Movie Nation

They’re very old men, now — all in their ’90s — and very few in number. The world war killed almost one in two airmen from their ranks, and the 75 or so intervening years have taken almost all those who survived.

But the few living pilots, navigators, gunners, radio-men and “bomb aimers” (how the Brits labeled bombardiers) gathered for one more remembrance of their duty, the perils they faced and the “dirty” work of bombing the enemy’s cities from their “Lancaster” bombers in a new documentary from the folks who made “Spitfire.”

“Lancaster” is a wide-ranging appreciation of one of the finest aircraft of World War II, a graceful Rolls-Royce powered marvel that carried the heaviest payloads of the European theater as Britain’s instrument for “taking the war to Germany” for air raids — often at night — that leveled many a Germany city.

Although most of those interviewed express regret for that nature of that sort of combat, they and the filmmakers take pains to remind us of the context — a global fight to the death over the concept of “freedom.”

“If that’s the game we’re in, that’s the game we’re in,” one crewman reasons. “There’s no second prize in war,” another reminds us. “You either win or you lose.”

The surviving aircrew can be reflective of their horrors of war, of how they couldn’t “think about” their deadly duty and what it might mean to the hundreds of thousands of civilians impacted by it. They’d note “the empty chairs” of their own losses, and the way the German aggressors introduced city bombing and eventually came to “reap the whirlwind” they unleashed, as Bomber Command’s dogged and pragmatic leader Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris put it.

Filmmakers David Fairhead and Ant Palmer interview scores of airmen, British women who did much of the world of building the planes and working radar plotting and communication with the RAF, and a German woman who survived the firebombing of Dresden.

They lean on archival military combat and testing footage, newsreels and snippets from several films made about this service, most famously 1955’s “The Dam Busters,” which recreated one of the most celebrated feats the Avro Lancaster and some of those who crewed them achieved, an exploit explained in further depth here.

And they make sure to include gorgeous aerial footage of one of the two flyable Lancasters still in existence, taking us inside to show us what this aged veteran or that one remembers about being squeezed into this noisy, cramped “”flying bomb-bay” that could feel “like a living thing” in flight.

As nostalgic as Britons have been and remain over their “keep calm and carry on/finest hour” years, Palmer and Fairhead recognize that generations have come and gone since the war, and make their film a thorough overview of the entire experience — strategy, design and deployment of the aircraft, but also the “strange world” of someone removed from the slaughter they were causing, who “fought my war from five miles up.”

A Jamaican crewman, Canadians and others talk about their experiences, the camaraderie that developed within the six-man crews, the tactics deployed to evade night fighters (the Brits bombed mostly at night, the U.S.Army Air Force mostly bombed during daylight) and anti-aircraft fire.

Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, D-Day, Peenemunde and Dresden are targets explained at length.

A crewman recalls the pressure of “trying to pick a pilot who was going to get me through the war,” the staggering losses that came from raids on Berlin and the “dambusting” raid on the industrial Ruhr region. Almost to a one, they talk about the fact that they never talk about this service with family or friends who weren’t in it with them.

And many of them complain that this is because of the “politics” Prime Minister Winston Churchill played with their service, distancing himself from decisions he made about wiping out cities because “precision bombing” was pretty much a myth that didn’t outlive the war and the exigencies of shortening the conflict, “helping the Russians” pre-D-Day and the like.

“Lancaster” briskly covers a lot of ground, making it a most watchable overview of a subject that whole documentary series and a library’s worth of books have been devoted to. And it’s a valuable document as well, getting many of these survivors on film one last time as they remember the context, the stakes and the deadly work they volunteered to do the last time the world faced a global threat from fascist totalitarianism.

Rating: unrated

Credits: Directed by David Fairhead and Ant Palmer. A Gravitas Ventures release.

Running time: 1:50

Auguste Rodin was the subject of a biopic that came out in 2017, which no one saw, and a character in many films about French art of the late 19th and early 20th century, the various accounts of the life of his and other artist’s muse and fellow art “Camille Claudel,” for instance.

Below is one of several sculptures he did of the famous writer Balzac. Busts of composer Gustav Mahler and novelist Victor Hugo are also in the exhibition.

Huge exhibit, almost as many pieces as the Musee Rodin had on display the one time I visited that in Paris some years back.

What a sad and sappy seize-the-day satire “The Loneliest Boy in the World” turns out to be.

A candy-colored zombie comedy set in the bubble-gummy ’80s, it’s about a guy who grew up so sheltered he can’t connect to the real world. Friendless, he’s faced with the choice of living on in his late mother’s Bubblicious pink house, or being moved to an institution if he can’t make friends.

So he starts digging up fresh corpses from the local cemetery that can pose (literally) as “friends.” And guess what? They become the living dead!

Oliver, played as a lost, optimistic soul by Max Harwood (“Everybody’s Talking about Jamie”)) is being monitored by two shrinks — a cynic (Evan Ross of “The United States vs. Billie Holiday”) and his more sympathetic colleague (Ashley Benson of “Spring Break” ). They know his mother (Carole Anne Watts) died in a bizarre accident, and they’re sure she didn’t prepare him for living in this world.

If they knew he watched “Alf” religiously, showing up at her grave to relate each week’s plot to her, that wouldn’t help.

“Hah! WILLIE!”

The fact that he’s mercilessly bullied by the local jocks also seems like a barrier to independent living.

But while Oliver struggles to relate to cute stranger Chloe (Tallulah Haddon), the comical gravediggers tip him that there are fresh bodies aplenty, thanks to a nasty plane crash we’ve witnessed. Next thing we know, Oliver’s filled his house with “friends” who might be “the perfect family,” “just like on TV.”

Ben Miller and Susan Wokoma were older adult parental victims, obnoxious little English girl (Zenobia Williams) could be his sister. There’s even a Frankenweiner, “Ninja.” And Mitch (Hero Fiennes Tiffin, last seen in “The Woman King”)? He could be his “wingman” with Chloe.

If only they’d stop be corpses and start acting like a family! So they do.

The sight gags show off some pretty creative makeup, once we get past the scalding this corpse or posing that one bits. Living dead dining/drinking sight-gags, lost limbs and progressive decomposition can keep a family from being all it can be.

But as he continues to cope with bullies, shrinks and attempts at dating Chloe, they humanize and socialize the awkward lad living with the living dead, motoring around town in his late mom’s pretty-in-pink Chevy Blazer.

“I might be dead, but I’m not stupid” is the extent of the wit, here. As for profound life advice? Maybe Oliver needs to get on with his life, stop reciting “Alf” episodes to his mother’s pink tombstone.

“I can’t miss that show!”

“Sure you can.”

There simply isn’t enough to this beyond the ’80s nostalgia, which is as played out as zombies as a movie genre. We’ve had zombie invasions, zombie TV series, zombie war films, zombie romances (“Warm Bodies”) and zombie period pieces (“Pride & Prejudice & Zombies.” From the first, there’s always been some social commentary and satiric intent in the best of these films.

Not in “The Loneliest Boy in the World.” A charming-enough mostly-British cast riffing on ’80s TV (“Alf” was HUGE in Europe.) “families” adds nothing to the genre and hardly seems worth the effort to get everyone so beautifully made up.

Rating: R for language and violent content.

Cast: Max Harwood, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Ashley Benson, Tallulah Haddon, Carole Anne Watts, Evan Ross, Ben Miller and Susan Wokoma.

Credits: Directed by Martin Owen, scripted by Piers Ashworth. A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 1:30

March 23, that’s a wrap on the one guy you don’t want to mess with.

Yeah, sleeplessness makes you crazy.

Not getting much else from the trailer for a Nov. 1 indie release.

One of the bloodiest “island hopping” fights across the Pacific is recreated in miniature with Casper van Dien, Louis Mandylor and Jeff Fahey.

A fictional account set during the struggle for the island, “Battle of Saipan opens Nov. 24.

Not how I pictured Saipan, but every island recaptured looked like Iwo Jima by the time fighting was done.

I’m not being flippant when I refer to the gritty, soulful urban drama “Signs of Love” as very much “a family affair.” It’s about drugs, dealing and addiction and how that weighs on one neighborhood and one family, and the violence attached to that on the mean streets of Fishtown, Philadelphia.

And it stars two of Sean Penn and Robin Wright’s children, and Rosanna Arquette and her look-alike daughter. So it’s a drama with “bloodlines.” But not all Hollywood nepotism is bad. This is pretty good, and the acting children famous actors are all good in it.

Hopper Penn has just the right rawboned seller/user look for Frankie, our antiheroic hero. When we meet him, the post-high-school punk’s watching the skateboarders and BMX riders practicing their moves on the curbs and culverts under an overpass. A kid leaves his bike for a second, and Frankie’s on it in a flash.

But he’s not just stealing for money or for his own use. He drops in on his teen nephew (Cree Kawa), pretends he doesn’t realize it’s Sean’s birthday, and then gifts him with the new ride.

So I guess that makes it all right.

Sean’s mom, Patty (Dylan Penn) has the self-involved air of an addict She cares about her child, but “taking an interest” seems a stretch.

Frankie deals, buys food for the house, gripes at his sister and once a week, meets his dad (Waas Stevens, outstanding) at their favorite local diner. Dad used to have a thing with a waitress (Roseanna Arquette). Now, he’s a bit too happy to see his boy.

“Are you high?” the kid wants to know. But commenting in his father’s rough appearance is a “You don’t want to go there” line of attack.

“You’re gonna look just like me at this age,” the old man chortles.

Frankie might want to “think about my future,” but his father pops that bubble.

“What? As a pusher? You ruin people’s lives for a living, at $10 bucks a pop!”

But in between sales and pitching in to strong-arm other dealers out of his boss’s territory, Frankie sees a vision. She has heart-stopping smile, freckled, tattooed, slinky and sexy, with a “Desperately Seeking Susan” look about her. He’s just got to make a move.

But Jane (Zoë Bleu Sidel, Arquette’s daughter) is deaf and mostly mute. She reads lips, which is something deaf characters in movies do for screenwriterly convenience. But mainly she communicates via text.

Frankie is smitten, and the beaming Jane is dazzled by his attention. Could this be “Signs of Love?”

Writer-director Clarence Fuller gives us plenty of colorful but utterly realistic characters in his feature debut.

Fuller and his players make this world feel lived-in, down-and-outers scraping by on hustles and government assistance. Frankie is hard-pressed to keep Sean out of this life, considering his environment, and taking into account his sister’s attitude.

“Relax, it’s only oxy,” she tells him when he finds pills the kid’s been selling.

We notice how quick Frankie is to play the victim card and the blame game. He holds his sister and his father responsible for his lot in life.

“Did your dad ever try to sell you for crack?” he spits at Jane, during one testy moment.

Fuller gives his story conventional pitfalls — Jane is well off and headed for college out of state, Frankie’s unsavory work (D’Jour Jones plays a menacing colleague) gets in the way – and a very familiar story arc. Some of the bigger scenes don’t pay off well because the script gives short shrift to “consequences,” except in the most melodramatic moments. And the finale is kind of an eye roller.

But this cast is top drawer, with Hopper Penn taking his first big lead and running with it, his sister furthering her character-turn trip towards a career and Sidel showing promise beyond the “socialite” label prominently-applied to her profile on the Internet Movie Database.

And Fuller shows us enough promise that we can see this movie working, even without the benefit of the scion of Hollywood bluebloods decorating its cast.

Rating: unrated, violence, drug abuse, sexual situations, profanity

Cast: Hopper Penn, Zoë Bleu Sidel, Waas Stevens, Dylan Penn, Da’Jour Jones, Cree Kawa and Rosanna Arquette.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Clarence Fuller. A Blue Fox release.

Running time: 1:38

There’s a grandeur to the finest moments in David Gordon Green’s “Halloween Ends,” a film meant to wrap up the saga that made Jamie Lee Curtis famous.

Green, an indie film mainstay before “Pineapple Express” made him famous, finishes up his “Halloween” trilogy by having Curtis recreate iconic shots and moments from John Carpenter’s “Halloween” (1978).

He folds in flashback montages that remind us of all Laurie Strode (Curtis) and her family have endured from the monstrous Michael Myers. And he exits with the serenely spooky song that Carpenter put on a car radio back in 1978, the unironically ironic “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

Perfect.

But the direction Green and a tag team of screenwriters take the characters and the story in this finale is hard to defend, harder to swallow. So, “pure evil” is contagious, “an infection?” Wait, it’s also learned behavior, created by environment, bad parenting and cruel peer pressure?

Even by Hollywood’s twisted “cinematic psychology” standards, that’s messed up.

The present day finds Laurie writing her memoir about her life of “looking in the shadows for the boogeyman.” Her daughter (Judy Greer) died on a previous Halloween. Granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) is now a nurse, looking for career advancement, trying to shrug off a stalky law enforcement officer she used to date.

But there’s a new guy on her radar. Corey (Rohan Campbell of TV’s “Hardy Boys” reboot) is a nerdy, shy 20something who is henpecked at home, struggling to make college money working at the auto repair shop with a handy scrapyard and car crusher on site.

We meet him as he’s called in to babysit a rich family’s brat. And it’s when that night goes horrifically, accidentally wrong that Corey gets on Laurie’s radar. She instinctively throws this traumatized young fellow in the path of her similarly traumatized and stigmatized granddaughter.

“I know what it’s like to have everybody looking at you like they think they know you,” Allyson says.

But Corey has “issues.” He’s being bullied by kids still in high school. And then there’s the homeless guy watching him, and that culvert running into the bowels of tiny, traumatized Haddonfield, Illinois. Wonder who lives in there?

Green and his college pal, the comic actor and writer Danny McBride, ensure that the jokes in this “Halloween” land. A child cracking that he’s not afraid of Michael Myers “because he always goes after the BABYsitter, not the kid” is always going to be funny.

But as the narrative wanders off the straight and narrow, we lose track of Laurie for stretches. Relationships seem forced, conflicts feel contrived and logic flies out the window.

And while one can appreciate the effort to deconstruct “how monsters are made,” the rationale is as leaky as your average Michael Myers stabbing victim.

Creative killings aside, when you leave Laurie out and then have to back-engineer ways to shoehorn her back into the story, when you water down the basic rivalry — Laurie vs. Michael — when you decide that victims are making the leap from near-death trauma to “burn it all down” mass murderers, you’ve lost me.

Pacing is another problem, as this film feels “saga” length and feels much longer than it is.

Give Green props for all that he got right, bringing Curtis back and making her the focus, for starters. But all involved seem to have painted themselves into a narrative corner that they weren’t able to write their way out of.

If Green wanted to remind us how all three of his “Halloween” films have a whiff of “there’s something off” about them, at least succeeded in that. As he’s filming he new “Exorcist” reboot, and will probably never get back to making the fascinating indie fare like “All the Real Girls,” “Joe” and “Prince Avalanche,” I guess that makes David Gordon Green one more victim of Michael Myers.

Rating: R for bloody horror violence and gore, language throughout and some sexual references.

Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Rohan Campbell, Andi Matichak, Keraun Harris, Kyle Richards and Will Patton.

Credits: Directed by David Gordon Green, scripted by Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernier, Danny McBride and David Gordon Green. based on characters from the John Carpenter/Debra Hill film. A Universal release.

Running time: 1:51

A little Aviation Gin/Funny or Die soaked spin on Mister Scrooge’s Big Night.

Just in time for the holidays, early Nov. from Apple.

This looks and sounds wonderful.

Oct 28, it comes to Apple TV+.