Video review: "Knives Out"

"Knives Out" is a supremely entertaining movie, though it's not hard to discern what it's all about: poking fun at the conventions of the Agatha Christie-style murder/mystery while wantonly indulging in every single trope inherent to the drama.

It ended up earning writer/director Rian Johnson, late of the much-maligned "The Last Jedi" entry in the Star Wars saga, an Academy Award for his original screenplay. It is indeed an intricate instrument of misdirection and humor, pointing the audience this way and yanking them that way, while forcing us to look here when we should be looking there.

It's a fun movie with a "big twist" that you know is coming, though still devilishly difficult to guess. It's the sort of flick you walk out of theater overhearing somebody loudly proclaim, "I saw it coming all along!", and know he's a dirty liar.

It's the prototypical "mansion with a dead guy and a bunch of suspects" setup. The uber-wealthy Thrombey clan has just encountered the death of patriarch Harlan (Christopher Plummer), a famous mystery novelist, under suspicious circumstances. It appears he took his own life, but is this really true?

 Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is the Southern-fried private investigator on the case. Certainly there is not shortage of people with sufficient motive to see Harlan dead. This includes:

• Walt (Michael Shannon), who oversees his dad's publishing company and has tried for years to get him to sell his work for movies and whatnot
• Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), the hard-bitten daughter who insists she's an independent success but is burdened with a lout husband, Richard (Don Johnson) and a peculiar son with Nazi-ish tendencies.
• Joni (Toni Collette), the New Age-y daughter-in-law who puts off an aura of self-confidence but is always hard up for cash
• Hugh (Chris Evans), the cad playboy grandson who recently had a loud falling out with Harlan, and seems to always be disappearing and reappearing at opportune moments

Other characters floating around the story are the police detective (Lakeith Stanfield) who outsources most of the detecting to Blanc; Katherine Langford as one of the nicer grandchildren; and Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan's caretaker who was much closer to him than any of his own children.

Far be it from me to give anything away. All I will say is that "Knives Out" is that rare movie that seems to dare the audience to guess where it's going, but always manages to stay a few steps ahead.

I wouldn't call this one of the best movies of 2019, as some have. In the end it's a fun, clever movie that exists to be fun and clever. Is that really such a bad thing?

Video extras are quite comprehensive. Johnson provides a feature-length commentary track along with his director of photography, Steve Yedlin, and actor Noah Segan, who has a rather small part. Johnson also provides his own "In-Theatre" commentary and stars in his own featurette, "Planning the Perfect Murder."

Additionally there are two deleted scenes with commentary, a Q&A with director and cast, some marketing photos and "Meet the Thrombeys" viral ads, and "Making a Murder," an eight-part making-of documentary.

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Video review: "12 Strong"

War films don’t generally score much of an impact in movie theaters these days. Along with Westerns, they’ve fallen out of favor as our culture increasingly favors hipster dweebs over old-school examples of manliness. I’m closer to dweeb than cowboy myself, but I can still recognize the loss in our cinematic richness.

“12 Strong” stars Christopher Hemsworth and Michael Shannon in the true story of the very first ground troops sent into Afghanistan after 9/11. Those references you heard at the time about soldiers on horses taking on Russian-made tanks? That was these guys.

It’s a rousing war picture that also has some historical lessons to impart about culture clash. The Taliban enemy, and to a large extent even their nascent allies, came from a tradition of embracing an honorable death, but also of lots of infighting and internal strife. The Horse Soldiers, as they came to be known, were Army special forces, spent as much time preventing civil war as taking on the terrorists.

Hemsworth is Mitch Nelson, captain of his elite team, who has a lot of sense but not much in-combat experience. Shannon plays Cal Spencer, the grizzled noncom who acts as his right-hand man and subtle mentor.

Rounding out the cast are Michael Peña as another savvy veteran, William Fitchtner as the ops commander and Rob Riggle -- best known for his comedy but a real-life Marine -- as Nelson’s direct superior.

The movie’s a bit too long (most are these days, it seems), with director Nicolai Fuglsig growing a little too enamored of lengthy battles in which bullets fly and cameras whiz around the action. Still, it’s a solid war movie in a time when such things are rarely even made, let alone any good.

Perhaps owing to its middling box office performance, the film is being issued on video with a modicum of bonus features. Available only on the Blu-ray combo pack, they consist of two featurettes:

“12 Strong: The Making of an Impossible Mission”
“Monumental Effort: Building America’s Response Monument”

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Video review: "The Shape of Water"

One of the best thing about Guillermo del Toro’s movies is they’re so difficult to cram into any box. Is it a horror film? Science fiction? Romance? Historical parable? Fairy tale? Musical comedy?

All of the above, I’d say. After its impressive win at the Academy Awards last week, “The Shape of Water” will surely go down as one of the kookiest Best Picture winners ever.

Sally Hawkins plays Elisa, a mute woman who works as a cleaning lady in a secret government laboratory circa the early 1960s. Her world is tightly bookended: the routine of her job, her friendship with Giles (Richard Jenkins), the gentle illustrator who lives next door, and another with Zelda (Octavia Spencer), who works with her in the dank underground facility.

One day, a strange aquatic man is brought into the lab, where he’s prodded and tortured like a curious science experiment. But Elisa befriends the creature, and even learns how to communicate with it using sign language. She discovers there is a gentleness behind his fearsome exterior, which is like a cross between the Creature from the Black Lagoon and a space alien.

Hawkins, Spencer and Jenkins all received acting nominations at the Oscars, and the movie could easily have gotten three more. Michael Stuhlbarg plays the chief scientist with conflicting impulses and loyalties; Michael Shannon is chilling as the military man running the operation, who sees the aquatic man as just another fish to be cut up; and Doug Jones, who elegantly plays the creature with the help of an elaborate costume and some CGI.

Perhaps the thing I liked best about “The Shape of Water” is that it manages to not only incorporate these six characters into the story, but it actually lets the audience follow each of them for a while, seeing how they became the people they are and how they will interact with each other, in commune or in conflict.

Bonus features are decent, but not great. They consist of five making-of documentary featurettes: “A Fairy Tale for Troubled Times,” “Anatomy of a Scene: Prologue,” “Anatomy of a Scene: The Dance,” “Shaping the Waves: A Conversation with James Jean” amd “Guillermo del Toro’s Master Class.”

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Review: "12 Strong"

"12 Strong" is the true story of the Horse Soldiers, the nickname given to U.S. Army special forces soldiers and intelligence officers who were the very first to fight the terrorist enemies in the aftermath of 9/11. Their actions, which were reported at the time in fall 2001, would seem on its face like a bunch of Hollywood hooey: literally riding horses against Soviet-made tanks and artillery.

It really happened, so here is the now-declassified cinematic version of events. Starring Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon, it's an invigorating war action/drama that shows how modern soldiers had to relearn their craft in order to take the fight to an enemy with a literally medieval mindset, embracing rather than fearing death, while having to rely on new allies who were often more interested in fighting ancient tribal grudges.

At 140 minutes, the movie is rather too long, particularly the action scenes that make up the bulk of the second half. Director Nicolai Fuglsig ("Exfil") knows how to stage military mayhem well, but not when to cut it off. Sequences often devolve into repetitive snatches of an American killing three Taliban with three bullets, while they themselves avoid thousands of round shot at them.

Hemsworth plays Mitch Nelson, the grounded but unseasoned captain of the best squad, part of Task Force Dagger, while Shannon is Cal Spencer, the grizzled chief warrant officer who acts as his right-hand man. When their team is first deployed in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance warlord they've been assigned to assist, General Dostum (Navid Negahban), at first assumes the older man is the leader, because he has the "killer eyes" the younger captain lacks.

The rest of the team falls into the usual rogues gallery blend of background players, where you get just enough information to learn their faces and personalities without every really getting to know their names. Michael Peña plays Sam, another one of the senior guys on the crew. William Fichtner and Rob Riggle play the two colonels overseeing the mission from afar.

That's a pretty solid cast, and I was a little disappointed the script -- by Ted Tally and Peter Craig, based on a book by Doug Stanton -- doesn't give them more to do than spout the usual grim/heroic lines and fire a bunch of guns. It's the first movie I've seen Michael Shannon in where I thought that any number of actors could do what he did.

How much of what's depicted is literally true, I cannot say. Certainly the names and specific events have been changed around. 

The basic mission remains the same, though, to fight elements of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban through a succession of villages up the mountain pass of Tiangi Gap, with the goal of capturing the pivotal city of Mazar-i-Sharif before the winter snows make the route impassable. Officially their job is to stay in the back and call in air strikes, but of course they soon get into the midst of the firefight.

If it were a Western -- which, in a way, it kind of is -- "12 Strong" would be what we call an old-fashioned "oater": straightforward, effective, full of gunplay, not especially original. But like the men it heralds, it gets the job done.

Review: "The Shape of Water"

The greatest compliment I can give to a filmmaker is they make movies that aren’t like anybody else’s.

I didn’t much care for director Guillermo del Toro’s first few American films, but then I discovered his early Mexican stuff and fell in love. Subsequent efforts like “Pacific Rim” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” are films I cherish deeply.

Even when he wandered into a hothouse of Gothic silliness with “Crimson Peak,” I appreciated that it represented a singular vision unlike no other.

Like all of del Toro’s films, “The Shape of Water” defies easy convention. It contains elements of fantasy, horror, science fiction, comedy and even, most surprisingly, romance. Like “Pan’s Labyrinth,” it has a timeless quality, as if the story could have taken place a long time ago or a few years from now.

It’s a deeply affecting film that makes us feel and also makes us think. And it boasts no less than a half-dozen terrific performances worthy of consideration during the awards season. Even characters at the edges of the story feel complete and fully drawn.

Sally Hawkins plays Elisa Esposito, a mute youngish woman. In the opening minutes we observe her go through the quotidian routine of her day: waking, getting dressed, boiling eggs, shining shoes, a quick round of masturbation in the bathtub -- timed to coincide with the eggs, no less.

I liked that del Toro, who wrote the screenplay with Vanessa Taylor, included this last bit. It’s shocking, and it’s meant to be -- watching the main character get naked and rub one out moments after we’ve meant her. But it clues us in that Elisa is not some sexless fawn who deserves our pity because of her handicap, but a vibrant woman full of corners and contradictions.

After her amazing turn in “Maudie” earlier this year, it seems clear that Hawkins’ biggest competition for the Best Actress Oscar is… Sally Hawkins. She shows us Elisa’s yearning and doubt, but also her bravery and pride. What women.

Her entire life seems to be taken up with two things: her job, working as a cleaning lady at a secretive military laboratory, and her friendship with her next-door neighbor, Giles. Played by Richard Jenkins with humor and grace, he’s a fussy, aging commercial artist who frets about his baldness and loneliness. He repeatedly visits an awful pie franchise simply to chat up the sweet young boy working the counter. We get the sense, without it ever being stated, that Giles lost his day job because of his romantic impulses.

The lab where Elisa toils with her loyal friend, Zelda (Octavia Spencer), is a dank underground steampunk denizen of white coat-wearing scientists and gruff military types tromping to and fro. We half expect to glimpse through an open door and see James Bond strapped down with a laser pointed at his nethers.

One day a hard man named Strickland (Michael Shannon) arrives with a secretive container holding a wild water creature that he has captured. Elisa is repulsed by the man but strangely drawn to the captive.

Strickland is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, the sort who wields his privilege as a weapon. He is the man who never fails, because he is always willing to take whatever steps are necessary to reach his goals. To him it’s a simple equation: do your duty, reap the rewards -- rank, prosperity, family, a glossy new 1962 Cadillac DeVille that is most definitely teal and not green.

Elisa starts spending her lunches in the lab with the creature, and soon finds he’s not the fearsome, mindless beast Strickland would have everyone believe. She starts to bring him eggs to eat, plays music to soothe and even discovers he can be taught to use her sign language.

Things go from there… though not in the way we expect.

Doug Jones, a master of costumed performance, plays the amphibious man, with the help of a little CGI. He slightly resembles the Creature from the Black Lagoon, with some outer space alien added in.

The other notable character is Dr. Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), the chief scientist overseeing the creature. He objects to Strickland’s rough treatment, including the use of a cattle prod. He wants to learn from their captive rather than experiment upon him. At first coming across as a soulless technologist, Stuhlbarg’s wide, wet eyes clue us into a man whose heart is pulled in several directions.

The best thing about “The Shape of Water” is that we feel like the story could follow any one of these characters down their individual path and still feel satisfied with the journey. And to a large extent, the film actually does that.

