Movie Nation

What a peculiar, sometimes bizarre movie “Homunculus” is, a brain-experiment sci-fi thriller that lurches between dull and downright revolting.starts with graphic brain surgery, crosses into “creepy,” and freely-acknowledges that when it does, as it dabbles in the Japanese obsession with uniformed “schoolgirls,” and goes gonzo gross, before settling into sheer tedium.

This Around the World with Netflix thriller starts with graphic brain surgery, crosses into “creepy,” and freely-acknowledges that when it does, as it dabbles in the Japanese obsession with uniformed “schoolgirls,” and goes gonzo gross, before settling into sheer tedium.

It’s about a homeless guy (Gô Ayano) who lives in his ’60s Mazda, occasionally socializes with the homeless encamped in a nearby park and gorges on big swathes of the menu when he deigns to go out.

He’s got money, everybody says. But he’s living like this. He must have his reasons.

They don’t become crystal clear when he’s approached by a pierced, pushy street punk (Ryô Narita) who turns out to be a “rich kid doctor.” He wants to do a little ancient brain surgery on Nokoshi, and eventually gets to the heart of his pitch.

“Do you ever feel alive?”

Nokoshi ignores the dangers of the most invasive of surgeries, the dubious credentials of his pitchman and Ito willingness to resort to extortion, and agrees to the surgery.

Maybe he’ll “remember what you forgot” after this trepanation — trepanning, boring a hole in the skull (seen in “Master & Commander”). Maybe he’ll discover a sixth sense. There are all sorts of possibilities when you pop the bone off the lid of your noggin.

“ESP, psychokinesis,” Ito teases, dubbed into English or in Japanese with English subtitles. “Give me seven days and I’ll give you a reason to live!”

What he actually gives Nokoshi, aside from a big band-aid covering the hole in his forehead and the recovery of “memories,” is the ability to see people as “homunculi,” beasts as they really are. Some are made of sand, others of water. They can be walking chains or “empty” creatures covered in sunglasses.

Nokoshi knows the yakuza whom he confuses for a robot has a gigantic emotional scar he’s based his life on. His threat of violence can be turned on his by twisting his mind.

This school girl (Seiyô Uchino) who moonlights in a peep show (the school uniform fetish) has hang-ups that come off as pervy older man wish-fulfillment fantasies. I’m not overstating it in saying this borders on nauseating.

The performances never quite achieve “compelling.”

And the action of the first half of Takashi Shimzu’s film — based on a manga, of course — is abandoned for far duller later scenes and acts, less sick or sickening, but not thought-provoking enough to hold interest.

That’s how the film leaves you, with a wincing realization that “That’s it?”

MPA Rating: TV-MA, violence, sexual violence, sexuality and profanity

Cast: Gô Ayano, Ryô Narita

Credits: Directed by Takashi Shimizu, script by Eisuke Naitô, Naruki Matsuhisa and Takashi Shimizu, based on the manga by Hideo Yamamoto. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:55

Annasophia Robb, Minks Kelly, and as a young Meyer Lansky? John Magaro.

Emily Blunt, The Rock, CCR, and “a tree” with “powers.”

Did I mention the U Boat?

So the cut and paste screenwriters have seen “The African Queen” and “Murphy’s War?” And every Disney movie with a whiff of magic?

We toss the phrase “Kafkaesque nightmare” out whenever we or someone we hear about is buried under the impersonal, uncaring bureaucracy of government.

But what does that really imply? It denotes a solitary human, a “citizen,” trapped in the maw of the machine of government, a machine that is deaf to your pleas, batting you around like a toy, chewing you up and spat out in the process.

That’s what happened to Anthony Bryan, one of the many thousands of longtime British residents forced, by the Conservative government there, to prove they belonged after decades of living, paying taxes and raising families in a country that lured them there with the promise of citizenship.

“Sitting in Limbo” is a British immigration debacle that is the very definition of “Kafkaesque nightmare.”

Bryan, like many others, found himself “Sitting in Limbo,” as this British TV film is titled. We see Bryan (Patrick Robinson), pushing 60, after spending half a century in his adopted country, kicked out of his job, ordered to report back to The Home Office “every fortnight,” while his status was “examined.”

Forced to submit, resubmit and submit a third time an ever changing array of paperwork, arrested and held in detention not once, but twice, and treated with a callous disregard for humanity, human rights and simple decency that Franz Kafka would easily recognize, his true story became the linchpin of Britain’s “Windrush Scandal.

