New to the Queue

 Glimmers of gloom and bada-boom ...

Chrisos Nikou follows up his wonderful debut "Apples" with an algorithmic romance starring Jessie Buckley, "Fingernails."

A three-hour Argentine film about a low-key heist, "The Delinquents."

Colman Domingo stars as the architect of the 1963 March on Washington, "Rustin."

We'll probably regret it (or bail out of the 135-minute run), but Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti reunite for a glum period piece, "The Holdovers."

One of the comedy greats gets the HBO documentary treatment, "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life."

Holy Crap!* Fiends With Benefits

 

NO HARD FEELINGS (D+) - This one starts out with a scene in which the lead character's car is getting repossessed because there is a tax lien on the house she inherited from her mother. I'm an attorney but not a tax/bankruptcy attorney, but I can't imagine a universe where someone's car would get grabbed under those circumstances. 

You see that out of the gate and you say, OK, it's going to be that kind of a movie. And it is. It is one long idiot plot, one contrivance after another. Jennifer Lawrence plays a down-on-her-luck 30-something who -- needing a replacement car -- happens to struggle across a classified ad from parents offering up a car (what a coincidence!) for a woman who will bust their son's cherry. Yep, it's that kind of movie. (It's also the kind of movie where the main character has to rollerblade everywhere and doesn't think to take the rollerblades off when she has to climb stairs -- because, then where would the comedy be without such physical humor from a glamorous actress.)

But wait, there's more. Not only does is this transaction arranged, but would you believe that Jennifer Lawrence can't close the deal with the nerd she has been assigned to? Yes, that Jennifer Lawrence, the highly attractive and charming one. In 2023, neither she nor the dweeb can manage to at least round third base, because ... well, take our word for it, they just can't bring themselves to sully themselves in such a cheap way. In 2023.

Lawrence is Maddie, one of those noble locals scraping by among rich seasonal snobs, this time in Montauk, N.J. She has a couple of fun scenes with her bitter ex, Gary (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who happens to be the tow-truck driver who snatches her car at the beginning of the movie. They have a nice exchange when she tries to sweet talk him about how much she misses him, until a wild Italian in his underwear strolls out of her house, belying her claims. Natalie Morales has little to latch onto in the script as Maddie's best friend.

Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti are amusing for their first couple of scenes as the suffocating and super-sensitive helicopter parents who have babied their son into a ball of neurotic virginity. (Their incredulity at Maddie's claim to be in her early 20s elicits a chuckle or two.) Andrew Barth Feldman is meek Percy (that name reminds you that it's that kind of movie), a dog-shelter worker who insists on needing to be in love in order to make love. Sure thing, Perce.

As this ridiculous story grinds on (for more than 100 minutes), you hate yourself more and more for enduring it and indulging the fledgling director, Gene Stupnitsky, and his co-writer, John Phillips (who has one other movie on his resume). Sitcom predicaments abound, and the shtick grows tiresome. You might be wondering if there's any actual sex in the movie or any kind of saucy content. I can save you some time. Skip to around the 35-minute mark if you want to see Lawrence fighting naked on a beach. For better or worse it's a highlight, or at least a pleasant diversion.

Whether that's worth a fast-forward on Netflix is a choice. Some intellectual workouts will make your brain hurt. "No Hard Feelings" (Get it? "Hard"!) will have your brain craving some exercise.

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

Kangaroo Ugly

 

THE ROYAL HOTEL (A-minus) - Here is a litmus test to see whether you can be jangled for 90 minutes and come out satisfied or disappointed. Writer-director Kitty Green takes two young women on backpack holiday and tosses them behind the bar at a rough-and-tumble tavern way out in the Australian outback, for a few weeks to make a few bucks, to see if they'll be devoured by the drunken miners who haunt the joint.

It is to Green's credit that you care so much about these two women -- and believe in them as authentic characters -- to the point where there is no moment to relax throughout this winking pseudo-horror psych-out. And she is blessed with two devoted stars -- Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick -- who genuinely feel like BFFs on a youthful suicide gambit.

Garner (who starred in Green's disappointing debut, "The Assistant") is fair-skinned but mentally tough Hanna, who looks like a dandelion, with her peroxide curls. Henwick has a stoner's smile and an aching soul as Liv, the one most susceptible to falling victim to the debauched lifestyle into which the local lushes lure the rotating casts of women who pass through as bartenders.

Things start out ominously when the gruff owner, Billy (a perfectly beat-up Hugo Weaving) greets them with a sharp epithet, shows them their rundown quarters upstairs, rations the water, and tosses Hanna and Liv into the deep end -- a wild night bidding farewell to their two predecessors, who entertain the regulars with blind-drunk antics, dancing on the bar and flashing their tits. Will the same fate eventually befall Hanna and Liv by the end of their tenure?

Green, who wrote the script with Oscar Redding, has a great idea (inspired by the true story of two Finnish women) and carefully constructs an air-tight narrative that gradually ratchets the tension. The mystery throughout is this: Are these local misogynists a bunch of menacing monsters or are they a pack of pathetic losers who are over-served and over-indulged by Billy, himself a sloppy drunk. The men are subtly drawn, broken souls with distinct personalities instead of being presented a faceless mob of brutes. 

The only protection the young women have comes from Carol (Ursula Yovich), the level-headed mother hen at this insane asylum. Yovich helps ground the film. When she gets called away, the rats will play.

Hanna and Liv are not a couple of debutantes enjoying slum tourism on a world tour; there are hints of trauma in their past, and they are escaping as much as continent-hopping in search of the perfect beach. The men hit on them before they finish pouring their first drink, and the come-ons are unrelenting. Their defenses kick in immediately. Some of the guys are actually appealing, while others (one in particular) are just creepy and persistent. 

This could have been a cheap women-in-peril toss-off, but Green imbues every scene with a level of consequences that build toward an inevitable physical climax. How these young women navigate the danger out in the middle of nowhere -- they and the others basically fuck around and find out -- is gripping from start to finish.

BONUS TRACKS

The credits provide a final howl of exhaustion, courtesy of Party Dozen with "Worker," which kicks off this four-song live set:

Meantime, the soundtrack is full of classic pop, with a budget splurge on Kylie Minogue, who offers an ironic use of "Tears on My Pillow" (from Minogue's film "The Delinquents") near the climax:

Theater Kids!

 

THEATER CAMP (B+) - This is an appropriately campy send-up of east-coast summer theater camps for kids, an obvious labor of love by the creators and the cast. Their enthusiasm throughout is addictive.

Molly Gordon and Ben Platt star as camp leaders (and former campers) Rebecca-Diane and Amos at AdirondActs, an upstate New York summer workshop for artsy kids. They are working on a tribute to the camp's owner, Joan (Amy Sedaris), who spends the movie in a coma while her bro-son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) tries to fend off financial ruin. Rebecca-Diane and Amos are writing the musical (on the fly, and it shows), though Amos shoulders most of the burden while Rebecca-Diane goes AWOL more and more, presumably off seeking a legitimate acting job.

Gordon and Platt collaborated with Nick Lieberman and Noah Galvin on the sassy script; Gordon and Lieberman directed. They are expanding on a short that they created, and they have giddy fun spoofing the teenage drama of summer camp -- something they must know from experience. The script sizzles with one liners. Kids run through vocal warm-up exercises utilizing phrases like "Wolf Blitzer has a blister on his upper lip." They traffic in silly absurdities -- "I'm not mad," Amos tells a student. "I'm just furious" -- and over-the-top drama-queen therapy-speak like this, when Rebecca Diane is a no-show at bedtime story time: "Waiting for entertainment that was expected is a painful experience." Amos has an idea for an after-school program called Chekhov for Children of Divorce.

The adults are wonderfully hammy. Nathan Lee Graham treats the kids like a troupe of drag queens. Patti Harrison is always welcome.  Ayo Edebiri ("Bottoms") is underused as an underprepared teacher who makes things up as she goes along. Keep an eye on Glenn (Galvin), the all-purpose tech-support guy.

Gordon and Platt hold the center together as old friends who can read each other's minds but whose bond is holding each other back. Their "let's put on a show" zeal has a melancholic subtext to it. (Every generation gets the Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney they deserve.) That bipolar B-story lends a certain gravitas to the mindless fun that carries the narrative along. That extra layer helps keep a funny movie from descending into trite parody.

BONUS TRACKS

Early in the film we get a snippet of Paul Simon's "Obvious Child," and we rarely pass up an excuse to play this one:

Death Wish

 Two more from our Hulu run:

ON THE COUNT OF THREE (B+) - Standup comedian Jerrod Carmichael impresses as director and star of this story of a couple of emotionally wounded pals who set out on a one-day adventure that is supposed to end with their mutual suicides. As usual, that journey is much more important than the destination at the end of the film.

Carmichael, as Val teams up with Christopher Abbott (HBO's "Girls"), as Kevin, who starts out the film locked up in a mental institution. If Kevin is amped and manic, Val is dead-eyed, having just quit his dead-end job in order to spring Kevin and find a place to end it all. Of course, they get distracted along the way, and each man expresses some level of apprehension about carrying out the plan. Carmichael and Abbott drill deep into their characters, and the relationship between the men thrums with emotion, even if they don't express it much, besides bickering over which music to play in the car. Carmichael, in particular, is deft with something as simple as a withering glance.

Freed from having to worry about a future, they get reckless. Kevin points a gun at a rude mini-mart clerk, and the pair track down the psychologist who fucked up Kevin as a child (Henry Winkler pops in as the arrogant therapist). Other cameos include Tiffany Haddish as Val's fed-up impending baby-mama and J.B. Smoove as Val's deadbeat dad.

Carmichael, working with a smart script by newcomers Ari Katcher ("The Carmichael Show") and Ryan Welch, works efficiently, clocking the production in at 85 taut minutes. They find a balance of grim comedy and heartache that sticks with a viewer.

THE KILLING OF TWO LOVERS (2021) (B+) - This ultra-indie examination of a couple's trial separation is less a slow burn than a slow build. It benefits from natural performances that feel expertly group-workshopped to create a gritty human drama.

Clayne Crawford transforms into desperate David, who is shown in the opening scene standing over his marital bed, pointing a gun at his estranged wife and her lover. You'd be wrong to think, though, that this is a trashy revenge thriller. Instead, it is a nuanced and raw deconstruction of David's separation from Niki (Sepideh Moafi) and its impact on their three young boys and teenage daughter, Jess (Avery Pizzuto), who jousts with her father for failing to "fight for us." 

David is tightly wound, and with good reason. Some jerk is sleeping with his wife and hanging out with his kids, and David isn't sure why this marriage isn't working. He also is living with his father now and spending a lot of time stewing in his pickup truck, driving around rural Utah. Crawford's performance is subtle; you cringe a bit as David tries a little too hard to have fun with his kids during his prescripted time with them. He gets an earful from Niki the day after sneaking over to the house in the middle of the night and swapping Mitch Hedberg jokes with the kids. (For the extra touch of realism, actual Hedberg jokes are used.)

The conversations we see between David and Niki are as awkward as you'd expect from a wife and husband in limbo, and a showdown between David and her lover is drenched in sarcasm and dread. I can't believe the dialogue was scripted so finely; there had to be a good number of rehearsals and some well-earned ad-libbing allowed by the actors.

Journeyman Robert Machoian, working within a compact 85 minutes, has crafted a simmering character study, with a fine-tuned narrative that never diverts along a familiar path. He uses no soundtrack but focuses instead on ambient sounds, as if making a documentary. 

David and Niki are three-dimensional characters, and anyone who has gone through a breakup after a long-term relationship should feel this in the pit of their gut. Machoian nails that sudden welling of irrational emotion that can make us do stupid things, and the suspense crescendoes naturally. Hopefully there won't be deadly weapons lying around when that feeling overtakes us. In the end (the banal coda can be chilling, in retrospect), it's worth considering the alternate meanings possible for the movie's title.

Soundtrack of Your Life: Dark Eyes

 Soundtrack of Your Life is an occasional feature in which we mark the songs of our relative youth as played over public muzak systems.

Date: October 5, 2023, noon

Place: Chuze Fitness in Uptown Albuquerque

Song:  "Kiss Them for Me"

Artist: Siouxsie and the Banshees

Irony Matrix: 3.3 out of 10

Comment: It was just faint enough at first and so out of context, that I had to hum it a bit as I did some ab crunches before I recognized the melody, and, caught off-guard, I assumed it was a cover. But no, I checked the monitor, and there was Siouxsie Sioux along with Budgie and the Banshees in the video.

This might have been the band at its acme. Formed in the '70s after a Roxy Music show at the peak of punk, Siouxsie and the boys spent the '80s as a fringe goth outfit, known as much for their covers ("The Passenger," "Dear Prudence") as their originals ("Cities in Dust," "Peek-a-Boo"). They were more of a presence in dance clubs and on "120 Minutes" than they were in my record collection.

But "Kiss Them for Me" was a legitimate top-40 hit, and it led directly into their co-headline billing at the first Lollapalooza in 1991. Siouxsie's mascara was legendary. She was the only woman fronting a band that day, sandwiched between Living Colour and Jane's Addiction. (Miki Berenyi and Lush would have that distinction the following year.) For us, she was the capper. We decided to beat traffic and skip most of Jane's Addiction finale. It was a proper pinnacle for a unique band. "Kiss Them for Me" places them firmly in the pantheon.

Doc Watch: Quirk Patrol, Part 2

 

CARPET COWBOYS (C) - What a bizarre little curiosity this is. If you watch the trailer and then settle in for the full movie, you may end up feeling like a sucker conned by a miserable bait-and-switch.

Newcomers Emily Mackenzie and Noah Collier start out strong by showing us a bunch of good ol' boys in and around Dalton, Ga., and it seems like this will be a quirky romp through the history of carpet manufacturing and the takeover of the industry by conglomerates that are squeezing out these charming little guys. But then something goes wrong. The directors either lost faith in their project or got sidetracked by one character in particular. That would be a clownish Scotsman named Roderick, who fancies himself a born-again cowboy, kitschy costume and all.

 

The story arc of Roderick -- who is far along the down-slope of whatever carpet-designing career he once enjoyed -- is flat and annoying. He comes across as a pathetic huckster, his spiel no longer selling in Asia, though he does craft a backup plan: a life with a trophy wife in the Philippines, where his meager savings will let him live in veritable splendor among the poor natives. Roderick also fancies himself as some sort of singer-songwriter, and he is stringing along an obsequious Man Friday, a relationship that will not end well.

I'm sorry this guy took up a whole paragraph of the review. But he hijacks this movie 20 minutes in, and whatever idea anyone had that this could be a compelling film about the carpet industry in northern Georgia has fizzed away. Characters are completely abandoned. Shots of manufacturing plants appear out of context. There is the hint of a fascinating industry backstory that never gets followed up on. It's as if the film is documenting the acrid hangover of something ... but what, exactly?

With not much to show for their first few years of filming, the directors took a two-year break (funding issues? COVID?) and return for an update, which becomes a melancholy coda that just muddies the narrative further. (And guess who dominates.) It's a shame, because this was executive-produced by John Wilson, whose unorthodox documentary series on HBO is a model of deadpan delivery. Good for him for bringing others along. That's what's disappointing here. The film trailer for "Carpet Cowboys" brims with possibilities -- that old man keeping the cigarette in his mouth lit while swimming laps, and his son who reminds us of Harlan Pepper from "Best in Show" -- and you hope for the same other-worldly vibe we got from visiting "Truth or Consequences." But the film, in the end, is as authentic as a Scottish cowboy.

THE SAINT OF SECOND CHANCES (D+) - This Netflix documentary spends time with Mike Veeck, the eccentric owner of a minor league baseball team and the son of legendary Bill Veeck, the showman who made Chicago White Sox games a blast in the 1970s. Not even Mike Veeck, one of the ultimate shlockmeisters, deserves this cheesy of a tribute.

Half the movie consists of re-enactments, some including Veeck (playing either his dad or himself), and the quality of the re-creations is nothing short of clunky and embarrassing. A bland Charlie Day, drained of his comic personality, looks lost at sea while playing the young Veeck. Jeff Daniels' narration comes off as smug. Famous people cannot rescue this dud.

There are flashes of fun, a few jolts to muscle memory, especially if you grew up in Chicago. Mike Veeck destroyed his major-league career by staging 1979's riotous Disco Demolition, a promotional catastrophe that continues to live in infamy, and the event gets a nuanced retelling here. It's fun to see shots of Bill Veeck shirtless and peg-legged in the bleachers; Haircut Day; happy organist Nancy Faust entertaining the crowd; Harry Caray leading the seventh-inning stretch in song; and hey, it's first-baseman Lamar Johnson!

But the journey here is a slog. In the final third, the movie lays on thick Veeck's decision to stop drinking and reconnect with the daughter who had played second-fiddle to his career and who suffered from a debilitating eye disease. Directors Jeff Malmberg and Morgan Neville ("Won't You Be My Neighbor," "20 Feet From Stardom") wallow in shmaltz, but the emotional tug feels unearned.