Culture Shock 09.27.12: Prescription for 'Hysteria?' Give it a rest

For a film inspired by actual events, there is surprisingly little about "Hysteria" that rings true.

Director Tanya Wexler’s third and most ambitious movie is a romantic comedy set in the 1880s, when Queen Victoria reigned and Victorian values ruled. Unfortunately the romance is painfully obvious and the comedy is sorely lacking.

And that’s a shame, because a movie about the invention of the vibrator should be ripe for exploitation. You could even build a great advertising campaign around it, with "Banned in Alabama!" emblazoned across the posters.

But what we get with "Hysteria," new to DVD and Blu-ray, is yet another uninspired entry in the genre I like to call "Making Fun of the Victorians."

It goes like this: "Oh, those silly Victorians and their silly ideas about sex and medicine and politics. It’s all so laughable, but thank goodness we’re far more sophisticated now."

Well, yes, people in Victorian times did believe lots of things that turned out to be wrong, and sometimes laughable, just as people who lived before them did. And, one day, 100 years from now — or sooner — people will look back at us, and they’ll point and laugh, too. It’s the way of things. But I’m not sure I’d try to build a movie around it.

Perhaps if the screenplay by Stephen Dyer and Jonah Lisa Dyer, from an original story by Howard Gensler, had stuck closer to the actual events rather than merely being inspired by them, then going off on the rom-com tangent, "Hysteria" wouldn’t be a limp, cliched snoozer that wastes the considerable talents of its cast.

We begin by meeting a young, idealistic doctor named Mortimer Granville, based on the real-life inventor of the electric vibrator and played by Hugh Dancy (the forthcoming "Hannibal" TV series). He has some crazy, new ideas about diseases being caused by germs and can’t keep a steady job at any of the local hospitals, where leeching patients is still the default treatment. So he takes a job assisting Dr. Robert Dalrymple (the always wonderful Jonathan Pryce), who has a lucrative practice treating wealthy women for the most ubiquitous disease of the Victorian age: hysteria.

Hysteria is a catch-all diagnosis, purportedly explaining everything from unladylike temperaments to thoughts of sex. And the treatment?

Manual stimulation. Unsurprisingly, the handsome Dr. Granville quickly becomes popular with Dr. Dalrymple’s patients. And soon, Dalrymple is eager to keep his medical practice in the family by marrying off his younger daughter Emily (Felicity Jones) to his protege.

Yet where there’s a younger daughter there must be an older one, and that’s the idealistic, headstrong Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who may be suffering from hysteria herself, what with all her outlandish notions of helping the poor. And already you can guess where things are going.

Gyllenhaal does her best, but there’s no escaping the fact that as a character Charlotte is a cheat. Every time she goes off about how the world should be or will be, she’s speaking with the anachronistic knowledge of the screenwriters’ 130 years of hindsight. After a while, it doesn’t matter if she’s right; the whole exercise is tedious.

As for Granville, he’s so popular his hand can’t take the abuse. So with the help of a conveniently rich and technology-obsessed friend (Rupert Everett, playing a bored aristocrat all too convincingly), he invents the vibrator. The rest is not exactly history — the real-life Granville didn’t intend his muscle relaxer to become the Hitachi Magic Wand — but you have seen it before, in a hundred other romantic comedies.

My prescription: Give "Hysteria" a rest.

Culture Shock 09.20.12: 'Heathers' is an overlooked masterpiece

Dear diary,

My favorite 1980s teen angst comedy with a body count is being turned into a TV show. And no one — not the CIA, not the FCC, not the PTA — can stop it.

OK, it's not exactly a sure thing — yet. But Bravo announced last week that it is developing a TV series based on the 1988 movie "Heathers" starring Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and Shannen Doherty.

The series would pick up 20 years after the original, with Ryder's character, Veronica, returning to Sherwood, Ohio, with her daughter only to encounter a new, all-powerful high school clique, the Ashleys, who happen to be the daughters of the surviving Heathers, Veronica's frenemies from the original film.

The question is, has someone at Bravo had a brain tumor for breakfast?

You don't mess with perfection. And "Heathers" is pretty close to perfection.

Recently, "Sight & Sound" magazine asked more than 800 critics, filmmakers, academics and others to name the greatest movies of all time. The results created a stir when, after a 50-year reign, Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" was deposed as the No. 1 movie by Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo."

The "Sight & Sound" list was outrageous for two reasons. First, neither "Vertigo" nor "Citizen Kane" is even its respective director's best film, much less best overall.

Second, I was not one of the 846 people asked to participate. So, I crafted my own top 10 list. And before you question my choices, just be aware that two critics who were part of the poll submitted "Zoolander." So there.

Anyway, my top 10 films of all time, in no particular order, are Steven Spielberg's "Jaws," Howard Hawks' "His Girl Friday" starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, Sergio Leone's epic "Once Upon a Time in the West," Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," David Lynch's "Blue Velvet," Welles' semi-documentary "F for Fake," Hitchcock's "Psycho," Milos Forman's Mozart biopic "Amadeus," Mario Bava's sublime ghost story "Lisa and the Devil" starring Telly Savalas and Elke Sommer, and Michael Lehmann's "Heathers."

All, naturally, are debatable, and I'm told it's scandalous that I don't share the rest of the world's fawning appreciation for the first two "Godfather" films. (They're not even my favorite mob films. That's the Coen brothers' "Miller's Crossing.")

But my only admittedly oddball picks are "Lisa and the Devil," which I'll leave for another time, and "Heathers."

While Lehmann's borderline surreal direction is not to be underestimated, it's Daniel Waters' screenplay that makes the movie.

He delivers a world-weary broadside against the absurdities and hypocrisies of class, fashion, pop psychology and the education establishment. It's Generation X's manifesto, and it has inspired lesser imitators, from 1999's "Jawbreaker" starring Rose McGowan to 2004's Millennial Generation knock-off "Mean Girls" with a pre-meltdown Lindsay Lohan.

Change the clothes and hairstyles, and "Heathers" could be made today, which is probably one reason Bravo sees this as fertile territory to revisit. The social divisions of high school more and more seep into the world of allegedly responsible adults. The accessories change — I don't think Swatches are still in fashion, although I could be wrong — but the show goes on.

If you've never seen "Heathers" or you just haven't seen it lately, it's available on DVD, Blu-ray and Netflix instant. And, if Bravo's TV sequel goes forward, at least it'll have the side effect of getting this masterful film a larger audience. As Heather No. 1 might say, that would be very.

Culture Shock 09.13.12: 'Thick of It' is back with some more bite

After spending the previous season as a supporting player — and in the opposition — it is Peter Mannion's time to shine.

Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker in "The Thick of It."

And if you believe that, you're alone because not even Peter, the new minister for the fictitious Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, believes that.

The parties change, but the challenges and humiliations of government remain the same as the wickedly brilliant British political satire "The Thick of It" returns for a fourth season, following a three-year hiatus. And this year, for the first time, it's also airing in the U.S.

New episodes appear on Hulu on Sundays, and if you want to catch up with previous seasons, Hulu, which is co-producing the new season along with BBC Two, has those as well.

Stuck leading a worthless department staffed with civil servants who would just as soon be laid off, and having to share power with a junior minister from another party, Peter (Roger Allam) has been put out to pasture. He's a relic of the 1980s, with '80s suits, '80s hair and '80s ideas.

That especially puts Peter at odds with the prime minister's modern, tie-hating, chai-drinking PR man, Stewart (Vincent Franklin), whose chipper Zen exterior conceals a cutthroat political operative.

In the previous season, Peter was about the closest thing "The Thick of It" had to a sympathetic character, but now that he's in power — such as it is — he's more bitter than ever.

