The Female Graze

 

BRAINWASHED: SEX-CAMERA-POWER (B+) - This expansion of a lecture retains all the assets of a thoughtful polemic and juices it with engaging visuals to string it into a compelling narrative. Nina Menkes, an independent filmmaker for decades, began presenting her lecture around 2018 and turned it into a film release four years later.

Menkes is quite good at conveying some complex concepts, mainly through diagramming scenes from films. She goes beyond just the concerns about the "male gaze" and deepens our understanding of how filmmakers and audiences are the subjects who objectify the objects (female characters). Menkes never gets stuck in a trite academic rut.

We get numerous examples of cinematic tropes -- such as presenting women as disjointed body parts -- and we get to assess these entrenched ideas from a fresh perspective. There is invaluable insight from a host of film scholars (from the likes of UCLA and Dartmouth) and filmmakers, a refreshing mix of women who are not the same old talking heads, such as pioneering director Julie Dash ("Daughters of the Dust") and the young standout Eliza Hittman ("It Felt Like Love," "Never Rarely Sometimes Always"). Stories from the Weinstein-era trenches come from the likes of Rosanna Arquette and comic actor Charlyne Yi.

It does seem odd (even prurient at times) to indulge in so many examples of sexist filmmaking in order to make the case here, but Menkes never slips into voyeurism. She has important points to make, and she is a filmmaker who knows how to tell a compelling story. 

LOVING HIGHSMITH (B-minus) - This leaden documentary tries but fails to bring to life the famous novelist, Patricia Highsmith, as it sketches her biography through her love life. It too often feels like a trudge and glosses over the personality pitfalls of a woman who grew more and more bitter and insular as she aged.

Highsmith is most known for "Strangers on a Train" (brought to the big screen by Alfred Hitchcock) and the '90s cinematic touchstone "The Talented Mr. Ripley." We're more familiar with a novel she wrote under a pen name so as to hide her homosexuality; it became Todd Haynes' touching film "Carol" a few years ago. We get clips from those movies and others as pick-me-ups, though relative newcomer Eva Vitija otherwise dons a wet blanket to slog through Highsmith's love life. 

We visit with a trail of Highsmith's former lovers; she apparently left behind quite a few broken hearts on her path of devastation. (Besides being a diligent worker as a writer, she was a drinker and a smoker and eventually descended into a swamp of racism and antisemitism in her final years. That fact gets swept away with a quick line toward the end of the film.) Vitija also assembles three relatives of the author, but they seem oddly detached and fairly clueless about the subject.

It would be difficult to see this film as being perceived as inspiring to LGBT people. Highsmith isn't very fun to be around. She might have had good reason to be such a pill. But we don't have to wallow in it with her.

BONUS TRACK

The trailer for "Brainwashed":

Holy Crap!* I'll Replace You With Machines

A musical interlude:

What better place to see noisemakers Melt-Banana than at the quirk-hole that is Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, N.M. The band thrashed the twee venue on Election Eve with a sonic barrage that was enhanced by computer loops providing bass and drums and other skronks.

The surviving members (did the others go deaf?) Yako Onuki (vocals) and Ichiro Agata (guitar) sustained their violent speed-punk for about an hour, which was about as much as the modest crowd could handle. Even the moshers couldn't mosh fast enough to the blitz.

Onuki had a hand-held device that looked like a smart phone with a screen that had colorful circles on it (pink, blue, yellow, green), which she apparently used to control the music samples that backed her and Agata. She waved it around like a conductor's baton, and it seemed at times as if she was wielding it like she were manipulating a theremin. Hard to say.

Agata had his own assemblage of controls for tapes/loops at his feet. At one point he made his guitar sound like a gothic pipe organ. Most of the time it just sounded like a guitar turned up to 11.

Here's a good sense of the band's technique (in 2017 in, of all places, Birmingham, Alabama):

Midway through the show Melt-Banana offered a familiar concert staple -- I had heard them do it at Lounge Ax in Chicago in the mid-1990s, when they were a full co-ed band.  They offered up incredibly short bursts of songs, some lasting only a few seconds, each one followed by a quaint, perfunctory "Thank you. Our next song ..." and then launching into the next track. It was a technique that made the Minutemen seem like Yes by comparison. With her shrieks and wails throughout the night, Onuki could make Yoko Ono sound like Helen Reddy.

When she announced that they would play a cover song, I don't think anyone was prepared for the sonic assault on Devo's "Uncontrollable Urge":

There was something both comforting and exhilarating about watching these two old pals -- looking like a middle-age soccer mom and her kid brother -- body-slam a crowd for an hour.

Here is a half hour interview/concert (with a full band in 2010) from, of all places, Alabama Public Television:

* - Holy Crap is an occasional series about unique films (and now at least one concert), cutting a wide swath from brilliant to awful. Check out previous entries here.

BONUS TRACK

Our title track, and palate-cleanser, courtesy of Guided by Voices:

Gluttons for Punishment

 

A new release, "The Menu," offers an eat-the-rich fable, set in the world of high-end gastronomy. Film critics can't help themselves with the food puns.  Here's a sample platter of Gene Shalit wannabees from Metacritic, where the film, starring Ralph Fiennes, has a 71 rating.

 

Paste Magazine, Matthew Jackson:
"The complexity, both tonally and visually, is there to tease out the film’s black genre heart, and it’s that heart that makes The Menu a delicious and deeply filling experience that will make you beg for a second helping."

Associated Press, Jake Coyle:
"Even as The Menu teeters unevenly in its third act and things get gruesomely less appetizing, its greasy last bites succeed in capturing one common aspect of molecular gastronomy: The Menu will leave you hungry."

IndieWire, Christian Blauvelt:

"The Menu does do one thing exceptionally well: it holds your attention and makes you think for a time that any outcome is possible. That alone is something to salivate over."

Washington Post, Ann Hornaday:
"'Eat the Rich' might be a popular theme this movie season, but The Menu takes the idea to extremes that finally overpower the palate."

The Guardian goes back for seconds!

Peter Bradshaw:
"It is well-acted and well directed by Mylod with tasty side plates of droll humour."

Benjamin Lee:
"The Menu might not nail some of the more substantial courses but it’ll do as a light snack."

Empire, Siddhant Akhala:
"It’s deep-fried junk disguised as gastronomy; it may not fully satisfy, but it’ll fill a hole."

And the winner is ...

 
The Playlist, Charles Bramesco:
"Everything on the menu of The Menu looks good enough, but once its moldy tirade against the one percent has been fully dished out, it’s plain to see there’s not a whole lot of meat on the bone here."

New to the Queue

 More than halfway home ...

A "cryptic thriller" about a teenager's journey upon receiving an urn of his father's remains, "The Box."

The Millennial powerhouses Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver team up with Noah Baumbach for an adaptation of Don DeLillo's touchstone novel, "White Noise."

Mumblecore godfather Andrew Bujalski ("Computer Chess," "Results," "Support the Girls") returns with a cast that includes Jason Schwartzman and Lili Taylor, "There There."

We loved "Knives Out," so we're still game for Rian Johnson's rollicking sequel, "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery."

L.A. quirkiness greets some unexplained supernatural events at an apartment building in "Something in the Dirt."

Police Presence

 

RIOTSVILLE, U.S.A. (B+) - Sierra Pettengill follows up 2017's so-so "The Reagan Show" with this reverie about the government's response to the riots of the 1960s. The clips from 50+ years ago have a hypnotic effect, as this deep dive into the turbulence of the past shares ominous rhyme schemes with the present. Pettengill blows the dust off of one of the model towns built by the military to train law enforcement officers in counter-protest maneuvers, in the safety of a simulated city.

The mood is Big Brother kitschy. That ambience is driven by dispassionate, untethered narration (by Charlene Modeste), reciting philosophical musings akin to beat poetry, from a script written by Tobi Haslett. (It shares a vibe with Miranda July's dispassionate turn in "Fire of Love.")

Some of the clips are obscure and arch. We get NBC news team Huntley and Brinkley at their sardonic best, barely able to tamp down their contempt for the powers that be. Their telecast is sponsored by Gulf Oil, and its ad for bug spray sits there as one giant metaphor.

Pettengill dutifully pays respect to the urban riots of the day, and she spends a good amount of time digesting the Kerner Commission study on poverty. Then she takes a clever detour in the second half -- rather than rehash (yet again) the demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic in Chicago, she revisits the Republican convention that year in Miami, when police cracked down on protesters in a black neighborhood far from the site of the proceedings. 

It's a fascinating slice of history, and it cements this documentary as a powerful polemic about the brutality of the state, a mindset we just can't shake.

HOLD YOUR FIRE (B-minus) - What could have been a sharp hourlong PBS special gets stretched out to feature length to tell the story of a 1973 hostage situation in Brooklyn that served as the foundation for the practice of nuanced hostage negotiations that have since become the norm.

