The Attack is a film about terrorism it is true but it is also a love story, a mystery and a personal story about the individual’s place in society. It is a film that is best walked into knowing little. It is probably a bad idea to even watch the trailer.

The story is basically about a Palestinian doctor, living in Israel and is connection to a terrorist attack. The doctor is played by Ali Suliman who brings a quiet intensity to the character. He chews no scenery and seems so real in the role you forget you are watching an actor.  The film revolves around him but the supporting cast is also stellar and gives the same sort of truly human portrayals. Reymond Amsalem is also excellent in limited screen time. Dvir Benedek, with even less time, creates a human face for the Israeli security forces. He conveys humanity in a role that might have been unnoticed.

The film works so well because it is not focused on the details of politics or the grand scheme of things. It is the story of this one man and his journey to find the truth. It is about him, one human, interacting with others, all of whom seem perplexed by some part of his motivation. The great tragedy is reduced to one of its helpless parts.

The Attack has something American filmmakers could learn from--even in silly action movies. Cartoon-like terrorist villains are not scary. Actual humans, who seem normal and even decent but who become terrorists are. The last time an American movie even tried to do this was Traitor with Don Cheedle.

Yet there are no villains in this film. Some will be shocked by this notion after you see the film yet it is true. It is a movie full of victims. Even someone who kills almost a dozen children in a restaurant is a victim. This isn't put across in some obvious way. You are not beaten over the head with the woes of the Palestinians. In fact, an Israeli security officer is the one who makes the statement that resonates throughout the movie as to why such attacks happen.

The film does not take a "side" but gives viewers a feeling that the whole notion of “sides” is irrelevant now. Everyone is playing some predestined role in a great tragedy. Decent, good people look at other decent good people and see an enemy--or a potential enemy. It is not a film that fills you with hope about prospects for peace but it does leave you with some positive feelings about human beings as individuals.

The Attack is also a beautifully shot movie. It looks fantastic. And even though it deals with some terrifying and gruesome material it never feels the need to revel in the visual side of this. It makes you feel through the story, not through gore. But there are moments where you just marvel at the beauty of the work here--moments where the camera is used to convey feelings when no words are spoken.

Director Ziad Doueiri hits all the notes perfectly here both visually and in the writing. There isn't a discernible flaw here. Doueiri uses visuals to be sure you never lose sight of the fact that this is about people--not ideology. At the same time the film never feels the need to preach. It is startling, sad and keeps you engaged from beginning to end.

The film was released in 2012 but is in USA theaters now.

The World's End is a funny movie. No doubt about it. Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost all involved in a movie seems to be a pretty solid recipe for actual laughter. Is it as funny and original as Shaun of the Dead? Probably not but it is probably a hair better than the also amusing Hot Fuzz.

There is one problem with the movie and it isn't actually WITH the movie but a broader problem that Hollywood needs to deal with right NOW; they need to stop telling us so much in previews.

I would have been much happier if I hadn't KNOWN this film was about robots? As an avid movie goer I should, at least, have the opportunity to not know. If I want to have a movie spoiled there are tons of reviewers willing to do that for me. I didn't need to go see the Harrison Ford/Gary Oldman movie, Paranoia, because the previews pretty much told me what was going to happen in the film. Even more egregious are the previews for the remake of Carrie, the new Vin Diesel film, Captain Phillips...hell pretty much every single preview I've seen for months.

Hollywood thinks we are stupid and won't understand if they don't spell it out for us. Please, stop! It actually stops me from going to certain movies and I am sure I am not alone in this.

But let's get back to The World's End.

How many of you recall high school as the pinnacle of your life? It is to be hoped very few. Even so it is a certainty that you know someone who feels this way. They have never gotten past their "glory years" which were usually far less glorious than they recall. That is the starting point for this film.

Pegg plays Gary King, the vaguely goth high school superstar who decides (at a little too much length) to get his old friends together to relive their youth via a particular quest. He wants them to return to their hometown to go on a pub crawl--having a pint at each of a dozen pubs, culminating at The World's End.

Frost is decidely NOT Ed from Shaun of the Dead in this movie, instead being cast in the sober, responsible role. He and Gary's other friends are all gainfully employed, fairly successful and only moderately nostalgic for days gone by. But with clever lies and manipulation Gary gets them all on board for the trek.

All along the way gags ensue. Much like Hot Fuzz before it this movie will improve upon second viewing. Some of the early jokes are put into context by what happens later. That is one of the beauty of the "Cornetto Trilogy" all the films stand up well to repeated viewings.

There are some lessons in this one but these are never used as a bludgeon. And also the ending sort of leaves it open for interpretation what, precisely, these lessons are. Maybe it is ok, under some circumstances, to live in the past? Perhaps when the present is miserable?

But life lessons are not really the point here in any case--humor is and The World's End gets that part right. It does it in a way that induces more chuckles than uncontrollable laughter but that is by design. It is to be hoped that this isn't the final curtain for this group working together.

Lee Daniel's The Buter (to use the official title) is a fairly compelling movie that is not, in fact, a true story. It is based on a true story and has a definite ring of truth throughout. But do not take every single thing that happens in the film to be indisputable fact.

It is better to look at this movie as am amalgamation of the experiences of black families in the America of the last century. And it is a moving amalgamation.

Usually when a film comes out that deals with civil rights issues (or, even worse, slavery) you can count on box office failure. In this case? After one week in theaters this film is the number one film in the country. Guesses as to why this is the case are that it is the end of the summer and there is a dearth of new movies worth seeing and, Oprah Winfrey is in it.

Winfrey's last film, the underrated Beloved, underperformed (it was marketed as a "slavery" story when it probably should have been marketed as a "ghost" story).  This film is marketed as just what it is. Some of it is hard to watch. Who want's to hear people called "niggers" and demeaned?

Ultimately, this film is about a generational divide.  The father made his living as a butler, the son sees this 'servile' position as demeaning. They disagree on race relations and how change can be made. The son, ably played by David Oyelowo, is less a character than a representation of the change in attitude. He turns the other cheek and follows nonviolence but then changes. How is it that you stick to nonviolence when it seems to get you nowhere? Oyelowo brings this character, who could have been just a symbol, to life. He makes him human.

Forrest Whittaker plays the father, Cecil Gaines (loosely based on Eugene Allen). There is a great deal of the real character's life in the film but the changes help make the film broader. Whitaker is one of those actors you can say is always good. He just is, even in movies that are not, Whitaker has shone. Here he plays his character with understatement that makes the occasional explosion of anger or grief all the more powerful.

The film is full of cameos. Various well-known actors portray, in bit parts, some of which are only one scene, famous Americans--from Presidents to First Ladies to civil rights leaders to regular folks. Most of these work and those that do not are not particularly glaring. Many will find Winfrey's presence distracting. She is OPRAH. We all know her and it is hard to get past that. Yet she delivers a solid performance (she really should act more).  There is some padding of her character that is, perhaps, a little irrelevant to the plot of the film but it isn't overdone and never brings the film to a grinding halt.

This is an entertaining film. It may not be an easy film to watch in all parts but has a humanity to it. It is, in parts, funny even. The characters are alive and real. You care about what happens to them. Some of the most heart wrenching events, events that seem "Hollywood-created" are actually from the life of Allen.

We know the basic story here, or it is to be hoped we do. But with recent events that divide the USA along racial lines? It is always a good thing to be reminded of the bad old days, days when things WERE worse. This doesn't mean things are perfect and racism is gone now. It shows us that, even when attitudes among the majority ranged from poisonous to indifferent, change was possible. How much easier SHOULD it be to move forward now? That is hopefully part of what people will take away from this film.

Kickass 2 is not unwatchable but there is something, a thread of "not right-ness" that permeates the movie. In fact it isn't just ONE thread but several.

The first of these is the juxtaposition of horrific violence in a movie where most of the violence is cartoon-like. There are two brutal murders (one that is like something from The Sopranos but with silly costumes and another that seems like something off of Oz or Breaking Bad) that are mixed with half-hearted attempts at humor that fall dreadfully flat.

It isn't that you cannot make jokes about horrific things but those jokes damned well better be funny. There is even a scene where a rape is about to take place that turns into a penis joke. Not funny.

Can you tell jokes about rapes that are funny? No, you cannot. But you can allude to the subject. Check out the scene in This Is The End that does it. The joke isn't ABOUT rape but about the attitudes of the characters, showing their mindsets and, to a degree, their hypocrisy.  Remember how the film Something About Mary used a mentally handicapped character to  set up jokes? Remember how that worked? Because we were laughing with him and not at him, because the jokes were funny and because the jokes were at the expense NOT of the handicapped character but of those around him.

That is probably the crux of the matter with why this movie just doesn't work--most of the jokes are obvious, most of the deaths are obvious and telegraphed and there is a pointless side-plot that seem designed to include ONE gag. That gag? A vomit and poop gag.

Do not get me wrong. I am not high brow. To quote the sage wisdom of the Frank Reynolds character from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia; "Poop is funny." But it isn't ALWAYS funny.

Then there is the violence. The one thing I walked out of this movie thinking was that Jim Carrey's denunciation of the film's violence was the result of three possible things 1) an attempt to promote the film (OH this is SO violent...don't see it! wink wink) 2) Jim Carrey does not see very many movies or 3) Jim Carrey is an idiot.

The film, comparatively, is just not that violent. There are more violent basic cable television shows. I have seen a dozen films in the past year that are more violent than this. And the violence is generally the best part of this movie.
There are some pretty decent action sequences in the film, although the "final confrontation" seems more than a little flat.

All the actors in this movie acquit themselves pretty well--with a few exceptions. They are handed pretty mundane lines to deliver and the spit them out like pros.

But WHY, in the name of all that is holy, in an action film that glories in violence and mayhem, a film about vigilantes who dress up like super heroes, do you include a long aside that seems like something out of a teen high school TV series? This who portion of the movie is yawn inducing and could have been handled in a tiny fraction of the time (and as noted before the "payoff" is a poop and vomit joke).

Kickass 2 isn't all bad. There is some decent action. There are a few jokes and gags that sort of work. The actors elevate the rather dubious material and with a few, previously noted exceptions the film moves along fairly well. It just falls short across the board.

When heading in to the theater to see Woody Allen’s latest, Blue Jasmine, you should know one thing; unlike Allen’s two previous films, Midnight in Paris and To Rome With Love, Blue Jasmine is not a whimsical comedy. It may be a stretch to refer to it as a comedy at all. Sure, there are funny moments here and there but they are almost as few and far between as laughs in a Russell Brand movie. Although in Allen’s film this missing laughs are intentional. This is a more serious film about relationships, family and betrayal.  It is also a sort of updating (if not an outright remake) of Streetcar Named Desire.

It is odd to say that one of the best things about this movie is the casting. Everyone in the film fits their role perfectly. Even the small roles are perfectly performed--Andrew Dice Clay comes off particularly well in a smaller role.  There are too many perfectly cast smaller roles to conveniently list. They just all work.  So many movies seem to pick lead actors based on star power and supporting actors out of a hat.

Cate Blanchett stars as Jasmine (or Jeanette), a snobby formerly wealthy sister to Sally Hawkins’ Ginger. The focus of the film is clearly Blanchet and it would be shocking to not see her name on the list of Oscar nominees for best actress. She plays the manic, overbearing but at the same time fragile character with subtlety.  Hawkins also turns in a nice performance as Ginger. The “Brando role” here is split into older and younger versions—the older being Clay as Augie and the younger being Bobby Cannavale as Chili,  who Boardwalk Empire fans will recall as the kinky, psychotic Gyp Rosetti. Cannavale is the one who manages some of the film’s levity but he also has some standout dramatic scenes. His character is drunk, violent but somehow manages to remain endearing.

This film is a very different film from Streetcar of course. It isn’t REALLY a remake. Most audience members will probably feel far less sympathy for Blanchett’s Jasmine than Vivien Leigh’s Blanche. Is it because Allen puts Jasmine in a less sympathetic context? She isn’t just a “scarlet woman” with mental problems. She is the enabler of a Bernie Madoff-style crook who lives high on the hog—but on other people’s money. This film isn’t stagey and it is set in a completely modern context.

This film shows an affection for the average person and disdain for the wealthy—especially the wealthy who prey on others.  In the context of the film they are liars, they cheat, they are superficial and they look down on anyone below their strata. But Allen doesn’t make the average people; the regular schmoes seem perfect either.  They struggle. They drink. They fight with one another and cause scenes. It wouldn’t be out of line to take issue with the “poor folks are loud and boorish and drink beer” and “rich folks who are snooty and drink wine” black and white world of the film. It is a little stereotypical but it is also hard to deny these particular stereotypes exist. To offer shades of grey, in this case, might over complicate the film, offer unnecessary side-tracks and interpretations.

Which brings us to how well written this is. Keeping the world simple so you can make characters more complicated just works.  The characters are believable and while you may not feel any particular liking for any of them, you still want to find out what happens.  Jasmine isn’t the only character that isn’t totally sympathetic.  Chili is a boor with a violent temper who drinks too much. Ginger is looking for love and is ready to run out on her man when what she thinks is better option is available. All of Jasmine’s society friends are phonies.  Obviously Jasmine’s husband, Hal (played by Alec Baldwin) isn’t sympathetic as a crook and philanderer.  Nonetheless you stay interested in the film and the characters.  This is no mean feat when none of the characters make you like them.

This is an interesting movie in itself and also in the context of film history; where is it in the list of the best of Woody Allen and how does it compare to the inspiration, Streetcar Named Desire?  More than this the film is just entertaining and it works on a number of levels with every detail thought out, from minor characters to location. Woody Allen has not lost a thing as a director or writer.

Elysium isn’t the worst Sci-Fi film in recent memory. It isn’t unwatchable. It is, however, an enormous letdown from director Neill Blomkamp whose first film, District 9, was a truly great science fiction film. That film was such a surprise being so outside the normal Hollywood summer blockbuster fare. It was more than just a great sci-fi film but a great film. Elysium is bland and safe and well within the parameters of the Hollywood formula. It is, however, professionally made and solid enough to keep you involved, at least in places. But there is no real connection, no real excitement and nothing about it is particularly memorable.

So what, basically, is wrong with the film?

It drags.  The film is fairly short but it takes awhile to get going. The establishment of who Max is and what Elysium is takes far too much of the running time. Pacing is a huge part of the problem with this movie. The overall plot is fairly thin too. Is it a comment on immigration? Egalitarianism? Healthcare? Even the final resolution is a little head scratching in its lack of sophistication.

The characters are not particularly well-drawn (except perhaps Matt Damon's Max). There is very little surprising about the movie at all. The villains do what villains do; they sneer, they snarl but are otherwise uncomplicated. The acting is hard to figure. Jodie Foster seems wooden, which is hard to imagine for an actress of her caliber. Sharlto Copley, who acquitted himself so well, as Wikus Van De Merwe in District 9, is pretty close to a Saturday morning cartoon as a psychotic mercenary. Damon manages to give his character some depth but he also has much more screen time to do it.

It isn't that these actors, or others in the film such as Alice Braga (that you may recall from Predators), are bad, they are simply not given very much to do or time to do it in. There are too many characters as well be they friend or henchman. If you want to have a lot of characters to be blown to bits? That is fine. But why add people whose deaths are supposed to move the audience when there isn’t enough time to make the audience care.

Some of the action sequences are decent but mostly they are nothing special, sort of formulaic. There are a few “they blowed up real good” moments but these are too few.  This isn’t to say that plot should be secondary to explosions and mayhem but this movie could have done with a good deal more mayhem.

What is good about the movie? Damon puts in a fairly solid performance—making his futuristic felon trying to get his life back on track believable and sympathetic. It looks good. The scenes on earth have a similar feel to large parts of District 9. It never lets special effects take over which is what most thinly plotted sci-fi films do.

While its pace is uneven it isn’t so bad that the audience will completely lose interest either. There are worse movies that come out every year in the genre and part of the problem here may also be the high expectations for Blomkamp as a director. District 9 was that good and Elysium is just mediocre.