Back in the Day

 We turn back the clock to the turn of the millennium to revisit a couple of classics that toyed with the concept of turning back time.

MEMENTO (2000) (A-minus) - Guy Pearce puts in a powerful star turn as filmmaker Christopher Nolan explodes on the scene in this touchstone neo-noir tale -- told in reverse -- of a man with short-term memory loss desperately seeking to avenge the brutal murder of his wife. They both brought a unique voice to the mainstream with this mix of humor and suspense, a fresh manner of storytelling.

 

Pearce stars as Leonard, who uses notated Polaroid pictures and body tattoos to make up for his inability to remember anything since the murder. In the opening scene, we see him shoot to death Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), who we'll soon find out, by working backward, seemed to be his friend and an improbable suspect in the home invasion that gave Leonard the brain injury and killed his wife (Jorja Fox in fleeting flashbacks). As we tumble back in time, we meet Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), a bartender with a connection to the drug trade, and we implicitly don't trust her.

Meantime, Nolan intersperses black-and-white scenes of Leonard in a hotel room, gripped by paranoia at some point in the timeline, in a narrative that runs forward. Another layer involves the story of Sammy Jankis (Stephen Tobolowsky), a man whose same amnesiac condition drives his wife to despair and whom Leonard knows from handling Jankis' case in Leonard's past life as an insurance investigator. It is an fascinating Rubik's Cube of a screenplay that Nolan created with his brother Jonathan, whose short story was the inspiration. We're never sure what is true and what is not, and instead of that being confusing or disorienting it is always intriguing.

Pearce is fierce and cutting as a man who is fighting a losing battle moment by moment but who believes he is defending his (and his wife's) dignity. Like him, we're never certain what is true and what isn't, right up until the very end. Pearce (with a lean, ripped physique) almost overwhelms the screen with his energy. Moss broods as the glaring femme fatale. And Pantoliano provides comic relief with a menacing undertone. And a shout-out to Mark Boone Junior as the deadpan hotel manager where Leonard is holed up. It's a fantastic cast that helps keep the narrative from overwhelming us and somehow makes this all make sense. It can be seen as a somber rumination on the unreliability of memory.

Nolan's indie golden era would not last long. This was the middle of a run from "Following" to "The Prestige," but by the time he made the vulgar "Dark Knight" in 2008 (his second Batman movie), he was headed to the stratosphere, with mind-trips like "Interstellar" and "Inception" and lumbering historical war spectacles that include the more recent "Dunkirk" and "Oppenheimer." Turn back the clock to his early work to enjoy his most rewarding films.

RUN LOLA RUN (1998) (B+) - A quarter of a century later, this feels like a hyper-stylized bauble, with a few anachronistic flaws, but it's still a highly entertaining and thoughtful early effort from Tom Tykwer. 

 

Lola (Franka Potente) has 20 minutes to replace the 100,000 Deutsche marks that her boyfriend, Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) misplaced, in order to save him from the mob boss who employs him as a bag man. A frantic phone call from Manni will set Lola in motion in a frenetic sprint through the streets of Berlin -- a dizzying scenario that will be repeated three times, each with similar beats along the way but entirely different outcomes.

It's a classic experiment in the butterfly effect -- Lola's escapade will be altered by just a second or two each time by seemingly innocuous events, such as a man with his dog in the hallway of her building getting in her way or a car crash that will or will not happen depending on the exact moment she sprints past a parking garage. Tykwer frequently switches perspectives through a flash-forward technique that shows, in urgent montage, the future fate of people who casually brush up against the speeding Lola, with their fates changing each time. (The vagaries of chance, as they affect life-and-death moments and interpersonal relationships, is also the theme of an American film from the same era, "Sliding Doors"; both films, in turn, owe a huge debt to Krzysztof Kieslowski's 1987 classic "Blind Chance.")

It's a heady mix of suspense and magical realism. You can almost see Tykwer playing with time as if it's a giant rubber band. Potente, with her technicolor flame-red mop of hair, energizes the entire film, which streaks by in a spunky 80 minutes, by which time viewers, too, may be out of breath. The '90s electro-beat aesthetic, with its neon palette, feels a little too much of-its-time, so it's tough to say whether this holds up from original screenings a quarter century ago. It's endlessly entertaining, but, unlike "Memento," it feels slightly gimmicky and cartoonish.

