Rage Against the Dying of the Light

GLORIA (A-minus) - What does Gloria want? A lover, a companion, adult children who seem to care about something, a good car stereo to sing along with. Maybe to be a little naughty. To be young -- or at least not old -- for just a little while longer, by dancing the night away in a disco, the site of the movie's opening and closing scenes.

Paulina Garcia stars in the title role of this moving Chilean drama (from Sebastian Lelio) as a divorced office worker pushing 60 who yearns to find passion before old age slowly drains the carnal joy out of life. Along comes Rodolfo (Sergio Hernandez), a recently divorced owners of an activity center (paintball, bungee-jumping) that suggests immaturity on his part (she belittles his frivolous "toys"). His phone buzzes incessantly with hectoring calls from his needy ex and adult daughters. He's not only emotionally unavailable but also too quick on the trigger in bed. He wears a truss since his gastric bypass surgery. That man has baggage. Gloria, meanwhile, stays in shape and dotes on her makeup and hygiene. She still hopes that those things matter, that the hunt-and-chase can still thrill. At one point Rodolfo reads her a love poem, and it brings her to tears -- as his phone rings and takes him out of the moment. (She also breaks down when her daughter reads a mushy email from her boyfriend.)

Gloria's son and daughter also are distant, borderline estranged. The son is separated and has a wailing infant; her daughter is pregnant by her Swedish boyfriend. Her ex-husband sports a younger, pot-smoking girlfriend. She brings Rodolfo to a birthday party to meet them all, and it goes poorly. Gloria dumps Rodolfo but takes him back; the sex has gotten better (as the raw scenes of middle-age coupling attest), and he truly has genuine feelings for her.

A neighbor's hairless, wrinkly cat keeps sneaking into her apartment. It creeps her out, she says, because it looks like a mouse or a bat. Or maybe because it might be a metaphor for her aging private parts? Garcia is elastic physically. At times she looks 45, at other times (without her glasses and makeup) she could be 65. At times she is sultry and sexy; at other times, with her retro, owlish glasses, sagging face and frumpy fashion choices, she could be mistaken for an old transvestite.

Gloria is determined. She's not sadly clinging to her youth, but rather is refusing to acknowledge that it's completely gone. She takes yoga classes at her daughter's studio. She boldly flirts with men at the clubs. She stumbles across some marijuana and lights up. She soars with glee during her bungee jump and whirls on a merry-go-round. She drinks (to excess at times), she sings, she dances, she blushes like a schoolgirl.

But, as a trip to her physician reminds us, old age is around the corner. Why fight the inevitable? (A cute display of a dancing marionette skeleton entertaining a crowd in a strip mall is a little obvious but nonetheless charming.) At dinner with Rodolfo and another couple, they lament the loss of a genuine social structure in Chile and the soullessness of modern technology. Gloria's enduring human interaction is hearing the voice of her upstairs neighbor, an angry young man raging at all hours at a real or imagined scornful lover. He frightens her, but -- ah -- there's the passion.

What does Gloria want? She wants to live!

Now cue her disco-era theme song and clear the dance floor.

BONUS TRACK
The love poem read to Gloria:

I’d like to be a nest if you were a little bird.  

I’d like to be a scarf if you were a neck and were cold. 

If you were music, I’d be an ear.  

If you were water, I’d be a glass.  

If you were light, I’d be an eye.  

If you were a foot, I’d be a sock.  

If you were the sea, I’d be a beach. 

And if you were still the sea, I’d be a fish, and I’d swim in you.  

And if you were the sea, I’d be salt. 

And if I were salt, you’d be lettuce, an avocado or at least a fried egg.  

And if you were a fried egg, I’d be a piece of bread. 

And if I were a piece of bread, you’d be butter or jam. 

If you were jam, I’d be the peach in the jam.  

If I were a peach, you’d be a tree.  

And if you were a tree, I’d be your sap

And I’d course through your arms like blood. 

And if I were blood, I’d live in your heart.

(Gracias) 

 

One-Liners: Nothingness

THE ZERO THEOREM (B-minus) -  And now for something completely familiar.

It's been a long time since we've savored a futuristic treat created by Terry Gilliam. Christoph Waltz does the heavy lifting here as angst-ridden Qohen Leth, a computer hacker who seeks nothing less than the secret of man's existence. He lives in an advanced world dominated by Mancom (led by Matt Damon as The Man), a corporate overseer that has co-opted, among other things, the Occupy movement.

Qohen is convinced that he bungled an important phone call in the past -- one in which the voice on the other end of the line was to reveal the point of living -- and he desperately hopes that they'll call back. Meantime, he slogs away pursuing the zero theorem, in which zero equals 100 percent and the meaninglessness of existence would be confirmed.

Qohen lives in a church that he hates to leave, mainly because public life is an unbearable assault on the senses, Gilliam's best touch here. He is befriended by the lovely Bainsley (a raw Melanie Thierry), sent to distract him with literal flirtation and virtual sex. Thierry's cleavage qualifies as a separate character, as she never passes up the chance to lean forward. Gilliam knows that many of us weaned during puberty on images of Carol Cleveland never really outgrow such images. He also tosses in a hot & saucy pizza girl (Dana Rogoz) with frizzy pink hair and, yes, juicy cleavage. 

The Man's teenage hacker son, Bob (Lucas Hedges), shows up to either assist or sabotage Qohen. A bittersweet ending hammers home this "Brazil" clone, which comes tricked out with the usual bells and whistles (and tubes). It barely hangs together, but it works as Gilliam nostalgia and one huge riff for Waltz. 

MANAKAMANA (B-minus) -  Yep. This is pretty much two hours of a camera trained on people riding a tram back and forth to and from a Nepalese temple. Back and forth.

Nothing profound results from this experiment. Two ladies struggling to eat melting ice-cream bars is amusing. Three rocker dudes have a kitten with them. Halfway through a bunch of goats are loaded onto the tram for a one-way trip. A few folks sit glumly.

This is at times a mildly fascinating social experiment but mostly a passing fancy.
 

One-Liners: Light and Dark, Sweet and Sour

SCHOOL OF ROCK (2004) (A-minus) -  I finally caught up with one of the classics of the last decade. Despite my relatively low tolerance level for Jack Black, I was totally swept up in his signature role as a loser who scams his way into a substitute-teaching job and baptizes a class full of kids into the church of rock 'n' roll.

The secret weapon here is the wonderful writer, Mike White ("The Good Girl," "Enlightened"), who also takes a supporting role as Ned Schneebly, a substitute teacher whose roommate Dewey (Black) poses as him to score a much-needed job, in a private school run by the uptight Principal Mullins (a jaunty Joan Cusack). Dewey has no clue, but he taps into the students' musical talents, assembling a core band of guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. Dewey sees it as his ticket to competing in the local Battle of the Bands contest, having been dumped by his own band and losing Ned to domestic life with stuffy girlfriend Patty (Sarah Silverman!).

The other secret weapon here: Director Richard Linklater's eye for the casting of the children. We've seen countless movies full of mugging children, emoting as if it were their first school play. Here, the kids have distinctive personalities and engaging personalities, led by Miranda Cosgrove ("iCarly"). Other students take on key roles, such as backup singers, roadies and a wincingly fruity boy who designs the costumes.

Linklater ("Boyhood," Before Sunrise") has a firm command of the comedy and the pacing of the plot. This is very much a labor of love. It is outrageously funny in spots -- especially when Black is schooling the band in melody and stage histrionics, tapping into his Tenacious D persona. (He teaches the keyboardist how to throw out a kick and how to shoot the keys, Chico Marx style.) It is also sweet, inspiring and heartwarming.

VIC AND FLO SAW A BEAR (B) - Merde. The humanity. Canadian Denis Cote ("Bestiare") unfurls a devastating exploration of relationships and revenge.

Poor middle-aged Victoria (Pierrette Robitaille) has been sprung on parole, and she beelines it to the home of her ailing uncle, not caring a whit about the paralyzed old man but rather seeking to mollify her parole officer and angling for a cheap place to live. Soon her girlfriend Flo (Romane Bohringer) arrives, with her own rap sheet and some enemies trailing behind.

Rural Canada here has the swampy feel of the American South, reminding us that the members of The Band didn't have to fake it. A sense of doom and gloom hangs over the proceedings. Flo's past catches up with her while Vic falls under the spell of a seemingly friendly but creepy local woman, Marina (Marie Brassard). Meantime, Vic's parole officer, Guillaume (Marc-Andre Grondin), keeps popping in, like a needy puppy.

In the final reel, a horrific event takes place, only hinted at earlier. It's a reminder that, as bad as our lives may seem, it can always get worse. This film is dank and depressing, and it challenges you to find any glimmer of hope. Well played.

THE SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO (B) - This heartfelt documentary explores not only the origins of the ubiquitous chicken dish but also the plight of Chinese Americans.

Writer/director Ian Cheney ("King Corn") collects a cast of colorful characters, from Manhattan to Hunan Province, to marinate in the culture of Chinese food. He latches on to certain touchstones -- the Jewish tradition of stir fry and cinema on Christmas day, or towns (like Tucumcari, N.M.) with just one Asian family around to run a restaurant. Cheney also conjures up a couple of mysteries -- who was General Tso, and who created the signature dish (spicy glazed chicken with broccoli) named after him? The graphics and animation provide sharp bumpers and class up the proceedings.

The talking heads are fairly knowledgeable and engaging, in a Vh1 sort of way, especially the man who boasts the world's largest collection of Chinese menus. We get an appreciation for the history of Chinese immigration to the United States and how those Asian-Americans compare and contrast with the homeland's deep roots. "The Search for General Tso" is respectful and insightful.

Abandonment

WETLANDS (B+) - An extraordinary performance by Carla Juri propels this roller-coaster story of an 18-year-old girl obsessed with her private parts and with reuniting her divorced parents.

This is definitely a challenge in the first half. Juri's Helen seemingly has no boundaries when it comes to bodily functions and raw sexuality. There's nowhere she won't put her fingers, and she has quite the curious palate.

Helen is also endlessly appealing, wielding a wink and a knowing smile. She pumps up the self-esteem of her shlubby friend Corinna. She's a skateboard ace. She's shockingly frank. Yet she aches, still, from the breakup of her parents.

When an anal fissure meets a shaving accident, Helen ends up in the hospital. She handles the indignities like a champ, and she smells opportunities -- a romantic one in hunky nurse Robin and an emotional one in conniving to get her estranged parents to come together over their ailing daughter. Flashbacks to her childhood deftly define her dark side

When, deep into the second half of the film, Helen inflicts unimaginable pain on herself, you are at first horrified by the sheer physical devastation. But what immediately sinks in is an awareness of the debilitating emotional pain she is suffering from. It's a heartbreaking cry for help. It's one of the most powerful scenes I've ever witnessed.

Writer/director David Wnendt plays a long game here, and those tempted to shut this disgusting thing down 20 minutes in will miss out on a surprisingly touching drama about a girl who never got over that devastating childhood trauma and instead compensates with provocative behavior. Juri is a revelation, as she effortless carries every scene like a pro. By the end, you can't take your eyes off of her, no matter how much she may try to repel you.

I'M GLAD MY MOTHER IS ALIVE (2011) (B) - Poor little Thomas was 4, and his brother Patrick an infant, when their mother, Julie, gave them up for adoption, abandoned them.

Thomas never recovered. Adopted by a kind but meek couple, he turned into a troubled kid, getting shipped off to boarding school as an adolescent. Eventually, we meet him at age 20 (played by Vincent Rottiers), working as a mechanic. He becomes intent on tracking down his birth mother.

Thomas (a haunting Vincent Rottiers) finds Julie (a moving Sophie Cattani) and infiltrates her current life, raising another son from another father, a boy not much older than Thomas was when he was left behind. Thomas is determined to look out for little Frederic and to make sure Julie doesn't wound another defenseless boy. Meantime, he throws away his job and ditches his deflated adoptive mother and her shell-shocked husband, who shuffles around a nursing home.

