Alicja Bachleda and Colin Farrell

Neil Jordan is a resolutely independent and idiosyncratic filmmaker whose enthusiasms have often tread a fine line between gritty realism and unsettling fantasy in movies as diverse as “The Crying Game,” “In Dreams,” “The Butcher Boy” and “Breakfast on Pluto.”

In his latest, “Ondine,” the Irish writer-director seems off on an aimless ramble through the mystical mists of a craggy, dreamlike seascape that might or might not be populated by beautiful mermaids.

A wistful wisp of a tale that lightly calls to mind Rob Reiner’s conventional 1984 romantic comedy “Splash,” but more rightly resembles John Sayles’ folklorish 1994 film “The Secret of Roan Inish,” Jordan’s work here seems more propelled by local legend, subdued performances and the lovely scenery around his coastal Irish home than by any urgent need of storytelling.

“Ondine” introduces us to Syracuse (Colin Farrell in light, mournful mood), a hardscrabble fisherman and recovering alcoholic. Syracuse’s woes include a bitter estrangement from his hard-partying wife; a wheelchair-bound daughter, Annie (Alison Barry), struggling with debilitating disease, and a long, frustrating stretch of fishless days.

But one magical morn, Syracuse hauls up his net and finds a young woman trapped there, just clinging to life. He quickly revives her and learns that she is Ondine (Alicja Bachleda, Farrell’s real-life companion), a mysterious, beguiling creature whom this rustic fisherman is instantly drawn to.

Offering the frightened Ondine shelter, Syracuse finds his fortunes quickly changing, and each day his nets are filled with fish. As he harbors romantic thoughts toward Ondine, the wise Annie reveals her own suspicions about this newly arrived beauty – that Ondine must be a selkie, a mythical creature said to be a seal that can take human form.

Understandably, Jordan steers clear of easy sentimentality and invests the story with a touch of kitchen-sink realism, mostly in the form of a violent stranger who arrives and threatens to upset Syracuse and Annie’s newfound spiritual uplift. But the film’s easy pace and light manner never really waver much and things never really turn dark.

Contributions by Jordan mainstays lend a convivial feeling to the whole enterprise, with actor Stephen Rea registering strongly as a sardonic priest and Syracuse’s pal, and cinematographer Christopher Doyle capturing the wild beauty of Ireland’s rugged coast and the melancholy majesty of her skies with a painter’s eye.

“Ondine” is a film touched with blarney and a bit of rustic Irish indulgence – light, lovely and not terribly substantial. But as adult fairy tales go, it exudes enough easy charm to make us set aside cynicism and believe for a moment in selkies.

- Dennis King

“Ondine”

PG-13
1:43
2.5 stars
Starring: Colin Farrell, Alison Barry and Alicja Bachleda
(Mild action, brief nudity)

This week, the most offbeat DVD to appear on release lists is:

“Goatsucker”

Joining a rogue’s gallery of mystery monsters that supposedly stalk the wild nether regions (count Bigfoot or Sasquatch, Yeti or the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster among them) is a mysterious creature called Chupacabra. The name translates into English as “goat sucker,” and it’s described in folklore as a nocturnal, reptilian predator that leaps upon and sucks the blood of livestock, especially goats.

It’s the perfect, creepy premise for a direct-to-DVD horror feature out Tuesday that gives off less-than-subtle vibes of a “Blair Witch Project” knock-off. “Goatsucker,” written and directed by Steve Hudgins (“Maniac on the Loose”) and featuring a cast of unknowns, follows a gaggle of tourist hikers as they trek off into the woods on a light-hearted effort to spot the elusive, mythical Goatsucker in his wild habitat.

But, as always happens in horror-movieland, the cheerful innocence of the enterprise is suddenly shattered by increasingly deadly incidents that leave the hikers in mortal peril and certain that the blood-thirsty Goatsucker is more than a mere legend.

Apparently, Hudgins isn’t the only filmmaker drawn to the myth and marketability of this colorfully named monster. A 2005 short film by writer-director Matthew Reel tells the tale of a desert-dwelling serial killer haunted by satanic visions. It’s titled “The Goat Sucker.”

“Goatsucker” is not rated and runs 88 minutes. It’s being released by Victor Multimedia.

- Dennis King

BY GENE TRIPLETT

Convincing kids that classic movies are cool is John Lithgow’s summer job.
The award-winning actor and children’s author reports to work at 7 p.m. Sunday on the Turner Classic Movies channel as the host of “Essentials Jr.,” a weekly series designed to introduce young people to vintage family-friendly movies.
First up is “Old Yeller,” the 1957 boy-and-his-dog favorite from Walt Disney that Lithgow first saw at age 12.
“It was the first good cry I ever had in a movie theater,” Lithgow said in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles. “I even cried when I watched it again this spring. It’s just a beautifully made film.”
The film, based on an award-winning novel by Fred Gipson about a frontier family that adopts a loving and courageous mongrel dog, is typical of most of the films presented on “Essentials Jr.,” a kids’ version of “The Essentials,” which is a Saturday evening series hosted by TCM’s Robert Osborne and actor Alec Baldwin, introducing a more adult audience to films that are deemed essential viewing.
“In so many cases, you really have to persuade people to give these movies a chance,” Lithgow said. “Because, after all, I am pitching them to families and young people, and it’s hard to persuade a young person to watch a movie that was made 50 years ago.”
This will be Lithgow’s second summer hosting “Essentials Jr.,” and it’s a role to which he’s well suited in more ways than one.
The son of a retired actress and a theatrical producer, the Rochester, N.Y., native studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and made his debut on Broadway in 1973 in David Storey’s “The Changing Room,” earning a Tony Award for best featured actor in a play.
Since then, he’s performed in nearly 20 Broadway productions, winning another Tony, three Tony nominations, four Drama Desk Awards and induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame. Lithgow’s extensive list of film credits includes back-to-back Oscar nominations for “The World According to Garp” and “Terms of Endearment,” plus prominent roles in “All That Jazz,” “Twilight Zone: The Movie,” “Footloose,” “Kinsey,” “Dreamgirls” and four Brian De Palma thrillers: “Obsession,” “Dressed to Kill” “Blow Out” and “Raising Cain.”
His TV credits include an Emmy-winning performance in an episode of “Amazing Stories” and three additional Emmys for his performances on the long-running comedy “3rd Rock From the Sun,” which also scored him a Golden Globe, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, an American Comedy Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He recently earned another Golden Globe for his performance as the title character’s father on the TV series “Dexter.”
So, Lithgow has the credentials to talk about film. But he’s also well-qualified to talk persuasively to kids.
Aside from raising three children of his own, Lithgow has penned seven New York Times best-selling children’s books, created two activity books for parents and kids, developed readers for use in elementary schools and compiled 50 classic poems aimed at young people.
He’s won two Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Awards and four Grammy nominations for his children’s recordings. Simon & Schuster recently published his newest children’s book, “I Got Two Dogs.” He’s performed concerts for kids with the Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Baltimore and San Diego symphony orchestras and at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
It would seem that Lithgow likes kids.
“It’s totally selfish on my part,” he said. “I just love entertaining kids. I have my own children, and when I was a kid, I had a little sister 10 years younger than I, and I was like an assistant parent to her. And I think it all began with that.”
His mission with “Essentials Jr.” is to entertain, but it’s also a different way to educate.
“It’s a matter of giving them the context, giving them some information, just enough to make them curious and sort of give them a hook,” Lithgow said. “And in so many cases, it’s a matter of telling them about the time that the movie was made, and the reason why it was such a success and spoke so much to that moment.”
Lithgow cites as an example “To Kill a Mockingbird,” released in 1962. Set in a small Alabama town in the 1930s, the film tells the story of a lawyer (Gregory Peck), also a widower and father of two small children, who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.
That may seem like heavy viewing fare for children, but it’s included in this summer’s selection of “Essentials Jr.” films, and Lithgow will tell you why.
“You take a movie like ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ which was a movie created right at the beginning of the civil-rights movement, and what a statement that was, about tolerance and intolerance,” he said. “I don’t think that’s too much for a young person to hear at all.
“And I remember ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ as the first kind of grownup film that really meant something to me. … And in most cases I do speak from my own kind of dimly remembered experience of seeing these films as a kid, and trying to get them to look at them the same way.
“I think, of the films this summer, that is the one that kind of places the bar the highest for kids. But it is a film that’s told completely from the point of view of two young kids. And those two adorable children, those two great child actors (Mary Badham, Phillip Alford). And it’s mainly about their relationship to their dad.
“I can’t really speak for a child’s experience of that, but I think that it makes it a very, very engrossing film for them,” Lithgow said. “Yeah, it’s disturbing. I mean there is a flat-out dangerous racist, and these are unsettling ideas. But I think a lot of the best stuff for kids is kind of unsettling. If kids are untroubled by things they see and experience in movies and television — you know, the best of it — help them to learn from the experience.”
Other films
TCM’s “Essentials Jr.” schedule this summer also includes:
“Duck Soup” (1933).
“The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T” (1953).
“Bye Bye Birdie” (1963).
“Speedy” (1928).
“Beauty and the Beast” (1946).
“Buck Privates” (1941).
“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” (1939).
“Road to Morocco” (1942).
“The Secret Garden” (1949).
“Swiss Family Robinson” (1960).

(Courtesy Paul Herman)

It’s a fundamental truism of Hollywood that in the movie business, nobody works until the writer writes. But having written, and setting the gargantuan machinery of movie making grinding forward, the screenwriter quickly becomes persona non grata.

In a business that lives or dies by the stories it tells, the men and women who dream up the stories are widely viewed as hired help, expendable toilers with no power to decide what finally appears in the big picture.

That’s the essential gist of anecdotes told by the industry’s top screenwriters in “Tales From the Script,” a unique nonfiction book/documentary film project now making the rounds of colleges, lecture venues, cinemas and bookstores everywhere.

The duel work is the brainchild of Peter Hanson and Paul Robert Herman, who combine ample credits as directors, producers, screenwriters and book editors and who conceived the project as a way to examine some of the myths and mysteries of that most misunderstood craft of screenwriting.

Gathering a virtual who’s who of Hollywood scribes for both talking-head appearances on film and anecdote-filled entries in a soft-cover book, the authors have managed to compile an entertainingly comprehensive gabfest in which screenwriters discuss the various hardships and occasional triumphs of their elite profession. It’s a calling that promises fabulous salaries but virtually guarantees rejection, frustration and humiliation at the hands of bean-counting producers, imperious directors and egotistical stars.

Among the wordsmiths dishing on the frustrations and rare satisfactions of their glamorous work are William Goldman (“The Princess Bride”), Shane Black (“Lethal Weapon”), Nora Ephron (“When Harry Met Sally”), John Carpenter (“Halloween”), Frank Darabont (“The Shawshank Redemption”), Jane Anderson (“How to Make an American Quilt”), Paul Mazursky (“An Unmarried Woman”), Bruce Joel Rubin (“Ghost”), Paul Schrader (“Taxi Driver”), Ron Shelton (“Bull Durham”), John August (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”) and dozens more.

It’s not surprising to learn from their comments that in the highly collaborative, creative and ego-driven art of filmmaking, big-name directors and celebrity actors dominate, producers with MBAs and no writing skills wield yea-or-nay power and screenwriters occupy the lowliest rungs on the food chain. One writer describes he and his colleagues as “egomaniacs with low self esteem.”

Stories abound here of writers being used and abused, hired and fired, courted and then cast aside, of good scripts being rewritten into hash, of deals broken and hopes dashed. “It’s really not as glamorous as you might imagine,” one writer says. “You job is to get punched in the face.”

Among the juicy tidbits revealed here:

Ron Shelton nearly cut the signature speech in “Bull Durham” that helped Kevin Costner become a bankable star.

Shane Black (“The Last Boy Scout”) retreated from public life for years because of the heated hype of early successes and multi-million dollar script sales.

John August (“Corpse Bride”) has made three films with director Tim Burton but has spend less than 24 hours in the presence of the arty filmmaker.

William Goldman, Oscar winner for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men,” reveals why he’s never had an urge to direct.

