Movie Nation

Paul Bunnell directed and co-wrote this “reimagining” of a horror silent film from 1922, starring Lon Chaney then, Crispin Glover today.

It was about a doctor who experiments on a man in exchange for giving medical care to the “subject’s” mother.

It’s not a “lost” film, but Glover is well cast for this remake, which should hit the festival circuit momentarily.

Of all the “Mad Money,” “Poms” and “Book Club” trifles that Oscar winner Diane Keaton has made since stardom faded, “Arthur’s Whisky” might be the most trifling.

But this British nothing of a “fountain of youth” comedy manages to go down easily, despite or even thanks to its triviality.

Patricia Hodge, a mainstay of British TV (“All Creatures Great and Small,” the latest version), the singing sprite Lulu (“To Sir with Love”) and Keaton play three longtime friends who benefit from an elixir invented by Joan’s (Hodge) husband, who was promptly struck by lightning in his “Eureka!” moment.

How convenient. The entire screenplay’s a set of such conveniences.

We never learn how the three mismatched personalities met, never “get” the connection, for instance. It’s just there.

And when they drink this “whisky” that makes them young (Emse Lonsdale, Hannah Howland and Genevieve Gaunt give their all to impersonating Hodge, Lulu and Keaton in the bloom of youth), their “bucket list” of things they’d like to manage before they die, things they can survive that they’re young again, is inane and banal when it isn’t bathetic.

Hodge’s Joan doesn’t seem to miss her newly-dead husband (Ossian Perret) that much when he goes. There’s a reason for that. The American Linda (Keaton) has an ex she’s determined to get even with. Susan (Lulu) never married. Perhaps that’s something she can pull off once she’s a younger version of her cute self.

They stumble across the whisky and immediately set out to avail themselves of all the perks of youth — slang, clubbing, coffee shop hangs where they quaintly order Earl Grey tea, flirting and um, waxing — “Brazilian, Hollywood, Bikini or ‘landing strip?'”

Joan resolves to revisit an affair of her youth. Suze meets a handsome Venezuelan food truck owner (Adil Ray, not the most convincing “Venezuelan”). Linda wreaks havoc on her cheating ex’s new romance.

They travel, check off items from their “bucket list,” and manage all this even though this “whisky” has effects that wear off quickly.

The extent of the “message” to all this is “You’re never too old to become young.”

Cute bits include a vicar who can’t be bothered to get details right at funerals and the various eternal pick-up lines the ladies hear when they decide to “club” with the kids.

“Here I am. What’re your other two wishes?”

A bucket list trek to Vegas is an excuse to visit a drag revue that hosts a Boy George concert.

Lulu steals the picture — petty theft, in this case — and Gaunt gives us a fun, younger take on Keaton.

And that’s kind of how all this goes — “surprises” that aren’t, “bad news” that is almost expected and a tinkerer’s de-aging “whisky” which they never bother to investigate or try to replicate because who’d be bothered with a little thing like finding the formula?

Despite all that, the cast is pleasant and the Walton-on-Thames locations pretty. Of all the bad movies Keaton’s kept active with over the past 20 years, this may be the least of the lot. It’s certainly the least grating.

Rating: 16+, adult themes

Cast: Patricia Hodge, Lulu, Emse Lonsdale, Hannah Howland, Genevieve Gaunt, Boy George, Adil Ray, and Diane Keaton

Credits: Directed by Stephen Cookson, scripted by Alexis Zegerman. A Sky Original/Vertical release on Amazon Prime.

Running time: 1:34

And you thought “Found footage” horror was dead. Silly you.

This thriller makes its way into public view (streaming) Mar. 18.

Writer-director Nele Mueller-Stöfen’s “Delicious” hides its secrets well. But if you’re observant, the clues pile up long before the thriller’s too-patient build-up drops its big revelations on you.

She’s tapping into international inequality in this horrific tale of German “haves” who have gained the notice of pan-European have-nots. And as we see and hear a group of employees at a posh French hotel ponder if they’re “rich enough” to be worth their trouble, we develop expectations about what’s to come.

Is this a “Parasite” variation, with the working class/working poor simply pilfering from and squatting on the rich? Is it another “Funny Games,” where they’re punished for their greed-gotten affluence? A Baader Meinhof kidnapping? Or is it something worse?

