Movie Nation

“The Pool” is terror at its most primal, a simple Thai thriller that’s complex in its simplicity.

The situation? A guy finds himself trapped in a deep, now-drained and abandoned Olympic sized swimming pool. There is no ladder to climb out on. There is no OSHA in Thailand — apparently.

His girlfriend tumbles in after him, knocking herself out as she does.

A Siamese crocodile tumbles in as well.

The pool has a  pool float mattress, a divan (used on an underwater commercial the guy was helping film), a roll of duct tape, a tree limb, and whatever jewelry and clothing they have on them.  Will any of that help them escape?

I was thinking writer-director Ping Lumpraploeng (“Dreamaholic”) blundered in telling much of this story in flashback. The opening scene, after all, shows production assistant Day (Theeradej Wongpuapan) bloodied, waking up to that croc clamping down on his leg.

But no, there’s plenty to be said about how Day got to this point (“Six days earlier”) and whether or not he’ll free himself and anybody else in the process.

Suspense comes from the near “discoveries” that pile up, the cell phone, dangling over the pool’s edge by its charger cord, just out of reach, the trained sheepdog Lucky, that Day brought to the commercial shoot, the barbed wire, the locked drain opening, the ticking over of days Day goes without his insulin.

Did I mention he’s diabetic? Sorry.

Girlfriend Koi (Ratnamon Ratchiratham) tumbling in after him just complicates matter. The script hangs Day on the horns of one dilemma after another — what to save, who to save, what injuries to avoid, which to accept to climb out of this death trap.

There isn’t a lot to “The Pool,” but that’s another way of saying there’s no more here than is absolutely necessary, and that includes dialogue. It’s an immersive and visceral movie-watching experience, inviting us to share the hopelessness, forcing us to “work the problem” and second guess the hero as he tries to do the same.

Yeah. It’ll leave you drained.

MPAA Rating: unrated, bloody violence

Cast: Theeradej Wongpuapan, Ratnamon Ratchiratham

Credits: Written and directed by Ping Lumpraploeng. A Shudder release.

Running time: 1:31

I hadn’t seen the low-budget black and white “original” “The Fast and the Furious” since catching it in a college film society way back when.

And eight movies into the Vin Diesel franchise — with “F9” pushed back to next year — I have to say it’s still the most memorable incarnation of the title. The dialogue crackles, the simplicity of it all makes the narrow focus — on just two characters — pop.

The story? Well, you can see why Universal and the guardians of today’s franchise would pretty much abandon that. But it’s still more fun than any 1950s on-the-lam/on-the-track thriller has a right to be.

“Furious” covers an exposition-packed prologue in the opening credits and ends just before we get a dose of “the consequences.” And an awful lot of what comes between is B-movie action and dialogue at its wittiest.

Dorothy Malone (“Man of a Thousand Faces,””The Big Sleep”) is Connie, the bombshell blonde with the Jaguar XK120, the fastest car of its era. She stops into a roadhouse on her way to “The International,” a road course race that would take drivers from California, into Mexico and back. She’s just minding her own business, waiting for waitress Wilma to open a can of pineapple juice, when a busybody with a gun fingers the fellow in a black leather jacket as Frank Webster (John Ireland, of “Red River,” “Spartacus” and co-director here).

Frank is a truck driver wanted for murder. He’s just escaped from custody. He grabs the gun, the dame and her car and we’re off — to Mexico, so he says.

“I like quiet women, stay that way!”

She doesn’t, thank God.

Frank — “You wanna play rough?”

Connie — “I don’t wanna play at ALL…I guess I should be grateful you haven’t murdered me!”

Frank — “Don’t TEMPT me.”

Connie — “I HATE you!”

Frank — “Just hate me…all the way to Mexico!”

Everybody, from the roadhouse to the Esso gas station attendant to the fellow sports car racing drivers they fall in with to dodge the cops sizes Frank up as “not the Jaguar type.”

Snobs.

Some of them get downright mouthy, to his face. But Frank has to take it. He can’t risk calling more attention to himself, can’t blow his last chance to skip to Mexico.

There’s a rough and ready quality to the kidnapper/kidnap victim relationship and a gritty, “Don’t tell the insurance company” air to the racing.

It’s not just rear projection and stunt doubles. Ireland drives, and producer, screenwriter and future B-movie mogul Roger Corman was behind the wheel in one of the other Astin Martins, Austin Healeys, Nash-Healeys, Triumphs, MGs, Allands, Maseratis, Bandinis and Porsches on the track.

Maybe it’s not a great film, but it’s great fun and you can see why, 20 years ago (wow) Universal would choose to revisit the title, the crime milieu and car-craziness of “The Fast and the Furious.” If you’ve never seen the original, now’s the time to catch up, seeing as how Vin and Michelle and D. Johnson et. al. have to cool their heels for a few months more.

MPAA Rating: “approved”

Cast: John Ireland, Dorothy Malone.

Credits: Directed by John Ireland and Edward Sampson, script by Jerome Oldum, Jean Howell and (story by) Roger Corman. An American Releasing Corp. film, now on Tubi.com (free), Amazon, Youtube etc.

Running time: 1:13

Imagine “Ghost” without the potter’s wheel, no Demi-Patrick heat — no Whoopi and no “whoopie.”

That’s “Endless,” a teen romance about love that endures past an untimely death, an entirely tepid affair, thanks to a romance that is more photogenic than passionate.

Alexandra Shipp (“Love, Simon” and “X-Men: Dark Phoenix”) and Nicholas Hamilton of “It” star as the mismatched lovers separated by a car crash.

“We totally didn’t make sense on paper,” she narrates.

Chris is a little older, having barely graduated from high school, with few prospects we can see. Riley’s rich, waiting to hear from Georgetown — on a path to law school.

But but…he has a motorcycle, a leather jacket! And he’s the latest Aussie to bear a faint resemblance to James DEAN.

She doodles graphic novels on the side, but art isn’t where the money is. He…well, we don’t see much of his outside-the-relationship life.

We don’t get much of anything out of the relationship, either — a little kissing in dramatic (Pacific Northwest) settings. And just like that, she’s accepted at the cross-country school, there’s a party, an argument, drinking and a wreck.

Queue “Unchained Melody.” Just kidding. That song is nowhere to be found, but otherwise, basically what we deal with from here on out is “Ghost.”

Yes, death comes abruptly, as it does in real life. But it comes so quickly in the film. Or maybe it just seems that way, because we haven’t had time to commit to the romance, to share Riley’s heartbreak on waking up in the hospital, with Chris in the room, to be told Chris is dead.

Only nobody told him.

“I’m not dead! I’m not dead!” Nobody hears you, dear.

You know what follows, or would if you’ve seen other versions of this sort of story — “Ghost” being the most famous. We get a glimpse of Riley’s grief, and we follow Chris into the afterlife, where he runs into ghosts who are hostile, and a friendly tour guide (DeRon Horton of “Dear White People,” the TV series).

“The one absolute rule of being dead is that you CAN’T contact the living!”

You KNOW that’s the rule these crazy, lovesick kids are going to find a way to break.

Whatever variations on a theme this script offers, none of it works without the ache we’re supposed to feel for those torn apart by sudden death. “Endless” never delivers that.

The one person who makes us feel the tragedy is Chris’s working class mom. Famke Janssen knows how to play that, dissolving into howls of pain, lashing out at the rich girl who reaches out to apologize for the wreck. 

Shipp sheds a tear or two, and reacts to the first flashes of the supernatural she experiences from Chris “reaching out” the way we do — with a hair-raising start.

But without seeing that love, and more importantly feeling it, nothing else about the movie matters. “Endless” staggers ever-onward, adding more story and not for one minute making us care.

MPAA Rating: unrated, alcohol abuse, some profanity

Cast: Alexandra Shipp, Nicholas Hamilton, Zoë Belkin, Eddie Ramos and Famke Janssen

Credits: Directed by Scott Speer, script by Andre Case and Oneil Sharma. A Quiver release.

Running time: 1:34

A Broadway bust heads home to Wisconsin, where coaching a little girls’ dance squad in a big national competition just might be her ticket back to New York in “Feel the Beat,” a family-friendly comedy that has its moments.

