It is long-standing practice that we here in the flyover states do not rush into our year-end list. We're still catching up with the 2019 releases, and some of them don't arrive here until January something.
Meantime, in the coming days, we will go back and revisit lists from earlier in the decade, including, for the first time, compiling our best of 2010, as we lay the groundwork for a best-of-the-decade list for the entire 2010s.
Expect a best-of 2019 list later in January. For now, here is a list of the year's releases that in 2019 earned a B+ or higher and will be vying for the top spot.
BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945) (B+) - This war-era Brit drama slowly peels away an illicit love affair that develops between two married people who meet randomly at a train station cafeteria. Claustrophobic with shadows and heavy with heaving locomotives, this classic noir takes its time letting an innocent dalliance eat away at the participants.
Celia Johnson (evoking a G-rated Phoebe Waller-Bridge) stars as Laura, who is bored with her crossword-puzzle-addled husband, Fred (Cyril Raymond), and two children, and thus is vulnerable to the simple charms of Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard). Soon they are meeting every Thursday, going on chaste dates but undeniably falling in love. Director David Lean helped adapt the Noel Coward play, and this one succeeds through its looping flashback structure and its powerful dialogue expounded through the inner voice of Laura in the form of her explaining the story to Fred.
The sympathy for Laura's emotional struggle comes off as surprisingly modern, as she is unafraid to bare her soul and explain her dilemma in urgent words. Johnson and Howard have strong chemistry even if their affair is not particularly passionate. Coward has injected droll humor through the surrounding cast of characters, in particular the cheeky dalliance between a ticket taker and the woman who runs the cafeteria, echoing the cheating couple. It's all very English and quite moving.
THE LETTER (1940) (B) - Bette Davis smolders and slithers as a woman who guns down the man who, by the looks of it, spurned her and ended their affair, thus setting up an underhanded scheme to use her wealth to cheat the Singapore criminal justice system. She claims it was innocent self-defense, but a letter in her handwriting suggests otherwise. So she uses her husband's wealth and exploits the weakness of their lawyer to game the system and secure a quick acquittal.
This Somerset Maugham story, directed by William Wyler ("Roman Holiday," "Ben-Hur"), seeks to lay bare the sins of the monied class. But it oddly demonizes the natives, especially the widow of the victim, a classic dragon lady (Gale Sondergaard). James Stephenson plays a frustrated stuffed shirt as the lawyer. Herbert Marshall is the husband in denial.
Davis holds it together admirably, and she was shooting deadly side glances decades before Susanna Hoffs was even born. Wyler uses arch angles and mood lighting in an attempt to create dread; he half succeeds. The dialogue (Howard Koch ("Casablanca") did the adaptation) is clever and sharp at times. If only the narrative itself had a little more zip.
BONUS TRACK "Brief Encounter" is imbued with the music of Rachmaninoff, and we couldn't help noticing the strains of Eric Carmen's "All by Myself" in the second movement of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor:
RAISE HELL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MOLLY IVINS (B+) - This occasionally fawning but heartfelt documentary traces the journey of the bookish girl from East Texas who defied her roots and became a folksy liberal icon in the world of newspaper columnists and crusaders. Veteran documentarian Janice Engel (long ago she did a "Behind the Music" on Shania Twain) lets Ivins, who died in 2007, do a lot of the talking in file footage, much of it, refreshingly, from C-SPAN, bless her heart.
Ivins was a loner and a drinker who bounced around from newspaper to newspaper throughout her career, and her flaws are not swept under the rug, though they are, at times, treated with kid gloves. (Just how chummy was she with those sources in the Texas legislature back in the day, and how tough can you be on your drinking buddies?) Her habits catch up to her at the end, as the last decade of her life involved some rough health challenges.
But she soldiered on, and she was not only a refreshing voice but quite the prophet at times. Is there any doubt that she foresaw endless wars and a president more buffoonish than Dubya? Engel does a fine job of digging down to the origin story and then methodically chronicling the career. There are a few what-ifs at the end regarding an acerbic polemicist who burned out at age 62 and who is sorely missed.
LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE (B) - This is a choppy but affecting paint-by-numbers biography of the woman who was one of the key musical artists of the 1970s. As the title suggests, the film celebrates Linda Ronstadt and that indelible voice of hers.
Longtime collaborators Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman bring out big-time talking heads (Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Don Henley) and divvy up the archival footage; however, there are not many insights that go much beyond how nice Ronstadt was and how talented she was. Ronstadt narrates through voice-overs, and her Parkinson's is probably responsible for her not appearing on camera for the current interviews and for the stilted nature of her observations.
This pays workmanlike homage to a superstar who took chances and honored her roots. There are several particularly touching passages, but none more powerful than the final scene when Ronstadt finally appears on camera, flanked by musician family members, to shakily sing a classic cancione. It's both heart-warming and heart-breaking and is worth the price of admission right there.
Netflix offers a platform to two actresses making their feature debuts as writer-directors:
ATLANTICS (B) - At times mesmerizing, this tone poem about would-be migrants hemmed in by the Senegalese capital Dakar descends into horror mysticism in its second half, sacrificing some of the substance it builds up in its documentary-like first half. IMDb offers a concise plot synopsis: "In a popular suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave the country by the ocean for a better future. Among them is Souleiman (Ibrahima Traore), the lover of Ada (Mame Bineta Sane), promised to another."
Ada is adrift herself after Souleiman and the men go off toward Spain, and she is often nagged by her posse of girlfriends, led by the spunky Dior (Nicole Sougou), who envy the opportunity to be the wife of hunky big-shot businessman Omar (Babacar Sylla). Mati Diop (co-writing with Olivier Demangel) gorgeously captures a mood of restlessness and longing, not unlike Bruce Thierry Cheung's Salton Sea slog "Don't Come Back From the Moon." But she is a little too taken with lingering shots of the moon and the tides, overdoing the gaze into the forbidding sea. But her intimate camerawork can be captivating.
The young actress Sane is a beguiling lead, and it is easy to ache along with her as the fate of Souleiman turns ominous and confounding. There was too much juju invoked, which undercut the crisp realism, but the film is arresting to the end.
THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN (C+) - This extreme piece of Mumblecore traffics in real time but at a snail's pace as two indigenous women in Canada are thrown together after a crisis. I literally needed subtitles to interpret the mumblings of Violet Nelson as Rosie, a pregnant young woman who is found barefoot on the streets, bruised from the hand of her boyfriend. Aila (co-writer-director Elle-Maija Tailfeathers), coming from an IUD-implantation appointment at the gynecologist's office, takes Rosie home and vows to find her safe shelter.
Over the next 100 minutes, we will tail along with these two on this brief but tedious odyssey. Tailfeathers (collaborating with Kathleen Hepburn) creates a sense of urgency with a hand-held camera but undercuts that technique with inert stretches of dialogue that you wish she had edited down to create better drama. She is going for a specific hypnotic effect -- getting the viewer to suddenly realize that the roles of the women (white-collar Aila vs. working-class Rosie) may be slowly evolving (who, exactly, needs to be rescued here?). But the filmmakers seem trapped in a conceit that doesn't do their script any favors. Too often, despite the commitment of the leads and the powerful drama at its heart, this comes off like a stage rehearsal rather than a finished movie.
BONUS TRACKS The mesmerizing song over the closing credits of "Atlantics," Lizzy Mercier Descloux with "Nino con un Tercer Ojo":
Our title track, from Dobie Gray. Ah, those sartorial Seventies:
GORILLAZ: REJECT FALSE ICONS (B-minus) - This visual and aural collage brings to life the virtual Brit-hop band created 20 years ago by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, but it's all quite an assault on the senses. The documentary spans the length of the "Humanz" tour in 2017-18.
Denholm Hewlett, apparently the offspring of Jamie, offers a fawning appreciation of the hard-working, highly creative founders of Gorillaz, and throws in a good number of collaborators who pass through the studio sessions and tour dates. But this is all too much and not enough at the same time. The animated characters fly past on the screen with little or no context. (I closed my eyes for brief stretches.) Songs are chopped into 30-second snippets. We lurch back and forth from studio to stage, sometimes out of chronological order.
Albarn and friends too often mug for the camera, hyper aware of the cameras following them around. We get repetitive visuals, like the pre-show huddle that gets referenced at least a half dozen times. It's all a jumble, and maybe the kids (though most Gorillaz fans, at this point, aren't so fresh-faced) need the hyperactive jangle to keep them from fidgeting too much with their phones in their plush cineplex seats. I would have preferred longer, more in-depth studio sections alternating with a few extended concert pieces in the vein of "Stop Making Sense."
In the end, it is difficult to appreciate the musical expertise of Albarn and the visual genius of Hewlett, and that's a shame
BONUS TRACK A highlight is Peven Everett. Here he is with his cartoon pals, Noodle and 2-D, in "Strobelite":
KNIVES OUT (A-minus) - In some ways, this star-studded whodunnit is the ultimate entertainment one could expect at a cineplex. When reviewing his early film "Looper," we said of Rian Johnson that he "reminds me of Danny Boyle in his facility with storytelling and his elegance with visuals." We discovered him with "Brick," his 2005 debut, an offbeat high school crime mystery. Here, he emerges from a "Star Wars" stint with a call-back to Agatha Christie, the twisted tale of spoiled offspring of a wealthy mystery novelist bickering over their inheritance after his apparent suicide (or was it ... murder?!).
Even at a sweaty 130 minutes, Johnson rollicks around, pulling juicy performances from his enthusiastic players. Jamie Lee Curtis, once a screaming teen, is now matronly but still as playful as she was in "A Fish Called Wanda." Michael Shannon plays against type as a dweeby conniver. Chris Evans, a veteran of superhero movies, comes off as a young, glib Alec Baldwin. Toni Collette offers a silly airhead. Lakeith Stanfield does exasperation well as a detective overshadowed by an old-school private eye played by Daniel Craig, with an exaggerated Dixie drawl.
They all orbit around Ana de Armas as Marta, the nurse of the patriarch (Christopher Plummer), whose roots from South or Central America provide a running gag among the Waspy descendants who couldn't have been bothered over the years with actually getting to know her. She anchors the film while the others dance playfully around her. The jokes land with just the right balance of familiarity and zing.
Family dynamics drive the narrative. The twists and turns are worthy of a gifted mystery writer. Even if you figure it all out fairly early, it's a joyride tailing Johnson as he bops around toward the finish line. Johnson tries to both subvert and pay homage to classic mystery romps, a vintage that has been scarce since the '70s and "Wanda," which by the '80s had seemed almost quaint.
BONUS TRACK The Rolling Stones appear over the closing credits with a deep cut from "Exile on Main Street," "Sweet Virginia":
With the impending release of "63 Up," we go back to the beginning and review the previous entries in Michael Apted's foundational sociological study of a cohort of Brits born around 1956 and revisited every seven years. Part I is here. We skip "35" and jump to the most important life cycle, ages 35-42:
42 UP (1998) (A) - This might be the apex of the series, as we meet up with the gang after they have just passed through a person's most crucial seven-year phase. Apted shows great command in juggling his narrative, and he and his subject have achieved a level of both comfort and antagonism that truly brings out the various personalities. The director weaves everyone together at the end with a rare quasi-political inquiry to each one about their views on the challenges of their class boundaries. He also asks them to assess the role of this film series in their lives.
Tony again is one of the stars, as he escapes the East End for life in the suburbs, with a vacation place in Spain, giving him a bit of distance with which to further dis the people of color who now populate his home neighborhood. (He also engages in an awkward discussion, in front of his wife, of the infidelities that threatened to ruin his marriage.) Jackie shocks with a sudden brood of boys; Lynn's health declines; and their working-class pal Sue is single again and wistful about her outlook. Symon and Paul lean on strong spouses (Symon remarried since "28 Up's" explosion of children), and a third person finally finds a life mate. Two men are reunited unexpectedly.
One of the most powerful vignettes of the entire series involves Nick, still teaching in America, returning to his family farm to reconcile with his parents and brothers; his appreciation for both the beauty and bleakness of the bucolic setting has a strong emotional pull. Apted builds to Neil again as his finale, and there is relief that not only is Neil still alive and not completely mad, but that he has finally found a purpose. It is the perfect crystallization of Apted's project, and this would have been a fitting climax to the series if it had to end prematurely.
49 UP (2005) (B+) - This is perhaps the most formulaic of the films, as our cohort settles into middle age (most of them, in fact, look older than 49) and into a contented resignation as to their lot in life. For the most part, those lives seem to be quiet, fulfilling ones. This is encapsulated by Suzy, who seems to finally have achieved an inner peace and reconciliation with her former self, suggesting that her arc is now complete and she's ready to coast from here on out.
Stuffy John returns, mainly to pitch his charity work in Bulgaria. Neil is spotted driving a car. Tony continues to rail at the evolution of the ethnicity of the East End, seemingly oblivious to the irony of the British invasion he has helped lead into a Spanish resort town, with plans to open an English pub there. Jackie spars with Apted over his depiction of her, and Suzy and Andrew wistfully explain the toll experienced by opening up their lives (and their pasts) every seven years. The always-interesting Nick offers a plot twist
As summed up by Bruce -- the former missionary now teaching at a posh school -- 49 is a time to realize that childhood fantasies of extraordinary careers won't materialize, but rather, "ordinary life and family life takes over" and "I think we just sort of live without our dreams."
PAIN AND GLORY (B) - Pedro Almodovar returns with this late-in-life meditation on a constipated creative process. Antonio Banderas is wonderfully grizzled and weary as Salvador Mallo, the writer-director's altar ego. Mallo is suffering physically (serious back pain, headaches) and mentally as he drifts along in limbo.
Almodovar uses flashbacks to childhood to connect, literally, with his inner child, and it would not be an Almodovar film if we didn't get wistful scenes with his mother, played here in gauzy memory moments by Penelope Cruz, lovely and luscious, as always. Salvador also recalls the hunky teen handyman who seems to have sparked both his sexuality and creativity. Back in the present, an old flame looks up Salvador after seeing a stage revival of one of his works, and they share a tender moment. Meantime, another old comrade gets Salvador to trade up from his prescription opiods to heroin. And here's where "Pain and Glory" drags. It traffics in just one too many tropes -- mommy issues, stifled artistic expression, childhood sexualization, and junkie behavior.
Banderas virtually sleepwalks through this, seemingly oblivious to the colors and resonant images that Almodovar surrounds him with. It's all an alluring package, but like Salvador during most of this film, it feels hollow on the inside.
SYNONYMS (B) - This in-your-face screed follows Yoav (newcomer Tom Mercier), a damaged former Israeli soldier searching for comfort in Paris, renouncing everything that preceded his self-imposed exile. Upon his arrival, he is robbed of his backpack and clothes, left naked in a bathtub, symbolizing a literal rebirth. He is discovered by a neighboring couple, Emile (Quentin Dolmaire) and Caroline (Louise Chevillotte), who both are instantly drawn to Yoav's animal magnetism.
But Yoav is a wild, unpredictable stallion. He stalks the streets of Paris, his mind racing with French translations, often a string of synonyms, which gives us the film's title. The camerawork is jumpy and overly intimate, as if the camera operator elbowed the Dardenne brothers out of the way to get even closer over the shoulder of the subject. Throughout, Yoav is barely suppressing a rage that he gives occasional flashes of in his interactions with others.
Written and directed by Nadav Lapid (with Haim Lapid), who gave us the original version of the disturbing "Kindergarten Teacher," this one is a challenge, due to the prismatic narrative and the fuming of Yoav. Halfway through, you might wonder what the point is. And then Lapid doubles down on Yoav's degradation and PTSD, as when Yoav humiliates himself for a porn photographer who keys in on the auto-anti-semitism. (Mercier, from the start, displays his goods in full-frontal nudity, an apt example of his truly raw performance.)
Lapid ends things with a scene of Yoav trying to break down a locked door. It's an obvious metaphor that bookends the bathtub birth. Does this story add up? Hard to say. It's haunting, nonetheless.
BONUS TRACKS "Synonyms" has an alluring soundtrack. There's this, Ernie K.. Doe's "Here Come the Girls":
And in a flashback, soldier Yoav destroys a target with machine-gun fire to the balletic lilt of Pink Martini's "Je ne Veux pas Travailler":
AMERICAN FACTORY (A-minus) - With incredible access, Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert chronicle a Chinese company's retooling of a former GM plant in Moraine, Ohio, for the purposes of making auto glass. The culture clash is captured in fine detail.
Led by the spectrumy "Chairman" Cao, Fuyau Glass brings in a raft of Chinese employees, mostly to supervise what is perceived to be a lazy and entitled crop of American workers, many of who remember the heyday of earning around $30 an hour, now beavering away at $12 or $13 per hour. (In the '50s, '60s and '70s, Frigidaires were made there.) The candor on display is incredible. We see a Chinese executive lecturing a roomful of his countrymen on how to deal with (i.e., coddle) their spoiled American counterparts. Frustrations spill over on the assembly line.
For my money, the film spends too much time documenting a union organizing effort by the United Auto Workers, trying to wring drama from what looks from the start to be a fait accompli. Bognar and Reichert do best when they just let the cultural distinctions play out naturally. The Ugly American stereotypes can make you wince -- especially when a contingent of beefy-to-obese, under-dressed all-male Americans visit China, looking like frat boys at a corporate board meeting. They stare in awe at the efficiency of the Chinese workers. At a celebratory conference, we see sophisticated local entertainment involving impeccably choreographed dancing children and prim chanteuses singing traditional songs of inspiration, all of which gives way to the visiting goofballs jumping around to a recording of "YMCA."
The moral of the story is inescapable: It's only a matter of time before the Chinese eat our lunch.
TELL ME WHO I AM (C+) - This odd bit of victim porn is unexpectedly tedious and tawdry. A pair of 54-year-old twins tell their story (and spill their emotions on the screen): At age 18, one of them, Alex, suffers a bad motor accident, erasing everything in his memory except for recognition of his twin, Marcus.
Marcus teaches Alex how to cope again, all the while filling in Alex's memory about their childhood. Except that Marcus skips the part about them being abused by their parents. This film, from Ed Perkins, essentially serves as separate therapy sessions for the brothers. The story's arc is predictable, and it drags over 85 minutes, unspooling its secrets gradually and annoyingly. Re-enactments are coy and corny. Occasionally this is powerful storytelling, but too often it feels too personal and lurid.
With the impending release of "63 Up," we go back to the beginning and review most of the previous entries in Michael Apted's foundational sociological study of a cohort of Brits born around 1956 and revisited every seven years. To start this sporadic series, here are the first four:
SEVEN UP (1964) (A) - At 40 minutes, this special by Granada for British TV introduces us to 20 children (only 14 would return in subsequent episodes). The foundation is a quote attributed to Aristotle and St. Ignatius: "Give me the boy until he is 7, and I will show you the man." The idea is to examine a cross-section of postwar Brits, ranging from rich prep-school children to working-class kids. There are examples like the privileged John and Suzy at one plot point and scrappy East Ender Tony or somber fatherless Symon at the other. The hook here is an experiment to see whether any of these children will break free from England's rigid class restrictions.
Michael Apted was fresh out of college (15 years older than his subjects) and an assistant on this TV special; he would go on to direct the rest of the installments. We get to see these fresh-eyed children, many of them already quite well-spoken for their age, spout random observations and try to predict the future. Only time will tell if those predictions bear out.
The episode ends with a party comprising all of the children and then a romp on a playground where their inner selves play out. This final scene will provide the anchor for the future episodes, each subsequent film dissolving to black-and-white to remind us of those carefree days.
7 PLUS SEVEN (1970) (A) - Yes, teens are, by and large, not very interesting. But these children, at the end of the '60s, act as stalking horses for our own experiences or views of that age of the Beatles. Themes emerge in this episode. Apted is a good journalist, and he follows up on the earlier interviews with well-crafted questions.
We start to see deeper personalities emerge. We begin to see cracks in the psychological stability of a few of them, who are far too dour for a young teenager. Neil, a suburban Liverpudlian who was bright-eyed and cheery at 7 ("When I get married I don't want to have any children because they're always doing naughty things and making the house untidy."), will gradually emerge over the years as a deeply thoughtful, mentally unstable man. Paul, sad-eyed from the start, is still soft-spoken. Suzy is morose and uncooperative. We start to wonder about them all: How will they pursue happiness, and will they achieve it?
21 UP (1977) (A-minus) - Here we have young adults getting their first taste of disappointment. The British education system is highly tiered, and a failure to make it into Oxford can have a huge impact. Several participants fall short of their family's goals, though a couple of others show signs of achieving great success.
One of our favorites, the dilettante Suzy, is now a chain-smoking nihilist. Neil, having dropped out of school after barely a semester, is squatting and eking out an existence. Tony failed to make it as a jockey, and he's now training to be a cabdriver. The Oxbridge boys are sailing along. Jackie and Lynn are already married and playing to their working-class type.
This is the first feature-length entry (100 minutes), as Apted begins to refine the template of weaving together each of the participants while mixing in their backstories so that the subsequent movies can stand alone.
28 UP (1984) (B+) - By the fourth episode, a familiarity sets in; the '80s present a drab, depressing backdrop; and we are presented with the inevitable: plenty of marriages and kids, even from ones we would not have expected. People at 28 are not as interesting; they are starting families, launching careers, thinking that they are fully formed adults. They are distracted by the process of becoming the person they think they are supposed to be.
Apted tweaks the format here, separating the subjects into individual vignettes. This works for some but not for others. The penultimate subject is Neil -- now a full-on drifter finding shelter on the Scottish coast -- who gets extended time to philosophize about his lot in life as he struggles to keep his wits about him. Jackie and her two mates exhibit some of the first snippiness with Apted, chastising him for emphasizing their class status.
The length has now grown to two hours, fifteen minutes, and suddenly Apted's editing skills are tested. Still, there's no denying the power of the storytelling here and the heft of the cinematic history in the making.
BONUS TRACKS The iconic closing segment that gets repeated at the end of each film:
When the children in "Seven Up" attend a party together, they dance to the Beatlesque sound of the Monotones, "What Would I Do":
Michael Apted ("56 Up") returns for the ninth installment of his indispensable generational profile of British boomers, "63 Up."
Celine Sciamma ("Girlhood," "Water Lillies") ventures back to the 18th century for a tale of forbidden love, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire."
Rian Johnson ("Brick," "Looper") assembles an all-star cast for a ribald whodunit, "Knives Out."
The Safdie brothers ("Good Time") recruit Adam Sandler for their latest pulp thriller, "Uncut Gems."
A legend of film criticism gets the documentary treatment, "What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael."
Then there's the career summation of the work of Agnes Varda, who died in March, "Varda by Agnes."
We'll keep expectations low for the environmental polemic from Todd Haynes ("Carol") and starring Mark Ruffalo, "Dark Waters."
Two indigenous women in Canada go through a harrowing experience in the debut feature "The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open."
Life Is Short is an as-needed series documenting the films we just couldn't make it through. We like to refer to these movies as "Damsels in Distress." Previous entries can be found here.
It has been 20 years since Martin Scorsese has made a fresh, compelling feature film ("Bringing Out the Dead"). He returns to familiar ground now with what may be his final mafia movie, "The Irishman." Please, let it be not only his swan song but also the last one for the storied quartet of over-the-hill wise guys, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel and Joe Pesci.
The main problem is that the movie is dull. De Niro's main character, like De Niro himself, is not too bright or interesting. Who cares about some low-level hitman whose path will eventually intersect with Jimmy Hoffa's? And what is Pacino trying to capture here with his sloppy inconsistent "accent" as Hoffa (who was from Indiana).
Scorsese's use of de-aging CGI is not as distracting as feared, though it's odd to see 70-year-old men lurching around with young faces. (The signature obtrusive soundtrack is a sloppy pastiche of oldies, kicking off with an uninspiring "In the Still of the Night.") Pesci and Keitel manage to eke out a few memorable moments (in the first third, at least). Few actors other than Keitel can spit out a line like "Now is not the time to not say." Pesci is a quiet gem, and maybe that is because he has been semi-retired for 20 years and hasn't worn out his welcome. Ray Romano has a couple of fine understated scenes as a mob lawyer. Bobby Cannavale eats steak.
This thing of ours, the mob movie, has been played out, it's safe to say. If "Goodfellas" came along now, I probably wouldn't bother. The golden era began with "The Godfather" and ended with "The Sopranos," and both of those projects were about family, not about randomly "painting houses" (blowing out someone's brains on a wall). What's the point of "The Irishman"? An elegy for what once was? And why such a downer? There are movies that sound in a minor key and then there are risible dirges like this. And it all moves at a numbing snail's pace.
Shall we all move on, gentlemen?
Title: THE IRISHMAN Running Time: 210 MIN Elapsed Time at Plug Pull: 70 MIN Portion Watched: 33% My Age at Time of Viewing: 56 YRS, 11 MOS. Average Male American Lifespan: 78.7 YRS. Watched/Did Instead: Watched a repeat of Weekend Update on "SNL" and went to bed. Odds of Re-viewing This Title: 75-1
Wherein we go back a decade and spend five-and-a-half hours focused on the final days of Nicolae Ceausescu's iron-fisted reign in Romania:
TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE (2011) (B+) - Cristian Mungiu ("4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days," "Beyond the Hills," "Graduation") writes and curates a light-hearted remembrance of the final days behind Romania's Iron Curtain. He takes Romanian urban legends and plays them out in an anthology of six short films (the first four are under 20 minutes; the final two are a little longer than a half hour each). Mungiu wrote the scripts and shares directing duties with four others.
Many of the stories involve variations on the communist era grift. A town of bumblers prepares for an official visit from dignitaries, with two bureaucrats meddling on the day before the visit. A photographer for a Communist Party newspaper must alter a photo to make Ceausescu look taller and less deferential next to the French leader. A police officer is gifted with a live pig and he must figure out how to discreetly kill it in his apartment. Two young adults pose as water inspectors in order to collect glass bottles that they trade in for cash.
The focus is on ingenuity and the banality of a populace resigned to coping with an authoritarian regime. The humor is dry and wry. The stories usually end with an ironic twist, mildly unahppy endings. Try it in two sittings
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE CEAUSESCU (2011) (B) - Andrei Ujica shuns talking heads and narration in favor of raw archival footage, taking a curatorial approach to Frederick Wiseman's fly-on-the-wall documentary style. Events are understood in context. There is some fat in this three-hour endeavor, but extended scenes -- a lot of oration and applause at party meetings -- create a grinding sense of the numbing feeling of life under authoritarianism.
Ujica starts with Ceausescu's rise to the top in the mid-'60s as a compromise choice as party leader. The second hour segues into the '70s, as Ceausescu seeks to play a role on the world stage, beefing up the economy and playing ball with western powers. We see him getting the VIP treatment from the United States and Britain (the full royal welcome), as well as from North Korea and China. Nearly halfway through, the film bursts into color from dreary black-and-white. Oddly, his 60th birthday celebration in 1981 segues awkwardly back five years (and back to black-and-white).
Ujica bookends the film with crude video footage of the 1989 show trial of Ceausescu and his wife (where they go out bickering), but we do not see their execution or aftermath. The film drones methodically -- some fast-forwarding is useful -- and that's the point.
BONUS TRACK For some reason, the Ceausescu documentary uses Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma's version of "Hush Little Baby (Mockingbird)" completely out of context:
In the absence of compelling new releases, we continue to burn through the queue to address the backlog.
MISTER FOE (HALLAM FOE) (2008) (B+) - Jamie Bell ("Billy Elliot," "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool") plays Hallam, an 18-year-old Scot who is obsessed with spying on people. This gets him in trouble with many neighbors, as well as with his MILFy evil step-mom, who banishes him from his father's country estate, exiling him to the big city of Edinburgh. There he spots Kate, who has an uncanny resemblance to his dead beloved mother.
Young Hallam scores a porter's job at the hotel where Kate (Sophia Myles) oversees the staff. The hotel conveniently has a clock tower that is within spying distance of Kate's apartment. Hallam works through his mommy issues and exploits his street smarts to survive in his new world. His creepiness is never dismissed casually, but neither is it meant to convey horror or suspense. He's just a bit of a freak.
David Mackenzie ("Perfect Sense," "Hell or High Water," "Starred Up") co-wrote and directed this adaptation, somewhat of a follow-up to his gloomy and disturbing character study "Young Adam." The cast is strong, including Ciaran Hinds as the father and Claire Forlani as the step-mother Verity.
ORPHEUS (1950) (B) - This classic from Jean Cocteau holds up as an exemplar of avant-garde cinema. It follows the familiar Greek myth of Orpheus, here a famed poet (played by Jean Marais) who is lured to the underworld to retrieve his dead wife. Cocteau was quite the thinker, and he gives the cast plenty of absurdist philosophy to chew on here.
Orpheus is lured by the Princess (Maria Casares) into the netherworld that is accessed through mirrors (the best to reflect on one's true self). Cocteau uses various tricks -- running film backward, turning mirrors into pools of water -- that are still rather impressive 70 years on. Inscrutable messages pour out of car radios. An undercurrent of same-sex attraction lightly pulses throughout. Fantasy can be a challenge, but Cocteau manages to pull this off without getting ridiculous.
BONUS TRACKS "Mister Foe" boasts an engaging soundtrack from under-the-radar bands, sort of an Aughties Channel update of "Garden State." My favorite was "They Shoot Horses Don't They" by Quickspace from their excellent album "The Death of Quickspace":
The Lennonesque "Here on My Own" by U.N.P.O.C (Tom Bauchop):
Sons and Daughters with "Broken Bones":
The Spanish-language ringer, Juana Molina with "Salvese Quien Pueda":
FOR SAMA (B+) - Waad Al-Khateab produces a video chronicle of her life in Aleppo, Syria, running a hospital with her doctor husband, Hamza, and their newborn child, Sama. This diary, filmed amid the civil war that has raged since 2011, is harrowing but hopeful.
Be warned: The violence is explicit. Dead bodies litter the screen, including those of children. The camerawork is urgent and compelling. The main drawback is the family intimacy she shares with the viewer. The love story is heartening, and little Sama is adorable, but, in the end, family videos are family videos. However, this is an invaluable display of life during wartime.
WASTE LAND (2010) (B) - This might have been a perfect one-hour TV news special, but at 99 minutes, this profile of photographer/artist Vik Muniz and his celebration of garbage-dump workers in Brazil drags too often. The characters, though, are memorable. They pick through trash for recyclables at Jardim Gramacho on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, living in horrific slum conditions.
Muniz, a successful artist who escaped the favelas, decides to return to his homeland and create grand portraits of the workers, based on his photographs of them, enhanced with trash as garnish in the frame. After a slow start, we delve into the various characters, including those leading the fight for the workers' rights. Filmmaker Lucy Walker employs an awkward framing device at the beginning and end of the film, but she takes care to let these personalities take root. And her camera does not shy away from the destitution that marks these workers' lives.
SURFWISE (2008) (A-minus) - Doug Pray ("Hype!" "Art & Copy") digs into the alt-lifestyle of surfing enthusiast Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz and the family he raised off the grid. In the '60s and '70s, he and his third wife, Juliette, raised nine children (only one girl) in a winnebago that they mostly drove up and down the Pacific coast, shunning modern conveniences and common social interactions, like public schooling.
Paskowitz was a spry health fanatic, still going strong in his late '80s at the time of the movie's release. But he wreaked some psychological havoc on most of those children (who claimed that the parents had sex daily in the front of the mobile home and did not muffle their noises), and Pray spends time with each of them to explore the family dynamics. Each child displays unique qualities, and they have complicated relationships with their father and with each other. Several became top surfing competitors. Pray's exploration is a case study in family psychology, alternative lifestyles and nutrition.
PARASITE (A-minus) - Bong Joon-ho finally finds the sweet spot between story and spectacle in this tale of class warfare pitting two families -- the working-class Kims and the rich Parks -- against each other. A mix of thriller and dark comedy, "Parasite" hums with fascinating characters and surprising plot twists. While things get pretty unhinged in the final third, Bong holds on for dear life and sticks the landing. To lay out the plot, it's easier to quote Wikipedia:
Kim Ki-taek, his wife Chung-sook, son Ki-woo, and daughter Ki-jeong live in a small semi-basement
apartment, working low-paying jobs and struggling to make ends meet.
Ki-woo's friend Min-hyuk, who is preparing to study abroad, gifts the
Kim family with a scholar's rock
which is supposed to bring them wealth. He suggests Ki-woo pose as a
university student to take over Min-hyuk's job as an English tutor for
the daughter of the wealthy Park family, Da-hye. Once Ki-woo is hired,
the Kims all pose as sophisticated skilled workers, unrelated to each
other, and integrate themselves into the lives of the Parks
Bong wastes little of the 132 minutes, taking his time to set up that foundation, as various members of the Kim family gradually infiltrate the Park household. The Parks are not presented as evil or even arrogant; in fact, they show quite a bit of empathy for their employees. And the Kims may be hustlers, but they are not horrible grifters. (They have a vague connection to the outlaw family in last year's gem "Shoplifters.")
Bong has a history of pulp and suspense. "Snowpiercer" (2013) was too overwhelming on the sense, and we couldn't get into 2017's "Okja," leaving us wary of digging backward into his classics, "Mother" and "The Host." But here, he's got the stew right. The ensemble cast is top-notch and appealing, grounding this farce in a skewed reality. The little things land just right, like various characters' random attempts to speak English.
There is gravitas to the narrative. Bong makes a point of distinguishing between the classes by having the Parks several times remark on the noticeable odor they detect on their lower-run employees and which they associate with the riff-raff. It's a sharp, shorthand way of drawing distinctions and just one of the ways in which "Parasite" gets under your skin and won't let you hide.
MELVIN GOES TO DINNER (2003) (A-minus) - We first saw this one way back in the day at the Santa Fe Film Festival; it doesn't seem to have gotten a wide release, but it is streaming on Netflix. Bob Odenkirk (TV's "Mr. Show" and "Better Call Saul") directed this glorified stage play from comedy writer Michael Blieden about four semi-connected adults gathering for a chance dinner where the booze flows and secrets get unsealed.
Blieden stars as Melvin, who is meeting his friend Joey (Matt Price) for dinner, only to find Joey's friend Alex (Stephanie Courtney, Flo the Progressive spokeswoman) and Alex's acquaintance Sarah (Annabelle Gurwitch) already starting to break bread with Joey. The cast is just right (including Kathleen Roll as the loopy waitress), but it's the natural dialogue that makes this such a joy to watch. Free of cliches and tired tropes, the screenplay crackles with wit and insight. The result is a believable slice of life among cynical 30-somethings (of the X Generation).
It all has a loose, improvisational feel but grounded in a strong script. The arc of the evening provides both tension and comic relief. You might see the final reel's twist coming, but it's a satisfying conclusion nonetheless. This is a rare indie find.
From the director of the original version of "The Kindergarten Teacher," the tale of an Israeli ex-pat in Paris, "Synonyms."
We're apprehensive about our former favorite Noah Baumbach ("The Meyerowitz Stories") -- and who needs two brooding elder Millennials moping through yet another movie about divorce? -- but maybe Baumbach truly is on the comeback trail with "Marriage Story."
We're not much for horror, blood and gore, but we like the sound of the love-triangle-at-sea escapade, "Harpoon."
A feature, with a documentary feel, about Sengalese migrants, "Atlantics."
A documentary about one woman's compulsion to create a library of recorded TV shows, "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project."
The latest from Trey Edward Shults ("Krisha"), another analysis of family, "Waves."
A guy named Dennis Hauck must have thought he was
pretty hot shit when he scored John Hawkes to playa smart-alecky private dick (yes, they
actually make that lame dick joke in this movie) for the 2015 release "Too
Late."Thankfully, Hauck hasn't
made a movie since. Do they ban directors who bomb with their debut film? Painfully exploitative of women, this Tarantino
knock-off features tough-talking guys and dames (most of the latter strippers)
tripping over Hauck's "clever" dialogue. Not only are women
repeatedly mocked for their looks, but most of them find the homely Hawkes
irresistible. (They especially swoon when he picks up a guitar and croons his
own Kristoffersonian composition.) I mean, there are multiple scenes of women walking around without pants -- in a movie
where the go-to camera technique is long camera shots that conveniently follow
the characters from behind. One actress, Vail Bloom (below), who plays Janet, a
miserable kept woman of aging mobster Gordy Lyons (Robert Forster), does a good
10 minutes bare-assed (including a tracking
shot down a loooong hallway). Your move, Julianne Moore!
The women are lovely, of course, and most of them
bring serious acting chops to this chipped beef. Dichen Lachman (below) flaunts
her hard body (especially, of course, the bottom half) and goes toe-to-toe with
Hawkes, who dares to mock her exotic looks. Talk about noses, pal.
Hauck also lets his directorial quirks get in the
way of a bad story. (Hawkes is hunting a stripper to whom he might have a
special connection.) He jumbles the narrative so much that you probably won't
care how to put the puzzle back together. (Really, all the movies he steals from,
like "Memento," are far superior in every way.) He uses ambient music
so much that it obscures dialogue. In one scene, in a projection booth at a
drive-in theater (ya derivative geek), we get ambient music (a moody Hank
Williams cover) and ambient noises.
If that doesn't jangle you, then try the long camera takes of conversations
that require the camera to swing back and forth between two people. (Hey,
there's Joanna Cassidy! Whoops, there she goes away!) Then join me in guffawing
as a boxing match at that drive-in (?)(!) features two men so obviously
fake-boxing that you wonder, did Hauck not notice how bad they were at that or
does he think he's creating a meta-moment.
Little of the above will matter, though, because
most viewers will not make it through the bizarre first 20 minutes, which
features a woman named Dorothy (Crystal Reed) hanging out in one of those L.A.
overlook parks and having painfully long conversations with a pair of bumbling
drug dealers (I say, a veritable Vladimir and Estragon!) and then a park
ranger, as peril builds like creeping moss. This Movie Dorothy (yes, later
(earlier?) Hawkes will utter the phrase "There's no place like home")
is a wide-eyed innocent with a complicated but boring backstory. That opening
scene, though, is interminable.
But this is all such a weak-armed assault on the
senses that you might just stick around to see how awful it can get.
GRADE: D
* -- Holy Crap is an occasional series about unique
films, cutting a wide swath from brilliant to awful. Check out previous entries
here.
BONUS TRACKS
This is the kind of movie perfectly suited for a
song by Joe Tex, particularly one called "You Might Be Digging the Garden
(But Someone's Picking Your Plums)." Ahem. But it does boast an
interesting soundtrack. We're introduced to Janet as she's slathering on her
thick eyeliner to this rambunctious song, "Vibrational Match" by
Marnie Stern.
Then there is the corny side of Dylan, from the
'80s, with "I'll Remember You" (b/w "Emotionally Yours"):
The director gives some screen time to Sally Jaye,
with a live version of "Leave You Alone":
Janet also melts down to this intense purge from
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Nobody's Baby Now." It's a good example
of the too-obvious, elbow-to-the-ribs nature of the soundtrack:
YESTERDAY (B) - Danny Boyle comes through in the clutch with an entertaining and enjoyable interpretation of a script from the cheese factory of screenwriter Richard Curtis ("Mr. Bean," "Love Actually," Bridget Jones' Diary"). The story (by Jack Barth) focuses on struggling singer-songwriter Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), who, after a mysterious global power glitch, remains the only apparent person on the planet who remembers the Beatles, who otherwise have been erased from history.
Seizing the opportunity, Jack starts re-creating Beatles songs from memory and eventually becomes a sensation with all those catchy tunes. The joy of the film is in this conceit and the fun that Boyle and the gang have with it. The downside is that Curtis insists on jamming a stale (borderline misogynistic) rom-com cliche into the proceedings involving Jack and his longtime friend/manager Ellie (Lily James, "Cinderella," "Baby Driver"). That phony will-they love story itself drags this down a grade. There's also the assumption that Beatles songs would still drive the masses crazy if they debuted in the modern era.
But Boyle, Britain's pop-auteur ("Millions," "Sunshine," "Slumdog Millionaire"), is assured with the narrative otherwise. The little touches make this special. For example, Jack struggles to remember all the words and chords (especially the tricky order of the verses of "Eleanor Rigby"). His quickie internet searches for "Beatles" turns up pictures of insects and Volkswagens. And, naturally, Oasis never existed either -- because how could the uber-derivative Gallagher brothers ever have found inspiration without the Fab Four? Boyle works the prolific Ed Sheeran into the mix as himself, a (what else?) collaborator on the songs as well as a rival for songwriting supremacy. Sheeran is wonderfully self-deprecating and an amusing comic foil for Jack. (Not happy with "Hey, Jude," he spitballs an alternative title: "Hey, Dude.")
Meantime, the songs are as catchy as ever. Patel is a charming leading man. Boyle delivers a high-energy juggernaut. And a scene toward the end with one of the Beatles who never became a Beatle is touching and magical. It's worth tuning in for just that visual, but thanks to this team, the movie itself is an overall success.
JOKER (C-minus) - The less said about this nihilistic cinematic cipher the better. Joaquin Phoenix is a marvel to behold, but this dark, dank throwback to the gloom of '70s-'80s New York plays like both an homage to that heyday of Martin Scorsese (a mix of "Taxi Driver" and "King of Comedy") and a childish misinterpretation of that whole era.
Poor failed clown Arthur Fleck has a mental condition that makes him laugh at inopportune times. That gets him beat up. Does he take revenge on just those thugs? No, he somehow turns into a mercenary and a leader of an uprising against the rich. Huh? Because Bruce Wayne's parents are rich? Talk about a retrofitted narrative.
Anyway, this is bleak and unrelenting, and it's impossible to avoid comparing this to the white-supremacist (Joker is in whiteface, after all) and incel movements. (Arthur lusts limply over a neighbor who appears to be mixed race -- Zazie Beetz, a mere pawn in this script.) It justifies violent and impotent rage. You might be interested in how Stephen Miller got the way he is, but I'm not.
FAY GRIM (2006) (B+) - Maybe waiting more than a decade to finally get around to Hal Hartley's sequel to '90s favorite "Henry Fool" helped manage expectations for this follow-up featuring Henry's love, Fay Grim, played perfectly awkwardly by Parker Posey. Hartley moves from chatty indie to international intrigue, albeit just as deadpan as the original.
Posey holds it all together with her offbeat line-reading and patented blank stares. As Hartley perverts the idea of noir, Posey comes off as Pee-Wee Herman doing Barbara Stanwyck. Hartley's script starts slow (a lot of exposition to catch up on the nine-year gap between films) but finds a groove after the first reel, as Fay gets roped into an international mission by the CIA to track down Henry via his cryptic notebooks that date back to his apparent decades-long spook activities from Pinochet's Chile to Afghanistan battled against the Russian invasion, right up to the post-9/11 positioning of strange bedfellows among the terrorist networks.
Jeff Goldblum is a natural as the dry-witted CIA agent. James Urbaniak returns as Fay's brother (and Henry's pal) Simon. Elina Lowensohn and Saffron Burrows sink their teeth into femme fatale turns. Meantime, Thomas Jay Ryan towers over everything as the specter that is Henry Fool, and his powerful two-man scene in the final reel (I won't say if it's a flashback or not) is well worth the wait. (This clocks in around two hours.) Hartley balances the silly with the profound and his stellar cast pulls it all off.
GOOD TIME (2017) (C+) - This is mostly macho bunk, about 24 hours in the life of a bungling would-be thug trying to spring his brother from jail. For some reason, a cheesy '80s-style synthesizer soundtrack plays like a siren throughout this thriller.
Robert Pattinson dirties up to play Connie Nikas, who interferes with his younger brother Nick's mental health counseling and drags Nick (Benny Safdie) to a bank robbery. When the heist blows up in their face, Nick is caught, jailed, beat up, and hospitalized. Connie, navigating the seedy underworld of New York, hustles to find and free Nick.
Both Benny and Josh Safdie directed this gritty, messy street tale. But their style is a color-faded mash-up of Scorsese and Tarantino, with Pattinson perpetually mugging as if in a De Niro/Pacino contest. The women here, including Jennifer Jason Leigh and Taliah Webster, are wasted as props. The brothers have a confident visual style, but their storytelling here barely rises above that of a police procedural. Their upcoming movie "Uncut Gems" shows promise -- and perhaps a leap of maturity -- so we'll keep them on the radar.
SATAN AND ADAM (B-minus) - An interesting but clunky documentary about the unexpected pairing of a young white academic harmonica player and an older black blues veteran who together went from the streets of Harlem to international venues. Adam Gussow helps narrate the story of his bold move in the 1980s in stepping up to jam with Sterling "Mr. Satan" Magee, a virtuoso guitarist and one-man band.
The duo eventually landed a record deal and a decent amount of fame in the 1990s. But Magee's mental and physical woes precipitated their downfall, and that story weighs heavy on the middle portion of the film before the final reel gives us a tale of redemption and reunion. This debut by V. Scott Balcerek is pretty pedestrian and awkward in its attempts to keep a coherent narrative. The story is worth telling but this one is ragged around the edges.
SEX: THE ANNABEL CHONG STORY (2000) (C) - I was hoping for some psychological insight into the woman who, in the late 1990s, felt compelled to set a pornographic record by sleeping with 251 men in one day. But we don't really get traction on the thought processes of Annabel Chong, aka Grace Quek.
Chong started acting in explicit films while majoring in gender studies at USC, and there is promise in the opening scenes suggesting an academic point to her exploits. But no, she just comes off as psychically skewed and immature, perhaps a product of sexual abuse. The creepy part involves a late reveal of her infamy to her parents in Singapore. Chong's inclinations change as often as her pixie hairstyle. Even porn legend Ron Jeremy regards her with apprehension. In the end, this end product feels cheap and used.
Shovels & Rope, the dynamic duo from Charleston, S.C., showed up at Meow Wolf on the Night of the Dead for a blistering show of slapdash folk punk in Santa Fe. Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent are overstuffed with talent. Their songs are clever and soulful, and they swap instruments effortlessly. They don't harmonize so much as shout lyrics at each other. (They're married.)
They featured a bunch of songs from their new album "Bad Blood" and well-placed classics, including from their breakthrough album "O' Be Joyful" (though not my favorite, "Tickin' Bomb." They are natural entertainers, and the vibe they created was o' so joyful. John Paul White, ex of the Civil Wars, opened (wrapping with a cover of ELO's "Can't Get It Out of My Head").
On a Monday night ("a work night, a school night"), Minutemen alum Mike Watt brought his latest power trio (the Secondmen) to the Launchpad in Albuquerque. Tighter and more focused than his outdoor set at the Growlers' Beach Goth fest two years ago in L.A., Watt soldiered on in the high altitude and thrashed through his deep reservoir of freestyle punk songs from both his days with D. Boon and George Hurley and his varied solo career.
Watt was joined by longtime collaborator Tom Watson on jittery guitar and wunderkind Nick Aguilar a whirlwind on drums. Aguilar looks barely old enough to have a learner's permit but not quite a driver's license (he's actually 22), but sitting up front in the thick of things, he was Buddy Rich flying off the handle, mind-melding with the bass-master Watt. (Give the drummer some!) They communicated with Tourette's-like facial gestures and tongue wags. (Bass in your face!)
They surged out with a vigorous take on "The Red and the Black" (the Blue Oyster Cult song made memorable by both the Minutemen and the post-Boon trio Firehose) and then slashed away with the precise fury of jazzmen on speed. It's comforting to know that the old guy still brings the thunder.
BONUS TRACKS "Tickin' Bomb":
The Minutemen with "The Red and the Black":
Watt also covered one of D. Boon's finest moments, "Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs," still a punk classic:
Too many R.I.P. headlines this year, but we don't want to miss the October passing of two of the most entertaining figures who connect us back to old Hollywood.
Robert Evans was in his mid-30s when he took over Paramount at the dawn of the American New Wave in the 1960s. The 2002 documentary "The Kid Stays in the Picture," which he narrated in that trademark gravelly voice, is one of the most memorable memoirs ever brought to the screen. Variety had a detailed obituary. Evans helmed or produced such era classics at "Bonnie & Clyde," "Rosemary's Baby," "Harold & Maude," "The Godfather," and "Chinatown." By the mid-'70s his movies and their stars were elbowing each other for awards. He was married seven times, was convicted of drug charges and perfectly encapsulated the transition from Hollywood's golden era to its decadent cocaine-fueled frenzy of the New Wave. He was 89.
A year ago we caught the highly entertaining documentary "Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood." In retrospect, it probably deserves a grade higher than a B. Scotty Bowers, the endlessly charming subject of that film, died at the ripe old age of 96. We found him to be "an engaging subject, full of stories." The Hollywood Reporter sent him off with an obit.
BUFFALO '66 (1998) (A-minus) - Vincent Gallo's dynamic debut as a writer-director still sizzles two decades after its release. For his cinematic splash, he plays Billy Brown, a sad sack who has just been released from prison (and, in the first 10 minutes of the film, needs to take a wicked piss) and endeavors to put a positive spin on his life as he prepares to visit his crazy parents in Buffalo. So, of course, he essentially kidnaps a young woman, Layla (Christina Ricci), who accompanies him to Buffalo to pretend to be his lovely wife. (Lines were blurrier then, kids.)
Gallo's greaseball is profoundly off, and when you meet his parents, Jimmy and Jan -- Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Houston, as deadpan and disturbing as one could hope for -- you understand why. His mom is obsessed with and haunted by a fictionalized version of the Buffalo Bills' AFL championship loss that year, an event that traumatized Billy the child and which lingers to the present day.
Gallo freestyles as a director, using fantasy sequences and elements of absurdism to acquaint us with Billy's scattered thoughts. He is obviously paying homage to Cassavetes ("Husbands" in particular) and that improvisational macho street style. (Gazzara is the obvious link.) Unfortunately, Gallo's momentum would crash five years later when his pornographic "The Brown Bunny" cast him out of favor; he has directed only one obscure feature since.)
Gallo the actor is a force of nature, and Ricci matches him stride for stride. Their scene inside a photo booth -- "Just look like we're a married couple, spanning time" -- is magical. We hurt for and with Billy. He's frightening and compelling. By the end of this nightmare, we are wrung out.
There has been one new release in the past few months that we were compelled to go see -- "Give Me Liberty." But week in and week out, we check the listings and take a hard pass. Nothing good coming to theaters this Friday, either.
But we're not alone. The Onion AV Club (no relation), just unleashed a string of 12 reviews in a row (and 18 of the last 19) that scored B-minus or less, including one fat F. The dishonor roll (with key indictments noted):
"Wounds" - C-minus ("solid, if workmanlike, sound design")
"Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" - D+ ("crude and lazy")
"Jojo Rabbit" - C+ ("treacly, middlebrow")
"Current War" - C+ ("long-delayed")
"Frankie" - C+ ("Euro gabfest")
"Synonyms" - B-minus ("obvious ... allegory")
"Dark Fate" - C+ ("shares a grim status quo with Terminator 3")
"The Kill Team" - C+ ("insight is AWOL")
"No Safe Spaces" - An F for the reactionary spewings of Adam Corrolla and Dennis Prager, who seem to deserve each other. ("'Debate me, you coward' takes movie form.")
"Black and Blue" - C+ ("generic")
"Countdown" - D+ ("Will leave you counting down the minutes until you're not watching it anymore")
STUDIO 54 (B) - This serviceable documentary captures the glitz and graft of the famed discotheque where celebrities unofficially christened the cocaine era starting in spring 1977. Ian Schrager, one of the partners at the ground floor, serves as a somewhat contrite guide to what went down four decades ago. (His more well-known partner, Steve Rubell, died during the AIDS era.)
Generous archival clips provide the flavor of the disco inferno, fueled by Page Six celebrities like Liza Minnelli and Bianca Jagger. Brooklyn pals Schrager and Rubell (and financier Jack Dushey) were pushing drugs all over the club and stuffing cash into garbage bags, hiding their actions from law enforcement authorities. By 1979, the IRS was on the case, and the party came crashing down. The men hired Roy Cohn, and the rest is corruption history.
While the headlines were juicy and the sudden downfall delicious to watch, director Matt Tyrnauer ("Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood," "Where's My Roy Cohn?") doesn't forget to capture the sheer fun of the Manhattan playground. There is an appreciation of the venue's democratic ideals, where people of all stripes (though maybe not all income levels) felt welcome in the hedonistic melting pot. The film revels in the fleeting spirit of the times -- the joy and decadence, as well as the rise and fall of a couple of gluttonous entrepreneurs.
MAIDEN (B-minus) -This documentary actually suffers from excessive archival footage. It follows the first all-woman crew as they participate in the Whitbread round-the-world yacht race in 1989-90. It seems every moment of their years-long preparation and the monthslong race were filmed, and director Alex Holmes leans heavily on that footage, interspersing clips with current-day interviews featuring the gray-haired crew members, led by Tracy Edwards.
Even at a modest 97 minutes, this story is just too long. Too much time is spent at the beginning ginning up sympathy for Edwards, whose father died when she was young, replaced by a mean stepfather. That story line is not adequately followed up.
As much as this accomplishment struck a blow for feminism, the documentary itself doesn't do much to advance the cause. The women get teary-eyed multiple times when recalling their endeavor, and the old male journalists from the time get to playfully gloss over their misogynistic coverage. I suppose this could be inspirational to young women, except the overall accomplishment just doesn't come off as overly impressive. It's tough to put this deed in perspective and accept it as much more than a one-off.
TRANSIT (B+) - Christian Petzold cooks up another slow-burning drama with a sharp ending in this tale of refugees fleeing fascist rule during an undefined era (the story is based on a 1942 novel). Franz Rogowski stars as Georg, the displaced person who inadvertently obtains the papers of a German writer who died in Paris. Georg heads to Marseilles, where he eventually meets up with the writer's estranged wife, Marie (Paula Beer, "Frantz," "Never Look Away").
Petzold takes his time digging into Georg's melancholia as a man without a home and -- after assuming the identity of the dead writer as a means of escape -- without a true identity. Georg's attraction to Marie is complicated by her belief that her husband may yet still return to reconcile and escape with her.
Petzold has beguiled before with the "complicated and a bit corny" "Phoenix," and "Barbara" (both with Nina Hoss), and his languid period pieces never quite come together like they should, but they can be hard to shake. Here, Rogowski is a compelling sad sack, and Beer, as always, cuts a beguiling figure. Petzold also has a patented twist up his sleeve for the ending. This one feels light and heavy at the same time.
LONG SHOT (C) - In which Seth Rogen seduces Charlize Theron. What do you expect?
Rogen stars as Fred Flarsky (first red flag: a dorky character name from the '50s), an out-of-work investigative blogger who happens to run across his old baby-sitter, Charlotte Field (Theron), the U.S. secretary of state about to launch her bid to succeed a clownish TV star occupying the White House (Bob Odenkirk). She improbably invites him to be her speechwriter and, eventually, her lover. Gasp!
He struggles to keep his integrity, and she must fight to stay pure and to resist the big-money influences that include -- of all people! -- the nasty billionaire homunculus who downsized Fred, as well as the compromised president. High-jinks ensue.
Rogen and Theron are really good, as expected, and they actually have some chemistry. The cutesy script (by Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah) peels off a few zing-o one-liners and wacky situations. (But do we really need the obligatory uptight-authority-figure getting-high-at-a-rave scene?) Some of the supporting cast helps here (June Diane Raphael and Ravi Patel are funny as the secretary's key staffers, and Lisa Kudrow is gold in a cameo as the campaign's incredibly candid pollster), but others flop badly, like Paul Scheer and Kurt Braunohler as offensive Fox-type TV hosts who are only offensive, not funny.
The real problem here is that, as hip as Sterling and Hannah and Rogen and Theron might hold themselves out to be, this is a painfully conventional romantic comedy. Rogen even gets his very own Black Best Friend (a bland O'Shea Jackson). As meta as they may think they are getting here, the production is wrapped in cliched rom-com formula, and never manages to rise above it or attain ironic detachment. And that leaves us with an intermittently funny -- and a full two-hour -- throwaway genre exercise.
Farewell to Robert Forster, another actor who owes a debt to Quentin Tarantino, for the lead role in "Jackie Brown" in 1997, but who also had a steady, stellar career as a classic character actor. He was 78, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter (referring to his "chiseled good looks, steely chin and earnest gaze").
Forster had a breakthrough role as a cameraman in Haskell Wexler's influential "Medium Cool" in 1969, and he even managed two short-lived TV shows in the 1970s. But we will always associate Forster with the role of David Madison, the put-upon police officer hunting a rogue reptile in the 1980 cult classic "Alligator." Madison has a reputation for killing off his partners, but his biggest worry, as he stalks a killer alligator, seems to be the male-pattern baldness that is plaguing him as he approaches middle age. Luckily there's a pretty gal (Robin Riker) to soothe his male ego.
Inspired by the urban legend (before we had memes) about the kid whose baby alligator gets flushed down the toilet, "Alligator" was written (tongue planted in cheek) by celebrated filmmaker John Sayles, sprinkling sardonic one-liners all over the place. Veteran hack Jack Carter gets his comeuppance as the motormouth mayor. Bryan Cranston worked on the production crew doing special effects (and would return the favor by casting Forster in "Breaking Bad"). It's cheesy, cheap horror, but Sayles' script and Forster's deadpan delivery are a total hoot.