The idea was to create a “hostile environment” for immigrants, a sort of ethnic cleansing by harassment of people deemed politically and legally vulnerable, a policy which apparently Donald Trump’s minions wanted to mimic when he held power.

Depressed, depopulated Britain invited immigrants from its colonies in the decades after World War II ended. That’s how Anthony Bryan arrived, at age eight, in the 1960s. Stella Corradi’s film lets us see him scramble to reconstruct that history to satisfy a widening selection of bureaucrats who either lose or ignore the paperwork submitted, or simply change what they expect him to produce.

“It’s up to you to provide evidence to support your claim,” one functionary snaps.

But you try tracking down school records from half a century ago, a passport of similar vintage, birth certificate from Jamaica.

Bryan sees his life ground down — forced out of his job because of his “status,” locked up with expensive lawyers as his only recourse, abruptly released without so much as “an apology,” asked for “proof of paternity” for his children.

His longtime partner Janet (Nadine Marshall) is the one quicker to anger at his treatment. They can joke over the fact that they never got married, which would have spared him this assault on his status and life.

“You should have gotten down on one knee years ago.”

But this is deadly serious business, as we see from the his confinement, and the news coverage that broke out about it in the film’s third act.

“Sitting in Limbo” isn’t on a par with the fine West Indian history/slice of life series Steve McQueen did (“Small Axe”). The acting is convincing, but this calamity isn’t given the pathos it deserves, although Robinson’s simmering outrage is palpable, even though his Bryan knows full well that the minute he loses his cool “they” have their excuse to summarily ship him out.

“It’s like I’m having to beg to stay in my own country.”

The film is best at putting a human face on the faceless “immigration debate,” in Britain and pretty much anywhere else. And Robinson, portraying shock, deflating defeat and helplessness in the maw of the machine, makes one compelling case among countless thousands by showing Anthony Bryan’s patience, forbearance and broken-hearted outrage that “my country” could do this to him.

MPA Rating: TV-MA, profanity

Cast: Patrick Robinson, Nadine Marshall, Pippa Bennett-Warner and C.K. Beckford

Credits: Directed by Stella Corradi, script by Stephen S. Thompson. A BBC One production, a Netflix release.

Running time: 1:29

Dennis Quaid plays a crusty, rummy old salt forced to help kids win a cash-prize fishiny tourney so that they can save their orphanage in “Blue Miracle,” a “true” tale of Cabo San Lucas.

OK, “true-ish.”

Cute? Certainly. Cloying? Sometimes. I mean, come on. Orphans.

Faith-based? Kind of. A little boy has taken the advice that he should nail his prayers above a door if he wants them to come true. You know what that means.

But stars Jimmy Gonzalez, Quaid and others give fair value and director Julio Quintana (“The Vessel”) manages a mystical moment or two and a sentimental moment or three. And it finishes really well. Really well.

So it may not be a prize-winner, but it’s not exactly chum, either.

Gonzales, finding a sweet variation of his “Mayans M.C.” TV biker thug, plays a guy who has rechanneled a wayward youth, married and runs a private orphanage in Cabo. Wife Becca (Fernanda Urrejola) helps “Papa Omar” preside over the unruly boys of Casa Hogar (“House Home?”)

But the bank is knocking at the door, a hurricane floods the place and they’re in the hole. A lot.

The annual Bisbee’s Black and Blue Fishing Tourney could be their salvation. But only after the wily director of the tourney (Bruce McGill) enters them to get past-winner and drunken, half-broke has-been Capt. Wade off his back about “waiving the entry fee.” Team Casa Hogar it is.

Wade to Papa Omar — “You and your three least annoying orphans” should show up, board his battered boat, “Knot Enough,” at dawn. And away we go.

The kids are a collection of “types” with names to match. Hollywood, Wiki (the smart one) and the new guy, the thief, the one who calls himself “Moco” (“booger”) are Casa Hogar’s last hope.

Complications? Wade has a sad, obsessed past. Omar has issues with being at sea, with fishing with a father figure. He has nightmares about just that. And the kids? What’re the chances any of them can swim?

There’s a lot of sass, back-talk and wisecracking, none of it all that funny. But they all really want to win this thing for Tweety (Steve Gutierrez), who took Omar’s suggestion about writing down prayers and nailing them above the doorway so literally that he’s sure they’re going to boat the biggest marlin of them all.

A single decent twist and a pleasant lump-in-the-throat finale are what you get for your time, here. Not much, but not a lot of family friendly movies do better. And not bad for a movie about a rich man’s “trophy fish” sport. Let’s hope they didn’t waste any blue marlins making this.

MPA Rating: TV-14

Cast: Jimmy Gonzales, Dennis Quaid, Fernanda Urrejola, Miguel Angel Garcia, Nathan Arenas, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson and Bruce McGill.

Credits: Directed by Julio Quintana, script by Chris Dowling, Julio Quintana. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:35

“Good Funk” is an indie drama told in a series of sketches, interconnected lives facing a gentrifying Red Hook (Brooklyn) with despair, frustration and vague hope. There’s not much to it, but like its title, it’s a character study with a groove.

Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris plays Akifah, a single mom struggling to survive on a McDonald’s salary. She who entertains her ten-year-old (Leonay Shepherd) with tales of the child’s absent father. He’s not dead, not that she knows. He didn’t “leave” them.

“I wasn’t in a position to ask questions.”

Their lives and the dynamics of the relationship are upended when they’re evicted. Kolo the kid lets her inner brat out.

William Nadylam and Kalae Nouveau are Terence and Joyce. He’s “an old family friend” of Akifah, an immigrant of means who is just “holding out” for the neighborhood property values to spike as a new “coliseum” is about to change the place. Joyce is a singer, the daughter of a singer, and hasn’t given much thought to kids until they take in Kolo.

And Cedric Cannon and Sandra Reaves-Phillips are Oscar and Eva, an older couple responding to the strain of these “changes,” with mistrust and stress testing their relationship.

A character will melt down, another face accusations that “you’re using again.” Selling an apartment, vacant lot bonfire jams, session work, caring for an elderly mother and police harassment pepper the “plot,” such as it is.

But what writer-director Adam Kritzer was going for is vibe, a melancholy tone, “funk” in its mental health sense.

The performances have a lovely informality, with indie film mainstay Larry Fessenden showing up as a sympathetic McDonald’s colleague and Luqmaan-Harris nicely capturing the deflating depression of struggling with poverty, and being entirely “too good” for that.

Kitzer makes good use of a modest selection of locations, streets, apartments, subway platforms and riverside scenes. The spare plot and limited locations suits the indie nature of it all. Nouveau’s singer Joyce is summoned to a recording session, where the woman wanting her voice uses her real name — Kalae. That’s a retake on a “Hollywood” production.

Like Red Hook itself, “Good Funk” is worth a look, even if you know you’ll need to move on to find something and some place with more excitement in it.

MPA Rating: unrated, adult situations

Cast: Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris, William Nadylam, Kalae Nouveau, Leonay Shepherd, Larry Fessenden, Cedric Cannon and Sandra Reaves-Phillips

Credits: Scripted and directed by Adam Kritzer. A 1091 release.

Running time: 1:14

Well, none of us are as young as we once were.

This July 23 thriller is about a family that ages rapidly during a summer trip.

Ask anybody about vacations at Disney World.

There’s just enough off-the-wall stuff in Michael P. Blevins’ “Digging to Death” to suggest “horror comedy” might have been the intention here.

I mean, it’s about a newly-divorced guy (veteran bit player Ford Austin) who decides to replace the septic system at his new house by himself, and instead unearths a corpse buried next to a pile of cash.

Austin goes full Bruce Campbell as David, a guy who can’t figure out how to keep the money and deal with the corpse without calling the cops, and goes crazy in the process.

He keeps seeing the corpse (Tom Fitzpatrick) and struggling with it…in his nightmares.

And he’s coming unglued at the office where his passive-aggressive boss (Clint Jung) keeps toying with his deadline to update this “Mind Crash” video game. Yeah, his mind crashes.

He’s just a middle-aged man with a middle-aged muscle car trying to land that mid-level management promotion. Oh, and cope with a divorce, a septic system he can’t get around to fixing, a deadline from his landscaper (Richard Riehle), the stress of knowing he’s breaking the law and a corpse he’s sure is walking around his property at night, muddying his floors.

At every turn, “something huge collides with my already unstable life.” Who hasn’t been there?

Anyway, despite the odd over-the-top reaction, flip-out or what have you, there’s not enough to “Digging to Death” to recommend it. It’s not scary, and not all that amusing.

What this movie could use is more “septic.” Septic is always funny.

MPA Rating: unrated, bloody violence, profanity

Cast: Ford Austin, Tom Fitzpatrick, Rachel Alig and Richard Riehle

Credits: Scripted and directed by  Michael P. Blevins. An Uncork’d release.