We can tell all along that Thomas is never quite right. His obsession with Julie and her body language toward him create an eerie, unsettling atmosphere. When a shocking event occurs, it's not entirely a surprise. The follow-up subtly examines how we are scarred by the past and pay for our sins. This is a dark, disturbing film, not too far from a Dardenne brothers morality tale.

New to the Queue

Holiday leftovers ...

We still have waking nightmares about Bruno Dumont's frightening bore, "Humanite," from an early Santa Fe Film Festival, and we barely survived "Twentynine Palms," but we're diving back in with what we'll treat on video as the four-part series it originally was, his three-hour deadpan offering "Li'l Quinquin."

A documentary about Chinese food and the Chinese-American experience, "The Search for General Tso."

A glum adult son takes care of his ailing father in the Dutch film "It's All So Quiet."

A woman disengages from husband, friends and career in "Something, Anything."

The quasi-documentary from Denis Cote ("Bestiaire"), "Joy of Man's Desiring."

A bisexual teenage Iranian-American navigates her hipster Brooklyn neighborhood in the debut feature "Appropriate Behavior."

Another debut feature, from Italian Andrea Pallaoro, about a disintegrating family in California, "Medeas."
 

Far Out (That '70s Drift)

INHERENT VICE (A-minus) - Paul Thomas Anderson has clambered back into the 1970s, where he first hit it big, with "Boogie Nights," and the era fits him like a flower-print polyester shirt.

And Joaquin Phoenix, finally, is watchable, in a role meant for him. In this Thomas Pynchon adaptation, Phoenix is Doc Sportello, a long-haired, pot-smoking, Burgie-guzzling, sandals-wearing private eye living in a rundown beach house in hazy, lazy L.A. in 1970. He gets caught up in a clump of missing-person cases, lured into the world of a mysterious drug ring by his cool ex-girlfriend, Shasta Fay Hepworth (a wickedly fun Katherine Waterston, Sam's kid), and her new married older boyfriend, repentant real-estate mogul Mickey Wolfmann (a perfect cameo for Eric Roberts).

The rest of the plot would take too many more paragraphs to untangle, and even then I wouldn't get it all correct, so you can follow along here, if you want. There is a coked up dentist who meets an embarrassing end (a sly, restrained Martin Short), white supremacists, cult members, Owen Wilson as a saxophonist who's gone missing, and juicy side roles for the likes of Reese Witherspoon (a D.A. who sleeps with Doc), Benicio del Toro (as Sauncho Smilax, Esq.) and dependable Martin Donovan as a drug boss. (Musician Joanna Newsom narrates. The soundtrack mixes Jonny Greenwood originals with AM staples like "Never My Love" and Chuck Jackson's "Any Day Now.")

But the one who steals the movie is Josh Brolin. He plays iron-jawed Lt. Det. Christian "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, the civil-rights-stompin' evil twin of Joe Friday and buttoned-down nemesis to ol' hippie-dippie Doc. Brolin bigfoots every scene he stomps through, pulling up actors all around him. Bigfoot is fond of chocolate-covered bananas (maybe a little too fond), scores roles as an extra in episodes of "Adam 12," and serves as a one-man Greek chorus for Reagan's California, lamenting the slimy skid from the apex of the free-love movement.

L.A. has a Manson Family hangover less than a year after the Tate-LoBianca murders, when the "Laugh-In" free-love cuteness had started to curdle into a dead-eyed slog in the harsh morning light of a new decade primed for payback from The Man. This is a paean to Southern California's lost innocence absent the blowhard sentiments of the tone-deaf "There Will Be Blood." Anderson's triumph here is his ambitious, wide swipe at capturing that complicated mood with smart dialogue, brash lighting and camerawork, and a laconic mix of dark-but-slapsticky humor and quiet heartbreak.

