Cartoon Corner: Odd Couples

 We don't believe in watching cartoons as an adult, so we don't have much patience for animation, but here are two highly touted 2024 releases. Figure a B+ is about the best grade you can get for an animated film, so adjust your barometer accordingly.

FLOW (B+) - My, what big eyes you have! Come along on a wordless adventure with an adorable cat navigating a post-apocalyptic world with and against other species. It's a meticulous and dazzling work of animation by the Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis, with a compelling narrative to match its magical-realism visuals.

 

A charcoal cat, with ever-curious saucer eyes, is nearly stranded after an environmental disaster has lifted the seas by a hundred feet or so. As the waters gradually rise he will hop on a boat with a capybara, a craft that will eventually be crewed as well by a simple-minded yellow labrador retriever, an object-hoarding ring-tailed lemur, and something Wikipedia calls a secretarybird (with an eagle-like body and crane-like legs), which injured a wing protecting the cat from the other big birds and now commands the helm as the gang heads to what looks like an abandoned city on the horizon.

It can be tough to watch the cat constantly face peril (there was a child in the crowd and I wonder if it was traumatized), but the cat is resourceful, outrunning predators and learning to catch fish (in luxurious underwater scenes). The cat's movements are so realistic -- from its physical agilty to the ambient sounds it makes -- that you can be forgiven for the occasional lapse into thinking you're watching the real thing. (The sound design is sometimes as mesmerizing as the eye candy.) The big dumb dog is fun to watch, and the lemur is a hoot as it hoards trinkets and especially covets a mirror that provides endless hours of self-entertainment.

Over the course of 84 minutes, we will learn a lesson in survival and cooperation with Others. Zilbalodis apparently pulled off this artistic feat using open-source software, and the result can melt the defenses of even the toughest animation critic.

ROBOT DREAMS (B-minus) - Heartwarming doesn't begin to describe this child-like rumination on friendship, here between a lonely dog and his mail-order robot. It is a Spanish-French production by Pablo Berger, based on a comic book by Sara Varon. 

The biggest knock against this charming valentine is that is just too long. It easily could have clocked in at 82 minutes instead of 102. For most of the film, Dog and Robot are estranged -- it turns out that dog took robot to the beach on the last day of the summer season, and robot malfunctioned after getting wet and was too heavy to lift, and so gets stranded there for the winter. During that long slog, Dog will mark time while Robot has a series of fantasies of reuniting with his pal, only to return to reality, lying on the beach.

There will be a long middle portion in which Robot will get salvaged for scrap but eventually cobbled back together by a tinkering racoon named Rascal, and they become friends. The question is whether Dog and Robot will find each other again -- before they forge a bond with another.

Berger grounds the story in the gritty East Village of New York in the mid-1980s, with homages to pay phones, boom boxes, Pong and the Twin Towers. He "peoples" the city with a melting pot of cartoon creatures, similar to the TV show "Bojack Horseman." (It's fun to watch an octopus play the bucket drums in the subway.) He pays homage to other films, including "Psycho" and "The Big Lebowski."

It's all as sweet as can be. (Dog and Robot bond while rollerskating to Earth, Wind & Fire's earworm "September," which becomes their theme song.) But sweet can become saccharine, and too much can lead to a toothache. And the length here lessens the impact of a bittersweet ending.

BONUS TRACKS

The trailers:

 

Auteur, Auteur!

 

HIS THREE DAUGHTERS (A-minus) - A great cast meets a wonderful script under the careful direction of Azazel Jacobs in a story of three sisters whose fraught relationships are put to the test while they watch vigil over their dying father in his last days in hospice.

 

Two of the daughters are the biological offspring of Vincent (Jay O. Sanders, seen only at the end), and one is adopted from a second marriage. (Both of Vincent's wives died of cancer.) As one of the daughters suggested for Vinnie's obit: "Married a couple of crazy bitches; raised a few crazy bitches." Jacobs (who burst on the scene strong with  "Momma's Man" and "Terri" but who meandered for years with "The Lovers" and "French Twist") has meticulously curated an intimate chamber drama full of nuanced interactions and a thrumming realism.

The sisters are Katie (Carrie Coon), the eldest and alpha who speaks in fiats, obsessed with her sister's failure to obtain a do-not-resuscitate order earlier; the peacekeeping Christina, the young mother into yoga and meditation; and gruff Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) a serious pothead with a gambling addiction who has been living in the New York apartment with their father, taking care of him (but not the DNR) while the other two were off raising their families. Katie orders Rachel to take her smoking outside, and Rachel has some charming interactions with the middle-aged security guard (Jose Febus) who knows the situation with Vincent and does his best to look the other way.

Family secrets and old recriminations surface over these few days, but Jacobs is understated in his delivery, and he manages to take an old trope and make it fresh. Most of the action takes place in the apartment, and it feels like a staged play without the staginess. It reminded me of the 2006 Chekhovian drama "The Sisters" -- which also had fantastic writing and knockout performances. 

Lyonne brings a new twist to her slacker shtick, conveying pain and cynicism behind those big eyes. Coon is perpetually put-upon as Katie, the hectoring mother hen. Coon's line delivery early on is mannered, as if she is intoning David Mamet dialogue, but she settles into a rhythm that is less theatrical. Olsen, sandwiched between a couple of heavyweights, is the real powerhouse here, understated but deep as a woman searching for inner peace in the eye of the emotional hurricane. There's a reason why she lives on the other side of the country.

Some minor roles are effective here, too. Rudy Galvan is sly as Angel, the hospice nurse who over-explains what may come next. And Jovan Adepo is cutting as Benjy, Rachel's stoner buddy who calls out Katie on her condescending bullshit. Sanders shows up at the end in an inspired scene that adds a provocative twist. Jacobs gets everything right here, and he trusts his actors with the delicate material.

EMILIA PEREZ (B) - Jacques Audiard is a master filmmaker, and you can't blame him for venturing out of his comfort zone and making a quasi-musical about a Mexican drug kingpin who drops out and transitions to a woman. The flashes of great filmmaking are there, if the execution of the story, sometimes through song, falls short.

 

The camera work is so confident, and the narrative tricks are so smooth, a viewer could easily be lulled into falling deeply for this tale of not only identity, but also loyalty and personal ambitions. Zoe Saldana is the true star as Rita, the conflicted defense lawyer who opts for riches and danger as the facilitator for the murderous Manitas (Karla Sofia Gascon) to fake his death and emerge a few years later as Emilia. At the start of the film, Rita pens the closing argument that wins an acquittal in a big murder case, but she is unhappy with compromising her principles, and Manitas makes her an offer she can't refuse. Out of the frying pan ...

He wants her to globetrot to Bangkok and Switzerland and Israel to set up the anonymous process for Manitas to transition from man to woman. When Emilia tracks Rita down four years later, it is to have her arrange for Manitas wife and two children to return to Mexico City so that he can be with them, albeit under the disguise of Tia Emilia. His wife, Jessi (Selena Gomez), welcomes the return from exile in Switzerland, mainly so that she can reunite with the lover she had been cheating on Manitas with.

If this sounds a bit like a telenovela, it's probably because at times it feels just like that. It's not cheap so much as oddly blithe. Combined with the musical interludes, the whole package can be tough to swallow, especially for Audiard fans in the market for a hard-boiled underworld thriller. One problem is that many of the "songs" are tuneless and drab, with characters taking standard dialogue and delivering it in off-key sing-song stylings. Some are effective, especially when Rita goes into Janet Jackson mode with a troupe of dancers, or Manitas mumbles rhythmically in threatening tones, or a child innocently coos to Tia Emilia that she smells like papa -- the latter a pivotal moment halfway through the movie. However, a wacky dance routine featuring doctors and post-op patients is cringe-inducing.

The second half just cannot keep all the narrative plates spinning, and a bloated running time of 2 hours 12 minutes doesn't help (though the last 9+ minutes are end credits). Saldana digs deep to show how Rita, approaching age 40, eventually regrets being a kept woman, with a conscience thrashed by guilt. (Is Emilia, consciously or not, blocking Saldana from having kids?) Emilia channels her own guilt into ordering her former goons to help hunt for young men who went missing during the brutal drug wars. (She goes so far as to fall for a widow of one of the victims, in a dramatic misstep.) Gomez is one-note as the bitter "widow" who wallows in riches. It is also apparent that the filmmaker never had a good idea about how to end this whole mess.

