The Worst Movies Of 2018

Image courtesy of Lionsgate.

Like a flatulent elephant following a hearty bamboo snack, 2018 stunk out loud. From Donald Trump's increasingly disturbing antics to nearly everyone I know being stricken with some type of misfortune, the past 12 months were, well, not good.

That being said, it was a pretty decent year for movies. But more on that later after Pittsburgh finally brings in the final two movies upon which I am waiting before I can make my best of the year list.

In the meantime, it's time to look back - albeit not fondly - on some of the year's worst movies. There weren't any huge bombs, although I have missed a number of movies this year, especially big budget ones, that conceivably could have sucked. Since I am a glutton for punishment, I will likely catch up with them in the new year.

Without further ado, here are 10 movies to avoid from 2018:

10. The Nun - A religious-themed horror movie from the "Conjuring" universe that is so lacking in scares that it'll make you say, "Holy shit!" Reviewed here.

9. Truth or Dare -
Q: Truth or dare?
A: Truth
Q: Is "Truth or Dare" any good?
A: No
Reviewed here.

8. Death Wish - Eli Roth continues his tradition of making my worst of the year list with this noxious remake of the 1974 Charles Bronson film that feels like an imbecilic alt-right fantasy.

7. Gotti - Regarding this often hilariously bad film about the Teflon Don, it's best that you fuggedaboutit.

6. The Strangers Prey at Night - Some people seemingly thought the nihilistic 2008 original was good and, therefore, decided to make a second chapter 10 years later. It still sucks.

5. Dead Night - Hammy acting and a nonsensical story made this 86 minute horror movie feel longer than all of the "Lord of the Rings" films combined.

4. Slender Man - To call this picture, which somewhat sleazily capitalizes on the real-life incident in which two girls tried to sacrifice another to the titular figure, slender would be generous. Reviewed here.

3. The Happytime Murders - Some of the characters in this comedy about foul mouthed and sexually active puppets come alive on screen due to puppeteers having their hands up their asses. The filmmakers, on the other hand, have their heads in theirs. Reviewed here.

2. Mile 22 - Peter Berg goes full Michael Bay with this ridiculous CIA action thriller in which Mark Wahlberg essentially plays that guy who gets hopped up on cocaine, corners you at a party and forces you to listen to conspiracy theories.

1. The Row - Imagine one of the most inept slasher films you've ever seen, a twist you can see from a mile away and a filmmaking style that appears to have been influenced by "Girls Gone Wild" videos. Now imagine that film starring Randy Couture and Lala Kent - yes, the one from "Vanderpump Rules."

Other movies to avoid: "Super Troopers 2," "Insidious: The Last Key," "The Strange Ones," "Winchester," "Fifty Shades Freed," "The 15:17 to Paris," "The Vanishing of Sidney Hall," "Life of the Party," "Tag," "Double Lover," "Pacific Rim: Uprising," "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again," "Kings," "The Spy Who Dumped Me," "Superfly," "Ghost Stories," "Skyscraper" and "Never Goin' Back."

Review: Shoplifters

Image courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

The films of Hirokazu Kore-eda are often dramas centering on families or children that are humanistic, simple in nature and alternately hopeful and melancholic. This description certainly fits the director's latest work - the Palm d'Or winner "Shoplifters," which ranks as one of his very best and saddest.

At more that one point during the film, a question is posed: Does giving birth automatically make one a mother? Also, are the people to whom you are born necessarily your family or can one have a say in such matters? We only gradually learn the answer to these questions as the relationships between the film's central six characters are revealed in occasionally startling, but also moving, ways.

As the film opens, Osamu (Lily Franky) and Nobuyo (Ando Sakura) stumble upon a young girl named Juri (Miyu Sasaki), who has seemingly been abandoned by her quarreling parents and is hungry. They take her back to their ramshackle home for a meal, and there she meets the family's other members - a boy named Shota (Jyo Kairi), a woman named Aki (Matsuoka Mayu) and a grandmother (Kiki Kilin).

Prior to this scene, it has been established that the family lives hand to mouth, apparently appears to be squatting in their home, and Osamu and Shota have mastered the art of shoplifting from local stores. Although several of the family members are concerned that someone will come looking for Juri - and someone eventually does - they decide to let her stay and become part of the family.

