Chris Peckover/Zach Kahn's BETTER WATCH OUT: a holiday babysitting movie for the ages

Yikes -- they just don't do this in movies! Well, now they do. In fact, there is maybe one film (I will not give away its name but it was made in 1956) with a similar theme in which some very bad things happen. Based upon a famous Broadway play, the Hollywood movie version, of course, had to futz around with the finale to make sure conventional justice was done. BETTER WATCH OUT, on the other hand, dispenses with just about all the rules of this particular game that you will have formerly viewed. And so well done is it that the movie becomes an instant classic among Christmas-themed, dark thrillers that also boast great comedic flair.

The conception of director/co-writer (with Zach Kahn) Chris Peckover, shown at right, the movie begins as your typical, if rather sexually interested babysitting movie featuring a fouler mouth than usual. (The film is R-rated, the reasons for which, as it moves further along, you will ever more fully understand.) This is a home invasion tale with a twist that, once it occurs, takes us into quite uncharted territory.

That's it for plot, folk. This one deserves utter no-spoiler respect, and I suspect its many fans will rightly refuse to disclose any secrets.

What I can say is that Better Watch Out has been cast to perfection, starting with that babysitter, the beautiful, poised and intelligent Australian actress, Olivia DeJonge (above and below) -- who is simply a knockout.

Her twelve-year-old charge is played by the angelic-looking young Aussie actor, Levi Miller (above, left, and below, right, who also played Peter in the ill-fated Pan), and Mr. Miller walks away with the movie. They don't give acting awards for films of this genre, but if they did, the kid would be a shoo-in. He is that extraordinary.

The rest of the cast is equally well chosen, from our hero's best friend, played by Ed Oxenbould (at left, above) to Aleks Mikic (below, right), who plays our heroine's current boyfriend, and Dacre Montgomery, who takes the role of her ex.

In the roles of our little sleepwalking cherub's parents are two more favorites: Patrick Warburton and Virginia Madsen (below, right). They're just fine, too. Everyone gets quite into the spirit of things here, and the result is a humdinger.

If you read some of the negative reviews, say, on the IMDB (critics were mostly bowled over by the film), you will find a sensibility that screams, "Wait! You just can't do something like this in a holiday/home-invasion movie!" (Unless you're Michael Haneke, of course.) But you can. And they have. And the result, as they say, is a lulu. Don't let this one get past you under any circumstance.

From WellGo Entertainment, and running a just-right 89 minutes, after a short but successful theatrical run, the movie hit DVD and Blu-ray this week -- for rental, purchase and, I believe VOD/streaming, as well. 

QUEEN AND COUNTRY: His current retrospective ends, and the new John Boorman film arrives

There are but a few days left to see on the big screen at New York City's Film Forum a selection of the work of British filmmaker John Boorman, an auteur whose films are always worth seeing (often the least regarded of which -- Zardoz, The Tiger's Tail -- offer the most surprising rewards). One of Boorman's most popular films, and the one that brought him the largest arthouse acclaim, as well as a bunch of Oscar nominations and BAFTA awards (Deliverance brought him his first batch of Oscar noms and mainstream popularity), was 1987's Hope and Glory. Now, nearly three decades later, arrives the sequel-of-sorts to that earlier biographical film that covered the filmmaker's days as a child during World War II. This new one, QUEEN AND COUNTRY, tackles the character's young manhood in the British military during the Korean War.

What a pleasure and a joy this new film is! Wonderfully funny, gorgeous to view (the period details are scrumptious and on-mark) and finally quite moving, too, Queen and Country proves there is still immense life and talent to this now 82-year-old filmmaker. The love -- of family, of country (with an often ironic and telling eye) and of the men and women in his life -- that Mr. Boorman (shown at right) conjures here is likely to find a hugely empathetic audience in English-speaking countries, surely, and perhaps far beyond those borders, as well.

Utterly accessible yet absolutely specific in its grasp of details concerning time, place and person, the movie's great achievement -- as is so often Boorman's too -- lies in how it shows us life in its rich comic/sad complexities and its characters as complicated and problemed people who are sometimes simply impossible to set right.

The filmmaker's beautiful tapestry includes his stand-in, Bill Rohan, wonderfully played by Callum Turner (above) and his best pal Percy Hapgood (a firecracker performance by Caleb Landry Jones, below).

Around these two revolve the rest of the wonderful cast of oddball, important characters -- from the beautiful, troubled young woman Bill encounters one evening at a concert (Tamsin Egerton, below)

to the discipline-crazed officer and bête noire of the boys, Sgt. Major Bradley (David Thewlis, below center, in yet another of his amazing, scary and deeply-felt performances)

to the no-one-does-more-with-less Richard E. Grant (below) as the superior officer, Major Cross

and a simply terrific performance from Pat Shortt (below), as the company's supreme grifter, Redmond, a role that even Phil Silvers' Sergeant Bilko might envy.

Add to this a first-class (though not upper class) funny and disparate family for Bill, and you have the makings of a hugely memorable hit that should delight arthouse audiences (perhaps into repeated viewings) before moving into even some mainstream venues, too.

The scene of that family (and friend) watching the coronation of the current Queen Elizabeth on their new television set -- a similar scene occurred in the little-seen (you really ought to) but excellent remake of The Scapegoat -- and who they suddenly see in the background provides yet another surprising twist and jolt to this splendid movie.

How it all comes together -- anything but perfectly, but believably and with a fine mixture of revelation and rue -- makes for one of the year's loveliest movie gifts. And one that just might find itself in memory when it comes time for next year's flock of awards-giving. (The movie ends, by the way, with a perfectly delightful nod to the career that will come.)

Meanwhile, Queen and Country -- via BBC Worldwide North America and running a never-too-lengthy 115 minutes -- gets its U.S. theatrical premiere this Wednesday, February 18, at NYC's Film Forum and in Los Angeles the following Friday, February 27 at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. In the weeks to come the film will open across the country in most major cities. To see the entire list of playdates, with cities and theaters, simply click here.  (To view the schedule for the remaining Boorman films in the current Film Forum retrospective, click here.)