Incendies

2 Paws
Seen recently at AMC Oakview Plaza 24

Oh my.

Although it's billed as a mystery, Incendies is more like a slow-motion ride into the depths of a family's unspeakable horror. And yes, just when you think it can't get any worse, it does.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of strong female characters who triumph despite overwhelming odds. Nawal Marwan, played with gut-shot intensity by Lubna Azabal, is strong beyond measure, but hers is - at best - a story of endurance. Perhaps that's all you can hope for in a world as bleak as hers.

Make sure it's not the last thing you see before you go to bed.

Bonus Bones: 0
I'm not sure if even a dog could have helped Nawal cope.

Super 8

3 Paws

Seen recently at Aksarben Cinema

I think I'm one of the few people in the 50 states who didn't see E.T. when it opened in theatres waaaay back in 1982. I was in college and was busy, ummmmm, doing college things.

I almost made the same mistake twice, because the trailer for this 2011 version was anything but super. Sure, the film was about an unearthly monster of sorts. But it was also about so much more - a town that made you want it to be yours, an eclectic group of engaging kids with - dare I say it - more heart than the Harry Potter crowd - and a simple message about the power of empathy that even those with the hardest of hearts would have a hard time dissing. Heck - even the hot town drunk (Ron Eldard, the blonde paramedic from ER who pined for Julianna Margulies in season two) got a second chance.

If you were a kid in the '70s, this film is a must see. Just download "My Sharona" from iTunes and listen to it on your way to the theater and back. Summer doesn't get any better than that.

Bonus Bones: 20

There was a dog with a name - Lucy, a lost and found board with dozens of dog pics and a gas station scene in which the sheriff got buzzed by a scruffy pack (obviously much smarter than their owners) headed out of town for safer pastures. 

X-Men: First Class

2.5 Paws
Seen recently at Aksarben Cinema

If you want to make a pretty darn good movie, no matter the plot, cast a pair of small (in physical size only) actors from the British Isles in the lead roles. James McAvoy (Charles Xavier) and Michael Fassbender (Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto) make equally compelling arguments for good and evil, respectively. If hard-pressed, though, I'd give the nod to good.

I loved the film's Twiggy-like costuming (here's to the '60s), the Hugh Jackman cameo and the questions it answers about how the characters we know from X-Men (2000) came to be. I also loved getting to know Beast and Banchee - I'd want them on my team if I had to fight Kevin Bacon's Sebastian Shaw.

I didn't love the fact that the main female mutant - Jennifer Lawrence (Raven/Mystique) - was obsessed with her appearance. Teens need a better female comic book role model out there, people. Neither did I love it when Kevin Bacon donned the Magneto helmet. I think my Footloose memories of him were too strong to make me believe what he was selling, although he was pretty damn scary in the concentration camp section of the film.

All in all, not too shabby for summer blockbuster fare.

Bonus Bones: 1
The Nazi guard dog made the most of his few moments on film.

Midnight in Paris

2.5 Paws

Seen recently at Rave Motion Pictures Westroads 14

Thank you, Owen Wilson, for making a movie that made me like you as an actor again. Thank you, Paris, for being a cinematic showstopper (it looked a lot different on screen than it did the time we got off the train there, left the station in search of our 'tour guide' and saw a woman holding her baby over a sewer grate to, well, pee). Thank you, costume designer whose name I do not know, who must have had a blast and a generous wardrobe budget. Thank you, Woody Allen, for not starring in your own film and for bringing to life an impressive collection of the world's all-time great artists and writers (all of whom seemed to have a hell-bent penchant for partying.....hmmmmm). Thank you, Adrien Brody, for your hysterical turn as Salvador Dali - I'll never think of the rhinoceros the same way again.

Thank you, most of all, to the idea embedded in the script. As Dorothy so eloquently said from her Kansas sickbed: "If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with. Is that right?"

Bonus Bones: 5

Look quickly for a big brown one in the opening credits and a Two Face black/white one in the restaurant scene. Gotta love them French.