It’s a story of two that is actually about many. We’re all connected -- sometimes in ways that are obvious, often more mysteriously.

Review: "Complete Unknown"

Rachel Weisz plays a mesmerizing lady of mystery in “Complete Unknown,” although it’s not the usual sort of cinematic femme fatale we’re used to. Usually these women have a dark past they’re running from, or a date with destiny they’re trying to outstep. Alice is simply a person who sees life as a series of divergent episodes rather than a single long arc.

Alice… or shall we call her Jenny? Those are the names she has now and started with, respectively -- though there have been almost a dozen in between and, we suspect, many more to come after the movie closes its door on this part of her story.

When her existence becomes tedious or tiresome, Alice just walks out on her old life and starts another. New identity, new look, different attitude, a fresh location. New vocation, too - she’s been a nurse, Chinese magician’s assistant, classical pianist, some other things. Currently she’s a herpetology research assistant, who’s supposedly discovered a new species of frog on Long Island of all places, distinctive because of its special croaking song.

That’s Alice in a nutshell: something utterly unique, right under our noses.

She strikes up a conversation with Clyde (Michael Chernus), a nebbishy guy at the government building cafeteria. But it’s all been carefully planned: she knows Clyde is friends with Tom (Michael Shannon), an uptight sort who works on environmental issues. His entire job, we learn, is writing emails urging certain policy recommendations that have almost no chance of coming to pass.

If Alice is a chimera, constantly changing the face she presents to the world, then Tom is a man of immovable stone, wallowing in the deepest of ruts.

Alice gets Clyde to invite her to Tom’s birthday party -- showing off a potential new girlfriend to a close circle of friends, it would seem. They’re appropriately charmed by her leonine beauty, retiring brilliance and cool job.

But Tom immediately recognizes her as Jenny, his girlfriend from college 15 years ago. Shannon is great at playing characters uncomfortable in their own skins, and he builds Tom as a bundle of nerves and unvocalized regret. He has an amazing wife, Ramina (Azita Ghanizada), an aspiring jewel maker of Persian descent. They’re currently considering a huge change in their lives, but Tom is not the sort to let things go easily.

After the party grows increasingly uncomfortable, Tom and Alice/Jenny decamp to the streets to confront each other. Why is she here? Why the ruse with Clyde? Does she want to get back together, despite Tom’s obvious unavailability?

The questions are limitless, and definitive answers few. But the old connection is still there, and Tom becomes engrossed in Alice’s ability to put on and take off masks at will, as she demonstrates in a chance encounter with an older dogwalker (Kathy Bates) and her husband (Danny Glover). Tom goes along with it, even participates in the exercise, and the temptation for change is clear on his face.

Speaking of which, just watching these actors ply their craft is often mesmerizing in of itself. I would watch Michael Shannon's face for hours on end; so many angles and crevices to explore. The topography is interesting, of course, but it’s the sudden weather shifts that really dazzle.

And Weisz is so good at showing us the emotion that lies underneath Alice’s mountain of lies. Though she often leaves people she loves behind without even a goodbye, there’s no malice in her. She does not own a rear-view mirror; it’s the thrills ahead that compel.

Directed by Joshua Marston (“Maria Full of Grace”) from a screenplay he co-wrote with Julian Sheppard, “Complete Unknown” is a film that questions not just one woman’s opus of false personas, but the very concept of identity as a fixed point.

Video review: "Elvis & Nixon"

Forty-six years after it was taken, the iconic photo of Elvis Presley meeting President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office is still the most requested image in the National Archives. Here are two disparate figures who still have a tight hold on the national consciousness, decades separated from their heydays.

“Elvis & Nixon” is a great premise for a movie: What’s the story behind that impromptu meeting? Director Liza Johnson and screenwriters Joey Sagal, Hanala Sagal and Cary Elwes explore the subject with humor and a surprising amount of insight into each man’s troubled soul.

It’s a fictionalized account, but we suspect events could’ve transpired much as they are depicted.

Michael Shannon plays Elvis and Kevin Spacey is Nixon. Both are completely authoritative in their roles, despite never trying to do an impersonation of their character. Shannon, the king of brooding cinematic figures, doesn’t much look or sound like Elvis but suggests a thoughtful wariness behind the gaudy façade.

There’s a great scene where he’s putting on his standard get-up of that era – black coat and pants, gold buckle, shirt open to the navel, high-altitude pompadour, omnipresent sunglasses -- and comments to one of his rare, close friends, Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer), that people only see the “thing” and not the boy from Memphis.

Already the recipient of numerous honorary badges, he undertakes the mission because he craves a federal one. Dismayed at the drugs and unrest he sees on television, he concocts a story of becoming an undercover “agent-at-large” to help save America’s youth. He’s so cut off from the world he doesn’t realize you can’t take firearms on a commercial airplane.

Spacey gets less screen time, but projects an image of a man who never got over his humble roots despite the position he’s attained. At first he doesn’t want to meet Elvis, partly because he’s so handsome; guys like me had to work hard to get a girl’s attention, he grumbles to one of his flunkies.

(To Nixon, everyone is a flunky… or should be.)

Colin Hanks plays Egil Krogh, the president’s right-hand man who pushes the meeting to help with the youth vote; Evan Peters is fellow flunky Dwight Chapin; Johnny Knoxville plays Sonny West, another Elvis hanger-on who’s not above using the boss’ allure to entice feminine company.

I won’t say too much of the meeting, other than it goes exactly as we might expect, and completely not. Nixon is totally flustered by the singer’s self-importance – slurping down the Dr. Pepper and M&Ms reserved for the POTUS – but to his own surprise finds a kindred soul to whom he can relate. Both men are constantly surrounded, yet eternally lonely.

A bit kooky with a serious undertone, “Elvis & Nixon” is a smart and funny take on the little foibles history throws at us.

Bonus features are a mite skimpy, consisting of a commentary track by director Johnson and the real Jerry Schilling, and a featurette, “Crazy But True.”

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Video review: "Midnight Special"

“Midnight Special” is a little science fiction indie that you probably haven’t heard of. It got talked up a lot among film geeks, turned heads on the festival circuit, but then was dumped into theaters without fanfare – or even bothering to screen it for critics.

It quickly disappeared, earning about $6 million against an $18 million budget.

Hopefully it’ll find the audience it deserves on video. While the movie has some flaws, it’s an engaging and offbeat supernatural mystery/thriller featuring some fine actors. The pacing is a little off -- the filmmakers hold onto their secrets too tightly and for too long, then overwhelm us with sudden revelations. But it’s got a verve of originality so often missing from this genre.

Michael Shannon plays Roy, a determined man on the run with is son, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), who is 8 years old and… peculiar. He wears dark glasses all the time, never goes out in the sunlight and is regarded by others with a mix of fear and awe. Tagging along is Lucas (Joel Edgerton), a former cop who acts as their knight-errant protector.

I won’t get into all the convolutions of the plot, but suffice to say they are both running away from something and running toward something. Men from The Ranch, an end-times cult that Roy and Alton used to belong to, are in pursuit along with the law.

Kirsten Dunst turns up later as Alton’s mother, who’s been in hiding. Adam Driver plays a sympathetic scientist trying to puzzle out Alton’s mystery. Sam Shephard plays the eerily charismatic Ranch leader.

Strange portents are all around, and there’s a giddy feeling like the movie could slip off in any number of directions.

Writer/director Jeff Nichols (“Mud,” “Take Shelter”) is an original voice who deserves to be heard. Though “Take Shelter” doesn’t quite have the emotional punch of his earlier movies, here is a filmmaker who thinks outside the lines.

Bonus features are… interesting. Instead of the usual making-of documentary or commentary track, both the DVD and Blu-ray versions have five “Origins” featurettes on each of the five main characters. There’s also another featurette, “The Unseen World,” on the film’s metaphysical musings.

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Review: "Midnight Special"

"Midnight Special" has that Spielbergian element of wonderment but not the emotional connection. Writer/director Jeff Nichols' fourth feature film, all of which feature Michael Shannon, fills the mind but not the heart. It's a mystery that reveals too little of itself, as if afraid to lay down its big cards and see how the audience reacts.

It's still a worthy film. But compared to the unnerving appeal of "Take Shelter" or the twangy, Twain-esque charm of "Mud," it feels like a bit of a letdown.

Two men are on the run, having kidnapped a curious young boy. Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), 8, sits in the back of the car, content and unafraid, reading comic books while wearing dark goggles as they flee in an old muscle car -- even though it's night. Alton never goes anywhere during the day, never goes out at all in the light.

Answers are few, and drip out at a sometimes frustratingly slow pace.

Roy (Shannon) says he's the boy's father, but we're not entirely certain. He's a little distant, giving instructions in a harsh tone. He seems to regard Alton as an obligation rather than someone to be loved. The other guy is Lucas (Joel Edgerton); we know even less about him than the other two. But he handles himself well in tight corners, and we get the sense that's why he's there.

They clearly care about Alton, revere him even; but it's the sort of care you might have for a pet tiger.

Clearly Alton is special. We know this because a (too) long expository sequence introduces us to The Ranch, a religious cult run by Calvin (Sam Shepard), who is Alton's adoptive father. They've got a Branch Davidian feel -- pastoral, patriarchal, well-armed and expecting a reckoning any day now. The FBI has been watching them for some time, and when Alton is kidnapped they search the place and question everybody.

Adam Driver plays Paul Sevier, a bookish type from the NSA who's brought in because some of the Ranch's scripture includes data that could only come from top-secret satellite communications. Calvin patiently explains that the boy sometimes speaks in tongues, and they write down what he says and regard it as holy text.

There are also reports of supernatural powers, light coming from Alton's eyes, and those who commune with this illumination feel a sense of peace and fulfilmment.

After the feds have left, Calvin dispatches some of his own men (Bill Camp, Scott Haze) with guns to track Roy down and bring Alton back.

We eventually meet up with Alton's mother (Kirsten Dunst), who is eager to be reunited with her son. We get the sense Alton was taken away from her and Roy without their entire willing consent. Both used to be part of the cult, and broke away at some point, or were thrown out.

"We get the sense" is largely the way the audience experiences this movie. Too many filmmakers feel compelled to spell everything out for us, to the point there are no surprises. Nichols goes too far the other way, raising tantalizing question and possibilities and then... just leaving them out there, unexplored.

Since the Ranch folks seem to regard Alton as their resident savior, did the cult exist before he came into their midst? Or did they adjust their beliefs to accommodate his supernatural abilities?

Eventually we learn more about Alton, what he can do, what his purpose is. But the information arrives so late in the going it doesn't have time to register with a lot of visceral impact. There's too much chase-chase and not enough questioning why they're running, and why others are chasing.

Despite all this, I liked the movie. It's in some ways a spiritual successor to "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." Alton is the intriguing Other whose mystery must be puzzled out, but doing so means certain loss for those who join the quest. Dangerous people join in the hunt, some with benevolent intentions, others selfish, but either way their interference just serves to prevent Alton from fulfilling his destiny.

There's been a lot of buzz about "Midnight Special," but the studio decided to dump it into theaters without any fanfare or screenings. (They even moved up its limited release by a week on short notice.) It's a shame. It's a flawed but worthwhile film that bespeaks of better things to come.

Review: "99 Homes"

“99 Homes” is an earnest little drama that focuses on the foreclosure craze during the Great Recession. It shows how the will to survive can be gradually bended into a willingness to exploit the tragedies of others for personal gain. It’s a deliberately discomfiting portrait of how the line between victim and victimizer can easily blur.

Andrew Garfield is solid and empathetic as Dennis Nash, the true-blue-collar guy who gets evicted from his house, then goes to work for the real estate mogul who threw him out, eventually morphing into his right-hand lackey and reflection.

But Michael Shannon utterly steals the show as his boss, Rick Carver -- a conniving, contemptible yet surprisingly human figure.

Rick’s a cannibal who feels compelled to justify his actions even as he’s employing his teeth to strip the bones. He’s part Donald Trump, dividing the world into admirable winners and wretched losers; part pathetic Willy Loman, so fearful of a fall from grace that he invites it; and part Blake, Alec Baldwin’s wolfen character from “Glengarry Glen Ross,” slavering for his prey.

This is a tiny picture that I hope Oscar voters will remember when it comes time for voting on nominations. Shannon assuredly deserves a spot on the supporting actors’ list.

The story is set circa 2010 in Orlando, Fla. -- my own hometown. I can remember people back home talking about seeing at least two foreclosure signs on every block, whether houses were in the $70,000s or the $700,000s. Places like O-Town and Phoenix, Ariz., were the hot spots for the real estate bubble, with overheated prices producing the most precipitous drops when the bottom fell out.

Dennis is a construction guy, single dad, who lives with his son, Connor (Noah Lomax), and mom (Laura Dern) in a low-roofed bungalow -- the sort of crowded, low-cost housing that fueled Florida’s population boom in the 1950s and ’60s. Work’s been scanty since the real estate bubble popped, so when they get behind on their mortgage payments the courts are quick to whip out of the foreclosure card.

In a harrowing scene, Dennis and his brood are summarily thrown out of the family dwelling, their stuff piled up on the lawn by riff-raff workers, with rent-a-cops warning them of a trip to jail if they don’t comply. Rick is calling the shots, though he pretends to be just the guy with the clipboard carrying out orders. The energy is real and nervy, with everyone resorting to that sort of false politeness – “Yes, sir,” “No, ma’am,” – when they’d really like to take a swing at each other.

They pack up their stuff to a rundown motel, which houses a thriving community of evictees, all convinced they’ll move back into their own home any day now. Dennis catches a break when he stumbles upon Rick and is offered 50 bucks to help out with a vacant property that has been befouled. He possesses enough self-worth left to haggle the nasty job up to two-fifty, and Rick recognizes a hunger he can harness.

“Don’t get emotional about real estate,” Rick intones. “They’re boxes.”

Soon enough, Dennis himself is the one holding the clipboard, running his own crews, talking people into easing their keys into his hand, waving in the police to strong-arm it when required. Rick shows him how to work the grayish angles between private commerce and government subsidy, snagging whopping checks from Fannie Mae by covertly shuffling around appliances and AC’s.

(Air conditioning, for those not in the know, is practically a religion in the Sunshine State, and all must tithe.)

Written (along with Amir Naderi) and directed by Ramin Bahrani, “99 Homes” gets a bit fat in the second half, as the plot plays out its preordained contretemps between diabolical mentor and soul-searching mentee. But it manages to powerfully illustrate the human toll of the foreclose-and-flip game, just as we’ve started to forget the shenanigans and, thereby, open the door to them again.

Video review: "Man of Steel"

Rebooting a superhero franchise is a trickier business than it sounds. People remember the glory of “The Dark Knight” and forget how clunky “Batman Begins” was. Spider-Man fizzled out with one group and came back stronger with another cast and crew. They tried twice to get the Hulk off the ground and only succeeded by making him a supporting player in the Avengers.

Hollywood attempted to bring back Superman a few years ago, and the the movie was just OK, so now they’ve tried again, and the results are similarly so-so.

Don’t flog “Man of Steel” for a lack of effort: there are big, grasping ambitions contained in this version starring Brit actor Henry Cavill. Too many, in fact.

Director Zack Snyder and screenwriter David S. Goyer’s unwisely chose to shoehorn two movies worth of storytelling into one sprawling narrative and ended up with a film showing all the symptoms of a split personality.

Here Clark Kent spends the first half of the movie as a demi-god alienated (literally) from the rest of his world, and the second half trading epic haymakers with evil General Zod (Michael Shannon), a militaristic bully from his home world of Krypton.

Both halves work decently well on their own, but don’t mesh together in any way that satisfies. We’re missing the bridge between the two, where Clark adopts the persona of Superman and takes on the mantle of humanity’s noble protector.

(The original “Superman” from 1978 faced similar issues, and chose to shoot the two movies back-to-back, giving Zod and his henchman their own sequel to fill out.)

Personally, I preferred the first portion where Superman must find his own way between the paths laid out by his two father figures, his Kryptonian dad (Russell Crowe) and his adoptive family on Earth, with Kevin Costner making a strong turn as Pa Kent.

“Man of Steel” isn’t a bad movie, but it certainly doesn’t soar like it should have.

Video extras are quite good, though as is often the case, the best stuff costs more. The DVD version comes only with three featurettes on the mythology of Superman, training regimen for the action scenes and a rundown of Krypton technology.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray level and  you add “Journey of Discovery: Creating ‘Man of Steel,’” a feature-length making-of documentary film. You also get “Planet Krypton,” which goes into the history and sociology of Superman’s doomed home planet.

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Man of Steel"

A grand, and grandly disappointing venture, "Man of Steel" reaches for the sun in trying to reset the Superman franchise, then plummets to earth in a storm of hyperactive CGI action sequences and overstuffed plotting.

It begins with hope and even a touch of awe, a story of fathers and sons, less about a man who can lift buildings than a wayward soul seeking to find a home on an alien world. But then the bad guy arrives, even before the main character has had a chance to establish himself, and the movie is overtaken by standard villainous sneering and apocalyptic dooms.

This film, directed by Zack Snyder and written by David S. Goyer, has a couple of main problems. The most obvious is that it's two movies worth of material shoehorned into one. And this leads directly to the other:
Superman never really gets to be Superman.

Oh, Henry Cavill does eventually don the familiar blue-and-red costume -- though, like everything else from the dead planet Krypton in the movie, it's reimagined with a hard-edged militaristic texture, less apparel than armor. The British actor has a quietly commanding presence onscreen; he believably personifies a demigod.

(Though his lean, almost emaciated face seems incongruously perched atop the mountain of muscles he packed onto his torso for this role.)

No, what I mean is that Clark Kent, aka Kal-El of Krypton, spends the first half of the movie trying to find out who he is, and the second half trading epic haymakers with his enemies -- laying waste to half of Metropolis in the process. There's a missing second act where Superman reveals himself to the world, earns their trust, and is embraced as humanity's champion.

Indeed, some of the film's most powerful scenes involve Clark receiving tutelage from his two fathers -- Jonathan Kent (a strong Kevin Costner), the Kansas farmer who found his crashed spaceship and raised him up, and Jor-El (Russell Crowe), the enlightened Krypton scientist who dispatched him as a babe to Earth to be mankind's savior.

(Underlining the notion of Kal-El-as-Christ, in this version of the Superman mythology he doesn't declare his extraordinary abilities until the age of 33, the same as a certain other celestial pilgrim.)

There's a push and pull between the two men's teachings: Jor-El (who communicates through a holographic representation of his consciousness) daring his natural-born son to embrace his potential for greatness, constantly testing his limits, while Kent urges caution and forbearance, forcing his adopted child to absorb the pain of being an outcast rather than inflicting society with a knowledge they're not ready to bear.

Really, this is all the film needs in terms of narrative to take flight, and for awhile at least, it soars.

Things are complicated by the infiltration of a nosy journalist, Lois Lane (Amy Adams), who comes asking questions about a mystery man who turns up here and there, performing amazing acts before disappearing. Clark and Lois form the beginnings of an important friendship, and we expect her to be the vehicle through which he emerges to the public.

But then General Zod arrives, and the quiet power the movie has built up is blasted away by a cacophony of explosions and destruction -- not to mention Hans Zimmer's bombastic musical score.

A usurper imprisoned by the Krypton leadership for an attempted coup, Zod sees himself as the true redeemer of his people, with dreams of establishing a new generation on this planet. (Of course, the existing species must go.)

Zod has about a dozen followers, each of whom replicates Superman's powers in Earth's atmosphere, or nearly so. And he's got an obligatory end-of-the-world plan ... actually, two: terraform the planet into a copy of Krypton, and some screwy twaddle about extracting the entire genetic plans for their race from Kal-El's cells.

Michael Shannon is terrific as Zod, a combination of arrogance and perseverance that allows him to justify unspeakable cruelty. And their fight scenes have a certain kinetic urgency, sometimes overindulged by Snyder, as their bodies slam through buildings like flotsam spun out of a tornado.

But this doesn't change the fact that Zod belongs in a separate movie, where his malevolence can sprawl and take root. Here, he shows up and immediately sets about his destructive plans, like a Cliff's Notes version of a cinematic scoundrel.

Superman may be capable of many astounding feats. But one thing he can't do is turn two films worth of storytelling into a single good one.

Video review: "Premium Rush"

A zippy, looper thrill ride of a movie, "Premium Rush" overcomes its paper-thin premise to deliver an enjoyable and well-crafted piece of entertainment.

The plot is silly to the point of absurdity: A maverick bike messenger named Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is pursed all over New York City by a corrupt detective (Michael Shannon) who's after the documents he's transporting across town. Wilee may have a low-paying, no-respect job, but he takes it seriously and refuses to give in, even as the stakes are steadily ratcheted up into deadly territory.

"Once it goes in the bag, it stays in the bag," is his credo.

Director David Koepp, who also wrote the screenplay with John Kamps, shows a flair for action sequences as the bicycles weave perilously in and out of traffic that's constantly on the move. One of the coolest bits is Wilee's ability to analyze a situation and plot different outcomes on the fly. He's like the Rain Man of traffic patterns.

Shannon is both funny and frightening as the bad guy, a cop so underwater in gambling debts that lashes out like a man struggling for air. He's like a one-man circle of victimization, inflicting and receiving punishment in turn.
The really astonishing thing is that the cast and crew manage to engage us in this ridiculous potboiler on wheels, and actually care about the characters.

"Premium Rush" may not be a great film, but it goes to show that filmmakers can approach even the lightest material with devotion and come out ahead of the pack.

Alas, video extras are quite skimpy. They're limited to two making-of featurettes: "The Starting Line -- Meet The Cast" and "Behind The Wheels -- Featurette on the Action, Stunts and Chases."

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 1.5 stars

Review: "Premium Rush"

At one point in the early going of "Premium Rush," a man driving a car hurtling after a bike messenger cackles to himself with disbelief, "I'm chasin' a bicycle!!" And I felt like yelling back, "And I'm watching a movie about you chasin' a bicycle!!"

"Premium Rush" looks and feels like a lightweight movie, because it is. But it also happens to be an unusually well-made one. The premise is so absurd that it sounds like a put-on: daredevil bike messenger is chased around Manhattan by a corrupt police detective after the secret envelope he's carrying.

The really preposterous thing is that the filmmakers and cast manage to engage us in this hyped-up thriller, and actually care about the characters.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Wilee, a legend in the bike messenger community (which seems to consist entirely of lean, scruffy twentysomethings with a plethora of piercings and tats). Wilee rides without fear, using a steel-frame bike with set gears and no brakes. He's like a shark on wheels, believing that to stop moving is to die.

Director David Koepp, who also wrote the screenplay with John Kamps, approaches the material with a documentary-style mindset, inserting all sorts of details about these crazy people who weave in and out of New York City traffic like the world's most dangerous Olympic event.

There's the thick, chunky chains and locks they wear around their waists like a belt, so they can quickly lock up their rides when dropping off and picking up packages. And the way they despise cabs for their abrupt stops and perilous opening doors, but save their worst insults for pedestrians.

Wilee's a classic sort of protagonist for this type of film -- he graduated from Columbia Law School, but hasn't taken the bar exam because he prefers to ride the streets for $80 a day. (No mention how he's repaying his student loans on that trickle of cash flow.) He's recently been dumped by his girlfriend, fellow bike messenger Vanessa (Dania Ramirez), who can't understand all the risks he takes.

His main nemesis is Manny (Wolé Parks), a preening show-off who has designs on Wilee's top-dog status and his lady, too.

Wilee is finishing out a normal day when he gets called to pick up a package from Columbia and take it to a Chinatown restaurant. It turns out the customer is Nima (Jamie Chung), Vanessa's secretive roommate, who has recently asked her to move out. Wilee doesn't care much, other than it's an extra $30 in his pocket.

Until, that is, Robert Monday shows up, demanding the envelope Nima gave him. Wilee declines and gives him the slip, declaring that even if he is a humble bike messenger, "Once it goes in the bag, it stays in the bag." He maintains this attitude even after the man gives chase in his car, and is revealed to be a cop.

Played by Michael Shannon, Monday is a terrific bundle of nervous energy and malevolence, part clown and part psychopath. Hooked on gambling and loaded with debts, Monday is like a one-man circle of victimization, inflicting and receiving punishment in turn.

At one point he submits to a vicious beating by some Chinese enforcers because of his debts, but becomes incensed when they knock one of his teeth out. "There are rules!!" he hollers, quickly turning the tables on them and upping the ante. He's easily one of the most memorable villains we've seen this summer.

Things go from there, with the action playing out in more-or-less real time, with the boring parts cut out and replaced with flashbacks to earlier moments as we flesh out the background and characters a little more. This has the effect of making the people more sympathetic -- even Detective Monday, who's such a self-destructive mess that the loan sharks and bookies even feel a little sorry for him.

In this type of movie, the thing Wilee is carrying is generally a classic MacGuffin -- an object whose exact nature or meaning is unimportant, other than everyone wants it. Except that about halfway through, he learns the significance of the tiny slip of paper he's carrying, and the stakes are raised considerably.

The action scenes are exciting enough, with impressive stunt work interspersed with some computer-generated crashes and effects. One of the neat gimmicks is Wilee's ability to approach a congested intersection stuffed with all sorts of perils, and instantly envision different outcomes depending on which way he turns.

I went into "Premium Rush" expecting nothing much, and in truth I came away without much of any lingering substance. But it's a zippy, fun ride, and more skillfully made than you'd expect.

3 stars out of four

Video review: "Take Shelter"

A lot of people are squawking about Michael Fassbender ("Shame") and Leonardo DiCaprio ("J. Edgar") failing to receive Oscar nominations for Best Actor, as widely expected among the Hollywood cognoscenti. For my money, the guy who really got cheated was Michael Shannon, whose creepy-yet-charismatic turn in "Take Shelter" earned a lot of critical praise -- but few ticket sales for this little-seen drama.

Shannon plays Curtis, a blue-collar Ohio family man who starts seeing strange apocalyptic visions -- birds flying into vortexes, threatening storm patterns, even indistinct human forms trying to break into the house and get his daughter (Tova Stewart) and wife (Jessica Chastain, filmdom's Miss Everywhere for 2011).

Curtis' own mother had a schizophrenic breakdown when she was about the age he is now, so his first thoughts are that he's cracking up. He seeks counseling at the free clinic and reads books about mental illness.

But nothing can stop his strange impulses -- especially about the old storm shelter buried in his backyard, which Curtis begins transforming into a veritable fortress. He mortgages the house and leverages himself to the hilt in an attempt to slay the white whale only he can see.

It's an extraordinary bit of acting by Shannon, whose face always seems on the verge of melting into a swirl of emotions. "Take Shelter" is a harrowing portrait of Midwest normalcy disrupted by dark daydreams.

Video extras are pretty good. Director Jeff Nichols supplies a feature-length commentary track, and for once the lead actor joins him. I think these commentaries are always better when more than one person is involved, and even better when representatives of both the crew and cast take part.

There is also a behind-the-scenes featurette, Q&A with Shannon and co-star Shea Whigham, and a few deleted scenes.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "Take Shelter"

Dark portents are rising, but only one man can see them. "Take Shelter" is a story of foreboding and madness, as the sky literally seems to close around Curtis, an average blue-collar family man from Ohio.

Clouds roil in over the fields in strange, disturbing twists and formations. Birds fly in vexing patterns with no rhyme or reason, as if they're trying to form their own organic cyclone. When things really get bad, Curtis sees indistinct human shapes through his windows, pawing at him and his family.

The fact that these visions happen both in Curtis' dreams and his waking life make them even more troubling. This is the story of a man who comes not to trust his own mind, and how losing that groundedness of mental integrity causes him to become unstuck from his wife, child, job and community.

Curtis is played by character actor Michael Shannon, known for twitchy supporting roles in mainstream films, including his Oscar-nominated turn as a mentally fractured man in "Revolutionary Road."

There's something about Shannon's looming height and malleable features that makes him a natural fit for playing tortured souls. He tends to keep a straight face that is always on the verge of plunging into a well of emotion. I cannot countenance the notion of a Michael Shannon romantic comedy.

It's an entirely new experience to see him taking the sort of character who would normally populate the background of a star vehicle and giving him his own movie. Shannon is equal to the task, drawing a portrait of a man who is self-aware about what is happening to him, but cannot turn away from the visions.

As time goes on and the dreams grow worse -- threatening his daughter, Hannah (Tova Stewart) -- Curtis takes action. He puts his beloved dog, which he dreamed tore his arm apart, in a pen.

Curtis avoids self-denial about his predicament. He checks out books on mental illness from the library and sees his doctor for some sleeping pills. His mother (Kathy Baker) was taken away from him by schizophrenia when she was the same age Curtis is now, so it's clear this descent into mental illness is something he has long feared and guarded against.

Things really grow strange when he decides to expand the old storm shelter in his back yard into a veritable underground fortress, borrowing money they don't have from the bank to do it.

It's notable that in none of Curtis' visions does his wife Samantha appear. That is, until...

Samantha is played by Jessica Chastain, who's had a major career birth over the last year in "The Debt," "Tree of Life," "The Help" and other films. She plays Samantha as more than just the good wife role, as a loving woman who is there for her husband and wants to do everything to help him, but makes it clear there are lines that cannot be crossed. At one point she insists they go to a Lions Club oyster fry dinner, simply because they need to do something normal.

Writer/director Jeff Nichols paints an authentic portrait of Midwest normalcy disrupted by extraordinary circumstances. He wisely puts his focus and his camera tightly on his actors, and keeps it there.

At just over two hours the movie lingers a little too much here and there, and suffers bouts of predictability. The fact that Hannah is deaf and needs cochlear implants paid for by Curtis' health insurance sets up a countdown for inevitable problems on the job.

"Take Shelter" is sometimes predictable, that is, until the very end, which suggests things that seem to come out of left field, until you recall hints that have been dropped along the way. I think this ending weakens the film, which is less concerned with the twists and turns of plot than how a man deals with the whole world crashing in on him, exposing his weaknesses.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Machine Gun Preacher"

"Machine Gun Preacher" is one of those stories that if it wasn't based on reality, few people would buy it.

Gerard Butler plays Sam Childers, a biker hoodlum who goes straight after discovering Jesus, and builds a church across the street from his house for sinners like himself. This would be enough for most movies, but for "Preacher" it's a mere jumping-off point: Sam goes to Uganda, is repulsed by the bloody civil war spilling over there from Sudan, and dedicates his life to establishing and protecting an orphanage.

But Sam is no pacifist "lamb of God" type of preacher -- he believes the Lord wants not sheep, but wolves with teeth who can fight the evildoers. The film's title is not just hyperbole: Sam gets into frequent firefights, and mows down more bad guys than the first couple of Rambo flicks.

Director Marc Forster ("Finding Neverland") and screenwriter (and Indianapolis native) Jason Keller curiously do not focus too much on the right or wrong of this American bringing the fight to the rebels, who kill wantonly and kidnap children to fight for them as enslaved soldiers. It's more an interior exploration of Sam, and the toll a life of such fierce commitment to a cause takes on his family and psyche.