Maybe that is connected with my dashed hopes for Tykwer, who, along with Nolan, seemed like a breath of fresh air at the turn of the millennium. Tykwer would take over Kieslowski's "Heaven" in 2002, but then he got caught up in forgettable artsy fare like "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" and "Cloud Atlas." We never bothered with his project with Tom Hanks, "A Hologram for the King." Where Nolan soared to exalted status, Tykwer turned into a journeyman, and you wonder where all that energy from "Run Lola Run" went.

BONUS TRACK

Here is the pulse-racing "Lola" soundtrack:

Doc Watch: Rock Watch, Part 2: Zooropa

 

ENO (B+) - Brian Eno, the man who invented ambient music, to the delight of crossword-puzzle constructors everywhere, gets the biographical treatment in a documentary that celebrates Eno's devotion to living a truly creative life. It makes for an uplifting 80 minutes or so of hanging out with the man who produced Bowie, Devo, Talking Heads, James and U2, not to mention dozens of his own influential albums, all after starting out as a founding member of Roxy Music.

I say "80 minutes or so," because the filmmakers, taking a cue from the master of "generative" music (in which computer programs are used to help create and manipulate sounds), made this a generative documentary. The gimmick here is that the film is never exactly the same from screening to screening. (Wikipedia: "The film uses a computer program to select footage and edit the film so that a different version is shown each time it is screened.")

Director Gary Hustwit does use a hectic editing style, with scenes appearing to be randomly assembled and sudden bursts of rapid-fire montages that flash by in a blink. It's a bit of a distraction but not enough to take away from the man who lives an intentional life. As he puts it, he indulges his intellect and passions, even though he engages in self-deprecation by referring to himself as a "failed glam rocker."

The documentary shares a kinship with "The Elephant 6 Recording Co.," the 2023 film that we called "a gleeful immersion into the DIY music and art scene" of millennial-era Athens, Ga. Eno has kept diaries his whole life, jotting down ideas (writings and drawings), and then translating them to the experimental sounds he turns into music. He describes how he changed his early-morning habits from "input" (eating breakfast and surfing the internet) to "output" (creating things), to the point that he gets pretty hangry by his first meal at noon. All in the service of generating art in its many forms.

It also reminded me of a film equivalent to The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron's DIY guide to unleashing one's inner spiritual bohemian. Eno developed prompt cards that he used to spark ideas in the music studio. He shows an unflagging interest in the world around him, whether it is studying a batch of baby spiders in his garden or taking a walk and marveling over the discovery of a rock that looks exactly like a potato. He lives and breathes an old-school devotion to natural innovation.

The music is impressive throughout. Eno is skilled at describing the process of producing songs and the random sounds that he turned into some familiar hits, whether it was Bowie in Berlin, the foundational early Talking Heads albums, or his deep collaboration with U2 during their prolific run in the '80s. He was not a traditional record producer, merely twirling knobs; he was more of a Fifth Beatle, noodling on the fringes in order to help achieve each band's fully realized vision. Bowie, in an archival clip, says he's not sure what exactly Eno does in the studio -- "I mix my own records" -- but he somehow creates a space for the songs to take shape.

Throughout, Eno on camera is charming and humble in a very British way. It is fun to see clips of his old long-haired gender-bending days in the early '70s. He despised touring, and so he ended up in studios, fiddling around with the latest technology in the nascent days of digital recording. The result is a half-century of output, mostly through collaboration, whether it was recording a New York street musician ("Ambient 3" with Laraaji) or some of the most iconic rock 'n' roll of our time (Bowie's "Heroes," Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime"), as he paved the way for the likes of Moby.

He has led an envious life. He doesn't lord it over us, but rather shows us the path to tapping into our own innate abilities.

BONUS TRACKS

One of my favorite albums of all time is "Wrong Way Up," a 1990 collaboration between Eno and John Cale. It features a lot of uncharacteristically giddy pop. It opens with "Lay My Love":

 

Eno talks about a collaboration with Daniel Lanois and brother Roger Eno on a soundtrack for a documentary about the Apollo program and moon landing. Riffing on the idea of space as the "final frontier," they wrote several frontier songs -- i.e., country-western -- with Lanois on pedal steel guitar. Here is "Silver Morning":

 

And "Weightless":

 

 Here is "Moment of Surrender" (2009) by U2. Eno tells the story of how he came up with the opening galloping percussion sound, joined by Daniel Lanois on guitar, before Larry Mullen Jr. showed up to add drum parts and then the rest of the band completed the song.

