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.

New to the Queue

 "Working on a world ... that I may never see ..."

Our guy Sean Baker ("Red Rocket," "The Florida Project") returns with another romp involving the sex trade, "Anora."

A painter struggles to reconcile with the abusive father from his childhood, "Exhibiting Forgiveness."

Anna Kendrick directs a period piece about a serial killer who uses "The Dating Game" to stalk his next prey, "Woman of the Hour."

A documentary chronicles the organizing of Amazon warehouse workers, "Union."

An adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer-winning novel about two kids at a reform school, "The Nickel Boys."

O, Canada

 

MY OLD ASS (A-minus) - There's something refreshing about taking a break from the culture of the U.S.A. Even a skip across the border can provide a welcome respite from the assault of the American way.

The sophomore directing effort from Megan Park ("The Fallout") is a bittersweet feel-good story about an 18-year-old who, during a hallucinogenic trip, meets her 39-year-old self and then keeps in touch, besieged by the older self's warnings about how life will turn out. Maisy Stella carries it all on her shoulders as young Elliott, the alpha female in a trio of friends, whom she is leaving (as well as her family) to go off to college in Toronto. Whereas 18-year-old Elliott is full of life and hope, her older version comes in the form of a dour, cynical woman played by Aubrey Plaza, lending gravitas to the proceedings.

 

Park's script is sharp, tackling philosophical subjects but with an often light touch. She doesn't overthink the simple sci-fi trick -- old Elliott puts her number in young Elliott's phone, and it somehow works -- passing it off with a shrug and a few self-deprecating lines. Old Elliott tells her young self to appreciate her family more, and the 18-year-old's attempt to bond with her mom and brothers is amusing. Old Elliott's biggest warning: Don't go near any guy named Chad. But, of course, who shows up as a worker on the family cranberry farm? A gawky, charming young man named Chad (Percy Hynes White), who is hard to resist. 

Stella creates a complex character, an emerging woman who is confident but sometimes confused, with an engaging sense of humor that shows hints of the cynicism to come. Plaza mostly appears only vocally, by phone, and her Elliott has a passive-aggressive way of hinting at tidbits of dystopia 21 years into the future. (Apparently the salmon have disappeared. What else is she not telling us?) Plaza brings her standard sly comic style as she essentially bookends the film with her appearances. Her best advice to her younger self? "Wear your retainer."

White tips it all in as goofy Chad, and even Elliott's friends -- Kerrice Brooks and Maddie Ziegler -- bring depth to their sidekick roles. And Park has a smooth twist ready for the final reel. Like many plot devices she uses, the key reveal could have been dragged down by shmaltz, but she manages to make a movie that is endearing but never sappy. It has heart and a spine, and an old-fashioned sincerity that is refreshing. It avoids the cynicism that old Elliott has fallen victim to. You go, young Elliott.

Fast-Forward Theater: Col. Urinal*

 An occasional feature whereby we make it through slow-paced movies by deftly employing the FF button.

PERFECT DAYS (C+) - Wim Wenders ("Wings of Desire") takes a great idea and turns it into a Boomer wank, as he celebrates a simple Everyman who cleans public toilets in Tokyo while savoring the beauty of the every day. It's about as sappy as movies come these days.

Koji Yakusho is perfectly charming as Hirayama, a middle-aged regular Joe who refuses to let his lowly job define him. Rather, he studies photography, embraces nature, and reads highbrow books before nodding off to sleep each night on a simple mat in a humble home. He always has an amused look on his face, and he is a man of few words. Ah, let us celebrate the noble working man! (One who never gets his uniform dirty and who absent-mindedly scrubs away at porcelain that's already in cinematic ship-shape, as if the Japanese don't leave a mark on their public potties.)

Of course, Wenders imbues Hirayama with the exact musical taste you would expect Wenders to have. He pops a cassette (old school, but of course) into his car stereo on his daily commute and blares one overplayed classic pop song after another. (The world just never needs to hear "Brown-Eyed Girl" in a movie ever again. And "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay" is a close second.) And wouldn't you know it, young people -- especially young women -- go gaga over his taste in music and analog ways. One even crushes on him and gives him a peck on the cheek. Happens to us geezers all the time!

The plot, you ask? There really isn't one, and that's supposed to be the cloying point, I suppose. Hirayama's younger colleague Takashi (Tokio Emoto) makes a play for one of the women, a stereotypical manic-pixie dream girl, but the two men often toil in silence -- convenient for fast-forwarding through the toilet-scrubbing and the leaf-gazing. Hirayama's niece Niko (Arisa Nakano) comes to visit, and of course she is completely smitten with his zen bachelor-pad aesthetic -- not to mention his taste in literature, because what teen wouldn't want to live like a 60-year-old man. 

If Hirayama were believable as a real working slug instead of an idealized slumming intellectual, this might have more than Hallmark appeal. But with so little action, the weaknesses and wish-fulfillment are glaring.

BONUS TRACK

ONLY IN THEATERS (C) - It's hard to describe how misleading and annoying this documentary -- about Los Angeles' elite art-house cinema chain, curated for decades by the Laemmle family -- is. You settle into your seat and hope to celebrate the dying communal experience of watching quality films in a quaint theater, only to be stuck with a dreary, drawn-out hagiography of the clan that has exhibited movies for nearly as long as Hollywood has been making them. 

No one has an unkind word for four generations of Laemmles, and the filmmakers hang their narrative on friendly Greg Laemmle, the middle-aged grandson of the founder, who finds himself seriously considering unloading the chain when we meet him in the late 2010s. We hear praise from a wide range of eminent talking heads -- Ava Duvernay, Cameron Crowe, James Ivory, Nicole Holofcener and even old Leonard Maltin. The filmmakers are grateful for this type of theater chain that reached its heights during the '90s heyday of boutique indies. 

But things here bog down about halfway through when Covid hits. Director Raphael Sbarge thinks he's got grand drama on his hands, but instead his documentary drops like a lead balloon. There is little narrative spark to be derived from rehashing the pandemic's closures and panic. (A nice touch is a running visual accounting of the clever marquee movie references the shuttered theaters feature during the shutdown.) Greg Laemmle and his fawning wife move to Seattle, and it's just hard to care how this all turns out. (You'll likely be as disappointed as Sbarge probably was at the outcome.) For some reason, Greg's kids, who have nothing interesting to offer, get a lot of face time, including during bland family gatherings.

Meantime, interview after interview waxes poetic over how precious these theaters are and how crucial it is that we watch prestige films in these hallowed group settings. No one finds an original or interesting way to articulate that. And when the narrative here stalls, you'll be grateful that you are watching this on home video so that you can fast-forward through this indulgent family album.

* - "Col. Urinal" comes from my days working in the kitchen of a catering company on the southwest side of Chicago during high school and college. It was the honorary title conferred on the employee who was assigned that day to clean the bathroom.

Digging Out the Truth

 

SUGARCANE (A-minus) - Heart-wrenching isn't an adequate word to describe this documentary about the ghosts of the past that are stirred up by an investigation into an Indian residential school run by the Catholic church, which enabled some unspeakable horrors over the past century. 

Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat, who also plays a lead role, take a highly polished approach to this searing dramatic story they have to tell. At times the visuals and narrative flourishes feel almost too stylized for the harsh truths they are unearthing. But there is no denying the power of the story.

Julian's father, Ed Archie NoiseCat (below), is one of several middle-aged Native Americans who continue to cope with the abuse they suffered at the hands of nuns and priests. (What is laid out is probably even worse than you imagine, even knowing the evils of the Catholic Church and its penchant for shuffling pedophiles from parish to parish.) Ed's harrowing origin story -- he was born under dire circumstances while his mother was a student at St. Joseph's Mission near Williams Lake, British Columbia, around the late '50s -- grounds this grave and clear-eyed film. He, understandably, had demons to slay, and he walked away from Julian at some point, though they reconciled and form the heart of the film. Their conversations are touching. Ed's mother appears, but she has never wanted to talk about what happened.

The narrative is scaffolded on a reconciliation project that returns to the school land in a grim hunt for human remains. We watch key figures from Canada's indigenous community diligently engage in research and forensics. A B-story involves an elderly survivor, Rick Gilbert, still beholden to his religious faith, going on a mission to the Vatican. He seeks a final healing or explanation but is greeted with not much more than sympathetic looks and shrugs from one of the Pope's flunkies. 

A young Chief, Willie Sellars, gamely shows respect for the investigation but also serves as a bridge to the modern era, forging ahead and trying to outrun the past, while still honoring the victims. At nearly two hours, the documentary can be daunting to sit through, and maybe that's why Kassie and NoiseCat, along with cinematographer Christopher LaMarca, imbue the visuals with such beauty and reverence. Maybe the dissonance is their own way of trying to reconcile the past with the present.

BAD PRESS (B) - This interesting but overlong documentary spends years chronicling the fate of Muscogee Media, which fought for its free-speech rights against the Creek Nation in Oklahoma, where, like almost all of the 500-plus tribal lands, there is no First Amendment.

We meet scrappy reporters and editors, notably Angel Ellis, as they fall victim to the whims of the tribal council, which, at the beginning of the film, repeals a statute that had guaranteed independence to Muscogee Media. The filmmakers embed themselves with the staff (both video and print) and dig in for the long haul as political fortunes hang in the balance.

The movie is more about politics than journalism much of the time. It begins with the repeal in 2018 and slogs its way through several election cycles, to diminishing effect. The villain is the head of the 16-member council, Lucien Tiger III, who eventually runs for chief. The second half of the 98-minute film bogs down in a 10-person primary and then a two-person runoff. But even after a favorable candidate grabs the chief position, the next hurdle is trying to get approval for a ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment enshrining the right of a free press. A lot of the characters, who seem like good guys, come off as corrupt as the mayor of New York.

Directors Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler have a sly eye for artsy establishing shots, and they certainly steeped themselves in the fine details of Creek life. Sometimes that is to their detriment, as the passing years -- including an apparent break for COVID -- can be wearying to the casual viewer. They place a huge burden on Ellis, and there are only so many times we can empathize with her as she lights another cigarette and spews frustration. But this is a fine David vs. Goliath tale, as well as an insightful examination of a culture torn between tradition and progressive values.