Ol' Billy Bob

JAYNE MANSFIELD'S CAR (B) -  Billy Bob Thornton takes a nostalgic trip back to his roots during the height of the Vietnam War in Alabama, and he mostly scores with this tale of a family of burned-out veterans from the last century's two world wars.

It's a finally sketched group portrait, splattered with hits and misses, with a fine ear for turns of phrases, as well as the rhythms and cadences of a bygone era.

Thornton teams up with Tom Epperson (they wrote 1992's "One False Move" and 2000's "The Gift" together) to direct this quirky slice of life, about a southern clan thrown together with a British family after the death of the southern belle who ditched her Alabama brood years ago and ran off to England, to that second family. The Brits -- a father, son and daughter -- accompany the body of Naomi Caldwell-Bedford to the estate of patriarch Jim Caldwell (a fine turn by Robert Duvall), a doctor who was a medic in both world wars. The Bedfords are headed by Kingsley (John Hurt), still nursing a wound from the Great War. His son, Phillip (Ray Stevenson), was a POW in WWII, which is emasculating, in the older men's eyes. Jim's sons all served in that war, two of them seeing action and returning home heroes, the third somewhat belittled for failing to prove his manhood.

That third is Jim Jr. (the menacing Robert Patrick), who has a wife (the delightful Shawnee Smith from TV's "Becker") and kid, whom they drag to church every Sunday. Thornton plays Skip, a former flyer who was seriously wounded -- physically, mentally, and spiritually. Skip is just plain odd, sort of a distant cousin of "Sling Blade's" Karl Childers; the others are constantly on guard, thinking he could snap at any time. The final brother is Carroll, an aging drug-addled war-protesting hippie played by Kevin Bacon, with a draft-age son of his own. Bacon, unfortunately, is the clunker in this crew. He looks silly with his shaggy mane, and he never finds the right tone to take.  Carroll is more of a symbol than a true character; he represents the big theme: Now that we're mired in an unpopular, immoral (unwinnable?) war, how do we look back on those glorious battles with Hitler and the Kaiser. Were those sepia-toned conflicts any less horrible and debilitating than Vietnam? Did those older veterans return home any less damaged albeit more revered?

Thornton's got something appealing here, a shambling melange of "The Big Chill," "The Deer Hunter" and "Four Friends." It feels undercooked in spots, but the strong cast and the quieter, more thoughtful scenes draw you in. He sets up two rather predictable couplings that don't really pay off but are fun while they last. Skip falls for Naomi's step-daughter Camilla (the endlessly appealing Frances O'Connor from "Mrs. Selfridge"), mainly for the way she "talks English." And the Caldwell boys' sister, Donna (TV actress Katherine LaNasa), is known for her wandering eye and is repulsed by her ex-jock blowhard car-salesman husband, Neal (comedian Ron White, chewing everything around him); she is all over Phillip from the moment the ruggedly handsome Brit shows up.

The family dynamics are finely etched, and some sharp humor mixes well with a healthy dose of pathos. Thornton's Skip is both unsettling and magnetic. A wordless moment in which he shows up in the family living room high is priceless. His proposition to Camilla is both vulgar and kind of sweet. When they hang out in the woods, he woos her with a war story, even though he's convinced that no one wants to hear such blatherings. But the tale he tells is deeply personal and profoundly chilling, and Thornton and O'Connor are mesmerizing.

All of the players here have scars to hide and scars to reveal. Big Jim maintains a fascination with police scanners and bloody car crashes. He's a monosyllabic old coot, who struggles to acknowledge either his love or admiration for the boys he ended up raising on his own (with the aid of servants). He develops an arm's-length bond with ol' Kingsley, the man who stole his wife. Duvall and Hurt disappear into their characters, grounding the narrative. A goofy escapade between the two toward the end threatens to derail the proceedings, but Thornton recovers nicely with a scene between the three brothers that deftly melds drama with subtle humor. A tacked-on coda featuring Carroll and his son would have been best left on the cutting-room floor.

With Thornton and his expertly selected cohorts, it's fascinating here to watch actors in their 40s and 50s skip back two generations, to their childhood, re-defining middle age from their elders' perspective. Some serious issues are tackled here. The ways in which Thornton keeps papering over some of it with sweetly comic blackouts make it feel that much more real.

Chemistry

THE SKELETON TWINS (A-minus) - Recent "Saturday Night Live" alums Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader unleash a tour-de-force as estranged siblings who find their childhood spark while battling their own forms of depression.

