Polemics

BLACKkKLANSMAN (B-minus) - This disappointing missed opportunity is a scattershot attack at racism, yet another Spike Lee joint that makes you miss the '90s. What are we to make of the cartoonish depictions of bumbling klansmen in Colorado Springs in 1972, or of a racist couple canoodling in bed, romantically rhapsodizing about realizing their dreams of defeating the inferior races? Such scenes are lost in the gulf between parody and ham-handed revisionist history.

Lee's heart is in this, but he undercuts his polemic with amateurish flourishes. The screenplay (by Lee as part of a committee, interpreting a memoir by officer Ron Stallworth) could have been written by a college freshman overdosing on Wikipedia entries, as clunky as the historical references get. The echoes between past and present are notable, but Lee, never one for subtlety, nudges the viewer in the ribs constantly. He does himself no favors with a final flourish of real-life news clips from the 2017 Charlottesville riot instigated by white supremacists; his quaint period piece looks simplistic by comparison.

John David Washington is rather drab as Stallworth, a black police officer who engages none other than David Duke over the phone, seeking to infiltrate the klan. The department sends in a fellow detective (Adam Driver) to stand in for Stallworth. Driver struggles to find the right tone as a Jew tossing around the n-word with this basket of deplorables. A trite love story also ensues -- gee, will the cute gal get peeved when she finds out Stallworth infiltrated the Black Power movement, too? Everyone involved here looks like they are grappling with Lee's shifts in tone, like a jazz combo without enough practice. Lee might want to just acknowledge that his greatest strength during the second half of his career lies in documentary filmmaking ("When the Levees Broke," "4 Little Girls") and not in two-hour-plus features overstuffed with undercooked ideas.

AMERICAN SOCIALIST (C+) - This paint-by-numbers biography of turn-of-the-century lefty Eugene V. Debs is useful if you don't know much about the man. This is what you would expect to see in a freshman survey course of socialism. Director Yale Strom frames the story with Debs' stints in prison, early on for trade union activities and later for speech violations during World War I. The diehard ran for president several times, peaking at 6 percent of the vote in 1912. Strom hits the highlights here.
  

The Uplift

WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR (A-minus) - It's just a matter of timing as to how and when you'll be brought to tears by this faithful examination of the life of Fred Rogers, the mastermind behind the beloved PBS children's show. Director Morgan Neville, who last yanked our heartstrings with "20 Feet From Stardom," packs an emotional punch with this examination of the too-good-to-be-true children's show host.

Members of the "Mr. Rogers" troupe have nothing but positive things to say. Credit to Neville for at least including the fact that the pioneering black cast member was kept in the closet by the host's fear of exposing kids to homosexuality. Sweet and bittersweet.

DON'T STOP BELIEVIN': EVERYMAN'S JOURNEY (2012) (B) - This is the heartwarming story of Arnel Pineda, who was an obscure cover-band singer in the Philippines before being discovered on YouTube by the members of Journey, who invited him to become an arena-rock legend. PBS veteran Ramona S. Diaz turns in a workmanlike biography of Pineda, exploring his roots (singing for his supper on the streets of Manila) and studying the effects of American superstardom on her sensitive subject.

A trip back to Pineda's hometown doesn't deliver the zip it should. There's nothing deep about this tale. The founders of Journey took a chance on a YouTube sensation, blessed him with riches, and the band is enjoying a resurgence in popularity. It worked out well for everyone. Pineda seems grateful, and he proved he belongs in the big show. Good for him.
 

Noir Chronicles II

A couple more from the Guild Cinema's annual Film Noir fest, plus a bonus track:

ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1951) (B) - Ida Lupino actually co-directed this noir classic with legendary director Nicholas Ray, and she stars as a woman caught between the cop investigating a murder and her brother, a suspect. Robert Ryan is solid as Jim Wilson, a big-city cop, suffering from burnout, who gets sent upstate to the boonies to investigate a local murder. There he falls for Lupino's Mary Malden, a blind woman seeking to protect her brother. A warmth slowly develops between Jim and Mary. A few corny touches detract from Ray's gritty camerawork, but Ryan and Lupino make it work in the end.

Spotted:  Nita Talbot (later the green-eyed guest star on "The Fugitive," "Mannix" and "Hogan's Heroes") as a drunken flirt in a bar.

CHOOSE ME (1984) (C+) - This artsy wank from Alan Rudolph ("Trouble in Mind") has not aged well. Early '80s poodle cuts clash with smooth Teddy Pendergrass slow jams, while Lesley Ann Warren and Keith Carradine age out of their '70s precociousness. The only things that qualify this as noir are the constant smoking, the movie-set hookers and neon signs outside of the hangout bar, and the incessant saxophone swirls (which apparently escaped from an old Billy Joel song) slithering around the soundtrack.

The plot is a combination of confusing and boring. Genevieve Bujold plays a radio sex therapist. One of her regular callers is Eve (Warren), the bar owners. One barfly is young flirty Pearl (Rae Dawn Chong, another key '80s marker), who struggles as a poet and fails in a marriage to an older man. Keith Carradine shows up as Mickey, a greaser with a shady past. He serially seduces the women to various degrees.

The artificial sets and the excessive chatting (often over the phone and mostly women whining about relationships) spill from Rudolph's male ego. What might have seemed edgy or avant-garde in 1984 now feels tacky.

Spotted: John Larroquette (on the brink of "Night Court") trying to be dramatic as a bartender named Billy Ace.

BONUS TRACK
THE LOST WEEKEND (1945) (A-minus) - Ray Milland is powerful in this classic from Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett about a failed writer plumbing the depths of a weekend bender. The usual Wilder snap to the dialogue is present, including some slang of the day. The banter between Milland's Don Birnam and his beleaguered gal-pal Helen St. James (Jane Wyman) also has the familiar crackle.

Wilder shoots in the streets and hallway of wartime New York City for a story that was ground-breaking at the time and still reverberates with the authenticity of addiction. A scene in which Birnam lands in a hospital's dry-dock with others suffering from the DTs is harrowing. The supporting cast is strong, too.  Doris Dowling (bearing a strong resemblance to Kathryn Hahn) smolders as the love-sick barfly lonely enough to give a drunk a pass just to cure her own loneliness  and desperation. This is another timeless picture from one of the all-time great filmmakers. 

Spotted: Frank Faylen (the father on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis") as the wise and wise-cracking nurse Bim in the DT ward.
  

New to the Queue

Coasting ...

Spike Lee's latest provocation looks like a fun romp through the 1970s, "BlackKklansman."

A slow-paced drama from Norway studies love and loss, "Gavagai."

Andrew Bujalski ("Computer Chess," "Results") returns with a slice of life about the working class, "Support the Girls."

A study of teens hanging out on the streets, the fact-fiction hybrid "Skate Kitchen."

A full-on documentary about skateboarders in Rockford, Ill., "Minding the Gap."
  

Family Reckonings

THE ENDLESS (A-minus) - This is the best philosophical time-travel buddy-movie mind-fuck since "Primer." Two brothers, who as teens had escaped from a cult their parents had dragged them to, receive a mysterious videotape from the cult and, at the urging of one of them, return to the cult's bucolic playground.

Justin Benson writes, stars and directs, along with co-star Aaron Moorhead, and the pair pull off a clever debut film. They play with time loops and sci-fi tricks. The ordinariness of the Heaven's Gate-like cult brings to mind the idea of the banality of evil. As IMDb puts it succinctly: "As the members prepare for the coming of a mysterious event, the brothers race to unravel the seemingly impossible truth before their lives become permanently entangled with the cult." This is a smart thriller.

IN THE FADE (C+) - Quite a mess and a disappointment, this is a run-of-the-mill revenge flick teaming striking lead actress Diane Kruger ("Farewell, My Queen") with onetime wunderkind Turkish-German director Fatih Akin, who has shown diminishing returns from "Head On" in 2004, to "The Edge of Heaven" in 2007, and "Soul Kitchen" in 2009.

Hopefully this is the bottom for Akin. He has little new to offer on the idea of a woman whose husband and child are killed and who goes on a mission to exact justice after being let down by the justice system. Akin blandly breaks this into three parts -- the love affair and family bliss interrupted by tragedy; a Farhadi-Lite court procedural; and then a stalker's revenge fantasy.

Kruger is stone-faced throughout, and she brings nothing fresh to the role of a wronged woman. Akin strains to create moods. A compelling quick-cut from the court verdict to the widow getting violently tattooed only serves to highlight the dull throb of the rest of the film. Not even a shock ending rescues it.
 

New to the Queue

Down in the groove ...

Desiree Akhavan ("Appropriate Behavior") finally follows up her perfect debut with a story of a teen in 1993 going through gay-conversion therapy, "The Miseducation of Cameron Post."

A family interview turns into a documentary about activism in Serbia (and the former Yugoslavia), "The Other Side of Everything."

Lauren Greenfield continues to explore the themes from "The Queen of Versailles," with a documentary about enthusiastic capitalists, "Generation Wealth."

A late '70s documentary tracing back the socialist labor movement back to the turn of the century, "Prairie Trilogy."

A documentary about the prototypical gay gigolo of Hollywood's golden era, "Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood."