A look at a Hollywood life

Michael Almereyda, who directed Ethan Hawke in a version of Hamlet set in Manhattan, brings his skills to a documentary about Hampton Fancher. If you just said, "Hampton who?," you're not alone. Fancher isn't exactly a household name, although he's credited as one of the writers of 1982's Blade Runner. Fancher also gets a writing credit for the screenplay for the much anticipated Blade Runner 2049, due this fall. Once an actor, Fancher appeared in a variety of shows during the 1960s: Bonanza, Perry Mason and Gunsmoke among them. Not afraid of the talking-head approach, particularly in his film's latter going, Almereyda concocts a fascinating look at a California life that led Fancher to the movies. Fancher fled home at the age of 16 and traveled to Barcelona to study flamenco. He's been married and unmarried and involved with a variety of women, including actress Barbara Hershey. Fancher is an interesting talker and storyteller, the kind of guy who always sounds like an "insider" no matter how obscure the story he's telling. Sci-fi fans will most appreciate the movie for Fancher's explanation of how he became involved with author Philip K. Dick and later with Blade Runner, which was based on a Dick novella. Almereyda allows Fancher to tell his own story, but often shows us photos from Fancher's past or from TV shows and movies in which the actor appeared. I enjoyed spending time with Fancher in Almereyda's documentary about a man whose life seems possible only in a place where everyone aspires to make movies.

Action makes hash out of 'Total Recall'

This remake of a 1990 movie is more muddled than mind-bending.

The remake of 1990's >Total Recall is a cluttered, unsatisfying attempt at dystopian sci-fi that ultimately loses itself in a blur of action, much of it presented in a visually confused jumbles.

Like the original, this revamp is based on a Philip K. Dick short story (We Can Remember It For You Wholesale), but the 2012 edition tends to brood more, partly because it replaces Arnold Schwarzenegger with Colin Farrell. Farrell plays Douglas Quaid, a factory worker who's part of the great lumpenproletariat that serves the wealthy in what's left of humanity after a series of devastating wars at the end of the 21st Century.

Farrell's Douglas Quaid lives in The Colony, a futuristic slum that's located in Australia. The Colony is home to legions of drones who staff assembly lines in the affluent United Federation of Britain. Workers from The Colony commute to the United Federation via a kind of super-subway called The Fall, which travels through the Earth at breathtaking speeds.

After missing out on a promotion, Quaid decides to spice up his humdrum life by visiting Rekall, a facility that enables its customers to live out any fantasy they choose -- and to retain a memory of it. With Rekall, illusions become indistinguishable from real experience.

Quaid opts for a spy fantasy, but before his illusory journey gets rolling, he learns that he's not really a worker bee, but a highly trained real spy who's being pursued by the Chancellor of the Federation (Bryan Cranston), one of the least ominous villains in quite some time.

The rest of the story puts a confused Quaid into a situation in which his certainty about everything -- including his identity -- is undermined. His wife (Kate Beckinsale) may not be his wife. If a young woman Quaid meets as he flees his pursuers (Jessica Biel) seems familiar, maybe it's because he's had dreams about her.

Of course, there's also a resistance, led by a character named Mathias, played by Bill Nighy, who demonstrates -- with very little screen time -- that an interesting actor can survive in the middle of a movie full of futuristic bric-a-brac. Aside from Nighy, I wouldn't call any of the performances distinctive.

The best thing about the movie are its CGI enhanced settings, which -- at their best -- are reminiscent of the dystopian sleaze of Blade Runner, another movie inspired by a Dick story. Neither The Colony nor The United Federation look entirely real, but they're interestingly realized, as are various forms of futuristic transportation, notably hover cars.

But when it comes to overall impact, Total Recall's mixture of turgid exposition and frantic chases miss the mark, and if memory serves me, the original movie was better directed by Paul Verhoeven than this one is by Len Wiseman, who previously wrote and directed a couple of Underworld movies.

Look, you know a movie's misfiring when you half wish the actors and story would get out of the way so you could better explore the worlds that the filmmakers have created. Wiseman avoids the kind of mind-bending wooziness that would have made the movie more challenging, subordinating Dick's heady themes to a ton of brain-numbing action that tends to make us indifferent about the movie's outcome.

An FYI: The original was rated R and included a trip to Mars; the remake is earthbound and rated PG-13.

Damon, Blunt can't save 'Adjustment Bureau'

A misguided blend of romance and sci-fi.

The work of novelist Philip K. Dick has tempted many filmmakers – from Steven Spielberg (Minority Report) to Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall) to Ridley Scott (Blade Runner). So it hardly would be surprising if sci-fi fans are licking their chops in anticipation of The Adjustment Bureau, a new movie based on a 1954 short story by Dick. To them, I say, “Slow down.” By the end of this generally disappointing movie, you may well be licking your wounds.

The Adjustment Bureau is a misguided trifle that teams Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in a romance that’s constantly facing obstacles.

Dick’s ideas about free will and fate ultimately play second fiddle to romance, and writer/director George Nolfi even tosses in some feel-good sentiment at the end, perhaps as a way of appeasing those who've been put off by the movie's overly glum approach.

Damon plays Daivd Norris, an attractive young man who’s running for the U.S. Senate. When the New York tabloids expose one of Norris’ indiscretions (an immature but minor incident), he loses his lead in the polls. On the night of his election loss, Damon’s David winds up talking to himself in the men’s room of a Manhattan hotel. Suddenly, Blunt’s Elise emerges from a stall. It’s an unlikely but interesting meeting, and it successfully establishes some real chemistry between an affable Damon and an unfettered Blunt.

The script then proceeds to clobber Damon and Blunt with obstacles, most supplied by bland-looking men in fedoras. These men, who work for something called The Adjustment Bureau, look like bored mid-level executives. It’s impossible to say much more without spoilers, so I’ll leave it at that.

John Slattery, familiar from TV's Mad Men, and Anthony Mackie, who garnered high praise for his work in The Hurt Locker, are among the "adjusters" (my word, not the movie's) who race around Manhattan, sometimes using extra-normal powers to keep David and Elise apart.

Writer/director Nolfi does well enough with some scenes, but he doesn’t seem to have figured out how to make the whole enterprise credible. The Adjustment Bureau is a romantic fantasy and sci-fi meditation that never quite jells.

Perhaps the movie’s best visual ploy involves the way adjusters are able to move from one environment to another simply by opening doors. Open the door to a boardroom and they may find themselves in the substrata of a Manhattan street or, better yet, in the middle of Yankee Stadium, a spacious view that provides relief from what can be the movie's airless environment.

The Adjustment Bureau forces Damon and Blunt to fight against the film’s contrivances, which, alas, don’t make a whole lot of sense. Worse yet, the mystery Nolfi builds drains away when characters stop to explain things, always a bad sign. The more we know, the less interesting The Adjustment Bureau becomes.

No matter how much Damon and Blunt look and act like lovers who can’t keep their hands off each other, they can't turn The Adjustment Bureau into something that feels urgent and real. I suppose there's an irony in that: Two lovers spend the whole movie reaching for each other, but the movie holds us at arm's length.