Movie Nation

“Potato Dreams of America” is a giddy gay fantasia on Russians leaving for the Promised Land, a romp bubbling with wit, wry commentary and visual DIY visual invention.

That’s how it begins, anyway. Writer-director Wes Hurley (born Vasili Naumenko) turns this version of his “true story” into social satire about escaping the former and “still the same” U.S.S.R., fleeing homophobia, anti-Semitism and backwardness there, and coping with versions of the same thing in the U.S.

The Russian stuff is fresh and funny, a child’s memory play of a movie about what stands out about his first home. But a lot of that freshness and spark evaporates as the film shifts locales and covers well-worn “coming out” tropes after Coming to America.

Little “Potato” (Hersh Powers), as his mother (Sera Barbieri) calls him, remembers the abusive marriage his parents shared and coming of age in the last gasps of Soviet era Vladivostok. Mom was a doctor in the prison system, and after her divorce they lived in a cramped apartment with her racist, judgmental mother (Lea DeLaria, hilarious).

Amid the blackouts, shortages and propagandistic totalitarian TV, little Vasili and his pals revel in telling each other the plots to Americans movies like “Total Recall,” lying when they run out of material.

“I saw ‘Star Wars: Episode 35” at uh, my cousin’s friend’s house. Here’s how it goes!

When they’re not lying about cinema, his classmates are all about the anti-Semitism (Potato feels for his Jewish classmate) and homophobia. His future looks bleak, as it’s either join the police (who are murdering inmates in Mom’s jail) or “the Russian Army,” which his grandma assures him “You vill never survive!”

Potato remembers himself barking, “The communists are NO BETTER than the Nazis” to a teacher, refusing to wear a red scarf on school picture day. And even if that isn’t true, his fate is sealed when the U.S.S.R. collapses, a new “renegade” TV station comes on the air and he gets his first tweenage glimpses at the homoerotic pleasures of a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.

Thank heavens his mother applies to one of those “be a bride for a lonely American” services, and they wind up with the nice, well-off John (Dan Laria of “The Wonder Years)”). He’s into toy trains, Russian Orthodox Christianity and “control.” Maybe not so nice after all.

Have Potato (now played by Tyler Bocock) and his Mom (Marya Sea Kaminski) leapt from the frying panski and into the fire?

“Potato” takes a sharp turn towards “conventional” once we get past our hero’s early efforts to fit into an American high school, mismanaged by an overly-helpful teacher, thrown in with “his own kind” (a Russian emigre, just as bigoted as the people Potato moved away from) and finding a girl so he can be her gay BFF.

It’s never a bad film, although one plot twist is eye-rollingly convenient, and the third act wraps up with a clumsy abruptness. But there’s no getting around how the air goes out of the balloon shortly after we leave the invention (mimed dance, shadow play scenes, all managed on the cheap) and deprivation of Russia.

The laughs are both easy and biting “over there.” Grandmas gripes that “See? I told you capitalism wasn’t going to be all that” when the Soviet empire collapses. “Same old Russia,” same blackouts, cruelty, petty prejudices. One minor improvement? “Toilet paper.”

The performances are sprightly and fun, and the worst things you can say about the American half of the movie is that we’ve seen the gay and out and cutting a wide swath through the clubs thing many times, often used, as it is here, to illustrate losing shackles and experiencing “freedom” (see the earliest Almodovar films).

The novelty of the Russian scenes is in recalling how limited the culture was, where books and classical music and dance were celebrated and shoved down the public’s throats, and all the kids revolted by talking up “Hollywood movies” and their “happy endings” and memorizing Ninja Turtle “CowaBUNGAs.”

Given the Russian influence on the most gullible third of the American electorate, any film that reminds us why no one moves there and why people there, even today, dream of fleeing, is a good thing.

Hurley’s efforts to wrestle with the role of religion in the culture are more haphazard and under-developed. Christian proselytizing in Russia lets Jesus (Jonathan Bennett) move in with Potato and his family. In America, Christianity is trotted out just long enough to show it as the “opiate” of control freak men.

