Movie Nation

Shakespeare has suffered much in the centuries since his death.

The plays that made him immortal have been rendered into musicals and science fiction and Westerns, Samurai epics and gangster tales. And yet he’s survived spinoffs (“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”), high schools turning “The Taming of the Shrew” into a pizza fight (I was there), Glenn Close playing Mel Gibson’s mother and Keanu and Leo.

So he will be around long after the instantly-forgettable bastardization that is “Hamlet/Horatio,” an “experiment” in rethinking “Hamlet,” the producers say, seeing his tragedy through the eyes of his pal Horatio.

That’s a lie, by the way. This is just “Hamlet Made Badly,” framing the story within the making of a film of the badly-acted, tone-deaf rewriting of the play, a “film” with stylized sets out of every Little Theatre production you’ve ever seen of “Hamlet,” the ones that could afford smoke machines.

Horatio (Themo Melikidze), for those who know the play, is a substantial character and the first one we meet, his entrance coming before the Prince of Denmark’s (Andrew Burdette). So the conceit itself isn’t idiotic.

But “going with it,” as we say in movie-watching land, is a chore I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

The execution…ugh. It’s not the play, but it kind of is — just rendered in stupor-inducing dullness acted in cringeworthy, unaffecting amateurish strokes.

The Hamlet is the least interesting, most blank-faced mealy-mouthed bore I’ve ever seen anointed with the greatest role in the English language.

This is uncinematic, unShakespearean and unworthy of wasting the savings of whatever relatives financed this unwatchable indulgence.

MPA Rating: unrated

Cast: Andrew Burdette, Themo Melikidze, Anna Maria Cianciulli, Michael Elian, Phage Nolte

Credits: Directed by Paul Warner, script by David Vando, borrowed from Shakespeare. A Glass House release.

Running time: 1:41

Here is a curated selection of the ways the avenging hitman/enforcer they call “Maximo” dispatches his foes in “Xtreme (Extremo).”

There’re knives, pistols, assault rifles and a samurai sword, a nail gun, a car lift, a VW Golf and the spikes of a headrest yanked out of a VW Golf. He uses his feet and his fists, and at one point, a drug dealer he’s beaten senseless is turned into nunchaku as he bludgeons the dealer’s protectors into submission or death as he does.

Maximo, the made-man with a mean streak played by stunt-man/actor Teo García (“Mal día para fumar”, is a most efficient killer. The movie he conceived and others built around this character is a standard-issue mixed martial arts/mob revenge tale, with over-familiar tropes, characters and scenes and far less efficient.

But as its a gangland thriller set in one of the world’s most beautiful cities — Barcelona — a film with epic brawls and shootouts, Japanese yakuza savagery and a body count to rival any given “Die Hard,” it’s worth a look.

Maximo is a trusted lieutenant in a crime family whose psychopathic son and heir, Lucero (Óscar Jaenada), uses him when he busts up a plan merger of “families.” The opening shoot-out/slaughter takes place in a drug lab and ends with mass summary executions of the lab techs.

Lucero spent some time out of the country, learning the ways of Japan and its criminal gangs, the yakuza. His treachery is next-level villainy, as he sends minions to murder Max and his son as they are about to go into hiding.

Max, along with Lucero’s smart but marked-for-death adoptive sister (Andrea Duro) lay low, biding their time for revenge. But Max’s interventions in the threats to teen drug dealer Leo (Óscar Casas) alter their plans. They know he’s still alive, “a combination of John Wayne and Bruce Lee,” and he does not care.

“Tell them when they come I’ll be ready for them, too” he growls (in Spanish with English subtitles, or dubbed).

Now, he’s got a surrogate son to save as he wreaks his revenge on Lucero’s gang, each massacre just another step on the ladder up to the Big Boss.

The bulldog-built García is great in the fights, with choreography, weaponry and editing turning every one on one, one on two or three brawls into a fist-and-feet-and-firearms of fury throwdown. He’s not the least bit interesting as a “character,” one-dimensional.

Other characters — a villain and his two most lethal henchmen — are archetypes, the plot pro forma and the sequences — a training montage here, a ritualistic wish-I-was-a-samurai dance there — seriously unsurprising.

Characters drift in and out of the story, basically getting in the way of a leaner, meaner movie that would have punched above its weight.

Still, without those extra characters, we’d have missed much of the movie’s “Look how gorgeous Barcelona is” moments.

MPA Rating: TV-MA, graphic violence, drug abuse

Cast: Teo , Óscar Jaenada, Andrea Duro, Óscar Casas and Isa Montalbán

Credits: Directed by Daniel Benmayor, script by Ivan Ledesma based on a story concept by Teo García. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:52

This looks adorbs.

Beloved character actors can become a movie-lover’s idea of a perpetual underdog, somebody we root for.

So it is for me with Tobin Bell. The one and only “Jigsaw” has at last escaped the “Saw” series. But it’s a shame his first decent showcase outside of the whispering, murderous mastermind comes in a movie that doesn’t add up to much.

He’s interesting in the part and lends his “father” character gravitas. The script, however, is half-baked, and the direction lackluster.

“A Father’s Legacy” is a hostage drama, with Bell as an old loner taken prisoner by a home invading robber (writer-director and co-star Jason Mac). Over the course of several days, a bond forms between them as the curmudgeon lectures the intruder on life, responsibility, choices and destiny.

And the young guy keeps asking, “That’s a metaphor, isn’t it?” after every homily.

It’s a tad rougher than your average faith-based tale, never quite proselytizing. And the “secrets” each man relates and the problems the older one faces are Screenwriting 101 melodramatic, the sorts of predicaments and “solutions” that only appear rational to characters in movies.

When we meet him, Billy (Bell) putters around his remote lakeside home, geese-proofing his duck box, chiding the Almighty when the day’s chores are done.

“I only talk to you because Cynthia made me promise to do it every day,” he mutters. “Take me whenever you want,” he adds. He’s ready to go.

The “kid” busts in with a revolver and a bullet wound, which doesn’t rattle the geezer in the least. All the housebreaker’s “I’m in charge” and “I’ll SHOOT you” threats don’t warrant so much as a shrug.

“I don’t appreciate you bleeding on my couch.”

When Billy brushes off a visit from the sheriff’s department, and then passes up the chance to end this situation by getting the drop on Nick the robber, a trust grows between captor and captive.

“If I was gonna shoot you, I wouldn’t have wasted a fresh bandage.”

That’s when the “How’s all this working out for you, son” “legacy” questioning and instruction begins.

The characters’ respective back-stories are soap opera lite, scenes of a wife (Rebecca Robles) “praying for us” which led to our robber’s desperate act. And then there’s the mob that “wants my land.”

There is nothing, simply nothing, more valuable than lakefront property. But it isn’t scenery that the bad guys are interested in. It isn’t anything “interesting” that they’re interested in, either. Screenplay “obstacle” creating and “problem” solving may be elemental to writing movies, but it’s a tricky art.

Bell, with his heavy eyes, weathered face and world-weary whisper, makes a good hermit. Mac makes a better actor than writer director.

“Legacy” adds up to thin drama and thinner entertainment, a tale that manages little suspense and that never really touches the heart.

I guess I’ll have to keep rooting for Bell to get a role worthy of his talents, as “A Father’s Legacy” — good intentions aside — isn’t it.

MPA Rating: unrated, violence, some profanity

Cast: Tobin Bell, Jason Mac, Rebecca Robles.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Jason Mac. A Cinedigm film, streaming June 16, in theaters via Fathom Events June 17.

Running time: 1:30

The chef and traveler is the subject of this July release from Focus Features. https://youtu.be/ihEEjwRlghQ

“It’s Not a Burden” interviews scores of parents being cared for, in various ways and in varying degrees, by their adult children.

It’s a documentary collage of caregiving showcasing the relationships that endure, even if “the roles have reversed” and the parent has become, in essence, the child who needs attention and help with the most basic things in life.

Some are still living in their own homes, but many have moved in with their kids. A large number have dementia, topping the list of ailments that eat up your concerns when you reach the far end of the human lifespan.

Filmmaker Michelle Boyaner, who made “A Finished Life: The Goodbye & No Regrets Tour” and “Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson,” turned her camera on herself and the care she was giving to her mother Elaine and father Morris. She then made a movie that expands out from there, taking in a reasonably diverse cross-section of (mostly Southern California) parent-child relationships at the same stage in life as she was with her divorced parents to paint a picture of an exploding segment of the population — the very old, cared for in varying degrees by their children.

Some parents, like her once-estranged mother, live in assisted living. Others are in nursing homes. But many receive a major part of their care from their kids.

Cecile has moved into a senior community, customizing her modest house with a ramp and walk-in shower for her mother Manuela.

“My priority is my mom.”

Mike lives, with his two kids (he’s a single dad) next door to his mother Florence in Huntington Beach.

“I found out she broke her foot when she didn’t come over for dinner one night.”

The caregivers are overwhelmingly daughters like Evette, who flies out to Arizona to check on her still-living-at-home father Robert. He calls her “the drill sergeant,” as she notes that “He says ‘no’ about seven or eight times before he says ‘yes’ to anything.”

We see the cornucopia of pills many of these 80 and 90somethings have to take, which their 5 and 60 year-old children often have to organize for them. And we see and hear signs of dementia, stories about Mom slipping out to dig up the neighbors’ plants, which she then pots at home, or in the case of Boyaner’s mother Elaine, constantly needing reminding that she sold the house on “Serenade Lane in 1983.”

“And how are your folks?” “My folks? Who are my folks” Mom?

Boyaner’s parents are the anchor interviews here, with her colorful once-estranged mother (she ditched her family years ago) speaking for millions when she says “I had to give up an awful lot of dignity” — and bathing and dressing herself — “when I moved here,” to assisted living.

Her father’s declining years have made his hoarding a heartbreak for his family to deal with.

Then we meet Maxine and Esther, daughter and mother who was quite the popular singer and entertainer in Pittsburgh, back in the day — and for many many days.

“I’m 95.”

“96.”

“Jesus Christ! Oh. Sorry. Who do I know who’s 96? They’re all gone.”

Loneliness is the one malady that every child is most concerned with their having to endure.

A priest oversees a retirement home for monks. An old chorus dancer on Broadway and for MGM gets visits from an LGBTQ support group. A daughter recalls making sure her prospective husband realized “We’re a package deal,” her aged mother and her.

With all the different faces of caregiving and children devoted to “quality of life” concerns about their parents, about what their “conscience” has them doing as America’s largest geriatric generation requires this sort of care, “It’s Not a Burden” can’t help but be a bit of a guilt trip. It’s diverse, without being necessarily “representative.” Not everyone who is going to this extreme.

But it’s also a warning, that you can’t be “too prepared” for this eventuality. And that it might be time for that old fashioned value family “responsibility” to make a comeback.

Whatever life is left, one daughter tearfully says, “It’s been less than enough. And it’s all there is.” The level of devotion depicted here has the feel of “the exceptions.” But not to those re-ordering their lives to give something back to their parents.

“Patience,” one and all counsel. “Have the wisdom to remember that this person cared for you” the way you have to care for them.

And don’t fight the many memory disorders that come with extreme age. “Try and join them in their world.”

The film takes in so many voices, covering the same ground from different directions, that it can seem too loosely organized and repetitive. “Collage” seems the best one-word description of it, and that’s not necessarily a knock. With so many scenarios playing out, you’re sure to see one that connects with your life and maybe even suggest a solution to this hoarding problem or that dementia dilemma.

