Out of This World

BLACK PANTHER (C-minus) - We intentionally avoid super-hero movies, so we're not the best source here, but aren't they supposed to be fun? "Black Panther," an epic for the ages from the talented Ryan Coogler ("Fruitvale Station," "Creed"), is surprisingly dour and humorless. Chadwick Boseman is perfectly fine, if typically bland, as our hero, but it's Michael B. Jordan who adds all the sizzle as the rough-hewn brooder, N'Jadaka.

It's a heartening sentiment to suggest that a black culture in the heart of Africa, blessed with a rich natural resource and immune to outside forces, would forge a utopian world. And it's always aces when good wins out over evil. Coogler, a natural storyteller and powerful visual craftsman, merely plays with computer graphics and other silly toys for sequence after sequence of fantasy and cartoon violence. And check out the Wikipedia page's Plot section and tell me that whole narrative is not confusing as hell.

Coogler and the crew manage to tie the mythical Wakanda to modern-day social ills, but the overt suggestion that the kid from the Oakland streets (and abandoned by his father) is almost preternaturally corrupt and irreparably emotionally wounded comes off as unsettling, at the least. Luckily, the Good Guy has a way of returning from the dead at key plot points. (Did he cling to a branch after being hurled off a cliff?) Meantime, fancy fighter jets zip around and land on a dime, because they can do that in the movies. The women mostly stand around in service to the men and the needs of the narrative. And Martin Freeman seems tossed in as a CIA agent who is pressed into a little White Savior duty. Let's hope Coogler has gotten the Hollywood glitz out of his system and can go back to real life.

ISLE OF DOGS (B-minus) - Technically spectacular, this stop-action labor of love from beloved artiste Wes Anderson dog-paddles furiously to justify a raison d'etre. While I enjoyed it in the moment, it quickly fizzled from my memory. Maybe it's the animation, but it's not nearly as clever as Anderson's last such effort, "The Fantastic Mr. Fox."

As usual, Anderson meticulously crafts a unique world, this one dystopian; and here, it is a cadre of dogs who have been exiled to an island off Japan for health reasons embarking (sorry) on a "Green Beret"-like caper to rescue one of their own.  The detail in every frame can be breathtaking -- individual hairs in the dogs' fur flutter in the wind; expressions are human-like; contraptions are marvels of ingenuity.  There is so much detail included that the average viewer couldn't possibly take it all in. I alternated between a state of awe over the scrupulous production values and a state of frustration trying to decide if all that effort was worth it for a movie. It was for Anderson and his battalion (including an impressive array of voice talent, including many of Anderson's usual suspects), and I'm happy for them. Too often, though, this comes off as a retread, and art for art's sake.
 

Iron Curtain Classics

VIKTORIA (2016) (A-minus) - If you have the stamina, this two-and-a-half-hour droning drama about the fall of communism in Bulgaria -- centered on a "miracle" baby born without a belly button -- is one of the most gorgeous films you'll see. The debut from Maya Vitkova features a parade of stunning visuals and a gut-wrenching performance by Irmena Chichikova as the miserable of the spoiled child she never wanted in the first place.

Chichikova is Boryana, a brooding, moping woman who longs to escape the communist-bloc nation at the start of the film in 1979 and never gets over her disappointment of being trapped in Bulgaria. After a home-remedy abortion technique fails, she gives birth in 1980 to Viktoria, who is hailed by the government as a glorious symbol of the revolution because of her missing navel. Born at the same time is a club-footed boy whose life is forever twinned with Viktoria's, he being the red-headed stepchild in the eyes of the politburo. (The families are awarded apartments in a drab housing complex, and Viktoria's parents also get a little red clunker of a car.) Viktoria's bratty, entitled behavior will include constant bullying of the boy.

Fast-forward to 1989, and we meet Viktoria (Daria Vitkova), a snotty little princess who has a bat-phone linked directly to the party leader and who is chauffeured to school every day. Boryana is still miserable, the scorn in her eyes sharper and the bags under her eyes deeper. In a gorgeous sequence between the estranged mother and daughter, as the two part ways on a path, Viktoria is aged to her mid-teens (and played by Kalina Vitkova), now a more rounded character struggling with her loss of status after the fall of communism -- and developing some of the wanderlust that her mom has.

Boryana herself felt abandoned by her own mother, and she is hectored by a live-in mother-in-law. She simply has no use for any sort of family structure. One recurring theme involves Boryana's hatred of milk, likely not unrelated to her inability to nurse Viktoria. The story can be static and frustrating, but there's no denying the beauty and heartbreak painted onto every frame of the picture.

BONUS TRACK
The trailer hints at some of the mesmerizing camerawork by Vitkova and her cinematographer, Krum Rodriguez:


 

New to the Queue

... a bit of a dust-up ...

Two brothers return to the scene of the cult that they had escaped as teenagers, in "The Endless."

One of our favorite directors, Lynne Ramsay, shepherds a script from one of our favorite writers, Jonathan Ames (HBO's "Bored to Death"), starring a hit-and-miss lead (Joaquin Phoenix), for the pulpy "You Were Never Really Here."

Nonprofessional actors lend a documentary feel to Chloe Zhao's film about rodeo cowboys in South Dakota’s Sioux community, "The Rider."

Juliette Binoche stars in the latest exploration of female sexuality from Claire Denis, "Let the Sunshine In."

One of our favorites, Alia Shawkat, teams with Miguel Arteta ("Beatriz at Dinner") as co-writer and co-star in story about an intense 24-hour date, "Duck Butter."
 

A Flood of Memories

CASSETTE: A DOCUMENTARY MIX-TAPE (2016) (B) - A low-budget paean to the audio cassette, the genius at work here is the pilgrimage to the Netherlands to interview Lou Ottens, the Dutch engineer at Philips who took the old reel-to-real idea and condensed it into a compact case in the early 1960s. Ottens, who also was part of the team at Philips who invented the compact disc that helped shelved cassettes, shows no nostalgia but rather an appreciation for the evolution of ideas and technology. The Philips archives provide a wealth of supporting documentation here for the three-person production team.

Elsewhere, some of the usual suspects do wax nostalgic about the golden era of the mixtape, including Henry Rollins (not annoying at all here) and some rap and hip-hop old-schoolers who convey how crucial the distribution of mixtapes was back in the 1970s and '80s. Informative and charming.

THE GREAT FLOOD (2012)  (C+) - The wonderful guitarist Bill Frisell noodles his jazzy blues licks over archival footage of the massive Mississippi River flood of 1927. Bill Morrison, who would perfect his visual technique in "Dawson City: Frozen Time," creates a visual poem from the degraded nitrate stock that survived 85 years later. Lots of rushing currents and sand-bag crews. Morrison uses the project to make a point about racial inequality, letting the images indicate the unequal impact on blacks from Illinois down to Mississippi. The essentially silent film is surprisingly static, though. Frisell's songs tend to blend together, and the stray images too often feel scattered, even though Morrison curates them into categories. A final segment showing early blues masters -- including footage at Chicago's old Maxwell Street Market -- really suffers from a lack of audio; instead, we get a lazy cover version of "Old Man River."
 

The Road to Melville

Deux films de Jean-Pierre Melville:

LE SAMOURAI (1967) (B+) - A cool, handsome hired killer (Alain Delon) smolders through his days and nights in Melville's slick slow burn of a procedural. The screws twist slowly on stone-faced Jef Costello after a witness spots him leaving the scene of a shooting. Melville takes his time unwinding the sketchy plot. It's more about mood than narrative. Pretty gals aid Jef's cause. The colors are flatter than you'd expect from French cinema of the era; certainly grittier than Godard.

BOB LE FLAMBEUR (1956) (A-minus) - Bob the Gambler (Roger Duchesne) swaggers through the casinos and nightclubs of Paris in this early Melville effort in black and white. Bob headlines a complex plan to pull off a monumental casino heist. The femme fatale of the moment is the soft and pure Isabelle Corey. Bob, with his flowing white hair, has a recklessness about him that seems to portend doom. Melville explodes on the film scene with a verite style that revels in street scenes. Duchesne seems to sense that he is at the end of a long career, going for one last score along with his character.
  

RIP

Two from HBO ...

THE ZEN DIARIES OF GARRY SHANDLING (B+) - At a staggering four-and-a-half hours, this bloated character study from undisciplined fanboy Judd Apatow nonetheless provides a fascinating glimpse into the comedy and psyche of pioneering comedian and guru Garry Shandling. In the mode of HBO's "Montage of Heck," about Kurt Cobain, we delve deeply into the neuroses of an artist and performer.

Some of his disciples, including Sarah Silverman and Kevin Nealon, offer heartfelt insights, and peers like Bob Saget and Peter Tolan provide a bit of psychoanalysis, as does Linda Doucette, the former lover who sued Shandling after he fired her from "The Larry Sanders Show" as a response to their breakup. We feel the burden of the man who nearly single-handedly invented the millennial Golden Age of television, mainly through those diaries, which lay bare his insecurities through the self-help koans he scribbled throughout his life -- from Stuart Smalley-like aphorisms to devastating personal insights.

Shandling's brother died during childhood, and that painful experience -- which complicated the relationship with his parents, particularly a narcissistic mother -- provides a solid foundation for a narrative structure. There are plenty of clips of the comedian who, along with perhaps Albert Brooks, was arguably the funniest man of his generation. That there was heartbreak and fear underlying his art is no surprise.

KING IN THE WILDERNESS (B) - This standard two-hour documentary focuses on the final years of Martin Luther King (assassinated 50 years ago this month) and the frustrations he experienced in pursuing is seemingly outdated nonviolent peace movement during a rapidly evolving Black Power era and while his supposed civil-rights ally, President Johnson, was getting bogged down in a horrible war in southeast Asia.

The documentary humanizes King in some ways but continues the mythologizing in others. Stokely Carmichael is put forth as his key rival. Harry Belafonte and Andrew Young figure here as key talking heads. Director Peter W. Kunhardt ("Nixon by Nixon") does a workmanlike job. His choice of footage can be inspired at times. (It's difficult not to be moved by the sight of MLK Sr. wailing over his son's casket.) Nothing spectacular here, but a valiant attempt at bringing nuance to the King story on the 50th anniversary of the man's death.

Getting By

MR. ROOSEVELT (B+) - Noel Wells makes an assured feature debut as writer/director/star in this quirky hipster romp about a disaffected 20-something returning to the Austin scene and her ex-boyfriend to tend to her dying cat. Wells is disaffected Emily -- bored with her advertising job, conflicted about a comedy career (and YouTube popularity), and emotionally invested in her old cat, Mr. Roosevelt. She sort of just moved to L.A. one day, leaving Mr. Roosevelt and Eric (Nick Thune) behind. Eric now has a perfect new girlfriend, Celeste (Britt Lower), and has dumped his boho musician lifestyle in favor of studying real estate and letting Celeste make over him and his house.

Wells and Thune have fine chemistry. And Daniella Pineda, as an Austin waitress who befriends Emily, nearly steals the show with a rock star's presence. But Wells holds it all together with sharp humor and emotional grit -- offering up yet another millennial entry in the "Garden State" sweepstakes. Wells gets the little things near perfect (her return to Austin was so hurried that she brought only one childish outfit), and the ensemble cast is hard to resist.

QUEST (B) - This solid but unspectacular documentary follows a black family eking out a living in northern Philadelphia during the Obama years. Newcomer Jonathan Olshefski spent years with Christopher "Quest" Rainey and his family and friends, reserving judgment and merely presenting their story.

Quest is a devoted husband and father, and he mentors young rappers through his hardscrabble production studio. His wife, Christine'a, works in the medical field, and together they bring up a daughter, P.J., and Christine'a's older son who is battling cancer and raising a newborn of his own. P.J. is the symbol of hope, a teenager good at sports but awkward socially. When a street shooting touches the family, you see firsthand how urban violence has a human impact. But Olshefski keeps things low-key and doesn't grasp at Big Themes, instead letting the eventful-yet-uneventful goings-on of a typical American family play out over the long haul.