MORTDECAI MOVIE

REVIEW

Well, as broke as a lord like him can be. After all, he still has a few days to come up with the 8 or 10 million pounds he needs to pay back taxes and the like. But, surely, with a bit of footwork and a little madcap Mortdecai elbow grease he can liquidate some of his estate's lesser artworks and come up with the needed cash.

He's even grown a very dashing mustache to show how serious he is in his quest. All the Mortdecai men, at some point, have grown a splash of debonair facial hair as a way of putting their best face forward, so to speak. And this is Charlie's time.

Now, the fact that his impossibly leggy wife, Johanna, gags every time she even considers kissing his newly hairy upper lip is a tad disconcerting. But he'll work through that. Wasn't it Margaret Thatcher who once said, "Kissing a man without a mustache is like eating an egg without salt"? So that settles it! This is a new look and a new beginning for one Charlie Mortdecai.

And, indeed, no sooner has he grown out the first stages of his suave soup-strainer than his old college friend, MI5 Inspector Martland, approaches him with a case that will surely set his financial house aright. There is a murder to solve and a missing Goya painting to find, it seems. All Charlie need do is use his numerous art dealer contacts and find a few clues to the mystery.

Granted, there's something dark in the midst of this tomfoolery. There are Russian thugs and an international terrorist in the mix. And even rumors of some rather nasty characters seeking out Nazi gold. But pishposh, Charlie can handle himself. Besides, his manservant, Jock, is a loyal sort and good with his fists. Together they can take care of anything dangerous that may pop up along the way.

POSITIVE ELEMENTS

For all their flirtations with the idea of having an affair with someone else, both Charlie and Johanna ultimately make it clear that they're dedicated to their marriage. And both are willing to make sacrifices to maintain that relationship. Jock repeatedly puts himself in danger to fight off Charlie's attackers.

SEXUAL CONTENT

Early on it's stated that Jock has the ability to bed nearly any attractive female he happens upon. To prove it, apparently, we're shown a number of his conquests in various states of undress—from a woman sporting an unbuttoned shirt to a lady dressed in nothing but panties and a cleavage-boosting top. In one case we hear Jock and his girlfriend (for the night) having loud sex in the next room over. And in another we see him and another woman—who turns out to be a newly minted mother who just stepped away for a moment from her husband and child—after they've had sex in an airplane's lavatory.

When Charlie and Jock fly to Los Angeles, Charlie makes note of the fleshy sensuality on display around them (in the form of scantily clad women). "I feel as if we've taken a wrong turn and walked onto the set of a pornographic film," he quips. While in the States, Charlie also meets up with a wealthy American businessman named Krampf and his "nympho" daughter Georgina. Georgina soon invites him to fondle and squeeze her breasts, and later makes other seductive moves on him. Krampf interrupts them but says there will likely still be time for Charlie to have sex with his daughter before dinner. Georgina and another man openly kiss and grope each other.

Johanna and Georgina both wear formfitting and revealing outfits that the camera gladly ogles. Johanna wears skimpy nightclothes, and we see her from the back (waist up) as she slips naked into a bathtub with Charlie. After a flirtatious interaction, Charlie walks out of his wife's bedroom sporting a very visible (clothed) erection. In a flashback, a college student walks in on Johanna and Charlie's sexual interlude. (The pair is naked but strategically covered.) We see a number of classical nude paintings hanging on the walls. Charlie makes mention of attending Eaton University where "b-ggery" was rampant. Thinly veiled sex jokes and double entendres pepper the script, dealing with topics ranging from infidelity to lust.

VIOLENT CONTENT

We see a woman slump over dead after being shot in the back with an arrow. A man keels over on his desk when he's stabbed to death. One thug nearly lops off one of Charlie's fingers with a large knife, and others attempt to do the same to Jock. Mobsters pull down Charlie's pants and move to attach a car battery to his boxer-clad testicles.

On a number of occasions Jock takes on several foes at a time in visceral fistfights, smashing windows, doors, tables, shelves and various other bits of scenery around them. He's set on fire. He's attacked by a Doberman Pinscher. He's shot multiple times.

Various car chases result in lots of smashed sheet metal and people being thrown around. A guy is thumped in the head by a chunk of wood. A man swings a straight razor while fighting in a car. Some stumbling buffoonery results in a chain reaction explosion that blows out an entire hotel room. Somebody gets sprayed in the face with Mace.

CRUDE OR PROFANE LANGUAGE

Two f-words. Three or four uses each of "d--n" and "h---." And one or two each of "b--ch," "b--tard" "bloody" and "b-gger." Unusual yet evocative crudities are used to describe anatomical body parts ("bismark," "bone" and "tagger" among them). Jesus' and God's names are misused a couple of times apiece.

DRUG AND ALCOHOL CONTENT

Charlie generally has a glass of something like port at hand wherever he goes—from his sitting room to the back of his limo to the bathtub. In fact, Charlie directly addresses his unquenchable need for alcohol, saying, "I'll have you know that I am not an alcoholic, I'm a drunkard. There's a difference."

And Charlie's not alone in that department. Nearly everyone else around him is ready to down a glass or two at any bar or social gathering. Even Inspector Martland is instantly eager for a glass of wine, while on duty or not.

Charlie gets injected with some kind of knockout drug. And a vial of some noxious drug is sprinkled over a banquet table, causing some to get violently ill.

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS

That last scene is rife with vomit-filled sight gags.

CONCLUSION

In the mid- to late-1970s, English author Kyril Bonfiglioli created a very popular four-part series of comic-thriller novels about an aristocratic toff of an art dealer who unravels mysteries with the aid of his manservant Jock. To some, I'm sure the prospect of transferring that quirky and dryly British world to the big screen held a lot of promise. And, of course, who else would Hollywood hotshots pick but Johnny Depp to play the lead?

Those moviegoers hoping to step into a farcical, immersive cinematic world filled with jolly good charm and wit, however, are going to be sorely disappointed. Yes, Mr. Depp certainly wraps himself up gleefully in his prancing and roguishly mustachioed narcissistic character. But, quite frankly, words such as charming, witty and, well, even moderately amusing don't apply in the slightest to this film or its cast.

The vintage post-swinging '60s feel that the filmmakers were shooting for never quite congeals other than in the form of a fun musical underscore. The overwrought crime-caper script is rambling and borderline boring. And besides a running mustache gag that's worth a grin or two, the sparse and sometimes shrill humor falls much closer to Austin Powers raunch than Inspector Clouseau madcap.

WHERE HOPE GROWS MOVIE REVIEW

Every warning light on the dashboard of Calvin Campbell's aging Saab is blinking. But the pro baseball player turned unemployed alcoholic isn't paying attention. Not only does he not notice the literal warning lights as he careens down the road, his drinking problem means he's missing the figurative warning lights in his life, too.

His 17-year-old daughter, Katie, for instance, begs to spend time with him. But he's more comfortable hanging out with his bottle, a habit that's propelled his girl into the clutches of a conniving cad named Colt.

Calvin knows that boy's bad news. In his daughter's mind, however, Dad is worse news. "You're a pathetic little man who lives a pathetic little life," she tells him after picking him up drunk from the police station one night. She has no interest in his slurred apology, and she scorches him with this bitter shot: "I just want to make sure you know I've given up on you."

Calvin's perilously close to giving up on himself, too, of course. But then something unexpected happens: He meets Produce.

Produce is an employee at the local ValuMart. An employee who happens to have Down syndrome. We never learn his real name, but we certainly learn how he got his supermarket moniker: Produce knows produce. Every SKU number. Every detail about fresh products. "A tomato is a fruit," Produce corrects Calvin one day after the older man accidentally steps on one and apologizes for smashing what he thinks is a vegetable.

And at the end of that encounter, Produce hugs Calvin, saying, "Have a magnificent day."

It's been a long time since Calvin Campbell's had a magnificent day. Hugs have been in equally short supply. But as his unlikely friendship with Produce deepens each time he goes to the store to buy booze—which is every day—it prompts Calvin to ponder the possibility of something other than the drunken, disappointing and dysfunctional life he's drifted into.

Naturally, Calvin's got to hit bottom before he pays any real attention to those flashing warning lights—and there's a lot of drama on the way down before he takes his first redemptive steps back up.

PITCH PERFECT 2 MOVIE

REVIEW

It's been three years since the Barden University Bellas won their first a cappella national title. And what a three years it's been. They're the royalty of the U.S. a cappella establishment, winning awards year after year while traveling to events all around the country. It's been such a blissful stretch that one of the group's leaders, Chloe, is now happily embarking on her seventh year of college—relentlessly shifting majors and class loads just so she can keep lilting with her golden-throated BFFs.

This is the year, however, that calamity strikes.

During a special performance—in front of the president of the United States and his family, no less—Fat Amy has a major wardrobe malfunction. Make that a wardrobe nuclear holocaust. While hanging suspended from the auditorium ceiling by bands of silk, she slips, splits her tights open and reveals to the crowd, well, let's just say it this way: that she isn't wearing any underwear.

This embarrassing mishap not only makes national headlines, it also gets the Bellas totally banned from any further domestic a cappella competitions. The devastated singers have only one chance at redemption: they must do what no other American team has ever done before and win the World A Cappella Championships in Copenhagen.

And if you think that'll be tough, you ain't just whistling Dixie ... with eight-part syncopated harmony.

In fact, at this point it appears to be something of an impossible feat. For the humiliated Bellas seem to have lost their musical mojo. The group's arranger and mash-up mastermind, Beca, has all but checked out as she works toward a post-graduation music career. And on top of that, an impressive German group appears nearly unbeatable.

POSITIVE ELEMENTS

As the girls work to rebuild their group, they realize how important it is to enjoy the time they have together—to value one another's skills and friendship. And some of them, Chloe and Beca at the fore, come to realize that taking the next step in life can be a rewarding, even if difficult, experience.

SEXUAL CONTENT

We see Fat Amy and a guy named Bumper kiss and roll around on top of each other. It's implied that they regularly sneak away for sexual trysts. Seeing far less than her presidential audience sees, we still catch a glimpse of Amy's bare backside when her costume rips.

One of the Bellas is an openly gay girl who eyes several of her cohorts seductively and later admits to secretly touching one of the other girl's "goodies" while they're camping out and all sleeping together. A new Bella recruit named Emily talks about the five-octave range her mother and father managed to sing out while having sex.

In rehearsals the Bellas wear yoga pants, and the camera takes time to ogle their backsides. The Das Sound Machine group often wears mesh shirts that showcase guys' bare chests and girls' cleavage. During a sing-off, various groups compete in the category of "Songs About Butts." A guys' a cappella group sings an innuendo-laden song about girls "sucking too hard."

There are a number of jokes and puns about straight, gay and transgendered sex, as well as some lowbrow talk about body parts, erections, etc.

VIOLENT CONTENT

The girls experience a few pratfall thumps during campsite teambuilding exercises.

CRUDE OR PROFANE LANGUAGE

One use of "effing" and a handful of s-words. We also hear several uses each of "a--," "d--n," "b--ch" and "h---." "Oh my god" is spit out a half-dozen times. References to genitalia include "d--k." Fat Amy flips her middle finger at someone. A girl is called an "Asian Jesus."

DRUG AND ALCOHOL CONTENT

These co-eds (some of them still teens) drink beer and hard liquor at a couple of different parties and a singing competition.

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS

There are lots of crude gags tossed around about Amy's televised crotch exposure. (The explicit visual documentation is kept just out of our sight.) Amy blasts out several scatological quips about camping without toilet paper. And this cast isn't above loosing a few globally minded ethnic slurs.

CONCLUSION

The world-famous Danish author Hans Christian Andersen once said, "Where words fail, music speaks." And from a certain perspective, this movie backs that up.

If the pic contained nothing more than its current collection of tightly choreographed and gorgeously arranged a cappella mash-ups—strung together, say, with reflective moments of unvarnished silence—well, we might start talking about whether or not we could really call this flick pitch perfect.

Unfortunately, there are all those other ... words to contend with.

Just like its cinematic predecessor, Pitch Perfect 2 has a few genuinely funny moments and some likeable characters. But most of those unnecessarily wordy parts—where the tuneful collegians have to talk instead of sing—are packed full of randy-to-raunchy pun beats and laugh-line low-notes. And that's saying nothing further about Fat Amy's "accident." Or even her nickname.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD MOVIE

REVIEW

Those are the currencies in Mad Max's world—liquid assets, if you will. Water and gas are rare wonders in this dry, dusty dystopia—the elements that keep its people alive and their vehicles moving. Blood is cheaper and easier to come by; of value only to the person to whom it belongs, and sometimes not even him. But there are those who crave the blood, who treat it like a narcotic biofuel.

Immortan Joe built his empire on these three commodities. He hoards the water inside his stone citadel. Sometimes he'll open the floodgates and allow it to gush from the rocks, where his serfs below can lap it up. He relies on raids for his gasoline, sending out war parties in their makeshift machines to pillage and steal precious fuel. The blood is for his War Boys, white-bleached zealots who form his army's spine. They love the stuff, and so Immortan Joe keeps them happy with a steady supply.

Yes, Immortan Joe is a rich, rich man. He owns everything of value in this picked-over world, including the women. He keeps several "breeders" in his citadel, for both his amusement and his legacy. There's nothing he'd like more than to have a bevy of Immortan Joe Jr.'s all set to inherit his broken kingdom.

So when one of his most trusted generals, Imperator Furiosa, absconds with the women and speeds into the desert driving one of Joe's most intimidating war machines, the Immortan one takes issue. He sends his army out to retrieve his stolen goods, with he himself taking the lead. His War Boys are thrilled: They pick up their steering wheels, strap a few living "blood bags" to the front of their vehicles and settle in for a few hours of glorious carnage.

POSITIVE ELEMENTS

Mad Max: Fury Road is as bleak as all get-out. But if you dig into the dust of this flick, you'll find that it's actually (just like its predecessors) about hope. Sure, the world's been shattered, but maybe, somewhere, there's a little glue to piece some of it back together.

First piece: The idea that people are not property, no matter what Immortan Joe says. "We are not things!" Joe's wives insist. Furioso believes that to be true, and so she rescues them and promises to take them to a "green place of many mothers." It's a risky mission. She admits that she's looking for redemption—a way, perhaps, to make up for all the nasty things she's done in Joe's employ. And, frankly, she's more a consistent hero here than the titular one.

See, Max starts off a little crazy. He says that the stress of this broken world distilled his motivations to one very simple instinct: "survive." But as he spends more time with Furioso and her truckload of beautiful stowaways, he begins acting more self-sacrificially. He risks his life for them and, when given a chance to go his own way, continues on with them—helping them to see what they all hope is a more promising future.

Their example seems to rub off on their cargo. During the course of this adventure, Joe's "breeders" become more than pretty, objectified playthings. They become helpmates, sometimes putting themselves in harm's way for the benefit of others. They also stress the value of all life, even the lives of their enemies, begging Max and Furioso to not kill needlessly.

A War Boy named Nux has a change of heart, too: After he falls out of Joe's good graces, he finds a new purpose with Max and Furioso.

SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Immortan Joe styles himself as a sort of savior-god. "It is from my hand that you will rise from the ashes of this world!" he thunders to his serfs before bestowing upon them his "gift" of water. He promises his War Boys that if they fight and die well for him, he will meet them in Valhalla (the violent Norse heaven), perhaps leading them through the gates himself.

The War Boys believe his shtick: When Joe casts a glance in Nux's direction, the pale rider sounds like an 8-year-old boy who got a real Iron Man suit for Christmas. They go to their deaths with zealous glee, coating their mouths with chrome spray so they'll look their shiny best when they arrive in the afterlife. They seem to pray before a pile of steering wheels.

The good guys are not so superstitious. When one of Joe's ex-wives prays, another woman asks her, "To who?" "Anyone that's listening," she responds.

SEXUAL CONTENT

The women taken captive by Joe are referred to as both "wives" and "breeders," and he regularly calls them his "property." They are indeed his sexual slaves, and he forces them to always dress provocatively. Cloth or leather covers critical areas, but legs, shoulders and midriffs are frequently bared, and sometimes those bits of critical cloth aren't very thick. Each woman initially wears what looks to be a fearsome, teeth-lined chastity belt. (They remove them at the earliest opportunity.)

Joe also keeps a number of heavy, well-endowed women on hand for their breast milk. We see their breasts and the devices used to milk them. (Characters both drink and wash their faces in the milk.) Max, Furioso and the rest happen upon a naked woman in a crane-like tower, begging to be released. (We see her from the side and rear.)

VIOLENT CONTENT

Mad Max: Fury Road is, essentially, a two-hour car chase through the wastelands of Armageddon. It stops only reluctantly for the occasional breather. And the violence it proffers is sporadically extreme.

A good chunk of someone's face is ripped away at one point, with the camera giving us glimpses of the resulting gore and blood. Max is shot through the hand by a crossbow bolt. Chained to an unconscious War Boy, he tries to shoot the guy's hand off (but the shotgun doesn't work). People hang upside down from Joe's citadel ceiling, providing blood for the War Boys. Some of the bodies don't look like they're still all there—a suggestion, perhaps, that they're being slowly eaten, too. (There's no indication that many of these folks are alive.)

War Boys are analogous to today's suicide bombers, and they consider it a point of honor to die in battle. As such, we see one warrior leap onto a flaming porcupine of a car to blow the thing up. Another fills his own vehicle with gas, planning to smash into a massive war machine, Kamikaze style. People are shot, slashed, stabbed, choked, run over, die in cataclysmic explosions and are thrown around by storms. One man is smashed repeatedly by a piece of machinery.

Lots of the combatants here are women, including (of course) Furioso. That means that much of this violence is perpetrated by or against them. Furioso and Max themselves tangle, hitting, kicking and trying to strangle each other.

We see Max remove a hook from his neck. When someone's lung begins to collapse, Max stabs her in the side to help her breathe, then transfuses his own blood into her (via a pain-inducing makeshift IV) so she'll survive. He stomps on a lizard and seems to eat it while it's still squirming.

Joe demands that a dying pregnant woman's child be cut from her body. It is (offscreen). When the baby also dies, we see its body carelessly discarded like refuse. (The umbilical cord becomes a plaything.)

CRUDE OR PROFANE LANGUAGE

What with all the explosions and such, there's not a lot of room for dialogue in Fury Road. And what there is is often muffled by the cacophony of kabooms. But we still hear characters utter one instance each of the words "b-llocks" and "f-g," and perhaps a full-blown f-word as well.

DRUG AND ALCOHOL CONTENT

As mentioned, the War Boys seem to treat blood as a kind of narcotic. One such warrior is eager to take a half-crazed Max out on the warpath with him (they're connected via a chain and a thin tube), believing that Max's madness will make him super-aggressive, too.

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS

Several people are burdened with horrific infirmities, including bulbous bumps and boils and grotesquely swollen ankles. People spit in others' faces. Max occasionally "sees" frightening flashes of his dead daughter as a wraith or skeletonized specter.

CONCLUSION

Mel Gibson may no longer be Mad Max, the mantel now having fallen to big, glowering Tom Hardy. But even though the defining star of the series has long since driven out of the frame, Fury Road may well be the most Mad Maxian of all the movies. All of the series' elements are supersized here. Crazy vehicles? Crazier. Creepy, theatrically dressed villains? Creepier, more theatrically dressed. Bloody action? Bloodier.

Director George Miller takes what fans loved about the now-classic series and blows it up like a supersized balloon, and the results have triggered a litany of glowing reviews. One such write-up, published on southcoasttoday.com, declared that "Mad Max: Fury Road will leave your inner 12-year-old giggling with glee."

Now, hold on there one minute, bub. Isn't Fury Road rated R? When you set it up beside Avengers: Age of Ultron, doesn't it look a wee bit like Saw on wheels? Should we really be saying that Fury Road is made for tweens, inner or not?

Look, there's no question Fury Road has its merits, including that thread of hope I mentioned earlier. And for an R-rated movie, it is actually more restrained than it could've been. But we should not lose sight of the brutal fact that this movie caters to our childish affection for frenetic activity and explosions with some very disturbing content in tow. The world of Mad Max, for all the ludicrous dystopian license it takes, is a world that's designed to haunt and shock. If the movie's endgame is to show us 10 minutes of humanity in an inhuman world, let's not forget that 110 minutes is filled with some terrible inhumanity indeed.

Two days, one night

Marion Cotillard is fighting for his job and his dignity in this magnificent film of the Dardenne brothers Belgium

Let me be clear with you all, with severe allergies to European art films: two days, one night - one of the best of them, by the way - is in French with English subtitles . His Oscar-winning star Marion Cotillard, is indeed a hottie. But the Belgian cinema brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, are not interested in that. For all of two days, one night, the brothers Cotillard go door to door, trying to get his job. Yes, that's the plot. No sex, no prosecution, no cyberterrorism. Just people interact.

Now that I'm scared cats, let me continue Cotillard plays Sandra, the wife of Manu (Fabrizio Rongione), a kitchen worker and mother of their two children. Sandra is a worker bee, proud to have landed and kept his job in a factory of solar panels. Now on Friday, she learned that her work will be eliminated. The company foreman (Olivier Gourmet), eager to empty Sandra after a recent bout of depression kept her at home, has asked 16 colleagues Sandra: either eliminate the work of Sandra or lose their annual bonus in 1000 euros. On a secret ballot vote of 14 to two, she was ousted. In desperation, she orchestrates a weekend plan to win votes in September and resume work on Monday morning.

That's the movie. Sandra pleaded with the camera on his tail like a Dardenne drone. Amazingly, it all works. From the theme of reducing global workforce, the filmmakers wring humor, grief, suspense and social drama stirring. Cotillard, consummate actress, will be a natural in the world of work by the Dardenne brothers (Rosetta, The Son, The Kid with a Bike). His character is popping Xanax, begging colleagues whose problems overshadow his own, or sitting in a car listening to rock, Cotillard is magnificent, its bright eyes reflecting a soul in crisis. The Dardenne brothers created great cinematic miracles on minute details for Promise in 1996, this film places with their finest. Two days, one night is a movie for its time, bristling with dangers and life to all flicker of human decency.

Big Eyes

Waif painter Margaret Keane finally gets his due, courtesy of Tim Burton and Amy Adams

Amy Adams is picture perfect as Margaret Keane, a muffled artist who might have remained just another unfortunate outbreak in 1950 if it did not have the courage to give the boot to his lie husband, Walter (Christoph Waltz ). It was Margaret who painted these portraits sad wrecks, saucer eyes that left the cold art critics. It was Walter who marketed low so-called art of his wife in a jackpot industry. What Margaret was tousled as Walter took credit for painting, and worse for years, she leaves him. "People do not buy art lady," said Walter him.

Big Eyes could have been a Lifetime Movie friendly exploitation of women. It becomes something scrappier, deeper and memorable comedic and touching is due to radiant Adams, who never patron Margaret, and director Tim Burton, who gives the film the brightness of a fable laced with threat . For Burton, Big Eyes is a bookend to his brilliant 1994 movie Ed Wood, also written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, and also a monument to kitsch art triumphant.

What is a girl to do? With ex threatening a custody battle, she married Walter, who persuades hungry i nightclub owner Enrico Banducci (Jon Polito) to show Margaret paintings in his famous establishment, right next to the toilet. The work of Margaret really takes off when Walter hit on the idea of ​​selling them at a lower cost, posters and calendars.

The conflict occurs when the runner petticoats Walter becomes increasingly violent and Margaret leaves him, setting up shop in Hawaii, becoming a Jehovah's Witness and spread the truth on a radio in a 1970 interview that she is only painter in the family. All this leads to a hilarious sequence in which test and Margaret inglorious bastard must be painted before the judge. Burton transforms the spectacle of watching Walter squirm in pleasure crowdpleasing without skimping on the human toll taken on a woman forced to lead a life of darkness.

Waltz hams it in high style, though somewhat more restraint would have Margaret seem less deceived fall for a man whose only art is the con. It is Adams, who restores our rooting interest in showing us steel, even in the reserve Margaret. It is a haunting performance transparency.

Clearly Burton sympathize, less irony, with Margaret fervent belief in what one critic called "the great, expired candy" it puts on the canvas. A recent showing of the work of Burton in New York Museum of Modern Art attracted long lines and critical brickbats. Maybe the reason Big Eyes for all its tonal shifts and erratic rhythm, seems like the most personal and sincere film from Burton years, a tribute to the desire that pushes even the most marginalized artist to self-expression, no matter what anyone thinks hell. Walter died in 2000, without the creative output. Margaret, 87, still painting every day Burton gives him the sweetest reward in Big Eyes. the last laugh.

A most violent year

Oscar Isaac is determined to achieve the American dream or die tryin 'in this tense crime drama New York

The problems of an independent fuel company may seem small potatoes. But they mean much to Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) in a most violent year, located in the cold of winter 1981 New York, where the crime infiltrated everything, bed boardroom. Abel, an immigrant to live the American dream, wants to play legitimate things. But his competitors will not let him. They know that he has 30 days to repay a loan on a beachfront storage facility. They know he panicked someone hijacking his truck and beat on its drivers. In addition, the DA (David Oyelowo) is on its ass. Abel, who wears a costume camel coat and bought a new house for wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) and their daughters, is pressed - hard. Tension coiled and ready to pounce.

This is the setting for this gripping third feature of writer-director JC Chandor (Margin Call, all is lost). Here Chandor walking cobbled streets mean by Sidney Lumet (Prince of the City) and James Gray (The Yards). The action - a shooting on a bridge, a chase on an elevated train - is aces. But Chandor marks its territory with a more meditative pace. Abel tried to compromise by his lawyer (a superb Albert Brooks). But violence comes from Anna, the daughter Mob reacts as she is.

Chastain is a good killer, shooting out of his mouth like a bomb Brooklyn: "You will not like what happens when I get involved." And Isaac is a central implosive. Chandor giving him the space to develop psychological torment that affect devilishly. Evocative pulled by the assistant Selma Bradford Young, A most violent year reflects a world where nothing is held sacred. You look tense with nerves, holding tight.

Uninterrupted

Angelina Jolie does justice to the history of Olympic runner-turned-POW in this intense drama WWII

This project of passion for Angelina Jolie shines in every picture with his unwavering love for Louis Zamperini and his courage under fire. Zamperini pneumonia died in July at 97, but not before Jolie showed her a rough cut of the film on his laptop. If you never read Unbroken 2010 bestselling author Lauren Hillenbrand Seabiscuit on the life of Louis, here's a quick overview: High in Torrance, California, the son of Italian immigrants, Louis was a bad boy for the prison or worse until his older brother turned him in the race. He was good at it, competition in track at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin (Hitler remarked). During World War II, he enlisted in the Air Force. When his B-24 went down in the Pacific, Louis survived on a life raft for 47 days until he and other scarification were captured by the Japanese, then starved and tortured for two years in a camp POW.

I could go on, that the book is describing PTSD and alcoholism Louis until Billy Graham helped him find God. But Jolie wisely ends his movie with the war, which still leaves enough material to fill a mini-series or two. Critics accuse him of Hillenbrand to mount blatantly surface tale inspired Louis. Jolie, working from a script polish by no less than the Coen brothers needed to dig deeper, which means that she had to find the right actor to play Louis. His choice, Jack O'Connell, justifies his faith. O'Connell (Favorite Up) is a British dynamo with the instinct of a true actor to get inside the head of a character. On raft with compatriot Phil airmen (Domhnall Gleeson) and Mac (Finn Wittrock), it was Louis who brings a ray of hope while the sharks circle also relentlessly than despair. O'Connell shows us how hard earned that hope is.

In only his second feature film as director, following the tragedy of Bosnia of 2011 the Land of Blood and Honey, Jolie shows remarkable confidence and compassion. She excels in the vicious camp scenes (PG-13 pushed to the limit), in which Louis meeting Watanabe, aka Bird, a sadistic guard whose love / hate for Olympic athlete is terribly perverse. Japanese rock star Miyavi (born Takamasa Ishihara) plays his first role on screen with mesmerizing brilliance, making physical elegance bird striking contrast to the savagery of his inhuman punishment.

Unbroken is beautifully crafted even in its brutality. A sequence near the end of the war, when Louis and prisoners of war were confined to a river waiting to be killed in mass memory is scarring. Jolie has an army of artisans in his corner, including the poet camera Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men). But it is his vision that gives Unbroken spirit that hovers. In honoring endurance Louis, she trusted.

Predestination

Ethan Hawke must stop the murders before they happen in this trippy, trip into science fiction time romp

To try and wrap your head around the plot of predestination can only lead to madness. Make no mistake: The film itself is a journey. Just jump off the cliff and go with the Spierig brothers, Peter and Michael, as they whoosh through the labyrinth of their own fervent imaginations. If you're stuck and feeling lost - and you - do not worry. As writers and directors, brothers of German origin, high-Aussie had a solid starting place of predestination: 1960 the news of Robert A. Heinlein All You Zombies. Then they take it from there. Boy, did they ever.

Ethan Hawke, his mesmerizing best, stars as the temporal agent, a time traveler with a mission to stop future murders before they can occur. Before you can say Looper, the agent tends bar in New York in 1970 and flirt a guy (Sarah Snook) who writes stories of magazines under the slogan "The single mother." The backstory of the Mother is to grow an orphanage in Cleveland in 1940. Stay with me. Mother is really an intersex creature forced to transition to male form in bizarre circumstances that involve the government the space of the 1960 experience, a ...

Look, I could go on. It is better that you engage in this tale and cogitate about it later. If Getting Stoned help, so be it. One thing is certain: you will not be able to take your eyes Snook, an Australian actress who makes whatever the sex, she plays almost irrelevant. You his watch. You hear it. You think. It is a performance of dynamite. Hawke, who has worked with the Spierigs on 2010 Daybreakers, gravitates to films that do not play by the rules. Predestination sure as hell does not. Any frustration you feel about losing your bearings fades final blow in front of the film.