One-Liners: meh

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB (B) - I can watch Matthew McConaughey in just about anything, and there's plenty of Matthew here in his classic good-ol'-boy mode. But director Jean-Marc Vallee struggles to inject enough air into this balloon -- the real-life mid-'80s story of Ron Woodruff, a homophobic Texan suffering from AIDS who opens a "buyers club" to provide experimental drugs and natural products from Mexico to those desperate for treatment.

McConaughey is not hurting for one-liners to toss around. But even his shtick gets stretched thin over the course of a poky two hours. Jared Leto is wonderful as the cross-dressing druggie Rayon, a die-hard Marc Bolan fan who goes partners with Woodruff. Denis O'Hare is wasted as a bad-guy doctor who's in bed with the makers of AZT and with the FDA. Jennifer Garner just doesn't have the chops to pull off the role of the fellow doctor with a soft spot for Woodruff's endeavor; she seems to shrink with every role.

This is a strong drama in a lot of ways, but it too often comes off as preachy, with one-dimensional villains that don't rise above the level of those in an average TV drama. It's an enjoyable film, with a few powerful scenes -- mostly involving McConaughey and Leto (the heart of the movie), who both lost an incredible amount of weight to look positively skeletal -- but it falls short of must-see storytelling. 

THE ARMSTRONG LIE (B) - Entertaining but certainly not essential viewing, this documents the downfall of Lance Armstrong, who was done in by his 2009-10 comeback attempt (when filmmaker Alex Gibney began this project) and hit rock bottom with his confession to Oprah Winfrey earlier this year (when Gibney finally had his unexpected ending).

Armstrong is a tough subject to crack, and Gibney never really gets inside the mind of the disgraced Tour de France champ; maybe no one could. Armstrong ran his team like a mafia boss, spending years denying the obvious -- that he cheated with drugs and blood doping every year he competed and strong-armed others into doing the same. 

The hero of the story is the dogged Betsy Andreu, wife of a former Armstrong teammate, who heard the truth from Armstrong's own lips and, seeing the way her husband was batted around, was determined to see justice done. 

Gibney has fun poking fun at himself -- this started out as a bit of a fanboy celebration of the 2009 comeback -- getting caught up in the myth and then watching it get dismantled. He gets Armstrong to sit down after the Winfrey interview but we don't get much more drama or revelation. Maybe -- less than a year after that public confession -- we've already moved on from the Armstrong saga. The filmmaker is a victim of timing here.

One-Liners - Yea

SHORT TERM 12 (A-minus) - A near-perfect little gem. Or maybe it's too perfect.

Two hipster 20-somethings, Grace and Mason (the powerful Brie Larson and the hirsute John Gallagher Jr., resembling a greasy millennial Ben Affleck), run the day shift of a halfway house for at-risk teens. Grace has her own troubled history, and some old wounds resurface when a younger version of herself, arsty-gothy Jayden (a compelling Kaitlyn Dever), shows up.

It's difficult to watch young people who are in pain, but new writer/director Destin Cretton provides a deft touch, creating likeable characters who fit neatly into stereotypes yet still feel real. The overall result is something short of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" but with more gravitas than "It's Kind of a Funny Story."

Larson as Grace runs the show -- both the halfway house and the movie itself -- and it's her arc that proves to be quite gripping. She can't bring herself to open up about her past experiences or her present emotions to Mason, even when a life-changing event should bring them closer. Dever is nearly Larson's match, putting up a tough front but unable to totally hide the girl inside. Another revelation is newcomer Lakeith Stanfield as Marcus, a meticulously controlled ball of rage who communicates through intense but thoughtful rap songs as he tries to deal with the reality of soon turning 18 and being cast out into the world.

Cretton gets just a tad too cutesy with his adolescent characters and with a tidy ending that tugs at the heartstrings. But it's hard to quibble with such an honest attempt at filmmaking that is so expertly executed.

WADJDA (B+) - Young Waad Mohammed is captivating in the title role in this groundbreaking film written and directed by a Saudi Arabian woman, Haiffa al-Mansour, about a girl who puts her all into a Quran-recital competition in order to win the prize money and be able to buy a bicycle and ride with the boys -- a scandalous thought, even in this day and age.

The film is both shocking in its depiction of a religion's degradation of women and heartwarming in offering some hope for the next generation. This is an important story, solidly told. Mohammed has the face (and the hi-tops) and the skills to carry such a film.

The story, though, does plod during the first third. The relationship between Wadjda's parents feels a little under-developed. And al-Mansour overdoes the scenes of repression, hitting the viewer over the head with the stone-age horrors imposed on women, repeating herself as she does it. This is brighter than a film like Osama, but far less powerful.

