If you love B-movies with plenty of camp, comedy and gore, then you’ve probably seen a few films created by the writer/producer/director Roger Corman, the man behind SyFy channel pictures like “Dinocroc vs. Supergator” and older classics like the original “Little Shop of Horrors.”

Up-and-coming director Alex Stapleton turned the camera onto the camp master in her film “Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel.”

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It follows Corman’s career – over half a century of cheap-as-dirt indie filmmaking – and the resulting 400-plus films that he created in that time. The film launched earlier this month, and Stapleton called BH recently for an interview about her film, Corman’s influence, and getting Jack Nicholson to cry on camera.

BH: Where does Roger Corman fit into the history of cinema?

Stapleton: I definitely think he’s part of the backbone of cinema. I think, creatively speaking as a filmmaker and director, he kind of helped – along with his compatriots – to birth the kind of blockbuster genre film experiences that we experience today that the studios are making.

I think Roger was definitely one of the pioneers in that movement. When you look at the movie “Avatar,” you look at the director and it’s James Cameron, and James Cameron [worked] under Roger Corman for years and… I think that James Cameron would probably tell you the same thing: that he learned a lot about how to put together a genre story by working for Roger.

I also think that as far as moments in cinema history, Roger has had a huge influence, specifically with the American new Hollywood movement, by finding and mentoring people like Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, [and] Peter Bogdanovich, starting their careers but also giving them the idea – Peter Fonda, Denis Hopper and Jack Nicholson – giving them the idea to make the movie “Easy Rider,” which is a hybrid movie of Roger’s movies “The Trip” and “Wild Angels.” (more…)

Millennials are obsessed with capturing their lives online. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. Most people are boring enough that their compulsive documentation is really unnecessary. The story of “Chronicle” is the exception.

Loner Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan), his cousin Matt Garetty (Alex Russell) and class star Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan) are three high school students who stumble upon a glowing crystal-like object in the woods during a party at an abandoned warehouse. In the days that follow they realize they’ve acquired some a telekinetic power to control objects.

It’s not unlike the Force – something that first-time feature director Josh Trank dabbled with in his experimental short, “Stabbing at Leia’s 22nd Birthday.” But as their powers grow from moving a few Legos to crushing cars and flying, Detmer begins to change and lash out. When Garetty and Montgomery try to help, he only grows more violent. His downward spiral leads to an action-packed climax pitting friends and powers against each other.

For a “found footage” hand-held film, the movie has some great shots. It fits into the story – as his powers increase, Detmer uses part of his mind to control the camera, so all three young men appear in shots together. It’s a neat choice, and lets Trank be artistic in a movie that’s supposed to look amateurish. The story, by Trank and screenwriter Max Landis, has the depth and structure that films made by much older professionals often lack.

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Two conservative directors are gunning for recognition online today, and they need your help.

Filmmakers Mark Judge and Paul Moon, with their documentary film project “The Story of Whittaker Chambers,” are currently competing for “Project of the Week” recognition at indiewire.com. Each day indiewire picks a “Project of the Day” to feature, and every week readers vote for one project to consult with an independent film website like SnagFilms or IndieGoGo.

These “Project of the Week” winners compete for the “Project of the Month” prize: a consultation with the Sundance Institute, which runs the Sundance Film Festival. IndieWIRE featured “The Story of Whittaker Chambers” on Tuesday.

“Chambers’s story is one that hits on every cylinder,” wrote Judge, an author, journalist and filmmaker. “There is espionage, war, the soul of man, communism, courtroom drama, narrow escapes and God. The story is incredibly exciting, and we want to provide a great ride.”

Communist-turned-conservative Chambers is known for exposing government official Alger Hiss as a Soviet spy. Hiss was convicted of perjury in 1950 and sentenced to five years in prison. Chambers is remembered for his anti-communism, but also for his classic tome, “Witness,” which has influenced conservatism for decades, and continues to do so.

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Today’s spy movies are generally populated with agents who use gadgetry, kung fu and sexual prowess to destroy their megalomaniacal foes. Bullets sometimes help. Not so in John le Carré‘s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” novel, or Tomas Alfredson‘s cinematic adaptation. Here,
brains are key. Brawn is just the tool of cleverer men who wield field agents like pawns in chess.

It’s fitting then that “Control,” (John Hurt) head of the British “Circus” (SIS, commonly called MI6), tapes the pictures of his top underlings onto chess pieces as he considers which is a double agent for Russia. “There’s a mole. Right at the top of the Circus. He’s been there for years,”
Control tells agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) right before secretly sending him to Budapest, to uncover the identity of the traitor.

Control’s suspects are the top men of SIS: Percy Alleline, Circus director of operations (Toby Jones); three Circus officers: Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds) and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik); and the Deputy Chief, George Smiley (Gary Oldman). Control nicknames each from an old nursery rhyme – tinker, tailor, soldier and so on.

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“Stephen King’s Bag of Bones,” a two-part miniseries beginning at 9 p.m. EST tonight on A&E, embodies the horror author’s unrelenting vision. Based on his bestselling novel of the same name, the miniseries stars Pierce Brosnan as Mike Noonan, a bestselling author suffering from writer’s block after the tragic death of his wife, Jo (Annabeth Gish). Mike’s grief is compounded by the loss of his wife’s baby, which he wasn’t aware she was carrying until after her death. Since he believed himself to be sterile, his first inclination is that she was cheating on him. Her frequent visits to their lakeside cabin in the months before her death suddenly seem less innocent.

Mike’s boozing self-medication is interrupted when his agent asks for another book. Mike decides to visit the lake house in the town of Dark Score, hoping for inspiration and, perhaps, an answer as to why his wife hadn’t told him about her pregnancy.

In typical King fashion, chaos and terror strike soon after Mike arrives in Dark Score. First, after finding a little girl named Kyra (Caitlin Carmichael) wandering in the middle of the road, Mike unwittingly finds himself involved in a custody battle over the girl between a young woman named Mattie (Melissa George) and her sinister father-in-law Max (William Schallert).

At the same time, Mike’s nights at the cabin are haunted by twisted dreams, and his days are interrupted by the paranormal as ghosts – both friendly and not – pulling him into a decades-old mystery surrounding the disappearance of a blues singer and a number of child drownings. Brosnan’s ability to shift between mourning husband, tentative detective and celebrity writer provides the right tone for each scene.
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Hawaii isn’t always paradise, Matt King (George Clooney) tells us in the heavily-narrated opening act of “The Descendants,” based on the debut novel of the same name by Kaui Hart Hemmings.

For years, Matt’s been the “back-up parent,” quietly plugging away at his job and, lately, managing the sale of his family’s trust – a large parcel of paradise passed down through the generations. Meanwhile, his wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) manages their spastic preteen Scottie (Amara Miller) and her ex-druggie older sister Alexandra (Shailene Woodley), while racing boats on the side.

Then a speedboat accident lands Elizabeth in the hospital, in a coma from which she won’t recover. Her will states that Matt must pull the plug, and so he and his daughters begin to tell family and friends to say goodbye now before Elizabeth is gone forever.

But Matt’s image of his wife and daughters is transformed as he reconnects with his reckless children and learns that his wife was having an affair and was ready to leave him. In a move that is part vengeful husband and part sympathetic guardian, Matt and the girls start searching for Elizabeth’s lover, to give him an opportunity to say goodbye.

Writer/director Alexander Payne co-wrote the film with actors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Payne, whose previous work includes “Sideways” and “About Schmidt,” has crafted another strong character in Matt King. Much like the leads in “Sideways,” Matt is a type – like the wine lover and B-actor for which Payne won a best screenplay Oscar. He’s a middle-aged father, reconnecting with his daughters and realizing that the reality he knew was far from the reality that actually was. While the film is marred with excessive set-up narration and a few traipsing scenes in the middle exploring the family land deal and the hunt for Elizabeth’s lover, Clooney’s Matt keeps things moving. The tired, aging, slightly oblivious father and husband he delivers is complex and relatable.

Matt’s journey is set against Hawaii’s beautiful beaches and countryside, with an islander soundtrack of harps and guitars, juxtaposing the story’s weight with a carefree setting. It makes the film more contemplative and less emotional. It also helps the humor scattered throughout to land easily.

Matt’s daughters help him along the way. Miller’s rowdy Scottie is kind of confusing, and way too crass, which has something to do with her rebellious older sister Alexandra and probably more to do with the minds behind the movie. Woodley as Alexandra is fantastic, though – she’s a nice balance of wild child and caring daughter. Her sidekick, pot-smoking guitarist Sid (Nick Krause), keeps things light with his dim-witted humor as the group island-hop their way to finding Elizabeth’s man.

There’s not much to hide about the ending. Throughout the film, the inevitability of Elizabeth’s death hangs over everything. But Hemmings’ story and Payne’s adaptation still manage to surprise with the power of Matt’s subtle transformation from workaholic to father.

Even in Hawaii, family is what makes life beautiful.

“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.” Shakespeare’s words ring literally true in Andrew Niccol’s cinematic marriage of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ with ‘Robin Hood.’

‘In Time’ takes place in a future where physical aging has been genetically altered to end at 25. At that time, a year begins to count down on your arm. When your time runs out, you die. If you can earn or steal more time, you can extend your life infinitely. In this world, people are divided in time zones based on their wealth, and Timekeepers – half cop, half agents of order – ensure that no one breaks the rules and advances illegally.

Justin Timberlake plays Will, a struggling factory worker who has been gifted over a century of time by Henry (Matt Bomer), a man who has grown tired of living. With his new wealth and knowledge, Will goes to New Greenwich, the lap of luxury, intent on stealing time from the wealthy to distribute to the masses – time that has been stolen from them through manipulated markets that ensure the rich earn more time while the poor continually struggle to make it through each day. There, he meets Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), the daughter of Philippe (‘Mad Men’s’ Vincent Kartheiser), who owns an eternity of time. When Timekeepers track Will to New Greenwich and try to arrest him for supposedly stealing the minutes and murdering Henry, he kidnaps Sylvia and goes on the run, racing against not only the Timekeepers but a dwindling clock.

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In July, South Sudan officially ended its decades-long struggle for independence from Sudan, the northern region controlled by Arab Muslims who tried for years to force Islam on the mostly Christian south. While the war is officially over, another battle continues, in Southern Sudan, and northern parts of Uganda. That war is waged against the terrorist organization known as the Lord’s Resistance Army, a wild force without a real goal beyond violence and destruction.

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Since the late 1990s, an American preacher has stood against this threat, his orphanage a safe haven in the ravaged land. That man is Sam Childers, a violent drug-dealing biker who underwent a mostly complete transformation after coming to Christ. I say mostly because two things haven’t changed: He still loves motorcycles, and he still loves to fight. Now though, he fights not in dim-lit bars after too many drinks, but in Africa against the LRA. There, he and a few soldiers from the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army take the conflict to the LRA. When LRA soldiers attack a village – intent on torturing, murdering or kidnapping its inhabitants – Sam and his team ride in, guns blazing, to stop them.

“Machine Gun Preacher” is that amazing story, told with great authenticity (thus the R rating) by screenwriter Jason Keller and acclaimed director Marc Forster, whose previous work includes “Monster’s Ball,” “Finding Neverland” and “Quantum of Solace.” A uniting force to Forster’s wide array of films is great characters, and he’s found an epic in Sam Childers, played forcefully by Gerard Butler.

It’s a compelling and accurate portrait of the preacher as a killer angel, the story of one man’s personal journey from drugs and theft into ministry on two continents.

Keller’s story crunches 30 years of Sam’s life into a few hours, and Forster’s film flows quickly from one moment to the next, roughly splicing scenes together with music and voice-over (but not narration) linking them. Forster’s transitions are artistic, though more easily appreciated the second time around.

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 Earlier this month preacher Sam Childers and screenwriter Jason Keller came to Washington, D.C. to meet with reporters (a panel that included BH’s own John Hanlon, who wrote about the interview here) in advance of the release of “Machine Gun Preacher,” a new film by Marc Forster based on the life of Sam Childers, a drug-dealing biker-turned-preacher who runs an orphanage in Sudan. But he does more than that: When the terrorizing Lord’s Resistance Army led by the villainous Joseph Kony attacks villages and kidnaps children in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, Sam and his troop of Sudanese soldiers fight back and rescue those children from the clutches of their captors.

