New to the Queue

The thin blue line ...

Errol Morris mixes fact and fiction in studying a 60-year-old mystery over the course of four hours, "Wormwood."

A documentary about a horrific crime that examines the intersection of gender, race and class, "The Rape of Recy Taylor."

We've been fans of Turkish-German director Fatih Akin ("Head On," "The Edge of Heaven"), but we're wary of his new revenge flick, "In the Fade."

Annette Bening might be enough to get us to sit through the biopic of golden-age screen siren Gloria Grahame, "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool."
  

Unhappy Families Are All Alike

THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (B+) - If this were the first Noah Baumbach film we had ever seen, we might think it was brilliant. But this deep into his career, Baumbach is trading on his reputation and merely updating previous themes, in particular his wonderful family piece "The Squid and the Whale" from 2005, making this feel like a warmed-over sequel at times.

He also leans on Dustin Hoffman in the patriarch role (handled in "Squid" by a wonderfully neurotic Jeff Daniels), and Hoffman -- dimmed in our regard by tales of decades of piggishness on movie sets -- never finds the right pitch as the haughty artist who has twisted his adult children into knots of doubt and anger. Baumbach does coordinate these offspring -- played by Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler and Elizabeth Marvel -- with expert timing. It's a shame they spend so much of the movie trying to bounce off Hoffman's broad caricature as Harold Meyerowitz, spurned sculptor and largely forgotten instructor at Bard College in the Hudson Valley.

Anger issues are established early on as a Meyerowitz tradition. Scenes often end abruptly in the middle of a tirade, starting in the opening moments with the parking adventures of Danny (Sandler), a failed musician, at the end of a failed marriage, shepherding his teenage daughter off to college. Eliza (Grace Van Patten, a "Sopranos" alum) is the great family hope, heading to Bard to study filmmaking and revive the creative juju of the clan. She makes raunchy short films in which she is often nude and in "sexual situations," to Danny's shock and chagrin. The family rallies around her art, which apparently is another jab at familial delusion, because, from what we get to see, Eliza's films seem pretty crappy. Danny, a pathetic, limping 50-ish shlub, is more directionless than his poised daughter. His claim to fame consists of hokey Tin Pan Alley novelty tunes that only his loved ones know and abide.

Matthew (Stiller), the product of Harold's second marriage (and thus Harold's obvious favorite child), has escaped this dysfunction by moving to the west coast and quashing any pretension of an artistic life by working as a successful financial planner. Despite his exulted status, he has a hair-trigger when dealing with his father, not above shouting grievances at the old man in the middle of the street. Jean (Marvel), meanwhile, is a beaten-down wallflower with a drone-like job who hacks out spoof videos for co-workers. Jean, like Danny a product of the first marriage, wallows in resignation, barely registering a personality, going along with the family shenanigans in a monotone delivery.

Baumbach gets a lot of the details right. Stiller, as the successful financial planner Matthew, is the alpha sibling who is inclined to refer to Danny as his father's other son rather than as his own half-brother. And an awkward conversation between Matthew and Danny -- struggling to bond but having no clue about the fundamental aspects of each others' lives -- stings if you've ever tried that with an estranged sibling. A running gag about the kids' boxes of childhood belongings features an amusing dispute over whether a pair of sunglasses belong to Matthew or Danny. Other lines echo nicely throughout the script, bouncing among the family members (if not wearing out their welcome) as pet phrases are wont to do. (For example, the men are fond of staging nominal "McEnroe protests"; yet more anger issues.) Characters talk past each other as often as they talk to each other.

Conflict arrives in the form of Matthew's plan to convince Harold and his latest mate, a wine-soaked aging hippie named Maureen (a delightfully ditzy Emma Thompson), to cash out their Manhattan apartment as well as his artwork and retire to the countryside. Danny, even though he lived there for only a short time as a teenager, resents Matthew's power play. When Harold ends up in the hospital, with a bleak prognosis, the siblings are tossed together, for better and for worse. They feed off each others' insecurities, especially in the way they all cling to a charge nurse and doctor, both of whom get called away to other duties, thus abandoning Danny, Jean and Matthew like a certain someone they know did long ago.

The cast, aside from Hoffman, settles into a tight rhythm. A few cameos click, too, including Judd Hirsch as Harold's much more successful (and well adjusted) contemporary, L.J.; Rebecca Miller as L.J.'s daughter and a potential love interest (savior) for Danny; and Candice Bergen as Matthew's mother, the aging trophy wife Julia. It's an entertaining world that is created here, albeit an insular east coast one.

The result is a movie that is often merely amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny, but that's not really a criticism; Baumbach is wise to keep the humor low-key. You either know a clan like this -- egotistic, faux creative, delusional, passive-aggressive -- and you get it, or you don't. In the latter case, you might be more annoyed than entertained. Baumbach here is returning to the grievance-based character studies of "Squid," "Margot at the Wedding" and "Greenberg" (where he really clicked with Stiller) and thankfully emerging from the skid that produced the sloppier recent efforts "Mistress America" and "While We're Young."

You get the feeling, though, that this brand is played out, finally. "The Meyerowitz Stories" comes off like a nice little career capper for a director pushing 50. Assuming he's emptied out his notebooks from his family histories, he's poised to begin a new phase of storytelling.
 

Doc Watch: The Golden Age

DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME (A) - This mesmerizing documentary digs deep into film archives of the early 20th century to connect the turn-of-the-century gold rush in the Canadian Yukon with the birth of Hollywood. It is part myth and magic, with hard journalistic edge softened by a dreamlike quality that plays like an ode to a lost time, if not a eulogy for the industry.

The producers capture the plot succinctly:  "Using permafrost-protected, rare silent films and newsreels, archival footage, interviews and historical photographs to tell the story, "Dawson City: Frozen Time" pieces together the bizarre true history of a collection of some 500 films dating from the 1910s and 1920s, which were lost for over 50 years until being discovered buried in a sub-arctic swimming pool deep in the Yukon Territory in 1978."

Writer-director Bill Morrison employs that rare footage almost exclusively to convey the fascinating tale and the history of a boom town that displaced indigenous people, only to devolve into a quaint tourist town during the modern era. Only a few scenes involve talking heads. The rest plays out like a silent film, with swelling, haunting music (by Alex Somers of Sigur Ros who scored "Captain Fantastic") and informative text sprawling across the screen. (There's a lot of reading required; this would be best seen on a big screen, though I did the next best thing and pulled a chair up close to the TV monitor).

The deep dive into the culture of a century ago is transfixing and transformative. Human ingenuity is on display -- the mining for gold, the construction of a town, the transportation methods through the snow, the transmission of news and information, the birth of a technology. Dawson City itself stands as a monument to endurance, surviving near-annual fires at its theaters and other foundational buildings.

The films -- many on voluble nitrate stock -- were rescued from under the ice rink of the town's hockey rink, where the reels had been tossed in as landfill. Dawson City was the end of the line for film distribution (it took some films three or four years to make it there), and the studios/distributors didn't want to pay the cost of having the films shipped back; so they were either housed in a library (which also burned down at some point) or disposed of.

Morrison constructs a compelling story here. It's difficult not to get swept up in the majesty of the recounting of it. Tossed back a century in time, we marvel at this lost culture.

BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY (B+) - Another fascinating narrative from another century, this documentary profiles the famous Hollywood star who was an inveterate inventor, coming up with the technology that eventually gave us the wireless communication that powers our lives.

Newcomer Alexandra Dean describes this presentation of Hedy Lamarr as "a film about a girl who wanted to make her mark in the world, but the world could not see past her face." Lamarr was an Austrian sensation (who scandalously simulated an orgasm onscreen as a 19-year-old in "Ecstasy" in 1933) and truly a Hollywood bombshell who starred with many of the screen giants of the '30s and '40s but who also endured her share of clunkers. When she arrived on the scene -- with perfect looks -- other actresses were ordered to follow her lead and part their hair down the middle.

During World War II, she developed a radio guidance system for torpedos dodging Nazi radar; it used frequency-hopping that eventually found its way into modern Bluetooth technology. According to the documentary, the invention was seized by the U.S. military, and Lamarr never made money off of her patented creation.

Dean spins a compelling tale here, anchored by a 1990 phone interview that a journalist recently discovered among his cache of cassette tapes. We also hear from Lamarr's children and other descendants, piecing together many of the tragic aspects of her life -- multiple failed marriages (including in the '50s to a Texas oilman who, in a nasty divorce, denied her the Aspen ski chalet she had designed and loved), an addiction to amphetamines (originally supplied by the studios), and an obsession with plastic surgery. Talking heads include friend Robert Osborne, Mel Brooks and Peter Bogdanovich. Actress Diane Kruger narrates from Lamarr's writings.