Still, even if Hurley has only one movie in him and this hit-and-miss proposition is it, Hurley’s personal story is fresh and engaging enough to stand out, a coming-of-age saga with modest ambitions that get to the heart of some still “self evident” truths — the freedom to be who you are, life your life and pursue your own dream of America.

Rating: unrated, sex

Cast: Sera Barbieri, Hersh Powers, Marya Sea Kaminski, Tyler Bocock, Jonathan Bennett, Dan Laria and Lea DeLaria

Credits: Scripted and directed by Wes Hurley. A Dark Star release.

Running time: 1:35

Make way for 87 minutes of generally excruciating action garbage from Norway.

“Last Man Down” is an apocalyptic pandemic vengeance thriller of the “I’m not sure this is helping” variety, about government mass executions, the search for the “immune” so that they be imprisoned and experimented on by “scientists,” where humanity’s last, best hope is a roided-up survivalist with an arsenal that would make Puny Putin salivate with envy.

You want to know where Western civilization gets its burly, Darwinian, anti-mask/vaccine, pro-every-firearm and bellicose “one man alone…or in a convoy with my fellow Algonquin Roundtable thinkers” ethos, a steady diet of garbage like this shares some of the blame.

“Last Man Down” stars the man mountain Daniel Stisen as John Wood, a special forces giant forced to watch his “infected” wife (Stephanie Siadatan) executed when he won’t give the commando-in-chief (o) information about where he hid 500 missing townspeople.

Survivors of the pandemic have fled north, with anybody infected in those ranks subject to summary shots-to-the-head. John escapes custody and holes up in the forest, a “timberman” with gigantic muscles, “very special skills” and a whole lot of guns.

When an Italian escapee (Olga Kent) falls under his protection, John is quick (ish) to do the math.

“You just brought a lot of problems to my cabin.”

It’s down to legions of tac-geared-up goons to come up, in small groups, to try and get past this guy they’d almost forgotten about to get to her. Let the games begin.

“Last Man Down” is performed English, with characters of various nationalities and actors of different cultures playing them trying to speak it and sound American. The accents are thick, which pairs nicely with the acting, which is ham-fisted.

The fights and the settings for them (a tunnel, during one stretch) are noisy and illogical and end with either a blast of gunfire, an arrow that penetrates tactical armor or an axe blow or three.

There’s no story arc, just some vague hint of “redemption” as John was helpless when his wife was killed. As John has warned Maria, the Italian, that they have “half an hour” to prepare for one overwhelming assault coming their way, they take a break to shower outdoors and get…in the mood.

As action pictures go, this one isn’t exciting enough to make up for the tedious pacing or the outright silliness of the script and the woodenness of the performers.

Let’s just hope nobody gets another dose of the wrong ideas from this crap.

Rating: R for violence and language (and nudity)

Cast: Daniel Stisen, Olga Kent, Daniel Nehme, Natassia Malthe, Madeleine Vall and
Stephanie Siadatan

Credits: Directed by Fansu Njie, scripted by Andreas Vasshaug. A Saban Films release on Netflix.

Running time: 1:27

A March 4 release, lowdown and dirty French slapstick of the “Jackass” as directed by John Waters variety?

Zut alors!

Every streaming service, even the rerun-centric Roku-friendly ones, is moving into “original content.” So it’s no shock that Tubi (tubi.com) is joining the Smart TV remaking of the home-viewing landscape.

They’ve bought a Camilla Belle romance titled “10 Truths About Love” and are releasing it as their first “original.” So why not be the first to review it? On Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, MRQE and IMDb, I mean?

“10 Truths About Love” is a drab, sparks-free/laugh-phobic rom-com in a “Sex and the City” romance-columnist vein. Yes, that profession/story angle was old long before Sarah Jessica Parker took to overdressing for HBO. No, if there’s anything new to this well-worn plot device (love columnist left lovelorn), it doesn’t turn up here.

Belle plays Carina, a Brazilian-American “advice to the lovelorn” columnist in the Age of the “Listicle.” The film arrives on the streamer the same week “Entertainment Weekly,” one of the early champions of the bullet-point click-bait style (along with USA Today) ceases print publication.

Carina writes for one of those over-financed/over-officed online mags that only exist in the movies. Spark Life is its name, and she is its star writer. Nobody gets more readers when she’s writing about her long-term relationship with the hunk the readers only know as “T.”

That would be “Tom” (Karn Kalra). Carina is sure she’s about to get a proposal, after five years of dating, from this rising star lawyer.

David LaFontaine is Liam, the hotshot new hire at Spark who is naturally assigned to partner with Carina on the very day that Tom decides to dump her.

The movie is about him “helping” her win him back — because she’s “persistent,” and this sort of stalking by women is tolerated more than it is from men, at least in the movies. They’ll research and write “truths” about love as Liam helps her with “the game,” and schemes ways to throw her in Tom’s path and entice him back without him knowing it’s happening.

Carina isn’t accepting of the break because she’s the “expert” and figures “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.” Liam is more “If somebody leaves me, they’ve made their point.” But sure, why not try? It could make a cute column.

“Cute” is all that this lifeless filler film from screenwriter Shannon Latimer and director Brian K. Roberts ever reaches for. And from the “meet cute” (which isn’t) to the third act we ALL know is coming, nothing lands.

The “10 Truths” are kind of online magazine profound — “Love can tempt you to hold on to the past,” and “Love can surprise you.”

You don’t say?

Romantic comedies that work have been in short supply in recent decades. It’s as if an entire industry and/or continent forgot how this is done. So there’s no dishonor in trying and failing, or half-trying as is the case here.

But the picture’s dull enough to make one ponder the fate of actresses in Hollywood.

Belle was a pretty child actress who aged into a beautiful teen, and then a runway-model gorgeous adult. I think I interviewed her when the indie drama “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” which paired her with the great Daniel Day Lewis (as father and daughter) came out, and later chatted her up about her version of “When a Stranger Calls.”

The thing that struck me about her almost-colorless turn here is how little she’s changed. Same trademark bangs and eyebrows, voice basically as youthful as ever. And she’s on the backside of 30 — stuck in an image that hasn’t matured as the culture has.

The last thing most of us caught her in was “From Prada to Nada” over ten years ago. Bad luck, bad choices and a career and skillset that have stalled out in “ingenueland” leaves her trapped in movies like “10 Truths,” playing a character old enough to have life and career experience, but passive and naive and uninteresting, a character with “nothing there” that isn’t on the page.

And when there’s not much on the page, either…

It isn’t solely her fault “10 Truths” fails, but hers is the only “name” they spent money on. Lafontaine is a career bit player just happy to be here, playing a leading man but not charismatic enough to pull that off.

With more Americans looking at their out-of-whack COVID budgets, cutting cable and Dish and turning to free streamers, this is Tubi, Pluto, Roku & Co’s moment. But as Netflix has found, they’re going to have to spend money up and down the line to get movies anybody’s going to want to tune in and sit through their commercial breaks for.

“10 Truths About Love” plays as about eight truths under budget, a parsimonious rom-com that needed a better script, better director, funnier supporting players and co-equal leads who actually click.

Rating: unrated, squeaky clean

Cast: Camilla Belle, David LaFontaine

Credits: Directed by Brian K, Roberts, scripted by Shannon Latimer. A Tubi original

Running time: 1:30

“Hellbender” is an ominous, chilling “all in the family” witchcraft thriller that wears its low budget lightly and its air of doom with pride.

A lot of people named “Adams” scripted, directed, shot and starred in this gloomy Pacific Northwest tale about a spellbinding/spellcasting mother and the daughter she “protects” from the world.

A prologue shows the 19th century hanging and shooting of a “witch” who just won’t die.

Over a century later, a hip mom (Toby Poser) and her daughter (Zelda Adams) get fully costumed and made up for every “rehearsal” for their bass-and-drums punk duo, Hellbender.

Izzy would love to ride to town with Mom for supplies, but that’s brushed off without debate. Izzy is home schooled, living on a remote mountainside farm with just her mother, her music (she’s the drummer) and her own thoughts, which include a lot of questions.

Mom’s given her a diagnosis, convinced her she’s sick and feeds her on the berries, mushrooms and buds of the forest. And God forbid Izzy stumble across anybody on her wanderings of their forested property. Mom is curt, sadly questioning of strangers like a hiker (John Adams) who insists he’s the “uncle” of a neighbor.

When the stranger evaporates in a cloud of smoke, dust, ashes and bones, we get it. Mom’s a witch. And her questions were to ensure nobody would miss this interloper she was about to disappear.

But Izzy’s a teenager, and starting to experience changes to her mind and body. Spying on a neighbor (Lulu Adams) with a pool makes her think she’s found a friend. Because Amber is welcoming, open and unfiltered. This strange girl who looks “like a cross between Kurt Cobain and a wet dog” could use a friend. Come to my pool party tomorrow!

That party is where Izzy gets her first hint (from a med student) that Mom’s diagnosis might be off. And when Izzy has a reaction to something else there, the unraveling of her cloistered life begins.

The Adams family that made this film limited its scope and characters, focusing almost wholly on the mother-daughter dynamic. The other characters are here to be avoided, for their own safety. We’ve seen what Mom is capable of, and its not just getting guitar sounds out of her electric bass (their music is spooky, and polished and processed). Who knows what the teen girl might do once she “knows?”

Zelda Adams and Poser, co-stars and co-writer/directors with John Adams, are great at conveying a realistic “just keeping you safe” clingy mother-daughter relationship. The story may follow a well-worn “child outgrows the parent” path, but they keep it interesting.

John and Zelda Adams also shot the film and, with a little help from the weather, keep things grey and overcast, matching the tone they were going for.

A big tip of the hat to special effects technician Trey Lindsay, who visualizes hallucinations (visions), vaporizations and the cacophony of Izzy’s galloping teen mind. Low budget or not, his work makes “Hellbender” come off.

The acting can feel flat and unpolished, and the intimacy of the story is both an asset and a limitation to its ambitions.

But any horror fan looking for the next “came out of nowhere” genre phenomenon need look no further. It’s not the “Citizen Kane” of witch movies, but it’s creepy and DIY fun and well worth tracking down.

Rating: unrated, grisly, gory violence

Cast: Zelda Adams, Toby Poser, Lulu Adams. John Adams.

Credits: Scripted and directed by John Adams, Zelda Adams and Toby Poser. A Yellow Veil release on Shudder.

Running time: 1:23

This could be good, a June movie coming from Netflix.

Adam Sandler hasn’t been aiming that high with most of the projects on his Netflix contract, old fashioned fan friendly “moron” comedies with his entourage.N

Not this time.

How terrible is this thing? Where oh where does one begin?

Netflix’s brief and abortive “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” “requel” goes wrong before Leatherface loads up the saw with a fresh squirt of chain bar oil.

The earliest victims are dispatched without a whit of compassion or suspense. The later victims seem to be getting lectured, in between takes, about how they “don’t look scared enough.” Not that it does any good.

There’s no visceral thrill to this perfunctory and pandering “fan service” reboot/sequel/requel. And then the damned fool who scripted it decides that maybe the pitiless madman-murderer has a point, a legitimate grievance.

This being set in Texas, there’s a requisite sh–kicker (Moe Dunford) in a “blowing coal” pick-em-up truck. Is he to be the “good guy with a gun?”

They bring back a character, but not an actress who has ever played her before.

Honestly, I think that Geico ad that riffed on “Chainsaw” was more fun and more engrossing than David Blue Garcia’s turn behind the wheel.

