A competent biopic that smartly alternates between the rise of Beach Boys impresario Brian Wilson (played as a young man by Paul Dano) and his later life (during which he is played by John Cusack), where the ravages of mental illness, substance abuse and the dubious oversight of Svengali psychiatrist Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) have taken their toll. We meet the older Wilson as he tries to buy a Cadillac from saleswoman Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), revealing the only peace he can find, alone with her in the car at the dealership, while Giamatti and his associates hover on the other side of the glass.

The film spaces nicely, and the early pressures on Dano (fear of flying, his abusive and controlling father, the stress of touring, an aversion to conflict) are manifested in Cusack’s caged, distrusting performance, one of many really nice touches in the film.  Near first time director Bill Pohlad delves into but doesn’t overplay Wilson’s demons, choosing to give equal access to his love of the art of pop music and visionary work in the studio.  Nothing in the picture feels hackneyed or stale, a difficult feat in the face of traditional musical biopics like Ray and Walk the Line.  Also, in the era where “Behind the Music” has left these stories vulnerable to the Dewey Cox treatment, the film feels fresh and immune to parody.

Banks and Cusack also radiate the wonder of first love, subordinating the “bio” aspect of the movie to a heartfelt romance.  They have a convincing chemistry, which bolsters the efforts she undertakes to wrest Wilson from Landy.

As Landy, Giamatti is the weakest link.  He is ferocious where he should be merely intrusive, maniacal instead of crafty.  Landy may well have been that excessive, but he didn’t just walk off the street; he was a pop psychologist to many stars, from Alice Cooper to Rod Steiger.  The performance is so over the top, you wonder how Wilson, even in his vulnerable state, could have succumbed to such a bully and how Landy could have had the smarts to set himself up so nicely.

Currently on Hulu.

Moving, didactic and unsurprising.  The film suffers from what I call the Milk syndrome, a heartfelt fealty to its subject so strong it obliterates any sense of authenticity.  Martin Luther King (David Oyelowo) is etched in marble, and marble is both beautiful and boring.  While the film is occasionally poignant, we are left with its one-dimensional hero, colorless acolytes (Coretta Scott King and everyone who works with King) and cartoonish villains (Tom Wilkinson’s LBJ and Dylan Baker’s Herbert Hoover are particularly ridiculous).

The film’s best moments come when King is not ennobled, but crafty, as when he explains to two Selma locals why he needs to elicit violent repression from the authorities for publicity purposes; King as tactician is just more interesting than King as emblem.

The worst moments come in quiet discussions, where the activists trade speeches littered with biblical passages and maxims like “eyes on the prize.” There are too many long sermons provided to educate an audience director-writer Ana DuVernay doesn’t trust (a conversation between Coretta and her husband about his infidelities has a reserved dignity that is otherworldly).

In a film punctuated by Oyelowo’s expert recitations of King’s actual speeches, the effect is tiresome.  The characters are in the middle of a pressure-cooker maelstrom, uncertain as to which road to take, hemmed in by any number of political and social forces, and beset by violence at any turn.  Yet, they are reduced to the roles of resolute and/or suffering nobles.  When one black man wants to go get his gun after the marchers have been brutally bloodied, he is met with a sermon on the foolhardiness of his instincts and its effect on their historic struggle.  After an ass-beating, it’s a rare man who can summon a soliloquy.

The film is beautifully photographed. Cinematographer Bradford Young (who, in A Most Violent Year, captured early 80s NYC) employs a lyrical, classic style he describes as a “period, Kodachrome-esque look.”  The effect creates memorable moments, some stunning.

But pretty isn’t enough.

Full disclosure – I came in late, but I saw enough of this obvious, treacly, hackneyed, preachy pile of cornpone to feel safe that I didn’t miss the good part. Hitler is destroying all of Europe’s art. The Monuments Men, each and every one a gentle soul borne of devotion to those things that ennoble us, arrive in Europe to stop him. In the process, they say things like: “You can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they’ll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, you destroy their achievements and it’s as if they never existed. That’s what Hitler wants and that’s exactly what we are fighting for” and “Who would make sure that the statue of David is still standing or the Mona Lisa is still smiling? Who will protect her?”

It’s not hard to figure what director and co-writer George Clooney was aiming for, an inspiring, old-fashioned period piece that trumpets the virtues of humanity in a world mired in barbarism, updated to include a little wit.  Call it “Band of Oceans 14.”

Clooney fails utterly.  Every character is stock, and the film feels untethered, veering wildly from the cornily comic to the embarrassingly sentimental (the deaths of Downton Abbey master Hugh Bonneville and Jean Judarin from The Artist are laughably operatic).  Bill Murray and Bob Balaban go for some night air, meet a scared German boy-soldier and share a cigarette with him.  Makes you think, right?  Then, Matt Damon, a member of the mission to save the art, steps on a land mine, prompting Clooney to quip, “Why d’you do something like that?”  And then Elliot Gould and Brad Pitt show up and they all have a drink at The Bellagio.

Clooney took a very interesting story and made it a bunch of hooey. Turns out Hitler didn’t order the destruction of art. Now, is Hitler the kind of historical character you actually need to lie about to make him look worse? I submit he is not. But this manifest picture isn’t taking any chances.

A promising period piece based on the true story of the illegitimate, black daughter (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) of a British naval officer, given to the care of his aunt and uncle (Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson) as a child in the late 18th century. Dido Elizabeth Belle is raised with a foot in two worlds — with title, means (200 pounds a year) and support yet still divorced from full status (for example, she may not dine with the family when guests are present). Complicating matters is the fact that Wilkinson is the Earl of Mansfield and the Lord Chief Justice, deliberating over a fraud case in which slavers may have thrown their sickly human cargo overboard for the insurance proceeds.

The film is lush and has a Downton Abbey feel. Unfortunately, it’s about as subtle, anachronistic and schmaltzy as Downton Abbey.  Belle must contend with the easy racism of her time, racism represented by an odious, money grubbing family that includes scheming Miranda Richardson and her eldest son, Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy from The Harry Potter movies, who is really evil; you can tell because he was a member of Slytherin House and he sneers in every scene). Everything is spelled out for the audience, and there is no nuance to any character. Belle’s true love, played by Sam Reid, is the abolitionist son of a minister, so ardent and well-meaning you want to punch him. And as Wilkinson agonizes over his court decision and rails against the impudence of Reid, Watson reminds him that she once knew a young man who wanted to change the world.  Guess who that young man was?

The case at the heart of the picture is also decidedly and unnecessarily dull. So dull that in real life, the owners dropped the claim against the insurance company amidst a storm of bad publicity. Yet, the real Earl of Mansfield presided over a case much better suited to the film, that of a slave who had been brought to England, escaped, was caught and then was forced onto a ship bound for the West Indies. The slave owner argued his right over property, but the Earl set the slave free, judging that colony slave laws were of no force in England and concluding, “The state of slavery is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it.”

Such an interesting life deserved a better picture.