Running time: 1:35

A little horror from IFC Midnight? Why yes, thank you.

“The Great War of Archimedes” is World War II history with a twist — several twists.

It’s about mathematics, an “Imitation Game” and “Fat Man and Little Boy” tale of a lone genius whose calculations, estimating the “real” cost of the world’s biggest-ever battleship, could change the course of history.

“Archimedes” is also Japanese, and it’s speculative fiction, based on a manga (comic book) that ponders a fascinating “What if.” As in “What if Japan’s decision to build the super-battleship Yamato was a big reason the country was so eager to swagger into war” with countries (the U.S. and Britain) that were sure to out-produce, outnumber and overwhelm them in the end?

As our hero here, the “once in a century” mathematical mind named Tadashi Kai (Masaki Suda) puts it more than once in the film, “Numbers never lie.”

He’s a headstrong, on-the-spectrum and OCD genius who was kicked out of Tokyo University, but whose way with numbers, formulae and “measuring” and extrapolating make him THE guy Admiral Yamamoto (Hiroshi Tachi) calls on to debunk a bogus cost estimate for the ship pitched by its designer, Admiral Hirayama (Min Tanaka).

It’s 1933, and Japan, out of the League of Nations and increasingly a rogue state to the rest of the world thanks to its invasion of Manchuria and increasingly militaristic belligerence, must decide how to replace an obsolete battleship.

Yamato says (in Japanese, with English subtitles) “Forget battleships,” they’ll be “useless” in “the next war.” He and Admiral Nagano (Jun Kunimura) lobby hard for a new aircraft carrier.

But the Old Guard of the Imperial Navy, led by Admiral Shimada (Isao Hashizume) want to sink the taxpayers’ yen in this “beautiful” showpiece battleship — fast, heavily-armed and armored. Airplanes? Those two-winged (still) fragile little things? They couldn’t touch it.

When Kai gets the pep talk that alters his anti-patriotic mindset (he’s anxious to emigrate to America), how the hubris this ship gives the navy and the naive public could lead to war, he sets out to figure out the true cost of the ship, which any novice can tell would cost quite a bit more than its designer claims.

The quest becomes a thriller as navy factions smear Kai, his not-quite-girlfriend (Minami Hamabe) and stonewall the newly-appointed Lt. Commander and his aide (Tasuku Emoto) at every turn as they scramble to gather the data they need to make an informed estimate when everything about this unnamed “monster” of a warship is “classified top secret.”

There’s a deadline, of course, which gives “The Great War of Archimedes” (named for the great ancient Greek mathematician) a “ticking clock,” counting down the fate of our heroes and the world.

Writer-director Takashi Yamazaki (“The Fighter Pilot”) makes this mad dash for military math suspenseful and pretty entertaining. Kai’s fetishized measuring tape — When we meet him, he’s measuring a the faces “etc.” of a bevy of geishas. — comes in handy as he dashes from ships to shipyards, doors slamming in his face as he keeps jotting down numbers — length, beam (width), number of rivets per metric foot of steel.

Yamazaki also makes the debates in the naval committee tense and riveting. Lots and lots of that particularly Japanese brand of bellowing, harrumphing and taking umbrage.

The film opens with an impressive digital recreation of the April 1945 sortie that sank the Yamato, a beautifully-rendered battleship assaulted by a swarm of U.S. Navy Helldiver dive bombers and Avenger torpedo bombers. It’s brilliantly detailed — screaming gun crews blazing away and dying, the ship taking hit after hit after hit, finally rolling over and sinking as a sea of extras drown or burn to death.

If anything, the movie understates how difficult the “Yamato Class” battleships (there were two) were to sink.

There’s also a shakedown cruise scene set on an early Japanese carrier, launching biplanes and other scenes set on battleships not at war.

This isn’t a conventional war movie, more of a superficial gloss of “How we blundered into war” tale, complete with Japanese revisionist scrubbing of how their “advance into China” (a bloody, territory and resource-coveting invasion) history.

But it’s a very entertaining and offbeat spin on Japan’s pre-WWII history and the national mood at the time, and an intriguing if somewhat far-fetched “what if” about the country’s long, delusional journey into World War II.

MPA Rating: unrated, violence

Cast: Masaki Suda, Hiroshi Tachi, Minami Hamabe, Tasuku Emoto, Min Tanaka, Isao Hashizume

Credits: Scripted and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, based on the manga by Norifusa Mita. A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 2:09