One-Liners - Nay

RENOIR (C+) - This is the near-epitome of style over substance. It plays like a Renoir painting come to life. Which means it can be lovely to look at but as fascinating as a bowl of fruit at times.
The cinematography is stunning, inviting you into its lushness, even on a TV screen. There's just not much meat on the bones of the plot, which gets pulled into too many directions. 

Elderly Auguste Renoir (a convincing Michel Bouquet) has staved off death during the depths of World War I by finding yet another nubile young model to serve as his naked muse. That would be free-spirited Andree (Christa Theret) who is, indeed, beauty personified; you can practically feel that silky soft skin. Wounded war hero Jean Renoir (who would go on to marry Andree and make her a star in his early movies) limps into the picture to create an odd mix of bizarre love triangle and Freudian father-son feuding. "Limp" being the key word. Meantime, the house biddies bicker endlessly about Renoir pere's legendary cycling through of models/mistresses.

None of that really sticks. What's left is a luscious period piece that, like Ms. Theret, is easy on the eyes.

THE TO-DO LIST (C+) - I'm trying to figure out who the audience might be for this film about a newly minted high school graduate -- a nerdy mathlete -- who decides to create a sexual to-do list so that she doesn't enter college an inexperienced virgin. The sex is PG but the language is graphically R, and it all plays like a cartoon.

Aubrey Plaza is fun to watch, as always, and the supporting cast is pretty game, but the whole project is a mess. It's a bizarre multi-generational stew: It's an homage to the early '80s era of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (with a dreadfully unfunny "Caddyshack" reference tossed in), set in 1993, created by a Gen X'er, starring a 28-year-old portraying a 17-year-old, and released in 2013. It's at once an embarrassingly quaint classic teen sex romp and a modern display of post-Apatow vulgarity.

The cheapness of the production is obvious throughout, with frequent continuity gaffes. The script is repetitive. The plot is classic connect-the-dots. The premise is rather ridiculous. The parents are unbelievable (and it's not easy to waste Clark Gregg, like writer/director Maggie Carey does here). The idea is that Plaza's geek doesn't recognize the terms for any of the sex acts she's about to run through (and, conveniently, doesn't have the Internet around), but you'd think a valedictorian could figure out what a "dry hump" is or would just ask around, especially since her sister and two best friends are portrayed as stereotypical movie sluts.

The frank dialogue is kind of fun in the let's-watch-women-talk-cute-n-dirty kind of way, but I actually fast-forwarded a little through this. I felt my life slipping away, and I didn't need to be reminded of my own high school and college years too often spent watching frivolous shlock like this.

WAITING FOR SUPERMAN (2010) (F) - It feels good to give this thinly veiled attack on teachers an actual letter grade. It is disingenuous, manipulative, mawkish, inadequately sourced and downright false at times. No teacher -- even a sharp non-union charter school employee -- would allow this to stand as a first draft.

This is the work of a jerk with an ax to grind. Be warned.

The discreet charm of the bourgoisie

ENOUGH SAID (A-minus) - Nicole Holofcener makes movies that skim by under the radar and can feel nearly weightless. That doesn't make them insignificant.

Holofcener is a studious observer of the existential weight of middle-class privilege: white guilt ("Please Give") or women's self image ("Lovely & Amazing"). Her latest adult comedy, a love story starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini, is one of Holfcener's most satisfying. It's a simple tale of love and coupling and of aging and regret. It's a wry, bittersweet breakdown of a budding relationship between a man and a woman, each divorced, settling into middle age and watching a daughter go off to college.

The film relies heavily on Louis-Dreyfus, a TV comedian, and she comes through like a seasoned movie veteran. Louis-Dreyfus has never not been funny -- even in the sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine," if you happen to stumble on a repeat at an odd time of day, and especially in HBO's "Veep" -- and here she's her usual charming self, schlumping around L.A. with a massage table on her back as Eva, a mobile masseuse. The physical comedy of just her hauling that table in and out of the back of her car never gets old.

Eva attends a party with pals Sarah and Will (Toni Collette and Ben Falcone) and, separately, meets poet Marianne (Catherine Keener), a potential new customer, and shlubby Albert (James Gandolfini), a meet-cute potential mate. She agrees to a date with Albert and has a great time, despite a lack of physical attraction at first (he's got that big belly and a doughy face). Meantime, she gives Marianne massages and the two become friends, with Eva serving as a sounding board for the neurotic writer, who mainly bitches about her goofy ex-husband, who happens to turn out to be ... Albert.