For Audiard, "A Prophet," which this echoes, is still the high bar he set for himself. After some noodling in the wilderness, he has been back on his game in recent years with the immigrant tale "Dheepan" and the relationship study "Paris, 13th District." "Emilia Perez" is a bold move -- and his storytelling abilities and visual skills are undeniably brilliant -- but his reach for the stars here falls short.

New to the Queue

 Taking the long road home, no short-cuts ...

The latest from Mike Leigh ("Naked," "Vera Drake") studies a bitter, miserable woman, "Hard Truths."

Werner Herzog explores the human mind with his latest documentary, "Theatre of Thought."

A drama about three women searching for connections in Mumbai, "All We Imagine as Light."

From Halina Reijn ("Bodies Bodies Bodies"), Nicole Kidman stars as an executive who enters into a fetishistic affair with a young intern, "Babygirl."

Doc Watch: Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings

 

YACHT ROCK: A DOCKUMENTARY (A-minus) - You don't have to love the melodic guy-pop of the '70s and '80s to appreciate this documentary about the retro-fitted genre of yacht rock -- though there is bound to be at least one earworm that you didn't realize was still gnawing at a remote region of your brain.

 

Garret Price, a veteran editor, curates a loving, insightful, and funny tribute to the sophisticated pop epitomized by Steely Dan, Michael McDonald (of the Doobie Brothers, above left) and Kenny Loggins. They were soulful dudes who borrowed from jazz and R&B to meticulously craft smooth songs that punks back then loved to hate. The era probably peaked with Christopher Cross (above right) and "Sailing" in 1979 and faded about as quickly as Cross' career (with his second-album flop in 1983). 

There was a lot of overlap between artists back in the day -- McDonald sang backup on Steely Dan songs like "Black Friday" and "Peg," and in 1978 he wrote "What a Fool Believes" (the yacht rock anthem) with Loggins. And there is the famous collaboration between McDonald and Cross, "Ride Like the Wind." 

But the true connective tissue comes from the session musicians who formed Toto. They were the yacht rock Zeligs, whose gigs spanned genres from Steely Dan albums to Michael Jackson's "Thriller."  (It's a good thing that the members of Toto seized the opportunity to play on such memorable tracks, because their own songs were pretty bad. I'll give them "Rosanna"; won't forgive them for "Africa.")

The members of Toto make for great talking heads -- Steve Lukather laments playfully, "Where's my yacht? I played on all those records!" -- as does the soft-spoken McDonald. Price recruits the rascals behind the mid-Aughts comedy web series that coined the term "yacht rock" and which spoofed the songs and personalities of the era. He grabs insightful music critics Amanda Petrusich and Steven Hyden. And there is a gaggle of superfans, including contemporary artists Questlove and Thundercat (and the ever-reliable Fred Armisen). The only obvious exclusion here is Donald Fagen, the surviving member of Steely Dan -- and just wait for the perfect punch line at the end of the move which explains it.

It's easy to look back and mock that SoCal light rock of yesteryear. Apparently the magazine Jacobin described yacht rock as "endlessly banal, melodic and inoffensive, fit to be piped into Macy's changing rooms." But some day you'll have to pry my Steely Dan box set from my cold dead hands. I still remember where I was when I experienced the band's masterpiece "Aja" -- in my best friend's basement on his quality stereo system. I had no idea a recording could sound so sophisticated and three-dimensional. We flipped it to side B and savored the entire album. 

This documentary appreciates the double-edged sword at play here. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Price gets the details right. He notes that "Aja" helped electronics retailers sell a lot of stereo speakers in the late '70s. (When I made my first major speaker purchase, it was Fagan's pristine solo album "The Nightfly" that pried the credit card out of my wallet.) He is smart enough to bring Cross back and let him tell his backstory. (Did you know the baby face of adult contemporary used to be a drug dealer?) Cross still has that somewhat stunned look on his face, as if he is still processing the news from his agent that his sophomore album tanked.

This is smart, joyous filmmaking that artfully jumps back in time and savors the scene for an hour and a half. It's fun and educational. It dives in, hits the highlights, and then fades out. It drinks its big black cow and gets outta here.

BONUS TRACKS

Another emblematic tune is Michael McDonald's soul classic "I Keep Forgetting":

Here is the needle drop on the "Aja" album, track one, "Black Cow":

And our title track, deconstructed by the Offspring:

Rock Watch: Going Solo

 Two talented musicians deserve better ...

1-800-ON-HER-OWN (C+) - I can't name the title of or hum an Ani DiFranco song, but this crossword-puzzle favorite has been on the radar since the early 1990s as a renegade folkie blazing her own trail on the indie music scene. After watching this sluggish documentary, I still can't latch on to a melody.

DiFranco made her name when she was still a pierced, wild-haired teenager, pushing a propulsive form of post-punk folk and founding her own record label Righteous Babe, blazing a defiant, independent path from the start. This film finds her in a late-career COVID-era menopausal slump, as she is fully slammed with the realization that snubbing major labels for years would inevitably lead to a decades-long slog, struggling to make a buck and pay the bills (the Billy Bragg track). Her spiky youthful attitude has turned into ... just an attitude.

 

We find her on a solo tour (saving money without a band?), now in her 50s, ruminating on her life and her life choices. The former queer idol is in an unhappy hetero marriage in New Orleans with two tween girls, a mom with mundane domestic concerns, like fretting about remote schooling during the pandemic. In anachronistic footage, we see her working via zoom with a producer, Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Snail Mail), who doesn't really seem to be into her music (and is miffed that she doesn't appreciate his resume). The best footage involves him essentially dumping her remotely in the middle of producing the album that would be 2021's "Revolutionary Love."

On top of all of her troubles, we learn the story of last decade's fallout with her longtime guru, the fellow mastermind behind Righteous Babe, Scot Fisher, over business decisions, one of which involves buying an old church in Buffalo that turned into a money pit. All of this middle-age angst is rather depressing, even across an austere 77-minute running time. The clips from the old days -- full of spit and vinegar -- include a carefree band tour from the '90s, and the flashbacks make you wish you could escape this present-day whiny soccer mom and just wallow in Clinton-era nostalgia. It would be interesting if there were a larger point to be made -- or if the music clips were fuller and livelier -- but we end up with a late-career musician trudging through her 20th studio album, and the best she can think to do his to shave her head for the umpteenth time to keep from crying in front of the kids.

ANONYMOUS CLUB (2022) (C) - Stoned or depressed? I've never been skilled at sussing out that nuance. This film profiles Aussie rocker Courtney Barnett, with narration from an audio diary she kept for three years. And, boy, can it be a bummer.

Sometimes it's best to just let an artist's work speak for itself. Trying to explain things can ruin it. Here, Barnett comes across as a moody whiner -- when she most certainly is not -- blathering into a tape recording. At one point she even admits that she is boring herself (imagine what we're going through!) and notes, "all I do is whinge." 

She describes her own interview performances as "horrendous." Collaborator Danny Cohen, who directs music videos, shoots in dim lighting, partial to mood indigo. She's just a shy, introspective person who grasps for meaning. Maybe it's just best to let her songs speak for her. At one point she tells  an interviewer she doesn't want to literally explain a song and make it "too obvious." 

Appropriately, as we near the one-hour mark, she plays a solo electric-guitar version of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." Barnett makes great music. She obviously struggles with performing and being a public figure. Maybe don't participate in any more navel-gazing documentaries.

BONUS TRACKS

DiFranco in 1998, live, with "Not a Pretty Girl," snippets of which are a highlight of the documentary:

 

From 2004, "Evolve":

 

Courtney Barnett with "Sunday Roast":

Here's a fantastic set by Barnett live via KEXP in Seattle from 10 years (!) ago, introducing songs from "Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit," featuring a cool fuzz lead guitar on the opening song, a deconstructed "Pedestrian at Best" and a lovely closer, a Billy Bragg-like solo take on "Depreston":

Touché

 

ANORA (A) - Writer-director Sean Baker is in his own league, and he proves it again with this rollicking rabbit-chase about an escort who marries a client on a whim and ends up ensnared in danger and drama involving his Russian family and their goons. I guess it would qualify as a romantic comedy, albeit translated into Baker's unique cinematic language. 

 

Baker is at home again in the world of sex workers, with a languorous opening shot panning across pole dancers and lap dancers in naked glory. Anora, who goes by Ani, works at the kind of strip club that involves a good deal of off-stage extracurricular activity. She is played with verve by Mikey Madison, who played the oldest daughter on TV's "Better Things" and a Manson girl in "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood." Ani hits it off one night with the young Russian playboy Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), a wisp of a lad who makes Timothee Chalomet look chubby. 

Ani slips him her number and soon they are partying at his parents' Brooklyn mansion at a premium escort rate, with no kickbacks to the house. Things get out of hand, and soon they are getting married during a whirlwind jaunt to Las Vegas. Ani has been rescued from a drab life, and Vanya has someone to rest their head on his chest while he plays video games like a zombie. And so, they grow old together, regaling their grandchildren with their nutty origin story -- not. 

Word of the nuptials gets back to Vanya's godfather, Toros (Karren Karagulian), whose job it is to look after the man-child, and so he sends two of his goons, Garrick and Igor, to break up the party and ship Vanya back to his oligarch parents in Moscow. Vanya escapes and it takes both henchmen to tame the new bride -- as Madison lets loose with all the energy she can muster for a memorable scene. The rest of the film becomes a madcap hunt for Vanya by Toros, Garrick, Igor and the captive Ani across Brooklyn and Manhattan in a race to get the marriage annulled.

You've heard of and seen plots like this before. But no one brings both a street cred and a narrative confidence to the big screen like Baker, who crafted similar odysseys in "Tangerine" and "Red Rocket." At 2 hours and 19 minutes, it is so entertaining you don't want it to end. (He might have shaved some time off the first 20 minutes; he didn't need to show that much sex, though it does set the table for the improbable bond between Ani and Vanya, such that you believe that she intends her sham marriage to last.)

Karagulian, a Baker regular, is fun to watch as the harried ringleader who can imagine the defenestration possibilities if he doesn't deliver Vanya back to Moscow. Vache Tovmasyan is amusing as Garrick, whose initial run-in with Ani leaves him concussed for the second half of the film. And Yura Borisov is a revelation as the thoughtful, caring Igor, who bonds with Ani while he keeps watch on her overnight. They have a fascinating conversation while the TV news drones on in the background, and she mocks him when he mispronounces touché by rhyming it with whoosh. ("Maybe you should learn English before you try French," she scolds.) Madison, rocking a Jersey accent borrowed from Adriana La Cerva of "The Sopranos," is a force of nature from start to finish. It helps, for authenticity purposes, that she is a little homely, though her physical attributes are impressive, and she is eager to exploit them on screen.

I'm not sure what was more impressive -- Baker's casting of the film (in addition to writing and directing, he cast the film and edited it) or the effortless manner of unspooling a narrative with multiple moving parts.  The demolition of Vanya's living room by Ani battling Garrick and Igor is itself a master class in staging. The piece de resistance of casting comes when Vanya's mother, Galina, strides off the private jet in New York. Darya Ekamasova is a perfect ice queen, whom no one can stop from her mission to pry Ani's mitts off of her baby boy. 

"Anora" is a thrill from start to finish, with no moments wasted. It is funny and tragic and sad and heartwarming. Let's call it Sean Baker's masterpiece. For now.

BONUS TRACK

The trailer:

Bebopped

 

SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT (A) - I'm guessing this documentary about the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, as filtered through the lens of jazz music. Don't overthink it. It will either work for you or it won't.

The vision of ambitious writer-director Johan Grimonprez, "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat" smolders for two and a half hours, bebopping around the timeline, music performances, and global politics, in particular the heated cold war between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. It can be a challenge to follow at times, but Grionprez is not here to tell a simple, linear story in a conventional format. 

He takes the historical hook of Louis Armstrong being deployed by the CIA to run interference for the Eisenhower administration's targeting of Lumumba for his challenges to the Congolese government and his push for pan-African unity at a time when African countries were finding strength through unity as a voting block at the United Nations. The assassination led two jazz artists -- Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach -- to disrupt a UN gathering in the days after the killing.

But we're not here for a history lesson. Just let the elements wash over you, preferably in a dark theater when you can have a clear mind and need not worry about the outside world. Grimonprez digs deep into source material for historical perspective, some of which flashes across the screen too quickly to soak up fully. He cribs from an audio diary by Nikita Khrushchev, whose shoe-banging diplomacy was stirring the pot of anti-colonial unrest throughout Africa at the time, potentially threatening the West's access to the nation's uranium mines. The Soviet leader comes off as a clever beta troll.

But most important, the filmmaker drenches the film in jazz music, as connective tissue and for mood and cadence for the narrative. Archival interviews feature Lincoln and Dizzie Gillespie, and there are too many legendary artist performances to mention, including by Roach, Armstrong, Nina Simone, Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus. Grimonprez lets the songs breathe, and he turns repeatedly to Roach's jangling drum fills to ratchet up the tension.

I can understand if someone walked out after 20 minutes, frustrated by this obscure history lesson. But if you give in and adjust to the rhythms, you may be won over by Grimonprez's free-jazz masterstroke of storytelling.

BONUS TRACKS

One chilling passage features an excerpt from Louis Armstrong's racial howl, "Black and Blue":

There is Nina Simone covering Bob Dylan (which she would not do until 1966) and "The Ballad of Hollis Brown":

And my favorite from the soundtrack, Thelonious Monk with a spare rendering of "Just a Gigolo":

Noir Chronicles: It's a Living

 

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953) (B+) - Richard Widmark smirks and scowls his way through a taut thriller about a pickpocket who unwittingly swipes a woman's wallet that contains nuclear secrets, which envelops him in a spy caper. 

 

Samuel Fuller ("The Naked Kiss") writes and directs this sharp, slick procedural full of juicy characters and snappy dialogue. Widmark plays it cool as the feds put the screws to him to hand over the film negatives that were in the wallet; meantime, the commie symps ratchet the heat on him too. Caught in the intrigue is the unwitting dame, Candy (Jean Peters), who can't help but start to fall for Widmark's Skip McCoy (even though their meet-cute involves a right hook to the chin).

The ringer here is Thelma Ritter ("All About Eve," "Pillow Talk") as Moe, the necktie-peddling snitch who makes her nut playing both sides. Ritter runs rings around her castmates, bringing depth and soul to a traditional side role. 

Fuller has fun with McCoy's digs, a waterfront shack where the grifter keeps his beer cold by storing it submerged in the water in a contraption that also safely houses his ill-gotten goods. In one memorable scene, Fuller shoots from floor level over the shoulder of McCoy, who is lounging in a hammock, looking up at a cop grilling him. Widmark and Peters steam things up with barely a kiss. There is style to burn and a story that will keep you on your toes until the end.

SPOTTED: Milburn Stone is a police detective. He had 168 movie and TV credits but only one after 1958 -- when he signed on as Doc on "Gunsmoke" and rode that for 605 episodes until its cancellation in 1975.

THE BIG CLOCK (1948) (B-minus) - File this one under serviceable post-war journalism thrillers. George Stroud (Ray Milland) has had it with his oppressive publisher, Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton), and ends up ousted as editor of Crimeways magazine, which investigates various illicit incidents. When Janoth's mistress ends up dead, Stroud must head up the investigation without his staff finding out that he spent the evening with her, shunning his wife and their planned trip to West Virginia.

It's no secret pretty early on that Janoth is the killer (he acted in a spasm of jealousy), and he uses a yes-man to cover his tracks and the entire staff to pursue every lead about the "mystery man" who spent the evening with the dead woman. The staff uses modern techniques like data analysis to sift through clues, and Janoth is obsessed with the precise time, placing a massive clock on the front of the building that houses his publishing empire. The innards of that clock, blinking like a giant computer, will be the scene of a climactic showdown. And there is a small antique sundial that will be used as the murder weapon. (Talk about getting clocked ...)