MPA Rating: unrated, some profanity

Credits: Scripted and directed by Michelle Boyaner. A Gravitas Ventures release.

Running time: 1:31

How can a movie set in Brazil’s Carnival, the colorful, hedonistic Bacchanal held in the days leading up to every Ash Wednesday — unless there’s a global pandemic — come off as drab as “Carnaval?”

Colorful costumes, fruity drinks, gaudy clubs, concerts and raves can’t animate this Brazilian still-life of a comedy.

The shorthand for what we’re shown here is a “Girls’ Trip” to Bahia Salvador, a bay of resorts where the beautiful people and those lucky enough to be in their company congregate and party like Lent is coming. Because it is.

That’s where beautiful social influencer Nina (Giovana Cordeiro) hopes to grow her fanbase and join the big leagues, posting posting posting photos and videos to her “followers,” hoping they reach 1,000,000 in number so she’s more on a par with her idol, the gorgeous influencer/model Luana (Flávia Pavanelli).

Nina’s bringing along her pals — three “types.” Mayra (Bruna Inocencio) is the stunning, sensitive one, a veterinarian who doesn’t drink. Vivi (Samya Pascotto) is the cute nerd with the purple hair who brushes off guys with “Let me save you a little time” asking three questions. Answer them, and you get a kiss.

“What are the three Quidditch balls in the Harry Potter books?”

And Michelle (Gessica Kayne) is the Samantha in this sexless “Sex and the City,” a blowsy, busty flirt who kisses anything that shaves.

“You just grab them and kiss them,” she says of guys, demonstrating at every opportunity.

Shallow Nina, fresh off a public breakup that got her labeled “The Crossfit Cuckold” on Instagram, goes starstruck over Luana, and gets a LOT of attention from singing superstar Freddy (Micael Borges), who seems nice. Even Luana, set up to be a villain, is no worse than rude — never remembering Nina’s name, even when she’s giving her heartless advice.

“‘Friends,'” the super-influencer points out, “make us lose our focus.”

Nina has to learn the value of “friends” and what sort of men — NOT influencers — are worth getting to know.

Michelle has to discover what it feels like to fall in love, and not in list.

Mayra has to let her freak flag fly and Vivi must meet her soulmate, probably on the Quidditch fields of Brazil.

Deep. Still, it’s all harmless, if pretty much charmless.

MPA Rating: TV-MA, lots of skin and drinking and kissing, very tame otherwise

Cast: Giovana Cordeiro, Bruna Inocencio, Micael Borges, Gessica Kayane, Samya Pascotto and Flávia Pavanelli

Credits: Scripted and directed by Leandro Néri. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:35

Blades and fists break out in this tiny Tokyo cafe named…Hydra.

July 2 the brawl breaks out on streaming.

A couple of things brought this 1950 movie to mind before it popped up on “Sunday Night Noir” a few days ago.

The first was Jeff Bezos over-paying for MGM and its vast library. Film libraries used to be more valuable than they are today. “Intellectual property” rights matter more today, and there’s no reason why the chance to remake, spin off and otherwise mine any legacy studio’s back catalog couldn’t make that MGM deal pay off in ways other than the TV rights and James Bond spinoff possibilities (Amazon series on the early days of M, Q and/or Moneypenny?) we’ve heard mentioned.

“The Breaking Point” was the second version of Ernest Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not.” There were three films based on that plot and characters from 1944, 1950 and 1958. Warners bought the rights from Hemingway and made damned sure they got their money’s worth.

Another reason “Breaking Point” was on my mind was in a shortcoming in the recent PBS “American Masters” on Ernest Hemingway. The series did next to nothing on Hemingway’s extensive dealings with Hollywood. Sixty years after his death and the movies and TV are still tackling his books and short stories, making and remaking them. And while he was happy to take the studios’ money during his lifetime, he griped constantly about what “they did” to his books.

The writing was watered down, censored — the violence, sex and sexual situations always sanitized for America’s protection.

One person he griped about this to was his fishing buddy, the man’s man action director Howard Hawks. A famous anecdote has the bluff Hawks (“Red River,” “Rio Bravo”) shutting “Papa” up with “I could make a fine film out of the worst thing you ever wrote.”

Hemingway was insulted, taken aback, and curious. “Which book is that?”

“That piece-of-s— ‘To Have and Have Not,'” Hawks growled. And thus was the first film made, thus did Bogie meet Bacall, as Hawks, the screenwriter and the studio turned a gritty, down-and-dirty novel into a dark and playful “Casablanca” in the WWII Caribbean. They ennobled the characters and the novel in ways that must have made Hemingway cringe.

When Warner Brothers tried to get a second film out of the book, Michael Curtiz & Co. kept a lot more of the sordid stuff, the amorality and racism in turning “To Have and Have Not” into “The Breaking Point,” a John Garfield vehicle about a down-on-his-luck charter boat captain getting mixed up in people smuggling into and out of Mexico.

This time his ethics are a lot greyer, his motives more desperate. Bogie looked more inconvenienced than in a panic over losing his boat, his dream and his livelihood. Garfield lets us see Harry Morgan sweat.

The “love interest” goes back to being a real femme fatale here, with Patricia Neal carrying a lot more baggage and forbidden allure than the gorgeous but younger Betty Bacall managed. We can believe Neal makes her way with her looks and sex and has slept her way into and out of more than one jam.

“I live in Number Seven. My friends just kick the door open.”

Morgan’s character is married, with responsibilities and a righteous, beatified wife (Phyllis Thaxter) whom he struggles to stay faithful to. Neal’s Leona Charles does not make that easy.

“Ya know, one of these days you’re gonna get your arm broke reachin’ for something that don’t belong to ya.”

The people smuggling involves dealings with Chinese crooks (Victor Sen Yung chief among them) to get Chinese refugees of uncertain criminal connection into the country, something Harry has no qualms about, but chickens out of doing when he’s double-crossed.

He doesn’t dwell on the violence or criminality he engages in to save his indebted boat, doesn’t shy away from taking meetings with a mob go-between (Wallace Ford). But he’s still looking out for his trusting, protective deck hand (Juano Hernandez here, less “cute” than the Walter Brennan version in the 1944 film).

“To Have and Have Not” was light and funny, with Bacall playing at being the woman of experience keeping Bogart on his heels, Hoagie Carmichael tickling the ivories as she sang (Neal also sings) and Brennan playing “colorful” to the max.

“The Breaking Point” has similarly sharp dialogue, but without the cute. “Breaking Point” is also plainly much more of a film noir take on the novel, which suits, considering Hemingway’s “The Killers” place as an oft-remade, morally ambiguous story firmly anchored in noir tropes and conventions.

In 1958, a third version of the novel, “The Gun Runners,” was filmed, just as desperate and violent, but simplistic and built around Audie Murphy. He was a decorated war hero and legendary figure to “The Greatest Generation,” but a cherubic, baby-voiced mediocrity on the screen. He had a long career in action and Westerns, with only his WWII autobiography “To Hell and Back” and John Huston’s “The Red Badge of Courage” standing out as watchable.

“The Breaking Point” holds up and reminds us of how Garfield always made “tough” guys conflicted, damaged and uncertain of their choices. And who can forget how Neal was earthy Southern “sex” and “sin” incarnate on the screen.

The film’s not great Hemingway. Few films based on his work are. It’s still pretty damned good. And it’s as close to this novel as we’re likely to ever get in an adaptation, no matter who owns the remake rights, now.

MPA Rating: unrated, violence, infidelity, smoking, alcohol

Cast: John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Juano Hernandez, Phyllis Thaxter. Victor Sen Yung, Wallace Ford

Credits: Directed by Michael Curtiz, script by Ranald MacDougall, based on the novel “To
Have and Have Not” by Ernest Hemingway. A Warner Brothers release.

Credits:

Running time: 1:37