Soundtrack of Your Life: GBV in ATL

I found this unfinished and unpublished from a year ago. Let's not let anything go to waste. Here are some videos to brighten up the day:

 
By coincidence, Guided by Voices just happened to be playing in Atlanta during the same week of a law conference I attended in May 2018. Robert Pollard and the boys tore up Terminal West, an old iron smelting room converted in 2012 to a music venue.


Among the often-overlooked gems that Pollard polished up for this tour is "I Drove a Tank, the opening track from 2001's "Choreographed Man of War":



And he reached into his 2010 album "Moses on a Snail" for the ballad "It's a Pleasure Being You":



And his creative choice from "Mag Earwhig" -- aside from ceding center stage to Doug Gillard for Gillard's composition "I Am a Tree" -- was the '60s vamp "Jane of the Waking Universe":



Pollard, after downing his share of Miller Lites and swigging from a bottle of tequila (the second half of which he donated to the audience), exited stage left to the closing chords of, what else, "Recovering," from last decades comeback solo project "From a Compound Eye":




BONUS TRACKS
A month earlier, the Breeders made Albuquerque a stop on one of their intermittent tours. The Deal sisters were in fine spirits. (When are they not?) They struggled with making pithy stage banter, as if they were robots or merely a little too high. At one point Kim asked the crowd, "So do you all live in Albuquerque?" -- as if the city existed in the high desert merely as a tour stop, a filmmaking hub, or an oasis for Americans' road trips. They expertly mixed old hits and new songs. Here is one of their jauntiest new songs, "Wait in the Car":



Oh, and GBV, honoring the new album "Space Gun" came out in matching lamé tour jackets and their play-on music was the early '60s classic "Telstar" by the Tornados:


 

New to the Queue

Hotter than July ...

The title says it all: "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese."

A look at the defining moment of the Baby Boomers and its legacy, "Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation."

A teen comedy with heart, Olivia Wilde's directorial debut, "Booksmart."

Another hockey documentary, this one about the Detroit Red Wings and their Soviet connection, "The Russian Five."
  

Missing Links

CLARA'S GHOST (B+) - Chris Elliott and his wife and daughters engage in a semi-improvisational romp through a drunken family night.  Daughter Bridey Elliott ("Fort Tilden") writes and directs the story of her mom (Paula Niedert Elliott) losing her marbles and being haunted by the ghost of a woman.

Bridey and sister Abby are delightfully dark as they harangue their goofy father and reconnect with a childhood friend (Haley Joel Osment) who stops by to provide the pot to go with the gallons of alcohol consumed during a wild night at the homestead. The antics can be hit-and-miss, and you have to appreciate Chris Elliott's sense of humor (calling back to "Letterman" and "There's Something About Mary"), which he has generously passed on to his daughters.

Little moments help ground this in reality, like the only reason the girls returned home is for the birthday celebration of the family dog. Bridey creates a believable sense of horror through her mother's mental breakdown and the edginess of the celebration sliding into drunken reconciliation of the family's dark side.

MY NAME IS EMILY (2017) (B) - A teenage girl recruits a cute, nerdy boy from her new school to accompany her on a pilgrimage to northern Ireland to spring her father from a mental institution. Doe-eyed Evanna Lynch (Luna from the Harry Potter movies) brings true emotion and subtle humor to her damaged character, Emily, while George Webster brings a hang-dog, Johnny Depp-like competence to the role of her road buddy Arden. And Michael Smiley reins in the worst tendencies of a sometimes thankless role as the father, seen in flashbacks, losing his mind.

This quiet, affecting debut from writer-director Simon Fitzmaurice plays like a wholesome take on the classic road movie, not unlike "Microbe and Gasoline." Things can get a little too cute and quaint here (he overdoes the water metaphors throughout), but Lynch is a strong anchor, and Fitzmaurice has a powerful story to tell, with a clever-enough twist at the end to make it all work.

DON'T COME BACK FROM THE MOON (B) - In a miserable failed town by the Salton Sea in southern California, the fathers abandon their families, and we watch the kids cope with their form of separation anxiety. Jeffrey Wahlberg holds this all together as teenage Mickey, who does his best to support his mom and little brother while bonding with his male friends and indulging his budding sexual desires with Sonya (Alyssa Elle Steinacker)

This wolfpack of adolescents has literally nothing to do on a given day, aside from vandalize abandoned homes or strip them for parts. (One haul yields a trade for bicycles, which offer at least a hint of freedom.) It's only a matter of time before someone breaks from the pack and heads out in search of one of these deadbeat dads.

James Franco and Rashida Jones dirty themselves up to play Mickey's parents. Jones, deglamorized for most of the proceedings, plays maudlin pretty well, with her character allowing one of the local boys to hit on her after Franco takes a powder. The film is loaded with grit, both literally and figuratively. Leaning heavily on the lunar imagery and the ironic natural beauty surrounding this hellscape, Bruce Thierry Cheung directs an adaptation of a 2005 novel by Dean Bakopoulos.

BONUS TRACKS
From the closing credits of "Moon," Portland duo Glass Candy with "The Possessed":



The fine documentary "Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea," which chronicles the decline of the former postwar playground beyond Palm Springs (courtesy of KQED). We caught it long ago at a Santa Fe Film Festival. It is narrated by John Waters and features the music of Friends of Dean Martinez:


  

Life in Hell

We hand out the first straight A for a 2019 release (and walk out of another) ... 

HAIL SATAN? (A) - Filmmaker Penny Lane hits her stride and nails every angle of this profile of the satanism movement. She has fun trolling along with the provocateurs who take on free speech restrictions and separation of church and state.

Leaders such as Lucien Greaves and Jex Blackmore (and others with entertaining pseudonyms) are engaging company, and Lane ("Our Nixon," "Nuts!") comes into her own as a storyteller -- no fluff, no distractions, no cheap tricks. Just 95 minutes toying with hypocrisy and culture clashes. Some moments are very funny, and she even scores points documenting the inner conflict of the Satanic Temple. This is what documentaries are for.

***

BONUS TRACK: "HER SMELL"

Holy Crap! Damsel in Distress! Life is Short!
(Pick your category)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to hang out backstage with Courtney Love and Hole or watch her melt down in a creative crater during a studio recording session? Yeah, me neither. We squirmed through the first hour of the 8 o'clock showing of "Her Smell" at the Guild Cinema and finally walked out.

Alex Ross Perry, who showed so much promise with his early films "The Color Wheel" and "Listen Up Philip," continues his slide into self-indulgence. He staggered with "Queen of Earth" in 2015, and he returns here with Elisabeth Moss again, over-indulging a great actor and weighing her down with ponderous, awkward dialogue, some kind of mix of Shakespeare and Mamet.

Perry concocts long scenes involving an intoxicated Becky Something (Moss) abusing the people around her (including a baby daughter) and romping with spiritual gurus. The other actors seem confused by what's expected of them. Agyness Deyn, as the perfectly cast tall androgynous bass player, seems particularly stripped of her dignity. A cacophonous soundtrack of noise-jazz distracts much of the time. (Was that supposed to represent the noises in Becky's head? Who knows/cares.) Eric Stoltz and Virginia Madsen look depressingly old.

Stilted expository dialogue is borderline laughable. At times this recalls Gilda Radner's famous Patti Smith goof, only dead serious and dragging on for more than two hours. Perry smugly chooses obscure pop-punk tunes for the soundtrack.

We were so offended that we immediately placed Perry on a watch list and took his previous film, "Golden Exits," out of our queue. That one raised a lot of red flags, and now we see why. At this point, misusing (and embarrassing) Moss is a sin.

Title: HER SMELL

Running Time: 134 min

Elapsed Time at Plug Pull: 60 min

Portion Watched: 45%

My Age at Time of Viewing: 56 YRS, 5 MO.

Average Male American Lifespan: 78.69 YRS.

Watched/Did Instead: Went home and went to sleep

Odds of Re-viewing This Title: 300-1 (and that would be the second half, out of morbid curiosity)

BONUS BONUS TRACK

Becky and the gals cover this pop nugget at the beginning of "Her Smell," getting our hopes up way too much at the outset. It's the Only Ones' "Another Girl, Another Planet":

  

New to the Queue

"You are not swept up whole ..."

With serious trepidation, the feminine-focused story of the Manson Family, "Charlie Says."

A documentary about the pioneering French filmmaker and producer, "Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché."

A documentary about the horrific abuse of female gymnasts, "At the Heart of Gold."

A reminiscence about the classic Southern California sound of the early rock era, "Echo in the Canyon."

God help me: "Rocketman."
 

Rough Trade

LONDON TO BRIGHTON (2006) (B) - Pulp fiction avoids falling into lurid sex and violence in this tale of a young prostitute and a 12-year-old street kid on the lam after a bloody episode with a kinky john.

Writer-director Paul Andrew Williams has a fine touch with dialogue and character drawing. Johnny Harris strikes a perfect balance as the bumbling heavy. Sam Spruell is frightening as the mob boss and son of the skeevy victim of the girls.

Lorraine Stanley and Georgia Groome are endlessly appealing as the Mutt & Jeff women on the run. Williams uses flashbacks to snip apart the narrative. He also relies more on menace than actual violence, which is refreshing.
 

Past Masters

SPRING NIGHT, SUMMER NIGHT (A) - This perfect nugget of Americana filmmaking finally got some attention on its 50th anniversary last year. The Appalachian love story has been one of the lost gems of cinema, and its restoration is a triumph.

This BFI story explains the movie's phenomenon, including its connection to the Guild Cinema and its former co-owner Peter Conheim. This is essentially the only film J.L. Anderson ever crafted and sought to release, and it is flawless, essentially a blueprint for the American New Wave of the late 1960s and '70s.

Gorgeous black-and-white images abound in the rural setting. Anderson employs a pseudo-documentary style, melding a handful of professional actors with locals. A brother and sister -- who question whether they are actually blood siblings -- take their attraction a step too far, leaving Jessica (Larue Hall) pregnant. Carl (Ted Heim) flees for a while as the family grapples with the disgraceful situation. The hard-ass father (John Crawford) bickers constantly with his wife (the mesmerizing Marj Johnson, with that '60s Ethel Kennedy glow about her), who likes to flirt around town.

The bar scenes are covered in grit. The landscapes in southeast Ohio are stunning. One extended scene involving a sensuous young woman licking an ice cream cone while riding on the back of a motorbike is a master class in filmmaking. Just one element in an absolute masterpiece.

COLD WAR (B+) - There's something antiseptic about Pawel Pawlikowski's postwar love story set behind the Iron Curtain. Stunningly shot in crisp black-and-white, every scene is meticulously laid out and a feast for the eyes.

But "Cold War" can be a little too cold. Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot play star-crossed lovers whose off-and-on romance ebbs and flows along with the fate of the Eastern Bloc. Like the smooth jazz that dominates the soundtrack, the film itself can feel light and effervescent, not unlike "Roma" in the way it entertains visually but fizzes away with the aftertaste.

This is Pawlikowski's follow-up to "Ida," but it lacks the gravitas of that previous film. Kulig and Kot are moving throughout, but there is something off about their chemistry (which is partially the point). At 89 minutes, this is succinct storytelling and especially luscious on the big screen.

BONUS TRACKS
A representative clip from "Spring Night, Summer Night," including that motorbike sequence:



A fine analysis of "Spring Night, Summer Night":