wrestling. Y’all know that, right?” The character complains and complains, until our hero starts winning. Then he changes his tune, just like Stephen A.

“I’m not sayin’ I’m wrong.‘ Because I’m never wrong. But…”

Jimmy Tatro voices the monster who is color commentator for the matches. And who introduces the combatants in the ring? Michael “Let’s get rrrrready to RRRRRumble” Buffer, of course.

Arnett and Crews, two very funny guys, don’t pay off as funny characters because the script doesn’t have many jokes that land. Tentacular has just won the Big Belt. What’ll he do?

“I’m going to an unnamed theme bar!”

Kids may get into the “action,” but for me there was one sight gag and one sight gag only that pays off. One of the beasts eyes the Prop that Made Wrestling What It Is Today — a folding chair. Great! It’ll turn the tide of the match. Unless of course he’s miscalculated the impact of something that small on wrestlers this large.

Aside from that, and the “get knocked-down, get back up again” messaging, there’s nothing to “Rumble.” Hard to see it as ever being a theatrical release contender.

Rating: PG, slapstick, innuendo

Cast: The voices of Will Arnett, Geraldine Viswanathan, Terry Cruz, Jimmy Tatro, Ben Schwartz, Tony Danza, Fred Melamud and Stephen A. Smith.

Credits: Directed by Hamish Grieve, scripted by Hamish Grieve, Matt Lieberman and Alexandra Bracken, based on a graphic novel by Rob Harrell. A Paramount+ release.

Running time: 1:34

This is an altogether more interesting list than the half-hearted Golden Globes glob dumped earlier this
AM.

Lots of love for “Licorice Pizza,” “Belfast,” “CODA…”

But I have to say, honoring out a somewhat hamhanded turn by Lady Gaga and more or less ignoring the rest of “House of Gucci” is simply falling for hype. She’s over the top, and not any better than anybody else in it. And nobody is talking up Pacino or Driver, with good cause. Jared Leto also earned a nomination. You couldn’t even tell it was him, bit that wasn’t a subtle turn https://www.salon.com/2021/12/13/little-known-donor-helped-fund-capitol-riots-is-now-facing-probe_partner/ either.

No Ridley Scott nomination for either “Gucci” or “Last Duel?” Oh well.

The Critics Choice Awards are handed out by what started life as the Broadcast Film Critics Association.

Take a look.

BEST PICTURE

Belfast

CODA

Don’t Look Up

Dune

King Richard

Licorice Pizza

Nightmare Alley

The Power of the Dog

tick, tick…Boom!

West Side Story

BEST ACTOR

Nicolas Cage – Pig

Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog

Peter Dinklage – Cyrano

Andrew Garfield – tick, tick…Boom!

Will Smith – King Richard

Denzel Washington – The Tragedy of Macbeth

BEST ACTRESS

Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter

Lady Gaga – House of Gucci

Alana Haim – Licorice Pizza

Nicole Kidman – Being the Ricardos

Kristen Stewart – Spencer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Jamie Dornan – Belfast

Ciarán Hinds – Belfast

Troy Kotsur – CODA

Jared Leto – House of Gucci

J.K. Simmons – Being the Ricardos

Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power of the Dog

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Caitríona Balfe – Belfast

Ariana DeBose – West Side Story

Ann Dowd – Mass

Kirsten Dunst – The Power of the Dog

Aunjanue Ellis – King Richard

Rita Moreno – West Side Story

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS

Jude Hill – Belfast

Cooper Hoffman – Licorice Pizza

Emilia Jones – CODA

Woody Norman – C’mon C’mon

Saniyya Sidney – King Richard

Rachel Zegler – West Side Story

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE

Belfast

Don’t Look Up

The Harder They Fall

Licorice Pizza

The Power of the Dog

West Side Story

BEST DIRECTOR

Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza

Kenneth Branagh – Belfast

Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog

Guillermo del Toro – Nightmare Alley

Steven Spielberg – West Side Story

Denis Villeneuve – Dune

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza

Zach Baylin – King Richard

Kenneth Branagh – Belfast

Adam McKay, David Sirota – Don’t Look Up

Aaron Sorkin – Being the Ricardos

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog

Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter

Siân Heder – CODA

Tony Kushner – West Side Story

Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth – Dune

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Bruno Delbonnel – The Tragedy of Macbeth

Greig Fraser – Dune

Janusz Kaminski – West Side Story

Dan Laustsen – Nightmare Alley

Ari Wegner – The Power of the Dog

Haris Zambarloukos – Belfast

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Jim Clay, Claire Nia Richards – Belfast

Tamara Deverell, Shane Vieau – Nightmare Alley

Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo – The French Dispatch

Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo – West Side Story

Patrice Vermette, Zsuzsanna Sipos – Dune

BEST EDITING

Sarah Broshar and Michael Kahn – West Side Story

Úna Ní Dhonghaíle – Belfast

Andy Jurgensen – Licorice Pizza

Peter Sciberras – The Power of the Dog

Joe Walker – Dune

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Jenny Beavan – Cruella

Luis Sequeira – Nightmare Alley

Paul Tazewell – West Side Story

Jacqueline West, Robert Morgan – Dune

Janty Yates – House of Gucci

BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP

Cruella

Dune

The Eyes of Tammy Faye

House of Gucci

Nightmare Alley

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Dune

The Matrix Resurrections

Nightmare Alley

No Time to Die

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

BEST COMEDY

Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Don’t Look Up

Free Guy

The French Dispatch

Licorice Pizza

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Encanto

Flee

Luca

The Mitchells vs the Machines

Raya and the Last Dragon

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

A Hero

Drive My Car

Flee

The Hand of God

The Worst Person in the World

BEST SONG

Be Alive – King Richard

Dos Oruguitas – Encanto

Guns Go Bang – The Harder They Fall

Just Look Up – Don’t Look Up

No Time to Die – No Time to Die

BEST SCORE

Nicholas Britell – Don’t Look Up

Jonny Greenwood – The Power of the Dog

Jonny Greenwood – Spencer

Nathan Johnson – Nightmare Alley

Hans Zimmer – Dune

Well, Lady Gaga got some love, voters remembered Jessica Chastain’s Tammy Faye Baker turn.

And they think “Dune” and “Power of the Dog” are best pic worthy.

Wait, these guys lost their TV deal in a corruption, racism and sexism scandal. Do they even matter any more? Or matter even less than they used to?

“Don’t Look Up” doesn’t belong on this list, no “Respect” but love for “Cyrano?”

“Annette” is wholly forgotten, hard to summon up much love for “I’m the Heights” either.

Dinklage!

Weak animation field, Almodovar has to have the inside track on best foreign language film in that group.

DeBose and Ciaran Hinds, or do they love Ben?

Are we even paying that much attention to the Globes noms now? So many questions.

Two lists that look the way the Oscar field might, but no love for Ridley Scott?

So that’s all they recognized from “Respect,” not that it’s all that. But that “musical or comedy” field is pretty thin.

The TV field is even less relevant, simply because the “Globes” don’t influence the Emmys.

Remember, these clowns lost their TV show. So this all the oxygen I’m giving them. They went through the motions, so did I.

Ho hum, Golden Globes. Ho hum.

MovieNation, spreading cinema throughout the land, one DVD, one poorly framed pic and one small town or city library at a time.

This year, I’ve donated DVDs to libraries in West Va., Va., NC, SC, Ga. and scattered corners of Florida, bringing subtitles to the masses is my motto, Johnny Appleseed style. Call me “Roger DVDseed,”copyright pending. A dozen libraries, maybe 40 DVDs in all. Let’s hope the good folks of Polk read my review before passing this one by. Judging from the sheriff here, a little culture wouldn’t hurt.

Well, this is an unexpected pleasure, an Oz-wise kids’ comedy with wit, slang and a little edge.

“Back to the Outback” is an Australian “Madagascar,” an “escape from the zoo” comedy that leans into the continent/country’s reputation for having more wildlife than can kill or maim you that any place else on Earth.

It also isn’t shy about sending up the locals, the humans who labeled the assorted snakes, great whites, spiders, and crocs “monsters,” and got a lot of tourist and TV show mileage out of it.

Somewhere, Steve Irwin is blushing, and having a laugh.

The critters live in the Australian Wildlife Park just across the bay from the Sydney Opera House. The star of the park is the cuddly koala, Pretty Boy, most adorbs of the adorable kangaroos and quolls, bilbies and quokkas. He even has his own web cam.

But the big draws are the “monsters” from the “Danger House,” with Jackie the croc entertaining the paying guests by scaring them and making mean with trainer/handler and all around butch boy Chazz Hunt (Eric Bana). He’s teaching his son the ropes, and those ropes are used to lasso critters and keep them in line.

Jackie (voiced by Jacki Weaver) is the old timer of the Danger House. She regales the lizards, scorpion Nigel (Angus Imrie) and funnel web spider Frank (Guy Pearce) with tales of the “Outback,” from whence they all came.

Medusa, or “Maddie” (Isla Fisher), the Taipan snake, the “most deadly” venomous snake on Earth, was raised by Chazz and makes her debut in a show, but finds herself shocked when people recoil from her thanks to Chazz’s hype and rough treatment. Maddie is heartbroken. And hearing about the Outback, her “home” that she never knew, is cold-blooded comfort.

One day things get out of hand with the croc show and Jackie is trapped and shipped off. That’s Maddie’s final straw. She’s leaving. Nigel, Frank and the thorny devil lizard Zoe (Miranda Tapsell) join her.

And naturally, events conspire to force them to take that pampered, narcissistic koala, Pretty Boy (Tim Minchin) along. Not that he wants to go.

They have to make their way across the bay — helped by a Great White — learn about “U.S.S.” the “ugliest secret society” of scorned creatures, who might help them, keep Pretty Boy in line and find their way to the Blue Mountains which all of them once called home.

The quest narrative is as old as the hills, but that’s how they encounter helpful spiders, bullfrogs (Keith Urban), a wild boar (Kylie Minogue) and others who help them along.

The humans are almost to a one louts and tough-guy posers. Chazz has to impress little Chazzie, his boy, with his fearlessness, exploits and his perfect grasp of Oz slang.

“Stone the crows” to “crikey” to “I once captured 10 Komodo dragons with no more than a pair of budgie smugglers and a bit of Vegemite.” I’d quote more, but “Let’s not spit the dummy, son.”

No idea what’s he’s talking about there.

The movie is not all that original, but never less than cute, with “Invisalign” and “conditioner” cracks coming from the pampered koala, Fisher singing the others to sleep and humans, save for one little Aboriginal girl, hilariously frightened by them and hellbent on killing or trapping them.

There’s even a moment when two bars are emptied out with bikers and martini drinkers pitching in on the hunt. Drinking and driving in out Mad Max bikes and Utes! Waltzing Matilda without the song!

It’s formulaic, but good clean fun. And it’s a fair dinkum way for the kiddos to learn Oz wildlife and Oz slang in a cartoon.

Rating: TV-G

Cast: The voices of Isla Fisher, Jacki Weaver, Eric Bana, Tim Minchin, Guy Pearce, Rachel House, Kylie Minogue and Keith Urban.

Credits: Directed by Harry Cripps and Claire Knight, scripted by Harry Cripps and Gregory Lessans. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:35

Time-proven people-in-peril horror formulas cross borders and cultures. That’s true in “Roh,” a somewhat effective tale of terror set in the forests of Malaysia.

That’s where a mother (Farah Ahmad), her tween daughter (Mhia Farhana) and younger son (Harith Haziq) find themselves menaced by “omens,” sinister forces in play in their corner of the middle of nowhere.

We’ve seen a feral child (Putri Qaseh) digging up a fresh grave in the dark of night, a Burning Bush her only light.

Mother Mak has no hope of her husband returning, and has only her children to rely on out there. But when they see a slain deer hanging from a tree, they have an idea something’s up. There’s an evil “old people talk about” around here, a creature that targets deer and small children.

Sounds like she’s making that up to keep them safe. But she warns them to beware of anything they see in the forest.

And we’ve already seen this solitary hunter (Namron) stalking about, searching for something. Now would be the perfect time for this mute, filthy wild child to pay them a visit. They feed her and try to figure out her story.

It’s only after she’s killed and eaten a chicken, raw, that she blurts out an answer.

“When the moon is full, all of you will die,” she says (in Malay with English subtitles).

Perhaps the woman (June Lolong) from the village across the river can help. Because once you’ve seen an unwashed urchin devour a bloody chicken and heard her deliver an ominous warning before slitting her own throat, you’re pretty sure this isn’t something you can handle alone.

Writer-director Emir Ezwan, working from a story he and one of his stars (and a producer) conjured up, renders this tale in slow, deliberate strokes.

It’s more chilling than frightening, and just cryptic enough about what’s really happened and what is really happening to keep the viewer engaged.

And even if his film isn’t a non-stop downward spiral into terror, the shocks are genuine and the violence grisly, personal and demonic.

Rating: Unrated, graphic violence

Cast: Farah Ahmad, Mhia Farhana, Harith Haziq, June Lojong, Putri Qaseh and Namron.

Credits:Scripted and directed by Emir Ezwan. A Film Movement+ release.

Running time: 1:23

Although Shaun and his fellow Mossy Bottom Farm sheep will never replace Wallace & Gromit as my favorite Aardman characters, they get themselves into a fine mess in “Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas.”

Yes, basically every Shaun story, in feature film, short film, TV series or holiday special, is about he sheep making mischief and creating mayhem when they get off the farm. But this time there’s snow!

The story involves the eyeless (and Muppet-like) farmer whipping up a not-quite-lethal batch of holiday home brew that he bottles for the town Christmas Fair as Shaun and his non-speaking (save for bleats) flock DIY decorate their barn and Christmas tree with freshly-laid (and painted) eggs, assorted household appliances and the bonnet badge on the farmer’s truck.

Dressing as Santa and taking his trusty dog — who tried to “save” the botched batch of punch that the farmer overloaded with salt — the farmer sets off for the fair. But the lamb of the flock mistook the eyeless Santa for the real one and stowed away on the truck.

Shaun, the lamb’s ewe and four other sheep wangle their own ride to town in pursuit. Things get really complicated when a little girl is given the gift box that the lamb is hiding in. The kid’s a hyperactive moppet, the indulged daughter of the TV chef the Farmer whose recipe for grog he copied, half of a lifestyle show’s husband/wife star couple.

The sheep must track the lamb to the country house of the couple, foil the kid and outrun her parents. The dog tracks the sheep, as his life’s work is tidying up the sheep’s messes and keeping them on Mossy Bottom Farm.

If it ever got out that they were getting out, the Farmer would replace him, I dare say.

“The Flight Before Christmas” starts slowly and gets up a fine head of steam by the top bottles of the home brew pop, creating a cork ricochet incident that tickles.

A mistletoe vendor sells a lot of sprigs, and stuck under another kisses…the cold hard cash she’s collected so far tonight. The Farmer gets mistaken for the “real” Santa and is mobbed at a “Tell Santa what you want for Christmas” event.

Skiing/sledding gags, a Roomba run amok bit — there’s just enough going on to keep the littlest kids interested. And a tiny dollop of heart helps.

They’ll never be Wallace & Gromit, but Shaun and his sheep will do until they run out of reasons to slip off the farm.

Rating: TV-Y

Credits: Directed by Steve Cox, story by Giles Pilbrow and Mark Burton. An Aardman film on Netflix.

Running time: :30

A little of the absurdist madness of 1960s cinema lives on in “Last Words,” a sort of “Waiting for Goddard” End Times tale about the last people on post-apocalyptic Earth making a movie about themselves.

Based on a novel by Santiago Amigorena, who co-wrote the script with director Jonathan Nossiter (“Signs and Wonders” and the terrific documentary “Mondovino” were his), it’s equal parts bleak and daft.

Because when I say “making a movie” I mean that in the most literal sense. An ancient survivor (Nick Nolte) of the movie-making business, preserving reels of celluloid and the primitive means of projecting it 50 years after the apocalypse, teaches a wandering soul (Kalipha Touray) how to build a motion picture camera. We even see them manufacture the “film” itself, putting “magic” chemicals onto celluloid, perforating the edges by hand, the works.

The Earth is a blasted, dry wasteland covered in post-tsunami (must have been a comet strike) rubble. There’s nothing green left, “rain” water is undrinkable and the only food are the last surviving tin cans.

But as the ways this happened and decades of life before it were caught on what is just “digital dust” since the power grid went away, the old man who goes by “Shakespeare” and who has memories of “the ’60s” and The Sex Pistols — in 2085 — is hellbent on convincing this much younger man to undertake this film project.

Don’t do the math of how old Nolte’s character would have to be. That’s maddening all by itself. And don’t let yourself consider how pointless the notion of documenting and “interviewing” any survivors they come across as they trek to Athens. That’s as pointless as wondering how they’re recording “sound” for these interviews.

It’s as looney as it sounds — as nonsensical as our young Afro-European narrator, who has no name and was born so far after the apocalypse that he has “no learning,” knows “nothing” of how things were were before — and yet keeps narrating specific dates.

“June 20, 2086” or “June 2, 2085” etc. Um, how is he supposed to know that? Even after he’s met the Old Man of the Movies hidden in an ancient cellar in Bologna, Italy, holed up watching Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Jr.” or “The Cameraman” or the prehistoric films of the brothers Lumiere he’s preserved, there’s no notion anyone would remember when exactly this is.

The Earth is so depopulated — nothing grows — that the sum total of human knowledge has all but disappeared. Books are around, for the oldest survivors and maybe those like our narrator who “taught myself to read.”

When our narrator tells us “I am the last person on Earth,” we can take him at his word as what he’s relating about “Shakespeare” and their journey to Greece is a flashback from a year or so earlier. Nolte’s character has flashbacks within that flashback that drop a little death and social collapse right-after-it-happened to fill us in.

The reason they’re going to Athens was “a call” that was made, decades before, that told scattered pockets of survivors Greece had greenery and food and even potable water. Was that ever true, or just a myth? The only way to find out…

Greece, it turns out, does have a sort of “’60s commune” with a greenery, plants being nursed back to life, dozens of people ranging in age from their 20s to much older, with the sage Zyberski (Stellan Skarsgård, apparently still in his snowplow pants from “In Order of Disappearance”) and grinning, amorous and aged Balkt (Charlotte Rampling) as their role models.

The commune can feed them, with everyone camped out among the ancient ruins. The newcomers can introduce these survivors to the wonders of the cinema, Eric Idle singing the “Galaxy Song” from “Monty Python’s Meaning of Life.”

Those are the most magical scenes of “Last Words,” seeing people rediscover movies the way the first filmgoers did in the late 1890s — touching the screen in wonder at the “people” they see there, laughing at the slapstick, missing the irony of the old Disney cartoon entertaining prison camp inmates scene in “Sullivan’s Travels.”

Filmed in Moroccan wastelands — dressed with rusted hulks of ships and boats washed inland 50 years before — and several sections of ruined cities in Italy, this dystopian wallow in cinematic nostalgia isn’t anybody’s idea of sophisticated science fiction.

So don’t take it as sci-fi. “Waiting for Godot” is our template. But even in an absurdist/existential sense, it’s a muddle.

Still, something brought Skarsgård and Rampling back onto a Nossiter set — both have worked with him before — something beyond the promise of a paid Italian vacation one would hope.

Dystopias have a certain romance to them, the idea of solitude and the bittersweet fatalism of a doom that will be complete if and when these characters die. Tying that to the conceit that celluloid film is “the last chance to leave a living trace of man,” that old movies (and snippets of TV shows) preserved that way are living time capsules, works.

It’s sad to report that the best you can say of the movie surrounding those conceits is that it’s an indulgent downer, not utterly incoherent but a grim journey from hopelessness to pointlessness.

Cast: Nick Nolte, Kalipha Touray, Charlotte Rampling, Alba Rohrwacher and Stellan Skarsgård.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Jonathan Nossiter, scripted by Santiago Amigorena and Jonathan Nossiter, based on Amigorena’s novel. A Gravitas Ventures release.

Running time: 2:01