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Sam is a stocky man with an emphatic handlebar mustache. He’s shorter than you might expect – certainly shorter than Gerard Butler who plays him – but he has a presence about him compounded by his biker attire. Jason has the goatee, long hair and overall grunge look of a Hollywood writer.

My first question was about Jason’s introduction to the story. “One of the producers … called me. She said ‘I just heard the most amazing true story.’ She gave me a little thirty second [overview] and asked, ‘Do you wanna meet the guy?’ I said, ‘Yeah, gotta meet him.’ I met Sam the next week and that’s when it all sort of started.”

Keller researched the story for a year and a half before he began to really write. But it wasn’t until after he’d written a complete script that he made it to Sudan. “We were nervous about that,” Jason said of himself and director Marc Forster. “By that time we had a screenplay that we felt very confident about. … But we were scared that we were going to go over there and realize we hadn’t rendered the story in terms of the central Africa [part] accurately. We went over there and we had open eyes. I was prepared to do whatever I had to do to get it right.” Fortunately everything seemed to fit. “We really worked hard to get that screenplay right before we actually were able to go over there and see [the orphanage]. Not a lot changed. The only things that changed were some specific sort of character things for Deng (one of Sam’s soldiers), some specific things for some of the kids … but in terms of structural shifts not much at all.”

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The producers of “The Blind Side” are back with another true story family feature. “Dolphin Tale” is inspired by Winter, a dolphin that swims with a prosthetic tail and serves as encouragement for handicapped people of all ages.

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The story follows Sawyer (Nathan Gamble), a quiet kid whose cousin and only real friend (Austin Stowell) has just shipped off to the military. During a visit to the beach, Sawyer finds a dolphin, Winter, tangled in a crab trap and helps the team from Tampa Bay’s Clearwater Marine Aquarium to rescue her. When the injury requires Clearwater director Dr. Clay Haskett (Harry Connick Jr.) to amputate Winter’s tail, Sawyer and Haskett’s chatterbox daughter Hazel (Cozi Zuehlsdorff) are there to help Winter learn to swim again. But Winter’s new swimming style puts pressure on her spinal cord and threatens to paralyze her.

Meanwhile Sawyer’s cousin returns home after being wounded in an explosion during his tour of duty. While visiting him at a veteran’s hospital, Sawyer runs into prosthetics specialist Dr. Cameron McCarthy (Morgan Freeman). In a race against time, Sawyer convinces the doctor to create a prosthetic tail for Winter while financial concerns threaten to close Clearwater permanently.

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The folks over at Starvingeyes Advergaming have created a game that gives players the chance to bash in the brains of Tea Partiers from FOX News correspondents to Rep. Michele Bachmann in a bra. Their game, “Tea Party Zombies Must Die,” is a post-apocalyptic world where only small government conservatives and libertarians reside, and they’re all out to eat you.

“Sarah Palin”

MRC’s video is a visual summary of the game, but basically you’re supposed to run around and kill anyone who isn’t liberal. Lower classes of zombie include a “generic pissed off old white guy zombie” complete with an American flag tie, a “pissed off stupid white trash redneck birther zombie” and an “expresses racist views anonymously on the Internet modern Klan zombie” in tattered KKK garb. A bloodied Sarah Palin and a shirtless Michele Bachmann both make zombie appearances, as do a “factory made blonde” FOX News correspondent “barbie” and a number of presidential candidates and FOX News hosts. The final three zombies listed (and I’m assuming the last of the zombies that you meet in the game – I’m not wasting time to find out how long it takes to come across these creatures) are a Koch Industries (KI) lobbyist pig, a KI toxic “climate change denial” zombie and a two-headed Koch brothers zombie.

Locations of battle include FOX News Headquarters, the Americans for Prosperity offices and trailer parks – Tea Party home base, I guess; weapons include a crow bar, knife and pistol; and offended people should include everyone reading this post. Between levels, the game displays unhelpful blurbs about how taxes are lower under President Obama and how repealing ObamaCare would increase the deficit. Why the gamers give this information between levels and not, say, helpful strategy tips about how to best fight several advancing zombies at once is beyond me.

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“The Debt” opens in 1950s Israel with three young Jewish Mossad agents – Rachel, Stephan and David – returning home after a covert operation in East Berlin. Their job was to capture the elusive Dieter Vogel, the “Surgeon of Buchenau,” and bring him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes against humanity. Years later, the daughter of Rachel and Stephan authors a book celebrating their mission: Vogel’s capture, the botched attempt to smuggle him out of East Berlin on a train, hiding him in their apartment for weeks and eventually, as he tried to escape, killing him. But the truth is not so simple. Rather, it’s a secret the three have kept for years. Now, after decades of living a lie, the truth threatens to get out, and only Rachel has the power to silence it forever.

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The film is based on a 2007 Israeli movie by the same name, and adapted by the writers of “Kick-Ass” and “X-Men: First Class” (Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman) with help from Peter Straughan who wrote the screenplay for “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” Their experience at adaptation shows, as “The Debt” is a beautifully crafted story blending events from East Berlin in the 1950s with Israel in the 1990s.

Like his previous films “Proof” and “Shakespeare in Love,” director John Madden’s latest features a powerful female in a male-dominated world (mathematics, 16th Century England, espionage), where being a woman is both an asset and liability. Rachel is the newest addition to the Mossad sleeper cell hunting Vogel, and her presence in their cramped apartment headquarters immediately adds tension. She is also perhaps the most important member of the group: she must visit Vogel’s women’s clinic, verify his identity and drug him. It’s a significant task for a first-time field agent and Jessica Chastain (who recently appeared in “The Help” and “Tree of Life,” which I haven’t seen) as the young Rachel conveys a delicate balance of vulnerable femininity and cunning agent – perfect for the character. As an older Rachel, Helen Mirren is significantly different from her “RED” ex-agent, less confident and snarky, more fragile, with a greater sense of duty. Tom Wilkinson and Marton Csokas as Stephan/young Stephan are both forceful and charming when it serves them, an ambitious, likable Mossad mission leader who quickly sours as the mission deteriorates. Sam Worthington as the young David gives a fine quiet performance, subdued and timid with brief explosions of anger. Most of his characters have been pretty emotionless, so it’s nice to see a more expressive side of him.

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Imperfect alien invasions have plagued 2011. From the U.S. military in “Battle: LA” to America’s gunslingers in “Cowboys and Aliens,” this year’s human heroes have packed heat and won the war, but the explosion-heavy battles were not incredibly inventive. In J.J. Abrams’ throwback “Super 8,” its stellar kid actors and little else kept it from being generally forgettable. Thankfully England has picked up our slack with perhaps their best alien attack since Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.” And like “Super 8,” its strength also revolves around a cast of young unknowns. It just doesn’t end there. 

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“Attack the Block” is an interplanetary turf war between street toughs and aliens in the dregs of South London. It opens on a group of hoodlums led by a punk named Moses (John Boyega) as they mug a nurse, Sam (Jodie Whittaker), on her way home from work. Then aliens crash-land on their block. The riff-raff soon become Sam’s best hope as they are forced to join together in their fight for survival. 

Everything about the film is refreshing. First, it takes a group of very authentic kids (played by some stellar young actors) whose interaction, lingo and brotherhood are all authentic to London’s street thugs. Next, it puts them at home in a dingy apartment complex where instead of gaping in awe at the alien threat and wondering how or why the creatures came to earth, the group reacts like media-saturated young gangsters would and defend their hood. Instead of guns blazing, they fight with a baseball bat and a collector samurai sword. Thanks to excellent writing and directing from Joe Cornish (who came up with the concept after being mugged by a similar group of young thugs), the kids are believable punks on an individual and group level. They’re the bad kids, not your typical heroes, and their transformation makes them memorable. 

Cornish keeps the movie funny with a lot of situational humor and excellent dialogue – the boys’ girlfriends hang up on their frantic calls, telling them to call back when they aren’t playing videogames; the potty-mouthed guys rag on Sam for swearing too much. The thick accents and foreign slang (“believe, brev” and “allow it” color the film) do beg for subtitles at first, but as the film goes on it gets easier to understand. Additionally, Nick Frost of “Shaun of the Dead” and most recently “Paul” fame supports as a drugged-up pot grower, and his stoned take on the action keeps everything from getting too serious. 

Not that the aliens aren’t scary. Cornish’s invaders break the modern trend of CGI-heavy, visually overwhelming monsters. His are grounded in reality. The low-budget creatures are actually guys in costumes (among them, Terry Notary, who ran Tim Burton’s “Planet of the Apes” movement school), and are jet black with glowing teeth. The kids describe them as “big, alien, gorilla-wolf mother—ers,” and it’s their similarity to bears and ferocious dogs that make them terrifying. They are filmed to maximum effect. Early on, Cornish suggests them, couching their movements in shadow. Later, when the gang sees a dead one up close, they realize that’s essentially what the aliens are – jet black shag carpets with razor sharp teeth. But it’s not a comforting feeling. 

Cornish also avoids zooming too close as the kids bike up cement ramps, run through hallways and fight their way through the block, letting viewers actually watch what’s going on. His choice in aliens and camerawork are both refreshing when so many filmmakers today opt for CGI and hand-held camerawork, and his strong story and actors make it a must-watch film. Believe, brev.

The 1985 “Fright Night” was a make-up artist’s dream, less a nightmare horror than a bloody comedy. Its sequel was excessively serious and silly in all the wrong places. The 2011 reboot gets back to the good stuff.

Anton Yelchin stars as Charley, a former geek whose budding relationship with high school hottie Amy (Imogen Poots) has transformed his social life. That all changes when Jerry (Colin Farrell) moves in next door and students start disappearing. Not long after, Charley realizes that Jerry isn’t a night-owl working in Vegas, he’s a vampire drinking his way through the neighborhood. At the same time, Jerry realizes Charley’s on to him. So begins the chase. With the help of Vegas showman and vampire scholar Peter Vincent (David Tennant), Charley sets out to kill Jerry, before those he loves become the vampire’s next victims.

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Remakes generally fail to match the original. This one succeeds. It keeps its inspiration’s premise and major plot points, while taking liberties with the connecting story arcs. Screenwriter Marti Noxon’s story emphasizes the personal histories of Jerry and Charley, where Tom Holland’s originals were more interested in helping their horny teen lead get laid. A few of the details though – Jerry still eats apples for no reason – remain to satisfy fans of the first film.

Director Craig Gillespie’s film is a bloody mess, as vampire movies are want to be. But the gore and effects are only slightly gross, and are mostly just a gimmick. Gillespie avoids sudden scares, sticking with the classic tension of the hunter and the hunted. One scene, where Jerry stands just outside of Charley’s house, talking to him, trying to get Charley to invite him in, is particularly gripping. Vampires can’t enter a house uninvited. It’s just one of the rules that Gillespie toys with nicely.

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Generally when a film is “based on a true story” the question is, “how much did the filmmakers embellish actual events?”  For “The Devil’s Double” it’s, “how much did they censor them?”

“The Devil’s Double” is director Lee Tamahori’s adaptation of the life and autobiography of Latif Yahia, an Iraqi soldier forced to become the fidai (meaning body double, or more literally, “bullet catcher”) of Saddam Hussein’s brutal son, the “Black Prince” Uday. Set to the driving beat of ’80s pop, against a backdrop of grainy Gulf War footage, the semi-factual tale chronicles Yahia’s life from surgical transformation into the decadent and horrific world of unbridled lust and murderous rage he was forced to witness and live.

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Even though it chronicles Yahia’s time in Uday Hussein’s service, the film is less a factual retelling than a retro-gangster flick. The film’s producers hired director Tamahori (the man behind the explosive “Die Another Day”) to helm the project because he saw it as a “Scarface” style tale, not a biopic. Tamahori said that, “the truth doesn’t set you free in movies. Truth layered with fiction sets you free.”

In this case, maybe that’s best. Screenwriter Michael Thomas said of Yahia’s life: “There’s a lot more, and a lot worse on the record than what I was even able to touch upon in the screenplay.” The film gets pretty brutal. Reality must have been hell. At a party, Uday – high on cocaine – slices a man’s stomach open and Yahia is nearly killed several times by rebels mistaking him for Uday, and even by Uday himself. (more…)

The words “Never forget” are inscribed in a Paris memorial honoring the victims of the “so-called ‘government of the French state’” during World War II. The memorial rests on the spot of the government’s most notorious act of villainy, the infamous Vel d’Hiv roundup of July 1942. On July 16, French police under Gestapo orders lockedthousands of Parisian Jews in the Vélodrome d’Hiver sports stadium for days, in horrible conditions, then transported them to the Drancy holding camp before finally sending them to their deaths at Auschwitz. There were almost no survivors. 

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Released last week in Los Angeles and New York City, and this weekend in select cities nationwide, the 2010 French film “Sarah’s Key” brings that tragedy to the screen. “Sarah’s Key” is based on author Tatiana de Rosnay’s New York Times bestseller by the same name, and follows two lives, decades apart, connected by a long-kept, horrible secret. Sarah (Mélusine Mayance), a young Jewish girl taken with her parents to the Vel’ d’Hiv, fights to return to Paris where her brother is locked away in a secret closet in their apartment, hiding from the police. Years later, in modern day Paris, American journalist Julia (Kristin Scott Thomas) begins to research Sarah’s story while struggling with the decision of whether to keep or abort her baby – a baby that her husband does not want. 

The film, like the book, flips between 1942 and modern-day France and New York, defying traditional World War II films, since over half of the story takes place in the 2000s. Co-writer and director Gilles Pacquet-Brenner added a few scenes to flesh out Sarah’s history, and streamlined Julia’s relationship with her husband and fellow journalists, but left the bestselling story largely intact. 

Young Sarah, played by a brilliant French actress named Mélusine Mayance, has haunting eyes and maturity beyond her years. As Pacquet-Brenner says, “She’s a great actress. She’s not a child who acts.” Coupled with the stunning, mysterious Charlotte Poutrel playing a grown up Sarah, Pacuqet-Brenner presents an unforgettable character who endures almost incomprehensible tragedy. Kristin Scott Thomas also delivers a moving performance as the journalist Julia, and between Thomas and Aidan Quinn, they keep an emotional ending from becoming melodramatic. 

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The New York Times bestselling book “Sarah’s Key” has been given a cinematic makeover and was released in New York City and Los Angeles last weekend. It is opening on a limited number of screens in major cities around the country this weekend. “Sarah’s Key” follows two lives, one of a young French-born Jewish girl during World War II fighting to escape infamous “Vel’ d’Hiv” roundup in Paris and rescue her brother, who is hiding in a secret closet in their home. The other is of Julia, an American journalist living in modern Paris, who researches Sarah’s story while struggling with the decision to keep or abort the baby growing inside of her. The story, while fictional, illustrates the value of life while also illuminating a little-known tragedy from World War II.

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The Vel’ d’Hiv roundup occurred on July 16, 1942, when French police and gendarmes, acting under Gestapo orders, rounded up thousands of Jewish men, women and children and held them in horrific conditions in a large sport stadium for days without working plumbing, and little food or water. Soon after, the police transported the Jews by train to Drancy, a holding camp outside of Paris, and then sent them to Auschwitz, where almost all of them were murdered.

French director Gilles Paquet-Brenner gained recognition for his first feature, “Pretty Things,” in 2001. In “Sarah’s Key,” he shows a knack for capturing powerful emotions realistically, and for putting the audience in the scene. Here are a few comments from a recent interview with him about the film:

“I knew what the roundup was [before reading “Sarah’s Key”], but I didn’t realize what it meant to have the French police banging on doors … taking families and sending them to death,” Gilles said of the roundup. “And so I was very interested that people understood that.” The horror of this is what makes the book, “Sarah’s Key,” stand out. But the story holds personal importance for Gilles too. “I lost some of my family during the Holocaust, so I had a very personal connection. But you know it’s not the number one reason I made this movie. The real number one reason is ‘how can we make history feel closer to us?’”

The film’s power comes not only from its strong source material, but from its exceptional cast. The most impressive performance comes from a young French actress named Mélusine Mayance, who plays the young Sarah.

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The seventh Harry Potter film concluded with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) at the height of his power, stabbing the greatest wand in the world into the air, while Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and friends, miles away from home, cope with the death of allies at the lowest point in their years at Hogwarts. It can’t get much worse for the students, and in the eighth film, their story, and the series, gets the incredible ending it deserves. 

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In “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2,” Lord Voldemort gathers his army and searches for Harry, the last true threat to his power. Harry meanwhile, with his determined and intrepid friends Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), search for the last of the horcruxes that sustain Voldemort, and try to destroy them. The battle between good and evil comes to a head in Hogwarts, where the good wizards prepare to make their stand against Voldemort and his army of darkness. 

Alexandre Desplat’s haunting score, now familiar and welcoming despite its mysterious melancholy tone, brings every emotion alive, and Potter fans will appreciate most that Steve Kloves follows the book, instead of creating his own story. 

Daniel Radcliffe has finally hit his stride as Harry Potter. His acting was never quite where Emma Watson’s and Rupert Grint’s were, but his lovable character made it easy to forgive. Thankfully here, in the final hours of “Deathly Hallows,” when Radcliffe must stand alone and be a cinematic force, he nails Potter in a powerful way. Radcliffe is determined, with a single mission, and that determination is riveting. The rest of the cast is strong as ever, with Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) finally getting the screen time his character deserves. 

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In high school I worked at a gas station, where I served as full-time clerk and part-time shrink to some of the friendless and overly talkative customers. One sticks with me. A father from a neighboring town came into the store on the anniversary of his daughter’s death. She was killed when a classmate hit her while speeding home from school one evening. I must have been the first person to ask him about his day, so he told me about it. I remember listening awkwardly, trying to empathize with a man whose loss was more terrible than anything I could really comprehend. 

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Shawn Ku, the up-and-coming writer/director of “Beautiful Boy,” deliberately thrusts that feeling on viewers. In “Beautiful Boy,” Bill (Michael Sheen with an American accent) and Kate (Maria Bello) struggle to cope with the loss of their son Sam, who went on a horrific shooting rampage on his college campus before turning the gun on himself. The tragedy amplifies the problems in their already strained relationship and forces them to address who they are as individuals and as a couple bound together by their son’s horrific actions. It’s Columbine, Virginia Tech, Columbine, from a side you never hear – a side so horrific and painful it’s almost impossible to imagine. 

The film is Ku’s reflection on what it’s like to be an awkward part of a family’s sorrow. Ku was the last person to see a friend of his before he died (of natural causes), and Ku thus assumed a strange role in the mourning cycle of his friend’s family. “I was the one his parents clung to for any sign that his troubles and disappointments were released before the end,” Ku said of the experience. 

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As a kid, J.J. Abrams was inspired to make films with his Super 8 camera by Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” As a teenager, young Abrams’ work attracted the attention of Spielberg, who hired him to cut together his old 8 mm home movies. Years later, they’re working together to bring their childhood memories of moviemaking to the big screen, with Abrams as writer and director, and Spielberg as producer. 

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The collaboration, “Super 8,” covers familiar territory for the two heavy hitters. It’s a combination of two stories that were, until recently, simply figments of Abrams’ imagination. The first story idea was to make a film about kids making Super 8 films, and the other involved a train carrying cargo from Area 51. The two collide in “Super 8,” a tribute to Spielberg’s earlier work and a chance for both to get back to where they once belonged. 

Set in 1979, “Super 8,” features a group of early teenage kids from small-town Ohio using their summer to make a horror film. While filming at a train station, a military train passing by derails in an explosive mess. They leave as troops arrive to secure the scene. About then, car engines and power line begin to disappear. The kids, unable to put the train’s derailment out of their minds, start to investigate. 

Due to the meshing of two stories, there are definitely two sides to this film. One is Abrams’ attempt to recapture the childlike wonder audiences felt when watching E.T., putting themselves into the shoes of young Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore. The other is his attempt to make “Super 8” as technically impressive and action-packed as “Transformers,” and as cutting edge as Spielberg’s early films were. It’s a fine line to walk. 

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