R.I.P., Robert Downey Sr.

No, we don't really have anything to say about the life and career of the man who spawned Robert Downey Jr., but we thought that his death this month would be a good excuse to finally screen the cult classic that stamped his reputation.

PUTNEY SWOPE (1969) (C+) - Not much more than a curious artifact at this point, "Putney Swope" is quite a mess of a movie about an advertising firm turning from white to black control virtually overnight. Very much of its time -- the year of "Midnight Cowboy," "Easy Rider" and "Take the Money and Run" -- it comes across as a psychedelic mix of high-brow blaxploitation, "Laugh-In" lunacy, and blackout sketches from the "Carol Burnett Show."

Provocative for its time, I'm sure, the cheapness of the production magnifies the shortcomings of an incongruent script. It's not clear what the point was at the time, and there's no evident moral to this story. A bunch of militants with guns show up to protect Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson, whose voice Downey dubbed himself) who, in a fluke following the unexpected death of the firm's founder, is elected president of the agency. He immediately cracks down and refuses to advertise alcohol, cigarettes and war toys. 

The new firm, Truth and Soul, draws attention from the president of the United States (Pepi Hermine), but it's not really clear why. Allan Arbus (TV's "MASH") provides some actual acting chops amid a gaggle of scene chewers. Antonio Fargas (TV's "Starsky and Hutch") also stands out with an energy that must have been later studied by Flavor Flav. 

The film is shot in black and white, but it converts to color for the interspersed commercial parodies that are hit and miss on the comedy scale. One involves topless stewardesses jumping up and down in slow motion, if that helps you set a gauge. Some one-liners land better than others. When Swope is informed that a client was caught in bed with a 13-year-old, Swope deadpans, "Well, at least we know he's not superstitious." When confronted with a foul-smelling window cleaner, he barks out, "Put soybeans in it and market it as a soft drink in the ghetto. We'll put a picture of a rhythm and blues singer on the front and call it Victrola Cola."

In the end, the main disappointment is that this obviously was intended as a bold polemic about capitalism and race, but Downey lands nary a body blow on those fronts. OK, so it's a comedy. Eh. I've seen funnier, even back then.

BONUS TRACK

The trailer, and a random clip:

Zen Master

While we await the theatrical release of Jia Zhangke's latest film (the documentary "Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue"), we go back and look at a documentary about the director himself and revisit one of his best films.

JIA ZHANGKE: A GUY FROM FENYANG (2016) (B) - Walter Salles ("The Motorcycle Diaries") pays homage to Jia Zhangke with this thoughtful and faithful biography that follows the director to his hometown to Fenyang as a jumping-off point to study his filmmaking inspirations and techniques.

Nothing fancy here; just tagging along with the filmmaker as he reminisces with old acquaintances and revisits specific sites from his youth that would populate his early work. Rotating members of his regular troupe join the reveries. As Salles' camera rolls, Jia unspools a narrative that creates a broad sense of his own worldview and goals as an artist. 

There is a shambling, familiar feel to this exercise, which sketches in some back story to the auteur's body of work. He comes across as a humble guy whose heart is into telling stories.

24 CITY (2009) (B) - This is a low-key and somewhat uneventful farewell to a Chinese factory as it makes way for luxury condominiums. Jia is one of the foremost chroniclers of the nation's transition from communism to controlled capitalism, but you wish he offered more insight this time. 

He lets workers tell their stories, but for some reason, he brings in ringers -- actors -- to portray some workers. And he doesn't make clear who is real and who is not. Though it is pretty easy to detect Joan Chen sitting in as the pretty woman who in her youth was often flagged as a dead ringer for Joan Chen. Also present is Jia's muse, Tao Zhao, as one of the final two characters who represent children of workers and the next, more yuppie, generation yearning for something beyond the daily grind.

Jia offers lush images paying homage to the work (and crafts) performed at the Chengdu factory and the steady dismantling of the buildings on the vast grounds. It's a lovely film and a fine idea, but it can be strangely inert at times.

New to the Queue

 A warming trend ...

A documentary that should wash over the senses, "The Hidden Life of Trees."

Our guy Sean Baker ("The Florida Project," "Tangerine") finally returns with another study of under-class life, "Red Rocket."

A look at an influential artist of the 20th century, Chicago's Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, "The New Bauhaus."

A documentary about Gen X's catastrophic music-festival sequel, "Woodstock 99: Peace, Love and Rage."

Jess Weixler is usually a draw, and her latest involves a couple having a quarter-life crisis, "Fully Realized Humans."

Capers Great and Small

 

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (B) - This stylized revenge story is too coy and cartoonish to be taken completely seriously, but it flaunts an appealing style and spins a tight, clever narrative that keeps you hooked until its provocative ending. That clever plotline is not without a few idiot-plot pitfalls, and as such it must rely on the appeal of Carey Mulligan to drag us along as we follow the story of a sullen medical-school dropout who devotes her underwhelming existence to entrapping men who prey on drunk women.

However, what is supposed to be a feminist howl from debut writer-director Emerald Fennell is undercut repeatedly by a obsession with candy-colored grrrl-power visuals and a fairly naive broad-brush depiction of "nice guys" as inveterate sexual predators. For all the eye candy, the world of Mulligan's brooding Cassandra is incredibly two-dimensional. As she turns 30, she works (or at least shows up) in a coffee shop and lives with her stuffy, emotionally constipated parents in their suburban museum of a house.

Haunted by the loss of her best friend Nina that followed a med-school rape scandal, Cassie, hollowed out by the crushing of their career dreams, honors Nina's memory by trolling dive bars, made up like a tart, faking being drunk and defenseless, luring a seemingly sympathetic gentleman to rescue her, and then, after the bros make their move, snapping out of it and slamming the men with a sober lesson in consent.

This all would feel more grounded in gravitas if it weren't for Fennell's decision to plop this into some sort of Lollipop Land of Powerpuff empowerment and cardboard villains. Fennell also fetishizes Mulligan, and not just when she is dressed to kill but also dolled in fuzzy tween sweaters and cracking gum, while sporting a puppy-dog look and dimples. Cassie is frequently depicted in stagey static shots, sitting or standing in stiff poses, an aura around her head, like a statue of a virtuous goddess (or the Angel of Death?). With her fluffy blond hair, Mulligan (also noticeably swallowing her British accent for a flat heartland affect) is treated not just like a Britney Spears type but like a Britney Spears doll -- is she supposed to be an inhuman revenge machine or a gutted victim-adjacent empath bereft of true feeling? What was she like before this? Cassie never comes across as a fully formed human being with thoughts and needs and desires of her own, and thus she is a flawed vehicle for telling a believable story. Allison Brie, as another classmate who had hoped not to be reminded of the assault, has more nuance and dimension in a mere couple of scenes, than Mulligan is allowed to manage during the whole film.

Cassie, reluctantly, connects romantically with a former med-school classmate (a funny Bo Burnham), who really does seem like a nice guy, but you don't have to be a film-school grad to figure out that he will be ensnared in Cassie's ultimate plot -- disrupting the bachelor party of their former classmate who raped Nina and is about to marry a bikini model. He and his privileged doctor friends will gather and revel, oblivious to how they were allowed to go on with their lucky lives.

Fennell has a final ace up her sleeve, and her ending, while barely grounded in plausibility, is deviously thought-out and delightfully juicy. It's a shame that she trips over her own ideas and sends out mixed signals all along the way to that rich comeuppance.

BARB & STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR (B-minus) - Whether you choose to see this and whether you enjoy it probably depends almost entirely on your opinion of Kristen Wiig. If you love or tolerate her, this is silly fun and a solid entry in her impressive portfolio.  If not, don't bother.

Barb (Wiig's co-writer Annie Mumolo from "Bridesmaids") and Star (Wiig) are helmet-haired, culottes-clad suburban simpletons who decide to throw caution to the wind and indulge themselves with a trashy trip to an island resort. Improbably, they get unwittingly caught up in an "Austin Powers" style plot to infest the island with killer mosquitoes. The agent carrying that out is ruggedly handsome Edgar (Jamie Dornan, playing nicely off his more famous role in the "50 Shades of Grey" series), who takes orders from (and pines for) the evil albino mastermind (a nearly unrecognizable Wiig in a dual role).

Don't overthink this. Little of it makes sense, and that's mostly the point. Whenever Mumolo and Wiig paint themselves into a plot corner, they just make up something ludicrous and shrug to the next scene. The pair have a loose improv rapport, and they seem genuinely giddy to be working together. They are devoted to their goofy idea and vaudevillian characters, and both Barb and Star take their Hero's Journey through a classic story arc. They toss in musical numbers and even a sartorial deus ex machina that made me laugh out loud.

The supporting cast is in on the joke and the overall tone, especially Vanessa Bayer as a sadistic, fun-averse book-club leader. But in the end, this comes around to your appreciation for Wiig and her wackiness over the course of 107 mindless minutes.

Oh, Happy Day

 

SUMMER OF SOUL (A) - This unveiling of footage from six summer concerts in Harlem in 1969 is the most uplifting and joyous concert film since Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" in the mid-1980s. This gathering of prodigious talents is knitted together from six concerts held the same summer as Woodstock and put in perspective by its own assembly of talking heads that include performers, organizers and attendees.

Ahmir Thompson, better known at Questlove, the drummer for the Roots, shows an incredible feel for his subject matter and its place in history, in his debut as a film director. The first 15minutes or so involve too many quick-cuts that could induce a bit of vertigo, but Thompson -- as if giddy over the discovery of this goldmine of material and wanting to share it all at once -- settles in and slows the pace while still covering a lot of ground.

He is generous with the clips of the performances, thankfully not chopping them up into scattered pieces. His lineup is unparalleled: Stevie Wonder, the Staples Singers, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, B.B. King, Sly and the Family Stone, and the 5th Dimension. Making a case for their soul bona fides, the 5th Dimension's Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis appear in the present day to describe the vibe from 50 years ago.  Like a few others, they are filmed sitting and watching the performances on a monitor, and they well up with emotion, as do attendees and the offspring of other performers. 

Thompson provides perspective by explaining how the event was organized and filling in the background of the gregarious emcee. He also provides historical perspective by capturing the zeitgeist of the mess late '60s. Most notably, he name-checks Apollo 11 and shows archival interviews at the concerts of inner-city residents wondering why America was spending its resources in space. 

Politics and racial pride share the stage with the awesome music. Jessie Jackson, then fronting Operation Breadbasket, comes off as charismatic and inspiring to the sea of humanity. Mavis Staples (heard in the present day only in voice-over) describes the honor of sharing the stage with the legendary Mahalia Jackson for a soaring version of the gospel standard "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." Meantime, Stevie Wonder -- then still a teenager -- performs with abandon, even taking a turn on the drum kit. 

The wealth and depth of talent can seem boundless during the two hours that fly by. But Thompson doesn't just use the shots that were aimed at the stage. Throughout, he splices in audience reaction shots, and the faces, coifs, and clothing choices make for endlessly riveting people-watching. Look closely at the expressions on all of those various faces of all ages, and you begin to get a sense not only of the thrill that came from forgetting their worries on a summer day, but what it meant to be black in that moment, and how this grand entertainment event not only would be quickly eclipsed by the Boomers' wallow in the mud upstate but also unceremoniously shelved and nearly forgotten for half a century.

This film aims to fix that unforgivable historical slight. And it stands as a shout to the world that we're not going back to that world.

BONUS TRACKS

There are too many highlights to try to reference here, but one fascinating moment comes when Thompson syncs footage of the moon landing with the opening strains of the Staples Singers performing "It's Been a Change":

The Id and the Odyssey

 

ZOLA (A-minus) - It's tempting to dismiss a movie like "Zola" as a lightweight exploitive romp, but director Janicza Bravo juices this buddy film about road-tripping strippers with a confident visual and aural flair. It's this year's razzle-dazzle summer-blast version of "Baby Driver."

Bravo is blessed with a solid core of four appealing actors, starting with the always watchable Riley Keough, tapping a similar well to the one she drew upon for "American Honey." Like in "Honey," Keough (below, left) plays off a relatively young co-star, Taylour Paige ("Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"), with Keough's batshit-crazy Stefani complemented perfectly by Paige's wide-eyed and overwhelmed Zola.

Zola and Stefani meet-cute in a restaurant, and Stefani convinces a skeptical Zola to take a 20-hour drive to Tampa, Fla., for a lucrative stripping gig. Keough mostly performs Stefani in a sort of black-voice (which apparently is still OK these days?), creating an artifice that steadily builds throughout the movie. Joining the road trip are Stefani's anxiety-riddled boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun) and her unnamed "roommate" (Colman Domingo), a menacing shape-shifter, with different accents depending on his mood.

It turns out that the roommate is more of a pimp, and Stefani has roped Zola (our reliable narrator) into more explicit sex work than she bargained for. Once that table is set, Bravo reels off the adventure with a rat-a-tat style that would make Quentin Tarantino envious. She has an ear for perfect soundtrack moments that heighten the tension and make the whole screen come alive. And she has a sharp eye for small moments, sometimes dropped casually in the background, that perfectly capture the seedy underbelly of a desperate America on the hustle.

Paige, as Zola, comes off as a bit detached, but that's almost certainly intentional. She is the calm in this storm, and Zola's strategy of not wigging out is a pretty clever survival strategy. Paige lets Keough dominate the proceedings with a whack, desperate vibe, while Domingo's hot-and-cold character echoes them both. It all zips by in 86 urgent minutes, without a need to catch its breath.

FRENCH TWIST (B-minus) - Azazel Jacobs ("Momma's Man," "Terri") never finds his footing in this minor-key black comedy about a woman losing her fortune and using what money she has left to venture off to Paris with her adult son. This is his second mainstream misfire, along with 2017's "The Lovers," which similarly sat flat on the screen and limped to a finish.

This seems like a comeback bid by Michelle Pfeiffer, who has played mostly forgettable roles for the past 20 years since her '90s heyday. Her presence here is quite a distraction -- her different look in nearly every scene is hard not to notice -- and it was hard to get lost in her character and the plot, what little there is of one.  I kept thinking, "Hmm, so that's what Michelle Pfeiffer looks like at 60. Son of a gun." This might not be as much of a problem for people who don't have an ex-wife from the '90s who resembled Pfeiffer.

The main problem, though, is the languid pace and the lack of anything substantive at stake. Pfeiffer's Frances is haughty and bitter, still tagged with her connection to the mysterious death of her somewhat famous husband. Her son, Malcolm (a serviceable Lucas Hedges), is quite the mope, who comes off as either abused or somewhere on the spectrum. Or maybe he's just a bored rich kid. He sleeps with a witch on the boat over to France, and that character, Madeleine (Danielle Macdonald from "Patti Cakes"), will return in the second half to help Frances and Malcolm find their missing black cat, who has a stupid connection to the ex-husband. You might bail out by the time the magical realism kicks in.

Jacobs is going for a Wes Anderson style of subdued quirk here, but there is never a grippable entry point for the viewer, and as a result this becomes merely a series of outre vignettes. Valerie Mahaffey (George's crazy girlfriend on "Seinfeld") injects some life in the proceedings as the clingy, ditzy Mme. Reynard. We're supposed to care what happens to Frances as her euros dwindle and her mood turns dark. Pfeiffer does camp it up and show flashes of brilliance -- especially in a scene in which she exacts revenge on a stereotypically rude French waiter -- but this story never coheres, and instead it merely serves to showcase a fine actress announcing her arrival in a new phase of her career.

BONUS TRACK

From the closing credits of "Zola," a throwback amid the pop and rap, "Because of My Best Friend," by the Clickettes:

Guerrilla Graphics

40 YEARS A PRISONER (B) - This is a serviceable companion piece to the much better documentary "Let the Fire Burn," which in 2015 chronicled the 1985 firebombing of Philadelphia's Move compound of black liberationists. "40 Years" takes a more formulaic approach to an earlier event -- the 1978 shootout between residents and police that left an officer dead and a bunch of Move members languishing in prison four decades on.

The hero of the story is Michael Africa, who was born shortly after his parents, Debbie and Michael, were imprisoned and who now is battling to free them from prison. Too often this documentary has a tone and narrative arc akin to that of a special episode of TV's "20/20." Approaching a run time of two hours, it also feels a little loaded down.

The highlights are the archival footage from TV coverage back in 1977 and 1978, which leans heavily in favor of the police and the cretinous mayor, Frank Rizzo. The talking heads include some former Move members who still have that rebellious spark. Michael Africa Jr. is a quite charming presence, but his modern presence tends to make the milieu from 40 years ago seem more like a curiosity than a compelling true story. Still, you have to root for him and his family.

And maybe it's good that a fresh filmmaking voice -- writer-director Tommy Oliver, a Philadelphia native -- drags us into a new era and leaves all that '70s ugliness in the black-and-white dustbin of history.

THE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER (C+) - The plot, from IMDb: "An investigation into the truth behind the murder of Guatemalan bishop Juan Gerardi who was killed in 1998 just days after trying to hold the country's military accountable for the atrocities committed during its civil war."

The plod: I really wanted to sink my teeth into this story, but director Paul Taylor just never gets this noirish tale off the ground. And it was difficult to get into this narrative of fairly ancient Guatemalan history. The pace slackens early on and never really gets traction. In the second half, the names of the various players start stacking up, inviting confusion. 

Taylor tips his hand pretty early about the likely suspects -- mainly hinting at military involvement in the death of the the beloved bishop. He also fails to provide historical perspective -- glancing over both the two decades of civil war that preceded the killing and the two decades since. It seems too much to ask of a casual interloper into the history of Guatemala to do a deep dive into this one event. Thus, it's hard to recommend it to just anyone.

New to the Queue

 Blowing hot and cold ...

The Roots' Questlove curated footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival concert and has packaged it into a two-hour documentary, "Summer of Soul."

Our gal Riley Keough might be just enough to draw us to the pulpy Twitter trash-noir "Zola."

An Iranian feature about a group of kids who infiltrate a school in order to help a mobster find a buried treasure there, "Sun Children."

A documentary about three siblings who come from a financially struggling family and excel at sports, "Sisters on Track."

And a look at an underground punk icon, "Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over."

A documentary about a filmmaker, Roy Andersson, whose work we've never explored, "Being a Human Person."

And a profile of the ground-breaking comedian and social critic, "The One and Only Dick Gregory."