There is a suggestion here that Lamarr might have borrowed the idea for her famous invention from her first husband, an Austrian munitions manufacturer (with ties to the Axis powers). But she is presented as a creative and inquisitive woman, who never stopped noodling and doodling. But her life took depressing turns -- she was arrested on charges of shoplifting in 1966 and again in 1991 -- and descended into seclusion, with barely enough money to pay her bills.

Dean puts it all together with the frisson of a sizzling biopic. It zips by in 90 minutes and leaves you wanting to explore more of Lamarr's life.
 

The Zest of 2017

We don't rush into our year-end lists. There are always loose ends to tie up and titles that don't make it to the B markets until after the first of the year. It will take us a couple more weeks to firm up the list.

Till then, here is a list of titles that earned a B+ or higher. One of them will be our pick for the best film of 2017:

• The Teacher
• Lady Bird
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Landline
• The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography
• The Florida Project
• Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
• Battle of the Sexes
• The Trip to Spain
• Baby Driver
• Obit
• Suntan
• Donald Cried
• The Big Sick
• Lovesong
• A Wolf at the Door
• Brigsby Bear
• Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
• The Glass Castle
• Patty Cakes
• The Little Hours
• Moka
• Graduation
• I Am Not Your Negro
• Kedi
• The Salesman

RIP, Keely Smith

Louis Prima's better half has died at age 89. He and Keely Smith set the template for Sonny and Cher a decade or so later. Their version of "That Old Black Magic" is timeless.



And here's a clip of Smith (born Dorothy Jacqueline Keely) and Prima from the 1959 film "Hey Boy! Hey Girl!":


 

The In-Crowd

THE DISASTER ARTIST (B) - This is good for what it is. Whatever it is.

James Franco goes into mimic mode to tell the far-fetched story of Tommy Wiseau, a mysterious outsider who somehow wrote and financed what is widely considered one of the worst movies ever, "The Room." The oddball antics of Wiseau, storied in Hollywood and chronicled in a book by collaborator Greg Sestero, offer Franco and his hipster pals a chance to make another movie about moviemaking, this time with a smirk. Give this generation its "Living in Oblivion."

Franco, directing from a script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber ("500 Days of Summer," "The Spectacular Now"), dons an ugly black mop of hair and layers of makeup to star as Wiseau. His brother Dave Franco ("The Little Hours") stars as Sestero, who was 19 when he met the older Wiseau in an acting class. Wiseau and Sestero move from San Francisco to Los Angeles, where Sestero takes the traditional route of struggling actor and Wiseau somehow scrapes together $6 million to film his myopic masterpiece.

Much of the film takes place on the disheveled set, with crew members that include Seth Rogen (a producer of "The Disaster Artist"); Jason Mantzoukas and Paul Scheer from TV's "The League"; and cast members Zac Efron, Josh Hutcherson, Ari Graynor and Jacki Weaver. Melanie Griffith and Bob Odenkirk pop up as early acting coaches. Megan Mullally plays Sestero's mom, and a barely recognizable Sharon Stone gets 30 seconds as a cheesy agent. Alison Brie is an afterthought as Sestero's girlfriend.

Much of the high-jinks is funny, and James Franco is spectacularly dedicated to the character, including a bizarre accent that suggests Eastern European origins. The story is so goofy and unbelievable that -- despite the written history -- it still doesn't seem true, but rather something Franco and Rogen hacked out during a weekend pot bender.

The talented cast itself gives off the feel of slumming through a throwaway story. But there are some very funny moments. There is Wiseau insisting that his ass be featured prominently in an awkward love scene. And the "Oh, hi, Mark" roof scene is destined to be its own cult classic. James and Dave Franco banter well. In one of the memorable lines, as Wiseau is distraught over the guffaws that greet the premiere screening, Sestero tries to cheer him up by telling him that just making a movie is itself an impressive feat.  "How many people get to say that?" he asks Wiseau. The filmmaker pauses and says, meekly, "A ... thousand ... ?"

This is an ebullient, entertaining diversion for 104 minutes, especially if the Francos and their pals amuse you. It's not a necessary film. It's not a significant one. It never purports to examine Wiseau as a person with an emotional life. Franco tries too hard to faithfully re-create specific scenes (and hairstyles). But then again, any minute you expect the whole Wiseau myth to be revealed as a droll hoax. It's a rascally romp. Enjoy.

BONUS TRACK
This post-disco puff piece by Corona trips across the closing credits. (Stay till the end for a bonus scene, by the way.)


 

Doc Watch: Person to Person

FACES PLACES (B) - French film legend Agnes Varda teams up with 30-something activist photographer JR for this playful romp through rural villages in this ode to the creative spirit.

Both are credited as writers and directors, but it is Varda's sensibilities that drive the whimsical narrative that tracks the deepening of their friendship and collaboration. There are echoes of Varda's career-capping "The Beaches of Agnes" (2008) and the scrappy "The Gleaners and I" (2000).

JR always appears in dark sunglasses, and Varda, whose eyesight is failing as she pushes 90, yearns throughout the film to look into his eyes, perhaps hoping to glimpse the soul of an artist. At other times, she is distracted by the past. She name-checks her famous ex, Jacques Demy ("The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"), and tries to hunt down reclusive old friend Jean-Luc Godard.

The 89 minutes zip by pleasantly as Varda and JR compete jovially to most imaginatively capture the locals (JR is partial to generating giant prints that cover entire sides of buildings). "Faces Places" (it even rhymes in French: "Visages, Villages") is charming and touching, but it has a certain evanescence that fizzes away days later.

STREET FIGHT (2005) (B-minus) - This no-frills documentary embeds itself in the race for Mayor of Newark in 2002, in which future political star Cory Booker took on the city's Democratic machine.

Scrappy filmmaker Marshall Curry clearly sympathizes with the young underdog here, and he quickly gets on the bad side of the four-term incumbent, Sharpe James and his band of toughs. Curry seems like a one-man operation, capturing the poorly organized campaign of Booker, then a junior city councilor, and constantly getting roughed up at James rallies (to the point where he finally sends another cameraman to film the incumbent unrecognized).

Booker comes across as an idealist and a good guy. (He would go on to win the Mayor's seat in 2006 and springboard to the U.S. Senate 2013.) James is a classic machine pol, using the city's administrative muscle to threaten individuals and businesses that would dare oppose him. He's also a double-dipper, serving in the state Senate while running Newark.

Curry puts in the time and effort to capture the rough and tumble of New Jersey politics. The James campaign slanders Booker every chance it gets, deriding him as a carpet-bagger and college snob who might be white and Jewish. (Booker's parents, both black, were pioneering executives at IBM.)

The David-vs.-Goliath story has its appeal. But Curry doesn't have much imagination in his first outing behind the camera. He has a workmanlike manner that at times seems to be overwhelmed by the street brawl he found himself in the  middle of.
 

After Party

Tales from behind the Iron Curtain ...

THE TEACHER (B+) - The former Czechoslovakia is the setting for this glimpse of Communist Party shenanigans in the waning days of the Soviet era in the mid to late 1980s.

Here, a middle-school teacher, Maria (Zuzana Maurery), exploits her role as local party chairwoman to extract favors from the parents of her students. If the parents don't cooperate, their child's grades will suffer. The extortion is played as droll dark comedy.

Parents agonize with their decisions of how to give in to the blackmail so as to assure good marks for their children. Kucera (Csongor Kassai) is asked sneak some cakes on a flight to Moscow because he works at the airport, albeit in a capacity that has nothing to do with flight crews. His daughter, Danka (Tamara Fischer), soon gets dumped from the gymnastics team. Another girl (Monika Certezni) connives to get back at the teacher.

The film climaxes with a showdown between school staff and parents, playing out as a gloomy twist on "12 Angry Men." The ending echoes another '80s Iron Curtain drama, "The Lives of Others," right down to post-Soviet Havel-era coda, though "The Teacher" is content to leave the deep stuff to that masterpiece.

THE TREASURE (B+) - Over in Romania, we're back in the present day with two men digging through the past -- literally -- as they hunt for a rumored treasure buried in the postwar era on a family farm.

Corneliu Porumboiu, who has been hit-and-miss -- 2006's "12:08 East of Bucharest" was a thoughtful post-mortem on the Romanian revolution while 2009's "Police, Adjective" felt like a silly wank -- has a sure hand with this reckoning of the Soviet era. Toma Cuzin is a strong lead as Costi, a working-class everyman who can't resist the lure of a neighbor's tall tale about a family treasure hidden before the communists took over.

Cuzin banters engagingly with co-conspirator Adrian (Adrian Purcarescu), and the middle of the film teams them with irascible Cornel (Corneliu Cozmei) and his wonky metal detector. The question, addressed in the final third, is not just will they find anything, but if they do, will they report it to the local police, who will confiscate it if it has value to national history. Thus, the old Communist quid-pro-quo system might come in to play.

But Costi, as much as he hopes to get rich quick also wants to impress his young son, hoping to discover one of those old-fashioned pirate treasures full of jewels and precious metals. That charming side plot sets up a lovely ending awash in childhood exuberance.

BONUS TRACKS
The trailers:




 

Millennials Rising

LADY BIRD (B+) - We were hoping for greatness from Greta Gerwig's solo debut as a writer-director, and while her biographical tale is lovely and lyrical, it isn't quite as compelling as it could have been.

Gerwig plays it safe with a moving but safe recounting of her senior year of high school, dreaming of escaping her Catholic-school Sacramento for the ivied walls and academic rigor of the Northeast. Saoirse Ronan stands in for young Greta, a spitfire who dubs herself Lady Bird and quarrels pithily with her working-class mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf). Her father (Tracy Letts) is the good cop but a bit of a cipher.

Lady Bird explores her sexuality in mundane ways. She is betrayed by one boy (Lucas Hodges, dull compared to his breakthrough in "Manchester by the Sea") and falls in with the kindly hipster Kyle (Timothee Chalamet), and neither love interest adds much to the mix. Lady Bird herself betrays her chubby best friend for a shot at hanging with the cool girl, a concept explored with more edge and dark humor in an aged sitcom like "Square Pegs."

This is territory that has been explored ad nauseam in other coming-of-age films. Gerwig, at least, adds a bit of flair and quirk, as if she herself were jangling and bantering through the scenes. Ronan carries the load here well, and Metcalf is her usual spectacular self, delivering bushels of emotion with a fleeting facial expression than most actors can deliver in a Shakespeare soliloquy.

You hope for grit and soul here, but you get a bit too much of amber memories, almost a form of magical realism, a conjuring of revisionist history that doesn't insult the real people it's based on. Too many of the zingers fall flat. (The best ones work better in the trailer.

At times "Lady Bird" is a special little film. But Gerwig, who first went behind the camera with Mumblecore pal Joe Swanberg in the insightful film "Nights and Weekends," has emerged from the indie scene with mainstream cred. Perhaps she just needed to get this one out of her system. Let's see where Lady Bird lands next.
  

New to the Queue

Toward the light ...

From the filmmaker behind "I Am Love" and "A Bigger Splash," an '80s coming of age story that veers into Eric Roehmer territory, "Call Me By Your Name."

The Franco brothers, James and Dave, horse around with the story of the oddball who crafted one of the worst movies of the millennium, the biographical farce "The Disaster Artist."

The story of a family getting by in North Philadelphia during the Obama years, "Quest."

A documentary about the Hollywood glamour queen and pioneering inventor, "Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story."
  

Afterlife, Part 2: Revenge

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (B+) - This gripping tale from the methodical Martin McDonagh ("In Bruges," "Seven Psychopaths") is almost too smart and clever for its own good. It feels workshopped within an inch of its life, with pieces that fall too neatly into place, and in the end comes off as more of a screenwriter's parlor trick than a powerful dark-comic drama.

But if you want to watch Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell go toe to toe for about two hours, you can't go wrong with this sharp film.

McDormand is frumped up to play Mildred, a plain-spoken resident of the fictional town in Missouri who is grieving her daughter, who was raped and killed. Seven months after the murder, she decides to shame the the local sheriff, Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), by wondering aloud, on three big billboards, why the case hasn't been solved.

Willoughby is dying of cancer, but that doesn't deter Mildred from her mission. Her biggest rival here is a loose-cannon deputy, Dixon (Rockwell), who has a checkered past that includes assaulting minority suspects. Dixon is a pathetic drunk who lives with his racist mother and who is no match for Mildred's determination. He has no qualms about throwing an innocent victim out of a second-story window.

Events are placed strategically into the plot with a master's precision, and as those pieces start to interlock, an audience could be under the impression that they are watching the work of a safe-cracker rather than a filmmaker. One-liners have been sharpened like Ginsu knives. Mildred is transformed into a virtual super-hero who doesn't flinch an inch when threatened by a menacing thug, even as tossed objects fly past her clenched jaw.

Coincidences occur a little too conveniently. A few crucial plot points defy common sense. The casual violence is played for laughs. Peter Dinklage's dwarf character is treated like a circus performer, with Dinklage milking the maudlin as if he's auditioning for a Coen brothers farce. John Hawkes sings a lone note as Mildred's brute of an ex-husband, mocked for having a 19-year-old girlfriend. A flashback shows Mildred feuding with her rebellious daughter, letting fly an unfortunate tirade that eerily predicts the teenager's demise.

Can a movie be too perfectly constructed? "Three Billboards" packs a wallop emotionally at times, and its black humor can be cutting, if a little too far toward Raymond Chandler tough-guy talk (especially Mildred). But there's just something antiseptic about the final result, like a reminder that McDonagh is the smartest storyteller in the room and we're just here for the popcorn.

BONUS TRACK
Over the closing credits, Townes van Zandt's "Buckskin Stallion Blues" by Amy Annelle:


 

Afterlife, Part 1: Wandering

DEAN (B) - Each generation gets the "Garden State" it deserves. Boomers had "The Graduate." Millennials get the mopey but affecting "Dean."

Comedian Demetri Martin (a member of Gen X) plays younger in a story he wrote and directed about a young New Yorker set adrift after the death of his mother. Dean is a comic artist who goes on a jaunt to Los Angeles to change his mood and ostensibly advance his career.

Martin has a deadpan style in the mode of Jason Schwartzman, with a sweep of hair across his forehead and an ironic grin occasionally crashing his blue mood. Dean has a meet-cute with at an LA party with Nicky (a subtly effective Gillian Jacobs), the latest version of the manic pixie dream girl.

To Martins credit, he does not take the relationship between Dean and Nicky on a predictable path. Both actors are quite charming in a classic Mumblecore method. Each delivers sharp lines while staying rooted in character.

In a subplot, Dean's father, Robert (Kevin Kline), is fumbling his way around widowhood, somewhat snapping out of his mourning period (it's been about a year) by making time with a cute real estate agent, Carol (Mary Steenburgen), his own manic pixie dream woman. The geriatric romance feels forced, though Kline expertly delivers a fine twist, another clever plot misdirection.

Martin cranks up the quaint by illustrating the frame often with his own actual comic drawings, which explore themes of alienation and death in respectful New Yorker style. They not only knit scenes together, but they occasionally pack an emotional punch -- or offer droll comic relief.

The filmmaker brings this all to a head with a reckoning over this father-son mourning. But he stumbles a few times -- his timeline doesn't really make sense, and the threatened sale of Dean's childhood home feels rushed and cartoonish. But there is genuine heart in this big-screen debut (as with Zach Braff's 2004 milepost). The male relationships are finely sketched -- especially the plotline devoted to Dean's friend's profound love for a cat. And the banter throughout is winning.

It remains to be seen whether this little labor of love will engender the same backlash its predecessor eventually suffered.

BONUS TRACK
Typical retro gloominess from the soundtrack -- another "Garden State" echo. Here is Rick Hayward with "Find Yourself Sometime":


 

That '90s Uplift: Fidelity

LANDLINE (B+) - Filmmaker Gillian Robespierre re-teams with her comic star, Jenny Slate, for a follow-up to 2014's winning "Obvious Child."

Here, they flash back to the 1990s for a period piece about a pair of young-adult daughters who find out that their father is cheating on their mother. Fine performances lend a boost to a sometimes flat script by Robespierre.

Slate is Dana, who is stuck in a dull relationship with Ben (Jay Duplass, solid as always) and, in a moment of weakness, cheats on him with an ex. She and her sister, Ali (Abby Quinn) are stunned when a file on a floppy disc popped into the family's Windows 95 setup uncovers a file of their father's mash notes to another woman.

John Turturro is nice and loose as their father, Alan, who gets nothing but putdowns and rebuffs from their mother, Pat (Edie Falco). He's a writer with more aspirations than published works. Their interplay is finely sketched.

Slate is a delightful leading lady, a Gilda Radner for the new millennium, chastely silly and adorably sexual. She feels underused here as she effortless drives the plot across a zippy 97 minutes.

Robespierre is a little too cute and self-aware with her period details -- telephone booths, CD listening stations, dial-up internet. At one point, Pat refers to Ali's app -- meaning her college application. Dana tosses out a random Urkel imitation (perfectly delivered by Slate). The movie's ending is abrupt and off-key.

But the cast makes it all feel lived-in, and Robespierre and Slate are now two-for-two.

Doc Watch: Moving Images

THE B-SIDE: ELSA DORFMAN'S PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY (B+) - This elegant examination of the life and work of large-scale Polaroid portraitist Elsa Dorfman is as much about the process as it is about the person. Documentary legend Errol Morris does his typical deep dive into a topic, and it can be fascinating at times.

Morris ("The Thin Blue Line," "The Fog of War") trains his camera on the elderly Dorfman as she shows off pictures from her flat files, and he delves into the contraptions she uses to produce large-format portraits, such as her standard 20x24 or even bigger pictures. She would always take two photos -- one for the subjects, one for her files -- and had a habit of writing captions on her copy, which helps Morris craft a narrative.

Dorfman, who worked in Boston and Harvard Square, is a simple woman with no deep insights into her process or the subjects she covered, which included Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. (An answering-machine message from Ginsberg on his death bed is chilling.) She is not interested in looking into anyone's soul. She's not searching for deep truths or the very essence of the people sitting for her camera. She's not working on a higher plane, like the Chicago portrait photographer Yvette Dostatni or a celebrity photographer like Annie Liebovitz. She has simply snapped a lot of pictures of many people over the years.

But Morris beautifully captures this dying art. (A detailed explanation of Dorfman's work with Polaroid can be found here.) He is a filmmaker compelled to preserve the history of still pictures with his moving pictures, in several senses of the word.

JOAN DIDION: THE CENTER WILL NOT HOLD (B-minus) - Joan Didion, one of the pre-eminent chroniclers of life in the second half of the 20th century, gets a sympathetic profile from her nephew, the actor Griffin Dunne. The power of her excerpted writings here rescue this from being a trifling home movie.

Didion, now in her 80s, is an engaging (if seemingly forgetful) subject, though the glamour of her charmed life can get tedious at times. (She and her husband, the novelist John Gregory Dunne hosted many New Hollywood types like Warren Beatty and Steven Spielberg at their Malibu home in the 1970s.) And the filmmaker injects himself into the proceedings too often. He also seems to dwell a bit much on the gloomy side of things -- the deaths of John Gregory Dunne and the couple's adopted daughter, Quintana, which inspired one of her more recent best-sellers, The Year of Magical Thinking.

Talking heads include stalwarts Calvin Trillin and Hilton Als of the New Yorker. Archival footage transports us to the heady '60s and '70s. Dunne uses the Ken Burns scan technique to linger over old photos, including the iconic image of Didion posing in front of a white Corvette Stingray. That talented writer is a fascinating figure, but you get the sense that her nephew came along just a little too late to fully engage her and craft a compelling biography.

THE REAGAN SHOW (C+) - Four filmmakers team up to comb through the footage shot by the Reagan White House, which chronicled the first modern TV presidency. This 74-minute overview feels like a lost opportunity.

We start with the premise that Reagan's team was inordinately obsessed with image and optics. That's not a revelation. Nothing surprising is exposed here.

The filmmakers traipse unimaginatively through the 1980s in chronological order, telling a rather shallow story of a shallow man. While we're reminded about the manipulative nature of the White House during that time, neither Reagan nor his wife and minions come off as nefarious here. If anything, the emphasis on his extended arms talks with Mikhail Gorbachev serve to reinforce the cowboy hagiography of the 41st president.

There are flashes from the past that resonate in the present -- reminding us both how quaint those times were and how devious and depraved the current administration is in the era of 24-hour news and Twitter. It's a depressing reminder of the beast that Reagan's handler birthed and the depths to which we've descended since. This film gets no credit for jogging loose such observations.

BONUS TRACKS
Jonathan Richman, a friend of Elsa Dorfman's, contributes two fine tunes to the soundtrack, starting with "Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild":



And from 2001, "Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eyeshadow":


 

From the Vaults

THE KILLING (1956) (B) - Stanley Kubrick's first film as writer and director is a classic film noir centered around a racetrack heist. What might have been cutting edge 60 years ago now feels dated and a bit formulaic.

The venerable Sterling Hayden stars as Johnny Clay, the leader of a ring of criminals and insiders hoping for a big payday. Johnny's fresh from prison and itching to get back in the game.

Kubrick's mix of noir and cinema verite and his smooth camera techniques surely seemed ground-breaking at the time. Sixty years on, it can come across as chatty and hokey. The racetrack scenes are intimate and exciting. And the dialogue, credited to Kubrick's co-writer, the novelist Jim Thompson ("The Grifters"), snaps with wisecracks.

Marie Windsor (whose resume includes such titles as "The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend" and "Cat-Women of the Moon") sizzles as sassy Sherry, the bored wife of bit player George (character actor Elisha Cook Jr.). Sherry is two-timing the feckless George with hunky rival Val Cannon (Vince Edwards), who hopes to intercept the big haul. Windsor just tears up the screen as she tears down George and tears into Val, and she knows how to curl up on a bed.

Kubrick has the tools here, but his story is rather run-of-the-mill. The 85 minutes zip by, but it's not the best noir or the best heist film you'll see.

LA NOTTE (1961) (B+) - Sharp and stylish, this gem from Michelangelo Antonioni follows a novelist and his wife as they meander, together and apart, around Milan's social scene.

What must have seemed revolutionary in 1961 -- documentary-like street scenes, a shambling narrative -- doesn't seem so insightful more than half a century later. Marcello Mastroianni is Giovanni Pontano, a hot young novelist who is already jaded by the literary circles he circulates in. Jeanne Moreau is his bored wife, Lidia. Monica Vitti -- Antonioni's muse from his masterpiece of the year before, "L'Avventura" -- pops up in the second half as a melancholy temptress, too subdued to succumb to a fling.

Giovanni and Lidia wander around Milan over the course of 24 hours, beginning in the hotel room of a dying fellow writer and randomly passing through a nightclub featuring a limber dancer who can balance a wine glass like no one you know. The second half lingers at a lush formal garden party, where an industrialist lures Giovanni to a cushy job and the guests struggle with existential angst amid the delicacies and riches.

It's all hip and provocative. These days, though, it's almost a bit quaint.

BONUS TRACKS
Marie Windsor with Elisha Cook Jr. in "The Killing":



Here Hayden catches her snooping:

Summertime Blues

WATER LILIES (2007) (B+) - Yet another coming-of-age French film, this one infused with heart and soul by Celine Sciamma, a table setter from a decade ago on her road to Tomboy (2011) and her masterpiece, "Girlhood" (2014).

Here we have teenage synchronized swimmers jockeying for friendship and the attention of the generic boys on the other side of the pool. Young Marie (Pauline Acquart) has her sights on the star of the girls squad, Floriane (Adele Haenel). Marie is shy and underdeveloped, while Floriane is beautiful and pouty, constantly swarmed by boys. Marie's best pal Anne (Louise Blachere) is chubby but less shy, gunning for the cutest boy around.

This sets up an odd, fairly chaste love triangle among the girls as they toy with each other's emotions and compete for affection. Acquart is the anchor of the movie. Her Marie isn't so much tomboyish as immature and inexperienced. Acquart has an old-school Kristy McNichol to her demeanor and a puppety jangle to her twiggy limbs.

Floriane may like running off with boys, but she shows little actual interest in them as either friends or love objects. She subtly invites Marie's attention, showing much more affection for Marie than she does for the trail of frustrated boys she leaves in her wake. In a provocative scene, Marie considers agreeing to help deflower Floriane, who needs to tend to her reputation for fear that she'll one day be discovered a virgin.

It's hard to tell if this is genuine lesbian lust or merely puppy-love curiosity, an inevitable outgrowth of summer ennui. Sciamma isn't shy about showing off the coltish frames of her three leads, but she makes it clear -- mainly in the clunky pool scenes -- that these are kids still growing into their skins.

Where Sciamma bathed "Girlhood" in sultry blues, here she flashes her style with a club scene drenched in a menstrual red. It's a summer of exploration for the girls, and sometimes these things get messy.

The Magic Kingdom

THE FLORIDA PROJECT (A) - There is a thread running through Sean Baker's latest film that injects both giddiness and dread. It's a lot like life itself.

Baker has emerged as perhaps the most talented director of our time by examining the ennui of trashed-out adults in "Starlet" and "Tangerine." Here he mixes in children, romping around southern Florida on the tourist-trap outskirts of "Disney World." It's a technicolor trip, a story with style and heart.

Baker assembles a cast of mostly newcomers, held together by Willem Dafoe as Bobby, the put-upon manager of the two-tone purple motel that will look familiar to anyone who veered a little off the beaten track in search of a cheap night's stay. Bobby has met his match in Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), an utter hellion and ring-leader of her "Little Rascals" gang, running havoc around the motel and taking off on adventures with a "Stand by Me" vibe. Moonee is a scamp, a grifter and a total smart-ass. Little Prince turns in a mesmerizing performance that will thrill you and scare you, in turns. She is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.

Moonee's mother, Halley, barely in her 20s, is still a brat herself and totally unqualified to raise a child. Always broke, she sends Moonee off to a restaurant where a friend works and sneaks takeout food to Moonee. Halley and Moonee hawk perfume to tourists, but there also will be underhanded ways to make money, actions that can't help but raise red flags with child-protective services. As Halley, the tattooed Bria Vinaite (discovered on Instagram) has the slacker drawl, heavy lids and acne-scarred complexion of a drug addict, along with the heart-shaped lips of an inexperienced seductress. Baker captures the fraught mother-daughter relationship beautifully, finding unsettling ways to document their respective sociopathic tendencies.

Dafoe brings just the right level of resignation to his role. He is sympathetic and sometimes amused, but he also is an adult who must do the right thing at some point. When he shoos away a likely child predator, his own menace is palpable.

Meantime, Baker's visual flourishes explode all over the big screen. The Florida sky is bright, and scenes are slathered in primary colors -- bursting with blues and reds, purples and tangy orange. In one scene, Moonee and her pals romp through a shaggy field of grass that nearly glows in neon green.

Nearly every scene draws laughs from the antics of both the kids and the adults (including the wrinkled old regular who likes to sunbathe topless), but the humor always crackles with a frisson of foreboding. This is exhilarating filmmaking that embeds itself into an underserved community. It is a thrill ride that almost certainly would be banned at Disney World.

Doc Watch: Bizarro World

ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL (A-minus) - The decorated documentary filmmaker Steve James -- who set the bar in the modern era with "Hoop Dreams" in 1994 -- embeds with the Sung family to tell the story of their battle with the New York District Attorney who prosecuted them for questionable mortgage-lending practices during the housing crisis a decade ago.

As a title card at the end of the movie points out, this dinky bank in New York's Chinatown was the only bank, big or small, to be prosecuted for questionable lending practices -- thus the title, a play on "too big to fail." Some shady things were going on at the bank -- corners were cut, individuals went rogue -- but did it all rise to the level of high crimes?

James -- also known for "The Interrupters" and another all-access portrait, "Life Itself" -- seems a part of the Sung family, for better and for worse. Thomas Sung and his wife and daughters open up for the camera and allow him to film intimate moments as we watch them stuggle against the prosecutor throughout the litigation, up through the verdict and beyond. There is not enough journalistic distance here, but James has no pretensions of objectivity. Which isn't to say that he doesn't give DA Cyrus Vance plenty of opportunities on-screen to deny suggestions that his prosecution is misguided at best, racist at worst. (His adversary, the attorney for the Sungs, runs rings around him.)

Journalist Matt Taibbi sums up the situation perfectly when he notes the power of the Manhattan DA versus a family-owned bank situated "between a couple of noodle shops in Chinatown." James conveys a strong sense of community. He draws sharp portraits of Thomas Sung, a proud man pushing 80, and his three distinct attorney daughters, two of whom worked at the bank and a third who actually worked in Vance's office when the indictments came down -- but who quit her job to devote the next couple of years to defending her family's name. Multiple scenes eavesdrop on their conversations as they gather around the dinner table.

The daughters emerge as the bank's champions, determined to fight this case to the bitter end. It helps the viewer to not cheat and look online to see how the verdict came in. Regardless, this film is not about winners and losers; it's a stinging examination of a family of small-business owners standing up to power. What James lacks in impartiality, he makes up for with heart.

DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE (C+) - Not what you might expect. This documentary consists almost entirely of the avant garde director David Lynch ("Blue Velvet," "Twin Peaks," "Mulholland Drive") musing about his art-school days.

It took three filmmakers to produce this thin, obtuse profile, apparently competing with each other to cultivate an artsy aesthetic to go along with the legendary filmmaker's ramblings. Dying to see David Lynch smoke in slow motion, lost in thought in a swirl of clouds? You're in luck here. At one point, Lynch seems to lose his train of thought in the middle of telling a story; the tale goes nowhere and he goes on to another one. Why include that?

The best part of "The Art Life" (Lynch's term for the creative process that has gifted him with a rather charmed existence) involves Lynch's noodlings over his art projects as his disembodied narration drones on and on. He is still an active visual painter working in mixed media. Archival footage from his art school days also provide perspective. Clips from his early films are fun to glimpse.

But don't expect any serious discussion of his films (aside from the seminal "Eraserhead") or any deep insights from a rather ordinary man who has created some extraordinary works of art.
 

New to the Queue

Fading fast ...

Frances McDormand leads a powerful cast as a grieving mother, in the latest from Martin McDonagh ("In Bruges," "Seven Psychopaths"), "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

A documentary about one of the great chroniclers of the second half of the 20th century, "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold."

Here comes another comedy doc, this one a profile of the profane former voice of the Aflac duck, "Gilbert" (Gottfried).

Carey Mulligan and Mary J. Blige star in a postwar drama from Dee Rees ("Pariah") about black and white families struggling to survive on a farm, "Mudbound."

Our gal Greta Gerwig ("Frances Ha") directs a semi-autobiographical film, with Saoirse Ronan as her teen-aged avatar, "Lady Bird."

From writer/director/star Ana Asensio, the harrowing tale of a day in the life of an undocumented immigrant, "Most Beautiful Island."

A documentary about a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor closing up her seamstress shop, "Big Sonia."
 

Alors

IN THE SHADOW OF WOMEN (B-minus) - Another relationship churn from the Garrel squad.

Veteran French filmmaker Philippe Garrel ("Burning Hot Summer," "Jealousy") burrows deep into a love triangle, sticking close to his wheelhouse. We follow glum Pierre (Stanislas Merhar), a struggling filmmaker, who works with the aid of his wife, Manon (Clotilde Courau), and uneventfully ends up in the bed of a young intern, Elisabeth (newcomer Lena Paugam).

Pierre is anything but excited by the thrill of the cheat. In fact, he is downright miserable, and outside of the romps with a hot young thing, he shows no emotion or joy. Merhar comes off as a working class Keith Urban with a nasty Kurt Cobain streak. A narrator (Louis Garrel, the director's son) conveys Pierre's thoughts, which skew mostly to whines about the curse of being a stereotypical male.

The women fare a little better. Paugam comes off as a bit of a prop, but Courau, as the bewitched wife, is a perfectly controlled roller-coaster of emotions throughout. It turns out that Manon has a secret of her own. That sparks a hypocritical hissy fit on the part of Pierre, who responds the only way he knows how: by launching stinging putdowns to her and his innocent young lover.

Yet, neither woman wants to quit him. Yes, it's quite French. A subplot about the subject of Pierre's documentary -- a French resistance fighter from WWII -- exists, apparently, to contrast Pierre's petulance with the gravitas of the Greatest Generation.

Garrel shoots in crisp black-and-white, which fits the throwback New Wave mood. He also reels this in at 73 minutes. If you know that going in, you'll have more patience for these brooding agonistes.
 

Soundtrack of Your Life: See the Light

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

Date: 14 October 2017, 8:18 p.m.
Place: Lowe's hardware store
Song:  "See the World"
Artist: Gomez
Irony Matrix: 3.3 out of 10

Comment: One of my favorite albums of the new millennium is "How We Operate" by the quirky British popsters Gomez. It's a smooth collection of bittersweet songs. "See the World" is a highlight.

It was a Saturday night, and we were on our way home from a wedding. Me in a jacket and tie, her in a beautiful skirt and top. Best-dressed pair at Lowe's. Seeking out a trip light for the driveway. Bouncing along the aisles as 10-year-old British mope rock bubbled on the store speakers.

