CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH (B+) - The sophomore effort from the appealing young writer-director Cooper Raiff ("Shithouse") mostly succeeds by using a similar style of his first film -- young adult (Raiff in both instances) adrift in the world and not afraid to lay his sensitivity out there for all to see. Whereas "Shithouse" found our young hero leaving the nest and going off to college, here Andrew has just finished college and immediately falls into a dead-end fast-food job while his girlfriend goes off on an adventure in Barcelona.
Andrew's little brother, David (Evan Assante) is 13, so he and all his co-hort are enjoying bar/bat mitzvah season. When Andrew rescues one of the parties by jolting it to life, he suddenly is in demand as a party-starter. It gives him purpose, and he also finds an opportunity to befriend the mother of a picked-on autistic girl. What could have been a cheesy play on "The Graduate" instead thrives with nuance in Raiff's hands. It helps that Dakota Johnson brings her trademark slinkiness to the role of the mom but adds layers of personality and even grief.
Raiff also plays well off of Leslie Mann, perfect as Andrew's mother, and he spars with Brad Gilbert, who plays the gruff stepfather. Andrew has a loving rapport with his little brother, trying to act like the wise older sibling, but obviously faking it poorly. And Vanessa Burghardt, who is on the spectrum herself, is strong as Lola, a multi-dimensional teen.
You will either buy into Raiff's shtick or you won't. And I would have ended this about 15 minutes sooner, before some of the shmaltz seeped in. But I smiled a lot throughout; Raiff, almost like an Anglo Woody Allen, has a natural way of fumbling his interactions in an endearing way. He comes off as a genuine wayward soul. I can't see him going to the same well a third time, but let's see what he does next.
X (B-minus) - You won't find very many horror films on these pages, but this one has just enough self-awareness and humor to be considered passable entertainment. It's 1979, and a bunch of horny Texans book the back quarters of a farm house inhabited by a creepy old couple in order to shoot a porn film.
The god-fearing old folks don't quite cotton to the hijinks, and in a nod to the movies of the late '70s that this is modeled on (in meta fashion), the old you-fuck-you-die rule kicks in. Much blood will be spilled, in some mildly creative ways. The sex scenes, however, are bland. (Again, in a nod to tradition, we get plenty of old-style tits but no male frontal nudity.)
Mia Goth ("Emma"), above, is compelling as the lead here, followed closely by the prototypical blond bimbo played by Brittany Snow from the "Pitch Perfect" movies. Martin Henderson does a bad Matthew McConaughey impersonation as the cowboy-hatted producer and sleaze. The old couple are distractingly portrayed by younger actors obviously pretending to be geezers. (Maybe that's why they have super-human strength despite purporting to be in their 80s.)
Anyway, this playful outing from pulp journeyman Ti West has barely enough twists and goofs to hold your interest for one hour and 45 minutes, though you will be rewarded if you are patient enough to hold out for the pitch-perfect final line of the movie. The rest of the movie should have strived to be as clever as that one punch line.
JULIA (B) - The women behind the hit documentary "RBG" move on from the Supreme Court to the culinary TV legend Julia Child. And they bet you'll be at least a little surprised about the famed chef's origin story. Alas, the trailer promises too much.
Child did not hit TV screens until she was 50 years old, in the early 1960s, and this production does a thorough job (nearly the first half of the film) filling in her early history. It certainly humanizes her, but there's not more to report than that she was a driven, vivacious woman, whose dogged persistence led to her becoming one of the first popular celebrity chefs. Don't expect her to be outed as some sort of CIA spy or closet sexpot.
And while she's a worthy figure for study, this documentary never quite launches beyond a run-of-the-mill biography. Talking heads faithfully talk her up. Archival footage rounds out her back story. But repeated modern re-creations of her cooked dishes have a numbing effect. (I have no use for cooking shows, so you might not be bothered as much by the onslaught of shots of culinary delights.)
In the end, coming from privilege, she lived an ordinary extraordinary life, with a faithful, supportive spouse, a satisfying second-half career, and the adoration of millions. She was truly devoted to her craft, and you can't help be happy for her. So there's that.
THE MARTHA MITCHELL EFFECT (B-minus) - This 40-minute documentary on Netflix is little more than a curiosity about the wife of President Nixon's attorney general and campaign manager, John Mitchell, who was vocal about the wrongs of Watergate within days of the break-in. She would become a thorn in the side of Nixon, who mentions her more than 100 times in his Oval Office tapes.
Martha Mitchell was mocked as a mouthy woman and slandered as a drunk who was half out of her mind, particularly by her lout of a husband. (They separated as the scandal unfolded. He eventually went to jail and she would be dead at 57 before Gerald Ford left office.) The title here comes from a psychologist's theory about the gaslighting technique of demonizing and caricaturing a whistleblower who later is vindicated. The application here is imprecise, but close enough for the movies.
This serves as a genial trip down memory lane on the 50th anniversary of the break-in at Democratic headquarters during the 1972 election season. We get a pretty well-rounded picture of the outspoken, big-haired Mitchell and a grim reminder of the crooks who felt the need to steal an election. But it's not just the run time that makes this feel like only half a film.
