One-Liners: Drama

THE GERMAN DOCTOR (B) - A surprisingly effective little drama about a family that crosses paths with Josef Mengele in Argentina around 1960.

Buenos Aires director Lucia Puenzo ("XXY," about an intersexed 15-year-old) lights a long fuse for this slow burn of a movie. A couple -- Eva (Natalia Oreiro) and Enzo (Diego Peretti) -- and their three children welcome the mild-mannered doctor into their home.  Their 12-year-old daughter, Lilith (the adorable Florencia Bado), is tiny for his age, and the family's guest offers his experimental hormone therapy to help her grow. Meanwhile, Eva is pregnant with twins, and Mengele takes a keen interest in her impending offspring.

Puenzo creates low-grade thriller without resorting to the cheap tricks of throwaway horror flicks. (Though a quick shot of Mengele marking little Lilith's height in a doorway with a switchblade is downright chilling.) Instead, she revels in the fine print of Mengele's medical sketches and notebook scribblings; the attention to detail is riveting. The director also crafts a side story about Enzo creating prototypes for a doll that has a little mechanical beating heart. The parallels between the earnest father and the sadistic psychopath are engaging.

The film gets dragged down by a rather pedantic winding narrative involving a Mossad agent seeking to bag the big fish. "The German Doctor" nags long after its economical runtime.

LOVE IS STRANGE (C+) -  This enjoyable wry comic drama stokes warms feelings and admiration during its run time, but its charms fizzle not long after viewing. Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) are an aging couple who are forced to sell their Manhattan apartment after they get married and George loses his job as a music teacher at a religious school. Short on cash, they are forced to crash -- separately -- with friends and relatives.

Ira Sachs ("Keep the Lights On") knows how to craft a story, but this one is a little too tidy. Lithgow and Molina are strong, but not so much the rest of the cast, including Marisa Tomei looking distracted as the niece-in-law who takes Ben in with her husband and son. (Ben and the teen sleep in bunk beds.) That domestic set-up is perpetually flat; it is intended to convey the tedium of merging households, but it mostly comes off as tedious, with a side story involving the teen and his pal that goes nowhere. George, meantime, chafes at the constant social buzz at the apartment where he has landed, taken in by two gay cop pals.

The biggest flaw here is the initial set-up. Why can't Ben and George find a small place together? Even if they do have to sleep in separate places, why can't they spend every day together at either place? If it's only temporary, why not go to the place that can accommodate both of them -- an invitation from Mindy to hang out with her in suburban Poughkeepsie? In fact, Christina Kirk's Mindy is one of the few supporting characters with any true energy. But she mostly disappears after the first 20 minutes.

After that, we get a sweet love story about separation and longing. It's technically fine but its significance fades in the end.

Only in New York

In a variation on New to the Queue, we list the past two weeks' openings in New York City, which we would be bingeing on if we happened to live there this week:

Two of the most anticipated films of the year: Michael Keaton spoofing his own career highlight as a superhero in Alejandro Inarritu's "Birdman," and the return of Alex Ross Perry ("The Color Wheel") snagging Jason Schwartzman, who plays a variation on his "Bored to Death" writer, in "Listen Up Philip."

The impressive debut of Justin Simien, "Dear White People."

For a quick pick-me-up, a documentary about genocide, "Watchers of the Sky."

Another doc, a sympathetic one about the hero/traitor Edward Snowden, from PBS "POV" trailblazer Laura Poitras, "Citizenfour."

Lynn Shelton stumbled last time out, and we're not big fans of Keira Knightley, but we'll check out "Laggies."

A Swedish film about a relationship, with avalanches as a metaphor (nice), "Force Majeure."

A look at a fading artist losing the battle against Alzheimer's, "Glen Campbell ... I'll Be Me."

Rhythm. And Blues.

MEMPHIS (A) - Willis Earl Beal is having an existential crisis as he wanders around Memphis mostly not working on his latest album, busy instead with his own brand of self-discovery.

Beal, playing a variation on himself under his own name in this ethereal drama, floats through the city, interacting with preachers, flirtatious women, a one-legged pal in a Cadillac, and wide-eyed children frolicking about, including one boy who seems to be an alter-ego and who bookends the film. Beal (originally from Chicago by way of Albuquerque) is surrounded by urban decay, and he escapes through a mystic dialogue with the city's majestic trees. He believes in magic, not God. He's a poet and a philosopher and a lost soul. A ghost. He's obliquely out of place when attending church.

Tim Sutton, with his second film, has created a mesmerizing masterpiece, or maybe just a grand wank; we'll see on subsequent viewing. It shares a mood with Charles Burnett's classic '70s film "Killer of Sheep" (down to the slow-dance to a treasured oldie). There's barely a story here; it's more of a series of scenes, beautifully rendered. Sutton has a natural feel for the world around us. His shots linger an extra beat or two. His camera is hungry and curious. He trains a close-up on a moving car's bashed-in rear window, the pieces gently breaking off like pieces of a chandelier, speaking of which, there's one of those set on a cardboard box in the middle of a living room, obliquely out of place.

The film seems to transcend time. It's apparently set in the present (the cars and fashions look current), but we also see a TV with rabbit ears, and there's not a cellphone or other digital device in sight. Beal sports a retro nerfro. The soundtrack is pure grit. Beal's music mixes with snippets of obscure dusties, blissfully soulful. You want to reach out and grasp those melodies, but they fly by or fizzle, leaving you both deliriously teased and glumly nostalgic.
I could watch this again just to listen to it. And again, just to let the images flit past. Slip into a reverie. Hover over Memphis like a tree branch, soar through the air like a thoughtful, sensitive man searching for his soul.

BONUS TRACK
A central song from the soundtrack:

One-Liners: The Dark Side

THE ARBOR (2010) (B+) -  This is an ambitious documentary from Clio Barnard (who directed the more recent feature drama "The Selfish Giant") about the troubled playwright Andrea Dunbar. It is, in some ways, a simple story of a family.

Barnard, however, makes the unusual choice of having actors lip-sync to the recorded voices of real people, including Dunbar's daughters. Surprisingly, the gimmick isn't distracting. Meantime, actress Natalie Gaving plays "the Girl," who acts out scenes from Dunbar's plays on the grounds of the English estate where Dunbar lived, in Bradford.

Those scenes are rough, full of anger and alcohol and local slang. Dunbar's daughters struggle to survive, battling their own demons. Manjinder Virk is at times riveting as Dunbar's mixed-race daughter Lorraine. (Dunbar had three kids by three different men.)

Barnard also tosses in clips of Dunbar from a BBC documentary. The mix of voices produces an ethereal quality, giving the dialogue a disembodied feel, sort of like Terence Davies' "Distant Voices, Still Lives." It is a liberating experience.

THE GALAPAGOS AFFAIR: WHEN SATAN CAME TO EDEN (B-minus) - A fascinating but surprisingly tedious chronicle of the German eccentrics who sought out paradise on the island of Floreana in the Galapagos in the 1930s.

War was on the horizon back in Europe in 1934, and these settlers seemed to create a microcosm of that harrowing milieu in their own rural society. When a baroness arrives with two apparent lovers in tow, the drama explodes. The scenes of the baroness reveals a vivacious, modern-looking woman. Actual footage from a short film shot at the time, with the residents cavorting in costume, adds a bizarre twist.

The flaw here is the greed of the filmmakers, Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine, who try to cram in too many characters and talking heads into a bloated two hours. We see and hear from descendants of the settlers, but it can be difficult to keep track of them all.

Meantime, footage and photographs get repeated on loops ad nauseam. Celebrities lend their voices, including, oddly, the non-Germans Cate Blanchett and Connie Nielsen. In the second half, we're treated to a murder mystery that led to the downfall of the settlement.

What happened 80 years ago seems fascinating. This is an unsuccessful attempt to convey that story.

Naming Names

WHAT'S IN A NAME? (LE PRENOM) (A-minus) -  This exquisite salon piece boasts one of the best scripts in recent memory. The adapted stage play, released in America in December 2013, sneaks up on you early and builds momentum throughout.

Vincent shows up for a regular gathering at the home of his sister, Elizabeth (a.k.a. Babu), and their childhood pals, Elisabeth's husband, Pierre, and Claude, a symphony musician. The mischievous Vincent stirs up controversy by announcing the name of his soon-to-be-born son: a slight variation on a name that immediately conjures up the most heinous dictator of the 20th century. His sister and pals wig out. By the end of the film, old childhood wounds will be ripped off and secrets will be spilled. Along the way, the clever dialogue and sharp banter never let up.

Writer/directors Alexandre de la Patelliere and Matthieu Delaporte take a nugget of an idea and run wild with it. They are gifted with a fabulous cast. (Valerie Benguigui as Elisabeth and the wonderful Guillaume de Tonquedec as Claude both won French Cesars for their roles.)  They open the film with a manic, soaring camera-ride through the streets of Paris (avenues named after artists and other venerated subjects who lived rough lives), while introducing the characters in their natural habitats (Elisabeth is a frumpy teacher and Pierre is a witty professor). The technique creates an irresistible hook before settling into the couple's living room.