Writer-director Stefan Forbes, previously a cinematographer, is blessed with entertaining survivors of the crisis, which took place of 48 hours at John & Al's sports shop under the el tracks. Shu'aib Rahim was one of the gunmen, and Jerry Riccio was the spitfire proprietor of the store, which happened to be stocked with guns and ammunition. One police officer was killed at the beginning of the standoff, and one of the four offenders survived his bullet wounds.

Forbes unwinds the tale with a noir style (mostly through still photographs and archival news footage), but his pacing is slow, and the narrative starts to feel strung out and repetitive. Halfway through we get the back story of the four men, who had run afoul of the Nation of Islam, in particularly Rahim, who was trying to steal weapons to protect his family. He and Riccio are well-spoken and form a solid yin-yang dynamic as they spin the tale. Two hardened ex-cops are on hand to lob volleys across the thin blue line. And the quiet star is Harvey Schlossberg, the psychologist ex-cop who led the police response and pioneered the style of dispute resolution. 

Like too many documentaries, "Hold Your Fire," after spinning its wheels a bit, rushes the ending and wraps things up too neatly. It's just not quite compelling enough to fill the 93 minutes.

BONUS TRACK

The middle of "Riotsville" features an entire performance of "Burn, Baby, Burn" on public television by Jimmy Collier and Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick. Here is an alternative version:

Soundtrack of Your Life: Tell Me, Tell Me, Tell Me

An occasional feature in which we mark the songs of our relative youth as played over public muzak systems.

Date: November 8, 2022, 12:12 p.m.

Place: Trader Joe's in Uptown Albuquerque

Song:  "Tell Me Something Good"

Artist: Rufus (with Chaka Khan)

Irony Matrix: 3.8 out of 10

Comment: This castoff from the Stevie Wonder songwriting factory reached No. 3 in summer 1974, and it truly takes me back to my actual youth, reveling to Top 40 radio in the suburbs of Chicago. I don't know if I knew that the funk band and Chaka Khan (nee Yvette Marie Stevens) were from Chicago. It's got those Wonder staples -- a rubbery bass line and a jittery clavinet riff -- and infectious backing vocals. It's a pure jolt of joy that still slaps or bangs (as the kids say) five decades later. What fun.

Revenge of the Nerds

 

VENGEANCE (B) - This one loses at least half a grade for a forced, implausible ending that undercuts an otherwise smart culture-clash comedy from B.J. Novak. He writes, directs and stars as Ben, an urban NPR elitist who believes he has stumbled on the podcast that will make a mark -- a classic dead-white-girl mystery.

The dead girl is Abilene, a Texas innocent with whom he had a few romps in bed when she was visiting New York. Her family is convinced that the two were in a committed long-distant relationship, and so he finds his way out to the dusty roads of Texas to commune with the woman's stereotypical gun-loving, shit-kicking kin. Abilene's brother is determined to avenge his sister's death, which he is convinced was murder rather than an accidental drug overdose.

Novak walks a tightrope between insightful parody and cruel stereotyping, and his earnestness as both a performer and a filmmaker allows him to mostly pull it off. The writing is the key here. Novak has clever ideas and a way with a self-deprecating zinger or droll observations that capture the zeitgeist. He has great rapport with his editor back east, played with both verve and deadpan line readings by Issa Rae, who energizes the screen.

Novak also knows how to craft a riveting narrative, and we gladly follow him down the rabbit hole of good-ol'-boy culture. Ashton Kutcher shows up as a philosophizing drug dealer, a character meant to rescue the reputation of the entire small town and its idiosyncratic dimwits. It's a role that in the past would go to Burt Reynolds or John Travolta, and while Kutcher gives it his all, you can't help seeing a man positioning himself for the quirky middle-age phase of his acting career.

Nonetheless, the story zips along and entertains. But it begins to get repetitive in the final reel. And in the last five minutes or so it completely unravels, with several left-field plot twists, one more improbable than the next. It is a hugely disappointing denouement that can make a viewer feel cheated and a bit of a sucker (a rube?) for trusting Novak with his slick story.

THE FUNNY PAGES (B) - This impressive feature debut chronicles a few jangled days in the life of a high school senior determined to quit school and pursue his passion of comic-book art.

Daniel Zolghadri is fantastic as Robert, who bickers with his parents, is annoyed by his best friend, and craves to be a player in the comic-book world. The opening scene involves an awkward moment with his art teacher, and later Robert will meet a deranged character who happens to have had a cup of coffee with one of the iconic comic-book publishers as an assistant to the colorist. Character actor Matthew Maher is wonderfully creepy as Wallace, the object of Robert's obsession.

Writer-director Owen Kline (Kevin's kid, who played the little brother in "The Squid and the Whale") draws precise characterizations and his dialogue, sometimes realistically disjointed, has a fine cadence (when someone tells Robert that his car "is smoking," he beams, not realizing that the person was speaking literally about the junk heap). The scenes are enhanced, it seems, by some quality improv, especially by the parents, played by Josh Pais and Maria Dizzia. The supporting cast includes a lot of unique-looking actors who didn't pass through central casting but instead organically inhabit the grubby world of nerd culture. That includes a ghoulish cameo by Louise Lasser as a drug-seeking old crow.

However, in the end, the story is thin, and it never feels like anything important is at stake, or whether Robert truly believes in the sanctity of art. It too often feels like a poor stepchild of "Ghost World" and "American Splendor," the previous generation's oddball dramedies that had more depth.

BONUS TRACKS

The trailers:

Holy Crap!* What in ... "Tarnation"

 

We rewatched "Tarnation," a 2004 primal scream of an autobiography from Jonathan Caouette chronicling his abusive childhood and his schizophrenic mother. This damaged man, around 30 at the time of the movie's release, was an inveterate video diarist, starting as a child. His home performance, as an adolescent, of a woman tortured by domestic abuse would be the stuff of legend if Caouette had stayed on track as a performer.

But it's the scenes with his mother, Renee, that are the most compelling and disturbing. The film overall features machine-gun editing and early-MTV flourishes and quick cuts, but the filmmaker knows when to pause and let a scene play out. He trains the camera on his mom multiple times, during various schizophrenic breakdowns and refuses to cut away. The effect is lurid but also informative. The pain behind her eyes is heartbreaking.

Caouette also spends time with Renee's parents, Adolph and Rosemary, who raised him. That's a generous term. At least they didn't lobotomize him, like they did to the young-adult Renee, crippling her for life. Caouette also tracks down his birth father, who visits both him and Renee for a dreadfully uncomfortable scene.

Throughout, Caouette is struggling to keep his own relationship together, blessed with a patient partner. But evil lurks around every corner, especially as his grandparents age and emerge as horror-movie figures.

The narrative sometimes fractures, as if to mirror his or Renee's thoughts and perspectives. The pace is frenetic, with the screen sometimes splitting and multiplying in psychedelic fashion. Connecting it all is that Jonathan character, a born performer but doomed by a lack of discipline and focus. If he had come of age 20 years later, he would be a Tik-Tok phenomenon, with no need to polish his hits and streamline them into a coherent feature film.

Bonus points for the eclectic soundtrack, dropping in samples from Bob Dylan and Marianne Faithful, as well as more recent deep cuts from Magnetic Fields. It reportedly cost Caouette only a few thousand dollars to put his collage together but a few hundred thousand dollars to secure the soundtrack.

GRADE: A-minus

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

BONUS TRACKS

One classic tune is "After Loving You" by Jean Wells:

 And Lisa Germano's contribution is "Reptile":

Soundtrack of Your Life: Night of the Live Dehd

 

The kids from Dehd stopped in Albuquerque earlier this month and eked out an hourlong show. Rock concerts are packaged like food products now; instead of raising the price, you shrink the amount in the box. The trio in Dehd earned $25 per head and didn't have to stay out much past 10 o'clock.

They put on a fine show to a cozy, appreciative crowd. Wikipedia is all over the map trying to define their sound: "reverb-heavy guitar, blunt drumming, and the use of idiosyncratic vocals, which include drawls, call-and response, yelping, and frequent use of counter-melody ... but additional comparisons can be made to wall of sound, surf rock and dream pop." Think post-punk Jesus & Mary Chain at 16 speed. Try prehistoric "Munsters." For the first time, I got a lo-fi Del Fuegos vibe. Fellow travelers with the Growlers.

Jason Balla, with the day-glo lime guitar, hopscotched around the stage gingerly as he daintily plucked his spare notes. Emily Kempf has taken over many of the vocals on recent releases. And Eric McGrady is a standup guy on drums (he literally stands up while he plays, like Victor did in the Violent Femmes).

Samples from the evening include the early track "Lucky":

They charged out of the gates with their latest hit, "Bad Love":

Here's a hunk of them live, as a sampler, on KEXP:

They did a two-song encore; maybe they got OT for that.

BONUS TRACK

Speaking of .... the late-great Del Fuegos, the pride of the '80s, with "When the News Is on" and its enduring metaphor: "Sometimes love is like a shoe; you run around a lot and then it falls apart":

 And one of the great rock couplets from "It's Alright": "I love you baby and I love your cat / I love the way you look in my fireman’s hat":

Loners

 

SUNDOWN (B+) - Tim Roth is compelling as a catatonic rich man whiling away his time on a beach in Mexico, ignoring a family crisis back home in London. Like the fish gasping for air on a boat in the opening scene, Roth's Neil is suffocating under weight of his family and wealth and perhaps other concerns.

When a family matriarch dies, Neil conveniently misplaces his passport and must send his family members back to London without him. He proceeds to hole up at a seedy hotel, dip his toes in the water and start sleeping with a local bodega proprietor. He makes no effort to return for the funeral.

When the family (and the family lawyer) eventually return to retrieve him, our perspectives have shifted about what exactly is going on. (There will be a final dramatic twist (among others) near the end -- explaining Neil's state of mind -- but it is pretty well telegraphed in one of the first scenes.) Roth is delightfully numb and pretty heartless; he plays well off of Charlotte Gainsbourg as Alice, who is beyond frustrated with Neil. 

Some viewers might tune out, lacking the patience for this poor little rich boy experiencing his first-world problems while the working class serves him buckets of beer or shares his bed. But there's something compelling about this relentless bout of depression, and it's intriguing to watch two heavyweight actors spar together. And the final third features some clever, compact storytelling -- and gritty photography -- from Mexican writer-director Michel Franco in what feels like a breakthrough for a relatively young filmmaker.

FAST FORWARD THEATER

RUBBER (D+) (2011) - There's a fine line between absurd and stupid. This warped satire, which stars a loose tire, is mo' meta than meta.

Of course, this quirky concoction from Quentin Dupieux ("Keep an Eye Out," "Deerskin") can't just offer your ordinary average anthropomorphic whitewall -- no, this discarded hunk of rubber must also boast psycho-kinetic powers that it uses to blow up humans and various creatures. Cool.

And this is not just a traditional story about a little tire that could, but there is a self-referential B-plot involving an audience out in the desert watching the tire's journey. And then there's another meta layer on top of that featuring lectures on film history.

There are occasional amusements that you'd get out of any weird prop puppet -- the tire stops off at a motel and watches race-car driving on the television; it takes a shower. But none of the humans stand out. The police come off about as marginally funny as the C-team from "Reno 911." I fast-forwarded through some of the scenes of the tire just a-rollin' down the road, like a cowboy riding the trail in a spaghetti Western (an obvious influence here). 

You could possibly spot potential in such an arch idea, perhaps a shot at clever absurdism, but the execution is flat and pointless.

BONUS TRACKS

From "Rubber," this R&B nugget, "Just Don't Want to Be Lonely" from Blue Magic:

Doc Watch: Sweet Home, Chicago

 Three documentaries from my old stomping grounds, two down, one to go ...

LET THE LITTLE LIGHT SHINE (A-minus) - This thoroughly uplifting documentary chronicles the fight by students, parents and administrators to keep their high-performing elementary school from being closed by the school district on behalf other residents of the gentrified South Loop of Chicago. It might instill faith in the next generation.

Filmmaker Kevin Shaw -- working with "Hoop Dreams" legend Steve James as executive producer -- embeds with the black residents of an evolving neighborhood as they battle to stop the school district from converting their amazing elementary school into a high school, a plan intended to appease the high-brow neighborhood newbies. 

Elisabeth Greer, a mother of two young ones, is the leader of the group defending National Teachers Academy, which has essentially an A+ rating from CPS. Greer invites students to disrupt a neighborhood meeting, and the kids also shout down the school board at one meeting. Meantime, the principal -- a white man in a nearly all-black school -- proves himself to be a fearless leader. 

The film is so assured and invigorating that you can't help but be enchanted and filled with hope as the campaign goes on, eventually ending up before the Illinois Supreme Court. No matter how this turns out (it helps not to know the outcome going in), your heart most certainly will swell with admiration for this grass-roots effort. It helps when Chance the Rapper shows up to champion the cause.

The main complaint here is that Shaw is in too much of a hurry to tell this story in 87 minutes. At times, images -- of Malcolm X quotes and other slogans -- fly by too quickly to be absorbed. It need not be so kinetic. Otherwise, this is storytelling that should bring a tear to your eye.

THE TORCH (C+) - This an interesting but non-essential visit with blues icon Buddy Guy, whose Legends nightclub has anchored Chicago's South Loop since the 1990s. It is an unfortunate melding of two stories that drags out over close to two hours.

One story is the history of Guy, who is the main remaining link to the original bluesmen, like Muddy Waters and B.B. King. Guy is a fun storyteller, and he can be both rambling and engaging as he spins out memories for the camera. He also can still wield a mean guitar. 

The other story involves Guy passing "the torch" to a new generation, mainly Quinn Sullivan, who was a child prodigy before he turned 10 and is now in his 20s. Sullivan has incredible technical skills but none of the soul that emanates from Guy. Too much of the film is devoted to Sullivan and songwriter Tom Hambridge, a key collaborator of both blues guitarists. Anyone who is not Buddy Guy in this movie is only marginally interesting, and that includes Carlos Santana, Jonny Lang and Susan Tedeshi. The film has a hint of White Savior complex.

Not only was it completed before COVID hit, but it also was shot over an extended period of time, making it seem dated and at times lacking in continuity. Guy's music is great. He deserved his own documentary.

PREVIEW

And we are awaiting a wider/streaming release of "Punch 9 for Harold Washington," a chronicle of Chicago's beloved first black mayor:

BONUS TRACKS

Our title track, the Freddie King version:

Buddy Guy, from the '90s, with John Hiatt's "Feels Like Rain." I always smile at his interpretation of the phrase "button down the hatch":

Buddy Guy with his former musical companion Junior Wells live from 1974:

C'est Complique

HOLD ME TIGHT (A-minus) - I can't think of another movie-going experience where I almost walked out after 20 minutes but decided to stay and wound up finding the film to be brilliant. Actor Mathieu Amalric goes behind the camera, with impressive skills, to spin this densely constructed story of the wanderings of a woman at the end of her rope who is shown walking out on her husband and kids in the middle of the night.

Amalric, adapting a play, intentionally stirs confusion about what is exactly happening and when, mixing flashbacks in with current events. It takes a while to congeal, and for the longest time, you wonder if  Clarisse (Vicky Krieps from "Bergman Island") is nothing more than a miserable absentee mother on some sort of bender. While she pinballs around, Marc (Arieh Worthalter) tends to their little girl (a piano phenom) and younger boy.

Once an equilibrium is reached -- when the viewer may start to catch on about what is really going on here -- a rhythm sets in. During the middle of the film, we get a break from the mother (Krieps can be hard to take during the first half but is redeemed in the second half), and the focus on the father and children is a welcome respite. Meantime, Amalric's visuals and narrative tricks build momentum. The driving piano interludes that include Beethoven's "Fur Elise" -- young Anne-Sophie Bowen-Chatet is wonderful at either playing the keyboards or mimicking the act -- coil the tension a little tighter each time. 

Some might be disoriented until the cathartic final scenes. Don't worry. It's OK to sit back and experience Amalric's visual dalliances that both underscore and soften Clarisse's agonizing journey. After 97 minutes, you can just wring yourself out. 

BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE (C-minus) - Talk about bailing .... No matter which side of the blade you pick here, both sides are dull. This is the third recent collaboration between writer-director Claire Denis and star Juliette Binoche, and it falls somewhere between the sly, amusing relationship drama "Let the Sunshine in" and the dispiriting space wank "High Life."

Binoche is Sara, partnered with Jean (our guy Vincent Lindon), who is about to go back in business with Sara's ex, Francois (Gregoire Colin), whom Sara has never gotten over. That's an acceptable premise. But there is no explanation why Denis spends just under two hours spinning her wheels with these three petulant middle-age adults.

The dialogue is both repetitive and overly expositive. Jean is an ex-jock who has done time in prison for some white-collar misdeed, and much of his story is sidetracked by the B-plot of his troubled teenaged son being raised by Jean's mother (the always welcome Bulle Ogier from "Belle Toujours"), a thread that goes absolutely nowhere. Meantime, Sara nags Jean about doing business with Francois, Jean nags her back about continually bringing up Francois, and Francois toys with both of them.