The true genius of this movie is the fact that Eva soon puts two and two together but does nothing about it and proceeds to undermine both relationships. Sucking up Marianne's poison empowers Eva to undermine her fledgling romance with Albert before it has a chance to plant roots. It's a subtle psychological study, and soon Eva is channeling Marianne and henpecking poor Albert and embarrassing him in front of friends (and embarrassing herself more in the process). This all builds to an inevitable sitcom reveal, and the final third of the film chronicles the self-loathing of Eva, as she tries to repair the damage done to the relationship, as well as come to terms with the departure of her daughter, Ellen, off to Sarah Lawrence. Eva has neglected her daughter's emotional well-being, in particular by palling around with Ellen's clingy best friend Chloe.

It's tough to explain how touching this film is, and also how funny it is. There are few all-out belly laughs. I did like this exchange between Eva and Sarah and Will over Sarah's obsession with rearranging her furniture on a weekly basis. Will is baffled over why Sarah keeps moving stuff around:

Eva: She's filling a hole.

Will: I'll fill your hole.

Sarah (sighing): Different hole.

Unfortunately, many of the scenes with Sarah and Will (and the inept maid who they can't bring themselves to permanently fire) are not fully fleshed out; good ideas and key plot devices, but not quite three-dimensional. They do factor in a pivotal scene, hosting Eva and Albert at dinner, where Eva can't help herself and cruelly nags Albert to the point of exasperation. (I squirmed a bit, because I'm sure I've done that to mates in the past, thinking I was being clever; but I also laughed out loud during the scene, especially over the running gag about Eva being endlessly amused by the fact that Albert apparently doesn't know how to quietly whisper.)

Why is Eva sabotaging the relationship? It can't just be because the guy's a physical mess. She's got some deep problems gnawing at her. She can't be real with Albert or her daughter. She won't jettison Marianne because she thinks Marianne is so needy that she'll fall apart if Eva doesn't stay friends with her. (Marianne is mostly bereft of friends, though she does have Joni Mitchell on speed dial.) All the while, Louis-Dreyfus draws us further in through a face that is no longer a comic mask but that of a handsome 50-ish woman who has been wounded in the past and hasn't figured out a way to recover.

Holofcener offers a clue to what's going on in an early scene, when Albert and Eva are in a post-coital cuddle. Eva, facing away from him, her eyes lifeless, says, "I'm tired of being funny." Albert responds with, "Yeah, me, too." There's a pregnant pause, and then Eva says, "But you're not funny."

She's being playful, but cutting. She's cynical and more than a little worn down. And she's putting up a facade, unable to let a person get a glimpse of her raw emotion.

Like this lovely film, she is being sweet and sarcastic, because that's all she knows how to do at the moment.  

Bonus Features

This movie features a trio of my favorite supporting actresses: Catherine Keener, Michaela Watkins and Amy Landecker. Pardon me if I have a bit of a type.

Other A-grade films by Nicole Holofcener, in order of preference:

• Lovely & Amazing
• Please Give
• Friends With Money
• Walking and Talking

True Stories

STORIES WE TELL (B) - There's a fine line between meta and manipulative. The fact that Sarah Polley has expressed surprise that many of us don't catch on to the camera tricks she employs in her amber-drenched family memoir goes to show that she's truly descended from show people with a flair for the self indulgent.

Polley, whose segue from acting to directing ("Away From Her" and "Take This Waltz") has been impressive, turns the camera on her family history, which revolves around her captivating mother, a sometime actress who died young, about 25 years ago, and left behind a secret that goes to the heart of Polley's very existence. As she grills her father (and employs him as a narrator using his own memoir), siblings and family friends, it's all rather fascinating.

Until you realize, or don't, that Polley starts mixing in re-creations -- albeit scratched and grainy -- with the archival footage. A glimpse of a key character with a perfectly sad, heartbreaking expression on his face while he sits lost in the back pew of the mother's funeral, might elicit gasps of emotion -- but then leave you miffed while the credits roll and you realize it was staged. (I thought it was odd that there would be so much footage from the funeral, but then, as I said ... Show People!)

Polley's point is that we each have a version of the past. I'm with her on the theory that most of our memories are not legitimate; we'd be shocked to watch an actual reel from the past and discover how much we'd been deluding ourselves. I'm just not convinced that this was the way to make that point and tell this story. It seems like more of a crutch (for lack of footage) than an intentional strategy. Polley's final sin is an excessive running time. She sets us up for an ending at least three times before (re)winding up for another big finish, on her way to a bloated 1:48 running time.

While I loved seeing this film (and might re-view it and have a different perspective), I was reminded of a more effective (and experimental) attempt at a similar subject -- Jonathan Caouette's harrowing "Tarnation." Despite its re-enactments, that documentary felt achingly real. And it clocked in at a tidy 88 minutes.

BONUS TRACKS

Compare trailers for "Tarnation" and "Stories We Tell"

Randy Old Mad Men

Two more docs:

BERT STERN: ORIGINAL MADMAN (A-minus) - Ah, that thin pink line: womanizer or merely a lover of women? I identified with Bert Stern, an advertising photographer from the golden era, and if you think he's a creep, I'm not offended. 

Stern, a self-taught photographer back in the 1950s, broke through with iconic imagery for vodka ads before training his lens more and more on women. He is famous for having taken the final photographs of Marilyn Monroe for Vogue. His recounting of those two sessions are lovely and heartbreaking; you ache for the teenage boy locked inside a charming man's body. He often talks, quaintly, about "making out" with women -- or more often, wanting to make out with various women. He married a ballerina and saw her (still sees her) as more of a trophy than a woman; after he ran through his share of women and drugs (Dr. Feelgood again) during the wild '60s, she took the kids and left him.

The filmmaker here is one of Stern's current companions, Shannah Laumeister (he also hangs out every week with a pair of ditzy twins). Laumeister is much younger than he is; they first met when she was well under-age, but she returned to him around age 18, and they fell in together. Stern is now about 80, and their domestic situation seems quite tame. While much of the reaction to this film will revolve around Stern's affection for and exploitation of his subjects, you have to wonder what Laumeister's game is. She injects herself into the proceedings, making the personal public; in fact, she gladly splashes Stern's nude shots of herself. Who's zooming whom here?

Stern is a fascinating, if laid-back, subject. Many of the interviews feature him in a reclining position, tossing off recollections or witticisms with a lazy, resigned northern drawl, nearly catatonic at times. He looks to be clinically depressed, perhaps beaten down by the idea that he had the world at his command and is as weighed down by the memory of happiness as he is by his vast archives of negatives. (In fact, he admits that he wishes he had saved some of that frivolity for later in life -- spread the joy to make his twilight years more worth living.) It doesn't make him any less smug; just ... preternaturally practical and clinically wistful.

There's a lot going on here, much more than a home movie about a glum, elderly hedonist. I was rooting for him to crack a big grin, raise his eyebrows and bust out a big laugh recalling some crazy time, perhaps with Twiggy or Liz Taylor.

In the end, Stern was a hunter and the models were his prey. That's old-fashioned biology at work. It's refreshing to hear Stern essentially own up to that. He sums it up this way: "I'm obsessive. That's why I take pictures, I guess. I get obsessive about the things I'm looking at. I want them. And I put them in the camera, and they're mine."

Did he say "things" when he was talking about, mostly, women? Yep.

FAR OUT ISN"T FAR ENOUGH: THE TOMI UNGERER STORY (B) - And then there's ol' Tomi Boy. This documentary is a touching valentine to an unheralded artist, Tomi Ungerer, a trailblazer in children's books who challenged perceptions by daring to produce both kid lit and erotica.

Born in France and raised in Nazi-occupied Alsace, Ungerer is more German than French. He came to New York as a young man and quickly made his mark, cranking out quirky children's books that influenced luminaries like Maurice Sendak and Jules Feiffer, both seen here as admiring talking heads. One day Ungerer met a woman who liked to play a little rough, and the experience helped unleash Ungerer's naughty side. He explored that world and expressed himself naturally through his art on a separate track from the children's market.

In a long-ago world of naive media, it wasn't a big deal for an artist to live such a double life; he apparently was discreet about his dual existence. Eventually, though, the industry grew uncomfortable with that set-up; he was cast as somewhat of a pervert, his children's books disappeared from print and he was generally shunned. He retreated into seclusion and eventually to Ireland, where he finally found a welcoming community.

Ungerer, now in his 80s, is still an unabashed admirer of the female form, especially the backside. He's got a twinkle in his deep blue eyes, and he smokes like a fiend. He offers a few pearls of wisdom, including his explanation of the phrase used as a title of the film.

The documentary itself lags in spots. It spends a bit too much time on his early years and it suffers from a lack of archival footage; thus, it leans on his artwork as a major crutch. Many of his drawings are powerful; he was especially vocal and blunt about his opposition to America's imperialist war in Vietnam during the 1960s. Informed by his World War II experience that left him virulently opposed to imperialism, his work from that era is among his sharpest and most profound. Director Brad Bernstein also relies on almost exclusively men as talking heads; they're rather dry, and they don't give us a good sense of Ungerer's primal connection with women and sex.         

Like Stern, Ungerer has a magnetism that draws you in and makes you wonder: What's his secret?

Buddies

Two pairs:
 
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS (A-minus) - I was endlessly charmed and more than pleasantly surprised by this intelligent study of millennial careers and relationships, focused on two movie industry co-worker pals and their girlfriends. Nick and Darryl are scraping by as film editors, working as a team, and struggling to rescue a cursed indie film shot by a director who is apparently having a nervous breakdown. 

The always-intriguing Alex Karpovsky ("Tiny Furniture," "Girls") as Nick carries this film on his shoulders as a vulnerable leading man with the skills to expertly play off any other character he interacts with. Tarik Lowe ("CollegeHumor Originals"), who wrote and co-stars as Darryl, is a revelation to me; he's confident on screen, and the script (co-written with director Daniel Schechter) hangs together as a string of comedy bits fused with genuine emotional connective tissue. 

At times Karpovsky and Lowe slip into sitcom mode -- they reminded me of Zach Braff and Donald Faison from "Scrubs" in both looks and rapport -- but only in the sense that they are smart and funny. Lowe has peppered the screenplay with subtle but insightful evidence of Nick's cultural racism without this being a stereotypical buddy-cop ploy; for instance, the pals endlessly quibble and scheme over Nick's insistence that they need to cut from the film the scenes involving the black doorman, Rodney, in what is a fine running gag. Overall, Lowe's timing is impressive, particularly in a scene in which Darryl confronts the film's director of photographer gangsta-style despite coming off a crying jag.

Schechter pulls off the neat trick of making a movie about making movies that avoids lazy inside-baseball navel-gazing. The milieu of film editors feels authentic and useful as a framing device. And Schechter is blessed with a winning cast.

The trio of women are strong and rise above the cliché of the young woman suffering with a man-child. Sophia Takal ("Molly's Theory of Relativity") is both kittenish cute and stoner sexy as Amy, who fears success in her career and wishes Nick wouldn't sleep in so much. (She and Karpovsky reminded me of what it was like to be married in my 20s.) Melonie Diaz ("Fruitvale Station") takes the most underwritten part and acts with her eyes to add depth to the role of Darryl's sympathetic but wandering girlfriend, especially in her final scene after he proposes. And Arielle Kebel (TV's "Vampire Diaries" and "Life Unexpected") finds nuances in what could have been a hackneyed turn as an indie diva slumming with the production's tech nerd. (And Kebel's almost cartoonish beauty made me somehow conjure up the puppet from Wayland Flowers & Madame back when the old dame might have been cute-hot.)

Meantime, Kevin Corrigan nearly steals the show as Adrian, the fucked-up director who wants to wrest control of his film back from Nick and Darryl but can't get his shit together. Corrigan, who toggles comfortably between film ("Seven Psychopaths," "Scotland, Pa.") and television ("Grounded for Life," "Fringe," "The Mentalist"), is a master at playing crazy. I laughed out loud when Adrian shows up at a ridiculous production meeting with his list of grievances scribbled on a sheet of ratty notebook paper. The whole scene is carefully crafted as Hollywood writ minuscule. Fittingly, Corrigan's Adrian shares a quiet final scene with Karpovsky's Nick, and in the end you realize that all these men have some serious growing up to do.

PRINCE AVALANCHE (B) - I liked this intensely wistful buddy movie, though its after-effects fizzle away quickly. Paul Rudd plays Alvin, a maudlin man approaching middle age who takes his girlfriend's goofy young brother, Lance (Emile Hirsch), along with him to re-stripe a portion of highway along a stretch of burned out forest in rural Texas in 1988.
 
The result is glum but heartfelt. Rudd and Hirsch are more than up to the task of bantering and parrying their way through yet another variation on "The Odd Couple." Alvin is moody and struggles to project an air of intellectual contemplation; he communes with nature easily as if trying to recapture the essence of Walden. Lance, on the other hand is adrift in the middle of nowhere, with his mind invariably focused on his next attempt to get laid. Alvin, with his Chaplinesque mustache, has a pre-Heisenberg Walter White (or perhaps Walter Mitty) air about him, while Hirsch channels A.J. Soprano, the bratty, clueless son of TV's famous mobster.

Director David Gordon Green has had an eclectic career so far, establishing indie cred with "George Washington" and "Snow Angels" before falling in with Danny McBride's raunchy gang for the stoner classics "Pineapple Express," "Your Highness" and TV's lewd "Eastbound and Down." Here he's quite pensive as he adapts an Icelandic film in a way that feels extremely personal.

The story resonates with Green, and the setting of the film in his adolescence seems to have caught him in a nostalgic mood as he settles into the age of Rudd's character. Green employs tube socks and a cassette boombox to herald the pre-digital era that the men labor honorably in with old-school tools, but it's his lingering nature shots -- forming a requiem for the decimated trees and homes -- that infuse the proceedings with a somber, amber glow. (Green overdoes the cinematography at times, and it makes him look like he's just showing off.) A scene in with Alvin meets an older woman sifting through the wreckage of her home -- and Alvin's subsequent acting out of a household traipse, theater style, as a way of reckoning the experience -- is particularly poignant. (In addition, the soundtrack music, by Explosions in the Sky a fellow Austinite David Wingo, is lovely throughout.)

