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Reel Critics: ‘Extinction’ of the eardrums

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Watching a Michael Bay movie is like being kidnapped and locked without earplugs in the engine room of a diesel-powered submarine going full speed ahead. You’re subjected to a mind-numbing cacophony of metallic noise while having no perception of where you are headed or why.

Welcome to the cinema world of “Transformers: Age of Extinction.”

At nearly three hours, it’s longer, louder and more obnoxious than previous installments. State-of-the-art special effects propel tons of steel, rock and glass across the screen with ruthless force. But the battles between giant shape-shifting robots are chaotic and confusing. It’s a mindless demolition derby of relentless action and noisy nonsense.

The backstory concerning the war between good and evil robots is too preposterous to take seriously. But stars Mark Wahlberg and Stanley Tucci manage to speak their lame lines of dialogue with straight faces. They are eventually consumed by the junkyard jumble of the grinding plot.

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But having made a couple billion dollars off the earlier films, the producers know there are still rabid fans waiting for this brand of brain-crunching entertainment. I am just not one of them.

—John Depko

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Portrait of a difficult genius

In post-World War II France, Violette Leduc is a dealer in black-market goods. Her live-in relationship with Maurice Sachs is complicated: He is gay, they pretend marriage for extra food rations, and they don’t seem to like each other at all.

In spite of this, Leduc pleads for his affection. Instead of hugs, Sachs encourages her to channel her frustrations into her writing.

The absorbing film biography “Violette” shows how Leduc’s career as a writer sprang from a lifelong feeling of being unloved and unlovable. Strong-willed and self-absorbed, Leduc drove away lovers with her obsessive need for attention. She touches us as much as we find her behavior unlikable.

Emmanuelle Devos gives a wonderful, no-holds-barred performance in the complex title role. European actresses seem much more willing to shed their vanity to play an unsympathetic, unvarnished character.

Encouraged by Sachs and by friend Simone de Beauvoir (an excellent Sandrine Kiberlain), Leduc begins to pour her heart out onto the written page. The excerpts from her books are beautiful in their poetry and they do indeed “court us with her misfortunes.”

“Violette” is not an easy film to take in — the time frames are jumbled, and not everything is explained for the audience. But the movie made me aware of a great talent and the suffering behind her art, which finally brought her peace.

—Susanne Perez

JOHN DEPKO is a retired senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office. He lives in Costa Mesa and works as a licensed private investigator. SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant for a company in Irvine.

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