Everyone is annoying. Sara, for no reason, talks out loud to herself about how turned on she is about the thought of seeing Francois again. Denis returns ad nauseam to scenes of Sara in bed, a bare shoulder the main focus. Only a knock-down drag-out argument between Binoche and Lindon late in the film provides grit and realism. Otherwise, these three behave like high schoolers, and watching them act like spoiled brats is not very much fun.

BONUS TRACK

The spare, haunting "Musica Ricercata" provides a taste of the jangled mood Amalric sets in "Hold Me Tight": 

New to the Queue

 ... turn, turn, turn ...

A documentary about a struggling female metal band out of Lebanon, "Sirens."

A fond look back at the phenomenon of the first black mayor of Chicago, back in the deeply segregated 1980s, "Punch 9 for Harold Washington."

Cristian Mungiu ("Graduation," "Beyond the Hills") is back with a fraught Romanian drama, "R.M.N."

A documentary about a grandfather in Mexico who builds a house next to his own, hoping to eventually lure back home his descendants who migrated to the U.S., "What We Leave Behind."

A look at Ernest Withers, the photojournalist who chronicled the civil rights movement and happened to also be an FBI informant, "The Picture Taker."

Martin McDonagh ("Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri") re-teams with his "In Bruges" stars Brendon Gleeson and Colin Farrell for friendship tussle "The Banshees of Inisherin."

A documentary about the sexual politics of cinema, "Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power."

Brothers in Arms

 

MATEWAN (1987) (A) - John Sayles emerged into the mainstream with this deeply heartfelt tribute to the 1920 coal-mine strike in West Virginia that erupted into violence. Dour Chris Cooper holds the center as Joe, an out-of-town union organizer who must make and keep peace between the striking workers and the scabs -- mostly Italians and Blacks -- lured to the company town by the mine owner.

Sayles -- emerging from indie status after directing "The Return of the Secaucus Seven" and "Brother From Another Planet" (and a few Bruce Springsteen videos) -- teams with cinematographer Haskell Wexler to create a gorgeous period piece, a languorous hymn to the rural working class. You know that Sayles is on the side of the workers, but he refuses to turn either side into a cartoon.

James Earl Jones maintains the moral compass as a character named Few Clothes, who helps broker the deal between his fellow scabs and the union. David Strathairn is the no-nonsense sheriff whose sympathies are obvious, and Kevin Tighe oozes smarm as the out-of-town employer enforcer. These characters slowly wind their way toward the inevitable violent showdown, wonderfully choreographed by Sayles and his crew.

The dialogue here is sharp and spare. Touches of verisimilitude lend gravitas. West Virginia bluegrass legend Hazel Dickens shows up at church services and funerals to wail a couple of traditional laments (plus a song written by Sayles). Cooper's Joe forms a bond with a local innkeeper played by Mary McDonnell, and it thankfully is one based on respect and not lust.

Sayles stretches this a quarter hour past the two-hour mark, but it never drags. His narrative is deep and rich. His upstate New York roots don't clash with the blue-collar sentiments of his script. This is mature filmmaking from an era that had more patience for nuanced storytelling.

THE HIRED HAND (1971) (B) - Peter Fonda mopes throughout this minor-key western that he wrote and directed, starring as a man caught between a deep friendship and the family he left behind about seven years earlier. He is lucky to have Warren Oates on hand to keep this watchable.

Fonda is too often enamored of creating artistic visual shots of the New Mexico sky and landscape (it was shot around White Sands), as if showing off as a director rather than tying the visuals into his storytelling. The story itself is sparse.  Fonda's Harry has been drifting through the Southwest for years now with his buddy Arch (Oates), but after a third member of their crew is shot dead by a jealous husband, Harry and Arch head back to the place Harry left, to his wife and the child he barely knew. 

This makes for an awkward emotional triangle during the middle of the film, and Harry at some point will be forced to choose between Arch and his wife, Hannah (played with stoic pride by Verna Bloom, who would go on to play Dean Wormer's wife in "Animal House"). While the antics here are essentially chaste and fully platonic, it's not a stretch to say that this film might have planted a few seeds about how two men can connect out on the range, and it might have served as a germ of an idea for "Brokeback Mountain." Harry and Arch are not ashamed about the deep bond they share, though they rarely acknowledge it.

Besides those glimmers of emotional depth, the narrative is pretty dry, and Harry can be quite the cipher across 90 lazy minutes. (That's not unusual for a neo-Western that shares DNA with, say, "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid," from two years later.) Fonda's co-stars here bail him out, each filling in the man's blanks.