It all has a vaguely Beckettian sense of absurdism, and Rudd and Hirsch find a mix of dignity and of Laurel and Hardy in their characters. It's a trifle of a story, but it's a wonderful experience while it lasts.


BONUS TRACK
Here is the soundtrack to "Prince Avalanche":

 

New to the Queue

It's getting serious as we enter the autumn of our year ...

The latest fly-on-the-wall documentary from Frederick Wiseman, the epic campus film "At Berkeley."

The latest screed from Alex Gibney about the Tour de France scandal, "The Armstrong Lie."

It's been a while since we checked in with the venerable John Sayles, so we'll give consideration to "Go For Sisters."

A snarky documentary about the Republicans in Iowa in 2012, "Caucus."

I'm going to give Alexander Payne yet another go with the dim, dank "Nebraska."

A quirky film about junkies behaving badly, the small indie "Junction."

I'm torn about two grand efforts: Alexander Sokurov, who created one of the greatest achievements of cinema with "Russian Ark," might bore me with the classic "Faust"; and I was not a fan of Paolo Sorrentino's "Il Divo," but his aesthetic might be just the ticket for the epic-seeming "The Great Beauty" (though the running time of 2:22 gives me serious pause).

Take Two

We rewind to take a fresh look at two films viewed the second time 'round:

TAKE THIS WALTZ (2012) (A-minus) - Writer/director Sarah Polley ("Away From Her") really sticks her neck out for her sophomore effort, and she somehow pulls off a powerful study of emotionally stunted late 20-somethings caught in a laconic love triangle. The premise is awfully twee -- and if you are tired of childlike, earthy Lena-Dunham/Miranda-July Brooklyn types (here transplanted to Polley's Ontario) you might not survive this.

But below the surface there is so much going on here. Michele Williams is her usual brilliant, mesmerizing self as Margot, the pixie stuck in a baby-talk marriage with her lump of a husband, Lou (Seth Rogen). She has a meet-cute (and a heaping helping of coincidence) with hunky Daniel (Luke Kirby, "Tell Me You Love Me") and they gradually start hanging out a bit.

Polley and Williams know Margot inside and out, and the character's moves never ring false, even when she's loopy or annoying or mugging at one of her men. Her laughter and her tears feel achingly real; the tightrope walk performed by Williams here is a marvel. Kirby is strong as her love interest; he reminded me of Chris Messina rolling around with Marin Ireland in "28 Hotel Rooms." And schlubby comic Rogen stretches his acting muscles and acquits himself well here. (Though future directors might want to avoid asking him to cry on cue.) Even smart-alecky comic Sarah Silverman holds her own with the drama queens, turning in a nuanced performance as Lou's sister, Geraldine, a recovering alcoholic.

Polley didn't need to hit us over the head so hard with her Big Theme (Margot doesn't handle the in-betweens so well), but that's a minor flaw. In addition to crafting a savory story, Polley offers dazzling visuals. The film is rich in color and dreamlike blurs of light and shadow. A cartoonish carnival ride accompanied by the '80s classic song "Video Killed the Radio Star" is both exhilarating and melancholy. And when the ride and the music stop, the thunk of reality hits us like a hangover on a too-bright morning.


Will Margot make that transition out of the purgatory of in-betweenness? Does anyone? 

THE BRIDESMAID (2004) (B) - From the gloom factory of Claude Chabrol comes this long shudder revolving around a creepy ice queen who picks up a man at his sister's wedding and makes him a pawn in her twisted existence.

Laura Smet is unsettling as Senta, the bridesmaid in question, who seduces unsuspecting Philippe (Benoit Magimel, a poor man's Jude Law), who sees her as some otherworldly being, a classic concrete bust come to life. Before long, Senta has Philippe fumbling for words after she informs him that life just isn't worth living until a person, among other things, has a homosexual romp or kills someone. He pretends to play along, perhaps hoping she'll leave well enough alone, but it turns out he's way out of her league.

This plays like homage to Hitchcock, and Chabrol finesses the tension expertly. And Smet finds a perfect balance of cool and crazy. But in the end, it just doesn't feel like there's enough at stake here to be either shocked or outraged at the ending.

Time (Life Is Short meets A Moment In Time)

Life Is Short is an as-need series documenting the films we just couldn't make it through. We like to refer to these movies as "Damsels in Distress." Previous entries are here and here.

Before we get to the two films I pulled the plug on, let's remind ourselves of the healing power of live rock 'n' roll.

Music
On Monday night I took a chance on nostalgia and was rewarded. I was curious to see the Japanese thrashers Melt Banana (see the video below) at the Launchpad. On a Monday night. A late show. When I got there, I realized that the band wasn't scheduled to go on until 12:15. On a Monday night. Make that a Tuesday morning.

I had seen the band (then a foursome) about 20 years ago at Chicago's Lounge Ax. They were ear-splitting but oh-so charming. They would play songs in the time it takes a mid-sized car to go from zero to 60, and the lead singer would screech a little "thank you!"

I decided to go down the street with a friend to chat about the sad state of the world over a looong cocktail. I still had energy at 12:15, so we went back to the Launchpad. The band hit the stage promptly, fired up their computerized drum and bass and launched their assault. Yako held a device with brightly colored lights; I assume it was some sort of remote control. Agata, donning a health face mask, assaulted his guitar strings. A mosh pit ensued.

It washed over me for 25 minutes, before I headed home to bed, ears ringing. All my problems leeched from my body. What a lovely sight, to see a younger generation get to experience that.

Movies
I tuned out of two Netflix streams recently. "Hit So Hard," a documentary about Patty Schemel, the drummer for Courtney Love's band Hole turned out to be a tedious recounting of the time 20 years ago of barely interesting people who all had drug addictions and now have nothing interesting to say. Sorry, Patty; RIP.

The British mob romp "44-Inch Chest" started out promising, with a smart intro to Nilsson's "Can't Live." Much macho chatter ensued. I was cranky and didn't have the patience. I vow to give it another chance.

The box score on the two interrupted films:

Title: HIT SO HARD
Running Time: 103 min
Elapsed Time at Plug Pull:  44 min
Portion Watched: 43%
My Age at Time of Viewing: 50 YRS, 11 MO.
Average Male American Lifespan: 81.2 YRS.
Watched/Did Instead: Went to sleep
Odds of Re-viewing This Title: 25-1

Title: 44-INCH CHEST
Running Time: 94 min
Elapsed Time at Plug Pull: 20 min
Portion Watched: 21%
My Age at Time of Viewing: 50 YRS, 11 MO.
Average Male American Lifespan: 81.2 YRS.
Watched/Did Instead: Went to sleep
Odds of Re-viewing This Title: 3-1

BONUS TRACK
Here's a good representation, from earlier in their tour, of the 20 minutes or so that I enjoyed of Melt Banana's performance on Monday night:

New to the Queue

How adventurous do we want to get?

It's been a while between us and Claire Denis ("White Material"), so we'll check out her new film, with Vincent Lindon, "Bastards."

The intense lesbian drama, which took the top prize at Cannes, "Blue Is the Warmest Color."

From the documentary filmmakers behind "Startup.com" and "Control Room," the chronicle of Arab Spring, "The Square."

Matthew McConaughey is back with the much-anticipated "Dallas Buyers Club."

The Polish Brothers split up and twin Michael takes on late-era Jack Kerouac with "Big Sur."

 Philosopher Slavoj Zizek is back with Sophie Fiennes for another dizzying spin through our culture, "The Pervert's Guide to Ideology." (Coming to the Guild Cinema in December.)

A documentary about the actress Mariel Hemingway and her family's history of mental illness, "Running From Crazy."

I'm on the fence about the bittersweet love story about a tattooed beauty and her bluegrass beau, "The Broken Circle Breakdown."

One-Liners: Fiction

A HIJACKING (B+) - I can only imagine how Paul Greengrass ran Tom Hanks through the wringer in "Captain Phillips," one of the small hits of autumn. I'd be surprised, though, if he told a story as visceral and believable as "A Hijacking," another take (this one Danish) on northern Africa pirates seizing a cargo ship and holding the crew hostage.

Writer/director Tobias Lindholm here stages a master class in character acting, and I don't mean that in the showy sense at all; it's all about nuanced characters. The film opens with high-powered executive Peter Ludvigsen (an intense, intuitive Soren Malling) driving a hard deal with Japanese businessmen; before you know it, those flashy negotiating skills are no longer about yen but about the lives of his employees aboard the ship. Meantime, the ship's cook, Mikkel (a sad-faced Pilou Asbaek), who earlier was established as a loving father and husband (his cherished wedding ring serves as Chekhov's gun here), becomes the pirates' pal as the man who makes the meals.

The men on the ship become the pawns in a drawn-out chess match. Peter is now paired against the English-speaking Omar, who repeatedly insists he's not a pirate, not "one of them," but merely a facilitator. Days turn into weeks, and the parties are millions of dollars apart, and neither side is budging much.

Malling is a thrill to watch as a pampered businessman who suddenly realizes that his workers are human and that the decisions he makes in his plush office have direct consequences for them. To reveal more would be a disservice. This gripping tale deserves to be savored fresh. 

SIGHTSEERS (B) - A quirky, confounding yet satisfying black comedy about a British couple who embark on a road holiday to the countryside, only to be beset by a disturbing piling up of dead bodies along the way. This one also would be poorly served by too much plot exegesis.

We know from the start that Tina and Chris, who haven't been dating long, are not quite right, either of them. Tina is at cross-swords with her mum (they live together), who insists that poor Tina is cursed for an accident that killed their dog, dear beloved Poppy. And the couple is not long on the road in Chris' caravan before his dark instincts start to surface. Their series of interactions with a cast of characters plays like a cross between "Lost in America" and "Blue Velvet."

Alice Lowe and Steve Oram both wrote the screenplay and take on the starring roles. They bring a classic improv vibe to their dry-as-toast performances.  The proceedings are bookended by versions of "Tainted Love" -- the Soft Cell hit over the opening credits, and Gloria Jones' original over the end credits. In between, Lowe and Oram spin a sordid, bizarre story that sticks with you long after the perfect, distorted punch line that ends their wretched relationship.


ONE-LINER

Andrew O'Hehir of Salon.com despised the recent release "The Counselor," and he sums it up colorfully in this line: "It’s like a mumblecore movie about a bunch of Sarah Lawrence philosophy majors, made by coked-up rich people for 100 bajillion dollars."

I'm busy that week ...

Disney to release new 'Star Wars' film on Dec. 18, 2015

(Reuters) - The next movie in the "Star Wars" franchise will arrive in theaters on Dec. 18, 2015, Walt Disney Co said on Thursday, two weeks after producers hired a  new writer to shepherd the script into production.

I still haven't seen a "Star Wars" film all the way through. I saw a few scenes from the first release about 30 years ago on a TV screen somewhere.

Profiled

Let's see the categories of film Netflix is recommending for "J.A." as they try to pigeonhole me:

• Critically-acclaimed understated independent dramas
• Biographical political documentaries
• Deadpan comedies
• Cerebral French-language movies
• Emotional social and cultural documentaries 

 What I wouldn't give to watch a low-budget, wry quasi-fictionalization of  the foibles of Christine Lagarde.

One-Liners: Fact

WE STEAL SECRETS: THE STORY OF WIKILEAKS (B+) - This is just as much the story of Private Bradley/Chelsea Manning as it is the story of Julian Assange. Director Alex Gibney certainly knows the drill here, having covered Enron, Ken Kesey, and Freakonomics and making the classic Iraq doc "Taxi to the Dark Side." He excels again here with a sharp portrait of the WikiLeaks movement.

Gibney's biggest challenge is to illustrate the key text and email communications between the various sources here: WikiLeaks, the leakers, and the journalists.  Gibney keeps it simple, with words typed out over a dark background, making Manning's lonesome dispatches especially seem like a single voice out in (cyber)space.

We get drama, with the saga of Assange, the (trumped up?) sex scandal, and the breakup of his team, plus a few bizarre interview segments with his rival, the hacker Adrian Lamo, who handed Manning to the feds. Several talking heads raise an interesting question: Why is Assange a demonized persona non grata while the mainstream publications that published the information -- the Times, the Post, the Guardian, Der Spiegel -- remain on the U.S. government's good side.

The film ends before the unfolding of some key recent events -- such as the sentencing of Manning -- but Gibney smartly takes a snapshot of an important ongoing story and whips up a hell of a story. 

ICEBERG SLIM:  PORTRAIT OF A PIMP (B-minus) - This is an occasionally fascinating -- but just as often disturbing -- look at the life of Robert Beck, aka Iceberg Slim, a hoodlum and pimp turned author. He's a rather obscure figure, but he stands as one representative of the black experience in the middle of the 20th century. His classic books of street life from the late '60s and 1970s established him as a serious author, whose books are still read and celebrated today.

Celeb talking heads who celebrate the onetime brute include Ice T (quite the fanboy), Chris Rock, Snoop Dogg and Quincy Jones, and all contribute key perspectives on Slim's story or his place in modern culture. As Leon Isaac Kennedy (!) notes, the point of paying tribute to a man who used to whore out women and beat them is not to glorify his past but rather to tell a story of redemption.

The film is too often visually weak; it suffers from a dearth of archival footage and has to rely on photo tricks that fall flat and on animation to fill in the early years. The interviews with Beck himself are taken from previous productions (he died in 1992 at 74); one interview in a bar is immersed in the look and the texture of the 1970s. Those scattered interviews, however, leave the proceedings feeling choppy and a bit random at times. Whatever the limitations of journeyman filmmaker Jorge Hinojosa, the story of Iceberg Slim is worth checking out.