tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42803593478164427032024-03-27T21:04:05.001-06:00ABQ AV ClubA discussion of film, music, culture and divine intervention from the Pop Zeus.James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.comBlogger1351125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-70376147835010205562024-03-27T08:34:00.000-06:002024-03-27T08:34:44.754-06:00Gone Girl, Part 2<p> </p><p><b>KAREN DALTON: IN MY OWN TIME</b> (2020) (B) - A couple of Art Department veterans team up behind the camera for the first time to explore the sad tale of Karen Dalton a blues and folk singer who never broke big in the '60s or '70s and sabotaged her own career by abusing drugs and alcohol. </p><p>Dalton was part of the burgeoning folk scene in New York's Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, along with Bob Dylan and the gang. But her sound was much more bluesy -- with even a tinge of gospel -- than the Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore" crowd offered. She sounded a lot like Billie Holiday (though she apparently did not like that comparison), with a raspy voice dripping with melancholy.</p><p>Dalton made some poor life choices. She got married and had a child as a teen and chose her relationships poorly; one of them led to a knocked-out front tooth, which certainly didn't help her come off as photogenic. She recorded albums in 1969 and 1971, and Woodstock's Michael Lang tried to break her out with another album, but Dalton didn't finish it. She instead eventually ended up in upstate New York near Woodstock, where she lived out her years quietly, eventually dying of AIDS.</p><p>Apparently a lousy mother, Dalton struggled to have healthy relationships with the children she had young. Her daughter Abbe is the main talking head here, providing an important perspective. Nick Cave shows up to convey the dramatic impact that Dalton's music had on him. Writer-directors Richard Peete and Robert Yapkowitz march through the story chronologically, and they pause the proceedings whenever one of Dalton's recordings is featured, giving each one a title card and a respectful playing time. It is not until the end that they finally reveal one of Dalton's own original compositions, an effective technique after filling the movie with examples of Dalton's diary entries, which early on are compelling but gradually grow less coherent in later years. </p><p>It would be nice if Dalton wasn't such a pathetic figure. It's hard to maintain interest in a junkie as a main subject. This is a woeful tale, but Dalton's troubled soul can generate empathy at times. And the music is haunting.<br /></p><p><u>BONUS TRACKS</u></p><p><i>A beautiful song, written by Dalton's third husband, Richard Tucker, about leaving New York and heading back to a life of poverty in Colorado, "Are You Leaving for the Country?":</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zams3KamPhA" width="320" youtube-src-id="Zams3KamPhA"></iframe></div><br /> <p></p><p><i>Here is Tim Hardin's "Reason to Believe," which Dalton was one of the first to record:</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hvYI-d04GCM" width="320" youtube-src-id="hvYI-d04GCM"></iframe></div><br /> <br /><p></p><p></p><p><i>Nick Cave singles this song out as altering his musical universe, "Something on Your Mind":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CsYHN7eCCtU" width="320" youtube-src-id="CsYHN7eCCtU"></iframe></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i>Perhaps a fitting epitaph, "A Little Bit of Rain," written by frequent collaborator Fred Neil:</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iltA6LDcwpM" width="320" youtube-src-id="iltA6LDcwpM"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-10941885713632124272024-03-22T20:48:00.001-06:002024-03-23T21:59:33.825-06:00Gone Girl, Part 1<p> </p><p><b>SAM NOW</b> (B+) - A true labor of love, this decades-spanning documentary project tracks half brothers and their relationship with one of their mothers who abandoned her family years ago. It is powered by clips from director Reed Harkness' youthful insurgent videos and an urgent garage-punk soundtrack.</p><p>Harkness was nearly a decade older than Sam, who was 14 when Sam's mother, Jois, abandoned him and brother Jared. Harkness made numerous videos of Sam when they were kids, especially silly superhero films, and he uses that momentum to start filming this documentary about 20 years ago when Sam was about 17 and wondering about the whereabouts of his mother.</p><p>Harkness turns this into a gonzo road movie, slapping together those vintage clips and goosing them with stop-action graphics and those nerve-jangling psych-rock tunes on the soundtrack. Sam ages into adulthood, and the story deepens as the subject works through his emotional baggage. We see Jois in clips, and she'll eventually surface, and it's interesting to see that while this is a classic tale of abandonment, it's also a tribute to how families cope with whatever curveballs are tossed their way.</p><p>It's not a Shakespearean tragedy, but the film earns a place among the best of the Ordinary People genre that I identified with trailblazer Doug Block and his family chronicle "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2008/09/dear-mom-and-dad.html" target="_blank">51 Birch Street</a>." Harkness has a big heart and a true gift for visual collages. This homage to his troubled brother never feels self-indulgent, and it's often a joy to watch.<br /></p><p><u>BONUS TRACKS</u></p><p><i>The Sonics are the star of the soundtrack. Here is "Psycho":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W-_0V0IXEkc" width="320" youtube-src-id="W-_0V0IXEkc"></iframe></div><br /><p><i>And the Sonics again with the '60s garage classic "Shot Down":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v9Ys1nTdEjE" width="320" youtube-src-id="v9Ys1nTdEjE"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><i>From Oregon, Dead Moon with their lo-fi grunge-era "D.O.A.":</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aUfu-lEflbQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="aUfu-lEflbQ"></iframe></div><br /> <p></p><p><i>Mid-Nineties Japanese punk band Teengenerate with "Dressed in Black":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rZxTd1d_OFM" width="320" youtube-src-id="rZxTd1d_OFM"></iframe></div><br /><p><i> </i></p><p><i>A palate-cleanser, Smog's spare, plaintive "Rock Bottom Riser":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5C1Q0j924wg" width="320" youtube-src-id="5C1Q0j924wg"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-87305559926049720062024-03-15T20:35:00.001-06:002024-03-27T08:37:42.916-06:00Best of Ever, Vol. 11: Living the Dream<p><i> The night I saw this film, I had a dream about having long ago invented,
with some friends, a martial-arts throwing star that had one of its
point fashioned as a phillips-head screwdriver, which we had used to
break-ins in the name of civil disobedience. It struck me that I had a
dream that created a false memory. Conversely, this film starts with a false
memory that creates a dream for the title character.</i></p><p><b>MORVERN CALLAR</b> (2002) (A) - This film has haunted me since I first saw it at the 2002 Santa Fe Film Festival. In the opening scene, Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) is near-catatonic in an apartment ominously lit by Christmas decorations while her boyfriend lies dead on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, a suicide. We, as viewers, are initially as discombobulated as she appears to be; Morvern goes off to a Christmas party and otherwise wanders around town for several scenes, before she finally deals with her devastating situation.</p><p>When she finally deals with the tragic scene, Morvern not only scrubs the apartment but she also reviews her boyfriend's suicide note, which directs her to the latest novel he has written. The note asks her to submit it to a publisher, and she does so -- except first she strips his name from it and puts her own on it, and then sends it off.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMgCS0lCWOGprlJPfiJLOeI9a9YRplAqdukI0c7PES7M2SSi5QS0j_fIhfPmux7lV8Pp5Y8mO-D-XnLeX7HJnJegV3EeYoY_oTEe9B-mTfAe9-NIhl62Gcr6wXwKJE7QZThUT-utyLeIq353kjOvOkq5YyT0ua2hGcFCVGojr_ocDnkcwBJe4pvvIuJuA/s259/Callar.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMgCS0lCWOGprlJPfiJLOeI9a9YRplAqdukI0c7PES7M2SSi5QS0j_fIhfPmux7lV8Pp5Y8mO-D-XnLeX7HJnJegV3EeYoY_oTEe9B-mTfAe9-NIhl62Gcr6wXwKJE7QZThUT-utyLeIq353kjOvOkq5YyT0ua2hGcFCVGojr_ocDnkcwBJe4pvvIuJuA/s1600/Callar.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">Morvern works a dead-end job at a grocery store in her small seaside hometown with her ditzy best pal, Lanna (Kathleen McDermott). With a little cash bequeathed to her from the dead man's bank account, Morvern, who is keeping the boyfriend's death a secret (she lies and says he left her), suggests a warm-weather getaway to Ibiza. Off she and Lanna go, with Lanna unaware that her friend's actions will be skewed by grief, guilt and a distorted sense of freedom. When a publisher shows interest in the book, it begins to dawn on Morvern that she might be able to truly escape the doldrums of her existence.<br /></p><p>"Morvern Callar" is one of the earliest films from Socttish master Lynne Ramsay ("Ratcatcher," "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2012/12/2011-best-films.html" target="_blank">We Need to Talk About Kevin</a>"), whose stories always feel a little off-kilter and spurred by a sense of urgency. This is her best film, She shoots guerrilla-documentary style as the young women let loose in paradise. But Morvern is haunted the whole time -- not only by death but by the hope of ultimate escape -- reminded of her relationship by the mix tape that she listens to on an old-fashioned Walkman. This is the first film I can recall that toggles between presenting the songs as full sound (as if we had the earbuds in our own ears) and the tinny version we hear whenever Morvern takes her earbuds out. It's a jarring metaphor for us being in Morvern's head, as well as a reminder of her struggles between recognizing the recent past and letting it go.</p><p>Morton, in her early 20s at the time, hints at endless layers of emotion and angst. At the time she was on the verge of breaking through with "In the Bedroom," though she's had a rather quiet, steady career. Here she is the perfect vessel for Ramsay's fascinating, meandering narrative, which plays out angularly, as if the filmmaker is as curious as we are about where this story will end up. There is a surprising amount of dark humor throughout. At times this feels like a slapstick buddy-road movie, with clever sight gags and callbacks. </p><p>It's not all gloom and doom. It can be arch and thought-provoking. In the end, this bruising film is about a small-town young woman disoriented by trauma but, like a Sofia Coppola heroine, lured by a glimmer of hope of privilege that sudden success might bring her way. It's riveting from beginning to end. I won't reveal the final song on the mixtape that Morvern listens to, but know that it is perfect.</p><p>-------</p><p>* <i><b>Note</b>: This time I watched the film (via Criterion streaming) with subtitles in order to catch all the nuances of the heavy brogues by most of the characters. The first time I saw it, in a packed theater in Santa Fe, we didn't get subtitles. My favorite moment of the film-going experience came when -- as most of us were obviously struggling to pick up the dialogue -- a guy behind me leaned over to his date and whispered, not "What did she say?" but rather "What's a 'fortnight'?"</i><br /></p><p><u>BONUS TRACKS</u></p><p><i>The soundtrack is full of cool sounds, a truly wonderful classic mixtape of bangers, as the kids say. There are a bunch of songs by krautrock pioneers Can. Here is "Spoon":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l6PH7a4RptU" width="320" youtube-src-id="l6PH7a4RptU"></iframe></div><br /><p> </p><p> <i>Sharing a vibe with the music of Mum, here is Aphex Twin with the hypnotic "Nannou":</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A-Pkx37kYf4" width="320" youtube-src-id="A-Pkx37kYf4"></iframe></div><p><br /><i> </i></p><p><i>Never pass up an excuse to spin Lee Hazlewood (with Nancy Sinatra), "Some Velvet Morning":</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/670YMraVnyk" width="320" youtube-src-id="670YMraVnyk"></iframe></div><br /> <br /><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><i>Another coincidence, like the dream: The day after I watched the movie, a friend randomly sent a video of a band once touted by a mutual friend, Boards of Canada. I'd never heard of them. I later went back to check the "Morvern Callar" soundtrack, and there they were. Spooky, like this track, the trippy "Everything You Do Is a Balloon":</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5_KKJmEY2PU" width="320" youtube-src-id="5_KKJmEY2PU"></iframe></div><br /> <br /><p></p><p><i>And this one's pretty, "You Can Fall" by Broadcast:</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1Dach4sUIv8" width="320" youtube-src-id="1Dach4sUIv8"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-78834779285876043602024-03-11T13:47:00.003-06:002024-03-11T13:47:38.061-06:00Dangerous Liaisons<p> </p><p><b>THE INNOCENT</b> (B) - Writer-director Louis Garrel stars as Abel, a young widower who grows concerned after his mom, who teaches acting in a prison, marries an inmate, who starts acting shady after his release. Abel indulges his anxiety by surveilling Michel (Roschdy Zem), only to get caught up in Michel's criminal shenanigans.</p><p>There is an air of melancholy and gloom that pervades this otherwise light-hearted French farce. That includes Abel's mom, Silvie (Anouk Grinberg), who has finally found true love and resents Abel's interference in her relationship. Then there is Abel's friend Clemence (Noemie Merlant), who lords her love of casual sex over Abel's mournful celibacy. </p><p>Some of this doesn't quite add up, and the shifts in tone can be annoying, but the four principal actors (Zem especially) create nuanced characters whose interactions are cleverly shape-shifting, building a momentum that helps this zip along at 98 minutes. A twist halfway through -- drawing Abel and Clemence into a play-acting scenario that serves as a therapeutic breakthrough to their relationship -- provides a narrative spark that revives the film and draws us in to a sober but fun organized-crime caper. Garrel, the son of celebrated filmmaker Philippe, shows an easygoing style and an ear for minor-key storytelling.<br /></p><p><b>AVA </b>(2017) (B+) - Ava is 13 years old and starting to lose her sight, mostly her night vision. And then along comes a boy, and she seems determined to seize the opportunity to lust for life while she still can.</p><p>Noee Abita, with an engaging pout, resembles a young <a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/search?q=exarchopoulos" target="_blank">Adele Exarchopoulos</a>, and her big eyes are expressive and a bit judging. Her feisty mother (Laure Calamy) urges Ava to indulge her budding desires. Ava meets the troubled young immigrant, Juan (Juan Cano), on the beach and flirts with him but also covets his dog. When she learns that Juan has been injured and is hiding out on the beach, she tends to his wound and falls for his rugged charms. She is thrilled to go on a solo mission to retrieve Juan's ID card to help him stay ahead of the law.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwY9J6gXCqBSZXhqkHZoC10TiGkXOigLekQ0ASIGPFkbuDqPVn0VAm8hufCr17fcTlg_-nivI4E3uFKuIVC4_yDudnWq52RqQY1b2pblNCmU39Rjw_WQQSb-vmjSfioKSTDGqpkv1Gs3V4jw3PvTFxYcyD-3q1R4q_Kh4SpkqIEqRnsG43ViXeBkzJckE/s299/ava.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwY9J6gXCqBSZXhqkHZoC10TiGkXOigLekQ0ASIGPFkbuDqPVn0VAm8hufCr17fcTlg_-nivI4E3uFKuIVC4_yDudnWq52RqQY1b2pblNCmU39Rjw_WQQSb-vmjSfioKSTDGqpkv1Gs3V4jw3PvTFxYcyD-3q1R4q_Kh4SpkqIEqRnsG43ViXeBkzJckE/s1600/ava.jpg" width="299" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">This coming-of-age rage tale comes from Lea Mysius, who co-wrote the fascinating "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2022/04/survival-of-fittest.html" target="_blank">Paris, 13th District</a>" and more recently directed Exarchopoulos in "The Five Devils." She has great confidence behind the camera, and a looseness to her narrative flow. Abita (riveting in "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2021/05/by-any-means-necessary.html" target="_blank">Slalom</a>"), was nearly an adult while playing a 13-year-old girl, and she struts ferociously at times, especially during an inspired scene in which Ava and Juan paint their nubile bodies in mud, wield sticks and a shotgun, and rob beachgoers in broad daylight, like a feral bare-chested update of Bonnie and Clyde. </p><p style="text-align: left;">That jaunt typifies the danger and dread which permeates the film, even though the movie overall can be quite sweet and insightful. Mysius crafts a climax that would sit well in a typical action film. We watch wide-eyed, knowing that our hungry young heroine someday will lose the opportunity to fully experience such exploits.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-39749527916657500362024-03-06T17:25:00.002-07:002024-03-23T23:09:19.243-06:00Doc Watch / Rock Watch: Harkin' to the Heartland<p><i> We tracked down two obscure documentaries about two obscure bands, via <a href="https://www.nightflightplus.com/" target="_blank">Night Flight Plus</a>:</i></p><p><b>OUT OF TIME: THE MATERIAL ISSUE STORY</b> (B) - Material Issue was one of those bands that had every element necessary to break big, and but for a few cups of coffee on MTV in the early '90s, the big break just never came. This detailed and earnest documentary tells the story of the rise and tragic fall of the power-pop band's leader, Jim Ellison, and the mates he left hanging. </p><p>The first third is an origin story of a hard-working and talented trio who met during their college years in Chicago. Ellison wrote the songs and fronted the band, which also featured Ted Ansani on bass and Mike Zelenko on drums. They were regular guys from working class families, putting out their early songs on their own label run out of Ellison's suburban home. By 1990 they were featured on MTV's hip Sunday night show "120 Minutes," with the irresistibly catchy "Valerie Loves Me" and "Diane." Former host Matt Pinfield shows up here as an ardent fan to this day.</p><p>Talking heads (including Ansani and Zelenko) unwrap the history of the band, whose second and third albums produced diminishing returns, eventually leaving them without a recording contract. Producer Mike Chapman (Blondie, Sweet, the Knack) was working with the band on a fourth album when that tragedy struck. He, too, to this day gets emotional over how things turned out. Chicago bigwigs who give props include Steve Albini, Joe Shanahan (the club Metro), and newspaper critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis (they still host "Sound Opinions" on radio). Stories and footage of Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen showing up in the studio to expertly lay down guitar tracks add a jolt to the movie.<br /></p><p>This clocks in at barely an hour, and the tight running time allows for a patented VH-1 "Behind the Music" three-part arc. Director Balin Schneider, an L.A. journalist, does his homework, spending time with Ellison's family and with Ansani and Zelenko, who disappear from the film after the tragedy unfolds, as if they didn't want to talk about it on camera. What shines through, though, is the music, smart and shimmery and infused with hooks that should have spawned years of hits.<br /></p><p><b>WE WERE FAMOUS, YOU DON'T REMEMBER: THE EMBARRASSMENT</b> (A-minus) - Sometimes dismissed as cheeky DIY pop pranksters, Wichita, Kansas' the Embarrassment had some serious chops that could have carried them the career that R.E.M. had. Instead, they burned hot on the fringes of the indie scene for a few years in the early '80s and then burned out after releasing a bunch of singles and one album, never to record again. Instead, their brand of "blister pop" leaves them just fondly remembered legends of the old Lawrence college-town music scene.</p><p>This documentary, by newcomers Daniel Featherston and Danny Szlauderback, is so much more than history lesson about a cult band from 40 years ago. It is a celebration of a special moment in time and a paean to ingrained emotions that are implanted in our youth and quietly cherished over the decades. Author Thomas Frank (<i>What's the Matter With Kansas?</i>), as usual, articulates this concept the best in a few talking-head interviews. It's that idea of treasuring the memory of that one band you loved that nobody has ever heard of except for those few people who were there. Other contributions come from contemporaries and admirers Grant Hart of Husker Du, Freedy Johnston and Evan Dando.<br /></p><p>Two of the band members grew up as childhood buddies, and the core group formed in 1979 in the vast wasteland of the nation's heartland. Each man shows a degree of wistfulness in contemporary interviews -- singer John Nichols, guitarist Bill Goffrier, bassist Ron Klaus, and drummer Brent "Woody" Giessmann, who would land on his feet banging the snare with the Del Fuegos out of Boston. It's a shame that they broke up, but each man seems to have had a fulfilling career since.</p><p>The music itself stands on its own, and you could put it up against any post-punk release around the turn of the '80s, and the band's arch chord structures closely echo those of R.E.M., which broke through with its first album right after the Embarrassment called it quits, as if there was a soul transfer from Wichita to Athens. Footage from a concert at their headquarters -- a funky old bank next to the train tracks -- is threaded throughout the documentary, and it is a repeated reminder of how infectious their music was and how charming the band could be. One observer struggles to come up with a simple description of the music and ends up calling it "propulsive, danceable, jangly, angular goof rock." </p><p>I didn't discover the Embarrassment until their compilation album "Heyday" was release in the late '90s, so I can't claim any connection to that magical Wichita/Lawrence heyday. But I can appreciate what Frank and others experienced, how the songs soaked into their DNA, and how they can honor that burst of creativity and joy without sounding like pathetic nostalgia whores. It was a special time. This movie makes you wish you had been there. And it reminds you that, even if you weren't there, you were somewhere, and if you can conjure up your own former zeitgeist moments, then you are lucky to be able to revisit that happy place.</p><p><u>BONUS TRACKS</u></p><p><i>Let's start with Material Issue's first hit, "Valerie Loves Me":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YcRtlj8KXT4" width="320" youtube-src-id="YcRtlj8KXT4"></iframe></div><br /><p><i>"What Girls Want" live on the Dennis Miller talk show:</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aTtTdE-OEJ4" width="320" youtube-src-id="aTtTdE-OEJ4"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><i>My favorite Embarrassment song is "Elizabeth Montgomery's Face":</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3N9E3mv_D6c" width="320" youtube-src-id="3N9E3mv_D6c"></iframe></div><br /> <p></p><p><i>One-upping Wire on their debut single, "Sex Drive":</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fag_7VqyccU" width="320" youtube-src-id="Fag_7VqyccU"></iframe></div><br /> <br /><p></p><p><i>And we can't forget Art Carney -- "Celebrity Art Party" (R.E.M. came up with the same ringing guitar riffs out in Athens, Ga., around the same time):</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DaXlsxUXOVA" width="320" youtube-src-id="DaXlsxUXOVA"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-91779595453193951392024-03-03T17:26:00.001-07:002024-03-04T20:32:55.412-07:00That '80s Grift: Crooked Cops<p> </p><p><b>THE BIG EASY</b> (1986) (A-minus) - Movies don't get much more fun than this deep dive into Cajun high jinks. Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin are a lot of fun as a local homicide lieutenant and district attorney, respectively, who are on opposite sides of the law but have an undeniable attraction.</p><p>Quaid is Remy McSwain, who counts police corruption as a heritage. Barkin is Anne Osborne is a fish out of water trying to keep track of the corruption that is rampant in the New Orleans police department. Remy has a boyish charm that is hard to resist, even if he is forever on the take and looking the other way as mobsters massacre each other. Anne is determined to get to the bottom of the cause of the pileup of bodies, but she tends to be distracted by Remy and his washboard abs.</p><p>The supporting cast has a blast wallowing in the Cajun culture. Grace Zabriskie is captivating as Remy's mom; Charles Ludlam as the rascally pint-sized defense attorney; John Goodman as a detective who carries an arsenal of weapons; Ned Beatty as the retiring cop who dates Mama; and soul singer Solomon Burke as one of the gang leaders. And then there's the soundtrack. I'm pretty sure I wore out my CD back in the day. From the Dixie Cups' "Iko Iko" to Buckwheat Zydeco's "Ma 'Tit Fille," plus Professor Longhair, Aaron Neville and BeauSoleil, the sounds are infectious and embedded in the narrative. </p><p>You might argue that the local references to New Orleans culture is a tad overdone, as Hollywood likes to do. And the carpet-baggers do lay the accents and Mardi Gras references on thick. But the story is a juicy one, with nods to classic corruption capers, and everyone has so much fun chewing on the dialogue. It's funny and has heart. And Quaid and Barkin are hard to resist. This comes from writer-director Jim McBride ("<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/02/cinema-verite.html" target="_blank">David Holzman's Diary</a>," "Breathless"), who co-wrote the snappy script with Daniel Petrie Jr. ("Beverly Hills Cop") and Jack Baran ("Great Balls of Fire").<br /></p><p><u>BONUS TRACKS</u></p><p><i>Some samplings from "The Big Easy" soundtrack, starting with Buckwheat Zydeco:</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kA997xy0rgE" width="320" youtube-src-id="kA997xy0rgE"></iframe></div><br /><i> "Iko Iko":</i><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OuC519ni1aE" width="320" youtube-src-id="OuC519ni1aE"></iframe></div><br /><p><i>Professor Longhair with "Tipitina":</i><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vb2a3a-TueQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="vb2a3a-TueQ"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-855525440945487882024-02-29T17:26:00.002-07:002024-02-29T17:26:34.188-07:00The Journey, Not the Destination<p> </p><p><b>PLAN 75</b> (B-minus) - Maybe it's me, but I've been having trouble making real connections with movies that are intended to pack an emotional punch. This drama features a near future (or alternative present) where the Japanese government offers an incentive to people 75 and older to submit to euthanasia, a program intended to relieve the burden of an aging population.</p><p>It focuses on Michi (Chieko Baisho), who is shown losing her hotel-cleaning job at the beginning of the movie, and her decision to enter the program, which we learn about through snippets of TV ads that occasionally pop up in the back ground of scenes. We also spend time with a couple of young people selling Plan 75 (one of whom who has an uncle entering the program) and a former co-worker of Michi's who is a Filipino immigrant worried about getting surgery back home for her 5-year-old daughter. </p><p>It would have helped to have maintained focus on just one or two characters here. As it is, it is difficult to get fully invested in Michi's fate, especially since she is rather blase about the matter. This is a debut feature from Chie Hayakawa (co-writing with Jason Gray, normally a translator), and she definitely knows how to create a mood. There just needs to be a more compelling narrative to go with that mood and the nuanced performance of her placid star. Sometimes showing the banality of bureaucratic evil is just banal.<br /></p><p><b>HERE </b>(B-minus) - Movies don't get duller that this lethargic contemplation of human connections. It's about as exciting as watching moss grow -- moss being one of the key characters in the limp, laconic drama from Belgian writer-director Bas Devos ("Ghost Tropic").</p><p>Construction worker Stefan (Stefan Gota) makes a pot of soup from the dregs of his refrigerator in anticipation of his four-week vacation back in his homeland of Romania. Over the next few days, while waiting for his car to get fixed, he gifts Tupperwares of soup to various people, including the mechanic and Stefan's sister. While on his haphazard rounds he happens to meet a woman, Shuxiu (Liyo Gong), who studies mosses. In a typical film this would qualify as a meet-cute, as the pair cross paths several times and seem to make a good match.</p><p>Apparently this is supposed to represent the "organic" development of a relationship, whether it turns out someday to be romantic or platonic. The problem is the film rarely rises above the excitement of watching moss grow. It's not particularly funny or even heart-warming. It just exists. Sometimes it's enough to present a slice of life and move on. Here it feels too much like Devos has just the bare bones of an idea and he's stretching the soup into some pretty thin gruel.<br /></p><p><b>DRYLONGSO </b>(1998) (B+) - This is more like it. Cauleen Smith's debut feature, coming out of film school, turned out to be her only full-length film. That's a shame, because she showed a lot of potential with this visually interesting tale of a photography student chronicling the dangers faced by young black men in Oakland in the late 1990s. </p><p>She follows a restless young woman named Pica (Toby Smith) who insists on taking Polaroids even though she is taking a class on 35mm photography, and she's woefully behind on finishing her final presentation. She is distracted by a gloomy job pasting up posters on walls, and she is disturbed by society's targeting of young men who, like now, too often ended up in the criminal justice system or dead on the streets.</p><p>Smith is a low-key but sturdy force of nature as an artist and an advocate. A young man she falls for soon ends up dead at the hands of a serial slasher terrorizing Oakland's west side. At the start of the film she also meets a woman getting slapped around by a boyfriend and lends a hand to the woman, Tobi (April Barnett), who later turns up dressed as a young man as a way to avoid the pitfalls that women face. Pica and Tobi form a strong bond that artfully blurs traditional gender roles or expectations. </p><p>The film is full of one-off performances by non-actors. Salim Akil is particularly crucial as Pica's professor, who nudges and nurtures in perfect proportion. (Akil co-wrote the script with Smith.) Pica's mom (Channel Schafer) likes to laze on the couch and open the house to massive poker parties, presenting a challenge to Pica's ability to focus on her art and future. <br /></p><p>Smith actually has a compelling plot to unfold, and she meanders pleasantly to a satisfying conclusion after an efficient 86 minutes. No one associated with the film went on to have a breakthrough career, as if this were intended to be an urban bookend to a previous generation's "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2019/05/past-masters.html" target="_blank">Spring Night, Summer Night</a>." They left behind this little gem, which is just now getting a proper release (on Criterion).<br /></p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-16999679631254103162024-02-26T19:43:00.002-07:002024-02-28T11:36:51.648-07:00Life Is Short: Now I Am Become Death<p><i>We slummed with cheeky writer Diablo Cody as a Valentine's Day choice and we pretty much got what we deserved. And then we rented "Oppenheimer," and it was nearly as buffoonish. We pulled the plug on both.</i></p><p><b>"Lisa Frankenstein"</b> is the kind of mid-career film that makes you reflect on whether the author was really any good all along. We have fond memories of "Juno" and are pretty sure it would still hold up. We skipped "Jennifer's Body," whose cheeky snark this movie fails to successfully imitate; were disappointed in "Young Adult"; couldn't get into the TV show "United States of Tara"; and couldn't fully buy into "Tully," though it had its moments.</p><p>"Lisa Frankenstein" plays out as if jarred in molasses, with long beats before punch lines and just a sluggish narrative churn. (Give some of the blame to hack director Zelda Williams?) It wasn't clear that it was apparently set in 1989; I just figured Cody was suffocating us with her old hipster music references, such as a teenage girl into Bauhaus with a boyfriend sporting a Violent Femmes T-shirt (under a sport coat, of course). The execution of the story of a misunderstood teenager who reads books in a cemetery and whose dream boy, a long dead young man, comes back to life after a lightning strike is laughable but rarely funny. Carla Gugino is cringeworthy trying her hand at comedy as the stereotypical evil stepmother. Liza Soberano comes across as a rookie playing the uber-popular stepsister named Taffy. The lead, Kathryn Newton, is pretty good, at least.</p><p>None of it works. It's insulting. It could have been another smart, tongue-in-cheek teen satire, like "Bottoms," but it is the polar opposite. It's not clever; it's just a lousy movie. </p><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Title:</b> LISA FRANKENSTEIN<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Running Time:</b> 101 MIN</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Elapsed Time at Plug Pull: </b> 50 MIN<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Portion Watched:</b> 50%</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>My Age at Time of Viewing:</b> 61 YRS, 2 MOS.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Average Male American Lifespan:</b> 77.3 YRS.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Watched/Did Instead:</b> Went home and watched another movie.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Odds of Re-viewing This Title:</b> 48-1</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Then there is <b>"Oppenheimer,"</b> a melodramatic wank that barely rises above the level of your average soap opera. It's an opportunity to single out Christopher Nolan, too, to rethink why we thought the pre-Batman auteur was a great writer-director. (We should watch "Memento" again soon.)<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">This seems like an interesting story, and I bet the book (<i>American Prometheus</i>) is a good read, but what's on screen is a mess, spending much of its opening scenes repeatedly displaying star bursts, nuclear reactions, and glass shattering in order to replicate the fractured mind of a young genius. It jumps around in time, using the device of a catatonic older Robert J. Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy laying it on thick) reciting his biography to some security commission, while parallel scenes (in black and white, for some reason) star a gaunt Robert Downey Jr. as a candidate for Commerce Secretary testifying before a Senate committee about his association years earlier with Oppenheimer. </p><p style="text-align: left;">And that's just the first 20 minutes of this three-hour monsterpiece. Maybe this was an impossible ask of Nolan, who seems overwhelmed by the vast amount of facts and players involved. Even though it feels sluggish, it also feels rushed, as if there is too much history to stuff into the film. The red-scare thread throughout the film is simplistic and repetitive. Oppenheimer and other brainiacs converse in meticulous speeches and never stoop to small talk; even cocktail banter inevitably comes around to quantum physics. I swear, as the wooden dialogue unspools endless exposition, you can hear the clack of Nolan's old-fashioned typewriter spitting out what he thinks are pearls.<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">Improbable events are concocted to add a modicum of zing to the leaden storytelling. I counted about 5 examples in the first half hour of characters pointing out how brilliant Oppenheimer was, usually involving his ability to speak other languages. I almost bailed out around the 20-minute mark when Oppenheimer's communist lover pauses mid-fuck, walks over to his musty bookshelf, grabs a volume written entirely in sanskrit, turns to a bookmarked page and asks Oppenheimer to interpret a random passage, and you'll never guess what the line is: "Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds." What a perfect coincidence!<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">The film's sound design is also frustrating. Ambient noise drowns out dialogue. Characters whisper for no reason (for example, multiple times when two people are out in the middle of nowhere in rural New Mexico, like no one would ever do). Murphy is the biggest offender. Hamming it up as the troubled guru behind the atomic bomb, he rasps ominously like a depressed Batman villain or perhaps Nick Cave giving a spoken-word performance. <br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">The supporting cast squirms in no-win situations. Downey looks the part but his tone is off. Emily Blunt goes from 0 to 60 as the cliched, betrayed drunk wife. Florence Pugh sits around naked as the obsessive communist lover, a cheap distraction from the nerdfest. The last straw was Matt Damon pretending to be a hard-ass general overseeing the Manhattan Project; back in the day, a performance this hilarious would be found usually in a Second City TV spoof called Bad Acting in Hollywood. </p><p style="text-align: left;">This whole concept and production is everything that is wrong with Hollywood as a cultural cog of capitalism. This is a dud of historic proportions.<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><b>Title:</b> OPPENHEIMER<br /></div><div><b>Running Time:</b> 180 MIN</div><div><b>Elapsed Time at Plug Pull:</b> 50 MIN<br /></div><div><b>Portion Watched:</b> 28%</div><div><b>My Age at Time of Viewing:</b> 61 YRS, 2 MOS.</div><div><b>Average Male American Lifespan:</b> 77.3 YRS.</div><div><b>Watched/Did Instead:</b> Read a book about political organizing.</div><div><b>Odds of Re-viewing This Title:</b> 16-1</div><div></div><div><br /></div></div><p style="text-align: left;"><u>BONUS TRACK</u><br /><i>The needle drops in "Lisa Frankenstein" are clunky and distracting, and some good songs are put in danger of getting hated merely by association. Let's rehabilitate one, "Strange" by Galaxie 500</i>:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CO29Pz2Hw5w" width="320" youtube-src-id="CO29Pz2Hw5w"></iframe></div><p></p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-11641082034050790302024-02-24T14:35:00.001-07:002024-02-24T14:35:04.774-07:00Doc Watch: Music Television<p> </p><p><b>THE GREATEST NIGHT IN POP</b> (B-minus) - Anyone over 40 is likely to find something to like in this tick-tock about the making of the "We Are the World" charity single, in which Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones assembled a who's who of mid-'80s superstars together in a recording studio for one long night devoted to one sappy song.</p><p>It's a mildly interesting reminiscence of a time nearly 40 years ago when the culture was more bunched around familiar faces and names from the worlds of rock, pop and R&B. Richie hogs the limelight with his stories, and he is joined by Bruce Springsteen, Smokey Robinson, Cyndi Lauper, Dionne Warwick and a particularly humble Huey Lewis. We also hear from a few tech people who were crucial to the recording and who tell some of the liveliest stories. (My favorite is the one who looked around at the end of the long night wondering when he'd get paid only to be told that everyone was working for free. Charity, you know.) There's a bit of fun to be had when glimpsing some flash-in-the-pan talent. (Remember Kim Carnes?)<br /></p><p>Many of Richie's stories seem embellished, especially the allegedly hectic nature of writing the song at the last minute, which also involved Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. There is a fun side story of whether Prince was going to show up or not (and how Sheila E felt like she was treated as bait). The song was recorded into the wee hours of the morning after the most of the stars had attended the previous evening's American Music Awards (hosted by Richie). Too much of the film seems like generic build-up, involving the recording of the group parts. Things don't pick up until the second half. In one scene it's fun to watch a bevy of superstars crowd around a piano and start to try out their solo parts, as if they're rehearsing a high school musical. Lewis, Lauper and others recall how nervous they were to deliver their one big line each and how drunk Al Jarreau got during the session. We cringe watching an uncomfortable Bob Dylan (his drugs have either kicked in or run out) having no clue, it seems, how to deliver his solo lines but then finally (finally) nailing it (or thereabouts), with the help of Wonder. </p><p>It might be tough for most people to get excited about that era again, especially a night devoted to such a generic song. You get the feeling that some of the juiciest scenes might have ended up on the cutting-room floor, so as not to offend the likes of Billy Joel, Tina Turner or Willie Nelson, or one of the dozens of others who got roped into a long, trying night amid a sea of egos.<br /></p><p><b>ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL</b> (2009) (A-minus) - In the holy trilogy of metal movies, we consecrate "This Is Spinal Tap," "Some Kind of Monster" and this indie gem from Sacha Gervasi, a tribute to an early '80s phenom, a band that had a moment before the Metallica surge and dwindled into obscurity back in its hometown of Toronto. This documentary tells the story of two childhood pals, frontman Steve "Lips" Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner, now north of 50, working dead-end jobs but still clinging to the dream of superstardom.</p><p>Gervasi, their former roadie, returns in 2006 with a camera to follow Kudlow and Reiner everywhere they go, creating a portrait of two longtime pals near the end of their tether, with Reiner more resigned to an unhappy fate but Kudlow refusing to believe that their career is finished. They muddle through a slapdash tour of Europe, missing trains and hitting rock bottom when they show up two hours late to a gig in Prague such that Kudlow has to physically threaten the owner to pay them after they perform. They toss a hail mary to a former producer who agrees to record a comeback album in the English countryside, but that turns into a catastrophe when Reiner threatens to pull the plug and they can't find a record label to distribute the CD.</p><p>The nods to "Spinal Tap" involve more than just a similar vibe -- they playfully echo the "Hello, Cleveland" line and make a pilgrimage to Stonehenge. Their wives and families are supportive (Kudlow's sister foots the bill for the recording), and Kudlow's Muppet-like good cheer is endlessly appealing. Gervasi manages to humanize the men without mocking them or their art. The songs -- including the foundational "Metal on Metal" -- are generic, but it's fun to watch these guys give it their all in front of middle-age fans who never outgrew their own head-banging fandom. Talking heads including Lars Ulrich, Lemmy and Slash bookend the film, offering respect to these two diehards who never allowed mediocrity to defeat them.<br /></p><p><b>THE ORDER OF MYTHS</b> (2008) (B) - This documentary examines the queasy detente of segregation beneath the surface of the annual Mardi Gras celebration in Mobile, Ala. It can be fascinating in its granular detail at times, but it sometimes comes off as merely quirky and inconsequential.</p><p>Filmmaker Margaret Brown would go on to make documentaries about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and, more recently, about the Clotilde, the last African slave ship to reach U.S. shores, an incident that gets name-checked here, too. She obtains VIP access to both main organizations that crowns kings and queens of Mardi Gras each year -- one run by the white community and the other by the black community. </p><p>Everyone claims that this is the natural order of things and that no one is offended by this 21st century remnant of a more venal segregated past. Toward the end of the film, we'll watch the black couple pop in at the white gala (and mostly get ignored), and then the white couple will pay back the courtesy the following night, looking quite awkward the whole time. </p><p>Brown's deep dive into an unusual, quaint ritual has a cult-film feel to it; her devotion to the subject is admirable. But, racial politics aside, her painstaking examination of a subculture comes off a bit too esoteric to land solidly.<br /></p><p><u>BONUS TRACK</u></p><p><i>Anvil's signature tune was "Metal on Metal." Kudlow often performed in a S&M harness and like to use a dildo as a slide for his guitar. It was the '80s.</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jDC2e6i6Quw" width="320" youtube-src-id="jDC2e6i6Quw"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-14829825306934142642024-02-21T13:26:00.000-07:002024-02-21T13:26:32.922-07:00Cool Story, Bro<p> </p><p><b>THEY CALLED HIM MOSTLY HARMLESS</b> (C+) - This HBO Max true-crime documentary might have made a pretty good 20-minute story on "60 Minutes" or "Dateline NBC." But padded out to more than an hour and a half, it becomes the tedious story of the crowd-sourced hunt for a mysterious hiker found dead on the Appalachian Trail back in 2018.</p><p>The most annoying aspect is the repetitive arty B-roll shots, mostly re-creations of internet nerds typing on their keyboards with their chubby fingers, or of overhead drone shots looking down past the tops of trees to hikers retracing steps from years ago. The film also takes needless detours. At one point, the group is convinced that a cancer-sufferer's blog from that time is that of the missing hiker, known to most as Mostly Harmless. But that wasn't him; the cancer guy is still very much alive and totally someone else. Why bother with such distractions?</p><p>The filmmakers drag out the mystery to an interminable degree. I was ready to either bail out or fast forward to the end, but I was patient. I had a strong hunch that the reveal would be anti-climactic. (The most logical theories posited at the beginning of the documentary are either that Mostly Harmless was ill or was on the run from the law.) I was not rewarded for my generous devotion of precious time. <br /></p><p><b>THE END OF THE TOUR</b> (C) - Boring doesn't begin to describe this two-man acting exercise between miscast and mismatched actors reliving the time back in the 1990s when a Rolling Stone reporter spent days with author David Foster Wallace during the initial craze over Wallace's notorious novel "Infinite Jest."</p><p>Two talented actors are miscast and wildly mismatched. Jason Segel has stoner eyes and the patented bandanna to replicate Wallace's look, and he interprets the author as a mild-mannered, almost Jesus-like broken soul. Jesse Eisenberg plays dress-up as the nerdy reporter. Emo director James Ponsoldt ("<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-above-average-now.html" target="_blank">The Spectacular Now</a>") thought it would be a good idea to have Eisenberg chain-smoke and snack throughout the movie, someone's idea of humanizing him as a regular working joe, perhaps. I'd bet a crisp 20-dollar bill that Eisenberg has never been a regular smoker in his life. The attempt at millennial Method acting is quite distracting. The two actors occasionally look almost surprised to realize they're actually in the same movie together.<br /></p><p>Put these two misguided duds together and watch them drone on about nothing interesting for an hour and 45 minutes. We know from the beginning of the movie that Wallace has gone on to take his own life, and the script (from two writers with scant resumes) renders this entirely in melancholy flashback. The tone is off right from the start, and it never gets interesting.</p><p><u>BONUS TRACK</u> <br /></p><p><i>"The End of the Tour" is the only film in the past 11 years that I previously watched but didn't review. It was a simple oversight. My partner rented it this time, and after 20 minutes I half-watched it, and I remembered why it had such little impact on me. And, for the record, I once made it about 150 pages into Wallace's tome, "Infinite Jest." Probably about average among all human attempts.</i><br /></p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-3495557852380344472024-02-20T20:11:00.000-07:002024-02-20T20:11:02.591-07:00New to the Queue<p><i> And now ... on with the countdown ...</i></p><p>Do we stick with the Turkish master, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, or put him on probation for giving us another three-hour-plus drama, <b>"About Dry Grasses"?</b></p><p>A filmmaker documents his own obsession with building an ark of knowledge and history in a field in Maine, <b>"The Arc of Oblivion."</b><br /></p><p>A debut feature about partying teens and consent, set on a Greek island, <b>"How to Have Sex."</b></p><p>A long-delayed release of a 1971 drama about a Nigerian immigrant in New York, <b>"Bushman."</b></p><p>Ethan Coen looks like he had fun with the pulpy comedy/action romp <b>"Drive-Away Dolls."</b></p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-62657397932204063912024-02-17T19:38:00.000-07:002024-02-17T19:38:17.535-07:00That '70s Drift: Pale Homage<p> </p><p><b>THE HOLDOVERS</b> (B) - If I want to see a Hal Ashby movie, I'll rent one. What I don't need is a note-for-note period piece shot as if it were produced in 1970 or 1971, not just taking place in that year.</p><p>The opening credits of this movie -- about a prep school teacher and a student stranded together over winter break -- faithfully re-create the mood, style and font of classics from the American New Wave, and the mood never budges from that of movies like Ashby's "Harold & Maude" (down to the Cat Stevens needle drop) or Bob Rafelson's "Five Easy Pieces." The gimmick -- extended for the length of two and a quarter hours -- is so self-consciously indulgent that it can take you out of the movie from the start and make it nearly impossible to get back into the actual story.</p><p>And that's not an insignificant complaint. This film is intended to casually unfold some emotional bonding not just between Professor Paul Hunham (a weary Paul Giamatti) and his young ward Angus Tully (drab newcomer Dominic Sessa), but also between the men and the campus cook, Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Rudolph), who is mourning the recent death of her son in Vietnam. But mix and match them every which way you can, and you'll be hard pressed to bind anything resembling an authentic connection among them. By the end of this glum, slow-paced drama (with dashes of dry, acerbic wit), we are left with three people who still don't have much in common and who haven't gained much insight into one another.</p><p>Rudolph's Mary is the classic (stereotypical?) noble working-class mother, and she doesn't get much to do here besides be sassy around these two under-achievers. Giamatti makes for a good shlub and an amusing nudnik, but it feels like we've seen him shovel this stuff before. Sessa is a bit of a cipher as Angus, who is kinid of a Holden Caulfield Without a Clue. His dad is dead and his mother has remarried a rich guy, and so she has dumped Angus into yet another prep school hoping he won't crash and burn there like at the previous ones. Angus is supposed to be a bit of a rebel, but he seems more lazy and disaffected than anything else. Put these three together, and you've got ... not fireworks, but maybe a couple of sparklers<br /></p><p>This film reunites director Alexander Payne with Giamatti 20 years after their breakthrough, the indie touchstone "Sideways." Here Payne realizes a script by TV journeyman David Hemingson, with dialogue peppered with a good share of zingers but serving a story that meanders and wallows in its doldrums. The film is easily a half hour too long. A late plot twist doesn't have nearly the impact intended, and the lessons learned by everyone here on their various journeys come across as underwhelming and unearned.</p><p>That's not to say it's a bad movie. It's pretty good at times. Most everyone I know swears by it as a new masterpiece from Payne, who had a good run a decade ago with "The Descendants" and "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2013/12/family-ties-nebraska.html" target="_blank">Nebraska</a>." It's been even longer since his millennial hat trick of "Election," "About Schmidt" and "Sideways." We can't blame the sloppy story on him this time, but he needed more discipline to shape this into a more convincing period piece. And he needed to drop the overly reverent New Wave shtick (and the cheap use of era-appropriate songs). These three characters deserved better. So does Hal Ashby and his contemporaries.</p><p><u>BONUS TRACK</u></p><p><i>The twee soundtrack also includes lethargic faux period pieces, like this dreary tune from 2014 by Damien Jurado, "Silver Joy":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1LjNarVhcLU" width="320" youtube-src-id="1LjNarVhcLU"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-64887944212451058372024-02-13T15:51:00.002-07:002024-02-13T15:51:35.307-07:00R.I.P., Norman Lear<p style="text-align: left;"><i> TV pioneer Norman Lear died in December. In tribute, we went back to a movie he co-wrote when he was on the brink of shaking up network television in the 1970s.</i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuGYbRPydMK2L6aUnATezRHXd_cr50iyHRfc_QKSjm08BktRya9NYXU8fjwoId4Zkzwdv7OXDWM6WPzMtXHwIIJwxOpibRGypQsjU66TFiQ8UewFOV_J3Vl42orO2m7sOVyUe4viJY7KNvZvvFS1Fw7LXqpCpKVbJH60B1ixYomH-yRDQe17mtYB_Fiso/s300/Lear.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuGYbRPydMK2L6aUnATezRHXd_cr50iyHRfc_QKSjm08BktRya9NYXU8fjwoId4Zkzwdv7OXDWM6WPzMtXHwIIJwxOpibRGypQsjU66TFiQ8UewFOV_J3Vl42orO2m7sOVyUe4viJY7KNvZvvFS1Fw7LXqpCpKVbJH60B1ixYomH-yRDQe17mtYB_Fiso/s1600/Lear.jpg" width="300" /></a></i></div><i><br /></i><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY'S</b> (1968) (B) - There is a bit of an embarrassing back story that explains this obscure choice from Norman Lear's oeuvre, a film he co-wrote with two others. Let's go back to the mid-'70s, when Lear was the king of prime time. It was an era when local TV stations would commonly follow the 10 o'clock news with an old movie. One night, when I was barely in my teens, this slapstick homage to the days of vaudeville popped up in a late-night slot, and I settled in to watch.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">The film, set early in the 20th century, is about a young Amish woman, Rachel Schpitendavel (take that, Mel Brooks), who wants to share her religious dancing with a wider audience, so she goes to New York City, where she ends up at a raunchy burlesque venue inquiring about an opportunity. The managers don't really know what to do with this delicate innocent. Eventually, as a way to troll the local censors breathing down their necks, they come up with the idea of teasing Rachel as a mysterious exotic dancer from France only to present her performing her chaste dance. </p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqVDfA2N21lQtBXYHXvhwgnA1Y0c8YhN4y8cRvotbGb4hd020X4eXJnW_eibpj9LbZLjDmD-4kmIaVrlZ_ae8STGCON35w8MF9RQ5tSYcxudjnfqvUUeWUfO9YFNe4I50F24GMAh1bp5v3WZkconb_A8CUk_390TnBMtipk4FSu4StLGR8vmIDRM6UF3s/s298/Minsky%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="169" data-original-width="298" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqVDfA2N21lQtBXYHXvhwgnA1Y0c8YhN4y8cRvotbGb4hd020X4eXJnW_eibpj9LbZLjDmD-4kmIaVrlZ_ae8STGCON35w8MF9RQ5tSYcxudjnfqvUUeWUfO9YFNe4I50F24GMAh1bp5v3WZkconb_A8CUk_390TnBMtipk4FSu4StLGR8vmIDRM6UF3s/s1600/Minsky%201.jpg" width="298" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">Here's where the teenage me comes in. I loved the movie because it was about classic comedy, and one of my favorite movies back in the '70s was "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2018/11/regards-to-broadway.html" target="_blank">The Sunshine Boys</a>," another ode to vaudeville. I was content to enjoy the broad stylings of the Minsky's duo of Raymond Paine and Chick Williams (Jason Robards and Norman Wisdom), but I was also drawn, of course, to Rachel, played by '60s it-girl Britt Ekland. It's not giving too much away to report that during a climactic scene, when Rachel finally gets her turn on stage, that she, unintentionally, bares some flesh to the crowd. Now, on Channel 2 back in the day, they would have edited out any nudity -- if, in fact, the movie itself revealed Ekland's bare torso in any way. My young self didn't know either way. The TV edit left everything to my imagination. And what a powerful imagination I had back then. And what a steely memory I have since forged, well into middle age. To this day, when prompted to remember this movie, I would wonder: Does the movie actually cut to a shot of the breasts of Ekland('s body double)? </p><p style="text-align: left;">In memory of the dear centenarian Norman Lear, I vowed to finally find out through the technology of home DVD.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Lear was, by all accounts, a kind and generous man as well as a legendary producer of foundational sitcoms throughout the 1970s. He was profiled in a documentary in 2016, which we reviewed <a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2016/12/one-liners-funny-old-jews.html" target="_blank">here</a>. "All in the Family" still holds up to this day as a biting satire of ignorance and bigotry. The cringe factor among his other shows is surprisingly low considering the passage of a half century and the evolution of sensibilities in the culture. Networks are still replaying and remaking that and Lear's other shows, most recently "One Day at a Time." If you have any memory before 1970, you have to acknowledge that Lear permanently reconfigured television, with a legacy that lingers to this day, through "Roseanne" and "Black-ish" and the whole Chuck Lorre catalog. Lear cut his teeth on 1950s variety shows and a few well-considered scripts in the '60s, such as "Divorce American Style" and "Come Blow Your Horn" (with Neil Simon of "Sunshine Boys" fame). He teamed with Arnold Schulman and Sidney Michaels for "Minsky's." The fun songs are by Charles Strouse ("Bonnie and Clyde") and Lee Adams ("Bye Bye Birdie")<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">William Friedkin sat behind the camera for "Minsky's," honing his craft for his own '70s run. (His next three films would be "The Boys in the Band," "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/09/neo-noir-chronicles-chase.html" target="_blank">The French Connection</a>" and "The Exorcist.") His shots are hectic and choppy, providing a jangled sense of the zaniness of entertainment that was popular in theater houses a hundred years ago. He overplays the gimmick of taking old black-and-white documentary footage from the streets of Manhattan and morphing it into fresh color scenes. But he serves the wild comedy well, perhaps even setting the table for "Cabaret," even if the touch is much lighter. <br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMRBEdjG021GMsnUJVlcgoShNnsaMTEyZrTvV6lEMNtmT6u8X8uWz_MfOE07VdFe3LNwlexyoTAUMtj89wllgBNrmBGKE6kra-0rQYWk2pW1JV5_ntYeI4OfVrktc6nrODEyulTRdj48VsiIpmsQu-8aJ5NORJfAmdqOb7bc3et0MAyEGeM-YHG83DVrs/s292/Minsky%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="173" data-original-width="292" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMRBEdjG021GMsnUJVlcgoShNnsaMTEyZrTvV6lEMNtmT6u8X8uWz_MfOE07VdFe3LNwlexyoTAUMtj89wllgBNrmBGKE6kra-0rQYWk2pW1JV5_ntYeI4OfVrktc6nrODEyulTRdj48VsiIpmsQu-8aJ5NORJfAmdqOb7bc3et0MAyEGeM-YHG83DVrs/s1600/Minsky%202.jpg" width="292" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;">Robards is wonderful as the Bud Abbott-like straight man and Rachel's would-be seducer. Wisdom, a British clown, is delightful as a more physical Costello who quietly pines for Rachel's company. Ekland stands around a lot looking pretty and discombobulated, her ginger bangs never budging an inch, while she struggles through a German accent. The bench is deep, with Elliott Gould mensching it up as the son of the owner who is threatening to close Minsky's, vice squad or no; Denholm Elliott as the snooty censor; ol' Bert Lahr as the fading star named Spats; Forrest Tucker as a hoodlum (and Richard Libertini as his goon); Lear favorite Gloria LeRoy as the sassy dancing girl; and Jack Burns as a warm-up comic.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">The film is packed with throwaway one-liners and goofy plot twists, and Friedkin is generous with the skits and songs, many of which stand on their own as fine seltzer-soaked representatives of a lost era. ("Nurse! Nurse!") And it all builds to that fateful climax, as Ekland's Rachel sashays on the stage. Will she truly invent the striptease on the spot? Has this been, for me, the longest tease in the history of moving pictures? </p><p style="text-align: left;">Now that I've seen my share of bare breasts, will this whole experiment fall flat (so to speak) as anti-climactic? Oh, just give it a go and have a romp. Find out for yourself. I'm no longer (as) desperate for a glimpse of a boob, but may my 13-year-old's mindset never fade away.<br /></p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-69274830175168051532024-02-10T10:08:00.001-07:002024-03-09T17:38:25.173-07:00Comedie Francaise<p> </p><p><b>THE CRIME IS MINE</b> (B) - What a delightful diversion. Francois Ozon twirls an entertaining screwball comedy set in Paris in 1935 about an actress who exploits the murder of a producer to advance her own career. <br /></p><p>Ozon has written and directed some profoundly serious films the past 20 years (as recently as last year's release about a daughter honoring her father's suicide wish, "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/05/auteur-auteur.html" target="_blank">Everything Went Fine</a>"), but he does have a lighter side. Sometimes, as in 2016 with "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2016/03/this-years-model.html" target="_blank">The New Girlfriend</a>," he finds a beguiling mix of serious and slapstick. "The Crime Is Mine" is mostly slapstick, a true throwback to the screwball comedies of nearly a century ago (and apparently is loosely adapted from a 1930s French play). <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTKC2fR39qcf1kJQT0TshE9SFEzejzAIY1lOxsY_B5bH4hRyt8q42yilMHayrwo30aMkvKTiHEVbuCUyOLh5utRAVVR_KfEUjobn9GB_OqeNNoEneJn0zrlVutxF94CMjnfwxtSHEeK-4eC1pWXSpFY8iA_OpOPrfyNGAmENc5A_aN2vYRTFEE140hCI/s1200/Crime%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="1200" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTKC2fR39qcf1kJQT0TshE9SFEzejzAIY1lOxsY_B5bH4hRyt8q42yilMHayrwo30aMkvKTiHEVbuCUyOLh5utRAVVR_KfEUjobn9GB_OqeNNoEneJn0zrlVutxF94CMjnfwxtSHEeK-4eC1pWXSpFY8iA_OpOPrfyNGAmENc5A_aN2vYRTFEE140hCI/s320/Crime%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>Nadia Tereszkiewicz (above left) stars as Madeleine Verdier, an actress who storms out of a much older producer's home after he pulls a Harvey Weinstein on her. When hours later he turns up dead, Madeleine comes up with the idea of copping to the murder, even through she didn't do it, as a way to put her acting skills to the test on the witness stand and in front of a rapt nation. (She cares much less about marrying her suitor, who is heir to a rubber-tire fortune.) When she is acquitted, with the help of best friend and aspiring lawyer Pauline Mauleon (Rebecca Marder, above right), her career does, indeed, take off. </p><p>But Madeleine, it seems, has stolen the thunder of the apparent real killer, faded ingenue Odette Chaumette (a bonkers Isabelle Huppert, above center), who wants her own chunk of the spotlight. Ozon has a ton of fun with this as a courtroom farce and Keystone Cops police procedural. He also lards on the costuming and decor, fully immersed in the era and its style. Huppert balances a giant bright-red fright wig on her head and should have been jailed for theft of scenery instead of murder.</p><p>Don't worry too much about the details of the plot and whether and how they might add up. The investigating judge is played by a wonderfully droll Fabrice Luchini, another Ozon favorite. This all would be frivolous and inconsequential if it weren't for the prodigious narrative skills of our generation's best overall storyteller. It's the kind of fun that makes you forget the world outside the dark movie theater.<br /></p><p><b>GODARD CINEMA</b> (B+) - With workmanlike precision, cinematic biographer Cyril Leuthy walks us through the career of Jean-Luc Godard, making the case for the French filmmaker as the foundational voice of the New Wave and what has come after it. Godard broke through in 1960 with "Breathless," and by the end of the '60s, he was burned out on commercial filmmaking, particularly radicalized by the May 1968 protests.</p><p>Leuthy, who has previously profiled Godard's contemporary Jean-Pierre Melville, shows a deep understanding of Godard as a man and as an artist. Talking heads are knowledgeable and articulate. The clips are generous. Some of his past loves -- still lovely -- weigh in on the man with a troubled mind. </p><p>I'll probably never shake my fascination with Godard, even if I will forever be stranded in his '60s heyday and will never fully grasp his later movies, which just got denser and denser. The mystery is part of the allure; this documentary is a good example of the unpacking that is necessary to peel through the layers of the man and his art. My goal is to re-learn French to a degree advanced enough to not need subtitles for a lot of his later work and make it easier to comprehend the clutter that spills from Godard's mind. </p><p><u>BONUS TRACK</u></p><p><i>Let's try to update our list of Ozon films, in order from our favorite on down, which is a very short step. They are all worth seeing.</i></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Under the Sand</li><li>Time to Leave</li><li>5 x 2</li><li><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2014/09/young-old.html" target="_blank">Young & Beautiful</a> <br /></li><li><a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2016/03/this-years-model.html" target="_blank">The New Girlfriend</a> <br /></li><li>Swimming Pool</li><li><a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/05/auteur-auteur.html" target="_blank">Everything Went Fine </a><br /></li><li><a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2013/10/one-liners.html" target="_blank">In the House</a></li><li>Hideaway</li><li><a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2017/05/bizarre-love-triangle.html" target="_blank">Frantz</a> <br /></li><li>The Crime Is Mine <br /></li><li>Ricky</li><li>See the Sea</li><li><a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2018/03/crises.html" target="_blank">Double Lover</a></li></ol>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-31326491008811483402024-02-07T15:45:00.004-07:002024-02-09T16:04:31.678-07:00Outside the Law<p> </p><p><b>CHILE '76</b> (B+) - Carmen is a woman of means who is asked to assist a wounded young insurgent in Pinochet's Chile in the mid-'70s. Newcomer Manuela Martelli conjures up a simmering tale of danger under autocratic rule.</p><p>Aline Kuppenheim is the placid face of privilege as Carmen, who is renovating her beach house when a local priest asks her to tend to a bullet wound of Elias (Nicolas Sepulveda) at a safe house. Carmen's husband and son are doctors, but she decades ago gave up her pretensions to practice medicine while serving with the Red Cross during World War II. She surreptitiously finagles drugs and supplies without trying to get caught. She also gets swept up in the secret underground in an effort to find Elias safe passage. One false move and she and Elias and the padre could be disappeared.<br /></p><p>Martelli's storytelling (she wrote the script with Alejandra Moffat) is clever and efficient. She sets the table for the whole movie in the first five minutes via two scenes full of subtext and visual cues. Kuppenheim, with a conventional middle-aged beauty, speaks volumes through her precise facial reactions. It's not always clear who is a good person and who might be a collaborator. The setting of the sea is a knowing nod to the Pinochet administration's fondness for dumping its enemies into the ocean. </p><p>It all contributes to a growing sense of dread, not unlike "The Lives of Others," set in 1980s Germany. Perfectly paced, "Chile '76" is a chilling lesson in defying both the political system and social castes.<br /></p><p><b>THE DELINQUENTS</b> (B+) - What price freedom? Splayed leisurely over three hours, this Argentine drama goes deep into character study to tell the tale of two men who collaborate on robbing the bank they work at in order to avoid a life of wage drudgery. An intentional stint in jail for the mastermind sets the table for a generous sweep of time that allows writer-director Rodrigo Moreno to offer a mini-homage to "Crime and Punishment" by way of "Godfather's" storytelling techniques. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy-DDxD3oO8PLEvHybuuWbYI8KS189LBrePFE_t7YTMrB02Ft4RPzA2cbYwrdKwQaFEFRW5kDnj8UxOdTT9ldR6UxHET1r-KVDo8JuosiCk6AFPZHt6rXOM_uFHJ8LMODlfolrxey7vm4W0v66Ph4CzA9peY7fw0X2WqSVN4QJqPK5xlBBC7hULAWxK9M/s620/Delinq.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="348" data-original-width="620" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy-DDxD3oO8PLEvHybuuWbYI8KS189LBrePFE_t7YTMrB02Ft4RPzA2cbYwrdKwQaFEFRW5kDnj8UxOdTT9ldR6UxHET1r-KVDo8JuosiCk6AFPZHt6rXOM_uFHJ8LMODlfolrxey7vm4W0v66Ph4CzA9peY7fw0X2WqSVN4QJqPK5xlBBC7hULAWxK9M/s320/Delinq.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Moran (Daniel Elias) decides to steal from the bank just enough money to cover the expected wages and retirement needs of himself and one other person, whom he recruits to hold on to the money while Moran serves a precisely prescribed prison term of three to six years under civil law. The accomplice is accommodating co-worker Roman (Esteban Bigliardi, above), a lowly teller with a hangdog expression who succumbs to the pressure of participating and consents to take the bag of money to a remote location by a lake surrounded by woods and hills. (Moreno, for some reason, quaintly plays with anagrams to name these characters as well as others, named Morna, Norma and Ramon. He also has the same actor, German de Silva, play both a bank manager and an inmate.) The first hour sets up the heist and sends Moran off to prison after a bit of reconnaissance to decide where to stash the cash. The second hour finds Roman actually hiding the loot and while doing so running into Morna, Norman and Ramon, who record the sights and sounds of the idyllic areas surrounding their village for a documentary about gardening. His brief trip fractures the connection to his wife, Flor (a tough Gabriela Saidon), upon his return.<br /></p><p>Moran will learn that life in prison is not as easy as he may have expected (some of the money will have to be set aside to pay protection to a fellow inmate), and Roman will face consequences at work and in his marriage. A somewhat implausible coincidence will bond the men by the time Moran's prison sentence ends. Key to that is Norma, brought to life in a grounded performance by Margarita Molfino, in a deftly sketched characterization. In the final hour, we finally get a flashback to when Moran first visited the town, before his imprisonment; he falls in love with the rural lifestyle of Norma, Morna and Ramon, and perhaps regrets now having to interrupt this utopian existence for a stint of hard time. I was reminded of Michael Corleone's jaunt to Italy during his days in hiding in "The Godfather," especially the languid pace and the charm of the countryside. </p><p>The film in general has a major feel of that '70s Drift of the American New Wave ("Five Easy Pieces" also comes to mind), a tactile fabric almost, so you don't mind the leisurely pace. The final scene -- of a character ambling along on horseback into that same countryside -- features a perfectly timed needle drop and a slow reverse zoom to reveal a John Ford panorama as the credits roll, and you feel hope for both men, even if we never learn their eventual fate.<br /></p><p><u>BONUS TRACKS</u></p><p><i>The opening scene from "The Delinquents" features the first of several songs from my favorite tango composer, Astor Piazzola, "20 Years Ago" (with Gerry Mulligan):</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/64-0gJTYe78" width="320" youtube-src-id="64-0gJTYe78"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p><i>One plot thread involves an album by Buenos Aires blues artist Pappo getting passed around among the characters. His "Volume 1," from 1971, includes "Where Is Freedom?"</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rLQr_ULAT6U" width="320" youtube-src-id="rLQr_ULAT6U"></iframe></div><p></p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-69289189156761271622024-02-02T10:58:00.000-07:002024-02-02T10:58:04.629-07:00Now and Then: Once and Again<p><i> We look at the latest from John Carney and then go back to the start of it all, the musical love story "Once."</i></p><p><b>FLORA & SON</b> (B) - With sass and confidence, the cast of this corny underdog story overcomes a thrum of shmaltz to sell the hell out of a heartfelt film. Ireland's John Carney -- known for his musical dramedies like "Once" (see below) and "Sing Street" -- approaches middle age with a healthy amount of cynicism.</p><p>Eve Hewson stars as Flora, a frustrated part-time mom searching for a purpose in her disappointing existence in Dublin. On a whim, she buys an acoustic guitar for her teenage son, Max (Oren Kinlan), and when he rudely snubs the offer, she searches online for tutorials for herself. She meets Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) an L.A. singer-songwriter who charges $20 a session by video.</p><p>Flora is foul-mouthed and forward, and soon Jeff -- a New Age nerd -- develops a soft spot for his working-class client. Meantime, it turns out that young Max does like music; it's just that he prefers techno and hip hop, dropping some dorky but charming rhymes. Flora's ex, Kev (Paul Reid), is actually a bass player in a dormant band, and he serves as a fine foil to Flora, who still knows how to push her ex's buttons.</p><p>Carney unravels his story in classic fairytale fashion. Hewson's sharp edge keeps this away from the territory of cloying and sentimental. But just barely. Gordon-Levitt finds depth as the lonely failed songsmith. The tunes -- written by Carney and Scotsman Gary Clark -- are perfectly understated. Flora's dramatic learning curve might elicit an eyeroll, but enjoy the rich dialogue and the cast's commitment to a smart script full of heart.</p><p><b>ONCE </b>(2007) (A-minus) - Carney started out with this drama that has a documentary feel, about a Dublin busker who meets another melancholy soul and makes a musical connection. Glen Hansard (of the band the Frames) is the Guy, and Marketa Iglova is the Girl he meets-cute on the street, and the two stars wrote most of the songs -- separately and together -- that are featured prominently in the film, often played in full.</p><p>Guy is getting over a girlfriend who has since moved to London, and Girl is a single mom, an immigrant whose estranged husband is back in the Czech Republic. She plays piano (a music store lets her noodle there during the lunch hour), and the two communicate through songs and collaboration. She is sensible and adorable, and he's a bundle of edgy heartbreak seeking release through cathartic screeds. <br /></p><p>Carney shoots in guerrilla street style, in what looks like crisp digital, and establishes a space where Iglova and Hansard can genuinely collaborate. The thin plot is essentially a will-they-or-won't-they romantic comedy during their week together. The sweetness extends beyond this improbable pairing, to her mother and to his father. Guy and Girl are in a bit of limbo, and their happenstance time together not only makes their purgatory bearable, but it also bears fruit in some gorgeous music.<br /></p><p><u>BONUS TRACK</u></p><p><i>The signature tune from "Once," the anthemic love song "Falling Slowly":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k8mtXwtapX4" width="320" youtube-src-id="k8mtXwtapX4"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-15745017563304160942024-01-26T09:11:00.010-07:002024-02-13T22:51:14.621-07:00The Best of 2023: Do Go On<p><br /></p><p>A lot of things these days might make you wonder "Why go on?" Some are dramatic. Some are insignificant. Even if you do wonder, you usually just end up carrying on anyway.<br /></p><p>Two major cineplexes have closed in Albuquerque in the past year or two, and I can't say that I miss them. There are fewer and fewer reasons to hit a multiplex these days, given the bloat that is usually on offer. Sure, it's fun to sit in a dark theater with strangers and experience art and entertainment. Maybe someday that won't be an option anymore. We'll cope. Or we'll go underground. The point is, I can't imagine I would miss 99 percent of the titles on the average marquee.<br /></p><p><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-best-of-2022-moving-on.html" target="_blank">Last year</a> I whined a bit about over-long "prestige" movies glutting the market, and there was more of the same this year. Too many movies run significantly longer than two hours, and too few deserve such an indulgence. And still more of our old stand-bys disappointed us. I can't believe so many old male filmmakers still command big budgets and rapt attention. For me it was a parade of hard passes. </p><p>If you still have the patience for Martin Scorsese giving a dull history lesson for three and a half hours, you have my admiration and/or sympathy. Christopher Nolan pontificating melodramatically for three hours? Be my guest. Ridley Scott and Joaquin Phoenix playing war games (2 hours, 38 minutes)? I'd rather live out my days in exile. A Bradley Cooper vanity project (2:09)? Did you <i>see </i>the trailer?! Michael Mann brought out of mothballs to cultivate another Italian accent from Adam Driver (2:09)? <i>Maddon'</i>. Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti stretching a '70s period piece to a relatively brief 2 hours, 13 minutes? ... <i>Maybe?</i> <br /></p><p>I believe in life cycles, hitting about every seven years or so, and it feels like another moment to flip the script and purge some stodgy former favorites. I didn't think I'd walk out on a Wes Anderson film, but his "Asteroid City" was so pointless that I could not imagine staying seated in the theater and feeling myself slowly age. We clicked off Todd Haynes' "May December," even though it was streaming for mere pennies. Things culminated on New Year's Eve, when I forced myself to watch all of "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2024/01/pinker-and-prouder-than-previous.html" target="_blank">Barbie</a>" (interminable at two hours, but thankfully streaming it in my living room) and literally woke up sick the next day. (Surely a coincidence?) I was so insulted by what Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach considered to be clever and cutting edge that it made me rethink my relationship with film the past 30 years. That is not bubblegum hyperbole.<br /></p><p>But, also like last year, that doesn't mean it was a bad year for movies. 2023 was OK. I settled on a cool dozen films to rank as the best of 2023, and I had to rely on the multiplex for only two of them -- the rest turning up either at my local arthouse cinema (check out my history of The Guild <a href="https://www.guildcinema.com/history" target="_blank">here</a>) or via boutique streaming services like Mubi or Fandor. (Every title below gets a link to my original review.)<br /></p><p>There was no doubt that "Past Lives" would end up at number one, and by a pretty wide margin. The debut from Celine Song, starring Greta Lee as an immigrant finally coming to terms with her childhood sweetheart, is 105 minutes of pristine storytelling, the perfect example of why movies exist. (It might be back in your local theater this week.) The next four on my list were alternately fun (Nicole Holofcener's picking apart of a marriage and Matt Johnson riffing on the BlackBerry phenomenon) and deeply moving (another immigrant tale, "Fremont," and the best depiction of male friendship I've ever seen, "The Eight Mountains"). </p><p>More simple, mainstream fun was found in "Bottoms" (at the cineplex) and "M3GAN" (on DVD). Only one documentary made the Top 12, but a bunch of others get an honorable mention below. One fun discovery was a three-part documentary, uploaded to YouTube, about the old Comiskey Park in Chicago; a fan's passion project shows a fine command of archival footage.<br /></p><p>I've tried as much as possible to help you find the movies that are listed. The site <a href="https://www.justwatch.com/" target="_blank">Just Watch</a> has a simple search function to figure out where movies might be streaming. I subscribe to Netflix, HBO Max (still, despite my "Barbie" trauma) and indie standard-bearer <a href="https://www.guildcinema.com/history" target="_blank">Mubi</a>, and I do free trials or short-term deals with the likes of Hulu, Amazon and Criterion to strategically gobble up a bunch of titles I've flagged ahead of time. I even still have a DVD player, and the local library is a reliable source of new releases. Maybe I'm desperately staving off irrelevance.<br /></p><p>I get it -- like my previous career (journalism), the movie industry is undergoing significant changes, based on technological advances and old-fashioned capitalist greed. It's a blessing and a curse to have so much "content" instantly available at our fingertips. (By the way, check out "Fingertips" on Apple-TV+.) This time of upheaval can leave a viewer skeptical or overwhelmed or just frustrated by the paralysis of choice. </p><p>But (like the newspaper business) nothing has changed about the underlying purpose<i> </i>of filmmaking: It's about telling stories. The delivery methods are in flux, but the mission hasn't changed over the past century, since the Talkies arrived. Spin a compelling tale, don't overstay your welcome, and give me something I won't soon forget. What follows are a bunch of movies that do just that, and which are worth your time.<br /></p><br /><h2 style="text-align: center;"><u>THE TOP DOZEN of '23<br /></u></h2><p> 1. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/07/one-life-to-live.html" target="_blank">Past Lives</a></b>: Just a perfect movie about personal connections across decades and continents, and a sense of longing and belonging. Including the <b>best screenplay</b> of the year by Celine Song. (DVD)<br /></p><p> 2. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/07/now-then-micro-aggressions.html" target="_blank">You Hurt My Feelings</a></b>: Julia Louis-Dreyfus can do no wrong in another finely tuned <b>screenplay </b>by Nicole Holofcener. (DVD)<br /></p><p> 3. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/12/immigration-tribulations.html" target="_blank">Fremont</a></b>: A heartfelt tale of a lonely immigrant. Every generation gets the Jim Jarmusch it deserves. (Mubi)<br /></p><p> 4. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/06/two-friends.html" target="_blank">The Eight Mountains</a></b>: A magical study of male friendship, captured over decades. (Criterion)<br /></p><p> 5. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/05/millennial-wall-street.html" target="_blank">BlackBerry</a></b>: A giddy retelling of the rise and fall of the millennium-era technology, with a charming Canadian sensibility. Matt Johnson, an emerging master storyteller (see also "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2017/01/space-invaders-part-ii-fake-news.html" target="_blank">Operation Avalanche</a>"), gets the nod for <b>best director</b>. (Apple/AMC)<br /></p><p> 6. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/09/doc-watch-creative-commons.html" target="_blank">The Elephant 6 Recording Co.</a></b>: The perfect depiction of creative collaboration, and a faithful tribute to a very American music movement around the turn of the millennium. (Kino)<br /></p><p> 7. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/09/questionable-behavior.html" target="_blank">Bottoms</a></b>: Pure stupid fun, as Rachel Sennott teams up again with Emma Seligman ("<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2021/04/awk-ward.html" target="_blank">Shiva Baby</a>") and co-stars with Ayo Edebiri for a spoof of high school clique flicks. (MGM, Fubo)<br /></p><p> 8. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/04/mission-control.html" target="_blank">The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic</a></b>: A "brutally honest and gripping account of a handicapped man embarking on a mission, by himself, to finally meet his online soul mate." (Fandor, Hoopla)<br /></p><p> 9. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/10/kangaroo-ugly.html" target="_blank">The Royal Hotel</a></b>: Another young dynamic duo, Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick, trapped in the Australian outback for this "winking pseudo-horror psych-out." (In theaters)</p><p>10. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2024/01/missed-connections.html" target="_blank">Fallen Leaves</a></b>: A minor-key story of two lonely people struggling to make a romantic connection. (Mubi)<br /></p><p>11. <b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/04/uh-oh-ai.html">M3GAN</a></b>: This "Frankenstein" story for our times, a cautionary tale about an AI girl who gets out of control, is gonzo fun. (Amazon)<br /></p><p>12. <a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/02/purgatory.html"><b>Jethica</b></a>: "A clever, simple story is buoyed by a stellar ensemble cast to explore the ideas of obsessive relationships, hauntings and atonement." A tiny gem. (Fandor)<br /></p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><u>JUST MISSED THE LIST</u></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The cyber thriller "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/05/one-liners-sleuthing.html" target="_blank">Missing</a>." (Netflix)<br /></li><li>The fun romp "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/10/theater-kids.html" target="_blank">Theater Camp</a>." (Hulu)<br /></li><li>The sci-fi bro film "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/12/what-if.html" target="_blank">Biosphere</a>." (AMC, DVD)</li><li>Christos Nikou follows up "Apples" with a semi-futuristic story about relationships, "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2024/01/confused-couples.html" target="_blank">Fingernails</a>." (Apple)<br /></li><li>The slow-burn political period piece, "Chile '76." (Kino/DVD)<br /></li><li>The gay-rights '80s period drama "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-double-life-of.html" target="_blank">Blue Jean</a>." (Hulu)<br /></li><li>The smart slow-boil suspense film "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/09/now-and-then-love-stories.html" target="_blank">Afire</a>." (Criterion)<br /></li><li>From Romania, an examination of prejudice, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/08/now-and-then-back-in-romania.html" target="_blank">R.M.N.</a>" (AMC)<br /></li></ul><p> </p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><u>MORE TOP DOCS </u> <br /></h2><div style="text-align: left;"><ul><li>A deep dive into the mind of a psychedelic-music pioneer, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/08/doc-watch-mind-games.html" target="_blank">Do You Have It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd</a>." (In theaters)</li><li>The well-paced and well-argued political polemic, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2024/01/doc-watch-fight-power.html" target="_blank">South to Black Power</a>." (HBO Max)</li><li>A slick look at a mysterious disappearance in the Australian Outback, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2024/01/doc-watch-discovering-body.html" target="_blank">Last Stop Larrimah</a>." (HBO Max)<br /></li><li>A fascinating, if sluggish look at the '70s sex researcher, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2024/01/doc-watch-fight-power.html" target="_blank">The Disappearance of Shere Hite</a>." (In theaters)<br /></li><li>A sympathetic profile of Mr. October, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/comiskey-park-unobstructed-view.html" target="_blank">Reggie</a>." (Amazon)<br /></li><li>A look at a female metal band in Lebanon, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/03/creative-partners.html" target="_blank">Sirens</a>." (In theaters)<br /></li><li>The matter-of-fact "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/05/doc-watch-addictions.html" target="_blank">Take Your Pills: Xanax</a>." (Netflix)<br /></li><li>A fond tribute to author and editor, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/03/creative-partners.html" target="_blank">Turn Every Page</a>." (Criterion)<br /></li></ul> <br /></div><h2 style="text-align: center;"><u>TOP PERFORMANCES</u></h2><ul><li>Julia Louis-Dreyfus, effortlessly funny in "You Hurt My Feelings."</li><li>Colman Domingo, commanding the screen in the earnest biopic "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2024/01/feel-good-features-redemption.html" target="_blank">Rustin</a>." <br /></li><li>Anaita Wali Zada, stoic but moving in "Fremont."</li><li>The ensemble -- Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaro -- in "Past Lives"<br /></li><li>Mark Duplass, making it look easy, in "Biosphere."</li><li>Ana Scotney in "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/09/questionable-behavior.html" target="_blank">Millie Lies Low</a>." (Starz, Hoopla)<br /></li><li>Petri Poikolainen in "The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic."</li><li>Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri, bro'ing it up in "Bottoms."<br /></li></ul><br /> <div><h2 style="text-align: center;"><u>THE LEFTOVERS</u></h2><p><b>Some 2022 films we caught up with</b>: Both "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/03/dont-mention-it.html" target="_blank">The Silent Twins</a>" and "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/03/doc-watch-grifters.html" target="_blank">Dear Mr. Brody</a>" likely would have cracked last year's list. The former was a powerful period piece, based on a true story, about quirky sisters. The latter was a fascinating documentary profile of a tragic hippie who intended to give away his inherited riches but instead left of a bunch of disappointed people in his wake. ... We were disappointed in Jafar Panahi's "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/03/no-mans-land.html" target="_blank">No Bears</a>."<br /></p><p><b>Wayback Machine</b>: We finally reviewed the foundational mockumentary, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/02/cinema-verite.html" target="_blank">David Holzman's Diary</a>" from 1967 and the Maysles brothers' masterpiece, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/06/doc-watch-historical-record-part-2.html" target="_blank">Grey Gardens</a>.". ... Our favorite director, Krzysztof Kieslowski, finally got his due, with his Three Colors Trilogy screening at the Guild ("<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/09/best-of-ever-vol-10-kieslowskis-three.html" target="_blank">Blue</a>," "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/09/best-of-ever-vol-10-kieslowskis-three_20.html" target="_blank">White</a>" and "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/09/best-of-ever-vol-10-kieslowskis-three_22.html" target="_blank">Red</a>") (also on HBO Max). ... Retro reviews of some of the all-time greats included "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/07/jury-duty.html" target="_blank">12 Angry Men</a>," "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/08/that-80s-grift-weepers.html" target="_blank">Terms of Endearment</a>," "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/06/best-of-ever-vol-9-rag-tag-teams.html" target="_blank">Slap Shot</a>," "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/08/there-was-time.html" target="_blank">Glengarry Glen Ross</a>," "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/09/neo-noir-chronicles-chase.html" target="_blank">Basic Instinct</a>" and "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/09/neo-noir-chronicles-chase.html" target="_blank">The French Connection</a>." ... We continued to delve into the Godard canon, with some classic <a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/01/godard-lives-mid-60s.html" target="_blank">early </a>and <a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/08/godard-lives-bang-bang.html" target="_blank">'mid-60s</a> offerings and a pair from the <a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/04/godard-lives-80s-and-90s.html" target="_blank">'80s and '90s</a>. ... There was a gem at the annual noir festival, 1965's "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/08/noir-chronicles-summer-of-stan.html" target="_blank">Mickey One</a>" with Warren Beatty, along with late Bogart, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/08/noir-chronicles-summer-of-stan.html" target="_blank">The Harder They Fall</a>."<br /></p><p><b>Streaming Services:</b> In a bid to clear out the backlog, we did a short stint with <b><u>Hulu </u></b>and discovered the thoughtful dark comedy about suicide, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/10/death-wish.html" target="_blank">On the Count of Three</a>"; the disturbing story of a marriage in limbo, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/10/death-wish.html" target="_blank">The Killing of Two Lovers</a>"; a brutal cringe comedy about a reunion of college pals, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/group-therapy.html" target="_blank">All My Friends Hate Me</a>"; and another winner from Hannah Marks, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/group-therapy.html" target="_blank">Mark, Mary + Some Other People</a>." ... <b>Amazon </b>turned up "Reggie" and not much else.<br /></p><p><b>R.I.P</b>: We said goodbye to <a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/07/rip-paul-reubens.html" target="_blank">Paul Reubens</a> (Pee-wee Herman), <a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/06/rip-alan-arkin.html" target="_blank">Alan Arkin</a> ("<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/06/best-of-ever-vol-9-rag-tag-teams.html" target="_blank">The In-Laws</a>"), <a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/03/soundtrack-of-your-life-rip-wayne.html" target="_blank">Wayne Shorter</a> Burt Bacharach (paired with a <a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/02/dionne-and-burt.html" target="_blank">Dionne Warwick doc</a>) and <a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/07/rip-sinead-oconnor.html" target="_blank">Sinead O'Connor</a>.<br /></p><p> </p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><u>GUILTY PLEASURES</u><br /></h2><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Owen Wilson spoofing the PBS legend Bob Ross in "<b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/04/that-70s-drift-retro-kitsch.html" target="_blank">Paint</a></b>."</li><li>A fan's tribute to the Chicago White Sox' old ballpark, posted for all to see on YouTube, "<b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/comiskey-park-unobstructed-view.html" target="_blank">Last Comiskey</a></b>." </li><li>Nicolas Cage doing his thing in the inconsistent but often amusing "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/12/what-if.html" target="_blank"><b>Dream Scenario</b></a>."<p><br /></p></li></ul><p> </p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><u>IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME</u></h2><h3 style="text-align: center;">(Well, maybe this time it <i>is</i> you. </h3><h3 style="text-align: center;">Some of our favorites let us down.)</h3><h3 style="text-align: center;"> </h3><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>We walked out of the latest from <b>Wes Anderson</b>, "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/07/life-is-short-twilight-of-twee.html" target="_blank"><b>Asteroid City</b></a>." We labeled it the Twilight of Twee.</li><li>We also turned off <b>Todd Haynes</b>' tedious "<b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/12/life-is-short-get-on-with-it.html" target="_blank">May December</a></b>." <br /></li><li>OMG, the technicolor yawn that was "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2024/01/pinker-and-prouder-than-previous.html" target="_blank"><b>Barbie</b></a>," from the formerly respected duo of <b>Greta Gerwig</b> (director) and <b>Noah Baumbach</b> (her co-writer). It was insipidly irritating and the absolute low point of the year.<br /></li><li><b>Kelly Reichardt </b>and <b>Michelle Williams</b> just couldn't find the magic again in "<b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/05/auteur-auteur.html" target="_blank">Showing Up</a></b>."</li><li><b>Sarah Polley</b> failed to make a book leap off the page, giving us the chatty, leaden "<b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/02/herstory.html" target="_blank">Women Talking</a></b>."</li><li><b>Luca Guadagnino</b> delivered an unintentionally comical bomb, "<b><a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/02/holy-crap-fine-young-cannibals.html" target="_blank">Bones and All</a></b>."<br /></li></ul><br /><h2 style="text-align: center;"><u>COMING ATTRACTIONS</u></h2><p><i>Here are a bunch we wanted to see but didn't get the chance:</i></p><p></p><ul><li>All Dirt Roads Taste Like Salt</li><li>Adults</li><li>All of Us Strangers<br /></li><li>Drylongso</li><li>The Delinquents</li><li>Plan 75</li></ul><div>Join us in 2024 as we track down those titles and more of the finest movies you wouldn't otherwise think of watching.</div><div><br /></div></div></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-79185215982817374692024-01-25T14:46:00.000-07:002024-01-25T14:46:23.793-07:00New to the Queue<p><i> A mutiny of the bounty ...</i></p><p></p><p>Favorite storyteller <a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/search?q=francois+ozon" target="_blank">Francois Ozon</a> ("<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2013/10/one-liners.html" target="_blank">In the House</a>," "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2017/05/bizarre-love-triangle.html" target="_blank">Frantz</a>," "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/05/auteur-auteur.html" target="_blank">Everything Went Fine</a>") is back, this time with a screwball romp with echoes of "Chicago," <b>"The Crime Is Mine."</b><br /></p><p>A documentary examining the work of the French legend of filmmaking, <b>"Godard Cinema."</b></p><p>A drama about a middle-school teacher who gets stressed out by a theft investigation, <b>"The Teachers' Lounge."</b><br /></p><p>We're normally wary of biographies of artists, but this looks like so much more, <b>"Apolonia, Apolonia."</b></p><p>From Kleber Mendonca Filho ("<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2016/11/close-to-home.html" target="_blank">Aquarius</a>," "<a href="http://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2013/06/life-is-short-dept.html" target="_blank">Neighboring Sounds</a>"), a tribute to his hometown, <b>"Pictures of Ghosts."