BONUS TRACKS

Here is Hazel Dickens, from the early moments of "Matewan":

And, finally our title track. Because the Dire Straits album "Brothers in Arms" still traumatizes us to the point that we can't bear to link to it, let alone listen to it, we'll sub in the band's previous release, the EP "Extended Dance Play," with four snappy songs. "Ah, the things that I could do ... if I had you.":

Now & Then: Biographies

Brett Morgen, so compelling with his documentary about Kurt Cobain ("Montage of Heck") and deft with his biography "Jane," now curates footage of David Bowie. And we are reminded that his early work includes one of our favorites, the ribald Robert Evans memoir "The Kid Stays in the Picture," 20 years ago.

MOONAGE DAYDREAM (B+) - This two-hour-plus video montage captures the unique essence of David Bowie, even if it is overwhelming in its otherness at times. This is a collage that shuns a conventional narrative -- no talking heads, no narrator (besides the voice of Bowie himself at times), no chronology of album released.

Director Brett Morgen skews toward his Cobain biography "Montage of Heck," exploring the soul and creativity of a unique figure in rock history. The first third of the film leans heavy on Bowie's gender-bending Ziggy Stardust phase. It's a stark reminder of just how provocative Bowie was at the time, but Morgen overstays his welcome in the early 1970s before finally shifting gears and following his star to Berlin for the late '70s trilogy of recordings with Brian Eno. 

At times the film overwhelms the senses, with a few too many split screens and sonic mixes that border on cacophony. The timeline barely extends past the "Let's Dance" phenomenon and the stadium stardom of the mid-'80s and the TV commercial romps with Tina Turner. Morgen portrays Bowie as a renaissance auteur; Bowie's personal artwork is particular fascinating to see. 

It is clear that David Bowie never made a false step in public, always perfectly coifed and filmed from just the right angle. He didn't leave behind an unappealing clip. In the end, of course, this comes down to the music, and Morgen thankfully makes off-beat choices for the soundtrack, including some extended live performances. Like Bowie did, Morgen puts forth a gestalt, somewhat of a polemic that makes the argument for Bowie's pristine form of genius.

THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE (2002) (A) - This one holds up as a thoroughly entertaining romp through the lens of one of the true characters who bridged the eras between Hollywood's Golden Age and the American New Wave, Robert Evans. The Paramount producer's memoirs had been a hit among A-listers in the '90s, and Morgen and co-diretor Nanette Burstein take a visually giddy approach to this string of randy stories.

Evans, who died in 2019, failed as an actor in the '50s but stuck as a studio executive, having a major hand in "Rosemary's Baby," "Love Story," "Marathon Man," "Chinatown" and "The Godfather," all box-office smashes and cinematic touchstones to this day. He was briefly married to "Love Story" star Ali MacGraw (whom he condescendingly refers to as Snot Nose) but famously lost her to Steve McQueen. He eventually got swept up tangentially in a cocaine scandal and a murder investigation, crashing and burning at Paramount until he revived his career as a producer in the late '90s with middling retreads like "The Saint" and "The Out-of-Towners." 

But his CV is almost beside the point here. Evans was a notorious storyteller, stretching the truth more than Jane Fonda's aerobics leotards of the era. (A title card to the movie announces: "“There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying.") He has a gravelly voice and tends to mumble, which makes it an inspired choice to use his voice from the audiobook as narration. (Stick around for the end credits to watch Dustin Hoffman's vulgar 1976 imitation of Evans.) Morgen and Burstein make photographs pop with animation effects, and they dig up some fascinating film footage, including outtakes from the set of "Rosemary's Baby."

Evans is a character, in every sense of the word. He is a throwback to the cigar-chomping blowhards of the past and the slick deal-makers who knew how to soothe the egos of movie stars and close cut-throat deals worth millions. He is full of himself but also self-deprecating. He's a hoot and a holler. Watching this movie is like doing lines with Jack Nicholson. Have a blast.

BONUS TRACKS

The Bowie doc's soundtrack is a refreshing mix of deep cuts and alternative takes (plus a live version of "Love Me Do" embedded in "The Jean Genie"). Here is "Hallo Spaceboy" from his mid-'90s limbo:

 

A more familiar track (and one of my favorites) is a single released from the "Lodger" LP in the middle of his Berlin period.  "DJ" is where Brian Eno's production overlaps with Talking Heads of the same era.

The theme song that lilts through "The Kid Stays in the Picture" is Irving Berlin's wistful "What'll I Do":