New to the Queue

Bracing for the fall ...

An American teenager and his dad adrift in Germany, "Morris From America."

We'll lift our soft ban on WWII stories for a drama about a West German prosecutor hunting down Nazi war criminals, "The People vs. Fritz Bauer."

A first feature about the rural life of a family in Guatemala in the shadow of a volcano, "Ixcancul."

A woman trying to make a film while dealing with her ailing mother, from Italy, "Mia Madre."

It looks like a cheap "Big Chill" knockoff (subbing a marriage for death -- nice), but there's Melanie Lynskey, Natasha Lyonne and Alia Shawkat, so we're adding "The Intervention."

A mother working as a housekeeper in France while raising two teenage girls, "Fatima."
  

One-Liners: Millennials uprising

THE BRONZE (B+) - This tale of a washed-up gymnast -- a bronze-medal winner for Team USA in 2004 who is back home 12 years later in her tiny Ohio hometown, terrorizing her single father and the townsfolk as a nasty, bitter spoiled brat -- is raunchy, guilty fun.

Melissa Rauch (Bernadette from TV's "Big Bang Theory") stars in this labor of love that she co-wrote with her husband, Winston. She plays the pointedly pony-tailed Hope Ann Gregory, still skating by on her Olympic achievement. Never seen without her baggy stars-and-stripes track suit, she trades on her fading celebrity for free meals at Sbarro and her own parking spot downtown, where she idles her whale of a late-model Buick while she shoplifts scrunchies at the mall.

She mistreats her dad, Stan the mailman (a delightfully dumpy Gary Cole), worse than a misbehaving pet. (She also steals mail from his truck.) She viciously denigrates an old classmate, the son of the owner of the local gym that she used to train at, calling him Twitchy because of a facial tic that is exacerbated by her mere presence. That would be Ben (Thomas Middleditch from HBO's "Silicon Valley"), who still crushes on Hope and lamely attempts to woo her.

Rauch revels in the role. Her version of Hope comes across as a character that has been faithfully workshopped for years with an improv troupe. Rauch thoroughly inhabits the role and shows no fear in spewing foul-mouthed insults through a lived-in Midwestern twang or exhibiting the dark corners of her character, such as an early scene in which Hope masturbates while watching a tape of her medal-winning performance. (She theatrically sticks the landing, so to speak.) A late bout of ridiculously wild gymnastic sex rivals the famous puppet porn scene of "Team America: World Police."

The plot turns on Hope's estrangement from her stern former Eastern-bloc coach who lures Hope into coaching the town's newest phenom, Maggie (Haley Lu Richardson), who might have what it takes to win gold. Hope's first instinct is to sabotage the perky little teen (Richardson is infectiously giddy in the role) to protect her own legacy; but will the ice queen's facade melt under the influence of Stan, Ben and innocent Maggie?

Some parts don't quite work. Middleditch lapses in and out of his idea of an Ohio accent, sounding more like dose Chicagah Superfans. Hunky Sebastian Stan is a bit overbroad as Hope's male rival, Lance Tucker, who vies for the right to ride Maggie's train to potential superstardom. SNL's Cecily Strong feels misused as Maggie's working-class mom.

But Rauch sells this from beginning to end, and a late reveal of the reason why Hope could no longer compete by the 2008 games is perfectly executed. "The Bronze" is almost too laugh-out-loud funny to be merely a guilty pleasure.

LOLO (B-minus) - It's hard to deem a Julie Delpy movie a waste of time.

As a writer/director, she is known mostly for her modern takes on classic Woody Allen, "2 Days in Paris" (easily her best effort) and its companion piece, "2 Days in New York." She has occasionally skirted the line between clever and cloying, and her latest, "Lolo," is the most uneven of her efforts.

Delpy plays Violette, a hip fashionista who falls for a pedestrian computer programmer whom she meets while on vacation with a pal in the resort town of Biarritz. After their whirlwind week, Jean-Rene moves near Paris to pursue their romance. The sticking point is Violette's young-adult son, Eloi (aka Lolo), who takes an instant dislike to Jean-Rene and sets out to sabotage the relationship. It's apparent early on that this is Lolo's modus operandi -- a way of keeping his mom to himself.