When Vincent (Patrick Bruel) arrives, Elisabeth is harriedly preparing dinner, guided by phone by their free-spirit chatterbox of a mother, Francoise. Vincent instantly greets Pierre with a snotty complaint about the building's lack of an elevator. The pair have an easy, cutting repartee that drives the narrative throughout. When Vincent's pregnant wife Anna (Judith El Zein) finally enters the picture, the mania is in full bloom.

The witticisms fill the air like a plague of bees. But this isn't a flippant actors exercise; the characters deepen along with the intrigue. The humor at times is broad, but the story remains authentic throughout.

Anna and Vincent can't believe they are getting guff from a couple who burdened their own children with the precious (trendy?) names Apollin and Myrtille. The tension ratchets up and then explodes; soon a table shatters, a nose is bloodied, and some pasta flops onto the floor. De Tonquedec's Claude turns out to be the filmmakers' secret weapon. His late reveal is perfectly executed.

De la Patelliere and Delaporte are assured scriptwriters and confident first-time directors. This one is secretly a blast.

New to the Queue

Fall harvest:

Kirsten Dunst and Viggo Mortensen in a 50-year-old Patricia Highsmith potboiler, "The Two Faces of January."

Our boy Miles Teller and the great J.K. Simmons as student and band teacher in "Whiplash."

Has Bill Murray worn out his welcome with his shtick of the grumpy old guy befriending a kid? We'll see in "St. Vincent."

A charming documentary about a music teacher from Soviet Georgia, "Botso."

French star Mathieu Amalric spins a taught, tight (76-minute) thriller, "The Blue Room."

We're wary of biopics, but Jeremy Renner and Michael Cuesta are drawing us to the Gary Webb story, "Kill the Messenger."

We've never passed up a documentary about The Greatest: "I Am Ali."

Another doc, this one about a 15-year-old Romanian girl raising her siblings, "Waiting for August."

A cynical, satiric takedown of the art world and the music industry, "Hellaware." (Sophia Takal alert.)

A parody of faith-based fund-raisers, "Believe Me."

The quirky debut feature about a depressed dwarf actor, "The Little Tin Man."

A documentary about a Lutheran Pastor tending to migrant workers in North Dakota's oil boom, "The Overnighters."

R.I.P., Jan Hooks

Two greats from the Groundlings in a memorable scene together. "Do I hear someone's stomach growling?"

Inadvertent Double Feature: A Little Italy

Back-to-back in the same evening, we experienced the delights of Italy. The first was a documentary about Gore Vidal (the American exile in Ravello), and the second was Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's follow-up to "The Trip," immersed in the Italian countryside where, improbably, Brydon does something I'd never seen before: an impression of Gore Vidal.

THE TRIP TO ITALY (B) - If you like Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and their shtick, then this sequel to "The Trip" will go down easy. If not, you might squirm a bit. Here, the cheeky Brits gambol about the Italian countryside, endlessly tossing out clever impressions, while dining at five-star restaurants.

Coogan is eminently watchable, and Brydon is a capable foil. They settle in quickly, puttering around God's green acres in a Mini Cooper (probably for "The Italian Job" joke) while listening (and singing along) to vintage Alanis Morissette.

The scenery is breathtaking and the food is to die for, and those distractions certainly help take your mind off the fact that we've been here before or that director Michael Winterbottom isn't as jazzed about the narrative the second time around. As in the first film, Winterbottom broadly sketches a back story for each man. This time Brydon is the unfaithful one (with little apparent consequence), while Coogan conducts a dull and inscrutable long-distance squabble with his pissy 16-year-old son, an utterly confounding exercise. Meantime, the men brood about their own mortality, sniffing along the trail of the great poets Byron and Shelley and visiting tourist sites like the ruins of Pompeii (probably for the "little guy in a box" joke).

But we're here for the banter. And it's often a hoot. (Middle-aged men will be boys, after all.) The Michael Caine impression makes a cameo. Just about all the James Bonds get a quick gloss. Brydon's fall-back impression here is Al Pacino, and frankly, it's not a very good one, no matter how often he tries. His improbable Gore Vidal impression is much stronger. Winterbottom sits back and lets the improvisational comedy find a target, and then he moves on.

This truly is like a delectable meal -- you savor it while it lasts, and eventually it just passes through you.

GORE VIDAL: UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA (B) -  And if you can stand Gore Vidal for 90 minutes, this is a workmanlike overview of his career and political philosophy.

The first half drags too often and is focused too much on Vidal's personal life. The second half finally delves into his role as the conscience of America.

This world-class insufferable elitist intellectual duels with William Buckley in classic 1960s TV clips. (Where Buckley infamously smeared Vidal as a "queer" and threatened to punch him in the nose.) He anoints Christopher Hitchens (seen here hairless not long before his death) as his ideological heir before dispatching Hitchens unceremoniously over the latter's support for the Iraq War. (We see them at their final public gathering together, an awkward parting.)

Vidal is refreshingly blunt in his measured assessment of American history (and its exceptionalism and imperialism). He expertly busts the myth of Camelot, referring to his old pal Jack Kennedy as the worst president we've ever had, a leader who accomplished little and who sent the first batch of ground troops to Vietnam.

This all zips along in tick-tock fashion. Like in "Life Itself," we're exposed to too much footage of an old man in a wheelchair staring death in the face. (The opening and closing scenes take place at a cemetery.) But the old footage is oddly comforting, and Vidal makes compelling company throughout.

BONUS TRACK
Speaking of Alanis Morissette:

Soundtrack of Your Life: Down by the Border

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

Date: 9 October 2014, 11:43 a.m., EDT
Place: Ciro's Mexican Restaurant, Las Cruces, New Mexico
Song: "Runaround Sue"
Artist: Dion and the Belmonts
Irony Matrix: 0.75 out of 10
Comment: OK, so they were playing oldies during lunchtime at a strip-mall diner. No big deal. But it's an excuse to riff. It brought back the memory of my night of salvation. In that sweaty Mercury Lounge in New York in June 2009, alone in the middle of the crowd of strangers, while waiting for Dex and Sara Romweber to come out for a round of garage thrash. The club was playing a wide variety of songs as the crowd packed in. "Runaround Sue" came on. People started singing along, reflexively, with the soaring background vocals: "Whoa-oa-OA-oa-oa-oa ..."  I looked around. There were 20-somethings singing, joining in with the geezers. Who taught them that song? Some geezer? Is that song just a cultural meme? Is it a vocal part that people just pick up on the spot? Part of our collective DNA? Just a big coincidence? "Runaround Sue" is before my time. Kids? In the aughts? At that moment of harmonizing (and harmony) I discovered the elusive reason for everything, a global communal connection.

On the way home from Las Cruces I saw an anti-Obama billboard that asked: "Freedom or Collectivism?"



BONUS TRACKS
Or did I mean "Runaround Shoe?"On that three-hour drive to and from Las Cruces, I rifled through the archives for my Del Fuegos best-of CD. I was reminded that of all the fantasy jobs out there, drummer for that '80s roots band (and their two perfect albums) would be near the top. I plucked out two examples of sublime pop philosophy on the subject of love:

First:
"Love is like a shoe.
You run around a lot
And then it falls apart."



Second:
"I love you baby
I love your cat.
I love the way you look
In my fireman's hat."

Toward the Lite

ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY (C-minus) - Swanberg!

Prolific indie mega-director Joe Swanberg can be so confounding. He knows how to elicit amazing performances from some of the most interesting actors around. But he crafts these half-baked semi-stories that require those actors to vamp and ad-lib, to mixed results.

Here he dishes up more thin gruel, an oh-so precious thin-slice of life. The amazing Jane Adams (Todd Solondz's "Happiness," HBO's "Hung") teams up with her cinematic heir apparent, Sophia Takal, in a barely-there story of an aging actress hosting her aspiring-actress niece at her luxurious but sad rental home on the ocean in Malibu.

That's the set-up, but damn if I could find an actual story here. One of the sharper scenes features Adams' Marie and Takal's Faye quite literally discussing the pitfalls of women navigating the aging process, especially in Hollywood. It's one of the only two-person long takes that actually works in the film.

Otherwise, Marie seems stuck in a cycle of tasks and hobbies that reveal very little. She paddle-boards, she makes a lot of veggie smoothies (really, like 3 or 4 times), she curls up each night and falls asleep to inspirational speeches about philosophy and religion on her glowing iMac, and she engages in heart-to-hearts with the other characters one-on-one. Three times she meets up with an expert in solar energy, learning the ways in which scientists harness the light of the sun. Is she researching a role? Who knows. What's painfully obvious is that she is so sad-eyed and emotionally fragile because she's not letting the sunlight into her soul. I'm pretty sure that's the Big Idea.

Anyway, speaking of "barely-there" and how much is revealed, Swanberg has his way visually with his two female stars. Much of the early action features Adams and Takal squeezing in and out of wetsuits and hosing the ocean off of each other, romping naked like a couple of sorority sisters. Marie kneads her "sagging" breasts in front of Faye, like any aunt would, as compliments bounce back and forth between the women (just like men imagine). I'm not sure what Swanberg and Adams (who gets co-writer credit) are going for there besides the obvious observations about gravity and time in general, or maybe he's just pimping, "Hung"-style.

Faye is pretty mopey herself. She Skypes with her scruffy boyfriend back east. (Swanberg goes crazy with the snowy screen shots here, with needless cellphone and video camera images serving as lazy stand-ins for actual direction and cinematography. As a "style," that technique was played out long ago.)

Marie has a fling with the blandly hunkish man that Faye brings along with her, Dan (Kent Osborne, the star of Swanberg's "Uncle Kent"), providing another excuse for Adams to get naked. Marie paddle-boards and flirts with her goofy neighbor Rusty. Their main scene together -- lazing around on the couch after dinner -- induces winces, particularly her insistence that he do his mediocre Jack Nicholson impression.

And that last part is really what's wrong here. There is a germ of a notion here -- cherish youth and come to terms with its passing -- but it just sits on the screen. These are actors who are work-shopping their ideas on camera. Some of them work and some don't. As in last year's "Drinking Buddies," the experiment just isn't compelling enough for us to spend even 79 minutes tolerating such noodling.

Cast away

VERY GOOD GIRLS (B) - This sweet, low-key film about two teen girls about to head off to college plays like a very good Lifetime movie and a decent directorial debut.

Lilly (Dakota Fanning) and Gerri (Elizabeth Olsen) are close pals who vow to lose their virginity (and, thus, their goody-two-shoes personae) before heading off to school (Lilly's going to Yale). What could have been one long cliche instead gains depth and feeling from the impressive lead performances. Fanning's face is a mask that often tries to hide her frustrations. Olsen (who burst on the scene with "Martha Marcy May Marlene") has personality to burn, multiple talents (she has a lovely singing voice) and those big expressive green eyes. Her skills help smooth over the fact that she's five years older than Fanning, who still has the physique to pull off a teen-girl role.

This is a heartfelt celebration of sisterhood, but, of course, the conflict must revolve around a boy who comes between them. The same old type of boy. Here it's sensitive artist David, played by Boyd Holbrook, yet another bland hunk, this one in the Ryan Gosling mold instead of the Channing Tatum mold.

Naomi Foner, who wrote "Running on Empty" in the late 1980s and the more recent "Bee Season," gets behind the camera for the first time, with mixed results. She shows a connection with Fanning and those mysterious eyes. (Foner finds compelling ways to frame the girls in various situations.) Otherwise, the camerawork is unremarkable. She plays with shadows in an interesting way, and she has a natural feeling for the street life of New York. She lets the cast dance and play at times (the characters also like to strip in public), suggesting the waning days of childhood.

Foner's own script, however, falls short. The dialogue is too often clunky. The  parents are oddly drawn, barely sketched, and Lilly's domestic scenes with her mother and sisters, can be painful to watch. The quartet of parents also are mostly miscast. Richard Dreyfuss and Demi Moore both look uncomfortable as Gerri's liberal parents. Our man Clark Gregg makes the most of his bland scenes, while Ellen Barkin, as his fellow-psychiatrist wife, barks out the tritest lines. (And with her plastic surgery and severe dieting, she's barely recognizable from the old "Diner" days.) Their marital strife in front of Lilly and her sisters (including "Mad Men's" Kiernan Shipka, with nothing to do) is weak and unbelievable. Peter Sarsgaard finds just the right tone as a pervy yet relatively harmless older co-worker of Lilly's at a tour-boat service.

The narrative does zip along. One of the girls seduces David. A parent dies. A rift develops between our heroines. Will these girls turn out to be good in the end? Will their friendship survive?

If you're a woman, especially a young one, you probably will be more rewarded by your 90-minute investment here. Others will find it hard not to be charmed.

BONUS TRACKS
From the fulcrum midway through the movie, "Lost in the Light" from Bahamas (Canadian singer-songwriter Afie Jurvanen):



And Jenny Lewis, who does the heavy lifting on the soundtrack, here with Rilo Kiley and "Go Ahead" (Elizabeth  Olsen also does a fine acoustic version early in the film):

Two-Line Review: Music Moment

BEYONCE JAY Z ON THE RUN (D+) - In their punctuation-challenged and desperately ostentatious HBO special, the royal couple trade off songs like John and Yoko insisted on doing on "Double Fantasy."

He's Yoko.