Movie Nation

Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s “Utama” is a stark, elegiac memento of a vanishing culture, a way of life dying as our planet’s dry places dry up completely and vulnerable populations stare down their future as climate refugees.

Telling this story with non-actors (mostly), Grisi creates a somber, sad and documentary-real eulogy for the Quechua families facing the stark choices that changing circumstances have handed them.

Each day Virginio (José Calcina) awakens at dawn to the sight of his wife Sisi (Luisa Quispe) arising to start their day. She gives him buns to take out the door as he releases the llamas that are their livelihood from the stone corral behind their stone house, stone shed and outhouse. He will graze them in desert highlands where almost nothing is still green. She will plant beans and potatoes, water them from their well, and cook for when he comes home.

But their well has gone dry. She will have to trek to the village to fill a couple of buckets. The river is but a creek, and a long way to herd the llamas for a drink. They need it, as do Sisi and Virginio.

And then there’s the worrisome tubercular hack Virginio tries to hide from his wife. They are very old. Their burdens aren’t easing. And there is no water.

At some point, the women and men of the village (Chuvica is where this was filmed) of the arid plateau gather to talk about their crisis, the fact that it hasn’t rained for a year, that their wells and their llamas are dying of thirst.

Younger people gave up on this village some while ago, not necessarily with the blessings of their families. Now, the old women say that it’s time to “migrate to the city.” The old men grouse, deny and complain in Quechua and Spanish, with English subtitles.

“If we leave, our land will be left alone in silence.”

And Sisi and Virginio’s grandson Clever (Santos Choque) has shown up, “to deliver a message” from his father, Virginio gripes — “It’s time to move to the city with us.”

Grisi does a wonderful job of getting at just how difficult this decision is. Think of every aged relative you’ve had to take the car keys from or move into assisted living. Multiply that by an entire village, people who have lived, worked and died the same way for hundreds of years, and imagine the shock of what’s happening and the reluctance to accept it.

He immerses us in a world where the menfolk even turn to the old ways to try and “solve” this problem, “sowing” the mountain with water and an animal sacrifice in the hopes of bringing the rains back.

Virginio seems the most stubborn of all, refusing advice from a grandson who “doesn’t know how to read the signs,” the ones Virginio hopes will show that “the rains come and go, and will come again.”

The acting is natural, unaffected. And that goes for the storytelling as well. The first music we hear in this silent landscape is downbeat and dire. It underscores how the “solutions” presented here solve nothing.

The life disruption is borne through gritted teeth, a determination to hold out just a little longer, to make it to the finish line (death) before the other inevitability becomes unavoidable. And as we read between the lines, we can envision older generations worldwide facing this ugly future with the same denial, obstinance and dismay, a “change” that no one wants forced on everyone by the actions and inactions of a few.

Grisi has made a simple parable for life on Earth and the consequences the most remote people face from climate change, and a film that’s worth rooting for as “Utama” is Bolivia’s submission for this year’s Best International Feature competition at the Oscars.

Rating: unrated

Cast: José Calcina, Luisa Quispe and Santos Choque

Credits: Scripted and directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi. A Kino Lorber release.

Running time: 1:28

This Feb. 23 release also stars Joel Courtney.

I’m still trying to get my head around Grammer’s presence in what appears to be a faith based film. He’s done hardcore right wing political pictures before, but now he’s found Jesus?

You don’t have to know the guy’s tortured history to find that a big LOL, but it helps.

Glancing at other reviews, “Meet Cute” can definitely be labeled “a mixed bag” and “not for everyone,” although one is sorely tempted to ask some of these reviewing schlumps “where the bad woman/bad man touched you and ruined your capacity for joy” based on their high dudgeon.

Here’s what I got out of this “time travel” “50 First Dates/Groundhog Day” riff. Kaley Cuoco is a superheroine. Her superpower? She humanized and made me give a damn about the professionally-annoying Pete Davidson for like, the first time ever.

As a woman who hits on “stranger” Pete in an outer-boroughs sports bar, tells him “I come from the future” and that she’s been taking her shot at him, over and over again, via a time-travel tanning bed behind a Chinese American nail salon, Cuoco runs through her perky repertoire.

She is cute and beguiling, forward and impulsive, impatient and “scary Kaley” over the course of this romantic comedy about loneliness, “messiness” and “our pain is what shapes us.”

Yeah, it’s a time travel rom-com, “Safety Not Guaranteed” meets the Cinematic Canon of Drew Barrymore. But there’s a little heavy lifting going on. All you have to do is carry half the weight yourself.

As Sheila, Cuoco shows up at the bar dressed like an Iowa librarian and drinks and swears like a battle-weary Queens queen. And gun-shy Gary — “We both have old timey names!” — is helpless in her hands.

But as she bowls him over with a dinner invitation, pretends to let him pick from a collection of adjacent Indian eateries and listens to his “a real ‘Sophie’s Choice’ kind of decision,” she laughs and says “I love when you make that joke,” and gives away the game.

Time to “Come clean,” about meeting him every night like this, the sarcastic manicurist (Deborah S. Craig, funny) who lets her time-travel in her tanning bed, and the fact that she knows what he drinks (Old Fashioned) and what he’s going to say…because she’s gone back 24 hours to reset this “perfect” night with a “perfect” guy, an endless “Meet Cute” first date.

Over the course of this Alex Lehmann film (the Duplass-scripted “Blue Jay” was his), Sheila will stumble from perky and bubbly to dark, testy and broken. And poor Gary might never be the wiser, because every night is a “Meet Cute” first date. It’s only when Sheila starts trying to “fix” this insecure, fragile, just-got-out-of-a-relationship loner who folds up like a wet napkin at the merest hint of a mistake, that Gary grows an edge and the “pain” that he’s been through becomes an issue. As does hers.

The sitcom-polished Cuoco barrels through her one-liners, “living life to the fullest, just like ‘The Real Housewives of Orange County,” and makes the cautionary slip “I’m about to ruin your life” land.

Davidson dials down his Dead End Pete Persona, cleans up from his usual “Staten Island stoner” look and ably conveys Gary as a deer in Sheila’s headlights for the early scenes, and the angry, more assertive jerk her “changes” turn him into later.

The couple delivers real pathos in the third act, and for all the comic pop of her manic patter and his strangely subdued responses, it’s Craig’s deadpan manicurist who delivers most of the laugh-out-loud moments here.

Kevin Corrigan as a sympathetic/flirty bartender and Rock Kohli, as an Indian restaurant street hawker with insights into relationships — that he might have read from a Chinese fortune cookie — provide solid support.

Not all of screenwriter Noga Pnueli’s ideas work, and some — how one deal’s with an alternate “me” in the same timeline — are tonally off.

But “Meet Cute” makes for an offbeat spin on its titular rom-com convention, and Cuoco and Davidson give it just enough heart to pay off, something I attribute to Kaley C. because on his own, Davidson can be funnier, but he’s usually as warm as refrigerated cod.

It’s nothing we’d call great, but in an era when no one seems to “get” how to make a rom-com work, it’s bad either.

Rating: TV-MA, profanity, adult themes

Cast: Kaley Cuoco, Pete Davidson, Deborah S. Craig, Rock Kohli and Kevin Corrigan

Credits: Directed by Alex Lehmann, scripted by Noga Pnueli. A Peacock release.

Running time: 1:29

This remake of the Norwegian dramedy “A Man Called Ove” looks as adorable, which is not quite what I remember about the original film. Bitter softening into less bitter is what I recall. But Tom Hanks is just too cuddly for that to come off.

A limited release on Christmas, opening wide in early January.

Peyton List is among the stars of this “We’re young and we’ll be friends forever” thriller.

Nov. 11.

A former government wracked by criminality, a fascist coup and a country divided between a majority crying out for justice and a dogmatic minority who won’t hear of it, “facts” and “evidence” be damned.

America, 2022? No, “Argentina, 1985.”

Argentine director and co-writer Santiago Mitre’s engrossing, nervous film takes us back to the troubled days just after Argentina’s latest military dictatorship ended, when fears of violent reprisals or even another coup hung over a new administration and a justice system pondering whether to prosecute the leaders of the military junta who presided over mass kidnappings, torture and murder, “crimes against humanity” in the name of “saving” a country from leftist influence and unrest.

Mitre (“The Summit,” “Paulina”) recreates the unease that lapses into paranoia of the prosecutor fated to take on nine of the most powerful men in the country in a legal move unprecedented in human history — civilian authority taking “genocidal” dictators to court. And Mitre finds the dark humor in that situation in his anti-heroic protagonist, the prosecutor named Julio César Strassera, but who also goes by a nickname — “Loco,” aka “Crazy.”

What makes this skewed take on the man work is Mitre’s choice as star. Ricardo Darín might be the most famous screen actor in Argentina, and with “The Secret in Their Eyes,” “Nine Queens” and “Truman” among his credits, he’s certainly the most accomplished. This is Mitre’s third film with him. He brings just the right blend of determined seriousness and martyred paranoia to a nervous man about to try a case as the whole world watches.

In 1984, the film opens as the nation’s highest court is deciding whether or not to try the nine men who took over the country and taught the world the Spanish phrase “Los Desaparecidos.” That’s they called the women and men snatched by the military’s right wing death squads to be imprisoned without trial, tortured and often murdered — “The Disappeared.”

We meet “Loco” as he’s dodging calls from the bureaucrat who appointed him and accusing questions from his wife (Alejandra Flechner) and tweenage son (Santiago Armas Estevarena). Threatening calls are coming to his house, his wife is baiting him with the accusation that he’s “afraid” the justice system will make him pursue this case because he’s been in the job for years, and never got out of line and took action when the generals and admirals were in charge.

“I won’t be the moron picked to be the face” of a sham trial, he fumes (in Spanish with English subtitles). He might be afraid of “the most important prosecution since Nuremberg.” But he’s damned certain that the high court and justice system won’t have the nerve to prosecute.

His son is trying to figure out if Dad’s worth idolizing. And Julio/Loco is most worried that his teen daughter (Gina Mastronicola) is being seduced by a “spy” from “the services” (the military) sent to “get to me through her.”

As the judicial system decides to proceed and the old friends he figured he could count on as his “team” chicken out, a young assistant prosecutor (Peter Lanzini) shows up, “assigned” to him. And once Julio’s gotten past Luis Moreno Ocampo’s youth, his ties to the military and the well-heeled, fascist-sympathizing rich, the young guy becomes an invaluable sounding board about the optics of this case as they dicker over how to proceed and consider just who in this divided country they stand to win over in court.

A staff of eager and idealistic young lawyers is brought on board via a cute and jokey hiring montage. They’re not needed just for their energy and enterprise as they will be the ones chasing down witnesses, case files and evidence. It is their generation who needs to be convinced this is important. The televised trial, and TV chat show appearances might help make that case.

One of the greatest Argentine movies ever was “The Official Story (La historia oficial),” a so-fresh-the-wound-was-still-bleeding 1985 drama about the covered-up extrajudicial killings. More recently, there’s been a gripping documentary about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the parents of the “disappeared” who started silent public protests in Buenos Aires which unraveled the legitimacy and the support for the dictatorship as they doggedly pursued answers about their missing children and justice for Argentina.

Mitre’s script, co-written with Mariano Llinás, takes care to bring in those mothers, who along with the UN and Organization of American States, took pleas compiled evidence about what was going on in Argentina during its junta and the junta’s “dirty war.”

The mothers and some of the witnesses are shown greeting the case with biting sarcasm about the years nothing was even attempted on a legal front to account for the missing and start accusing the murderously guilty.

All of which informs the character Julio, who no doubt feels guilt over not doing more (he himself might have “disappeared”) and still can’t be as glib about this dangerous and historic undertaking as his wife and kids, who shrug off the ugly phone calls.

“It’s just a threat, Dad!”

Darín brings a befuddled, twitchy energy to “Crazy” — chain-smoking, eyes-darting, fretting over what might happen and yet refusing police “protection” because the cops were in cahoots with the junta. Julio exchanges taunts with the smug, smirking and “patriotic” defense attorneys, and all but flips out over the tricks the defense uses to stall, delay and smother justice before it can be adjudicated and served. The pressure gets to him in serious and amusing ways.

But “Argentina, 1985” earns its gravitas from the gripping testimony of those who survived kidnapping, or who witnessed it. And while the closing argument might not be “To Kill a Mockingbird” poetic, it is blunt and moving, its usage of the simple yet inspiring “never again” standing as a challenge to anyone shrinking from the duty of pressing on with a case, under great duress and in a violently divided land, to bring the criminally powerful to justice.

Rating: R for (profanity)

Cast: Ricardo Darín, Alejandra Flechner, Peter Lanzani, Santiago Armas Estevarena

Credits: Directed by Santiago Mitre, scripted by Mariano Llinás and
Santiago Mitre. An Amazon Studios release (now streaming on Amazon Prime)

Running time: 2:20

This one is quite timely, and is due out Nov. 1.

The great gift that “Black Adam” offers casual comic book filmgoers is the chance to experience a lesser-known character in a less familiar “universe,” a film you can take in with few expectations.

We know Dwayne Johnson’s in it, and dude is credibly bulked-up and superheroic, just in his street clothes. Aside from that, and the fact that the man’s been hyping the hell out of this for years, we’re walking in with a blank slate.

It has that DC cinematic universe look — soundstagey, filtered lighting, Marvel on an overcast day. B-movies-on-an-A-picture-budget filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra (“Orphan,””House of Wax,””Jungle Cruise”) is behind the camera. Let’s see what they come up with up.

Not much, as it turns out.

It’s a jumbled, cluttered “origin story” whose opening scenes have a “Conan the Barbarian” look and feel. The rest? “Shazam!” with a staggering body count, a jokey, murderous action epic of confused loyalties and uninteresting characters, dull performances and Dwayne Johnson spending a lot of time proving Rocks can fly.

Between “Conan” and “Shazam!” there’s an Indiana Jones interlude, a quick bit of poking around in a ruined ancient crypt, cuneiform-reading clues and intoning an ancient summons to bring a Middle Eastern nation’s ancient “Champion,” “Teth-Adam,” to life.

Kahndaq is an ancient land, the world’s sole source of Eternium (Did James Cameron come up with that, or steal it for his “Unobtainium?”) which led to the people being enslaved to mine it. A young slave strikes a blow to free his people, and vanishes in a flash 5,000 years ago.

A modern day academic Adrianna (Sarah Shahi) is hunting for an ancient crown made from Eternium and containing the magic of six demons, because as her skateboarding son (Bodhi Sabongui) notes, “We could really use a superhero right about now.”

Kahndaq has fallen under foreign occupation as multi-national mercenaries and those who hire them exploit their resources. Asssorted villains want that crown, too, chiefly Ishmael (Marwan Keznari) we figure out is a heavy the moment we see him. There’s nothing subtle, mysterious or nuanced in this film. It’s as obvious can be, which contributes to the mind-numbing dullness.

Summoning Teth-Adam (Johnson) gets the attention of the world’s Justice Society, competing for attention with the Justice League, the Avengers and The Evolution Revolution, no doubt.

These movies — and this isn’t just a DC adaptation problem, although theirs do a worse job at hiding it — are just feeding on each other now, repeating themselves ad nauseum. The result is stunningly-decorated tedium, as boring an experience as any sentient cinema-goer’s going to have at the movies this year.

Pierce Brosnan is Dr. Fate, Aldis Hodge is Hawkman, Netflix “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” hearthrob Noah Centineo is awkward Atom Smasher and Quintessa Swindell is the windswept Cyclone. These members of the Justice Society are sent by the non-nonsense Waller (Viola Davis) to calm the situation in Kahndaq, “peace keepers” who do nothing about the oppression and exploitation that was the reason a desperate Dr. Adrianna summoned the unstoppable killing machine Teth-Adam in the first place.

“Good guys don’t kill people,” Hawkman lectures the out-of-control Adam.

“I’m not a good guy.”

The film’s attempts at the “Shazam!” jokey tone are largely provided by Adrianna’s kid, Amon, who coaches Adam to take on a whole “Man in Black” persona. Adam, glimpsing a Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western on the kid’s TV, hears him out. “Catch-phrase, THEN kill them!”

“Tell them that the Man in Black sent you.”

There’s a lot of exposition early on, telling us the prehistory that created Teth-Adam. I was somewhat engaged in the opening slave rebellion scenes, but this fiasco fritters that attention away in a flash, losing itself in an endless series of brawls, shootouts with Black Adam catching the bad guy’s bullets, Black Adam flying and Black Adam crashing through walls because “I suppose you didn’t have doors” in his life, five thousand years ago.

The acting is indifferent, save for the teenager, who has no screen presence and must have been hired for his skateboarding skill rather than any acting training. I hate picking on kids, but he is “Phantom Menace” level awful — dead line-readings, literally wilting in front of the camera.

The best thing in “Black Adam” might be the hairstyling. Brosnan, Swindell and some others have screen-saver-ready locks. Johnson? He’s bigger than we’ve even seen him, and balder.

This picture is Johnson’s baby, talked-up and hyped for years before the cameras finally rolled. Apparently his towering ambition is to get one more franchise on his books while he’s still got the clout to do it. This was a mistake, and it’s all on him.

The cut-and-paste writing and lackluster direction are the main failings. There’s little to this that you’d call a “story,” even less “story” that makes sense. At one point, Black Adam is entombed, locked away, willingly submitting to authority in the service of the greater good, only to be released in the very next scene. Pointless crap like that is scattered throughout this script-by-committee screenplay.

I guess that’s to be expected in any movie whose real catch phrase is “A bad plan is better than no plan at all.”

Rating: PG-13 (Sequences of Strong Violence|Intense Action|Some Language)

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Shahi, Aldis Hodge, Quintessa Swindell, Noah Centineo, Marwan Keznari and Pierce Brosnan

Credits: Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, scripted by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, Sohrab Noshirvani, based on the DC comic book character. A Warner Brothers/New Line release.

Running time: 2:04

This November film release on Amazon Prime promises a lot of Ugly American behavior in the UK for Bell’s half-sister’s posh nuptials.

Cynthia Addai-Robinson (“Lord the Rings: Ring of Power,” “Chicago Med”) is the sister, Black and British.

Ben Platt is the brother — gay. Quite a stretch for the Evan Hansen of “Dear Evan Hansen.”

Looks like a party. Tony Goldwyn’s in it, so I guess that cinches it.

Nov 4, let the caller and host cat-and-mouse game begin.