Bad Boys, Bad Boys

DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY NAME (B+) - This bittersweet documentary presents the Laurel Canyon rock legend in an unflattering light -- he admits that everyone he's ever been close to (except his wife) thinks he an asshole and always has been. And a few of those old friends are happy to confirm it.

Crosby -- known as an early member of the Byrds and, of course, Crosby, Stills & Nash (& sometimes Young) -- is a seminal figure in boomer pop culture, but he squandered his talents in rock 'n' roll in favor of the sex & drugs part. He also was wounded around the time he broke big with CSN by the death of his girlfriend in a car crash.

For whatever reason, he went on to scorch his relationships. Newcomer A.J. Eaton (assisted by interviewed conducted by Cameron Crowe) captures a man full of regrets as his time grows short. (Crosby is 78.) Eaton follows the frail singer on a tour Crosby says he needs to do for the money. Crosby pontificates, often from the backseat of an SUV, and you get the sense that he truly has examined himself over the years.

How many rock bottoms has this man seen? The footage of an obese, shorn Crosby emerging from prison (over drug charges) is a reminder of how much of a punchline Crosby was in the '80s. And video of Crosby, Stills and Nash desecrating "Silent Night" at the national Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in 2015, in what would be their final appearance together mired in cacophony, is beyond embarrassing. (Nash long before that had refused to even acknowledge Crosby's presence on stage; Neil Young cut him off years ago.)

After revisiting his biography, you might wonder how Crosby, after all he's been through, still walks the earth. What's also is baffling is how a man who pretty much has never written a good song still scores a recording contract and gets fans to come out to see his shows. Yet, this is a poignant psychological profile of an endangered species.

DIEGO MARADONA (B) - Focusing on the late '80s heyday of the soccer icon, this HBO documentary stays surgically focused on both the field of play and the coked-up night life, melding the personal and professional. His fathering of an illegitimate child and dalliances with the local mafiosi are the stuff of telenovelas. Director Asif Kapadia ("Amy") expertly curates archival footage, dating back to Maradona's small-town barrio in Argentina, whence he emerged as a teen phenom. The game footage, using alternative camera angles, is particularly riveting.

Maradona becomes a hero and a legend during his time with Naples, turning around an also-ran franchise and taking them to the top of the league. Meantime, he led Argentina to consecutive World Cup finals, in 1986 and 1990 (mythologized in the '86 quarterfinals by the "Hand of God" goal and the "Goal of the Century"). At 5-foot-5 he was low to the ground and could run defenders in circles.

This is more of a cut-and-past historical study than a "This Is Your Life" parade of talking heads. Even if you don't know much about Maradona or soccer (I don't), you can appreciate this detailed tribute to one of the worlds most famous sports stars.
  

R.I.P, Kim Shattuck

The Muffs were a gritty garage pop band that came of age during the Heyday of the Planet of Sound, launched by Kim Shattuck and a pal in the early '90s. Kim, who died last week at age 56 of ALS, was a classic shouter, carrying Joan Jett's torch into the next generation as best as anyone. That voice complemented the crunch and jangle of the guitars.

The Muffs revived "Kids in America" for the "Clueless" soundtrack and put Kim Wilde's version to shame. They put out four albums in their first decade (all part of that '90s uplift) and capped it with a best-of, "Hamburger," in 2000, a good place to start.

The Muffs have a new album coming out next week, "No Holiday," which will include some old material.

BONUS TRACKS
Peak screech in "Lucky Guy": 



The Muffs' songs weren't the most original. The grinding hook of "I Need You" is irresistible nonetheless:



And then there's this fuzzbomb, a cover of the Zeros' "Beat Your Heart Out":


 

Fast Forward Theater: The Banality of Banal

JEANNE DIELMAN (1975) (C) - OK. I did it. Check it off the list. Chantal Akerman's foundational alt-cinema touchstone about three days of drudgery in the life of a Belgian widow clocks in at three hours and twenty minutes and dares you to sit through it. I did it, albeit often on fast forward because -- trust me on this -- you don't miss anything by zipping through Mme. Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) peeling potatoes, rolling a meatloaf, or folding laundry.

We admire Akerman, and three years ago we explored her work somewhat, including "Je Tu il Elle" and her farewell, "No Home Movie." (She died in 2015.) Forty-four years ago, it may have been a daring experiment to turn the camera's gaze (stare?) on a bored housewife, whose ennui extends to the perfunctory tricks she turns every afternoon with nerdy customers.

She lives with her young-adult son, Sylvain (Jan Decorte), who doesn't have much to say during painfully silent dinners but then gets all chatty about inappropriate sexual topics just before lights-out at bedtime. Is he signaling to Jeanne that he knows about her daytime activities while he's off at school? No clue.

Otherwise, Jeanne neatens the bed, prepares meal, takes tea breaks, does the shopping, fucks a gentleman caller, and reads letters from her sister, who is off living in America. Akerman and Seyrig gradually (very gradually) peel away a few layers of the character until we sense a restlessness and unhappiness. This builds (gradually) to a shocking event that is treated like another day in the life of Ms. Dielman. This might have been inspired, ironically, by Monty Python's "The Dull Life of a City Stockbroker," or it just might have been a cri de coeur from the depths of the feminist movement.

Life Is Short: Oh, for Two

Life Is Short is an as-needed series documenting the films we just couldn't make it through. We like to refer to these movies as "Damsels in Distress." Previous entries can be found here. 

We love Claire Denis, and we have patience for her brand of storytelling (back to "Beau Travail" in 1999 and "White Material" in 2009). As recently as last year, we were enthralled by her relationship drama with Juliette Binoche, "Let the Sunshine In."  With her newest, "High Life," she re-teams with Binoche, who is subjected to a graphic sex scene with a machine, but unfortunately this one is a threesome, including Robert Pattinson. A foursome if you include the crying baby who dominates the first half hour of this story about criminals sent into space as guinea pigs with no hopes of returning to Earth.

Or something like that. Pattinson mumbles and the baby girl screams a lot as Denis takes forever to press "start." Very little happens. It's hard to care about Pattinson's character or the others who, we see from the opening scene, will be carelessly jettisoned from the space ship. This may eventually stumble into fascinating sci-fi territory and a philosophical exploration of human existence. We'll never know.

Title: HIGH LIFE

Running Time: 113 MIN

Elapsed Time at Plug Pull:  33 MIN

Portion Watched: 29%

My Age at Time of Viewing: 56 YRS, 10 MOS.

Average Male American Lifespan: 78.7 YRS.

Watched/Did Instead: Read the news online.

Odds of Re-viewing This Title: 55-1

And now for something completely different ...

Maybe you like watching professional wrestling. I did when I was 9. I grew out of that phase. "Fighting With My Family" was a pretty quick and easy pull at the 20-minute mark. You might be able to survive this one if you enjoy the "sport" and get the references. An obese Nick Frost heads the family that is gaga about pro wrestling, dreams of WWE glory, and wears its vulgarities on its collective sleeves. 

God bless Stephen Merchant, who wrote and directed (and does a wacky turn as a prudish twit appalled by the family), but this is pretty thin gruel. Maybe things pick up when Vince Vaughn shows up (they usually do), but I immediately realized I was not the target audience here. 

Title: FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY

Running Time: 108 MIN

Elapsed Time at Plug Pull:  20 MIN

Portion Watched: 18.5%

My Age at Time of Viewing: 56 YRS, 10 MOS.

Average Male American Lifespan: 78.7 YRS.

Watched/Did Instead: Watched another video.

Odds of Re-viewing This Title: 100-1

  

Young Adult Friction

GIVE ME LIBERTY (A) - A director making his English-language debut and a no-name cast produce this powerful story of a harried medical-transport driver navigating a personal hellscape and a van full of eccentrics through the streets of Milwaukee. Kirill Mikhanovsky, a Russian immigrant, mines his own experiences and crafts a day-in-the-life of Vic (first-timer Chris Galust), a 20-something son of Russian immigrants who juggles personal tribulations with his responsibilities for the sick, ailing and handicapped clients that he ferries, party-bus style, around the city, which happens to be paralyzed by protests in the wake of the police shooting of a young black man.

Mikhanovsky takes this intoxicating mix and masterfully splays it on the screen in whirling images and at breakneck speed. Vic barely pauses for a breath. In addition to his regular passengers on this given day, he agrees to take on the residents of his grandfather's nursing home, who were abandoned by their scheduled driver and need a ride to the funeral service of one of their own.