Journeyman director John Farrow has fun in the final third of the film, when the action is confined to the corporate headquarters and characters scamper up and down stairs and elevators and through offices. Milland ("The Lost Weekend") is a solid lead, and Laughton, sporting an unfortunate mustache, is a mush-mouthed oddball. Elsa Lanchester has fun as an artist caught up in the chaos, and Maureen O'Sullivan (Farrow's wife) sizzles as the slighted spouse. The cutthroat world of magazine circulation wars is parodied to the hilt, and this is a fun knew-dunnit to watch unfold.

SPOTTED: Henry Morgan is a mute henchman for the big boss. He would go on to a TV career as Officer Bill Gannon on "Dragnet" and Col. Potter on "MASH."

The Ultimate Buddy Road Trip

 

A REAL PAIN (A) - Jesse Eisenberg writes, directs and stars in a gem of a movie about 30-something cousins retracing their family roots to Poland and joining a Holocaust tour. We could not find a misstep in this heartfelt rendering of the lingering pangs of personal suffering.

Eisenberg brings in Kieran Culkin as Benji, one of those annoying but lovable fuckups who manages to be the life of the party. He contrasts with Eisenberg's David, who has tamed his childhood anxieties through extreme adulting -- holding down a responsible job (selling internet ads) and building a home with a loving wife and child. That exposition gradually spills out as David and Benji reunite for their excursion to Poland.

Benji is coming off "a tough few months" and is in a funk after the death of their grandmother, with whom he was close. Benji, as a coping mechanism (besides daily pot smoking), defaults to dragging the conversation between the two men toward their childhood, when David was a ball of neuroses and Benji was the well-adjusted one (and apparently Grandma's favorite). It's a way to keep David off-kilter and level the playing field. 

But let's not ignore the fact that the two men are frequently funny together. Eisenberg does his Millennial Woody Allen thing (which he has made his own), and Culkin bursts with manic energy. Occasionally he seems to be stealing Zach Galifianakis' shtick, but there's no denying that he commandeers this roller-coaster of joy and heartbreak and owns the movie.

It is always difficult to avoid the third rail of comedy and dodge "The Day the Clown Cried" territory when weaving the Holocaust into a comedy. Eisenberg assembles a small group of fellow tourists (including Jennifer Grey), who each have their own personal journeys to share, including a man (Kurt Edyiawan) who survived the Rwandan massacres when he was young and ended up in western Canada. Will Sharpe (HBO's "The White Lotus") does a fine turn as the sweet tour guide, James, who takes earnestness to Olympic levels. 

Benji's antics will continually alternate between amusing and exasperating, culminating in a group dinner in which both men will have the chance to open up about the other to the fellow tourists. The visit to the concentration camp is understated, and it is perfectly punctuated with just a few seconds of absolute silence on the screen. 

A final pilgrimage to the cousins' grandmother's family home is perfectly anti-climactic. And the final shot of Benji captures his entire personality in one image. From start to finish, Eisenberg crafts a minor-key masterpiece.

R.I.P., Gena Rowlands, Part 2: Couplings

 Gena Rowlands, the longtime wife of and collaborator with John Cassavetes, died in August at age 94. With an assist from the Guild Cinema, we are (re)viewing some of her foundational films.

MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ (1971) (A-minus) - Somehow John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands found joy in the brutality of men and the recklessness of being in relationships with them. And, yes, like the films in our previous entry, Rowlands gets knocked around again, and at the hands of Cassavetes' character, a soulless married man who is stringing along her Minnie, who definitely needs a reset in her love life. (And what's with saddling Rowlands with names like Minnie, Mabel and Myrtle?)

But the woman is resilient, and here she gives a soulful, layered performance. Minnie doesn't have her meet-cute with Moskowitz (Seymour Cassel) until at least a half hour into this shaggy-dog tale (and even then, it's not very cute). He is parking cars at a restaurant where she has just had a miserable blind date with a vain jerk prone to outbursts (a hilarious, menacing turn by Val Avery, who is also in "Faces"). Moskowitz offers her a getaway in his beat-up pickup truck, where he proves himself to be a more charming type of loudmouth. With his long ponytail and Yosemite Sam mustache, he displays Jethro Bodine moves, using his brute wiles to wear down his love interest.

This is an old-fashioned story about an aggressive man essentially bullying a woman into loving him. But Minnie is no pushover. Their dates go haywire, but each of them is improbably drawn to the other's je ne sais quoi. Each is damaged but not irrevocably so. Amid everything, Rowlands and Cassel are very funny together. 

This is one of Cassavetes' strongest scripts. The dialogue is sharp and the narrative holds together as he careens along curves. He stages several set pieces as showcases for outre characters, each with a chip on their shoulder. Moskowitz's first scene is in a diner, featuring a five-minute dialogue with Tim Carey's depressed middle-aged man who has opinions on every topic that pops up in a stream of non-sequiturs. Avery, as Zelmo the lunch date, is riveting as the loquacious loser on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Toward the end, Cassavetes' mom, Katherine, has a cameo as Moskowitz's stereotypical Jewish mother, spewing putdowns of her layabout son. As usual, Katherine Cassavetes threatens to steal her son's movie.

But the through line involves the pas de deux between Rowlands and Cassel riffing through that quintessential '70s drift. The film is consistently entertaining, whether the viewer is laughing or cowering, all the while holding on during a wild ride.

FACES (1968) (B) - Rowlands has to share screen time here as a supporting player in a bifurcated story of a couple whose coincidental midlife crises mark the unraveling of their marriage. Rowlands plays a high-end call girl who romps with the husband, while the wife has her own fling in the movie's second half (with a young surfer dude played by Cassel, whose character never overlaps with Rowlands').

 

John Marley -- who a few years later would famously wake up with a horse's head in his bed in "The Godfather" -- dominates as businessman Richard Forst, who escapes his loveless marriage and falls for Rowlands' cute Jeannie. The first half is dominated by an extended scene in which Forst must compete for the attention of Jeannie and her housemate with two other crass businessmen on the prowl, including Val Avery (see above). It's a prototypical Cassavetes extended scene of debauchery, a seemingly improvised acting exercise where revelers booze and smoke, tell jokes, sing standards, dance like clods, and engage in loud horseplay (see also, "Husbands"). Cassavetes' camera gets all up in his characters' faces, often positioning it from Jeannie's perspective. (This review has a nice description of the ensemble style, referring to the cast as "guerrilla thespians.")

The secret weapon here is newcomer Lynn Carlin (who had been Robert Altman's secretary) as Richard's wife, Maria, who also has had it with her mate. On a girls' night out (at the famous LA haunt the Whiskey a Go-go) she and her gal-pals bring home Cassel's Chet, a good-time guy who targets Maria for seduction. The second half is dominated by a set-up mirroring the first half, this time with married women canoodling with their boy toy. Carlin and Cassel sizzle with chemistry -- he is a raw performer, and she brings fresh energy to every moment she is on screen.

It all crescendos with a classic love-triangle confrontation, featuring more yelling and physical harm. But it is the final shot of ordinary domestic indifference that is most chilling. Cassavetes' camera finally pulls back for a static long shot, itself worth the price of admission.

BONUS TRACK

From "Faces," Jimmy Reed with "Life Is Funny":

New to the Queue

 Reality ... what a concept ...

A documentary about the little-known songwriter, artist and bon vivant, "The World According to Allee Willis."

A look at the week in 1972 when John Lennon and Yoko Ono tried to pitch utopia to the masses, "Daytime Revolution."

A study of the leisurely popular music pioneered by Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers, "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary."

Ronan Farrow looks into our nosy AI interlocutors in "Surveilled."

A woman explores the world of the photographer mother who died young, "A Photographic Memory."

Holy Crap!* Clone Wars

 

THE SUBSTANCE (C-minus) - This breakneck science-fiction assault serves as both a Rorschach test and an endurance challenge. See how long you can grasp the reins of its insane plot -- about an aging actress who risks taking a drug that makes a young replica of herself, with predictably disastrous results. I lasted about 100 minutes, before this went off the rails in the final 40 minutes.

Provocateur Coralie Fargeat (her first effort was called "Revenge") writes and directs this hammer to the viewer's skull regarding what society thinks of women once they age out of the starlet classification. She is anything but subtle. Her opening scene is a clever time-lapse montage of a plaque being placed on a walk-of-fame for Oscar-winning actress Elisabeth Sparkle, a star-shaped plate that quickly gets trampled and endures wear and tear, with cracks eventually forming across its face. 

Cut to Demi Moore as Sparkle, a Jane Fonda type who spends her middle age leading aerobics classes on a popular TV show. But she is quickly fired (right when a birthday hits) by evil network executive Harvey (Dennis Quaid), a disgusting pig who demands a young replacement. (You see, men are allowed to be horrific, but an elegant beauty like Demi Moore is to be discarded as a post-fertile drag on society. Ya follow?) 

 

Sparkle's new self is a nubile clone who goes by Sue and is played to great visual effect by Margaret Qualley ("Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood," "Drive-Away Dolls"). Sue will take over Sparkle's exercise show and instantly hop on a track to stardom, mostly on the strength of her taut buttocks. This depresses Sparkle, of course. 

The key element of this oversized idiot plot is that, after Sparkle "births" Sue out of her spine (go with it), the two must follow a strict regimen in which they alternate consciousness for seven days at a time. But one slip of dosage or any delay in switching over could have negative effects. This comes to pass when Sue brings a date home and is about to have sex just as her seven-day run is ending, so she cheats to buy a little extra time. This results in a minor deformity to Sparkle once she awakens. And, yes, I'm starting to get winded conveying the details of this stupid story.

This all is rendered on a pulp neon palette and in an intentionally exaggerated fantasy world where dialogue is unbelievable and logic goes out the window. The visual style of storytelling could be called David Cronenberg meets Adrian Lyne. Fargeat knows no boundaries in exploring and degrading her actresses' bodies. There is, I would say, an almost shocking amount of nudity involving both Moore and Qualley, considering this is a mainstream movie and very few scenes apparently involve body doubles. The absurdity of the body dysmorphia ratchets up at first slowly (a gnarled finger), gets silly (Sue plucks a chicken leg out of the side of her buttocks, just like those charlatans used to retrieve someone's kidney with just their fingers), and then, like a rollercoaster, everything spills over the top and speeds out of control. 

The first half of the movie was entertaining, and its absurdities and plot holes tolerable. You give it the benefit of the doubt. But after the chicken leg, the entire production just jumps the shark. As Sue becomes more and more popular, it comes at the expenses of Sparkle, who becomes more and more disfigured. It's as if Fargeat had no third act up her sleeve, and so she unleashes near-comical horrors to inflict on each actress, culminating in a preposterous scene that recalls "Young Frankenstein," "The Elephant Man" and "Carrie" on steroids. (With a nod to "How to Get Ahead in Advertising.") After those first 100 minutes, it would have been wise to land the plane with a smart, quick final 15 minutes or so. Instead that rollercoaster keeps picking up speed until it flies off the rails and crashes into an orphanage -- pardon the out-of-control metaphor.

Fargeat's style throughout could be called Spumco Verite. When we first meet Harvey, at a urinal, Quaid's bulbous face is on top of the camera in an exaggerated distortion. In his next scene, he is eating shrimp like a slob, and the camera offers closeups inside his mouth. Fargeat is fond of long shots of corridors, with the angles and dimensions contorted in funhouse style. She shoots through peepholes and uses other disfiguring reflections like into doorknobs and camera lenses. She uses rapid-fire edits -- zip, snap, chop -- to dizzying effect. And let's give credit to the foley crew -- Victor Praud, Antoine Swertvaegher and Gregory Vincent -- for their giddy sound effects full of glops and splooshes and splats. (And that is just Quaid's slobbering.) Even tablets of Alka-Seltzer have a maniacal fizz.  

It's difficult to convey just how off-kilter the first half is and how unleashed the second half is. Fargeat bleats out the same message over and over and over again. I get it, we punish women for losing their youthful beauty. But battering your actresses in a public flogging somehow seems worse.

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

Doc Watch: Pop Idols

 

MARTHA (B+) - You get the feeling watching this documentary about the rise and fall and resurrection of better-living guru Martha Stewart that the film might have actually captured the true personality of its subject. Here she is, warts and all, an in-your-face businesswoman who doesn't seem to care what you think about her.

I can see viewers walking away from this with varying reactions -- some thinking that she was singled out for prosecution (over a shady but relatively minor stock trade) because she was a strong woman, and others concluding that she was an insufferable task-mistress who likely got what she deserved. (It could be both.) R.J. Cutler specializes in celebrity profiles (like "Belushi"), and he finally seems in command of the storytelling. 

 

He is lucky to have Stewart herself, parked in a chair, essentially narrating much of the film and framing the arc of her life story. How reliable a narrator she is, well, that's also for viewers to decide. I got the feeling that she doesn't always tell the truth -- including when James Comey went after her for the suspicious timing of her selling stock in a friend's company, right before a negative news story was going to tank it. She has no reason to be repentant -- she did five months in prison -- and she comes off as quite the scrappy executive. But her veneer slips occasionally, like when Cutler calls her out on a double-standard after she trashes her first husband for cheating on her -- when she also was unfaithful. Stewart dismisses her indiscretion as nothing but decries her husband's affairs as unforgivable. We also see her treating underlings dismissively and borderline cruelly.

But we also are offered many clips of Stewart in her prime -- planting gardens, glazing desserts, tricking out a bedroom -- as a woman on a mission who could not be stopped. She is smart and funny, and the camera adored her like the model she once was. The stories about her time in prison -- again, you have to assume she is being truthful about all of it -- are fascinating, and her renaissance as a social media butterfly and pal to Snoop Dogg is fun to watch.

It all feels like a comprehensive two-hour spin through the life of a key pop-culture figure of the second half of the 20th century. It might reinforce your opinion of a divisive personality, or it might open your mind to reconsideration of a celebrity you thought you loved or hated.

RETURN OF THE KING: THE FALL AND RISE OF ELVIS PRESLEY (B-minus) - What a lopsided misfire about one of the most fascinating moments in rock 'n' roll history. In a bit of a bait-and-switch, only a fraction of this movie revolves around the December 1968 TV special that revived Elvis Presley's career after a decade that had sidetracked the rock idol with military duty and bad Hollywood movies, while the Beatles reconfigured the music world. (An inauspicious opening to the film doesn't help; it starts out with a re-enactment and hyperbole, a couple of red flags.)

Two-thirds of the movie -- more than an hour -- are spent just on the run-up to the '68 special, which then gets short shrift. Some build-up was necessary; you can't tell a redemption story without putting the original fall from grace into perspective. But here it feels as if the familiar beats of Presley's first 12 years or so in the public eye form a litany of greatest hits that won't end. We don't need yet another glimpse of Presley with his locks shorn before heading to Germany or his bride Priscilla's giant bouffants. 

There certainly is some great outtake footage from the '68 special, some of it showing an anxious and insecure Presley. And an unusual array of talking heads -- such as Bruce Springsteen, Conan O'Brien and Billy Corgan -- offer some quite cogent insight into Presley's psyche. But the final half hour is just not enough time to appreciate the TV spectacle that unfolded, in particular the electrifying jam circle that reunited Presley with his '50s bandmates. They show clips from "Trying to Get to You," but not the heady moment where Elvis gets so riled up he can't stay in his seat. The rest of the clips are so chopped up that they lack sufficient impact. Maybe last year's "Reinventing Elvis" from Paramount did a better job; we'll have to track it down and compare.

BONUS TRACK

The full-on Elvis, whose chair just cannot contain him, with "Trying to Get to You" at the 1968 taping:

R.I.P., Gena Rowlands, Part 1: Women on the Verge

 Gena Rowlands, the longtime wife of and collaborator with John Cassavetes, died in August at age 94. With an assist from the Guild Cinema, we are (re)viewing some of her foundational films. 

 

A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974) (A-minus) - This is a brutal two-and-a-half hours of domestic cinema verite, in which Gena Rowlands gives a devastating performance as a woman unraveling mentally before her husband and three young children.

Mabel (Rowlands) is particularly under the influence of alcohol, but who wasn't back then? As rough as it was back then, the drinking levels were appreciably higher in John Cassavetes movies. He is the writer-director here, with a huge assist from his improvisational cast, in particular Peter Falk as Mabel's fitfully angry blue-collar husband, Nick. As the film opens, Mabel has sent the children off to be with her mother so that she and Nick can have a date night -- except that Nick's crew gets sent to fix an emergency water leak, and so Mabel gets stood up. She responds by going to a bar, getting drunk, and bringing a man home to spend the night.

