Inadvertent Double Feature: Aubrey Plaza

A pair from the talented comic actress Aubrey Plaza, one surprisingly dark, the other rowdy as hell:

INGRID GOES WEST (B) - What starts out as a light-hearted romp poking fun at social media addicts turns dark in the third act, without necessarily landing on either side of the argument about millennials and their damn phones.

Aubrey Plaza is manic as the title gal who gets institutionalized for a while after going postal on her Instagram idol (for not inviting Ingrid to her wedding) and then reinvents herself in Los Angeles, setting her sights on a new victim, Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), a vapid photographer and solipsistic social media maven. Ingrid is funded by about $60,000 in cash from the estate of her mother, whose apparent slow, painful death has scarred Ingrid and left her as socially and emotionally bereft as a junkie.

This debut by millennial writer-director Matt Spicer never loses its jolt of energy, but it's a bit sloppy as it throws its shares of errant punches in trying to make a major statement about the way we live today. (It's as if the younger generation is having trouble focusing!) Despite its limitations, "Ingrid" is never less than entertaining and driven toward an inevitable messy ending.

Plaza -- every comedy bro's favorite platonic best pal, exemplified in 2009's "Funny People" -- dives into her role as fangirl-slash-stalker. She has way more verve than one screen can hold, and she handles physical comedy well, using more than just those big expressive eyes of hers. Olsen, the ultimate entitled white girl, slips into Taylor's skin neatly, without turning Taylor into more of a cartoon than she needs to be.

The secret weapon here is O'Shea Jackson, Ice Cube's son who played the rap star in his movie debut "Straight Outta Compton"). He is a natural, dynamic presence whose smile lights up a screen. He plays Dan, a Batman-obsessed wannabe screenwriter who, when he isn't selling drugs, manages the apartment complex where Ingrid holes up. The flirtations and frustrations between Dan and Ingrid are beyond charming, serving to balance out the savage snark permeating the rest of the film. That negative energy is best exemplified by Billy Magnussen as Taylor's menacing, cocaine-fueled brother, Nicky. Magnussen sweeps through the proceedings like white privilege on PCP, and the climactic showdown between Nicky and Ingrid catches poor, lovable Dan in the cross-fire. Feelings are hurt, lessons are learned, texts go unreturned. (Watch Ingrid's face fall when she sees the three dots indicating Dan is responding only to have the dots disappear.)

The final shot proves that Spicer has little hope for the future of the Kardashian generation, suggesting that there are no true happy endings but merely the enticing possibility of a reality-show sequel.

THE LITTLE HOURS (B+) - This Pythonesque romp never tries to be more than what it sets out to be: a ribald showcase for some very funny people riffing on grueling life in the 14th century.

Plaza, Alison Brie (TV's "Mad Men" and "Community"), and Kate Micucci ("Don't Think Twice") play a trio of randy nuns chafing under the soul-deadening oppression of an isolated convent. The story is inspired by The Decameron, Giovani Boccoccio's medieval-era series of stories set in the countryside outside Florence in the time of the black plague.

A brilliant cast has a rollicking time riffing on olden times in a carefree way not seen since "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." John C. Reilly is perfectly goofy and a bit rueful as Father Tommasso, the priest in charge of the convent, who, like prelates of that time, acts like more of a mobster than a man of the cloth -- dipping into the sacramental wine, telling lies, and bedding the head nun, Sister Marea (a subdued Molly Shannon). He is sweet and lovable, though, and he has no control of his flock.

Beautiful Allessandra (Brie) feels like a prisoner of her parents, who send money to the convent and deny her desires to be married off, essentially because they can't afford a dowry. (Paul Reiser has a blast in a cameo as her father, dashing her dreams in one simple conversation.) Plaza's Fernanda is a hellion, drawing Macucci's Ginerva into trouble on a daily basis. Brie finds a neat groove as the yearning maiden cross-stitching her life away. Plaza and Micucci have wonderfully expressive eyes -- the former mostly shooting daggers and the latter more broadly comic, along the lines of Marty Feldman in "Young Frankenstein."

Dave Franco offers up his typical clueless stoner persona as Massetto, the common serf who escapes from a nobleman after getting caught bedding the lord's wife and lands a new laborer gig at the convent -- from the frying pan into the fire. Nick Offerman is hilarious as Lord Bruno, a vulgar petit-bourgeois conspiracy theorist who harps on the decline of civilization like a Chicken Little Trump supporter, hyper-aware of ethnicities and obsessed with "Game of Thrones"-like regional political intrigue. In one of his funniest deadpan lines, he warns his kittenish wife (Lauren Weedman) that their lavish lifestyle (eating rabbit and lentils) might end any day with an invasion of pope-loving Guelphs; enjoy the "luxury" now, he intones, before they are reduced to "eating chicken, like a bunch of fucking Croatians."