These are two funny, funny people, but to call them mere comedians is a disservice. Not that this movie isn't hilarious at times. But this is a serious story, and Wiig and Hader bring extensive nuance and depth to believable characters navigating a rather simple narrative. I was in tears during the first five minutes, and I laughed heartily throughout.

The film begins with Wiig's Maggie contemplating a handful of pills as her phone rings with the news that her brother, Milo, slit his wrists out in L.A. but survived. She flies out to be with him and brings him back to live with her and her husband, Lance (a pitch-perfect Luke Wilson), in upstate New York. It's their first time together in 10 years.

Maggie's marriage of two years is obviously not satisfying (Lance happily proclaims that they are trying to have a child, but Maggie's not really cooperating). She flirts with her scuba coach. She struggles to keep things together; wine helps. Milo is gay, and while back in his hometown, he looks up an old flame, a closeted older man, from a relationship that began inappropriately and ended badly. Both siblings make really bad choices and struggle to recapture their intimate connection while trying not to judge the other. ("Maybe being good just isn't your thing," Milo reasons to his sister at one point.) Hader is just a wonderful hot mess, moping around in his Flaming Lips and Sonic Youth T-shirts. (The soundtrack is notably retro, including Blondie and OMD.)

Once those pieces are expertly put in place, the movie hums along, achieving perfection right up until its climax, which is corny and rather ridiculous. It's a forgivable sin, considering the loveliness of the first 85 minutes.

This film emerged from the Duplass Factory, executive-produced by Mark and Jay Duplass, indie big-foots behind such titles as "The Puffy Chair," "Cyrus," "Safety Not Guaranteed" and the recent "The One I Love." Here they work for the second time with Craig Johnson, who wrote and directed "True Adolescents," starring Mark Duplass. Johnson directs here with a deft touch, and he co-wrote the spare, smart script with Mark Heyman, who last penned the dark "Black Swan." The balance of humor and drama is as close to real life as it gets.

Johnson and Heyman craft a tight, relatable story that still allows for just the right amount of comedic riffing by Wiig and Hader, who overlapped considerably as marquee cast members of "SNL," starting in 2005. Their repartee seems effortless. Their playfulness while high on nitrous oxide (she's a dental hygienist) is magical. Even a lip-sync scene to a Starship song, which could have been a death blow of preciousness in the wrong hands, hits its mark. The sibling bond feels achingly real. They were incredibly close as children, especially after the death of their father as young teens. Their adult melancholy is heavy and palpable.

Your opinions of these two actors may vary wildly; detractors might find their turns here cutesy and insufferable. The supporting cast is strong. Wilson is essential, providing the glue to the story in a subtle performance that recalls his work as the ex-husband on HBO's "Enlightened." Ty Burrell (from TV's "Modern Family") has the right tone as Milo's former lover. Joanna Gleason has a cameo as the inattentive mom in a painful showdown scene with her children.

But this is Wiig and Hader's show, and they wring every emotion and gag they can in service of a quite moving story. I ached with them, I laughed at them, I was in awe of their talents. It's hard not to get swept up in such a well-made film.

BONUS TRACK
Before viewing "Skeleton Twins," I sneaked in to see the first half hour of "This Is Where I Leave You," and the contrast in tones is notable. Tina Fey is incredibly witty and talented, but she's not much of an actress. This story of a quartet of adult siblings forced to sit shiva for a week to mourn their dad under the watch of their mother, played by a hyper Jane Fonda, felt forced, broad, jokey and hokey. (You can tell where this one's going right off the bat, and I could sense it was about to go off the rails right at that one-third mark.)

It played like a winking ensemble exercise rather than a believable film. I could watch Jason Bateman and Adam Driver all day, and they are on their game here, so I'll probably watch the whole film someday.

New to the Queue

Falling into place ...

Our man Josh Charles in a French drama of disconnected souls, "Bird People."

A cool-looking documentary about an heiress turned artist in the mid 20th century, "Altina."

The funny pair Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader star as depressed estranged siblings in "The Skeleton Twins."

Real folks playing versions of themselves in the story of a girl being home-schooled on a goat farm, "Stop the Pounding Heart."

A documentary about a forger who does it for grins, "Art and Craft."

I'll probably regret it, but the "Quark"-like '70s futuristic spoof, "Space Station 76."

A documentary about the artsy porn director Joe Sarnos, "A Life in Dirty Movies."