Josh Friedman was hired by Steven Spielberg to adapt H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds,” even though Spielberg hated the screenwriter’s take on the material.

Naturally, most of the screenwriters are scrupulously politic and vague in pointing fingers or laying blame for scripts mangled or for backs stabbed. No one burns bridges here or risks being blackballed. Likewise, these successful writers are not immune to a little self-serving hyperbole (writing a great script “is the hardest thing in the world to do”). But if the highly paid scribes occasionally lapse into whiney tones about their rarefied profession, their small rants are nevertheless always colorful and entertaining.

“Tales From the Script,” both on the page and on the screen, is a must for aspiring screenwriters and for film buffs wishing to draw back the curtains and see how sausage is really made in Hollywood’s dream factory.

The DVD version of “Tales From the Script” was released in April by First Run Features and retails for $24.95. The soft-cover book, published by It, an imprint of HarperCollins, is available in bookstores or online for $15.99.

- Dennis King

BY DENNIS KING

NEW YORK – If Common hadn’t become a hip-hop music star and a promising screen actor, he no doubt would have tested his skills in the hardwood arena of professional basketball.

As a Chicago native and lifelong Bulls fan, the 38-year-old rapper (born Lonnie Rashid Lynn) grew up in the rough-and-tumble world of pick-up hoops games and agile trash talk that helped shape his well-honed verbal acuity. And he dreamed of playing in the NBA.

Life led him down another, equally lucrative path, but for his latest outing on film, “Just Wright,” Common said he got to live out that fantasy of basketball stardom in a way only the Hollywood dream factor could manufacture.

Starring opposite the imposing Queen Latifah, the soft-spoken, athletic Common more than filled the bill for the role of Scott McKnight, a star point guard for the New Jersey Nets who gradually falls for Latifah’s tomboyish physical therapist Leslie Wright while she helps him come back from a career-threatening knee injury.

“I grew up playing basketball; it was all I thought about,” Common said during a round of press interviews hosted by Fox Searchlight. “My first dream was to play in the NBA, so this was a dream role for me in many ways – a dream to play the lead in a serious movie and a dream to play in the NBA. For those two months we filmed, I got to be in the NBA.

“I prepared by training with an assistant coach from the Nets,” said the actor, whose previous roles were as villains in action movies and crime dramas like “American Gangster.” “He just basically said, ‘Look, I’m treating you like you’re a player right now. We’re going to go through all the drills – defensive drills, ball-handling drills, whatever. I ended up getting in really good shape because of the training I did. Running up and down that court is a lot.

“The most exciting moment for me was looking across that court and seeing Dwayne Wade (of the Miami Heat). I’m thinking, like, I gonna take him to the cup. Show him what I’m really about. It’s the competitive nature in me, the Chicago basketball player in me. I wanted to challenge him. Even when we weren’t filming I was still trying to drive and see how far I could get with him.

“And actually with Dwight Howard (of the Orlando Magic), during one take he just decided to block my shot into the stands to let me know, hey, he could to that anytime.”

Common said he was especially pleased that his character could serve as a positive role model and help dispel some widely held negative stereotypes about professional athletes.

“I took pride in Scott being a good guy and having a good heart,” he said. “And also being interested in jazz music and being well spoken and classy. I listen to LeBron James and Kobe Bryant in interviews and these dudes, they speak well, they’re intelligent human beings. They’re destined for greatness, and that’s why they’re great.

“I think I was able to show a side of NBA stars in a way that we don’t always see them,” he said. “I think the film as a whole shows an image of African-American characters and people in a way we don’t normally see them.”

Shooting at the Izod Center, home of the Nets, Common said, was like being at an NBA fantasy camp with all his hoops idols.

“ It was basically like we were living the life. Like I said, I was in the NBA for like those two months,” he marveled. “It was just exciting for me to be up there with Dwayne Wade and Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis (Orlando Magic) and those cats.

“My friends, well, let’s put it this way – I had a bad experience in a celebrity all-star game a couple of years ago,” Common recalled with a rueful laugh. “I was playing and it was like five seconds left, and I got the rebound and was turning around to hit the game-winning shot – in my mind I’m gonna hit the game-winning shot – and I turned to shoot and my shot got blocked by this girl, some WNBA player.

“All I did when the game ended was put my face in my jersey,” he said. “My cell phone started lighting up with texts from friends saying, ‘don’t ever say you’re from Chicago.’ So this film was definitely my redemption, and I wanted every scene to be authentic. I had a stunt double that was there, but he did not get in the game at all, cause I’m like, ‘there’s no way I’m gonna look at that screen and see a stunt double there when I know I can do all the things necessary, basketballwise.’”

Common and Latifah

Common said he’s grateful to Latifah, whose Flavor Unit Entertainment produced the film, for giving him his first shot at a leading man role.

“It was a big step for me in terms of letting people see me in a different type of role,” he said. “My vision has always been to become a leading man and to take on roles that are diverse.

“I was definitely nervous, because my mother would call me like every other day and say, ‘this is it, this is going to be the big one.’ And I’d say, ‘Ma, you’re putting more pressure on me. I’ve already got everybody around looking at every little thing I’m doing.’ But I enjoy that pressure a little bit. That’s why it was exciting, because I’m up for the challenge and I live to grow. And I think I was able to grow a lot throughout this process, and I love taking on roles that challenge me in many ways.

“The funny part about this role is, I think out of all the characters I’ve played this one is the closest to me,” Common said. “You know, Scott McKnight is a good guy. He loves his mother, and that’s very similar to me. And I also feel like with all his popularity, he wants love, he wants to be in love. He was caught up in wanting the prototype woman, the quote-unquote what beauty is supposed to be. But he learned, and I feel a lot of those things are things that I’ve experienced. But in this role, I had to go around to get back to the root of it.”

Common said the lessons of this film are lessons that he’d like to impart to his own daughter.

“I really try to instill in her that she should just love herself and let her know that she’s loved by me and by all of us around her,” he said “And I let her know that there are going to be things that don’t always go her way, but she just has to work through them. And I always tell her, say your prayers, say your prayers, because that’s what gets me through a lot of things.

“But more than anything I keep her in the mind state of loving herself,” he said. “I feel like for all kids, man, no matter who you are if you love yourself it can help you in a lot of things in life. And I really think that’s what this film is encouraging and endorsing. Hey, Latifah showed that Leslie Wright was really a confident woman, and she loved herself no matter what society deemed to be pretty. You gotta be size three to be pretty. She knew she was beautiful, inside and out. That’s important for all of us to know.”

This week, the most offbeat DVD to appear on release lists is:

“Three Stooges Collection, Vol. 8: 1955-1959”

With the Tuesday release of this final volume of Three Stooges features, the complete short works of the beloved knucklehead trio are now available on DVD. The 32 Columbia Pictures short subjects contained in this three-disc collection now bring all 190 of the Stooges’ two-reel short works to the home video market.

Vol. 8 picks up in 1955 with the last of craggy-faced Shemp Howard’s appearances with Moe Howard and Larry Fine, before he died and was replaced in the third spot by comic man-child Joe Besser.

The shorts featured here are a mishmash of low-budget efforts with appearances by “fake Shemps” and cut-together works using stock footage and recycled storylines. Still that old maniacal Stooges magic does manage to surface, especially in remakes such as “Bedlam in Paradise” and “Creeps,” which may well be better than the originals, and in rarely seen shorts such as “A Merry Mix-Up,” “Horsing Around” and “Flying Saucer Daffy.”

Among notable shorts included in this volume are “Blunder Boys,” an amusing parody of “Dragnet”; “Fifi Blows Her Top,” with Larry reciting Hamlet’s soliloquy while chewing gum; “Cash and Hash,” a slick reworking of “Shivering Sherlocks,” and “Bedlam in Paradise,” which features Shemp as Satan’s minion, Mr. Heller, getting a pie in the face and prompting the classic Stooges end line, “Well, that beats the devil!’

“Three Stooges Collection, Vol. 8: 1955-1959” runs 176 minutes on three discs. It’s being released by Sony Pictures for a suggested retail price of $24.96.

- Dennis King