 

Ho-hum. "Been There, Done That." Eno and Cale again:

Doc Watch: Rock Watch, Part 1 - Nutopia

 

DAYTIME REVOLUTION (B) - Mike Douglas was a square who hosted a daytime talk show for housewives in the 1960s and '70s. He would have co-hosts who sat in with him for a week at a time. He would start out each show singing old-fashioned versions of modern hits. In February 1972, the former big-band crooner started out one week by singing the Beatles' "Michelle," a horrific slice of cheese that sets into motion a documentary about one of the most improbable TV experiences you'll find: John Lennon and Yoko Ono co-hosting five episodes of the "The Mike Douglas Show."

Journeyman director Erik Nelson puts together a perfunctory but pleasing chronicle of the societal clash between John & Yoko -- with their counter-culture and new-age friends as guests -- and whatever passed for entertainment late afternoons in the early '70s. Nelson takes 108 minutes to casually unfold the events of that week, in which America would have a good chunk of time to reacquaint themselves with the former Beatle and his avant-garde wife. Guests included yippie Jerry Rubin, Black Panther Bobby Seale, consumer advocate Ralph Nader and comedian George Carlin. Soon after the shows aired, President Nixon would add Lennon to his enemies list and have the government harangue the singer for three years over his green card. 

 

Nelson mixes insightful talking-heads commentary with leisurely extended clips that allow the songs and conversations room to breathe. You might have seen videos over the years -- especially Lennon jamming with Chuck Berry on "Memphis Tennessee" (note Berry's eyes widen when Ono's warbling kicks in) -- but the key here is placing that slice of cultural curiosities into full context. We proceed day by day throughout the week, and each day's clips are preceded by snippets of the day's news reports. The method immerses the viewer into a very real time and place.

Both Lennon and Ono come off as earnest and charming, especially as they grow more comfortable with the format as the week progresses. Lennon points out to Douglas that he didn't write "Michelle," as Douglas claimed, though he did pen the middle eight. He has kind words for his former songwriting mate when an audience member asks his opinion on the first Wings album. Ono, ever the conceptual artist, supervises a project in which a teacup is broken into pieces and then glued back together one piece at a time over the course of the week. 

"Mike Douglas" producer E.V. Di Massa (also a producer on the documentary) shares his institutional knowledge from behind the scenes back in the day. (Fox News ogre Roger Ailes got his start on the show.) Bit players from that week provide some of the most insightful memories 50 years later, including folk singer Nobuko Miyamoto, macrobiotic chef Hillary Redleaf (again, watch Berry's reaction when he bites into one of her fried creations), and experimental musician David Rosenbloom, whose stint involved the group gathered cross-legged on the floor while John and Yoko wore headbands fixed with sensors to create biorhythms for him to translate through a keyboard and synthesizer. (Not everyone, apparently, was invited by the guest hosts for their alt sensibilities; glimpse veteran comedian Louis Nye at the end of one show, unmentioned.)

The film grows wistful by the end -- it notes matter-of-factly that Lennon finally secured his green card and lived with Ono in New York "until December 8, 1980" -- and a soulful version of "Imagine" doesn't hurt. It's a luxury to hang out so casually with my favorite Beatle, as he and his soul mate sought to spread their message of "a brotherhood of man" into living rooms across America. It was a delightful notion, and "Daytime Revolution" is a quaint exercise that allows us to dive back into a time of turmoil and idealism, when there nonetheless was hope that we could transform that mess into a more enlightened world.

BONUS TRACKS

One of the highlights of "Daytime Revolution" is an acoustic version of Ono's best song, "Sisters, O Sisters," accompanied by Lennon on guitar. Here is the studio version from "Some Time in New York City":

 

It's so hard to find videos of Lennon's performances that week on YouTube, but here is an audio version of "It's So Hard," with Elephant's Memory:

R.I.P., Gena Rowlands, Part 3: Adventures

  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. Here we tracked down two films that Cassavetes did not direct, though he is the star of the first one. Follow these links to Part 1 of the series and Part 2.

TEMPEST (1982) (A-minus) - Paul Mazursky unspools a thoughtful rumination on middle age as he refashions Shakespeare's play for modern sensibilities. John Cassavetes lets others handle the writing and directing, and he pours his whole being into the role of Phillip Dimitrius, an architect who is fed up with the phonies and the rat race and tosses away everything, including his wife, Antonia, played by Gena Rowlands.

 

Phillip disappears to a remote Greek island, towing his young teen daughter along and having a meet-cute with a young free spirit, Aretha (Susan Sarandon), who pauses her travels and shacks up with him in his spare mansion on a cliff. They are pestered by the island's self-styled tour director and goat-herder Kalibanos (a euphoric Raul Julia). Friskiness is in the air, as Aretha is endlessly frustrated by Phillip's newfound asceticism, and Kalibanos lusts after everything that moves (that includes his flock), especially horny for the virginal daughter, Miranda (Molly Ringwald in her film debut). (His main point of seduction is a portable TV in his cave with an antenna that picks up "Gunsmoke" reruns. Miranda is sorely missing her new-wave New York lifestyle full of gadgets and entertainment.)

Mazursky expertly weaves a narrative that jerks back and forth in time. Phillip is frustrated with the millionaire behind an Atlantic City casino project, Alonzo (Vittorio Gassman), and he bickers with his wife, embarrassing her in front of their friends at a party. Life on the island, though, is edenic. Phillip lets his grey hair grow out, and he can spend his day in a robe if he wants. Meantime, Antonio has taken up with Alonzo.

Phillip eventually invokes his powers of sorcery to conjure up a storm that lands Alonzo's yacht on the island, forcing a reckoning of the old couple and two new ones. Alonzo's entourage is full of delightful character actors, including Anthony Holland as his physician and Jackie Gayle as a Borscht Belt comic serving as the rich man's jester. Alonzo's son, Freddy (Sam Robards, also in his first screen appearance), tags along and enjoys a few "Blue Lagoon" moments with Miranda. 

Rowlands doesn't have much screen time, but she delves into her character's own middle-aged ennui and goes toe-to-toe well with Cassavetes, who has rarely been better. His gravity plays off of Julia's pantomime performance, and Mazursky mixes it all in a loose-limbed 140-minute production that never flags. This one hit me much differently in my early 60s as it did in my 20s, though I'll always swoon the same way to Sarandon (wearing but a white tank top) and Ringwald splashing in the surf and crooning "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"

NIGHT ON EARTH (1992) (A-minus) - Rowlands stars in the first of five vignettes involving cabdrivers on one night in five cities, from Los Angeles to Helsinki. Jim Jarmusch was at his creative peak -- nestled between "Mystery Train" and "Dead Man" -- and his travelogue is lushly photographed, with stories that are funny and heartfelt.

Rowlands plays Victoria, an on-the-go casting agent addicted to her clunky early-'90s mobile phone. She hops in a cab with the pint-sized chain-smoking tomboy Corky (a scene-chewing Winona Ryder), and they take the first crack at the deadpan dialogue that Jarmusch will unfurl across two hours. L.A., at sunset, has never looked so rich and colorful. Victoria and Corky banter to the point that Victoria, frustrated at the lack of quality candidates for her latest project, starts to see the loquacious Corky as the answer to her prayers.

 

That sets the table for a series of short stories that grow more complex and sober as the film progresses. Armin Mueller-Stahl is an inept immigrant cabdriver who plays second fiddle to his high-energy passengers YoYo (Giancarlo Esposito) and Angela (an insane Rosie Perez). The scene then shifts to Europe, where we get the somber Parisian driver (Isaach de Bankole) ferrying around his cynical blind fare (Beatrice Dalle from "Betty Blue") on a spiteful journey across the city. Thinks go off the rails in Rome as Roberto Benigni goes ballistic as a hilarious, crazed driver chauffeuring an appalled priest who is slowly succumbing to a heart attack while Benigni's oblivious driver prattles on. The final segment features Matti Pellonpaa as a melancholy driver who tells his heartbreaking tale to three drunken louts as dawn slowly breaks.

Jarmusch juggles it all with smarts and skill and makes it all look effortless. He's never been so light-hearted and slapsticky. But he also sketches out complex characters with heart and soul. And his establishing shots are luscious as he spans the globe, shooting on location. He is buoyed by a fine cast and the music of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan.

BONUS TRACK

Waits with the theme song for "Night on Earth," "The Good Old World":