Bland on land; better at sea

In the rescue film The Finest Hours, it's the storm that stars.

In 1952, a small Coast Guard team attempted to rescue members of the crew of an oil tanker that had been sheared in half during a vicious winter storm off the Cape Cod coast.

This story of heroism and high seas adventure makes a natural movie subject, and for the most part, Disney's The Finest Hours gives it decent enough treatment. Moreover, the fact that the story may be unfamiliar to most audiences adds a bit of freshness.

It's also true that The Finest Hours can tend toward blandness whenever the crew of a small boat isn't battling the ferocious waves of a nor-easter as it tries, in what seems to a doomed mission, to make its way out of a harbor and into storm-tossed seas.

Chris Pine plays Bernie Webber, a by-the-book member of the Coast Guard, which -- in the movie -- seems like a cottage industry staffed by locals who know the potentially treacherous Atlantic coastal waters.

Pine goes for all-American, cereal-box steadiness, and, achieves it, perhaps the point of boredom.

The rest of his three-man crew are mostly treated as props along for a February ride that -- if nothing else -- leaves you feeling chilled to the bone.

Ben Foster, an actor capable of high intensity, is pretty much wasted as one of the crew's members, and Eric Bana, with a southern accent, doesn't do much to distinguish himself as the Coast Guard station's commander. He's clearly ignorant about New England waters, but insists on having his way.

The fate of the ship that's under duress lies in the hands of a boiler-room engineer, Casey Affleck's Ray Sybert. After the ship -- The Pendleton, by name -- breaks apart, the stoic Sybert must convince his comrades that their best opportunity for survival rests on running the ship aground.

Sybert's shipmates don't trust him, and some argue that everyone should take to the lifeboats, a move that would bring about instant death in impossibly rough waters.

Affleck is not an easy actor to cast; here, his quiet brooding turns him into the movie's least routine character. Eventually Sybert figures out a way to maneuver what's left of the ship toward a shoal.

Holliday Grainger turns up as Miriam, a love interest for Pine's Bernie. She cajoles him into an engagement for which he professes not to be ready, and then spends the rest of the movie worrying that he'll be lost conducting a rescue mission that the town's craggy older residents believe is ill-advised.

Director Craig Gillespie too often leaves the high seas to follow Miriam's efforts to discover what's happening to her fiancé.

But in a way, none of what I've just said matters all that much because images of half of a four-story ship tossing in the seas or of a 36-foot boat trying to make it out of the harbor to find the lost vessel are what count the most.

The movie's ocean sequences are good enough to make The Finest Hours an acceptable -- if not great -- piece of January entertainment.

A footnote: I got no extra kick from the 3D presentation; The CGI storm was enough to hold my interest.

Charlotte Rampling in a subtle role

45 Years looks at a couple whose marriage is unsettled by a strange piece of news.

Your marriage is approaching the 45-year mark. You assume that there isn't much about your spouse that you don't know. You're living in the placid region where issues have been settled or, at minimum, productively ignored.

You are reasonably content.

And I say "reasonably" only because you're not an idiot, and you know that complete contentment lies beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.

And then...

Something happens that makes you wonder how right you've been about your partner. This unsettlement may not arrive in the form of a huge revelation, but it's enough to upset a carefully built balance. Think of it as a crack in the foundation, worrisome because it's likely to grow.

In the case of Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff (Tom Courtenay), the main characters in the British movie, 45 Years, the news that upsets the apple cart of their childless marriage arrives in the form of a letter. It seems the body of one of Geoff's former girlfriends, lost on an Alpine ski trip they shared more than 45 years ago, has been found in tact, preserved in the mountain ice.

From that point on, life changes, most particularly for Kate, who's in the midst of planning the couple's 45th anniversary party.

Kate isn't exactly jealous; it's more that she's baffled, concerned about her ability to peer into her husband's heart. And what if it turns out that she was Plan B, the woman Geoff accepted after he lost the woman he really loved?

To make this quiet drama work as well as it does requires actors who can operate in the subtlest of modes. For that, director Andrew Haigh has chosen well.

Rampling, who has been nominated for a best-actress Oscar, gives a fine, reflective performance as a woman who knows how to maintain composure while her insides are in turmoil. Almost entirely reliant on nuance and suggestion, Rampling's performance qualifies as one of her best.

Courtney upholds the male end of the bargain as a character who mostly keeps his inner life to himself. A retired manager at a local factory, Geoff begins looking at slides of his former girlfriend that he has kept in the attic. He also renews his smoking habit.

The movie, which culminates with the anniversary party, ostensibly tells the story of a couple, but 45 Years really focuses on Kate, and it leaves us to ponder how exactly she's going to continue with the rest of her life now that her relationship has been thrown into an unsettling new light.

A movie star meets his demon

Mojave is the kind of failed movie that offers occasional glimpses of what might have been, most of them concentrated in Oscar Isaac's impressively inflated performance as Jack, a dangerous loner who encounters a dispirited movie star (Garrett Hedlund) who has taken a solitary trip to the desert. Headland's character seems to be engaged in a metaphoric pity party: He wants to escape the pressures of fame that have plagued him since his teen years. Jack may quote Shakespeare, but he comes on like a demon sent to taunt Hedlund's Thomas. In a line that sounds more like it derives from a term paper than a living character, Jack tells Thomas he's into "motiveless malignity." After a pivotal incident, Thomas returns to LA, but we know that Jack won't be far behind, and that he'll bring violence with him. It's possible to view Jack as more a figment of Thomas' imagination than a real character. After all, Thomas has been living an unreal celebrity life for years. Writer/director William Monahan, who wrote the screenplay for The Departed, can't quite balance this screenplay's contempt for Hollywood with elements of film noir and silly bursts of intellectualism. Whatever is intended, Mojave proves only intermittently arresting.

Maggie Smith is the 'Lady in the Van'

The story of a homeless woman and the playwright who helped ... er ... tolerated her.

Homeless and a bit hostile, Mary Shepherd became a fixture in the London neighborhood where she parked her decaying van. Vagrant that she was, the feisty Shepherd eventually was allowed to park her van in the driveway of playwright Alan Bennett.

Amazingly, both Shepherd and the van remained in Bennett's driveway for 15 years. She sometimes popped into Bennett's home to use the bathroom. She became a part of his life -- albeit in frequently frustrating ways.

The Lady in the Van tells Shepherd's story, which in 1999 became the subject of a Bennett-written play starring Maggie Smith. On screen, Smith reprises her role as a woman of demonstrative opinions and slovenly personal habits.

Alternately exasperated and caring, Bennett (played here by Alex Jennings) tolerates Shepherd's presence long past the point where most of us would have found a way to move her somewhere else.

Director Nicholas Hytner, who directed The Madness of King George, which Bennett also wrote, sometimes shows us two versions of Bennett, both played by Jennings. One Bennett represents the writer; the other, a man trying to handle life's ordinary burdens. Not surprisingly, they argue.

If any actress knows how turn a line of dialogue into an ego-piercing dart, it's Smith, and the material gives her ample opportunity to emphasize the spikiest parts of Shepherd's personality.

Additional plot currents appear: During Shepherd's 15-year-residence in Bennett's driveway, the playwright's mother slipped into the fog of dementia. Bennett seems to pay more attention to Shepherd than to his own mother.

I could have done without references to Shepherd's decreasing bowel control, but, even in rags, Smith remains her estimable acting self.

That self has a reliable candor, as well as a capacity to touch us. At one point in her life, Shepherd was a budding concert pianist. Smith makes us aware that something valuable has been lost in a life that has veered off the tracks.

It may not be more anecdotal than epic, but Lady in the Van should be welcomed for giving Smith an opportunity to add another memorable character to an already substantial portfolio.

Plenty of creativity in 2016 Oscar shorts

One of the few things I consistently enjoy about the Academy Awards is the spotlight, however fleeting, Oscar shines on short films, still one of the most creative outlets for aspiring and even established filmmakers.

Although it's impossible for me to describe and analyze all 15 entries, I'll make this generalization: Much of what you'll see will leave you with more to talk about than many of the features you've probably paid good money to watch throughout the year.

If longer films sometimes seem short on substance, the same can't be said about the live action shorts that have found their way onto Oscar's shortlist.

Ave Maria, for example, mixes humor and heft in a 15-minute look at the culture clash that results when the car of a family of Israeli settlers breaks down outside a West Bank convent as the Sabbath approaches.

-- Day One takes on us on an unsettling journey when a new translator, an Afghan-American woman, joins US troops searching for terrorists in Afghanistan. Authenticity seems guaranteed: The movie's director, Henry Hughes, served two combat tours in Afghanistan.

-- The German entry, Alles Wird Gut (Everything Will Be Okay) deals with a desperate, divorced father who's trying to cling to a relationship with his eight-year-old daughter.

-- Shok tells the emotionally affecting story of the remembered friendship between two boys during the Kosovo war.

-- Although most of the shorts take place against a backdrop of war or turmoil, Stutterer (the UK and Ireland) charts the inner journey of a stuttering young man who has been involved an on-line relationship with a young woman. He faces a deep crisis of confidence when she suggests that they meet in person.

The animated shorts can be sorrowful and poignant (Bear Story from Chile) or artistically ambitious (Prologue, which takes place during the Spartan-Athenian wars). They also can be culturally significant: Sanjay Patel's Super Team introduces us to an Indian-American boy who's caught up in the conflict between American popular culture and his family's Hindu background.

The Russian entry, We Can't Live Without Cosmos revolves around the unbreakable bond between two cosmonauts.

Not surprisingly the documentaries are equally good -- and in some cases better that their fictional counterparts.

-- Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman team for an usual entry. Employing hand-drawn cells, Last Day of Freedom focuses on the heart-rending story of Bill Babbitt, a man who turns his mentally disturbed brother over to the police when he suspects that his brother has committed a terrible crime. Personal and provocative, the documentary also manages to speak to broader social issues, including the plight of veterans. We hear Bill's voice, but see only drawings of the story he's telling.

-- Chau, Beyond the Lines, from filmmakers Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck, tells the story of a 16-year-old Vietnamese boy born severely disabled after his mother was exposed to agent orange. Chau dreams of becoming an artist and fashion designer. There's no direct critique of the US for its use of Agent Orange, but the point proves inescapable as we realize that the effects of this toxic defoliant are still being felt in Vietnam.

-- Body Team 12 (David Darg and Bryn Mooser) takes us to Monrovia, Liberia, for a look at the work of Garai Sumo, the only woman on a team devoted to collecting the bodies of those that have died from Ebola.

-- Claude Lanzmann: Specters of the Shoah from filmmaker Adam Benzine is built around interviews with Lanzmann, who recalls the 12-year struggle to complete Shoah, a 9 1/2 hour documentary that's arguably the most important Holocaust film ever made. Unlike this illuminating short, Shoah never was nominated for an Oscar.

-- In A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness , director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy introduces us to 18-year-old Saba, a young Pakistani woman whose father and uncle disfigured her face in a botched honor killing. Saba made the mistake of marrying a man who didn't meet her father and uncle's standards.

Obviously, each of these films could (and should) lead to lengthy conversations, and all of them demonstrate just how much filmmakers can accomplish in when working in the short form.

*In Denver, shorts packages -- including animation and live action -- will be playing at the Mayan. The documentary shorts will be available in two packages at the Sie Film Center.

No splash from predictable '5th Wave'

In what appears to be another hunt for franchise gold, The Fifth Wave is now reading across the nation's multiplexes. A big-screen adaptation of a 2013 novel by Rick Yancey, 5th Wave stars Chloe Grace Moretz as Cassie Sullivan, a high school student whose normal life is disrupted when an ominous alien spaceship appears above her Ohio hometown. Dull, predictable and, at times, laughable, The Fifth Wave turns Cassie into a quasi-action figure after she loses her parents; she's also put in a position where she must rescue her younger brother (Zackary Arthur) from soldiers who say (wink! wink!) that they're members of the US Army. Liev Schreiber portrays the commander who leads these supposedly helpful troops. Cassie eventually receives assistance from a hunky young man (Alex Roe), who learns about the girlish crush she once had on high school footballer Ben Parish (Nick Robinson). Just about every character seems to have been cut from typical YA cloth, and even the aliens are strictly off-the-rack: They're able to assume human form. Only Maika Monroe's Ringer brings any edge to the proceedings. She's a young woman who can out-tough any young man. Director J Blakeson occasionally allows the movie to fall into soporific lulls, and I wouldn't call it fun to see a perpetually troubled-looking Moretz running around with a semi-automatic weapon. Add a few medium-grade effects sequences depicting alien-induced catastrophes, and you wind up with a movie that may offer something to young fans of the novel and little for anyone else.

'Ip Man 3' has just enough kick

Sometimes, you enjoy a movie for no other reason than it's just what you need at a certain moment. Never mind why, but that's the approach I took with Ip Man 3, the third installment in a story about real-life martial artist Ip Man, the mentor who nurtured the skills of the great Bruce Lee. Much of the acting is wooden or even laughably broad, and Donnie Yen, who plays Ip Man, isn't the most expressive of performers. To its credit, though, Ip Man 3 makes little effort to disguise the fact that it's a by-the-numbers martial arts movie -- and it includes work by Mike Tyson, who rumbles into the movie like a special effect. Look, no one is going to confuse Mike Tyson with a great actor, but the former heavyweight champ adds physical menace to Ip Man 3 as Frank, a "foreign devil" who has become a boss in 1959 Hong Kong. And with all apologies to the "art" in martial arts, t a confrontation between a slugging Tyson and a supple Yen offers amusing kicks. As directed by Wilson Yip, the story turns Ip Man into a resolute protector. In one of the movie's less probable twists, Ip Man fights to preserve an elementary school that the mob wants to take over. The story eventually leads to a face-off between Ip Man and another skilled Wing Chun master, Zhang Jin. I wouldn't rank Ip Man 3 as a martial-arts leader, but choreographer Yuen Woo-ping delivers enough bracing fights to keep the movie's motor running. Lynn Hung manages to give a real performance as Ip Man's wife, but you'll have to duck to avoid the sentiment that embraces her character when Ip Man 3 tries to jerk some last minute tears. Still, with this sort of movie, you take what you can get, and there's enough here to keep all but the most demanding fans happy.

A colorful, creative Brazilian import

Brazil's Boy and The World is one of five films nominated for an Oscar as best animated feature.

No one will accuse the Brazilian animated film Boy and the World of lacking color. Director Ale Abreu brings a simple, stick-figure style to drawings that can become so dizzyingly complex they elicit "wow" responses. Aubreu's story focuses on a rural boy who sets out to find his father, a man driven from farm life by the need to find work in the city. During his travels, the boy witnesses the dislocating ills that accompany population shifts. The movie makes sober points, but in ways that can be both poignant and fanciful. Abreu and his team give us views of cities and factories that are at once ominous and alluring. Inside Out remains the front runner for this year's Oscar, but it stands in stark contrast to Boy and The World. Pixar's Inside Out imaginatively looks inward, as it deals with the way personalities develop. Boy and the World looks outward, illustrating the ways in which a boy discovers a world that's not entirely hospitable, but nonetheless amazing. Don't worry about subtitles. When the characters speak, they mumble incomprehensibly. Perhaps that's because there's no need for words in this visual treat of a movie.

'Spotlight' wins Critics' Choice Award

The Critics' Choice Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association were announced in a televised broadcast from Santa Monica Sunday night, perhaps providing hints about where Oscar is headed. I'm a voting member of the BFCA, which -- as you'll see -- recognizes more categories than Oscar. The BFCA, for example, makes room for comedies, sci-fi and horror, ensemble acting and outstanding young performers.

Here are this year's winners:

Picture: Spotlight
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Actress: Brie Larson, Room
Director: George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Supporting Actor: Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Original screenplay: Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Adapted screenplay: Charles Randolph and Adam McKay, The Big Short
Animated feature: Inside Out
Foreign language feature: Son of Saul
Documentary feature: Amy
Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, The Revenant
Score: Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
Acting ensemble, Spotlight
Comedy: The Big Short
Actor, comedy: Christian Bale, The Big Short
Actress, comedy: Amy Schumer, Trainwreck
Young actor/actress: Jacob Tremblay , Room
Sci-Fi/Horror: Ex Machina
Action movie: Mad Max: Fury Road
Actor in an action movie: Tom Hardy, Mad Max: Fury Road
Actress in an action movie: Charlize Theron, Mad Max: Fury Road
Production design: Colin Gibson, Mad Max: Fury Road
Editing: Margaret Sixel, Mad Max: Fury Road
Costume design: Jenny Beavan, Mad Max: Fury Road
Hair & makeup: Mad Max: Fury Road
Visual Effects: Mad Max: Fury Road
Song: See You Again, Furious 7*