Well, that's not so apparent to Violette -- and that's just one of the flaws in Delpy's rickety narrative. If that plot description reminded you of "Cyrus" -- the 2010 dark comedy with Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill as the creepy mother and son -- you're not far off. "Lolo," however, doesn't have the edge that the earlier Duplass brothers offering brought to the proceedings.

Instead, Delpy plays it soccer-mom saucy, especially when Violette banters with her bawdy bestie, Ariane (Karin Viard, "Delicatessen," "Polisse"), like a couple of frat boys. In the opening scene, the two are chilling in a whirlpool, and Violette complains about getting a "pussy massage." Ariane insists that Violette seriously needs to get laid. When there's a character reveal about Jean-Rene, Ariane cracks, "He was in deep cover, your muff-diver."

The movie is both charming and confounding. It is loose-limbed but in a way that sometimes feels lazy. In his sabotage efforts, Lolo actually sneaks itching powder into Jean-Rene's clothes drawer -- a gag probably not seen since the Three Stooges' heyday. Is that some sort of French homage?

Still, the film has a pleasing arc, and Delpy and Viard play together like a poor man's Edina and Patsy. Delpy is an earnest storyteller, and she provides an interesting female voice in the world of relationship cinema. It's really difficult to say no to her.

BONUS TRACKS
Delpy opens her film with some kitschy animation scored to Andy Williams' "Music to Watch Girls By," and she shuts it down with Etta James' muscular workout "Plum Nuts." Here they are:




 

Live in L.A.: Gold Star for Robot Boy

Robert Pollard has achieved a minor level of sobriety – he wasn’t blind drunk by the end of Guided By Voices’ endlessly infectious show at L.A.’s Teragram Ballroom last Saturday night – and perhaps a sense of clarity. 

He took a moment to scoff at the memory from 20 years ago of Matador Records urging him to go to the label’s version of the Betty Ford Clinic. “Fuck that,” he spat. “I’m going to the motherfuckin’ Rock 'n’ Roll Hall of Fame.” He quickly laughed at such a ridiculous thought. The little band from Dayton, Ohio, that probably couldn’t get a letter to the editor printed in Rolling Stone, let alone get the nod from Jann Wenner to enter the pantheon. 

Thirty years on, Pollard powers Guided By Voices the only way he knows how:  by riffling through dozens of songs that barely scratch the surface of all the great tunes he has written over that time – more quality songs than Lennon and McCartney (separately or combined), and Harrison, too, or whoever else you want to throw out. Lyrics and hooks have poured out of him nonstop for three decades, starting with the wisps of REM knock-offs to his mid-'90s heyday (with a trilogy of perfect albums) and through to the band’s umpteenth release, this past spring’s “Please Be Honest,” on which, “McCartney”-like, he plays all the instruments, a back-to-basics movement (and, finally, a needed break from producer/collaborator Todd Tobias). Pollard also has retooled the touring band – crucially bringing back the talent and discipline of lead guitarist Doug Gillard.  With that tweak of America’s great pop band, Pollard has also shaken up his set-list, digging deep into that voluminous catalog, as if to prove his case before the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame Committee.

The show was a Deep Cuts version of the band’s concert persona. Instead of “Pop Zeus” (from solo effort “Speak Kindly …”) he pumped up “Do Something Real.” Instead of “Chasing Heather Crazy” (“Isolation Drills”) he went with “Fair Warning.”  Instead of “Bulldog Skin” (“Mag Earwhig”), he dug deep for “Not Behind the Fighter Jets.” Instead of “Everywhere With Helicopter” (“Universal Truths and Cycles”), there was "Back to the Lake." From a 2006 solo release he shunned "Dancing Girls and Dancing Men" for a heartfelt "Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft." He has shelved, for now, pop gems like "The Best of Jill Hives," "My Valuable Hunting Knife," "Postal Blowfish" and "Jar of Cardinals."  At least one-third of the songs were from the comeback era, 2012 to the present, expertly woven in with the old hits, so as not to sap the energy of the crowd.