Found something that took three D batteries. How analog and retro.

Here is a live version of "See the World" from 2011:



BONUS TRACKS
The best song on that album, "Girl Shaped Love Drug." It's truly addictive:



Their cover of the Beatles' "Getting Better," originally recorded for a Philips electronics commercial and included on the amazing B-side compilation "Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline" in 2000:


 

That '70s Drift, Part III: Palookaville

CHUCK (C+) - This surprisingly inert biopic struggles to communicate a reason for being. Liev Schreiber disappears into the role of Chuck Wepner, a tomato can from Bayonne, N.J., who is plucked from obscurity to fight the heavyweight champ, Muhammad Ali, thus inspiring Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky" story.

Canadian director Philippe Falardeau ("Monsieur Lazhar") never establishes a grip on this shambling script from four writers, including Schreiber, suggesting a labor of love by the actor. Too often this period piece is content to fetishize the sleazy '70s and wallow in the horrid fashions, not unlike recent HBO TV duds like "Vinyl" and "The Deuce."

Schreiber lays the Jersey accent on thick, and Elisabeth Moss, as his wife, Phyliss, goes toe-to-toe with him in striving for lower-class authenticity. It's a draw. Naomi Watts looks lost -- "What accent is this? What era am I in?" -- as a feather-haired bartender, Linda, who catches Chuck's roving eye. Only Ron Pearlman, as Wepner's crude trainer, finds joy and zip in a character. And you would be hard pressed to find an actor with less charisma than Pooch Hall as a bizarrely low-key Ali.

When it comes to the inevitable comparisons to great fight films like "Raging Bull," "Chuck" can run but it can't hide. Much of this ground has been covered ad nauseam, whether in Scorcese's classic biopic, or Stallone's fictionalized masterpiece. "Chuck" revisits an era -- late '70s, early '80s -- and comes off as derivative dress-up.

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT (1974) (B-minus) - Back to the actual '70s, when men were men, character actors were character actors, and guns and cars were the tools of the trade. This is the directorial debut of Michael Cimino ("The Deer Hunter").

Here the buddy road movie meets the heist flick. Clint Eastwood and a young Jeff Bridges meet cute, with Eastwood's Thunderbolt (he's known for blowing open safes) on the lam from some hitmen and hitching a ride with Bridges' Lightfoot in the kid's stolen car. It turns out that the hitmen are old buddies of Thunderbolt, veterans of a bank job that left half a million dollars missing somewhere in a schoolhouse in Montana.

After Thunderbolt and Lightfoot learn that the schoolhouse has apparently been razed and replaced, Red (George Kennedy) and Eddie (Geoffrey Lewis) finally catch up to them, and they eventually believe Thunderbolt when he says he did not double-cross them. The four decide to team up, go back undercover, and rob the same bank.

Cimino flashes a confident, gritty visual style. Eastwood broods like he did throughout the '70s. Bridges is at the pupal stage of his career, still trying to figure out how to really act. Kennedy is the secret weapon here, playing a flustered thug with a short fuse. He and Lewis offer a Laurel & Hardy slapstick tone to the rather ominous proceedings.

This lumbers along leisurely, landing just shy of two hours. It has its moments, but Cimino struggles to mold it into a cohesive work of art. It's more of a time capsule than a classic.
 

New to the Queue

Chill ...

Let's hope Noah Baumbach is back on his game, teaming up here with Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler for "The Meyerowitz Stories."

A couple of troubled hoarders, twin brothers, give way to a cleaning crew in the documentary "Thy Father's Chair."

A recently divorced Italian documentarian explores the ideas of love, sex and fidelity in "Monogamish."

A documentary, rich in archival footage, about Jane Goodall, the famous primatologist, "Jane."

A study of group therapy among a handful of inmates at Folsom Prison, "The Work."

A quirky Austin-based anti-rom-com from "Saturday Night Live" dropout Noel Wells, "Mr. Roosevelt."
  

That '70s Drift, Part II: Run That Baby

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976) (A) - There is the myth of Woodward and Bernstein -- two young reporters working doggedly to bring down a president -- and the myth is real. It was arguably the height of a profession that is, now, in many ways, a shell of what it was back in the 1970s.

So it is easy for old newspapermen and political junkies to get caught up in the nostalgia of the post-Watergate high, a brief, shining moment of enlightenment. But even without that amber glow, "All the President's Men" is an exceptional suspense movie that bears up to repeated viewings.

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman were at the top of their games as Woodward and Bernstein, the hungry, bickering, poor step-sons in the newsroom hierarchy. The two even have a meet-cute -- near the copy desk, when Woodward finds Bernstein intercepting his draft of one of the first Watergate stories and rewriting it. From then on, they were a team, collaborating like blood brothers and squabbling like siblings. (When the chain-smoking Bernstein lights a cigarette in an elevator, Woodward snaps, "Is there any place you don't smoke?")

Alan J. Pakula ("Klute," "The Parallax View," "Sophie's Choice") captures the clutter and clatter of the newsroom, the eeriness of an incestuous Washington, D.C., and the fear of bureaucrats swept up in a scandal. Pakula revels in the miscellaneous duties of a reporter -- the phone calls, the door-knocking, the cajoling, the persistence. A famous scene of Woodward and Bernstein painstakingly poring over individual check-out slips from a stack of thousands of slips at the Library of Congress is the perfect example of diligence and determination that personifies a profession. In another subtle moment, Redford conveys the rush of reporting with one reaction shot when, on the phone, a source utters the words that are music to a newsman's ears: "I know I shouldn't tell you this ..."

With heralded screenwriter William Goldman ("Marathon Man" (also starring Hoffman) "The Princess Bride," "Misery"), Pakula crafts a mesmerizing film noir for the ages. There is a buddy-cop snap to the dialogue, recalling the rapport of the outlaws in Goldman's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (also starring Redford). Newsroom story meetings crackle with one-liners. Toward the movie's climax, editor Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards), roused late at night by his cub reporters, calmly informs them that "nothing's riding on this -- except the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country." 

It all seemed that important 40-plus years ago, decades before an accidental president could deflect criticism and scrutiny with the mere taunt of "Fake news!" In that sense, returning to the days of telephone books and rotary dials can be a bit depressing. What we did back then mattered, dammit. We saved the country. Please don't tell us it was all in vain.

Historical and psychological torment aside, shoe-leather detective tales don't come any more entertaining. Redford is charming as the preppy, often exasperated Woodward. Hoffman is compelling as the dogged Bernstein, pulling scraps of notes out of every conceivable pocket of his rumpled outfit. And the supporting cast is critical to bringing this home. Jack Warden is delightfully gruff as Woodward and Bernstein's supportive city editor. Hal Holbrook broods from the shadows as the informant Deep Throat. Stephen Collins agonizes over a sense of duty as one of the key sources from inside the Nixon campaign. Jane Alexander is heartbreaking as the reluctant bookkeeper who slowly melts under the pressure of Woodward and Bernstein's quiet interrogations.

But it is Robards, holding together the moral core of the movie, who looms large as the legendary editor in chief, a stern father figure guiding his eager reporters. Bradlee rejects a "thin" draft of a key story. He thumbs his nose at the Nixon White House and stands by his staff. He snarls at his underlings out of doubt and frustration. But when his boys finally nail it, he can hardly control his joy. 

One night, with minutes till deadline, as Bradlee meanders his way toward the exit in a rumpled tuxedo, Woodward and Bernstein work the phones to confirm a final detail of the story that would prove to be the tipping point. With a slam of the receiver they frantically retrieve their boss from in front of the elevators. He returns to examine their copy one more time, double-checking their reporting, as they burst with hope and suspense. Bradlee rises from his chair, hands the copy back to them and growls, "Run that baby." And as he walks back toward the elevators, Bradlee playfully taps an empty desk for emphasis. It's a tiny theatrical flourish, as if by a song-and-dance man. It's the exclamation point we wish we could throw at the end of a headline.

It's how it was done back then.
 

That '70s Drift, Part I: A Long Way, Maybe

BATTLE OF THE SEXES (B+) - One of the duties of a middle-aged man is to occasionally assure his mother that the world isn't going all to hell. Last November 9th, on the phone to my mom, I was at a loss for words.

