Movie Nation

Dear Britannia. You have time. Reconsider?

This one is previewing early because they’re sure they’ve got something good here.

One can hardly wait.

When we meet Justin Long’s actor character AJ in the new thriller “Barbarian,” he’s a Hollywood lad on the make, a guy with a TV pilot about to be picked up sporting down the coast with the top down in a vintage Alfa Romeo Spider not too many years removed from the model Dustin Hoffman drove in “The Graduate.”

Apt.

A giddy AJ is singing along to the car’s sound system. And what’s that patter song he’s singing along to?

Why, a tune that was new at the same time the car was, a song inspired by “Jungle Book” author Rudyard Kipling.

An Oct. 14 release from Samuel Goldwyn, this one could’ve used some serious title brainstorming. “Hitman’s Holiday” gets the job done.

Scott Adkins and Ray Stevenson, making a movie in Malta with lots of “Warriors” style colorful hitman characters trying to kill someone our “hero” is trying to protect.

“The Movie,” a “comical” hostage “thriller” about a deranged no-talent who home-invades a has-been movie star’s house to force her to be in his film, is not autobiographical. That needs to be said.

It is not funny, exciting, scripturally witty, cinematically interesting or acted in any way that threatens at any moment to change all the things it’s not.

It’s the kind of disaster that hits my in-box, with begging/badgering messages from a publicist hired by the distributor or (more likely) by the delusional self-distributing filmmaker who hasn’t taken the parade of “pass” and “no” replies from studios/distributors seriously.

Jarrod Pistilli, sort of a more-annoying-even-less-amusing version of Jamie Kennedy, is the pushy “delivery” guy who brings a package to faded star Janet, played by Bonnie Root, who lets us feel her pain. We even sense its on-set presence between takes.

Walter the delivery guy wants her to read his script, wants her to film his script, and has delivered a huge box with all his filmmaking gear for the eventuality that he lashes her to his delivery dolly and production begins.

The most generous way to look at this amateurish riff and an amateur trying to shoot a “POV” picture with a helmet cam as he co-stars in it is as a lark that did not work and never should have seen the light of day. Nothing wrong with trying and failing. But “never seen the light of day” is the phrase that pays here.

I take no pleasure eviscerating no-budget delusions. The Wisconsinites who thought they could make a movie about race in the trenches of World War I…in Wisconsin, stick in my mind. The only people who read the reviews of such invisible disasters are those who made the movie, or their check-writing/enabling/participation trophy-praising parents. And they’re enraged, not knowing the many times others on the team heard the word “No,” and “No” for good reason.

The fact that bottom-rung distributor Gravitas picked “Movie” up suggests the filmmakers thought they had something, that they tried to get higher rungs on the distribution ladder to distribute it. Gravitas finds a nugget in their corner of the cinema ghetto every now and then. All they risk here is pocket change, and another ding on their reputation.

But a note to writer-director Michael Mandell. Your family, who probably helped finance it, the other funders — Kickstarter, etc. — won’t tell you the truth. If every other distributor is saying “Nope,” take it to heart. Otherwise, some mean old movie critic is going to type a hole right in your “The Next Kubrick” dreams.

Distributors used to be gate keepers for indie cinema, raising standards by turning away junk. Publicists fulfilled at least some of that function, too. In this day and age, it’s down to critics alone. Apparently.

Naming your movie “The Movie?” Unfathomably stupid.

And that publicist whose pitched this? Lady, you’re on my list.

Rating: unrated, PG-13ish

Cast: Bonnie Root and Jarrod Pistilli

Credits: Scripted and directed by Michael Mandell. A Gravitas Ventures release.

Running time: 1:25

Even those of us long in on the joke of Neil Labute’s He Man Woman Haters Club dramedies, ironic depictions of toxic masculinity wrapped in male affirmation, have to find “House of Darkness” a trial.

His latest horror riff on emasculated men and emasculating women — remember, he was entrusted with “The Wicker Man” remake, and turned it into a misogynistic mess — is a a thoughtfully half-baked attempt to graft his big themes onto what is obviously a vampire’s revenge, pretty much from the moment we read its title.

“House” is like a filmed play with misandric and misogynistic subtexts, and might be the talkiest 88 minute movie in history. No kidding, Justin Long. If you weren’t paid by the word here, you need a better agent. Or accountant.

Cinematically-static if well-acted, and dramatically-flat throughout, it’s an end-of-the-date story of gamesmanship, competing agendas and differing interpretations of what’s going on in a coupling towards copulation sense.

It’s a #MetToo movie with fangs, dull fangs. Labute, who gained fame with his brutal satire “In the Company of Men,” set out to sell a “Men are from Mars, Women are from Transylvania” version of the battle of the sexes. It doesn’t work.

Long plays a BMW’d social climber who takes the lovely Mina (Kate Bosworth) home to her remote “castle” after meeting in a bar.

He is right on the cusp of chivalrous, offering to walk her to her door, seeing as how “dark” and “scary” this corner of nowhere is to a city guy. Then he’s got to be getting back, he insists. No expectations, no “come in for a drink” pretexts presumed. He is persuaded to change his mind.

“Lead the way,” he enthuses. “I have been, ever since we met,” she says.

No, he doesn’t know her name at this point, or she his. But we can hear what a Chatty Cathy he is, talking himself into rhetorical corners where he admits he “fibs” a lot, among other things.

“How did we get on this subject?”

“To make you uncomfortable.“

Abnd we can see that she has the cocksure confidence of a beautiful blonde, “forward,” and not coy about it. She has him inside, sitting by the fire, sipping wine and talking away before he knows it.

The dialogue of their little mating pas de deux, with him questioning her about the house, property and the family and her testing him, is the best thing in the film, even if Labute is anything but subtle about what he’s doing with it.

“‘Sexy,’ he calls her, with an “Is that OK to say any more without setting the women’s rights movement back too far?” proviso.

The “filmed play” touches come from the obvious melodramatics — characters disappearing off camera, others abruptly appearing for “shock” value, our “hero” dozing off and having on-the-nose nightmares when he does This clunker is so tediously theatrical — told in what feels like (never-ending) real-time — you can practically hear the coughs, yawns and squirming in the seats of a theater audience as you’re watching it.

And the payoff, when it comes, is both expected and so gory and over-the-top that if “Barbarian” doesn’t end up being a new horror pigeonhole for Long’s career, “House of Darkness” could see to that.

I’ve followed Labute since the beginning of his career. Plucking his themes out of whatever stories he choses to tell, in whatever genre, is a favorite game among critics. But with this and with his almost-as-disappointing “Out of the Blue,” you have to wonder if his hot button issue/cutting edge days are gone, or if his favorite “hot button” — men standing up for masculinity — isn’t as out of date as the TV series he’s just finished filming, “American Gigolo.”

Rating: R, graphic violence, sexual situations, profanity

Cast: Justin Long, Kate Bosworth, Gia Crovatin and Lucy Walters

Credits: Scripted and directed by Neil Labute. A Saban Films release.

Running time: 1:28

Her new man gives working-class Kate the once over and asks a question that sits heavily on the viewer’s mind.

“How come you’re always like this?”

What’s he talking about? “Impulsive,” because she just slipped out to meet him, on the sly. Because their first “date” was basically a vigorous shag in a parking garage. “Sexy?” “Compliant?” Because she gingerly went along with his “lose your knickers” orders. No. That’s not it.

“Beguiling.”

And as Kate is played by Ruth Wilson of TV’s “The Affair,” “Dark River” and “The Little Stranger,” we get it and agree. That’s become her calling card on screen — damaged, guarded but alluring and above all “beguiling.”

“True Things” is about a reckless woman whose lifetime of bad decisions may have finally caught up with her with this latest fling. Kate’s pal Alison (Hayley Squires) may have gotten her a job at an unemployment benefits office. But that doesn’t mean that heedless, mercurial Kate won’t muck things up.

Gentle lectures from Alison about how she needs to “get your priorities right” fall on distracted, deaf ears. A stern “final warning” from her boss about her absences and general goofing-off is almost laughed away with a bad joke. Her parents (Elizabeth Rider and Frank McCusker) ask about her new bloke, and get an even worse zinger. The guy’s just having a bit of bother “getting on his feet.”

“What’s THAT mean?” “He hasn’t any legs!”

There’s no joking about the line that Kate crosses with the rugged fellow she calls “Blond” (Tom Burke of “The Souvenir” and “Mank”). He was a client applying for aid. He is brazen, confident and oblivious to the “relationship” that’s dictated by work rules set by the state. He comes on to her. And she is so bowled over that she accepts.

That could get her fired. Sneaking back into the office to get his particulars out of his digital file isn’t allowed, either. But heck, she needs the phone number of this stranger she just had a go with.

She’s so unmoored by this attention that her usual carelessness and distraction reaches another level — forgetting to show up, for friends, for work, etc. She is obsessed and her rash behavior makes us ponder if she is on some sort of spectrum.

It takes a blind date set-up with “a nice man” to show how far Kate has gone off course. She doesn’t know how to act around anyone who isn’t rough, domineering, callous with a hint of cruel about him. A shag in a parking garage is her “normal.”

Adapted from a darkly comical pyschological novel by Deborah Kay Davies, this film’s original title was “True Things About Me” and Wilson was set to co-star in it with Jude Law. The title change is telling, but the recasting helps it settle on a more obvious self-failing of Kate’s — a lack of self-esteem.

She has a middle class office job, good parents and is damned attractive, no matter what one enraged punk client tells her. And “Blond” is straight-up rough trade, a guy beneath her, a guy she knows nothing about, with an old car and no visible means of support.

“Do I look like someone who could work for other people?”

His cockiness and even his brush-offs may be catnip to her. We can see what’s going on, but wonder what’s underlying it.

We never really find out. The messaging in this Harry Wootliff (“Only You” was hers) film seems fuzzy and diffuse. Kate has a journey to make, but it’s hard to get a handle on what ails her, and what can fix it.

But Wilson holds our attention with her manner, her actions and her eyes, creating a broken beauty who may be too flighty to figure out her “gather ye rosebuds” years are coming to an end, and too impulsive to see the impulses that help make her “beguiling” are just self-defeating and self-destructive.

Rating: unrated, drug abuse, sex, nudity, profanity

Cast: Ruth Wilson, Tom Burke and Hayley Squires

Credits: Directed by Harry Wootliff, scripted by Harry Wootliff and Molly Davies, based on the by Deborah Kay Davies. A Samuel Goldwyn release.

Running time: 1:42

Honestly, as this is a Netflix production, I’m not sure they need that “A Knives Out Mystery” explainer in the title.

It stars Daniel Craig. It’s by Rian Johnson. Everybody gets it. A simple “Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion” would suffice. Or not even acknowledging what everybody knows to be true — it’s a new mystery built around Craig’s “gentleman sleuth” Benoit Blanc.

With Ethan Hawke, Janelle Monae, Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr. Dave Bautista and Edward Norton! And my gal KATHRYN HAHN to bring the Big Funny!

This just tickled me. Yes, it’ll be one we have to catch in a theater because a Netflix TV streaming will just never do, I do declare.

Mistuh Bond, suh, y’seem to have landed I say LANDED on your franchised feet.

A holiday treat.

I don’t normally post still photos from pictures, but damn, look at this thing.

Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” opens Christmas in limited release. Oscar bait? Most certainly.

Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva.

One has to be careful where one donates DVDs with more mature themes and subject matter, especially in the Florida Reichsland, where book banning is totally a thing.

A Romanian drama about a gay cop? Maitland, one of the smarter libraries and clienteles in Greater Orlando seems like a good landing spot for “Poppy Land.”

MovieNation, spreading fine cinema all over the southeast, one DVD, one public library at a time.

There have been so many film versions of the classic fairytale “Pinocchio” over the years that even Disney must have lost count. But I guess it was the fact that Guillermo del Toro was making an animated version of an early Disney masterpiece and releasing it this coming Christmas that got the Mouse’s attention.

Director Robert Zemeckis was hired to put on his “Polar Express” hat, along with his “Polar Express” star — Tom Hanks — for a cute and occasionally quite scary (for little kids) remake of Disney’s 1940 film. It’s a blend of live-action and animation that asserts, if nothing else, the company’s intellectual property and primacy as far as the story of the wooden puppet who dreams of being “a real boy.”

Hanks dons a white wig and mustache to play Geppetto, the wood-carver, cuckoo-clock maker and tinkerer who creates this adorable puppet in what passes for 18th century Italy. Joseph Gordon-Levitt voices our insectoid narrator, Jiminy Cricket.

Casting Cynthia Erivo as the Blue Fairy, the one who answers Geppetto’s silent wish and brings the puppet to life, means that there’s a great voice on hand to sing what became Disney’s signature tune — “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

And bringing in Keegan-Michael Key to vamp the thespian/hustler fox — named “Honest John” here, but J. Worthington Foulfellow back in 1940 — is a stroke of genius.

The opening scenes, with Jiminy narrating, Geppetto dealing with customers who want to buy items he refuses to sell, muttering to himself and Figaro, the digitally-animated cat and his (also animated) goldfish about what he won’t say he asked for of “The Wishing Star” in the night sky, have charm even if they’re thin on entertainment value. The big Blue Fairy “transition” scene is over-played in the classic Zemeckis style.

But Key shows up — fast-talking, riffing and rolling — and “Pinocchio” crackles to life. The walking, talking toy wants to be “a real boy?”

Why hope for that, “Honest John” coos, when “you can be FAMOUS…an entrepreneur, an actor, nay an INFLUENCER?”

“Everbody who’s ANYbody wants to be SOMEbody!”

Sure, he’s made of wood — pine — and he’s called “Pinocchio” thanks to that. But how’s that going to work on a playbill or stage marquee?

“Chris PINE!” would be better.

Alas, the kid won’t go for it.

He is “sold” to the traveling show run by Stromboli (Giuseppe Battiston), lured to “Pleasure Island” by vandalizing, hooting, hollering and rioting root-beer swilling kids and lost at sea inside the monstrous “Monstro.”

You remember how this goes, as this script doesn’t stray much from what worked so perfectly in 1940. A puppeteer (Jaquita Ta’le) with a leg-brace is introduced as a friend Pinocchio makes on his odyssey, Luke Evans plays a child-snatcher. Otherwise, the story remains the same.

This version of the story hits the parable elements pretty hard. The “little voice” called “conscience” that “sits on your shoulder,” reminding children not to lie, not to cheat, to know the difference between right and wrong, “the voice most people refuse to listen to,” isn’t just a scolding cricket.

The scariest bits are the dark, ghostly beasts that snatch “bad” kids, kidnap them so that they can turn into the braying donkeys that their misbehavior suggests is their true nature, and the sea monster “Monstro,” no longer just a whale, but a tentacled menace chasing Pinocchio and pals down, no matter how fast the puppet motorboats his feet to paddle them away from danger.

The head-spinning puppet is beautifully-rendered, and the addition of the clattering, clacking sound effect that his wooden hinge-joints make is a plus.

But his CGI animated face lacks the emotional range of hand-drawn character. The same goes for Jiminy, who frets and fumes and fears for the poor kid’s life with all the facial expressions of a real cricket. That keeps this “Pinocchio” at arm’s length. He never touches us, and I dare say, if Guillermo del Toro watches this, he’s panicking right about now. His version — judging from the still shots — could have the same shortcoming.

The only “music” credit listed here is the for the fellow who most certainly did NOT write “When You Wish Upon a Star,” “There Are No Strings on Me” or “An Actor’s Life for Me.” Leigh Harline and lyricist Ned Washington created those timeless classics. I’ll leave off the name of the credited composer, as I’m guessing he’s as embarrassed by that as I am for him.

The story’s ending is so abrupt and emotionally-dry as to seem like a deadline had to be met to beat Del Toro to the screen.

That said, it’s a good “Pinocchio,” if not a great one. Perhaps the smartest decision anyone made about it was in consigning it to Disney+, as that seems a natural home for a children’s movie with polish and intellectual property protection value, if not the heart, ambition and artistry to deserve a big screen release.

Rating: TV-PG

Cast: Tom Hanks, Cynthia Erivo, Luke Evans, with the voices of Joseph Gordon- Levitt, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Lorraine Bracco and Keegan-Michael Key.

Credits: Directed by Robert Zemeckis, scripted by Robert Zemeckis, Chris Weitz and Simon Farnaby, based on the Carlos Collodi story and the 1940 Disney animated film “Pinocchio.”

Running time: 1:45