Pollard paid homage to the band's heritage -- he flashed a few high kicks and microphone twirls for old times' sake -- while sending a clear message that his newer songs matter and he's not ready to become an oldies act. He's proud of his output the past five years. He spotlighted side projects like Boston Spaceships ("Tabby and Lucy" was a highlight) and Ricked Wicky (about which Pitchfork notes in Pollard "a renewed sense of purpose"). He gave it his all on new material that promises to launch sing-alongs someday -- choruses like "Come back to me, my zodiac companion" from this year's release. And the crowd in L.A. was made up of just as many millennials (chanting along to the anthems) as geezers. GBV is not ready to be set in amber in the alt version of the Rock Hall.

Pollard has long been a frustrated arena rocker. (He closed one encore with their familiar cover of The Who's "Baba O'Reilly.") The last band he put together before the 2004 farewell tour was way too muscular for the clubs the band never grew out of, and too often the band cranked the noise up to 11 just because they could. Here, too, the band tested the limits of the venue’s speaker system; songs from “Bee Thousand” and “Alien Lanes” (the ultimate pop gem “Echoes Myron” and the anthemic “Game of Pricks,” for example) lost any semblance of lo-fi nuance and were blasted at the crowd, almost to the point of distortion at times. Gillard and drummer Kevin March, with his prodigious thuds and snaps, are back from the turn-of-the-millennium backing quartet. 

For better and worse, Pollard has reclaimed Guided by Voices from his youthful mates, in particular Tobin Sprout, who was the Paul/George to his domineering John. Gone is the subtle sweetness of Sprout's minor-key workouts. This is full-on power pop that borrows from a range of genres, from '60s freak beat to '70s prog rock to '90s lo-fi (amped up to hi-fi). 

Sprout used to sing of "this awful bliss." Pollard has dropped the qualifier. He's living in the moment while celebrating his legacy, and he's putting on the best shows of his career. This -- this is bliss.  

BONUS TRACK
I could unleash a torrent of videos. Let's just begin and end it with the infectious concert staple, "Teenage FBI" from 1999's "Do the Collapse." Pogo along with the crowd.


  

Blame the Man

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (A) - I think this is what Steven Spielberg movies must seem like to the masses. I was a puddle by the end of this comic drama about a man living off the grid with his six children in the immediate wake of his wife's death and leading them back to civilization to deal with the in-laws who want to take the children from him.

Viggo Mortensen seizes the red-meat role of Ben with gusto but also a decent amount of nuance, and he is surrounded by impossibly appealing and talented children who help him create a believable alternative world, one with heft and consequences. Ben's wife left the practice of law when their oldest son was young and followed her man to the wilderness, where they home-schooled their children to brilliance and taught them survival skills, such as killing and gutting an animal for food and clothing or setting a broken bone. Ben talks to them like they are little adults, at one point explaining the mundanities of intercourse to the youngest (about 5 years old) as matter-of-factly as a high school teacher would to his students.

The children, indoctrinated by Ben in far-left political theory, subscribe ardently to a radical worldview.  "Power to the People," they chant. "Stick it to the Man!" The youngest, Nai, likes to push the boundaries of the no-nudity-during-meals rule. The group takes a break from their road trip to get a cake from a local grocery store to celebrate Noam Chomsky's birthday. (It wasn't easy for me to keep all of the kids straight, particularly the two teenage girls. And I thought the youngest one was a girl and the second-youngest was a boy -- they both had long blond hair -- but IMDb suggests that it's the other way around. Either way, Charlie Shotwell as adorable little Nai nearly steals scenes from Mortensen.)

The kids' mother was bipolar and struggled with her health, to the point where she went back to civilization for treatment, only to take her own life. Ben is summarily informed by his rich father-in-law, Jack (Frank Langella, exquisitely measured), that he is not welcome at the funeral services. Rising to the challenge, Ben packs the kids in their kitted-out school bus and heads to the foothills of New Mexico, intent on bidding a proper farewell to his wife. (When informed of Jack's threat, one kid spouts, "Grandpa can't oppress us!")

Out in the "civilized" world, the children come off as little freaks, particularly the oldest, Bo (George MacKay), who is confronted by a love interest for the first time. They stop in at the home of Bo's sister, Harper, and her husband, Dave, and their two lumps of adolescent boys, whose minds are rendered into mush by their phones and video games. The couple is played by the delightful pairing of Kathryn Hahn and Steve Zahn (casting in rhyme!), exuding quiet exasperation, especially when Ben, accused by Harper of damaging his children by denying them proper schooling, proceeds to call in his youngest child to embarrass her sons -- imbecilic victims of an American public school -- by reciting the Bill of Rights and placing it in a political context. (Among the reading materials for the children on display are The Brothers Karamazov and Guns, Germs & Steel.)

The rest of the children manage to carve out their own identities. (It helps that they have been given genuinely unique names like Kielyr, Vespyr, Rellian, Zaja and Nai.) One sharp scene finds Ben pressing one of the older girls on her interpretation of Lolita, pushing her to analyze beyond plot; the girl's response is thoughtful and insightful, with just the right tone for a teenager. It is in moments like this that Matt Ross's script resonates. Ross, who also directed, is a noted actor (he plays the nefarious head of the Google-like empire in HBO's "Silicon Valley") whose last outing behind the camera was the devastating relationship film "28 Hotel Rooms" in 2012. 

Ross weaves together several strands of a compelling plot. Bo, the eldest, secretly harbors a mainstream ambition. One of the teen girls spills some secrets of Ben's questionable parenting decisions to Jack, sparking an anti-rebellion. Ben starts questioning his whole philosophy of child-rearing and is consumed with doubt and guilt. Did he drag his wife out to the jungle against her will? Were they a team or was he brutalizing a mentally unstable woman? Few actors could juggle such character angst better than Mortensen. The closing credits feature a new version of the Bob Dylan song (popularized by the Band) "I Shall Be Released" with its acutely appropriate lyric about "a man who swears he's not to blame." Is Ben deluding himself?

Some might see the resolution of that dilemma as overly simplistic in a too-tidy ending. But, again, Mortensen -- perhaps sensing a career-defining role -- welds everything together with integrity. I was not only brought to tears more than once, but by the end I was choked with emotion. Often the proceedings border on precious, but each time Ross survives the tightrope walk. A memorial sing-along of Guns 'N Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine" is way more touching than it deserves to be.  It shouldn't work, but in context it does.

"Captain Fantastic" has a lot to say about a wide range of topics, from geopolitics to family dynamics to a man questioning everything in life he has ever stood for. Perhaps the loose ends of this story tie up just a tad too neatly in the end, but neither Ross nor his lead character should be blamed. Those of us who seek to disturb the universe and take down the Man deserve a marginally satisfying outcome, at least once in a while.

BONUS TRACK
That Dylan classic: 


  

Soundtrack of Your Life: Outlaw Yoga

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

Date: 13 August 2016, 9:40 a.m.
Place: Del Norte Sports & Wellness
Song:  "What a Wonderful World"
Artist: Willie Nelson
Irony Matrix: 7.8 out of 10
Comment: During the last five minutes of a yoga session, the participants lie in corpse pose -- savasana -- to relax, incorporate all the movement, and ground with the earth. Peaceful music is sometimes played. On this occasion, the instructor -- who is partial to sensitive-dude music -- blessed us with Willie Nelson, of all people, covering the Louis Armstrong classic. While it's a pleasant tune, the cloying standard trilled by Shotgun Willie proved to be a distraction, a felled tree across the road to enlightenment.

I've been a fan of Willie's since high school, but this version of "What a Wonderful World" didn't work for me. It is suffused with strings and generic backing vocals that recall his pre-outlaw RCA days, and it sounds like a corny Christmas song. Let's spin Joey Ramone's version instead:


 

... And Then You Die

WIENER-DOG (B+) - Todd Solondz has never cared about happy endings. Life is crap and then you die.

The dour director has lately been rediscovering his voice from the '90s, that period when he reeled off "Welcome to the Dollhouse" and "Happiness." He drifted in the next decade, but he has recovered of late with "Life During Wartime" and "Dark Horse." With "Wiener-Dog" he literally calls back to his early masterpiece, "Dollhouse," bringing back an adult Dawn Wiener as one of a series of owners of a hapless dog who can't seem to find a good home.

The vignettes don't hold together very well (though they each share a similarly flat affect), but each one is quietly effective, powered by strong performances. In the first sequence, Julie Delpy is Dina, a jaded mother who has no filter when talking to her child, especially about the horrors of life, including the cruel fate some dogs face, including the marquee mutt, who spends almost all of his time confined to a cage in the basement. Her son, Remi (Keaton Nigel Cooke), home alone, frees the pup and feeds breakfast bars to the poor thing, which proceeds to strafe the house and yard with explosive diarrhea. Solondz, wrings a few laughs and head-scratches by choreographing vast quantities of puddles of dog excrement to "Clare de Lune."

The parents take the dog to the vet and plan to have it put to sleep. But it's rescued by Dawn Wiener -- played with loose-limbed jerkiness and nerd glasses by the fine physical actress Greta Gerwig. Dawn runs into an old high school mate, Brandon (a charming Kieran Culkin) at a convenience score, and he revives her old nickname: Wiener-Dog. Against everyone's better judgment she desperately tags along with this junkie on a visit to his brother and sister-in-law in the suburbs. The couple have Down syndrome and are portrayed as clear-eyed innocents. The dog is bequeathed to them and their spacious yard.

The third segment is anchored by sad-sack film professor Dave Schmerz, played with elegant melancholy by Danny DeVito. Dave once had a screenplay produced, but he's been waiting years for lightning to strike again, struggling to get phone calls to his agent returned. Stoop-shouldered Schmerz is treated like a pathetic anachronism; he is mocked by snotty millennials for his old-fashioned screenwriting shorthand technique of "What-if/Then-what." Schmerz seeks revenge by using Wiener-Dog in a provocative and disturbing manner to exact revenge.

Cut to the haunting final act in which a acerbic old woman (Ellen Burstyn), living in her museum-like apartment with a caretaker and Wiener-Dog. She is visited by her hipster granddaughter, Zoe (an artful Zosia Mamet from HBO's "Girls"), and her flamboyant artist boyfriend, Fantasy (Michael Shaw), who is working on a maudlin new project. The young woman is ostensibly visiting to catch up with her beloved Nana after a long estrangement. But it's just a matter of time before Zoe hits the old lady up for a cash infusion. After they leave, we see the old woman on a park bench, in a dizzying reverie, interacting with herself as a child. She loses track of Wiener-Dog, and you might want to avert your gaze at that point. Solondz is nothing if not a shock-meister who likes a twist ending.

But the filmmaker is also morbidly funny. (Enjoy the halftime interstitial set to the jaunty original tune "Ballad of a Wiener-Dog.") And while his vision is dark, he ferrets out quiet moments of humanity in the far reaches of the abyss. When a couple holds hands, it is moving and powerful. And the actors are game: Delpy plays against type as the mean mom; Gerwig disappears into her lonely loser aching for a connection; DeVito holds his resentment in his jowls and his dead eyes; Mamet and Burstyn crackle during their generational clash.

This is Solondz's most satisfying storytelling since his breakthrough study of childhood bullying, back when he was picking on a different Wiener-Dog.
 

New to the Queue

Brighter every day ...

Women in high-finance, led by Anna Gunn (TV's "Breaking Bad"), "Equity."

A documentary about the soulful leader of the throwback R&B group the Dap-Kings, "Miss Sharon Jones."

Another trashy ensemble chick flick, this one from the creators of "The Hangover," and starring Mila Kunis and Kathryn Hahn, "Bad Moms."

We wade trepidatiously into the war in Afghanistan with a debut feature from France about vanishing troop members, "Neither Heaven Nor Earth."

We also step lightly into the western genre, with a slow burn from writer Taylor Sheridan ("Sicario," which we skipped) and director David Mackenzie ("Young Adam," "Perfect Sense"), "Hell or High Water."

The latest from Argentina's Daniel Burman ("Family Law," "Every Stewardess Goes to Heaven"), a drama about a man connecting with his Jewish roots, "The Tenth Man."

What the New York Times calls "a time capsule curio," footage of a London disco in 1984 from Derek Jarman ("Caravaggio"), "Will You Dance With Me?"

It looks like a Mumblecore circle jerk, but we're drawn to Thomas Middleditch (HBO's "Silicon Valley") and Jenny Slate ("Obvious Child") in the weekend bro gathering, "Joshy."

From the director of "Polisse" (our best of 2012) a stormy relationship between Vincent Cassell and Emmanuelle Bercot, "My King."
 

The Noir Chronicles

The Guild Cinema blessed us again this summer with its annual festival of noir. Here's a sampling, in reverse chronological order:

PRIVATE PROPERTY (1960) (A-minus) - This unsettling suspense film -- recently restored at UCLA -- is a classic creep-out.

A pair of drifters -- Duke (Corey Allen) and Boots (Warren Oates) -- bum a ride to the hills of L.A. where they find an empty house next door to a housewife they have targeted for a sexual conquest. Duke either feels sorry for his virginal partner or suspects he is a homosexual.

Duke takes the lead, ringing the door of Ann Carlyle (the lapine Kate Manx) posing as a handyman/gardener looking for work. It takes a few tries, but he eventually gets his foot in the door, and before you know it, he's worked up a sweat, doffed his shirt and jumped in the backyard swimming pool, as Boots spies from next door. Turns out Ann's husband is a stuffy businessman who is uninterested in satisfying his wife's carnal needs, leaving her craving a man's touch.

You can tell Ann is under-served, because we see her at various times suckling on an ice cube or fondling a candlestick to signal to the audience (if not her clueless husband) that she's horny. And Manx is a total '60s minx. Here's her come-hither look as she coils up like a kitten on the plush carpet in front of the TV:

Writer/director Leslie Stevens -- notably Manx's husband at the time -- was a veteran of the TV thriller anthology series "The Outer Limits," and he knows how to craft a simple yet compelling plot and how to ratchet up the tension. He creates a fascinating dichotomy and quite the conundrum for the viewer -- how can we watch this story of the unfulfilled housewife begging to get laid while two drifters are essentially plotting to rape her? Dare we watch this?

What follows is an unnerving pas de deux between Duke and Ann, with Boots wondering when his turn is going to come. The actors in this menacing menage a trois carry it off beautifully. Allen (who would continue in TV, mostly directing dramas and such TV telepics as "The Ann Jillian Story") has boyish good looks and a broad chest. Manx (who died four years later at age 34 of an overdose of sleeping pills) captures the dilemma of the happy housewife flirting with danger. Oates, in one of his earliest roles, oozes angst and desperation; you don't know what he might be capable of.

The final reel doesn't disappoint as Stevens builds it all to a shattering climax. It's tough to watch, but you can't take your eyes off of it.

CRISS CROSS (1949) (B-minus) - The proceedings drag a bit too often in this tale of a man trying to win back his ex by scheming with her husband to pull off a Brinks heist and then out-maneuvering him for the gal.

Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo are the criss-crossed lovers in brightly lit downtown Los Angeles, rekindling a romance that should have been left in the past. De Carlo (in her heyday as a dark-eyed screen siren before settling into the infamous role of Lily Munster 15 years later) smolders as Anna, toying with frustrated Steve (Lancaster) while taking the arm of ringleader Slim (Dan Duryea, a fixture of westerns).

Lancaster is fine as the sweaty double-crosser who will allow his cash-delivery truck to be robbed. Director Robert Siodmak ("The Killers," below) keeps a swift pace to deliver 88 minutes of suspense.

THE KILLERS (1946) (B-minus) - This landmark noir tale -- based on an Ernest Hemingway short story -- is incredibly convoluted, to the point of being drained of real drama or intrigue. It is a chore to get through. (Just try to follow the plot in this Wikipedia summary.)

Burt Lancaster, in his screen debut, is the Swede, a former boxer who falls in with mobsters and pays for it with his life. He dies in a hit job early on, so that's not the mystery. Instead, we follow an insurance adjuster trying to piece together the why of it all, through numerous confusing flashbacks.

This is classic noir, right in the wheelhouse, but it fails to hold together as a compelling narrative. Luckily, Ava Gardner shows up, oozing catnip from every pore. She becomes the Swede's femme fatale after he dumps a gal-next-door type (who ends up married to a cop who sends the Swede away for a petty crime that precedes the big heist. Gardner belts out a tune, leaving Lancaster moon-eyed, and has a way of coiling up on a bed while the boys plot their big score.

The director (Siodmak again) can't help himself with the twisty flashbacks, and cliches abound, including a fevered deathbed confession that conveniently ties up narrative loose ends. The extended opening scene (really the only aspect taken from Hemingway) sizzles with dread as two killers terrorize a diner owner and his staff, snapping off Tarantino-like dialogue before heading over to bump off the Swede and get the plot rolling. The rest of the movie is just tacked-on clutter.

BONUS TRACKS
We love watching the opening credits of these old movies, because invariably a name pops up among the cast members of a bit actor who will go on to some level of acclaim, often during the TV era of our youth. And it's usually deep into the cast list. In "The Killers," it's William Conrad, later TV detective "Cannon." In "Criss-Cross," it's Alan Napier, aka Alfred the butler in "Batman."

And here's the theme music from "The Killers," from the esteemed Miklos Rozsa. The strains would be adapted for TV's "Dragnet" two decades later.



And bandleader Esy Morales gets top-tier billing in "Criss Cross," which features him and his band pounding out "Jungle Fever" as De Carlo dances with a young Tony Curtis (in his uncredited screen debut). Morales, too, would die young -- a year after the film was released at age 33.


 

When We Was Fab

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS (B+) - Edina and Patsy crack me up. And Bubble! Don't get me started.

If you've missed these debauched middle-aged hedonists from the '90s (Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley), they are back in a 90-minute romp, with an actual plot, a bevy of cameos, and their patented perfect timing as comedians. Along for the ride are Eddy's dour daughter, Saffron (Julia Sawalha), and her irreverent old mum (90-year-old June Whitfield).

There's a thin whiff of a plot -- Eddy, big-footing her way through a fashion event, accidentally knocks Kate Moss into the Thames, where she is presumed to have drowned -- but it's only a lame excuse to send our gals on the lam (in Cannes) so that they can get in trouble while Saffy frets as only she can. The one-liners fly, and the characters quickly fit snugly again, like a pair of old Nikes. Like Laurel and Hardy, except funny.

The soundtrack thrums, and the number of celebrity sightings is ridiculous -- Lulu, Emma Bunton, Joan Collins, Graham Norton, Jon Hamm (cringing at the sight of Patsy and the recollection of what they once did together), Stella McCartney, Jerry Hall, Perez Hilton, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and a bunch of others I've never seen or heard of before. Mo Gaffney reprises her role as Bo, and Barry Humphries is a hoot as the Bob Guccione-like ancient playboy, an ex-lover of Patsy's who is the main hope of extricating them from this mess. (And Humphries' Dame Edna is glimpsed, as well.)

But at the heart it is Saunders and Lumley, executing comedy at a rarefied level. Saunders wrote the screenplay, and Lumley steals every scene with a sneer (and occasionally with a fake mustache, too). As always, they are worth the price of admission. Toss in Horrocks and her silly outfits and deadpan delivery (presenting a tray of hate mail to Edina, she intones, "Your death threats, m'lady"), and we're wallowing in it. And the beauty of this exercise is that such a nostalgia trip can't possible come off as sad and desperate; the gals have always been pathetic. Why should they ever stop shoveling their shtick?

EVERYBODY WANTS SOME (C-minus) - A complete misstep by Richard Linklater, who might be on an epic slide that may be tough to correct. This is yet another nostalgic trip to the writer/director's hallowed youth, this time to the beginning of college, where we follow a bunch of baseball players getting to know each other.

The thump of "My Sharona" from a car stereo in the opening scene raises hopes and the pulse from the start, but as soon as our white-bread hero, Jake (the beyond-bland Blake Jenner, apparently a refugee from TV's "Glee"), is established, the movie descends into a rut and never recovers. This fond remembrance of the 72 hours before the first day of classes for these freshman jocks never feels authentic. Linklater obsesses over details of the year 1980 (the porn 'staches, the knee-high tube socks, the oppressive hits of the day) in a creepy, fetishistic manner. He shoots in bright lighting, and his cast seems almost intentionally wooden.

The boys (all white dudes except for the jovial token black player) romp with each other at clubs, make moves on coeds, play practical jokes on each other, and spout the filmmaker's patented faux bullshit philosophy as if they were reading from textbooks. The actors playing the jocks come with names such as Juston, Ryan, Tyler, Wyatt, Temple and J. Quinton Johnson, and they have about as much charisma and screen magnetism as those preppy monikers suggest.

Eventually Jake makes cute with Beverly (Zoey Deutch), who has the ordinary girl-next-door beauty of Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island." The two of them moon over each other like Dobie and Gidget. The dopey love story completely crashes the final third of the movie.

In fact, the movie plays like a movie that was made in 1980, a weird Pat Boone version of "Animal House." It is antiseptic to a fault. The soundtrack is quite predictable, with a few safe punk or new-wave songs tossed in to give the appearance of a little edginess. A caucasian rap-fest by the actors over the end credits is just the final embarrassment.

Linklater may require an intervention. "Boyhood" -- a similarly vanilla attempt at whitewashing the past -- was an admirable experiment. This one is a tin-eared clank of a movie. Let's hope he isn't thinking of completing some sort of retro trilogy.

BONUS TRACK
Our title track:

And a consolation prize to Linklater for unearthing this early Dire Straits gem, "Hand in Hand":

 

Doc Watch: Quick hits

A pair clocking in at under 90 minutes:

REMOTE AREA MEDICAL (B) - Welcome to the Third World, USA.

You don't have to go halfway across the world to find poor people in need of free health care. This documentary follows a crew of medical personnel, led by British philanthropist Stan Brock, as they venture to rural America for a weekend of serving throngs of folks lining up for health services.

The cameras keep a respectable distance, with little to no voiceover, among the residents of Bristol, Tenn. In stereotypical fashion, the event is held at a NASCAR stadium.

Brock's group used to travel all over the globe tending to dirt-poor people in far-flung lands. But now, rather than spend most of their time in Central America or remote regions of Africa, the team now spends 60 percent of its time in the United States because of the dramatic need.

Some of the stories are uplifting, others heartbreaking. One woman is treated to an x-ray, and physicians find a spot on her lung. As she contentedly heads to her car in the parking lot, she lights up a Pall Mall. One man is happy with his free teeth-pulling, but now he has to figure out how to afford painkillers. His plan is to score some hydrocodone on the street; we watch him back home as he crushes a pill and snorts it.

The staff is dedicated. A lensmaker tears up as he talks about the gratitude of the patients he assists, such as the teenager who never knew what a leaf looked like until he got his first set of glasses. (That actually happened to a friend of mine when he was in high school.)

Brock runs everything with military precision.  He patrols the grounds on his bicycle. He brags about always opening the gates on time.

The filmmakers -- the couple Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman -- like to meander away from the stadium's grounds to contrast it with the lush scenery of the hillside around Bristol. Meantime, the staff hustles to control the crowd and serve their mission. A technician chats idly to the filmmakers as he grinds away on a set of dentures. 

This is efficient filmmaking, lulling the viewer with a subtle take on an urgent message about the state of the union.

TICKLED (B) - This is a bit of a conundrum. A New Zealand journalist is curious about online videos that depict tickling as some sort of kinky sport. When he submits an innocent inquiry, he is sucked into a shadowy world of internet ghosts and extortionists.

David Farrier and Dylan Reeve are intent on spinning an elaborate mystery, with narrative dead-ends and plot twist after plot twist, leading the viewer into some dark places. The real story is too juicy to ruin here, and Farrier (who stars) is an entertaining host. The problem: this documentary sometimes feels as manipulative as the scam being perpetrated by "Jane O'Brien Media," the entity bankrolling the strapping young men who allow themselves to be strapped down and tickled on video.

Farrier takes his time with the set-up. He's fond of touting his own work as a chronicler of oddballs. By the one-third mark you might be anxious for him to start getting to the point. When he finally kicks it into gear, the result is part "60 Minutes," part "Catfish" and part "The Jinx." Farrier, while tracking down this mystery person, is a bit of a Barnum himself.

I went in with low expectations, but by the midway point, as the quirks began to pile up, I started digging in for the big reveal. While that unveiling is interesting, it is a disappointing anti-climax. I was reminded of The Thing, touted on billboards along I-10, a roadside attraction in Arizona. At first you chuckle at the silliness of the billboards, but as you drive on, something inside you feels compelled to check it out, even if it's a scam. (And it pretty much is. But the admission fee is cheap.)

Here, too, I watched the credits feeling like the movie itself was the scam. The lights went up. This way to the egress.