Holy Crap: 'The 11th Green'

Be afraid. Be very afraid. The truth is out there. And "The 11th Green" is way out there.

Occasional writer-director Christopher Munch digs deep into the nation's E.T. diaries and produces this cheap, bizarre and underwhelming mash-up of history and drama. Campbell Scott, rumpled up a bit to make him look a little older than his 58 years, plays Jeremy Rudd, called from his gloomy East Coast drudge work anchoring a left-wing newscast to the sunny climes of California to settle the affairs of his father, who had been neck-deep in the government's clandestine flying-saucer program.

Let's cut to the chase: One scene involves Barack Obama (never so named and played by Leith Burke) chilling in a time warp (ca. 1967) with Dwight Eisenhower (George Gerdes) and some enlightened alien dude swathed in stereotypical loose robes and groomed in Jesus chic. Just, you know, hanging in the den trying to figure out why we can't all get along.

Agnes Bruckner, 20 years Scott's junior, shows up as the father's former assistant and rocks the flowery name Laurie Larkspur. Of course, Laurie's attracted to Jeremy -- though is she part of the conspiracy and up to something? Good question.

Munch delves into arcane history dating back to Roswell in the late '40s, even the suspicious suicide of James Forrestal, the former Navy Secretary under Truman. But this is all so slapped together, and Munch can barely get his actors to look like they care. The production values and special effects reflect a scrawny B-movie budget. And just when you think this might get interesting, we get over-written dialogue or a slug to the jaw that will make you think this is a lost product of the '40s gumshoe era. Or something.

GRADE: C

* - Holy Crap is an occasional series about unique films, cutting a wide swath from brilliant to awful. Check out previous entries here.

 

Purgatory

QUEEN & SLIM (C+) - You want to root for this movie -- and the Bonnie and Clyde couple on the run after a cop gets shot during a traffic stop -- but it defies you to suspend belief -- to the breaking point, to where you can't stop rolling your eyes and it's hard to care anymore.

Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) and Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) meet for a long-anticipated first date, and it goes just OK, with prospects dim for a second. But then on the drive home they get pulled over by an angry white cop (a miscast Sturgill Simpson, the musician), and, in a twist, it's the cop who gets shot, and our instant folk heroes -- in the first of many stupid decisions -- decide to lam it. 

What follows is a series of ridiculous coincidences and improbable plot twists while these talented actors mouth the tortured aphorisms of screenwriters Lena Waithe and James Frey (yeah, the "Million Little Pieces" guy). They meander south, ostensibly destined for sanctuary in Cuba, and spend time with Queen's pimp uncle (yawn) and his harem (really?) in Louisiana for a while.

As their legend grows, members of the black community wink and look the other way, a silent fist pump for offing a cop who, conveniently for everyone's conscience here, had just a couple of years ago killed a black motorist and got away with it. Queen and Slim's relationship deepens sweetly along the way. But Kaluuya and Turner-Smith never escape the constraints of their cartoon world, from beginning to end. The plot is a flimsy house of cards, and after two-plus bloated hours (with an ending spotted a mile away), you might not care anymore what random bad decision seals their fate.

LIMBO (1999) (A-minus) - Indie legend John Sayles works in a minor key -- at times literally -- in the tale of a man and a woman, each approaching middle age with regrets, who reluctantly fall in together in an Alaskan fishing town -- only to end up, in the second half of a movie, fighting for their survival after they are stranded on a remote island.

If that sounds like two movies, it kind of is. Sayles regular David Strathairn and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (before settling into TV work) star as Joe and Donna, both licking their wounds from traumas -- his old (and involving the sea), hers (man-related) perpetual. Donna's teenage daughter, Noelle (Vanessa Martinez), works a dead-end job with Joe and harbors a secret crush, which is crushed when Mom reveals she is dating him. 

Interesting set-up, greased by Sayles' impeccable feel for dialogue and life's rhythms. But then, Joe, drawn back to the sea, takes mom and daughter on an ill-advised joy ride that turns disastrous and leaves them holed up in an abandoned cabin with little hope for rescue, though Joe is handy enough to make them relatively comfortable and fed. Each of the three develops their own means for survival in this bizarre platonic love triangle, most notably Noelle, who discovers a young girl's diary and regales Mom and Joe with nightly readings. 

Sayles digs deep into the quiet sadness and ennui of his characters. And just when you expect a life-or-death resolution, he pulls the rug out from you with a stunner of an ending. This one is thoughtful and lived-in.

  

New to the Queue

False starts ...

An underappreciated genre, the failed film shoot, tells the story of trying to make a movie with a crazy comic legend, "The Ghost of Peter Sellers."

The fictionalized documentary, produced like a reality show about tavern life, "Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets."

Every once in a while we can tolerate a "Scott Pilgrim"-type of movie, so let's hang with the morose Japanese teens forming a band in "We Are Little Zombies." 

 No way we can pass up a documentary about Suzi Quatro, the shaggy-haired proto chick rocker from our adolescent '70s, "Suzi Q."

  

Here, There and Everywhere

NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS (A-minus) - Eliza Hittman gets back on her game with this powerful rumination on the travails of a teenage girl seeking out an abortion. The less said, the better, here. 

Hittman, who exploded with 2013's "It Felt Like Love" and stumbled with "Beach Rats," returns to the female perspective of the former and bonds intimately with her new protagonist, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), stalking her documentary-style through the trek from suburban Philadelphia to the mean streets of New York City. What Autumn thought would be a simple procedure turns into a bureaucratic odyssey. 

Autumn's journey also is an opportunity to escape from the horrid boys at school and her creepy (step?)dad. Tagging along for support is her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder), whose more conventional pretty face is an asset in faking their way through the Big Apple and taking an advantage of a gropey boy when necessary. Pitfalls abound, and the girls don't always make the best choices.

Hittman slowly peels away the trauma -- great and small -- that Autumn has endured and which led her to this miserable pursuit. Older women pop up to either guide her or exploit her, but you always sense that Autumn has the inner strength to handle any peril that comes her way. Flanigan carries this shoulder-weight like a pro, until you want to either cheer Autumn or hug her. 

VIVARIUM (C+) - If you are going to make a horror film about the pointlessness of life, you still need to have a point. Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots display little chemistry as a couple trapped in a suburban-subdivision from hell, where every home looks alike and there's no escape from the labyrinth that they call home. Oh, the soul-crushing conformity of the suburbs, amirite?

The couple, Tom and Gemma, are given a baby to raise, and he matures faster than a puppy, growing to a school-aged lad, and he is a horrid being, screeching whenever he wants to be fed and playing video "games" on the telly. Tom soon resents eating the same eggs for breakfast every day and becomes obsessed with digging in the yard, searching for an escape or a clue to their existence. Tedium ensues for the couple and for the viewer.

To its credit, this sci-fi nightmare from sophomore director Lorcan Finnegan starts out dark and stays dark. It is a relentless slog. The outlook for this couple, punished for pursuing the ideal of domestic bliss, is bleak from beginning to end. When the kid grows up, he is no more pleasant, and there you go, parents -- be careful what you wish for.

Out of Step

THE JESUS ROLLS (C+) - This anachronistic piece of filmmaking from John Turturro has its moments, but this sequel for his character from "The Big Lebowski" is a road movie that goes nowhere and shares little other DNA with the Coen brothers' classic. Turturro's Jesus exits prison at the start of the film, and you can sense him stealing a page from Vincent Gallo's quirky self-directed oddballs in "Buffalo '66" and "The Brown Bunny." 

Alas, Turturro has much less to say than Gallo did, preferring to wallow in silly walks (which are, admittedly, funny) and some sort of celebration of pansexuality. Go-to bro Bobby Cannavale and a giddy Audrey Tautou ("Amelie") are able companions for this confusing adventure. 

Some of this is inspired and amusing, but too often its idiot plot (what there is of a plot) descends into '70s indie cliches and tired stereotypes (especially sexist ones) -- to the point that you wonder whether Turturro is attempting either a parody of those slices of archaic Americana or paying homage to them. In the end, that fogeyism might make you wince a little more than you laugh here.

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY (2007) (B+) - Speaking of cliches and parody ... Judd Apatow, hitting his stride in the era of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" but before his descent into navel-gazing excess, hands Jake Kasdan a svelte 96-minute script parodying the rise-and-fall of a Sun Records-style rockabilly legend taking a Cashian odyssey through the excesses of the Boomer glory days of the '60s and '70s.

John C. Reilly is the perfect vehicle for the marginally talented doofus who coasts through pop-culture touchstones despite the childhood trauma that includes the infamous act of bisecting his more talented brother, to the never-ending regret of their father. Reilly slips on various personas, navigating phases that echo Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Glen Campbell and others. He also crosses paths with fictionalized versions of legends including the Beatles and Buddy Holly. Cox misses Holly's fateful flight but can't escape the lure of drugs that band member Sam (Tim Meadows) warns him away from, one of laziest but funniest running gags in the movie. 

Apatow packs a lot of silliness into an hour and a half. The talented supporting cast is a bonus: Kristen Wiig, Harold Ramis (as one of the record producers so Jewish they are Hassidic -- get it?), Craig Robinson, Jack White (as a manic Elvis Presley) and Jane Lynch. But Reilly is the rock, the key to pulling this all off. And Apatow is smart enough to engage talented songwriters to pen the sharp musical parodies with substance. The result is a goofy romp through five decades of pop-music history.

BONUS TRACK

The classic from "Walk Hard," Reilly teaming with Jenna Fischer for "Let's Duet":