The bad guys are referred to as simply the LRA, but after a bit of Googling I discover that stands for Lord's Resistance Army. It turns out the Sudanese rebels, led by self-described mystic Joseph Kony, are Christians who follow an apocalyptic form of the religion based on a particularly harsh (mis)interpretation of the Ten Commandments.

This would make for an interesting dichotomy, the two holy men each fighting for their version of the Bible. Forster and Keller briefly flirt with this direction, personified by a female doctor who points out that Kony started out much as Sam did, professing to save the members of his flock from the depravity of the other side.

But as soon as "Machine Gun Preacher" looks like it's going to tackle some tough issues, and really put its protagonist under a microscope, it pulls back and settles for familiar tropes, such as Sam's wife (Michelle Monaghan) calling to complain that he never spends time with his family, they're running out of money, etc.
Not 30 minutes earlier, she was telling Sam to suck it up after the rebels burned down the orphanage, calling it a test from God and to just build it all over again.

Michael Shannon adds a few notes as Donnie, Sam's former running buddy who can't shake off the lure of drugs and crime as easily as Sam did. But his character flits in and out of the story in a seemingly arbitrary way.

Butler is a fiery presence as Sam, and some of the scenes where he witnesses the atrocities of war -- one woman is brought in to the clinic with her lips hacked off, for having talked back to rebel soldiers -- have a genuine visceral punch.

But for much of the time, "Machine Gun Preacher" is curiously flat and wandering. It seems to think that by simply presenting the reality of a colorful man, you don't need to do anything else.

2 stars out of four

Video review: "The Runaways"

There's a great scene in "The Runaways" that captures the essence of the 1970s girl rock band, and the movie about them.

Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart), Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) and the rest of the recently assembled group are practicing inside a rundown trailer on a steamy California afternoon. Their eccentric producer, Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), thinks their performance isn't edgy enough. So he hires a bunch of local boys to pelt them with dog poo and garbage as they play.

Needless to say, the teen girls are soon pretty P.O.'d, and it shows in the anger they put into the music.

The Runaways were not a band of young women who came together to sing about rebellion, but a group assembled by a cynical, brilliant hitmaker who thought jailbait rockers could be the next big thing.

Briefly, they were.

The film, based on a memoir by lead singer Currie, focuses on her character and Jett almost to the exclusion of the other band members. The most compelling thing about it is the transformation of Currie from 15-year-old wallflower into a snarling sex siren of the stage.

Inevitably, the band becomes a sensation, starts doing progressively harder drugs, begins fighting among themselves, and we can practically start the countdown until their breakup.

There isn't a lot of soul here, but writer/director Floria Sigismondi keeps things moving along at an upbeat tempo, and the energy of old songs like "Cherry Bomb" still boasts plenty of spark.

Despite a boatload of clichés, "The Runaways" rocks on.

The Blu-ray and DVD versions come with identical extras, highlighted by a feature-length commentary by Joan Jett (who executive produced the film), Stewart and Fanning.
I haven't yet heard it -- the studio couldn't ship a review copy in time -- but just the concept of matching up the rock legend with the actress playing her sounds amazing. Too bad they couldn't recruit Currie, too.

There are also featurettes about the making of the movie and the history of the band.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars out of four

Review: "The Runaways"

"The Runaways" is a manufactured movie about a manufactured band.

The all-girl rock 'n' roll band was a '70s gimmick designed to peddle teen sex appeal -- and yet the songs they produced ("Cherry Bomb," "Queens of Noise") have a brash energy that's hard to deny.

Similarly, the movie about them wades through every cliché of the rock biopic genre, but is still an entirely watchable and fleetingly engrossing glimpse at Joan Jett, Cherie Currie and the gang.

I say "and the gang" not because I'm trying to minimize the contributions of Lita Ford, Sandy West and Jackie Fox (and several other bassists whose tenures with the band are not depicted). But since it's based on a memoir by Currie, and executive produced by Jett, it's not surprising they're in the spotlight.

Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning make for believable teen rockers who got caught up in the manipulation and excesses of the music biz. Joan (Stewart) is the purist, a tough girl who buys a man's leather jacket, spends her idle days huffing to get high, and refuses to accept a music teacher's admonition, "Girls don't play electric guitar." She was born with rock 'n' roll in her bloodstream.

Cherie is more of a dreamer who has to be coaxed out of her shell into becoming a vicious stage vixen. As adroitly played by Fanning, Cherie is like a million other girls searching for an identity, and using her broken home as a crucible in which to forge a steely persona.

They're brought together by Kim Fowley (a terrific Michael Shannon), a strange but legendary producer who sees in the teen girls a chance to create something new: Hard rock performed by sexy, underage girls. (Upon learning that Cherie is only 15, he raises his fists triumphantly: "Jailbait!")

This is the movie's strongest section, as Fowley sets about forming a band and toughening them up to withstand hecklers and the media glare. With Joan and the rest of the musicians already assembled, Fowley decides they need to inject a little more sex into the mix.

In a great scene, he goes trolling through a local nightclub, picks Cherie out of the crowd because of her brazen stare and Bowie-meets-Bardot look, and offers her a spot in the band.

They rehearse in a run-down trailer, and Fowley composes the song "Cherry Bomb" on the spot for Cherie's audition. (Sounds like a fake Hollywood moment, but various accounts say it really happened.) It's fascinating to watch Cherie, and Fanning herself, transform from innocent little girl to fire-breathing sexpot in a matter of minutes.

Fowley's tactics are a far cry from politically correct, even for 1975 -- he calls the Runaways "kittens" and "little bitches," and even recruits neighborhood boys to hurl tin cans and dog feces at them to make their performance angrier.

The Runaways go on the road, do progressively harder drugs, make the big time, face hordes of fans, and the movie enters the inevitable, dreary decline-and-breakup phase that seems to be genetically embedded into every rock 'n' roll movie.

Writer/director Floria Sigismondi handles the material without a lot of depth, but keeps the film from spiraling into a torpor. She also employs coy camera tricks in tackling the possibility of a lesbian encounter between Cherie and Joan.

Like the band it chronicles, "The Runaways" is mainstream entertainment waving a rebel flag. It still kinda rocks, though.

3 stars out of four