HIT THE ROAD (B+) - This impressive debut feature from the son of a legendary Iranian filmmaker plays a bit like a debut from the son of an acclaimed director. It's a bit indulgent though sharply written and observed, perhaps on a par with the early next-gen output of someone like Roman or Sofia Coppola.
Panah Panahi -- the son of Jafar Panahi ("Jafar Panahi's Taxi") -- takes an economic approach to narrative and visual storytelling. He tells the story of a family road trip, with the older son at the wheel, driving his parents and obnoxious little brother to an unnamed destination where (for mysterious reasons) the young man will be handed off and secreted over the border out of Iran. Dad in the backseat, a large cast on his leg, is alternatively grumpy and jocular. Mom, riding shotgun, projects calm and wisdom. The little brother -- an obvious surprise gift to the older couple who didn't plan to have another child -- provides most of the comic relief (if you can stand that sort of thing) as a super-smart wise-ass. ("That little devil is cute," as they say in the trailer.)
A bicycle racer joins their journey -- they had side-swiped him and offered him a ride. There are a couple of other planned and unplanned stops along the way. This is a shaggy story, and Panahi's facility with writing dialogue is his greatest asset here. And some visuals are truly inspired -- notably, the family dog running down the road with a leash and plastic chair bouncing along in its wake.
But even at 93 minutes, Panahi could have used a sharp editor. He repeats good ideas too often -- such as the mother singing along to the car stereo. And several false endings get frustrating. This is an imperfect work, but it can be thoroughly satisfying overall.
THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER (B) - Most of the time I wasn't sure exactly what was happening in this quirky relationship dramedy, but it has a unique voice and visual style, brought home by a winning cast. This sophomore effort from twin writer-directors Ramon and Silvan Zurcher ("The Strange Little Cat") is a rich challenge of storytelling.
Lisa (Liliane Amuat) is moving out of the apartment she shares with her lover, Mara (a haunting Henriette Confurius), and this intimate movie shows the mundane mechanics of the hefting of boxes and the carting of furniture over the course of two days. Mara refuses to let Lisa off the hook too easily. Surrounded by friends and Lisa's family, Mara challenges Lisa to confront the raw emotions of the breakup. (It's not entirely clear if the whole relationship, or just the cohabitation, is fully ending.)
That sounds simple, but the elliptical devices employed here are what make a movie in which so little seems to happen seem so compelling. Characters often speak in riddles or parables. Various hookups occur, either attempted or consummated. Lisa's married mother (Ursina Lardi) pines after the movers' supervisor. Mara's older neighbor sees an opening and hits on Mara.
Beyond that, it's difficult to convey the appeal here. A lot of it is mood. There is something entrancing about watching Mara curl up in a window frame and smoke as she lazily watches the world below. The Zurchers close out each act -- the first at the old apartment, the second at Lisa's new one -- by pausing and letting their camera take an inventory of random objects that had had minor roles in the previous scenes. It's an effective palate-cleanser and a clever way to make the viewer take a breath and think about what might come next.
Often I was a little anxious trying to keep track of all the characters (too many of the young women look similar) and make sense of the monologues. But I eventually capitulated and adored this arty slice of life.
THE LONG DAY CLOSES (1992) (B-minus) - This is another early dream-like reverie from Terence Davies, his early-'90s follow up to his landmark film "Distant Voices, Still Lives." This comes off as prettier, glossier, and more upbeat, but it's too precious by half.
Davies goes back to Liverpool in the postwar era to again wallow in his childhood with his widowed mother. Like the recent "Belfast," Davies' scrub-cheeked avatar is a sensitive lad who loves movies. (How else would he grow up to become an artsy filmmaker?) But is he ever a dour schoolboy.
Like Davies' 1988 breakthrough, the soundtrack is full of music, much of it sung amiably by the characters. At one point, the young lad, who is often in the presence of shirtless boys and young men, swings from a metal bar to the saccharine strains of Debbie Reynolds' "Tammy," which proceeds to play out, painfully, in its complete three-minute run. Dialogue from classic movies is also borrowed generously, often creating a distraction. Religion casts a pall over the entire proceedings. It's all incredibly gorgeous but laden with too many indulgences, like an interminable close-up of a rug, which provided incentives for me to doze off.
Davies can be a challenging cup of tea. It's been decades since we were awed by "Distant Voices." His new film, "Benediction," just doesn't look interesting enough to devote two hours to. His high-water mark since the turn of the millennium has been "The Deep Blue Sea," another period piece but one about a woman trapped in a loveless marriage. He synced well with Cynthia Nixon for the Emily Dickenson biopic "A Quiet Passion" in 2017. And he went the documentary route for the deeply nostalgic valentine to Liverpool, with mixed results, in "Of Time and the City." But he stumbled badly with "Sunset Song," a Scottish slog that we didn't make it through in 2016. Those latter two and this one just aren't necessary.
A documentary about a botched robbery in New York in 1973 that led to what is said to be the first ever hostage negotiation, "Hold Your Fire."
A documentary about the groundbreaking '70s all-female rock 'n' roll band, "Fanny: The Right to Rock."
A droll debut from France about the love life of a 20-something comic-book artist, "Playlist."
Cooper Raiff ("Shithouse") again stars in his own film as he follows up his writing-directing debut with another look at emerging adulthood, "Cha Cha Real Smooth."