The strange behavior accelerates the next morning when Nick brings his crew home for a meal, and Mabel gets oddly flirty with one of the young men. She later hosts a birthday party for one of the kids and freaks out another parent; Nick eventually comes home to find the all of the children under-dressed and running wild. That leads to a climactic argument between Mabel and Nick (backed by his mother, played by Cassavetes' mother, Katherine) and the family doctor, who eventually has her committed.

There's more tortured domesticity, and until the end Mabel and Nick will try to create a mirage of a normal family in front of the kids. Falk is fascinating as a man at his wits' end, with such little patience for Mabel's mental illness that he resorts to that era's old stand-by, twice trying to slap it out of her. His bursts of anger are jarring. Nick shows little patience with the kids, too, as he tends to them with a similarly rough hand during Mabel's absence. 

Meantime, Rowlands, juggling the innocence of a girl with the skewed wiles of a fated to unhappiness, cycles through emotions as if she were possessed by the character. She imbues Mabel with personality quirks -- like her habit of jerking her thumb and blowing raspberries -- that define Rowlands' career image to this day, a half century later. It is hard to imagine a more raw performance by an actor insistent on exploring the terrors of misogyny during a backward era.

Cassavetes' camera stalks the actors, as if goading them into uncharted emotional territory. (He gets an assist from regular cinematographer Al Ruban.) He mines the dark humor of family life that can occur when a couple acts out in front of friends, strangers or their own resilient children. You can laugh at the absurdity one moment and bridle at the appalling domestic abuse the next. Rowlands' masterpiece might not appeal to modern, enlightened viewers, but the power of her high-wire act and Cassavetes' cinematic provocation cannot be denied.

OPENING NIGHT (1977) (B+) - It's hard to tell, in retrospect, whether John Cassavetes' scripts in the 1970s were exploiting his wife's ability to plumb emotional depths or were indulging her desire to take such deep dives. She sure gets knocked around a lot, both physically and metaphorically. 

Now in her mid-40s, Rowlands takes on the role of Myrtle Gordon, an aging actress having a midlife meltdown as she portrays a woman on stage having a midlife meltdown during her latest show's previews in the run-up to opening night. Anytime there's a play-within-a-play, things can get arty, but Cassavetes actually brings a fresh take to the inside baseball of backstage antics. The workings of the crew are fascinating at times, as Cassavetes' nosy camera turns us into VIP lurkers.

Myrtle is jarred after an early performance when she is confronted by an obsessive fan outside the stage door and then watches as the young woman gets hit by a car and dies. Myrtle strong-arms her way into the family shiva and then goes on a major bender that will culminate in her showing up late and trashed for the big night. 

It is the last straw for the play's director, Manny (Ben Gazzara), who has tired of suffering through Myrtle's antics in rehearsals and during the previews -- blowing lines, ad-libbing, addressing the audience, and taking flops on stage (there is one scene in which her lover's character, played by Cassavetes, is called on to slap Myrtle's character). Despite this slow-motion trainwreck, Manny rebuffs pleas to dump Myrtle by the playwright, Sarah (a marvelous old-school Joan Blondell, near the end of her career). Sarah is spooked by Myrtle, who suffers delusional visions of the young woman who died, sometimes having knock-down drag-out battles with the ghost. 

Rowlands nails the slow unraveling of a woman not just mourning and not just suffering from alcoholism, but also from the haunting realization that her looks won't draw the autograph hounds much longer. It's Sarah's script that jangles her as much as anything. Rowlands gets a lot of mileage just by narrowing her eyes and letting her character's judgment spill out from a stare. And she plays a believable rubbery-legged souse. As a stagehand marvels to her: "I've never seen anyone as drunk as you and still standing up." It is delivered as a high compliment.

Gazzara does a slow burn throughout, with occasional bouts of quick outrage. Cassavetes is a great foil as Maurice, who taunts Myrtle during rehearsals. Stay for the final half hour (the film runs 2 hours 25 minutes), as Rowlands and Cassavetes go toe-to-toe onstage, riveting the audience with their dueling, escalating improv to cap the play. (Again, it's a nested-doll concept -- did Cassavetes script the ad-libs, or were the ad-libs ad-libbed?) That extended climax of the film between real-life husband-and-wife is instantly iconic, and it makes up for any missteps of the previous two hours. That kind of sizzle between characters cannot be taught, though it serves as a master class in acting.

Soundtrack of Your Life: Rocktober

 We had an especially busy month or so on the concert front. Here are the highlights.

It started with Brooks Nielsen from the Growlers, who appeared at Revel on September 22. There is something about Nielsen, the face and sound of the beach-goth SoCal group that fizzled around the time of COVID, that just fills me with joy. He comes off as a clever, sweet stoner, who also has great taste in music. Each time I saw the Growlers (once in Albuquerque, once at their annual festival in San Pedro) the shows were a little slow out of the gate. But once he and his band hit their stride, a switch goes off, and they can do no wrong.

Nielsen is about as close as Millennials can get to their own Dylan. He's a hipster lounge singer (with his own neon "Brooksy" sign) who knows how to craft a groove to lay over languid lyrics. His latest band featured a ringer of a lead guitarist (who gave off a Flea vibe), which propelled a lot of the songs. Here they are in San Diego playing the sing-along "Love Test":

 

I caught a book reading by Joe Boyd in support of his latest And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, a world tour of world music. He told bittersweet stories from a historical perspective, most memorably when he traced the origins of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" back to South Africa in the late 1930s and as popularized as "Wemoweh" by the Weavers. It just so happens that Boyd's brother lives in Albuquerque, so a stop here should not have been a surprise. I was drawn to Boyd because of his work with R.E.M. in the mid-'80s. A Harvard grad, he went to England in the 1960s and became synonymous with the British folk scene of Fairport Convention and Nick Drake. 

My partner took me to see one of her favorites, Skating Polly, at the Launchpad in late September. Step-siblings Peyton Bighorse and Kelli Mayo, who share vocal duties and switch off between guitar and bass, were "discovered" in Oklahoma by Exene Cervenka of X. They can give off a Throwing Muses vibe with some off-kilter rhythm shifts. They certainly played loud and tore it up before a small crowd. Here they are six years ago in a live set on KEXP:

I bought tickets to see sadgirl Haley Heynderickx, who is doing her part in supporting the consonants at the end of the alphabet, but I just was too busy to run downtown on a Tuesday night. I hope she appreciates my $20 contribution; I'd still like to see her during a calmer period.

Rocktober crescendoed with a trip to Austin. The visit was bookended by concerts from Guided by Voices (at the Mohawk) and Dehd (at the Scoot Inn).

Opening for Dehd was Chicago-based Sweat FM, who has to be seen to be believed. Apparently a guy named Dom Rabalais, who is into bodybuilding, tattoos and a porn side gig, he sings techno-punk songs to a recorded digital backing track. He strips down to barely anything and jumps around the stage, like a kickboxing aerobics instructor who sings his own songs. My favorite outfit was a neon lime-green jock strap. The ladies loved his hydraulic butt cheeks. He ended every song with a verbal stamp: "Sweat FM!" (Like Mary Katherine Gallagher's "Superstar!") Here he is without the peroxide in his hair:

Dehd drew a packed crowd to the outdoor venue on a warm night. They seem a little more confident than when we saw them two years ago in Albuquerque. Jason Balla still stalks the stage while bashing out his spare, loose lead guitar riffs, and Emily Kempf is the anchor on the left side of the stage. Highlights included "Loner" and "Light On"; they are the second and third track on the video below from a recent live KCRW recording. We left at the end of the main set, ceding the encore to the kids to enjoy, as we wandered past the Daniel Johnston tribute mural, getting a jump on traffic, only to have our bus break down and then getting caught in a massive snarl on the UT campus as a Sabrina Carpenter was letting out, unleashing a horde of blond girls in white boots onto the thoroughfare.

We're nearing double digits on our Guided by Voices world tour. Austin was either the 8th or 9th city we've seen the Dayton legends (depending on whether you count Los Angeles and Long Beach separately). God bless Robert Pollard. He refuses to rest on his legacy songs. For better or worse, he leans into his recent catalogue more and more, which made the second hour a bit of a drag at times. (One stretch of 7 out of 8 songs were barely recognizable to me, a diehard since "Bee Thousand.") Pollard is getting more and more judicious with the old favorites, like "Motor Away," "The Best of Jill Hives" and "Shocker in Gloomtown," sprinkling them in almost as teases amid the denser new material. 

I didn't stay for the encore (which means I missed one of his best live songs, "Jane of the Waking Universe" ... and, of course, "Echoes Myron") but he finished the main set strong with "I Am a Scientist," "Cut-out Witch" and "Glad Girls," with one new ringer mixed in -- "Serene King," an instant pop classic:

I don't know which one of us is going to fold first -- Bob (who is 67) or me. There were times at the Austin gig where I vowed that it might be my last GBV show -- especially considering it was one of those concerts where Pollard had that chip on his shoulder that comes from not being appreciated as the greatest pop songwriter of his generation, and he wouldn't shut up about it -- but I'll probably end up in a place like Pittsburgh next year pogoing to "Teenage FBI." Never say never.

New to the Queue

 There is a season ...

A documentary, the last in a trilogy, about the solidarity of workers at a Chinese garment factory, "Youth: Homecoming."

Andrea Arnold ("Fish Tank," "American Honey") is back in her British working-class milieu, focused on a tween protagonist, with "Bird."

From Jesse Eisenberg, the story of cousins who go to Poland to explore their Jewish roots, "A Real Pain."

A chronicle of the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat."

A quirky black-and-white comedy about teen step-siblings falling for each other, "Hippo."

Caste Away

 

ORIGIN (C-minus) - Props to Ava Duvernay for thinking outside of the box and being ambitious. But this fictional interpretation of the crafting of a nonfiction book is an interesting idea that fails miserably on the screen. 

Based on writer Isabel Wilkerson and her book Caste, which recalculated traditional thinking on race and class, the film tags along as the fictionalized Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor from "King Richard") travels the globe -- to Germany, India and across the United States -- exploring the ideas of hierarchal cultural categorization. Aside from the visuals of such a travelogue, the grunt work of researching a book never really jumps off the big screen. Attempts to rope in real-life current events feel forced -- the film starts with a re-enactment of the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, and Wilkerson awkwardly interacts with a plumber wearing a MAGA hat (Nick Offerman) at her house.

The dramatic hitch comes from the fact that Wilkerson suffers, in quick succession, the deaths of her mother and her husband (plus a cousin (Niecy Nash) is seriously ill), which, rather than create some dramatic tension, casts a pall over the proceedings. Next stop: research into Nazi Germany! We get sepia-toned flashbacks to a couple in the 1930s, a gentile man in love with a Jewish woman, and there is just nothing particularly fresh to convey about such forbidden romance amid horrors. Too often this one feels like Holocaust porn or similar wallowing in the history of lynching. (Wilkerson was influenced by a 1941 sociological study of "caste and class" in the Deep South at that time, penned by a couple whose story is also told in grim flashback.)

She eventually sets out to study untouchables in India, where Duvernay's palette brightens, but the dialogue remains stiff and academic. By the time we hear a droning lecture on endogamy (marrying within your own group), I was tempted to shout at the screen, begging for a in-depth documentary rather than this 141-minute gloss across one writer's serendipitous world. 

SAINT OMER (C-minus) - Stilted does not begin to describe this melancholy drama about the trial of an immigrant woman who killed her six-month-old child while battling long-term depression. Most of the film literally consists of dry testimony in a French court.

 

The hook here is a shared focus on not just the accused but also on Rama (Kayije Kagame), a professor and novelist who is drawn to the woman's narrative and attends the trial. Rama, who happens to look like a model, wants to parallel this tragic story of Laurence Coly (a placid Guslagie Malanda) with the myth of Medea. But she doesn't do much more than sit in the gallery brooding as she, like us, endures the droning court proceedings.

We are allowed some fresh air at times -- domestic scenes between Rama and her husband and family, and between Rama and the accused's mother -- but even those scenes are lethargic and obtuse. Alice Diop (the documentary "We") has a heavy hand with both the script (along with two co-writers) and behind the camera. Colors are muted. And these court scenes stretch out for 20 minutes at a time. Rama's scenes outside the courtroom are often wordless. At one point she takes out her recorder to replay some of the testimony that we've already sat through. It's just too much to take over 2 hours 2 minutes in running time. 

From flashbacks we can see from Rama's childhood that she herself has some mommy issues, and through scenes depicting her romantic relationship, she might also have some motherhood issues. None of this coalesces. Some of the court dialogue is somewhat enlightening, as it humanizes Laurence and allows her to tell her back story -- she had a tough mother, a sham of a marriage, mental health struggles. If only Diop had managed to tighten it and brighten it and given us something more complex than a mopey protagonist and a stone-faced antagonist.

Doc Watch: Buddy Movies

 

DUSTY & STONES (B+) - This fish-out-of-water documentary is a little flat but quite charming, as it follows two cousins from Swaziland who chase their dream of country-music stardom in Nashville and Texas. It takes the fish-out-of-water concept about as far as you can go without wearing out its welcome.

 

Debut director Jesse Rudoy embeds deeply with Gazi (Dusty) and Linda (Stones) in a story set, oddly, back in 2018 and only now getting a wide release. Dusty and Stones pay respects to classic country with covers of Johnny Cash and others, but they also write their own songs in a more modern mode. They catch their big break when an international music festival in Jefferson, Texas, contacts them in their town of Mooihoek, inviting them to take part in the town's annual competition.

On their way to Texas, they stop in Nashville to record a few songs with a noted producer and top session players. It's touching to watch the duo express pure tear-filled joy at the way their songs come to life with a full band and professional production. The guys also sample America's strip-mall fast-food culture. They find a sacred link between the American South and Swaziland through Dolly Parton's "Tennessee Mountain Home," which resonates with their connection to their own homeland. 

Once the festival starts, there are ominous moments, as it looks like the two men might not be so welcome in a rural white world. The leader of the house band acts dismissively during their sound check, and the men are regarded more as curiosities than established musicians. (Although they are warmly embraced, at times literally, by local women at a rowdy bar.) No matter the outcome, you sense that Dusty and Stones had a dream come true and appreciate what they have, both at home and abroad.

WILL & HARPER (B-minus) - Funny guy Will Ferrell uses the road-trip device to chronicle the journey of his pal and comedy co-conspirator Harper Steele, whose transition from man to woman challenges Ferrell's heteronormative construct of their friendship, which dates to their days on "Saturday Night Live," where Steele wrote some of Ferrell's most memorable sketches.

Ferrell is earnest and open-minded as the old friends take a car trip across the country to revisit some of Steele's favorite dive bars and other dumps in order to gauge the reception that Steele will get now that he no longer is a slumming good ol' boy. (The men are also partial to celebrating beer o'clock in Walmart parking lots, and they even take a balloon ride in New Mexico.) However, the settings are unimaginative, and the reactions are fairly predictable -- mostly inadvertent misgendering mixed with acceptance from unexpected sources. Too often the placement of Steele into these situations seems forced, solely for the purpose of goosing the narrative. Often, the constant distraction of having a celebrity present spoils the whole experiment.

The bond between Ferrell and his older friend is genuine, but that friendship is not really explored beyond the gimmick that got them in a car to drive across the USA. Besides a cursory montage of sketches and characters that Steele apparently created, you don't get a good sense of what made him so funny before he went through a dark period about seven years ago before breaking through as his true self. And maybe that's the point; the old Steele is dead, and this is the person you get now. 

And maybe that's what lends a layer of melancholy over the exercise. Ferrell sometimes looks flat-out bored; though he's funny enough here that he at least makes this watchable. If not for his antics, this would be a pretty flat film. As it is, things drag and get repetitive. Director Josh Greenberg did not need the nearly two-hour running time afforded to him. The movie is slow out of the gates; it takes about 20 minutes to get the pair fully on the road, first wasting time in New York with a boring reunion at "SNL."

The inclusion of many "SNL" alums doesn't feel organic, but rather a way to get bold-faced names in the credits. Only Kristen Wiig makes a mark, as she is recruited to pen a theme song, and her composition over the closing credits doesn't disappoint. It's getting to that final destination that can be a chore here.