Do I dare ruin the memory of a good novel with two-and-a-half hours from David Fincher (and starring Ben Affleck)? Maybe. "Gone Girl."

As we mentioned in a previous post, with trepidation, we will likely sample "This Is Where I Leave You" and "The Zero Theorem."

Soundtrack of Your Life: JFK

An occasional feature in which we mark the songs of our relative youth as played over public muzak systems. 

Date: 21 September 2014, 7:45 p.m., EDT
Place: JFK Airport, New York
Song:  "Don't Swallow the Cap"
Artist: The National
Irony Matrix: 2 out of 10
Comment: How hip is the PA DJ at one of the world's busiest international airports? Or how far down the hipster scale have the National, the clan from Ohio, slipped or slid as they bleed into the mainstream. The general music selection on a Sunday night in Terminal 5 was surprisingly poppy. I assume they were current or recent hits, because I didn't recognize them, and younger people were bopping their heads to them. There definitely was a big chart in play, with lines zagging up, down, right and left, and backward and forward in time. I'm a bit up and off to the left. An outlier. Every once in a while my line intersects with another's.

"I'm not alone. I'll never be. And to the bone ... I'm evergreen."

They had me right up until "evergreen." Winterfresh? I flew home. Autumn arrived. The moment passed.

La-La Land

PALO ALTO (C+) - "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" used to be a cheesy celeb-hound entertainment show. Now the theme is milked for adolescent melodrama and another vanity project by James Franco, whose short stories inspired the film, and make-work for the third generation for the Coppola family (Sofia's niece Gia writes and directs). This is what happens when Hollywood broods get out of control.

Having trouble networking? You're just not going to the right family reunions and high school assemblies. Here Emma Roberts (getting too old for teen roles) and Jack Kilmer lead a cast of celebrity relatives and pals among a bunch of aimless teens moping around southern California. The narrative itself is aimless, too, as Gia Coppola doesn't quite find the right thread to stitch these random stories together.

This is the ultimate patronage project: It stars Val Kilmer's son and Julia Roberts' niece. Young Gia employs her mom, Jacqui Getty, uncle Jason Schwartzman for his music (as well as the songs of Robert Coppola Schwartzman), her great-aunt Talia Shire, the voice of grampa Francis Ford Coppola, and some kid named Bailey Coppola. You can also spot Wayne Gretzky's wife, Janet Jones, and his daughter, Emma, as well as Peter Bogdanovich's sister Anna, Michael Madsen's son Christian, and Polly Draper's son Nat Wolf. We can only guess about Amelia Burstyn and Genevieve Penn. The only next-gen C-list relative missing is Clint Howard's wife's cousin's nephew.

Roberts comes across as alternatively above the amateurish fray and grasping for her character's true center. April is the high school virgin who draws flirtatious signals from the soccer coach she baby-sits for (Franco, unmemorable) and from Teddy (young Kilmer, shaky), the baby-faced Beck boy with a major substance abuse problem.

They and their pals meander through various parties and school activities (catch Don Novello as the eccentric art teacher). Most of the cast struggles to make any of this very interesting. Coppola shows an impressive flair here and there. Snippets of angsty, existential banter occasionally land (such as when three soccer players debate whether one of their teammates is pretty or not). Several characters tell April that they love her. One boy has an unconvincing meltdown.

It's all a bit twee and underwhelming. If you're not in the club you probably just won't get it. Whatever.

Boyhood: The Gritty Version

You want "Boyhood"? Here are two alternatives -- one doc, one feature -- that feel more like it:

RICH HILL (B+) - The face of adolescent poverty, three boys from middle school and high school in small-town Missouri put their sparse, troubled existences on display in this haunting documentary from journeyman producer/director Tracy Droz Tragos and actor Andrew Droz Palermo. It is an unblinking examination of the hopelessness found in rural America.

Andrew is the most well-adjusted of the trio of boys, despite dealing with a depressed, drugged mother -- he does have a tight nuclear family (two parents and a sister), he plays football and he takes comfort in the eventual salvation from God.  The other two -- Harley and Appachey (pronounced like the tribe) -- have been traumatized early in their lives and are now acting out in low-grade rebellion.

Harley likes to play with knives, and he seems perpetually on the verge of an outburst. A chilling scene with his school principal reveals a pent-up rage and a near-daily penchant for feigning sickness and demanding that his grandmother come pick him up. Harley's mom, a toothless mess, is in prison, apparently because she threatened or assaulted Harley's step-father, who sexually abused the boy.

