Reviews

It's an unwritten rule that a filmmaker who's starting out fresh and with a promising debut might not have lightning strike twice with a follow-up project. The third time's the charm, but not for director and then-infamous NYU film school dropout Matty Rich because he hasn't made a feature film since the 1994 coming-of-age dramedy, "The Inkwell", which has an uneven tone that hurts its own good heart. I haven't seen this movie since it was aired on a premium cable channel when I was in college. Looking at it now, my opinion hasn't changed, even with the current call for more diversity in cinema.

It's the summer of 1976, the bicentennial of America's founding (some will argue about it now with the 1619 project), yet Andrew "Drew" Tate (Larenz Tate of "Menace II Society" and the TV series "Power") doesn't feel like celebrating. He's a smart yet lonely, 16-year-old African-American kid from upstate New York whose argumentative parents, former Black Panther activist Kenny (Emmy-winner Joe Morton of "Scandal", "The Brother From Another Planet" and "Zack Snyder's Justice League") and bourgeoise-born Brenda (the late Suzanne Douglas of "The Parent 'Hood") are fearful that, after an experiment gone wrong, their child is a budding pyromaniac. It doesn't help Drew has and talks to a doll dubbed Iago (nice Shakespeare reference) that's his only friend in the world.

To blow off steam, the Tate family heads to Martha's Vineyard, specifically the movie's title, a predominately wealthy African-American enclave where Brenda's sister Francis (Vanessa Bell Calloway) and brother-in-law Spencer (Glynn Turman of "A Different World" and "The Wire") live. Kenny and Spencer come to political and racial blows ("Harlem hoodlums", Spencer labels Malcolm X and his followers), despite who they are. Meanwhile, Drew finds love with pretty but snooty child star Lauren (Jada Pinkett, also from "Society" and "The Matrix Saga") yet has an "interesting" friendship with an older woman (Adrienne Joi Johnston), who's in a bad marriage with a cad (Morris Chestnut of "The Resident").

"The Inkwell" is a great example of where there are good intentions, but the execution is off the tracks. The film's original screenwriter, Trey Ellis ("The Tuskegee Airmen") took issue with Rich's participation in the production because he previously directed the urban drama, "Straight Out of Brooklyn" (it introduced Lawrence Gillard Jr. Who would later starred in "The Wire"), which, though a shaggy dog, brilliant indie film, is far away from the heart of "Inkwell". There was also the generational gap between himself (a baby boomer) and Rich (a Gen-Xer) and Rich's lack of directorial training and hard experience (some shots linger too long). Paris Qualles (some episodes of "Amen" and "China Beach") was brought on to polish the script, forcing Ellis to have his name replaced with the pseudonym, Tom Ricostronza, the surname meaning "full of excrement". He might have a point with the awkward combination of broad humor (supplied partly by Duane Martin, who plays Drew's horndog cousin, Spencer Jr.) that should have been less and pathos that should have been more (the abyss between Brenda and her mother, played the late Mary Alice, also of "The Matrix Saga", is an untapped subplot and the therapy session between Drew and Dr. Wade, played by Phyllis Yvonne Stickley, feels thin). The acting is serviceable, with Tate, Morton, and Turman as the standouts.

The story takes its' ending from the more competent "Summer Of '42", yet it seems like a convenient set-up for the main character who deserves more in a world that doesn't quite have a place for him. I can relate to Drew's growing pains myself, and I can give "The Inkwell" some credit for being one of those few African-American coming-of-age films that show a young black man who's not in "the game" (Gordon Parks' "The Learning Tree" is a monolith more filmmakers should strive to emulate), but I wish it was directed by someone who had cinematic competency and a script that was allowed to embrace its own good, somber heart.

I don't get it.

I don't understand the ire that the seventh film by madcap fanboy filmsmith Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) has earned. Having two of the biggest pop culture icons and comic book superheroes in a big-budgeted movie is enough, isn't it? Sure, "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" doesn't have a Shane Black/William Goldman bromance, where the duo argue yet get along to save the day, but a Kevin Smith/Sam Peckinpah bromance have the same goals, but have different, individualistic methods that cause them to lock horns. I prefer the second type because the first one is so familiar.

It's been almost two years since the events of "Man Of Steel" (another mistreated and misunderstood film) and Superman/Clark Kent (an earnest Henry Cavill of "Immortals" and "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.") is a well-meaning wrecking ball to the world, doing his best to save lives from natural and man-produced disasters, yet, like the movie, divides humanity on whether to praise or persecute him. Two men of power choose the latter and get really close. Philanthropic billionaire Bruce Wayne (an impressive Ben Affleck of "Dogma" and "Argo"), who's also Gotham City's mysterious vigilante, the Batman, sees the Kryptonian, due to the dead and injured in Metropolis, as a threat to humanity. However, scientific industrialist Alexander "Lex" Luthor (Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg of "The Social Network" and "Café Society") is more selfish and dangerously egotistical, being a Machiavellian puppeteer to discredit both heroes in each other's eyes and the public's, making the Big Two clash. The "Thriller in Manila 2.0"?

Like "Watchmen", "Batman vs. Superman", this 182 minute, light R-rated cut, fails at being a simplistic, action-adventure romp with spandex and armor, but succeeds at being a social commentary, with a labyrinth mystery inside, about superheroes existing in the real, post Sept. 11 world, loosely adapting Frank Miller's "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" and Dan Jurgens's "The Death of Superman". It's nice to have the Blue Boy Scout save a child from a burning building and slam an African warlord through a wall, saving his girlfriend, intrepid newshound Lois Lane (button cute Amy Adams of "Big Eyes" and "Junebug"), but the world-level risks and consequences are there, echoed by cynical media pundits on 24-hour cable news. Meanwhile, it's cool to see the Batman save a group of women from a human exploiter, but he puts fear in said women and some residents of Gotham City as he does to the criminals, and no one cares,save for a hypocritical Clark Kent. With a socially/politically aware script by David Goyer (the Dark Knight saga) and Chris Terrio (the Oscar-winning "Argo"), Snyder (who, with Affleck, obviously ghost-polished the script) expertly juggles the balls of fantasy and reality.

His actors are game. Affleck's haunted and haunting here as Wayne/Batman, wanting to make a difference after two decades of fighting crime yet losing a partner to an arch foe (hint, hint). Cavill's good-hearted Kent/Superman wants to make a difference too, but is surrounded by cynics who prove more deadly than the Kryptonite Luthor retrieves from the remains of the Kryptonian tech from "Steel". Only Adams's Lois and Diane Lane's ("The Outsiders", "Untraceable") Martha Kent are on his side, providing Frank Capra-ish love and wisdom. Though he's a jittery curve ball under a millennial chassis, Eisenberg's Luthor is still a perfect combo of Gordon Gecko and Donald Trump (with a pinch of Don King),spreading fear while benefitting from it. Wry humor's nicely provided by Jeremy Irons ("Die Hard With A Vengeance", "Being Julia") as Wayne's right hand man, Alfred Pennyworth and Laurence Fishburne (the Matrix saga, "Blackish") as Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White while down-to-earth anguish and helplessness is expertly handled by Holly Hunter ("The Piano", "Raising Arizona") as a U.S. senator concerned with Superman's existence and Scoot McNairy ("Monsters") as a victim of the collateral damage by Superman and General Zod (Michael Shannon shows up as a corpse here) in "Steel". Geeks will grin at the appearance of mercenary KGBeast (Callan Mulvey, sans tights) and Luthor's bodyguard, Mercy Graves (Tak Okumoto). I wish there was more of Jena Malone ("Sucker Punch" the Hunger Games films) as Lois's quirky FBI tech friend.

And yes…Gal Gadot (the "Fast and Furious" saga) is the equalizer as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, a 5,000 year-old Amazon powerhouse who's incognito as an antique dealer. She's tired of war and fears Luthor will find and exploit her, via a vintage photo from World War I. Smart, tough, flirtatious and flirtable, she's the bridge to the formation of DC Comics's own prestige superhero group, the Justice League. Lightning bolt The Flash (Ezra Miller of "City Island), Atlantean monarch Aquaman (Jason Momoa of "Bullet To The Head") and mechanical hybrid Cyborg (stage actor Ray Turner) make fun video file cameos. "The Walking Dead" actors Jeffrey Dean Morgan (an" Watchmen" alum) and Lauren Cohan have eye wink parts as the doomed Thomas and Martha Wayne. Other "Watchmen" alum show up in voice: Carla Gugino as the Kryptonian computer and Patrick Wilson as the U.S. President. Kevin Costner ("Silverado", "JFK") reprises his role as Jonathan Kent as an wise, inner apparition to Clark.

If "Man of Steel" didn't exist, I would agree with the complainers who wanted the Big Two to have a small row and be "buddy-buddy", but, being smart and unspoiled, I appreciate "Batman vs. Superman" for being smart, sexy, egalitarian, socially conscious, socially honest, politically aware, wry humorous, action-packed (the fight scenes supervised by Damon Caro are keen), refreshingly adult and shamelessly comic book fan-centric. It's one of the best of 2016, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The appearance of a biracial man in the Oval Office (two-terms!) sadly hasn't simmer down racial strife in the country since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. That, along with recent fatal shootings involving African-American men and police officers, shows that society has a long way to go. One film perfectly notes that: the film version of Gordon Parks's partially biographical, poignant and powerful, coming-of-age tale, "The Learning Tree".

It's an interesting coming-of-age tale because it focuses on two African-American boys, who are quite different: the curious, good-natured and sensitive Newt Winger (Kyle Johnson, son of Nichelle Nichols of "Star Trek: The Original Series") and the volatile, bitter and frustrated Marcus Savage (Alex Clarke, who could have been mistaken for a teenage James Earl Jones) try to live and survive in the hamlet of Cherokee Falls, Kansas of the 1920s, which isn't quite the Jim Crow South, but it's not a liberal-minded northern metropolis. The backgrounds of each boy are the basis of their yin and yang personalities. Newt has a stern ranch hand father (Felix Nelson of "The Ballad Of Cable Hogue"), a kind mother (Estelle Evans of "To Kill A Mockingbird") who's the housemaid for the local judge (Russell Thorson of "Hang 'Em High), a wise blind uncle (Joel M. Fluellen of "The Great White Hope"), an ideal big brother (Phillip Roye of "Black Caesar") and a sassy but concerned sister (Saundra Sharp of "Minstrel Man").

Marcus, whose surname sadly fits him, has none of them, save for a booze hound junkyard owner of a father (Richard Ward of "Across 110th St" and "For Pete's Sake"), whose irresponsibility leaves Marcus open to trouble, causing it (he bullies Newt and three other boys into stealing apples from a farmer's land) and attracting it (Dana Elcar, later of "MacGyver", is pretty effective as the motorcycle-riding racist sheriff Kirky), leading to temporary incarceration in a juvenile reformatory and later janitorial work in a shabby bordello. Newt has his conflicts: college aspirations are deterred by a stubbornly bigoted teacher while his first love is sexually deflowered by one of the Judge's two sons, a careless lothario. When a man is killed and another framed by Marcus's father, both boys will come together at a boiling point.

Having the reputation of being a famed photographer for Life magazine, an prose author and a documentary director, Parks (the first two "Shaft" films, "The Super Cops", "Leadbelly") was the perfect candidate to cine-adapt his novel, becoming the first African-American to direct a big studio film (Warner Bros.) "Tree" may come off like an episode of "Little House On The Prairie" (Kevin Hagen, who plays the town's doctor here, later played Doc Hiram Baker on "Prairie") meets an episode of "Peyton Place" with its' cornball sentimentality, but the film's perfectly solid with Parks (wrote, produced, directed and composed the film's music score!) at the helm. He even got cinematographer Burnett Gurney (worked on many classic films from Columbia Pictures, including "From Here To Eternity" and "Gidget") to capture the beautiful atmosphere of the countryside. Most of the cast is obviously from the theater and may come off stiff as some points, but it's nice and pleasant to see African-Americans portrayed non-stereotypically. I related to Johnson as Newt, a daydreamer who's trying to find his way in the world by asking questions and sharing his feelings. By doing that, he forces his high school principal and the judge to admit that the system, for lack of a better word, is screwed up. Marcus reminds me of boys I knew, angry at their predicament and helpless to change, sadly dooming themselves to a tragic fate. Having the boys' opposing characteristics make the film almost like a Sam Peckinpah film (stock actor Dub Taylor has an appearance as shady boxing ring promoter at a local carnival).

Like the book, the film version of "The Learning Tree" should be required in every school, especially if it has African-American students. It's all too important and riveting at this time.

It's more than obvious that when people go to their local movie house on rent/buy a DVD, they don't want to think about anything, aside from having a good time. Fair enough, but being voluntarily stupid doesn't exactly contribute to society. Message films today are kind of looked upon as "pro-Commie, bleeding heart propaganda" (thanks, Fox News), but they still have a place in the world. One of them is "Elysium", Neill Blomkamp's slam-bam yet thoughtful follow-up to his Oscar-nominated "District 9".

Like the song by the funk band, War, the world has become a ghetto by the year 2154, due to disease, pollution and overpopulation, and anyone big-pocketed has high-tailed it to a halo-shaped space station, its' name shared with the film's title, decked with Beverly Hills-like mansions, servant and security droids and rejuvenation chambers. Any "undesirables" are quickly shot down, under the command of Delacourt (Jodie Foster, "Taxi Driver", "Flightplan") the station's secretary of defense.

The fly is in the ointment happens to Max Dacosta (Matt Damon, the "Jason Bourne" saga, "Dogma"), an ex-thief turn robot factory worker, who's dying of radiation poisoning after a work-related accident. Refitted with an exo-suit by "smugglers", he's sent to capture and download financial intel from the brain of his apathetic ex-boss (William Fichtner, "Prison Break", "Drive Angry") as payment for his journey to the space station, but the intel's actually a reset program for said station as the ingredient for a coup, making Max a target for DelaCourt and her field soldier, the sociopathic Kruger (Sharlto Copley, "District 9", "The A-Team Movie").

Like "District 9", which allegorized apartheid in South Africa, "Elysium" brilliantly allegorizes illegal immigration, social division and healthcare. Did it have to take a South African-born filmsmith to make a sci-fi satire about the aforementioned topics? Guess so, else the film's wouldn't had a sharp edge, the space station being a pristine heaven while Earth's a garbage-encrusted, decaying hell. Production designer Phillip Ivey captures that division, especially in the look of the technology. No one here's in exactly good or bad, just opportunistic, noting how society can fall so low. Damon fits in a role Bruce Willis could have played to a T; Foster echoes Sigourney Weaver with pure coldness and Copley, the 21st Century's Bruce Campbell, is both bottle-cap sardonic and sinister. They're helped by Alice Braga ("Repo Men") as an old childhood love of Max; Diego Luna ("Rudo Y Cursi") as Max's old heist pal and Wagner Moura as an "tech coyote".

"Elysium" is one of those films that deserves to watch more than once because, like Blomkamp's first film, it tells the truth about the human condition in a sci-fi canvas.

I find it interesting that I grew up reading comic books yet didn't like the granddaddy of superheroes, Superman. Why?

I found him silly, unrealistic, buffoonish. The four films starring the late Chris Reeve cemented my viewpoint. Leave him to the non-fanboys, I thought. They can have and keep him, I thought. What changed my mind?

His appearance on his solo late 90s animated series, "Justice League: The Animated Series" and "Smallville". He has feelings, doubts, real internal conflicts. He's relatable! The bottle cap of that revelation happens to be the sixth film featuring Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's iconic hero and the sixth film by madcap fanboy director Zack Snyder (the Dawn of the Dead remake, "300", "Watchmen", "Legend Of The Guardians", "Sucker Punch"). The less said about the 2006 misstep, the better...

The birth of the baby, named Kal-El, precedes the destruction of his home planet Krypton, forcing his parents, scientist Jor-El (impressive Russell Crowe of "American Gangster") and ex-astronaut Lara Lor-Van (elegant Ayelet Zurer of "Darling Companion") to send him to Earth via rocket ship with the genetic codes of many Kryptonians. Fanatical military leader General Zod (manic Michael Shannon of "Boardwalk Empire") tries to stop this during a coup d'etat, but fails and he and his loyalists are sentenced to the Phantom Zone.

Kal-El, meanwhile, is found and rechristened as Clark Joseph Kent by farmers Jonathan (Kevin Costner of "Silverado") and Martha Kent (Diane Lane of "Under The Tuscan Sun"), but his budding powers make him an outcast. So, as an adult (buff but noble Henry Cavill of "The Tudors" and "Whatever Works"), Clark leaves Smallville, Kansas, becoming a nomadic worker, until, as an Alaskan expedition grunt, he discovers a Kryptonian spacecraft that reveals his heritage and destiny. It's a good thing too as Zod and his group are freed from the Zone by their planet's end, and they see Earth as a new home. Uh-oh...

If you try to compare "Man Of Steel" with the older films, you'll be disappointed. With a powerful yet down-to-earth, sometimes non-linear script by David S. Goyer and Chris Nolan (the Dark Knight trilogy) on his lap, Snyder throws away the camp and silliness of said films and, like the under-rated "Watchmen", matures the superhero archetype. Chris Reeve's Superman can't exist in the real, let alone post-Sept. 11 world; he looks dumb, phony, anachronistic. If you're the only powerful alien on a planet whose populace could fear and hate you, you're far from sociable, but you try to make a difference anyway. Mr. Cavill plays that role to total competence.

He's lucky to be surrounded by a strong supporting cast, composed of Oscar winners and nominees and Emmy winners and nominees. Crowe has an middle-aged Obi Wan Kenobi tone that outdoes Marlon Brando's Jor-El; Costner (hauntingly good) and Lane (warm & sweet) are baby boomers with Norman Rockwell hints; Laurence Fishburne (the Matrix saga) is dead-on caustic as Daily Planet chief editor Perry White and Chris Meloni (Law & Order: SVU) is valiant as an Air Force colonel.

Like Cavill, the next two actors have refashioned their characters. As Zod, Mr. Shannon gives an A-game performance, being a mad dog with an army unit, technology and a well-meaning but twisted goal to save his race, conflicting with Mr. Crowe's noble means. It's a Sam Peckinpah bromance on a galatical scale (the director was slated to direct the 1978 film but his rep went south).

The other thespian's button-cute Amy Adams ("Junebug", "Enchanted") as Daily Planet news hound Lois Lane, who befriends our hero. Sure, she's independent and gutsy, but, thanks to the lack of camp, she's also smart, likable, relatable and realistic, not the inane harpy who demeans milksops.

Someone to look out for is Antje Traue as Zod's icy, loyal right-hand lady, Faora-Ul. "For every human you save, we will kill a million more," she promises to Kal-El during a chaotic brawl in his hometown. Speaking of the battles, they are fast and destructive, echoing the "Dragon Ball" animated series. I think I lost a tooth or two...

Hans Zimmer's day-and-night score is Oscar worthy. D.P Amir Morki captures rural tranquilness and urban destruction capably. SFX wiz John Desjardin's work inspires, especially Krypton's magnetic nanotech.

Supposed fans will moan and bitch over this film, but maybe they really don't know Superman as they think they do as they dismiss his fellow heroes at DC Comics, let alone the whole comic book medium. The character's not Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Woody Woodpecker or Yogi Bear. Despite his powers, he's a person like the rest of us. That's what makes him a great hero, well deserving of a high quality summer blockbuster that's one of 2013's best.

Cigarette smoking, though legal, is looked upon as an ugly vice with ugly consequences (lung cancer, premature aging, second-hand smoke, etc.) To make a satire of it takes courage and adult sitcom savant Norman Lear ("All In The Family", its many spin-offs, "Sanford & Son", "One Day At A Time", "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman") did it in the form of the scatter shot, brilliantly cruel yet honest fable "Cold Turkey". If you know Mr. Lear's work, you know the battlefield. If not, hold on to your seat.

P.R. man Mervin Wren (an underhanded Bob Newhart, a bit away from his first sitcom) convinces his mute, feeble, wheelchair-bound employer, Hiram C. Grayson (comic character actor Edward Everett Horton, his last role here), the head of the Valiant Tobacco Company, to do good things, despite being a producer of bad things, a la dynamite and Nobel Prize creator Alfred Nobel. The "capper", as Wren calls it, is to offer $25 million to any US town if its citizens can quit smoking for thirty days. This puts the company's board of directors in a ****-fit, but Wren calms them down with the fact that no group can go "cold turkey" and they approve of the deal.

However, they didn't count on the 4,006 citizens of the dying Iowa hamlet, Eagle Rock, taking the challenge. Led by the religiously ambitious yet vain Rev. Clayton Brooks (Dick Van Dyke, miles away from his titular sitcom and "Mary Poppins"), the people go through withdrawal syndrome. The results? Let's say whoever makes straight-jackets will be richer than the tobacco companies.

Based on "I'm Giving Them Up For Good", an unpublished novel by Margaret and Neil Rau, "Cold Turkey", like the animated sitcom "The Simpsons" (note the similarities, people), takes no prisoners in its narrative. Corporate greed; political, entertainment and news manipulation; the naiveté, self-exclusion and self-exploitation of small-town America and the military-industrial complex (a colonel promises the installation of a missile factory, after the town gets the money) are targets, and Mr. Lear, who wrote (shared story credit with William Price Fox Jr.) produced, directed this yarn, is an expert marksman (and a World War II vet to boot). With a misanthropic tone, it's understandable that United Artists, the film's distributor, shelved "Turkey" for two years, but it's a crime, due to Mr. Horton's passing.

Lear has a nimble cast; some players would later show up in his sitcoms. Mr. Van Dyke (who starred in the Lear-penned "Divorce, American Style") is righteous to save his town but careless with his wife (Pippa Scott) who's silenced by his pomposity while Mr. Newhart performs his signature buttoned-down mind routine with sly dog confidence and doe-eyed dopeyness. Other players include Tom Poston (Mr. Newhart's second sitcom) as a rich, die-hard lush; Barnard Hughes ("The Lost Boys", a recurring role on the aforementioned "Family") as a nicotine-loving sawbones; Jean Stapleton (also of "Family") as the mayor's neurotic wife; Paul Benedict ("The Jeffersons") as an anti-smoking zen Buddhist; Graham Jarvis (the aforementioned "Hartman") as an anti-"Big Government" wing-nut and (my favorite) Judith Lowry (also of "Hartman") as a foul-mouthed, Commie-hating crone. Vintage radio comics Bob Elliot (real and sitcom dad of Chris Elliot of "Get A Life") and Ray Goulding show up as walking parodies of famous newsmen ("Walter Chronic" and "David Chetley" may confuse young viewers, but there's the Internet!!!). Lear himself has a cameo as a crying man, going without a smoke.

On the technical side, there's d.p. Charles F. Wheeler, who captures the sweet rural look of Eagle Rock with some helicopter shots and wholesome, rural street shots (predating the opening sequences of Lear's sitcoms) while editor John C. Horger masterfully employs quick-cuts, like Lou Lombardo on "The Wild Bunch", when displaying the slapstick "withdrawl syndrome"gags (i.e. a husband slaps his wife while driving; a dog's kicked (!); a bowler throws himself onto a lane, crashing into some pins, etc). Award-winning composer Randy Newman (the ToyStory films, "Monk") makes his film debut here; the ironic tune that bookends the film, "He Gives Us All His Love" is dead-on funny, sweet and sad.

Bottom line (to borrow a line from Mr. Wren): "Cold Turkey" is about how society can be so dumb. The only heroes are the town's youth; "Eagle Rock, where's your head?" one young man chants in a circle of protest as the town becomes a tourist trap and enjoys being one. Like most of society, its' head is in a hole that's rank. The youth are ignored, but, by the end, they have the last laugh. So will you.

When an artist starts out, their initial work is deemed ineffective and amateurish, a stepping stone to better things. However, time passes and people take a second look at the work and see what the artist was trying to accomplish, despite setbacks. That's the case with the flawed but intriguing "The Deadly Companions" the debut film from the master of modern day action cinema, Sam Peckinpah, who came from working on established Western TV dramas like "Gunsmoke" and "Broken Arrow" and creating "The Rifleman" and "The Westerner".

Five years after the American Civil War, world-weary Union vet Yellowleg (Brian Keith, who starred in Peckinpah's second albeit short-lived series, and the Stephen Cannell series, "Hardcastle & McCormick) rescues puffy-faced, lowlife Confederate vet Turk (Chill Wills of "The Alamo" and the voice of Francis the Talking Mule) from being lynched, due to being to a card cheat. He enlists Turk and his partner, Fancy Dan lothario gunslinger Billy Kiplinger (Steve Cochran of "White Heat"), to rob a bank in Gila City, but another gang beats them to the punch. A gunfight ensues, ending in the death of the son of saloon gal Kit Tildon (fiery Maureen O'Hara of "The Quiet Man" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"), who's already fed up with being unfairly given a Hester Prynne reputation, courtesy of the townspeople. She decides to bury her son beside her husband in the town of Siringo, but it's desolated, due to it being in Apache territory. Feeling guilty for accidentally killing the boy, Yellowleg offers his help with the funeral procession and stirs his two companions along, but all three men have secret, different, dishonorable reasons beneath the surface.

What hurts the film slightly on the surface is the clash of Hollywood eras; Ms. O'Hara and her producing brother Charles B. Fitzsimmons representing the older one, Peckinpah representing the other. It's almost sadistic that Fitzsimmons refused the soon-to-be maverick to rewrite the simple screenplay by Albert Sidney Fleischman (adapted from his novel), locked him away from the editing room and forbade him on-set conversations with his sister (I would have told them off on day one!). It doesn't help that the production's no different from a TV show (how ironic) and the music by Marlin Skiles is best suited to an old-time carnival or a cathedral. The song Ms. O'Hara sings…well, the less said, the better. All in all, it's a ham-and-cheese vehicle for an aging Golden Age Hollywood starlet.

But for Peckinpah, it was his training wheels and, due to the passage of time, his last laugh as he starts to deconstruct the romantic Hollywood western. There are the elements of individualistic honor, conflicts among lead characters, a religiously hypocritical society (Kit's son refuses to go to Heaven with townspeople who criticize her), delusion of grandeur (Turk pathetically hopes to start a new Confederacy with the bank money) and physically scarred protagonists (Yellowleg has a lousy shooting arm and was nearly scalped…and it wasn't by any Indian) that would be present in the director's later work. There's no over-the-top violence, like in the future magnum opus "The Wild Bunch", due to the present yet slowly dying Production Code, but slight hints of sexuality (Ms. O'Hara bathing nude in the night time with her back turned to the camera).

The cast is competent. Keith's grimness and gruffness combats O'Hara's passionate independence (wonder if Peckinpah used him as a conduit to get his true feelings across to her). Cochran reps a phony, glossy Wild West while Wills (who would later be in the director's "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid" ) reps a realistic, sleazy one while he's lost in unrealized dreams or glories of the past (a prophecy of PTSD among Vietnam veterans, perhaps?). Strother Martin has a straight-forward role as the town's parson; later roles in "Bunch" and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" contradict that first one.

If Peckinpah learned one thing from "Companions", it was to have script control and damn pampered actors. If any viewer can learn one thing, you can see something intriguing in the early mistreated work of a maverick artist when time goes by.

Time's a funny thing. It contains a lot of things, but doesn't always keep track of everything. Moments fall in the cracks. Some moments are forgettable; others shouldn't be. One of the moments is a movie called "The Landlord," an adept, racially-charged and thoughtful satire that makes "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" looks like "Enchanted April".

Wanting to leave his family's affluent Long Island abode, breezy, twenty-nine-year-old, blue blood Elgar Enders (Beau Bridges of "The Fabulous Baker Boys" and "Jerry Maguire") buys a tenement building in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn and hopes to convert into a rich hippie pad. However, the residents, all poor and African-American, won't (unsurprisingly) abide being relocated, using comical scare tactics or hermetic indifference. Elgar counters by becoming the film's title, taking on the edifice's welfare while earning admiration (Pearl Bailey's delightful as a fortune teller); seduction (Diana Sands's a frustrated housewife/ hairdresser; Marki Bey's a strong yet out of place mulatto artist and go-go dancer at a nearby nightclub) and scorn (a pre-Oscar winning Louis Gossett Jr. as Sands's militant yet derelict husband; Mel Stewart of "All In The Family" is an unlicensed teacher, who guides the neighborhood children) in the ghetto while infuriating his parents (Walter Brooke and Lee Grant, who earned an Oscar nomination for this gig) to high hell and a half. This is what happens when you put too much cream in your coffee.

Armed with a smart, sharp, funny and poignant script by actor-scribe Bill Gunn (the avant-garde horror film, "Ganja & Hess") that was adapted from a now-scarce novel by Kristin Hunter, Hal Ashby ("Shampoo", "Being There", "Harold & Maude", "The Last Detail") made an impressive debut as a maverick director, after editing films for Norman Jewison, who supervised the film's production. With his skills and d.p. Gordon Willis (the Godfather saga, mentored Mike Chapman of "Taxi Driver"), Ashby gives "The Landlord" a funky, gritty, kaleidoscope narrative, complimenting the tale's consciousness. Soliloquies, flashbacks, visual thought balloons are here and cool. It's fascinating and ironic that a white director (despite being middle-age at the time, Ashby was quite the hippie) and a black screenwriter (Gunn was a writer of all trades) worked in sync to examine the racial, social and economical gaps between their ethic camps. There's a flashback scene of Elgar's all-white grade school class; "Children, how do we live?" the teacher asks. It cuts to a black man having the inability to hail a cab. How do we live? How indeed.

None of the cast makes a false step, no matter how big or small their roles. Bridges, obviously scarred by his father being blacklisted in the 1950s, is pitch-perfect as the title character, a naive, overgrown Little Lord Fauntleroy, thinking racial strife can be achieved by common courtesy without learning why there is in the first place. Ms. Sands, ("A Raisin In The Sun") who sadly passed away three years after the film's release, finds Elgar fascinating (and sexy!) as sassy but delicate Franny, who wallows in the memories of her beauty pageant days. Not because he's rich and white but "socially pure", unlike Gossett ("An Officer and A Gentleman", "Roots"), as Copee, a rightfully angry black man who wants to fight back against the system that broke him but neglects Franny and their son. No wonder the kid smokes and Franny...well, cream and coffee Singer Pearl Bailey's a wise hoot as fortune teller Marge, who accepts Elgar's attempts to redeem the building's derelict conditions. Lee Grant (who worked again with Ashby on "Shampoo") is quite the hypocrite as Joyce Elders. She accepts black people but not too close. When she and Bailey get high and drunk, you'll know why. There's also Marki Bey (the black zombie grindhouse yarn "Sugar Hill") as Elgar's second girl, Lainie, the mixed daughter of divorced parents, who feels the "heat" when she's with Elgar. Unlike Gossett's Copee, Mr. Stewart's more subtle in his animosity toward his landlord. He lays the final blow that makes the rich kid grow up.

Straight-forward comical elements are handled by Mr. Brooke as Elgar's father; future sitcom director Will McKenzie as Elgar's brother; Robert Klein ("The Pursuit of Happiness") as Elgar's brother-in-law and Susan Anspach as Elgar's pot-head sister. Through it all, there are neither good nor bad people in the film, just victims of social prejudice and expectations.okay, Joe Madden as Elgar's grandfather, silent, senile and wheelchair-bound, is probably one, a relic of old, good white boy prestige gone to pot. Look out for future Garry Marshall figure Hector Elizondo.

Lively and funky is the music by Al Kooper, the co-founder of the white R&B group, Blood, Sweat & Tears, bookended by two hard, soulful tracks by the Staple Singers.

Ignored by the public upon its release, "The Landlord" has become a holy grail to filmmakers and movie fans. It's also a prophecy; once derelict Park Slope is now a haven for the high-pocketed crowd. Sadly, the social problems still exist, making the film, like the sitcoms of Norman Lear, timeless. It deserves a proper DVD release. Maybe a limited double-bill showing with the recent "Django Unchained"; they both deal with "how we live."

When I was one of the lucky souls to read the lengthy, powerful script of Quentin Tarantino's eighth film, "Django Unchained", I came away from it with the query: "Why the **** this script wasn't produced earlier?" Maybe the notion of an African slave-cum-bounty hunter, pre-Civil War, was controversial. Alas, I waited, and I'm glad I did. Damn glad.

The year's 1858, and slavery's thriving in America like a virus. However, eccentric German dentist/manhunter King Schultz (delightful Oscar winner Christoph Waltz from Tarantino's previous work "Inglorious Basterds") decides to break the status quo by liberating African slave (grim but smooth Jamie Foxx of "Ray") during a transport. Django helps Schultz on pointing out a trio of wanted siblings and, in return, Schultz trains Django in the manhunting trade while assisting in the liberation of his wife, the German-literate Broomhilda Von Shaft (cherub-like Kerry Washington, also of "Ray" and lead in the political TV drama, "Scandal") from the clutches of lecherous and decadent plantation owner Calvin Candie (ambitiously vile Leonardo DiCaprio of "The Departed" and "Titanic"). However, Candie's vet "house negro" Stephen (Tarantino chum and Oscar nominee Samuel L. Jackson in ogrish-like makeup) gets wise to the heroic duo's mandigo-purchasing scam and, like in any Tarantino opus, hell and a half breaks loose.

But unlike his previous seven, Mr. Tarantino, who appears here as an Australian miner, who meets a literally explosive demise, approaches the hot-potato topic of African enslavement in the antebellum Southern United States with remarkable honesty. Flogging, iron restrains, face clamps and the maiming of runaway slaves by dogs are present; lynching is only hinted. Sure, with his exploitative fanboy rep, Tarantino ("Pulp Fiction, "Kill Bill") would be the last filmmaker to approach the subject in a perfect world. However, it's not a perfect world, and those who have green eyes (cough Spike Lee cough) towards the madcap auteur should have struck the iron while it was hot. Tarantino got quick on the draw, orchestrating a porno film where Mel Brooks's "Blazing Saddles" is the slut; the Westerns of Sam Peckinpah are the studs; the aura is by Sergio Leone and the script is by "Roots" author Alex Haley. At the end, Tarantino has out-done and out-foxed his cinematic ass with pride and a bag of dynamite (HINT! HINT!).

He's assisted by a brave cast. Oscar winner Foxx makes you forget his salad days on the sketch show "In Living Color" as the valiant, serious title hero as Oscar nominee DiCaprio finally buries his "cute-boy" rep as the debonair but volatile and misogynistic owner of "Candieland". Some have said Ms. Washington should have been given more to do, but she's sweetness incarnate; her appearance haunts Django before their reunion like a ghost. Waltz's Schultz is clever and sadly ironic; he's unaware that his descendants will take part in committing genocide in the following century as he's being noble. As for Mr. Jackson, his grotesque role, the polar opposite to his hit-man Jules in "Fiction" embodies the Orwellian idiom: "Freedom Is Slavery", to disgusting levels. It's hard to pick a favorite among the main quintet.

There's also stunt-casting, a Tarantino trademark: Bruce Dern ("Silent Running") and Don Johnson ("Miami Vice", "Nash Bridges") are nasty plantation owners; Tom Wopat ("The Dukes Of Hazzard") and Lee Horsley ("Matt Houston") are dutiful lawmen; Dennis Christopher ("Breaking Away") is Candie's lawyer; James Remar ("The Warriors", "Dexter") has a dual role as a slave transporter and Candie's shotgun-toting bodyguard; Michael Parks ("Grindhouse", "Red State") is one of Tarantino's fellow miners and Walton Goggins ("Justified"), makeup wizard Tom Savini (the original "Friday The 13th") and Tarantino stunt gal Zoe Bell are among Candie's grungy henchmen. Jonah Hill ("Moneyball", "Superbad") has a fun bit as a dim-wit Klansman (is there any other kind?).

There's also Tarantino's respect to film's past: Spaghetti Western icon Franco Nero, star of the original Django film from 1966, shows up as Candie's fellow fan of mandigo fighting. The film's co-distributor, Columbia Pictures, resurrects one of their vintage "Torch Lady" stamps before the film plays the "Django's Song" composed by Luis Bacalov. Tarantino has more funky tunes from his catalog, including Richie Havens's "Freedom", which is used ironically in a devastating scene.

D.P. Robert Richardson captures the beauty and ugliness as pre-Civil War America with John Ford-like landscape shots and quick close-ups that come from a 70s kung-fu film. The late production designer J. Michael Riva make the antebellum South authentic (Was that statue of two mandigo fighters in combat made or found?!). There's been criticism of the film's running time (2 hours and 45 minutes) since Tarantino's longtime editor, Sally Menke, passed away, but her substitute, Fred Raskin (the last three "Fast & Furious" films) understands that the tale's messy and compliments it.

Next to Zack Snyder's "Watchmen" (specifically the 215 minute cut), "Django Unchained" is a violent film that's socially and historically conscious (not historically accurate, mind you. It's not a somber epic!!!). Despite having two more films on his plate before voluntary retirement, Mr. Tarantino probably feels like Robert Redford at the end of "The Candidate". "Since this film's a masterstroke, what the hell am I going to do now?" he ponders. I could also imagine him secretly showing the film to the forty-fourth President of the United States...

Don't you wish you could go back to high school and get a second chance, if you didn't get the hot girl or weren't academically adept? I pretty much don't care for high school anymore, but shlubby nerd Morton Schimdt (Oscar nominee Jonah Hill of "Moneyball" and "Superbad") and hunky himbo Greg Jenko (Channing Tautm of "Fighting" and "Magic Mike") sure do. They're narcs (undercover cops) in the ribald but fun film version of the late 1980s Fox Network police drama, "21 Jump Street".

Once high school foes, Schimdt and Jenko end up as pals while attending police academy (like the show, the film's locale isn't specified). However, the two are total foul-ups on the field, thereby getting banished to the resurrected Jump Street program, supervised by the no-B.S. Captain Dickson (Ice Cube of the "Friday" films), who assigns them, as siblings, to a school where a new synthetic drug's giving its users crazy highs and morbid endings. Instead of getting a hold of the drug supplier, hilarity ensues: Jenko hangs with the geeks while Schmidt's with both the drama and track & field club, after an ID mix-up; a car chase sequence where nothing flammable explodes, except a truck filled with chickens, and the two throw a party, involving underage teens, alcohol and marijuana. Is anyone here a grown up? With a straight raunchy script by Hill and Michael Bacall ("Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, "Project X"), co- directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller ("Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs") delightful play around with high school conventions (geeks are cool while jocks are otherwise), getting far (but not too far) from the series, co-created by Patrick Hasburgh and the late Stephen J. Cannell (he served as one of the film's producers before his passing). The wacky drug imagery would have a no-no on the show (broadcast standards and practices, people), but is welcomed here with open arms.

Hill and Tatum are a reliable pair of Peter Pan (the former wears a Peter Pan costume for a school play even!) while Cube, recalling his gangster rap days with a permanent growl, verbally admonishes them. When he threatens to defecate on them while they're wearing snorkels, it's something that can't be erased out of the human mind because it's both crude and hysterical. As popular drug dealer Eric, Dave Franco (James's younger sib) is both sleazy and goofy; he does business while working on the high school's yearbook! As Molly, a drama club member, Brie Larson ("The United States of Tara") is an awkward lover interest for Schimdt, due to age difference and borderline pedophilia (jeez!!!), but she does well in her part. I wish there was more of P.E. teacher Mr. Walters (Rob Riggle of "The Hangover"), but he's relevant to the story. Ellie Kemper ("The Office", US Version) is squirrel-brain cute as a physics teach who geekily crushes on Jenko. Series regulars Johnny Depp, Peter DeLuise and Holly Robinson-Peete make eye-wink cameos as Tom Hanson, Doug Penhall and Judy Hoffs. D.P. Barry Peterson captures comedy bliss in the high school environment.

