TV/Streaming

Faces that bring their own light

Steven Boone

“The First Grader” is streaming On Demand via Amazon and Vudu, and the DVD is on Netflix and on sale.

by Steven Boone

It doesn’t matter that “The First Grader” is as shamelessly, sappily manipulative as that TV commercial where Sarah Mclachlan wails a tune while the camera zooms in on miserable animals peering out of their rescue shelter cages. Nope. It doesn’t even matter that the musical score, which I will give the alternate title “Mother Africa Weeps,” is the World Music equivalent of an Oreo McFlurry — a real pancreas-buster. Never mind all that. The imagery in “The First Grader” places it on par with cinema’s great sentimental masterpieces, “Umberto D,” “Tokyo Story” and “Ikiru.” From the first frame, this film warns that it is working in a universe of pure emotion.

The film’s true story concerns Maruge (Oliver Litondo), a former Kenyan freedom fighter and political prisoner who has been forgotten in the post-colonial age. He walks around the countryside in rags while the new generation of power brokers benefiting from his sacrifices zip through Nairobi in Benzes. When he learns that the government is now offering free education to all, he tries to enroll in a local elementary school. He’s illiterate, it turns out, and he wants to learn how to read an important old letter for himself. Of course, the 84 year-old has a tough time convincing the overcrowded one-room schoolhouse to let him in.

Tim and Eric Mediocre Movie, Great Job!

Steven Boone

“Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie” is available for streaming/download on iTunes, Amazon Instant, Vudu and YouTube. In theaters March 2.

“Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie” is a lot like “Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job!.” They’re both experimental video art posing as sketch comedy. In them you can see DNA from Ernie Kovacs, John Waters, the Kuchar brothers, Robert Downey, Sr., Tom Rubnitz, early Beck music videos, Damon Packard, Aqua Teen Hunger Force (and every other Adult Swim psychotic episode) and Harmony Korine, to name just a random few. But it’s likely that actor-writer-directors Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim took inspiration from none of these freaks.

The duo’s work seems to flow directly from three sources: Bad corporate promotional and instructional videos, absurd local TV programming and assaultive blockbuster films. Their collages of chopped-and-screwed sounds with spastic motion graphics and sloppy green screen don’t seem much different (in effect, if not production values) from what’s on cable any given Sunday. It’s just that they put unattractive, demented-seeming people in front of the green screen instead of the usual telegenic emoters. They spout nonsense where platitudes and corporate messages usually go. When celebrities appear on the show, they flub and stutter like robot hologram versions of themselves. It’s as if the show’s editor was a spam bot.

Whether any of it is funny is almost beside the point. The creeping surrealism often takes away your ability to blink, especially, I suspect, when, like me, you have no history with the show.

Sleepless Night: Opening up a sixpack of Whup-Ass

Odie Henderson

“Sleepless Night” (103 minutes) is available on demand through various cable systems,

Vudu, iTunes and Amazon Instant, starting April 17th. It will be theatrically released in New York and Austin, Texas on May 11, 2012.

by Odie Henderson

A stolen bag of cocaine, a kidnapped kid, corrupt cops, a shaky camera and a dance club the size of a Super Walmart configure Frederic Jardin’s “Sleepless Night,” a frenetic French action film that will either get your heart or your head pounding. This is a relentless genre exercise, both exhilarating and exhausting. Its numerous showdown set pieces feature foes in gun battles, foot chases and fisticuffs. Our protagonist uses whatever’s handy to subdue his opponents: People’s noggins get hit with doors, bread, dishes, bullets and the cleanest part of the commode. Gendarmes go from corrupt to virtuous and vice versa, film speeds vary from slow motion to sped up, and narrow escapes coexist with near-misses. With this much activity, sensory overload is all but guaranteed.

Vincent (French comedian Tomer Sisley) is a corrupt cop who begins his day by robbing 10 kilos of cocaine from the henchmen of José Marciano (Serge Riaboukine). Marciano’s godson is shot, but not before Vincent is stabbed and both he and his partner are seen by one of Marciano’s men. Marciano knows who robbed him, and he also knows Vincent’s son, Thomas, would make a great bargaining chip for the return of his yayo. The gangster kidnaps Vincent’s son and demands the exchange be made at Marciano’s restaurant-slash-dance club, Le Tarmac.

This isn’t your Disney Little Mermaid

Jana Monji

“The Little Mermaid from San Francisco Ballet” airs Friday, Dec. 16, at 9 p.m. (check local listings) on PBS’s “Great Performances.” It is currently available on DVD, and will also appear on PBS On Demand.

by Jana Monji

Whenever I say, “Hans Christian Andersen,” in my mind I can hear the voice of Danny Kaye singing out the name of the famous Dane. Kaye played the title role in 1952 musical film, “Hans Christian Andersen. ” For another generation, the Little Mermaid is part of a Disney franchise beginning with the 1989 animated feature “The Little Mermaid. ” Now comes a ballet, recorded for PBS.

Hamburg Ballet director John Neumeier’s “The Little Mermaid” is a visually rich, emotionally complex ballet that takes the famous Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale from its Hollywood interpretations back to its origins. This is a “don’t miss” production.

In the original story, the Little Mermaid saves and falls in love with a prince. She makes a bargain with a witch, giving up her beautiful voice in order to have legs. The prince likes her, but doesn’t love her and marries another. Given the choice of killing the prince or dying herself, the Little Mermaid dies, but is resurrected in another dimension.

How can you have a franchise if the Little Mermaid dies? You can’t, of course. In the Disney feature, “The Little Mermaid,” Ariel (voiced by Jodi Benson), doesn’t die, and instead, does find love with her prince, Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes). Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars, and called it “a jolly and inventive animated fantasy” that restored the magic associated with animated Disney features from an earlier era. The Academy voters gave the film two Oscars–one to Alan Menken for Best Music, Original Score and another to Menken and Howard Ashman (lyrics) for Best Music, Original Song (“Under the Sea”)

The enemy of my enemy es mi amigo

Odie Henderson

“Amigo” is playing in selected theaters, including the Siskel Film Center in Chicago.

by Odie Henderson

There is something to be said for the economy in John Sayles’ movie titles. He gets his point across in five words or less. The theatrical films he has written and directed bear the names of locations (“Matewan,” “Sunshine State,” “Silver City,” “Limbo”) or are deceptively simple descriptive statements (“The Secret of Roan Inish,” “The Brother From Another Planet,” “Return of the Secaucus Seven,” “Amigo”). All 17 titles average out to just under 3 words per movie moniker (actually, 2.5), which means Sayles’ 18th movie must star the king of the three word movie title, Steven Seagal. Laugh if you must, but IMDb will tell you Sayles once wrote a film for Dolph Lundgren. Seagal is only a “Marked for Death” sequel away, should Mr. Sayles take my advice.

In the meantime, his 17th film opens September 16th On Demand. “Amigo” follows the path running through much of Sayles’ work: It is politically aware, occasionally melodramatic and maintains a certain intimacy despite sprawling across multiple characters and stories. Bitter irony and blatant humanism peacefully co-exist as Sayles’ heroes, heroines and villains struggle to maintain the dignity he inherently believes they have. The director’s masterpiece, “Lone Star,” is the quintessential example of Sayles expressing his themes and ideas in epic format. Anchored by Chris Cooper, “Lone Star” spins a tale of power, race and class across generations, juggling numerous characters with whom the story invests such weight and interest that I could follow any of them out of the film and into their own adventures.

“Amigo” is not as tightly crafted as “Lone Star.” It’s a messier work whose dialogue is at times a tad too purple, its political allusions a little too obvious, and it has a one-note character that is uncharacteristic of its creator. Much of its plot is predictable in an old-fashioned, yet comforting studio-system way. Reminiscent of a sloppier E. L. Doctorow novel, “Amigo” merges real-life characters with fictional ones while plumbing a bygone era for parallels of today. Like Doctorow, Sayles provides numerous details of the period he depicts, culled from the research he did for his book “A Moment in the Sun.” Its U.S. occupation plotline could represent Iraq or Vietnam or Afghanistan, and its soldier characters are good ol’ boys found in many an old war movie (and many an actual platoon, as well). What makes “Amigo” engrossing despite its predictability is the object of its gaze: This is an occupation story, but for a change, “the Other” is us. The occupied people are observing the outsiders who have interrupted their life narrative by invading their country. In “Amigo,” we are entrenched in the Philippine-American War (1899-1902).

Serbian porno gang takes show on the road

Steven Boone

“The Life and Death of a Porno Gang” is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Synapse films.

Cinema, that traditionally aristocratic medium, has always found unlikely ways to commiserate with the working man and the poor. In America, King Vidor’s “The Crowd” showed us a man trapped on the treadmill of lower middle class survival in the big city. A few years later, Frank Borzage’s “Man’s Castle” gave us Spencer Tracy as a street hustler who learns that Depression-era struggle is no excuse to turn his back on a chance at family life. It’s the same in every country, every era: Societies that place the bulk of their economic burden upon the low man’s shoulders often send that man scrambling in the opposite direction of happiness, in the name of happiness. A random spin of the world cinema wheel will turn up great directors whose finest work touches on this phenomenon: Ken Loach, Ousmane Sembene, the Dardenne brothers, Ulrich Seidl, the Italian neorealists, the blacklisted Americans, and so on.

Margaret Mitchell: Her own brand of rebel

Jana Monji

PBS’s “American Masters” presents “Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel” and “Harper Lee: Hey, Boo,” back-to-back documentaries about two white American women who won Pulitzer Prizes for their first and only best-selling novels, Monday, April 2 beginning at 9 p.m. (Check local listings.) Both will be available via PBS On Demand and are currently on DVD.

If you’re hoping for the whirling of petticoats, a colorful Virginia reel and the coquettish fluttering of lashes on the old plantation, you might be surprised by American Master’s “Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel.” By rebel, director Pamela Roberts doesn’t just mean Johnny Reb. On the other hand, if you hope that the author of Gone With the Wind is burning in hell for conjuring up a romantic fantasy of slavery and antebellum plantation life, you might be surprised. Mitchell was a wild young woman who did some shocking dances in her day, but eventually settled down and did good in ways that benefited the citizens of her hometown Atlanta and beyond.

What could be rebellious about a woman who romanticized a plantation lifestyle in which women were raised to be pretty ornaments and good wives in her 1936 novel of the Old South, “a civilization gone with the wind…”? Today, millions of women still live out their Scarlett O’Hara fantasies at their weddings with hoop-skirted bridal gowns, and through Civil War or Southern ball re-enactments. Not so many line up to portray slaves. The documentary uses many clips from the blockbuster 1939 movie, contrasted with photographs of Mitchell in her own wild youth. Even as one might enjoy the sweeping romance of the motion picture epic and attempt to ignore the racism, I suspect most people are more politically sympathetic with Alice Randall’s 2001 parody The Wind Done Gone, which re-imagined Mitchell’s story from the slaves’ point of view.

Chaz Bono: On Being and Becomingness

Steven Boone

“Becoming Chaz” airs Sunday, November 27 6PM ET/PT on OWN before the 8 p.m. premiere of its follow-up, “Being Chaz.”

Not too long ago, I was planning to marry a woman who was born a man, so Chaz Bono’s story is a bit familiar. It’s pretty simple, really, and you’ve heard it a thousand times by now: A transgender person feels trapped in the “wrong” body. Just for acting upon this lifelong impulse by changing their physical characteristics to better represent their true selves, transpeople are being assaulted and murdered in shameful numbers. The movie “Boys Don’t Cry” might have softened a few bigoted hearts around this issue, but the killing continues worldwide.

Chaz, born Chastity Bono to celebrity couple Sonny and Cher, could have lived through his transition from female to male in private, but it’s clear in the documentary “Becoming Chaz” that he knew the true cost of invisibility in such a transphobic world. He let the cameras roll during some unflattering, raw moments–the idea being that this story shouldn’t idealize his experience any more than it should exploit it for freak show appeal. The aim is to show that Chaz, the man, is as real as you and I, not an illusion to be brought off. It’s hard to imagine that the killers out there might be moved by all this candor, but those whose indifference or unawareness helps perpetuate discrimination should at least get a healthy jolt of recognition. “Becoming Chaz” is as much about the kind-faced “Dancing with the Stars” contestant’s relationship as it is about his metamorphosis. That was my way into the film: I know a little bit about being “the partner.”

“How to Fold a Flag”: 12 times,for each of a soldier’s virtues

Jeff Shannon

Beginning a new column devoted to films available via Video on Demand in all its forms.

● “How to Fold a Flag”● “We Are the Night”

To say that Javorn Drummond, Jon Powers, Michael Goss and Stuart Wilf come from different walks of life is something of an understatement. If they hadn’t served together in Iraq in 2003-04, they never would’ve met. Now they’re back home, separated by geography, uneasy peace and haunting memories of what they saw and did during a war they determined to be pointless. They might meet again someday — or not — but they share a bond of life, death and military service that they’ll take to their graves.

These are the guys we got to know in “Gunner Palace,” the superb 2005 documentary co-directed by the husband-and-wife team of Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein. They defended America as soldiers in the Army’s 2/3 Field Artillery Division, never quite sure what they were killing or dying for. There was a fifth “star” in the film, Ben Colgan, who sacrificed his elite Delta Forces post to join the artillery unit in Baghdad. Then he sacrificed his life to an IED.

Ants in Your Pants of 2006

Jana Monji

“The Ant Bully” is now available through HBO On Demand and HBO Go until December 18.

A boy, a wizard and a war–that’s the basic formula for many children’s adventure stories. In “The Ant Bully,” as the name suggests, this story takes place in the insect world, but the bully is the boy named Lucas (voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen). This modest morality tale doesn’t go for big laughs but does deal with situations that young kids will inevitably face.

Based on John Nickle’s 1999 book by the same name, this 2006 feature was the first animated film produced by Legendary Pictures. “The Ant Bully” followed two better known 1998 ant-themed films: DreamWorks’ “Antz” and Disney’s “A Bug’s Life.” All three movies have messages, but are aimed at different audiences.

“The Ant Bully,” rated PG for mild violence, is definitely targeted at young children–preteen kids who might feel powerless, so far outside of the adult world. In the movie, 10-year-old Lucas has no friends and is the target of the neighborhood bully. He turns his frustrations on the anthill in his front yard, causing the ants to scurry about when he floods the anthill.

Puppet Nazis vs. the Grindhouse Gang!

Steven Boone

● Jackboots on Whitehall (DVD/VOD/Digital cable July 26)

● American Grindhouse (DVD/Hulu July 26)

by Steven Boone

The animated comedy “Jackboots on Whitehall” does its best to tweak every British stiff-upper-lip stereotype ever perpetuated in film and popular culture since World War II. This satire employs puppet animation techniques familiar from “Team America: World Police” and classic George Pal puppetoons, but with exquisite production design more akin to Wes Anderson’s stop-motion “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Instead of marionettes or stop-motion, however, filmmakers Edward and Rory McHenry employ animatronic dolls enhanced with CGI.

The period detail in this account of Hitler’s alt-reality occupation of London is stunning: a convincing re-creation of Whitehall, the road whose major landmarks comprise the seat of British government; the airship Hindenburg, which, in this reality, never blew up and now serves as a Nazi attack vehicle; Hadrian’s Wall and the hills of Scotland; vintage fighter planes, palaces, tanks, luxury cars… Equally meticulous is the costuming, from Winston Churchill’s pinstriped suit to the Raj soldiers’ blue turbans.

While the McHenry brothers’ puppets aren’t articulated beyond some binary limb and neck movements, they are sculpted with such expressive character it’s easy to suspend disbelief. Exuberant character voices help. Timothy Spall as a gruff Churchill, Alan Cumming as a fey Hitler and Tom Wilkinson as a simpering Goebbels play it lip-smackingly broad. Richard E. Grant portrays a tightly wound priest so perpetually furious that its possible he gave his entire performance through clenched teeth. Ewan McGregor lends the unlikely farm boy hero some warmth. Along the way, some downright filthy jokes fly by almost subliminally, under kids’ radar (including a visual joke last seen in “Boogie Nights”). In fact, so much of the humor is adult, whether in raunchiness or complexity, that Jackboots on Whitehall is less a family film than one for liberal parents and their precocious teens. The DVD includes a fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary that details just how much love went into this handcrafted epic.

The Electric Dancing of War Babies

Steven Boone

Playing in theaters nationwide Thursday, August 4, 2011. Details here.

by Steven Boone

“The Electric Daisy Carnival Experience” captures a dance music scene I tend to find noisy and vapid. But that’s me. If you’re a big fan of DJ-based acts like 12th Planet, Major Lazer, Moby and will.i.am, or just a true devotee of the rave scene, this film is immersive, passionate about its subject and visually striking. Director Kevin Kerslake seems to have as many cameras on hand as the Beastie Boys handed out to concertgoers in their gonzo 2006 music doc “Awesome; I F—-n Shot That!”

It helps that Kerslake is a veteran music video director (R.E.M., Nirvana) whose career is probably older than most of the screaming kids in the crowd. He shows no restraint in dropping the camera deep into the mob like a performer into a mosh pit but doesn’t let the chaos take over. It also helps that, right up front, like Michael Bay showing us a Victoria’s Secret derriere in 3-D at the start of his last Transformers movie, Kerslake crams as many shots of unbelievably gorgeous girls doing cartwheels in clown makeup and lingerie as mathematically possible.

Cinema O’Paradiso: Stella Days and Hollywood nights

Jeff Shannon

“Stella Days” (87 minutes) available via iTunes, VuDu, Amazon Instant Video and most other VOD providers (check your local listings). It is also playing in limited theatrical release.

by Jeff Shannon

It seems somehow belittling to pigeon-hole the ever-so-Irish “Stella Days” as a comedy/drama or (saints forgive us!) as that dubious hybrid known as “dramedy.” It is, more accurately, a heartfelt, thematically ambitious exploration of fragile faith confronted by rigid dogma, and its dramatic substance is leavened by the kind of wry, tenacious good humor that has defined the Irish character for centuries.

That low-key humor prevails throughout the film but is most evident in the opening scenes, as when Father Daniel Barry (Martin Sheen) arrives at the bedside of an old, dying woman on the outskirts of Borrisokane, the tiny town in North Tipperary that is home to Barry’s parish. He’s there to deliver last rites (not for the first time), but the old lady’s as tenacious as a potato in barren Irish soil, and all she wants is to hear Father Barry’s mellifluous Latin prayer so she can sleep peacefully and live to see another day.

“The last rites are not medicine,” he tells her with fond familiarity, knowing he’ll eventually return to deliver last rites for real. “Doctor Brady’s your man for that.”

“Oh, he could never cure me,” says Peggy. “I don’t know what I’ll do when you go back to Rome.”

There lies the rub: Father Barry doesn’t know it yet, but he won’t be returning to his post at the Vatican any time soon. He’s a Catholic scholar, an intellectual desperately eager to finish his thesis on St. John at the Cross. He’s far less rigid in his thinking than his uptight superiors, most notably Bishop Hegarty (Tom Hickey), a stern traditionalist who finds it necessary to remind Father Barry that “being an Irish parish priest is not a penance.”

The Ten Best Larry Sanders episodes

August 15 marks the 20th anniversary of the debut of “The Larry Sanders Show,” episodes of which are available on Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, iTunes, and DVD. This is the first part of Edward Copeland’s extensive tribute to the show, including interviews with many of those involved in creating one of the best-loved comedies in television history.

by Edward Copeland

Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve watched a lot of movies — an old computer contained a program with an editable database of titles and allowed for the addition of new films. Back when I used that PC, my total hovered in the thousands. “The Larry Sanders Show” produced a mere 89 episodes in its six season run from 1992-1998 that began 20 years ago tonight on HBO. “I know it sounds cliché but — honest to God — it seems like it was just about a week ago. It’s so odd that it’s 20 years,” Jeffrey Tambor said in a telephone interview.

Despite the vast disparity between the quantity of films I’ve viewed and “Larry Sanders” episodes, when I recently took part in The House Next Door’s “If I Had a Sight & Sound Film Ballot” series, I found it far easier to prune those pictures down to my ten favorites than I did when I applied the same task to “Larry Sanders” episodes. (Picking a clip or two from each show proved even more difficult as inevitably I’d want to include the entire half-hour.) Three or four episodes I knew had to be on the list, but then it got tough. I considered making a list of the best episode for each character such as the best Brian episode (“Putting the ‘Gay’ Back in Litigation”), the best Beverly (“Would You Do Me a Favor?”), the best Phil (“Headwriter”), etc. With all the priceless episodes centering on Hank and Artie, I imagined those two characters conceivably filling all ten spots alone.

A series that broke as much ground as “The Larry Sanders Show” deserves a grander tribute to mark the two decades since its birth than just a recounting of a handful of episodes — and I had that intention. Unfortunately, my physical limitations and time constraints thwarted my ambitions. Rest assured though, that salute shall be forthcoming (MESSAGE TO BOB ODENKIRK: YOU STILL CAN TAKE PART NOW). As with any list, I’m certain my fellow “Larry Sanders” fans shall express outrage at my omissions (I already hear the shouts of “Where is the one with Carol Burnett and the spiders?” “No ‘Hank’s Sex Tape!’ Hey now!”). Believe me, I’m as livid as you are and may join in the comments to give myself the thorough tongue-lashing I so richly deserve for these unforgivable exclusions. First, though, I’m going to fix myself a Salty Dog, using Artie’s recipe of course. I want to be able to grab those olives, not fish for them. So, for good or ill, I submit my selections for my ten favorite episodes of “The Larry Sanders Show.” Since bestowing ranks only leads to more trouble, I present these ten in chronological order:

Frequently bloody, occasionally disgusting:A Halloween roundup from the fringes of horror

Jeff Shannon

With the exception of “The Woman” (which is still in limited theatrical release), all of the films from “Bloody Disgusting Selects” are currently available on multiple platforms including Netflix (DVD only), Amazon.com and most VOD providers including Comcast, DirecTV, Amazon, iTunes, CinemaNow, VuDu and Verizon FiOS. Check your VoD provider listings, or go to www.bloodydisgustingselects.com for more information about the films and where to find them.

On DVD, all of the foreign-language films reviewed here include an optional English-dub dialogue track for viewers with an aversion to subtitles.

by Jeff Shannon

Historically and statistically, the most abundant, profitable, and creatively expressive movie genre has always been horror. It has consistently been the most viable proving ground for new talent and a focal point for the most obsessive movie fans on the planet. It’s the most purely cinematic of genres, playing to the strengths of an artistic medium that has shock, surprise, dread, fear, and bloodletting built into every molecule of its DNA. It’s a realm of expression that challenges masters and amateurs alike.

Of course, there’s always a downside: The record-setting $50 million opening weekend of “Paranormal Activity 3” (which earned a one-star review from Roger Ebert) — and Paramount’s immediate strategy to keep that franchise booming — provided a stark reminder that, more often than not, horror is where commerce almost always trumps art. It’s the favorite plaything for copy-cats and money-grubbers. The genre’s blood is frequently tainted by fast-buck pretenders and greedy opportunists who care more about profit than the genre’s history, which is the worthy subject of some of the finest film scholarship that’s ever been written.

The Moth Diaries: Young hearts aflutter

Steven Boone

“The Moth Diaries” is now available via IFC On Demand, Sundance Now, iTunes and other outlets. It opens in theaters April 20th.

A secret co-star of “The Moth Diaries” is cinematographer Declan Quinn. He brings to this tale of supernatural incidents at a girl’s boarding school a palette of navy, teal and black to match the school uniforms, and pale flesh tones out of Vermeer. No great innovation there, but quite striking in the service of the story. Director Mary Harron makes sure these images don’t overwhelm the drama by casting young ladies with powerful presences.

Model-actress Lily Cole’s broad face and wide set eyes are terrifyingly beautiful, or maybe just terrifying. Either way, her turn as Ernessa, the mysterious new girl on campus, gives the “The Moth Diaries” a more solid reason for being than its familiar, “Twilight”-tinged plot. She’s a head taller than the rest of the girls, striking an improbable balance between willowy and robust. Her famously red hair is dyed a deep brown (or covered in a masterfully applied wig), providing a stark frame for that porcelain doll face. In one scene, without the aid of special effects, her fleshy yet spindly arms seem to stretch out of proportion, like some Tim Burton creation. (It’s easy to imagine Burton tripping over himself to add her to his gallery of living 19th century humanoids, alongside Lisa Marie, Christina Ricci and Helena Bonham-Carter.) The mystery: Is Ernessa some kind of vampire, witch, ghost or… what?

Extraterrestrial: Sex, lies and science-fiction

Jeff Shannon

“Extraterrestrial” (90 minutes) premieres simultaneously on June 15th on DVD and all major on-demand platforms. It also opens June 15th in limited theatrical release.

If you’ve seen the 2007 thriller “Timecrimes,” you already know that Spanish writer-director Nacho Vigalondo has a noteworthy knack for developing big ideas (in this case, time travel) on an intimate scale. “Timecrimes” marked a promising debut, with Vigalondo in full command of limited resources: With only three central characters and a tightly restricted location, he executed a cleverly conceived plot with stylish economy and Hitchcockian flair.

With his second film, “Extraterrestrial, ” Vigalondo presents another, more intricate exercise in thwarting expectations. Imagine the bloated-budget excess of a blockbuster like “Independence Day,” with dozens, maybe even hundreds of gigantic alien spaceships hovering ominously over Earth’s major cities. Now take the same alien invasion scenario, eliminate 99% of the special effects and spectacle, and shift its focus to four lovelorn apartment dwellers in an abandoned city (in this case Madrid) as they proceed to confuse each other with a comedic succession of lies.

Now you’ve got “Extraterrestrial,” in which the only E. T. is… well, I’m not going to spoil it for you, but here’s a clue: Think of Vigalondo as the anti-Roland Emmerich. He has no apparent interest in epic battles requiring Will Smith to save the world against slimy, monstrous aliens. Instead, Vigalondo attempts an audacious bait-and-switch, keeping his “epic” sci-fi entirely in the background while focusing on what is, essentially, a farcical rom-com about three guys in love with the same woman. It’s a daring attempt at genre-bending that doesn’t always pay off, but it’s a refreshing alternative to uninspired, play-it-safe blockbusters.

Get the Gringo: Mad Mel demolishes Mexico

Donald Liebenson

“Get the Gringo” is available on DirecTV. A wider VOD release, along with DVD and Blu-ray releases, will follow later this year.

“Inmates with guns, that’s kinda new,” Mel Gibson’s Yanqui with No Name (or fingerprints) growls in “Get the Gringo.” “I’ve got a lot to learn about this place.” And there is a lot to learn about El Pueblito, a Mexican prison that makes Shawshank look like Otis Campbell’s quaint little cell on “The Andy Griffith Show.”

Never mind how he got there, it’s how he’s going to get out that gives “Get the Gringo,” formerly titled “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” its Peckinpah-flavored juice. It’s potent stuff: gritty and grungy, but not without hard-boiled humor. With a nod to the late Dick Clark: It’s got good beatings and you can dance to it, depending on your taste for mariachi music. I rate it a 7.

Something’s Gonna Live: Classic movies by design

Donald Liebenson

“Something’s Gonna Live” (78 minutes) is available via iTunes, Amazon Instant, and DVD.

Architecture’s loss was the movies’ immeasurable gain. Robert Boyle, Albert Nozaki and Henry Bumstead, classmates at the University of Southern California in the 1930s could not find jobs in their studied profession. They wound up at Paramount Studios, where, as production designers and art directors, they set the stage for some of the movies’ most indelible images.

Boyle designed Alfred Hitchcock’s “Saboteur,” “Shadow of a Doubt,” “North by Northwest,” “The Birds,” and “Marnie.” And those are the just the Hitchcock credits. Bumstead earned Academy Awards for his contributions to “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Sting.” He received nominations for his work on “Vertigo” and “Unforgiven.” Tokyo-born Nozaki was the art director on “The War of the Worlds” and “The Ten Commandments,” for which he was nominated for an Academy Award.

Richard Garriott, Space Cowboy

Jana Monji

“Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott’s Road to the Stars” (83 minutes) will be available On Demand on Cox from Jan. 13-March 12, 2012 and on VUDU, Shaw Video on Demand and others starting Jan. 13. It opens the same day at Facets Cinematheque in Chicago and other theatrical venues.

“Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott’s Road to the Stars” begins by asking the question: “Why explore space?” By the end of this somewhat indulgent documentary you may ask, particularly considering these tough economic times, “Why spend $30 million to be the sixth private citizen to orbit the earth?” Is this the story of a quest begun in childhood or part of a publicity ploy?