If There Be Thornes (2015)

If There Be Thornes is the latest, until tonight, in the Lifetime Networks continuing adaptations of V. C. Andrews scandalous Dollanganger series, after Flowers in the Attack and Petals on the Wind.  The film starts with Cathy and Chris nicely settled  in California with her two children by two now (largely because of her) dead men. Things will not stay pleasant for long as the much despiseable Corrine Foxworth (played by Heather Graham again) is out of the nut house and set on "getting her family back". Corrine movies into the creepy old house next door to the Sheffield's and on the down low revels herself to her youngest grandson Bart (Mason Cook does a good job of being a creepy little brat here) who ironically is the child of her late husband. Anyway Corrine, but more so creepy butler John Amos (an equally creepy Mackenzie Gray) poisons Bart's mind until he become an angry, judgmental little creep, who again because context is kept from him causes a lot of problems and speeds along the plot. As with the other film in this series Thornes is high trash with a strong vain of camp, and resembles a rather twisted telenovela. In short I shouldn't like these movies but I do. **1/2

12 Years a Slave (2013)

Seeing 2013's best picture Oscar winner restores me to the statues of having seen each film to win in this category as I already saw Birdman in the theater. A true story 12 Years a Slave is based on Solomon Northup's 1853 memoir of the same title which was a major work in the abolitionist cannon and chronicles the dozen years its author, born a free black man in the north, spent as a slave in the south after having been abducted with the aid of men who claimed to be his friends. It's rough going for Solomon, and also for the audience, because like movies such as Schindler's List,  12 Years a Slave is about exposing its audience to a dark and unpleasant aspect of human history because its just important to know about such things and the viscerality of film is a great way to communicate them. It almost feels wrong to focus on anything but the story here but the cast is a strong one especially Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon and Michael Fassbender as a particularly vicious salve master, and of course Lupita Nyong'o won an Oscar for best supporting actress as Solomon's fellow slave Patsey. The films quite straight forward, what happened to Solomon was simply awful and this film communicates that well and I think will long serve as a convenient reference point for many people as to the reality of slave experience in pre- Civil War America. ****

Life of Pi (2012)

Ang Lee directed this film based on the 2001Canadian fantasy adventure novel of the same name by Yann Martel, which won the Booker Prize. Life of Pi  is not the kind of book one might typically expect to be adapted to a big budget film, its structured kind of odd, and the protagonist is an Indian boy, and there are a lot of animals, and the boy becomes lost at sea with some of them, and one of them is a tiger. The film can be appreciated in a few ways, one of which is as a giant trick on the audience, but I'm going to avoid going into that in any detail save to say the film is kind of a mediation on story telling and the nature of truth. The movies got some great atypical visuals too it and (like the last film I reviewed Five Easy Pieces) it took it a while to get me, but it sure got me. Darned if I can think of another film like it. ***1/2

Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Bob Rafelson was the co-creator of The Monkees music group and TV show, as well as director of the groups 1968 feature film Head. Rafelson evidently wanted to do something quite different from what he'd been doing when he directed his 1970 film Five Easy Pieces, an impressively strong work for what was essentially a first feature, Head excepted. Five Easy Pieces also provided Rafelson with what would become a reputation as a 'one hit wonder' director, as he was never again able to achieve the critical and creative heights of this picture. The plot, which is lose and rambley and works because of that, concerns Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson, strong just as his career was taking off), the black sheep of an established and well respected family of classical musicians, who like many an anti-hero of his era just can't seem to cope with social constraint or obligations. Bobby 2 to 3 years previous to the start of the films narrative, just up and left his (presumably promising) career, home and family in Washington state and traveled to the California oil country were he got a job working on a well, and hooked up with a not-so-bright waitress played by Karen Black.

In course of the film Bobby discovers both that he has impregnated his girlfriend ( a pending source of responsibility he does not want), and that his father, with whom he's never gotten along, has suffered a series of strokes and may be dying back on Puget Sound. Bobby is convinced by his sister (Lois Smith) , the only member of his family he seems to be on good terms with, to travel home and visit his father in a last ditch effort to heal the past. Bobby reluctantly takes Rayette (Karen Black) with him and they have a series of misadventures on the road (including picking up some eccentric hitch-hikers) before arriving in Washington, where Bobby leaves Rayette at a  hotel while he goes ahead to the island to scope out conditions there.

Bobby's return home is awkward, and becomes even akwarder when he takes a fancy to his brothers (Ralph Waite) lover and protégée (Susan Anspach) before a neglected feeling Rayette shows up. This is a film about relationships and also a character study of Bobby and thusly what plot and action there is in the film is there to facilitate that purpose. So there's not a lot else I can tell you about Five Easy Pieces because I don't want to spoil anything and you should probably see it yourself. It's certainly a product of its era but it also patches into larger themes that transcend time and place, and lets face it we all know someone kind of like Bobby. This movie took a little bit to get me, but it certainly got me, and I was impressed. ****

Maleficent (2014)

Having very much enjoyed both Enchanted and Into the Woods I was a bit surprised how truly bored I was by Maleficent. The Disney corporation is a consummate re-user of their existing properties and Maleficent, a kind of revisionist take on the villain from the classic 1959 animated movie Sleeping Beauty, was a box office hit that pretty much ensures that we will be seeing the regular release of live action Disney princess movies for years to come. Perhaps that was my problem, this movie was just not made for me, I am in no way its target audience. This picture doesn't so much subvert its genera conventions as it simply re-routes them. The films star is Angelina Jolie, perfectly cast as Maleficent, we get her sympathetic backstory, and see how the love she gains overtime for the princess she cursed (played age 15-16 by an also perfectly cast Elle Fanning) makes her a better person. By making the villain a kind of hero-turned villain- turned hero the movie attempts to fill the 'villain role' with the Scottish brogue of Sharlto Copley, whose really not an interesting character here. Visually there is a lot to look at, and I can approve of the basic story arc and updating of the stories moral to something more suitable for our time, but speaking for myself, there just wasn't anything here for me to grab onto. But I suppose that's as it should be, this is not a movie for me, this a movie for little girls who love princesses, and my eight year old niece adores it. For her I'm sure its four stars, but for me I'll merely give it **.

Hot Tube Time Machine 2 (2015)

Unnecessary and even cruder sequel to the 2010 sci-fi comedy Hot Tube Time Machine. I liked the original Hot Tube Time Machine, which I thought was oddly clever and more then a little bit sentimental, the sequel however is hurt most by the absence of the previous films star John Cusack, who was the heart of that film and gave it what grounding it had. Absent Cusack, as well as a point, this film is largely about gross out humor and how unpleasant an individual Rob Corddry can make his character. A few mildly clever moments, and Gillian Jacobs not withstanding, this is a bad film which earns its 15% fresh rating on rottentomatos.com. *1/2

Memories of Murder (2003)

Korean language crime-drama set in the rural South Korea of the mid 1980's. The story concerns a group of cops, sometimes at odds, as they attempt to solve a series of rap murders of young girls in the country side. The film is actually based on the real life Hwaseong serial murders which occurred from 1986 to 1991 and were never solved. The film has got an excellent sense of mode and foreboding, is crispy shot with a few visually memorable sequences, is well cast, and really gives one a sense of rural Korean life at that time, aided through the use of pop music, television programs, and real life events from the period. I found the film evoked a vocal reaction from me a couple of times, most prominently when a potential witness is unexpectedly killed in a tragic fashion. This is strong movie making, and I think only the second South Korean film I've ever seen (after Save the Green Planet, also a 2003 release). Worth a look. ***