Click on the link to view behind-the-scenes materials for The Contractor, an espionage thriller starring Wesley Snipes. Andy Culpepper produced this featurette for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (which holds the copyright) and shot it using a Canon GL1 mini-DV camera on location in Sofia, Bulgaria. Culpepper edited the footage using Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 software on a laptop during production of another film on location near Dallas, Texas. Motion pictures on Andy’s resume include Sony Screen Gems’ Burlesque (release date: 2010), Sony Screen Gems’ Easy A (release date 2010), Sony Screen Gems’ Takers (release date 2010), Sony Screen Gems’ Mardi Gras (release date: 2010), Screen Gems’ Fired Up! (2009), Screen Gems’ Prom Night (2008), Screen Gems’ First Sunday (2008), Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s Impact Point, (2008), SPHE’s Wieners (2008), SPHE’s This Christmas , Screen Gems’ When A Stranger Calls (2006), SPHE’s Black Dawn (2005) , and Screen Gems’ The Forsaken (2001).

If he is not the word of God God never spoke.

One sentence from the ruminative prose of The Road revisited as voice over narration in the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel – provides proof of the Texan’s formidable ability to craft compelling fiction. That same line also serves to underscore the unenviable task awaiting anyone attempting to bring the much-lauded writer’s work to the screen.

McCarthy gave screenwriters the source material for the films All the Pretty Horses (based on his 1992 National Book Award winner) and No Country for Old Men – awarded the Oscar for best picture last spring. But books are books, and movies are movies. Writing that astounds the ear on the page sometimes can’t avoid coming off seeming stilted when it’s spoken by a character in a film.

Why point out what seems an obvious difference between the two story-telling disciplines? Because McCarthy’s latest novel-cum-motion picture seems to have generated a love-it-or-hate-it attitude among his many fans.

The task of interpreting McCarthy’s words for the big screen version of The Road fell to British playwright and screenwriter Joe Penhall whose strengths may also have been his weakness: playwrights occasionally engage in distorted and surreal dramatic enterprises which call upon us to dig deep for that necessary suspension of disbelief. The sometimes unwieldy language you’d think little of wading through as a member of a live audience might seem seriocomic when the ambient noise falls somewhere between the rustling of candy wrappers and the crunching sounds molars make on popped kernels of corn.

If you’ve come across critical complaint citing the ponderous dialogue – bear in mind Penhall didn’t make this stuff up: It’s McCarthy, word for word. Penhall tackled this project from a background seemingly ideally-suited to handle the weighty themes and heightened language of McCarthy’s book. The British scribe won the BBC’s Best New Play of 2001 for his production, Orange/Blue, adapted for television in 2005.

Having wondered prior to seeing the film whether Penhall should have bothered, I’ll posit that I find more reason to praise his adaptation of the novel as each day passes. I’ll give Penhall credit for sticking to the letter of the book. In far too many instances, screenwriters – or their studio employers – fix what ain’t broke.

McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic father-son story won the Pulitzer Prize for 2007. Many who’ve read the book – including this reporter – lavished it with the kind of praise that generally comes out of the mouths of gushing college literature students. Making a movie out of such might strike some as an easy assignment. But McCarthy is one tricky customer.

McCarthy breaks rules and manipulates others. He eschews punctuation. He uses some words in ways you’d be hard-pressed to find put in practice by others of his ilk. Consider his use of “glass” as a verb, rather than as a noun. That definition can be found in a dictionary but not often located anywhere else. Notice the usage as past participle:

When it was light enough to use the binoculars he glassed the valley below.

McCarthy similarly employs “glassed” in No Country for Old Men The practiced linguistic contortion is not so much jarring as it is illuminating: McCarthy alters our perspective at the same time that he allows his character to take in the surroundings. There’s a prism through which reality is filtered, and it’s far more likely that what looms in the distance does not bode well.

In the book, The Road, McCarthy doesn’t bother giving his central characters names. The man. The boy. It works. What makes his book stand apart from anything I’ve read heretofore is the manner in which McCarthy constructs a gripping tale even as he denies his characters any sort of tangible identity.

It’s restraint bordering on genius, the effect it has on an observer taking in the father and son’s uncertain forward motion. This sort of determined anonymity works well in a physically-ravaged post-apocalyptic setting where the terrain and the mindset of its inhabitants have undergone drastic alteration: We are never quite sure what lies in store for our protagonists.

What defines this father and son falls under the heading of some vestigial notion better left to the past. Immersed in the film, even as in the book, we, as filmgoers, find sufficient latitude to superimpose our own imaginations, and how we choose to envision the endpoint may tell us more about ourselves than we care to admit.

Nevil Shute’s darkly romantic fifties classic On the Beach meets the grim premise of The Road and ups the ante: the world’s population is dying, continent by continent, though little damage seems to have resulted around the various population centers unscathed by the obvious signs of warfare. Australia remains a land of verdant hills and sandy beaches, but the winds from the northern hemisphere carry deadly radiation. The government has issued cyanide pills to everyone. The horror unfolds along with the viewer’s realization that the world will continue to exist – sans the human race to muck it up any further.

So what’s worse? Knowing you may be forced to take your own life? Or knowing you may be left behind and forced to fend for yourself in a famine-filled world reduced to rubble where around every turn you may run into a band of cannibalistic hooligans who think of you as a happy meal? The prospect for just such a situation confronts the characters in “The Road.”

In Nevil Shute’s time – the 1957 book became the 1959 movie – a film such as The Road likely could not have been made without coming across like some kitschy episode of TV’s Lost in Space. Today’s sophisticated computer technology enables filmmakers to create worlds – or to destroy them – with greater and greater ease.

Moviedom’s technical accessibility begs another question: Just because you can, does it mean you should? Some people who’ve read the book voice the opinion the movie shouldn’t have been made.

A road picture spread out on a bleak landscape does not lend itself to an attractive range of marketing possibilities in a period when potential ticket-buyers are dealing with an abysmal economy.

My writer friends engaged in a spirited online debate over director John Hillcoat’s efforts to bring McCarthy’s book to the screen: The verdict ranged from adjectives including depressing, uplifting, awful, powerful – in short, comments were all over the place.

An intrinsic advantage enjoyed by novelists is their ability to present a limitless canvas and color palette which the reader is free to fill with the tools of his or her unique frame of reference. For some, the resulting universe will always be superior to the cinematic intervention by a camera and projector. But in The Road, the filmmakers tread lightly around the reader’s sensibilities. Cinematography fits the story and the on-screen hues mirror moods in a process not unlike the lens of a reader’s imagination: there’s never the danger of suspending disbelief because the look isn’t right, though it may be turned upside down before the picture forms in the brain.

Australian filmmaker John HIllcoat – the man calling the shots on this film – had taken on a similarly cumbersome subject with his directorial debut, the 2005 drama The Proposition. Starring Guy Pearce, Noah Taylor and Richard Wilson, the stark account presents a moral dilemma of Shakespearean proportions: A lawman on the trail of a gang of outlaw brothers captures the younger man and offers him a pardon if he’ll track down and kill his older sibling.

If Penhall painted in bleak colors previously, he stretches his portrait for The Road across a frame of what pushes against the frame of a canvas depicting unrelenting despondency.

Viggo Mortenson embodies all the futile desperation of a father fighting to move his son to safe harbor, the kind of physical journeyman effort that reads character actor more than movie star. Charlize Theron makes an appearance in a series of flashbacks as the wife and mother. It’s not a showy role, and she’s largely wasted here even as she makes the best of what she’s been given. Codi Smit-Mckee – the boy – comes across as an almost astonishing physical hybrid of the two actors cast as his parents.

What — or who — lies in wait at the end of the road? We care about the characters inhabited by these actors only in so far as their on-screen images represent a condition for the world in the moments their actions play out — no more, no less – and that may be more than enough. It’s as if they exist in suspended animation, a sort of shock which follows trauma — and as a result, McCarthy intends for us to join them in that same suspended state from which comes his story’s intense suspense.

Half a century ago, Joseph Campbell wrote that the hero wears a thousand faces. In the film with the monstrous budget – the live action/animated Avatar – the face count adds up to two, and one of those faces is decidedly blue with luminescent freckles.

The electronic game and cyber worlds have given us a skewed definition of what an avatar represents, but the original meaning from the Sanskrit translates “one who crosses over.”

In James Cameron’s blockbuster return to feature films, the one who crosses over would be his protagonist Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a marine who loses the use of his legs during a tour of combat in – what else – an oil-producing country the government of which is hostile to these United States. But Sully does not give up the good fight. He’s back on duty, albeit piloting a wheel chair – in this story, an alarmingly primitive conveyance, one glaringly and most likely intentionally anachronistic given the action set so far in the future.

Expository revelations unfold in the plot of Avatar in rat-a-tat fashion from the movie’s outset. Cameron serves up far more than feats of derring-do scattered among his typical array of patented visually-stunning special effects: With a line here and there, the director makes a well-wrought point worth noting – in “Avatar,” he has something to say that should be taken for more than face value, blue or otherwise.

Make no mistake: the Titanic filmmaker who famously proclaimed himself the “king of the world” from Oscar’s main stage has fashioned a movie one part myth, one part adventure and all parts message. Never mind the Hollywood bromide about calling Western Union: Cameron doesn’t need a telegram, or a carrier pigeon, or even an overnight special delivery package. This tech-savvy storyteller lets his medium carry the message from start to finish, plot point by plot point.

As Avatar opens, Jake has rejoined his marine buddies who head through space toward an Earth-like moon called Pandora where natives are restless and resources are plentiful. One raw material in particular, the not-so-subtly-named ore, unobtainium, can be found only on Pandora and only in one conspicuous location. Cameron – who penned the script – may have employed such klutzy wordplay to tweak the sensibilities of those who may not share in his out-of-this-world view. This is undeniably a love letter to the environment.

Unobtainium is so valuable to the population of a dying planet (Earth) the marines land full force to shore up a commercial enterprise’s efforts to get the job done. But first the invading military/industrial duopoly must tolerate a little science in the name of good public relations. Sound familiar?

Jake’s assignment on Pandora straddles two sides of this divide: He’ll take the place of his dead identical twin, a scientist scheduled for a six-year deployment in the body of an avatar – a lab-grown DNA hybrid of his late brother – so that he can fit in among the natives, his consciousness embedded in the body of a Na’vi lookalike. Meantime, Jake will do covert double duty: He’ll report his findings to the badass colonel of the marine unit charged with making certain the scientists don’t let diplomacy stand in the way of their mission — loading up on buckets and buckets of that prized unobtainium.

From the moment that Jake has his first not-quite-cute meet with a Na’vi maiden named Neytiri, the story heads into the woods by turns deeper and deeper as does Jake’s Pandora-walking avatar. I won’t venture further into the plot: I hate to read reviews that spoon feed the story from beginning to end. Instead, I’ll offer you my take of the story’s smartly-scripted subtext and symbols.

Not since 1999 and The Matrix (http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Movies/9903/31/matrix/) have I come across such an accessible major motion picture so rich in mythological, literary and Judeo-Christian references. Like The Matrix, Avatar expands expectations of what a feature film can offer an appreciative audience.

Early on, Cameron lets us know that we’re following a protagonist who represents much more than what meets the eye. The Sanskrit definition – one who crosses over – refers to a deity who comes to Earth in body form. Is his Jake a Christ figure? No – he isn’t sacrificed. Does he undergo apotheosis? Oh, yeah.

Both Jake and his dead brother, Tom, have been named with a nod to the Bible. Thomas was also known as Ditimus, the original “doubting Tom,” and Jake is short for Jacob, a second-born twin whose name translates from the Hebrew as “the foot catcher.” Jacob was born in a breach birth – his hand clasping the heel of his slightly-older brother, Esau. In Avatar, Jake is a metaphorical foot-catcher: Becoming an avatar allows him the chance to walk on two feet again, if only during his cross-over or dream state.

The native population of Pandora refers to Jake and the other scientists who cross over in avatar form as “dream walkers.” The image once again mirrors Jacob’s experience wrestling in his own dreams with angels, a manifestation of a troubled spiritual relationship with his Heavenly father. Jake wrestles with his conscience: should he continue his allegiance to the marine corps even as he becomes more and more integrated as a member of the Na’vi?

Jake’s last name, “Sully,” an abbreviated form of the Irish surname, Sullivan, fits well within the framework of more than one thematic possibility. Pandora is a world which offers an abundance of enormous trees. The Na’vi are a people who derive much of their sustenance – both physical and spiritual – from the vast forests around them. Their “home tree” is a place to live; their “sacred tree” is the repository for the spirits of their ancestors and the lifeblood of their culture from the “time of the first songs.”

The team of scientists – led by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) – discovers that a root system links the trees: a sort of global network, a benevolent counterpoint to what “The Matrix” presented. But where phones provide entry to The Matrix online network – detrimental to the beings it affected – the network in Avatar is biochemical and supported by the trees’ root systems: Dr. Augustine calls it “signal transduction” like that afforded through acetylcholinesterase and neural synapses created between the cells of the human brain.

So, while “Sully” and its Irish origins may, on one level, subconsciously pay homage of sorts to the Druids and pantheism, the name also works on another level: Jake’s name is also a verb meaning to soil the purity of something. Jake’s fellow marines and the corporation which employs them seem hell bent on doing exactly that to the environment of Pandora.

Then, there’s the aspect of Pandora itself. The moon shares the name of Greek mythology’s first woman, whom legend tells us opened a container from which sprang the world’s evils – as well as one final item, hope. Like the Bible’s Eve who plucked the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, Pandora allowed her curiosity to create havoc, though not through any malice on her part.

The curious creature in Avatar is Sigourney Weaver’s character, Dr. Grace Augustine. Once more, filmmaker Cameron has donned his philosopher’s cap: the Catholic Church’s St. Augustine expounded his belief that only through the grace of God could man escape the damnation of original sin. He also believed in the concept of a “just war.” Jake – fully accepted as a member of the Na’vi – will eventually lead the natives in just such a fight against the military/industrial might set against their world.

Cameron practices almost Dickensian delight in naming his characters: Zoe Saldana’s Neytiri (nature); Dr. Norm Spellman (normal for him is studying hard). The Na’vi lack only a consonant and vowel short of spelling “native.” Then, there’s the wicked humor in naming the cold-hearted, crassly commercial industrial big shot, Giovanni Ribisi’s selfish Selfridge (he’s both self-centered and frigid). Is it going too far to suggest the Na’vi names Eytukan and Tsu’tey hold similar meanings? I have my theories, but I’ll not push it.

Beyond the environmental concern Cameron exposes in Avatar, he gives the ticket buyer plenty to ponder. Along with his veiled reference to our dependence on oil from countries such as Iraq and Venezuela, Cameron takes a cinematic swipe at the debate to provide affordable health benefits for all. Sully can get his legs back when and if he returns to Earth, but only at a price: Science has found a way to regenerate his spine, but not on a grunt’s pay. If he plays ball with the colonel, strings can be pulled: “You get me what I need, and I’ll get you your legs back when you rotate home. Your real legs.”

How are we introduced to Dr. Augustine? Her first line reads: “What’s wrong with this picture?” as she holds her hand out waiting for a cigarette, something she smokes like a chimney throughout her time on screen.

For all the brain-power that went into writing this script, one glaring error caught my attention, and I’ll admit I’m being pickier-than-picky here. But I caught it, and for the briefest of moments, the mistake took me out of the movie. Dr. Max Patel, one of Augustine’s team of scientists, gives Jake this advice: “Try and use big words,” he says of a way to impress the dubious Dr. Augustine. I would hope someone with a doctorate and with advice on sounding smart would say, “Try to use big words.”

James Cameron’s latest effort employs all the motion capture magic the folks at New Zealand’s WETA Workshop can muster. But we’ve become accustomed to expecting visual feasts from them after a trilogy called The Lord of the Rings. Expensive, yes: some have estimated the budget for Avatar anywhere from three to four hundred million dollars. After the first month in theaters, the box office take should make Cameron’s spending spree look like a no-brainer.

Aside from the costly gee whiz special effects running throughout this blockbuster’s nearly three-hour span, what remains most salient: a deliciously-smart script and story.

What starts out looking a lot like Pocahontas and Captain John Smith morphs quickly into its own tale for the ages – especially if awards come calling in its wake a la Titanic. Cameron may not make as big a splash this time out, but the numbers are in. So, should he stand with hands aloft and continue to shout that he’s king of the hill, it will take something bigger than his blue-in-the-face hero to shut him up and knock him down.

From the soundtrack for the feature film, Twilight: New Moon, “Meet Me on the Equinox” becomes the first single from the movie soundtrack. This single features the band Death Cab for Cutie.

Considered one of the great talents of his generation, the artist Modigliani moved in exalted circles. Rivera, Cocteau and Picasso were his contemporaries. The eponymous film starring Andy Garcia as Modigliani, brings moviegoers the story of the artist’s often turbulent life in Paris after the end of World War I. This rich and layered feature made under two hundred thousand dollars at the U.S. box office: nothing blows up and there are, sadly, no car chases. You could always rent the film and drive fast around the block a few times before you go home to make up for that, I guess. Or you could just settle back and take a breather from all the big screen bedlam and enjoy a picture about something. This could be the kiss of death (oh, sorry, but it’s true): I find this sort of film a terrific way to educate myself about events in history I might never have been exposed to in school — while I get to munch on popcorn in the comfort of my own living room. Is that cool, or what? Plus, the acting is great. And the scenery. And the cinematography. And when I feel the need for an explosion, I can always take the empty popcorn bag, blow air into it, and pop the sucker. Bam! Modigliani is rated R and runs two hours and eight minutes.

The 2005 film Mr. & Mrs. Smith stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in the title roles as two seemingly normal people living in the wedded bliss that seems to exist for “perfect” couples ensconced in suburbia.This was the movie that spawned the fodder that fueled the stories that filled the pages that inspired the covers that sold the copies that flew off the shelves that greeted the shoppers that needed distracting from the more important issues (pun intended) of the day: this is the one that gave us “Brangelina.” Pitt and Jolie made the movie and fell in love. That begot the soap opera that America seems to live for. But back to the movie. The photogenic pair play a seemingly normal — if highly, highly attractive — husband and wife who get up, go to work and come back to share a normal life of hearth and home. Before you can say “Stick ‘em up,” we discover that, not only are these two hotshots highly-paid assassins, they’re really cool. Yahoo movie critics give it a C+ while users say, hey, give this one a B. Mr. & Mrs. Smith runs one hour 52 minutes and is rated PG-13.

American Idol runner up Adam Lambert takes a back seat to no one following the end of last seasons’s Fox series in which Adam came a close second to winning the top spot in the long-running talent showcase. No matter. He’s snagged a recording contact and a soon-to-be hit single accompanying the release of the new Columbia Pictures blockbuster-in-waiting, 2012. Adam has been all over theaters in the film’s trailer promoting the movie’s release. He’ll swamp MTV with this video. What is so bad about finishing second? Not a dang thing. The single, “Time for Miracles,” is courtesy RCA/Jive. And it is an awesome example of this young man’s talent. Whoa.

