Movie Nation

Benny staggers off the plane and makes his way to the parking lot.

“Welcome to Iceland,” a friendly cabbie says. Need a lift? Where do you want to go?

“Where do people go?”

What’s that?

“When they fly in…”

Hungover or in shock, dazed and/or confused, Benny seems lost. Something, or someone, has him under a “Spell.”

Here’s a darkly comic odyssey that abandons “comic” at some point, and reaches for “soul searching.” That turn away from funny almost stops “Spell” in its tracks, but the film is carried by one of the quirkier heroes the cinema has given us in a while.

Before we see Benny disembarking, we’ve seen what came before, a “morning after” to never forget. A woman we learn is his fiancée (Jackie Tohn) awakens amid discarded underwear and empties, staggers outside and drops into the pool.

Now, shaken and disoriented, this cartoonist/illustrator has boarded a plane for a trip he’d vowed to make with Jess, not packing, not even owning anything warm.

And here we are, a tourist above the Arctic Circle, hitting the museums, the restrooms, the streets and bars.

He’s also licking many things along the way. He’ll pause for an instant, maybe try to walk away from a public restroom faucet, or a penis sculpture in a museum. But he has to turn back around and stick his tongue on it.

Benny, played by Barak Hardley, who also scripted “Spell” and once starred in the TV series “Junketeers” (won’t hold THAT against him), has OCD — obsessive compulsive disorder. He is thousands of miles from home, with no luggage, his dead fiancée’s engagement ring as a talisman and one last pill in his prescription bottle. The OCD is about to get a lot worse.

Let’s SELF medicate! A night out at the bars of Reykjavik is how he meets Inga (Birna Rún Eiríksdóttir) and her pals, how he hears about this legendary old coot tour-guide, Steindór, who leads off-the-beaten-path explorations of Iceland.

It’s also how he ends up in a drunken dare as Inga offers to show him some of her tattoos if he gets one in a shop they stagger past. Game on!

“Spell” is broken into chapter headings, pieces of lore about this legendary sorcerer whose museum Benny visited. Getting the tattoo is chapter-headed as “The Stave,” which is a Rune-like stick-symbol, which it turns out, represents the sorcerer. Benny is following the path of Loftur the Sorceror after getting the dude’s “Stave” inked onto his chest.

His guide down this path? That would be that old coot Steindór (Magnús Jónsson).

Whatever the mystery of “Spell” is, this is the heart of the movie — cranky Steindór leading OCD cartoonist Benny on a tour “up north.”

Steindór can’t even bother to muffle his muttering at Benny’s oblivious reaction to the wonders all around him.

“Stupid Americans.”

He resists Benny’s urge to get a selfie at every scenic spot, an OCD trait shared by most of us cell-phone owners.

“Why would you want to spoil a beautiful (waterfall) photo by putting your big fat head in front of it?”

Well, then “take a picture of me on top of THIS!”

“No. Not everything is to be climbed…mocked.”

Steindór is a philosopher whose musings are wasted on the bearded dork in mourning.

“What good is it to stand up to a glacier? It will go where it pleases.”

Something else is going on here, and not the “Benny starts to heal” thing we might expect from the story set-up. Something mysterious and dangerous and out of his control takes over the third act of “Spell.”

The quirky journey of self-discovery that the film seems to embrace, the convenient and conventional “Innocent Abroad” plot,  becomes the very thing “Spell” shuns as it grasps for something deeper.

That’s an overreach, I think, as the film — as mentioned earlier — shudders to a halt here. “Spell” is better as dark comedy than as dark night of the soul.

But Hardley has conjured up an interesting twist to this “journey of healing” narrative, abandoning laughs for metaphysical pathos.

And as an actor, he seems perfectly-suited to playing a dorky unsophisticate at war with his mind and his memories, but still taking the hero’s journey to get the answers he needs to carry on.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with violence, substance abuse, nudity and profanity

Cast:Barak Hardley, Jackie Tohn, Magnús Jónsson, Birna Rún Eiríksdóttir

Credits: Directed by Brendan Walter, screenplay by Barak Hardley.  . A Dark Star Pictures release.

Running time: 1:26

Never underestimate the value of “novelty” when it comes to romantic comedies. A “fish out of water” romance, where somebody from one culture falls for someone from an alien (to him or her) culture, that’s the sort of fresh take that gets our attention and holds our interest, if the leads are charismatic enough.

“The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch” almost certainly had more novelty in its native Switzerland than it does in North America. It’s not as if we have seen a lot of romantic treatments of the idea of an Orthodox Jew taking a tumble for a pretty Gentile. Still, it’s happened. And  when “Seinfeld” pounded the notion of Jewish fascination for “the other” as “shiksa appeal” some 25 years ago, and others followed suit, the bloom went off that rose on this side of the Atlantic.

“Awakening” is a comedy that traffics in stereoptypes and caricatures, that has its hero, college student and assistant in his father’s insurance business Motti Wolkenbruch (Joel Basman) turn to the camera, here and there, and translate Yiddish or explain Hebrew terms and comical customs of “my people” to us.

Why do Orthodox Jews (in Switzerland, at least) all drive Toyota Previa mini-vans?

It’s the “eytse,” Motti explains. You go to an optician for eyeglass advice, you listen to the car salesman’s pitch in the same way. And you buy a car for all the children you’ll be having, practical and ugly. TRUST me!

The turn to the camera and drolly narrate and “explain” yourself and your people to us shtick is worn. But in this case, “Awakening” could use a lot more of that. Yiddish  and Yiddish translations (which I put in the headline to this review) never get old.

When your story’s about “shiksa appeal,” the hidebound traditions of your community, and how every Jewish boy’s closest relationship is with his badgering, micro-managing and domineering mother, you need every laugh you can get. There aren’t many left in those cultural tropes.

Motti’s “Mame,” Judith (Inge Maux) is putting her son through a trial by shidduch. She and her kvetching coffee klatch are hell-bent on arranging Motti’s mate-for-life. He is dragged to one “set up” meeting with an eligible Jewish woman after another.

Complaining doesn’t help. “I want to marry a woman I really like,” he says (in German, with English subtitles).

“You can’t afford to be choosy,” his Mame counsels. Sizing up the meek, redheaded Motti, maybe we see her point. Still, he’s starting his rebellion. He’s shaved his beard. He’s bought new glasses, and not from the Orthodox community’s go-to optometrist.

“Woody Allen glasses,” Mame gripes during the big family Sunday dinners.

Two things conspire to buy him a little time. One of his shidduch set-ups agrees that they should “fake it” just to get their parents off their backs. And that’s at about the time Motti spies his shiksa ideal one day in class.

He’s not positive the striking blonde Emma Watson look-alike Laura (Noémie Schmidt) isn’t Jewish. But she’s outgoing enough to make the first overture, and he quickly finds out that she doesn’t know basic Hebrew or Yiddish phrases that most of planet has picked up — “L’Chaim,” “mazel tov,” etc.

She wants to know what “those little spaghetti strings” are that hang over his pants — “tzitzit.”

She wonders why he won’t shake her hand, even though he’s dying to do much more than that. Not permitted. But a bike ride where she figures out he’s staring at her bottom the whole time tips her off.

“This?” Motti turns to the camera in the worst Jackie Mason tradition and leers, “THIS is a toches.” Or “tuchus.”

Things are just getting interesting when Motti fantasizes what it’ll be like if he takes Laura home to Mame. Violence, perhaps comical, perhaps genuine, he decides.

“You’re KILLING the Jewish race!” or words to that effect, will be shouted between tears. Perhaps while holding a knife.

Fessing up to not actually planning to marry his fake-fiance shidduch set-up doesn’t make matters better. A shrieking tantrum about how her son is gay (“faygale”) ensues.

Let’s see the rabbi, for the rabbi is wise, if not all that funny. “Send him to Eretz Israel,” is his solution. Find one of those aggressive, sexy no-nonsense Israeli Jewish women.

So he does, in a Tel Aviv Orthodox yoga (“Ommmmmm shalooooooom”) studio. Jael (Meytal Gal) is exactly as advertised, Gal Gadot with curls and no interest in wasting time with a lot of foreplay. Motti’s tidy whiteys under his tzitzits? Sexy. 

Motti’s dilemma holds our interest, even if the screenwriter can’t figure out a way to make it more of a dilemma. Having him visit a dying client of his father’s insurance business might be designed to tug at his ethnic loyalty and the stakes of this big life decision, or even hint at a life circumscribed by tradition and arranged relationship. But  those scenes don’t deliver that.

His asides to the camera fade, and he doesn’t really confide in his dad (Udo Samel) or his best friend Yosi (Aaron Arens). There’s little narrative drive here, and even less comic momentum.  The cast makes this watchable, but nothing more.

“Awakening” is just that, a long, yawning start to the first day of the rest of Motti’s life. There’s a sense of fence-sitting in the film’s point of view, embracing free will, while waffling on “tradition” and arranged marriages within an insular culture.

It’s not unpleasant, just grating and in many instances, too familiar to be much fun. Kind of “meh,” overall.

That’s not going to satisfy anybody, either the characters in the movie or among those watching it.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, sex, nudity

Cast: Joel Basman, Inge Maux, Noémie Schmidt and Meytal Gal

Credits: Directed by Michael Steiner, script by  Thomas Meyer. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:34

“Maleficent” was “Mistress of Evil” for just one week. The effects-heavy Disney fantasy sequel plays like a too-violent/too-grim/not-funny downer, not really for small kids.

It opened at an underwhelming $36 million and is falling off 57% on its second weekend, according to deadline.com.

That allows Warner Brothers’ R-rated record-setter “Joker” to return to the same spot it held through most of October — #1. It will be in the $18 million range. Deadpool is not amused. 

Thursday night didn’t set the “preview” box office take on fire for “Black and Blue,” “Countdown” or “The Current War.” Friday didn’t pile on the cash, although “Black and Blue” is headed into respectability, with an $8.3 million weekend shaping up. Not bad for a Screen Gems dirty cops vs black woman cop and her New Orleans neighborhood thriller.

“Countdown” isn’t a sizzler for STX, with over $6 million, poor for a horror release, even one that isn’t part of a franchise, “universe” or what have you.

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“The Current War” was re-edited by its director after Harvey Weinstein rage-edited during the middle of his rape expose two years ago. The new “Director’s Cut” salvages some honor for the all-star account of how Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla electrified the world. Startup studio 101 will take in aboutt $3 million for its efforts. ‘

At least it plays, now. 

“Zombieland: Double Tap” will have added another $12 million to its coffers by midnight Sunday.

No word yet on the turnout for the 1500 theater re-release of “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” which has four addititional scenes, now.

And the take for “The Lighthouse” on its first weekend of wide release will be reported later today.

The Oscar nominee and Oscar winner join Joseph Gordon Levitt, Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Rylance, among others.

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A mother and daughter with everything they own in their SUV move from Tuscon to Oklahoma, and rue the day Mom takes a shortcut through Tulia, Texas.

That’s where her tire blows, literally a moment after her cell phone has let her know there’s “no service.” That’s where little Clara (Apollonia Pratt) wanders away from the car, just far enough to stumble into a “Rattlesnake.”

Yeah, we knew it was coming. From the TITLE. But it’s what comes after that fuels this nightmare and makes it a horror movie.

Because desperate Mom (Carmen Ejogo, who played Coretta Scott King in “Selma,” and was in “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”) seeks help in a battered trailer she spies just after the bite. The Woman (Debrianna Mansini) may look Okie Goth scary, but she lets Clara lie down while Mom, Katrina, frantically changes the tire.

Katrina picks up the kid, who looks better, and dashes to the hospital. The doctors see no problem. They start asking Katrina questions, about how tired she is, how stressed.

Hey! I KNOW what I saw!

And then “The Suit” shows up. Bruce Davis conveys “no discounts” hospital administrator menace as he brings up Katrina’s “debt.” And then he turns scary.

“I’m not talking about hospital debt…Her little soul was spared.”

Satanic yadda yadda yadda, “She will suffer,” and we and Katrina learn the “debt” is a-soul-for-a-soul thing.

So Katrina’s trip to the trailer was an actual Deal with the Devil. Only she didn’t know it. Now, she’s got to go out and find somebody to kill so that her little girl can live.

Maybe she doesn’t need to leave the hospital, she reasons. Or maybe she’s going to need a gun. They have those in Texas, right?

Here’s what doesn’t work about “Rattlesnake.” As much as one hesitates to ever truly call out the person in front of the camera for being a movie’s reason for failing, Ejogo is just plain off here.

We get no sense of Mom’s mania, any notion of rising desperation as the sun moves across the Southwestern sky and the ticking clock ticks down towards sunset.

The moral dilemma of standing over a dying old man in a hospital, just after you’ve pulled the pillow out from under his head so that you can smother him with it? The ethically murky hunt for a victim, wondering how to answer the weaselly off-the-books gun dealer (David Yow) who offers her a Glock and asks, “Who’s the unlucky son of a bitch? He have it coming?”

Ejogo gives these moments all the fraught emotion of a mother in the market aisle, trying to decide between Peter Pan or Jif.

Writer-director Zak Hilditch serves up a gritty setting, and maybe the funniest continuity error I’ve ever seen in one of these quick-and-dirty “Netflix Originals.” A bullet riddled trucker chases Katrina swinging a tire iron, and when he stops of shoulder it — it’s an adjustable wrench instead.

There are also a couple of harrowing encounters with the Dead whose spectres now monitor Katrina’s progress, amping up the threats and even assaulting her — such as the dead tween who beats his head on her SUV window until it shatters and Katrina tumbles into the street and into the path of an oncoming truck, an assault only Katrina sees.

But Katrina never lets us feel the panic or appreciate the stakes, here. And whatever the director (he did the Netflix Stephen King adaptation, “1922”) didn’t push for in the performance, it’s the acting that lets the picture down most of all. And that’s all on Ejogo.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, violence, profanity

Cast: Carmen Ejogo, Theo Rossi, Emma Greenwell, Bruce Davis

Credits: Written and directed by Zak Hilditch.  A Netflix release.’

Running time: 1:26

If you wanted to remake and update that iconic ’80s comedy of teen angst, “The Breakfast Club,” here’s what you might try.

The “popular” girl, played by Molly Ringwald? Make her an Instagram star (Hana Hayes) and social media “influencer” — narcissistic and selfie-obsessed.

The Judd Nelson rebel, aware of everybody’s issues but mmore concerned with his own? Make him or her transgender (Tyler DiChiara).

“You have a serious PRONOUN problem, don’t you?”

Ally Sheedy’s quiet eccentric could be an OCD germaphobe with blue Princess Leia buns, convinced she was once abducted by aliens. And if we’re being more diverse than the famously monochromatic chronicler of white, suburban youth, John Hughes — make her AmerAsian (Chelsea Zhang).

Put Ally Sheedy’s hair on Michael Anthony Hall’s withdrawn, frightened-by-his-own-shadow nerd and make him a medicated, manic depressive (Rio Mangini).

The Emilio Estevez jock, who has frustrated his Dad’s expectations and is the least interesting character in the story? Give him anger management issues and a pain killer addiction (Mateus Ward).

Give them a chance to do that “Breakfast Club” library line dance.

Instead of weekend high school detention (School discipline? How ’80s!), park these misfits in a “treatment facility,” a private rehab/mental hospital for young people. And make the jerk in charge not a hardass assistant principal, but a mental health professional and administrator (James Morrison) with a #MeToo cringy creeper edge.

If nothing else, Justin Ward’s “Relish” checks off all the current culture boxes. It’s
woke.” He just leaves out the warmth, the wit, the pathos and the career-making charisma that everybody gathered for “Breakfast” had, back in the day.

They’re all in the Deacon facility in rural Southern California for good — or at least understandable — reasons.

And they all want to get out. There’s this Coachella-like concert, the Dreamland Gathering, that drives Kai (DiChaira) to want out of group therapy, where “our mantra,” per Dr. Harrison (Angela Parker) is progress, not perfection.”

Kai rubs EVERYbody the wrong way, but as Dr. Harrison explains, “not feeling at home in your own body” will do that.

Aspen (Hayes) is reluctant. She’s allegedly here by choice, Internet popular, “sponsored,” but miserable.

Levi (Mateus Ward) is impulsive, testosterony and ready for action, even if he dislikes Kai and wants the headcase he disdainfully calls “Split,” Theo (Mangini) left out.

Sawyer (Zhang)? She’s just along for the ride.

They break out, and have misadventures and a guy vintage clothing boutique makeover thanks to owner Nova Charisse (Brian Wallace, almost the only amusing performance in this), campouts in the facility van Levi hot-wired, pursued by the ineffectual minions of evil Mr. Stratton (Morrison).

Passing a beer-can bong around the campfire seems in character.

And despite pauses so that each character can share “my truth” and “big revelations” that aren’t that big, there’s not a lot of empathy here, and nothing the least bit amusing.

The opening scene, a brawl in a convenience store/restaurant, explains why. It’s a viscious, score-settling fist fight with rural homophobes. The breakout from Deacon involves pummeling and choking out a guard (Diane Delano).

Levi’s “conversion” to liking and appreciating Theo is abrupt and nonsensical.

Kai’s rants are delivered in a “I need enunciation exercises” slur, not that there are catch-phrases and memorable lines mixed in there.

Couples will form, epiphanies appear, the concert beckons, and hell, who cares?

Zhang is the stand-out among the cast, the lone performer with the charisma to have held her own with that original “Breakfast Club” cast. The script does nobody any favors, and DiChiara –whatever the actor’s biography — looks so little like a girl who identifies as a boy that the battle was lost before that Ace bandage was wrapped around her chest to hide breasts that aren’t actually there. It’s not shocking when an obviously (somewhat) buff male punches out his tormenter. It would be if he came off as more “she.”

I appreciate the attempt, understand the impossibility of trying to recapture lightning in a bottle, and could have done without the violence.

“Woke” this homage may be. But there’s nothing much to “Relish” here.

MPAA Rating: unrated, profanity, sexual situations, teens smoking weed and drinking

Cast: Tyler DiChiara, Hana Hayes, Mateus Ward, Chelsea Zhang, Rio Mangini and James Morrison

Credits: Written and directed by Justin Ward.  An Manm release

Running time: 1:37

“Maleficent: Mistress of Evil,” aka “Maleficent 2” underwhelmed — for a Disney franchise picture — on its opening weekend, pulling in $36 million when projections were for it to be well into the $40s.

It’s on a lot of screens, and managers I’ve spoken with this week say it’s drawing nicely. Still, any falloff over 50% this weekend and “Joker” will edge it to return to #1 at the box office.

Both films should do around $17 million, so we won’t know for sure until Sunday. It’s going to be that close.

“Joker” is already the biggest R-rated hit ever, over $900 million globally.

“Zombieland: Double Tap” slightly over-performed expectations last weekend. It could clear another $14 this weekend, says Box Office Mojo.

The new horror film “Countdown” isn’t great, isn’t terrible, and could connect with its audience. $10 million appears to be its ceiling, but you never know.

Mixed reviews and a known, but not box office cast headed by Naomie Harris, Tyrese Gibson and Frank Grillo, mean that the cop chased by bad cops through New Orleans thriller — “Black and Blue” will not manage $10 million — $8 million is projected. I thought it a solid genre pic, and think it deserves better. Word out mouth might help.

“The Current War” had to be reedited to warrant any sort of release at all. It’s on its third studio. Harvey Weinstein butchered it and abandoned it in the middle of the uproar over his decades of sexual assaults. “The Director’s Cut” is pretty good and worth your time, the best of the new releases this weekend. Will anybody see it? Benedict Cumberbatch/Tom Holland/Nikola Tesla-Nicholas Hoult fans?

Michael Shannon’s people will show up. Near the top of the list of “Best Actors to Never Win an Oscar.”

“Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” returns to 1500 screens with four more scenes, a bit more of Rick Dalton’s “Bounty Law” TV show acting and some other material. I thought it was long enough as it was, but hey.

The chilling and beautifully acted “The Lighthouse” goes into wider release.

Horror anthologies are nothing new, with “The ABCs of Death” and “VHS” series giving indie filmmakers in the genre a chance to pitch in on a collection of short films, connected by theme.

Calling “Portals” a science fiction anthology doesn’t reflect its true nature or genres of origin. It’s closer to horror.

At times resembling a zombie picture, with a “2001” prop as its centerpiece, it suffers the usual anthology issues of pacing, from short film to short film, even as it feels somewhat more cohesive in telling one basic story.

That story, though? Kind of a yawner.

The gist — a science project to create a “manmade black hole” has gone awry, a framing “mockumentary” debriefing a couple of Brits explains. The global power grid crashed, and these mysterious monolithic “doors” start popping up.

And what did rocker Ray Manzarek say? “There are things you know, and things you don’t…And in between are…The Doors!”

What’s on the other side of these “Portals?”

We follow a family (Neil Hopkins, Deanna Russo, Ruby O’Donnell) as they make a not-that-frightened evacuation. Cities are emptying the world over, for some reason.

Where are they fleeing to? Are they no portals in boondocks?

Adam has no sooner told their little girl (O’Donnell) that “As long as I can see your faces, we’re safe,” when this portal pops up in the middle of the highway through Joshua Tree National Monument, and they crash. “The Other Side,” directed and co-scripted by Liam O’Donnell, is about Adam’s post accident hospital stay, the weird thing that happened to his eye, and his “lone survivor” status, what he saw on “The Other Side.”

What happened to his wife and daughter? There’s something fishy about this “hospital.”

“Call Center,” directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale of “The Blair Witch Project,” goes to a 911 center just as this event is happening. Panicked callers want to know what’s going on, what they’re seeing and if they should be afraid.

When a portal opens in the center itself, some will be invited through, others blocked, and the more impressionable will hear voices and get instructions on forcing others through. The panic outside now comes into the center with them, as violence and desperation to reach their own loved ones puts employees in conflict.

And in “Sarah,” two sisters in Jakarta, Indonesia (Salvita Decorte, Natasha Gott) are bickering over who’s pregnant, who just lost a baby and who is having a rougher time of it when the lights flicker, the portals appear and SOME Indonesians go Full Zombie as a result.

This is the action-filled third of the film, although the head-exploding bit turns up in one of the other two threads of the story.

Cutting back and forth between stories implies suspense will build in each story as the ramifications of this “event” unfold. There’s a little of that in the call center, a middling reach for paranoia in “The Other Side” and amped up action in “Sarah.”

But the choppy structure, different directors with seemingly no clear role of the function their segments should serve — each building on the one before, suspense-wise, would be nice — and the diffuse nature of “the threat” rob this anthology of urgency, menace and, well, coherence.

We can’t follow any story long enough to connect with the characters and invest in their plight.

A few challenging scenes, a cool “portal” effect, and some zombie (ish) mayhem result.

Hopkins makes an interesting, confused and increasingly dubious victim/hero/survivor.

But the whole doesn’t answer any questions, not that it asks any interesting ones in the first place.

MPAA Rating: Unrated, graphic bloody violence, profanity

Cast: Neil Hopkins, Salvita Decorte, Natasha Gott, Gretchen Lodge, Shelye Broughton, Paul McCarthy-Boyington and Ptolemy Slocum

Credits: Directed by Liam O’Donnell , Gregg Hale, Eduardo Sanchez,Timo Tjahjanto. Script by Liam O’Donnell, Timo Tjahjanto, Sebastian Bendix, Christopher White. A Screen Media release.

running time: 1:27

The best one-stop-shopping for all your box office info just got swallowed by the authoritative website for cast, crew, credits, etc.

And Box Office Mojo as part of “IMDB Pro,” looks slicker, I will say that for it.

The long-established BO Mojo uses the same data, reported by the studios, on film box office performance.

And every weekend, Box Office Mojo, Variety, Deadline.com and others speculate — based on studio marketing tracking numbers tips, web traffic to see movie trailers, and other facts, and HUNCHES, to guess what the top movie will be and how much the top ten films will earn, week to week.

It’s not an exact science, but it’s rare that a film seriously over or underperforms expectations. “Joker” was a bigger hit than anybody expected, “Maleficent 2” was not as big, for example.

Curious to see if most of BO Mojo’s data ends up behind an IMDB pay wall. That site links to Metacritic reviews (Thanks for that), and puts a lot of effort into video (meh) movie junket interviews.

Everybody’s looking for new revenue streams, and evolving is smart. And as I say, the slickness of the new presentation and design works.