The individual characters -- many of whom are non-actors with true disabilities -- can be funny and heartbreaking. The most experienced actor is Maxim Stoyanov as Dima, a grifter who has a scam in mind (and designs on Vic's sister) as he goes along for the ride. Lauren "Lolo" Spencer is unforgettable as Tracy, whose motormouth makes up for the limitations of her legs and who represents the emotional core of the film. We get a one-man Greek chorus from a chain-smoking paraplegic (James Watson) who guides Vic as a philosophical guru.

Mikhanovsky does nothing wrong here. He patronizes no one. He doesn't overdo the mayhem. His camera is certain. His script with Alice Austen (a newcomer, of course) never gets mumbly or maudlin. The story they tell is thrilling and heartfelt. It's funny and sweet.

THE WILD PEAR TREE (B+) - From Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan, we get this three-plus-hour epic slow burn about a young writer battling the demons of his small-minded hometown as he struggles to stay true to his craft. Yes, three-plus hours, and no, there's no cheating here. It's somewhat of a companion piece to Ceylan's "Winter Sleep" (with the same running time), about an older writer.

Ceylan -- whose "Climates" is still the gold standard for relationship films -- here focuses more on father and son (and grandfather) rather than couplehood, though he does tease us with a potential love interest for young Sinan (Dogu Demirkol). Sinan has the arrogance of a young writer shopping his first book, a personalized look at his tiny hometown. Demirkol has a millennial smirk and the goofy mien of Adam Sandler, and his restlessness is endearing, as he nearly bursts with frustration.

He must deal with his frustrating father, Idris (Murat Cemcir), a gambling addict consumed by a quixotic quest to tap a well on the family property. We get deadpan humor, philosophical musings and long, mournful landscape shots, all a staple of Ceylan and his writing-partner wife, Ebru (working here with newcomer Akin Aksu on the script). This one requires patience and understanding, and even if it's a minor-key work from a true auteur, it is satisfying right up to its knockout of an ending.

BONUS TRACK
The "Liberty" trailer:

New to the Queue

Before the fall ...

A wartime film about the hauling of dangerous cargo across the former Yugoslavia, "The Load."

A heartwarming story of a young Milwaukee man who works as a medical transport driver, "Give Me Liberty."

A documentary about an iconic singer from the boomer generation, "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice."

A couple of bumbling good ol' boys kill their best pal and try to cover it up in "The Death of Dick Long."

We will be dragged to the latest super-villain movie and we will adjust our expectations accordingly for "Joker."

Tough Guys

THE IDES OF MARCH (2011) (C+) - In which George Clooney dumbs down American civics with an idiot plot for his Soccer Mom target audience. Requiring a suspension of belief that would daunt the Wendellas, Clooney stars as a former Ohio governor running for president but puts his wunderkind campaign strategist (Ryan Gosling, still finding his legs as an actor) in an awkward position.

Gosling's slick-talking Stephanopoulos wannabe gets caught between his own boss, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and a rival campaign manager played by Paul Giamatti. Both Hoffman and Giamatti are woefully under-utilized. Enter Evan Rachel Wood (a wonderful child actor ("Thirteen") who has been drained of talent as an adult) as a 20-year-old campaign intern who is out to seduce Gosling's studly strategist. 

The timing of events -- the Democratic primary is improbably hanging in the balance in mid-March, yet one local pol's delegates could seal the whole deal -- is laughable. The intrigue in barely intriguing. No one breaks out of their two-dimensional molds. Clooney and partner Grant Heslov scored in 2005 with "Good Night and Good Luck," but they have flailed ever since ("The Monuments Men" in 2014 and "Suburbicon" in 2017).

BETWEEN TWO FERNS: THE MOVIE (B) - Not really much of a movie but rather an extended version of Zach Galifianakis' droll spoof of talk-show spoofs. But if you can stand the stand-up's sit-down routine and the droll but scathing writing of his filmmaking partner Scott Aukerman, you'll find plenty to laugh about.

There's actually a plot stringing together the droll celebrity interviews. Zach and his crew take a road trip (the two ferns getting the front passenger seat, with the three staffers in the back). Lauren Lapkus (Pete's ex in HBO's "Crashing") is a standout as his loyal assistant Carol (who casually mentions the murder-suicide of her parents as a mere blip). The cameraman's name is Cameron Campbell, a good example of the laziness and silliness that still manage to get a laugh.

The barrage of celebrity cameos (Paul Rudd and Brie Larson are pretty good) makes for reliable diversions. And dare I say, that Will Ferrell (as the Funny or Die guru) and his shtick are wearing a bit thin?

MUTE (D-minus) - Speaking of indulged celebrities (or their spawn) ... This was background streaming on Netflix that I was subjected to. Duncan Jones (who once made a good movie called "Moon," years ago) writes and directs this execrable sci-fi mess about a mute bartender (Alexander Skarsgaard, in a role he may never recover from) navigating a blandly dystopian future Berlin with the help of a couple of rogue surgeons (?), one played ludicrously by Paul Rudd, pretending to be a gum-snapping tough guy and face-planting hard on his cartoonish walrus mustache (!).

The misogyny here is off the charts. The violence is grim, as if Jones thought it was clever to steal from Terry Gilliam ("Brazil") but takes it way too seriously. This is offensive to the senses and the intellect, as well as wasting everyone's time and money. It doesn't work as a parody of "Blade Runner" or even as a winking wank. Ugh.

BONUS TRACK
A sampling of Galifianakis and Rudd (more in his milieu) in "Ferns":


  

R.I.P, Daniel Johnston

I was one of those guys in the late '80s who discovered troubled Daniel Johnston and sent away for those homemade cassette tapes that he recorded himself on a boombox. Johnston had moved to Austin at this point and caught the attention of MTV and all the hipsters of the alt-music era, most notably Kurt Cobain, who would make Johnston's "Hi, How Are You" T-shirt famous on the music video channel. Johnston died on September 11th at age 58. He was a contemporary and a touchstone.

Johnston suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. His songs sprang from his pain and anguish, but they burst free with joy, even the melancholy songs that seemed to have been liberated from his anxious soul. He sang in a fragile child-like voice, his songs inspired by a kid's cartoon heroes and space aliens (he was an outsider artist, too), somehow simple yet Lennonesque. He was silly and soulful. The sound of his chord organ was ridiculously amateurish yet he dabbled in the profound. The recordings were so crude you could hear him hitting the "record" and "stop" buttons on his tape player. He drew the art for the covers and xeroxed and pasted them onto the cassette case before popping them into the padded envelope that they would arrive in. It was the '80s, and we were so artfully underground.

I saw him perform once at a record store in Chicago, perhaps around the turn of the millennium. He seemed frightened to be the center of attention. I felt guilty for wanting him to entertain me, to expect him to just ignore his challenges and play the role of rock star. I wanted to call a halt to the proceedings and chastise his handlers. Who knows. Maybe in his head he was slaying the crowd at Madison Square garden.

Watching his more recent performances is difficult -- his physical and mental deterioration was evident, and he still looked incredibly awkward. One of his biggest songs was "True Love Will Find You in the End." Maybe peace of mind does too.

BONUS TRACKS
Johnston's "hit," "Walking the Cow":



The cinematic "Desperate Man Blues":



Johnston's haunting cover of "I Saw Her Standing There":



The trailer for the powerful documentary, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston":



Around the turn of the millennium, I knew that our generation had taken over pop culture when Johnston's "Speeding Motorcycles" was borrowed for a Target commercial:



The Reivers put a polish on "Walking the Cow" (as would Mike Watt with Firehose):



And the MTV performance that launched his superstardom:


 

National Night Out

Back to back concert outings, both on a school night:

We last saw The National three summers ago at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. Back then they were previewing songs from 2017's "Sleep Well Beast." This time, at the Santa Fe Opera, the boys gave a classic jolt to "Mr. November" toward the end of the show. But the bulk of the show was devoted to numbers from this year's release, "I Am Easy to Find."

Matt Berninger was joined on most songs by Kate Stables, filling in for the other women who helped her dominate the newest album. On disc, the songs can come off as inscrutable and dense. Live, the melodies of the Dessner brothers gained muscle and felt more pop and less art-show arch. Berninger did his crowd shtick, and "Fake Empire" never sounded so bitter. When they played the title track, with a couplet clipped from Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices ("Tower to the skies / An academy of lies"), a lot of things came full circle.

***

Kristin Hersh is a rock star set off in the corner. She played on a Monday night to a small crowd at a downtown Albuquerque dive, and her power trio powered through new material. She was unapologetic about not playing tunes from her old band, Throwing Muses (and probably for the best, without essential drummer David Narcizo). This was more a mix of 50 Foot Wave punk and Hersh's mood solo work.

