Taken (Pierre Morel, 2009). An entirely unimaginative action film poured into the form of a parental nightmare turned revenge fantasy. Liam Neeson plays a retired CIA operative who calls upon his formidable combat skills when his teenage daughter is kidnapped by sex slave traders on a trip to France. It lurches from violence-saturated scene to violence-saturated scene with a little bit of empty seediness thrown in for variety. It’s hard to develop emotional investment in the characters when the actors shuffling through it and even the movie itself seem to have already given up on the notion of being anything more than a clockwork time-killer. It’s about as interesting as ninety minutes of unadorned ticking.

A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971). I don’t consider this to be Stanley Kubrick’s best film, but it may be the one that most potently distills all of the qualities that are his trademark: astonishing visuals, a thrilling disregard for the rigidity of cinematic rules, psychological deviousness, enticing chilliness, a pitch black comic sensibility, and a dim view of humanity. It also boasts one his most effective collaborations with an actor, as Malcolm McDowell absolutely embodies the bully boy ultraviolence fan Alex DeLarge. He probes into dark places within the human psyche with such authority that the performance and role inevitably shadows every other turn in his ridiculously prolific career. One clear measure of the film’s everlasting effectiveness is the great power and menace it still holds, even when watching the most familiar, most iconic scenes.

Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2009). A couple is spooked by some mild disturbances that happen during the night in their new home, a phenomenon that the woman claims has dogged her since childhood. They purchase a video camera that they can let run through the night, capturing any strange occurrences that might happen when they’re snoozing away. That’s the starting premise of writer-director Oren Peli’s debut. His stylistic approach follows the model of earlier horror sensation The Blair Witch Project in that every bit of what shows up on screen was purportedly shot by the characters themselves, presented to the audience as if it were highly disturbing found footage. The gimmick works well, and Peli clearly thought through the importance of finding understandable reasons for the terrorized to keep the camera running. The closing jolt is weirdly unsatisfying though, perhaps because prior to its arrival Peli got the most mileage out of the simplest elements, like a door slamming shut or a photograph nestled in the attic’s nest of insulation. Going for a final big scare feels almost like a betrayal of what came before.

Yes Man (Peyton Reed, 2008). Peyton Reed’s previous movies, while hardly masterpieces, were at least vivid with personality. Even his much-maligned and mis-marketed summer bummer The Break-Up is consistently interesting (or so it seems, since I haven’t sat and watched it start-to-finish in the manner necessary to give it a proper review). This woeful comedy, on the other hand, is a bland exercise in cranking out studio product, as indistinct as a stick of unsalted butter. Jim Carrey, who seems about ten to fifteen years too old for his character, plays a man who attends a self-help seminar and becomes convinced that he must say “yes” to any offer, possibility or question that comes his way. It’s a riff on his old massive hit Liar Liar with moody openness standing in for physical contortions. As his love interest–and there’s not much to the character beyond that–Zooey Deschanel initially seems like no one explained the nature of the movie to her. Then she starts to seem like she doesn’t care that no one explained the nature of the movie to her.

Meet John Doe (Frank Capra, 1941). I’m all for Conan O’Brien’s testimony against cynicism as a life philosophy as long as we’re still allowed to let that unique brand of negativity flavor movies. Capra’s pointed comedy is about a booming grassroots political movement that is actually being manipulated by the power structure to fortify their already iron hold over the populace. Gary Cooper plays the down-on-his-luck drifter who’s drafted to be the figurehead of the movement because he’s got the right look and “aw shucks” demeanor about him, and Barbara Stanwyck plays the tough, brassy newspaper reporter who invented him, becomes his handler and then defender. Capra mixes in his some of his patented populist cheerleading as characters rage against the machine in the noblest, most polite manner possible, but its the grumpy doomsaying that sticks (and is remarkably timely).

(Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”)