In a key scene from “The Painted Bird” a young boy, not even 10-years-old, holds a small blackbird while a grizzled old man brushes white paint across its feathers. The man then releases it to a flock of blackbirds flying overhead. Immediately the swarming flock savagely attack the painted bird and within a few violent seconds it’s plummeting back to earth, pecked to death by its own kind.

The analogy is a grim and potent one. Humanity is like the flock of birds, willing to attack, destroy and devour their own, even the weak and especially those who dare to look different. For a young Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe that was a vivid and painful reality. For this particular boy the ugliness of humanity extends far beyond the German invaders. Wickedness is found in every village and farmhouse he crosses; iniquity in most of the peasants and soldiers he meets.

Photo Courtesy of IFC Films

“The Painted Bird” is a horrifying and intense 169-minute epic from Czech writer-director-producer Václav Marhoul. His film is based on Jerzy Kosiński’s 1965 controversial novel which was first published as a fictional work, marketed to appear autobiographical, and now widely considered fictional once again. Marhoul’s adaptation debuted at last year’s Venice International Film Festival and was marked by several walkouts in response to the movie’s graphic subject matter and unrelenting bleakness. But as Marhoul told the Venice press when defending his film, “Only in darkness can we see light.”

Make no mistake, “The Painted Bird” is not for the faint of heart. It can be shocking, at times savage, and for some it will be unbearable to watch. It’s a story told through the eyes of a young Jewish boy trying to survive in a war-ravaged land where shells of the living, drained of every drop of love and compassion, do nothing more than exist in a swell of unfettered human depravity. It’s a land full of people desensitized to their own indecency and reverting back to their most primitive instincts. As a result the boy both witnesses and experiences acts of unbridled brutality and unspeakable abuse.

Photo Courtesy of IFC Films

We first meet the boy (played with heartbreaking innocence by Petr Kotlár) as World War II nears its end. He’s living with an old maid on a dusty isolated farm, left there by his Jewish parents after the Nazi roundups began. When the woman suddenly dies the boy loses his caregiver and safety net. So he sets out into the wild hoping to find his way home and into the arms of his mother and father. Instead he finds a cold, rotting world gutted by the war and where ‘the kindness of strangers‘ is as foreign as the ruthless invading forces.

The film is broken into nine chapters, each named after people the boy meets on his hellish odyssey. Among them Stellan Skarsgård as a disillusioned German soldier, Udo Kier as a jealous and obsessed miller, Harvey Keitel as a sympathetic priest, and Barry Pepper as a hardened Russian sniper. Most of the encounters end horrifically with barely a shimmer of light. And in heartbreaking fashion each chisel away at the boy’s innocence and humanity. Christian symbols speak to the idea of grace, but it’s smothered out by a society handed over to their own lusts and violence.

Photo Courtesy of IFC Films

Marhoul communicates mostly through the camera and what little dialogue there is is spoken in an invented Slavic-like language in order to avoid indicting any one single nation. Cinematographer Vladimír Smutný shoots in stunning 35mm black-and-white with a CinemaScope ratio providing us with the film’s lone bits of beauty. The brilliant use of light and shadows, his searing and evocative close-ups, the meticulous compositions and eye-catching backdrops. Whether Smutný’s camera is gazing up at the gentle sway of birch treetops or peering around a corner at some unthinkable horror, the film’s most profound voice comes from its visual language.

“The Painted Bird” is an unorthodox Holocaust drama that puts its audience face-to-face with the inhumanity of humanity. It’s pitiless and unyielding conviction forces us to endure scene after scene of appalling cruelty, daring us to grow numb to it and therefore proving its bigger point. By the end you genuinely feel like you’ve been on a traumatic near three-hour journey, one I’m not sure when I’ll want to take again. But that doesn’t negate the sting of the film’s thought-provoking message. Nor does it nullify Vladimír Smutný’s unforgettable and award-worthy imagery. It simply makes it a hard movie to recommend to all audiences. Some will be absorbed, others will be repulsed. I’ll let you decide which you’re likely to be. “The Painted Bird” opens July 17th on VOD.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

By the time David Fincher made “Panic Room” he had already earned a name for himself as an audacious filmmaker. He had “Se7en” and “Fight Club” under his belt, both bucking the mainstream in their own grimly unique ways. “Panic Room” saw him working in more conventional thriller territory. But as you would expect from any Fincher project, he gives you more to chew on than you would first expect.

The film opens with a snooty real estate agent (a hilariously snide Ian Buchanan) showing off an swanky upper west side property to recently divorced Meg (Jodie Foster) and her eleven-year-old daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart). The four-story brownstone is fresh on the market following the death of its previous owner – an elderly millionaire hermit who happened to install an impenetrable bunker upstairs. The panic room is made of reinforced concrete and steel, features a state-of-the-art security system with closed-circuit television, and comes with its own private phone line.

PHOTO: Columbia Pictures

Despite being a little creeped out by the panic room, Meg takes the house. But wouldn’t you know it, their first night at their new place turns into a nightmare. Three men begin skulking around eventually finding their way into the house. A corn-rowed Jared Leto, a blue collar thief with a conscience Forest Whitaker, and a mysterious masked Dwight Yoakam form the inept trio who are surprised to find the new owners at home.

Meg hears the intruders prompting her to grab Sarah and escape into the panic room just in the nick of time. Turns out the burglars are there for $3 million the previous owner has stashed away in his house. And guess where the cash is hidden…yep, the panic room. What follows is an entertaining game of cat-and-mouse between a mother protecting her child and a pack of dysfunctional hooligans.

David Koepp’s screenplay is pretty basic on the surface but thematically he does some intriguing things. Most of them have to do with the Meg character. Nicole Kidman was initially cast but forced to leave due to a knee injury she suffered while filming “Moulin Rouge”. Kidman’s portrayal was set to be more powerless and vulnerable. After casting Foster the character was rewritten to be stronger, quick-thinking, and more resourceful. The new combination of feminine grit and maternal instincts allowed for a fresh female representation and Foster was fully committed.

Hayden Panettiere was originally set to play Sarah but dropped out and was replaced by a 12 year-old Kristen Stewart. It was only Stewart’s second film role and she leaves quite a mark. Not only does she have a great mother/daughter chemistry with Foster, but she brings spirit and personality to what could have been another stock kid character. It’s a deeply grounded performance and she’s a real attention-getter especially in some of her later scenes.

PHOTO: Columbia Pictures

But it’s also true that Fincher isn’t trying to do anything too profound. He’s still very much making a genre film and you can see him enjoying the familiar structures that come with it. He seems to have the most fun with his camera. Playing within the confines of a single setting, Fincher’s camera (with the help of the occasional digital effect) seemingly utilizes every inch of the mammoth sized house. We know the layout pretty well thanks to the sly early scene with the real estate guy. Next is watching the director use the place in a variety of cool and crazy ways.

“Panic Room” ends up being a genuinely thrilling nailbiter, skillfully laid out both visually and plot-wise. Led by strong performances top to bottom and a clear-eyed understanding of what it aims to be, “Panic Room” is a straight genre movie but with enough Fincher flourishes to give it an extra kick. It will never be considered among the filmmaker’s most beloved pictures, but it’s great seeing it on his resume. And personally speaking, I actually like it better than “Fight Club”, but that’s a fight for another day.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

I grew up in the heyday of the beefcake action genre and I’m not going to lie – I loved it. Throughout the 1980’s to the mid 1990’s names like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Norris, Van Damme, and Seagal had a constant presence in movie houses across the country. Granted, when looked at through a more discerning eye, lots of their films were much of the same. But even some of the bad ones were undeniably entertaining.

And then you had the really good ones. These movies were not only fun during their day, but they have stood the critical and evaluative test of time. Tops on that list may be Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Predator” from 1987. This energetic mix of military action and creature science-fiction still stands as a genre classic.

© 2019 20th Century Fox All Rights Reserved

Schwarzenegger plays Dutch, the leader of an elite special forces rescue unit. He and his team are summoned to Central America after a helicopter carrying a cabinet minister crashes in the guerrilla-occupied jungle. Dutch is tasked with finding the wreckage and bringing back the survivors. He reluctantly allows CIA Agent and old military pal Dillon (Carl Weathers) to tag along.

The six-man unit plus Dillon find the wreckage and discover the bodies of its passengers skinned and hanging in a tree. The team’s tracker (Sonny Landham) picks up a trail that leads them to a guerrilla camp (and to one of my favorite pure action sequences of the decade). Dutch and his team takes out the camp, learn why they were really sent in, and then venture deeper into the hostile jungle towards an extraction point.

But then things take a turn. Since the beginning director John McTiernan drops hints that there is something else in the jungle; something perhaps not so human. When this otherworldly creature takes out a couple of Dutch’s men it becomes clear that the humans have now become the prey.

Brothers Jim and John Thomas wrote what would become their signature screenplay. Their cohesive blend of straight action, survival elements, and sci-fi thrills inject “Predator” with a cool and unique identity. It all leads to an unexpectedly primal final act that pits brawn versus beast. Is it silly? You betcha. But it’s also a ton of fun.

© 2019 20th Century Fox All Rights Reserved

Obviously this is Schwarzenegger in his prime, but “Predator” is one of the first movies where he begins to show a better understanding of the acting process. Clearly he has a dominating physical screen presence, but this performance sees him as more human than robotic. A game supporting cast including Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Bill Duke and Sonny Landham brings even more muscle and personality.

There have been several attempts to recapture the magic formula of McTiernan’s original “Predator” but none have really come close. Sure, some may find it easy to dismiss the film as more 80’s meat-headed action. But “Predator” not only stands out in what was a crowded action genre, but it has held up extremely well for over thirty years. And I’ll confidently herald it as being among Schwarzenegger’s very best films.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

Making a good movie doesn’t have to be difficult (as if I would know). Sometimes all you need are two convincing leads and a good script. Ok, obviously there’s more to it than that, but you get what I mean. A good story told through captivating, relatable performances can often carry a movie to unexpected heights. “The Photograph” is a prime example. Or at least that’s how I felt early into the film.

But I quickly came to see I couldn’t brush off Stella Meghie’s stellar direction. It’s her screenplay and ultimate trust in her leads than really shine. But at the same time, believing in the material and giving your performers space are often signs of a good director. So is patience in letting relationships develop naturally and capturing genuine humanity in a genre not always known for it. Writer-director Meghie shows all of these strengths which separates her film from the soupy fluff normally thrown out on Valentines Day.

“The Photograph” tells an intergenerational story that oscillates between two intimately connected timelines. In the present day Michael (Lakeith Stanfield) is an ambitious but unfulfilled writer for an New York based online magazine called The Republic. He arrives in Louisiana to interview Isaac (the ever terrific Rob Morgan) for an oil spill story he’s working on, but is instead captivated by a 30 year-old photo on Isaac’s mantle. It’s of a young woman, Christina Eames who Isaac shared a relationship with before she moved off to New York.

PHOTO: Universal Pictures

Back home, Michael discovers Christina was a successful photographer who just recently passed away. Feeling there is a story to be told, he reaches out to her estranged daughter Mae (Issa Rae) who is a curator at the Queens Art Museum. The two meet and instantly the proverbial sparks fly but not in the sappy, shallow sense. From their first meeting Meghie creates a truly palpable attraction built upon Rae and Stanfield’s simmering chemistry. I say ‘simmering’ because that’s the temperature Meghie is going for. She’s into giving us real people full of uncertainty and hesitations. So the low-key, slow romantic buildup makes sense.

A second narrative, shown through a series of flashbacks set in the 1980’s, tells Christina and Isaac’s story. Based in Louisiana, these scenes offer an invigorating Deep South contrast to New York City. Chante Adams is sublime as Christina, young and driven yet torn between her desire to pursue a dream and being with the man she deeply loves. Younger Isaac (played by Y’lan Noel) is a third generation crab fisherman who loves Christina with all his heart. He would do anything for her save uprooting from the only place he has ever known.

These older scenes are great companions to the current day stuff. And while both story strands have very different flavors, much of the storytelling technique is the same. We learn the most through simple conversations. Whether Mae and Michael are debating Drake versus Kendrick Lamar or talking about a recent ex who we never lay eyes on. Meghie let’s her characters tell their stories, not through contrived and stilted exposition but from their personal interactions. They determine what is important for us to know. And neither story is dependent upon trauma or betrayal to add depth. It’s all about delicate emotion and the human complexities that make us who we are.

PHOTO: Universal Pictures

As the dual love stories play out to Robert Glasper’s elegant jazz-influenced score, we can only wonder if the daughter is destined to follow the mother. The looks into Christina’s past with Isaac reveal her strength and grit but also pain and longing. With Mae vivacity comes with a not-so-thinly-veiled vulnerability while the charming Michael isn’t quite as confident as he would have Mae believe. In other words, nothing seems for certain.

Some surprisingly welcomed levity comes from Lil Rel Howery playing Michael’s domesticated brother Kyle. His mix of dialogue and improvisation is funny and (thankfully) more grounded than in some of his other movie appearances. Teyonah Parris is a great match as Kyle’s wife Asia. Both have relatively small roles but are good fits and come across as more than just throwaway comic relief.

There’s a throwback romantic quality in Meghie’s use of the gaze that calls back to Bogart and Bacall, Tracy and Hepburn, MacMurray and Stanwyck. The eye contact is meaningful and the warmth is genuine. It’s also nice to see a movie push back on the hackneyed formulas of a cliche-soaked genre. Sure it sprinkles in a few familiar ingredients (maybe too many), but “The Photograph” maintains its tenderness and sophistication by simply latching onto the one thing all great romances embrace – the human element.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

It would be hard not to take notice of Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite”. The film exploded out of this year’s festival circuit starting with its historic Palme d’Or win at Cannes. Now it sits as one of the best reviewed films of 2019 and Academy Award chatter has already begun. How could you miss that much buzz?

It’s exciting to say that “Parasite” deserves the adulation. The South Korean co-screenwriter and director has put together a stinging class warfare satire that has plenty to say about how ugly and callous people from all social statuses can be. With a delicious black comedy edge, some surprising jolts of heartfelt emotion, and a violent throat punch when you’re least expecting it, “Parasite” is a movie that keeps you engaged and guessing.

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The film is set in Seoul and follows the Kim family who reside in a cramped street-level apartment/basement at the end of an alley. Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) lives with his snarky wife Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin), their crafty son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik), and their artist/top-notch forger daughter Ki-jung (Park So-dam). Both parents are unemployed and forced to do menial pay-nothing jobs such as folding carry-out pizza boxes just to get by.

A friend convinces Ki-woo to take his place tutoring the teen daughter from the extremely wealthy (and gullible) Park family. It pays well and his family needs the money. As for Ki-woo’s concerns that he’s not qualified, his friend confidently advises him to just fake it. The Parks will never know the difference he says. So Ki-woo cooks up a fake identity, gets some documents forged by his sister, and lands the job with the upper-crusters.

The Park family seem nice enough. The stealthily condescending Mr. Park (Lee Sun Kyun) makes his money as the CEO of a big tech company. His friendly and slightly neurotic wife (a really good Cho Yeo-jeong) stays home tending to their social calendar and minding their disaffected daughter and rambunctious son with the help of their reliable housekeeper (Lee Jung Eun).

© 2019 Neon Pictures All Rights Reserved

They all fall for Ki-woo’s scam but he doesn’t stop there. Upon hearing the Park’s are looking for an art teacher, he recommends Ki-jung who assumes her own fake identity and also gets hired. Soon every member of the Kim clan has conned their way into employment by the Parks while keeping their family ties secret. For a while everyone seems happy, the Parks and their oblivious blue-blooded living, and the Kims who are making good money leeching off their employers.

The script from Bong and his co-writer Han Jin-won weaves a fascinating web. The first half plays out like dual family dramas bound together by threads of sharp dark humor. But the moment you think you’ve figured it out, Bong has you exactly where he wants you. The wildly unpredictable second half broadsides us with one twist after another, spinning the story into a darker and unabashedly violent direction. There are moments where you would swear it was all about to fall apart. But Bong has an impeccable control of his material and amazingly keeps it together with the craftsmanship of a true auteur.

Bong is no stranger to dealing with the issue of class. Each of his previous two films “Snowpiercer” and “Okja” addressed it in their own ways. “Parasite” does a great job of rousing our senses to the subject without burying us in it. There are a couple of instances where the dialogue is too pointed, but overall the movie speaks to more than just a single topic. And it doesn’t treat things solely as black or white. You could say the entire movie plays out in the ugly gray areas in between right and wrong, guilty and innocent, heroes and villains.

By the end of it all we find ourselves asking who are the real parasites? Is it the Kims and their shameless willingness to connive and deceive for their piece of the proverbial pie? Is it the Parks and their snobbish expectation of being served by the lower class? Maybe the movie is making the case that we’re all parasites. Maybe we all are out for ourselves and willing to exploit anyone to get ahead. And as the film’s brilliant yet bleak final act shows, those attitudes have some pretty nasty consequences.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

This is one of those cases where a movie had me with the trailer. Despite the question marks of Shia LaBeouf and Dakota Johnson or the potential for sappy and overwrought sentimentality, there was something about the way “The Peanut Butter Falcon” presented itself that instantly grabbed me. Oh, and the name is pretty catchy too.

From the very start “The Peanut Butter Falcon” plays like a Mark Twain story for modern day audiences. It’s the feature film debut for co-writers and co-directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz. Friends and collaborators for over ten years, Nilson and Schwartz show off a wonderful sense for their Outer Banks, North Carolina setting and for the characters who live there. It’s easy to lose yourself in their convincing slice of Deep South Americana.

At its core this is a movie about three lost souls each bound by their own circumstances. Shia LaBeouf is excellent playing Tyler, a struggling crabber who gets in deep with another local fisherman (a perfectly cast but underused John Hawkes). Zak (a beguiling Zack Gottsagen) is a 22-year-old with Down Syndrome who is stuck living in a nursing home for the elderly. His dream is to attend the pro wrestling school of his hero Salt Water Redneck. Dakota Johnson plays Eleanor, Zak’s caseworker and friend. She genuinely cares for him and he’s the one meaningful relationship in her life.

With the help of his rascally roommate (Bruce Dern), Zak busts out of the nursing home and he crosses paths with Tyler who is trying to get away from Hawkes’ Duncan. With both of them on the lamb (so to speak) the two form an unexpected and poignant bond. Tyler agrees to take Zak to Salt Water Redneck’s wrestling school and their Huck Finn-inspired journey begins. In the meantime Eleanor is following their trail but unsure of what to do when and if she finds them.

Along the way they meet a fun array of southern-fried locals and each encounter strengthens the relationships Tyler, Zak, and Eleanor share. And as the movie progresses Nilson and Schwartz show off two clear strengths – the ability to authentically capture the rural South and a true feel for fleshing out their characters. There is an undeniable sweetness at the center of this truly heartfelt story. But it only works because we care for the characters and believe their plights.

The performances are just as important. LaBeouf is the real standout here. He is deeply committed to his character and has clearly done his homework. The Tyler he gives us could have been plucked right out of North Carolina’s barrier islands. And what delightful work from Zack Gottsagen, a real-life Down syndrome young adult. As an aspiring actor, Nilson and Schwartz had promised Gottsagen they would write a movie for him and he pays back their efforts with a performance full of enthusiasm, humor, and moxie. Johnson isn’t given as much to do yet she’s a nice fit within the trio.

“The Peanut Butter Falcon” is a tender and often funny heartwarmer with loads of charm, personality, and humanity. A career best turn from Shia LaBeouf and an endearing debut from Zack Gottsagen certainly doesn’t hurt. It all makes for an utterly charming tale of friendship that feels pulled off the page of a storybook yet still very much etched in the real world. I really fell for it.

VERDICT – 4 STARS