Doc Watch: Spare Parts

FINDERS KEEPERS (B) - This is a story that tells itself, and it does so with a southern twang that makes it even more entertaining.

Shannon Whisnant, a scavenger and a bit of a grifter, bought a barbecue smoker grill at a sale of assets from a storage facility. Inside he found a mummified lower leg and foot. That foot belonged to John Wood, who lost the body part in a small-plane crash, had it preserved, and then stashed it in the smoker in a storage locker that he stopped making payments on. This movie is about the legal battle over which man had the right to the leg.

Whisnant and Wood grew up in the same town, Maiden, N.C., but ran in different circles. Wood's father was fairly prominent in town, and it was his private plane that he was piloting when it crashed, injuring John Wood and killing his father. Wood

It feels a bit lurid to watch these backwoods characters banter back and forth. Wood, missing a front tooth, looks like a cross between Dan Quayle and Mortimer Snerd. In home-movie flashbacks he sports a mullet. Whisnant lapses into "Sling Blade" patter. When he speaks, the word "media" comes out more like "meteor"; when he means "transpire" he says "perspire." His wife sports an Aye Caramba Tequila T-shirt. He's a connoisseur of the truckstop humor of Gene Tracy, who specialized in harelip jokes. Whisnant's lifelong dream was to be a TV star. (He made an appearance on "Jerry Springer" at one point, and more recently was a regular on a reality show called "Dukes of Haggle.") Whisnant and wood eventually agree to settle their dispute on the "Judge Mathis" show. Whisnant fondly recalls emerging from the judge's courtroom to a sea of cameras. They were "a-clickin' and a-flashin', and a-flashin' and a-clickin'," he recalls, tearing up.

Wood is a lovable loser who struggled with drugs and alcohol his whole adult life and then was overcome with guilt over the plane crash. He is estranged from his mother, who got fed up with his addictions during his recovery period. "Most of the time I don't love him," she tells the camera. "I like him." Ouch. Wood's sister Marian eventually kicks him out of the house, and she blurts out her frustration over the ongoing dispute: "We cain't move forward till there's an ending for this leg." The dispute eventually strains Whisnant's marriage.

It's mostly a guilty wallow in the black humor of two tetched good ol' boys squabbling over a severed leg. Newcomers Bryan Carberry and Clay Tweel manage to rise above the easy freak-show trappings and manage to inject some humanity into their film. The result is often a hoot. 

THE FINAL MEMBER (2014) (B) - This documentary about a penis museum in Iceland somehow develops dramatic heft in the story of the curator's quest to land the first human specimen.

Sig Hjartarson for a couple of decades accumulated the male sex organs of various species, from hamsters to whales, and he transferred his home collection to an actual museum in 1997. But his own white whale was a human penis. Will Hjartarson, 70, live to see his dream come true?

Rookie directors Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math, apparently shooting over several years, patiently allow a dramatic story arc to form and the characters to deepen. Hjartarson isn't just some eccentric in the shadow of the Arctic Circle; he's a wistful old man with a passion. Enter two candidates for his human specimen. Paul Arason, around 90 years old, is the Wilt Chamberlain of Iceland: He was the playboy of his day, bedding about 300 women over the decades. And then there's the weird American, Tom Mitchell, who is obsessed with his own dick (he has dubbed it Elmo) and wants it immortalized -- to the extent that he's planning to have it removed while he's still alive and mounted in the museum.

But Arason is shriveling in his old age, and Hjartarson worries that Arason's member won't meet the 5-inch minimum requirement. And Mitchell is a nutcase. He tattoos the Stars & Stripes on the head of his penis. He seeks medical and psychological treatment to prepare him for his gelding. He harasses Hjartarson by email.

The filmmakers corral the silliness and inject a somber mood into this masculine competition to celebrate their phallic wonders. In a brisk 75 minutes, they create an epic tale of ego and epitaphs. 

BONUS TRACK
John Wood suggests his theme song, Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried," a version of which plays over the end credits:


  

Santa Fe Film Fest: Strange Love

We caught two offerings at the Santa Fe Film Festival (which is struggling to revive its glory days of a decade ago); look for them in theaters after the first of the year.

ANOMALISA (B+) - From the mind of Charlie Kaufman comes this stop-action-animation downer about loneliness and the human ache for the love of another, a seeming meta-mix of his earlier milestone movies "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

It's best to know little or nothing about the movie in advance. David Thewlis voices Michael Stone, a positive-thinking author who specializes in customer service, but who stumbles when it comes to making personal connections with others. Everyone he interacts with during a conference he is to speak at -- the cabdriver who picks him up, the hotel clerk, the waitress -- all seem the same. (There's a neat trick Kaufman employs here that gradually becomes apparent to the viewer, an effect that evolves from odd to comic to melancholic.) Even his wife's voice on the phone seems indistinct.

Michael is stirred from his slump when he meets a fellow hotel guest, Lisa (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh), a frumpy, scarred naif who is a fan of his books. Michael sets out to seduce her. What follows is a sweet yet unsettling weekend affair, an opportunity to awaken inner love and lust, however fleeting. Kaufman is making a statement about isolation, but he's also penetrating the politics of relationships, highlighting the dangers (and comforts) of always reverting to the same type.

Why animate this? Who knows why Kaufman -- who'd been quiet since his last mind-altering film, "Synecdoche, N.Y." -- does what he does. The technique (with help from a co-director, 30-something Duke Johnson) takes a few scenes to get used to, but it eventually becomes second nature. Kaufman even pulls off a rather tender and -- believe it or not -- authentic sex scene that, luckily, only barely brings to mind the hilarious puppet porn from "Team America: World Police."

And Kaufman is at his funniest since "Malkovich." When the cabdriver offers some advice for day trips around Cincinnati, Michael balks at going to the zoo, fearing it might take all day. Not to worry, the cabbie assures him, "it's zoo-sized." Later in the film, we see a billboard for the zoo, featuring the cabdriver's visage and the tag line "It's zoo-sized!" At a key moment, an a cappella version of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" lingers just long enough for a satisfying belly-laugh.

The film ramps up slowly, as if traipsing uphill, and then it takes off at the midway point. It wraps up rather abruptly, but -- if you've ever reached out to another and feared failing spectacularly -- the story will haunt you for weeks.

MEN & CHICKEN (A-minus) - This wildly absurd film from Denmark is both deeply touching and darkly funny.

Mads Mikkelsen and David Dencik star as Elias and Gabriel, two quirky brothers who learn, after their father's death, that their true biological father is another man who lives on the island of Ork, population just a few dozen. Elias, who is hypersexualized, and Gabriel, a dull university professor, set out on a mission to track down this man, who was a scientist shunned by the scientific community. On a farm, they discovery three bizarre step-brothers (similarly hare-lipped). living in a ramshackle farmhouse where chickens, pigs and other animals roam free and a majestic bull inhabits an attached barn.

It turns out that each brother has a different mother, and each man is more goofy than the other, with barnyard manners and zero social skills. They are overly protective of the father, who is said to be sickly and bedridden. The mystery deepens when Elias and Gabriel grow curious about a basement laboratory (also off-limits to the visitors) and the nature of the experiments that made their father a pariah.

Again, knowing too much about this film will ruin the joy of discovering its charms. Mikkelsen, so good in "The Hunt" and known to TV audiences as "Hannibal," is a regular in the films of writer/director Anders Thomas Jensen going back 15 years. Mikkelsen here is completely comfortable acting rather silly, a bit like Jeff Daniels in "Dumb & Dumber." Not to compare the two movies. This one has depth and heart and a message to convey about family and community and the hubris of man.

The pace and writing call to mind another unorthodox, deadpan Danish film, "Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself," Lone Scherfig's gem from 2003. "Men & Chicken" is a unique and special experience.
 

B-Movie Serials

Our annual Christmas Day Mainstream Movie outing took us to the ultimate blockbuster. We had never seen a "Star Wars" movie before.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (B) - This is throwback entertainment and tried-and-true storytelling that holds up over more than two hours of running time and two years of hype.

It's possible to follow this and enjoy it without knowing the complicated backstory. It is said to crib greatly from the original 1977, which might frustrate die-hards. But your expectations may vary.

There is no substantive critique I can contribute, so I'll just toss out some stray observations:

• The movie certainly perks up about a third of the way through when Harrison Ford shows up as the scruffy hero Han Solo. Ford is a retro movie star, and his wisecracks here elevate the script. He is surrounded by a bunch of new cast members, and none of the others jumps off the screen. Solo, with loyal Chewbacca in tow, gets off the funniest line of the movie. As they're skulking around a snow-covered landscape, Chewie gives a shiver, and Han Solo shoots the hairy beast a look and snorts, "You're cold?!" Ford's delivery of the tough-guy lines -- too easy by half -- betrays both the appeal and the weakness of the "Star Wars" movies. 
• The writing is cheesy, but it gets the job done. The original was rooted in the Buck Rogers sagas, and the "Star Wars" scripts (from the clips I've seen and reviews I've read) rarely rise above the B-movie level or old sci-fi serials. But the simplicity is almost refreshing; no need to overthink this.
• Of the big four newcomers, only one rises above the material. Daisy Ridley as the scrappy scavenger Rey (whose story arc mirrors that of Princess Leia in the original) succeeds by sheer determination. It helps that she has R2-D2's doppelganger, BB-8 (looking like a hyper-inflated soccer ball with a Roomba bobbing atop it), to play off of, and their banter is fun. Rey is much more Katniss Everdeen than Princess Leia, in keeping with third-wave feminism. Adam Driver ("Girls") looks desperate trying to get a handle on the pitch of Kylo Ren, this trilogy's Darth Vader; you could say that he's miscast. As is Oscar Isaac, looking completely out of place as an ace pilot for the Resistance, shouting out orders and hamming it up in front of a green-screen. John Boyega, as Finn, is a cardboard character from start to finish, and you get the sense that Boyega is just getting warmed up for Episode 8.
• Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) show up, and the warm nostalgia that surrounds them and Han Solo is woven in nicely with the New and Improved.
• The special effects and all the air battles and exploding planets get a bit tiresome. But there is enough exposition and character development to provide a balance for the narrative.
• The ending is epic and moving, a perfect way to tease the series toward the final two installments.

After sitting through a parade of previews for super-hero sagas and action flicks that all look as trite as can be, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" was a refreshing change of pace.
  

One-Liners: Trust Issues

EX MACHINA (B-minus) -- It's rare that I fail to immerse myself in the world created by a filmmaker. But throughout this sci-fi snoozer, I was nagged by the creepy misogyny of Alex Garland's tale of a sexy young thing powered by artificial intelligence.

Ava (sculpted Scandinavian Alicia Vikander) is the latest prototype from the mind of reclusive computer genius Nathan (Oscar Isaac). Ava has about a size 16 waist, pouty lips and imploring eyes. Nathan also has a fetching assistant, Kyoko (the model Sonoya Mizuno), who is valued for her inability to understand a lick of English. And here we have the ultimate male fantasy: Which anorexic beauty do you prefer -- the one whose brain you have created and programmed, or the mute Asian? It's all rather fetishistic and somewhat revolting. And I couldn't rid myself of the thought that I was watching Garland manipulate real women to service his Hollywood megalomania.

The story is minimal. Nathan (for reasons that don't much rise above plot convenience) recruits young Caleb (Domhnall Gleason, asea) to participate in an experiment in which Nathan will chart how Ava and Caleb interact so that Caleb can assess how human she seems. Or something like that.

What transpires is a series of suspense-less conversations between Ava and Caleb. It plays like "My Dinner with A.I." Part of the problem is the flat writing. (Garland penned the impressive "28 Days Later" and "Sunshine," and this is his directorial debut.) The other problem is the lack of charisma and chemistry coming from Gleason and Vikander. Gleason was sharp and comical in "Frank," but here he flails and simply cannot carry a scene, overdoing the air of naivete. Vikander, frequently clad in a granny dress and dark wig for the tete-a-tetes, is about as vivacious as a robot. Together they drag the movie down before it can get off the ground.

Isaac, a compelling screen presence, struggles to get a grip on this one-note character. His talents are wasted. Mizuno is blatantly exploited as eye candy; in one scene, when a character sneaks into a room, Kyoko -- inexplicably -- is splayed on the bed, naked, in a phony Marilyn Monroe pose.

Several of the twists are entirely predictable, including the biggest one of them all. How will Caleb figure out a way to outwit a man who gets drunk every night? When power outages occur during the Ava-Caleb confabs -- cutting the remote video feed -- can Nathan actually still hear what they're whispering about? What's Kyoko's secret? Who, exactly, is tricking whom here?

None of it is particularly puzzling, intriguing or even interesting. It's little more than Alex Garland's big wank.

FAR FROM MEN (C+) - Westerns are making a bit of a comeback in the indie art-film world. But, with the exception of Tarantino, they tend to be fairly sluggish affairs. (See "Slow West.") Sort of Bramblecore.

Here we have rugged, aging Viggo Mortensen, moping his way through the wilds of Algeria in this 1950s morality tale based on an Albert Camus short story. He plays Daru, a man of French ancestry who was raised in the French colony and, despite obvious dangers, remains planted there, teaching schoolchildren and helping distribute sustenance to their peasant families. He lives alone on a plateau, where he is a sitting duck for rebels, who recently killed a teacher in a nearby village.

Dumped on his doorstep, in manacles, is Mohamed (Reda Kateb), who killed his own cousin and is now needing an escort to meet justice in a town that's a long day's walk away. Off on foot they go, with the Frenchman and the Algerian treading the no-man's-land between the frontier rebels and their colonist hunters -- trouble from both sides. Daru and Mohamed awkwardly bond along the way.

Visually stunning at times, "Far From Men" just never gels narratively. Bursts of violence are jarring and a poor fit. Mortensen broods intensely, and Kateb shambles along as a broken man, but by the one-third mark it's clear that these two just won't click. It was tempting to pull the plug.

A late scene in a brothel provides some genuine tenderness and bonding. And a final scene at a crossroads is finely executed. But highlights like those are just too few and far between for this to be a successful film.
  

Daring Devils

VERY SEMI-SERIOUS (B) - I love New Yorker cartoons, and I love movies. Well, here you go: an automatic grade of B.

This serviceable documentary (streaming on HBO) has one big thing going for it -- the archive of New Yorker cartoons. If that's not your cup of tea, there's not much else to tune in for.

