In Brad Anderson's STONEHEARST ASYLUM, old-fashioned class, content & character trump CGI

Good stories still matter. Genre-jumping film direc-tor (and sometime writer) Brad Anderson appears to understand this quite well, as all of the eight movies of his I've seen ad-here to this, what-ever may be their particular genre. His most recent, STONEHEARST ASYLUM, with a screenplay by Joe Gangemi, is based upon a story by one of the masters of the form, Edgar Allen Poe, from whose work literally hundreds of movies have been made.

Mr. Anderson, shown at right, is a clever, intelligent director (The Machinist, Transsiberian, Vanishing on 7th Street) who knows how to keep us interested and, if necessary, on the edge of our seat. Stonehearst Asylum is his attempt to reinvigorate the Gothic thriller, and I'll be damned if he hasn't done a nifty job of it -- from the "A" list cast he's acquired to the extremely classy production design (by Alain Bainée), cinematography (Tom Yatsko), and art direction (Carlos Bodelón and Alexei Karagyaur). I can't tell you how good this movie looks; you'll just have to view it for yourself. Its budget surely wasn't enormous by today's standards, yet it looks like a billion-dollar production.

The story? It's all about an unusual mental asylum of a century or more past, into which arrives a new young doctor (Jim Sturgess, above, left) bent on, of course, doing good things. The early scene in which the head doctor (Ben Kingsley, below) makes the rounds with his new assistant is charming, funny and not a little odd -- which soon makes very good sense.

Anderson and Gangemi allow us viewers to stay maybe one step ahead of plot development, but no more than that. And because the movie is full of visual treats and exciting scenes, we're happy to revel in the good, old-fashioned fun of it all.

The excellent cast includes a lovely Kate Beckinsale (above, and evidently on loan from her crappy Underworld series) as the "lady in question" and the indispensable Michael Caine (below), whose particular role we can't go into without giving away spoilers.

David Thewlis (shown at right, below, with Jason Flemyng), who has not been so menacing since his star-making role in Naked, makes a marvelous villain, and key supporting roles are beautifully handled by the likes of Sinéad Cusack and Brendan Gleeson.

There are fights and flights, humor and sadness, expectations and surprise -- all of this embedded within a beautifully realized creation of a time and place that are long gone. Identity is key, as it is in many situations. But here, it is used both smartly and playfully.

Especially keen is the movie's fine sense of humor, found throughout and particularly noticeable in the delightful yet appropriate costuming (by Thomas Oláh). The movie is set during Christmas and the arriving New Year, and these holidays have seldom been graced with such ironic wit and humor as here. Champagne, anyone?

Stonehearst Asylum, from Millennium Entertainment and running 112 minutes, after a too-brief theatrical release, hits DVD and Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, December 16.

THE CALL: Another smart (for awhile) and enjoyable (totally) film from Brad Anderson

Even when it goes off the track in its final quarter, THE CALL still manages to be a lot of fun. Prior to this it has been surpri-singly smart, as well as enjoyable. The latest from not-sung-enough (you can't exactly call him "unsung") director & sometimes writer, Brad Anderson (below), this movie continues his winning streak of creating a fascinating oeuvre in which each film is different (from the mainstream and from each other) but con-sistently engaging.

Take a look at Anderson's resume, and you'll see him jumping from genre to genre as though playing hopscotch, with nary a miss in the bunch. Some films work better than others, but all are well enough conceived and executed to qualify for quality stuff. Comedy to horror, thrillers to character studies, drama to rom-com-cum-sci-fi, Anderson has been there, done that and moved on.

With The Call, the filmmaker has his biggest budget for some time (maybe ever..?), and he's put it to good use. Here we are in the Los Angeles area 911 head-quarters, known as "The Hive," with Halle Berry (on poster, top, and bottom, center), as an operator who's very good but maybe gets a little too close to her callers. After one young woman is abducted and murdered while on the phone with our co-heroine, six months later another young woman (Abigail Breslin, below, right) is kidnapped, and the phone-call-cum-chase is on.

Step by step, the movie is surprisingly adept at keeping us nailed to the screen while making rather good sense (not always a mainstay of the thriller genre) regarding place, character and event. Things happen intelligently and quickly, as new characters (like the one played by Michael Imperioli, below) are introduced and dealt with.

Only in the final section does logic and gray matter lose out to some sort of: what? Producer-inspired insistence that everything must come down to a face-off between our two heroines and the bad guy? I'm just guessing, but the ending -- while done with snappy style and enough pizzazz to carry us along, sailing on the good will that the movie has so far built up -- is ludicrous and unbelievable.

Overall, though, The Call is so exciting, well-written (by Richard D'Ovidio), -directed and -acted that I think you'll be (mostly) glad you watched. (That's Morris Chestnut, left, with David Otunga, doing the police thing, above.)

From TriStar Pictures (it's always good to see that flying horse again) and running a crisp 94 minutes, the movie came to DVD and Blu-ray (on which it looks quite sleek) this week, for sale and rental.

Chills, scares & kindness: Brad Anderson's VANISHING ON 7th STREET hits theaters

What a shame that Night Catches Us has already (and so recently!) been used as the title of a movie, one for which its meaning proved abstruse, at best. It would have made the perfect fit for Brad Anderson's new film VANISHING ON 7th STREET, a title that, while place-specific, is little more than prosaic. The actual film, however, is anything but. A truly creepy, frightening, bizarre and oddly moving film about perhaps the ultimate "fear of the dark," this exceedingly swift and smart genre movie delivers the goods on every front,  from concept to execution -- including screenplay (by Anthony Jaswinski), dialog, direction and performances -- with style to spare. And on the kind of low budget that I suspect would send certain other directors into apoplectic fits.

From the time of his breakout indie Next Stop Wonderland through Happy Accidents, Session 9, The Machinist, Transsiberian and now this new one (with the occasional cable TV gig between times), Anderson has been a talented and terrifically diverse filmmaker whom you can count on to provide smart entertainments that often offer something more. Long after seeing one of his films, an idea, a moment, performance, line of dialog or visual memory will come back to haunt you, but pleasantly. The filmmaker has now tackled the rom-com, fantasy, thriller, horror, drama, and sci-fi genres with equal aplomb. If he hasn't come out with the best film in any of these, he always manages a good one. And with Vanishing, he might actually have a "best" on his hands.
 
This unusually chilling movie starts with an almost immediate bang: a disappearance. From there we move extraordinarily quickly into a situation fraught with immediacy and terror. What has happened to others may happen to the folk we're suddenly stuck with and whom we become rather fond of fast. These include Hayden Christensen (above), Thandie Newton (below, right) and Jacob Latimore (below, left) and John Leguizamo (one photo down).

There is also a little girl (Taylor Groothuis, at bottom) who appears to be camping out in a nearby church. How these five connect, interact, help and hinder each other makes the short film (well under 90 minutes, as I recall) work to tremendous effect. If you buy the initial premise, which I will not give away, it is more than easy to go along with just about everything else, and soon you'll be biting your nails to the quick.

So primal is the fear generated by the movie's premise, so skillfully have Anderson and Jaswinski mined it for shock, surprise and detail, and so immediate and full of feeling are the performances of the five principals that I can't imagine being more strongly caught up in a fantasy/sci-fi/horror situation than I was with this one.

Why is this "thing" happening? Is humanity to blame in some -- or many -- ways? Are our survivors guilty because of "survivor guilt," or is something deeper and more individual going on? Much is hinted at but concrete answers never appear, which is just as well. The victims don't have time to ask such questions, and at the speed and pacing on which Anderson insists, we barely do, either. The ending, by the way, is simple, stun-ning and so right. I can't wait for the sequel.


Vanishing on 7th Street opens this Friday, February 18, in New York City at the Village East Cinema. Click here to learn other playdates, cities and theaters around the country.