BONUS TRACK

Dusty and Stones' "hit" song, "The River":

 Also over the closing credits of "Will & Harper," a ginchy pop bauble "Go With Me" by Gene & Debbe:

The Bachelor

 

WOMAN OF THE HOUR (B) - Anna Kendrick lends her own star power to her directorial debut about a struggling actress who goes on "The Dating Game" in the late '70s, where she will cross paths with a serial killer.  

Kendrick takes a tight script from Ian McDonald ("Some Freaks") and creates a jangly but low-key thriller with fun period sets and costumes. She plays Sheryl, a somewhat ordinary actress who fails to grab attention at auditions where she competes with more glamorous L.A. starlets. When her agent books her on "The Dating Game," she figures she has nothing to lose.

Sheryl's story runs parallel to that of Rodney (Daniel Zovatto), a charming photographer who preys on young women. One young woman, a runaway named Amy (Autumn Best), manages to string Rodney along after surviving his initial attack, and their cat-and-mouse combat grows much more interesting than the episode of the game show that threads through the film's 95-minute running time. It's a clever move for Kendrick to cede that space to that darker understory.

The "Dating Game" episode (presented, for no good reason, as if it were airing live) is played for macabre laughs. Tony Hale is underwhelming in Jim Lange's host role. But it's fun to watch Bachelors No. 1 and 2 struggle mightily in the face of both Rodney's verbal dexterity and Sheryl going off-script by ad-libbing complex questions to the would-be beaus.

Other subplots are not so successful. Pete Holmes (HBO's "Crashing") is a drag, bookending the film as the puppy-eyed neighbor crushing on Sheryl. And there's a senseless distraction involving a woman in the show's audience (Nicolette Robinson) who recognizes Rodney from a beach party and tries in vain to get security guards and police interested in hearing her story.

But as Netflix fare goes, this one hums along like an edgy episode of "Police Woman" or "Rockford Files." Both Sheryl and Amy's stories have smart endings, and Kendrick shows an assured hand juggling those plot lines while presenting understated visuals, in an act of restraint for a first-time filmmaker.

Baby Bros

BABES (B+) - Two engaging leads elevate a script that is the messy, raunchy embodiment of childbirth in Pamela Adlon's comedy about best friends going through pregnancies. Ilana Glazer co-wrote the rat-a-tat screenplay and riffs through it with Michelle Buteau.

The two of them get a long leash from Adlon, and they do not abuse the privilege. Glazer plays Eden, a fairly unserious 30-something who enjoys a one-night stand with a man she met on the subway and with whom she had enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner of sushi while commuting (it's a very New York film and this is an endearing scene).  Meanwhile Buteau is Dawn, who starts out the film about to burst with her second child and who is much more advanced in adulting than Eden is.

Eden ends up pregnant, with the father out of the picture, and her self-centered nature goes into hyper-drive, to the irritation of Dawn, whose post-partum experience and strained marriage leaves little room for the antics of her childhood BFF. How they endeavor to work that out is part of the charm and even a level of gravitas that probably owes a debt to Adlon, the former "Louie" actress who went on to create the acclaimed cable TV series "Better Things" and makes her big-screen debut here.

What she and Glazer (and co-writer Josh Rabinowitz) have created here is a modern gal-pal rom-com. Glazer (who made her cable TV bones as one half of "Broad City") jumps into the fray of gross-out chick flicks that have evolved since "Bridesmaids." Eden and Dawn's connection is so intimate that there are no gynecological barriers between them; they're not afraid to get all up into each other's plumbing when the other is in crisis. It's certainly a fresh take on motherhood.

The one-liners zip by nonstop, in keeping with the Tina Fey shotgun approach of comedy by volume. Glazer and Buteau rifle through some improv moments and seem to have workshopped the script to a fine point. Glazer is generous in scattering the funny to a talented supporting cast. John Carroll Lynch ("Fargo," TV's "The Drew Carey Show") has a blast as Eden's OB-GYN who suffers through embarrassing phases of hair-loss strategies. Twins Keith and Kenneth Lucas (HBO's "Crashing") perform their deadpan shtick in stereo. Oliver Platt is the right kind of loopy as Eden's arm's-length, emotionally stunted father. And Stephan James (who has portrayed Jesse Owens and John Lewis on screen) oozes appeal as Eden's fleeting love interest.

It is sloppy at times, and its vulgarity can occasionally feel a little forced, but this is a cohesive film with a rather poignant story to tell about love and friendship (and loss). Everyone has a good time telling a funny and touching story.

BONUS TRACKS

The film bops along to a peppy soundtrack. The closing credits feature Bloods with "Thinking of You Thinking of Me":

And there's always room for Le Tigre, with their go-go ode to the subway, "My My Metrocard":

Doc Watch: Revisionist History

 

BS HIGH (A-minus) - Netflix set the modern standard for outrage documentaries five years ago with "Fyre," about a sham music festival, and HBO jumps into the fray with this profile of a scam artist who fielded a motley high school football team in Ohio that got exposed big time on ESPN. "BS High" is another product of the Trump era.

The "star" of the film is Roy Johnson, who doesn't even try to hide the fact that he spews bullshit for a living. He is a narcissist who revels in the the role at the center of a movie, even if it tears to shreds any hint of credibility he might have ever possessed. He is downright giddy being a sociopath.

Directors Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe produce a slick, lively tick-tock of the incredible story of Bishop Sycamore, a school in name only, where Johnson recruited 19- and 20-year-olds, preying on their gap-year desire to make it to a Division I football school. Free and Roe let Johnson bob and weave in the hot seat, but they never let him off the hook. 

They bring on entertaining talking heads -- an investigator for the high school association; a journalist who chronicled the catastrophe; and Bomani Jones, a plain-spoken TV sports guy who serves as the conscience of the film. The filmmakers also assemble the key players who got hoodwinked by Johnson; each one is thoughtful and sincere in revealing the scars that this saga caused them. 

Bishop Sycamore is famous for ending up on national TV playing the biggest powerhouse in the country (IMG Academy from Florida, which would eventually get bought up by a billion-dollar equity firm) -- despite having little preparation or even enough helmets to go around. Turns out that Johnson was a con artist who didn't pay his bills, even if it meant his students would get evicted from the hotels they were housed in. BS got crushed on national TV, sending social-media critics into an instant feeding frenzy, and embarrassing the young men as the program crumbled and Johnson was exposed as a charlatan.

Free and Roe wring juicy quotes from their commentators, and their fascinating story zips along in 95 minutes, some of it so ludicrous that it is laugh-out-loud funny. But it's also heart-wrenching at times -- these are young men from rough backgrounds who got taken for a ride -- and it has some deep thoughts to offer about capitalism's football-industrial complex. It is highly entertaining but also wise and penetrating.

THE SKYJACKER'S TALE (2017) (B-minus) - This archeological dig into another scam artist -- a criminal from 1970s Virgin Islands who escaped a life sentence by hijacking a plane to Cuba in the '80s -- is a low-budget affair that lacks focus and drowns in cheap re-enactments. There is a great movie to be made about Ishmael Muslim Ali, but this one is not it.

Ali (born Ishmael LaBeet) was a self-styled anti-colonialist revolutionary who was convicted of leading a gang of gunmen that killed seven people at a country club in St. Croix, a place then dominated by Hess Oil. Twelve years later, while being flown from the mainland United States back to the islands for a habeas hearing, he emerged from the plane's bathroom with a gun and diverted the plane to Cuba, where he walked away a free man. 

The best scenes involve interviews with the elderly Ali, who apparently is a family man who occasionally parties like a pimp. Filmmaker Jamie Kastner tracks down some interesting characters, including a local detective who has a few revelations to share decades later. The best quote comes from a waitress who survived the traumatic event; describing the Virgin Islands in the early '70s, she says, "It was nice. Until the massacre happened."

But endless re-enactments -- of the siege on the country club and the hijacking, in particular -- are awkwardly staged and distracting. (Kastner pulled similar antics in "The Secret Disco Revolution" a decade ago.) Either make a documentary or a drama. Pick a lane. This hybrid just doesn't come together in the end.