Appachey, the youngest of the trio, is surrounded by a tribe of underfoot siblings who are bopped and bullied by an angry mother. Appachey's father walked off years ago without explanation, and the boy smokes expertly and bums around Rich Hill looking for excuses to perform mildly delinquent acts. He eventually faces time in a juvenile facility and must scramble to salvage his middle-school career.

We worry about these boys. We feel guilty about having the creature comforts they lack. We also might feel guilty about having visceral reactions to their stereotypical situations -- rural setting, missing or abusive parents, learning disabilities, unhealthy nutrition and vices, the dumb hubris of male adolescence.

But the filmmakers show no bias, make no judgments. They train their cameras on some gritty, chilling images. It's a tough story. Boys will be boys. Capitalism will be capitalism. A happy ending is a long shot.

EMPTY HOURS (B) -A quiet 17-year-old, Sebastian, fills in for his uncle as caretaker of a rundown no-tell motel in Veracruz, Mexico.

This is a sweet, laconic film, and mop-topped Kristyan Ferrer is quite likeable and effective as our hero. There's not a lot of action here, and usually that's not a problem. Here, though, writer/director Aaron Fernandez Lesur struggles to makes this low-key mood piece resonate.

As days become weeks and the uncle's absence drags on, Sebastian gets the hang of the operation. He befriends Miranda (Adriana Paz), a real estate agent and the mistress of an unreliable married man. She spends the downtime waiting for her beau getting to know Sebastian. How close will they get? Will this turn into an R-rated after-school special?

Lesur has a fine eye for the small, quiet scenes and the lazy pace of such a life. But his story is thin, and you might not have the patience for all 101 minutes of this sharply observed movie.

Trust me, I'm a filmmaker ...

The plots thicken (and fall apart in the third act):

THE ONE I LOVE (B-minus) - More of a game than a movie, "The One I Love" flirts with Charlie Kaufman's head-space to present a puzzler about a struggling couple getting their minds blown on a rural retreat.

Two favorites, Mark Duplass ("Your Sister's Sister") and  Elisabeth Moss ("Mad Men"), star as a husband and wife seeking refuge in couples counseling with a therapist (the always welcome Ted Danson) who suggests a romantic getaway. Ethan and Sophie don't hate each other, but they do grumble a lot, and they figure they're up for anything that might stoke the fires again. What they find at the retreat -- or, more precisely, in the guesthouse on the property -- shocks and intrigues them.

To spell it out would ruin part of the enjoyment of the movie. Let's just say that the interactions they have in the guest house force them to wrestle with their conceptions of each other, for better and for worse.

This is a first feature-length effort by both director Charlie McDowell and writer Justin Lader. McDowell is the son of Mary Steenburgen (with Malcom McDowell, who knew?) and stepson of Danson, so you can see how this project got greenlighted and distributed, despite its weaknesses. While it eventually devolves into a narrative mess, it's frequently engaging; how could it not with such appealing stars?

McDowell doesn't always make it easy to know which dwelling the actors are in, a key to keeping the characters straight; I had trouble adjusting, though my date didn't. A quite promising set-up starts to get tedious about halfway through. A late reveal seems borrowed from a science-fiction TV show, and the final shot lays flat on the screen. We're left with an acting exercise and a writer's clever, but thinly realized, gimmick.

TRUST ME (C+) - Ever since the turn-of-the-millennium TV show "Sports Night," we've been big fans of Clark Gregg. He played the deus ex machina special guest who helped wrap up Aaron Sorkin's two-season masterpiece, and he was one of the highlights of the more recent Joss Whedon adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing."*

This is his second film as writer/director (in 2008 he adapted Chuck Pahluniak's "Choke" starring Sam Rockwell), and here he offers an original screenplay and stars as Howard, a former child star who now works as an agent to child actors. As a debut project, it shows promise, and Gregg's self-effacing manner and smart dialogue set us up for an entertaining hour and a half. He casts the appealing young Saxon Sharbino (TV's "Touch") as Lydia, the consensus new teen star on the brink of a three-picture deal in a series of vampire films. Gregg and Sharbino have wonderful chemistry, as Howard convinces Lydia and her drunk of a single dad, Ray (a nicely gritty Paul Sparks), to let him seal the deal with the studio.

The first two acts sing, as Gregg creates a convincing universe of Hollywood gamesmanship and the struggles of a 50-something child star ready to finally hit a home run. Sharbino sizzles and the plot thickens, and we're in satisfying indie territory. But then the third act arrives and it all goes off the rails. Gregg loses control and his twists get ridiculous, until his character is sprouting wings, muttering pseudo-philosophical gibberish and looking like he's flying off to heaven.

Gregg ends up wasting a fine cast, including Rockwell hamming it up as a rival (and much more successful) agent. He gathers up a clutch of thin, classy middle-aged actresses: Amanda Peet is his love interest, Molly Shannon is the mother of one of his clients, Allison Janney jerks him around as a midlevel studio soldier, and Felicity Huffman is particularly sharp as the cunning head of the studio. Huffman's husband, William H. Macy (starting to wither into a version of Willie Nelson), shows up for a fun cameo and a mini-reunion of our "Sports Night" gang.

I'll give Gregg the benefit of the doubt. I'll assume that someone at the studio got hold of this and screwed it up. He had a great idea and good intentions, but it fails as a fully realized film.

* - I realize Gregg has been featured in "The Avengers" and a bunch of other superhero movies, and that he's also well known for the breakout TV show "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D," but I, of course, have never seen any of those titles.

Onto Toronto

From the film festivals in Telluride to Toronto and from Venice to New York, here's what we've cobbled together as titles to look for this fall and beyond:

First Out of the Gate

THE SKELETON TWINS - Hugely talented "SNL" alums Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader get dark with a family drama of estranged siblings. 

THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU - An appealing ensemble cast joins hack director Shawn Levy in another family tale. Starring Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Adam Driver, Kathryn Hahn and Rose Byrne. 

THE ZERO THEOREM - Familiar Terry Gilliam dystopia porn, starring Christoph Waltz and screening at the local art house cinema. It's been a while since we checked in with the Python alum, having missed his more recent "Tideland."

Auteur, Auteur

STRAY DOGS - Taiwan's Tsai Ming-liang ("What Time Is It There?") finally returns with the story of a family in poverty.  

TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT - Marion Cotillard stars in the latest from master filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. 

AN EYE FOR BEAUTY - Canadian Denys Arcand ("The Barbarian Invasions") spins a new love story. 

THE NEW GIRLFRIEND - Francois Ozon is back with the story of a young woman who makes a startling discovery about the husband of her dead best friend. 

BIRDMAN - Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("Amores Perros," "Babel") recruits Michael Keaton as an aging actor trying to relive his heyday as a superhero. 

THE CUT - Fatih Akin ("Head On," "The Edge of Heaven") casts Tahar Rahim from "A Prophet" to turn a spotlight on the Turkish genocide of the Armenians between the wars in the 20th Century. 

NED RIFLE - Indie darling Hal Hartley completes the trilogy he began with "Henry Fool" and "Fay Grim," with Henry and Fay's son taking over. 

LISTEN UP PHILIP - Alex Ross Perry follows up "The Color Wheel" with a Jason Schwartzman frolic as a writer going off the rails as his second novel is to be published. 

LAGGIES - Lynn Shelton continues her slog toward the mainstream with a story of a 30-ish woman (Keira Knightley, meh) ditching her fiance to hang out with a teenage girl. 

WHILE WE'RE YOUNG - Noah Baumbach teams with Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as a couple whose career and marriage are shaken up by a younger pair. 

99 HOMES - Ramin Bahrani ("Man Push Cart," "Chop Shop," "Goodbye Solo") returns with the story of an unemployed construction worker and a shady realtor who foreclose mortgages. 

FOXCATCHER - Bennett Miller ("Capote," "Moneyball") casts Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum in another promising wrestling film. (See "Win Win.")

Familiar Faces

CAKE - Jennifer Aniston is a woman in a chronic-pain support group who investigates the suicide of a fellow group member (Anna Kendrick). Also starring William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman. 

WHIPLASH - Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons team up as rivals between a college band leader and the drummer he recruits. 

MANGLEHORN - David Gordon Green casts Al Pacino as a local locksmith still heartbroken by the woman he loved and lost decades ago. 

MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN - Jason Reitman corrals Adam Sandler for a comedy about sexual angst in the Internet age. Also starring Kaitlyn Dever, the little punk from “Short Term Twelve." 

ST. VINCENT - Bill Murray stars as a brooding former Vietnam War vet who befriends a neighbor boy and takes the lad on inappropriate adventures. 

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING - "Man on Wire" director James Marsh dramatizes Stephen Hawking's life story. 

DUMB AND DUMBER TO - The originals are back with a sequel to one of the stupidest and funniest movies of all time. 

INHERENT VICE - Shall we give Paul Thomas Anderson and Joaquin Phoenix another chance? Here they adapt Thomas Pynchon's gonzo 2009 novel about a Southern California private eye investigating the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend's wealthy boyfriend. The cast includes Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson and Reese Witherspoon.

Pulp Fiction

GONE GIRL - Warily, we dive into the juicy adaptation of that great summer novel despite director David Fincher and star Ben Affleck. 

KILL THE MESSENGER - The sad story of Gary Webb, the west coast journalist who pursued the explosion of crack in the inner city during the 1980s. Starring Jeremy Renner, with Mary Elizabeth Winstead ("Smashed").

EDEN - Greta Gerwig stars in the new film from French director Mia Hansen-Løve ("Goodbye First Love"), which focuses on the rise of the French electronic-music boom in the 1990s.

Young & Old

The French chronicle the cycle of life:

YOUNG & BEAUTIFUL (A-minus) - There may be a few directors out there I'd rank higher, but no one tells a story on screen like Francois Ozon.

For much of the running time of this seemingly standard coming-of-age film, the narrative rarely rises above ordinary. Isabelle (Marine Vacth), a 17-year-old beauty, spends a summer vacation at the beach with her family. She chooses a German boy, Felix, to give up her virginity to, and the event is unsurprisingly underwhelming for her.

Suddenly, she starts sneaking out of her parents' house and turning tricks with mostly older gentlemen in a ritzy hotel. The segue is jarring. Redubbed Lea, she still doesn't enjoy the act of sex very much. But somehow she finds a sense of liberation. Just as she seems to be growing comfortable with her body and her skills, something goes tragically wrong with her favorite john, an elderly man she actually has developed feelings for. Isabelle's double life is exposed. And the movie finally gains texture.

The parents become fleshed out. Sylvie (Geraldine Pailhas) must finally deal with her daughter as a complex person. Sad-faced stepfather Patrick (the compelling Frederic Pierrot from "Polisse" and "I've Loved You So Long") mostly tries to stay out of the way and out of trouble.

Ozon crafts a series of small subtle twists in the final 20 minutes, a succession of false endings that grow more and more intriguing. Finally, Ozon brings it all home with a clever sleight of hand, involving a legendary actress who not only lends gravitas to the proceedings but also subconsciously reminds us of her own sensual early work. It's a brilliant touch.

Stream it for the cheap sex, stay for the compelling drama.

(NOTE: Here's our list of our favorite Ozon films.)

ON MY WAY (B+) - The legendary actress mentioned above is not Catherine Deneuve; here she is commanding as a grandmother, feeling suddenly rudderless, who sets off on a road trip around France, not necessarily searching but just wandering.

Deneuve plays Bettie, a former Miss Brittany (1969), previously widowed now freshly dumped by her boyfriend, who walks out of her restaurant during the lunch rush and away from the aged mother she lives with, hitting the road just to get lost.

Written and directed by Emmanuelle Bercot, who (symmetry!) co-wrote "Polisse," "On My Way" has a shambling nature not unlike our favorite film of 2012 and a verite feel from an ensemble cast that buzzes in and out of Bettie's world. It's a lackadaisical victory of sorts for this icon of French cinema, who feels more human here than she ever has.

After drinking and smoking and snogging a bit too much on her little bender (a man about half her age tells her "You must have been gorgeous when you were young"), Bettie gets a call from her estranged daughter, asking Bettie to drive her boy, Charly (Nemo Schiffman), to his other grandfather's place a good day's drive away. The second half of the film thus settles in with Bettie and her adolescent ward.

Charly is a showy smart mouth who acts like a brat but quickly bonds with the grandmother he hardly knows. He encourages her to attend a reunion of the regional beauty queens of 1969, an invitation she has been shunning, wary of revisiting the era. Their journey is a satisfying one, as Bettie soldiers on, trying to shut out the intermittent news from home suggesting that her restaurant is on the brink of failure.

Bercot brings much of the cast together at the end, essentially an overtime session which reminds us that the movie is about 15 minutes too long. We get a reveal from Bettie's past, connected to that regional competition 45 years earlier; it spills out during an argument and lands with a thud. An unsatisfying happy ending wraps up the proceedings with a spoonful of sugar.

It's all about the journey, not the destination.

New to the Queue

Falling into place ...

Taiwan master Tsai Ming-liang ("What Time Is It There?", "Goodbye, Dragon Inn," "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone") finally returns with the story of a family in poverty, "Stray Dogs."

Maybe just a rental, but we're tempted by the Elmore Leonard adaptation with Jennifer Aniston, "Life of Crime."

A documentary about the pharmaceutical industry with the unsexy title, "Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering."

Japanese animation? It's out of our comfort zone, but we're intrigued by "Patema Inverted."

From the video archives, a new release of Billy Wilder's penultimate film, "Fedora."

I am oddly drawn to the Christian fable that wonders what would have happened if Elvis' twin brother had lived, "The Identical."

A Kennedy clan member's documentary about the fall of Saigon, "Last Days in Vietnam."

The moody tale of a drifter in the city that helped birth the blues, "Memphis."

A documentary about pitcher Dock Ellis baseball's drug-fueled '60s and '70s, "No No: A Dockumentary."

Can't look away? A teen girl's graphic exploration of her nether regions, "Wetlands."

The Fringe

FRANK (A-minus) - There are those who kneel before the troubled genius of the holy trinity of mentally damaged musicians: Syd Barrett, Roky Erickson and Daniel Johnston. Whether it was an over-indulgence in the acid of the '60s or debilitating schizophrenia, those men (especially Barrett and Johnson) suffered for their art and have left us with pop gems mined from their tortured souls.

"Frank" takes that idea (and borrows from the bios of other eccentrics like Captain Beefheart's Don van Vliet) and finds inspiration in the true-life story of Chris Sievey, a Brit who performed comically as Frank Sidebottom while wearing a giant papier-mache head. Here, Michael Fassbender stars as the bizarre leader of a rag-tag band of avant-garde musicians. Fate brings them in touch with struggling songwriter and keyboardist Jon Burroughs (an electric Domhnall Gleason), a rather straight arrow who ends up being quasi-kidnapped by these freaks as they hole up in the Irish countryside to lay down tracks for an album. Burroughs (standing in for Jon Ronson, who wrote the screenplay based on his experience with Sievey/Sidebottom) is essentially a marginally talented jingle writer, but he is seduced by the edginess of his new bandmates (who go by the artsy name Soronprfbs). Fassbender keeps that fake head on for nearly the entire movie (even in the shower, as the trailer reveals), an inspired bit of casting of an actor whose mug makes women melt.

The other bandmates include Maggie Gyllenhaal as Clara, a theremin aficionado and a crank; Francois Civil ("Elles" and the recent TV adaptation of "Rosemary's Baby") as Baraque, and American Carla Azar (the drummer for the experimental trio Autolux) as the French rhythm section; and journeyman Scoot McNairy as Don, their producer, yet another tortured soul who stands as Frank's protector.

Irish director Lenny Abrahamson shows a deft touch with the material, letting the story unfold leisurely and organically. Gleason, holding the center, carries the narrative, as Jon quietly records the band's unorthodox rehearsing process (it takes nearly a year before they actually start rolling tape) and uploads them to YouTube. His Twitter account slowly gains followers until the band gains low-level cult status and a coveted invitation to South by Southwest in Austin. The oddballs reluctantly agree to cross back over the Atlantic to venture into the hipster mainstream, but you can sense a meltdown coming.

"Frank" grabs you from the start with Gleason's Jon haplessly trying to write songs in his head as he goes about his day. His bubblegum sensibilities alternatively clash and merge with the style of his mopey mates. The quirkiness of the band is not played for broad laughs; these are talented people earnestly engaged in the creative process. (The cast produced actual tracks during the course of filming, and a couple of engaging ones play over the end credits.) The movie also squarely faces the issue of mental illness without backing down or slipping into sappy sentimentality. This culminates in the final reel, in which the band members reconnect and improvise a song that feels painfully real.

As a final note, I can't remember the last time an audience (about 50 or so in a small theater) sat so still as the end credits started to roll. Nearly all of them stayed until the credits were complete. It was as if they were trying to compute what just happened, overwhelmed by those final images. "Frank," which is quite funny at times, sneaks up on you, leaving the viewer a bit devastated at the end, bowled over by a powerful story.

A Conundrum Like Maria

THE SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL! (A-minus) - Oh, my God. What was that?

I don't know of any other comedian (or a dramatic actor, for that matter) willing to expose herself and spill the fascinating and frightening contents of her brain out on a stage like Maria Bamford has done here. And in this case, the stage is the living room of her home, with just her two parents in the audience. Top that for brave and bizarre.

What unfolds is either a nervous breakdown or the most compelling stand-up set you'll ever see. (I suppose it could be both.) In poker parlance, Bamford takes Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams and raises them a hundred. She takes Pee-wee Herman's shtick and lives it. She makes Richard Pryor's confessions seem like G-rated hokum.

As her folks look on a bit nervously, voices spill out of their daughter, characters pop up and flit away just as quickly. Her stream-of-conscious riffs are exhausting. Her food issues are disturbing yet hilarious:

"Squeezy cheese on finger, can of wine!"
"Hot power bar from glove compartment. Fresh from the oven!"
Gas station tuna fish sandwich? "A scrumptious fishy nougat!"

She riffs on wannabe-hipster church pastors trying to lure kids into church by running teen centers mysteriously named Vineyard Outreach, Oasis or The Rock. She compares belief in god to the experience of wandering around a third-world country at midnight and spotting a familiar corporate logo off in the distance. And there's People (mag) worship: "And the worst-dressed shall be the best-dressed, and the best-dressed shall be the worst-dressed!"

She is heavily made up and overly coiffed, as if she's wearing a scary Dr. Laura mask, her eyes both challenging and imploring. Near the end you want to run up onto the "stage" and rescue her before she breaks down while riffing on suicide that isn't always entirely humorous. The voices won't stop popping out of every corner of her brain. An ode to her dead dog morphs into the voice of a golden-age Hollywood vixen waxing on about Berlin before the war.

This is a hallucinogenic experience. It's a stand-up special, so the bits won't translate here. Take a dare. Watch this brilliant comic.

One-Liners

DOWNLOADED (B-minus) - A by-the-numbers documentary chronicles the meteoric rise and epic fall of Napster, the file-sharing service that shook the music industry to its foundation at the turn of the millennium. Actor-director Alex Winter (Keanu's "Bill & Ted" co-star) never develops much drama and fails to dig far below the surface of the Internet sensation from what seems like a lifetime ago.

Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker seem to have survived OK (Parker, especially, now with Spotify), so there's no mystery involved here. Winter gathers extensive clips, mostly from around 2002, when Metallica's team of lawyers lowered the boom on the young men's startup that allowed millions to swap music files for free, catching the big labels off guard. As we know, Sony and Apple, etal., eventually commodified digital music, and artists seem to be no better off.

Talking heads chime in, predictably, with the main figures joined by the likes of Mike D, Noel Gallagher, Henry Rollins and Sire Records' Seymour Stein providing the industry perspective. It's a fun nostalgia trip, but it sags under a running time of 106 minutes.

CLIP (D) - This Serbian film plays like a horrific unintentional sequel to our recently viewed "It Felt Like Love," taking a teen girl's story over the edge into the realm of the tawdry. It is almost shockingly explicit, and it suffers from the downscale conceit of cellphone selfie footage throughout. Teenagers are just not that interesting, even when they are going down on each other.

The movie meanders and never establishes 16-year-old Jasna as a real person. Her dad is dying, and she's acting out with her coke-addled friends, ending up with a young man who likes to degrade her and film the proceedings with his phone. It's kids behaving badly, and there's no real point to it. It's mindless trash, not even worth zipping around with the remote to gawk or mope at the zipless sex.

WATERMARK (B) - This tone poem from Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky, who last dazzled with "Manufactured Landscapes," explores the ways in which the world's water shapes our lives. It should be viewed on a large screen, and certainly not a tablet; I watched it on a 32-inch screen and often was mesmerized by the lovely, leisurely images of rivers and dams and aquifers ... and the details of the lives of people all over the world.

The massive scale of the project is hard to comprehend at times during this 92-minute run. It's the visuals that sell this, including many landscape shots taken from the air.  (A smooth bird's-eye view of a water shed in British Columbia is breathtaking.) Time-lapse photography shows coastlines disappearing in flood conditions.

We see how water impacts the economy on various continents, such as the runoff from a leather factory in Bangladesh, and its importance to various cultures, such as the ritual cleansing in the Ganges. Wonders include massive dams in China and the Bellagio fountain show in Las Vegas.

It is thoughtful, beautiful and both comforting and disconcerting.