You have no idea. But you will once you start looking at that occasionally glimpsed “gang” and the predelictions and manipulations of its cunning Spanish housekeeper/leader, the obvious becomes obvious.

Valerie Pachner stars as born-rich corporate IT guru who brings her husband (Fahri Vardim) and children (Naila Schuberth and Caspar Hoffman) on vacation to her family’s villa in the south of France.

But to get there, they have to be driven through the latest notorious round of French street protests, this time over income inequality and soaring food costs.

“Those people don’t care about us,” biologist-dad John tells the kids. If “care” broadly means “notice” in this case, John could not be more wrong.

Because when they arrive, unpack and go out to dinner at the restaurant of a swanky local hotel, some of the staff raises its eyebrows. Once enough conversations — including high-pressure business cell calls — have been overheard, the die is cast.

“A drink, for the road, on the house?”

That “innocent” offer sets a whole plot in motion that involves intentionally gashing ringleader Teodora’s (Carla Diaz) arm for the “accident” they let tipsy John think he’s driven into in the family’s Jaguar.

“No hospital” will be necessary, take-charge wife Esther says, when the panic subsides and she’s gotten her “This is why you shouldn’t drink and drive” (in German with subtitles, or dubbed) judgement snipe in.

Yes, and who got into the car with their KIDS after he’d been drinking, eh?

Esther’s band-aid first aid for an injury that A) needs stitches and B) which obsewrvant eleven year old Abby says “looks like a cut” by a knife, and a few hundred euros “bribe” sends Teodora on her way.

But she comes back. Of course she comes back. And as she’s noticed how sloppy the family is, with their villa housekeeper out of town, Teodora makes them a deal. She’ll be their housekeeper and cook, which gives her a place to stay as she was “let go” from her hotel job because of her “injury.”

“The long con” here has Teodora corrupting and winning the trust of the kids and working herself into a position where she can exploit rifts in this marriage of unequals. “Secrets” play to her advantage, as her seldom seen accomplices watch and wait.

The pacing here is somewhat ponderous as actress-turned-writer/director Mueller-Stöfen takes her sweet time setting her up “surprises.”

But the foreshadowing gives a lot away, and once you’ve gotten past “No, she wouldn’t” yes she will. And the only shock in that is elementary and generic.

Diaz makes a cryptic but not-exactly-compelling cunning planner/manipulator/seducer, and the rifts in the family are obvious to the point of melodramatic, with some so poorly set-up that they have to be explained away.

“Delicious” is creepy enough. The character flaws — obvious or occasionally subtle — intrigue.

But Mueller-Stöfen loses track of the “politics” of this variation on “The Menu,” and the picture has too little else going on that surprises or wins us over. The “battle of wits” is pretty one-sided. We end up investing in a slow-moving, low-heat thriller that never really comes to a boil.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, sex, alcohol abuse, profanity

Cast: Valerie Pachner, Carla Diaz, Fahri Vardim, Naila Schuberth and Caspar Hoffman.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Nele Mueller-Stöfen. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:42

Catherine O’Hara and Martin Scorsese, Olivia Wilde and Ike Barinholtz and Kathryn Hahn and Zac Efron and Anthony Mackie and Bryan Cranston and Paul Dano and Nicholas Stoller are on the cast list — some have cameos, playing themselves — and most of them pop up in this trailer to Rogen’s riff on Hollwood where the movies are a business, first and last, and God help you if you decide to make “art.”

A couple of REALLY good shots at Roman Polanski and Woody Allen in this trailer, I might add.

This series premieres on Apple TV+ March 26.

“Will & Grace” producers, Linda Lavin as the mother and Nathan Lane as mother hen/mother superior and host to a couple of old friends (Matt Bomer and Nathan Lee Graham) in a gay sitcom for a gay bashing era.

This one looks a tad obvious, from the decor pun title to the set-up/punchline rhythms to the “Hot in Cleveland” casting of sitcom veterans in supporting and bit parts.

March 28, Hulu gives us a “Love, Sidney” hug.

A writer’s sojourn in “The Jane Austen Residency” is sweet, romantic and fun? Or will it be, as the French say, “le hot mess?”

“What are you waiting for, Mr. Darcy?”

This French flavored Laura Piani play upon “Pride and Prejudice” stars Camille Rutherford, Pablo Pauly and Charles Anson and comes out this spring.