Movie Nation

At a key moment in the volcanic-theme-park-erupts thriller “Skyfire,” a young woman and her lover leave behind the Chinese SUV full of scientists and the park owner’s wife to see about the young woman’s grandfather just down the road.

Exploding pumice and ash are raining down all around them, lava isn’t far behind. The veteran volcanologist (Wang Xue-Qi) who scolds one and all for “your arrogance” warns the driver “Don’t speed — ash will make the radiator overheat.” Lover boy driver (Shawn Dou) ignores him.

Seconds later they stall out, with the senior volcanologist half-swapping an “I told the fool” look at his volcanologist daughter (Hannah Quinlivan). The driver and his girlfriend (An Bai) sprint off and find grandfather.

Here’s the movie in the nutshell. The scientists have fixed the SUV and race up to retrieve the lovebirds, with volcanologist daughter/motorcycle buff Meng Li (Quinlivan) heroically at the wheel.

And Meng Li gets OUT OF THE DRIVER’S seat as she’s yelling “GET IN,” after having saved the day, runs to the passenger’s side and turns the wheel over to the dunce who stalled it out the last time.

Where is this, Saudi Arabia?

“Skyfire” is a disaster movie from the China Film Co., a government-backed film studio there. Patriarchal, nonsensical, filled with heroism and self-sacrifice, sexism and very bad science, at least it’s got a Western villain (Jason Isaacs). But they soft peddle that, too.

Whatever else comes from The New Chinese Century, their take on popcorn movie making is seriously People’s Republic of Rubbish.

Brit Simon West (The Jolie “Lara Croft,” “When a Stranger Calls,” the Statham take on “The Mechanic”) was behind the camera, because at the China Film Co., there’s a sucker born every minute. He’s made a movie with pretty and pretty convincing effects based on a dimwitted, dull and science-blind screenplay.

Our heroine, Meng Li, was there as a child with her volcanologist Mom (Alice Reitveld) and Dad were caught totally off-guard as the volcano Tianhuo blew.

All the monitoring gear her parents’ team had on site, all the observing they were doing, and the little girl is the one who sees it coming.

“Mom! The snow is burning!”

Dad and daughter survive. Mom is resigned to her fate as she’s swallowed by the pyroclastic flow.

Twenty years later, Meng Li is the chief researcher on site for Tianhuo Island’s “Jurassic Park” styled volcano theme park, with suspension monorails and “totally safe” bubble elevator to take tourists into the cone of an active volcano.

Tourists need their thrills, after all.

Jason Isaacs is the entrepreneur who developed this attraction, leading around investors, keeping his staff on task, even when things start to go wrong.

“Give all the guests free drinks. You’re managers. MANAGE.”

Meng Li’s dad shows up to fetch her, because he can what’s about to go down — again.

The young lovers on staff slip off to a watery grotto for a little romantic swim.

“The water is PERFECT!”

But when the mountain opens up, they aren’t instantly boiled to death. As we’ve seen other volcano movies, we note the error and wonder how many more there’ll be?

The lava moves at a sprint, the pumice explodes like artillery rounds and the gas! The GAS!

There’s much shouting, starting with “I’m staying like everybody else” and ending with a lot of “No, NO, I HAVE to go BACK!”

The acting isn’t awful, but the script flatters no one.

Messages about how woman should have children and not take the wheel when a man is available, Western “short cuts” and noble Chinese employees risking their necks to stay at their posts because “They need me” are all part of the package.

Deaths have meaning, tears won’t bring anybody back and the physics-defying daring escapes make about as much sense as having the grandfather live in a wooden ocean-going junk nowhere near the shore.

With no building of suspense, little connection with a lot of the thinly-scripted characters, and no volcano movie ever having much of a story to go with its effects, “Skyfire” still falls short of “Dante’s Peak” and “Volcano,” even if it is marginally better than “Miami Magma.”

MPA Rating: unrated, natural disaster violence

Cast: Jason Isaacs, Hannah Quinlivan, Wang Xue-Qi, An Bai, Shawn Dou

Credits: Directed by Simon West, script by Wei Bu, Sidney King. A Screen Media release.

Running time: 1:33

Breeding and bloodlines are sources of whimsy and trauma in “Rams,” a winning dramedy set in Australian sheep country.

Sam Neill and Michael Caton play loners — feuding brothers Colin and Les — stuck on adjacent ranches, never speaking, bitter rivals whenever there’s a Merino sheep judging contest at a local fair. They’ve split the land handed down to them, each raising the family bloodline of sheep in their own way, and even compete for the love of one shared sheep dog — “Kip” to Colin, “Floss” to the other.

Older brother Les is a slob and sloppy farmer, fond of spiced rum and Humble Pie t-shirts and vintage R & B. But he always raises the prize-winners, always lords it over his “weak” sibling and indulges in the occasional drunken flip-out — with firearms — at his bullied younger brother.

Colin is more conventional and conscientious. And still he loses, and cowers when Les goes on a tirade.

This remake of an Icelandic dramedy of the same title and tone from a few years back fills the background with neighboring colorful cusses of the “If you’re gonna farm sheep, farm REAL sheep (“not” Merinos) variety, grown men not shy about measuring a ram’s competitive value by reaching under his hindquarters and weighing his testicles.

The new pink-haired vet (Miranda Richardson) is a “pommy,” a Brit who’s just settling in. She’s about to be tested, and not by the judging she pitches in to do at the fair.

Colin spots it first, the symptoms of the deadly and contagious “OJD,” Ovine Johne’s Disease. What had been “cute” with an edgey subtext now turns serious as government-mandated testing and “destroying the flocks” sets in.

Add to that the fact that this being Australia, it wouldn’t be Christmas (arriving in Australia’s summer) without brushfires.

Neill, a formidable actor and these days, gentleman farmer/vintner in his native New Zealand, is perfectly cast as Colin. He lends a little sparkle to the feud moments, and is terrific getting across Colin’s panic at seeing OJD symptoms and the awful trauma of a losing animals he coddles and compliments every morning.

“You’re beautiful. And YOU’RE beautiful…”

Veteran Aussie character actor Caton makes Les easy to hate, easier to pity.

And Richardson makes the most of a character of a certain age who is somehow drawn to Colin, even if we can’t quite see why that would be.

That’s a shortcoming of Jeremy Sims’ take on this material. It’s a bit all over the place, introducing characters and possible story threads that it abandons, which accounts for what feels like a somewhat bloated running time for a dramedy that’s essentially a three-hander, and that wants to be — despite dramatic moments — a comedy.

But the leads and the lovely scenery make up for some of that, and the quietly compelling “brother’s keeper” storyline — with lots of detailed farmwork and local color, make “Rams” well worth your time.

MPA Rating: PG-13 for language

Cast: Sam Neill, Miranda Richardson, Michael Caton

Credits: Directed by Jeremy Sims, script by Jules Duncan, based on the Icelandic film, “Rams.” A Samuel Goldwyn release.

Running time: 1:55

Soap operatic and silly, patriarchal and patriarchy-bashing, the Indonesian dramedy “100% Halal” plays like a commentary on living a rigidly “Islamic Law” life in 2021.

Jastis Arimba begins by sending up traditional marriage and ends with an overwrought confession of sins and an earnest quote from the Koran. The movie in between abandons one tone for another, takes us down dramatic dead ends and gives the impression of a young filmmaker going about as far as cultural and religious tradition will allow him, and then some.

But it’s a real eye-opener about a culture whose films seldom play in North America and hints at a freer, more honest dive into romantic comedy from the director of a couple of films about “The Power of Love.”

The goofy opening has eager youngsters Anisa (Anisa Rahma) and Putra (Anandito Dwis) meeting with a magistrate because they want to get married. As he’s 20 and she’s just 18, the official goes to some pains to find out why. Was this arranged? You don’t have to submit to that, depending on the conditions and criteria, he reassures the girl.

“You must not be pressured into it,” he says. You can’t be members of the same family either. And on he goes (in Indonesian with English subtitles).

“You two know each other well?”

“YES,” the groom affirms.

“No” the would-be bride confesses.

How can this BE? Well, “I follow her on Instagram!” And Anisa? “”Dad chose Putra.”

Whatever, you crazy kids. No sense pulling off one’s kufi cap in frustration. They’re lectured on the Islamic prayer couples must learn, “the prayer for…the ACT!” But they’re confused.

“What are the kids calling copulation these days,” the magistrate wants to know?

“ML” Anisa’s giggling girlfriends (Fitria Rasyidi and Arafah Rianti) blurt out, for “making love.”

Those potty-mouthed Indonesian teens.

The prayer begs Allah to “keep the Devil away from us” as they consummate the marriage, and yes, that revelation is played for a laugh.

The movie we’re set up for is light, a goof on marriage traditions and marrying young in an Islamic country, with Anisa’s best-selling author/provocateur Dad (Ariyo Wahab) basically offering his daughter at lectures as a way of testing/proving his “marry young” because “dating leads to ADULTERY” hypothesis.

His book’s title? “100% Halal.”

Putra approaches author Ilham after a seminar and asks for Anisa’s hand. I mean, he’s following her on Instagram, after all. Dad agrees. What kind of father would allow such a union, just to make a point? Aside from one whose last name is “Kinsey,” I mean? A patriarchal traditionalist with books to sell, apparently.

No, neither of the spouses is ready. Anisa’s frantic wedding night consoling of her outraged grandmother ends with a frantic bathroom Facetime call to her pals to “Help me out here. How do you…start?“

“Have you brushed your teeth?”

She has. And the next thing we know, she’s sharing her EPT stick on Instagram.

There are several laughs in this lighthearted opening act — the naivete, the sending up of quaint, dated traditions (a seriously transactional wedding ceremony mainly between husband and father-of-the-bride) and a light but under-developed mocking of those who embrace them like Anisa’s Dad. It’s a crying shame “100% Halal” doesn’t stick with that tack and tone.

Because the mystery-melodrama that follows — the marriage might not be “valid” under Islamic Law, Anisa frantically searches for her birth mother to fix it — isn’t nearly as interesting.

There’s a big “secret” we can guess almost the minute we hear Anisa is adopted, and the weeping and wringing of hands plays overwrought and as I mentioned, soap operatic.

Far more promising threads include the way the adoring daughter basically shoves her husband onto the back burner, dragging Dad to her OB-GYN appointments (AWK-ward.), the troubling dynamic set up in this “threesome,” Anisa’s need to open her eyes and Putra’s need to insert himself between father and daughter.

Every time the naive know-it-all friends show up, something funny happens. Trying to get information out of a screwball Youtube novelty song singer goes awry. Checking into a hotel with a leering “We don’t let out rooms by the hour” clerk earns a stern “Watch your MOUTH or may thunder strike you!” from Putra.

Sure enough, thunder claps follow.

But none of the melodramatic scenes that dominate the film’s last half come off, at least to this Western viewer. The acting is broad and hokey in the dramatic moments, deft and cute in the comic ones.

The shock of people from an older generation shrieking “ABORT it” about this or that baby whose provenance is less than Sharia-approved unsettles the comedy struggling to get out of “100% Halal.”

Arimba may be taking baby steps towards making that movie, given the official and religious restrictions he’s working under. Maybe someday he’ll get to make a 100% comedy that gets away with being, say, 75% Halal. One can hope.

MPA Rating: TV-14, adult themes and situations

Cast: Anisa Rahma, Anandito Dwis, Kinaryosih, Ariyo Wahab, Fitria Rasyidi and Arafah Rianti

Credits: Directed by Jastis Arimba, script by Jastis Arimba and Ali Eounia. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:44

You’ve been hearing about it for decades, the amateur musicians’ version of various sports “fantasy camps,” but for rock and roll fans.

Pay $5000 (at first, now $5499, plus extras), jam and learn from your aged classic rock or metal heroes, hang with them in a nice hotel for a few days, soak up a little of the rock’n roll lifestyle. And in this version, you don’t have to take a “fan” cruise to get up close and personal.

“Rock Camp: The Movie” is yet another informercial for manager turned promoter David Fishof, 90 minutes of assorted people with the disposable cash to live out their fantasy — an accountant singing with Paul Stanley of KISS and an impromptu band campers and experienced rockers have formed for a weekend — Jurassic Waste, Stack of Yokos or Motley Jue.

Over the past 23 years, every network morning show, every cable network, even “The Simpsons” and “Bones” and other TV programs hyped this amusing, harmless indulgence into the popular “vacation” for well-heeled adults and the children of the equally well-heeled that it is today. It’s a movie that feels like a sales pitch, a hollow glossing of a Baby Boomer indulgence that doesn’t amount to much more than glimpses of scores of famous rockers who sell-their-services to this camp — Daltrey to Meat Loaf, Nancy Wilson to Rob Halford and other members of Judas Priest, Vince Neill to Lita Ford — and quick, dull sketches of those who buy their way into one weekend of the camp.

Filmmakers Renee Barron and Douglas Blush tell the story of how David Fishof went from being a Catskills resort kid to New York sports agent for the likes of Phil Simms and Lou Pinella, to an “outside the box” rock promoter whose brainstorms were all nostalgia tours, reuniting the Monkees, the Happy Together Tour and helping create and promote Ringo’s All Starr Band.

His friends, possibly parroting something Fishof himself says, credit him with “taking the yarmulke to a new level,” a smart promoter who used those oldies acts to create a camp for the now-well-off fans who grew up loving these musicians.

No, it’s “not hip,” Fishof jokes. But helping fangirls and fanboys (mostly) live out their dreams, if only for a weekend, is just good clean wish fulfillment, if a little pricey.

But listening to the assorted rockers fluff the experience in varying degrees of sincerity, meeting a cross section of campers for a recent Las Vegas Rock Fantasy Camp — a singing-drumming real estate trust’s accountant, a guy who seems to work for a church, parents of a teen with autism who comes out of his shell with his Gibson Les Paul guitar — one never shakes the feeling that this entire enterprise is seriously tone deaf.

It’s not their fault that this comes out in the middle of a pandemic and the recession it caused. But even without that, it’s nigh on impossible for anybody in this to not come off like a total douche. And no, I don’t think I’ve ever used that word in a review before, but it’s almost unavoidable here.

The kid with autism gets off lightly, and considering the other and better “kids learn to rock” camp documentaries, that’s a given. And not all the A, B and C-list musicians ooze bottom-line insincerity. Tony Franklin, former bassist with the ’80s super group The Firm, takes a moment to remember the lifestyle and how much the partying and touring failed to fulfill him, and that stands out.

California camper Scott “Pistol” Crockett, a drummer who was a high school bandmate of Lenny Kravitz and turned to religious work (It’s not clear what exactly he does.) has to learn to hang “with the metal guys,” and master the cowbell for his camp band’s cover of “Mississippi Queen.” He does, but truthfully, none of these “ordinary fans” has a back story compelling enough to hang the movie on.

Then there’s the dominant figure here, Fishof, a guy Simmons jokingly suggests “could be a recurring character on ‘The Goldbergs'” ( A Jewish showbiz stereotype?) When Fishof refers to himself as “Jewish Santa Claus” for doing this, Fishof’s not just confirming how tone-deaf this all feels (What’s Santa’s cut from the $5,499?). He’s proclaiming himself King of the Douches.

MPA Rating: unrated, pretty darned clean

Cast: Paul Stanley, Nancy Wilson, Rob Halford, Lita Ford, Gene Simmons, Roger Daltrey, Sammy Hagar, Tony Franklin, Spike Edney and David Fishof.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Renee Barron and Douglas Blush. A Madpix release, on Amazon, etc. Jan. 15.

Running time: 1:28

That 2018 Taiwanese film about a cursed hanging rope has a sequel, “The Rope Curse 2,” and a whole lot more plot and ritual, and many many more characters, although a couple are holdovers from the original.

Do you need to see the first film to make sense of the second? I’d hate to put you through that, and this is such over-plotted nonsense that virtually nothing could render it sensible.

The new wrinkle this time — the “cursed” rope has a Thai Demon origin, a demon favored by “Thai drug dealers,” we’re told.

So “Stay off drugs, kids,” and in Taiwan, “Beware those Thai drug dealers” is implied.

That demon is contained in a gnarled, burned statuette. It’s not just the rope that strangled someone who died that could “pass on the curse” (in Mandarin with English subtitles) this time.

And it’s not just ropes that might get you. We see people strangled by necktie and seat belt, noose and whatever’s at hand.

All a drug smuggler hiding heroin in cocoanuts has to do is mutter “I have nothing to tie this up with” and “I think I saw a rope around here somewhere” and damn, the curse is passed on again.

Channel Gray Bear and the live streaming “supernatural hunters” of the first film weigh in, with their eyes on a new “hot psychic (Wilson Hsu) who is extra sensitive to ghostly presences, and afraid of most everything.

Masters of Taoism (Bor Jeng Chen returns) figure into the plot. One running gag is the notion that elected officials summon Taoist priests to “purify” a location or rope, “lift the curse” and that they pay the priests for doing it. There are all these elaborate ceremonies, face-painting rituals, masks and costumes and exorcism dances and parades.

And a prosecutor who stalks in at one point takes the audience’s side when he announces “What a scam.”

Only it isn’t. Assorted “masters” try to stop the spreading, deadly curse — a hanging spree that rips through first the drug dealers, then others in this corner of suburban Taiwan. When one master is possessed (eyes turn blood red), the next master takes on the quest.

Kang Sheng Lee plays the master Miss Teen Hot Psychic (Hey, THEY named her, not me.) turns to as she’s haunted by visions of her dead parents and struggles to save her raging, guilt-ridden and finally possessed and ready to end-it-all Aunt (Vera Chen).

“Are we going to be afraid for a lifetime,” Master Huo-ge asks the girl, Jiachen, “or face this bravely?”

Take a guess which way she’s leaning.

The acting varies between realistically chilling and over-the-top hysterical. The tone is spooky, but never more than that.

This thing is all over the place, and while the violent ends are creative, they lack logic and order after a while. “Rope Curse 2” starts out making little sense, and makes none at all by the time the credits roll.

Maybe “Rope Curse 3” will tidy that up.

MPA Rating: TV-MA, graphic violence

Cast: Wilson Hsu, Kang Sheng Lee, Bor Jeng Chen and Vera Chen

Credits: Directed by Shih-Han Liao, script by  Tzu-Ming Ma. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:44

Many movies, animated and otherwise, have been made about the events that inspired Alaska’s famed Iditarod sled dog race.

Disney’s “Togo” is far and away the most factual of all the many movies about the 1925 Nome epidemic and “The Great Mercy Run,” the dog sled relay run that saved it.

There’s plenty of Hollywood hokum, superhuman and supercanine feats, liberties with topography in the film. But “Togo” is the first version of this story that emphasizes that there were many teams, many mushers — most of them Native Inuit — involved, that the much-heralded Balto — object of a fine animated film on the story — wasn’t the only dog of note, merely the most publicized.

“Togo” has drama, heroism and pathos. And it hangs on the grand, craggy and weather-worn features of the great Willem Dafoe, one of the finest actors of his generation turned loose on a role with built-in theatricality.

There aren’t many who could launch into a Norwegian musher’s version of Shakespeare’s “St. Crispin’s Day” speech from “Henry V,” epic poetry to inspire his dogs, “we happy few,” and not seem utterly ridiculous. Dafoe makes this corny moment kind of magnificent.

Diphtheria breaks out in remote Nome in the middle of the winter of 1925. Thousands might die, with children the most vulnerable. A serum was available in Anchorage.

But there was no rail line, ice covered sounds preventing shipping and primitive airplanes would never make it to the town in 60 below snow squalls with 50 mile per hour winds. Only sled dogs would do. Only Norwegian immigrant Leonhard Seppala could guide them through 674 miles of frozen, blizzard-blocked wasteland.

And Seppala wouldn’t make the run without his aged lead dog, the “runt of the litter,” Togo.

It wasn’t until days after Seppala took off that the governor came up with the idea of a relay run, using mail carrying mushers (most of them Natives) to rush the medicine through. But Seppala was already crossing frozen Nelson Sound, braving the worst Alaska’s winters have to give with his trusty team of huskies.

He and his dogs endure frigid white hell to make the trip from way station to way station. And as they do, curmudgeonly Seppala remembers the “damned mutt” he hated, tried to give away (and considered worse) whom he’s entrusted with his and his team’s lives.

“St. Francis of Assisi would shoot this dog,” Leonhard grouses at the sickly “runt” wife Constance (Julianne Nicholson) insists on saving, treating and indulging as the little pup grows up to be healthy and seriously rambunctious.

The grace notes in Ericson Core’s film, based on a romantic Tom Flynn script, begin with the depiction of Seppala’s marriage. Nicholson lends heart and whimsy to this partnership. She and Dafoe make it a warm relationship with spark and wit.

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

“I won’t even make the bed.”

Constance keeps the faith, saves the dog and rolls her eyes at every escape he makes from the kennel, every time he comes back after Leonhard tries to give him away. And when people later question what her husband and his fellow mushers will do under these conditions, Nicholson puts a lump in your throat when Constance declares that none of them would “sit in front of a warm fire while children are dying,” and you remember the stakes involved.

Sentiment could easily overwhelm the picture, and make no mistake — you will cry over this one.

But in setting out to get it right, in not going the ridiculous “Call of the Wild” Harrison Ford with digital dogs in digital landscapes route, Disney’s made a kid-friendly/dog-loving epic that harks back to some children’s classics of the genre.

MPA Rating: PG for some peril, thematic elements and mild language 

Cast: Willem Dafoe, Julianne Nicholson, Nive Nielsen, Michael Greyeyes, Christopher Heyerdahl

Credits: Directed by Ericson Core, script by Tom Flynn. A Disney+ release.

Running time: 1:53

Adding “Alaska” to most any screenplay brings with it the promise of quirky. The place and the people may be ruggedly rural, with more than a few “sourdoughs” believing themselves self-reliant — especially the state’s infamous remote cabin loners. A lot of genuine characters wind up there by choice or by disposition.

Its reputation is that its where people go who don’t necessarily fit in with other people. Having lived in Kodiak for a while, covering the local eccentrics, free spirits, predators and scoundrels, I experienced it first hand.

But while I ran into the gay community in my corner of the state, I never stumbled across drag queens. Not in public, anyway.

“Alaska is a Drag” is about a gay teen (Martin L. Washington) slopping through the smelly drudgery of a salmon cannery by day, dreaming of mirror ballroom runways and strutting his stuff in gowns and party wear at night. Even though Leo never really does.

His thick-as-thieves sister Tristen (Maya Washington) is his sole audience.

They live in a travel trailer, sometimes with their religious fanatic/gambling addict dad (Kevin Daniels). But usually, he’s off on a bender — preaching or hitting the casino.

And they dream their dreams. Leo? He dreams of drag stardom in LA, which is why Maya keeps him posted of which day the latest cruise ship dump of “lost and found” items (they live in an Inside Passage port town where cruise vessels stop) goes on sale.

“Save me the ball gowns!”

“I always do!”

Writer-director Shazz Bennett had in mind a story that sends up some gay stereotypes, and clasps many others close to its bosom. That makes for a sometimes likable, often grating affair with charm and promise and some fun characters, but that in the end leaves a lot to be desired.

Leo needs to be there for Tristen when she has her chemo. She’s a teenager fighting with cancer. No idea how they’re covering that expense, but they are.

Tristen needs to ask Leo if she should “pick you up after work?” Because in this corner of a redneck-majority state, being that rare Black kid in town isn’t enough. Being Black and “fab-ULOUS” puts a target on his back. There’s always time for gay bashing. Bullying co-worker and former friend Kyle (Chris O’Shea) is usually the ring-leader.

The film’s first twist? Leo can take care of himself — martial artsing the hell out of Kyle and several of his buddies, even if eventually they usually overwhelm him.

A second twist? He’s good enough to get the attention of his boss Diego (Jason Scott Lee, who once played a super charismatic Bruce Lee in the bio pic “Dragon”). Diego runs an informal boxing gym in the back of a dockside boat storage shed.

That, by the way, is VERY Alaskan — getting double use out of the few usable structures in any given town “way out there.”

First big cliche? There’s a hunky new guy at the cannery (Matt Dallas). And they exchange smiles in that simpatico gaydar way gay coming of age romances do.

Bennett’s story proceeds through a blase narrative with a possible romance, cancer and “a big drag contest” in LA, getting a sympathetic hand from The Fish Hook, the only gay bar (not that it makes that claim) in a hundred miles, and from its proprietor — Jan (Margaret Cho).

Leo and Tristen are the soul of this piece, sharing a love of each other, a mutual love of martial arts and the odd movie quote which they turn into catch phrases.

“No matter where you go, I WILL find you!”

Memories of Mom (Nia Peeples), who abandoned them long ago, is a bond and a punchline.

“Remember what Mom used to say?”

“Get me another drink?”

Martin L. Washington’s Leo holds what there is here — which isn’t much, to be honest — together with a winning portrayal of someone who doesn’t fit in and can’t, and longs to “get out of here.” That’s a sentiment shared by most of the young people we meet.

Leo’s a stereotype, sure. He’s the theatrical, screen-writerly over-the-top gay narcissist that decades of “out” cinema have served up.

“I wish people would love everybody else the way I love me,” he says, quoting Muhammad Ali.

The players in “Alaska is a Drag” make the scattered jokes land and the cliches and stereotypes land softly, at least. Cho and Lee score laughs, Washington and Washington score more and we have hope that all the “cute” touches and quirky characters and “local color” will amount to more than it does.

Sadly, it doesn’t. But almost.

MPA Rating: unrated, violence, alcohol abuse, slurs, profanity

Cast: Martin L. Washington, Maya Washington, Matt Dallas, Chris O’Shea, Kevin Daniels, Nia Peeples, Jason Scott Lee and Margaret Cho.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Shazz Bennett. A Filmbowl Films release on Netflix.

Running time: 1:23

A French family tries to get back to Paris during the US Civil War, a long trek Western, in other words. End of Jan. release from Samuel Goldwyn.

Boy, did we need this one.

“Herself” is an uplifting real world drama in classic weeper/wish-fulfillment fantasy clothes, a story of pluck and heart, violence and sadness.

And if you ever needed a good cry…

The latest film from the great Phyllida Lloyd (“The Iron Lady”) opens with near unspeakable sadness. A young Irish mother, dancing with her kids in the kitchen, is interrupted by their dad who wants the girls to go outside.

Mom (Clare Dunne) whispers two words to her oldest (Ruby Rose O’Hara), and the child takes a wicker lunchbox and heads out the door. When she hits the yard, she breaks into a sprint.

It’s a “safety box.” There’s a desperate message taped inside the lid. And little Emma, who looks about 7, runs into a nearby newstand, opens the lid and shouts at the clerk.

“Call the GUARDS!”

The address and her mother’s words that she’s in danger are on that message. Dad (Ian Lloyd Anderson) is beating up Mom, and this time it could be fatal.

We have just enough time to take a breath in this wrenching moment to consider what just happened, the awful situation that causes a woman to have to come up with that desperate lifeline and the terrible responsibility a mother has had to give her child. The youngest (Molly McCann) can hang onto her innocence a little longer, perhaps. But older Emma has to know that this time, the cops are coming.

Sandra is saved, out of that environment, taking her kids with her. “Herself” is about her daily scramble to work two jobs, get her oldest to school, complain about the long wait on state’s “the housing list” while sharing custody with the cowardly thug who beat her and wants to get her and them back.

No, she doesn’t let word get around which hotel social services is putting them up in. Three year “safety order” (restraining) or not, Sandra is scared to death, with a permanently-injured hand and a scarred psyche. All sorts of things trigger her.

As she dashes from her bar job to cleaning a disabled doctor’s house, looking in on her (Harriet Walter) being part of the deal, she researches options. There’s this Internet architect who’s come up with this super cheap small (not “tiny”) house design he shares for free. It’s “DIY” friendly, if you can just get some land, some permits and a little bit of expertise.

Sandra, obstacles and logic be damned, has her purpose and we’ve got ourselves an inspiring up-by-your-bootstraps movie.

Dunne, something of a discovery here, co-wrote the script and goes easy on the sugar-coating. Yes, Sandra will require “the kindness of strangers” and acquaintances. But with the tone set early on, we can only wait to see the first thing that goes wrong, and then the second and third.

And we never lose the fear of the worst that might happen.

Dunne’s sweet way with the kids is just magical, light-heartedly repeating the story of her birth mark (under one eye) as put on her by the Almighty to recognize her, “because there’s LOOooaaaads’a Sandras in Dublin!”

The way she plays Sandra’s reactions to her trials and triggerings is a marvel of injury and empathy. Gentle, proud but pleading for help, hiding her awful history as she does, we root for Sandra “Herself” so hard it hurts.

The kids are adorable, smiling imps who either forget or forgive Dad, depending on how much they know and how close they were to the violence.

And Anderson makes a fine villain, not a cartoonish ogre but a working class brute who might have come by his behavior honestly, if unforgivably.

The only shortcomings here are the “wish fulfillment fantasy” corners of this story, the cast of “types” who help Sandra in her quest. But even they are only worth half an eye roll, because we could all use leg up, kindness from a near stranger, every now and then.

MPA Rating:  R for language and some domestic violence 

Cast: Clare Dunne, Molly McCann, Ruby Rose O’Hara, Ian Lloyd Anderson, Conleth Hill and Harriet Walter

Credits: Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, script by Malcolm Campbel and Clare Dunne. A BBC Films/Amazon release.

Running time: 1:38

The sorts of screen comedies that “travel” well — that play well pretty much anywhere — are slapstick and slap-happy, quick with a gag and quick witted.

The Spanish farces of Pedro Almodovar are hilarious around the world, for instance. Tyler Perry’s made “Madea” money overseas, because who doesn’t like a big Black man in drag playing a smart-assed Granny?

The Turkish comedy “Stuck Apart” has an absurdly bratty kindergarten-age kid, a dotty old man who argues with a photo of his dead wife (who argues back) and a leading man trying like heck to break up with his girlfriend but can’t because she morphs into a broken record, literally bleating “You said you’d never take it off!” about a necklace she gave him untold thousands of times, even after he’s left the cafe where she’s flipped out, even after the cafe is closed.

Remembering Albert Brooks’ “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World,” you have to appreciate that it is a seriously transgressive film to come out of a somewhat autocratic Islamic Middle Eastern state — with swearing, liquor jokes, bits of blasphemy, more swearing, suicide, rowdy parties with scantily-clad women and still more cussing, much of it by that aforementioned bratty kid.

What it doesn’t have is pace. A rare Middle Eastern comedy, sure. It’s a promising but deathly slow, stumble-footed farce that can’t get out of its own way and for whatever its message — 50ish online marketing guy in mid-existential crisis — “Stuck” never manages much more than “cute” as it stumbles between almost-amusing moments.

But let’s cut filmmakers Durul Taylan and Yagmur Taylan some slack. They didn’t make this Netflix comedy for Western audiences, necessarily. And there’s a way the average home viewer can “fix” is for them. In the lower right corner of your screen, there’s a “playback speed” adjustment. “Stuck Apart” never quite works, but it comes closer to Western comic sensibilities when you play it back at 1.25 times normal speed.

Because, again, comedy is QUICK.

Aziz (Engin Günaydin) is an exasperated EveryMarketingMan, hoping to keep his younger boss Alp (Öner Erkan) happy with his editing and effects use in viral videos, but going a bit crazy.

“I need some time alone” he whines (in Turkish) to his girlfriend Burcu (Irem Sak). That’s what sets her off on her whole “Where’s the necklace I gave you?” tirade.

Aziz is pals with older colleague Erbil (Haluk Bilginer) who stumbles about in a daze of non-sequiturs, widowed and alone and plainly past the point where most online marketing firms would have put him out to pasture.

Everybody in this story is lonely, and the widowed Erbil is loneliest of all. That’s why he chats with his dead wife’s photo. That’s why he’s always begging Aziz to come over. He should get a cat, he figures.

“Either a cat or a Ukranian. They say you can order them online. The good ones are like, $750. The best ones are $1,000!”

Alp is also always begging for Aziz’s company. He finally gets his subordinate to come to a party as his house — a full bar, DJ, “beautiful girls” all around. And when Aziz abruptly leaves, it turns out the whole mob was cast, hired and summoned for the night to put on the appearance of Alp having a swinging, happy life.

“Lonely” means something different to the rich.

It’s not like Aziz can get any peace at home. He’s housing his sister and her lummox husband, and everybody under his roof is under the thumb of their punk child, Caner.

The kid (Göktug Yildirim, pouty and dead-pan) is a constant loop of “Hey UNCLE,” waking him up in the morning with a lighter and a threat.

“Get up or I’m BURNING this BED!”

The tyke is a tirade of F-bombs, threats, demands and growls. He’s also blasphemous, holding a slice to his forehead and mimicking some ritual he probably saw on TV as he demands his uncle eat his mother’s cooking.

“Listen, in the name of this bread, if THEY (his parents) weren’t here, I would KNOW what to do with you!”

Scary. A shrink diagnoses the child as “a bloody jerk,” and Uncle has a suggested use for his manic, violent energy.

“Maybe he can work in the auto industry — as a child laborer.”

You can see the comic potential in most of the cast, but that’s pretty much all we see, save for the funny child — “potential.” There’s funny material — a hallucinated Imam joke here, a “Do you serve alcohol?” gag with a waitress there.

“Whoa,” she says, blowing her breath into her hand. “Is it that OBVIOUS?”

It’s just that the gags are scattered — WIDELY — across a 96 minute movie that meanders through Erbil’s crisis — flashing back to let us see him before he “lost it” — and slowly dances around Aziz’s “issues.” The laughs die lonely deaths when they play out this leadenly.

That’s why, if you’re reading this review in English, I’m suggesting you cheat. Adjust the playback speed. You still get the picture’s big message, a quote from an Islamic philosopher. You just get to it a lot quicker.

“Life is a long walk. If you don’t want to be out of breath, you need to find a new childhood.”

MPA Rating: TV-MA, smoking, suicide, lots of profanity

Cast:  Engin Günaydin, Haluk Bilginer, Binnur Kaya, Öner Erkan, Gülçin Santircioglu and Göktug Yildirim

Credits: Directed by Durul Taylan and Yagmur Taylan, script by Durul Taylan, Yagmur Taylan and Berkun Oya. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:34