The hunky Massetto is catnip to the horny maidens at the convent, who abuse him like a stable mule for their carnal pleasure. Franco ("21 Jump Street," "Neighbors") thrives in awkward situations, and here he is tortured, alternately, by threats of sheer medieval harm and by female lust, a flesh-and-blood version of the comedy/tragedy masks. Jemima Kirke (HBO's "Girls") shows up (off-key, as usual) to raise the stakes and lure the gals into bouts of drinking, lesbianism, drug use and sorcery.

The gals are bawdy as all get-out, but the silliness hits its peak when Fred Armisen shows up as Bishop Bartolomeo, who has seen his share of crude behavior but never the likes of the litany of sins he must sort out with this crew. Armisen is automatically funny, and here he is as much straight man among the surreal antics rather than the guy with the lampshade on his head.

Writer-director Jeff Baena ("Joshy," "I Heart Huckabees") creates a controlled chaos, a heady mix of the modern and medieval. (He even manages some genuinely tender moments at the end.) He gets in and out in 90 minutes, strategically spacing out the gut-busting one-liners. He juggles a big cast, parceling out the goodies judiciously so that the all-star players gel into a cohesive whole.
  

The Fun in Dysfunction

THE GLASS CASTLE (A-minus) - Best Hallmark Channel movie ever.

Destin Daniel Cretton follows up his previous gem, 2013's "Short Term 12," with another touching, deeply human tale of broken people. Brie Larson returns (more of a star now after "Room"), this time as Jeannette Walls, the fictionalized version of the author of the best-selling memoir, who grew up in, to put it mildly, a seriously dysfunctional, nomadic family.

Her father, Rex (Woody Harrelson), was a drunken blowhard who talked a big game about defying The Man (and building his little girl a fantastic glass castle) but who was little more than a criminally irresponsible dad. Her mother, Rose Mary (Naomi Watts, plain), was his enabler, seemingly delusional and likely mentally ill. (He enables her by resolutely touting her outsider art, which is, by any measure, merely amateurish.) They moved the kids from shack to shack, always one step ahead of the creditors, the utilities or victims of Rex's various hustles. Rex's violent method of teaching Jeannette to swim (or sink) is yet another form of child abuse.

Jeannette and her brother and sisters also suffered at the hands of Rex's mother, just as Rex almost certainly did as a child in West Virginia, to a degree only gruffly hinted at (and elegantly half-revealed). Young Jeannette (two fine little actresses, Ella Anderson and Chandler Head) was the victim of her parents' negligence, setting her clothes on fire while cooking her own hot dogs on a cheap stove while standing on a chair. She is left scarred on her torso, almost certainly exacerbated by her father's insistence on stealing her from the hospital prematurely so as to save on medical costs.

As an adult, Jeannette shuns her parents and settles into an alternative universe -- engaged to a yuppie financial adviser, David (Max Greenfield from "Hello, My Name Is Doris," the only weak link in the cast). That's the worst nightmare for her parents, who are now squatting and dumpster-diving in Manhattan. Jeannette hones her skills as a writer for New York magazine and tries to blot out those childhood memories.

All of this could have gotten embarrassingly sticky sweet in the wrong hands. But Cretton has a special touch. We rewatched "Short Term 12" after viewing "Glass Castle," and the two films share a genuinely humanistic DNA. Part of that is Larson, alternately steely and vulnerable, speaking volumes through her doe eyes. Cretton also reins in Harrelson away from his hammy "Hunger Games"/'The Messenger" tendencies, while providing an umbilical cord for Watts to explore the nuances of a conflicted woman who just isn't cut out for motherhood. Cretton and his casting director do a fantastic job of picking young actors to play various stages of the siblings, so that it's never a distraction.

There are heartfelt interactions between father and the daughter he playfully calls Mountain Goat throughout the film, including during a climactic reconciliation, as well as among siblings, each sharply drawn with attention to character detail. You'll laugh and cry in ways that echo the reaction to last year's similar tale of an outlaw dad and his precocious kids, "Captain Fantastic." You'll likely forget about that horrific scar on Jeannette's body by the time it springs up at just the right time, in the perfect situation, serving the story in multiple ways at once -- brought home by Larson, still able to pull off playing a rebellious teen.

This is natural, tactile filmmaking that ably translates a beloved book while retaining a wholesome and honest tone. It is entertainment for all ages and lifestyles. There's no denying that Cretton, who wrote this with newcomer Andrew Lanham, is in tune with what we call the hum of human existence. And he knows just how to tug your heart without making you roll your eyes.

BONUS TRACK
The soundtrack is top-notch, too, mixing oldies from Waylon Jennings and Kitty Wells, with original music from Joel P. West. Here's a two-fer featuring the Lumineers ("Sleep on the Floor") and Reuben and the Dark ("Black Water"):



And Darla Hawn with the trusty standard, "Don't Fence Me In":


 
  

Unsung

RUMBLE: THE INDIANS WHO ROCKED THE WORLD (A-minus) - This heartfelt and technically precise documentary lovingly sings the praises of people of American Indian heritage who helped shaped popular music in the 20th century.

The movie starts at ground zero with Link Wray, the '50s guitar slinger who invented the power chord with the irresistible instrumental that gives the movie its name. The song -- devoid of lyrics -- was reportedly banned by some music stations merely on the basis of its gang-inciting title and its primal sound.

Filmmakers Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana then shift back in time to explore even deeper origins or American music -- blues/folk hero Charley Patton and jazz singer Mildred Bailey -- before returning to the baby-boomer era to celebrate Canadian Robbie Robertson (Mohawk) of the Band, folk sensation Buffy Saint-Marie (Cree), Jimi Hendrix (one-quarter Cherokee) and Redbone.

The array of talking heads is impressive: Buddy Guy, Steven Van Zandt, Tony Bennet, Steven Tyler, funkster George Clinton, Wayne Kramer (MC5), Quincy Jones, Martin Scorsese, Slash, the Black Eyed Peas' Taboo, a couple of Nevilles, and New Mexico poet Joy Harjo. Rhiannon Giddens leads a memorable front-porch jam session.

Bainbridge (a producer most of her career) and Maiorana (a cameraman) never make a false move. They are respectful of the culture. They compose riveting images. Their narrative flows effortlessly, with seamless transitions. They dig out fascinating facts. They let the music do much of the talking. In sum, this is an elegant elegy with a haunting undercurrent, a profound story that has long gone untold, at least in such a comprehensive fashion.

The filmmakers dig deep to tell the stories of some unsung performers: Jesse Ed Davis, a troubled man who played lead guitar with Jackson Browne and John Lennon, before drugs did him in at age 43, and Randy Castillo, a dynamic drummer for Ozzy Osbourne and Motley Crue, who died at 51 of cancer. Castillo's spiritual connection to his home state of New Mexico -- brought home by a friend, the guitarist Stevie Salas -- makes for deeply moving images.

"Rumble" starts with a twang and ends with a whimper. Like "20 Feet From Stardom" and "The Wrecking Crew," it shines a spotlight on both pioneers and unheralded sidemen. It is 103 minutes of joy.

THE SUNSHINE MAKERS (C) - This run-of-the-mill documentary tells the story of Nicholas Sand and Tim Scully, an odd couple who became notorious manufacturers of LSD in the '60s and '70s.

Newcomer Cosmo Feilding-Mellen takes a rote approach, relying on purported archival video of Sand, Scully and their cohorts, as well as trite stock footage of things like suspects being handcuffed and telephones ringing. Without that, he's stuck with two rather boring men reliving their heyday as the toast of Haight-Ashbury.

We watch Sand, now a heavy-set man, do naked yoga and tell tall tales, mostly about the numerous women he seduced over the decades. Frankly, some his stories come off as ... enhanced. Sand's hedonism is contrasted with the relatively monastic life of Scully, a classic chem nerd, who describes eating the same dinner for 30 years and performs a whiteboard mapping of the process for making LSD.

There is so much potential here, but the filmmaker never truly taps into the groove of the hippie era. Visual tricks paper over the lack of substance that takes this to Dullsville too often. Even the insider intrigue -- the pair were both financed and double-crossed by a trust-funder named Billy Hitchcock, whose writings are voiced by an actor but who, understandably, doesn't appear on camera or otherwise participate.

It is kind of fun to see dowdy old ladies in their 70s describe their carefree days of sex and drugs. And the men seem truly devoted to their utopian mission to turn on the world, one hit of Orange Sunshine at a time. Their story just didn't end up in the right hands.

BONUS TRACKS
The power chord that set rock 'n' roll apart, Link Wray with "Rumble," live in 1998:

Jesse Ed Davis with his solos in "Doctor My Eyes," a song that creeped me out when I heard it around age 9 on the radio at a cousin's birthday party. The good parts kick in at 1:47 and 2:28.


  

Davis and poet John Trudell with "Silent Lightning," from their late '70s collaboration before Davis died from drug use at age 43:



Davis laying down the groove for Taj Mahal's "Take a Giant Step":

Quirk, Part 2: Arrested Development

BRIGSBY BEAR (A-minus) - There's a fine line between charming and cloying. The men behind "Brigsby Bear" somehow skip effortlessly along that line, and the movie is never less than winning.

Kyle Mooney ("Saturday Night Live"), who came up with the story and wrote the screenplay with pal Kevin Costello, stars as James Pope, a 20-something newly released from a lifelong confinement in a compound at the hands of a couple who he thought were his parents (Mark Hamill and Jane Adams, both a sight for sore eyes) but who really stole him from the maternity ward and raised him in a remote outpost. The family observed odd rituals -- like those in '60s oddball sitcoms such as "The Addams Family" and "My Favorite Martian" -- such as formally shaking hands before sitting down to dinner. In a bizarre form of mind control, his parents created a weekly cartoon series centered on an improbably heroic space traveler, cuddly Brigsby Bear, dispensed Maoist allegorical guidance, mostly designed to brainwash the boy into subservience ("Curiosity is an unnatural emotion!") and provided James with a complex serial to obsess over -- manna to any adolescent boy.

James is rescued and returned to his suburban roots -- his birth parents (another winning couple, Michaela Watkins and Matt Walsh (from HBO's "Veep") and his slacker teenage sister, Aubrey (a delightfully dour Ryan Simkins). Sis grudgingly invites him to a party, where he struggles to fit in (and falls victim to a mystery pill) but eventually bonds with Spencer (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), who looks cool but turns out to be a nerdy fellow traveler. Turns out James, in his childish Brigsby T-shirt and scruff of beard, looks not clueless but like a typical millennial hipster.) Spencer and a few others sample copies from the voluminous Brigsby VHS archives, uploading some episodes to YouTube, planting the seeds of an underground cult classic.

Spencer is a wannabe filmmaker, and soon he and James are filming a Brigsby movie, based on James' screenplay and storyboards. They score some props from the police evidence room, courtesy of a sympathetic cop, Det. Vogel (Greg Kinnear, pitch-perfect, as usual), who himself has a geek side and an unscratched acting itch.

That's a fairly neat set-up, and it is executed cleanly by director Dave McCory (a fellow "SNL" staff writer), who gets a lot of small things just right, such as the way that James -- a lovable innocent descended from Chauncey Gardner and Mork from Ork -- types tortured sentences and thank-you's into a Google search bar. The filming of the Brigsby movie is a shoestring affair, and McCory's project itself is an adorably ramshackle ode to unhip outcasts but is never ragged or mawkish.

Not much is explored regarding the incredible trauma James endured. Claire Danes (can she really be 38?) does offer a fine turn as James' frustrated and often incredulous therapist unable to manufacture an emotional breakdown. This certainly could have been a much darker movie; but it's not. Instead, this is an appealing flight of fancy about a man-child's obsession with the only origin story he has known, his unique way of reconciling that trauma. It's also a touching ode to non-traditional family structures.

The case earnestly brings this home, especially Kinnear and that sideways smile of his. "SNL" big brother Andy Samberg (a producer here) nails a quick cameo as a fellow patient in a mental ward. And Kate Lyn Sheil ("Kate Plays Christine") is mesmerizing as the actress who got corralled to play space twins in the original Brigsby series and who now toils as a waitress in a diner. Sheil perfectly captures the wholesome appeal of that Princess Leia fantasy figure, with eyes that connect deeply with her smitten fanboy.

Easily dismissed as a trifle, "Brigsby Bear" carries a heartfelt message and is held together by Mooney's commitment to the conceit. It's a labor of love about a labor of love.

Quirk, Part 1: Marital Aid

BAND AID (B) - Zoe Lister-Jones came up with a great premise, and she takes it as far as the limits of twee indie filmmaking will allow her. The writer-director plays Anna, a 30-something trapped in a dull, bickering marriage with Ben (Adam Pally), having endless spats about sex and those dishes that pile up in the sink with the artfully dripping faucet.

As a way out of the rut, she suggests that they set their anger to music -- singing their fights. They dust off a bass and guitar and head to the garage to plug in and sound off. They recruit their goofy neighbor Dave (Fred Armisen) to play drums. (Armisen drummed in the Chicago band Trenchmouth in the '90s before finding fame on "Saturday Night Live" and "Portlandia.")

The couple grow closer, as the shared project (name the Dirty Dishes) gives them a common goal, and they get good enough to book a few gigs. That is, after a disastrous open-mic debut where Anna inadvisedly mixes booze and a tranquilizer and act loopy, all cute like they do in the movies. It's one of the movie's several self-aware missteps that make the viewer aware that they are watching a Sundance-branded and precious indie film.

Those quibbles aside, "Band Aid" is smart and often laught-out-loud funny. Lister-Jones (as detected in her previous writing efforts "Lola Versus" and "Breaking Upwards") knows how to tell a story efficiently, and she has a keen ear for interactions between the sexes. And with two blow-job cracks in the first five minutes, we know she's no wallflower -- though we are put on notice early on that the players are straining to be sassy and provocative.

Lister-Jones and Pally sync really well, and he has a derivative physical appeal that brings to mind Paul Rudd mixed with Seth Rogen. Some of the dialogue looks improvised, such as when he clamps a slice of pizza into a harmonica brace and savors a bit that's "Tom Petty" delicious. (Eating pizza, for him, rivals sex.)

The secret weapon here is Armisen, who is always funny to us, but whose reputation baffles others. Dave's comedic reveal is that he's a nerd who nonetheless lives with outrageously beautiful women, and that they co-habitate platonically as they all recover from sex addictions. Armisen brings an improv zing to his scenes with the co-stars, stealthily using his subtle manic energy to take the comedy to the fringes.

But the film gets overly mannered toward the end, as the giant elephant in the room (an overused emotional conflict endemic to young couples in movies) turns overwrought. Susie Essman (HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm") shows up as Ben's mother to dispense, in ways economic for plot development, a hunk of Wise Elder advice. The ending feels both insightful and a little too neat. As a rule, though, "Band Aid," like its co-stars, is funny and charming.

BONUS TRACK
The appealing trailer, with one of Armisen's best bits, about the band Dave used to play in:


 

One-Liners: Psych Rock

SOME KIND OF MONSTER (2004) (A-minus) - Put a metal band on a psychiatrist's couch and you get a miasma of neuroses and rock-star arrogance. Here, then, more than a decade ago, was Metallica, unplugged and unmasked.

Metal gods James Hetfield (guitar, vocals) and Lars Ulrich (drums) do their best Lennon-McCartney impressions from "Let It Be," persistently pushing each other's buttons and making you wonder how they ever formed a band to begin with. As the band enters the studio to begin work on a new album, Hetfield teeters on the brink of a breakdown, testing the patience of Ulrich, who takes gum-snapping to epic heights. It would take a year to finish laying down the tracks for "St. Anger," released in 2003.

Chiming in as the voice of reason is longtime producer Bob Rock, who stepped in as studio bassist after the band lost Jason Newsted in a fallout. Mostly on the sidelines is guitarist Kirk Hammett, who represents either the George Harrison character or the child of feuding parents. Hammett's simpleton demeanor must make Ulrich pull his hair out at other times.

The great hook here is Phil, the band's "personal enhancement coach," charging them tens of thousands of dollars a month for some group therapy sessions that serve only to drive Ulrich further up a wall. To note the obvious, comparisons to "This Is Spinal Tap," the mockumentary released 20 years before this, are unavoidable. This is juicy fly-on-the wall stuff, from their group lyric-writing sessions -- like high school freshmen with their spiral notebooks and pedantic rhyme schemes -- to failed vocal experiments.

The boys live cloyingly bourgeois soccer-dad lifestyles. Ulrich is an obnoxious art snob. (He comes off as both a prickly know-it-all and a practical bullshit detective.) Hammett is Jeff Spicoli at middle age. And Hetfield, after returning from his months-long dry-dock, can't make the simplest of recording decisions without worrying about the smallest of "triggers" that might lead to a relapse. He is both achingly human and wildly insufferable.

Veteran documentarians Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky leave no stone unturned, deftly knitting this together in a surprisingly snappy 2 hours 21 minutes. They eventually corral Dave Mustaine for a cameo -- he was the original lead guitarist who was unceremoniously dumped over substance-abuse issues and 20 years later was still waiting for an explanation and apology. (He went on to form rival Megadeth.) We also see the auditioning of bassists, leading to the hiring of the manic Robert Trujillo for the subsequent tour. (The multimillion-dollar package they offer him is straight out of a Fortune 500 portfolio.)

This is juicy stuff, an inside peek at the cartoonish life of pompous rock stars. Not to be missed.

WE ARE X (C) - This moody documentary about the insanely popular metal band from Japan is an unfortunate downer, which is understandable, considering the history of the group.

Unable to capture the Beatlemania spark that made them legends and would have elevated this to watchable, director Stephen Kijak doodles with camera flourishes and dawdles with story lines that lead to dead ends. Instead, we're treated to ponderous profiles of moderately interesting pop stars, interspersed with preparations for X Japan's comeback show at Madison Square Garden.

The big gun is Yoshiki, a rock legend of Lennonesque proportions, the Muppet-like drummer who needs to wear a neck brace when he plays and who collapses like James Brown at the end of every show. (His shtick is probably only partially showbiz and otherwise attributable to a lifelong asthma affliction.) Lead singer Toshi gives Journey's Steve Perry a run for his money when it comes to belting out over-the-top anthems.

Despite or because of their rabid popularity, these sensitive guys swirl through vortexes of depression. If you don't know the fate of the band members over the years -- and I didn't -- don't ruin it; it's quite chilling, as the film spirals deeper into darkness in the second half.

Yoshiki, a lifelong spiritual seeker haunted by the childhood trauma of his father's suicide, comes off as a major talent. He takes a detour into composing, drawing on his experience as a piano prodigy before rock stardom. He's a decent subject to build a movie around. But Kijak never finds the right hooks, choosing instead to wallow in new-age wankery.
 

New to the Queue

Turn, turn, turn ...

A renowned architect falls ill and gets trapped in a small Indiana town where he befriends a young woman, an architecture enthusiast who works at the local library, in "Columbus."

Destin Daniel Cretton and Brie Larson follow up "Short Term 12" with an adaptation of the memoir about a dysfunctional family, "The Glass Castle."

Aubrey Plaza ("The To-Do List," "Safety Not Guaranteed") looks like she's having fun as an internet stalker in "Ingrid Goes West."

The boys are back -- director Michael Winterbottom and stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon -- for another round of fooding, brooding, and Michael Caine-offs, "The Trip to Spain."

Steven Soderbergh is back, and he's got Riley Keough and Katherine Waterston with him in the pulpy "Logan Lucky."

A chubby white girl aspires to be a big-time rap star in "Patti Cakes."
 

Monogamy in Mono

THE LOVERS (C+) - It's difficult to pin down what this is or what it wanted to be. The previews make it look like a screwball comedy -- a middle-aged couple, cheating on each other, rediscovery their attraction to each other -- but it's dour and downbeat, and in the end it unravels unconvincingly.

Debra Winger and Tracey Letts are refreshingly frumpy as the aging spouses, Mary and Michael, getting their kicks elsewhere while sleepwalking through their domestic routines. He has a kittenish dancer on the side, Lucy (Melora Walters), and she found a hunk with an accent and a full head of hair, Robert (Aiden Gillen).

Hectored by their respective lovers, Mary and Michael -- after too much throat clearing in the plot -- dive back into their own passionate affair. Now it is they who are exchanging cheeky texts and lying their way out of trysts with Lucy and Robert. It's a cute set-up. But it doesn't have a logical place to go.

So enter the final piece of the puzzle: their son Joel (Tyler Ross), who is coming home for a visit with his girlfriend, Erin (Jessica Sula), even though he openly despises his parents and is disgusted by their sham of a marriage. Joel is the apparent stand-in for writer-director Azazel Jacobs, because Jacobs thinks the Joel angle is so fascinating that it dominates the film's final reel. But why would most of us care what their son thinks about their marriage? Why is that interesting?

Jacobs, the son of an experimental filmmaker, appears to be tiptoeing into the mainstream after a pair of arch dark comedies the past decade, "Momma's Man" (2008) and "Terri" (2011). Here he is aiming for dramatic heft, and he has Winger and Letts approach the material in a lethargic, low-key mode, as if he filmed them at normal speed and then slowed it down in post-production. They pause before they speak, which probably isn't that unusual in real life, but on the big screen you suspect that the lead characters might be having a mild stroke.

It's an apparent stab at profundity, but it misses the mark. Lucy and Robert are barely fleshed out, and even Mary and Michael have endless amounts of free time, even during the work week.

Everything is surprisingly sedate. Letts has a nice moment toward the end with young Erin, reminiscing about the man he was when he met Mary, but by that point, with the son having inexplicable hissy fits about his parents' various degrees of fidelity, you just want this wrapped up.

When it does end, after 97 minutes, the tidiness of the resolution -- with a bit of a twist on a twist -- is too convenient, as if the studio ordered it pinned onto the final cut. It's fun to see Winger and Letts, a couple of aging boomers, sink their teeth into their respective roles. Unfortunately, Jacobs doesn't offer them, or the viewers, much meat to feast on.

BONUS TRACK
The climactic song is from Labi Siffre, a British singer-songwriter and poet, his 1972 tune "It Must Be Love," which sounds like a Brian Wilson composition when it starts out:

Madness had a Top 40 hit with it a decade later; Siffre showed up for a cameo in the video:


 

The Noir Chronicles

It's the annual Film Noir festival at the Guild Cinema, always a cool, dark refuge from the heat of the dog days of summer. Here's a sampling:

THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955) (B) - The first half of a Humphrey Bogart double feature was this William Wyler treatise on class divisions in Eisenhower-era America, as Bogey leads a three-man gang who takes a nuclear family hostage in its neat suburban home, lying low after a robbery.

Too long by at least 20 minutes (it pushes the two-hour mark), this one nonetheless holds your attention with a crisp, modern look and a haggard late-era Bogey, finding some depth in the role of ring-leader Glenn Griffith bossing around his brother, Hal (Dewey Martin), and frumpy Sam (Robert Middleton) while terrorizing Dan Hilliard (Frederic March), wife Ellie (Martha Scott) and their two kids, cute teenage daughter Cindy (Mary Murphy) and Beav-like scamp Ralphie (Richard Eyer).

The film is essentially one big idiot plot -- Glenn and the boys are waiting for his moll to bring them some money to grease their escape, but there's no reason for them to tolerate her delays in arriving. Wyler (coming off "Roman Holiday") is always in control, attacking the creature comforts of '50s suburbia and the fragility of the "Father Knows Best" facade. Middleton, especially, brings a quiet menace, especially around Cindy, who is still testing out her newfound feminine powers.

Leave it to Bogart, though, in his penultimate performance, to keep it anchored and real.

CONFLICT (1945) (B) - Bogey covets his wife's sister, to the point of murdering his spouse in order to clear the way for the new romance. This is classic noir, with the leading man in the middle of a run of '40s hits between earlier fare like "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon" and later roles in "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" and "The Big Sleep."

Here he is surrounded by statuesque Rose Hobart as his wife Kathryn and smoldering Alexis Smith as the lingering sister, Evelyn. Also on hand is the great Sydney Greenstreet, the conscience of the film who seems to pop up at convenient times.

Architect Richard Mason (Bogart) milks a leg injury to lull Kathryn into a false sense of security. He ambushes her on a winding road and conveniently covers up the crash site. Free to pursue Evelyn, he comes across as a creep, but he's got a shot.

But suspicions grow, Bogie begins to lose his cool, and the clues begin to slowly add up. Hollywood code won't let him get away with it, but it's fun watching him twist while the heat closes in.

SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (1960) (B) - We caught only half of the Francois Truffaut double feature. We wished it had been the other half ("The Bride Wore Black").

This is the epitome of French drollery, with the suave Charles Aznavour portraying Charlie Kohler, a former piano prodigy toiling in obscurity in a dive bar, where he gets caught up in the nefarious doings of gangsters, involving his young brother. Lovely Lena (Marie Dubois) is a waitress who is attracted to Charlie, who is haunted by the death of his wife. Other beautiful women come and go, including Nicole Berger and Michele Mercier.

Rough-and-tumble alternates with quintessential New Wave larks. The black-and-white cinematography is arresting. But the story drags and meanders. Aznavour is slight and brooding, and he can carry a story. At a brisk 81 minutes, this is more of a curiosity than a classic.

THE FILE ON THELMA JORDON (1950) (C+) - Barbara Stanwyck is a legend of noir. But even she can't save this sloppy potboiler about a scheming woman and a philandering assistant district attorney who get caught up in each other's troubled lives.

Director Robert Siodmak ("Criss Cross" and "The Killers" from last year's fest) just can't wrangle this incoherent story, and his leading man doesn't do him any favors. Thelma (Stanwyck) gets mixed up with an assistant prosecutor, Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey), who is vulnerable while he drinks away thoughts of his wife and family at home (and his meddling father-in-law). Thelma lures him into a scheme involving Thelma's designs on the estate of her ailing aunt.

This one is more confusing than intriguing, and there never seems to be anything of significance on the line. The middle drags, and Siodmak doesn't need a full 100 minutes to unravel this plot, as convoluted as it gets. Corey is a big dud as a leading man, and the compelling Stanwyck has little to work with. She is stuck with a weak story and a lame co-star.

(You can find this one online, here on YouTube.)

BONUS TRACK
Bobby LaPointe with "Framboise," a diversion in "Shoot the Piano Player":


 

Los Lobos

A WOLF AT THE DOOR (A-minus) - This potboiler takes a harrowing view of a love triangle, with a child victimized by the poor behavior of adults.

The debut from Brazilian writer-director Fernando Coimbra thrums with tension and sexual intrigue from beginning to end. A little girl goes missing, and it doesn't take long for police to suspect a woman who has inserted herself into the marriage between Bernardo (Milhem Cortaz) and Sylvia (Fabiula Nascimento). Told in scattered flashback style and partly under the guise of a police procedural, "A Wolf at the Door" has a gritty feel and a lurid camera style.

Coimbra captures the loveless nature of the marriage around the middle of the film in a bedroom scene of bitterness and resentment. But throughout, he manages to mine the sexual frisson between Bernardo and the younger Rosa (Leandra Leal, at 33 a veteran of Brazilian TV). Red-headed Rosa possesses the sultriness of Melanie Griffith and the cutesy innocence of Molly Ringwald.

But she not only seduces the oafish Bernardo, but, when feeling betrayed by him, she takes on an alter-ego to befriend Sylvia and their daughter. Rosa assures the police that little Clarinha is fine and was merely the pawn in a petty act of revenge. Toss in the scene-chewing Thalita Carauta as Betty, who either is using Rosa to get at the couple herself or is another unwitting pawn of Rosa's, and this has the delightful mix of a sweaty soap opera.

Coimbra jumps around in time and shifts perspectives to alter the narrative from the view of different characters, and soon you're not sure if anyone is really telling the truth. Is Sylvia also cheating on Bernardo? Is Rosa a confused victim herself or a cold-blooded kidnapper? The three leads are convincing, as is Juliano Cazare as a world-weary police detective squeezing the truth out of them.

The twists and turns are gripping, and Coimbra has a visual style that is voyeuristic, shooting through window framings and doorways, and steaming up the screen with a couple of raw sex scenes. It all leads to a shocking ending that is as powerful as it is disturbing.

BONUS TRACK
The trailer:


 

A Little Whirl

Tobin Sprout made a stop in Albuquerque on his latest tour far from the spotlight of Guided By Voices, the band he helped found but which chugs along without him as a cult favorite under the thumb of the prolific and flamboyant Robert Pollard.

Sprout (above left), in his 60s now, resembles a Supreme Court justice* more than he does a rock star. But he  always was the thinking man's counter-point to Bob Pollard's drunken**, needy, microphone-twirling front-man of the various incarnations of GBV who shamelessly plays to fans' craving for nostalgia. I explained to a friend at the show last night that Sprout was either the Lennon to Pollard's McCartney or the McCartney to Pollard's Lennon. Make up your mind, my friend responded, because Lennon and McCartney are pretty different; it can't be both.

Can't it, though? Conventional wisdom considers McCartney the pop alternative to the brooding Lennon, but then how do you square "And Your Bird Can Sing" followed by "For No One" on "Revolver"? No, like the legendary Beatles that Pollard-Sprout warrants a comparison to, the boys from Dayton, Ohio, each showed a broad range of Beatleseque chops, though Sprout was more inclined to wallow in a minor key.***

Last night, Sprout proudly performed for a crowd of about 50 people, backed by bandmates roughly half his age, pushing his latest disc, "The Universe and Me" (his first in seven years). The band seems like it hasn't quite gelled yet. The drummer threw a stick during the first song and the bass player knocked over his own microphone during the second song. The lead guitarist knew his way around the familiar mosquito whine of a mid-'90s GBV song but he occasionally ran too far afield on his own. Sprout's solos were tighter and meatier.

The hour-plus set covered a range of time and melodies. Here's the pleasantly swirling GBV nugget "Jabberstroker":



The problem with Sprout fronting a rock band like this -- besides the comparisons to the arena-rock marathons that Pollard still leads to this day -- is that his music is so much more nuanced and subtle than you would expect to find being performed at a club in downtown Albuquerque on a Wednesday night in August. He is thoughtful and introspective, and his songs have a spider-web intricacy and a wistful tone. That stuff doesn't always blow the doors off a joint.

In fact, Sprout seems ambivalent about his place in the indie-music pantheon. About half of his set consists of his GBV songs and the other half solo material****, but he doesn't make a big deal out of it. The GBV tunes -- from both the classic era of the 1980s and '90s and the current decade's revival -- definitely got a rise out of the fanboys and -girls in attendance. We waltzed to "Awful Bliss," blissed out to the oldie "Gleemer," and pogo'd and shouted along to "It's Like Soul Man." He was a sport about doing requests on the spot, such as "To Remake the Young Flyer," from "Under the Bushes, Under the Stars," his and GBV's apex. A fan's request***** for an Airport 5 song was met with a knowing but dismissive side glance. Here is "Soul Man":



And here's another enthusiastic GBV two-fer, the show-ending "Little Whirl" ("I don't care anymore!") teamed with "A Good Flying Bird" ("Yeah! Yeah!)



Sprout gave the band a break and started his encore set with a chilling reading of a powerful Civil War lament, the beautifully written and haunting "Antietam":



There's always been a sadness to Sprout -- or at least his tunes -- that seemed appropriate at this thinly attended midweek venue in a mid-level city. But he seemed energized by the chance to tour behind his vast catalog and to be a rock star and a front man of a pop juggernaut. He doesn't crave the spotlight but he doesn't feel undeserving of it either.

Footnotes
* - Breyer, specifically.

** - Sprout nursed one Miller Lite throughout the show.

*** - Then again, maybe Sprout, whose output was always dwarfed by Pollard's, was the Harrison to Pollard's Lennon-McCartney. We could go on.

**** - Including such two-minute treats as "All Used Up" and his tribute to Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett, "The Last Man Well Known to Kingpin."

*****- OK, that was me making the request. He explained after the show that Bob sang all of the songs from those two turn-of-the-millennium collaborations in which they corresponded by mail, with Tobin providing music tracks and Pollard adding lyrics and vocals, though Tobin admitted having performed "War and Wedding" in the past. 

BONUS TRACKS
Veterans Elf Power opened for Sprout and made workmanlike progress through their XTC-inspired power pop, churning through "Everlasting Scream" for their finale (here live in their hometown of Athens, Ga.):



Airport 5, "War and Wedding":


 

Spam Poetry, No. 4

College Boy

 

Plates and

Dominique mottos

claim this,

obtained a restraining order.

Resolutely refused

the many academic

world wars

the memorial day

memorial.

Rest, relaxation

and gave an activity desk

to that company

as luck.

Comments would swan,

the star of albireo

fills these books

with hypertension.

I engage in such

scholarly activities.