True, many of those moments are cheesy. But let’s stay upbeat and positive, seeing how few TV-G things Netflix serves up for kids. They lean towards edgier kiddie fare, for the most part. And this? I laughed a few times, was touched here and tjere.

Ballerina petite Sofia Carson (of Disney’s “Descendants” TV movies) stars as April, the small town girl who’s made it to New York, even if she hasn’t quite “made it IN” New York. We meet her just as that dream crashes. One sharp-elbowed New Yorker fighting for a taxi in the rain episode ends her career. She thinks.

Back to Wisconsin it is then, where divorced dad (Enrico Colantoni of “Just Shoot Me” and “Veronica Mars”) is a shoulder to pout on.

April’s little “accident” with a New York dance impresario went viral. But when anybody asks why she’s back, it’s “because I got sick,” Dad says, saving her pride.

The old beau she dumped, via text, when New York beckoned? That would be Nick (Wolfgang Novogratz), and not the Chris Pratt look-alike (Dennis Andres) who coaches the high school football team and has kids in dance class.

“Goooo CHURNERS!”

Cheese is churned, get it?

April finds herself doing a Q & A for the kiddies for her old teacher, Miss Barb’s (Donna Lynn Champlin, a “hoot” as they say in Cheesehead Country) dance studio.

“NEVER make a mistake in front of anyone important” is her bitter advice to girls with dancing dreams.

And that’s when the realizes that this Big Nationwide “DanceDanceDanceDance” contest the tiny tykes are entered in will be judged by the only choreographer in New York — Welly Wong (Rex Lee) — who might give her a chance to restart her career.

Sure, she’ll take over coaching. Sure, she’d be delighted to choreograph and star in a Teacher and Her Students dance as part of it. No prob.

Funny stuff — April transforms into a drill sergeant when she takes over from soft-hearted Miss Barb.

“GROW a pair! Are you dancers, or ‘little GIRLS?'”

“Little GIRLS!”

Uh oh. “Drop and give me TWENTY.”

Arrogant Coach April won’t learn their names — it’s “Eyeglasses” and “Pigtails” and “Fingers,” keep in time!

Wait, “Fingers?” She calls Zuzu (Shaylee Mansfield) that because — get this — she’s DEAF. The other girls learned sign language to get her on the team, and mean old teacher calls her FINGERS. Man. Tough.

There’s amusement in their first competition, where over-sexualized other teams of tweens are twerking up the stage.

As the contests go on, there’s a very funny bit where the jock dads of competing teams get into a trash-talk tizzy in the parking lot — using nothing but dance jargon.

“YOUR girls wouldn’t know a triple time step if OUR girls were dancing it on their sad little faces!”

And the Gay to the Rescue here is old New York pal Deco (Brandon Kyle Goodman, fun).

But the rekindled “love story” is a non-starter, the endless contest levels are tedious, the contrived obstacles to the teacher sticking with the girls and getting them to The Big Game obvious and annoying.

It’s paint-by-numbers screenwriting, and even that wouldn’t be awful if the picture was quicker, lighter on its feet. It’s an 80 minute comedy in a 110 minute package.

Still, an inoffensive (mostly) movie for the whole family, especially ones with little girls? A pretty rare thing.

Close enough will do when your only alternatives are cartoons and the fresh-mouthed brats at Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel.

MPAA Rating: TV-G

Cast: Sofia Carson, Enrico Colantoni, Donna Lynne Champlin, Wolfgang Novogratz, Rex Lee and Brandon Kyle Goodman .

Credits: Directed by Elissa Dawn, script by Michael Armbruster, Shawn Ku. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:47

That Jay Baruchel. Such a nice boy. Voice of the “How to Train Your Dragon” Viking, lovable guy who knows “She’s Out of My League.” Canadian. A real mensch.

But let’s leave as much of that behind as possible for our directing debut, shall we?

“Random Acts of Violence” is a serial killer thriller thriller that attempts to be a commentary on such entertainment, a pop psychology analysis of the realities where horror is born, the classic “Pass judgement, but wallow in it at the same time” double-standard.

And that turns out to be too ambitious, grappled with as an afterthought. So pandering slasher film it is, complete with the obligatory nut-with-a-knife — and oh — why not a welding helmet to boot?

Based on a comic book about a comic book author whose horrific “Slasherman” creation seems to be inspiring a new killing spree, all for the writer’ s benefit, “Random” has little that’s creative in the killing, even though there’s a lot of it. It shows us pangs of conscience and regret in that author, and it takes us towards a conclusion that plays like a bloody inevitability.

Todd (Jesse White of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Cabin in the Woods”) is finishing up his masterpiece, “the number one R-rated comic in the genre,” he says. Slasher comics are a genre. Good to know.

But he’s having a bit of writer’s block on the finale, which he wants good enough to “show the critics” they’ve been wrong about it. No worries. He and Kathy (Jordana Brewster) are headed off for a vacation. Inspiration will surely strike.

Because she’s researching a book on “The I-90 Murders,” the late ’80s killings Todd’s comic was inspired by. They’ll be covering much of the same ground as the killer, and the “hero” of Todd’s comic. Todd’s publisher (Baruchel) and the publisher’s organizer-assistant (“DeGrassi” alumna Niamh Wilson) will come along.

They’ll stop at colorful “no star” motels, question a few locals, unload some comics, do a radio interview and wind up at a convention in New York city.

The Canadian quartet pile into a 35 year old Town Car (Comic books don’t pay.) and brace themselves for the culture shock of the U.S. — “Everybody has guns,” everybody in a pick-up is road-hog aggressive, every store clerk is rude.

And that radio interview? It’s an ambush, a confrontation driven by a host who knew somebody murdered by “The I-90 Killer,” and doesn’t like the glib “heroic” take on a mass murderer Todd has conjured up.

But that’s where the one person who calls in changes the nature of their trip. A static crackled voice recites numbers, “One, twelve, eighteen.” What’s he mean? Driving by a scene of carnage, staged at roadside, Todd and his “huxter” publisher pal Ezra get a clue. It’s a scene out Todd’s grisly comics. And there will be others. Why?

“I’ve drawn, like, a thousand kills!”

Everything that follows feels perfunctory, although the shock of the moments of violence is undeniable. Flashbacks to Todd’s childhood make us wonder just what demons he was channeling when he cooked up the comic. And no, telling the cops about all this is no help at all, unless judgmental contempt for Todd’s “creation” is helpful.

The artful folding of comic book animation into the proceedings works. The road trip structure is time-proven, although A) two lane roads are NOT “I-90,” and B) outside of LA, NOBODY calls interstates “The I-90.”

The odd pointless scene and debate is mixed in with the spiraling mayhem that they find themselves driving into.

And the scene when they first witness a violent act carried out right in front of them is laughably illogical, irrational and self-preservation inept, almost a parody of such “What are you DOING?” moments.

Don’t be fooled by the flashbacks and the brooding (Williams is adequate in the part, nothing more). And don’t let the animated trappings and “dark” tone convince you it’s beyond genre.

It isn’t. It’s as random as its title suggests, a genre flick that doesn’t do much more than stumble and angst-out from one killing to the next.

MPAA Rating: unrated, graphic, over-the-top gory violence, drug abuse, profanity

Cast: Jesse Williams, Jordana Brewster, Niamh Wilson, Simon Northwood and Jay Baruchel.

Credits: Directed by Jay Baruchel, script by Jay Baruchel and Jesse Chabot, based on the comic book. An Elevation Pictures release.

Running time: 1:31

There was a time, children, when movie stars were truly larger than life, when deals could be made from hungover breakfast meetings at Cannes and when the movies that emerged from that “system” were as appealing as afterbirth, and about as marketable.

In the glorious last years of that “process,” Great Names such as Sellers and O’Toole, Sutherland and Burton waged an unofficial war to see who could make the most “unreleased” or “unreleasable” debacles.

Indie cinema was barely a thing, Hollywood hadn’t figured out the new “blockbuster” business model and thus the only thing anybody figured was bankable was the star, the “name” that would-be financiers recognized. We’ve seen versions of this outdated hustle when CBS Films, STX and others started up.

“Get me JENNIFER LOPEZ!”

“Foxtrot,” or “The Far Side of Paradise,” came just after Lina Wertmüller’s “Swept Away,” and one can hear the Spanish-accented, booze-fueled/judgement-impaired pitch just in its premise.

Romanian royals dash off to a remote, deserted isle just before World War II starts, a “paradise” where they and their kind can dine, drink and dance the “Foxtrot” while the peasants cope with the world burning down around them back home.

Human nature being what it is, cruelty, stupidity, sexual jealousy and violence are what they get instead.

Peter O’Toole is the Romanian count who masterminds this extended sojourn. Charlotte Rampling is his regal, scheming wife, but not his first wife. Max Von Sydow is the Swedish military man who schooled the Count, way back when, and now makes the logistics of this dubious enterprise work.

And Jorge Luke is Eusebio, the immaculately attired and gloved butler who oversees the drinks, the meals and whatever else is needed in the lavishly tented “paradise” they set up for themselves.

No, none of this seems feasible or adds up logistically. But that’s not the point.

In my mind, the pitch to the stars that won them over was a Mediterranean working vacation — somewhere in the Italian isles. But no, this was filmed on the rocky Pacific coast of Mexico.

Other guests arrive, the wildlife on the island is slaughtered for sport, “accidents” happen and “marooned” enters the conversation.

“Looks like we’re staying here the rest of our lives.”

That’s when the murderous mischief really begins.

Rampling is gorgeous and mysterious, O’Toole somehow gives us nothing and Von Sydow is competent, and little more, all of them acting out a repellent story that offers little and no one to connect with.

Mexican director Arturo Ripstein is still with us, and still doesn’t have a credit that’s broken through, internationally. Rampling still works, The late Von Sydow made too many great films for this one to matter at all and the late and great O’Toole, after his “My Favorite Year” comeback, had a nice Third Act run of performances that led to an honorary Oscar.

But “Foxtrot?” O’Toole’s character, recoiling at one of the home movies the swells sit down to watch over port and cigars, gives the best review.

“But I BURNT that film!”

MPAA Rating: R, violence, nudity, sex

Cast: Peter O’Toole, Charlotte Rampling, Max Von Sydow and Jorge Luke.

Credits: Directed by Arturo Riptsein, script by Arturo Ripstein, José Emilio Pacheco and H.A.L. Craig. A New World release on Tubi, Amazon, etc.

Running time: 1:31

“Spree” is another tale of socially-isolated/socially-networked lives of quiet desperation gone haywire, a commentary on an amoral age when it’s all about “getting noticed,” no matter how you do it.

As a technical exercise in filmmaking within a small space, frames created by cell-phone cams, GoPros in a car or body cams on a cop, it is a step beyond much of what we’ve seen before. And we’ve seen a lot.

“Unfriended,” “Antisocial,” “Open Windows,” “Livescream,” “Friend Request,” the list is long and goes far beyond the biggest hit of the sub-genre, “Searching,” starring John Cho.

Director Eugene Kotlyarenko (“Wobble Palace”) doesn’t so much take us into the pathetic life that turns out this way as hurl us into the “Spree,” and make that our ride into terror.

But like lives lived online, there’s an emotional remove that works against engagement. We watch lives taken, maybe snicker over our anti hero (Joe Keery of “Stranger Things”) googling “How to dispose of a dead body,” and feel a little dehumanized by it all, even if he doesn’t, even if we keep watching.

Kurt (Keery) has been online since childhood, vlogging his “Kurt’s World” explorations of his banal life since 2009, live-streaming it as that became a thing. He’s got merchandise (hats), a pleasant-enough ease on the screen, and a life that is ordinary in the extreme.

And nobody is watching. Well, except for maybe his divorced, druggy strip-club DJ dad (David Arquette). And he doesn’t watch much.

Kurt pitches himself as an “influencer and content creator,” like pretty much everybody else with a vlog. Which, in the movie’s universe, is pretty much everybody Kurt meets. But every other “influencer” he stumbles across is drawing more attention.

He’s desperate to tap into the audience of those more online-famous. But the one guy he actually knows who has a big following, manic prankster Bobby Base Camp (Joshua Ovalle) barely hides his contempt for Kurt and “Kurt’s World.” Kurt used to be his babysitter, and now he’s this disillusioned, needy dork always hitting up everyone he meets with “follow me and I’ll follow you — follow4follow.”

But the day we meet him (that history is briskly summarized in montage and inter-titles) Kurt is taking us into a new direction he’s sure will make him “go viral.” He’s a ride-share driver for Spree. He’s packed his car with cameras, and promises us lots of “interaction” with his passengers, who are told the cameras are there “for safety” — his, and theirs.

Damned if his first Altadena, California ride of the day isn’t a racist on his way to a big meeting, giving Kurt the “Say it with me, ‘I’m white and I’m proud,'” shtick. Kurt rejects that, runs a red light or two and stops short once or twice as punishment. And then the unsuspecting deplorable takes a sip from the bottled water Kurt keeps in the car.

That’s how the day is going. He’s spiked the water, the rider gets a few jolts thanks to Kurt’s recklessness, and a sip or two later, they disappear. At first.

“Spree” skips over the “body disposal” bit for the first few rides, gives us flashbacks where Kurt lays out everything he’s going to do and how he will do it, via vlog entries, and hurls us into the horror of a spree killer on the prowl.

Picking up a web-famous comic (Sasheer Zamata of “The Last O.G.” and “Saturday Night Live,” terrific) ups the ante, as she has viewership to offer, if he can just tap into it. She’s not having it, or the unpleasant “shared” rideshare she’s trapped in with a dirtbag (John DeLuca).

Kotlyarenko, who co-wrote the script with Gene McHugh, busies up the frame with split screens, live comments on cell-phone shots, the works.

The few moments of suspense come early and late. How WILL Kurt dispatch a car full of partiers? What WILL he do to tap into Bobby’s audience, comedienne Jessie’s live set?

When WILL the cops notice people are disappearing in the middle of ridesharing?

The best running gag is how almost EVERYone Kurt meets — from the partying 20somethings to a stripper who “broke through” with a sex tape — live streams and has viewers. But not Kurt.

Keery makes a believable “incel,” as more than one freaked-out, insulting rider labels him. The pleasant, needy demeanor may not match the murderous turn he’s taken, and “explaining” that is futile — not that the script doesn’t try to in the most obvious ways.

I have to say I went along with it, more amused by the craft and bursts of wit and gripped by a bit of tension, here and there, than appalled by the inhumanity. It taps into our shared phobia about ridesharing and “over-sharing,” not that EVERYbody is alarmed by these phenomena.

As social media murder movies go, we’ve all seen worse. Not a resounding endorsement, even if needy Kurt would treat it as such.

MPAA Rating: unrated, graphic violence, profanity, drug abuse discussed

Cast: Joe Keery, Sasheer Zamata, Joshua Ovalle and David Arquette.

Credits: Directed by Eugene Kotlyarenko, script by Eugene Kotlyarenko, Gene McHugh An RLJE release.

Running time: 1:35

In 2017, the silent melodrama “Shiraz: A Romance of India” earned a restoration by the British Film Institute. It’s what you got when a German director tackled a British script based on an Indian historical romance play back in 1928.

“Shiraz” is a motion picture made on real locations, not sets, whose producers boasted of “no artificial lighting” in an opening credit for “authenticity,” one presumes. Their story? Victorian hokum, with kidnappings, bandits, love that endures past death, and Western mores when it comes to cinematic displays of affection — kissing.

The Bavarian Franz Osten, a Nazi who later made India his filmmaking home, isn’t remembered as one of the innovators or stylists of the German cinema. And this picture — with its stagey, broad and dated acting and far-too-basic cinematography and editing and European (not authentically Indian) pedigree, is best appreciated as a cinematic artifact, a curiosity. It’s a 1920s effort to recreate a fairy tale to go with the creation of an Indian landmark of the Mogul (Mughal) Empire era.

A little princess is orphaned when her caravan is ambushed, and grows up under the care of a kindly potter’s family.

Their oldest son, Shiraz (Himanshu Rai), grows up looking out for Selima (Enakashi Rama Rao), and that care grows into love, even though he has no idea of the difference in their lineages.

Wouldn’t you know it, Selima is kidnapped again, and this time sold into the household of Prince Khurram (Charu Roy), heir to the throne and a guy who likes his slavegirls to be fetching. This happens in spite of the protests of Shiraz, who makes it to the auction in time to rail against Selima’s illegal and unjust imprisonment, and be outbid by the Prince’s aid.