Hersh's guitar work was powerful, mixing in distortion and psychedelic solos. Her voice is as immaculate as ever. Her thousand-mile stare just above our heads seemed like a plea for a private right of action -- to play the songs she wanted to and not the songs we might have craved out of nostalgia for the Heyday of the Planet of Sound.

She did not disappoint. Nor does her latest album, "Possible Dust Clouds."

BONUS TRACKS
The National made an art film with Mike Mills, starring Alicia Vikander:



Hersh did not play any old songs, but YouTube cannot be denied. Here is one of the gems from "The Real Ramona," "Him Dancing":



Hersh's "LAX" from her latest disc:


 

Life's a Bee and Then You Die

HONEYLAND (A-minus) - This thoroughly depressing documentary follows the hardscrabble life of Hatidze as she nurtures the bee population of her crude hamlet outside the capital of Macedonia. She also tends to her dying mother in the stone hut they share. When a rowdy couple with a bunch of undisciplined kids moves in next door, they decide to clumsily take up beekeeping themselves, upsetting the town's apian ecosystem and threatening Hatidze's livelihood.

Hatidze nonetheless helps look after these neighbor kids and still goes about collecting honey and selling it in Skopje. The details of her day-to-day existence in this primitive setting are fascinating. People are industrious when they need to be. (They rig up an aluminum disc on a pole -- nailing it in place using a rock -- so they can use it as an antenna for an old transistor radio that they gather 'round like the castaways of Gilligan's Island.) Somehow, the movie is bookended with snippets of the '70s cheese classic "You Are So Beautiful" (doesn't sound like the Joe Cocker version, though), a touch of irony considering Hatidze's haggish, dentally challenged physical appearance. (She looks 70 but tells someone she was born in 1964.))

Directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov gain intimate access to every aspect of Hatidze's simple existence. The camera is perpetually over their subject's shoulder, even as she scales a cliff to check on a hive that is treacherously situated. Some of the visuals are breathtaking. The directors find humor in this rough existence (the neighbor kids are constantly battering and bruising each other -- when they're not getting stung by bees). Hatidze is a survivor, and her gumption is to be admired. But there are times when you wonder if this trudge to the grave is beautiful or pointless.

MONROVIA, INDIANA (C-minus) - You know all those things you do throughout the day -- get your hair cut, shop at the grocery store, do your job, maybe go to a community meeting, prattle on to your fellow senior citizens at the ol' diner? Would you ever want to watch yourself do those things? Would you want to watch a bunch of people in rural Indiana doing those things? Documentary legend Frederick Wiseman thinks you do. You don't.

File this one under Fast Forward Theater. This is as dull as watching corn grow. Which we do in this film, by the way. Sorry, this town is just not interesting. What is the point? Life is tedious and then you die? (Wiseman actually closes with about 15 minutes of a rambling sermon at a funeral for some old lady named Shirley.)

Wiseman -- known for modern successes like "Boxing Gym" and "Crazy Horse" -- has been testing our patience for quite a while now. "At Berkeley" (four hours) and "In Jackson Heights" (a mere three) were wonky process experiments that pushed the limits of fly-on-the-wall observational narration. They just could not be consumed in one sitting, if at all. But at least he had a compelling subject last year in "Ex Libris," about the New York Public Library. It gave us hope that the old boy was back on his game. No such luck.

Doc Watch: Hoarders

JAY MYSELF (A-minus) - This all-around delight follows Jay Maisel, a venerated New York street photographer, now in his 80s, as he packs up and moves out of the five-story bank building he bought in the pre-gentrified Bowery back in the late 1960s and stuffed with art and artifacts. He's a classic New York character and an entertaining subject for a life retrospective.

The cigar-chomping Maisel, over half a century, filled dozens of rooms (including the vault) with ... things. One room is devoted strictly to round objects. One bureau has a drawer filled with screws that fit one particular machine that is nowhere to be found. Colors fill the window panes. There's a small basketball court. His archives spill from cabinets. Discarded film slides fill giant glass cubes. He estimates that 35 truckloads -- organized by Moishe's Last Minute movers -- will be necessary to clean the place out and resettle him in post-gentrified Brooklyn.

The film is by one of Maisel's former assistants, Stephen Wilkes, and points for the insider insight to the old days and for the revealing archival footage from back in the day, but a half point off for lack of objectivity here. This is more of a home movie but a nonetheless fascinating one. Maisel's force of personality, reinforced but softened by his younger wife and by their 20-something daughter, makes for an intimate portrait of a man with an almost child-like glee in observing every observable moment and reveling in the beauty of the everyday. This is an inspiring film infused with the fantastic photographs (and Wilkes' own captured moving images) that reveal the aesthetic splendor that is always around us.

FOOD INC. (2008) (A-minus) - This polemic against the corporate food industry that is killing us still holds up a decade later. Robert Kenner, working with Eric Schlosser (the book Fast Food Nation) casts a devastating lens on factory farming and food processing.

Kenner digs for glimmers of hope -- every day folks rebelling against the warehousing of chickens, organic-yogurt manufacturers breaching Walmart's borders. He exposes Monsanto's genetic manipulations and celebrates an old-fashioned chicken farmer. We've made some progress since this jangled the debate, but how many steps backward have we taken?

BONUS TRACK
The trailer for "Jay Myself":


 

Young Women in Peril

CHARLIE SAYS (B+) - In this summer of anniversaries, we travel back 50 years to the Manson Family killings -- marking the end of the '60s, according to the Joan Didion quote that opens this movie -- with a focus on the Manson women and girls, in particular three of them, often in a flash forward to their time in prison three years later.

Mary Harron ("The Moth Diaries," "The Notorious Bettie Page") brings a sympathetic eye to these damaged souls who were lured from troubled childhoods into a cult and given uninspired nicknames -- Sadie, Lulu and Katie. Harron doesn't blink from the sexual creepiness of Manson and the grimy compound he created at the Spahn Ranch in the late '60s. Brit Matt Smith (TV's "Dr. Who") dirties up well for the role of Charles Manson, even if he's a little too tall and handsome for the part.

Hannah Murray (HBO's "Game of Thrones") carries the load here as wide-eyed naif Leslie Van Houten, and Merrit Wever lends gravitas as the jail volunteer who tries to break through to the brainwashed acolytes who continue to chant the Family's aphorisms. You feel for these young women, but they can be scary, too, which is how I remember it, hazily, from childhood. Harron uses dim lighting to ratchet up the tension from 1969, but she brightens things up for the jail scenes. This one gets under your skin.

EVERYBODY KNOWS (B) - In the weakest movie we've seen so far from Iranian master Asghar Farhadi ("A Separation," "The Salesman"), he is blessed with a great cast of Spanish actors but spins in circles weaving a knotty plot of yet another female gone missing (in the mode of ("About Elly"). He's traversing in the territory of "The Past," which landed him in France with a top-notch cast, but here he could have easily pared 20 minutes from a 133-minute running time.

Penelope Cruz stars as Laura, a mother and wife returning from Argentina to her hometown of Madrid for her sister's wedding. Lurking is an ex-lover Paco, played by Javier Bardem, who runs the half of the family vineyard that Laura sold to him years ago. Ricardo Darin ("Wild Tales," "The Secret in Their Eyes") shows up halfway through as Laura's husband, who stayed behind in Argentina trying to salvage the couple's financial mess. 

When their daughter goes missing the night of the wedding, minor intrigue ensues. Cruz cries a lot, and Laura turns to Paco to help raise the ransom money. The disappearance, from the start, has the hallmarks of an inside job -- if not a prank by the daughter -- and thus the second half can feel like drudgery, even as some secrets are revealed, none of which will knock you our of your seat.

But Farhadi knows how to dig deep into the haunted emotions of couples and families. And his visual work with cinematographer Jose Louis Alcaine can be mesmerizing at times. But from the start -- when it is a challenge to keep track of the many family members -- to the final reel when you just want the girl to show up, dead or alive, already, the director tests the viewer's patience.
 

On the Prowl

THE HEIRESSES (B+) - This delightfully quirky film follows two aging scions of wealthy families in Asuncion, Paraguay, as they struggle with their relationship and the loss of their wealth. When the debts of Chiquita (Margarita Irun) land her in prison, her mate Chela (Ana Brun) ends up carting other old ladies around the city, despite her inexperience behind the wheel, but protected by the rosary beads hanging from the rearview mirror.

Written and directed by newcomer Marcelo Martinessi, "The Heiresses" unfolds casually to tell Chela's story as she emerges from social seclusion and savors the joy of freedom from the domineering Chiquita (who thrives in the low-security female prison), especially when the sexy, younger Angy (Ana Ivanova) enters the picture. Martinessi is comfortable with the simplistic narrative, as Brun (like Irun, a newcomer) takes over the proceedings with a soulful performance. The story is quiet but profound.

THE CHARMER (B+) - Young Iranian Esmail (Ardalan Esmaili) is on the prowl in Copenhagen, hoping to land a Danish wife that will earn him a green card and an extended stay away from his homeland. His escapades catch the eye of another Iranian, Sara (Soho Rezanejad), who knows the game he is playing and swats him away from her tall, blond friend.

Esmail's background is slowly peeled back for us to understand his motivations, especially his interactions at the hot singles bar with an older Danish man newly on the singles market and seeking to commiserate with Esmail. The actor Esmaili carries this from beginning to end with a pair of puppy-dog eyes and, yes, charm. This one, from relative newcomer Milad Alami, turns into a quiet little thriller as Esmail tries to outrace his past. Alami and co-writer Ingeborg Topsoe craft sharp dialogue and make fine use of different fonts in the subtitles -- italicizing the English translation of Persian to distinguish from the Danish dialogue. The narrative is taut, leading to a powerful ending.

BONUS TRACK
The trailer for "The Heiresses":


 

New to the Queue

After the flood ... an all-doc dump ...

A visually stylized documentary about a beekeeper in Macedonia (and a statement about the environment), "Honeyland."

A personalized documentary about China's controversial population-control program, "One Child Nation."

A visually dazzling look at humans coping with water and the ramifications of climate change, "Aquarela."

Yet another doc, this one about a trailblazing polemicist and tart-tongued Texan, "Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins."

An examination of what happened when a Chinese company took over a shuttered auto operation in Ohio, "American Factory."
 

Doc Watch: Peace, Love & Muddy Memories

Two new(ish) documentaries on the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, neither of which, apparently, could score rights to performance footage:

CREATING WOODSTOCK (B) - A kind of bait-and-switch, this is a new release but almost all of the interviews of the producers of the iconic 1969 music festival are from the 1970s and '80s. At least their memories are much more contemporaneous that way. And this is a rather fascinating dissection of the nuts and bolts of putting on a massive music (and arts) extravaganza. We hear from the four main creators -- dreamers Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld, and financiers Joel Rosenman and John Roberts. 

Director (curator?) Mick Richards mostly stays off-stage and sticks to the behind-the-scenes tick-tock of how it all went down. Don't expect Hendrix solos and Santana jams here. There is virtually no music from the event included here, and the incidental song selections are often clunky and incongruent. This clocks in at nearly two hours, but Richards makes good use of his time. Entertaining talking heads include Richie Havens, Arlo Guthrie and, especially, Leslie West from Mountain. Even some locals -- both for and against at the time -- offer insight into the hubbub that surrounded the last-minute switch between upstate New York locations, from Wallkill to Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel.

This is a level-headed reminiscence, shunning honey-soaked nostalgia, for the most part, in favor of a sometimes riveting explainer. 

WOODSTOCK: THREE DAYS THAT DEFINED A GENERATION (B-minus) - PBS has a slicker story behind the story, but it devolves into yet another hagiographic nostalgia-fest among glassy-eyed baby boomers. We still get very few musical moments from the stage (but plenty of those monotone announcements made famous by the original 1970 documentary). Footage of host Max Yasgur addressing the assembled long-hairs tugs at the heartstrings.

Barak Goodman, a PBS veteran, curates along Jamila Ephron, and they capture the zeitgeist pretty well. Oddly, all of the talking heads appear only in voice-over, so we don't get to experience the fun of comparing '60s hippies to their old-age demeanors. It's not clear why that path was chosen, but I couldn't help thinking that boomer vanity had something to do with it. Maybe the directors thought such a wrinkly visual would just be a distraction and take us out of the Aquarian moment.

Either way, by the final reel of the film, the filmmakers pile on the saccharine a little too thick, creating a hippie haze of good vibes and exclusively pleasant memories. In the end, nothing really went wrong, and it was pure heaven, according to this feel-good film. Whatever, man.

BONUS TRACK
Max Yasgur addresses the crowd at Woodstock: