BRING YOUR OWN BRIGADE (A-minus) - This urgent documentary takes its time (two hours) to lay out the horror of wildfires (mostly the California variety), the causes behind them, and the solutions to the problem. British director Lucy Walker ("Waste Land," about landfills) brings a fresh cultural perspective from across the pond to cut through the patented American can't-do spirit to addressing the problem.
Going beyond just the hokey rebuilding focus on the 2018 Camp Fire in "Rebuilding Paradise" (below), Walker digs deep with some smart experts and even a few cagey residents in both Paradise in northern California and Malibu in Southern California (noting the red-blue/rich-poor contrast between the two areas). She spends nearly the first half hour on harrowing footage from recent fires, setting the table in the first third of the documentary. She then segues into the causes, with many talking heads citing more factors than merely the warming of the planet. Forest management is explained quite well. Nothing is presented as simplistic or black-and-white.
Walker also chooses a few interesting characters to thread through her narrative. One, who takes care of his dying 90-year-old mother, is a no-nonsense guy whose Paradise home was spared and who opens up that home to a bunch of families who were left out in the cold. A couple of other gruff residents acknowledge the dangers of living in the mountains. The victims are presented in ways that are sympathetic but not overly sentimental.
Walker has an ace up her sleeve, as she follows the Paradise town council and fire officials as they put together a comprehensive slate of suggested solutions. This being small-town America, stay for the climactic scene in which the town leaders vote on the proposals. Walker, who also narrates, has a knack for pacing, and unravels this story like a compelling two-part episode of "Law & Order." This is smart polemical filmmaking.
REBUILDING PARADISE (B-minus) - This highly stylized Hollywood disaster porn has the slick residue of Ron Howard's corny production values as he valorizes the victims of the Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif., of November 2018. No doubt these folks went through a lot, losing their worldly possessions and dealing with the deaths of their neighbors, friends and loved ones; but this celebration of the American spirit offers little insight into the aftermath of the fire that killed 85 people.
The film follows some rather uninspiring characters, including a wise-cracking cop (who comes across as a poor man's Ryan Reynolds); an elderly man in recovery determined to rebuild his house; and a school superintendent trying to herd cats and who eventually loses her husband in a way unrelated to the fire. Nobody in particular stands out. The cop's marriage eventually fails, though that probably had little to do with Mother Nature's devastation. And kudos to the PG&E representative willing to take his lumps in front of an angry crowd of locals aghast at the failings of the utility company.
Howard opens the film with a 10-minute horror montage, featuring some truly frightening footage that you've probably already seen on newscasts or YouTube. That introduction is expertly edited and paced, but it sets the viewer's expectations awfully high, and the cheesy storytelling that follows can't match the initial emotion.
THE BEATLES: GET BACK (B+) - Let's go back, circa 1977. It's a ballroom in the Palmer House in downtown Chicago. The lights dim. A film projector clatters, and the crowd buzzes as images come to life from 1969 -- the Beatles recording tracks for their final album. It's Second Wave Beatlemania, so different klatches of women still scream when their favorite Beatle appears on the screen. Eventually, Paul McCartney is at the piano, looking up toward the camera with heavy-lidded puppy-dog eyes, as the squeals wash across the ballroom: "When I find myself in times of trouble ..."
That was the annual Beatlefest gathering, which, in addition to panel discussions and a massive flea market that featured memorabilia and bootleg albums, showed films all day -- e.g., the ur-music-video for "Strawberry Fields," John Lennon vamping in the studio while recording his "Rock 'n' Roll" oldies album, and, in the days before home video, "Let It Be," Michael Lindsay-Hogg's gloomy 1970 capstone to a no longer fabulous pop era.
Now comes "Get Back," in which Peter Jackson takes those January 1969 "Let It Be" sessions, which had yielded that
run-of-the-mill 80-minute documentary, and blows it up to nearly eight
hours (in three parts) for a vanity streaming site. It as if Jackson -- perhaps fulfilling a long-held fantasy to have released the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy all at once -- tells the king of documentary tedium, Frederick Wiseman, "Hold my beer." It's also a quirky parallel to obsessive producer Phil Spector, who at the time commandeered the session's recordings and smothered them in shmaltz for the album release.
The result is a tedious but fascinating time capsule that endeavors to rewrite the history of the final year of the Fab Four. While the original documentary was a dour affair starring four seemingly miserable musicians getting on each others' nerves, Jackson's mix is more illuminating and provides a wider perspective. First off, there is more frivolity than bickering among the men, whose personal bonds, while frayed, still run deep and even loving. Paul and John often glance at each other, offering a hint of the teenage boys in their gazes, even if their professional competition gets the better of them at times. They all call Ringo Rich or Richie. They reminisce about India the year before (Jackson illustrates this with shots from their home movies). Paul still refers to the others as "lads." Yoko Ono is not the only girlfriend present; Linda Eastman (McCartney), ironically camera-shy, and her 6-year-old daughter hang out a lot; and even Pattie Boyd and Maureen Starkey have cameos.
There is a fascination to engage in here and a joy to share in as you get to observe the workings of the quartet, who were merely in their late 20s but dog tired of this whole Beatles thing. The idea was to Get Back to their roots -- craft (or resurrect) some simple songs that they could play at a quasi-impromptu concert before their first proper live audience since 1966. The band we see consists of bored, tired, grumpy, and creatively challenged men who care about each other but who each have one foot out the door. But they still get plenty of kicks playing as a group -- just listen to the rollicking rooftop version of John and Paul's boyhood composition "One After 909" for Exhibit A.
The biggest nit to pick with Jackson's project is that it is mostly one big cheat, at least in Part 1, which is the weakest of the three. He has more than twice as much audio recordings than he has video footage, and rarely do the two sync up properly. So he often has sound that doesn't match an image. To get around that, Jackson strains with obvious editing techniques to have the speaker off camera or merely run audio over the wrong video but approximate the lip movements, a gimmick that often brings to mind badly dubbed foreign films of the era.
Jackson performed a similar vanity exercise when he restored and colorized World War I footage and dubbed in audio for 2018's "They Shall Not Grow Old." While that documentary had an old-world kitchiness to it, "Get Back" -- considering the mind-boggling length and more modern sensibility of the gorgeously restored footage -- just seems monotonous and indulgent during that first episode. So that's annoying. But then again, you might not mind, because you're in the studio with the Beatles. There's George, petulant at the slights his songs receive and at Paul telling him how to play guitar; Ringo seemingly stoned and amiable; Paul brimming with brilliant song ideas but nagging his mates like a schoolmarm; and arrogant, silly John, often lazily strolling in late, with only a couple of songs to offer besides the oldies he likes to jam to.
And then there's the music. It seems now, a half century later, that songs like "Let It Be" and "Get Back" have always existed, but this documentary reminds us that they and other classics sprouted as germs of ideas from the minds of these guys and then got workshopped over weeks. The former, referred to in utero as "Mother Mary," is Paul's comfort food when he noodles at the piano, perhaps aware that he has a canonical song at his fingertips; the latter results from true Lennon-McCartney collaboration, as Jojo Jackson from Arizona becomes Jojo from Tucson, Arizona, John assuring Paul that they have the geography correct.
The albums "Let It Be" and "Abbey Road" (recorded and released in reverse order) are remembered as Paul taking over the band while the others were mostly checked out. But that's quite an exaggeration. Sure, Lennon didn't show up with many songs, but one of them was "Don't Let Me Down," one of the all-time great rock 'n' roll numbers ever but which was tossed off merely as a single B-side and filler on an odds-and-sods compilation album in early 1970. He's also essential to "I've Got a Feeling," not to mention his lead-guitar contributions.
Like Paul, George Harrison has song ideas coming to him daily. He shows up to the studio with a new late-night inspiration each day -- "I, Me, Mine," "For You Blue," "Old Brown Shoe" -- and we see him tinkering with "Something," his epic for "Abbey Road." Plus he's got "All Things Must Pass" and other eventual solo works in his back pocket. He tells a sympathetic John at one point that he's got enough songs for the next 10 Beatles albums if his allotment of two per disc holds into the foreseeable future. (He'll put out a triple album instead in late 1970, his masterpiece.) Even Ringo bops in one morning with the first few lines of "Octopus' Garden," and it's captivating to watch George take the time to instruct him on how to get past the first verse by climbing octaves and turn it into a successful song.
And then there's the critical contribution of Billy Preston. Episode 1 ends with George quitting the band. Episode 2 starts with the others trying to get him back -- eventually succeeding by agreeing to drop the idea of the live TV show later in January and instead focusing on recording the album (and letting the film footage maybe be a documentary someday). One scene typifies the men at this critical juncture while George was off pouting in his mansion -- sitting in a circle, John tosses out endless clever wordplay (such as brushing aside the harm of masturbation: "You don't go blind but only short-sighted") while Paul rolls his eyes and Ringo dozes in his chair. When George does return, keyboardist Preston -- who knew the boys from Hamburg when he toured with Little Richard -- randomly stops by one day. When he sits down at an electric piano and starts fiddling around with notes, he truly becomes the fifth Beatle, the solution to the problem of how a band that is accustomed to repeated overdubs records a live-to-track album. Imagine "Get Back" and "Don't Let Me Down" without Preston's indelible solos. (The single is credited to The Beatles With Billy Preston," a unique honor.)
It is at this point that the documentary finally takes off. The lads are in their element, studio rats jamming and harmonizing and bouncing ideas off each other. They've got their groove back. We hear snippets of songs that will eventually be classics. Engineer Glyn Johns -- sometimes rocking a shaggy white goat-skin coat -- persists in keeping the band on task, desperate to capture at least a few final takes of songs instead of "flogging them to death." He puts the mics and amps in the right place and runs tape; George Martin flits around soothing egos ("I'll fix it, lads"); and Mal Evans makes sure tea is served on time. (Or something stronger -- a drunken, late-night version of "Let It Be" closes out Episode 2.)
What eventually congeals in Episode 3 -- as the original director and some of his nutty ideas (flying with fans to Libya for a show at a ruined coliseum) fade into the background -- is the combination of goofing around and songsmithing that we now know will result in a batch of songs ensconced in the pantheon. As George struggles with the lyrics to "Something," John schools him in word association -- "Just sing 'Attracts me like a cauliflower,' until something comes to you." George, spitballing with "Old Brown Shoe," asks Preston, "What this chord, Billy?" John and Paul, bored with rehearsing "Two of Us," take to goofing off with the vocals during these run-throughs -- performing them in German accents, through gritted teeth like ventriloquists, and a la Dylan. By Episode 3, I fast-forwarded through a couple of the umpteenth versions of "Get Back" and others, not wanting them ruined before the capstone live performance.
Paul -- with full beard, as if to distinguish him as the adult who has taken over for manager Brian Epstein -- longs for there to be something more than just another album release. (Meantime, the others, behind his back, plot their move to Rolling Stones manager Allen Klein, a notable asshole. As Ringo puts it, "a con man who's on our side for a change.") Eventually the leading prospect for their first live concert in two-and-a-half years is the fabled session on the roof of the Apple Corps headquarters. Finally, the four men sit down and announce that they, and no one else, will make this decision. George is the only one who doesn't want to go up on the roof (he refers to it as "the chimney"), but he is out-voted. At long last, Lindsay-Hogg will have his movie ending.
Many of us might be numb to the spectacle of the Beatles disrupting lunchtime on Savile Row to debut a few new numbers. We take the event for granted, like we do with paintings of the old masters. But -- maybe it's partly the emotional exhale of surviving the first seven hours -- it's a fresh thrill to see the Beatles ascend to the roof, strap on their instruments and let loose -- finally -- with these songs. There they are in red slicker, business casual, brown fur coat, and lime pants, tossed back into Hamburg improv mode.
My girlfriend happened to wander in the room as the rooftop session started, and she had never seen it before. She was thrilled. How cool is this! Jackson splits the screen, "Woodstock"-like, to give proper perspective to the scene below -- the audience unaware that they were a part of history, the two baby-faced bobbies harrumphing about the noise and lack of protocol. (Props to Debbie at Apple's front desk for deftly stalling and feigning helplessness.) When the cops finally emerge on the rooftop, Paul looks back, smiles mischievously, and lets out a big whoop. He is back in his element. He and John exhibit the joy of school boys as they romp through their school days hit "One After 909."
It's amazing that any fresh entertainment could be wrung from this 53-year-old lark. Jackson pulls off a true feat of reinvention. He recaptures the urgency of seeing it for the first time. It's a great ending.
Still burning off adrenaline, the boys, with galpals in tow, crowd into the playback room of the studio to review the raw live recording. Like us, they are visibly impressed. They grin and chatter. Jackson dives in for a close-up as we see Ringo's hand reach out to clasp the hands of Paul and Linda. There is true warmth and intimacy in this cramped space. Love is all you need.
BONUS TRACKS
Energized by news reports of a wave of anti-immigration in Britain at the time, the band considered making more of a political statement with the lyrics of "Get Back" and then jammed out a song called "Commonwealth" (with a good example of John's ability to crack up Paul):
McCartney has a blast with a vaudevillian knockoff, "Greasepaint on Your Face":
It is canon that we take our time compiling each year's Best-of list, as titles trickle in from their exclusive December openings in the big cities. Here, to keep you in suspense, are the 2021 releases that are in the running so far for best film, having earned a B+ or better this year:
C'MON C'MON (D+) - C'mon, indeed. Or more like, come onnnn.
Memo to filmmakers (and reporters and novelists and other storytellers): Children, with rare exceptions, are not interesting. Mike Mills thought otherwise. He was woefully mistaken.
There is precious and then there is the failed experiment in preciousness that is "C'mon C'mon," the story of an obnoxious 9-year-old boy and a logistical quirk that gets treated like the most traumatic experience ever for him, his mother and his uncle. The histrionics here involve the following "crisis." Viv (Gaby Hoffmann) has to leave LA to go baby-sit her estranged or ex-husband who is having a bipolar episode in Oakland, and so she agrees to let her brother Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) baby-sit little precocious mop-haired Jesse (Woody Norman). Luckily these middle-class mopes have the resources to do all this; Johnny takes Jesse on the road to assist with his NPR-like team that goes around interviewing children, beseeching them to enlighten us with their wisdom. One example, asked of kids born after Katrina even happened, is something along the lines of "What causes flooding inside of you?" (Most kids (I hope) would contort their face and respond, "What the fuck are you talking about?") This is a fictitious world in wish no child is ever bad and adults care deeply about their psyches and moods.
Everything here is a misstep. There is barely a story to speak of: Kid hangs out with uncle for a while, they bicker and do kissy-face stuff, and phone his mom a lot to make sure everyone is, you know, okay. There is barely a script. Much of the dialogue seems workshopped or ad-libbed by the three principal actors and often consists to cloying play-acting along the lines of "You are."/"No you are."/"No you are!" Some actual interesting screenwriting comes courtesy of long excerpts from writings that Mills cribs from the likes of photographer Kirsten Johnson and the book "The Wizard of Oz." And then there are the interviews with the kids. It's not clear if these are real kids giving real answers or if they are just awkward untrained actors reading lines; regardless, Phoenix is no Art Linkletter. It's not even a Bill Cosby Jell-O commercial.
Mills shoots in black and white; he probably would have used sepia tones if the studio would have allowed it. He lucks upon the pairing of Hoffmann and Phoenix and then has them talk on the phone or text for almost the whole movie. We get not one but two scenes of Johnny losing track of Jesse in New York City for less than a minute, followed by the requisite "You scared me; don't do that" which leads to another round of a variation on "You are."/"No, you are."/"No, you are!" Ad nauseam.
Jesse behaves like a spoiled brat, but we're supposed to think he is some misunderstood wunderkind with such deep feelings that we couldn't possibly understand the pure hell of a child who wears cutesy pajamas, uses a toothbrush that plays music, and likes to pretend that he's an orphan. (Because, you know, mommy and daddy have Major Issues and split up.) The one time Johnny does raise his voice to the golden boy Johnny is so torn up he has to confess his cardinal sin to Viv. Lots of processing of feelings all around this one.
None of this is as clever as Mills thought it up in his head (or remembers it from his amber-encrusted childhood, if that's the case). Mills had a great run with films like "Thumbsucker," "Beginners" and "20th Century Women" (a truly insightful paean to motherhood). I'd hate to think that his spouse, Miranda July ("Kajillionaire"), has dragged him into the twee zone. "C'mon C'mon" is supposed to be some ode to motherhood and childhood. Save it for your family gatherings.
BONUS TRACK
A bad movie deserves a mockable needle-drop on our title track:
The soundtrack is all over the place. It has arty mood music from Bryce and Aaron Dessner of The National and then punky retro tracks like "The Ostrich" by Lou Reeds early band the Primitives:
And we get a fish-out-of-water random sampling of "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is" by Irma Thomas:
The latest from Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights," "Magnolia," "Punch-Drunk Love" and not much since), our annual Christmas Day Mainstream movie choice, "Licorice Pizza."
We'll take a chance on Maggie Gyllenhaal's writing/directing debut, in part because of the presence of Jesse Buckley ("Wild Rose"), "The Lost Daughter."
A documentary about Zimbabwe's 2018 presidential race, its first democratic election in decades, "President."
Joel Coen directs Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand in "The Tragedy of Macbeth."
An avant-garde contemplation of the end of mankind, "Last and First Men."
Apichatpong Weerasethakul ("Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives") recruits Tilda Swinton (who also narrates "Last and First Men") for another meandering musing on the fragility of humanity, "Memoria."
A CHOICE OF WEAPONS: INSPIRED BY GORDON PARKS (B) - This earnest examination of the career of pioneering photograph and filmmaker Gordon Parks is a victim of its structure. The "Inspired" part refers to the modern visual artists and documentarians who were influenced by the man who became Life magazine's first black photographer and who directed "Shaft," kicking off the '70s blaxploitation movement. Too often, though, this documentary is fawning and over-reverential.
The talking heads here are often solid but over-exposed. Go-to commentators like Spike Lee (rhymes with "hyperbole"), Ava Duvernay, Jelani Cobb -- we see them frequently, and their insights here are intermittent. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sitting in a tiny chair, knees scrunched, is distracting.
What's better are the stories of working photographers who truly have been inspired by Parks, who got his start in the 1940s with the Farm Security Administration, following in the immediate footsteps of legends Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, who famously chronicled rural America during the Depression. Latoya Ruby Frazier, especially, embodies the Parks method of devoting great swaths of time with subjects, absorbing their stories behind the resulting images. The modern photographers' own stories can be captivating, as are the lingering shots of Parks' indelible photographs from the postwar era.
LISTENING TO KENNY G (B) - A problem with a documentary about smooth-jazz saxophonist Kenny G -- even one purporting to explore both sides of the fan ledger -- is that you have to listen to the music of Kenny G. And if you think his songs are tough to listen to, you should hear him race through scales. Ack!
The talented Penny Lane ("Hail Satan?", "Nuts!") walks a fine line here between indulging Mr. Gorelick and siccing a bunch of high-brow music critics on him (one calls the innocuous genre a "weapon of consent"), and she plummets into the less-interesting gulf in between. Kenny G is highly aware of the image-polishing opportunity before him, and at times it is refreshing to hear him essentially cop to the fact that he has no higher purpose other than writing catchy licks and practicing faithfully every day (and playing golf). But his claim that he, a white man, has never before thought about the racial implications of his career rings hollow when Lane cuts to a clip of him performing in a stadium along with a video of Louis Armstrong. Purists might perish at the sight. He also resurrects Stan Getz to pour syrup on that fellow saxophonist's syrupy bossa novas (while electronically modernizing Getz's recordings).
Despite the limitations of the subject matter -- and the disconnect between Lane's celebration and subversion of Kenny G -- the man himself can garner grudging admiration for his work ethic and his knack for writing hooks that sell millions of records. (His songs also provide the soundtrack for malls and doctors' offices, and his song "Going Home" has become an end-of-the-day anthem throughout China.) He seems like a good guy, even if he comes off as almost as annoying as his mind-numbing music. (Richard Brody of the New Yorker does a really good deep dive into this film here.)
MR. SATURDAY NIGHT (B-minus) - HBO's documentary series brings us this oddly detached look at Robert Stigwood, the Australian/British producer who made the Bee Gees splash big-time in the 1970s disco era. Stigwood himself isn't always the focus of this slapped-together production that spends an inordinate amount of time on the disco phenomenon.
None of the talking heads appear on camera, which probably was a cheap way to observe COVID protocols rather than some sort of editorial decision. Thus, we get a lot of static file photos of the '60s and '70s players, relying on Photoshop animation tricks and lending an air of detachment to the proceedings. There's not much more to the story than Stigwood's abiding faith in the hit-making potential of the Bee Gees around 1975, after a few years in the wilderness for the trio before Stigwood hooked them up with Arif Mardin and jump-started their career. Much of this was covered last year in HBO's much better documentary about the Bee Gees.
One interesting segment examines Stigwood's link to John Travolta, who was seen at the time as a passing TV fad of a teen idol. But Stigwood chose Travolta as the vehicle for "Saturday Night Fever," and was wise enough to sign Travolta to a three-picture deal. ("Grease," another movie/soundtrack megahit, followed.) It was also fascinating to learn that the New York magazine article that the "Saturday Night Fever" screenplay was based on featured fictitious characters. These tidbits are enough to hold your attention for 90 minutes, but this movie certainly doesn't do justice to Stigwood, who ended up incredibly rich and knee-deep in yachts the rest of his life.
BELUSHI (C+) - It's hard to imagine anyone under 50 either caring enough to explore the career of original "Saturday Night" cast member John Belushi and then taking the time to sit for this unenlightening biography. I can save those 50 and over some time too: Belushi was a funny, talented guy with a big drug problem (one that matched his ego and insecurities) who succumbed to a classic '70s OD in the early '80s after failing to put together a decent film career.
For some reason, the collection of "SNL" clips are too chopped up to cohere and give a true sense of why Belushi was such a revered comedian in his day. Even his National Lampoon stint in the early '70s comes off here as little more than frequent weird impressions of R&B singer Joe Cocker. Belushi had a magnetic personality and boundless energy, but this documentary struggles to convey those talents.
Director R.J. Cutler does do an admirable job of capturing the phenomenon that was the Blues Brothers, acknowledging Belushi's bona fides and reveling in the exciting band of ringers that backed Jake and Elwood Blues. Otherwise, Cutler may just be a victim of the passage of time (nearly four decades) and the limitations of trying to bring a funny but flawed comedian back to life.
NINE DAYS (A) - This glum but utterly enlightened story follows sullen Will , a onetime earthbound human who now, in his afterlife, vets purgatorial souls hoping to get chosen to life a full human existence and then follows their lives on old-fashioned TV screens and videotapes. When one of the people he once chose and has been monitoring commits suicide, Will, over nine days, interviews about a half dozen souls competing to take the new spot opened up by Amanda.
Will (Winston Duke) has a special connection to Amanda, because, as a child, she name-checked him as her imaginary friend. Will also had a troubled time on Earth, so he can commiserate. He is unshakeable in his task at hand -- picking one lucky candidate for life's sweepstakes and telling the others that their time has ended. Like with a game show, though, the losers get a parting gift -- after spending a few days watching the 24 or so lives unfold on Will's TV screens, they can pick one life-event that he'll re-create for them, so they can get just a sip of what they'll miss out on. The wishes are as simple as walking on a beach or riding a bike.
It sounds like a complicated set-up, but part of the brilliance here -- borrowed from other thought experiments, such as Shane Carruth's "Primer" and "Upstream Color" -- is the commitment to an idea and following it through to a logical conclusion. Newcomer Edson Oda (writer and director) creates a cramped world set mostly in Will's apartment. His characters are fully formed, including Will's sidekick (neither boss nor assistant) Kyo (Benedict Wong) and last-minute entrant Emma (Zazie Beetz, sporting what can only be called an afro'd Ed Grimley hairstyle), who establishes a strong connection to Will and is the only one who gets to observe the inner workings of his operation. Tony Hale (TV's "Veep" and "Arrested Development") plays a sort of sad clown whose bid seems hopeless.
The brilliance here lies in Oda's incredible command of the story and his attention to detail (Will's operation, all old-school analog, involves a lot of paper forms and filing cabinets along with the videotapes). The dialogue is succinct and crisp. Will's back story unfolds meticulously over the tight two-hour run time. His final scene with Emma is one for the ages, a cap to a powerful, restrained performance by Duke ("Us," "Black Panther"), who carries this movie on his broad but sagging shoulders. It would be difficult to not be moved by this special team effort.
FULLY REALIZED HUMANS (B) - More of an acting exercise than a movie, this endearing relationship romp borrows the best and the worst of Joe Swanberg in his Mumblecore heyday. Jess Weixler (TV's "The Good Wife") and Joshua Leonard ("Humpday") play Jackie and Elliot, a couple who are a month away from the birth of their first child and realizing that time is short to suddenly become well-rounded people worthy of the title "parent." They seek to correct the mistakes of her dad (a prescription-drug addict) and his parents (abusive dad, co-dependent mom) by stretching their perceptions of themselves.
This plays out in unexpected ways. First, Jackie cows Elliot into accepting the idea that they both would benefit from her strapping one on and pegging her husband. Things unravel from there, as Elliot delves into his old emotional scars emanating from his father's homophobic belligerence.
Your appreciation of this mostly ad-libbed adventure -- at turns funny and touching -- will depend on your patience for post-Mumblecore sloppiness and indulgence. Juilliard-trained Weixler -- who genuinely looks eight months pregnant (she did have a daughter in 2019) -- is an endearing performer, and she and Leonard click as a couple, each generous with the other as improv performers (with key support from a couple of cameos by Janicza Bravo of "Zola" and Erica Chidi Cohen). But this one feels like a bit of a throwaway until the final reel, when Jackie and Elliot confront their three parents, and then the film sizzles with sharp dialogue. Credit to the the three older actors -- Beth Grant, Tom Bower and Michael Chieffo -- for grabbing this thing by the collar, with some sharp lessons for our entitled millennials, and rescuing the film in the end.
NORTH BY CURRENT (B+) - Yet another moody tone-poem of a documentary, here we follow Angelo Madsen Minax as he chronicles a few years with his Mormon family in the wake of the tragic death of his sister's daughter, which may or may not have been the result of household abuse. It is a way for Minax, born as a girl named Angela, to reconcile his own identity as a son, sibling and storyteller.
Minax creates an experimental visual and sound collage that sweeps you up in the swirl of family history in rural, often snowy Michigan. Critically, this personal essay never forgets to draw the viewer into a compelling narrative. He uses a disembodied child's voice (his own?) as a sort of conscience or spirit-animal guide while flashing through images as if his brain were firing across synapses. This is a style that calls to mind such sociological and historical experiments as "Truth or Consequences," "Malni," "Dawson City: Frozen Time" and "Stories We Tell."
Minax's grieving sister responds to the death of her daughter by having a new child every year for three years running. Meantime, she is in denial about her drug addiction and what's really going on with her partner, who was a suspect in the 2013 death of the child. Circling around this are Minax's fundamentalist parents, still struggling with his gender identity. As the filmmaker searches for truths and acceptance, it's hard not to be moved by this PBS "POV" offering.
BONUS TRACKS
"Nine Days" has a lovely soundtrack, centered on the recurring violin piece that Amanda plays at a concert, a heart-breaking collection of melodies by Antonio Pinto. Here is a sample:
"North by Current" is boosted by music from Julien Baker, including "Sprained Ankle":
The "North by Current" soundtrack also features the Waterboys' anthemic "This is the Sea":
... and Michael Beauchamp's jangly romp "Gamble-Drink All My Money":
KING RICHARD (B+) - This one comes as a pleasant surprise, along the lines of 2017's "Battle of the Sexes," buoyed by fine performances to tell the story of Richard Williams, the father of tennis phenoms Venus and Serena, as they burst on the scene in the 1990s. Special credit goes to rookie screenwriter Zach Baylin for penning a smart, nuanced script that pays attention to small details and subtle interpersonal interactions to ground this is in reality.
Do know that it can be a challenge to get through the first 20 minutes. You have to accept Will Smith with a New Orleans accent and a few short-hand, caricatured depictions of Compton contrasted with the world of white privilege. But once it gets its bearings, "King Richard" wins you over by sheer determination. The girls who portray the sisters -- Saniyya Sidney as Venus and Demi Singleton as Serena -- are impeccable in their characterizations, and it truly looks like they know how to play tennis. Apparently they took intensive lessons, and it appears that there is limited use of doubles or CGI tricks to make the tennis action completely believable. That makes a difference.
With a feel-good attitude akin to 1989's inner-city underdog parable "Lean on Me," this origin story of the Williams sisters slowly gains momentum under the sure hand of director Reinaldo Marcus Green ("Monsters and Men"). Smith's Richard Williams is pushy and positive minded -- he mapped out tennis stardom for his daughters before they were born -- and the film shows him, if not warts and all, at least blemishes and all.
After an early stumble of caricaturing all the white parents on the juniors circuit as immoral child abusers and their kids as petulant cheaters, the movie introduces the girls' first tennis coach, Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn), as an even-handed task master. Williams eventually steers the girls -- along with their mother, Oracene (Aunjanue Ellis) and three sisters from Oracene's previous marriage -- to the prestigious tennis camp in Florida run by Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal), who also is portrayed with nuance -- a man with the girls needs foremost in mind while also looking out for his end of the business deal.
You know this will end well (with Venus making her pro-circuit debut on the brink of breaking the bank), but the fun is watching Richard Williams, a task master himself when it came to pushing all of his girls to not only survive the ghetto but thrive as their best selves, work his folksy hustle and engage in backseat coaching, day in and day out. Nothing will knock him off his mission. The only person who can match him is Oracene, especially in a pivotal scene in which she calls him on some of his excesses and reminds him that she, too, has sacrificed for these future superstars. This is an old-fashioned feel-good movie that avoids any Hallmark cliches. An ace all-around.
DUNE (C) - I'll never be a fan of sci-fi or fantasy, so don't go by me here. Hardcore adherents of Frank Herbert's classic '60s novel will appreciate the dedicated fan service, and casual viewers will likely fall for the sappy soap-opera style enhanced by Timothee Chalamet's long eyelashes and by cool helicopters that mimic dragonflies.
Otherwise, director Dennis Villeneuve, who has gone from indie noodling ("Incendies") to big-screen bloat ("Arrival," "Blade Runner 2049"), shows a sufficient command of the screen and the screenplay as he navigates a complicated story. He leans on muted colors as well as muted dialogue -- there was so much whispering that, watching at home, I turned on the subtitles, which also helped keep track of all the made-up words in this make-believe world. The most laryngitic of the lot is Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica. She is the consort of Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) and mother of young heir Paul Atreides (Chalamet), who takes over for his father and the mission to the inhospitable sandy planet Arrakis, which harbors the valuable mineral known as spice. Leto and Paul are being set up by the evil house of Harkennen, led by Vladimir (Stellan Skarsgard).
The story that unfolds (over two and a half plodding hours) is yet another variation on a theme that has played out countless times onscreen. Herbert may gotten in early with his novel, but George Lucas got to Hollywood first, and little of this latest film expands on a tired genre. There is never a doubt that Paul will overcome whatever obstacles befall his hero's journey. Early in the film he is trained by Leto's venerable henchmen, including Gurney Halleck (the naming of people and things is randomly silly throughout), played by an off-tune Josh Brolin, and the bear of a man Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa), the subject of Paul's boy-crush. Paul has visions of the future -- rather bland ones -- which invariably come around to the rapturous sight of an Arrakis Fremen warrior played by the lithe model Zendaya, who is mostly around as an attractive representation of good vs. evil and to tease part two, coming in 2023.
This might play better in Imax, but Villeneuve's visuals are often dim and unimaginative. A lot of sand blows around but the characters/actors are often immune to the annoyances usually faced by your average beachgoer; it's all just a neat CGI trick. And 8,000 years into the future, fashions haven't evolved much beyond those in "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century." Chalamet lacks the gravitas to carry a movie like this on his slim shoulders. And the supporting cast is scattershot. What we end up with is just another table-setter for a sci-fi/fantasy series of big-budget exercises in big-screen bloat.
