I know I Am, But What Are You?

PEE-WEE'S BIG HOLIDAY (C+) - I'm resisting the urge to pen an epic essay about the lost dreams of the 1980s. But I'm boiling this down to a simpler formula.

It's this: Paul Reubens is too old to mug his way through a thinly written remake of his classic big-screen debut, "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure." And I'm too old to appreciate his silly once-meta humor without squirming in my easy chair and shaking my head like my dad did in 1985 watching his son howl in delight at the exploits of the mincing man-child.

Paul Reubens, 63, climbs up from the public shaming 25 years ago that knocked him from the height of his fame, and gets back into movies (albeit on TV screens streaming Netflix), but it's all too little and too late. Reubens doesn't have nearly the verve that once made Pee-Wee a force of nature and an ingenious artistic creation. He certainly has his moments here, but the mania of the character is now mostly a memory, and this low-budget production can't mask that fact.

Pee-Wee was hatched among the Groundlings in the '70s, and he gained traction with the rise of the new age of hip ironic comedy in the early '80s, which is when I saw his stage show in Chicago (where you could buy giant underpants among the merch in the lobby). "Big Adventure" was a brilliant head-trip, jolted to life by a talented director, Tim Burton, making his big-screen debut. Reubens also had Phil Hartman helping with the script; this time around, the soggy screenplay is the biggest drawback. Too many one-liners just sit there.

The hook this time is Pee-Wee's journey to find himself, inspired by a biker passing through town. The biker happens to be a real actor, the massive Joe Manganiello ("Magic Mike," HBO's "True Blood"), whom Pee-Wee doesn't recognize. The men hit it off immediately, bonding over their love of root-beer-barrel candy, and Joe urges Pee-Wee to expand his horizons beyond his beloved hometown of Fairville, inviting Pee-Wee to his birthday party coming up in five days at his Central Park mansion.

Pee-Wee takes the bait and hits the road, immediately falling in, inadvertently, with a girl-gang of bank robbers (Jessica Pohly, Stephanie Beatriz and Alia Shawkat) who rob him of his car, forcing him to rely on a series of strangers to get him to the Big Apple. Too often, though, the road trip figuratively goes nowhere. His misadventures are a faint echo of those in his "Big Adventure," as he meets up with: a corny old farmer and his marriage-minded daughters; four sassy hairdressers; a gruff backwoods mountain man; an Amish community; and a traveling salesman. A few other oddities land, though, thankfully. Pee-Wee's dreams and fever dreams about partying with bromantic partner Manganiello are, for no apparent reason, played out in Spanish and slowed to 33-and-a-third. His fast-talking way of extricating himself from the presence of others -- "Let me let you let me go" -- is charming. A visual joke involving a fake-disguise kit is worthy of his '80s oeuvre. 

But right from the start -- a Rube Goldberg wakeup call that cribs from the opening of "Big Adventure" -- the film traffics in ghosts of gags past. In one of many callbacks to the 1985 classic, we revisit Pee-Wee's fear of snakes. But where the original found a clever angle (via Pee-Wee's memorable rescue of animals from a pet store fire), this time the humor barely rises above Pee-Wee yelling "Blecchh!" a lot. (Reubens does manage to milk laughs with a ridiculously extended, very high-pitch squeal.)

It's Reubens' knack for such impossibly extended, awkward sight gags that milks the most mileage out of this road trip. In an instant comedy classic, Pee-Wee wows his Amish hosts by making silly squeaky noises (and faces) while squeezing a balloon. The scene lasts two full minutes (30 seconds to blow it up -- and get light-headed -- and 90 seconds to agonizingly deflate the balloon). It's a reminder of Reubens' unique blend of cutting-edge childishness, with a bonus Jerry Lewis mugging that could induce spit-takes.

Manganiello's a good sport, but he's not particularly funny as a fun-house version of himself, and neither are most of the other scenery chewers. (There are no ringers like Jan Hooks and her tour of the Alamo.) Reubens has no one to feed him the exuberance that inspires him to giggle or bounce around a movie frame. It's as if all of his old "Playhouse" pals packed up and departed years ago, leaving him with his cheap suit, rosy cheeks and antiquated antics. It's simply not as fun anymore.