A documentary about the women who, before 1973, helped other women get safe abortions, "The Janes."
We never saw "Top Gun" all these years. So we decided to catch the original and then go see the new sequel in IMAX with an Air Force hot-shot on opening weekend. Call ME Maverick. We start with the new one.
TOP GUN: MAVERICK (B) - When I was a kid, Chicago Cubs announcer Jack Brickhouse would conclude an inning in which the Cubs gave up some runs but the other team missed a few opportunities to score even more: "Well, that sure could have been a whole lot worse." I braced for impact while watching the long-awaited sequel to "Top Gun," and I need not have -- it was a fun experience. (We saw it in IMAX.)
Tom Cruise's passable acting skills have not improved much since the '80s, but he is surrounded by a capable cast and a script that skirts by cliches in a clever enough way to keep things afloat. It is the classic tale of an old gunslinger (Cruise's Maverick) who will show a bunch of cocky upstarts that he has at least one more flight (and fight) left in him. And he must reconcile with Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick's beloved former wingman Goose, who famously met his demise in the first film, in Maverick's arms. For no good reason, the filmmakers toss in a fairly wooden Jennifer Connelly as Cruise's love interest to form a 50-something Ken & Barbie play set.
Credit goes to Peter Craig, a hot-shot of a writer, who followed up 2010's "The Town" with major-league credits like "The Hunger Games," "Bad Boys for Life" and "The Batman." Craig takes a tired premise and manages to build tension, with a taut narrative that won't quit. Lines often get delivered with too much of a knowing wink -- especially every time Maverick is chastised for having "that look" on his face ("It's the only one I've got" is his snappy comeback). But the dialogue snaps when it needs to.
Meantime, director Joseph Kosinski's camera actually goes up in the planes with the cast for dazzling visual effects. Back on the ground, Maverick has returned as an instructor at the Top Gun school, which sets him up to clash with a stern admiral (admirably portrayed by Jon Hamm) and bond with his support team (Bashir Salahuddin is particularly effective) and a new generation of elite fliers that is more nuanced and interesting than in the original. A valedictory scene between Cruise and Val Kilmer (who lost his voice to cancer and must rely on computer assistance) -- Kilmer's Iceman is now the chief admiral over Top Gun -- is a truly touching (and somewhat meta) moment.
You will see the plot twists and ending coming from miles away on the horizon. (It helps our consciences that, while the mission is a supreme challenge, the target is not people but just a rogue nation's nuclear reactor.) But damn if it's difficult to dislike this All-American rah-rah romp. Mission accomplished
TOP GUN (1986) (C) - This is even more hokey and subtextual than I could have imagined. It is difficult to try to assess what I would have thought of this if I had seen it as a young adult 36 years ago, but seeing it now for the first time, all I can do is shake my head and marvel at the decade of the 1980s and the phenomenon that is Tom Cruise.
No one needs me to weigh in after all these years. This is a pretty stupid movie. Every character sweats profusely, even when they are not piloting a jet; didn't they have air-conditioning in the control rooms back then? It's interesting to track the homo-erotic theme throughout the film and think how ground-breaking that must have been back then. It's not just one beach volleyball game; the theme played out by these professionally coifed pretty boys is far from subtle and deeply woven throughout the film. And why were these 20-something hot shots memorizing and singing songs from the '50s and '60s all the time? Maybe because the filmmakers thought it would make for a cool soundtrack alongside Kenny Loggins? And who knew the final cheesy song (written by "Axel F" synthesizer noodler Harold Faltermeyer, from Giorgio Moroder's stable) was sung by Cheap Trick? Is that a career high for them or a career low?
Cruise has never been a very good actor. I wish I'd kept track of the number of times he clenched his jaw, which is his amateurish go-to move. Val Kilmer flails away in his first real role. Kelly McGillis has that longing look down pat, but not much else. And hey, there's that guy (Michael Ironside) whose head exploded in "Scanners"!
The plot is all cornball and cheese, straight from World War II propaganda films. At one point our American heroes blast some Russkies out of the sky, and what would have normally instigated World War III gets explained away with a throwaway line of dialogue toward the end.
Oh, well. "Top Gun" happened in 1986. Son of a gun.
BONUS TRACKS
Comedian Rich Hall reminds us that the plots of Tom Cruise films are pretty much all the same:
And our title track: You can see the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" episode about the Montgolfier brothers here.
Once again, shopping at Trader Joe's and the soundtrack churned. The first song was an obvious favorite of the workers stocking the shelves, as they sang or clicked along from every corner of the store. The second song, from a decade earlier, segued surprisingly smoothly. Hats off to the algorithm.
1.
Date: May 28, 2022, 8:40 a.m.
Place: Trader Joe's, Uptown, Albuquerque
Song/Artist: "She Drives Me Crazy," Fine Young Cannibals
Irony Matrix: 2.4
Comment: What a delightful way to shop. This earworm was bouncy out of the gate, and it still sounds fresh and fun. There are the clicks and pops and then the memorable guitar riff. Once the falsetto vocals kick in, we'll see who is bold enough to sing along. Or will they wait until the more reachable chorus? Just imagine bopping down the aisles looking for organic blueberry jam. At one point I imagined a crane shot from the ceiling showing customers with shopping carts jerking along in synchronicity. C'mon willowy tattooed chick with the wispy powder-blue hair, let's dance.
2.
Date: May 28, 2022, 8:43 a.m.
Place: Trader Joe's, Uptown, Albuquerque
Song/Artist: "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet," Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Irony Matrix: 1.7
Comment: Some of my first cassette tapes from the Columbia Record Club in the early '70s were BTO releases. This is the big hit from the 1974 album "Not Fragile" from the beefy Canadians who wrote meaty songs. It was their sole No. 1 record. (And the title was said to be an answer to the wimpy "Fragile" by Yes.) You could say there was "nothing" going on in late 1974 on the Billboard charts. Three of four consecutive number ones were this song, Stevie Wonder's "You Haven't Done Nothing" and Billy Preston's "Nothing From Nothing." (Three of four Beatles also had No. 1 songs in 1974, which was also the year of "Seasons in the Sun" and "The Streak." Those were simpler times.) On this day, the unusually jangly guitars from the Bachmans were a perfect echo of Andy Cox's staccato bursts in "She Drives Me Crazy." I will always fall for early BTO.
PRESIDENT (B) - This is a solid tick-tock of the 2018 presidential election in Zimbabwe, in which a young opposition candidate takes on the establishment in the first election without Robert Mugabe around in four decades. The main problem is that, despite being compelling at times, it doesn't quite warrant a full two hours.
Despite overstaying its "Frontline"-style welcome, the film gets a jolt every time the upstart politician Nelson Chamisa reappears, exuding Obama energy and connecting with crowds of people yearning to break free from the oppression of the previous generations. Camilla Nielsson, who last studied Zimbabwe in the transition from Mugabe in 2014's "Democrats," obtains incredible access into Chamisa's campaign.
Hope builds, but doom hangs in the air, especially once the electoral commission starts counting the votes but refuses to declare a winner as hours drag into days. Is the fix in? If you don't know, let this documentary play out like more of a thriller. Patience will pay off.
LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF (2003/2014) (B) - With a flair as moody and smoldering as any film noir, Thom Anderson uses vintage movie clips of Los Angeles to explore grander themes -- or perhaps to just air a series of grievances. Here is a succinct recap from IMDb:
Of the cities in the world, few are depicted in and mythologized more in film and television than the city of Los Angeles. In this documentary, Thom Andersen examines in detail the ways the city has been depicted, both when it is meant to be anonymous and when itself is the focus. Along the way, he illustrates his concerns of how the real city and its people are misrepresented and distorted through the prism of popular film culture. Furthermore, he also chronicles the real stories of the city's modern history behind the notorious accounts of the great conspiracies that ravaged his city that reveal a more open and yet darker past than the casual viewer would suspect.
Anderson scripted the thoughtful, meandering essay that accompanies the barrage of clips from movies spanning from the silent era to the turn of the millennium. And he hired the obscure Encke King to narrate in a flat monotone (though not as robotic as Joe Friday in "Dragnet," which is featured extensively here).
Be warned that this is nearly three hours long. You might consume it in two or three sittings, like a miniseries. (It naturally splits in two parts halfway through.) In addition to just having fun showing us famous locations and buildings (most notably the cavernous Bradbury Building (below), which starred in "D.O.A." and "Blade Runner," among many others), Anderson delves deeply into the history of the city in order to highlight the mercantilism and politics that favored the rich and held down the poor. (He returns several times to 1961's "The Exiles," as the epitome of a cinema verite that chronicles underclass immigrants.) There is a vague thematic connection to the reveries of "Dawson City: Frozen in Time."
Anderson's knowledge of Los Angeles is encyclopedic. He digs up newspaper clips of key inflection points in the city's history, including a deep dive into a failed attempt decades ago to bring public transportation to the city core. A main point is that Hollywood distorts our perception of Los Angeles, and the two should not be confused. Anderson is hyper-sensitive to references to the real Los Angeles -- or at least his perceived version of it -- to the point of railing at those who commi the sacrilege of abbreviating it as L.A.
There are enough radiant shots of obscure movies -- I never knew James Garner played Phillip Marlowe in 1969 -- to maintain the interest of those who just want to pass the time viewing cool clips of L.A. from back in the day.
MARRY ME (C) - This is everything you could hope and fear it would be -- a stale romantic comedy, remarkably predictable almost from shot to shot. It is salvaged by the commitment of its four leading actors.
Jennifer Lopez plays a superstar who is supposed to marry another superstar live in concert but finds out at the last second he's been cheating, so she picks a random fan out of the audience -- a shlumpy math teacher played by Owen Wilson, who was dragged to the concert by his sassy best friend (Sarah Silverman) and daughter (Chloe Coleman). They wed on the spot and then have to reconcile the ramifications. What a wacky predicament!
Lopez is as appealing as ever -- taking in stride her character Kat's 24/7 public existence on social media -- and Wilson digs deep to find some humanity in his nerdy everyman. Silverman provides the most oomph with her sharp comedic line readings. And Coleman gives it the ol' middle-school try as the cheerleader for her single dad. Will the dork eventually win over the eye-popping mega-star and elbow out her hunky former beau? Guess.
However, nothing here is original or clever. It drags on for nearly two hours, coasting on the charisma of the cast while going in a few circles and insulting our intelligence every step of the way. (It also tries way too hard to create a couple of hit songs for J-Lo.) As noted, this does the job it set out to do, which is to help you pass time while imagining a candy-colored world where mathletes are as revered as gorgeous pop singers. No harm, no foul.
EAT WHEATIES! (C+) - This is a sketch or a short film paddedout to feature length, and the result is the epitome of hit-and-miss. Tony Hale, bless him, dons a droopy mustache and goes full sad-sack as bedraggled Sid Straw, an office dweeb who helps organize a reunion of his Penn class that included actress Elizabeth Banks.
He is mocked for his insistence that he knew Banks way back when. And, in one of several classic idiot-plot twists, his sappy, overly personal Facebook messages to Banks turn out to have been public posts. Straw's life begins to unravel as his embarrassment mounts. Not only does this movie resort to ridiculous plot conveniences, but, like "Marry Me," you can spot the ending from the opening credits.
What barely saves this is the low-key humor -- with a decent percentage of wry gags that land soundly -- and a strong cast of mostly under-the-radar comic actors. That includes Alan Tudyk as a douchie former classmate; Paul Walter Hauser, especially strong as an impossibly inept (and cheap) new lawyer; Sarah Burns (HBO's "Enlightenment") as a love interest; Rizwan Manji as his boss; "New Girl" alums David Walton and Lamorne Morris; Sarah Goldberg (HBO's "Barry") as an unhelpful co-worker; and Mimi Kennedy and Phil Reeves (Hale's "Veep" co-star) as Sid's parents.
Writer-director Scott Abramovich knows how to underplay a good joke or tuck away a gag for a bigger payoff later, but his narrative grip is weak. He rides Hale to the finish line, and if you are partial to Hale's mopey but lovable characterization, he and the rest of the cast could barely make this worth 90 minutes of your time.
BONUS TRACK
Here is Syd Straw (no relation), a great singer, from the late '80s, with the rollicking "Think Too Hard":
And Straw with Dave Alvin (playing guitar above) with the playful "What Am I Worth?":
Character Ray Liotta died this week at age 67. Of course, he made his bones in mob movies, most notably the glorious lead role in "Goodfellas." More recently he got stuck in a dual role in the disappointing Sopranos movie "The Many Saints of Newark." Here's an obit. (Or, as Soap Opera Digest put it: "'Another World' Alum Dies at 67."
We enjoyed him a while back as a sleazy detective in "The Place Beyond the Pines." And he almost stole the show from Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in "Marriage Story."
But our favorite scene of his was in Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild," Liotta's breakout role in 1986. He plays the ex-con Ray, who also happens to be the estranged spouse of Melanie Griffith's wild girl who has settled down with Jeff Daniels' normie Charlie. The interaction in the car between Liotta and Daniels -- both fresh-faced and brimming with energy -- provides a good example of granite-faced Liotta's ability to mingle humor with menace.
Expect a lot of "Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa" references in memoriam.
MASS (A) - Rarely has a stage play built tension on the screen as effectively as this cathartic drama about two sets of parents -- one set whose son was the victim of a school shooting, and the other pair whose son was the shooter. This isn't so much grim as intense and challenging. It is erected and powered by four fine actors, none quite as effective as Martha Plimpton as the grieving mother of the victim.
This is the writing-directing debut from journeyman actor Fran Kranz, and while the film is visually ordinary -- it takes place almost entirely in a room in the back of a church -- the dialogue is pitch-perfect and the actors manage to wring out a range of emotions without once hamming it up.
Plimpton, a veteran of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater, is Gail, an everywoman who is the moral and procedural center of the arranged summit. Her husband, Jay (an intense Jason Isaacs, who looks like Alec Baldwin stripped of vanity), takes his cues from Gail, while he reminds her of their mantra, which is to avoid interrogation.
Reed Birney, another utility player on screen, plays the uptight and reserved father of the shooter, perpetually defensive and struggling to refrain from lashing out at the umpteenth accusation that he should have flagged his son's behavior and prevented the tragedy. Ann Dowd is his wife, Linda, an overly empathetic and weepy mother who aches to connect with the victim's parents.
Dowd, surprisingly is the only one who can't quite find the right pitch throughout. But she acquits herself at the end with a final monologue that can rip your heart out. Linda's speech echoes one earlier from Gail, as both mothers try to put in words the pain of the lost tactile connection to their teenage boys. It's hard to imagine anyone not being moved by those two speeches.
Kranz cleverly bookends the gathering with light-hearted banter guided by church worker Judy (Breeda Wool), who awkwardly over-prepares the room and fumbles her way through introductions. The humor puts the gloom in perspective and lets the viewer tag out of the tension. It also grounds the story in realism; not everything is life and death. The nuances of small-time church operations are charming.
And while Kranz's hands are tied in this small room, what he loses in cinematography he makes up for with precise framing and editing. His script, too, is precise, with overlapping dialogue that creates a natural conversation that starts out icy but slowly evolves into a delicate detente between four damaged people. The simplified approach to a charged subject is audacious.
OK. 1990's "Godfather: Part III" left such a bad taste in our mouth, that we had to have a reset. The original played on the big screen in March for its 50th anniversary, and it's been more than 20 years since we saw the 1974 sequel. As we noted before, plenty has been said about the films, so we'll be brief and just jot down a few notes about two of the greatest films of all time.
THE GODFATHER (1972) (A) - Fifty years later, and I wouldn't change a scene. Gosh, what a glorious, sprawling story of a postwar family, based on Mario Puzo's guidebook for all mob tales that would follow.
Tying in with the anniversary, we gulped down Mark Seal's recent book about the making of the movie, Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli. Seal's tick-tock has a juicy, sweeping swagger not unlike Puzo's novel. It gives you an appreciation for Puzo, who was grinding out pulp fiction before he finished the novel that was based on years of research into mob life that involved poring over transcripts of congressional hearings with pivotal mafia figures. The book then unravels the production of the film at Paramount, from costumes to casting. It's a delightful read.
It took a lot of hard work and good luck for it to all come together. Francis Ford Coppola sweated over the script with Puzo (see the two below) and constantly pushed for top-shelf production values, assisted by producer Al Ruddy. It's easy to take for granted the cinematography by Gordon Willis (criticized at the time for his dark palette) or the music of Nino Rota, but these are legendary contributions.
One of the biggest disappointments of the belated third installment in 1990 was the weak cast. The original, by contrast, has a lineup that won't quit. Marlon Brando was in a career funk before he committed to the lead role (taking more money up front instead of a piece of the immense profits, according to Seal). Young hungry actors like James Caan, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino carved their names into history with their turns here. John Cazale and Diane Keaton would play critical supporting roles, both here and in Part II. Character actors Alex Rocco ("I'm Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!"), Richard Castellano ("Mikey, why don't you tell that nice girl you love her?"), Abe Vigoda ("Can you get me off the hook, Tom? For old times' sake?"), Richard Conte ("After all, we are not communists") and John Marley ("And if that goombah tries any rough stuff, you tell him I ain't no bandleader") made hay with little screen time. Real-life mob-affiliated guys like Lenny Montana (as the indelible Luca Brasi) and Gianni Russo (as philandering brother-in-law Carlo) lent gravitas. Sterling Hayden reprised his noir career with the critical portrayal of the crooked cop who dared to slug a Corleone.
Coppola infused every corner of the movie with authenticity of Italian culture, especially the food spreads. It is trite to criticize the film as an affront to Italian-Americans; this is a family saga that happens to involve criminal behavior. Sure, the violence has been glorified (and imitated, ad nauseam) over the years, but there is no denying the power and the depth of the storytelling, steeped in cultural touchstones. You can't help but wince at the pain experienced by Vito Corleone when he loses a son, from the moment Tom Hagen breaks the news to him to his reaction at seeing the corpse: "Look how they massacred my boy." Others: The indebted funeral director Bonasera at the service of the don to make sure Sonny's body is presentable, carrying out the favor that had been banked in the opening scene. The doddering don succumbing to a heart attack amid his tomato plants. The twin-tower bookends of a sprawling outdoor wedding to begin the movie and a christening -- intercut with scenes of assassinations -- for the climax.
The narrative is sophisticated (even a challenge to follow at times). The transformation of Pacino's Michael, from bright-eyed college-boy war hero to somber godfather, his cheekbones sharpening, is operatic: "Today I settled all family business." His time exiled in Sicily is bright and lung-filling yet heartbreaking. James Caan, matching Pacino blow for blow, is said to have ad-libbed some of his memorable maneuvers -- tossing bills at a photographer whose camera he smashed; tossing "badda-bing" and "badda-beep badda-boop" into his banter -- and his performance still elicits a chef's kiss in response.
And Brando did much more than wear a dental device to give him an old man's jowls. (Note the 48-year-old's transformation above.) He set the tone from the start, stroking the fur of a cat (that he had found on the set and incorporated into the scene) as he conducted the family business on the wedding day of the don's daughter. He knows how to slather on sarcasm, telling Sollozzo, after Sonny talks out of line during a meeting, "I have a sentimental weakness for my children and I spoil them, as you can see. They talk when they should listen." He tells Michael that he wanted him to go legit, to have the real power: "I refused to be a fool dancing on the strings held by all of those big
shots. That's my life; I don't apologize for that. But I always thought
that when it was your time, that you would be the one to hold the
strings. Senator Corleone, Governor Corleone, something."
There just wasn't enough time for Vito Corleone and his sons. Michael consoles him: "We'll get there, Pop. We'll get there." Cue Part II.
THE GODFATHER: PART II (1974) (A) - I've always given the slight edge to the sequel, a rare (unmatched?) instance in which the sophomore effort improbably outshines the original. While the original is a grand sweeping saga without a misstep, the second film is more ambitious cinematically. And whereas the first movie, even with Brando at the helm, was an ensemble piece, this time Al Pacino, emerging as a star, steps forward in the sequel to carry it all on his shoulders. (Pacino was in the middle of a run bookended by "Serpico" and "Dog Day Afternoon.")
Michael, having firmly established the family in Las Vegas (with a U.S. senator in his pocket), is now merciless, fearless and peerless. He dabbles with legitimacy. He continues an uneasy alliance with Hyman Roth as a gaggle of mafiosi and businessmen finalize plans to go big into Havana (90 miles from the U.S. coast, with a government that will look the other way) -- foolishly on the eve of the Cuban revolution. Michael sees trouble coming and makes the wise business maneuver.
It is almost hard to believe that Pacino shares half the story with Robert De Niro, who does a deep dive into the origin story of Vito Corleone, an orphan dumped at Ellis Island, who eventually makes his bones by knocking off the monolithic don over an employment slight. Coppola intercuts the scenes of the present day with the sepia-toned backstory, never fumbling an edit, dabbling in dissolves. He transforms Puzo's novel into an epic legend, extending the sprawl of the generations, deepening the motivations of Vito and Michael Corleone.
The main story takes place a mere 16 years in the past (1958 vis-a-vis 1974), and the storyline of the Senate committee's hearings was much more relatable to viewers than was the nostalgic World War II era. Michael figures out a way to elude a half dozen perjury charges by pulling a last-minute trick and convincing turncoat Frank Pentangeli to take a proverbial bullet for the team.
We get an echo of the christening scene, as this all builds toward Michael exacting revenge on his new set of enemies. His dance with Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), his father's old acquaintance, is beautifully nuanced. Strasberg gives a performance for the ages as the death-defying mobster ("He's been dying of the same heart attack for 20 years"), whether it's lecturing Michael on the Havana deal, relating the story of how he looked the other way when Moe Green was knocked off, or abasing himself before the press, literally hat in hand, when he realizes he has been check-mated at the end ("I'm a retired investor living on a pension"). At least Miami brightens the movie.
Diane Keaton as Kay Corleone and John Cazale as Fredo both up their game for the sequel. Kay will seal her fate by defying Michael in the most devastating way she can think of, and Fredo will finally try to stand up for himself. When told that their father wanted Michael to take over, Fredo -- knowing that his days are numbered -- finally erupts: "It ain't the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like
everybody says ... like dumb ... I'm smart and I want respect!" Sure thing, Fredo.
Like in the original, minor supporting players make invaluable contributions. Scratchy-voiced Michael Gazzo provides the glue as Pentangeli, an old-school captain caught between Corleone and Roth. His scene with Robert Duvall's Tom Hagen toward the end is richly bittersweet. Dominic Chianese, as Roth's bagman Johnny Ola, has that same sly look he would bring to "The Sopranos" as Uncle Junior. (I think he's the only common connection between the two productions.)
Of course, in the end, this is Pacino's masterpiece; his Shakespearean summit. He commands every inch of the modern era's scenes. No one could command a chair, as if he were king of the world, like Michael Corleone. And few actors could rivet you for 200 minutes like Al Pacino in his prime.
Celine Sciamma ("Girlhood," "Portrait of a Lady on Fire") tells the story of a girl who meets up with a familiar figure in a forest by her grandmother's house, "Petite Maman."
The son of noted Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi ("This Is Not a Film," "Jafar Panahi's Taxi") makes his own road movie about a family, "Hit the Road."
A cult and a criminal enterprise seem to merge in an artful drama, "Los Conductos."
A dark comedy directed by the talented Jerrod Carmichael, "On the Count of Three."
A look at the songwriting partnership between the Bad Seeds' Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, "This Much I Know to Be True."
KIMI (B-minus) - This is an incredibly stupid movie -- credit goes to mainstream veteran David Koeep ("Jurassic Park," "Panic Room") -- but it is fortunate to have Steven Soderbergh wielding the camera and Zoe Kravitz giving it her all as a Seattle hermit who may have inadvertently run across audio evidence of a violent crime. They make the film entertaining enough and bearable
Kravitz turns up the quirk as Angela, a loft-dweller who works for a Siri-type company (this one is Kimi) in quality assurance -- correcting and tweaking Kimi's responses to humans in order to improve the bot's performance. In one random audio, she hears a woman scream, and she reports it to superiors. One problem: It is the owner of the company, on the brink of an IPO, who is behind the poor woman's demise.
Angela, working with a vulgar Romanian tech guy, walks her concern up the chain of command, hitting a wall with a higher-up (Rita Wilson) who is much more creepy than helpful. This triggers a big chase in the final third, with Angela trying to keep a step ahead of the bad guys and to outfox them. It all descends into ridiculous action tropes in the final 20 minutes, but it's mostly diverting fun to see how it all turns out. Surprisingly, the Kimi device is mostly a fake-out; in this case, the bad actors and the heroes still come in human form.
Kravitz is incredibly engaging in the role of a medicated millennial battling social anxiety and OCD (she has a charming habit of applying sanitizer and then airing out her hands by faux clapping, keeping the palms apart). She has a robotic gait and a perpetual skeptic's glare. Soderbergh's camera swoops and careens, and it's his sharp storytelling skills that carry this along. It all feels like an homage to '70s cop shows, where you know that the protagonist, improbably, will somehow figure out how to survive.
BIG BUG (C+) - This flippant futuristic film -- in which, by the late 2040s, humans have grown subservient to computerized beings -- is fun for about fifteen minutes but then goes nowhere interesting. Rarely has whimsy seemed so tedious.
This comes from the mind and pen of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who brought us such delightful films as "Delicatessen," "Amelie" and "Micmacs" -- a fussy Wes Anderson type who comes up with a good idea every 10 years or so. Here, any point he is trying to make takes a backseat to the bells and whistles that whiz across the screen nonstop in a cartoonish flury. He takes a serviceable cast of French actors and batters them with relentless CGI effects. At 111 minutes, it's exhausting; an hour might have worked.
The premise involves an extended family (exes, neighbors) trapped in a house because the HAL-like computer won't open the door to let them out. This cooped-up bunch conspires with the sympathetic robot servants to try to overcome the fascist overlords. Or something like that. Jeunet pulls his punches too much to keep things coherent. He has an attractive cast -- who proclaim to be full of emotion and sensuality -- but then offers up PG-rated "Love, American Style" sexy hijinks rather than genuine spice. He would have been better off going all-in on some sexual raunch, but he sticks instead with stale special-effects in this candy-colored but bland confection.
THE HAND OF GOD (B+) - This is a gorgeous and heartwarming remembrance of an '80s childhood in Naples from Paolo Sorrentino, the aestheticist behind "The Great Beauty" and "Il Divo." In his latest big-screen extravaganza, you can detect the good, the bad and the ugly from both of those previous efforts.
Here, Sorrentino's avatar is teenager Fabietto (Filippo Scott), the youngest son of loving parents, Saverio and Maria (Sorrentino regular Toni Servillo and Teresa Saponangelo), with quirky siblings and even quirkier extended family members, whose group scene in the first part of the movie is worth the price of admission. Fabietto is a classic awkward teen -- not fitting in at school, pining for a girlfriend, and secretly harboring a pipe dream of making movies someday.
His adventures have a shaggy-dog appeal to them, and the connective tissue here is a soccer hook -- the strong rumors that the legendary Diego Maradona (he of the "hand of God" goal in the World Cup) might come to lowly Naples to play, abandoning Barcelona. Maradona is a symbol of hope and excellence, and Fabietto draws inspiration from that sports hero, even when he learns to tamp down such boyhood hero worship after a tragedy strikes the family. Scott is a strong young actor, good enough to carry the movie and play off the goofiness of the broad-stroke characters that surround him.
While Sorrentino's film, which also includes scenes of Federico Fellini filming a movie in the city, is flush with memorable visual flourishes (like a shot of a flare being shot from a boat toward a camera in the sky), it does get bogged down by the pitfalls that often trip up these misty-eyed trips down memory lane. Here is a list of tropes and cliches that get trafficked in, many with broad Borscht Belt tendencies:
The crazy, hyper-sexual aunt who is just too beautiful for sane society.
An uncle who insists that a sports figure or sporting event is a metaphor for life itself.
The extremely foul-mouthed family matriarch.
The unseen sister who lives 24/7 in the bathroom and communicates only through the closed door.
A teenage boy tenderly losing his virginity to a much older woman favoring him with this crucial rite of passage.
The grieving person who somehow can't cry, even at the funeral -- until days or weeks later at some random, inexplicable moment completely devoid of context.
The good outweighs the hackneyed, though, and the genuine outweighs the myth, such that we root for Fabietto and will retain hope for him down to the final, contemplative shot of him.
BELFAST (C) - Frankly, I'm surprised they still make movie like this -- trite childhood remembrances in gauzy black-and-white, the wide-eyed boy, the attractive working-class parents (bickering over money, naturally), the wise grandparents, and the era-defining political strife that colors all their actions. God bless Kenneth Branagh for romanticizing his school-boy education in life and love, but lord this is sappy.
It's not so much the rote storytelling -- that's to be expected -- but rather Branagh's decision to present the scenes as if meant to admit that they were shot on a scrubbed movie set. Everything visual here is mannered and fussed over to a fault. It's as if Frank Capra wrote and directed an episode of the Boomer TV nostalgiafest "The Wonder Years." Nothing feels remotely authentic.
Branagh's avatar, blond little Buddy (an engaging Jude Hill), bounces about amid the Protestant-Catholic wars in Belfast in 1969. He crushes on a little blond schoolmate (his Winnie Cooper), scampers around the streets, falls in love with movies, and gleans wisdom from this wise old grandpa (Ciaran Hinds), who might as well be wearing a sign around his neck saying "I'm going to die by the end of the movie." His parents are played by Caitriona Balfe (TV's "Outlander") and Jamie Dornan ("Fifty Shades of Grey"), their marital relationship merely skimmed over -- this bland valentine makes you yearn for an NC-17 spinoff where these passionate parents could let loose like on the randier projects the two actors are known for.
I'm happy for Branagh, but I feel bad that he thinks this tame and ultra-conventional brand of cinema would be taken by the masses as insightful in any way. This sap is made uniquely insufferable by the presence of no fewer than 10 hoary Van Morrison songs -- which about sums up Branagh's level of creativity. Why do they still make movies like this?
BONUS TRACK
One highlight of the "Belfast" soundtrack is "Everlasting Love" -- apparently lip-synced by Jamie Dornan over an early version by London band Love Affair. It is a truly joyous scene between him and Balfe. Here is the perfect '70s R&B version by Carl Carlton:
