Movie Nation

In one scene in the Colombian farce “Loving is Losing (El que se Enamora Pierde)” a misbehavior-prone masseuse (Carolina Sarmiento), prone to drugging her clients so she can goof off instead of actually giving massages, is seen watching a telenovela– one of those over-the-top soap operas Latin America is famous for.

And there’s no difference between the vampy soap and the movie that inserts this moment of a character watching the vampy soap in. None.

“Loving is Losing” is what happens when you pitch your comedy at that shrieking, eye-rolling, every gesture, reaction and burst of dialogue at the level of “La Cage aux Folles” — the gayer, campier French original.

That makes for a tedious and tiresome traipse through romance — Colombian style — where the men are cheating heels and the women desperate for a man, even one nicknamed “Pollywog.”

It’s a leering, loopy bust of a comedy, barely a laugh in it. Diaper gags, sex-play jokes, a practical joker OB-GYN, with singer and soccer star cameos because, “Why not?”

It’s kind of terrible, in its own terrible way.

A not-entirely-pointless prologue shows a cruel prank that a lovelorn little boy had played on him at a kids’ birthday party decades ago. Nico became “Nico the Dog Licker” (in Spanish, with English subtitles) when the girl he adored switched places with a dog for an eyes-closed smooch.

And shutterbug Erika was there to document it and seal his fate.

Decades later, Erika (Liss Pereira) pregnant — in love with a philandering plastic surgeon. She’s still a photographer. But so is Nico (Ricardo Quevedo), and he’s a lot more successful. He had to change his name and all — because of the widespread knowledge of his nickname, but he’s still out there, dating and dumping models.

Who cares if he’s bald and a bit doughy? And if his new nickname is “pollywog?”

His manager Camilo (Iván Marín) is angling to land this Charro/Shakira–vavavoom singer Alaska (Linda Baldrich) as a client, which entails lengthy-kinky Skype auditions for her pervy Dad (Bruno Díaz).

But meeting Erika’s three-kids/just-dumped BFF Clemencia (Lorna Cepeda) changes his life.

And even though Nico wants to keep his secret from Erika  and punish her for her long-ago crimes, he’s ready to give up models to tumble for this once-cruel pregnant lady who lies to him about her fiance. “He died…facial syphilis!” And she uh, buried him in the yard!

The OB-GYN uses puppets to “fake” childbirth, the advertising exec with the crazy wandering eye (María Cecilia Botero) is a special effect (let’s hope) in her own league.

But the rest? What plays in Colombia loses too much in translation.

MPAA Rating: TV-14

Cast: Liss Pereira, Ricardo Quevedo, Lorna Cepeda, Linda Baldrich, Iván Marín, Carolina Sarmiento and Bruno Díaz

Credits: Written and directed by Fernando Ayllón.  A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:30

Yes, THAT Jon Stewart. Rose Byrne and Steve Carell star in this May 29 political farce.

While there’s a lot to be said for “sexual heat” in a screen romance, there’s nothing all that romantic about the slam-against-the-wall, bruising hurry that too many screenwriters (male, mostly) figure is “love language” in the movies.

The ache of longing beats “biff, bam, thank-you ma’am” every time.

“Olympic Dreams” lives on loneliness and longing. It’s a loose, delightfully-improvised romance, grabbed on the fly by a minimal crew during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Writer-and-actress Alexi Pappas has graduated from “Tracktown” to full-fledged Olympian this time. We meet Penelope as she weeps into the phone, leaving voice-mails to her coach back home about about how well it’s gone since her arrival in the Olympic Village.

She’s lying.

Isolated, in and out of competition, she is the very picture of the Loneliness of a Long Distance Skier. Cross-country is her event.

Nick Kroll is a dentist on a “busman’s holiday.” Ezra gets a free pass into the Olympics and meets lots and lots of athletes. Because during the day, he deals with their dental issues as a “volunteer.” Kroll, an under-utilized EveryComic, turns Ezra into EveryDentist — a bit of a mope, unwillingly “on a break” from his fiancee, inclined to talk the ear off anybody in his chair.

Every conversation he has with a patient feels made up on the spot.

Ezra sits down opposite Penelope in the dining hall, interrupting her headphone-induced solitude. The banter is awkward, almost-cute and he steps off with all the grace you’d expect of Nick Kroll (“The House,” “Adult Beginners”).

“I believe in you and I’m rooting for you. Break a leg!”

We think it, he mutters it as he exits. “Idiot.” NOT the smartest thing to say to a cross country skier.

Her event opens the games, and Pappas, having made athletic films something of a specialty, beautifully acts-out the anti-climax that not winning at this sport in this event you’ve been preparing for since childhood. She is a loner who has never been more alone than this moment.

But she runs into the dentist again. He’s 37 and looks it, she’s 22 and pierced and lithe and athletic and just as awkward. He seems a little troubled by the patient/doctor line he might cross. So they hang.

The footage grabbed on the run here gives “Olympic Dreams” a real fly-on-the-wall quality that “Eddie the Eagle” lacked. They’re in the gift shop, in the game room where athletes “relax” before and after competing, wandering the venues, watching “skeleton” sledders practice, breaking down the art of “curling,” then sneaking a private slide down the ski jump.

She holds a winner’s medal, something she’ll never have — “It’s HEAVY. And beautiful. And you’re very beautiful (to the winner). I’m sure it looks beautiful on you.”

They wander the South Korean city that was home to this Olympiad and look in on an eSports (video game) cafe — a room full of computer screens and nerd-athletes mastering their games.

“This reminds me of the saddest years of my middle school,” he snarks. She’s just coming to grips with all that she never had time to do until now.

“Birthdays, prom, bar mitzvahs — I missed…everybody’s everything!”

And then they fight — over how tentative he’s lived his life, how selfishly she’s lived hers.

Pappas and Kroll master the art of blending personality with character, so much so that we recognize the actors behind the role, but forget the line between them as they offhandedly remark on this or that and almost never say anything that feels scripted.

They turn a chilly environment warm and a conventional story into something surprising, lived-in, with the glorious romantic ache that too many romantic comedies can’t be bothered with.

Cast: Alexi Pappas, Nick Kroll, Morgan Schild and Gus Kenworthy

Credits: Directed by Jeremy Teicher, script by Alexi Pappas, Nick Kroll and Jeremy Teicher. An IFC release.

Running time: 1:23

Not every Valentine’s Day release is, well, romantic. There’s room for “bromance,” and dentist-patient bonding, too. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Athlete/non-athletic guy twice her age? We’ll see.

The second weekend of a blockbuster is almost as telling as the first, in terms of its “legs” — its ability to sell tickets for a month or more.

A good “hold” — the lower the percentage of ticket sales fall-off from week one, the better. A 50% or less drop is good to great — Pixar numbers. Anything over 60% means word of mouth isn’t helping, repeat business isn’t happening.

“Bad Boys for Life” had a huge opening weekend,$62.5 million over three days,with a big Martin Luther King Day turnout the following Monday. It is on track to do $33 million on its second weekend, as of Friday night. That’s a not-good/not-disastrous 62%+ falloff.

That huge opening weekend will push it over $119 million, all-in, by Sunday.

“1917” is losing only 35% of its turnout, weekend to weekend. It’ll earn $15 million+ this weekend, and should continue to sell tickets up through the Oscars. It will clear $100 million today (Saturday) and be over $103 by midnight Sunday.

The two wide releases opening this weekend are seeing widely differing turnout.

Guy Ritchie’s return to gangstering, “The Gentlemen,” is on pace to clear $10 million, maybe a little more, by midnight Sunday. Mixed reviews for that one. Very guy-oriented, a little Sinophobic (Gangsters are racists. Go figure.), entirely too chatty, I thought. Slow. In the parlance of Ritchie-speak, “a Brexiting geezer’s movie, it is.”

The other new title, “The Turning,” shows that people who avoid Henry James novels in school aren’t going to show up for a horror movie based on one in the theaters — again. The oft-filmed “Turning of the Screw” earned poor reviews and will have tallied only $6-7 million by midnight Sunday.

“Little Women” and “Knives Out” and “Just Mercy” are still in the top ten. Imagine how well “Just Mercy” would have done had they opened it early enough to tally a few Oscar nominations.

It may be set in the post-Kurt Cobain suicide 1990s, but you don’t have to be an American Literature major to spy “The Turn of the Screw,” the novel by Henry James, in the Gothic horror film “The Turning.”

The phrases “haunted nanny” or “spooked governess” are a dead giveaway to any “Jeopardy” watcher. The least boring novel by the 19th century novelist, infamous for his paragraph-long/parenthetical-digression sentences, has been the adapted for the screen over a dozen times over the decades.

Instantly-recognizable it may be. And nailing down the tone has rarely been a problem. “Gloom” isn’t the only approach, but it’s the safest when you’re dealing with a young governess (Mackenzie Davis of “The Martian”) trying to teach a motherless child of wealth (Brooklyn Prince of “The Florida Project”) and cope with her touchy housekeeper (Barbara Marten) and possibly-psychotic teen brother (Finn Wolfhard of “It” and “Stranger Things”).

Is governess Kate seeing ghosts in mirrors, windows and the bottom of the pool? Are the bumps in the night she’s hearing malevolent spirits? Is Miles (Wolfhard) out to cause her harm?

Or is it all in her head, because we’ve met her mother (Joely Richardson) in the asylum and even in Henry James’ day “It runs in the family” was totally a thing.

But music-video director turned music movie (“The Runaways”) director Floria Sigismondi does a poor job of doling out that doubt, and rather disastrously mishandles the finale. The “gotcha” moments play as over-familiar tropes, even if their inspirations were more potent in James’ day, But even back then people had to know he was no Edgar Allan Poe.

Kate is a young woman who leaves her teaching job, her roommate and her mad-artist mother in the mental hospital to take on this gig teaching the scion of rich parents who died some time before.

“You don’t know what it’s like to grow up without parents,” she tells the roomie (Kim Adis). As we take a gander at Kate’s mother, we figure she’s just speaking metaphorically. Mom’s not all there.

Housekeeper Mrs. Grose warns her that she’ll be dealing “with thoroughbreds,” and to try and act like it. Flora (Prince) is only mildly precocious, with a practical joking streak. So much for superior breeding.

Oddly, Kate discovers that Flora is “doesn’t ever leave the property.” More oddly, Flora’s doting older brother Miles shows up — kicked out of boarding school, mid-term.

The cheap shocks and general creepiness, hinted at before, gain momentum with his return. Kate hears about previous hired help who have died. And she stumbles into the diary/teaching progress planner of her predecessor governess. Her anxiety and nightmares increase.

There’s a bottom-line to any horror tale, and that is “Does it deliver frights?” I counted one somewhat hair-raising moment, and a whole lot of jolting close-ups accompanied by a shrieking soundtrack and a scattering of Ms. Davis going all wide-eyed moments.

The viewer’s impulse is to fear for Kate, to be enraged at or suspicious of Grose and Miles, and wonder what Flora’s deal is. Is she victim or ringleader?

But there’s no terror, here. None.

Perhaps, before one more version of this novel is committed to the screen, some enterprising film executive with the power to secure financing or “green light” the project should read the bloody book and figure out if it has any currency in the age of “Paranormal Activity” or “Halloween” sequels or reboots.

Because damned if I can think of a filmed version of it that works, and I’ve seen a few.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for terror, violence, disturbing images, brief strong language and some suggestive content

Cast: Mackenzie Davis, Brooklyn Prince, Finn Wolfhard, Barbara Marten and Joely Richardson

Credits: Directed by Floria Sigismondi, script by Carey W. Hayes and Chad Hayes, based on “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James.  A Universal release.

Running time: 1:34

The role-playing action/fantasy video game “NiNoKuni” earns an amusingly nonsensical screen “origin story,” thanks to Netflix.

It’s faithful enough to the game — one supposes — to merit the interest of fans, and as it was directed by a “Spirited Away” animator, it has anime bonafides that might warrant the attention of genre fans.

As a stand-alone movie, it’s both representative of the genre-medium, and a bit of a shrug. All anime is not created equal, and this derivative cosplay-oriented eye-candy is a “meh” of a movie.

Three friends in Tokyo get tangled up in the interrelationship between two worlds.

School jock Haru and winsome Kotona are teen sweethearts. Yu, confined to a wheelchair since childhood, can only pine for her.

Then a mysterious, masked red-eyed wraith stalks her and stabs Kotona. Yu and Haru, trying to save her, are whisked — in a moment of peril — into this other world of dog men and dragons and elvish pole dancers (Hah!), magic daggers and translucent flying boats and giant edible mosquitoes.

“It must be a dream, right?” “Some kind of high tech theme park?”

But “It’s too real for cosplay!”

The lads try to save the Kotona look-alike, Princess Astrid. Only Yu can prevent Princess Deaths by Curse. Apparently.

He can walk in this world, and the princess is ever-so-grateful. Get that girl into a swimsuit! You know, for the magic “spell-blocking” dance in the water. Totally logical and justified.

The guys bounce back and forth between the worlds, contending with every fresh threat to Kotona or the princess as they do.

And in the fantasy world, a war is coming and anybody over the age of six will spot who the enemy spy is in the Magic Kingdom.

There isn’t much to this nonsensical “game” movie for adults, but as Netflix “originals” go, some effort was made and it’s passable background video noise or a suitable mobile device distraction for the kids if you’re waiting for a plane.

But nothing more.

MPAA Rating: TV-14, action violence

Voice Cast: Depends on which language you watch it in.

Directed by Yoshiyuki Momose, script by Akihiro Hino. A Warner Brothers/Netflix release.

Running time: 1:46

A gritty, needy fever dream of New York “fame” comes our way Feb. 21.

“Airplane Mode” is a shiny little rom-com bauble from Brazil that strains and strains to find a laugh.

It’s about cell phone addicts, “influencers,” fashion, family and finding love where the pace of life is a lot slower than in the big city. So it’s an incredibly old-fashioned comedy dolled up in “this year’s fashion” accessories.

Larissa Manoela is Ana, who lives at home. Her life is a life-streamed/selfie-packed Instagrammed blur of fashion, makeup, staged events and staged romance.

She seems to live at home because who has the time to move?

“True Fashion” is her ethos and True Fashion is her Sao Paolo employer, a youthful clothing company ruthlessly run by Carola (Katiuscia Canoro), who has Ana under contract for a reason. She’s insanely popular on the web, and what she wears EVERYbody must wear.

Sure, Ana studied clothing design in school, but who has time to MAKE when just “showing” what others have made, and gushing over it in vlog posts, is so much easier?

She’s paired up, romantically, with a stylish and stylishly flaming designer — just to get the page-views. If a “break-up” is good for business, that can be staged, too.

But Ana’s phone is her undoing. How many wrecks can she have in one month? Her parents know about eight, from the DMV. That isn’t counting the one she has the morning we meet her, or the Fiat-flipping fiasco that ends her day.

“Court ordered” loss of license, and removal of her cell phone is all there is for it. And sending her off to her estranged grandfather’s house in the “no cell reception” hinterlands is just a way to remove temptation from her reach.

The country is where car-restorer, widowed Grandpa Germano (Erasmo Carlos) can teach her to wrench, to “make” instead of “show.” It’s where “hick” baker João, played by André Luiz Frambach, can show her the joys of being “geniune” — the simple pleasures of a country fair.

All of this sentimental crap is straight out of the 1940s, and the only people who buy into it — in Brazil, Britain or the U.S. — are old folks and those “left behind,” trapped in the villages and small towns everybody else has fled. As if the country is the only place you can “know yourself,” as Ana claims.

Nonsense, says the villainous Carola. “Oh sweetie, knowing yourself is the first step to self-loathing!” (In Portuguese, with English subtitles, unless you switch to the “dubbed into English” mode.)

That’s it, the only funny line in the entire movie. There’s a cute twist in the third act, and an utterly predictable “betrayal” or two, and “getting even” scheme.

Every action, event and character in the movie could be predicted by a tween who has seen more than four movies in her life. It’s “obvio,” as they say in Brazil.

Entirely too “obvious” to ever be funny.

Manoela is cute and perky and probably web-friendly. But as Ana learns in “Airplane Mode,” honey — that’s just not enough.

MPAA Rating: TV-PG

Cast: Larissa Manoela, Erasmo Carlos, André Luiz Frambach, Katiuscia Canoro

Credits: Directed by César Rodrigues, script by Alberto Bremer and Alice Name Bomtempo. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:35

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Reviews for Guy Ritchie’s “The Gentlemen” have been on a par with “Bad Boys for Life.” It stars Oscar winner Matthew McConoughey, Hugh Grant, Michelle Dockery, Henry Golding, Colin Farrell and Charlie Hunnam — none of whom have the box office clout of Will Smith. Not even lumped all together.

Well, throw in Eddie Marsan. But still…

STX is releasing the Miramax film (no longer affiliated with the Weinsteins, but still Wein-stained), and has done OK with it overseas. But it’ll be lucky to clear $10-11 million on its opening weekend in the US.

And don’t count on China for any cash, as they’re closing cinemas to halt the latest “Outbreak” there.

“Bad Boys for Life” will lose most of its opening Martin Luther King Weekend blockbuster bounce, but should still do $25-30 million — $28 million says Box Office Pro.

“1917” will still be in the teens, “Jumanji” and “Star Wars” will be fighting “Gentlemen” for fourth, fifth and sixth places in the Top Ten.

“The Turning” is the other wide release this weekend — not previewed for critics, the early reviews have pounded the nanny-under-supernatural-assault thriller. It’ll be lucky to do $5. I will get to that one today.

The Vietnam Vets/Medal of Honor drama “The Last Full Measure” won’t be on enough screens to make much of a dent in the box office. Middling reviews are pushing that one.