For Doc, heartbreak comes in the form of Shasta Fay, whose soft beauty makes him wince and wallow. Waterston is a revelation here. She is just one of many mini-skirted stoner hippie-chicks flitting through Doc's (Anderson's?) idealized Disneyland of dames. (The dazzling Hong Chau positively sizzles as Jade, the proprietor of an unsubtle whorehouse.) Shasta Fay is the queen of sweater-dress '60s sirens.  Late in the film she returns to Doc, in the flat-out sexiest nude scene you may ever see. Waterston spins a looping, whispery monologue while subtly seducing our hero with her dark eyes and a velvet touch. It is bold acting and delirious filmmaking. I don't remember a word of the dialogue.

Anderson certainly owes a debt to Altman and Tarantino here (with a dash of Coen brothers). This is "The Long Goodbye" by way of "Jackie Brown" (and Bridget Fonda's couch-surfing surfer girl); maybe we need this story spun every 20 years or so. But the vibe is wholly Anderson's own. He tames Phoenix just enough while setting loose the fine cast to swirl in and out of Doc's world, creating a haze in which you don't mind losing track of the plot twists or donating two-and-a-half hours to this wild ride.

Anderson has come full circle since his sublime sophomore effort that celebrated the high point of hardcore. He's had an uphill climb since his last good film 12 years ago ("Punch-Drunk Love"), and hopefully he has recovered from his own hangover -- the self-indulgence he wallowed in with "The Master" in 2012. "Inherent Vice" lingers nicely the morning after.

BONUS TRACK
Chuck Jackson from 1965:


 

The Noir Chronicles: 1962

THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY (B) - This Patricia Highsmith adaptation is a stylish thriller but half empty, struggling to extract great performances from three solid actors.

The setting is 1962. An American grifter and his wife are tracked down by a private investigator in Athens, and an altercation sends them on the run. They run into another apparent American on the make, and the trio get sucked deeper into a quagmire of intrigue.

Chester MacFarland and his younger wife, Colette (Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst), are the dapper couple straight out of an Antonioni film. Wily, multilingual Rydal (Oscar Isaac, smoldering like a young Pacino) uses his language skills to skim a few twenties out of Chester's cash-stuffed briefcase. Rydal and Colette lock eyes immediately, and a rather chaste love triangle quickly ensues.

As the three try to finagle their way out of Greece, they become their own worst enemies. Chester is a prodigious drinker (in a trite big-screen way), and almost dares the other two to cross the line. Another death ensues. The two survivors grow more desperate. A double-cross at the airport -- in that great era where the ticket-takers where those cute little pillbox hats -- holds promise of escape. But the local police, looking like extras from "Casablanca," remain in hot pursuit.

Everything about this film -- a directorial debut from screenwriter Hossein Amini ("Snow White and the Huntsman," "Drive") -- seems like a knockoff. We get a little Hitchcock here, a little classic noir there. The three leads are quite talented, but none would be mistaken for an actor giving 100 percent. Dunst is uncharacteristically drab (though she's a knockout in a pale yellow dress or an elegant white nightgown), while Mortensen just never finds the right tone for his gruff character. As a result, Isaac is left out on a ledge too often. A side plot about Rydal's struggles to reconcile his estranged father's death goes nowhere.

Amini does drive the plot along, and manages to create tension when he needs to. In the end, though, we just don't care about which of these three ex-pats will be left standing.
 

Kids v. the System

KIDS FOR CASH (B+) -  Producer Robert May ("The War Tapes") steps behind the camera as director for this fascinating examination of the "Kids for Cash" scandal in which a Pennsylvania judge rabidly sentenced teens to a juvenile facility in which he had a financial interest.

Kids tell heartbreaking stories about spending their high school years locked up for rather inoffensive offenses such as fighting in school. Judge Mark Ciavarella frequently imposed his sentences in instances when the kids were denied legal representation. (They signed waivers, likely not fully comprehending the consequences.)

Ciavarella connived with another judge, Michael Conahan, in receiving finders' fees for locating the real estate on which the juvenile facility was built. Director May teams up with a local newspaper reporter who breaks down the story and follows the money. A crudely scrawled flow chart does the trick well.

Ciavarella, surprisingly sits for interviews here, perhaps thinking he was going to beat the rap and convince the world of his innocence. (No luck; he is serving a 28-year prison term after being undercut by Conahan, who cut a deal and got 17 years.) May cleverly paces the film, and it's riveting to watch the judge unravel.

But it's the kids and the parents who drive this story home. After doing their time in juvie, these young adults continue to struggle to put their lives back together. One, it turns out, ended up back in prison. Another, though, had a tragic ending, and a scene in which his mother confronts Ciavarella outside the courthouse is chilling.

This is a story that begged to be told, and May is up to the task.

PATEMA INVERTED (C-minus) - Strictly for kids only, this sappy anime feature follows the adventures of the title girl who escapes her underground world only to find herself in a world in which she is upside down and must be restrained lest she float up into the sky.

Some sort of global catastrophe has inverted the world's gravity. One set of people live above ground in lush surroundings but in a dystopian conformity, while Patema and others were confined to a dank underground. When Patema slips above ground, she is saved by a cute boy, Age (pronounced like Agee), whose father died trying to defy the authorities and explore the heavens. Age tries to keep her safe from the evil leader.

Part "The Lego Movie," part "Speed Racer," with the plot of a "Scooby Doo" episode, "Patema Inverted" follows a predictable story arc. Wise elders spout platitudes, and youngsters not only seek to escape and survive but also to change the system. Think they'll do it?

BONUS TRACK
The "Kids for Cash" trailer:

Adventures in Living and Dying

Women on a mission: 

WILD (B) -  Reese Witherspoon spins a strong performance in this scattered, uneven story of a woman in search of redemption and inner peace.

Director Jean-Marc Vallee shows the slightly shaky hand he had at the helm of the impressive but lacking "Dallas Buyers Club" last year. Here he takes Cheryl Strayed's memoirs and struggles with the heroine's flashbacks and narration, creating a choppy narrative that finds its footing only in the second half.

Witherspoon is Cheryl, battling a past that includes drug abuse, rampant infidelity while married and the death of her mother from cancer. We hear Cheryl's scattered thoughts as she sets out on the Pacific Crest Trail walking across California and Oregon, determined to purge while pursuing a true course. Those hushed thoughts skitter about, some getting lost in the mix. Meantime, flashbacks fill in Cheryl's backstory. Those flashbacks are the weakest part here. Laura Dern (so good in TV's "Enlightened") is wildly off pitch as the spunky mom, a survivor of an abusive husband and then the noble cancer victim. Gaby Hoffmann ("Crystal Fairy") is wasted in a throwaway role as Cheryl's pal. Thomas Sadoski (TV's "The Newsroom") is a cipher as Cheryl's thoughtful ex.

The first hour of setup consists mostly of Cheryl as the fish out of water fumbling with her tent and supplies, fending off creeps. Witherspoon is plain and natural, but the load she carries here is as burdensome as Cheryl's ridiculously overstuffed backpack. She's a trouper -- even naked and groveling at times -- and it's to her credit that she rescues this film by the final act and makes you care about not only Cheryl's survival but her moral reckoning. She wrings true emotion from a story that doesn't necessarily deserve such a payoff.

I found myself connecting with Cheryl, seeing in her other women I've known in their late 30s who were conducting a life accounting and staring into the abyss, searching for meaning. We see the good in Cheryl, and we identify with her journey.

MIELE (HONEY) (B-minus) -  Actress Valeria Golina ("Big Top Pee-Wee") makes her directorial debut with this pensive tale of a woman who fetches drugs from Mexico and returns to Italy to provide assisted-suicide services as part of an underground operation.

Golina presents Jasmine Trinca ("Best of Youth") as Irene, an androgynous loner with the heavy heart of a caring Angel of Death who goes by the nom de morte Miele, or Honey. She is meticulous and attentive as she eases the suffering of the chronically or terminally ill. One day she delivers her lethal package to an older man, Carlo Grimaldi (Carlo Cecchi), who, it turns out, is not ill at all -- he's just weary of life and feels like ending it all.

Irene is incensed. That is not what this is supposed to be about. Haunted by the idea of having a hand in such a breach of protocol, she hounds Grimaldi and tries to talk him out of it. He invites her to dinner. She crashes at his apartment. They develop a bond.

The rest is fairly predictable but it's not without its charms. Golina has a sharp eye here for detail. Her camera lingers over Trinca's boyish attributes, as if she sees herself in the actress 15 years her junior. We get several shots of feet, including a random close-up of the feet from someone doing a handstand in a wheat field, and Irene's baby-blue toe-nails contrasted with a grand Persian rug.

Golina captures Irene's glum mood without descending into maudlin histrionics. The closing shot is absolutely lovely. The heavy topic has a distinct lightness of being. This falls short of profound but it has a way of lingering well after viewing.

Life Is Short: Guardians of the Galaxy

Life Is Short is an as-needed series documenting the films we just couldn't make it through. We like to refer to these movies as "Damsels in Distress." Previous entries are here , here, here, here, here, here and here.

Maybe it's a knockout on the big screen. But on my TV this was a bunch of sloppy CGI with limp humor and a hero lacking charisma. The plot is convoluted, the good guys and bad guys hard to sort out. Characters often carry out the dreaded trope of fending off multiple attackers, even if they have futuristic lasers.

The Walkman gag was charming the first few times. The talking raccoon is quaint. Maybe the second half starts to make more sense and would evoke actual laughter. "The Lego Movie" was sharper and more clever. Here, I never found an opening. If this was intended as satire, it failed.

And I grew up with those songs. The soundtrack is lazy.

Title: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Running Time: 121 MIN
Elapsed Time at Plug Pull: 63 MIN (with some dozing before the end of the first hour)
Portion Watched: 52%
My Age at Time of Viewing: 52 YRS, 1 MO.
Average Male American Lifespan: 81.2 YRS.
Watched/Did Instead: Half-watched a bad Amazon sitcom and then headed off to bed.
Odds of Re-viewing This Title: 20-1.

Mommie Fearest

Or, "A Woman Beyond the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" ...

THE BABADOOK (B+) - This Australian creeper about a mom and her son being terrorized by a children's book character isn't so much a classic horror film, but more a study of the challenges of motherhood.

Debut writer/director Jennifer Kent shows poise and restraint in spinning the tale of a mother struggling with the crazed fears of her son, whose birth will forever be linked to the car crash on the way to the delivery room that killed her husband. Kent trots out a few familiar horror tropes -- the requisite knocks, creaks and screams -- but otherwise brings a fresh perspective to the genre.

Essie Davis carries the load as Amelia, burdened by little hellion Samuel (newcomer Noah Wiseman). She destroys the Babadook book, but the monster only comes back stronger. Amelia feels like she's losing her mind and the ability to control her son.

What makes this special is the authentic depiction of the struggles of a single mom. Amelia can't sleep; she struggles to keep the house clean enough to not tick off visitors from Child Protective Services. As the film progresses, Kent cleverly makes us wonder whether this all has nothing to do with the boy but rather might be the delusions of a sleep-deprived woman who has never reconciled the fateful day when her son was born and her husband died.

"The Babadook," at a brisk 93 minutes and with enough twists to keep the viewer sharp, avoids the pitfalls of modern horror films by focusing on the psychological rather than some bloody hatchet job.

BONUS TRACK

WILLOW CREEK (B) - Bobcat Goldthwait, who hasn't made a bad film, tries his hand at "Blair Witch"-style horror, with decent results.

Thirtysomething couple Jim (TV journeyman Bryce Johnson) and Kelly (Goldthwait regular Alexie Gilmore) take a journey to Big Foot country, Willow Creek, Calif., with video camera in hand. Kelly is a good sport about indulging Jim's passion to venture into the heart of darkness and capture the mythical yeti just like his heroes, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin, did in 1967.

The first half of the film is devoid of chills, but rather screens like a documentary, with actual inhabitants of the Willow Creek tourist community sitting for interviews or performing Big Foot ditties. We get to know Jim, a loveable goofball, and Kelly, a sarcastic but agreeable girlfriend -- a neat trick by Goldthwait to get us to care about them. They set up camp in an obscure forest area on their way to ground zero. A scene in the tent in which Jim proposes is classic Goldthwait, darkly comic.

Eventually, the couple are besieged by thumps and howls and other inhuman sounds. They have trouble finding their way back the next day, and they are fated to spend a second night in this nowhereland. Goldthwait's ending is brutal and frightening, as well as beautifully shot.

True horror aficionados will probably dismiss this as weak-willed and derivative. But it has two likeable leads and it zips by in 77 minutes.

Filmmaking 101

FOXCATCHER (A) - American master Bennett Miller has crafted a quiet, profound film about male relationships, a drama as intense as a classic horror film.

"Foxcatcher" is the tragic story of wrestling brothers Mark and Dave Schultz, gold-medal winners at the 1984 Olympics in L.A. They get caught in the web of John du Pont, of the chemical family, who recruits them to his compound near Valley Forge, Pa., so that he can pretend he himself is a wrestling coach. Du Pont is a first-class creep with serious mommy issues.

The pacing here is measured, as du Pont (Steve Carell) first ensnares Mark (Channing Tatum) and seduces him with the trappings of wealth and privilege and endangers Mark's shot at returning to the Olympics in 1988. Soon Dave (Mark Ruffalo) arrives, and he quickly realizes that something's not right -- Mark is morose and is acting like an abused child or a scorned lover. (The homosexual undertones are undeniable throughout -- this is a wrestling movie, after all.)

Miller structures this as two one-hour acts with a 10-minute coda. The director is fearless in taking his time building the narrative and refusing to clutter the screen with background noise or visual hype. Like his debut, "Capote," this is sparse but compelling. Miller wisely gives his actors time and room to create memorable characters.

The performances are top-notch. Tatum ("Magic Mike") continues to impress; he is perfectly cast here as the nearly over-the-hill monosyllabic lunkhead with an underbite. He broods throughout, and you feel his ache stretching back to childhood. Ruffalo strikes just the right note as the wiser, loving, mentoring brother, who is trying to create his own functional nuclear family with his wife (Sienna Miller) and kids. Ruffalo physically inhabits the body of a wrestler, leading with his forearms when he walks, as both brothers display a bit of a simian quality. And Carell is a revelation as the slow-burning, weirdly patriotic lunatic who tries to buy respectability and collects these wrestlers as if they are figurines for his display case. I have never cracked a smile at Carell in his various comedic roles; here, he also disappears physically into a persona, waving his prosthetic beak around like a disturbed Toucan Sam. His performance, creating a pathetic but menacing freak, makes the film.

(The only nitpick I had with the movie was the difference in ages between Ruffalo, 47, and Tatum, 34; the real brothers were 17 months apart and were in their late 20s when they were still Olympic material. At times you wonder how the old man won a gold medal just a few years earlier.)

Miller's fluid camera luxuriates over the beauty and brutality of the sport. His actors did their homework, and they create a believable world of the wrestling community. (It also helps to go into the movie not knowing -- or having forgotten, 25 years on -- how the story unfolds.)

Miller, who also scored with "Moneyball," shows an assured hand and never makes a false move. The drama never flags. The setting -- the du Pont compound -- at times is unsettling as "The Shining." "Foxcatcher" sneaks up on you, sucks you in and leaves you devastated at the end. This is mature filmmaking.

The Rest of 2014

We don't rush into our year-end lists. It takes a while for some of the big titles to trickle into Albuquerque (or Santa Fe).

We traditionally publish our list toward the end of January. Till then, here's a list of the 2014 releases that received an A or an A-minus from us last year and which will vie for a prominent position on our forthcoming list.

• The Great Beauty
• Elaine Stritch: Just Shoot Me
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• The Dirties
• God's Pocket
• Finding Vivian Maier
• Ida
• We Are the Best!
• It Felt Like Love
• The Skeleton Twins
• Young & Beautiful
• Frank
• Memphis
• The Blue Room
• Listen Up Philip
• Birdman
• I Am Ali
• Citizenfour

More to come in 2015.