Friday Night Special - The Lower Depths

The Interned (2015)

Starring: Robert De Deniro, Amy Adams Directed by: Dame Nancy Meyers Rating: PG Genre: Drama

Review Director and former basketball wunderkind Meyers ("The Diaper", "Hungry Architects", "Dog Walkers 2: The Elder Strolls") knocks it out of the park yet again with this chilling, sexy thriller about young people and the old people who won't stop calling them on their land lines. Adams ("Beaver People", "Diverticulicious: The Eating of Julia Child") stars as a put-upon web "billionaire" whose startup rockets to the top of the intertubes by providing a mobile "app" that matches up women terrified of commitment with men so old that it shouldn't be an issue. De Deniro, so fabulous as the fat, psychopathic rabbi in Dayvid Fincher's "Rabbid" turns yet another cheek as a man so old and so unpleasant that Adams can't resist him. Some will have to look away as they commit sex in the New York Athletic Club's members-only humidor. But if there was ever a reason for 3-D dimensional, this was it. Include me in!

Been There. Done That.

Everest (2015)

Starring: James Brolin, Keira Knightley, Samson Worthington, Jake Gyllylenghall, Emily Longbottom Aleksandr Skarrsgard Directed by: Baltasar Korningdog Rating: PG-13 Genre: Action/Comedy

Review Comedy misfire in which a team of self-proclaimed "nerds" think they can "take" Everest by programming their brains and emotions into robots who are forced to do all of the hard work. Unfortunately Putin-lookalike Skarrsgard ("Willie Wonka 2: Death by Chocolate") has Russian mobsters program weather drones to rain on their parade.   Hollywired is clearly in thrall to Jeff "Amazon" Bozos and weirdball "futurist" hobbit-featured alien Ray "Kurzweil" who plan to "upload" themselves into Roomba vaccuum cleaners and "hoover" across the planet until they can figure out how to reverse the big bang and be there at their own births. Give this one a miss and check out "The Lives and Times of Grizzly Adams" for a movie about how a real man challenges the elements (clue: He guts a bear and inhabits its skin).

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Straight Outa Compton (2015)

Starring: O'Shea Jackson Jr,  Ray Parker Jr, Ernie Hudson Jr, Ice Cube Jr, Tiny Lister Jr, DJ Pooh Jr, TMac  Directed by: F. Gary Gray  Rating: R Genre: Horror/Comedy

Review Weirdball blaxpoitation remake of Ghostbusters somehow  actually works! Michael Jackson/Sinead O'Connor lovechild  O'Shea Jackson Jr is very affecting as the lead "buster"  Dr. O'Shea Jackson Jr (!) who leads a loveable band of  misfits, conmen and minor scientists on a mission to rid  NYC of the ghosts of violent racist policemen. The  finale, in which they detonate a giant marshmallow  version of bloated fathead Donald Trump just in time to  turn Central Park into a massive S'mores party almost  makes up for miserable Kanye West cameo as a street  preacher with a filthy mouth and a heart of gold.

Hesher, Saved From Drowning

Go For it, Hesher! (2011)

Starring: Joseph Gordon Levine, Rainmaker, Natalie Portman Directed by: Denny Terrio Rating: R Genre: Drama Other: Inspirational Dancing

Review In pre-war France the great Rene Clair made a series of films about a drunken clown who defiles middle class families, all with the name Boudu Sauve des Eaux. Forty years later a giant bearded genius named Zero Mostel destroyed the lives of his teenager daughters in David Lean's "Fiddler on the Roof." Now, fifty years on, out of nowhere, disco dance sensation Denny Terrio pulls a rabbit out of that same dirty, dirty hat with "Go For It, Hesher!" a quirky, quixotic romp through the sewers of the mind - with bells on! Terrio ("Stayin' Alive 2: Ontario Dreams!") elicits  electric performances from teen dream sensations David Gordon Levine and Natalie Portman as star-crossed lovers on a road paved with the diamonds of the stars trampled beneath their feet by dreams they can only imagine, and nightmares they can only dream do not occur to their imaginations. Levine ("Walking Tall 5: Pusser vs. Billy Jack", "Lightning Bug: The Adam Ant Story") is particularly fine as a pouty-lipped young circus roustabout with a skateboard, a penchant for Virginia Slims hidden in a pack of Djarum Blacks and a one way ticket to Palookaville. Portman, so good as tragic Norwegian skating sensation Sonje Heine ("Quisling On Ice"), takes it down a couple of notches here as Rita a girl who, on the cusp of her "Quincenera" - a latin ritual for girls in which the young initiate learns that only her brothers will be allowed to attend college, must choose between the Talmud and the dark red mesh open-toed dance shoe. What you think you've seen before turns before your eyes into a delicate mix of black blood sausage and jasmine incense - something unexpected yet fragrant, but not unplesantly so.  I won't give away the shock ending, but be sure to bring a friend with plenty of kleenex and a change of socks. Enjoy! p.s. Yes, that is Sting reciting the Kaddish during the shivah montage.

The Devil In Disguise

Diary of a Priest (2011)

Starring: Paul Bethany, Noel Coward, Dorf, Kal Urban Directed by: Charles Nelson Reilly Rating: PG-13 Genre: Religious

Review Odd remake of Fifties Bresson film casts former "Big Brother" runner-up Bethany as renegado religious tootsie roll Simon Stylites. Stylites, who dressed as a donkey and pulled carts of "special" wood knows as "faggots" used to incinerate witches, unbelievers and forest gnomes, would be somewhat baffled by Director Reilly's complete and utter misreading of Jesus' time in the desert trying to find John the Baptist's head. That said, Bethany is very good as a man who discovers that "under every rock is another rock under which a scorpion may lie" (Book of Mormon) and Australian premier league legend Kal Urban holds his own as a crippled boy whose accidental encounter with some holy spittal results in the ability to decapitate unbelievers via an awesome bicycle kick. For those who think "turn the other cheek" refers to half a pressed ham this may be just the ticket. Recommended.

Low Blow

SuckerPunch (2011)

Starring: Emily Brownbottom, Abbie Cornwall, Scott Glenn Directed by: Zack Snyder Rating: PG-13 Genre: Thriller

Review Terrific remake of "Shock Corridor" director Sam Fuller's "Snake Pit" with newcomer Emily Brownbottom in the Olivia D'Havilland role as a pretty young loony who connives with a young Carl Jung (John-John Ham) to convince an even younger and prettier heiress (Abbie Cornwall - "Fly Robin Fly - the Silver Convention Story") that her money is actually a nest of robot spider that can only be controlled through a series of grisly seduction/murders of the rest of the staff. Confusing, absurd and absolutely riveting in its exploration of the wisdom of young women and the bad choices we all make when we imagine that they are looking at us across a Starbucks when in fact we are all but invisible to anyone younger than 40.  Snyder, who previously turned a tiny incident in Spartan history into international hysteria (and inadvertently gave Colin Powell the "verve" pipe he needed to launch the second invasion of Iraq), here shows an uncanny ability to put his hand up a young actress and make her do his bidding.  Not for children, or adults of children, or for older ladies who incessantly question plot points and point out the children of former leading ladies, or really for anyone disturbed by the idea that our psychiatric institutions may be susceptible to "social engineering hacks". But for those remaining, a more-than-adequate substitute for the kind of pleasure we used to receive through physical contact on an occasionally Friday night drive-in rendezvous.

Last One Out, Turn off the Lights

Green Hornet (2011)

Starring: Sith Rogan, JayChow Directed by: Mitchell Gondry Rating: PG-13 Genre: Suspense Other: Superhero

Review Fat, gray onanist Rogan turns his belly button into a foul spewpipe, "riffing" on one non-sequitur after another as he desperately seeks to talk his way clear of this pig offal of a script (by once-brilliant "novelist of the future" Jay "Gatsby" McInerney). Former Michael Jordan bodyguard and sidekick JayChow hangs on to Rogan's side blubber like a homesick remora. What exactly are we to make of what probably once looked like a "can't miss" idea before the likes of casting Godfather "Lyn" Stallmaster and evil supergenius Michael Ovidz put their morganetic spell upon it? Imagine a carpet the size of the Astrodome made of upturned mouths all screaming their agony in unison, only to be met by a hailstorm of Wilf Errol's special "menudo" stewed in the flopsweat of a hundred Zach Galfianikakiliases. Congratulations, you're a tenth of the way there. Leave EVERYONE home, and enjoy the simple pleasures of Mr. Tony Randall. You'll thank me.