</b><br /></p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-63848420960581910932024-01-21T22:48:00.001-07:002024-01-21T22:48:48.924-07:00Doc Watch: Discovering the Body<p> </p><p><b>LAST STOP LARRIMAH</b> (B) - There is something a little too slick about this deep dive into the mysterious disappearance of a resident of a tiny town in the outback of Australia. The inhabitants of Larrimah seem a little too camera-ready, and the narrative devices feel manipulative.</p><p>Newcomer Thomas Tancred has a great story to tell: One of the eccentrics the town is known for, Paddy Moriarty, has disappeared (as has his dog), and his neighbors are not exactly sad to see him go. Paddy had been feuding with his neighbor and her handyman. He had been an annoying presence at the town's bar. And did he piss off the owner of a crocodile one too many times? Everyone is quirky and entertaining. They all pretty much dislike each other.<br /></p><p>It all plays like a brightly lit film noir, but don't hold your breath waiting for the mystery to unravel and the puzzle pieces to come together. Tancred spreads this out across two hours, dropping a new tease every quarter hour or so. The misdirection becomes the point, eventually, and while each chapter can be enjoyable, the slickly edited film can be unsatisfying as a whole. It's a clever exercise, but you might feel cheated in the end.<br /></p><p><b>SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD</b> (B+) - Women gather in the woods of Estonia to cleanse bodies and souls in this arty documentary about female bonding. Most of it is shot in the cramped quarters of a sauna while the various permutations of the group of women bare their bodies and their emotions to each other.</p><p>The intimate conversations can be brutal to watch. We start out with some standard body-image conversations. But then things grow darker. The women discuss abortions, a particularly difficult miscarriage, and then a harrowing sexual assault. I felt like a voyeur at times; not sure if that was wrong of me or whether that was the intended reaction provoked by debut director Anna Hints. </p><p>Hints' camera doesn't shy away from the nudity displayed by women with a range of rather ordinary bodies. But the camera does have a habit of keeping faces and private parts out of frame. The story of the miscarriage is told while we look at the woman's bare feet the whole time. Interesting choice, but a distraction. The combination of claustrophobia and intimacy can be captivating at times, and you applaud the women for opening up (especially the few who show their faces). </p><p>But at times this feels manipulative and even choreographed. Did Hints help shape these women's narratives, or did the narratives spill out totally naturally? Were they coached and goaded at all, as if this were a very special episode of "The Real Housewives of Estonia"? The women are mostly middle-aged, and so there is a blanket of history -- in particular the fall of the Soviet Union 30 years ago -- that smothers the proceedings. It's as if an entire nation of women is exfoliating and expiating all of their hopes and sins.<br /></p><p><b>EVERY BODY</b> (B) - You don't get more body-positive than this polite polemic about intersex individuals -- that is, the fraction of 1 percent of humans who are born with contradictory sex signifiers. Here we meet Saifa (born with mostly male parts), River (also born with male parts but identifying as "they"), and Alicia, who is living life as a woman but who had been born with XY chromosomes and with testes (removed during childhood) instead of a womb. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWMdFkpPtjVDQn_kp6C-S1Sdonv0werYpqavI7o2ZiROBgP1gDFem557mYnhhxRY-FQFvUJ6AZ-WG8n2H1u6R4TWbvLDvdii1kiDjAR_LguwDoqqIjoe4YenSdXF1PZE9WvTYvKIpZTgcGD5eTleAviIbiWNOC_HTXvmwpxlfvQFyNxmX_eMS2tzBwZIU/s299/Body.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWMdFkpPtjVDQn_kp6C-S1Sdonv0werYpqavI7o2ZiROBgP1gDFem557mYnhhxRY-FQFvUJ6AZ-WG8n2H1u6R4TWbvLDvdii1kiDjAR_LguwDoqqIjoe4YenSdXF1PZE9WvTYvKIpZTgcGD5eTleAviIbiWNOC_HTXvmwpxlfvQFyNxmX_eMS2tzBwZIU/s1600/Body.jpg" width="299" /></a></div> <p></p><p style="text-align: left;">All three are smart and engaging as subjects, and the film does not exploit or play up their unique traits, but rather takes a practical approach to what each went through as a child and how they navigated their unique issues. Alicia, in particular, is quite articulate as she leads a movement on behalf of intersex people and fighting the horrors of surgeries forced on children, often during infancy. We see footage from 60 years ago of one of the main proponents of early assignment surgery and gender-affirming parenting, John Money, and he becomes the overall bad guy whose outdated theories and studies have led to mutilation over the decades.</p><p>A fourth person, David, is featured prominently during the movie's middle third, and it feels like a bit of a cheat, given that David's story (his penis destroyed during circumcision, his parents were urged to raise him as a girl) is lifted liberally from reporting done by NBC's "Dateline." There was so much archival TV footage from David's tragic tale that I wondered whether I shouldn't just go watch that instead of this movie.</p><p>But that should not overshadow the benefits of this insightful and educational documentary that proves how ludicrous it is to insist on a strict binary interpretation of sex and gender. Julia Cohen (the biodocs "RBG" and "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2022/06/doc-watch-back-stories.html" target="_blank">Julia</a>") balances an upbeat attitude with a properly sober understanding of the challenges faced by the three main protagonists and the workmanlike ways in which they forge their paths in life. She sets the right tone with an opening montage of wacky gender-reveal stunts. But we have to take at least a half-grade off for the execrably bland cover versions of songs like "Born to Run" and "Our Lips Are Sealed," which create a distraction. And the latter one really clangs when you consider the unintentional <i>double entendre</i> it elicits.<br /></p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-76754773378905673202024-01-16T09:09:00.001-07:002024-01-16T09:09:45.813-07:00Confused Couples<p> </p><p><b>FINGERNAILS </b>(B+) - Christos Nikou follows up the elegant "Apples" with this droll pseudo-sci-fi examination of the complicated ways in which we fall in love -- or want to be assured that we have fallen in love with the right partner.</p><p>Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed are wonderfully melancholy as co-workers at a company that has cornered the market on the new science that can definitively determine whether two people are in love. The Love Institute (run by an eccentric owner played by a morose Luke Wilson) trains couples in boosting their intimacy in order to maximize their odds of scoring 100 percent on the love-match test. (Chuck Woolery is not involved this time.) If the couple score a 50 percent, that means only one person is in love with the other. If it's a zero, neither is in love. Those are the only three options. The test involves pulling off a fingernail of each person (commitment!) and putting the stubs into a machine that looks like a microwave oven, with results appearing within minutes.<br /></p><p>Buckley's Anna is in a 100 percent relationship with Ryan (the ubiquitous Jeremy Allen White), but their coupling has grown humdrum, and Anna is starting to question the science and her own heart. She tries to nudge Ryan with some of the exercises she has learned during her training, but he is complacent, contentedly set for life. Anna soon grows close with Amir (Ahmed), her hangdog workmate who is apparently faking a relationship with Natasha (Annie Murphy is a fun cameo) while devoting his energies to the couples who depend on him to get them in the right space to hopefully ace the test.</p><p>It's no secret that Anna and Amir begin to fall for each other. They both are pretty mopey about it. But their longing is palpable, and Buckley and Ahmed throw themselves into the deep end of the emotional pond. Buckley cycles through a range of feelings, and Ahmed has gravitas as a quietly broken man who uses humor as a crutch. Nikou has created a quirky atmosphere, and he peppers the proceedings with minor-key absurdities -- humorous interludes and one-offs that keep the mawkishness at bay.<br /></p><p>The setting also keeps the viewer off-balance. It is set not in the future so much as it is in a parallel time. The phones are landlines. The only computer displayed prominently is the testing device, which has a Pong-era monitor that crudely displays the results of each test. One intimacy exercise has couples singing karaoke together, though all the songs are in French (such as "La Mer," the fore-runner to "Beyond the Sea"). Others have a connection to actual science, like smell tests and bonding exercises. Many of the couples are setting themselves up for heartbreak if they don't eventually score 100 percent.</p><p>In the end, this is an occasionally profound treatise on yearning and the complications of human connections. Anna, at one point, proclaims that "sometimes it's more lonely to be in love than to be alone." She's a perfect match with the lump sitting on the couch each night. Does she dare risk that by following her instincts and defying modern technology? <br /></p><p><b>PASSAGES </b>(B) - Tomas is a narcissistic movie director who is difficult to be around, and that's a challenge not only for the other characters in this gloomy film but also for the viewers. Ira Sachs ("<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2014/10/one-liners-drama.html" target="_blank">Love Is Strange</a>") hangs out in Paris for this dour love triangle, a slog through Tomas' devastation of other lives.</p><p>German Tomas (Franz Rogowski from "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2019/10/mr-wrong.html" target="_blank">Transit</a>") cheats on his British husband, Martin (Ben Whishaw), with a French woman, Agathe (Adele Exarchopoulos), but Tomas is so fickle and arrogant that he does little more than toy with each of them, as he fantasizes about somehow starting a family that could include all three of them. Martin moves on quickly with a hunky writer, but Agathe is slow to understand just how horrible Tomas is, and before you know it, she is pregnant.</p><p>At times this is compelling, especially the showdowns between various permutations of these three characters (plus another scene with Tomas and Agathe's parents, who, understandably, cannot fathom what their daughter sees in this jerk). Rogowski is more annoying than convincing as Tomas. Exarchopoulos doesn't get much to work with, and it's hard to understand her character's motivations. Whishaw is the savior here as a man emotionally torn between the man he loves and the need to purge the ogre from his life. There are several sex scenes among the trio, and they are all fairly joyless.<br /></p><p>Sachs penned the script with regular partner Mauricio Zacharias and veteran Arlette Langmann ("<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2022/03/libertines-fraternity-equality.html" target="_blank">Loulou</a>"). They have a great idea, and the cast is game, but Sachs just doesn't pull off a believable story that involves three-dimensional characters. It's a missed opportunity. </p><p><u>BONUS TRACK</u></p><p><i>Music is key in "Fingernails." The central song is "Only You" by Yaz, heard in French and then, over the credits, covered by the Flying Pickets, who had a British number one with their barbershop version:</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HkzuVAIQ0tY" width="320" youtube-src-id="HkzuVAIQ0tY"></iframe></div><br /> <p></p><p><i>Back to Vince Clark and Alison Moyet, and Yaz's techno gem "Don't Go," also in the movie:</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_sQGwDeambg" width="320" youtube-src-id="_sQGwDeambg"></iframe></div><br /> <br /><p></p><p><i>And let's seize on the opportunity to spin "Beyond the Sea," the Bobby Darin classic:</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m8OlDPqYBLw" width="320" youtube-src-id="m8OlDPqYBLw"></iframe></div><br /> <p></p><p></p><p><i>From a party scene in "Passages," this chippy surf tune "Ce Soir" by Kumisolo:</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OQs-Tbb9wOE" width="320" youtube-src-id="OQs-Tbb9wOE"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-74002745583027923572024-01-13T19:47:00.002-07:002024-01-13T19:47:28.317-07:00Road Worn and Weary<p> </p><p><b>THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY</b> (B-minus) - Can you return home to your roots to cure whatever ails you? Isn't it usually the case that the home you knew as a child led to the ills you want to be rid of? This movie is not interested in asking such questions. A classic case of style over substance, this feature debut from Morrisa Maltz celebrates life among the Lakota Nation, following a sorrowful woman as she returns to her grandmother's hometown in South Dakota to attend a relative's wedding.</p><p>Lily Gladstone ("Certain Women") stars as Tana, who braves a winter road trip from Minneapolis to the Badlands, and much of the movie involves the highlights of her itinerary -- driving while listening to AM talk radio and stopping at motels and diners. Before falling asleep at night, she likes to stare at a beat-up old photo of a young woman taken in Texas in the 1940s, and by references by others to the loss of Tana's grandmother, it's a safe bet that it's the same woman in the photo. </p><p>Maltz shoots this in quasi-documentary style, with non-actors playing the role of family, and a lot of apparently improvised dialogue. She also picks out random people whom Tana meets in passing on her road trip, and the narrative (what little there is) gets sidetracked for a quick little bio of, say, a waitress or a convenience store clerk, each narrating a sliver of a backstory. It's an interesting concept. Do the detours to others represent Tana's failure to fully explore her past or come to terms with it? Are these snippets just in her imagination? Are they voices -- like the ones floating from the radio -- coming to her on a special frequency?</p><p>Either way, few of them are interesting. By the halfway point, I decided that I'd have preferred Maltz to dump Gladstone, toss what little script there was, and just shoot a documentary about life on the road and the reservation. She falls back on overly artsy shots -- I stopped keeping track of how many lens flares there were -- but forgets to tell a compelling story. Even at 85 minutes, it dragged. (How many times can we watch Gladstone light a cigarette?) Cinematography props, I suppose, to Andrew Hajek. However, mood and landscapes can get you only so far. Maltz has a pretty clever ending here, but it's a chore to get to, and it's also a little too shmaltzy to feel earned.</p><p>The movie comes alive, and Tana's disposition brightens, only when she finally leaves the kinfolk behind and heads to Texas. (Proving my point?) Her smiles no longer seem forced when, in the final reel, she meets a lively, diverse group of young adults in Dallas -- suggesting that strangers and a big city can be just as good an antidote as any family reunion in the impoverished rural America. Maybe I'm reading too much into what Tana was going through -- or maybe I missed the point, or maybe I'm just an old guy trying to help fix her -- but I needed something to do while waiting for the film to get to its own point.<br /></p><p><u>BONUS TRACKS</u></p><p><i>The soundtrack adds to the moodiness, in a good way. The transition at the one-third mark is accompanied by Beach House, with "Take Care":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N5kKenry2kU" width="320" youtube-src-id="N5kKenry2kU"></iframe></div><br /><p><i>Remember Slowdive? Here is "Star Roving" from 2017:</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ogCih4OavoY" width="320" youtube-src-id="ogCih4OavoY"></iframe></div><br /><p><i>The songs are often sunnier than the cinematography. Here's a lovely song, "Young," by Sun June. It has a Cat Power vibe:</i><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uxDmptSM1iA" width="320" youtube-src-id="uxDmptSM1iA"></iframe></div><br /><p><i>And, at the climax, this jittery tune, "Among the Sef" by Colin Stetson:</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NJMNrjAgwE0" width="320" youtube-src-id="NJMNrjAgwE0"></iframe></div><br /><p><i>And our title track, out of left field, from the Supersuckers:</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ReWt1Osouo0" width="320" youtube-src-id="ReWt1Osouo0"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-62728909379025790992024-01-10T14:55:00.000-07:002024-01-10T14:55:27.338-07:00Doc Watch: Fight the Power<p> </p><p><b>THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE</b> (B+) - Shere Hite was a powerful presence in the 1970s and '80s, a sex researcher with a commanding role in popular culture. This documentary holds her out as somewhat of a savant as well as a heretic for daring to unveil some of the secrets of sexuality, mainly the importance of the clitoris.</p><p>Nicole Newnham follows up "Crip Camp" with this deep dive into the psyche of the savvy best-selling author of "The Hite Report" and its followups. She delves into Hite's background as a nude model while struggling to make it as a graduate student. She has plenty of vintage clips from TV talk shows back in the day, in which Hite holds her own under a barrage of sexism and scientific arrogance. (One scene of her debating four macho actors is dripping with misogyny.) Hite is a captivating figure, noted for both her style and intellect. Newnham gives us plenty of clips to understand Hite as a fully evolved female in the 20th century. Hite's arguments are as relevant today as they were then. Her writings are narrated elegantly by actress Dakota Johnson.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLwJteMBJsmUeenCgA7LM0xC5BoIZ6ZHWxrRXiaFFM_QvUsSs5u-HB9mMsD4r4MxcK3f1jcnujPbxiQoDMTkRV0CdccGMdEztIecxWd2cJzyT3x4d9FrPwxm5jOJaNFfSEs_lZJKNsDLKUSS7eCEME6qVEnK7li4mJEjnelN-fRKyDMO45ZvvTEmwQzZA/s294/Hite.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="171" data-original-width="294" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLwJteMBJsmUeenCgA7LM0xC5BoIZ6ZHWxrRXiaFFM_QvUsSs5u-HB9mMsD4r4MxcK3f1jcnujPbxiQoDMTkRV0CdccGMdEztIecxWd2cJzyT3x4d9FrPwxm5jOJaNFfSEs_lZJKNsDLKUSS7eCEME6qVEnK7li4mJEjnelN-fRKyDMO45ZvvTEmwQzZA/s1600/Hite.jpg" width="294" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>The film can be a slog at times, though. It clocks in just under two hours, and it is not until the final 20 minutes that it really addresses the "disappearance." (Hite, tired of America, fled to Europe with her German husband in the 1990s.) We're also exposed to numerous shots of Hite's naked body, as captured by some fine-art photographers over the years. It's not clear why there are so many depictions of Hite without clothes. Is it a provocation? Is there a deeper point being made? The nudity tends to be a distraction, but there is no denying that Hite's story is compelling. <br /></p><p><b>SOUTH TO BLACK POWER</b> (B+) - What a positive, refreshing documentary about empowerment. New York Times columnist Charles Blow pushes his passion project: getting northerners to move (back) to the South in order to consolidate their political power.</p><p>This is bright and sharply rendered. Many interviews are often shot in well-lighted rooms or outdoors in natural light. It literally has a sunny disposition. </p><p>Blow's odyssey might turn out to be a pipe dream -- he admits he could be either an apostle or Don Quixote -- but the people he talks to are intelligent, creative and imaginative. They have a lot of energy. They make a difference -- especially in Georgia in 2020-21. At every stop across the South, Blow finds reverse migrants seeking to tip the scales in smaller states. This is based on Blow's book <i>The Devil You know.</i><br /></p><p>The talking heads are not famous. They tend to work in the trenches, slogging away at democracy. Blow is a genial host and an insightful interviewer. One highlight, around the halfway mark, involves a visit to an old college friend of his, and not only is she dynamic and funny, but the love exuded between them is a perfect rendering of the collegiality among true believers who are full of hope for the future. There is something to be said for an uplifting polemic, honestly rendered.</p><p><u>BONUS TRACKS</u></p><p><i>The trailers:</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KmdSX7PuZ4w" width="320" youtube-src-id="KmdSX7PuZ4w"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WLJGp-R53UA" width="320" youtube-src-id="WLJGp-R53UA"></iframe></div><br />James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-47185363359901280082024-01-07T17:17:00.001-07:002024-01-07T17:17:12.918-07:00Feel-Good Features: Redemption<p> </p><p><b>RUSTIN </b>(B) - Colman Domingo carries this chipper bio-pic on his able shoulders, with a forceful performance that tends to knock away the distracting shmaltz that peppers this earnest biography of Bayard Rustin, one of the key forces behind the Civil Rights movement. It would have made a perfect TV movie-of-the-week back in the day.</p><p>Domingo imbues Rustin with a brilliant mind, an expansive heart and a savage wit. His face lights up whenever he gets to deliver a particularly poignant putdown. A missing tooth never stops him from flashing a wide grin. That isn't to say that Domingo hams it up in any way. Impossible to know for sure, but it feels like he gets the energy of Rustin just right.</p><p>Rustin was on the outs with the NAACP and Martin Luther King in the early '60s. This is despite his heroics as an organizer and mastermind for the Civil Rights movement; but it was due in part to the fact that he was a closeted homosexual, one notably susceptible to blackmail, especially considering the FBI tail on King. In fact, one rival threatens to expose Rustin as King's "queen."</p><p>But, in the spirit of a vintage Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney film, Rustin convinces the black powers-that-be to allow him to organize the 1963 March on Washington, with MLK center stage. We all know it's going to be a smash hit, but it's a lot of fun watching Rustin and his ragtag crew shock the world by pulling it off with only a few short months to do so. It's a heart-warming redemption story.</p><p>Credit to director George C. Wolfe ("Ma Rainey's Black Bottom") and writers Julian Breece (a TV veteran) and Dustin Lance Black (TV's "Big Love") for crafting a workmanlike piece of biography, even if it is formulaic from beginning to end. Too often the dialogue is stuffed with exposition, especially in the confusing opening scenes that get us situated, as if this is a history lesson for high school freshmen. But the narrative sheds most of that in the second half.<br /></p><p>All the youngsters on Rustin's staff are unfailingly bright, clean-cut and as cheery as the day is long, like a bunch of paper dolls. Chris Rock feels out of place as a scowling Roy Wilkins, but Aml Ameen is wonderfully understated as King, and Jeffrey Wright steals a few scenes as the scheming Rep. Adam Clayton Powell. Maxwell Whittington-Cooper's eyes eerily embody the spirit of a young John Lewis. Perhaps the most effective scene in the movie is a showdown between Rustin and his young live-in lover, Tom (Gus Halper), in which the young man shows a cad what a broken heart looks like.</p><p>At times I rolled my eyes at how corny and predictable the story could be. At other times, Domingo grabbed me by the shoulders and sat me back down in my chair, back straight. If you make it to the end, you might even tear up at the heroism of a long-suffering soldier who finally steps out of the shadows and gets his day in the sun.<br /></p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-40670184418716750052024-01-03T19:40:00.002-07:002024-01-04T19:50:05.839-07:00Pinker and Prouder Than Previous<p> </p><p><b>BARBIE</b> (D+) - I. Can't. <i>Even</i>. This was by far the worst experience I had watching a movie in the past year. It's a pompous pop-art swipe at the patriarchy and shallow consumer culture. But, like the dolls it depicts, it can't wipe the smug smirk off its face over the course of two -- yes, two -- hours.<br /></p><p>I am now regretting the union of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, who separately have been responsible for some of the best films of the past two decades,* and not because it ruined his marriage, but because it has derailed their careers. Indulge them with bigger and bigger budgets, and their worst instincts get vomited up on the screen, like this technicolor yawn that they wrote together and she directed. "Barbie" is by turns dumb, boring and insulting. Here's a neat trick: waste Margot Robbie's acting talents while somehow rendering Issa Rae, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon and Michael Cera unfunny. </p><p>You can feel <a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/search?q=greta+gerwig" target="_blank">Gerwig </a>and <a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/search?q=noah+baumbach" target="_blank">Baumbach </a>patting each other on the back (or him patting her on the head) with each clanging line of dialogue or wince-inducing sight gag. Nobody dared tell them how brutal this turned out. That is some sort of privilege.</p><p>But then, how tone-deaf am I? This made a billion dollars and has been held up as a profound work of staggering genius. Don't mind me. The culture passed me by years ago; I'm cool with that. At one point -- thankfully watching this on HBO Max and not trapped in a theater -- I started folding laundry to pass the time and to tell myself I wasn't shedding critical brain cells. And I can report that the household task felt more intellectually challenging than this movie. Admittedly, I did have to match socks.<br /></p><p>So, if it was so infuriating, why didn't I turn it off? I couldn't look away from the fast-paced slow-motion wreck. (It does have a great punchline at the end.) I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. Ryan Gosling was occasionally amusing as Ken (at least he fully committed to the concept). But the rest of the Keystone Kops here with their cartoon car chases and sophomoric satire? Bumbling amateurs. I literally groaned aloud more than once at either the dialogue or the ideas. (The filmmakers' concept of a defining trait of all men is that they all love ... horses. Huh? Are they thinking of 12-year-old girls?) The songs are tuneless and dreadful. Brace yourself for a lecture on the rigors of motherhood.<br /></p><p>It hurt watching Robbie celebrate -- yet try to winkingly sabotage -- an iconic doll and the impact that toy has had on our understanding of women for six decades. In the movie, girls mock Barbie as fascist and irrelevant, and you're not sure which insult stings more. Gerwig and Baumbach are, of course, self-aware that they are misusing "fascist," so they follow it up with some tone-deaf meta analysis. At some point, though, if you're not careful (or if you get greedy), no amount of ironic detachment will save you from becoming the thing you mock.</p><p>You might think that I'm not the target audience, and it's perhaps not my place to weigh in on ... whatever this is supposed to represent. Fair point. And only 12 people read what I write, anyway, so the joke's on us. But, ah, I <i>am</i> a key demographic data point here. Who else are the former doyenne of Mumblecore and the hipster indie filmmaker (who goes back to <a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2021/05/idle-chatter.html" target="_blank">1995</a>) speaking to than this middle-aged student of cinema for the past three decades? </p><p>They tried this same crap a year ago with author Don DeLillo and their adaptation of "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2023/01/nothing-like-good-book.html" target="_blank">White Noise</a>," a self-satisfying pretension to artsy storytelling. (Baumbach directed; Gerwig sleepwalked through it.) That featured a bloated budget, an interminable running time, and intellectual belches that must smell like peppermint to each other. Just wait for them to become the beloved it-couple in front-row seats at awards shows, head-nodding toward Wes Anderson in the back.<br /></p><p>The whole exercise made me deeply question pop culture in general and my love of movies in particular. If Gerwig and Baumbach want to be rich and famous and pretend that they are doing so ironically, I wish them all the best. Be in love. But don't assault me with some imperious parade of platitudinal ... ugh, this is tiring. I'll never get the pink bubblegum out of my hair. </p><p>Time to shave my head, proceed to a zen monastery, and clear out my mind. Will seven years of penance and contemplation cleanse my soul?</p><p>---</p><p>* - Baumbach and Gerwig have been hit-and-miss together. "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-ha.html" target="_blank">Frances Ha</a>" was brilliant. "<a href="https://abqavclub.blogspot.com/2016/01/more-damsels-in-distress.html" target="_blank">Mistress America</a>" was a disaster.<br /></p><p><u>BONUS TRACK</u></p><p><i>Our title track, or at least title album -- and a reminder that I'm an old white guy from the suburbs -- Nick Lowe with "Lovers Jamboree":</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W-x7Xh3VlnU" width="320" youtube-src-id="W-x7Xh3VlnU"></iframe></div>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4280359347816442703.post-50943464537546713102024-01-01T11:55:00.002-07:002024-01-01T17:01:30.843-07:00Missed Connections<p> </p><p><b>FALLEN LEAVES</b> (A-minus) - From Finland comes a low-key neo-noir about two lonely souls who have trouble meeting up after one chance encounter. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is an alcoholic who can't keep a job, and mousy Ansa (Alma Poysti) gets fired from her job at a grocery store for taking home expired food. They initially meet at a karaoke bar, but Holappa loses Ansa's number and doesn't know how to find her.</p><p>The movie is a series of vignettes in which the two might or might not be match in the end. One date goes horribly, mainly because of Holappa's drinking. Maybe they just are not a good fit. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWeioJcQYM4A14FWlcfqDzAHfkL2vBrdLg9ZM840r4pslaQflRx8cDBpf68TA9gBYoGIaeVUUzbNft2Egy09E_0Wvv9tRveN306j6mWaD2m-6vja1DgR18nU-BhsWq2hKSoJhY_2sUrzn_FtWblhzs7txPcWUpHeTkmd-7YfNXD-aETY03XtpJ72c2K0/s348/Fallen%20Leaves.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="145" data-original-width="348" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWeioJcQYM4A14FWlcfqDzAHfkL2vBrdLg9ZM840r4pslaQflRx8cDBpf68TA9gBYoGIaeVUUzbNft2Egy09E_0Wvv9tRveN306j6mWaD2m-6vja1DgR18nU-BhsWq2hKSoJhY_2sUrzn_FtWblhzs7txPcWUpHeTkmd-7YfNXD-aETY03XtpJ72c2K0/s320/Fallen%20Leaves.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <p></p><p>The mood is mostly working-class glum, but veteran writer-director Aki Kaurismaki threads some dark comedy throughout the film. Kaurismaki crafts this as a series of blackout sketches. Vatanen has a hangdog Jimmy Stewart look to him, and Poysti does wonders with her facial expressions; when Ansaw finally smiles in the second half of the film, she comes to life as a wholly different person. Janne Hyytiainen almost steals the show as Holappa's matter-of-fact pal, mostly on the prowl for a woman of his own. <br /></p><p>Crafting this at a slim 81 minutes, Kaurismaki ("Le Havre," "Leningrad Cowboys Go America," "The Match Factory Girl") wastes no time. The sparse dialogue plays like a series of koans. You never feel like he's wasting your time, whether these two end up together or not.<br /></p><p><b>INTREGALDE </b>(B) - There is not much of a plot to this low-key Romanian suspense film, but it is at times a fascinating examination of a how a good deed can go horribly wrong. <br /></p><p>Radu Muntean ("Tuesday, After Christmas" from 2011) pulls off a technical achievement as he films three aid workers who get stranded on a muddy side road while trying to deliver food and supplies to rural Transylvania. The plot plays like a vaudevillian horror film, a series of mishaps, in which no good deed goes unpunished. <br /></p><p>Muntean assembles a trio -- Maria (Maria Popistasu), Dan (Alex Bogdan) and Ilinca (Ilona Brezoianu) -- in an SUV loaded with humanitarian supplies. Dan makes the mistake of sympathizing with a drifter on the side of the road, not only lending the old man a ride but also taking his suggestion of a detour. This leads to the vehicle getting stuck on a muddy road in the middle of the woods as temperatures are about to plunge at sunset. </p><p>It's not so much the storytelling here that's fascinating as is Muntean's deft camerawork in dark, claustrophobic spaces. He wields documentary sensibilities as he tries to keep track of the three aid workers and their various attempts to get help. He also has a punchline up his sleeve, as we eventually learn what kind of life this poor old man leads. (Non-actor Luca Sabin is heartbreaking in the role.)</p>James A. Montalbanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555573646924000423noreply@blogger.com0