If you’ve ever found yourself wincing at the sound of a Barney song (you may be one of the lucky few who does not know, as do I, the lyrics to “Castles So High,” but that’s okay, though I do digress) — if you do not know the musical library that is Barney, you won’t appreciate the tactic of using the purple dinosaur’s music in the war against terror. You know how it is with some stories: You hear them, you read them, you see them played out on the TV and the big screen, you’re not quite sure what to think — and you wind up shaking your head in disbelief. Well, here’s another one, so brace yourself for The Men Who Stare at Goats. For the past several decades going back to the end of the Vietnam War (and perhaps well beyond that), the U.S. Army reportedly has studied the use of the paranormal (no, not that movie that cost all of 10 grand and has now made umpteen millions) in warfare. ESP, remote viewing, phasing (don’t ask — I’ve seen the film, and I’m still not certain I can explain it) and other Psi-Op (that’s what those of us who’ve been exposed to Psychic Warriors — or Jedi — come to call psychological operations, don’t ya know) procedures are part of what is in the film is called the New Earth Army. Peace, love, psychic understanding all come into play. Lots of flowers. Communing naked in hot tubs. No Beverly Hillbillies of which I am aware, but why not? The film is directed by Grant Heslov (producer of Goodnight, and Good Luck) and stars his frequent collaborator, George Clooney. Co-stars include Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey. Yahoo movie critics grade this one a B minus; users weigh in with a C. The film runs some one hour 33 minutes and is rated R. Film clips courtesy of Overture Films.

He brought audiences such film fare as Notting Hill and Love, Actually. Now writer/director Richard Curtis takes moviegoers back some four decades to the days when rock music was a product of English musicians — while their tunes were not so easy to find on the radio waves of Great Britain. Enter pirate radio and, now, the movie by the same name. Curtis is well-known for his love of music — Love, Actually was replete with some of his favorite songs. For Pirate Radio,, Curtis compiled a list of more than a hundred songs he recalled from the days when rock music was beamed from transmitters on boats off the shore of England so music fans could enjoy a couple hours of entertainment they otherwise would not have had. The filmmaker winnowed his list to some 70 tunes, fashioned a script around them with a story that pays homage to the efforts of the Deejays who rocked with the waves from stations floating offshore. Curtis assembled a cadre of talented actors, many of whom he’d worked with previously. Bill Nighy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, and Kenneth Branagh co-star. The film — which runs two hours 14 minutes — is rated R. Film clips courtesy of Focus Features.

From director Lee Daniels and with the hefty blessings of TV mogul Oprah Winfrey and movie honcho Tyler Perry comes this much-lauded and anticipated darling of the festival circuit. Precious is the film adaptation of the 1997 novel from the poet/singer Sapphire. The story of a young woman who struggles with parental child abuse, illiteracy and weight problems delivers a message of hope, tolerance, understanding and perserverance. The lead actress of this film and its title character is an unknown New Yorker named Gabourey Sidibe, the daughter of an R & B singer. Sidibe shares one thing with the young woman she plays: She is overweight. Other than that, there are no comparisons to be made. This articulate up-and-coming performer came to the attention of the director who says he knew immediately he’d found the right person for the part — a choice that seems likely to place Sidibe among the favorites to be nominated for best actress. Other nominations may also follow: co-star Mo’nique — a go-to comic actress not generally known to audiences for her dramatic skills — turns in an astonishing performance as the hard-hearted mother who turns a blind eye to her daughter’s dilemma. Director Daniels went out of his way to defy casting convention for this film. Not only did he pick an unknown for the lead and a comedienne for the critical role of Precious’ mother, he added two music stars to the cast: Lenny Kravitz and superstar songstress Mariah Carey are on board. Serving as the film’s executive producers are Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. Paul Patton rounds out the cast which includes “The View” star Sherrie Shepherd. The film rates a solid A from Yahoo users and 7.3 stars on IMDB. Precious runs one hour 49 minutes and is rated R. Film footage courtesy of Lionsgate.