The political situation echoes the current real-life climate in Great Britain, where the government is composed of an increasingly fractious coalition of Tories and Liberal Democrats, while Labour labors in opposition.

That means Peter also must deal with Fergus (Geoffrey Streatfield), a junior minister from the coalition party. And their rivalry gets even more heated when Peter is instructed to launch Fergus' new initiative, which requires Peter going to a school.

"I hate schoolchildren," is Peter's response. "They're volatile and stupid and they don't have the vote." That's Peter: ever practical.

It goes without saying that things go disastrously wrong from there, with fantastic results for us.

Shot in documentary style, "The Thick of It" is a cross between "The Office" and the 1980s British comedy "Yes, Prime Minister," and it relies as heavily on improvisation as it does the snappy scripted dialogue of series creator Armando Iannucci (HBO's "Veep") and his writing team.

Allam, who as others have noted seems to be channeling the late Christopher Hitchens with his performance, is in particularly top form.

Now if you've already been following "The Thick of It," or you've seen the equally hilarious spin-off film "In the Loop" (available on Netflix instant) you'll notice one character has been conspicuously absent so far — the foul-mouthed political shark Malcolm Tucker.

That's because Malcolm (Peter Capaldi) is conspicuously absent from the season four debut. But just because the former prime minister's public-relations mastermind and party-line enforcer is out of power doesn't mean he's out of mind. And the preview for this weekend's second episode shows us that Malcolm is scheming to get back into Number 10. But first he must deal with the opposition's new, unlikely party leader, Nicola (Rebecca Front), whom we last saw as the previous head of the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship.

If Nicola was in over her head as minister of a minor department, then as party leader — well, you can guess. And sharks prey on the weak.

Besides, it wouldn't really be "The Thick of It" without Malcolm calling people names I can't repeat here.

Culture Shock 09.06.12: 'Twins of Evil' has risen from grave

By the early 1970s, the old-fashioned gothic horror that was Hammer Films' stock-in-trade for nearly 15 years was looking dated. Period pieces about vampires and mad scientists' monsters were out.

Contemporary films about joining a satanic cult and having the devil's baby were in.

Hammer tried, unsuccessfully, to get in on the act with 1976's "To the Devil a Daughter," which is best known today for it's revealing final scene featuring a young Nastassja Kinski.

But in 1971, Hammer took one of its last stabs at the period vampire story, and the result was one of the best films of Hammer's late period: "Twins of Evil."

Long unavailable in the U.S., "Twins of Evil" has been brilliantly restored by cult-film distributor Synapse Films and released as a Blu-ray/DVD combo. It's a fair bet the finished product looks as good if not better than when "Twins of Evil" was originally released.

"Twins of Evil" is the third and final installment in Hammer's loosely connected "Karnstein trilogy," three films all based, to one degree or another, on Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla."

His tale of a female vampire stalking female victims, with its strong sexual themes lurking just below the surface, was perfect for Hammer, which was looking for stronger, sexier content in the face of lessened censorship and increased competition.

Yet, ironically, given it's Playboy Playmate leads, "Twins of Evil" is the tamest of the trilogy.

The story begins with orphaned twins Frieda and Maria (Madeleine and Mary Collinson, Playboy's first twin Playmates) arriving to live with relatives in 19th century Central Europe. But their uncle Gustav (Hammer mainstay Peter Cushing) is the leader of a Puritan sect seeking to rid the land of all forms of vice. And that doesn't sit well with the more adventurous twin, Frieda, who is quickly drawn to ribald tales of the local nobleman, the debauched Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas).

Unknown to the villagers, Karnstein is a vampire, and he easily entices Frieda with the promise of an eternal life away from her strict uncle, setting up the inevitable conflict with her virginal sister, who, we must not forget, is also her twin. So you know where this is going.

What sets "Twins of Evil" apart is its rejection of simple, either/or dichotomies. Earlier vampire films, including Hammer's, paint vampires as a threat to good and decent Victorian morality. Many of Dracula's female victims only come alive, metaphorically speaking, as vampires — Barbara Shelley's Helen in "Dracula: Prince of Darkness" is a prime example. But then it is up to strong, heroic, Victorian menfolk to put stakes through their hearts and save their souls.

For much of "Twins of Evil," however, it's hard to tell who is the real villain, the moralist Gustav Weil or the immoralist Count Karnstein. Fortunately, this time they don't represent the only options.

Although overshadowed by Cushing's other Hammer roles, notably Baron Frankenstein and Professor Van Helsing, Weil is a brilliant performance. Cushing plays him with unquestionable conviction. Even if he is a misguided crusader with a simplistic view of what is righteous, one thing Weil is not is a hypocrite. And he is never such a caricature that it's impossible to feel sympathy for him. For fans of the horror master, this is an essential performance.

For fans of classic horror, Synapse's restored "Twins of Evil" is an essential release, not the least for the bonus documentary feature "The Flesh and the Fury: X-Posing Twins of Evil." At 84 minutes, it's nearly as long as the film itself, and it covers everything from Le Fanu's original story, to the first two Karnstein films, "The Vampire Lovers" and "Lust for a Vampire," to the final days of the original Hammer Films.

"Twins of Evil" is one vampire movie that has been left in the crypt far too long.

Culture Shock 08.30.12: '2016' more D'Souza's fantasy than Obama's America

"2016: Obama's America" is a bizarre movie, starting with the title.

It is only in the final minutes that co-director and tour guide, conservative author Dinesh D'Souza, bothers to lay out exactly what he thinks the country will look like in 2016 if President Barack Obama should win a second term. His forecast for Obama's America? Nearing broke and increasingly disarmed in a dangerous world.

It takes so long to get to what the title promises because D'Souza is busy outlining his Great Big Theory, which he takes whole cloth from his 2010 book "The Roots of Obama's Rage." In it D'Souza claims Obama is an anti-colonial zealot determined to bring down rich, capitalist, "colonial" powers like the United States while transferring their wealth to former colonies.

This theory, upon which D'Souza rests his entire case, has met with — to put it charitably — a mixed reaction. Andrew Ferguson's review in "The Weekly Standard," a conservative magazine, is one especially damning example.

D'Souza is engaging in armchair psychology. Drawing heavily from passages in Obama's 1995 memoir "Dreams from My Father," he argues Obama is trying to live up to an idealized vision of his radical Marxist father, whom he barely knew. D'Souza even enlists a psychologist, Paul Vitz of New York University, to help make the case.

D'Souza's long-distance diagnosis seems to be that Obama has a reverse Oedipus complex. Instead of wanting, subconsciously, to kill his distant and unloving father, he wants to keep alive the mythical father his mother told him about.

This is all fascinating stuff, and some of it might even be true, but D'Souza never brings any compelling evidence to the table.

There is, arguably, a good case to be made against both the president's economic policies — which some believe have prolonged the country's economic downturn by creating uncertainty and propping up failed businesses — and his foreign policy. But D'Souza is too enamored of his Great Big Theory to spend time with the relevant facts.

Early in the film, D'Souza shows footage of Occupy protesters disillusioned with Obama's performance in office, but D'Souza doesn't say why these protesters are disillusioned. Could it be Obama's health plan, which subsidizes the health insurance industry that helped write it? Could it be his escalation of the war in Afghanistan and launching of drone strikes throughout the Middle East? Could it be that military spending through 2021 is set to increase 18 percent even if the "draconian cuts" of sequestration take place?

Contrary to D'Souza, this doesn't look like the record of an anti-colonial extremist. It looks like the record of President George W. Bush.

But the oddities of "2016" don't end there. The first 15 minutes or so are more about D'Souza than Obama. And D'Souza begins by claiming he has some insight into Obama's mindset because of their shared colonial experience, never mind that Obama grew up mostly in the U.S. while D'Souza stayed in his native India until he came to the U.S. for college.

Even the stylistic choices D'Souza and co-director John Sullivan make are inexplicable: D'Souza conducts interviews by cellphone even though both parties are on camera. Some closeup shots are so extreme they're distracting. The shaky camerawork makes "The Blair Witch Project" look like a Stanley Kubrick film. And the subtitles used for interviewees with thick accents are so stylized they are nearly impossible to read.

I could go on. "2016: Obama's America" is a misguided film at almost every level.

It must be seen to be disbelieved.

Culture Shock 08.23.12: No redemption for 'The Raid'

If I wanted to review "The Raid: Redemption" in one sentence, I could do no better than quote George Orwell: "Imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever."

Even the most avid fans of martial arts films may find this one to be too much of a good thing.

An Indonesian film written and directed by a Welshman, Gareth Evans, "The Raid: Redemption" has a pedigree that seems tailor made for the exploitation-flick connoisseur. But beyond that, it delivers just what its intended audience expects, with all the authority and repetition of a jackhammer.

The English-language title — colon and all — sounds more like the name of a video game than of a movie, although that's a bit unfair because the average 21st century video game has a more robust plot. Storywise, "The Raid" is more like Donkey Kong in terms of complexity. The good guys, a police tactical unit, must raid an apartment building and fight their way to the top floor, past an army of goons, to apprehend a crime boss named Tama (Ray Sahetapy).

However, things quickly go south, and the police find themselves trapped inside the building with no support, no way to contact backup and surrounded by a building full of hostile tenants who are more loyal to Tama and his money than to the law.

As attrition takes its bloody toll, it falls to one officer, Rama — Iko Uwais, who also served as fight choreographer — to get out with as many of his fellow officers alive as he can, while also completing the mission.

That's the plot. The rest of the movie is a string of action sequences with occasional lulls for backstory. And what action sequences they are.

If brutal, bone-cracking, acrobatic martial arts fights are your thing, "The Raid" — new to DVD and Blu-ray — doesn't disappoint. It's amazing the actors didn't come out of principal photography maimed or worse. I felt a little roughed up just from watching them in action.

Apart from Uwais, we see stunning work from Joe Taslim as Jaka, one of Rama's fellow policemen, and from Doni Alamsyah and Yayan Ruhian as Tama's top two henchmen, Andi and Mad Dog.

While the backstory dribbled out does add some welcome complications — corrupt cops, family secrets, etc. — "The Raid" is mostly about the raid. It's as close to the Platonic ideal of an action movie as you can get, a pure action movie, with almost nothing to distract you from the fisticuffs at hand.

Now I've seen and loved lots of martial arts movies in my time. From the Shaw Brothers and "The Streetfighter" (Sonny Chiba, not Jean-Claude Van Damme) to Jackie Chan and Jet Li to Bruce Lee and "Ong-Bak," but I've never seen anything that looked quite as painful as the fight scenes in "The Raid." Not even Chan's blooper reels.

The fights, while brutal, do sometimes achieve a kind of fluid beauty. But as each scene piles on another, it gets to be too much, an extra slice of cheesecake that doesn't seem as good an idea after the fact as it did before. And the sometimes antiseptic cinematography, reminiscent of a "CSI" autopsy, doesn't help.

There are martial arts fans who like their martial arts stars to be real martial artists, like Bruce Lee or Uwais. But I've always preferred the Peking Opera-style of theatricality that people like Chan bring to the screen. It's more dancing than fighting, but it's more fun to watch.

Without that kind of stylistic flourish and with barely a story to speak of, "The Raid: Redemption" doesn't have anything going for it but its fights. If 100 minutes of that is what you want, go for it. You won't be let down.

Just don't expect anything more.

Culture Shock 08.09.12: 'Jiro' dreams of perfection

The first time I had sushi, it was from a vendor booth at a Birmingham, Alabama, street fair. So began our torrid affair.

Since then, I've become a bit of an amateur sushi snob, scowling at dinner companions who can't properly use chopsticks or — worse — stir wasabi into their soy sauce.

But that's all petty grumblings in the grand scheme of things. A world away, working from his restaurant in the basement of a Tokyo office building — a 10-seat affair only slightly less unassuming than that Birmingham booth — Jiro Ono is in search of perfection.

In the world of sushi, his restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, with its coveted three-star Michelin rating and months-long waiting list, is as close to perfect as there is.

It has won the praise of critics, foodies and revered French chef Joël Robuchon, who told The Wall Street Journal, "This is the restaurant that showed me sushi could be a great dish. Before that time, to me, sushi was just a piece of raw fish on rice, but there it becomes art."

Jiro's art, his obsession, and his relationship with the two sons who live in his long shadow, is the subject of David Gelb's engaging documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," on Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes and Amazon Instant.

On one level, "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" operates as a great example of the regrettably named genre known as "food porn." Even the most jaded foodie is likely to be in awe of Jiro's sushi creations and the few preparation secrets he lets slip. If you think octopus is too chewy, Jiro agrees, and the octopus he uses has been massaged into tender submission during the course of hours by apprentice chefs not yet allowed to touch a knife.

From the lean and fatty tuna to eel to shrimp, this is a film made for high definition, each dish captured in colorful, mouth-watering detail by Gelb, who acts as his own cinematographer.

At 85 years old and with no desire to retire, Jiro's life revolves around sushi. He hates having to close the restaurant for holidays and takes off only for funerals. He literally dreams about sushi, sometimes awaking with a new idea.

Like a character from an Ayn Rand novel, he is uncompromising. For him there is only the work and its result, and if perfection isn't possible that's no excuse for not trying harder.

In a culture where reverence for one's ancestors is a serious obligation, Jiro is an oddity. He barely knew his parents and was on his own almost from childhood. Visiting their grave, he wonders why he should honor them when they didn't even raise him. At that, Jiro's eldest son, Yoshikazu, warns he shouldn't risk offending his ancestors like that.

Yoshikazu is possibly just as capable a chef as his father, but as the oldest son he is obligated by tradition to wait until Jiro dies or retires to take over the family business.

His younger brother, meanwhile, not burdened with the family legacy, has the luxury of opening his own restaurant.

Unlike his sons, the parentless Jiro was able to become his own man and indulge his own needs, honing his craft to the edge of perfection.

Jiro dreams of sushi, but whatever dreams his sons may have had that didn't involve sushi are lost. We do know that Yoshikazu has one hobby outside the restaurant. He likes fast cars. Whatever else he may daydream of as he rides his bicycle to and from the fish market each morning he keeps to himself.

He's living the dream, but it's the dream of his father.

"Jiro Dreams of Sushi" is a beautiful film about art and obsession and the sacrifices they demand.

Whether those sacrifices are worth it, who is to say?

Culture Shock 08.02.12: The British are here, and they brought their telly with them

Even as the rest of the world descends upon Great Britain for the 2012 Olympics, The U.K.'s most visible export is reaching new heights of popularity in the United States.

Nowhere is that more obvious than this week's cover of America's most prominent entertainment magazine, Entertainment Weekly, which for the first time ever is given over to a British television show. And not just any British television show, but the long-running sci-fi series "Doctor Who," which is rapidly approaching its 50th anniversary.

Long a staple of British Saturday-evening viewing, "Doctor Who" has, in the past few years, grown beyond its American cult following to become mainstream viewing. It's BBC America's No. 1 show.

"Doctor Who" previously aired in America on Syfy, which seemed embarrassed by the show and didn't know what to do with it. Syfy also ran episodes a year after they aired in the U.K., and by then all the most tech-savvy "Doctor Who" fans had downloaded the series online.

BBC America, however, made "Doctor Who" the centerpiece of its schedule and began airing episodes the same day they aired in Britain.

That's faster turnaround in some cases than NBC can manage for its tape-delayed coverage of the London Olympics.

Then there's the personal touch. The cast of "Doctor Who" has become a regular fixture in the U.S., speaking to packed convention halls at San Diego's annual Comic-Con International.

Add to that the fact BBC America exists in the first place — an American television channel devoted to British television — and it's Paul Revere's worst nightmare.

The British aren't just coming, they're already here, neither by land nor by sea but by the air.

PBS has for decades relied on British television for many of its most acclaimed shows, but now it has certified hits in the form of two British imports, the BBC's "Sherlock" and ITV's "Downton Abbey," which netted 19 Emmy nominations between them, including Best Drama for the latter.

We've come a long way from late-night reruns of "Benny Hill" and "Are You Being Served?" No doubt much of this is a matter of necessity.

Cable and satellite services have more channels than they can fill with programming, and apparently there is actually a limit to how many hours of "Law & Order" marathons you can expect viewers to tolerate.

The U.K., meanwhile, is a reliable source of programming — much of it very good — in a language vaguely similar to the one most Americans speak.

And nowhere is the demand for programming more acute than online, where video-streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are looking for their own must-see TV.

Hulu, for instance, just picked up the exclusive U.S. rights to seasons 1, 2 and 3 of the blistering political satire "The Thick of It," which stars the brilliant Peter Capaldi as the prime minister's vicious enforcer Malcolm Tucker, who, as the late Jean Shepherd would say, works in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay.

Hulu will also stream the upcoming fourth season this fall, providing a welcome change from what passes for political TV in the U.S. — the sanctimonious, hackwork fantasies of Aaron Sorkin.

Netflix, for its part, has built an impressive library of British television for its on-demand offerings, from the geeky comedy "The IT Crowd," to the superb spy drama "MI-5" to classics like "Doctor Who" (new and original) and "Blackadder," and finally to sleeper gems like "The Last Detective" starring Peter Davison.

Still, as long as Matt Lauer doesn't know who Mr. Bean is, there is work for this British invasion yet to do.

Culture Shock 07.26.12: Christopher Nolan's Batman ends

The credits have rolled on the final act of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, and at least one thing seems clear: Nolan doesn't really get Batman.

Not to say Nolan's Batman films are bad. "Batman Begins" is a good movie, while "The Dark Knight" borders on being a great one — and it is without doubt a great Joker film, mostly thanks to Heath Ledger.

But neither is a particularly good Batman film.

That brings us to the grand finale, "The Dark Knight Rises," which is uneven, with slightly more faults than virtues, and a mess as a Batman movie, despite cribbing most of its plot straight from three Batman comic books: "Knightfall," "No Man's Land" and "The Dark Knight Returns." Two of those, "Knightfall" and "No Man's Land," weren't especially good to begin with, and none of them really goes with the others.

Throw in superfluous references to Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" — to "elevate the material," as they say, above a "mere" superhero story — and you have an overly ambitious closing chapter that takes forever to get going and, when it does, glosses over characters and events that could use more development. But the problems here are more fundamental than poor pacing and plot holes.

The problems start with Batman. Nolan sees him as a reluctant hero, looking to escape having to be Batman. We see signs of that in "The Dark Knight," with Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) looking to Harvey Dent to take over the war on Gotham's underworld. That fails, but Batman takes the blame for Dent's crimes in order to preserve his legacy.

"The Dark Knight Rises" opens eight years later. Organized crime in Gotham has been defeated by a tough-on-crime law called the Dent Act — talk about having to suspend your disbelief when it comes to superhero movies! — and Batman is in seclusion. But not only is Batman retired, so is Wayne. He has even lost track of the charities his foundation supports. And why? Mostly because he has spent eight years mourning the death of Maggie Gyllenhaal. (Or was it Katie Holmes?) It's as if Superman left Earth unprotected for five years and then finally returned only to become a deadbeat dad. Wait, I've seen that movie. It was terrible.

Nolan's Batman doesn't have the obsessive drive it would actually take to become Batman. You don't become Batman unless you're sure that's who you are in the first place. It isn't like getting bitten by a radioactive spider. So, by attempting to humanize Batman and make him more "realistic," Nolan has come up with an emotionally conflicted Batman who is less believable. That is not "elevating the material."

Nolan makes things worse by using Bane, one of Batman's least-inspired adversaries, as the main heavy. Poor Tom Hardy, try as he might, can't make Bane seem to be anything more than an absurdly pretentious masked wrestler. But at least Bane's most over-the-top line, "Your punishment must be more severe," will probably become an Internet meme.

Also wasted is Michael Caine as Bruce's loyal butler, Alfred. He gives the movie's best performance, but he gets far too little screen time.

The one saving grace of "The Dark Knight Rises" is Anne Hathaway, who dominates her every scene. She seems like the only actor having fun, and her Selina Kyle is the only character who has a believable, consistent agenda. It's no wonder there is talk about giving Selina — who is never actually called Catwoman — her own movie.

Unlike the French Revolution it re-enacts in the streets of Gotham, "The Dark Knight Rises" is neither the best nor worst of times. It's just a middling conclusion to a trilogy and a character that needed and deserved better.

Culture Shock 07.19.12: 'Safety Not Guaranteed' is worth the risk

There is a subset of romantic comedies in which one of the two lead characters approaches the other under false pretenses. Usually, the character is an undercover police detective or a journalist — a person pretending to be someone they're not.

This set-up leads to an inevitable confrontation. The betrayed character learns he or she has been lied to, and the cop/reporter/etc. character apologetically confesses all, maintaining that while everything else was false, their love is real. And it is, too.

You know this moment is coming, and if you're like me, you can spend an entire movie dreading it like a dog would dread a trip to the vet if dogs could read calendars. It's a ticking time bomb of movie clichés.

So, you must understand that it's high praise, coming from me, to say one of the best things about "Safety Not Guaranteed" is that when it gets to the scene where the reporter's cover is blown — that's not a spoiler; you know it's coming — the film handles it quickly, succinctly and moves on without too much fuss.

For those of you whose concerns aren't eccentric, know that "Safety Not Guaranteed," directed by Colin Trevorrow and written by Derek Connolly, is an utterly charming romantic comedy that will especially appeal to people who don't like typical romantic comedies.

The reporter — actually an intern — is Darius, played with her usual deadpan appeal by the geek goddess that is Aubrey Plaza ("Parks and Recreation").

When her boss at a hip, regional magazine decides to check out the story behind a bizarre classified ad, Darius is eager to tag along, as it's the first not-boring thing to come along.

The ad reads, in part: "WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. ... SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED."

That's enough to intrigue Darius, who has been isolated, aloof and generally alienated from her peers and their interests since her mother died years before.

So, Darius, nerdy fellow intern Arnau (Karan Soni) and smooth-talking reporter Jeff (Jake M. Johnson) take a road trip to find the person — probably a loon — who placed the ad.

Well, sort of. Jeff really just wants to use the trip as an excuse to hook up with an old girlfriend (Jenica Bergere) while making the interns do all the real work. As a journalist, I can tell you this is totally realistic.

That leaves Darius to approach the would-be time traveler and find out his story.

Kenneth (Mark Duplass) claims to have traveled back in time once before, and he is absolutely serious about his mission, which involves weapons training and an emergency plan to get a message to his future self if anything goes wrong in the past. Like Darius, he's alienated from the world around him, he just has an unorthodox way of dealing with it.

Duplass skillfully walks a fine line with Kenneth, making us root for him even as we wonder if he's entirely sane. And we also root for Jeff. In most romantic comedies, his character would be a one-dimensional jerk, but here he's a guy who is usually a jerk but also a real person. Again, as a journalist, I can confirm this is totally realistic.

That said, "Safety Not Guaranteed" is Plaza's movie to carry, and the cynical, world-weary, wise-beyond-her-years presence she bring to bear here signals that we're probably looking at the rise of a new indie-film queen.

That's not guaranteed, mind you. But then nothing worthwhile ever is.

Culture Shock 07.12.12: Sticking it to The Man in 'Moonrise Kingdom'

Clever children having to deal with not-so-clever adults is a movie trope that's far older than either Macaulay Culkin or the Goonies, and with good reason.

It's the ultimate empowerment fantasy played out against the first authority figures any of us encounter: grownups.

Director Wes Anderson's cinematic children are probably better equipped to take on The Man than most. They're ridiculously smart and preternaturally wise for their age, although not as wise as they think they are. But who is?

The Tenenbaum siblings of Anderson's 2001 film "The Royal Tenenbaums" are all child prodigies. Unfortunately, they grow up to be sad, dissatisfied and just plain messed-up adults, pretty much like most of Anderson's other adults.

If only we could all be like Peter Pan and fly away to Never Never Land and never grow up.

Perhaps that's just what Sam and Suzy, engagingly played by newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, have in mind when they run away from home in Anderson's latest movie, "Moonrise Kingdom."

Set in a small New England island community in the mid-1960s, "Moonrise Kingdom" manages to be simultaneously nostalgic for a more innocent time that never was, yet clinically unsentimental about the whole nostalgia business. It's the cool, detached approach that has become Anderson's calling card, and which he perfects here, with the aid of co-screenwriter Roman Coppola, director of the criminally overlooked film "CQ." Amazingly, the result is also — dare I say? — heartwarming.

Both Sam and Suzy are classified as "problem children." They read too much and have ideas of their own. So when first love hits them, they run off, camping gear and borrowed record player in hand, on an adventure.

Not exactly hot on their trail are Sam's well-meaning but clueless scout master (an unusually likable Edward Norton), sad sack policeman Capt. Sharp (Bruce Willis) and Suzy's unhappily married parents, Walt and Laura (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand).

With their bad marriages and bad careers and lost loves, the adults are a pretty miserable bunch. It's telling that the only grownup character who has his act together throughout is Bob Balaban's omniscient narrator, who hints to us at the very beginning that he's read ahead in the script.

Basically, he cheated.

The screenplay is full of great lines, and Norton and Murray are both in scene-stealing form, but none of that would matter if Gilman and Hayward weren't up to the challenge. They carry the film and make it seem easy, which is likely a testament to Anderson's direction.

This is filmmaking with authority, which is ironic given that authority appears to be Anderson and Coppola's main target for ridicule. No authority figure is left unscathed, whether it's Capt. Sharp and his deflated ego or the pompous woman from Social Services — identified simply as "Social Services" and played with bureaucratic bluster by Tilda Swinton.

The only people who seem capable of carrying out a plan are our young protagonists and, later on, Sam's fellow scouts.

Minor spoiler: It's no accident that Norton's Scout Master Ward only has his moment of triumph after being relieved of command.

This is a more hopeful Wes Anderson than we've seen before. He leaves us charmed and cautiously optimistic. Maybe, unlike those Tenenbaum kids, Sam and Suzy will grow up to be OK.

Culture Shock 06.28.12: Time to give 'John Carter' a second chance

The intrigue and incompetence that led to Disney's "John Carter" becoming one of the biggest flops in movie history would probably make for an interesting movie. Perhaps a screwball comedy.

Even the poster used to promote the movie is dull.

It really takes a concerted effort to so mishandle a film that it joins the ranks of "Heaven's Gate," "Ishtar" and "Howard the Duck."

Especially when, unlike those films, "John Carter" is actually pretty good, and definitely worth reappraisal now that it's available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Everything from the title — not "John Carter of Mars" or, better still, "John Carter and a Princess of Mars," but just plain "John Carter" — to the lackluster, inept marketing campaign made "John Carter" out to be a dreary bore.

But "John Carter" isn't boring. It's just "old school." It's an old-fashioned, swashbuckling adventure yarn of the sort Disney used to know how to sell very well — 40 years ago. True, there's nothing here we haven't seen before. But the source material, Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel "A Princess of Mars," has been strip-mined by other storytellers for nearly 100 years. You can see its influence in everything from Superman and Flash Gordon to "Star Wars" and "Avatar."

Those imitators, however, can't rob Burroughs' tale of its intrinsic appeal.

It begins in the American Southwest, in the years following the Civil War, when disillusioned Confederate solder John Carter (Taylor Kitsch of "Friday Night Lights"), who has lost both his home and his family, accidentally activates a portal that transports him to Mars — or, as the locals call it, Barsoom. In the lower Martian gravity, this strange visitor from other planet is a virtual superman, able to leap modest-sized buildings in a single bound.

It's an ability that soon comes in handy, first when he's captured by the Tharks, a race of 15-foot-tall, four-armed warriors who live in the Martian wastes, and later when he finds himself a pawn in the never-ending war between two rival city-states: the enlightened city of Helium, ruled by Tardos Mors (Ciarán Hinds of "The Woman in Black"), and the despotic Zodanga, led by Sab Than (Dominic West).

All Carter wants is to return home, and the last thing on his agenda is getting caught up in another planet's civil war. But he runs into a complication when he rescues Tardos Mors' daughter Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins), who may know how to return him to Earth but would much rather him stay to fight for Helium.

And they may all be pawns in the game being played behind the scenes by the mysterious figure portrayed by Mark Strong ("Sherlock Holmes").

Kitsch proves to be a real surprise. He's not the first actor who comes to mind when I think of John Carter, but he brings more charisma to the role than I'd expected. It helps, too, that he has a solid supporting cast, especially Willem Dafoe, via motion capture and CGI, as the Thark leader Tars Tarkas.

Director Andrew Stanton ("Toy Story") keeps things straightforward, and the screenplay by Stanton, Mark Andrews and novelist Michael Chabon retains the spirit of Burroughs while making some necessary updates, such as casting Dejah Thoris as less of a damsel in distress. (This Dejah can hold her own with a sword and a slide rule.) With the exception of an unavoidable infodump in the second act to bring our heroes up to speed, things move at a lively pace.

But the real stars here are Nathan Crowley ("The Dark Knight") and Michael Giacchino ("The Incredibles").

Crowley's gorgeous production design brings the bustling city of Helium to life, while Giacchino's lush, romantic score, sweeps us away to the adventure.

Forget that "John Carter" is officially a flop. It's time to get your mass to Mars.

Culture Shock 06.21.12: Bring me the head of George W. Bush; feigned outrage strikes again

When historians look back on the first two decades of the 21st century, they may well conclude that the defining characteristic of our age is feigned outrage.

This is not how you get ahead in politics.

It began in 2004, when TV viewers were terrorized by 0.5 seconds of Janet Jackson's exposed nipple during the last Super Bowl halftime show anyone remembers. But it came to a head last week with George W. Bush's head, or, rather, a facsimile of it, covered in a shaggy wig and stuck to a pike in the final episodes of season 1 of HBO's "Game of Thrones."

These are the things we're supposed to get upset about.

We're told — by people who know nothing of American history — that Americans are polarized as never before. Actually, quite the opposite.

We agree as never before. The consensus is shifting on some issues, from marijuana legalization to gay marriage — both of which slim majorities of Americans now favor — but most people don't really disagree about a lot.

Unfortunately, this makes life hard for politicians, pundits, professional activists and others whose livelihoods depend on people being at each other's throats. So, partisans of Team Red and Team Blue go around looking for things they can pretend to be angry about, and then try to make you and me angry about them, too.

These are, usually, not serious issues. How can they be? Team Red and Team Blue agree on so much. A president of one party gets a national mandatory health insurance plan enacted, and the other party, which says it is against mandatory health insurance, nominates a challenger who enacted the same insurance plan in his own state. From the size and scope of government to issues of war and peace, there are no serious disagreements among our leaders or the opinion makers who orbit them.

So, bring me the head of George W. Bush.

The head, not meant to be President Bush's head but just the head of some unlucky bloke who got his noggin lopped off, as happens to so many "Game of Thrones" characters, appears in an episode that first aired more than a year ago. No one noticed. The producers commented about the head when season 1 was released on DVD, saying they needed a head to put on a spike and the head of the former president happened to be what they had lying around. No political message was intended, they said. Again, no one noticed.

Until last week, when, suddenly, feigned outrage struck again, with Team Red scribblers like the New York Post's Andrea Peyser saying this was yet another example of the liberal Hollywood elite slamming wholesome American values. Never mind that getting beheaded by the repugnant, inbred King Joffrey is, if anything, an honor that puts you in pretty good moral standing.

Did William Shatner get upset when the makers of the "Halloween" movies put a bleached-out Shatner mask on their lumbering serial killer Michael Myers? I think not.

But HBO folded. It pulled the offending episode from iTunes and its HBO Go service, and it stopped shipping new DVDs.

All this because of trumped-up outrage over an "offense" it took the offended a year to notice. Don't think I'm picking on Team Red. Team Blue over to our left is no better.

Remember when getting really upset about something Rush Limbaugh said was a thing? Yet most of the people claiming to be upset were probably delighted, because it turned Limbaugh's otherwise unremarkable target, Sandra Fluke, into a martyr and gave Team Blue an excuse to engage in one of its favorite sports — beating up Limbaugh for saying something stupid.

Maybe someday we'll go back to being outraged about things that matter. But not today.

Culture Shock 06.14.12: Not much spark from this 'Prometheus'

Thirty-three years after he showed us that in space no one can hear you scream, director Ridley Scott returns to the movie franchise he unsuspectingly launched with 1979's horror/sci-fi masterpiece "Alien."

But with this very loose prequel, you'll scream more out of frustration than fright.

"Prometheus" is exasperatingly thick-headed sci-fi masquerading as smart science fiction.

As with a 1980s slasher movie, it's the kind of film where the plot moves forward only because the characters are idiots. While that's excusable when you're dealing with frisky teenagers and camp counselors, it's unforgivable when you're dealing with the hand-picked crew of a scientific research ship bound for a distant moon, light years away from Earth and any hope of rescue.

These people are presumably professionals and actually follow safety protocols.

Well, if you really think that, you're wrong.

"Prometheus" opens with an alien seemingly sacrificing himself in order to seed a planet — maybe Earth — with his DNA. It's the first of many symbolic moments involving life, death, sacrifice and life from death.

These are eternal themes, but they deserve more coherent treatment than what they get from "Prometheus" screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof, the man who executive produced "Lost" to a unsatisfying end.

Flash forward to an archaeological expedition on Earth, decades in our future. Two scientists, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo") and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) uncover a 30,000-year-old cave drawing of a giant alien seemingly giving us directions to a point in the heavens.

Flash forward a few more years, and the ship Prometheus has arrived in orbit around the alien moon.

Awakened from two years in suspended animation, Elizabeth informs the crew of biologists and geologists and other experts they're there to find the aliens she believes created life on Earth. And when one crew member expresses some skepticism about this wild claim, Elizabeth admits she has no evidence, but "it's what I choose to believe."

Shaw is a religious zealot, and so is Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce in the least-convincing old-man makeup ever), the dying gazillionaire whose corporation bankrolled the expedition. And so, too, are the aliens. At least that's one interpretation.

Unfortunately, it isn't just that "Prometheus" is ambiguous, which can be a virtue, but that it doesn't seem to know where it's going with any of its ideas. And when it comes down to the basic stuff, it fails miserably.

It isn't just a matter of characters doing stupid things. As boneheaded as the characters are, the science of "Prometheus" is worse. We're told the aliens and humans have identical DNA. Not similar, but identical, and this is a major plot point. But if true, this would mean the aliens are just ordinary humans, and clearly they are not.

The treatment of genetics and evolutionary biology in "Prometheus" contradicts all known science. It's creationism with extraterrestrials.

Yet the biggest problem with "Prometheus" is the way it wastes everything good about it. A scene involving an emergency surgery is as harrowing as anything in "Alien," the production design is gorgeous and Michael Fassbender delivers a brilliant, eerie performance as the android David, who emerges as the only likable character even when he's up to something suspicious.

The good points, including Scott's direction, are overwhelmed by the flawed screenplay.

Yes, "Prometheus" makes you think. But the more you think about it, the less sense it makes.

Culture Shock 06.07.12: Movies more scared of sex than you think

Movies and television take a lot of heat for promoting supposedly immoral, promiscuous and irresponsible sexual behavior.

But when it comes to movies that actually make sex their main focus, you may be left wondering why anyone has sex in the first place. Sex in these movies is awful, joyless and nothing good ever comes of it.

On second thought, that does sound like a pretty irresponsible depiction of sex, just not the one we've been led to expect.

Two recent films are Exhibits A and B. The first is "Shame," newly released on Blu-ray and DVD.

Directed by Steve McQueen and starring Michael Fassbender, "Shame" follows Brandon, a 30-something business executive in New York, as he goes blankly from one sexual encounter to the next, until the arrival of his emotionally unstable sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) upsets his routine.

We're never clued in to what it is, but the two clearly are carrying around a lot of old family baggage. Sissy is needy, and Brandon resents her for it. Meanwhile, he's trying and failing to meet his own needs through meaningless sex — a strategy designed to fail because meaningless sex is, by definition, meaningless.

Brandon is the poster boy for sex addiction. He has lots of sex but never enjoys it, and he keeps right on going.

Yet, despite depressing movies like "Shame" and a few high-profile celebrity cases of suspect credibility, one fact remains: There is no such thing as sex addiction.

I know. This is not what the doctors on TV tell you, but stay with me.

Sex addiction is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, and there is no scientific evidence that it exists. So says David J. Ley, clinical psychologist and author of a book pointedly titled "The Myth of Sex Addiction."

Most people have sex because they like it. But while that might make for good late-night viewing on Cinemax, it doesn't carry the day with art-house filmgoers.

That brings me to Exhibit B, Steven Soderbergh's 2009 film "The Girlfriend Experience" (Blu-ray, DVD and Netflix instant) starring former adult-film actress Sasha Grey.

Grey plays a high-class call girl whose clients are mostly Wall Street 1-percenters during the darkest days of the Great Recession. A woman who sells sex and men who sell mortgage-backed securities — it's a juxtaposition perfect for Soderbergh's ideological ax-grinding.

She makes decisions based on astrology-like personality guidebooks, and they make trades based on voodoo economics. Or something like that.

Grey's character, Chelsea, is destined for disappointment because she is commodifying sex, but that's not the worst of it. What she offers her clients isn't just sex, but companionship — a "girlfriend experience."

It's that she does this for money that makes it doomed in Soderbergh's eye. It makes her like the buyers and sellers who ruined the economy then took off on a trip to Las Vegas to gamble literally, not just metaphorically.

Yes, when a well-heeled Hollywood director wants to criticize sex, of course he compares it to the business world.

Here even Cinemax shlock is judgmental. When the lonely housewife played by Shannon Tweed decides to become a call girl, you just know someone is going to get murdered.

If you pay for sex, you'll have to pay.

Culture Shock 05.24.12: 'Wicker Man' followup is more of a straw man

The original 1973 version of "The Wicker Man" is a horror classic. The 2006 remake starring Nicolas Cage is an unintentionally hilarious diversion.

This scene is better without context.

Unfortunately, "The Wicker Tree" — director/writer Robin Hardy's completely unnecessary followup to the 1973 film, which he directed from Anthony Shaffer's screenplay — is neither.

It's neither good nor bad enough to be entertaining, and you find yourself wishing the inevitable and unsurprising conclusion would just hurry up and arrive already.

Not quite a sequel and not quite a remake either, "The Wicker Tree" tells basically the same story as "The Wicker Man," only with a much less interesting and far more grating cast of characters.

Speaking of whom, meet Beth and Steve (Brittania Nicol and Henry Garrett). They're a young couple from Texas on a mission trip to bring Jesus and their contemporary Christian musical stylings to the poor lost souls of Scotland. Never mind that, last I heard, Scotland was a mostly Christian land. Nevertheless, as luck would have it, Beth and Steve have the good fortune to find one village where the locals all still worship the "old gods."

And by "good fortune" I mean horribly bad fortune.

Yet the locals seem strangely welcoming of the two Texans, even if they aren't the least bit receptive to their message, happy as these Scots are to remain in their blissful paganism.

Clearly, something sinister is afoot, what with village leader Sir Lachlan Morrison (Graham McTavish) practically twisting his mustache at every turn. But our two young heroes, with their purity rings and pledges of chastity until marriage, are oblivious to it all.

They're dumber than a bag of rocks, and every time Steve grins, you just want to punch him in the face. (And, yes, he wears a cowboy hat everywhere. Even in church.) If you're looking for an unflattering caricature of Texans, Christians or kids who go to contemporary Christian concerts, this is it. Perhaps a better title for the film would have been "The Straw Man."

The pagans don't come out of this any better, especially Sir Lachlan, who turns out to be a cynical manipulator, exploiting his people's beliefs for his own benefit. It's the same one-dimensional religious baddie we've seen in a dozen other films, only this time he's a pagan.

If the message here is that all religion is bad, it would have been far more honest and effective at least to have characters who resemble human beings with genuine human beliefs. In the original "The Wicker Man," you can sympathize with Edward Woodward's upright but woefully naive Sgt. Howie. Beth and Steve, however, invite only ridicule.

And, let's face it, McTavish, in a role originally intended for Sir Christopher Lee (the original film's magnificent Lord Summerisle), is no Christopher Lee. (Who is?) Alas, Sir Christopher is here relegated to a brief and pointless flashback, which serves only to remind us that "The Wicker Tree" might possibly be watchable if Lee were in more of it.

Unfortunately, Lee, who turns 90 on Sunday, injured himself on the set of another movie and had to back out of the starring role.

But really, I'd settle for a deranged Nic Cage, running around in a bear costume, punching women in the face and screaming about bees.

It wouldn't be a good movie, but at least it wouldn't be boring.

Unlike the 2006 edition of "The Wicker Man," "The Wicker Tree" is sadly lacking in YouTube-friendly moments of absurdity. It just plods along, going exactly where the other two films went before, but taking a far less scenic route to get there.

Culture Shock 05.10.12: 'The Avengers' is assembled with care

Fair or not, the comparisons to Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" are inevitable, especially with his forthcoming sequel "The Dark Knight Rises" waiting in the (bat) wings.

But while Nolan tried to pry Batman free from the genre conventions of superheroics by placing him in a more-or-less realistic setting — not always successfully — Joss Whedon has turned "The Avengers" into the ultimate superhero film, one that embraces its conventions with unapologetic glee.

While "The Dark Knight" is a great film, and obviously a showcase for the late Heath Ledger, it's not necessarily a great Batman film. But "The Avengers" is a great superhero film — one that reminds us why the superhero genre has been so resilient.

Whedon's accomplishment is even more impressive given the logistics involved, taking the pieces of a superhero universe established across five previous films — "Iron Man," "The Incredible Hulk," "Iron Man 2," "Thor" and "Captain America: The First Avenger" — and forging a seamless whole.

The result is much like the Marvel comics on which "The Avengers" is based. It's a fully realized superhero world, where it makes perfect sense for a demigod out of Norse mythology to interact with a man in an American flag costume and an egotistical billionaire with an invincible suit of armor.

The story begins with Thor's power-hungry brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who has been cast out of Asgard, forming an alliance with a mysterious alien race to take over the Earth. But to do so, he needs an Asgardian relic called the Tesseract, which can open a portal through which the alien army can invade. The Tesseract, however, was lost centuries earlier, eventually falling into the hands of the Red Skull during World War II before being lost again and recovered by Howard Stark, the father of Tony Stark, aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.). Now it belongs to the global security/spy agency SHIELD, led by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), which has its own plans for it.

But before SHIELD's plans are complete, Loki steals the Tesseract, forcing Fury to call on an unlikely group of heroes to save the day, if they ever stop fighting amongst themselves.

Apart from Iron Man, there's Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), alter ego of the Hulk; Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans); the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson); Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner); and Thor (Chris Hemsworth).

It's a lot for Whedon to juggle, but almost everyone gets a chance to shine. (Sorry, Hawkeye. Better luck in the sequel.) As usual, Downey's Stark owns every scene he's in, and Ruffalo brings both a warmth and a simmering intensity to Banner. But the real surprise here is Johansson, who gets the meatiest part and makes the most of it, from her hilarious first scene to her emotional showdowns with Loki and the Hulk. Whedon, creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," is known for his strong, butt-kicking heroines, and he delivers again here, while also peppering the script with the snappy dialogue that's become his other calling card.

"The Avengers" also features yet another indispensable supporting performance from Clark Gregg as SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson, who has been a fan favorite since he first appeared in "Iron Man." For this outing, Whedon casts him in the part of the Everyman, who is more than a little starstruck when confronted with his childhood hero, Captain America.

It's Coulson who sums up why movies like "The Avengers," with their old-fashioned battles between good and evil, are still important. When Steve Rogers wonders if his star-spangled Captain America costume isn't too old fashioned, it's Coulson who says the world sometimes needs a little old fashioned.

Maybe now is one of those times.

Culture Shock 05.03.12: Don't open your door to this 'Raven'

This is an idea that should work. Take a real-life writer known for his explorations of murder and the macabre, and embroil him in a murder mystery of his own.

But "The Raven" seems as lost as any maiden whom the angels named Lenore.

John Cusack stars as a man who answers to the name Edgar Allan Poe. While this Poe has the same name as the famous poet and claims to have written that Poe's works, he doesn't really seem a lot like the historical Poe he's meant to be — even allowing that this is an alternate history in which Poe pursues a serial killer.

Perhaps it's because this Poe is also in love, seemingly having put the memory of his dead wife Virginia — inspiration for many of his works — behind him.

Well, it wouldn't be a Hollywood movie without a love story shoehorned into it, would it?

Poe did court other women after his wife's death, but they're omitted here. In this case, the object of Poe's affection is Emily Hamilton (Alice Eve), whose father (Brendan Gleeson), quite naturally has no desire for his daughter to marry a disreputable, drunken and impoverished poet like Poe.

As plot points go, this seems far too familiar.

But why dwell on that when we have a murderer on the loose? And the particulars of his murders seem familiar, too. Intentionally so, leading Detective Fields (Luke Evans) of the Baltimore police to suspect they are all based on Poe's stories.

So, how do you catch a killer whose methods mimic the stories of the city's most notorious writer? You enlist that writer's help, of course.

So, Fields and Poe are on the case, collecting clues even as the morgue collects corpses.

Director James McTeigue ("V for Vendetta") is still trying to shake all of the bad habits he picked up while working for the Wachowskis — including the unwelcome, if brief return of "bullet time" — while the screenplay never delivers the twists and turns needed for a good mystery.

The one unsatisfying twist we do get tries to put a new spin on the historical Poe's final days, which remain the subject of speculation.

So, it falls to the movie's star to carry us through, but Cusack, while likable, has little to work with. His Poe occasionally hints at the moodiness of the genuine article, but just when that seems to be going somewhere, he has to be happy again because he's in love. His mood swings are dictated by what the plot needs at the time. The only time Cusack really seems to be Poe is when he is launching an attack on one of his literary rivals — something the real Poe excelled at.

It's almost a given that movies that take shots at critics are made by people who don't expect to get favorable reviews. Now, I don't take it personally, but "The Raven" isn't especially kind to critics. One of them even ends up beneath Poe's infamous pendulum, and fittingly he's named Griswold, after a real-life Poe rival who did his best to tarnish Poe's reputation after his death.

It's one of the few, fleeting clever bits that only Poe enthusiasts will recognize and appreciate, although I find myself wishing Griswold had been the killer — a Salieri to Poe's Mozart — because there are no feuds quite like literary feuds.

Another clever moment hints at the posthumous rehabilitation of Poe's literary reputation among French critics before American critics finally started to take him seriously.

And what would Poe, no slouch as a critic himself, have made of what's been made of him in "The Raven"?

The real Edgar Allan Poe's life was filled with enough tragedy, drama, heartbreak and rivalries to make a pretty compelling movie. I wish someone had made that movie instead of this one.

Culture Shock 04.20.12: It is a cabin, and it's in the woods

When it comes to "The Cabin in the Woods," there are two kinds of reviewers. There are reviewers who give away the entire plot, and there are reviewers so afraid of ruining the experience they say almost nothing about it.

I will say this about "The Cabin in the Woods." It involves a cabin that happens to be in the woods.

I'll also say this: Even before the movie's title flashes on-screen, it's clear "The Cabin in the Woods" is not your typical horror movie.

It gives off a certain vibe. It's a little different.

The result is the most entertaining horror movie since San Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell," which in tone and pacing, "The Cabin in the Woods" resembles, if you also crossed it with the first "Scream."

Without spoiling the plot, I can say "Cabin" is a fast-paced, funny, quirky horror movie that knowingly plays with the genre's well-worn conventions. If you at all like horror movies, you should see it. If you live and breathe horror movies, this one was made for you.

And if you don't like horror movies, you should reevaluate your life choices. Then you should see it.

But, fair warning, unless you've seen a couple of "Friday the 13th" or "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies, you'll probably leave the theater wondering what on Earth you just experienced.

That is a risk you should take.

Now that I've heaped as much advertising-friendly praise on "Cabin" as I can spare, I can't promise I won't mention the plot.

The men responsible for "Cabin" are producer/co-writer Joss Whedon ("Firefly") and director/co-writer Drew Goddard ("Lost"), who bring to the proceedings the same genre-subverting approach they honed on Whedon's TV shows "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel."

Take our cast of characters, for instance. We have the obligatory "good girl" (Kristen Connolly), a jock ("Thor" star Chris Hemsworth), his girlfriend (Anna Hutchison), a brainy guy (Jesse Williams) and a stoner (Fran Kranz). So far, so good. These are the same college-age stereotypes who have run screaming from machete-wielding maniacs since 1978.

But the good girl isn't all good, the jock is a bit of a brain, the brain is a jock, the girlfriend isn't a total tramp and the stoner is a bit too wise to play the fool. Why, they're almost like real people.

Not to worry. These are minor details, easily corrected so as not to interfere with your viewing enjoyment. By the time our potential corpses meet the creepy old man at the gas station, all is going according to plan.

Or is it?

As I said, it's not your typical horror movie. I mean, I can't even really tell you about the two best characters, Sitterson and Hadley, played by Richard Jenkins ("Six Feet Under") and Bradley Whitford ("The West Wing"). To do so would mean giving away more than I, in good conscience, feel comfortable giving away.

I will say Sitterson and Hadley get all the best lines, and apart from plot twists that seem to come from out of nowhere, the one thing you should expect from a Joss Whedon production is stiff competition for "best lines."

If there is a potential for a weak link here, it's first-time director Goddard, but he maneuvers through the twists and turns like an old hand. And maybe that's because, in a sense, "The Cabin in the Woods" is a movie horror fans have all seen before.

Except that it isn't.

Culture Shock: 04.12.12: '80s cartoons strike back — again!

Netflix has a section of children's programming it brands "Just for Kids," but pretty soon, I bet, a lot of 30-somethings will be clicking entry to relive part of their bygone youth.

Come to Cobra. We have cookies.

Last week, the video-streaming and DVD-rental service announced a deal with Hasbro to bring new and vintage cartoons based on Hasbro's toy franchises to Netflix's library of "watch instantly" offerings.

At the heart of the deal are Hasbro's latest cartoons, some of which are already available on Netflix instant: "Transformers Prime," "G.I. Joe: Renegades" and new versions of "Pound Puppies" and "My Little Pony." New seasons will appear on Netflix after they air on Hasbro's cable channel, The Hub.

I bet all of those college-age fans of "My Little Pony" — known as "Bronies," or so I've heard — are planning celebratory keggers even now. (Who am I to judge? When I was in college, I watched Nickelodeon's Canadian-import soap opera "Fifteen" every week — despite the shame that comes with watching any Canadian TV show that isn't "Kids in the Hall.")

But for those of us who watched weekday-afternoon cartoons during the 1980s, the big news was that the Netflix/Hasbro pact also included the original "Transformers" (before Michael Bay got his grubby hands on it), "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero" (before Stephen Sommers did the same) and "Jem and the Holograms" (which no one has yet turned into a terrible live-action movie).

All three '80s classics will join Netflix's lineup later this year.

These shows are the forbidden fruit of children's programming. All were very popular in their day and built followings that even now still support comic books, T-shirts, DVD collections and retro-'80s-style toys. And all were derided when they originally aired as "half-hour toy commercials" because they were all based on Hasbro's popular toy brands.

Those of us who actually rushed home after school each day to watch "Transformers" or "Jem" didn't care one way or the other about commercialism. We just wanted to watch what were, at the time, the best cartoons around. (This was before "Batman: The Animated Series" upped the ante for action/adventure cartoons.)

Unfortunately, an unholy coalition of professional worriers, seeking to shield children from the twin bogeymen of commercialism and fantasy violence, agitated until Congress passed the Children's Television Act of 1990, which put restrictions on advertising during children's programming and mandated that broadcasters air more "educational" shows. The bottom line is the Children's Television Act made cartoons like "Transformers" and "G.I. Joe" less economically competitive in the brutally competitive world of TV syndication.

And that's partly why afternoon television is now wall-to-wall TV psychologists, TV doctors and TV judges — who just happen to be exactly the sort of professional scolds who demanded the federal government take action against cartoon commercialism in the first place.

If I didn't know better, I'd suspect that was the plan all along.

But revenge, as the Klingons say, is a dish best served cold. Today, Hasbro has its own cable channel, which is exempt from the rules that plague over-the-air broadcasters. So, Hasbro can produce new "My Little Pony" cartoons and sell My Little Pony ponies to the Bronies, and there's not much the killjoys at the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood can do except mutter to themselves as they hand wash their Chairman Mao T-shirts — brand loyalty for commies.

And for those of us who refuse to pay another $50 a month to upgrade to the channel tier that includes The Hub, there's now Netflix, where the childhood Congress stole from us lives again.

Yo, Joe.