Newcomer Lea Wolchok follows around the New Yorker's cartoon editor, Robert Mankoff, and gives us an inside look at the editorial process (a yes/no session with editor-in-chief David Remnick is a highlight), while introducing us to some of faces behind the comic inventions. Side stories about Mankoff's personal and family life are a distraction, and a little of him goes a long way, but thankfully we are treated to vignettes of the humorists in his stable.

We meet the adorable and incorrigible Roz Chast, who was the pioneering young woman in the 1970s and who is a superstar to this day. Other veterans include the genius Bruce Eric Kaplan, the venerable oddball George Booth, and deadpan Sam Gross.

If you peruse the New Cartoons regularly, you'll know that in the past five years Mankoff has succeeded in bringing youth and diversity to the pages. Here, Farley Katz, Zach Kanin, Emily Flake and others provide a low-key, offbeat sensibility that's apparent in their drawings. Two newcomers are revelations: Lianna Fincke and Edward Steed. Wolchok captures Fincke's first session with Mankoff (he welcomes all comers to his office on Tuesdays), and Fincke is a shy, borderline autistic gamine with a skewed view of the world. The British-born Steed, also soft-spoken to the point of whispering, is a genius, with crude drawings that are as messy as his mind seems to be.

Many other talented people pass through, and Wolchok pays tribute to the greats that have graced the pages. (But no Danny Shanahan, alas.) Whether the cartoons themselves are your cup of tea is an important factor in deciding whether to sit through this. With just enough quirky characters -- in real life and on the pages -- "Very Semi-Serious" does justice to the history of an important part of comic history.

FOOTNOTE: For the record, the funniest New Yorker cartoon ever was this one drawn by the late, great Leo Cullum.

BEING EVEL (B+) - The '70s were somewhat of an Evel Knievel decade. He was a hustler and a huckster, a crazed daredevil willing to break every bone in his body in order to be rich and loved.

This rather fawning documentary, produced by one of Knievel's descendants, Johnny Knoxville of "Jackass" fame, plays like a classic episode of VH-1's "Behind the Music" from the 1990s. There's the backstory, the breakthrough moment, the rise to fame, the drug and/or alcohol addiction, prison time, redemption, and finally sainthood. While it's technically ordinary, it's a true hoot and a half to watch.

The pride of Butte, Montana, Evel Knievel was a motorcycle fanatic in Southern California in the 1960s who discovered the thrills of jumping over things with his Harley Davidson. He was a sneaky self-promoter who made headlines with one of his first big jumps -- an epic wipeout trying to sail over the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas (which is shown here several times in painfully slow slo-mo).

Knievel talked his way onto ABC's "Wide World of Sports," a Sunday afternoon potpourri on the third network, which couldn't afford baseball, football or hockey. There, he became a staple and ratings gold, a favorite of host Frank Gifford. Desperate to top himself, he eventually concocted a scheme in 1974 to launch himself in a steam-powered rocket in an attempt to span the Snake River Canyon in Idaho. The incredibly hyped event ended in anti-climactic fashion. Shortly thereafter, his career plummeted, the bubble had burst, and he became just another rich asshole.

Ah, but that's not the nadir. No, that came when he took a baseball bat (an aluminum one, it's reported) to his longtime promoter, Shelly Saltman (who had penned a fairly tepid tell-all), and did a few months of hard time. That stunt killed his lucrative line of action figures and stripped him of many of his assets.

This documentary comes from Daniel Junge, who has an interesting resume. It looks like he finds compelling subjects, teams with a collaborator, and cranks out a documentary. Subjects have included Legos, Pakistanis attacked with acid, the confluence of Christianity and mixed martial arts, and "Iron Ladies of Liberia."

Here he assembled childhood friends, members of the entourage, journalists (including Gifford and Geraldo Rivera), actor George Hamilton, and Knievel's childhood sweetheart and first wife, Linda Bork, whom he had essentially kidnapped and married and whose rather dimwitted remarks provide comic relief. Knoxville is over-enthusiastic, as if the filmmakers goosed him in order to move the product. He and others, including skateboarder Tony Hawk, pay tribute to the man who opened the door to the extreme-sports movement, a true legacy.

As uneven as the production can be, and despite running about 10 minutes too long, this is highly entertaining storytelling, a fun look at one of the more exotic celebrities of the eventful '60s and '70s.

BONUS TRACK
The opening credits of "Being Evel" splash on the screen to the joyous strains of T-Rex's "20th Century Boy." What a riff:


  

Newsies

SPOTLIGHT (B+) - This workmanlike drama about crusading reporters never hints at having aspirations of standing alongside "All the President's Men" in the pantheon of journalistic masterpieces. This is a surprisingly low-key film that pushes all the right buttons but never feels significant.

Writer/director Tom McCarthy once had a great run a decade ago with the nuanced dramas "The Station Agent," "The Visitor" and "Win Win," but then tossed off an Adam Sandler head-scratcher, "The Cobbler," last year. Here he teams with TV writer Josh Singer ("Fringe") for the story of Boston Globe reporters at the turn of the millennium determined to break open the story of abuse by priests and the Catholic church's longtime cover-up.

A bunch of regular joes join the cast to populate the newsroom, including Michael Keaton at the "Spotlight team" editor, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams as his shoe-leather reporters, Liev Schreiber as editor-in-chief Marty Baron, John Slattery as editor Ben Bradlee Jr., a bewigged Stanley Tucci as a good-guy lawyer fighting an uphill battle in the courts against the Vatican's American beachhead, Jamey Sheridan as a gangster-like church insider, and Billy Crudup as a conflicted attorney in bed with the top priest, Cardinal Law.

With little suspense to be had in a true story that happened 14 years ago, and lurching along at a lumbering 128 minutes, McCarthy has his work cut out for him holding our interest. But he mostly succeeds. His subdued approach earns points for restraint and class, but it doesn't make for sizzling cinema. McCarthy doesn't overplay the tension of a bunch of born-and-bred (though mostly lapsed) Irish Catholics going up against The Church in blessed Boston. But he does fumble a key plot point about the Globe's foot-dragging on the story in the previous decade. As a result, this plays like a really good TV procedural that is smart and sensible. (Howard Shore's tone-deaf, schmaltzy score, on the other hand, rarely rises above the sophistication of a "Law & Order" cluh-clunk.)

There is no denying that this is Ruffalo's movie. He disappears inside the skin of Mike Rezendes, a working-class reporter busting his hump and digging up information the old-fashioned way. He's moody and mumbly, and he's got a lot on his mind (including a wife that he (and we) never see, but he's determined to pursue the truth in the spirit of the First Amendment. In the early days of the Internet and before the latest precipitous decline in daily metro newspapering, that still seemed possible. Ruffalo sheds any movie-star pretense and finds the heart and soul of an ink-stained wretch.

Keaton is solid as the boss who seems distracted, and he gets to deliver the movie's big line near the climax. McAdams does fine work as a pushy reporter who's sweet to her pious nana. Slattery is a bit off-key in his secondary role, as if he hasn't quite completely shaken off Roger Sterling. Schreiber is practically somnambulant as Baron, a newcomer and a community outsider (and a Jew) who is just far enough removed to push this sacrilegious investigative project without qualms. The Quiet Hero bit is rather overdone, but Schreiber manages some fine moments.

The team mostly gets the newsroom moments right. Two examples show that the production team did its homework. One editor points out to another that "golf" is not a verb (it's a sport). (I once was lectured by a golf writer that the proper construction is "play golf.") And near the climax, when Baron is taking a red-pen to a printed-out final draft of the big story, he circles something on the page for deletion. "What's that?" he's asked. He replies: "Another adjective."

If you adjust your expectations, you will be pleasantly surprised and you won't mind the running time. This is solid, if not edge-of-your-seat, storytelling.
 

One-Liners: Loss

HEART OF A DOG (B+) - Performance artist Laurie Anderson expands on her musical talents to craft a somber yet amusing rumination on death, succeeding improbably by focusing on the demise of her beloved pup, Lolabelle.

A classic tone poem, "Heart of a Dog" is alternatively wistful and whimsical. While making this film, Anderson buried her husband, the iconic rocker Lou Reed. But Reed is glimpsed only fleetingly in this film, though he does sing the lovely "Turning Time Around" over the closing credits. Somehow, the emphasis on the pet rather than her life mate makes sense in the overall scheme.

In 75 succinct minutes, Anderson and her moving musical score, evoke dream states and fuzzy memories. She riffs on her reaction, as a New Yorker, to the 9/11 attacks -- or more accurately, the police-state aftermath. Anderson digs up some actual footage from her childhood family films, mixing it in with new images. The older footage and her scuffing up of more recent shots evoke the artifice of the feature films of Guy Maddin.

But whenever she's in danger of overly pontificating or drowning in morbid observations, she shifts tone and presents footage of her blind old dog playing the piano or creating art, providing laugh-out-loud moments. Her narration seems stilted and theatrical at first, but it eventually lulls you with its rhythm. The film eventually culminates in a touching recollection of the time when Anderson was 12 and she broke her back in a diving accident. Anderson questions the accuracy of her own selective memory of the interactions with doctors and nurses while being surrounded by other adolescents, many of whom were dying of cancer.

With that breakthrough, Anderson eventually arrives at a truth. As the trailer reveals, her foundational theme is this: The purpose of death is the release of love. And in the end, "Heart of a Dog" is less about death and loss, but rather about love and loss.

MISSISSIPPI GRIND (B) - Ben Mendelsohn is a gem, and Ryan Reynolds turns in a decent, mature performance in this old-fashioned buddy-road movie about a couple of gamblers wending their way down the Mississippi River, finding jackpots and misery at the riverboat casinos.

Gerry (Mendelsohn) and Curtis (Reynolds) meet-cute at a poker table in Dubuque, Iowa, and Curtis promises to front some money to the perpetually broke Gerry as they hit the road toward New Orleans, the site of a high-stakes poker game. Even the square-jawed, wholesome Reynolds imbues Curtis with a slackness and an aimlessness to match Mendelsohn's hang-dog Gerry.

Mendelsohn brings his patented understated intensity to the role of a man with a debilitating addiction, always chasing the big pot that would erase his debts but never knowing when to stop. With his droopy face and shaggy hair he comes off as a cross between Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man" and one of those Martin Short moppets. Reynolds sheds his rom-com baby fat (and the attitude) and manages to bring nuance to Curtis, who is playing an angle we're not quite sure of.

Curtis give Gerry something to look forward to, introducing him to some old-fashioned ladies of the night along the riverboat circuit, including Simone (a sedate Sienna Miller) and Vanessa (Annaleigh Tipton, still struggling to find her voice). But the women are not much more than window dressing.

The story is by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who broke through with "Half Nelson" in 2006 and, having graduated to directors chairs, charmed with "It's Kind of a Funny Story" in 2010. They have a deft touch with mood and dialogue, though they flirt with a few tropes, such as making Gerry a deadbeat dad to his estranged young daughter. But authenticity wins out over artifice at each crucial turn.

A few minor roles try to give some dimension to female characters. Alfre Woodard shows the old spark as Gerry's parole officer. And Robin Weigert smolders as Gerry's ex-wife, whom he pathetically hopes to win back. Singer-songwriter Marshall Chapman nails a key third-reel scene as Gerry's hard-bitten mother, performing a smoky song in a dingy roadhouse. The music throughout is rough around the edges, ranging from Americana and roots music to classic Possum Records blues and even a dash of Eric Satie.

"Mississippi Grind" is a satisfying riff in a minor key.

BONUS TRACK
Marshall Chapman with "Rainbow Road":


 

Doc Watch: That '60s Draft

THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION (B) - Talented storyteller Stanley Nelson tackles his most nuanced subject yet, with solid results.

Nelson, who mesmerized with his 2006 take on the Jim Jones death cult, "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple," also told the story of the Freedom Riders, among other projects over the years for PBS's "American Experience" and "P.O.V." Here he works in the pocket, comfortable with the narrative and his impressive cast of talking heads that include many former members of the Black Panther party from the 1960s and '70s.

In workmanlike fashion, Nelson marches through the history of the movement, neither glorifying it nor demonizing aspects of it. There's not much new ground plowed here, and a lot of the stories are familiar if you've paid attention to the Black Panthers over the years.

Principals like Kathleen Cleaver and Elaine Brown are prominently featured. Other brothers and sisters are on hand to reminisce and testify to the lasting legacy of the Panthers. A few one-liners land nicely. One former colleague says of Eldridge Cleaver, "That boy was crazy!"

We're reminded of the power and charisma of Fred Hampton, as well as his brutal slaying at the hand of Chicago police. (And I never get tired of seeing footage of the Panthers opening up the crime scene to onlookers from the neighborhood.) Eventually we witness the fissures and unraveling, as the group succumbs to the infiltration by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.

Ticking near two hours, this is a full helping of history.

BEST OF ENEMIES (B+) - Presaging great battles to come like the Ali-Frazier bouts, William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal went 10 rounds, with the intellectual heavyweights doing verbal battle at the two political conventions in 1968. This smart, engaging documentary does the era justice.

Buckley, the conservative thinker who helped lead the party from Goldwater to Reagan, was known for sparring with ideological opponents on his limp talk show "Firing Line." Vidal, the hedonistic novelist later known for his historical American fiction, had recently dropped the broad satire "Myra Breckinridge" into the stew of the era's culture wars. Their dislike for each other was palpable.

ABC, still a fledgling TV network, positioned itself as providing "unconventional" coverage of the political conventions that would nominate Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. For the first time ever, one of the Big Three networks cut back from gavel-to-gavel coverage, as ABC was on air for only 90 minutes each night. (This way, they could lead off the night with "Bewitched" or "The Flying Nun.") The other innovation was the pairing of Buckley and Vidal to duke it out from each side of the political spectrum, a forerunner of the left-right battles that soon became common on network news shows and endures to this day.

Veteran music documentarians Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville (the latter directed "20 Feet From Stardom") have a blast revisiting not only the pithy patter of Buckley and Vidal but also the Keystone Kops coverage by the under-funded news division of ABC, led by anchor Howard K. Smith and reporter Sam Donaldson. The filmmakers expertly weave in archival footage, including classic clips of Mayor Daley's gestapo squad bashing hippies' heads in. Lively talking heads include Christopher Hitchens, Dick Cavett and Todd Gitlin. Reading from the memoirs of Buckley and Vidal are Kelsey Grammer (Buckley) and John Lithgow (Vidal).

The movie climaxes with near fisticuffs -- the famous exchange in which Vidal calls his rival a crypto-fascist, goading Buckley into threatening to punch his "queer" opponent in the nose. Cavett, looking back, gets off a brilliant one-liner: "The network nearly shat."

This is a brisk, fond look back at a quirky moment in TV news coverage, when two masters of the political polemic landed in America's living rooms and left their mark.

BONUS TRACKS
Two fine trailers:




 

Soundtrack of Your Life: Hendrix

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

Date: 27 November 2015, 2:15 p.m.
Place: Ruby Tuesday, Downers Grove, Illinois
Song:  "The Wind Cries Mary"
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Irony Matrix: 7.5 out of 10
Comment: On Black Friday, daring to go near a strip mall, and out for a bite with Mom before a late matinee, we ventured into this fine American chain restaurant for a post-lunch-crowd bite. Jenny served us salads. The crowd thinned. It was near shift-change. When I was in high school, a Hendrix revival disturbed me. It was sludgy heavy metal from a different era (so 10 years ago), stoner rock. It took me a couple of decades to embrace the masterpiece, "Are You Experienced." All of that disappeared into a purple haze of nostalgia. I snapped back to the present. "It's a shame about Uncle Ray." A cold persistent mist fell outside. And the wind. Cried. Maaarrrry.


  

New to the Queue

Under cover ...

Kentucker Audley stars as a moody Christmas tree salesman in the glum debut indie feature "Christmas, Again."

A documentary introducing us to the man who would be Elvis' successor, "Orion: The Man Who Would Be King."

An inside look at an elderly outsider artist from a pair of first-time filmmakers, "Almost There."

A documentary about a teen convicted of a crime he didn't commit, "Dream/Killer."

Another debut feature, this one about a one-night stand gone awry, "Night Owls."

A documentary about the Taser industry and its use by police departments, "Killing Them Safely."
  

Sordid Realism

JAFAR PANAHI'S TAXI (A-minus) - In his third fine renegade movie in a row, banned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi finally leaves his apartment and poses as a cabdriver in Tehran, surreptitiously shooting in broad daylight.

Panahi has defied Iranian authorities since his 2010 arrest by managing to continue producing movies and getting them smuggled into distribution. He depicted his house arrest in 2011's "This Is Not a Film," followed two years later by the autobiographical drama "Closed Curtain." Here he is liberated from his claustrophobic home and basking in sunshine and companionship. He takes credit for every aspect of production and stars along with an anonymous cast of characters that pop in and out of his taxi. The joyful, playful tone is a 180-degree turn from that of the two previous efforts.

The result is an incredibly self-referential meta experiment in storytelling. While it has the feel of the HBO documentary "Taxicab Confessions" (almost all the shots are from dashboard cameras, with a few hand-held camera images supplementing it), "Taxi" is almost certainly populated by actors. Early on, one of them suggests to Panahi with a wink that the previous passengers sharing the cab were actors in a secret film project. That same man also traffics in bootleg DVDs, a sly nod to Panahi's own underground endeavors in defiance of the government. Numerous references name-check Panahi's oeuvre (which includes the features "White Balloon" and "Crimson Gold"), and characters comment on the director's outlaw antics.

Panahi is the bemused anchor as wacky events unfold around him -- a man and woman bicker as they share a ride; Panahi's own niece (a dynamic child actor), whom he picks up from school, sasses him; a bloodied man lying in the back seat in his wife's arms voices his last will and testament into the camera. In one expert bit of slapstick, two elderly women carrying fish sloshing around in a fishbowl, demand that Panahi speed them to a most urgent appointment.

But underlying it all is a searing gravitas and a thoughtful commentary on Iranian society. The documentary feel and deep inhales of a vibrant city call to mind the landmark work of Godard in Paris in the '60s and Woody Allen in New York in the '70s and early '80s. (A character here refers to Panah's work as "sordid realism.") And it all zips by in 82 minutes that seem more like 41 minutes. The time flies by.

But Panahi is not just out for a lark here. The final scene manages to come off as both mundane and chilling at the same time. Like he did in 2011 with "This Is Not a Film," this master filmmaker unleashes one of the great endings of the year. Let's see where he takes us next.

STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS (2013) (B) - Alternatively fascinating and frustrating, this modest feature follows autistic Ricky as he flees the dysfunction of his home and embarks on an adventure on New York's subway system oblivious to the search for him by family and police.

This is an apparent labor of love by a bunch of new names and faces. Sam Fleischner, a young cinematographer/director corrals a cast of newcomers in the three main roles of Ricky (Jesus Sanchez-Velez); his distraught mother, Mariana (Andrea Suarez Paz); and his rude, anorexic brat of a sister, Carla (Azul Zorrilla), with some mixed results. Paz's expressive face is a rich tableau here, as Mariana struggles to keep her family together; her kids are more than a handful, her husband is away on a mysterious venture, and she must keep up with her job cleaning rich people's houses.

Fleischner alternates between Mariana's dark, claustrophobic, fearful existence and Ricky's expansive, colorful new world ensconced in New York's vast melting pot. The director, working with a story by another newcomer (Rose Lichter-Marck), aims to capture Ricky's skewed perspective and overwhelmed senses as he slips mostly un-noticed among the circus-like inhabitants of the city's underground. Ricky locks onto a faceless young man who wears cool sneakers, following behind whenever they cross paths.

A few film-school camera tricks come off as trite, but for the most part Fleischner nudges his camera intimately into the faces of the subway riders. It's not clear if any of the dozens of characters are actually actors; this could easily be a documentary about mass-transit passengers. We witness crazy antics as well as quiet, tender moments -- one rider clipping another's fingernails, Ricky helping a one-armed seatmate by zipping up his hoodie.

The movie sags during most of Mariana's sad-sack scenes, especially the bickering with Carla, whose job it was to walk Ricky home from school every day. Mariana befriends a local shoe-store manager, Carmen (TV actress Marsha Stephanie Blake), who helps her post fliers around their Rockaway Beach neighborhood. Ricky's dad eventually shows up, but the climactic scenes between husband and wife fall mostly flat.

What's exciting here is Ricky's journey, his overwhelming immersion into society, the need to fend for himself. All else gets drawn out way too long. At 102 minutes, no one would complain if at least 20 minutes were carved away. In fact, this plays like a short film expanded to feature length. Whenever the camera is below street level, it's a trip.

BONUS TRACK
Played as a snippet over the beginning of the end credits of "Stand Clear," the hypnotic"Melody, the Prism" by Zomes (a.k.a., Asa Osborne):


  

A Small World

ROOM (A) - Brie Larson and an incredible child actor propel this profoundly touching drama about a young mother held hostage in a small room with the five-year-old fathered by her captor.

As with the fine film "Nebraska" last year, I was so moved by "Room" that I am shy about writing all that much about it. "Room" -- adapted from the popular book by its author, Emma Donoghue -- is in the sure hands of director Lenny Abrahamson, who haunted us last year with "Frank," a somewhat similarly offbeat story of depression and melancholy. Neither the script nor the direction make a false step. This is a perfectly crafted film that blends raw family drama with psychological horror, all underlined with a keen sense of humanity and hope.

Larson ("Short Term 12") stars as Ma, who has been locked in a shed by a middle-aged creep for about 7 years. There she has bonded with 5-year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay), her bright, adorable long-haired son. His only world, since birth, has been those four walls and the shabby contents within. There is an unreachable skylight that hints at the outside world. There also is a closet, where Jack is shunted to when the captor, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), visits Ma, forcing her into a sexual relationship.

It is hard to imagine this movie existing without Larson at its core and young Tremblay, showing the maturity and nuance of a veteran stage actor. The tiny world of Ma and Jack is both suffocating and rife with possibilities. Ma doesn't shield Jack from many of the realities of their situation and the stories he experiences through the limited images he watches on an old television set. In an opening scene, Jack awakens and circles the room, extending a kind greeting to all the objects he sees, such as the sink and the toilet. That moment will be bookended at the end of the film in heartbreaking fashion, when Larson sums up her character's ordeal in a silent mouthed phrase.

The film clocks in two minutes short of two hours, and at just about the exact halfway mark, Ma and Jack manage to escape. The second half of the movie is devoted to their immersion into society and the home of Ma's parents, Nancy (Joan Allen) and Robert (William H. Macy), who has been replaced in the intervening years by an old family friend, Leo, McCamus, in Nancy's bed. Macy works wonders in just a few short scenes, conveying layers of emotion that prevent him from embracing the return of his daughter and grandson. There's a touch of "Ordinary People" in the tension between parents and daughter.

Because of the presence of the media outside the family's door, Ma and Jack are newly trapped inside a dwelling, albeit a swell suburban manse. Donoghue neither overplays nor underplays the challenges Ma faces during this re-entry, while Jack slowly flowers into a regular boy exploring a lush, nurturing world with his grandmother and Leo. And when Ma acts out, endangering the mother-son bond, it's a stunning jolt, and we deeply feel Larson's absence during that stretch, just like Jack must miss Ma.

Larson and Tremblay are remarkable but never showy. They are fully immersed in these characters, and as such, there are no seams showing as they execute Donoghue's nimble dialogue. Abrahamson paces it all perfectly. I was driven to tears during both the escape and the elegant final scene. They all teamed up to create a fictional world that is achingly real. That world and the real one are full of wonders.