Movie Nation

I was hoping for a long shot, “Puss in Boots.” But this stop-motion marvel was one of the very best pictures of last year.

Score one for Netflix, and another one for Guillermo del Toro.

“Keep animation in the conversation,” he says. Amen.

So they moved this up to the first award given out so that it’d fit next to a Disney at 100 commercial?

My first name is of French origin and originally meant “fame” and “spear,” which…fits.

But “Roger” has so many other meanings, fun and more fun. It’s radio parlance for “affirmative,” which has an interesting WWII etymology. Then there’s the slangy, sexual organ/sex-act twists the Brits gave it.

Today’s “Around the World with Netflix” title opens by letting the world know what it can mean in Nigeria. A “roger” is a bribe, which inspires the obvious piratical title “Jolly Roger.”

The film is something of a non-starter, a tepid domestic melodrama married to a hostage thriller involving bribe-happy cops and one guy who plots his revenge. But it’s a short trip to a distant culture, even if that culture is barely sampled here.

Our narrator tells us that the human “brain functions for 15 minutes — maybe it was 50 — after death.” So that’s how much time he has to tell this 88 minute tale.

We’re treated to the shakedowns that two corrupt Nigerian policemen (Toyin Oshinaike and Frank Donga) run, traffic stops where they climb into the car with you for threats, a search for signs the driver is an “internet fraudster.” They don’t ask for ID. They go straight for “Where is your LAPTOP?”

And you thought everybody was in on the Nigerian prince email scam.

As is the way of things, the nicer the car, the bigger the bribe.

Flashbacks show us a love affair between Brume (Daniel Etim Effiong) and Najite (Toni Tones). It began six years before, and as events in the present progress towards one shakedown that ends up with the cops in cages, we see how that romance and marriage was impacted by these goons with badges.

Officer Felix and Officer Yaw wake up stripped, tased and taunted by two captors, one of whom is particularly enraged and on task. That’s Brume.

“Your chickens have come home to roost,” he crows. But there is no delight in this. This is about revenge.

His accomplice (Deyemi Okanlawon) may be “the weak link,” according to older officer Yaw (Donga). But how can they parlay that into a get away, a turning of the tables?

The acting has a stiff, starchy nature which is a characteristic of a lot of Nollywood films in English. That adds to the general lackluster pacing, characters carefully choosing and enunciating words in scene after scene, too many of those scenes dramatically flat.

The hostage situation has an inherent tension, but it’s never less than predictable, never more than lukewarm. The domestic scenes — mother-in-law problems and efforts to get pregnant — are soap operatic in the extreme.

There’s nothing here most of the world hasn’t seen before, and done better. But “Jolly Roger” gives us a tiny taste of Nigerian life, a culture in which even its affluent professionals are at the mercy of armed, state-sponsored shakedown artists with badges.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, profanity

Cast: Daniel Etim Effiong, Toni Tones, Deyemi Okanlawon, Toyin Oshinaike and Frank Donga.

Credits Directed by Walter Waltbanger” Taylaur scripted by Tunde Apalowo. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:28

The hallmarks of a D-movie are many, but often include the following.

They’re usually horror films. And there’re always a couple of horror “names” in the cast, people whose credits include low-to-no-budget slasher, spatter and “dead teenager” movie credibility.

In “Ash and Bone,” those include Jimmy Doom (“Blood Immortal”), Mel Novak (“Game of Death”) and Jamie Bernadette (TV’s “Midnight, Texas”).

Do they help win financing, get distribution (not in this case) or entice downloads? That’s the bet, anyway.

The dialogue’s littered with cliches and grammatical abominations. Lines like “You’re not from around here, are you?” are a given.

The plot is so old it qualifies for Social Security, the characters simple archetypes. Gun nuts? Cannibals? Corrupt sheriff? Insolent Goth Girl?

And occasionally you’ll see a shot, a scene composition so inept that a character sitting on a sofa looks like a head on a bearskin body, or a cop wears his sunglasses on top of his head so that we see the production lighting inside that bar.

These films have picked up a new nickname. Anytime the free-with-ads streamer “Tubi” is trending, you can bet some self-financed delusion where you can hear “Action!” in the incompetent editing, bad effects and idiotic makeup has just popped up there.

“Ash and Bone” isn’t on Tubi. Yet.

A father (director Harley Wallen) takes his new wife (Kaiti Wallen, ahem) and troubled daughter from an earlier marriage (Angelina Danielle Cama) from Detroit, where Goth girl Cassie was getting into trouble, to rural Hadley Lake, Michigan.

Things’ll be fine. Or things will be better. After she takes her earbuds out and listens to parent and other people instead of death metal. After Dad finally lays down the law. Until that day happens, she grabs the keys to Dad’s van and cruises for a bar, flashes a fake ID and asks the locals (Bernadette and Mason Heidger) where she might find “a haunted house.”

There aren’t any. But maybe the creepy McKinley place’ll do. It’s not haunted. When they break in, it’s obvious it’s not even empty. But that wall covered with missing persons fliers at the bar is thought to be connected to it.

“What is that SMELL?”

Maybe the video camera in that basement torture chamber they’ve stumbled into will state the obvious.

As “everybody knows” the owners and most suspect something awful going on, we don’t need to be told that “something’s up with this town and this family.” That “smell” might be corruption. Or it might just be what the title of this tale foretells — “Ash and Bone,” and maybe a little burnt flesh.

Even by the more forgiving standards of no-budget horror, this isn’t any good. There’s no pace. Scenes lie flat, not so much progressing as standing and waiting around to see if they ever end.

Getting your movie scripted, financed, cast, produced and finished is a series of small to major miracles any indie filmmaker can testify to. But some of them simply aren’t worth that herculean effort. Perhaps the most valuable talent any filmmaker can have is the ability to recognize that before that first casting call.

It’s a pity they don’t teach that in film school, or add that to any web page on “how to make a movie.” It’s not just about “Can we get this movie made?” It’s “Should we?”

Rating: unrated, graphic violence, teen drinking, profanity

Cast: Angelina Danielle Cama, Jamie Bernadette, Harley Wallen, Kaiti Wallen, Mason Heidger, Mel Novak, with Erika Hoveland and Jimmy Doom.

Credits: Directed by Harley Wallen, scripted by Bret Miller. A Cama Productions release.

Running time: 1:37

The topicality, the writing, the Edward Hopper Stuck at Waffle House production design, the mayhem in pantomime.

And the acting. Jenna Ortega’s most touching moment.

The academic turned Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist Richard Russo’s college-set comedy “Straight Man” becomes the latest Bob Oedenkirk AMC+ series, casting him as a writer/English dept. chair in mid-midlife crisis — “Lucky Hank.”

It’s a droll comedy about witty, petty, self-absorbed academics, snowflake students and the low-stakes turf wars of academia, a dryer-than-dry comic cocktail in the ballpark of Netflix’s “The Chair.” Watching it one can both raise one’s hopes, and understand why Netflix cancelled that Sandra Oh series after just a season. I got the distinct impression that AMC saw that, too, and budgeted “Lucky Hank” accordingly.

Oedenkirk plays William Henry Deveraux, Jr., the chairman of Railton College’s fractious, back-biting eight member English department. He is married, apparently happily, to the college’s queen of smoothing troubled waters (Mireille Enos of TV’s “The Killing” and “Hanna”), crisis counselor for the college. He published one novel, decades ago. He’s the estranged son of a just-retired famous literary critic.

And now he’s teaching a fiction-writing workshop, a never-quite-has-been listening to delusional students try their hand at what they’re sure will make them famous.

Our story begins the day Hank is challenged, mid-daydream, by a rich kid (Jackson Kelly) who figures he’s the next Don DeLillo. One sneer too many, a personal attack on “your only novel” and where Hank ended up, sets him off.

His meanest comeback? “You’re HERE! The reason you’re here really shows that you didn’t try very hard in high school.”

Queue the campus-wide outrage, the demands for his firing start high (Oscar Nuñez from “The Office” is the harassed Dean of Faculty) that spill over into a “de-chairing” effort in his department. And the kid expects an apology.

Hank copes with this amidst his years-long writer’s block, fresh problems involving his over-achiever dad, the constant mooching of his married daughter (Olivia Scott-Welch), and threatened budget cuts that he may be facing even if he’s deposed as department chair.

In the second episode, a longtime friend (Brian Huskey) who was first-published at the same time as Hank, triggers more angst when he comes for a richly-compensated public Q & A that his old pal Hank is expected to moderate. The department revolt — Suzanne Cryer, Cedric Yarbrough, Shannon DeVido, Arthur Keng, Nancy Robertson, Haig Sutherland and Alvina August — climaxes just as many faculty “types” turn on each other and bigger issues settle onto the horizon.

AMC only provided the first two episodes for review, so the famous cover-illustration hook for this pre-Pulitzer outing by the author of “Empire Falls” — which involves the department budget, tenure and a threat against the on-campus geese — is down the road.

Can one tell if this is going to be worth the viewer’s time from the first two installments? There’s a bit of “Office” style promise in the predictable gender politics, chosen discipline hierarchy and sexual history nature of the department infighting, somewhat less in the students who aren’t likely to forget Hank labeled them “mediocrities” at “this middling college” in a “forgotten town.” Or that he dismissed that smug rich kid who compared his blundering style to Chaucer and dashed his expectations of winning a Pulitzer for literature.

“I’ll bet a KIDNEY that you don’t!”

“Have a Nice Day!” is a sentimental coming of age dramedy that doesn’t quite come off. Lots of promising if somewhat conventional possibilities are introduced, with only the least interesting of them pursued.

It’s lighthearted, but ungainly, incomplete and disappointing more often than not.

Álvaro Guerrero plays an aged ex-DJ forcibly retired a long way from where the action is. But back in the day, he was a star of Mexico City’s Universo Musical, famed for his introduction of “La hora de rock and roll,” on the radio.

Now Enrique Guerrero, aka “Enrique Guerrerock,” is just “‘Rique” to his equally-aged pals down at the town barbershop (Eduardo de la Peña, Fernando Larrañaga and Sidney Robote). They sit and sip Cuba Libres and tell ‘Rique stories when he’s not around.

But an announcement on the radio about an upcoming anniversary celebration kind of freaks ‘Rique out. Surely his old flame, the co-hostess, “La Bomba,” who dumped him when the station broke up their team years before, will be there. He’s still got his ancient Boss Mustang, although now it’s a wreck. He needs cash to fix up the car, clean himself up and make the trip to Mexico City to show her what she lost.

That’s how he winds up bagging groceries at the supermercado. And that throws him into conflict with the kid ordered to train him, Picho (Eduardo Minett).

‘Rique is revered by the manager, so he can do what he wants, smoke in the no-smoking zones. When he helps himself to more than his share of the tips, Picho is pissed. The kid’s got enough problems, pining away for his favorite cashier and high school classmate, Amanda (Andrea Chaparro). Cavalier ‘Rique is a bit of a cock-blocker, in that regard.

But that’s how the hustling, shortcutting, charming and shoplifting ‘Rique smooths things over with the kid. He’ll help him learn how to break out of the friend zone with Amanda, if Picho will help him in his latest side hustle — pilfering the recyclable cardboard from the store that pays their salaries.

The kid is treated to an Elvis pompadour — because that was “cool” to rock-a-billy loving ‘Rique. He learns to be mysterious, elusive and remote. And he is trained in how to steal and somehow get screwed out of part of his share as they make off with all that cardboard.

“Scream VI” is headed towards a franchise-best opening weekend, based on a big Thursday night and robust Friday.

Deadline.com estimates that the $19.5 million opening day (Thursday night’s $5.7 million is folded into that) will produce a $43-45 million opening weekend. I think they’re a little low, but maybe word of mouth won’t be a big help, as it’s not all that.

The horror faithful are showing up, and that’s what counts.

“Creed III” may manage $27 million plus, and clear the $100 million mark, all in, by midnight Sunday. A 50-55% drop in its second weekend is average, par for the course and all that. No huge fall-off here.

The Adam Driver sci-fi outing “65” wasn’t widely screened for critics, earned mostly middling reviews, and Adam Driver doesn’t sell tickets. It might clear $12 million. Looks like the whole gimmick is given away in the trailer. I won’t get to it until next week. Meh.

The last and least “Ant-Man & the Wasp” movie will pull in another $7 million, based on Friday’s numbers.

“Cocaine Bear” is money in the bank, with another $6-7 million rolling in, pushing it over the $50 million mark.

Sunday graphic from our friends @BoxOfficePro

A throwback martial arts fantasy like “Code of the Assassins” can’t help but summon up what one remembers of Joseph Campbell’s seminal book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” or Vladimir Propp’s “The Morphology of the Folk Tale.”

There really are only about half a dozen plots in all of fiction. And the “hero” really does have “a thousand faces,” masked or unmasked, in superhero tights, the cloak of a Jedi or an ancient warrior from Asia, the Middle East or anywhere else.

“Code of the Assassins,” released as “Song of the Assassins” in China, harks back to Asia’s version of the sort of talky, fan-friendly quests that one can see in any comic book movie from Marvel or DC. It’s got the same archetypes — fighters with specialized, supernatural skills, treacherous villains, damsels and dragon ladies — magical talismans and a wondrous object coveted by all, in this case, an ornate, sliding and folding copper map to “all of the forgotten treasures” in this version of mythic China.

It stuffs the screen with characters, exposition and conflicting motivations. And it damned near talks itself to death in the process. But all that really matters are that the fights are cool and that various warriors, assassins, princes, generals and judges “stick the superhero landing.”

Daniel Lee, director of “Three Kingdoms” and “White Vengeance,” tells a tale of a time when “assassins were used to solve problems.” Can’t release a movie that would scare the People’s Republicans who run China by giving the proles ideas, can we?

Qi Junyuan, aka “Blue Asura” (Shaofeng Feng of “1921” and “White Vengeance”) is a one-armed member of the Ghost Valley assassins guild, murderous mercenaries hired to solve geo-political and economic problems by the assorted kingdoms of ancient China. He wears a gilded mask and black cloak when on the job for South Pagoda or East Mulberry or whatever royal line bids for his services.

And that missing arm has been replaced by ancient Chinese bionic tech. He’s got a steampunk arm — the Arm of Asura — that spring loads daggers or swords into that hand and fires darts or grappling hooks that help him fly from pagoda to pagoda.

He has an overlord, Golden Mask, and a mentor, Grim Ghost.

“Let go of the hatred and prevail in righteousness, Grim Ghost/Obi Wan counsels.

And he’s got a grudge. That map he’s been summoned to steal from a general (Jun Hu) who has been sent take it from its latest owner was made by our hero’s father. Making it got his entire clan slaughtered, save for Qi Junyuan.

There’s a winning business idea tucked into the 93 minutes of the grief, guilt and its consequences drama “Rebroken.”

The film features Tobin Bell, the Once and Always “Jigsaw,” as a sort of inscrutable therapist members of a grief self-help group sneak off to see for life-changing advice, or perhaps a supernatural “do over” of the event that killed someone else and broke them. And hearing Bell’s mesmerizing growl of a whisper, dispensing the wisdom of the ages — in fortune cookie-length bites — made me wonder why he’s never turned that into an opportunity.

A Daily Affirmation by Tobin Bell seems like a website begging for our money.

“Sometimes what we think is lost is not lost at all,” life coach (Guru?) Vaughan intones. “It just needs to be rediscovered.”

He’s put a memorization mantra on LP for his latest grieving visitor (Scott Hamm Duenas, also credited with co-writing the script).

“You mind is open, you heart is clear, now open both to what is dear.”

The movie may take forever to begin, not deliver much at all when it does and end a lot less cryptically than those who wrote it think. But the owlish, soft-spoken Bell has little life lessons aplenty, just as he did in the “Saw” movies. Only this time, there’s no booby trap to lop off your fingers or grind down your scalp.

“Folks don’t always like what they discover about themselves,” Vaughan says, a warning label for ayahuasca if eve I heard one.

Duenas’s Will is the sullen guy sitting through grief group meetings, by court order, challenged to “share” his story by the group leader (Alison Haislip), badgered by cop and meeting member Bryan (co-writer Kipp Tribble) as he heads out the door after each session, dead set on walking to the liquor store and then back to his house, where a missing child’s magnetic letters still decorate the fridge with “I love you Daddy.”

Lydia (Nija Okoro) is the group member who would love to amend Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s “Five Stages of Grief/Dying.”

“There ought to be a sixth step...Reversal.”

She’s the one who tips Will about someone who could REALLY help. That’s how he tracks down Vaughan in a puptent on the outskirts of town. And once we get past the outrage that “NOBODY puts Tobin BELL in a PUPTENT,” we listen as he counsels Will. Whatever he’s selling, he’s giving it away. And whatever that is, you’ve got to accept it on faith.

“Listen with a clear and open mind,” he says. And here, have some LPs. Vaughan has recorded affirmations to listen to until you doze off.

This is lovely to look at. The um “story?” Hard to uh, SAY.

April 5 we find out.