Steampunk Sci-Fi

APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD* (B+) - This delightful animated film wonders what life would have been like in the early 20th century if, during the industrial revolution, all technological inventions stopped and the world continued as a coal-fired steam-punk existence.

April is a young woman whose parents were working on a serum that makes humans impervious to death and disease before they are neutralized by government officials, led by the bumbling Inspector Pizoni. They hide the serum in a snowglobe that they manage to hand off to April as she escapes, not realizing how special the trinket is beyond a sentimental connection to her parents.

April (voiced by Marion Cottilard, in French with English subtitles) skulks around Paris with her rascally talking cat, Darwin (broadly voiced by Philippe Katerine). April eventually is reunited with her grandfather, Pops (the esteemed Jean Rochefort). She holes up in a secret hideout, trying to replicate her serum, because Darwin is dying. A fortunate accident releases a bit of the snowglobe serum and revives him.

The story is based on a graphic novel by Jacques Tardi and brought to life by directors Christian Desmares (an animation coordinator on "Persepolis") and Franck Ekinci, who co-wrote with Benjamin Legrand ("Snowpiercer"). The team dreams up a fascinating alternative universe and a story bursting with action, sly humor and plenty of heart.

A bit of science fiction in 1870 averts the Franco-Prussian war and changes the course of history. Soon, the world's great scientists disappear, and there is no Edison, Einstein or Fermi to come along to advance society past the gritty industrial age. In a lovely sight gag, a second Eiffel Tower is erected to serve as a massive cable line that facilitates travel (albeit at a snail's pace) throughout Europe. Those twin towers also serve as a subtle nod to 9/11, especially with a quaint, bittersweet callback during the film's climax.

The movie is limited by the insistence on stringing together a series of shoot-'em-up showdowns -- a mix of Mad Max and Keystone Kops -- that culminates in a virtual Armageddon between our heroes and a cross-bred superhuman race that secretly inhabits a more modern utopia hidden from the rest of the world. That climax is way too messy and rather ridiculous, but the film builds up enough capital before then to allow the viewer to forgive the excess, and then it wins us over anew with a melancholy but hopeful coda that zooms the timeline toward the present day.

Cotillard's April is a credible feminist hero, tough but vulnerable (the young man sent to spy on her eventually becomes a love interest), and she and Darwin are quite the dynamic duo. It's a bit bulky at an hour and 45 minutes, but "April" is a joyful trip through the dark side and toward the light.


* The opening credits translate the French title as "April and the Twisted World."

Algorithm Biorhythms

I've apparently fallen into a pattern when clicking on stories at the New York Times website. Under the "Recommended for You" section, the first three are obits:

• Hedy Epstein, Rights Activist and Holocaust Survivor, dies at 91
• Suzanne Corkin, Who Helped Pinpoint Nature of Memory, dies at 79
• Marcus D. Gordon, Judge in 'Mississippi Burning' Case, Dies at 84

The fourth one is a guest piece by the grand thinker Alain de Botton:

• Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

I clicked on it.

Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully avoided investigating. 

***

Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for.

We all die alone.
  

One-Liners: Endangered Species

RACING EXTINCTION (A-minus) - This gorgeous documentary barely keeps its disdain in check as it explains man's mad dash to destroy life on Earth.

Director Louie Psihoyos and prolific writer Mark Monroe, who collaborated on 2009's "The Cove," mix hard science with mesmerizing images to explain how mankind may have already triggered the planet's sixth great extinction. Their cameras dive underwater and soar across the sky, swooping through cityscapes and sneaking around back alleys in remote areas. It's a dizzying, giddy presentation of an urgent polemic.

"Man has become the asteroid," one expert proclaims about the devastating effects on the planet, and the film cites the prediction that half the world's species might be gone by the end of this century. The filmmakers seek to explain why that might be true. The crew members go undercover with buttonhole camera and night-vision technology. They bust an American restaurant for serving whale. They travel to Asian backwaters to reveal the mass harvesting of endangered sea life for various purposes, including eastern-medicine cures. A diver removing a hook from the mouth of a manta ray (coveted for its purported healing qualities) and explaining how he comforted the creature is touching.

While the subject matter seems awfully dire, the filmmakers also offer nuggets of hope with the enthusiasm of idealistic insurgents. "The Earth is singing, but we're not listening," one talking head suggests. How many people will view this documentary or consider its thesis? The filmmakers conclude by tagging along with a provocateur who projects elaborate moving images on skyscrapers and other structures. This movie revels in the power of images, and from beginning to end it is a wonder.

CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948) (B-minus) - This interesting artifact -- billed as the first drama shot on location in Chicago -- rests on the broad shoulders of James Stewart to tell the true story of a newspaper reporter's determination to free an innocent man.

Stewart stars as P.J. McNeal, a mild-mannered reporter for the Chicago Times (just before the merger with the Sun) who is assigned to follow up a classified ad offering a reward for information leading to exoneration of one of two men imprisoned in the killing of a cop at a speakeasy. The author of the ad is Tillie Wiecek (Kasia Orzazewski), the mother of Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte), who has been behind bars for 11 years but who insists he is innocent. Tillie is a noble immigrant who cleans office buildings, saving her pennies over time in order to fund the reward. The supporting cast is strong: Lee J. Cobb portrays the gruff editor; Helen Walker is bubbly as McNeal's supporting wife; E.G. Marshall pops up for a cameo; and the speakeasy owner is played by character actress Betty Garde (Thelma the maid on "The Honeymooners").

The drama itself is rather flat throughout the nearly two-hour running time, and for a would-be noir (the screenplay won an Edgar award), it's awfully pristine and conventional. It's the authentic performances and Stewart's folksy charm that rescue the proceedings from being a dreary slog. The final reel feels like a rushed resolution and is anticlimactic.

What's fascinating is the location shooting, as the filmmakers delve deep into the city, including a rundown bar in a Polish neighborhood. Much real estate is devoted to the scene of Wiecek taking a polygraph examination. the producers cast one of the actual inventors of the machine, Leonarde Keeler, to play the examiner, and the film detours into the minutiae of the contraption, apparently because it was such a novel concept at the time. While that's neat as a time capsule, it doesn't make for compelling cinema. (A similar diversion occurs near the climax when men stand around a photo-transmission contraption waiting for a key piece of evidence magically appear.)

Stewart does his best, and as newspaper movies go, this one does a decent job of reminding us of a bygone era; but a snappier script and sharper direction are needed to make this one hum.

BONUS TRACK
The trailer for "Call Northside 777":


  

New to the Queue

Some dependable filmmakers step up ...

Tilda Swinton re-teams with Italian director Luca Guadagnino ("I Am Love") for some poolside decadence in "A Bigger Splash."

The story of Sri Lankan immigrants in France from Jacques Audiard ("A Prophet," "Rust and Bone"), "Dheepan."

Another favorite director, Yorgo Lanthimos ("Dogtooth," "Attenberg," "Alps"), makes his English-language debut, with the help of Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, "The Lobster."

The venerable Terence Davies ("The Deep Blue Sea") might try our patience with the slow-paced turn-of-the-century coming-of-age story, "Sunset Song."

Greta Gerwig stars in the latest from Rebecca Miller ("The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"), "Maggie's Plan."

A documentary about Evo Morales' rise to the presidency of Bolivia, "A Moment of Silence."

More dumb '70s shtick, but we're inexplicably drawn to the Ryan Gosling/Russell Crowe farce "The Nice Guys."

A disturbing look at a trailer park that houses 120 convicted sex offenders, "Pervert Park."

And the story of yet another politician who couldn't keep it in his pants, "Weiner."
 

Introduction to the French Avant Garde: Part II

JANE B. PAR AGNES VARDA (1988) (B) - This documentary from French New Wave icon Agnes Varda is a fascinating historical nugget, a biographical study that plays like a dry run for her late-career masterpiece, 2009's autobiographical "Beaches of Agnes."

Here, shooting in the late '80s, Varda's focus is not on herself but on the '60s screen icon Jane Birkin on the brink of middle age. The two had just worked together in 1987's "Le Petit Amour," in which Birkin stars as a woman who falls in love with a 14-year-old (played by Varda's son with Jacques Demy, Mathieu). Birkin blew up in Antonioni's "Blow Up" and then famously hooked up with chanteur Serge Gainsbourg to create pop-culture milestones like "Je T'aime Moi Non Plus" and a very talented daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg (who is glimpsed here and there as a teenager and who would fully realize the potential of both of her parents).

In addition to vintage clips (and some fun classic rock from the '60s), Birkin is filmed in rather ordinary, intimate settings. She cuddles with her dog, she cooks for her children, she runs errands, she fiddles on a movie set. She's quite the nester and mother. Some of the scenes would have fit in on that era's celebrity-fluff show "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."

But, of course, Varda is scrounging deeper for insight into the onetime fashion icon. The disappointing result is that the mission falls short. Birkin isn't particularly insightful or even that interesting as a person. She's not an intense thinker, and she doesn't seem to have taken a deep dive into herself. It's debatable whether those eyes of hers have anything profound to communicate.

Which isn't to say that the film itself is boring or pointless. Varda is hunting around here, and if this is a demo for a fully realized film two decades hence, then it has a use for film buffs as well as pop-culture hounds. Birkin play-acts in various guises, including a Laurel & Hardy spoof co-starring her director. Birkin's portrayal of Joan of Arc being burned at the stake is the only scene that shows any serious depth as an actress.

Varda ("Cleo From 5 to 7") is known for a gaze that is almost borderline lurid. She stages multiple set pieces that qualify as art installations. (Mirrors play a prominent role, as they do famously in "Beaches.") In one recurring theme, Birkin portrays different characters in a painting come to life. She reclines like Venus, naked, on a fainting couch, and Varda's camera zooms in, in extreme closeup, tracing Birkin's body from her toes, crawling slowly up the left side, over a nipple and, finally, to Birkin's own intense gaze. It is a magnificent celebration of female beauty and power, so fundamentally human yet posed and mannered.

It's those fleeting moments that make this movie a fascinating historical artifact. At the beginning of the film, the women meet at a restaurant, and Birkin whispers to Varda, "I'll look at you, but not at the camera -- it could be a trap." The subject proceeds to keep her guard up, exposing herself to the camera but, as she had in the past, keeping much that's below the surface hidden.

BONUS TRACK
Mais oui:

 

Introduction to the French Avant Garde: Part I

JE TU IL ELLE (1974) (C+) - The debut feature from Chantal Akerman combines twee navel-gazing with a classic '70s road movie.

Akerman draws out random moments in the life of the lead character, Julie, who is at various times working out some relationship issues. Set out in three acts, the film opens with Julie penning an epic letter while hanging out in a small room stripped of all of its furniture except for a mattress. We watch her stare out the sliding glass door and strip off her clothes. We watch as she tediously organizes the pages of her letter. She takes a bag of sugar and eats heaping spoonfuls from it.

After a half hour of gloom, she escapes her self-made prison and catches a ride with a truck driver (Niels Arestrup), a numbingly married horn-dog with no name. He bitches about the wife and kids. They hang out at bars not talking to each other. In a truck-stop bathroom, she watches him shave and then take a piss. He combs his hair. AND scene.

Off she goes in the final half hour to the home of her former lover (Claire Wauthion, listed in the credits as Girlfriend). Girlfriend feeds her Nutella sandwiches for a while, washed down with a little wine. Suddenly (well, relatively) Julie makes a move, and the women wind up writhing in bed. The black-and-white film brightens noticeably, as their pale white bodies grope each other on white sheets. They make out, rather aggressively, totally naked for about 12 minutes, including some rather graphic positions. (Did it inspire a similar scene in the middle of "Blue Is the Warmest Color"?) A French children's song plays over the spare final credits.

Akerman's movie is somehow more compelling than it has every right to be. I don't think it's a sin to fast-forward through some of it. The middle act provides some much-needed oxygen, and the truck driver's monologue, with some real-time sports radio playing in the background, gives this a documentary feel that recalls 1967's "David Holzman's Diary," another break-up self-doc (and which is streaming on Vimeo). And the final love scene is not only elegantly shot, but it has a brashness that can still take you aback 42 years later.


This film is streaming on YouTube sans subtitles.
  

So I Don't Have To: More Men in Tights

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 super-hero action spectacle, "Captain America: Civil War": It’s no “Batman v. Superman,” but there’s something vaguely off-putting about this latest installment in the Avengers franchise.  Here, the captain and Tony Stark square off in a disagreement over whether the United Nations should have authority over the Avengers, since the superhero team has a history of destroying cities (New York, Washington and the fictional Sokovia).   The intraoffice violence that ensues pits Avengers against Avengers, which, to paraphrase the recent Honest Trailers treatment of “Deadpool,” means no one can do any real harm to the others. “Civil War” wants to make a statement about government regulation vs. free will, but it makes a convincing case for neither. It’s also too long (2 hours, 27 minutes). That easily could have been avoided by cutting all the Spider-Man scenes. Guest grade: B

Blues Before Sunrise

In Chicago this week. Staying at the Conrad Hilton across from Grant Park and a block away from Buddy Goy's Legends blues club. Caught a set by Linsey Alexander. Favorite moment: a cover of Muddy Waters' "Long Distance Call." Here's the killer lyric (which Alexander modified a bit):

Hear my phone ringing
Sound like a long-distance call
Hear my phone keep ringing
Sound like a long-distance call
When I picked up my receiver
The party said "another mule kicking in your stall"

Least favorite moment: calling up to the stage six women for a booty-shaking contest. Three were European tourists, two from Italy and one from Greece, who probably figured "When in Rome ..." and indulged the old man. For most of the set, he wandered through the crowd mostly hitting on women with his blue banter like a kindly, avuncular Redd Foxx

Here is Muddy Waters' version of "Call":

Here's a snippet of a set from Alexander at the same venue a few years ago:

  

Guitar Hero

Dick Dale was welcomed to a sold-out show at Sister Bar in Downtown Albuquerque as a wise elder and a music legend by a heavily millennial crowd on Monday night. He even was applauded for delivering a seminar to the house crew on proper technique for sound levels.

Dale, who turned 79 last week, was noticeably slower than when we last saw him about a decade ago, still shreds a six-string like few others, and no one else can stand on a stage and proclaim to be the king of surf guitar. His set was a history lesson in rock 'n' roll, from the world's first power chord ("Rumble") to the first power chord you learned in the '70s ("Smoke on the Water"). Dale's sound is rooted in the folk music of his Lebanese heritage -- compare any traditional song played on a mandolin, oud or tamboura with the manic, jittery fury of the iconic Dale staple "Misirlou" (re-popularized for the last generation by the opening credits of "Pulp Fiction").

Dale, with his young bucks on bass and drums, can still rev up a crowd, despite his tendency to prattle like the cranky senior citizen he is. But there is no denying the vibrancy of the enduring genre he invented and its embrace of and influence on every conceivable muscle-rock riff that has been served up since. 

Bonus Track

Here is a video from seven years ago that offers a decent sampling of Dale's current shtick, including his surf twist on that Deep Purple classic:

  

One-Liners: Paranoia, the Destroyer

THE INVITATION (B+) - This unsettling psychodrama flies under the radar and sneaks up on you with a surprisingly crisp script that lulls you into a false sense of security.

Will and Eden split up a couple of years ago, torn apart by the death of their young son. Eden (Tammy Blanchard) is now remarried, and she invites Will (Logan Marshall-Green) and his girlfriend to a dinner party with a dozen or so of mostly mutual friends. Eden and her new guy have recently returned from an extended trip to Mexico, where they fell in with a Scientology-like cult called the Invitation. They play for the group a video of an ailing woman taking her final breaths as a prelude to engaging their guests in a conversation about the art of dying peacefully.

Eden and her beau speak robotically. She's dressed in a cliched flowing white gown, like Mother Nature from the old margarine commercials. Will notices that the front door is kept locked and there are bars on the windows. His paranoia quickly begins to spiral, making others uncomfortable and worrying his date, Kira (Emayatzy Corinealdi). Is Will needlessly manufacturing dread in his head? Or is Eden up to no good?

To say anymore would, of course, ruin the powerful final 20 minutes, which are set up with precision by director Karyn Kusama ("Jennifer's Body," "Aeon Flux"). The main weak spot here is the cast. No one truly rises to the level of the material, as the 30-somethings start to blur together. This is ultimately a movie crafted around a really great idea and a memorable climax. Nothing wrong with that. It's to the credit of writers Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay ("Ride Along," "Clash of the Titans") that they took care to flesh out a full story and didn't just rely on a familiar director to ratchet up the suspense. The result is a pleasant surprise.

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 2 (D) - This series peaked in 2013 with the second half of the second installment ("Catching Fire"), but it tumbled to an embarrassing conclusion with this blow-'em-up kiss-and-make-up mess of an ending.

Eight percent of this movie relies on two of the weakest elements of the drawn-out trilogy: battles scenes between the rebels and the regime, and the love story between Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). Lawrence the actress seems weary here, and she and her co-star have zero (negative?) chemistry. It could be the small matter of Lawrence being one of the great actresses of her generation and Hutcherson having the charisma of a CPR dummy.

Nothing works here. A good 90 minutes finds Katniss and the rebels wending their way toward the capital. Would you believe that she defies all odds and manages to survive the craziest and direst of physical challenges? When the pack of CGI zombie jackals attacks -- and is improbably repelled -- it's laugh-out-loud funny.

With the flat-lined "romance" -- if only Katniss and Peeta could learn to trust each other again -- dominating the film, the balance is thrown off with the rest of the cast, the adults in the room, most of whom get reduced to tired cameos. Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks and Stanley Tucci are afterthoughts here, trotted out merely for brief victory laps. Julianne Moore has never been so miscast as the rebel leader. The filmmakers seems to write around the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman in a few spots. No one here has a drop of gas left in the tank.

But like Katniss and Lawrence, viewers are worn down, fatigued by the bloated story. (This one runs 2 hours, 17 minutes; the end credits alone drone on for 11 and a half minutes.) This is the most violent entry in the "Hunger Games" pantheon; Katniss's final kill shot feels quaint and anti-climactic. By the time she releases that arrow, the plot has become so convoluted that it's hard to still care which side "wins."

This was a fine idea, but it was flogged to the point of incoherence. Not even Jennifer Lawrence can heroically rescue something this calculated and crass.

BONUS TRACK
Our title track (and it goes like this):


 

New to the Queue

Fast and furious ...

Our man Vincent Lindon re-teams with director Stephane Brize ("Mademoiselle Chambon") for a slow burn about middle age and the job market, "The Measure of a Man."

Mamie Gummer stars in a quiet L.A. relationship film, a debut from Amanda Marsalis, "Echo Park."

A view of Earth shot from various international space stations, the documentary "A Beautiful Planet."

Juliette Binoche finds another young co-star for a slow burn of a family drama, "L'Attesa (The Wait)."

Oh, what the heck: There must be a few belly-laughs to be had from Cedric the Entertainer in the belated sequel, "Barbershop: The Next Cut."

BONUS TRACK
Cedric and the hangers in "Top Five":