As Selima disappears into the household, Shiraz vows to stay close by — taking a job as a potter’s apprentice, showing the skills he learned in a lifetime of working by his father’s side.

Years pass, and Shiraz’s dreams and palace intrigues of those threatened by the prince fancying Selima coincide in a play to spirit her away, or disgrace her. It fails.

Mughal justice, as  we come to understand, is swift and unjust. “You shall die under the elephant’s foot!”

The third act has suspense, a hint of heartbreak and a sentimental punch. The first two acts? Lots of film of Indian architecture, unspoiled by Industrial Era grime and 20th century alterations.

It’s a middling movie by Western standards of the era, technically primitive and emotionally unsophisticated. The story is historical fiction, dull and formulaic. And not being authentically Indian, it lacks value as a cultural touchstone.

But “Shiraz” still, by virtue of its on-location photography and great age, provides a template for representations of that period in Indian history. Like Keaton’s “The General,” it is close enough in time and geography to suggest what 17th century India really looked like, with villages frozen in time for centuries and cities decorated with architecture meant to last through the ages.

MPAA Rating: unrated

Cast: Himanshu Rai, Charu Roy, Seeta Devi and Enakashi Rama Rao

Credits: Directed by Franz Osten, script by William A. Burton, based on the play by Niranjan Pal. A Film Movement Plus release.

Running time: 1:45

“Almost Love” is one of those soapy romances set in that “fantasy” New York where broke people and the affluent mingle, and the broke, young and hip can somehow afford to live there at all.

It almost works. The characters make us laugh, here and there. And they almost make us invest in them.

The variation on a theme here is that the central romance is that of a gay couple, with the usual selection of flippant, frustrated folks orbiting around it.

And if incidents, characters and couplings in it have a whiff of “sitcom” about them, that might be due to “Friends” and “Seinfeld” burning into the writer-director Mike Doyle’s brain, even if he isn’t aware of it.

Scott Evans and Augustus Prew are Adam and Marklin, the couple at the center of this universe. Marklin is a successful fashion/lifestyle “influencer” blogger, running “The Detailist” and its daily dose of product placement selfies. Adam is a successful painter — or rather successful at being the ghost painter for one of those mass-production pop artists (think Thomas Kincade, only contemporary).

They’re at the stage of the relationship where they’re at a crossroads — marry (they’re against it), or maybe accept that they’re not destined for that. One of the attempted serious threads in the story is suggesting how gay men are different from other couples, in that male “compartmentalization” and “just move on” way.

Cammy (Michelle Buteau of “Always be My Maybe” and “Work It”) is having a “thing” with Henry (Colin Donnell), a bearded, brooding sort who finally admits to her his big, scary secret.

“I’m homeless!”

But but “you have such nice SHOES!”

Haley (Zoe Chao of “Downhill” and “Always be My Maybe”) is her always-supportive, always-apologizing tutor pal. Sure, Cammy is sleeping with “the homeless.” But “What white guy is homeless…at 36? On TINDER?”

And besides, Haley says, she’s tutoring a teen who is crushing on her so hard she’s about to get into a “full Pamela Smart” thing (Cammy’s words) with him. Yeah, Haley admits her big faults just to make her shame-spiraling friends feel better.

At least Elizabeth (Kate Walsh) and Damon (Chaz Lamar Shepherd) have been happily married 15 years. Except for the whole disagreement over children thing, they’re perfect.

The friends, who met working together at CB2 years before, are close in age and experiencing slightly different versions of the premature midlife crisis — getting “serious” about life in their mid-30s.

Not that they don’t still get together for dinners out, or meet at the bar for “slap shots,” which is pretty juvenile.

Each comes to a crossroads — after a fashion — and figures out which way to go, or how to carry on after hitting a dead end.

It’s all pretty bland stuff, most pointedly in the person of our main couple. Evans (TV’s “Grace and Frankie”) and Prew (TV’s “The Morning Show”) aren’t terribly interesting together, don’t set off many sparks and never make the relationship feel like much more than an arrangement. It’s commendable, building the rom-com around such characters, men comfortable with who they are in a world where they can be themselves, and be all they can be. But they’re boring.

The financial imbalances in several of the relationships in the film are mentioned but not really explored.  See “Friends With Money,” or for that matter “Friends,” to get a better handle on that.

The glib swipe at New York homelessness doesn’t have the edge to come off, because the film doesn’t have the nerve to commit to any “bad” relationship meriting abandonment.

There’s enough funny banter and connection in the supporting cast to make Buteau, Chao and Walsh the standout performers playing more relatable characters.

A deeper dive into things that test a gay male relationship is glossed through, the “big fight” isn’t, the big reckoning with the fraud (Patricia Clarkson) that Adam paints for or big “influencer” torching never comes.

None of it ever truly comes together in a way that makes “Almost Love” almost a rom-rom that works. “Almost” pretty much covers it.

MPAA Rating: unrated, sexual situations, profanity, alcohol abuse

Cast: Scott Evans, Michelle Buteau, Augustus Prew, Zoe Chao, Kate Walsh, Colin Donnell, Chaz Lamar Shepherd and Patricia Clarkson

Credits:  Written and directed by Mike Doyle. A Vertical release on Netflix.

Running time: 1:32

With Gawd as my witness, I swear I had never heard of “Tiptoes,” a cinematic debacle like few others. This is “The Room” packed with future Oscar winners.

A “little people” comedy with Gary Oldman playing a dwarf, it was two and a half hours long when it screened at SXSW Austin in 2003.

It wasn’t released widely, and not at all in the US. That it still exists makes one wonder why the participants didn’t pool their cash and have it destroyed.

It basically ended the career of writer-director Matthew Bright (“Guncrazy”), although it didn’t prevent Matthew McConaughey’s “Lincoln Lawyer” comeback, or the Oscars that would eventually come to him, Patricia Arquette and Oldman.

It didn’t do Kate Beckinsale any favors.

Peter Dinklage? There’s no such thing as a bad Dinklage moment, and he got through this utterly unscathed.

But man, what a tin-eared, un-PC fiasco.

McConaughey plays Steven, a firefighting consultant about to marry a successful artist, Carol (Beckinsale). She becomes pregnant before she meets his family. He is a bit freaked out by that prospect, and the pregnancy.

You see, he has a twin. Rolfe (Oldman) is a soulful goof who spends too much time with hipster/ladies’ man Maurice (Dinklage). And like Steve and Rolfe’s parents, those guys are dwarves.

Rolfe and Maurice travel cross country on motor trikes, and Maurice picks up a tarted-up Lucy (Arquette) along the way.

There’s a convention of “little people” (shades of “Under the Rainbow”) in Vegas, where they’re shown carrying on, coupling up, cheating and cursing and carousing.

Amidst all that potential mayhem, Carol meets Rolfe, picks up on the whole dwarf genetics thing Steven is panicked about and is a bit shocked by it all.

There is a wedding. But where highly-strung Steven isn’t reconciled to the risks and responsibilities of how their child might come into the world, Rolfe is unflappable, realistic, sympathetic and kind. Carol responds to that.

The medical and genetic obsessions of the script turn out to be off, if not outright wrong — offensively so in some cases.

Oldman’s performance is sweet enough, but a jarring stunt that no one in his or her right mind would have attempted.

The milieu has a certain amusement to it, the way those farcical “Seinfeld” episodes about an imagined “code” and “culture” of this “little people” could be. Debbie Lee Carrington, who appeared in “Seinfeld,” plays a more out-there version of the “hot dwarf” guys are beating each other up over.

There are laughs, here and there, smothered by the endless cringe of it all.

The gonzo, smitten turns by Arquette and Dinklage aren’t enough to make us forget the mess that’s spilling all over the screen around them.

The performers mostly left on the cutting room floor (David Alan Grier) were the lucky ones.

Still, like road accidents and the films of Uwe Boll, it’s worth a gawk as evidence of how a whole lot of people, many of them agents whom one suspects must have been fired after this, can get anything so terribly wrong.

MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexuality

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Gary Oldman, Matthew McConaughey, Patricia Arquette, Peter Dinklage

Credits: Written and directed by Matthew Bright. A Canal+ release, streaming on Tubi, Amazon, Youtube etc.

Running time: 1:30