The half-assed premise is that a bunch of young, affluent Austinites, led by a chef (Jacob Lattimore) have bought a bank-repossessed ghost town. They figure to colonize it with Austinites looking to escape from “the city” into the “real” Texas.

Have they not been following the news. Do they not know who and what is out there, from Confederate flagged fanatics to power-grid impossibilities? No matter. Dante (cute name) and his partner Melody (Sarah Yorkin), fiance Ruth (Nell Hudson) and Melody’s little sister Lila (Elsie Fisher) show up to find that area folks have been warned that they’re coming, and that their ghost town isn’t empty.

Mrs. McC (horror legend Alice Krige) is still living in the orphanage with the man-mountain she calls “Baby.” Evicting them is what sends “Baby” (Mark Burnham) on a murder spree.

Lila is facing this gathering, gory horror as a school shooting survivor, easily triggered. Melody is keen to look after her.

“I’m not gonna let him kill you, OK?” she lies.

I hate picking on actors and actresses, but Yorkin is singularly slow on the “A murderous nut is killing people right in front of me, I should look TERRIFIED” uptake. She kind of sets the tone, as others — not just the cell-phone recording “investors” — wholly underreact to seeing people beheaded and/or skinned in front of them.

The acting is bad, but the script is “Do you want fries with that?” awful, as that might be where we next encounter this hack Craig Thomas Devlin. Garcia’s direction makes “lackluster” seem aspirational.

.It’s as bloody as promised, with one memorable moment capturing mass slaughter in an arresting, shocking way. But like the rest of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” it fails to generate any connection with the victims, or pity.

So, I guess we’re just supposed to think the “smug, self-righteous rich city folk” had it coming?

I’d suggest re-watching the commercial, ponder why the fleeing young people don’t pile into the waiting Mini Cooper rather than hiding in a barn filled with chainsaws.

Beware of the insurance, though. Geico is better at commercials than fair pricing or yeoman’s customer service.

Rating: R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, and language

Cast: Sarah Yorkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Jacob Lattimore, Moe Dunford and Alice Krige.

Credits: Directed by David Blue Garcia, scripted by Craig Thomas Devlin. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:24

The Cold War ’60s were the golden age of espionage thrillers and spy spoofs. And full disclosure here, you don’t find yourself sharing a name with a guy who played James Bond without seeing them all — the the good, the bad and the ones starring Dean Martin or John Phillip Law.

Here’s a Swiss bon bon that I missed, 1967’s “L’inconnu de Shandigor (The Uknown Man from Shandigor)” from the under-employed — he made just four films — Swiss director Jean-Louis Roy.

It’s a deadpan “Doctor Strangelove Meeets Doctor No” thriller about a misanthropic “mad scientist” who has conjured up a formula that “sterlizes” atomic bombs.

Dr. Van Krantz (Daniel Emilfork, wheelchair-bound and irate, first scene to last) was “trying to save the world,” and he’s ever-so-pissed that “they are not relieved” by his efforts.

“I don’t like humankind. Well, I do…in a jar of arsenic.”

Multiple spy agencies — the Russians, the Americans, “the Baldies” — want to grab this formula and attain a terms-dictating edge over everybody else. Dr. Von Krantz, his daughter Sylvian (Marie-France Boyer) and assistant, “the Albino” (Marcel Imhoff) hole up in his remote, modernist lair/mansion and wait for the spies to make their move.

Among the spies are the Soviet chief, Shostakovich (Jacques Dufilho), the “Baldies” led by their music-minded boss (singer, composer, actor and father of Charlotte, Serge Gainsbourg) and the German double-agent working for the Yanks (Howard Vernon).

The Baldies are a generally mute quintet who have mastered classical music just to get close to their quarry, whip out machine guns and execute him. The ex-Nazi prefers a knife, and can scuba dive to get the drop on foes. And the Russian is furious at the whole dust up, hoping to let the others screw up before he and his swoop in to claim the prize.

Director and co-writer Roy chooses such gorgeous (and under-filmed) Swiss locations and stern-faced character actors that you’d swear he’s playing this straight. But when a firing range/martial arts training session in a vast Swiss quarry is interrupted, and a clumsy spy chooses to hide behind the TARGET on the firing range, the joke’s on us.

There’s a bloody dust-up in a museum of natural history, acid and gas attacks, chases (not really) and kidnappings. And spies die.

Being the boss, of course, Gainsbourg sits at the organ and sings (in French, with English subtitles) as the body is prepared, “tears from Lucifer, the veils of mystery, Mister Spy, Bye Bye.” Yes, the rhymes work…in French.

Von Krantz’s daughter only wants to run away to the beach with her beloved Manuel (Ben Carruthers), to ride in his E-Type Jag and forget all this mayhem.

It’s not a laugh riot, but this new 4K restoration, now being distributed by Deaf Crocodile, leaves the mouth agape at how damned beautiful the whole thing is. The architecture, the characters in close-up, the “Baldies” acting, playing and sitting and staring in unison, the “beach” (a Swiss lakeshore with fog added), the classic Jaguars, Rovers, Citroens, a Jeep for the Yanks and a Tatra for the Bolsheviks (of course), all of it looks fine-grained, contrast-rich and gorgeous.

If you’re a fan of the genre, or even if you’re just well-versed in the Sean Connery Bond era, “The Unknown Man from Shandigor” is sure to impress and amuse, shaken or stirred.

Rating: unrated, with violence, murder and suicide, partial nudity

Cast: Marie-France Boyer, Daniel Emilfork, Serge Gainsbourg, Marcel Imhoff, Jacques Dufilho and Howard Vernon.

Credits: Directed by Jean-Louis Roy, scripted by Jean-Louis Roy, Gabriel Arout and Pierre Koralnik. A Deaf Crocodile release of a 4K restoration

Running time: 1:31

Relocate to South of France for a prequel, Downton turned over for film shoot, wrap everything up with this cast with a classic “out of ideas so let’s throw in ‘They’re making a movie here.'”

Looks lush and fun and pandering and…well, let’s hope for the best. May 20.

Netflix’s “Wu Assassins” return with their very own Bangkok misadventure movie in “Fistful of Vengeance,” a violent and cheesy follow-up to the TV series.

Another “save the Earth” conundrum faces Tommy (Lawrence Kao), when all the skinny “smart one” wanted was to avenge his murdered sister. So he and the last Wu Assassin, “the special one,” Kai Jin (Indonesian martial artists Iko Uwais) and towering pal Lu Xin Lee (Lewis Tan), who’s just “really good at kicking ass,” must battle mobsters from assorted Triads, a soul-sucking Chi vampire and others seeking a magical talisman to secure supreme power and take over the world.

Let’s just say “something like that,” as the plot is convoluted and an excuse to set up a string of brawls — in night clubs, a mobster-packed hotel, a riverside house — a Thai long tail powerboat chase along that river.

The ethics of the piece veer from We must fight with fists, knives and meat cleavers because “There is no honor in guns,” to the arrival of an Interpol agent (Pearl Thusi) who joins in to empty clip after clip into bad guys when fists simply won’t do.

The dialogue is of the “I don’t mind a little action” and “Assassin STRIKE!” variety.

The fights are generally fun, although there’s a rushed-production half-speed feel to much of the fight choreography.

The effects are just special enough to earn that label.

But the gloss, the exotic location, the sex amongst the sexy never really adds up to anything more than a background noise movie, junk that you sort of half-watch because paying close attention just exposes flaws and how rushed this feels. One character is called several different names, including, I’m pretty sure, the name of the actress playing her.

Leave this one to fans of the series, because as a stand-alone movie, it’s a dud.

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

Cast: Lawrence Kao, Lewis Tan, Iko Awais, Pearl Thusi Francesca Corney and Jason Tobin

Credits: Directed by Roel Reiné , scripted by Cameron Litvak. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:34