We are moving through a phase of exposing, once again, the sexually predatory ways of the unyielding white male authoritarian structure -- in news (Ailes), politics (Trump), and entertainment (Weinstein) -- that seems to thrive and morph like a drug-resistant bug. How could 62 million people, including establishment Republicans and self-professed Christians, look the other way and sneak into the White House the poster child for male-chauvinist pigs? A desperate thirst for power is always the default answer.

But who could not be haunted by the sight of a horrible brute looming behind Hillary Clinton at that debate like a stalker or worse. The bullies have retaken the reins of power.

Reading the recent obituary of Kate Millett, I was reminded of the long slog of sexual politics and was tossed back to the second wave during the turbulent '70s. Was that the beginning of an endless historical loop? In that context, what a lark it was when Billie Jean King played a tennis match against the boorish huckster Bobby Riggs, a made-for-TV "Battle of the Sexes" that is lovingly re-enacted in this quaint but moving nostalgic romp.

I saw this movie with my mom, who was on the last full day of her annual visit, having spent the previous weekend attending the semifinals and finals of the Albuquerque stop on the sparsely attended professional women's tennis tournament. Our respective obsessions -- tennis and movies -- came together on a rainy afternoon. Two hours together in a dark screening room was preferable to trying to explain again how a qualified though deeply flawed woman was destroyed by a relentless media campaign and a wild spasm of the venerable power structure.

Instead, there is Emma Stone, with the talent to not only carry a film these days but to elevate it, donning the wire-rimmed spectacles and the frumpy shag hairdo of the 29-year-old King, as she not only sticks her neck out to prove a cultural point but also challenges the old-boy network by forming a union of female players and helping launch the Virginia Slims tournament. As early as 1967, she was critical of the United States Lawn Tennis Association for its shady dealings, and by 1973, she had convinced her colleagues to break away for their own circuit and had shamed the U.S. Open into awarding equal payouts to the winner of its annual tournament. Here that stuffy old-boy network is personified by the smug Jack Kramer, perfectly oiled by character actor Bill Pullman.

Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, the former music-video directors who splashed in 2006 with "Little Miss Sunshine," take a script from Simon Beaufoy ("The Full Monty," "Slumdog Millionaire") and dip it in amber and avocado green tones to craft a faithful period piece (down to the retro Fox studio marker at the beginning of the film). The movie looks and feels like it was shot in the shadowy '70s, which at times makes it feel alternatively authentic and like a cutesy conceit.

Stone dives deep into her character, exploring the personal demons of a closeted bisexual and showing enough athletic ability to not embarrass herself. (When the big match finally arrives, Faris and Dayton render it wonderfully.) In this version, King falls for a carefree hairdresser named Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough, "Birdman"), whose presence on the tour becomes an open secret for the married King. They have a winning chemistry without letting the weight of the relationship weigh down the movie.

Stone goes up against Steve Carell, whose natural smarm serves him well and makes him tolerable, like he was in "Foxcatcher." Carell's Riggs is a pathetic old man whose shtick has worn thin, both personally and professionally. Carell is always much better when he's not trying to be a cut-up, and here he reveals Riggs in layers, never quite tipping into syrupy pathos.

A secret weapon here is the supporting cast. Sarah Silverman hams it up as chain-smoking Gladys Heldman, who secured the Philip Morris sponsorship for the Virginia Slims tour. She slings one-liners all around, the sharpest ones reserved for Pullman, with classic movie-of-the-week cheekiness. Alan Cumming lights up the screen as Ted Tingling, the sassy designer of King's attire. Elisabeth Shue doesn't have much to do as Riggs' frustrated wife, but just a sprinkling of her talent is welcome, especially sporting that tanned Ethel Kennedy glow. Mickey Sumner ("Frances Ha") and Bridey Elliott ("Fort Tilden") pop in the background as regular players on the tour. Fred Armisen ("Band Aid") plays it mostly straight as Riggs' health guru, which I'm convinced is Armisen's subtle in-joke.

This ensemble effort makes the production pleasing and not too full of itself. Faris and Dayton revel, like kids, in the opportunity to re-create the America of their teen years. They seamlessly insert player/commentator Rosie Casals (Natalie Morales) into a TV image with the real Howard Cosell's arm draped around her. They relish Riggs' publicity stunts. They construct ominous wood-paneled sanctums where Kramer and his henchman plot the pompous pronouncements of the patriarchy.

It's all packaged as a slick two-hour window into a seemingly more innocent past. Or were those the good old days?
 

Fussy Boys

A couple of tortured souls ...

WILSON (B) - A misanthropic luddite with an apparent heart of gold, middle-aged Wilson navigates a mid-life crisis, jolted by the death of his emotionally distant novelist father, and he seeks out an ex who is more messed up than he is.

From the poisoned pen of graphic artist Daniel Clowes ("Ghost World," "Art School Confidential") comes this traipse through our dark and haunted subconscious. Woody Harrelson stars as Wilson, a man unafraid to let his id rule all of his personal and social interactions (uttering unpleasant truths that we all think but don't say). He rails against "the oligarchs" and the suburbs and chides himself for using the word "closure." He is a social provocateur who butts up against others at cafes and on buses (not afraid to nudge them awake, even), even though there's plenty of room to sit elsewhere. He is ardently devoted to a scruffy companion, his dog Pepper.

Wilson tracks down Pippi (a delightfully manic Laura Dern), a messed-up bleach-blond in recovery (with a former pimp's name tattooed on her back). He assumed that Pippi had aborted their child when she left 17 years ago, but it turns out that Pippi put the girl up for adoption.

They then begin stalking Claire (Isabella Amara, channeling Thora Birch's Enid from "Ghost World"), a chubby, nerdy teen who apparently has inherited Wilson's sarcastic ways. With the plot points cued up, skilled director Craig Johnson ("The Skeleton Twins," "True Adolescents") melds "Beavis and Butt-head" comedy with inch-deep indie drama. Engaging their "daughter" without her parents' knowledge is not likely to end well.

This is a hit-and-miss character study, almost a little too tidy.  For contrast early on, we see Wilson visit a childhood friend who's even more bitter and unpleasant than he is (or, in Wilson's estimation, a "toxic, soul-draining vampire"). ("Want some beet juice?" the host offers. "Fuck. No," Wilson responds.) Also early on, as Wilson's father lay comatose in a hospital bed, Wilson begs for a declaration of love. OK, we get it, he's scarred from childhood.

Harrelson does his best to keep this all zipping along, and he succeeds until the narrative runs off the rails in the final half hour, scattering its focus and diluting its message. Some cues are too obvious.  Elsewhere, Judy Greer, as Wilson's dog-sitter, is wasted in a dead-end role. And a sappy ending threatens to undo much of what came before. 

BEACH RATS (B-minus) - This gorgeous, intimate examination of teenagers frolicking around Coney Island digs mostly only skin deep.

The story follows Frankie (Harris Dickinson), an intensely disaffected hunk who dabbles in drugs with his loser friends and secretly trolls older men on a sex-hookup website. Frankie explores a traditional relationship with Simone (Madeline Weinstein), but suffers from performance issues that he blames on the drugs. The pair make for the perfect couple on paper -- they have arresting good looks, full lips and boy/girl-next-door qualities about them.

Frankie, though, is an emotional black hole. He repeatedly states that he doesn't know what he likes, wants or cares about. Twice he proclaims, defensively, that his Guido buddies are not his friends. And why older guys? No particular attraction; it's only because they won't know people in his age group. A rape scenario at the hands of one of the men is seemingly shrugged off by Frankie.

Writer-director Eliza Hittman first explored teenage sensuality and angst (and the beach) from the female perspective in her brilliant debut, "It Felt Like Love." But what felt like a shared intimacy with sharp insights then comes off here as artifice and inscrutability. (It could simply be a fact that young women are more interesting than boys.) Hittman's camera again gets up in the pores of her actors, but she struggles to break through the surface. Boys in bare chests play handball; they don wife-beaters for their jaunts on the boardwalk; the sharing of a cigarette is sexy. But those images can't detract from the fact that Frankie is mostly moping around like a zombie, exchanging monosyllabic grunts with interchangeable fellow teens with zero inner lives.

Most of the narrative heft takes place in the final third of the movie, but by then you might not care whether Frankie snaps out of his funk or not. Hittman makes a questionable plot choice to force a climax. She leans on the growing indie trope of fireworks displays to suggest romantic sparks (albeit ironically) and deeper emotional meaning. It's ever so stylish, but by the end, when we return with Frankie to the beach, there's a hint of an epiphany about him, but we're still clueless about what it is he wants and whether he has the wherewithal to pursue it.
 

New to the Queue

Cooler by the lake ...

Sean Baker ("Tangerine," "Starlet") follows a bunch of 6-year-olds who antagonize the gruff manager, played by Willem Dafoe, in "The Florida Project."

We're fans of Mike White ("The Good Girl," HBO's "Enlightened"), though we're wary that he may be going to the well once too often with his latest, starring Ben Stiller, "Brad's Status."

This documentary about vermin in Baltimore has as much to say about class and economic distinctions than about pest infestations: "Rat Film."

The latest from New Wave legend Agnes Varda is a collaboration with a 33-year-old photographer, a travelogue through France, "Faces Places."

A strong cast and filmmakers with a decent track record are drawing us to the cheesy time-warp nostalgia-fest about Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, "Battle of the Sexes."

Strangers make passing acquaintances on a train ride through South Korea in "Autumn, Autumn."

  

Guided by Voices

Two that don't need much analysis:

THE TRIP TO SPAIN (B+) - What can we say about those waggish middle-aged cads now on their third go-round of cuisine and banter, wrapped by Michael Winterbottom in a shroud of ennui? It still works somehow.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon first did this shtick in "The Trip" in 2010 and returned for an encore for "The Trip to Italy" in 2014. Here they reunite for a scamper around Spain, indulging in fine dining and quip-offs featuring their patented impressions -- Michael Caine, Roger Moore, etal. There are some inspired moments and some belly laughs.

Coogan, the alpha celeb (he merits the better hotel suites), is often in a cranky mood, gruffly coasting on his recent acclaim for "Philomena," not above putting Brydon in his C-list place. Brydon gets in his digs in between the mimicry that often goes on just a bit too long. (Though his devotion to an extended Roger Moore bit -- riffing off a story about the Moors -- is admirable.) This is civilized male one-upmanship, gentlemanly frat behavior.

In a telling scene, Coogan chats up a street busker and invites him to have a beer with them at an outdoor bistro. After some friendly chit-chat, Coogan takes offense at the young man's superior knowledge of Spain's tourist haunts and goes off sulking. It's left to Brydon to sum up Coogan to the street musician: "He doesn't like to be told things he thinks he already knows."

Winterbottom has gradually tempered his interest in photographing the food being prepared, and he seems intrigued by these faux back stories that he sketches for each man. Coogan, 51, comes off as introspective and perpetually self-analyzing, if not borderline self-loathing. Brydon, 52, just seems content to have escaped family life. Both men are seen jogging through picturesque streets, staving off physical decline.

I was reminded of Michael Apted's "7-Up" series, which checks in every seven years with a core group of British baby boomers. Winterbottom, cheating with fiction, explores similar territory with Gen X elders. If you're in that cohort, you might not mind the same old apings and the broodings of privileged men -- rather, you might enjoy tagging along with these guys every few years to see how things turn out.

MARJORIE PRIME (B) - An elderly woman is kept company by the holographic image of her deceased husband, a version of him in his prime, his early 40s and as handsome as Jon Hamm.

Marjorie (character actor Lois Smith) is losing her grip on her memory, and her beloved Walter is dreamed up to keep her company and bathe her in golden memories. The twist is that hologram Walter (Hamm) comes programmed with only the most basic of information (such as you would have found in his obit), and the rest of his knowledge is inputted by either Marjorie or her daughter and son-in-law -- Tess (Geena Davis) and Jon (Tim Robbins) -- which leads to experiments in revisionist history.

It's difficult to discuss the plot without revealing too much. Jon wallows in his cocktails, and he also takes perverse joy in hanging out with Walter one-on-one. He slyly implants some tidbits into Walter's brain, perhaps Jon's way of making life with his mother-in-law a little more palatable.

Tess is a miserable depressive, still weirded out by having to deal with her dad again, especially now that he's younger than she is. Some dark family history -- her older brother committed suicide as a teen -- still pains her.

This is an intriguing sci-fi experiment from Michael Almereyda, who helped Jordan Harrison (a writer for Netflix's "Orange Is the New Black") adapt Harrison's play. The big ideas here are apparent: Is it cruel or merciful to play God? How reliable are our memories, and how do they define us? Can computers lull us to the grave? Can they eventually allow us to live forever? Would we even want that?

The simple staging -- with long conversations, almost all of them in the house -- comes off like a glorified play but fits the subject matter. The ensemble is mostly solid. You normally wouldn't turn to Davis and Robbins for dramatic heavy lifting, but their understated performances win out in the end. Davis conveys the layers of resentment that have calloused over and deadened her inside. Robbins is a convincing rascal. Hamm is just robotic enough to be both creepy and believable.

The ending is thoughtful, hinting at the future ramifications of the technological tricks, and perhaps even suggesting that this whole human experiment is and always has been one big simulation.

BONUS TRACKS
The trailers:





"The Trip's" theme song, "The Windmills of Your Mind," this version from Noel Harrison:

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, certified nurse-midwife Catherine Ruhl-Blanchard brings an elevated critical expertise to the French film "The Midwife." 

If you are expecting a few birth scenes in a movie called “The Midwife,” you won't be disappointed. But freshly birthed babies are mere context for this tale about the messy intricacies of relationships. Catherine Deneuve is Beatrice, an aging free spirit with a newly diagnosed brain tumor. She searches out Claire (Catherine Frot), the daughter of Beatrice's late former lover and a seasoned midwife. 

The women's reconnection is often rocky -- Claire is tightly wound and we are drawn into an almost too quick and tidy conclusion. The film's real accomplishment is painting a picture of Claire's tender strength, whether caring for a lost pregnant woman at the clinic or for her dying friend.

Guest grade: B

BONUS TRACK

The trailer: 

Before the Fall

A few titles from the Toronto International Film Festival and beyond that give us a glimmer of hope for pulling out of the 2017 tailspin:

Sean Baker ("Tangerine," "Starlet") brings his vivid sense of style to a rundown motel, where he follows a bunch of 6-year-olds who antagonize the gruff manager, played by Willem Dafoe, "The Florida Project."

American auteur Alexander Payne ("Nebraska," "Election," "About Schmidt") gets playful with "Downsizing," a comedy about groups of miniaturized humans who live in tiny villages, a setup designed to save overpopulated Earth. Pairing Kristen Wiig (!) with Matt Damon (?).

Greta Gerwig (above right), perhaps frustrated with dead-end roles that waste her talent, goes behind the camera to re-create her senior year of high school.  The spare "Lady Bird" stars Saoirse Ronan (above left) and Laurie Metcalf.

Let's see if Gerwig's boyfriend Noah Baumbach ("Greenberg," "Frances Ha") is back on the horse after struggling in 2015 with "Mistress America" and "While We're Young." He now teams favorite Ben Stiller with Adam Sandler for "The Meyerowitz Stories."

Dee Rees ("Pariah," our 4th favorite film of 2011) returns with "Mudbound," an epic post-war drama about two families -- one white, one black -- struggling to succeed on a farm. With Carey Mulligan and Mary J. Blige.

In the awkwardly titled "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges”) guides Frances McDormand as a local mother who bullies the local police department into reopening the search for her daughter’s attacker by posting three accusatory billboards on the outskirts of town.

The Coen brothers cede the director's chair to George Clooney for "Suburbicon," their wacky take on a '50s suburban dad dodging some mobsters. With Julianne Moore and, you guessed it, Matt Damon (!). 

"The Work" is a documentary that follows prison inmates and volunteers who engage in intense group therapy sessions.

James Franco adapts Greg Sestero's memoir of his role in the filming of the notoriously bad cult classic "The Room" by Tommy Wiseau (Franco, co-starring with his brother James): "The Disaster Artist."

Joachim Trier ("Oslo, August 31st," "Louder Than Bombs") leans toward the supernatural with "Thelma," the tale of a young woman who suffers seizures and develops an intense attraction to a fellow female student at their university in Oslo, Norway.

BONUS TRACK
The trailer for "The Disaster Artist":


 

Our Better Half

At the halfway mark of 2017, we lamented the fact that we had handed out exactly one grade higher than a B+. Right after that, the dam burst.

Since July 1, we have handed out 9 more A-minus grades to 2017 releases. (We are still awaiting the year's first straight A.) Here is a list of the A-Team so far, including some of the films that will be contenders for our favorite of the year.

• Obit
• Suntan
• Donald Cried
• The Big Sick
• Lovesong
• A Wolf at the Door
• Brigsby Bear
• Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
• The Glass Castle
• Baby Driver