New to the Queue

... and holding ...

Lynn Shelton ("Humpday," "Your Sister's Sister") switches Duplass brothers and gives a lead role to Jay, teaming with Edie Falco, for the story about an ex-con adjusting to society for the first time as an adult, "Outside In."

We're not ready to quit Wes Anderson yet. He returns to stop-action animation ("The Fantastic Mr. Fox") with the dystopian "Isle of Dogs."

Laurent Cantet ("The Class") returns to an adolescent academic setting with a drama about students doing a group exercise with a novelist, "The Workshop."

Chinese students navigate life in the United States while attending a private college in Maine, the documentary "Maineland."

Fifty years on, a documentary about the final years in the life of MLK, "King in the Wilderness."

A "a warts-and-all examination of extended grief," the debut feature "Love After Love."
 

That '70s Drift: Cons

The more things change ...

WUSA (1970) (C) - Look out; here come the Seventies. The high of the Sixties starts to curdle in this Nixonian psychodrama about an alcoholic drifter settling in a seedy New Orleans and selling his soul at a right-wing radio station that promotes patriotism and conspiracy theories. Paul Newman lends mainstream cred to the counter-culture as gruff Reinhardt, who seems to have no ambitions beyond getting laid and getting a paycheck. Geraldine (Joanne Woodward) helps him with the first part, and creepy Bingamon (Pat Tingle) bankrolls the second.

Anthony Perkins plays Rainey, a somewhat addled photographer and census-taker purporting to working undercover to unravel WUSA's nefarious plot against people of color. It's hard to tell, though, from Perkins' bizarre portrayal, whether Rainey is heroic or mentally ill. The apparent white-power scheme is difficult to decipher, and Paul Newman's disengaged performance doesn't help. Shaky southern accents abound. Reinhardt takes up with some hippies. A climactic rally, where a gunshot rings out, comes off as stagy in the hands of director Stuart Rosenberg (re-teaming with Newman three years after "Cool Hand Luke"). You can sense the seeds of that '70s drift -- what would, in surer hands, emerge in classics like "Play Misty for Me" and "Nashville." But this one is too often a sluggish mess and has limited appeal even in our current neo-fascist revival phase.

PAPER MOON (1973) (B+) - Tatum O'Neal steals the show with a stunning debut in Peter Bogdanovich's valentine to Depression-era grifters. Tatum and dad Ryan O'Neal portray an odd couple (she may or may not be his illegitimate child) scamming their way through the heartland. Bogdanovich shoots in velvety black-and-white and pays fine attention to period detail. (The era he is portraying is closer in time to the movie's release than we are now to the movie.) Ringers like Madeline Kahn (as "dancer" Trixie Delight) and John Hillerman (in a dual role as brothers) help broaden the humor with a dollop of vaudeville.

Tatum O'Neal is a natural as Addie, reclining in bed while lighting up a cigarette and listening to Jack Benny. Ryan O'Neal is charming in a flat '70s way as Moses Pray, the Bible salesman scamming newly minted widows door-to-door. High jinks ensue -- Kahn steals the middle third of the movie -- and the bond between Moze and Addie deepens into mutual respect. Bogdanovich, playing during the heyday of Paramount pictures, engages in a labor of love, producing an instant classic.

BONUS TRACK
"Paper Moon's" title track:


 

Whatever It Takes

Young women conniving and thriving:

THOROUGHBREDS (B) - This thriller, about two young women who bond over a murder plot, boasts confidence and strong performances, but it's not convincing as a realistic story. Amanda (Olivia Cooke) and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) awkwardly try to bond again in Lily's Connecticut mansion as Amanda tries to re-acclimate to society after the mercy killing of her horse, which branded her as a pariah. Lily hates her step-dad, who comes off as coarse and creepy. Amanda is emotionally numb and blank-faced, while Lily puts on a perky face.

The slow burn here is a bit undercooked, but the actresses play off each other sharply in this debut feature from Cory Finley. This is entertaining enough across 92 minutes, and the slow twist about what's really happening in Lily's home is clever. But in the end there is something insubstantial, even theatrical about this genre exercise.

ROSETTA (1999) (A-minus) - The Dardenne brothers burst on the scene with this harrowing, brutal examination of the life of an underclass young woman struggling to get by with a drunkard of a mother in an unforgiving world. Rosetta (Emilie Dequenne) is plain-looking and prone to emotional outbursts. When she finds a boy who reaches out to her, she is like a wild animal, unable to forge an emotional connection. She's obsessed with finding and keeping a job, if only to send her mother to rehab. The Dardennes establish their shaky, over-the-shoulder style and they introduce a raw manner of storytelling that would flourish in harried cinema verite gems like "L'Enfant," "The Son" and "The Kid With a Bike." This one can be rough to sit through, but Dequenne cuts a compelling figure.
 

Crises

BRAD'S STATUS (C+) - We are big fans of Mike White, and he has a wonderful touch with stories centered around struggling women: "The Good Girl," "Beatriz at Dinner" and HBO's "Enlightened." Here, he puts forth a midlife crisis of a do-gooder mensch with a perfectly fine life -- cute, understanding wife and brilliant son who is headed off to college. But the voices in his head tell him that he doesn't measure up, to either his uber-successful former college buddies or to the potential of his own son.

Ben Stiller mopes through the proceedings, whining in endless voice-overs about the injustices raining down on a 47-year-old with a bounty of riches, even if they are not all monetary (and even if some of the riches come from his in-laws). His old buddies, often depicted living it up in simplistic montages, have snubbed him to the point of not inviting him to one of their weddings, a rebuff that Brad just can't let go of. But one of the pals (Michael Sheen) comes through for Brad when he needs a Yale alum to put in a good word for Brad's music-prodigy son, Troy (Austin Abrams, whose mumbling millennial manner provides the only fresh take among a talented cast). The twist here is that Troy seems to have his act together while Brad is a tightly packed ball of resentments.

Despite the hurdles that White sets up for viewers seeking entertainment, Brad does have qualities that a middle-aged white guy can identify with, exemplified in Brad's brief, innocent flirtation with one of Troy's female friends. But any substantive ideas put forth here are scattered and conflicting. In the end, Brad doesn't have it so bad, and we don't need to be lectured about his midlife angst.

DOUBLE LOVER (B-minus) - Francois Ozon, the best pound-for-pound storyteller in film today, fumbles an adaptation of a Joyce Carol Oates short story and turns in the least affecting movie of his two-decade feature career. He once again taps Marine Vacth, from his 2014 release "Young & Beautiful," now in her mid-20s, to play Chloe, a paranoid woman who is tormented by her boyfriend's evil twin (both are played by Jeremie Renier).

This is a fairly pat horror film that comes not so much a twist as a gradual 180-degree rotation throughout the tense 107-minute running time. Is Chloe being deceived about her boyfriend's true nature? Why is she indulging her basest desires with his brother?

Ozon barely makes this worth viewing. He still knows how to have fun with a narrative. And Vacth, like in "Young & Beautiful," uses her steely, boyish model attractiveness to lure the viewer into the story. Grand dame Jacqueline Bisset turns up toward the end to effect a key plot swerve, but not in time to rescue this pulpy plaything from being only slightly above average.
 

New to the Queue

Drip, drip, drip ...

Armando Iannucci, who brought us the brilliant dark political satires "In the Loop" and HBO's "Veep," takes on the Soviet Union in "The Death of Stalin."

Charlotte Rampling draws us to the mopey drama "Hannah." 

A pair of snarky teens engage in a destructive friendship in the debut feature "Thoroughbreds."

A disillusioned single woman in Tokyo dons a blond wig and takes on an American persona, whereupon she falls for her hunky English instructor in "Oh Lucy!"