Osamu and Nobuyo reconcile their choice with the concept that what they've done is not kidnapping since they are not asking for a ransom. And for a while, the six people operate as a family. There's a lovely scene in which they visit the beach and some charming bonding moments between Shota and Juri, especially during a scene in which a kindly shopkeeper catches them in the act of stealing and makes a compromise. But an accident occurs and the family is paid a visit by the authorities.

"Shoplifters" is a powerful film that creeps on you. It's the type of picture - similar to Kore-eda's other movies - in which little plot can be found, but small moments add up to big ones. In this case, it's a farewell between two family members involving a bus trip that is especially heartbreaking and another character left alone on a balcony to ponder where they've ended up. Both involve children - one looking back and the other looking forward.

Kore-eda has long been called the heir apparent to the great Yasujiro Ozu, one of Japan's great filmmakers whose works are also deeply rooted in humanism and offer profound revelations through intimate character studies. Kore-eda's first two films - "Maborosi" and "After Life" - have long been my favorites in his oeuvre - and while I've enjoyed the numerous films he has made between those two and his latest, "Shoplifters" is easily his best work since then. It's a heartbreaker, but one in which the emotions have been earned by its extraordinary cast and Kore-eda's obvious talents as a filmmaker.

Review: Burning

Image courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.

Lee Chang-dong's enigmatic "Burning" is a mesmerizing meditation on perception and a slow burn thriller that focuses on class tensions and the nature of truth in a beguiling manner. It's the sort of film that you find yourself pondering for hours - and likely days - after wandering out of the theater.

Chang-dong's previous work - especially his breakthrough, "Oasis," and the emotionally grueling "Secret Sunshine" - often utilize themes of crime and punishment as well as the toll such things take on relationships. This could also be used to characterize "Burning," but attempting to pin it down is a task that will likely be fruitless for those who try.

The film is split into two very distinct halves, at least stylistically, although there's nothing to indicate when one has slipped into the other. The picture's first half is told in a realist fashion as we meet delivery boy Jong-su (Ah-in Yoo), whom we first spot lugging a load of clothing that he is attempting to sell to a second-hand store. In front of the store, he meets a young woman named Hae-mi (Jong-seo Jun), who says that she knew Jong-su from when they were children. Although she claims he told her that she was ugly when they were young, he quickly becomes smitten with her.

Their relationship moves along quickly - Hae-mi takes Jong-su to her cramped apartment, where they have sex, and then asks him to feed her cat, Boil, while she is away on a trip to Africa. However, Jong-su never spots the cat and starts to wonder if it even exists. This is a central theme in "Burning" and there's a sequence of great foreshadowing early on when Hae-mi, who is taking pantomime classes, pretends to strip the peeling off an imaginary tangerine and acts as if she is eating it. She instructs Jong-su: "Don't think that there is a tangerine here. Forget that there isn't one. The important thing is that you really want one."

Jong-su is deeply disappointed when Hae-mi returns from Africa with a new beau in tow - Ben (Steven Yeun), a wealthy guy who drives a Porsche, has a flashy apartment and notes that he "plays" when asked about his line of work. However, Jong-su continues to play the third wheel to Hae-mi and Ben, tagging along to restaurants, parties and nightclubs.

A pivotal scene halfway through the film allows for the picture to change tones. Smoking weed at Jong-su's farm - where he lives alone due to his father being in jail and on trial for having assaulted a neighboring farmer - the trio watch as the breeze blows the branches of the trees and the sun sets. Hae-mi strips off her shirt and displays two dances she learned in Africa: that of the "Little Hunger" (those who are literally hungry) and the "Great Hunger" (those who hunger to understand the mysteries of life). As she dances, Ben admits to Jong-su that he has a hobby of burning down greenhouses, about which Jong-su later begins to wonder whether this is a metaphor for something more sinister, and notes that he believes morality matters little in the world, but rather "just the morals of nature."

Then, Hae-mi seemingly goes missing and Jong-su, whose last words to her were of an unkind nature, takes on the role of an obsessed detective, first paying visits to nearby greenhouses to see if Ben's claims of having burned one down are true, and then stalking Ben to determine whether he had anything to do with Jong-su's paramour's disappearance. The film has a resolution, but it's never quite clear whether what Jong-su believed to have happened is actually what happened. In other words, this is a film about the unknowability of life's mysteries.

And mysteries abound in this film. Hae-mi's tangerine peeling comes to stand for much more by the film's end. There's the question of whether her cat exits as well as whether Ben actually burns down greenhouses or if he's referring to something else entirely. Jong-su's phone mysteriously rings throughout the film, but no one speaks when he picks up. The caller appears to be identified later in the film, but we can't really be sure. Hae-mi tells Jong-su a story about how she fell into a well as a girl, but other people later refute her story, insinuating that she made the whole thing up.

The film is also concerned with class differences in South Korea. Jong-su - who lives in an isolated section of the country that is so close to the North Korean border that propaganda from that nation can often be heard being broadcast in the distance - is lower class and clearly resents Ben, whom he calls "the Great Gatsby." At one point in the film, Donald Trump - a silver spoon baby if there ever was one - is speaking in the foreground, while Jong-su takes a piss in the background. Another interesting moment occurs late in the film when a group of Ben's wealthy friends refer to the United States and China as two great superpowers, while South Korea is stuck between them, and the analogy can also relate to the relationship between the film's three central characters.

Regarding the film's title, there is burning both figurative (Jong-su's passion for Hae-mi) and literal (Ben's alleged hobby of setting greenhouses aflame). However, there are only two scenes of actual burning - one in which a young Jong-su, via flashback, is seen setting his mother's clothes on fire after she fled the family, and the finale in which clothes are again burnt, but this time as a sort of cleansing ritual.

Chang-dong's film is one of the year's most inscrutable and original. It's a movie about the vast space between what we think we know and what actually is. It's the type of picture that just when you think you have figured it out, it eludes your grasp. Blending realism and dream-like sequences, terrific acting and great writing (did I mention it's based on a Haruki Murakami short story that is, in turn, inspired by one from William Faulkner?), "Burning" is one of the year's must-see movies.

Review: The Mule

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

If "The Mule" ends up being Clint Eastwood's final film - and I'm not trying to be morose, but he is 89 years old - it will be a fitting sendoff as it incorporates a number of the elements that have characterized the latter part of his career: stories about elderly curmudgeons, films about the effects of violence and angry characters who are softened through contact with other people. All in all, "The Mule" is a solid late Eastwood film, and a significant step up from several of his recent pictures, namely "The 15:17 to Paris," "Sully" and "Jersey Boys."

In the film, Eastwood plays Earl, a man who has dedicated his life to growing and hybridizing day lilies at the expense of skipping out on family functions. His estranged ex-wife (Dianne Wiest) and daughter (Alison Eastwood) barely speak to him anymore after he failed to show up for the latter's wedding. His granddaughter (Taissa Farmiga) is the only family member who holds out hope for him.

After his business begins to fail, Earl discovers an opportunity to become a driver for a Mexican cartel, carrying packages - into which he, at first, doesn't peek - from place to place in his pickup truck. He's a good choice for a mule - his advanced age make him an unlikely drug runner, so he manages to elude the police. Slightly less realistic is his ability to stay alive after continuously making grouchy remarks to cartel members.

Based on his performance at the 2012 Republican convention and (at least, previous) support for Donald Trump, some might make the mistake of thinking that "The Mule" will be some sort of MAGA fantasy in which Eastwood - much as he did in the superior "Gran Torino" - takes on the cartels and helps secure the border. While Earl occasionally makes un-PC comments - which are included somewhat uncomfortably, especially during a scene in which he helps an African American couple whose car has broken down - those who think they have the film figured out from the get-go might be surprised that Earl's comments are continually challenged by other characters, and Earl is consistently found by others to be in the wrong. Several of the cartel members are even portrayed sympathetically.

All the while, a group of FBI agents led by Bradley Cooper's Colin Bates are trying to follow the mule's trail, not knowing that the man they are looking for is a senior citizen. There's a nice scene in which Eastwood and Cooper meet in a diner that recalls the DeNiro-Pacino sit-down in Michael Mann's "Heat." A later scene when the two men meet up again acts as a nice coda to the relationship.

"The Mule" is a film about an aging man's regrets, and while Earl's antics are often played for laughs, the bonding that the character has with his family in the film's final moments are surprisingly moving. While the film might not be quite on par with some of Eastwood's best work of the 21st century - his two World War II films, "Mystic River" and "Million Dollar Baby" - it's a well-made and engrossing story of a man trying to rectify his mistakes. This is ground that has been tread many times before, but it's handled here with humor and grace.

Review: Vox Lux

Image courtesy of Neon.

Actor-turned-director Brady Corbet follows up his haunting and impressive directorial debut "The Childhood of a Leader" with the wild, garish and somewhat messy "Vox Lux." The film opens with an engrossing prologue and the film's first hour is solid, until its second act - and the introduction of its lead actress - throws it somewhat off-kilter. Regardless, even though I question whether the film completely works and what exactly it intends to convey, it remains mostly interesting.

The picture opens with a horrific school shooting in the late 1990s that is clearly meant to resemble Columbine. A young girl named Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) is struck by the assassin's bullets, but miraculously survives. She is overcome by a burst of inspiration and writes a song about the tragedy with her older sister, Eleanor (Stacy Martin), that ends up attracting national attention and, in the process, becomes a hit.

Celeste and her sister are wooed by a sleazy producer (Jude Law) to take part in a recording session in Stockholm and end up quickly shedding their religious, good girl personas as Celeste is groomed to be a pop star. These early scenes are the film's best, and Corbet displays a mastery of film style, from the eerie opening credits, which unravel against a backdrop of an ambulance racing toward a hospital, to the almost funereal scenes of Celeste being trained by a choreographer and recording her first record.

The picture then jumps ahead to 2017, where Celeste (now played by Natalie Portman) has become a spoiled pop star whose multiple controversies - including crushing someone's leg in an auto accident and then shouting racial slurs at the victim - have not quite managed to derail her career. As she prepares for a tour based on her new science fiction-themed album, "Vox Lux," a group of terrorists wearing masks eerily similar to those donned by Celeste's backup dancers has opened fire on some tourists. Considering that Celeste's career was launched amid a tragedy, the terrorists' use of her imagery is seemingly not accidental.

But despite all of these compelling elements, "Vox Lux" never quite maximizes them to its full potential. The modern scenes featuring Portman are not as engrossing as the earlier sequences, and much time is spent on Celeste's tumultuous relationships with her sister and teenage daughter (Sophie Lane Curtis), including a diner freakout scene that goes on slightly too long and serves little purpose, other than to remind how much of a hot mess the lead character has become.

I'll give credit to Corbet and company for centering a film around a lead character who makes herself extremely difficult to like. However, Celeste is an anti-hero similar to Daniel Day Lewis' Daniel Plainview, in that she may be a nightmare to deal with, but she occasionally hits the nail on the head - at least, when it comes to modern pop culture's lack of value and an audience's willingness to forgive horrible behavior as long as one remains entertaining.

The picture clearly has some ideas - although they are not completely fleshed out to a satisfying degree - about how America commoditizes tragedy, repackages it and turns it into pop culture. It's also astute as to how meaningful art - for example, Celeste's heartfelt song borne out of the shooting she escaped - captures the attention of corporate America, which then drains it of its purity and churns out escapist fluff - such as the bland pop numbers that Celeste performs during the film's concert finale. At one point, Celeste tells someone of her work, "I don't want people to think too much. I just want them to feel good."

Corbet's film - which is, for the most part, consistently interesting, even if not as thoroughly impressive as his debut - is a movie that clearly has some things on its mind. Even if the film occasionally stumbles while doing so, it's good to see an actor step behind the camera and have something to say.

Review: Roma

Image courtesy of Netflix.

A small story told on a grand scale, Alfonso Cuaron's "Roma" is a gorgeous, autobiographical slice of life that dazzles with its breathtaking imagery and sneaks up on you emotionally. Much like "Boyhood," it takes a story that focuses on the quotidian and masterfully draws empathy from its audience through the story of a character - and those surrounding her - whose life is often dictated by forces out of her control as a result of history and the unpredictability of human nature.

Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio in a terrific debut performance) is a housekeeper for a wealthy family in Mexico City in the early 1970s, but she is much more than that - to the children, she's an indispensable member of the family, although her employers occasionally remind her that she is, in fact, also a servant. She spends her days tending to the children's needs, cleaning up the seemingly never-ending supply of poop courtesy of Borras, the family's excitable mutt, and trying to steer clear of the evident drama between matriarch Sra. Sofia (Marina de Tavira) and her husband, whose lack of presence is slowly explained during the course of the picture.

The early scenes in the film - the entirety of which is shot in gorgeous black and white - depict the lazy days of summer, and the picture is presented as a dreamy recollection of memory. It is clear that Cuaron himself is one of the four somewhat rascally kids whom Cleo fiercely protects. In a lovely scene during the film's opening moments, precocious Pepe (Marco Graf), possibly Cleo's favorite child in the family, is left dejected during a game with one of his older brothers. He lies down on the roof of the family's posh home and tells Cleo that he's not responding to her inquiries because he's "dead." She takes a break from her work and plays dead with him.

This is a film of stunning imagery, and it unspools in vignettes, much in the way that memories leave images imprinted on our psyches. One of the film's most masterful shots is of a movie theater in which a silly comedy plays in the background of a massive screen and a mini drama plays out in the foreground. Cleo tells Fermin (Jorge Antonio Guerrero), a cousin of a friend's boyfriend who is obsessed with martial arts, that she is pregnant with his child, and he - who is the closest thing to the film's villain - delivers his first of several horrid responses. Other shots that have become embedded in my memory from the film include a group of men undertaking martial arts training in a field, numerous shots of planes drifting in the sky in the background and a staircase with chickens on it that feels as if it was snatched out of a classic film noir.

Cleo is terrified to tell Sra. Sofia about the pregnancy, and while we've come to expect that her mistress - whom we later learn has been stern due to her own set of troubles - will respond harshly, it is a surprise to find that not only she, but the entire family for whom Cleo works, is supportive. Her pregnancy is pivotal to all that comes next. During a remarkable series of sequences, Cleo finds her water breaking while away from home as 1971's Corpus Christi Massacre of student demonstrators takes place in front of her eyes. She is rushed to a hospital, where she undergoes a grueling delivery and a moment of heartbreak occurs.

Upon returning home, Sra. Sofia plans a trip to the beach with the children and asks Cleo to come along, not as a servant, but for the purpose of a vacation. A final set piece at the beach involving an act of heroism from Cleo draws the family closer together, and we realize that its members - Cleo, Sra. Sofia and the children - all rely on one another. The combination of Cleo's birth and the finale at the beach result in one of the year's most emotionally satisfying and deeply moving denouements. The film even ends on a lovely final shot that seems to indicate that Cleo is a saint.

"Roma" is clearly a very personal film for Cuaron, who has noted that it is dedicated to the women who made an impact on his life. In this film, those women are three caretakers - Cleo, Sra. Sofia and Sra. Teresa (Veronica Garcia), the grandmother who accompanies Cleo to the hospital and comforts Sra. Sofia. The film's men are mostly absent husbands and irresponsible boyfriends.

This is one of the year's best films. "Roma" is visually astounding - and should be seen on the largest screen possible, despite Netflix now offering it for streaming - marvelously acted and thematically rich. It beautifully balances its creator's personal memories against the backdrop of an historic moment, all the while creating empathy for a character who many of us might never have the opportunity to get to know. It's a triumph and one of Cuaron's finest films to date.

Review: The Favourite

Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos has once again trained his camera on a scene of domestic horror - however, this time it's the queen of England, two women and several men who are vying for her attentions as opposed to the dysfunctional families on whom the filmmaker typically focuses. A film about royals might not be the first picture you'd imagine Lanthimos taking on, but his latest ends up being one of his best movies to date.

As the film opens, ailing and eccentric Queen Anne (a wonderful Olivia Colman) rules the land with the help of her trusty confidante, adviser and lover Sarah (Rachel Weisz), who is based on Sarah Churchill. The balance in the castle is interrupted with the arrival of Abigail Hill (Emma Stone, like you've never seen her before), a seemingly winsome daughter of a fallen aristocrat who is also apparently a cousin of Sarah. At first, Abigail is relegated to working as a maid, after having arrived at the castle's doorstep covered in mud. But after finding an antidote for a severe rash from which the queen suffers, she finds her fortunes on the rise.

Although history notes that the queen and Sarah did, in fact, have a close relationship and that their friendship later soured, while Hill indeed became a favorite of the monarch, it's very likely that some great liberties are taken in the film. It's no matter as Lanthimos utilizes the rivalry between Sarah and Abigail to great comedic effect. You'll likely be laughing when you're not wincing. Imagine "All About Eve," but more outrageous, raunchy and foul mouthed. A scene in which a suitor makes repeated failed attempts to woo Abigail in the woods is alone worth the price of admission.

Considering our current political moment, "The Favourite" involves some timely themes regarding women in power. The film concerns itself with a power struggle - of that between Sarah and Abigail for the queen's attentions, although there's a great final shot in which we are given a hint about who has had the power, both figuratively and literally, between the three women all along.

Lanthimos is a talented filmmaker, although his tales of domestic strife have occasionally been hit or miss. His breakthrough film, "Dogtooth," was a fascinating oddity that was both hilarious and horrifying, while "The Lobster," although imperfect, was wildly original. "Alps" was a misfire and his previous film, "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," was a fine example of a director's style parodying itself. With "The Favourite," the director finds himself back on track.

This is a sharp, often hilarious, occasionally mortifying and wonderfully acted film. It's certainly different from most of the other movies about royals that you typically see around this time of year. The picture is stylish and prone to flourishes - the use of a fisheye lens is a curious choice - and the director's trademark style lends itself well to the material. Even those who have not taken to Lanthimos' previous works could very likely be impressed by this one.

Review: At Eternity's Gate

Image courtesy of CBS Films.

Less concerned with its subject's life story and more focused on his philosophy and process as an artist, Julian Schnabel's "At Eternity's Gate" is the umpteenth picture to focus on tortured artist Vincent Van Gogh, but it's unique in its own right. While other films focused more on the biographical elements ("Lust for Life" and the gorgeously animated "Loving Vincent") of the artist's life or his relationship with his brother ("Vincent and Theo"), Schnabel's film feels more like an impressionistic series of episodic sketches of Van Gogh (played wonderfully by Willem Dafoe) as he explores his artistic voice.

Schnabel has long been a chronicler of artists, from Basquiat to Reinaldo Arenas, so it seems long overdue that he would tackle Van Gogh. And thankfully, his story has not been reduced to that of a tragic man who cut off his ear. The film is an intimate portrait of an artist as an older man, and when Van Gogh is not seen wandering amid visually stunning vistas or tall grass blowing in the wind, he is portrayed in close up. Schnabel's camera often gets uncomfortably close to the film's performers, so that every line on their faces is crystal clear.

There's also an interesting discussion late in the film between Van Gogh and a priest (Mads Mikkelsen) in which the artist seems to realize that he, perhaps, is not made for the world of man and conceives that his work has been produced for a later period, when people might better appreciate it.

In the film, Van Gogh is a man mostly left alone in a small town where he creates his work. His friend Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac) occasionally visits, but can't deal with the isolation, and brother Theo (Rupert Friend) mostly attempts to sell Vincent's work from afar. Otherwise, he is an outcast who is unloved by the townsfolk who surround him, taunted by local children and occasionally attacked.

Although the film is more interested in Van Gogh's process, his mind state is not ignored. In the film's only minor stumble, we often hear lines of dialogue repeated twice in a row - once by the actors and a second time in Vincent's head, providing a sense of his growing madness. In my opinion, Schnabel is able to better represent the artist's psychoses visually through his claustrophobic camerawork and, therefore, the repetitive dialogue doesn't provide much of a purpose.

Otherwise, "At Eternity's Gate" is an interesting take on Van Gogh. Dafoe, one of the world's most adventurous actors, gives a powerful performance as the great artist, and the film's best moments occur when he is set against a gorgeous backdrop, awed and in admiration of nature's wonders. Schnabel is a talented artist whose work is often fixated on other artists. But with "At Eternity's Gate," the director takes a unique approach by focusing less on the artist himself and more on the process and the work.

Review: Happy As Lazzaro

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Alice Rohrwacher's beguiling fable "Happy as Lazzaro" joins the pantheon of movies that successfully play with the concept of time. It's an unusual movie that combines Italian neorealism with an enigmatic second half that takes on the form of a fairy tale, albeit a tragic one.

As the film opens, it's difficult to tell in which era the picture is taking place. A group of Italian peasants are celebrating the engagement of a young couple in a dimly lit shack, where dozens of them are crowded in a circle. Lazzaro (Adriano Tardiolo), a young man from the group who seemingly has no family, is called upon to do all manner of tasks. As the film's first half continues, we recognize that the young man - who is portrayed as an innocent - willfully takes on any work that his fellow peasants throw his way.

The group lives on the property of the Marchesa (Nicoletta Braschi), who is known as the "Queen of Cigarettes. They are exploited and barely paid for their work. Although the film is seemingly interested in the Italian class divide, the Marchesa makes an interesting point when she notes that she exploits the workers and, in turn, the workers exploit Lazzaro. It's a vicious cycle, although innocent Lazzaro probably doesn't notice such things.

Lazzaro befriends the Marchesa's scheming son, Tancredi (Luca Chikovani), who tasks Lazzaro with making him coffee and carrying his pet dog, but eventually attempts to rope him into a fake kidnapping plot, to which Lazzaro reluctantly agrees. All the while, the Marchesa's operation has been shut down, and the peasants are forced to leave. A freak accident then occurs and Lazzaro lives up to his biblical name.

During the film's second half, Lazzaro has ventured into a city, where he finds the peasants - who are in a slightly altered state, shall we say, for the purpose of not giving away the film's peculiar twist - living a ramshackle existence and pulling scams on unsuspecting people on the street. Lazzaro, although seemingly confused about the scams, joins the group and, shortly thereafter, runs into Tancredi, who invites the group to his house. The film ends on a tragic note, but also one that emphasizes the movie's parable-like nature.

At times, "Happy as Lazzaro" reminded me of such classics as Robert Bresson's "Au Hazard Balthazar," in which a donkey was portrayed as a saint amid a group of rogues, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Fox and His Friends," in which the titular character is left for dead after he has been literally taken for everything he has. Similarly, "Lazzaro" is a film that ponders how a pure soul can survive in a world ruled by greed and cruelty. 

Rohrwacher's film also has a distinctly mystical nature to it. You can't rationalize large parts of the movie, but it marches to its own enigmatic drum. The film surprises at its every turn - you can sort of spot where it's going at times, but you'll be clueless as to how it will get there. It's a mysterious film that worked a strange magic on me.

Review: Wildlife

Image courtesy of IFC Films.

Paul Dano makes an impressive directorial debut with this bleak, but visually stunning, adaptation of Richard Ford's book about a Montana family that comes undone in the early 1960s. One of the elements that makes the picture particularly compelling is that this undoing results from the actions of both parents (played by Carey Mulligan and Jake Gylenhaal), but neither one is necessarily cast as the villain, despite both characters having their share of flaws.

The story told is from the perspective of Joe (Ed Oxenbould), a wide eyed and mild mannered teenager who is struggling to get accustomed to the Montana high school where is a relatively new student. He pretends to enjoy playing on the football team, mostly for his father's sake, but spends most of his time on the bench and doesn't seem to share any camaraderie with the other players.

Jerry (Gylenhaal) describes himself as a personable man who is able to win folks over by his repartee. However, as the film opens, he is fired from his job as a golf pro for, perhaps, engaging in too much chatter, and is clearly embarrassed by losing his job in front of his son. In a rare moment of unbelievability, Jerry is given the opportunity to return to work at the golf course, but his pride dictates that he turn it down.

Up to this point, the Brinsons' family dynamic appeared to be relatively stable: Jerry is the breadwinner whose bluster helps him to feed the family, while Jeanette (Mulligan) is the quietly supportive housewife you'd expect in that era and Joe is the shy, obedient son. But as Jerry becomes less inclined to find a job - and soon opts instead to leave the family home to help combat out-of-control wildfires in another part of the state for a measly pittance - the family begins to unravel.

Jeanette begins giving swimming lessons at the local YMCA and claims to have other job opportunities, which Joe - who has taken a part-time job at a photography studio - starts to find suspicious. Then, she befriends a wealthy older man named Miller (Bill Camp) and their relationship sets off alarm bells for Jerry, who uncomfortably observes how his mother's flirtation with Miller quickly becomes something more involved.

While Oxenbould gives a wonderfully restrained performance and Gyllenhaal provides excellent supporting work, "Wildlife" belongs to Mulligan, who portrays Jeanette as a woman who has been stuck in a difficult situation and wants something for herself, regardless of the consequences. The filmmakers are smart not to demonize Jeanette, despite one particularly awkward sequence that should be a bad parenting case study. She and Jerry both share some blame in the disaster that falls upon their family.

Dano has long been among the more interesting actors of his generation - hell, he held his own against Daniel Day Lewis - and with his directorial debut, he proves to be a talent behind the camera. "Wildlife" has much to recommend - its terrific trio of performances, the absolutely stunning use of Montana as a backdrop and strong direction - and I hope that the actor takes another shot at filmmaking in the future.

Review: The House That Jack Built

Image courtesy of IFC Films.

Lars Von Trier's provocative "The House That Jack Built," which inspired mass walkouts at this year's Cannes Film Festival, may not be one of the director's best films - although it is good and well worth viewing for those who can stomach it - but it's certainly the one that, perhaps, can best summarize the Danish enfant terrible's body of work. More so than any other film in his oeuvre, "House" is a film that is undoubtedly about Lars Von Trier.

The picture tells the story of a prolific serial killer named Jack - who goes by the moniker "Mr. Sophistication" - as he murders his way through some unknown spot in America during the 1970s. As the film opens, Jack is making some sort of confession to an unseen man named Virgil - yes, you can start your assumptions now - who is voiced, and later played, by the great Bruno Ganz. Jack is relaying his history of carnage and summarizes his career with five "incidents," which become more grueling as they go along.

But before I go further into that, I should mention that Jack views himself as an artist, of sorts. As a result, his descriptions of murder are often intertwined with his thoughts on art, morality and violence, incorporating clips of Glenn Gould playing the piano, the work of various architects, William Blake's poetry, images from Nazi concentration camps and even several of Von Trier's films (of which clips are readily available). On the other hand, Von Trier's use of music - primarily a repetition of David Bowie's "Fame" and Ray Charles' "Hit the Road, Jack" - are a little too on the nose.

In the first "incident," Jack picks up a woman (Uma Thurman) whose car has broken down. Despite the violence in which it culminates, this chapter is the most humorous (the picture is often surprisingly funny, despite its grim story) as Thurman's character first suggests that Jack, who has yet to begin killing people, comes off as a serial killer and torments him that he's too much of a "wimp" to ever be such a thing.

The second incident finds Jack somewhat hilariously attempting to talk his way into the home of another woman (Siobhan Fallon Hogan), whose demise is slightly more unsettling than the first. However, Von Trier uses this incident for one of the picture's most deliriously absurd sequences as Jack, who has described himself as having OCD, obsesses whether he cleaned up the blood from the woman's house, only to return to it again and again to make sure and, as a result, bluffs his way through a conversation with a police officer at the scene.

The third and fourth incidents are extremely disturbing. In the third, Jack takes a mother and her two young sons out for a hunting lesson that quickly turns grim, ending with a particularly haunting image as Jack sculpts one of his victim's faces to look like Heath Ledger's Joker character. But those put off by the third chapter might not make it through the fourth, as Jack taunts a woman whom he refers to as "Simple" (Riley Keough), and whom he is likely dating, before performing a horrific act of violence (which made me partially shield my eyes) against her. If the third incident was grimly effective, the fourth is the one that tests the boundaries and, to an extent, made me question whether the film suffers as a result.

The final incident appears to have been inspired by the "Human Centipede" movies (although less icky) as Jack lines up a group of men in a storage freezer with their heads together, with the intention of using one bullet to take them all out. It is around this point that Virgil steps in, and the film culminates with an odd, but strangely compelling, sequence inspired by the "Divine Comedy."

Von Trier's films have long focused on human suffering, and critics have often noted how he tortures his lead female characters - Bjork in "Dancer in the Dark," Emily Watson in "Breaking the Waves" and Nicole Kidman in "Dogville" - and turns them into martyrs. In his latest film, which he has indicated might be his last, the lead character is a man who literally tortures women, which is a small indication of how the picture is a summation - and explanation by the director - of his career. In the film's nastiest chapter, Jack's character performs a Von Trier-self critique by asking the audience why women are always the "victims."

Career analysis can be found throughout the movie. In the first chapter, Thurman's character dares Jack to do something horrible, and by the second chapter he has taken to obsessing over his perfectionism. In the third and fourth chapters, his character has sunk into depravity and, in the fifth, he realizes that he can no longer top himself. "Don't look at the acts, look at the works," Jack tells Virgil during one telling sequence. In the finale, Jack finds himself defending his body of work to Virgil - only, in this film, both characters represent Von Trier. One is the provocateur and the other is the conscience.

Interestingly enough, three of Von Trier's four most recent films have dealt, in some form or fashion, with depression. The shocking "Antichrist" was about succumbing to a deep, dark depression, while "Melancholia" - his masterpiece, in my opinion - is about making peace with it. "The House That Jack Built" rationalizes it, to an extent, although its final shot could be deemed troubling, considering the context.

Regardless, Von Trier's film is one that is often fascinating to ponder, and while it doesn't rank with his finest films ("Melancholia," "Breaking the Waves," "Dogville" and "Dancer in the Dark"), the film has its share of impressive sequences, some gorgeous and haunting images and solid performances. It also leaves the viewer with much to chew on. It's well worth a look, for those who can handle material that is occasionally traumatizing.