It's not that I think Pee-Wee needs to grow up. I'm just afraid that I finally have.

BONUS TRACK
If you want to cut right to the balloon gag, here you go:


 
And a flashback to 1985: "Do I hear someone's stomach growling?"


  

So I Don't Have To

In an occasional feature, we present capsule reviews from correspondents who go see the movies that we don't have an interest in seeing.  Today, veteran filmgoer Phillip Blanchard weighs in on yet another randomly populated super-hero action extravaganza, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

It's no fun, it’s badly written, it’s dark to a fault, and it’s implausible even for a comic-book movie.

You don’t necessarily go to such a film looking to laugh, but a little humor would have helped, even if weren’t much.

I can’t fault Zack Snyder for creating characters at odds with the universe from which they came. I don’t even mind that a major good guy “died.” But I do object to a movie that is too long by nearly an hour, and which failed to make me suspend belief as I might do watching a Marvel movie.

One good thing: Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman.

GUEST GRADE: C

New to the Queue

Spring fever ...

We're still moving backward in the catalog of Asghar Farhadi ("A Separation," "The Past," "About Elly"), this time with a re-release of his 2006 effort, the domestic drama "Fireworks Wednesday."

The estimable Jeff Nichols ("Mud," "Take Shelter") re-teams with the intense Michael Shannon for "Midnight Special."

Arnaud Desplechin ("Kings & Queen") takes a nostalgic trip through the past with Mathieu Amalric in "My Golden Days."

A debut feature about a troubled woman returning to her family after a decade away, "Krisha."

Isabelle Huppert and Gerard Depardieu re-team for a drama about a divorced couple traveling to California at the behest of their dead son, "Valley of Love."

An animated film about a dystopian steampunk future, featuring the voice of Marion Cotillard, "April and the Extraordinary World."
  

Soundtrack of Your Life: '80s Pop

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

Date: 25 March 2016, 11:15 a.m.
Place: Cafe Passe, Tucson, Arizona
Song:  "The Safety Dance"
Artist: Men Without Hats
Irony Matrix: 2.5 out of 10
Comment: Just one of the peppy, irresistible tunes playing on a Friday morning at an alleyway cafe in the sunny Southwest. (It was followed by "Vogue," "Billy Jean," "Shout," "Personal Jesus," "We Got the Beat" -- you get the idea.) I listen to my share of oldies radio, and I'm fascinated by how those playlists evolve, presumably based on marketing, and how they seem to be coordinated across formats. I've heard "Safety Dance" three times in the past two weeks, on two unrelated radio stations and here at the cafe. In what corner office was it deemed that Men Without Hats was to be placed in heavy rotation? What factors were involved in the decision? Did they mention me specifically? I have the 45-rpm version of "Safety Dance." I remember hearing it for the first time and thinking, "Hey, Billy Joel is shaking things up and having a little fun." (When I first heard Squeeze's "Black Coffee in Bed," I thought that Paul McCartney had snapped out of his doldrums.) I also associate the song with a memorable event in the summer of 1983. It was one of those summer graduation parties, this one a backyard blowout at our cousins' house. I had to work till about 8 or 9 at my weekend job in the kitchen of a caterer in the city. When I pulled up to my cousins' house on 4th Avenue, "Safety Dance" bopping out of the car speakers (was it still the forest green '74 Chevy Nova?), it was chaos. People were yelling and running. The cops were there. Turns out a major brawl had erupted. A semi-pro boxer sucker-punched my brother, leaving him hideously bruised. My Italian uncle was threatening to go Cosa Nostra on the thugs who had crashed the bash. It was a panic. I can't remember whether I ever got any mostaccioli. As a scrawny college boy, I wouldn't have been much help protecting my brother or avenging the attack. I was a pogo'er, not a fighter.

We can dance if we want to!


  

Doc Watch: Mad Men, Part III

The wild days of yester-year:

EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS (2003) (B+) - The old Hollywood system was sputtering in the 1960s, and when the baby boomers came of age, they dismantled it with their version of the New Wave cinema birthed in Europe in the 1950s. The American wave -- which emerged with such landmarks as "Bonnie & Clyde," "The Graduate" and "Easy Rider" -- formed the bridge between the golden age and the dawn of the blockbuster.

Kenneth Bowser ("Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune") adapts a book by Peter Biskind into a comprehensive documentary celebrating the celebrated filmmakers who came of age during that time: Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Arthur Penn, Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah, Brian De Palma, William Friedkin, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Roman Polanski. The film traces them back to a common denominator: the prolific B-movie king Roger Corman, who has gained respect in recent years for his influence. (Corman, Altman and Peckinpah also were the respected elders who paid their dues in the 1950s.)

The genius behind the narrative here is the ironic way in which the American New Wave was bookended by the B-movie aesthetic. Corman taught men like Hopper and Bogdanovich the nuts and bolts of movie-making, so that they could explore more high-brow fare, a la Godard, Truffaut and Antonioni. As the new breed stumbled at the box office and fell victim to drugs and other excesses, they were overtaken in fairly swift fashion by flashier box-officer fare, such as "The Exorcist," while the two clean-cut members of the fraternity -- Spielberg and Lucas -- redefined Hollywood in a classic way, with "Jaws" and "Star Wars," respectively.

Bowser assembles an impressive roster of interview subjects, although Bogdanovich and Hopper are the only hot-shot directors to participate. The others are represented through archival footage. Variety's Peter Bart is a go-to expert who seems to know where all the bodies are buried. We also get memorable storytelling from the likes of Karen Black, Margot Kidder, Ellen Burstyn, Paul Schrader, Cybill Shepard (unapologetic about breaking up Bogdanovich's marriage), Kris Kristofferson and a wonderfully animated Richard Dreyfuss. Others who provide sharp insight include cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond, as well as writers Gloria Katz ("American Graffiti") and John Milius ("Apocalypse Now").

By the time Coppola and Scorsese had peaked with "Apocalypse Now" (1979) and "Raging Bull" (1980), the New Wave had been drowned by a tidal wave of blockbusters. The Hollywood bigwigs had taken back the reins from the young bucks. As one observer noted, the studios didn't need hot-shot directors to show them how to succeed at the box office. Thanks to Spielberg and Lucas, they locked down a surefire formula that endures to this day.

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS (2014) (B+) - Join a wild romp through the 1970s and 1980s canon of Cannon Films, the production company led by Israeli maniacs Menahem Golan and and Yoram Globus.

Mark Hartley, himself a bit of a pulp filmmaker (this is his second "Wild, Untold Story"), assembles an army of survivors from that era who spin emphatically entertaining war stories about their days in the House of Hacksploitation. Golan was a trashy filmmaker in Israel, and Globus was the business guru, and together they took over B-movie maker Cannon Films, turning it into a C-movie maker. Golan had directed "Lemon Popsicle," which, in the late '70s, was the "Gone With the Wind" of the Israeli box office. Once in America, he eventually had the movie remade, nearly shot-for-shot, as the "Porky's"-style teen romp "The Last American Virgin."

Cannon became known for spewing out trashy fare at the rate of nearly a film a week. Other titles include "Schizoid," "American Ninja," "The Apple" (described here at "the Mt. Everest of bad musicals"), "My Darling Shiksa" (with Elliott Gould and Margaux Hemingway but apparently never released (or acknowledged)), and the embarrassing, ultra-cheap "Superman IV." Quickie scripts observed rigid checklists: nudity, blood, guts, explosions and more nudity. One interviewee describes the Cannon style this way: "It kind of resembles something ... minus good taste."

The actresses known for showing a lot of skin include Playboy bunny Barbie Benton, the epic Sybil Danning ("Chained Heat"), Bo Derek in the ludicrous "Bolero," Sylvia Kristel (featured here in a clip of a fencing scene between two topless women), Sharon Stone ("hated on the set"), and obscure wonders such as Martine Beswick and Lucinda Dickey. The roster reads like a Cinemax wet dream. There were the hunks, too:Charles Bronson (sleepwalking through the horrid "Death Wish" sequels ("It was more like watching a man golf, than act," a co-star observes), Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude van Damme, Michael Dudikoff, Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone ("Over the Top" -- arm wrestling!), and the inimitable Robert Forster.

Psychotic Director Michael Winner and cult legend Tobe Hooper ("The Texas Chain Saw Massacre") were go-to directors. As Cannon big-footed its way into Hollywood and Cannes, big-name filmmakers eventually signed on. John Frankenheimer and Franco Zeffirelli heap praise on Golan and his generosity to them. Golan-Globus also bankrolled John Cassavetes' penultimate film, "Love Streams." Jean-Luc Godard teamed up with them for "King Lear" (with Woody Allen and Molly Ringwald!). Barbet Schroeder hacked out "Barflly." Andrei Konchalovsky's thriller "Runaway Train" earned a gushing review from Roger Ebert.

The allure here is the enthusiasm and straight talk from the legion of talking heads assembled by Hartley, an overwhelming number of them looking quite well preserved, presumably courtesy of the plastic surgeons they can afford thanks to Cannon's millions. Golan, especially, was quite reviled (while also earning grudging respect in many corners for his love of movie-making). Several survivors spin particularly effusive stories from the bad-old days, complete with ranting imitations of the often-blustering and posturing Golan, characterizations that bring to mind a cross between Bob Guccione and Donald Trump. One highlight is a rapid-fire succession of folks uttering their favorite epithet for Golan and Globus ("Mayhem & Urine," "the Bad News Jews"). Derek, like most others, is droll and casual in trashing the Israelis for their ethically bankrupt business practices.

Hartley cuts from interview to interview like a fiend (being mindful to repeat name labels throughout), piling up dozens of survivors of the scene to serve this obvious labor of lust. He has an endless trove of clips to flash on the screen, whether it's blood spewing cartoonishly from a ninja warrior, a horrifying rape scene, or a midget in a cheap monkey suit. He crafts a perfect homage to a crazed era, one that you feel guilty about celebrating.
 

Generations

This is what I think of when I need a shorthand way of characterizing all millennials as a faceless group.* It's a video by a 28-year-old performer from Vancouver who has a beautiful French-Canadian name but calls herself Grimes.

About 22 million people (and counting) have viewed her single "Oblivion" on YouTube. (I discovered it when it popped up during a Guided By Voices playlist.) It's a fun, low-budget homage to slacker gloom and developmentally arrested young men. Nice pea coat, girl!




* BONUS TRACK
"I'm like my mother; I stereotype. It's faster."


  

Doc Watch: Mad Men, Part II

Science day:

ADDICTION INCORPORATED (2011) (B) - This is a solid overview of the last gasps of Big Tobacco trying to cover up the fact that they exploited the addictive qualities of nicotine until they couldn't hide it any longer. It benefits from a fine leading man who carries the narrative on his shoulders.

Debut filmmaker Charles Evans Jr. marches workmanlike through the 1980s and 1990s as he builds to the last gasps of the old guard of Philip Morris and the gang getting away with murder. Evans latches on to a chief talking head who comes with a ready-made hero name: Victor DeNoble.

DeNoble worked on the inside at Philip Morris in the early '80s, developing a variation on the nicotine molecule, a synthetic product that would ostensibly be safer but more addictive, keeping the hooked customers alive longer to buy more cigarettes. DeNoble is an eloquent chemist and an invaluable talking head. His personal story is woven throughout "Addiction Incorporated," as he ends up testifying before Congress with a former colleague, driving a stake through the heart of Big Tobacco's deceptions.

Evans spends too much time in the first half using animation of lab rats to goose the visuals, but he settles in later with more interview subjects, including investigative journalists and former FDA officials. He almost has too much information to squeeze into 100 minutes, but he makes smart choices.  When DeNoble shows up at the end speaking to a class of students, it makes for a fitting conclusion to his inspiring life story.

THE IMMORTALISTS (C-minus) - A swing and a miss. This documentary about two eccentric scientists hunting for the secret to immortality goes heavy on personality and light on science, and the imbalance sinks the storytelling

Aubrey de Grey is a Cambridge intellectual with a mountain-man beard, and Bill Andrews is a preppy American who engages in extreme marathon running with his fiancee, Molly. The middle-aged men work doggedly to discover the key to cellular aging, seeking to halt it, if not reverse the aging process. We also meet de Grey's elderly mother and Andrews' aged father, both of whom are starting to suffer from dementia.

It's not necessarily the choice to emphasize the personal that sinks the proceedings; it's just that de Grey and Andrews are not particularly compelling, and the interactions with their parents repeatedly fall flat. Newcomers David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg struggle to sustain a narrative, and the movie drags, even at 78 minutes.

The filmmakers litter the screen with explanations of the science behind the pursuit, but it comes off as more stylistic than informative. A centerpiece scene, in with de Grey debates a detractor, is edited so severely that it is stripped of most meaning and impact. There's a decent story here, but the good parts are mostly missing.
  

Doc Watch: Man Men, Part I

Catching up in the queue on some hangers-on:

ART & COPY (2009) (B) - This solid, somewhat snobbish valentine to the advertising business, putting a shiny gloss on the industry's greatest hits.

Doug Pray ("Hype!," "Surfwise") goes a bit overboard with the artsy shots, and he overdoes the statistics that randomly flash on the screen. But he is faithful to the history of advertising. He celebrates the touchstones -- the Kennedy-era Volkswagen ads ("Think Small," "Lemon"), the memorable Mac campaign ("1984," "Think Different"), the Samsonite gorilla; "I Love New York." And the catchphrases: "Where's the beef?"; "I want my MTV!"; "Got milk?"; "Just do it."

We hear from some of the legends -- George Lois, Mary Wells. Lois created memorable Esquire covers, including Muhammad Ali shot through with arrows; Wells painted Braniff's airplanes and outfitted its sexy stewardesses. Hal Riney reveals how he recruited Paul Williams to write "We Only Just Begun" for a soft-focus, nostalgic bank commercial before it became a hit for the Carpenters.

It all zips by in an hour and a half, and Pray does an expert job of presenting the influential minds that molded and manipulated consumers for half a century.

RUBBLE KINGS (2010) (B-minus) - Clocking in under 70 minutes but barreling along at hyper speed, this tribute to the South Bronx gangs of New York in the 1970s celebrates the street kids who paved the way for hip-hop's explosion in the '80s.

Newcomer Shan Nicholson raids the archives, finding a huge trove of archival footage that re-creates the classic depressing mean streets of the era, diving deep into the trash, graffiti and abandoned buildings that defined the city. It's a stark reminder of the depths to which America's great city had sunk at the time.

Nicholson's hook shows up only in the second half of the film. These punks were second-rate mobsters acting out tired, cheap outtakes from "West Side Story." They were blacks and Puerto Ricans feuding over turf, from block to block. Eventually, they tried to make peace, and they found common ground in music -- finding a ragged mix of latin, rock and soul, inspiring break dancers and the like.

Talking heads whiz by so fast that it's difficult to keep track of who's who. Nicholson helps out by diligently repeating ID titles on the screen. Former leaders include engaging characters like Karate Charlie and Benji Melendez. The star of the show is Afrika Bambaataa (the former Kevin Donovan), an early pioneer in the areas of electronic music and hip-hop.

The early-MTV style of filmmaking creates an atmosphere of drive-by storytelling, and while you appreciate the efficient production, you get the feeling that he has only scratched the surface, telling only part of the story.

BONUS TRACKS
The Braniff commercial from the 1960s:



"Renegades of Funk," 1983:


 

New to the Queue

You're getting warmer ... 

The latest look at Chinese society by the master Jia Zhangke ("The World"), "Mountains May Depart."

I'm a sucker for Sally Field, and I crack up at the previews for her new film, the goofy "Hello, My Name Is Doris."

The bizarre love triangle (the corpse of a man's ex insists on sharing the bed with his new girlfriend), "Nina Forever."

A documentary about renegade video pioneers of the hippie era, "Here Come the Videofreex."

The 1994 debut of Kelly Reichardt ("Old Joy," "Wendy & Lucy," "Meek's Cutoff") gets a fresh release: "River of Grass."

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is drawing us, improbably, to the horror flick "10 Cloverfield Lane."

Totally on the fence about these two: the latest by Julie Delpy ("2 Days in Paris"), "Lolo," and the hipster techno-wank "Creative Control."

A documentary about a beloved L.A. food critic, "City of Gold."
 

This Is (Just Like) Spinal Tap

If you are of a certain age and had an older brother growing up, you likely suffered through your share of Emerson Lake & Palmer in the '70s.

Keith Emerson died this past week. Rolling Stone linked to a video of one of his over-the-top keyboard solos. Jazz odyssey!

RIP:


 

This Year's Model

THE NEW GIRLFRIEND (B+) - Francois Ozon, truly a master storyteller, does it again. He takes a fairly straightforward premise, adds a twist, and slyly spins an irresistible tale of friendship, love, obsession, sensuality and empowerment.

Claire (Anais Demoustier from "Bird People") and Laura (Isild Le Besco) are best friends from grade school. A deft montage in the first 10 minutes shows them bonding as girls and growing up, meeting their future husbands the same night at the same disco. Laura then is shown gravely ill at the baptism of her daughter, Lucie. Claire vows at the funeral to always protect Lucie.

Popping in one day on the widower, David (Romain Duris), Claire finds him at home dressed like a woman. Repulsed at first, she finds herself drawn to him, especially after he shows her the bounty of clothes in the closet of her dead best friend. Eventually David grows brave enough to venture out -- for a girlish shopping spree.

Claire dubs him Virginia, so that her husband won't be suspicious when she goes off on outings with her new "girlfriend." Soon, it's obvious that Claire is excited to have found a way to rekindle her soulmate connection to Laura by hanging out with her bewigged widowed husband and baby -- be it club-hopping or waxing his back.

Ozon, playing with a bright color palette and a cheery classical score, creates a quirky, retro utopia in suburban France. But, as he always does, he suffuses a playful teleplay with subtext and meaning. He carefully weaves strong threads through the narrative: Will Claire's husband, Gilles (Raphael Personnaz), find out? Will he be jealous? Is David just acting irrationally following the death of his young bride, or does he truly intend to transition to female? Will Claire fall for the David underneath the blond wig and frilly underthings? Will David feel used as a cheap replacement for Laura? Is he gay or straight or something in between?

Ozon is simply a genius at assembling the nuts and bolts narrative. You can't find a bad movie in his catalog: "Young and Beautiful," "In the House," "Time to Leave," "5 x 2," "Swimming Pool," "Under the Sand," "8 Women." Here, a film that often feels frivolous or shallow has a powerful undertow. Moments of dread or subtle suspense appear out of nowhere. Ozon also uses efficient bookends in the film. The opening moments and a key climactic scene both involve lifeless bodies being tenderly dressed and beautified by makeup. He's not above a few cornball touches (a cutesy scene with Lucie reacting gleefully calls to mind the magical realism of "Ricky"). When Claire slips up and must explain to her husband why she's spending time with David, she fudges and tells him that David is gay. When she tells David that she chose gay over transvestite, David responds, "Great! I'll look ridiculous."

Demoustier carries the film with calm and restraint. Whereas in "Bird People" she brought to mind American It Girl Shailene Woodley, here she had the presence of a young, freckled Isabelle Huppert. Duris, the lantern-jawed star of "Populaire" and "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," looks alternatively attractive and hideous in a dress and makeup. David's shifts from male to female and back again are disconcerting, leaving Claire conflicted; she has never fully reconciled the love and passion she apparently felt for Laura.

Ozon works his puppets effortlessly, churning this plot to a touching conclusion. It's a bit of a mystery how he does it. Now matter what he touches, it's a little bit of magic.

BONUS TRACK
The centerpiece of the film finds "Virginia" and Claire at a drag show where an arresting performer lip-syncs to the anthem "Une Femme Avec Toi" by Nicole Croisille (1975). There are no subtitles here, but you get the essence of it as sort of a French "I Am Woman." My favorite line: "You were happy as an Italian / who knows there will be love and wine" (which rhymes so much sweeter in French).


 

Screwball Nietszche

HAIL, CAESAR (B+) - This sly valentine to a dysfunctional Hollywood of the early 1950s feels both overstuffed and undercooked. But it's often a delight.

The Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, along with crack cinematographer Roger Deakins, imagine a zippy world of kooky characters and the pop philosophy of God and capitalism. They employ an impeccable cast as they cleverly produce several movies at once, jamming them together into a slapdash stew of slapstick and satire.

Where to start with the cast? Josh Brolin, Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum. Some of them, like McDormand as a Hobbit-like film editor, show up for just one or two quick scenes. Alex Karpovsky (old-man Ray of "Girls") steals his only scene with two glares.

Clooney plays Baird Whitlock, a leading lunkhead cast as the lead in a Roman epic styled like a Cecil B. Demille extravaganza. With the aid of two "lurking extras" on the set (Wayne Knight (Newman!) and Jeff Lewis), a band of Communist intellectuals (calling themselves The Future) kidnaps Whitlock and brings him to the cabal's oceanside retreat for some gentlemanly brainwashing. Brolin is Eddie Mannix, the head of production at Capitol Pictures who must keep the circus from spinning out of control. He's trying to quit smoking, pay some attention to his wife and kids, and consider chucking it all and accepting a job offer with a big military contractor. And he needs to find his superstar, while fending off inquiries from twittering twin-sister gossip columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker (both played with glee by Swinton).

Meantime, the studio head insists that Mannix saddle director Laurence Laurentz (Fiennes) with a ropin' and ridin' cowboy actor, Hobie Doyle (a wonderful Alden Ehrenreich), in Laurentz's stodgy drawing-room drama. The prim and stuffy Laurentz calls Hobie a "ro-day-o clown" and nearly bursts an aneurysm trying to get the cowpoke to learn the line "Would that it were so simple." Their minute-long rapid-fire tete-a-tete over the line is a delirious highlight, echoed deftly in a call-back later in the film when the punch-line finally drops.

Brolin has grown adept at carrying a film, as he did in "Inherent Vice." His Mannix is an obsessive-compulsive type. He goes to confession ... religiously ... and every time he checks his watch it happens to be the top of the hour (a classic Coen quirk). He also rescues starlets from compromising situations (paying off cops and keeping scandals out of the papers) and juggles the various film projects, including a musical full of sailors, starring Burt Gurney (Tatum) leading an epic toe-tapping dance number.

The comedy clicks (although Clooney often seems disconnected), while the underlying themes examining religion and capitalism tend to get drowned in the mix. Another viewing might suss out whether those more sober narrative threads are handled subtly or just lazily. It certainly isn't a tossed-off film; there's heft to it. But on a first pass through, it's the laughs that linger.

BONUS TRACKS
Here's a good test. If you find this funny, you'll enjoy "Hail, Caesar":



The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday, a respected critic, offers her "definitive" ranking of every Coen Brothers movie. You can almost invert her list and you'd get mine. I haven't seen all of their films (I don't get paid to watch movies), but here is her ranking, followed by mine.

Washington Post

1. Fargo
2. Miller's Crossing
3. Raising Arizona
4. Blood Simple
5. Inside Llewyn Davis
6. O Brother, Where Art Thou
7. Barton Fink
8. Hail, Caesar
9. Burn After Reading
10. True Grit
11. The Hudsucker Proxy
12. Intolerable Cruelty
13. The Big Lebowski
14. A Serious Man
15. The Man Who Wasn't There
16. No Country for Old Men
17. The Ladykillers

ABQ AV Club

1.  Fargo
2.  No Country for Old Men
3. A Serious Man
4. Raising Arizona
5. Blood Simple
6. The Man Who Wasn't There
7. Barton Fink
8. The Big Lebowski
9. Hail, Caesar
10. Miller's Crossing
11. True Grit
12. Inside Llewyn Davis
13. The Hudsucker Proxy
14. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
15. (Not seen): Burn After Reading, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers.

 

Odd Ducks

RAMS (B+) - From Iceland comes this quirky tale of sheep farmers whose quaint livelihood is threatened by an outbreak of scrapie among the flock. The award-winning stock, tended by estranged brothers and handed down in their families for generations, must be exterminated, along with those of farmers across the region.

How will Gummi (Sigurdur Sigurjonsson) and Kiddi (Theodor Juliusson) cope? They live in houses on the same land but they haven't spoken in 40 years. Their modes of communication involve notes delivered by Kiddi's herding dog or a shotgun blast through a window (Kiddi's a vindictive drunk). Kiddi employs that shotgun (or the threat of it, at least) as a way to fend off the inevitable. Gummi tries to outsmart the regional farm bureau and save the lineage.

To say any more about the plot -- leading up to a devastating and beautiful conclusion -- would reveal too much. Sophomore writer/director Grimur Hakonarson has crafted a quiet, bittersweet tale of a culture trapped in a bygone era. "Rams" is a finely observed sketch of a pair of gruff characters. It also flashes a sharp wit and some broad physical humor.

Despite the rivalry between the brothers, a thread running through the narrative hints at an underlying tenderness that will bring the brothers together; neither Gummi nor Kiddi, you sense, will let the other succumb to the tragedy that has befallen their divided family farm. Their brotherly bond, in the end, may be profound.

ENTERTAINMENT (B-minus) - Adrift in a dying (or dead) culture, a comedian who traffics ironically in outdated shtick plies his trade at loser bars dotting the Mojave desert area of California, unable to conceal the overwhelming anger and self-loathing he feels over the haunting estrangement from his unseen daughter.

Rick Alverson, who disappointed in 2012 with "The Comedy," does a better job of eliciting the creeps and creating a mood of bitterness and loneliness, thrusting a weaselly Gregg Turkington into the lead role. (The actor riffs on his longtime alter ego, the character of Neil Hamburger.) The unnamed Comedian wears a cheap tux, sports a damp comb-over and spouts stupid vulgar riddles. He calls to mind a cross between Leonard Barr and Andrew Dice Clay as imagined by Andy Kaufman. Holding a drink in his hand while cradling two backups in the crook of his arm, he speaks in a grating whine and tosses out nonsensical trifles such as: "What was Elvis Presley's worst ever release? The ejaculation containing Lisa Marie." Or: "Why does E.T. love Reese's Pieces so much? Because they have the same flavor as cum does on his home planet." He's also partial to rape jokes.

The Comedian spews vulgar putdowns at audience members who interrupt him, culminating in a vicious, misogynistic outburst around the two-thirds mark of the film. The buildup of bile in the man becomes so great that by the end of the movie the Comedian up on stage can only make fart noises or fall to his knees eliciting a primal wail of grief.

During his road trip, the Comedian embarks on a tour of a lost America: an airplane graveyard, a barren oil field, a deserted mineral mine. We overhear characters quoting material from gritty '70s films, such as "Five Easy Pieces" and "Taxi Driver." He crosses paths with goofy or troubled characters, allowing for cameos by John C. Reilly, Amy Seimetz, Michael Cera, David Yow from the Jesus Lizard, and Dean Stockwell. He's like a ghost wandering a vast devastated landscape. Occasionally we see him (in flashbacks? dreams?) standing in a doorway or hallway styled like a rhinestoned Col. Sanders. Random people speak Spanish to him. A few times, sad young women stare at him, studying him intently. Are they stand-ins for that daughter who never answers his calls? Is he being pitied? Reviled? Feared?

It's all quite overstuffed at 101 minutes, but it hangs together as a haunting meditation on a damaged soul trapped in a horrific purgatory. (It could very well be that he's not just missing his daughter but mourning her.) "Entertainment" is fascinating and disturbing, and often unsatisfying, but it has a hymn-like appeal as it mourns a vanishing existence.

BONUS TRACKS
This is perhaps the most touching scene in "Entertainment," accompanied by "Animals in the Zoo" by Leah Devorah:



Speaking of David Yow and guttural entertainment, here's the Jesus Lizard with "Glamorous":