Best of Ever, Vol. 14: Small World

 

THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (A) - With Wes Anderson, it's all about the world-building and the balance between whimsy and true emotion. It all comes together with his tongue-in-cheek tale of an over-the-hill Jacques Cousteau-type deep-sea explorer whose personal life is crumbling as fast as his career is. It is Anderson's most complete and satisfying feature film, even if other movies have more memorable individual moments.

 

Bathed in bathos, the dull-edged comedy, mainly from Bill Murray's title hero, knits this epic saga together and shuts out any mawkish possibilities. There is a heavy dose of nostalgia, setting the template for Anderson's eventual headlong dive back in time in subsequent movies, to his fictitious apple-cheeked lost world of formalities, gadgets and quirky designs. We start to see the fussiness here in Team Zissou's powder blue uniforms (usually short pants) accented with red knit caps and a weapon strapped around the thigh. We also get random wonders, like the spectacle of bizarre little creatures scurrying about the beach and glowing in the dark after sunset. 

This is an airtight world, where Anderson is God to all the characters and serves as the hand that creates everything in this oddly curated universe. Zissou -- nervous on the eve of debuting his latest oceanography documentary in the wake of the death of a close member of his crew -- mopes around with a richly drawn cast of characters: Owen Wilson as the young man who might be his son; Cate Blanchett as a pregnant reporter embedded with the crew who might be angling to serve up a hit piece on Zissou; Willem Dafoe as German first mate Klaus, who is loyal to a fault and craves the boss' approval; Anjelica Huston as Zissou's estranged wife, who takes up with his pompous, well-funded rival, played to the hilt by Jeff Goldblum, who often threatens to steal the film from Murray. The crew's mission is to seek vengeance on the "jaguar shark" that killed Zissou's pal. First, they must battle dwindling resources and international pirates.

Murray's Zissou is acutely aware of the anachronism he has become, with quasi-suicidal tendencies that tend to jeopardize the crew through irrational, reckless decisions. He knows he won't succeed in seducing the reporter, but his ego insists on going through the motions, in quaint bid for chivalry. He doesn't deserve to get his wife back (or to continue depleting her financial resources), but he tugs at her heartstrings with his patented puppy-dog eyes anyway. Late in the film he sums up his lingering funk by acknowledging, "I know I haven't been my best this past decade." (His dolor is fueled by drink and pot.)

It all builds to a series of reckonings -- Zissou with his supposed offspring, with the ocean predator, and with his movie audience and critics -- all of which adds layers of depth compared with Anderson's preceding movie, the brilliant family romp "The Royal Tenenbaums." He evokes what is probably the greatest mixed comic-dramatic performance of Murray's career, and he interlaces multiple relationships and storylines. Toss in musical interludes based on Portuguese versions of David Bowie songs, and you have a sui generis big-screen adventure, a sentimental swashbuckler that is secure in its pristine time capsule.

BOTTLE ROCKET (A-minus) - Oh, those baby-faced Wilson boys. Owen Wilson co-wrote Wes Anderson's offbeat debut feature, and Luke Wilson takes the lead as the pretty face of a rag-tag wanna-be gangster trio, derailing their antics by falling in love with a hotel maid while on the lam.

This started as a flimsy short film that was adopted and nurtured by James L. Brooks ("Terms of Endearment"), who had seen it at Sundance and agreed to finance it. It has only a few of the cinematic touchstones that Anderson would become known for, but its loose-limbed deadpan humor carries a rather thin plot.

 

Owen Wilson is the bossy, uptight Dignan, who springs his pal Anthony (Luke Wilson) from a psychiatric unit (though it was a voluntary stint) to abet in a series of petty heists so that Dignan can prove himself to his former boss of a landscaping crew. Robert Musgrave is on hand as Robert Mapplethorpe, the deadpan getaway driver and conscience of the gang. 

The love story between Anthony and Inez (a charming Lumi Cavazos) is rather corny, but both actors sell it in the end. James Caan shows up as the big boss, conveying the sense that his mere presence is doing the no-name filmmaker a big favor. He could have tried a little harder and played it less broadly. Owen Wilson is the glue that holds it all together. The banter among the main trio has an offbeat tempo to it, but it coheres in the end.

The film was a dud at the time, but it was a quick hop, skip and a jump for Anderson, working every few years, to his breakthrough "Rushmore" and then "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "Life Aquatic." It was just a hint of what was to come.

BONUS TRACKS

Clips of Seu Jorge covering Bowie tunes during "Life Aquatic":

 

One of the classic needle-drops in cinema, Bowie himself with "Queen Bitch" over the closing credits:

 

Viva Las Vegas

 

EPIC: ELVIS PRESLEY IN CONCERT (B-minus) - For me, 90 percent of the appeal of Elvis Presley comes from the Sun Studio sessions and his 1968 TV comeback special. A year after that TV special -- in which a group jam in the round reanimated many of those '50s standards -- Presley decamped to Las Vegas for six weeks of shows at the International Hotel, in what would become a five-year run. He not only went to Vegas, he Went Vegas, pioneering a brand of shlock entertainment that would stain his legacy before his death eight years later at 42.

This documentary from Baz Luhrmann (don't get us started on the "Moulin Rouge" monster) follows his subject to Las Vegas for rehearsals and the launch of the stage show that would define the final third of Presley's career, spent bumming around the country with bloated performances while his health and talent slowly deteriorated. He eventually became a joke in a jumpsuit. But before that drug-fueled slide, he was the toast of the town when he established a two-shows-a-night residency as the 1960s slouched toward an end.

Before heading to Sin City in summer of '69, Presley re-tuned his chops by recording the album "From Elvis in Memphis," which kick-started the hit machine ("In the Ghetto" and the single from that session, "Suspicious Minds") and sparked him creatively after a decade filming cheap movies, spitting out three per year. (In an interview clip, Presley can be heard complaining about the interchangeable scripts and the hackwork of the plots.) 

The most impressive part of Luhrmann's movie is the behind-the-scenes peek at the rehearsal process that preceded the Vegas residency. Presley left many of his regulars back in Memphis and assembled a powerful backing band, including lead guitarist James Burton, along with two sets of backup singers and a blaring horn section. It is a tight, muscular group that memorized at least 150 songs and could vamp with their star whenever he prattled on, called an audible or demanded a restart and change in tempo. The selection of tunes is a snapshot of the American songbook at a moment in time -- from Burt Bacharach to Hank Snow (there's a definite southern twang to the set list), from the Beatles to Ray Charles, from rockabilly to gospel, from his early recordings to the day's hits like "Bridge Over Troubled Water." An unexpected highlight is a spirited version of his early hit "A Big Hunk o' Love," which bursts with energy and joy, buoyed by instrumental solos and hand-claps. It's those flashes of brilliance -- Presley was an electrifying live entertainer at times -- that keep "EPIC" afloat.

But Luhrmann -- a kitschy performer himself as a flashy, vapid filmmaker -- is definitely stretching the soup here. In his defense, he doesn't really have the material and technology to work with that Peter Jackson had when reimagining the Beatles' "Let It Be" into an hours-long epic a few years ago. Luhrmann pads his 96-minute film with the first ten minutes of rote Elvis history that offers nothing new, and the centerpiece concert starts at the 20-minute mark after 10 minutes chronicling the rehearsals and logistics. He constantly interrupts the central 1969 Vegas performance with archival interviews that hopscotch eras (some in the '70s when Presley started packing on the pounds). He gives us montages of Elvis kissing swooning fans, of toddler Lisa Marie, of Colonel Parker (to the tune of "Devil in Disguise"). We watch an older Elvis complain that he has never performed abroad, but it ignores the reality of Parker's legal troubles that stymied any talk of a world tour. (I was reminded by the Dolly Parton obituaries that Parker and Presley also insisted on sharing in the rights to any song Elvis recorded -- sometimes as high as 50 percent -- which prevented him from recording "I Will Always Love You" after Parton told them to buzz off. A smart move, in hindsight.)

At times, Presley flashes the charisma that made him a global icon. In 1969, he still had the physique and the blazing eyes and a rapport with a crowd. His personality jumps off the screen during the clips of the playful rehearsals. But the die is cast here, with the ridiculous bejeweled jumpsuit, complete with a cartoonish collar that rivals the headgear of Sister Bertrille. (It was disheartening to learn that the costume was designed by the same man who, just a year earlier, had slathered him in sultry black leather for the comeback special.) Presley often half-asses his '50s chart-toppers (already injecting nonsense lyrics into "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"). He perfects that side-saddle karate stance that would inspire a thousand mutton-chopped Elvis impersonators. After the show he schmoozes with the Vegas regulars who ate up his shtick, including Sammy Davis Jr.

This is Elvis Presley, warts and all. For diehard fans, there's not much to keep them coming back. Newbies might wonder what all the fuss was about. Like his feature film "Elvis" from 2022, this is more about Baz Luhrmann's ego and excesses than the King of Rock's legacy.

BONUS TRACKS

A good flavor of a performance from that era (1970) is big-band-style version of "I Can't Stop Loving You," previously made popular by Ray Charles:

 

One of our favorites is used to accompany footage of adoring female fans, "Wearin' That Loved On Look"

 

The gospel-inflected "Power of My Love":

 

Another highlight, moves and all, "Believe Me":

New to the Queue

 It's not the heat, it's the humility ...

A feature debut about the lowly workers at a swank golf resort, "Filipinana."

A documentary about the bottom-feeding alt-rockers from Texas, "Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt."

The latest from Joe Swanberg ("Hannah Takes the Stairs," "Digging for Fire," "Drinking Buddies") features Dakota Fanning as a woman caught between her current boyfriend and her ex, "The Sun Never Sets."

From Lithuania, a relationship drama with a self-explanatory title, "How to Divorce During the War."

A mix of documentary and fiction about an occult device that can visually reproduce the past, "Chronovisor."

Those Swingin' Sixties

 

I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS! (1968) (B-minus) - This lumbering comedy has Peter Sellers to boast of, as mainstream Hollywood stepped up to co-opt hippie counter-culture and mine it for laughs in the era of the Summer of Love. As dated as it is, let's give it credit for getting in early on some of the movie tropes we continue to enjoy (tolerate) today.

 

The manic pixie dream girl? Allow us to introduce barefoot, wide-eyed Leigh Taylor-Young (coming off a stint on TV's "Peyton Place"). You want to see older squares accidentally eating pot brownies and getting all giggly and horny? Check. Even Sellers, playing broad within a stereotypical Jewish family, seems to be creating a template for Woody Allen's shlubby characters in the 1970s and beyond.

This is the film-writing debut of Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker, who would fine-tune their shtick the following year with "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice." The script has its moments, and Sellers does what he can with the occasional zinger. But the transformation of Sellers' Harold Fine -- from harried 35-year-old lawyer getting henpecked into marriage into a man tuning in and dropping out -- doesn't happen until the final third of the movie, and it all feels rushed. The best parts involve Sellers (under)reacting to the mayhem around him when his L.A. flat slowly evolves into a rundown commune.

Taylor-Young is bouncy and fun as the mischievous hippie chick. Herb Edelman is solid, as always, as the law partner who covets the free-love lifestyle. Louis Gottlieb (in one of his only two roles ever) brings the Jesus magic as a pontificating guru. Joyce Van Patten is flat as the insecure fiancee trying to reel in her prey. Jo Van Vleet emotes to the rafters as the nagging mother. All of the fakakta proceedings should be more ribald than they are. Veteran TV director Hy Averback just doesn't bring any zip here, and it feels like Sellers is underused much of the time. 

Still, it's an early run at the cultural sea-change of the Sixties, and it makes its point in only 92 minutes.

PLAYTIME (1967) (B-minus) - Jacques Tati was a pioneer in his day, but his day has long passed. What might have seemed revolutionary six decades ago comes off now as a mildly amusing visual playground and a timid slap at our soul-sucking consumerist society.

Working with a generous budget that would be the equivalent of about $34 million today, Tati created elaborate sets and choreographed scores of cast members to create a sense of discombobulation as we follow Tati's trademark character, M. Hulot, a bumbling Everyman who glides through the world as chaos swirls around him. He will repeatedly run into Barbara (Barbara Dennek), an American tourist, who is swept up in a whirlwind tour of Paris, starting out with the eye-popping modernism of Paris' slick airport. 

Tati plays out six extended scenes during a bloated two-hour running time. There is a byzantine office building, which houses an exposition of futuristic gadgets; a dull sequence looking in on the doings of a couple of apartments whose windows are open to the streets; an excruciatingly long scene at an upscale restaurant that has opened before construction was quite completed, and thus everything you can imagine goes wrong; and finally the signature closing scene, featured in the trailer, of an elaborately synchronized carousel of cars revolving around a huge traffic circle.

This must have been cutting-edge for its time, and the sharp colors and inventive angles (Tati shot it in high-res 70mm) make for rapturous viewing if you have the patience. The slapstick comedy can be charming, and it certainly can be inventive, especially the repeated gag of the doorman who insists on pantomiming opening and closing a glass door that had previously shattered. 

Hulot falls somewhere between Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp and Britain's Mr. Bean in both the continuum of silent physical comedians and the pantheon they inhabit. Maybe you had to be there at the time or be French to appreciate his comedic genius. These days, "Playtime" plays like a delightful little cinematic trinket.

BONUS TRACK

An analysis of the door shtick in "Playtime," giving a good flavor of the movie's droll humor:

That '90s Uplift: Radio Rascals

 

40 WATTS FROM NOWHERE (A-minus) - What a joy to behold. Before the internet took over and made every third person a DJ or a podcaster, it was a challenge to hunt down good music. This documentary -- about a low-wattage pirate radio station in Los Angeles -- celebrates the underground music scene of the mid-'90s and the creation of a community of amateur DJs who spun an exotic mix of records out of a modest apartment in Silver Lake.

Both the radio station (KBLT, like the sandwich) and this movie were the brainchild of Sue Carpenter (whose nom de air was Paige Jarrett, borrowed from a former high school classmate). Carpenter originally started a station called KPBJ (like the sandwich) in San Francisco, which she operated solo for about a year before heading down to the heart of hipsterville in L.A. to pump out a low-watt signal that didn't reach much beyond her neighborhood.

Carpenter -- a motorcycle-riding girl-next-door type back in the day who looks like a soccer mom now -- is a charismatic subject and storyteller. The documentary is stuffed with personalities, as dozens of volunteers manned the mic among a rotation that included a few local band celebrities, like Mike Watt of the Minutemen and Firehose, Don Bolles of the Germs, and Brandon Jay of Lutefisk. Known on air as Quazar, Jay was the Kevin Bacon of Silver lake who helped recruit much of the on-air talent through his music-scene network. Bolles is an eccentric personality, both then and now, who provides comic relief and some of the most obscure songs this side of Dr. Demento. (His on-air handle was DJ Kitten Sparkles.)

That footage fell into Carpenter's lap by accident while she was contemplating making the film. (She  related the KBLT story in her memoirs more than 20 years ago. She has long been a writer and public-radio personality.) The video archives provide a goldmine of lo-fi high-jinks, capturing faces and antics in the claustrophobic studio that Carpenter created in the hallway between the bedroom and bathroom of her apartment. So many personalities pop on the screen, many of them in recent interviews looking back on all the fun they had 30 years ago. (KCRW in L.A. did a nice piece with Carpenter in 2023, linked here.)

Carpenter, who was toiling as a legal secretary for a lawyer when she first got the idea, was inspired by Stephen Dunifer, the rebel who founded Free Radio Berkeley in 1993 and who scored a key early legal win against the FCC. (She also name-checks Radio Caroline, the 1960s pirate radio station that lurked off the coast of England for years.) Eventually, the Clinton administration's FCC would crack down on underground pirated signals, and Carpenter devotes much of the final third of the 90-minute film to the cat-and-mouse game between her and the feds. She was abetted by wily engineer Chris Wagganer, who figured out how to mount a relay antenna on a high rise at Sunset and Vine, vastly expanding the reach of KBLT (and raising its profile, sealing its doom). Wagganer tells a touching story about discovering the station while driving at night and hearing Elliott Smith's "Needle in the Hay," an eerie emotional moment that resonates for him to this day. (Another talking head, reminiscing about her experience, tells Carpenter on camera, "I just got chills.")

This might sound a bit like the feature film from that era, "Pump Up the Volume" (which had a great soundtrack), and there are parallels, though this tale is certainly not as dramatic. (Carpenter acknowledges the similarities but clarifies that she did not aspire to such anarchic glory: "I wanted to sleep with Christian Slater; I did not want to be Christian Slater.") And Carpenter is a confident storyteller, walking us through her origin story, deftly juggling clips with current-day interviews, and creating the suspense for the vast majority of us who had never heard of KBLT from back in the day. (The main reason the film does not get a perfect A grade is because of Carpenter's conflict of interest as director and subject, though I don't suspect her of airbrushing history.)

"40 Watts" reminded me a lot of the 2023 documentary "Elephant 6 Recording Co.," about the DIY scene in Athens, Ga., in the 1990s. The Elephant 6 collective and the movie about it bubbled with creative energy and analog fun. So we have here an almost random vortex of like-minded outsider types who bonded over a common goal. I'm trying not to be nostalgic here -- the '90s, especially the first half, is a hard decade to top when it comes to great music over a wide range of genres -- and this story could have played out in any decade, and it would be inspiring.

 

As you'd expect, the film is bursting with music samples; I counted 72 song titles during the credits. It ranges from alt-rock classics like the Breeders ("Cannonball"), Mudhoney, Spiritualized, Spoon, Bikini Kill and Jesus Lizard, to more obscure underground bands like Old Time Relijun, Bratmobile, and the Dils, to novelty songs like "Chocolate Cowboy." It was the era of Yo La Tengo covering Daniel Johnston's "Speeding Motorcycles," a version of which ended up in a Target commercial, of all places.

It was a heady time, and Carpenter some how corrals all of her material and conveys the giddiness and idiocy that she unleashed in her heyday. She employs clever interstitial graphics, using some of the logos and art pieces from that time. One talking head makes reference to "a weird moment that stuck with me forever," and it's natural to nod along knowingly. You didn't have to be in Silver Lake back then, but maybe you were somewhere else, creating your own scene. If you track down this film, you might have a 90-minute flashback that will stick with you forever. 

BONUS TRACKS

Many of the songs are difficult or impossible to find on YouTube. In some case, the credits list only a song title, without attribution to a songwriter or performer. We'll share just a few, starting with 1992's "Bloody Knuckles from Popdefect:

 

The film kicks into gear to the strains of Bikini Kill's post-Reagan screed "Reject All American":

 

Here is a band called Steel Pole Bathtub with their 1993 song "Train to Miami":

 

Here's the quirky "Chocolate Cowboy" song:

 

Elliott Smith's haunting "Needle in the Hay":

Holy Crap* - Bang the Drum All Day

 

THE TIN DRUM (1979) (B-minus) - Where to begin with this Nazi-era tale of a boy who constantly bangs on his toy drum, can shatter glass with his shrieks and has willed himself to never grow taller over the movie's course of two decades. It has one foot in the child-horror films of the 1970s and the other in the surreal mind-fucks from the likes of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Guy Maddin. 

  

The 2-hour 42-minute epic from Volker Schloendorf, which was a Cannes favorite in 1979, centers around young Oskar, who lives with his parents in the Free City of Danzig, between Germany and Poland, and who is gifted with a child's toy drum at age 3. Oskar does not want to physically grow up, so he flings himself down the cellar stairs, which, in miraculous movie terms, stunts his growth forever. (The actor playing Oskar, David Bennent, was about 12 at the time of filming and was small for his age, though he does not track as a 3-year-old, but more like 6 or 7.)

If you can get over that major distraction, then you can hang on for the Third Reich horrors and black humor that propels this inspired narrative. The opening scene involves the conception of Oskar's mother, Agnes, when his grandmother, out harvesting potatoes in a field, stashes a Polish petty criminal under her billowing skirts to hide him from the pursuit of a pair of bumbling soldiers. It is from that improbable act of nature that all else flows.

The plot swerves all over the place. Oskar will age but not grow, so we will see him at age 16 seducing the maid that his father hired after Oskar's mother dies. Bennent was definitely placed in some awkward situations for a prepubescent actor, and that might bother some viewers. At one point Oskar catches his father screwing the maid and physically blocks his dad from pulling out before ejaculating inside her. Eventually, the child actor will be face first in the bush of a naked woman (whose husband will be accused of abusing Hitler Youth boys).

Oskar also will befriend the little people of the traveling circus, eventually showing off his glass-shattering abilities for German troops. Polish resistance forces make a valiant stand to defend a post office. The sweep of history carries through to the end of World War II, and thus a full reckoning between the Germans and Poles. All of it is seen through the wide eyes of that little boy. 

Some of the performances are key to grounding this in somewhat of a believable cinematic production. Angela Winkler is heart-breaking as Oskar's mother, who suffers from an abusive husband and longs to be with her cousin, Jan, who could be Oskar's biological father. And Katharina Thalbach has a powerful presence as Maria, the young maid who is forced to marry Oskar's father.

I will say that I might have rolled my eyes a few times and laughed in the wrong places, but I was never bored. If you swallow the central conceit and rein in your expectations, you might agree that Schloendorf created a howling anti-war tract. Oskar's refusal to grow up is rooted in his observation of the cruelty carried out by adults, in both war and domestic relations. He doesn't want to be a part of the world as it is, so he creates his own reality. He pounds away on his drum -- really a series of them, because he tends to wear them out -- to drown out the horrors around him. That's one way of coping under an autocratic rule. If you can't shriek, what can you do?

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

BONUS TRACK

Our (unrelated) title track, which a local radio rascal in Chicago used to spin as his outro at the end of Friday's show (apparently it was done in L.A. too). It's an infectious improbable '80s hit from Todd Rundgren:

It's Complicated

 

I WANT YOUR SEX (B) - As light as air and as knowingly naughty as a cable-TV sitcom, Greg Araki's "I Want Your Sex" totally fills the bill as a throwaway summer romp about a horrid boss and a young man's introduction to R-rated S&M.

 

Olivia Wilde, who's having a moment, has a rollicking good time as Erika Tracy, an over-indulged artist who explores overt sexuality in her work merely as a way to make a buck and who is due for a comeuppance. Cooper Hoffman is serviceable as the paid intern, Elliot, who is matter-of-factly recruited by Erika to be her boy toy. He happily complies. 

Can you blame the 23-year-old Elliot, who has a dead fish of an academic girlfriend (Charli XCX, not really registering at all), if he starts to fall for the exotic and domineering artist-boss? The sex they have can be arousing, but it has a silly movie quality to it that makes it difficult to take too seriously. 

Maybe that is the point intended by Araki, the bad boy of the 1990s, who splashed brashly and colorfully with provocations like "Doom Generation" and "Mysterious Skin." He and co-writer Karley Sciortino certainly fashion a lively flashback-heavy story -- the opening scene features Erika face-down in a swimming pool, unresponsive to Elliot's frantic attempts to revive her -- and while we are eager to find out how this will end, you might struggle to care about what happens to these characters, because nothing important (even various emotional struggles) ever seems to be at stake. Araki makes erotic cartoons for adults, which is fine, but I was not invested in Elliot or Erika like I was the players in, say, the Nicole Kidman vehicle "Babygirl."

Wilde, who directed and lit up the fantastic (and mature) sexual comic-drama "The Invite," is worth the price of admission here, both for her slinky, slimy take on Erika and for her charisma that burns hot the whole movie through. (She is mesmerizing in most of the shapely outfits she is draped in throughout the film, and even makes a simple tank top pop.) Hoffman is workmanlike, but as in previous outings (such as a similar-themed "Licorice Pizza") he proves that he did not get the full set of acting genes from his father, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Things happen around him, and he doesn't fluff his lines, and he is really likable as a shlubby Everyman. Cash that paycheck, son.

The supporting cast steps up a bit. Chase Sui Wonders (Apple TV's "The Studio") is compelling in the limited role of Elliot's platonic pal who gets coerced into the sexual role-play with Erika, to disastrous (and exaggerated) effect. Mason Gooding sinks his teeth into the role of the randy gay fellow peon who develops a charming connection with Elliot. The talents of Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville are completely wasted as detectives questioning Elliot about what happened at Erika's pool. As noted, Charli XCX seems like she's in another movie (and a lower skill tier) than the others, but in her defense, the character of the frigid bookworm who makes zero effort at connection with "boyfriend" Elliot is trite and underwritten. In fact, there are a few cliches that should have been avoided -- such as the non-smoker who has a coughing fit after his first drag, or the downing of half a bottle of brown liquor in short order that would fell a farm animal but barely fazes a couple of lightweights. 

We're probably not supposed to think this much about "I Want Your Sex," which is why the review might seem harsh in light of the generous grade. Araki crafts giddy pop-culture nuggets that go down easy. This is a fun story and a zippy 91 minutes of entertainment. Don't sweat the details.

That Was a Long Time Ago

 

LATE FAME (A) - A recent New Yorker cartoon finds a man hunched over a desk, surrounded by piles and boxes of documents, as his wife walks into the room and asks him, "What if nobody wants your papers?" Worse, what if somebody does care about your work from decades ago but it just doesn't matter.

 

Willem Dafoe captures the pathos of a man who had a brief moment in the sun in his early 20s -- he published a book of poetry in 1979 -- but who is now content to punch the clock at the post office and mix up tuna sandwiches when he gets home. If there ever was a muse, it long left Greenwich Village.

But then he gets rediscovered by a clique of pompous writers in their 20s who lure him out of retirement to join their analog world of trust-fund artistes. Dafoe's Ed Saxberger is flattered, and he is further intrigued when the boys' own muse, the dimestore diva Gloria (Greta Lee), swans into the proceedings to suck up the oxygen in the room with every appearance.

Three powerful lead performances propel this downbeat comic drama from director Kent Jones ("Diane," "Hitchcock/Truffaut"), who paces it masterfully and who knows how to mine the subtle emotions from the calculating script by Samy Burch ("May December"), who adapted a novel from Arthur Schnitzler (who also inspired "Eyes Wide Shut"). The third key player is Edmund Donovan as Meyers (the boys prefer to refer to each other archly by last name), the head of the Enthusiasm Society, a rich kid who knows he was born on third base but who seems to have genuine passion for Saxberger's book ("Way Past Go") and affection for the old poet. His haughty group is resentful of modern slaves to technology and social media, though they haven't given up their cell phones. The members seems to have genuine artistic ambitions as they performatively jockey for positions at this rich boy's Algonquin Roundtable. 

The lived-in main characters will actually evolve -- though mostly unravel -- across 96 taut minutes. Saxberger seems torn between savoring the long-overdue recognition and knowing that trying to re-create his youthful accomplishment is a fool's errand. He has been content to hang out with his age-appropriate friends at a corner bar, shooting pool and listening to Lou Reed on the jukebox. It is understandable that he will fall for Gloria, who most surely is overcompensating for insecurities with her exaggerated manner as if she has just escaped Kurt Weill's Berlin and infiltrated Joe College's fraternity during the coonskin Jazz Age. 

Lee is mesmerizing, whether she is bantering and flirty or uncorking a couple of torch songs that seemed to genuinely drop the jaws of the extras she performs for. Donovan, too, betrays a certain level of poseur anxiety as Meyers, a charming young man but a directionless writer who could be accused of not having any there there. Actor and character both exude charisma, but Meyers lets slip a little neediness that undermines any confidence he might have had as a young rich white man with New York at his behest. (One of the funniest lines is when Meyers raises a glass and purports to reclaim a forgotten practice: "A toast!")

This is, of course, Dafoe's movie to carry, and there is no other pro who could out-act him in such a role. (It's refreshing to watch him be "normal" here, like in "The Florida Project," rather than ratcheted up in a Wes Anderson freak show.) He has a face that speaks volumes and a Method actor's ease with sorting mail or making a sandwich. Jones knows how to stay out of the way of such performances in pursuit of a finely tuned script. 

Burch has an ear for awkward interactions and natural dialogue. When we finally hear one of Saxberger's poems, it zings with grit, gravitas and legitimacy. It all builds to a bittersweet and satisfying conclusion to a minor-key story of three ships that happened to have passed in the night.

THE DRAMA (C-minus) - Dumb and pointless is a deadly combination for a movie. When you don't care about the main couple -- who seem mismatched from the start -- it's difficult to stick around to find out what happens to them. 

 

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson have zero chemistry together, and maybe that's the point, because a drunken revelation by her character, Emma, a week before their wedding ceremony gives him pause and ice-cold feet about going through with the marriage; maybe they are making a mistake after two years of dating. This is another narrative misfire from Norway's Kristoffer Borgli, who struggled in his previous offbeat outing, "Dream Scenario" ("There are some interesting ideas here, but they never gel"). 

It is just too difficult to care about what happens to these two. Get married, or don't. Life will go on. It is also ludicrous that, with just one week to go until the wedding ceremony, the couple are still taking dance lessons and finalizing the menu, the guest list, the DJ and their vows. This is a movie that takes place in an alternative time-space continuum that is convenient for the plot.

The revelation at the core of the film is also odd and underwhelming. It has to do with something Emma planned to do as a high school sophomore but didn't actually do. Sure, it's disturbing, but it shouldn't necessarily be a deal-breaker more than a decade later for her nerdy British fiance. The revelation comes during a session of "What is the worst thing you've ever done" with their best-friend couple Rachel (an off-key Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie, the best part of the film) while knocking back a few too many wine samples (another thing Emma and Charlie have left to the last-minute, apparently). 

Zendaya has a wispy presence in a role that calls for some heft, and Pattinson has been better before, especially in last year's relationship meltdown "Die My Love." It all leads to a ridiculous climactic reveal involving one of Charlie's co-workers along with some improbable wedding toasts. Nobody would act like these characters in real life, and if they did do some of the things Borgli requires of them, why would we care how it all turns out?

BONUS TRACK

The "Late Fame" soundtrack is effective, especially the song over the closing credits (which I could not find). Greta Lee knocks out a spare but rousing version of "Surabaya Johnny," which was recorded by Bette Midler in 1973:

Double Feature: It's a Living

 A pair of films featuring Alia Shawkat ("Nasty Baby," "The Intervention"), who surely is banking dollars while awaiting substantive scripts to be offered to her.

ATROPIA (B-minus) - Alia Shawkat carries this shambling narrative from first-time writer-director Hailey Gates, about a group of actors sequestered in the California desert who role-play terrorist scenarios for U.S. military personnel poised to be shipped to Iraq before the 2006 surge. 

 

Shawkat (whose Iraqi father, Tony, co-stars) plays Fayruz, an American actress who believes that this military exercise will lead to a big break in Hollywood, if only she can finagle juicier dramatic parts in the various simulated war-game scenarios. She will eventually fall for Abu Dice (Callum Turner), one of the military men portraying an insurgent. They have to sneak around, because everything in The Box is monitored, and participants are required to stay in character 

This all has a jangly "MASH"-like black humor to it at times, but Gates has a tough time corralling it all into a coherent story. Tim Heidecker and Chloe Sevigny are wasted in minor roles as the administrators of the production; their deadpan readings come off merely as not funny enough. Shawkat can do only so much. Turner -- whose appeal comes from a ranginess and beady eyes (every generation gets the Richard Gere it deserves) -- can be blandly alluring at times, but his comedic chops are a little under-developed. 

Historical hindsight allows Gates to make the case that the U.S. government was sending woefully unprepared young men to their eventual doom in a vicious quagmire in the Middle East. The director shows an eye for arresting visuals -- a tender moment between the two stars is shot via night-vision technology -- but it would require a little more discipline to maintain focus and produce a tighter story. Shawkat's magnetic personality can take a movie only so far.  

THE WRONG GIRLS (C+) - This unnecessary but amusing stoner-buddy comedy asks the long-lingering question: What if Cheech and Chong spent a whole movie doing psychedelic drugs too? 

 

Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat are all-in as buzzed roommates who inadvertently intercept a briefcase full of vials containing an experimental psychedelic potion. Of course, in stoner-comedy fashion, the dullards decide to sample the glowing liquid. The secret substance gives them telepathic abilities, allowing them to hear each other's thoughts, as well as the thoughts of their two fraidy cats, Dio (voiced by Seth Rogen) and GG (Kumail Nanjiani). 

This one starts out stupid and somehow gets dumber as it goes along. Shut off your brain and let the idiot plot unfold (or, more accurately, unravel). Appreciate Stewart's willingness to get silly as Frankie and Shawkat's skill at finding an ounce of emotional depth in the well-meaning pot-head Molly. Give points to Zack Fox as the level-headed boyfriend of Molly. And watch Chris Estrada nearly steal the movie the girls' blathering nerdy vato neighbor Jose.

This is also a debut feature, and Dylan Meyer has an idea that is about as clever as a late-series "Get Smart" episode, and her production budget must have been squeezed. There are scenes that involve Tony Hale where it's obvious that he's not actually on set with Stewart, but instead stand-ins are doing the heavy work. Rogen and Nanjiani might as well have phoned in their lines, which are about as funny as lines written by actual cats. Kate McKinnon injects some life into the proceedings as the scientist behind the concoction, and McKinnon is smart enough to know that if the potion has a complicated, hard-to-pronounce name, it gets funnier each time you say it in a heavy accent. (A nod to Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr?) Geena Davis shows up at the end for a pointless cameo.

I laughed just enough to consider this a minor success. The gals bond over a love of Celine Dion. The bad guys are Danish (instead of, say, Russian or German). Shawkat's character tries to remember her roommate's major before getting kicked out of Stanford: "That train thing ... you know, where you ... make stuff?" (Engineering.) Stewart gets a late laugh with her theatrical line reading of the phrase "FEDERAL BUILDING" when seeing it depicted in big letters. You kind of have to be there to appreciate the humor, and the big question you should ask yourself is whether you want to be there in theater watching these hijinks. 

BONUS TRACK

"The Wrong Girls" has a giddy soundtrack. Early on we get a chunk of a sentimental favorite, Tacocat's "Bridge to Hawaii":

 

Mannequin Pussy shows up as the concert band in a pivotal early scene, with "I Got Heaven":

Noir Chroncles: Suspicion

 

REAR WINDOW (1954) (A) - Alfred Hitchcock's first of four consecutive collaborations with screenwriter John Michael Hayes succeeds as much through dialogue and narrative flourishes as the director's patented visuals. It is clever, funny, sexy and, as you'd suspect, suitably suspenseful.

 

That suspense is awfully muted, though, and it is leavened with a good deal of dry comic line readings and a touching relationship tussle between James Stewart's injured photographer L.B. Jefferies and Grace Kelly's dilettante Lisa Fremont. Throw in well-timed wisecracks from Thelma Ritter as Jefferies' day nurse and Wendell Corey as skeptical detective pal Tom Doyle, and you probably have one of Hitchcock's better comic offerings.

You also have one of the master's better set-ups. It's as if we are sitting in Stewart's lap in his temporary wheelchair as we view the goings-on in the courtyard of his Manhattan apartment complex, where we watch a cavalcade of characters try to distract us from the suspicious activity of a man across the way who is suspected of killing his invalid wife, who may just have slipped out while Jefferies nodded off and taken a train upstate for some R&R. We see "Miss Torso," a dancer who exhibits limber moves while she goes about her household tasks; a frustrated songwriter haggling with writer's block; "Miss Lonelyhearts," who play-acts dates with fictional suitors; newlyweds who shut their shades and apparently are going at it like giddy rabbits; a couple who sleep on their balcony and lower their fluffy dog to ground level in a basket; and, of course, jewelry salesman Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), who engages in sketchy behavior at all hours of the day and handles rope, a knife and a saw. 

Doyle reluctantly digs around and comes up with a rational answer for every bit of evidence Jefferies tosses out. Lisa and the nurse, Stella, get in on the investigation, sneaking across the way to sniff out the activities. Lisa is at least guilty about nosing around in other people's business without any proof; she tells Jefferies, "We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known." 

This all unfolds over a running time just shy of two hours. With Stewart in command, we don't mind how long it takes to sort out. The various scenes he monitors play out like an advent calendar come to life. Jefferies -- who broke his leg on assignment shooting an auto race -- is a well-carved character. While Lisa is a vision to behold -- swoon with Hitchcock's camera when Kelly first emerges in closeup, a shot that then melts into a slow-motion kiss -- Jefferies is a restless globe-trotter who also is suspicious about his long-term chances settling down with what seems to be a perfect woman. (She serves him a candlelight dinner while wearing an $1,100 dress.)

Stewart and Hitchcock were reviving a collaboration that would soon produce "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and "Vertigo" (each two years apart), and Stewart's lowkey Everyman persona seems to rein in Hitchcock's more extreme tendencies. There's a lot going on in "Rear Window," and I don't just mean the intricate set pieces. Stewart is both leading man and set-up man. (Ritter gets most of his underhanded pitches. She notes that she once treated the director of GM and knew it was a case of nerves on the brink of the 1929 stock market crash: "When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country's ready to let go." Also: "You'd think the rain would've cooled things down. All it did was make the heat wet.") 

Jefferies is the director of the action before his eyes, stuck in the chair with a zoom lens as his main tool. In that way, Stewart and Hitchcock are the perfect co-leaders here, executing Hayes' perfect script. Sit back and wait for the wry ending.

THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) (C+) - Heavy with dialogue and excessive exposition, this classic film with a vaunted reputation doesn't hold up to modern scrutiny. Like "Citizen Kane," it might have been provocative for its time, and we should be glad that it made Humphrey Bogart a star, but in the end it's a sloppy and confusing story with not much at stake.

Bogart is fantastic as Sam Spade, the slick-talking gumshoe who walks a fine line between the cops and robbers after his PI partner is offed during a surveillance operation. However, Mary Astor is staid and dull as the aspiring femme fatale; she comes from the old-fashioned fainting-couch school of overacting. Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre (below) are both delicious in their own unique way as the bumbling globe-trotters in pursuit of the jewel-encrusted statuette of the black bird that has been coveted for centuries all over the world.

 

The plot -- from writer-director John Huston adapting the novel by Dashiell Hammett -- is convoluted from the start. By the time the final half hour lumbers in, the characters take turns dumping lines and lines of exposition. And it all leads to a frustrating anti-climax. 

But you can see why this early noir is considered one of the all-time greats. Bogart propels the narrative as a one-man plot driver. The corpulent Greenstreet is having a ball as a bon vivant villain. And Lorre is a bundle of nerves who tosses out line readings as if he is learning English on the spot. The one-liners from Hammett and Huston fly by almost two quickly to appreciate. A classic line from Bogie: "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it!" And he's not even addressing a woman! 

Dragged out to 100 minutes, the film falls apart in the final act, as the lack of chemistry between Bogart and Astor just drains the final scene of any true drama. "Citizen Kane" or "Casablanca" this is not.

BONUS TRACK

The music in "Rear Window" is dreamy at times. That includes an instrumental version of "That's Amore" and a group singalong to "Mona Lisa." Here is Bing Crosby with "To See You (Is to Love You)":

New to the Queue

 All the time in the world ... or at least in the city ...

Willem Dafoe plays a poet rediscovered decades after his initial blip of a success in "Late Fame."

We are willing to shut off our brains and watch a stoner comedy starring our gal Alia Shawkat and Kristen Stewart, "The Wrong Girls."

An HBO documentary from Penny Lane ("Hail Satan?," "Nuts") about the odyssey of an owl that escaped from a New York zoo, "Wild Inside."

We are willing to give Jane Schoenbrun ("I Saw the TV Glow") another chance, with her neo-slasher take, "Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma."

A found-footage memory experiment about growing up in Lebanon, "Do You Love Me."

Now & Then: Missed Connections

 A pair of films, 37 years apart, from Hungarian filmmaker Ildiko Enyedi:

SILENT FRIEND (B) - This contemplation of the connection between humans and plants -- and between humans across generations -- is languid and effervescent. It's easy to lope alongside and to drink in, but you might miss a tangible aftertaste. 

We lock in first on Tony Wong (Tony Leung), a neuroscientist who studies the brain waves of babies and compares them with the pings and zaps he can coax out of plants, in particular a massive, ancient ginkgo biloba tree in the middle of a storied college campus in Germany. Flash back one hundred years to that same campus and a much younger tree, and we see a youthful Grete (Luna Wedler) soldiering through some sexist oral exams to secure her spot as the first female student. She will end up skewing toward photography, as a way of capturing her research samples.

 

In between these eras are a pair of characters attending the university during the student activism of the 1960s. There we find a young woman, Gundula (Marlene Burow), attaching electrodes to a beloved geranium that sits in her dorm window. She entrusts the plant to a fellow student, Hannes (Enzo Brumm), to water and to monitor the continuous printout that resembles a seismometer, its jagged arm recording something coming off the plant. Hannes learns to interact with the geranium, developing a form of communication that is quaint and magical. 

Writer-director Ildiko Enyedi smoothly bops around among the three eras, casually spending time with each of her main characters as they go about their quirky research, often wordlessly. She unfolds this over 147 minutes that never feel like they are dragging. She avoids silly attempts at magical realism, and instead leaves a lot to the imagination of her characters and of her viewers. Leung, in particular -- the veteran from such classics as "In the Mood for Love" -- takes a laid-back, wistful approach. It helps that he is glumly corsetted in a COVID-19 environment (which has interrupted his regular research), spending much of his time alone or zooming with a French colleague (an underused Lea Seydoux). 

Patience is required. This played to a well-attended screening at 4:30 on a Friday, and the audience was mostly rapt. My mind wandered a couple of times into a hallucinatory zone, while I let the simple story wash over me, and I'm sure Enyedi won't mind if your neurons wander off a bit while she entertains you. 

MY TWENTIETH CENTURY (1989) (B-minus) - Ildiko Enyedi made her name with a somberly entertaining dabbling in magical realism somewhere in the realm of Krzysztof Kieslowski and Guy Maddin, a fairy tale about twin sisters separated during childhood and living dramatically different lives at the turn of the 20th century.

 

Dorota Segda stars as both Dora and Lili (and as their mother in an early birth scene), with Dora (above) as the good-time floozy who likes to steal from her marks and Lili as an earnest revolutionary in pre-World War I Europe. Threaded through the narrative is Thomas Edison's invention of the light bulb and the onset of the modern world. 

The sisters, who communicate to the viewer through their thoughts that advance the narrative, will pass through the same spot right before midnight on New Year's Eve at the dawn of the year 1900, but they don't interact. In an echo of Kieslowski's "Blind Chance," the siblings are essentially two ships (or trains) passing in the night. One man will interact with both of them, separately, and of course confuse the two of them. 

This is a movie unafraid of of straying from a traditional narrative -- the stars in the sky communicate with characters (recalling "It's a Wonderful Life"), and the camera travels to far-flung places like Burma, where we hear the thoughts of apes in the wild. And the bombs wielded by revolutionaries are cartoon-like -- black balls with a wick sticking out of the top. (Maybe that is historically accurate.)

Segda is arresting in both roles, finding nuance in the two women and contrasting Dora's joie de vivre (which rings hollow at times) with the mousier Lili. Each has a distinct way of dealing with the oppressive male gaze of the era. A climactic scene in a house of mirrors (a little too on-point) pays homage to Orson Welles. Despite the derivative nature of the film, Segda can make this quite moving at times. 

Doc Watch: Old World

 

POMPEI: BELOW THE CLOUDS (C+) - The idea here involves a study of Naples and Pompeii, under the glower of Mt. Vesuvius, as volcanic tremors beset the residents and otherwise life goes on as it has for a couple of millennia since the infamous eruption of 79 A.D. With an eye also on continued archeological digs, this luscious black-and-white documentary from Gianfranco Rosi is intrigued by the contrast between the old world and modern life, presented most notably through residents' mundane calls to the fire department during the series of tremors.

 

This is all presented without narration or even sufficient context in many places, and so Rosi leans on academic lectures and incidental conversations to get some points across and help orient the viewer. Random scenes occur, as if excerpted from a stem-winder by legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman ("City Hall," "In Jackson Heights"). Children work with an elderly tutor. Ukrainian grain is elegantly dispensed into a storage facility -- a gorgeous visual, but to what end? One scene of two Muslim sailor bros lifting weights and discussing weighty issues has the whiff of being somewhat scripted or staged. Again, what's the point here, besides a sociological study of this place during this moment in time?

A lot of time is spent in tunnels. Scenes artfully lit by flashlights provide a whiff of film noir. Statues and frescoes are scrupulously revered, as you'd expect of Italian classicists. The turgid establishing shots -- while lovely -- can get repetitive and frustrating. The second half goes heavy into the art and excavation detective story and feels like a niche polemic that translates poorly from Italian. The visuals would be fun to watch for an hour, but at 114 minutes, it's just too ponderous.

What's most interesting are the random phone calls that come in to the fire department, many ostensibly about the recurring tremors that have residents on edge, but others are off-topic, like a report of a stranded kitten, or the old man who calls in every evening to ask what time it is. (That thread will culminate in a harrowing domestic-abuse call.) Now that focus on a dispatch center would make for a more interesting film.

FIUME O MORTE (B-minus) - Let's go back a century and revisit the onset of the fascist regime in Italy, when a rogue poet took over the Croatian town of Rijeka after World War I. 

Writer-director Igor Bezinovic creates a fun and amusing romp that sheds light on the period when Italian separatists violated the post-war international treaty and grabbed Rijeka from the newly formed Yugoslavia. The uprising was let by Gabriele D'Annunzio, a writer and bon vivant, who, in defiance of the Italian government, marched into Rijeka (under the banner of the film's title, "Fiume or death") and brought it under the Italian flag. It was dubbed Fiume and was known grandly as the Italian Regency of Carnaro. D'Annunzio boldly destroyed the bridges to the Croat sister city across the river, Susak. Eventually, Mussolini and the fascists took over Italy and embraced Fiume, which would not return to Yugoslav control until after World War II. D'Annunzio himself burned bright and ruled for only a little over a year, until he ran afoul of Italy's rulers and was run out of town.

That's a lot of history, and it was intriguing to be able to learn much of it from this entertaining documentary. Bezinovic begins with person-on-the-street interviews to gauge the awareness of Croatians about that time around 1920. He then recruits several actors to portray D'Annunzio and an army of extras to help re-create photos and film footage from that time. 

One problem is that Bezinovic drags out this sobering romp to nearly two hours. He also is not helped by comparisons to a much more serious film of more recent vintage. "Fiume o Morte" owes quite a debt to Robert Greene's "Bisbee '17," which is much more somber and profound in looking back 100 years at an atrocity. That film involved the brutal repression of union activity at the mines in Bisbee, Ariz., in 1917, and Greene also hired actors to re-enact some of the horrific events.

By contrast, Bezinovic keeps things in Croatia light-hearted; he seems to have confidence in his compatriots and their long memories and firm spines against any potential return of authoritarianism near their border above the Adriatic Sea. While that makes this film feel inessential at times, it certainly is an entertaining way to learn some rather obscure history. 

BONUS TRACK

The bouncy trailer for "Fiume o Morte": 

 

The Noir Chronicles, Part 2: On the Edge

 If it's July, it's the annual Guild Cinema festival of film noir. We managed to catch well more than half of this year's 10 entries present in double features over 10 days. Part 1 is here.

THE LAWLESS (1950) (B+) - A strong no-name cast takes on this tale of a small (and small-minded) town and its prejudiced treatment of Mexican fruit-pickers. Lefty director Joseph Losey hammers his message with emphasis, but he skirts the pitfalls of melodrama as he teams race issues with a slap at the tabloid media as well.

 

Lalo Rios plays Paul Rodriguez, who works with the more dour Lopo, who gets into a fender-bender with a group of Anglo teens, who call them names and start a fight. Things snowball for Paul from there, as accidental misdemeanors and felonies accrue during the hunt for him. Meantime, former big-city newsman Larry Wilder (Macdonald Carey, above), strikes up a flirtation on the the other side of the tracks with a news competitor, Sunny Garcia (the sunny Gail Russell, above), and he comes to the defense of Paul, all while the rest of his colleagues and competitors dish out salacious rumors. ("What is it with newsmen?" one character wonders. "Why can't they be normal?")

As Paul remains at large, and misunderstandings mount, a small-town mob gradually builds, and Wilder's news offices (The Union) become the target of their wrath. Losey ("The Sleeping Tiger," "The Big Night") has his heart in the right place, and he crafts an earnest, thought-provoking narrative that builds suspense across 82 taut minutes. Carey and Russell have a solid chemistry, and the cast is able to find enough nuance in their characters to avoid the cliches of the day. An A for effort.

SPOTTED: Pulp reporter Jonas Creel is played by Herbert Anderson, who would go on to play the father on "Dennis the Menace" (billed here as Guy Anderson). ... This was also the film debut of 19-year-old Tab Hunter as one of the Anglo troublemakers. ... John Hoyt, who plays an upstanding father here, would be the grumpy grandpa on "Gimme a Break."

RUTHLESS (1948) (B+) - This story of a dynamic titan of industry has a surprisingly soft underbelly. It's a love triangle with a twist, using flashbacks to tell the story of boyhood pals who fall for the same girl -- and then in adulthood for her doppelganger. 

Zachary Scott ("Guilty Bystander," "Born to be Bad") is the suave hero, Horace Vendig, who came from a broken home, with a derelict father, but is raised by a wealthy family. The scenes of youth take up the first half of the film. As a boy Horace is played by Bob Anderson, who also played a young George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life." In college, Horace steals Martha (Diana Lynn) from his pal Vic (Louis Hayward) and then dumps her to pursue a business career in New York City (after a stint at Harvard). Approaching middle age, Vic shows up with Mallory (Lynn again) on his arm, and the same dynamic threatens to play out again. 

This has the mood, demeanor and patter of a classic soap opera. Scott is an appealing stony leading man ("I'm an adding machine"), and it's hard not to get hooked on the melodrama, despite the corny production. It's a tale of repressing our negative memories and soldiering on. Throw in a creepy Sidney Greenstreet (bragging about having a wife just old enough to vote and spouting ominous Bible passages) and another smoldering love interest in the form of Martha Vickers ("The Big Sleep"), and it can be a heady mix of romantic intrigue and high-wire high finance.

SPOTTED: Raymond Burr plays our hero's wayward father during the boyhood flashbacks. Do you prefer him on TV in "Perry Mason" or "Ironside"?

BOUND (1996) (B+) - Leave it to the 1990s to come up with the idea of a film noir led by two erotic femmes fatale. Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly steam up the screen and team up to try to bilk a bunch of goombah mobsters out of a suitcase full of $2 million.

 

This is the stylish debut of the Wachowski siblings, who would eventually go down the "Matrix" rabbit hole. The first half hour is as cheesy as lipstick lesbianism gets; it would make Zalman King blush and Adrian Lyne roll his eyes. Gershon and Tilly are not shy in their two main love scenes, the second one more explicit than the first, but nothing that would be considered shocking these days.

Gershon plays Corky, the tough ex-con who does handyman work and is neighbors with Tilly's femme Violet and her mobbed-up oaf, Caesar, played to the hilt by Joe Pontoliano, who made his bones as a made man throughout his acting career. Corky and Violet (who essentially has an arranged set-up with the boorish Caesar) concoct a scheme to rob Caesar and his bosses of a $2 million score. Corky lines out a scenario that will make Caesar and his compadres turn on each other.

The Wachowskis certainly know their way around a stylish visual palette, toying with the idea of the two women on opposite sides of thin walls. The mob stuff is pro forma (Pontoliano did much better work on "The Sopranos"), but the suspense builds nicely, and the two leading ladies are hard to resist as they fight for their freedom.

SPOTTED: Mob nepo baby Johnnie Marzzone is played by Christopher Meloni, who would go on to star as Det. Stabler on TV's "Law & Order: SVU."

NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947) (B) - Like Zachary Scott in Ruthless, Tyrone Power methodically builds a devious character -- this time a carnival barker who steals a scam mentalist routine and uses it to con society suckers out of their riches.

Scott is Stanton Carlisle, who worms his way between Mademoiselle Zeena (Joan Blondell) and her alcoholic co-conspirator, Pete (Ian Keith), managing to push Pete out of the way so that he can work with Zeena and learn the code she uses to feign extra-sensory abilities that wow the crowds. Stan also makes his move on cute young Molly (Coleen Gray), the skimpily clad assistant to the strongman, Bruno (character actor Mike Mazurki). 

 

Stan eventually takes over the act and makes it big in Chicago, in part by working on the side with psychologist Lillith Ritter (Helen Walker), who has no qualms about sharing secret recordings from her patients' therapy sessions to help Stan get background dirt that he can use to pretend to read the minds of those patients who attend his shows. Eventually, Stan will imbue his act with an evangelical fervor, and you can expect his hubris to bring him to a crisis point.

It's a great story, even at times it strains at the length of 111 minutes. The script -- by Jules Furthman, who worked with William Faulkner on "To Have and Have Not" and "The Big Sleep" -- is sharp and never hangs Power out to dry. Director Edmund Goulding is fond of classic blocking like in the image above, which gives this a bit of a soap opera feel in spots. The bookending ending is a little too convenient, but this early noir has enough gravitas to keep you intrigued until the end.

SPOTTED: I don't know who "Carnival Patron" Chet Brandenburg is, but he has 477 IMDb entries. He appeared as a "barfly" in 29 different titles. He was in 44 episodes of "Gunsmoke," 8 episodes of Bonanza, 15 episodes of "The Outlaws," and 79 episodes of "The Life and Times of Wyatt Earp," including as a barfly in at least one episode of each TV series. 

BONUS TRACK

Over the closing credits of "Bound," the hit single "She's a Lady," written by Paul Anka and performed by Tom Jones:

Soundtrack of Your Life: S'alright, S'alright

 

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

The first time I heard the full version of John Lennon performing live with Elton John recorded on Thanksgiving 1974, it gave me chills. It was on a 10-inch single released after Lennon died in 1980. It is the introduction of Lennon -- to a stunned, thunderous crowd at Madison Square Garden -- that does it to me. ("Seeing as it's Thanksgiving ...").

Lennon had promised Elton that if the song they collaborated on -- "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" -- went to No. 1, he would join the superstar on stage and sing it with him. The song did, in fact, hit the top of the charts, Elton visited MSG, and Lennon, a bundle of nerves, jumped onstage for three songs. They played Lennon's recent No. 1; Elton's same-year hit cover of the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds"; and an old chestnut (from "an old, estranged fiance of mine, called Paul ... one I never sang"), "I Saw Her Standing There" ("a number to finish up with so that I can get out of here and be sick"). They brought the house down. (That was also the night that Lennon began his reunion with Yoko Ono, who was also invited backstage.)

"Whatever Gets You Through the Night" is not just another peppy track on one of my favorite albums, "Walls & Bridges," released when I was 11. So when I walk into a hardware store and it's spilling from the speakers, I still get that Thanksgiving buzz. (The small-town Ace Hardware was big enough to have two sound systems playing, one in each half of the store. The other side was spinning Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4.") 

In 1974, Elton John was approaching the height of his powers and fame. This fluke of a concert appearance would be Lennon's last, which would not become apparent for six years. The live recording -- teased first with the 1975 "Philadelphia Freedom" single, which features "I Saw Her Standing There" on the B-side -- is 14 minutes of pure joy. Imagine having been there that night. (Instead, I went to see Elton with family in 1976 at Chicago Stadium and was treated to Billy Connolly as an opening act singing "The Shitkickers Waltz." But Kiki Dee was there, too, so ...)

Date: July 29, 2026, 11:11 a.m.

Place: Ace Hardware, Taos, N.M.

Song:  "Whatever Gets You Through the Night"

Artist: John Lennon

Irony Matrix: 4.5 out of 10

 

The Noir Chronicles, Part 1: On the trail

  If it's July, it's the annual Guild Cinema festival of film noir. We managed to catch well more than half of this year's 10 entries present in double features over 10 days.

MURDER IS MY BEAT (1955) (B-minus) - Part of an Edgar Ulmer double feature (see "Ruthless" in Part 2), this peppy whodunit wrings manic energy from journeyman Paul Langton (TV's "Peyton Place") as a cop who has second thoughts about his role in the conviction of a woman for murder and who spends a crazed week trying to clear her name and make amends.

 

Langton stars as Det. Patrick, who seems to have an open-and-shut case when a businessman is found face-down in the fireplace, clubbed with a statuette, almost certainly by his young girlfriend, the blond bombshell Eden (Barbara Payton). After her conviction, he accompanies her on the train to prison when she suddenly exclaims that she saw the purportedly murdered ex standing on a train platform, alive and well. Has she been railroaded? Patrick will get slugged as he noses around, and of course, he'll fall for the dame.

Ulmer shakes up the narrative with flashbacks, and he employs a few misdirections, one of which involves Eden's nightclub co-worker Patsy (a simmering Tracy Roberts). The dialogue is set at full ham, and the cast chews the gristle with delight. It was, quaintly, a time when cops described female suspects by their girlish figures. The ending comes along too quickly and is awfully pat, but you should walk away entertained.

SPOTTED: Hank Patterson gets barely a glimpse as a medical examiner at the scene of the murder. He would go on to star as grumpy Fred Ziffel ("father" of Arnold the pig) in "Green Acres."

NAKED ALIBI (1954) (B+) - A boffo cast powers a cynical manhunt drama based on a hunch about a suspected cop killer. Sterling Hayden and the combustible Gloria Grahame light a flame under this slow burn that crescendos along the Mexican border (in a town creatively called Border City). 

Hayden plays Joe Conroy, a chief of detectives who gets fired for blowing his top after three of his men are killed, and he suspects local baker Al Willis (Gene Barry) of carrying out the hits, but can't prove it. Conroy yields his badge and follows Willis to the border, where the married suspect shacks up with a local pub singer, Marianna (Grahame), the kind of tough-luck gal who gets turned on by a slap but who also has a generous heart, which comes in handy after Conroy lands in her lap after getting stabbed by thugs.

 

It's quite a tight knot tied by three screenwriters and journeyman director Jerry Hopper. Hayden (above right) is understated as the possibly delusional lug, and Grahame torches the screen with a mere arch of an eyebrow and a knowing pout. Barry -- who would go on to hit the TV hat trick with "Bat Masterson," "Burke's Law" and "The Name of the Game" -- works from the James Cagney "Come and get me, coppers" school of (over)acting. (An alternative title for the film is "Cry Copper," sans comma.) He is manic from the start, complaining of false accusations.

But the narrative evolves, and the characters' motivations morph once the film picks up after a slow half hour of set-up and heads to the border, where intrigue lurks in the shadows. Grahame -- endlessly appealing in "In a Lonely Place," "Crossfire" and "Odds Against Tomorrow" (and the subject of "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool") -- brings layers to Marianna, who turns both men on and sets both of them right. She will put herself in peril as the menace around her swells and this builds to a satisfying climax. 

SPOTTED: The glowering detective captain in the first act of the film is played by Chuck Connors, from TV's "Rifleman." ... The police lieutenant offed in the first five minutes is played by familiar character actor Max Showalter, who was Ward Cleaver in the pilot for "Leave It to Beaver" and whose career culminated as Grandpa Fred in John Hughes' "Sixteen Candles." (See the 0:55 mark of the trailer below.)

STRANGER ON THE PROWL (1952) (C) - Even if you could understand the dialogue in this Italian production from an exiled Joseph Losey, the plot of this manhunt thriller might perplex and confound even the most patient viewer. An overwrought performance by Paul Muni as a drifter stranded in an Italian port town doesn't help.

This one is occasionally unintentionally funny. But mostly it is a melodramatic tale of The Man (Muni) as a stowaway who shows up broke and needs to raise money to pay off his smuggler -- and to eat. However, he is immediately targeted by residents as a vagrant, and when he accidentally kills someone out of desperation, he becomes a wanted man. In tow he has a willing local 8-year-old boy who empathizes with him and helps the Man pass as a father taking his son to the circus.

The film -- Losey's first after being drummed out of the U.S. during the red panic of the '50s -- makes a pretty cogent case for treating poor people with dignity. But the sketchy sound quality and incongruent performances -- including Joan Lorring as a sexually harassed young woman -- drag this into B-movie territory. Muni, 20 years from his career defining role in "Scarface," comes off as more grumpy than desperate.  

SPOTTED: This is tough, considering it's an all-Italian cast. The police inspector is played by Arnoldo Foa, whose credits include such racy titles as "The King's Whore," "All the Moron's Men" and "Do You Mind if I Kiss Mommy?"

BRICK (2006) (B+) - The modern ringer in the group is the debut of writer-director Rian Johnson, who went on to bring you "Looper," the "Knives Out" trilogy and the penultimate "Star Wars" movie. This one hits differently than it did upon its refreshing splash 20 years ago.

 

The idea here -- setting a classic gumshoe noir at a modern high school -- felt fresh and clever at the time of the movie's release (I gave it an honorable mention in 2006), but now it comes off as more of a flimsy, cloying gimmick. Star Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the perfect brooding Sam Spade stand-in, spitting out glib one-liners in a gangland patois that would never exist in the head of even the brightest high school kid at the turn of the millennium. The dialogue comes at you rapid-fire and is so squirrelly and off-kilter that I had a lot of trouble understanding some of the key lines. (I surrendered to subtitles at some point.) That's not a way to keep a viewer immersed in your narrative.

The plot is also fairly dense, but unpacking it along with Gordon-Levitt's persistent Brandon is part of the fun here. Brandon traipses through a sunny California suburb as he investigates the death of an ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin), whose frantic phone call drops clues about a missing brick of heroin not long before he discovers her body in a drainage ditch. He and his pal The Brain (Matt O'Leary) game this out, frequently deploying phone-booth communications, and Brandon slowly sinks into the muck of the local drug trade and its creeps. He's got a femme fatale, the prissy Laura (Nora Zehetner), ostensibly on his side (at least she's handy for car rides so he doesn't have to borrow his mom's vehicle). 

Brandon gets knocked around a lot -- but of course he has superhero strength somehow and manages to plod on despite a hacking cough that suggests some internal bleeding. In a nod more to "Charlie Brown" cartoons than to "Chinatown," police are only hinted at -- we occasionally hear sirens but they are never seen. This is a sealed world of teens role-playing as adults. It's amusing for a while, and it wraps up well, but your mileage may vary depending on your age group.

SPOTTED: Richard Roundtree, the original "Shaft," plays the vice principal who nags Brandon like a police captain would a rogue detective.

BONUS TRACK

An edited version of Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" serves as the outro for "Brick":

 

The trailer for "Naked Alibi," with a snippet of Gloria Grahame singing Cole Porter's "Ace in the Hole":