PTSD Runs in the Family

LOUDER THAN BOMBS (A-minus) - A strong cast brings home a quietly effective drama about dysfunctional family whose emotions and shortcomings are exposed by the death of the woman who shaped them.

Norwegian director Joachim Trier, five years after his punch in the gut about the day in the life about a drug addict, "Oslo, August 31st," once again teams up with writer Eskil Vogt for a well observed character study of wounded souls. Here he follows a father dealing with his two sons after the death of their mother, who was a superstar war photographer and, by extension, a distant wife and mother, literally and figuratively.

Isabelle Huppert appears in sporadic flashbacks as Isabelle, who is addicted to the adrenaline rush of her globetrotting and is more devoted to her award-winning career than she is to her husband, Gene (a somber Gabriel Byrne). In a tender scene, she taunts him with a recitation of a sexual dream she had, and he playfully accuses her of trying to pick a fight with him. Gene suspects that Isabelle is closer with her correspondent colleague (and the couple's friend) Richard (David Straithairn, powerfully understated) than she has let on.

The couple's grown son, Jonah (a somewhat wooden Jesse Eisenberg), a fledgling professor, is escaping from the suffocating trap that is his beautiful wife and newborn and finds sanctuary with Gene, belatedly sifting through Isabelle's archives a year or two after her death. Still living at home is teenaged Conrad (Devin Druid), a tortured soul struggling to process his mother's death and his painful awkwardness with classmates.  Conrad longs to make a connection with a cute girl-next-door type, and he nurtures a significant writing talent that seems to be his only form of self-expression. Meantime, he berates his father, lies to him, and seems to resent him for letting Isabelle abandon them through the years. Her death, ironically, in a local car crash gnaws at him. Gene has neglected to tell Conrad the truth that everyone else knows -- Isabelle's death was likely a suicide. Richard's impending profile of Isabelle in the New York Times will reveal that uncomfortable truth, and the question here is whether Gene will be able to step up and have the decency to catch Conrad up to speed before the Times casually reports it on Page 1.

Trier effortlessly plays with the story's chronology, jumping back and forth in time, repeating scenes from a different character's perspective. But instead of that being confusing, it almost feels natural, mimicking the way we pass through our days, cycling from the past to the present constantly. Trier eases us into the disjointed rhythms, like an expert jazz musician, and it deepens the viewing experience.

Huppert, with that intimidating blank stare of hers, haunts these men and boys like a ghost floating through a horror film, just like the images of suffering that she captured haunted her to an early grave. While Byrne and Eisenberg mope a bit too much, Druid strikes just the right tone of teen angst and confusion. He's earnest and sensitive but angry and sullen. Trier is both compassionate and critical with Conrad as well as with Gene and Jonah.

When Jonah meets up with an old girlfriend, who is visiting her ailing mother in the hospital, he lets her think that his wife also is ill, rather than recovering in the maternity ward. Jonah uses this misdirection as a way of flirting anew with the girlfriend, and when Conrad overhears Jonah on the phone lying to his wife about his activities, Conrad is indignant. He tells his brother that if he had a girlfriend he would never lie to her. "Good luck with that," a bitter Jonah snaps back.

"Louder Than Bombs" feels acutely real, settling into the grooves of the classic dysfunctional family. There is a hint of "Ordinary People" and its suburban shiver to this production. It makes you smile and it makes you squirm. Trier is tuned into the hum of human existence, and he makes subversively insightful films to remind us of how we live.

Soundtrack of Your Life: Selling out

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

Date: 22 October 2016
Place: TV commercials
Song:  "Default"
Artist: Django Django
     and
Song: "If You Want to Sing Out (Sing Out)"
Artist: Cat Stevens
Irony Matrix: 3.3 out of 10

Comment: Back in the 1990s, I was enamored of my cohorts who were crafting Target commercials, and I'll never forget my amazement at hearing Daniel Johnston's "Speeding Motorcycle" in an ad for the frisky department store. The troubled outsider artist's childlike recordings had finally gone from the mailing of handmade cassettes to the American mainstream. Sort of. Popular music gets co-opted much faster and across a wider spectrum these days. During the baseball playoffs this year, two songs have jumped out at me. The British art-rock band Django Django in 2012 released a self-titled debut album full of retro electronic pop, a tame mix of Devo and Kraftwerk, with some irresistibly catchy tunes. Their frantic song "Default" has found a home in a commercial for Google Pixel. Meantime, Jeep Grand Cherokee reached into the archives for an orphan from Cat Stevens, the gem "If You Want to Sing Out (Sing Out)," which was originally featured in many folks' favorite film, "Harold and Maude" in 1971. When ballgames last 3-and-a-half or 4 hours, it is small joys such as these songs that make the down time a bit more tolerable. Here's today's starting lineup:

Django Django:



Cat Stevens:



The inimitable Daniel Johnston with his original:



And Mary Lou Lord with the mature cover version:

New to the Queue

The big chill ...

Kelly Reichardt ("Wendy & Lucy," "Meek's Cutoff") casts Michelle Williams, Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart in the triptych "Certain Women."

From the director of "Neighboring Sounds," Sonia Braga stars as the last holdout in a high-rise slated for redevelopment, "Aquarius."

A coming-of-age story about a poor, gay black man in Miami, "Moonlight."

Gianfranco Rosi studies two sides of an island off of Sicily in the documentary "Fire at Sea."

The legendary Jim Jarmusch profiles Iggy Pop and his legendary pre-punk band the Stooges in "Gimme Danger."

Werner Herzog comes up from the caves for an aerial exploration of volcanoes in his documentary "Into the Inferno."
  

Zombie Compromise

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEB (B) - I'm not a fan of zombie films, not even most of the spoofs. But I've never been in one before, either.

This clever zom-com enthusiastically makes a case for its genre. It is a romp through Portland, Maine, with a charming, wisecracking couple trying to survive after an apparent water contamination turns the city into dead-eyed, flesh-craving citizens. A winning cast from top to bottom brings home a winking script by director Kyle Rankin and first-timer Andy Selsor.

Maria Thayer (TV's "Eagleheart") stars as Deb, a behind-the-camera TV newswoman who wakes up in the bed of hunky Ryan (Michael Cassidy, "The O.C."), an environmental do-gooder who is resisting the pressure to join his father's evil corporation. Deb is denied a dignified "walk of shame" by the breakout of a zombie apocalypse. It's the millennial version of a meet-cute.

Thayer and Cassidy are sharp throughout, mastering the breezy but smart dialogue and the ironic plot twists while their characters slowly bond and banter in classic Tracy-Hepburn fashion. They are assisted by a deep bench of mostly TV comedians who make even the smallest roles sparkle. That includes Rankin regular Ray Wise ("Twin Peaks"), who balances menace with madcap as the brownie-baking corporate titan, and Chris Marquette as Ryan's antic brother. Julie Brister (a faux panelist on the Onion News Network's cable-roundtable spoofs) has a nice turn as Deb's pal Ruby. Even the uncredited paramedics who show up at the end of the movie sell the hell out of their one-liners.

Rankin debuted as part of a Portland, Maine, filmmaking team featured in the second season of HBO's "Project Greenlight," emerging with the feature film "Battle of Shaker Heights." His 2012 post-apocalyptic web series "Nuclear Family" (also, memorably, featuring Wise) shares an attitude with "Deb" -- a subtle, winking subversion of a genre while reveling in its playful tropes. He and Selsor take some fresh swipes at the TV news industry

Thayer's Deb, with her fiery red hair and cheerful energy, could be a cousin of Ellie Kemper's unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Scanning the spare, healthy offerings in Ryan's refrigerator, Deb chastises him: "Coconut water? Are we in Portland or on Gilligan's Island?" Cassidy holds the center as the straight man among the crazies.

And I pop on the screen for about 5 seconds as a manic vlogger, just before a perfectly understated anti-climax, complete with fireworks and the requisite rom-com kiss. It's a minor bonus in a movie full of pleasant surprises.

BONUS TRACKS
The trailer, which features one of the film's best gags, an homage to The Clapper:



And our title track, one of the great surf noir songs, a literal howl of joy from Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet:


 

The Cubs Win the Pennant

No more curses.


 

Fluff

MASCOTS (C+) - Christopher Guest returns after a long layoff to his signature genre, the mockumentary, with many of his usual character actors but with a few key ringers missing. The result is an only fleetingly funny send-up of mascot competitions.

Guest co-wrote and starred in "This Is Spinal Tap," and he went on to direct a string of brilliant spoofs, including "Waiting for Guffman" and "Best in Show," slipping only moderately with later efforts "A Mighty Wind" and "For Your Consideration." But the tap is running dry, and he's coasting on fumes these days.

I couldn't help thinking of the recent Paul Reubens comeback, "Pee-Wee's Big Holiday," in which the '80s icon fell flat by recycling his old shtick. Here, Guest's script is full of one-liners and gags that sound like they were rejected from his other films, as if he were going through old notebooks of wacky routines and stale scenarios. (One character was raised in a cult that worshiped the hokey TV show "Highway to Heaven.") Like Pee-Wee, this one flounders on Netflix's streaming service.

Many of Guest's regulars are around. Parker Posey, Jane Lynch and Ed Begley Jr. are especially strong here. (The funniest mascot here is referred to only fleetingly when Begley recalls his years as Danny the Donkey, believed to be the first and only anatomically correct mascot, rendered in censored photographs.) Fred Willard's familiar clueless oaf doesn't work here. Michael Hitchcock, John Michael Higgins, Don Lake, Bob Balaban and Jennifer Coolidge have been much funnier elsewhere. Harry Shearer steals the show from behind the scenes as the droll announcer for the competition. Guest himself revives the mincing Corky St. Clair from "Guffman," but he mostly lets the character's goofy outfits and embarrassing hairpiece do most of the comedic work.

But three key veterans are missing: Eugene Levy, who co-wrote previous films with Guest; Catherine O'Hara, Levy's better half; and Michael McKean. They leave a huge hole. A few newcomers do add a jolt of fresh blood: sitcom actor Susan Yeagley is hilarious as Posey's gum-chomping sister; Zach Woods (HBO's "Silicon Valley") and TV veteran Sarah Baker give it their all as a bickering, passive-aggressive couple. Chris O'Dowd, as usual, is more annoying than funny, although he gets the best costume -- a giant fist that entertains fans at minor-league hockey games.

The structure of the film is odd, too, as if Guest sort of just slapped things together. We get very little actual mascot action during the first two acts, and therefore the overall goofiness fails to take hold. But then, throwing off the narrative balance, the final third of the movie is devoted almost exclusively to the routines of the various mascots -- a plumber, a pencil with sharpener (essentially simulating sex onstage), and Posey's bizarre gothic armadillo mask. Some of the routines run in full, and a few are actually kind of moving in their own weird way. Cut to the requisite epilogue showing the characters one year later and roll credits to the 89-minute mark.

Guest's formula has become formulaic. This isn't a gut-buster. It's been 16 years since Harlan Pepper was naming nuts in "Best in Show" and 20 since he pranced around in "Guffman." He is one of the funniest men alive. But it's time for him to either find a new format or retire.

BONUS TRACK
"Macadamia nut":

Soundtrack of Your Life: Trippin'

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

Date: 17 October 2016, 7:30 to 8:15 p.m.
Place: YouTube
Song:  "Waiting"
Artist: Alice Bowman
     through
Song: "Starry Eyes"
Artist: Cigarettes After Sex
Irony Matrix: 2.3 out of 10
Comment: Another discovery from yoga class (shout-out to Leslie V and Spotify), is Alice Bowman and her ethereal song "Waiting." I came home and plugged it into YouTube and let AutoPlay do its thing. Over subsequent days, the playlist has followed roughly the same pattern, with a variation experienced this evening. Sometimes it plays some other Boman songs, but it always segues into tunes by an El Paso, Texas, band called Cigarettes After Sex. Here's Boman, who is Swedish, with the kickoff track:



Boman's sultry sounds segue into the spooky mood pop of Cigarettes After Sex, which sounds like a cross between Mazzy Star and the chi-chi covers band Nouvelle Vague, except with dudes (so maybe add a dash of Giant Sand). Eventually, during AutoPlay, we get a perfect cover of REO Speedwagon's 1980 lighter-flicking anthem "Keep on Loving You":



A few songs later, a much more obscure cover -- "Starry Eyes" from Roky Erickson of the '60s psychedelic rascals the 13th Floor Elevators:



BONUS TRACK
Usually, after YouTube stubs out Cigarettes After Sex, this aching ballad from the Heartless Bastards plays -- "Only for You":


 

Targets

THE FITS (B+) - What is it like to be an adolescent outcast? This audacious debut feature from Anna Rose Holmer, working with an amateur cast, strikes sharply at the heart of that troubling question.

The story follows Toni (newcomer Royalty Hightower), a wiry, boyish 11-year-old, who works out with her older brother at a boxing gym but who is drawn to a dance troupe across the hall. Teased as a tomboy by the guys, she cautiously explores the idea of acceptance by the elegant girls across the way. She is friends with two of the nerdier ones, Beezy (Alexis Neblett) and Maia (Lauren Gibson).

Not long after Toni's arrival, though, members of the troupe, one by one, suffer from epileptic-type seizures. What is causing these fits? The water in the gym's fountains? Something else more mysterious and nefarious? Is Toni's mere presence causing them?

She certainly develops quite a complex over the coincident arrival of her and the episodes. As she loses the connection to the boys (including a more strained relationship with her brother), she plunges into the lonely divide between the two groups. Her sense of homelessness is heartbreaking.

Hightower is a revelation in the lead role, with an expressive face made for the big screen. Her devoted repetition of the dance moves she is learning feel authentic and lived-in. One scene of her studying herself in a mirror is itself a study in contemplative filmmaking.

Holmer's background in the technical tasks of movie production, including as a cinematographer, is apparent from the camerawork here. She is fond of static long shots of wide sets, with slight figures passing through the shot. She shoots on location in Cincinnati and has a keen eye for the seedy underbelly of the city, including a puny, ratty sign that announces a rundown building called Lincoln Center, certainly the destitute stepchild of the Manhattan institution.

The narrative floats along at a tidy 72 minutes, and by the end you can sense a bit of a strain on the unprofessional cast and the plot itself. So it is both welcome and unsettling when a burst of magical realism carries Toni to a heart-swelling conclusion. In the end, she manages to "fit" in by proving that she, too, is as special as the others.

AMANDA KNOX - (C+) - This curious documentary is as straightforward as its title. And it probably will grab your attention only if you didn't follow the eight-year odyssey of the young American accused of the lurid murder of a fellow exchange student in Italy.

Filmmakers Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn, expanding beyond shorts for the first time, lean heavily on personalities to tell Knox's tale: Knox herself; the boyfriend she had only recently met at the time of the slaying, Raffaele Sollecito; a pulp British journalist, Nick Pisa; and the avuncular prosecutor, Giuliani Mignini, a character out of a PBS mystery series.

Knox was hit with a verdict every two years or so -- first guilty, then acquitted on appeal, then guilty again, and finally acquitted by Italy's highest court. The tabloids loved her story because she blond and American and because the group she was hanging with were apparently flaunting their sexuality.

Here, Knox sits primly for the camera, frequently in full-figure shots, thinner and slightly more haggard than the cherubic girl-next-door sexpot we see in archival footage before and immediately after the slaying of Meredith Kercher. She has a look in her eye that makes it difficult to believe that she wasn't somehow involved in the murder. (A burglar was convicted during the course of Knox's saga.)

The filmmakers, however, never gin up the proper momentum, perhaps deciding that every human was transfixed to the spectacle as it unfolded, so better to play up the personalities. But Pisa is no more than your typically slightly obnoxious tabloid reporter, and Sollecito is a bit of a cipher. Knox comes off as a somewhat creepy ice queen with PTSD. Mignini is philosophical at times, bumbling at others.

This one lacks an edge, and with its devotion to the chronological march of events, it eventually becomes a bit of a plod.
 

New to the Queue

Cool.

Andrea Arnold ("Fish Tank," "Red Road") returns with an epic examination of young people who sell magazines door-to-door, "American Honey."

A documentary about the saga of the young woman wrongly jailed for murder in Italy, "Amanda Knox."

A fun romp with the Zelig of '60s and '70s rock 'n' roll, from the Beatles to the Ramones, "Danny Says."

The Duplass brothers are back, with Mark starring in a drama about high school sweethearts bumping into each other 20 years later for a day of reminiscing and revelation, "Blue Jay."

Ava Duvernay ("I Will Follow," "Selma") examines racism, injustice and the prison-industrial complex in "13th."

Warily we dabble in the horror genre with the debut feature out of Iran, "Under the Shadow."

The Family Way

HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE (B) - A chubby rebellious young teen finally finds stability with an older foster couple, only to have that domestic contentment torn apart, sending him off on a whimsical adventure in the New Zealand bush.

With an almost Disney-like innocence and zeal, Taikia Waititi -- writer/director of "Flight of the Conchords" and "What We Do in the Shadows" -- crafts an endlessly charming coming-of-age tale about male bonding. He pairs Julian Dennison as young Ricky Baker with a grizzled Sam Neill as ol' Hec, who takes charge of the boy after Hec's wife suddenly leaves the picture in the first third of the film.

Ricky has a penchant for running away but not getting far. When Hec sets out after him, the old man injures his ankle, stranding them in nature for a few weeks, enough time for the missing pair to make headlines, spurred by an evil child-services bureaucrat, Paula (Rachel House), who insists that lovable Ricky is a nasty little hellion. An all-out manhunt ensues, as Hec and Ricky stay one step ahead of their pursuers and transition into folk heroes.

Waititi imbues the story with heaping helpings of whimsy while grounding it in an earnest relationship between the wisecracking kid and the curmudgeonly old man, barely avoiding the tired trope that such a pairing suggests. Dennison carries the movie effortlessly, and Neill ("Jurassic Park") deftly balances drama and humor. These solid characters are orbited by rather cartoonish supporting players -- hapless lawmen, goofy bad guys, and Paula the wicked witch, who likes to repeat the mantra "No child left behind" (unconvincingly) while zealously stalking her prey.

It's an improbably winning formula. Waititi could have lopped off a few scenes instead of dragging it out past 100 minutes. But it's fun to cheer on Ricky and Hec, and the wholesomeness of the tale is refreshing.

THE HOLLARS (B-minus) - There's a new Zach Braff in town, and he goes by the name John Krasinski, that harmlessly handsome love interest from TV's "The Office."

Krasinski serves up a familiar indie comic-drama. He stars as John Hollar, a drifting 30-something who is frittering away his artistic ambitions by working an uninspiring job in New York City until he is called back to his working-class hometown after his mother (Margo Martindale) is diagnosed with a brain tumor. This reunites him with her, his father, Don (Richard Jenkins), and his brother, Ron (a manic Sharlto Copley), a pair of hapless males struggling to rise to the occasion.

Krasinski, working with a script by James C. Strouse ("Grace Is Gone"), pulls too many punches here, and he drains both the drama and the comedy of any potency. Martindale and Jenkins are great actors, but the roles feel too small for them. Copley brings an intensity to the role of a man essentially stalking his ex-wife and kids, a fervor that yields neither pathos nor sharp humor. An oddly subdued Anna Kendrick hangs around as Krasinski's pregnant girlfriend, in another underwritten part. With little to no chemistry between them, Kendrick's character comes off as just another woman secretly pining for a ring and a proposal.

While this all adds up to a generally likable movie with some sweet moments and a couple of genuine laughs, it lacks depth and urgency. This is the equivalent of the likeable sitcom star's film-school thesis. Like Braff, he'll get another shot. Will he, too, fail to forge a career on the big screen?