Though some hard-core fans of the show, which was basically a mash-up of "The Mod Squad" and the TV after school specials of the 1970s and 1980s, will cringe at the coarse humor (ex: a character gets his genitalia shot off and pathetically tries to retrieve it in his mouth while handcuffed), "21 Jump Street" does well with the off-idea of becoming an undercover cop, if you screwed up in high school. It's just like retaking a test!

You can call me a dirty, stinking, Karl Marx-loving liberal for not having a lot of love for the counter-terrorist actioner "Act Of Valor". As a movie fan and a fledging screenwriter, I can't have any love out of sense that reality and fantasy are like fire and gasoline. They don't and shouldn't mix.

The film opens with the terrorist bombing of a school in the Philippines. An American ambassador, his son and other kids, lured by an ice cream truck, are killed, courtesy of Chechen-born, Islam-faithful terrorist Abu Shabal (Jason Cottle). Meanwhile, in Costa Rica, a CIA agent (Nestor Serrano) is killed and his partner (Roselyn Sanchez, "Without A Trace") is kidnapped by the henchmen of drug runner Mikhail "Christo" Troykovich (Alex Veadov). The members of Bandito Platoon, SEAL Team Seven are deployed to save the agent, who has intel that Shabal and Traykovich are the schemers to send a group of suicide bombers into the US. The SEALS are more than determined to stop them at all costs.

Granted, having active duty Navy Seals as the film's protagonists is the film's jewel but it's also its' weakest limb. Since they're non-actors and their identities must be somewhat clandestine, the script by Kurt Johnstad ("300") is infested with a lack of character development and second-grade school dialogue. I know this is an action film and I had no grand expectations, but you have a problem with your film when the actors playing the bad guys outshine the actors as the good guys. Directors/producers Scott Waugh and Mike "Mouse" McCoy, the men behind a seven-minute documentary focusing on the SEALS, may have had good intentions when making this film, but all they have accomplished is making a money-making, 111-minute, armed forces recruitment ad, filled with POV gunshot and video imagery to hook in the gamer crowd (YVAN ENT NIOJ). The action sequences are the only legitimate element within the film's fictional aura, and that's it.

This film maybe be dedicated to the every SEAL member, alive and deceased, who fought since the September 11 attacks (calling it 9/11 is pretty tasteless, in my humble opinion, reducing the tragedy to a fad catch phrase), but they deserved much better than this "act of exploitation". If you are or related to an solider, this isn't a jab against you. Only the filmmakers.

Why would I start with that? I always believe that the person who wants to be a hero, looking for glory and fame is a sad joke of a human being while the person who keeps their head down is the one really meant for the job to save the day. The dichotomy's explored, quirky and dramatically frank, in "The Front", a satirical "up yours" to McCarthyism and those who supported it by those who were victims, and the first Hollywood film to handle the subject.

The idea of Communism is unpopular in the 1950s. Anyone who has (or had) anything to do with it was blacklisted (forbidden to work), hurting people of all walk of life, especially those in the entertainment industry. One victim is Alfred Miller (Mike Murphy of "M.A.S.H.: The Movie" and "Tanner '88"), a TV scribe who got sacked from the NBC dramatic anthology series "Grand Central". Facing family responsibilities and an ulcer, Miller approaches the tale's unlikely "hero" to a be a front: bar cashier, low-level bookie and high school chum Howard Prince (comic mastermind Woody Allen, who was a year away from getting props for creating "Annie Hall" at the time).

The deal: Miller types the scripts; Prince puts a "face" on them and gets 10% of the pay. Prince takes the deal since he's in debt, especially with his responsible brother, and all the accolades, fame and money comes rolling in. He also "fronts" for Miller's fellow scribes, also banned from working. He even gets "the girl", specifically blue-blood Florence Barrett (Andrea Marcovicci), the show's socially-conscious story editor. The snag, however, comes in the form of Hecky Brown (a great Zero Mostel of "The Producers", his last film here), a vaudevillian comic who also got sacked from hosting "GC". Desperate to appease a cold-hearted Communist-hunting bureaucrat (Remak Ramsey) and get back to make a living, Brown gets close to Prince to see if he's "red" or not. Through it all, Prince, a born loser, refuses to let go on the ball, not knowing the jig is up.

During the film's release, some critics have decried the film for being a soft touch against a serious subject, but director Martin Ritt ("Hud", "Norma Rae") and scribe Walt Bernstein ("The Magnificent Seven", "The Molly Maguires" with Ritt as director, and "Semi-Tough") should be given a break since they were both blacklisted themselves. "The Front" is vodka with mixed orange juice, thanks to Walt's sharp Oscar-nominated script and Ritt's steady, old-school TV direction. Mr. Allen, with his signature dry wit, accents the drink. As Prince, he's a happy-go-lucky, pseudo-intellectual who hurls spitballs at conventionalism, yet he doesn't realize that everyone's responsible for their fellow man. Sure, we can cheer him when he's on top. We can even chuckle when he relies on Miller to do a quick rewrite on a script or when he ignored by a "tootsie" when he discloses his "profession" to her. However, this story Prince is in is historical. Miller, post-surgery, notes to him that, unlike previous scams, there is no "out" when the curtains close.

Reflecting his own experience with the blacklist and echoing the demise of fellow actor Phillip Loeb (the sitcom, "The Goldbergs") in the role, Mr. Mostel's really in the dark. He looks for a way out, but it's way too late. The powers-that-be are voluntarily deaf to his penance pleas, let alone ribald humor. A Catskills hotel owner financially stiffs him, after a successful mercy gig. Even the wife of a TV executive is forbidden to talk to him in a bar, all because he got "friendly" with a cute Communist girl he met at a International Workers parade some years ago. Mr. Mostel's Brown is subtlety jealous of Allen's Prince, but, seeing that he has become like his oppressors, warns him: "Take care of yourself. The water is filled with sharks". Why didn't Mr. Mostel get Oscar-nominated for this role is a wonder.

Though she might not come off as strongly vigorous, Ms. Marcovicci's fine in a role that shows how women, despite being in a high-level position, were supposed to act, pre-Gloria Steinhem. When she and Mr. Allen are together, you know they work because they're too smart for a world filled with conformists and jingoists. Mr. Murphy's durable as the pal in a jam who inadvertently puts his friend in a jam, creating an infant terrible in the process. He loses it, during a lunch meet, when Prince critiques one of his friend's scripts.

Along with Mostel, Ritt and Bernstein, the production has other blacklisted talent. Herschel Bernardi is a TV showrunner who's in the crosshairs of his elite bosses and money-minded, small-time sponsors; Joshua Shelly is the aforementioned hotel owner who carelessly stiffs Hecky and Lloyd Gough is another blacklisted scribe. Look out for Danny Aiello ("Do The Right Thing", Allen's "Radio Days") as a fruit stand vendor. Cinematographer Mike Chapman ("Taxi Driver") captures 1950s NYC in contained shots, reflecting the pressure McCarthyism has put on its' victims.

No matter what political belief you may have, it's insidious to use the law to harass, let alone prosecute those who differently from the status quo to the point where they can't make a living. With ruined careers and destroyed lives in its wake, McCarthyism is indefensible and those who try to defend it are nothing more than certifiable. Even in its debut in 1976 (a time capsule within a time capsule), "The Front" does regard those who uphold the scandalous "ism" as certifiable, and Mr. Allen, in front of an investigation committee, tell them what to do with themselves in a profane way. Don't be surprised if you clap and cheer.

What the hell were the people behind "Brenda Starr" thinking (or were they even thinking to being with) when they made this…film based on the long-running, now-defunct newspaper comic strip by the late Dale Messick? Sure, comic strips, let alone comic books, weren't treated seriously then (Hollywood still had the Man of Steel on their brains), but if you make a film based on a fictional, antiquated female reporter (thanks, Gloria Steinhem), you have an embarrassing cine-wreck.

In the supposed real world, comic strip artist Mike Randall (Tony Peck, son of the Oscar-winning legend Gregory) toils on the "Brenda Starr" strip for Messick. In an odd fourth-wall smashing fashion, Starr (Brooke Shields, "The Blue Lagoon") refuses to be drawn by Randall and "quits". Randall, in some unexplainable way (one of the film's problems), goes into the strip to convince Starr to return before the deadline. She's busy, though, with tracking down a scientist in Puerto Rico and Brazil. Seems the egghead has invented a unique rocket fuel that has attracted both a bumbling band of Russian spies (What? No Nazis?) and Starr's rival newshound, Libby "Lips" Lipscomb (Diana Scarwid of "Mommie Dearest").

Intrigued? If not, congratulations. You have better sense than me, who saw the film for free and still wants the 94 minutes of my life back! The. . .film tries to be cute and campy so much, it descends.

Directed ineptly by Robert Ellis Miller, who used an obviously first draft script by James David Buchanan, Noreen Stone & Jenny Wolkind (a pseudonym for Delia Ephron, Nora's sister), "Starr" dims to black than shines, from start to end, especially from the start. After the women's liberation movement, the novelty of a female reporter seems dated, and those who know and enjoyed Brenda Starr are either dead or collecting Social Security. Who the hell is supposed to watch this film, let alone enjoy it?

Casting then-hot fashion model Shields as the title role was a bad attempt to get young audiences. The fact she goes through silly, implausible costume changes (I didn't bother to count how many. Sorry, Bob Mackie!) did next to nothing to help her in a flat, cardboard role. It's not one of her best moments. Doe-eyed Peck's no help, awkwardly being both comic relief and potential love interest. When he tries to make Starr utter a foul profane word, instead of "jeepers", it comes off a fact to the film's datedness. Also of no real use, aside of being beefcake with a eye-patch, is the dashing, mysterious Basil St. John (a pre-James Bond Timothy Dalton) who captures Starr's heart. At least poor Ms. Scarwid shares the sentiment of any unfortunate viewer when referring to Starr: "Oh! I wish I could kill her!"

Interestingly, the film was shelved to distribution disputes before premiering in 1986. Three years later, it bowed in France, where Shields was popular. Another three years, it came back here and bombed, without much publicity and wallowing in the shadows of better comic book/strip adaptations. If anything can learn from watching "Brenda Starr", it's to make a better film involving a more interesting female comic book/strip character (Paging Wonder Woman…).

Back in high school, I wanted out of it because I was sick of being treated like I was mentally retarded (I was quiet and smart, really) by people who thought high school was a blast, but if you peak in high school, you're done. Life goes south (kids, mortgage, car payments, etc.) and the only relief is going to your high school reunion to relive your glory days. For Mavis Gary, the protagonist of the gallows funny, "Young Adult", the third cine-partnership between Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman ("Juno", "Jennifer's Body, which Mr. Reitman only served as a producer), her relief is going to her hometown, but it's far from perfect.

Played brilliantly straightforward by Oscar holder Charlize Theron ("Monster", "North Country"), Mavis lives the lonely life of a young adult fiction writer, working on a "Sweet Valley High"-like series (Ms. Cody's currently working on a film adaptation). If she's not getting inspiration for dialogue by hanging near teenagers, she's guzzling Diet Coke and booze or having pathetic one-night stands.

When she learns that her old high school boyfriend Buddy Slade (good natured Patrick Wilson of "Watchmen", "A Gifted Man" and Ms. Theron's co-star in "Prometheus") is a proud father of a newborn baby girl, Mavis, recently divorced and unaware her series is about to be sacked, heads from Minneapolis ("The Mini-Apple") to Mercury to "rescue" Buddy from "domestic hell". Reality knocks in the form of Matt Freehauf (the smart, underdoggish Patton Oswalt of "Big Fan" and "The King Of Queens"), an old classmate who was crippled by bullies who mistaken him as a homosexual. Though Mavis thinks her goal's pure, Matt notes that high school wasn't a blast for everyone, particularly himself.

If you expect the same heart-warmness that was in "Juno", you should go elsewhere, but don't dismiss "Young Adult" as a bad film. It has dark quirkiness while saying arrested development isn't always a good thing. Cody and Reitman nicely note that with smart, dry, deadpan humor that echoes the work of Reitman's father, Ivan ("Meatballs", Stripes", the "Ghostbusters" films). Unlike the criminally-overrated "Bridesmaids", "Young Adult" doesn't sugar-coat a woman's "losing it".

Over-looked for an Oscar nominated here, Ms. Theron is kind of like a combo of Dante Hicks and Randal Graves, the lead players of the "Clerks" films; lethargy and cynicism are combined in a perfect ten woman who desperately wants to be an eleven again, but her hair pulling gets in the way. Hating her for being a home wrecker is understandable, but, around the climax, don't be shocked if you have pity for her. Mr. Wilson's the polar opposite in his role, settled in his paternal and spousal roles and slightly hesitant to look back at his "wild, glory days".

The "bad days" are still around for Mr. Oswalt's Matt, having a shattered leg, deformed genitalia and a cane. Owning a sports bar, having a makeshift distillery in his garage and making patchwork action figures keep him happy and sane. It's funny wish-fulfillment (for anyone who can relate) when he sexually comforts a post-meltdown Theron.

Nice turns are given by Elizabeth Reaser (almost Ellen Page-like!) as Wilson's wife, a special need teacher/part-time drummer in a rock band whose members are moms, and Jill Eikenberry ("L.A. Law") as Theron's concerned mom. D.P. Eric Steelberg has a good eye for reflecting Mavis's moods when she's somewhere; Minneapolis's dreary, Mercury's sunny but has a hint of dark.

"Young Adult" isn't for anyone who liked high school and moved on. It's for the haters and those who don't want to let go.

Being a fan of "Women In Trouble", the first chapter of the "Women" trilogy by filmmaker Sebastian Guitterez ("Rise: Blood Hunter", co-wrote "Snakes On A Plane"), I looked forward to see the follow-up, "Elektra Luxx". Why? It's just nice to see an indie sequel, and I survived the "Transformers" saga.

The story reintroduces the title character from "WIT", played by the lovely Carla Gugino ("Watchmen", "Frank Miller's Sin City", "Sucker Punch" and Mr. Guitterez's old lady). Retired from the adult film industry to her being knocked up by a now-late rock star, Elektra makes a living as (what else) a seduction teacher for the ladies at a community center.

Things seem easygoing, until shaky flight stewardess Cora (Marley Shelton, another "WIT" alum, "Grindhouse"), the reason of said rock star's passing (they had Mile High sex), appears with a forgiveness plea, a plethora of songs about the ex-skin flick starlet, penned by the rock star, and a proposition to seduce her fiancée. However, hunky shamus Dell (Emmy-nominee Timothy Olyphant of "Deadwood" and "Justified"), hunting for the songs, gets mistaken for the real fiancée (Justin Kirk of "Animal Practice"), putting Elektra in a self-reflective funk.

There are two sidebar plots here. Elektra's old porn compeer, dim-bulb Holly Rocket (Adrianne Palicki of "Friday Night Lights: The Series") deals with her growing sexual feelings for her gal pal, harlot Bambi Lindberg (spunky Emmanuelle Chriqui of "Entourage" and "Thundercats 2.0"). Sex blogger/fanboy Bert Rodriguez (a daffy Joseph Gordon-Levitt of "Inception") bemoans over the retirement of his favorite skin film thespian (is there such a thing?) while clueless of the feelings towards him from drug store clerk Trixie (sunny Malin Akerman of "Watchmen" and "Wanderlust"). Isn't love grand?

Like "WIT", "Luxx" is a Skinamax film meets a Lifetime film meets a Kevin Smith film. It's doesn't have the right to good with its sexual frankness (never be trapped in an elevator with a naked guy, ladies!) and minuscule production values, but it does, due to Mr. Guitterez's gonzo, breezy and inventive script and direction and the actors he has.

Echoing Rita Hayworth without Production Code rules, Ms. Gugino's so inventive here (she even plays an incarcerated twin sister with a lisp), it's bizarre she's not an A-list thespian. Ms. Palicki twists the dumb beauty stereotype to hilarious and thoughtful heights to combat Ms. Chriqui's to the letter practicality. It's weird and funny, as Rodriguez, who still lives his mom, that Mr. Levitt would elevate an exploitative medium to an art form while Mr. Olyphant, like in "Catch & Release", is a stud with a soul. Ms. Akerman will probably get more room to breathe in the upcoming third chapter "Women In Ecstasy". Who knew drug store clerks can be so damn cute?

Other cast members add to the proceedings: Kathleen Quinlain ("Breakdown", "Apollo 13") is a Jackie Collins-like scribe; Isabella Guitterez (the filmmaker's niece) reprises her old soul kid role from "WIT"; Amy Rosoff is Bert's spitfire sister who wants to be an Internet pin-up girl; Vincent Kartheiser is the naked schmuck in the elevator (!) and Oscar nominee Julianne Moore ("The Big Lebowski") has an uncredited part as the Virgin Mary (!).

If you get the DVD, you'll notice Eric Stoltz ("Pulp Fiction", "Modern Love") gets a "Back to the Future" treatment in the deleted scenes section as he plays the hubby of one of Elektra's students. The faux trailer of Elektra's last film (Sergio Leone meets Russ Meyer) is a hoot as it follows the end credits scroll.

It's not Oscar material, but "Luxx" has enough heart to be better than an average sexploitation romp.

When Warner Bros. Pictures bought the comic book factory, DC Comics, in the late 1960s, they did it to make a film featuring Superman. They did; three sequels and a spin off featuring Supergirl followed.

However, what the then-executives didn't know is they bought a publicly-accessible, research and development dept.; Superman wasn't alone! Today, the current bosses get the idea, and the results have either been superb ("The Dark Knight", "Watchmen") or well…("Catwoman", "The Losers", "Jonah Hex").

Based on the character created by Bill Finger (uncredited for co-creating Batman with Bob Kane) and Martin Nodell in the 1940s and later re-vamped for the 60s by John Broome and Gil Kane, "Green Lantern" falls in the middle, yet it's so nice to see a DC Comics superhero who isn't the Big Blue Boy Scout or Spooky getting a film.

After a back-story narration about the Green Lantern Corps, a large army of intergalactic space cops (The Jedi and Starfleet Command should be scared), one of them, the legendary Abin Sur (Temeura Morrison of "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith"), protector of sector 2814, is attacked by an evil, fear-embodied and feeding force called Parallax. While near death, Sur bestows his power ring and battery, a GL's tools, to grounded, irresponsible, hotshot Earth test pilot Hal Jordan (a maturing Ryan Reynolds of "Adventureland" and "Smokin' Aces"), the second human character who plays the role in the comic book.

Jordan doubts himself and it's no help when vet GL, the strict Sinestro (intense Mark Strong of "Kick-Ass" and "RocknRolla") doesn't find him worthy to be in the Corps. Those feelings don't matter when Parallax targets Earth and OA, the Corps's planet HQ for lunch, and Hal has to "hero up".

With a TV pilot-like script by Greg Berlanti ("Everwood", "Brothers and Sisters"), Marc Guggenheim (the short-lived "No Ordinary Family"), Mike Goldberg and Mike Green, apt helmer Martin Campbell (the two recent James Bond reboots, "Edge of Darkness") nicely makes the tale more space opera and human drama than straight-forward superhero folklore while respecting the original material.

Sure, it's fanboy-centric, frustrating to "cool kids" and non-fanboys (particularly pro movie critics), which is funny as a Monty Python sketch, since the Internet's full of info about comic books, but the film's surprisingly works with outer-space spectacular-ness and human pathos and quirkiness.

Though I saw him more as The Flash, Mr. Reynolds, through the story, earns my respect. So does Blake Lively ("The Town", "Gossip Girl") as the concerned Carol Ferris, daughter of Hal's employer. There's a funny moment when she discovers Hal's GL.

Mr. Strong, as always, is reliably sinister and his role (obviously) hints at a sequel. Fun are Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush (the "Pirates" films, "The King's Speech") and Oscar nominee Michael Clarke Duncan ("Sin City", "The Green Mile") as they voice the GLs: gentlemanly amphibian Tomar-Re and rough swine Kilowog.

More care should have been given to telekinetic/telepath Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard of "An Education"), a bio professor who's mutated and driven mad by Parallax's sickness, via Sur's corpse, and government black op supervisor Amanda Waller (Oscar nominee Angela Bassett of "What's Love Got To Do With It?"), here a scientist (blaxploitation legend Pam Grier got more love in eps of "Smallville").

Tim Robbins ("Mystic River", "Bob Roberts") is slyly self-mocking as Hammond's dad, an influential but careless senator. Is this his penance for being in "Howard The Duck"? Who knows? It's no "Watchmen", but "Green Lantern" is, thankfully, no "Batman and Robin". It's about a hero who's not reluctant to be one, but learns the best one is the unlikely one. Hopefully, this film will allow other DC Comics heroes to be in the movie spotlight.

Unless they're part of an ensemble (the X-Men films notably), female comic book superheroes get no respectful cinematically (must be a gender issue). Case in point, "Sheena", the $25 million flop from 1984, that's based on the character created by Jerry Iger (uncle of current Walt Disney Co. head capo Bob Iger) and Will Eisner ("The Spirit"). The survival member of the duo at that time, Eisner had the common sense to not be credited after seeing it. Iger's estate also followed. Who could blame them?

Things start well enough when a married geologist team is killed in an African cave in while trying to find a mineral that has healing properties. Their daughter, Janet, is adopted by the ingenious tribe, the Zambouli, as part of a prophecy. The tribe's shaman (Elizabeth Of Toro, the only adept actor here!) rechristens the girl as Sheena and trains her to be the tribe's protector. After learning how to communicating with animals, swing from vines, ride zebraback (don't ask!) and sling arrows through the years (and by the film's main credits), Sheena's a fully grown woman (Tanya Roberts , "The Beastmaster", "That 70s Show"), a mix between Tarzan and any skin-mag dame, and the adventure starts.

It's not much of an engaging one, though. Prince Otwani (Trevor Thomas), the NFL athlete (huh?!) brother of the African king whose nation, the fictional Tigora, houses the Zambouli, hopes to financially exploit the mineral for profit by killing his brother and framing the shaman. However, the sports reporter Vic Casey (Ted Wass of "Soap" and "Blossom") following Otwani gets footage of the truth, putting him and his hapless cameraman (Donovan Scott) in danger. However, they meet Sheena, during a rescue of the shaman, and Vic and Sheena have something of a romance while avoiding Otwani and his mercenaries.

If you're not convinced by the whole yarn, barely adequately helmed by John Guillermin ("The Towering Inferno", the 1976 King Kong remake), you're not alone because the film doesn't even live to its' own expectations, being an example of how NOT to make a film. Uninspired action sequences; dated plot points; awkward racial stereotypes (Otwani speaking like a African-American street hustler while being African royalty is cringe-inducing) and leaden dialogue infest the half-baked script of David Newman ("Bonnie and Clyde", the first two Superman films), Leslie Stevens (developer of the original "Outer Limits") and Lorenzo Semple Jr. (developer of the 1960s "Batman" series; "Flash Gordon"). It's also no help that the story doesn't know what it wants to be: a campy tribute to the grade-B ,Saturday matinée serials of the 1930s and 1940s (a la "Star Wars") or a live Playboy centerfold photo session (Tanya shows her mammary glands in bathing sessions), mixed with a Sports Illustrated article. I'm still puzzled how it got a PG rating, let alone green-lighted by an A-level film studio! For a B-film, it has no charm! The actors fare no better, especially Roberts, who's like a topless stripper reading Shakespeare (it has happened!) when being profound and Wass (now a sitcom director), who unbelievably turns from hard-boiled cynic to passionate poet (a bad one, at that) when he's with our hero. Richard Hartley's "Chariots Of Fire"-like score is so pretentious, it's ironic that it fits. Pasqualino De Santis' camera work is the only bright spot here, but if you have the guts to buy/rent the film on DVD, you'll lose out (more than already) because there's only a full screen version.

When people complain about too many comic book films today, they should be aware that the storytelling medium has been mistreated and misunderstood in the past. "Sheena" is one of those comic book-based films that came out at a time when filmmakers cared nothing for any fanboys' feelings, let alone any smart moviegoer, since they had no Internet to voice their displeasure. Today, the displeasure's in evident, ten times over.