That '70s Drift: Blending in to the Decor

 

THE SECRET AGENT (A-minus) - You might be able to pick it apart critically, you might find it too long and confusing, but "The Secret Agent," from Brazil, is a masterpiece of mood, a seamless immersion into the South American authoritarian state in the 1970s. In that sense, it is irresistible. 

 

Wagner Moura brings Pablo Pascal movie-star looks and incredible warmth to the role of Armando, aka Marcelo, an underground agent working to undermine the military dictatorship that reigned for 21 years. He camps out with a hive of like-minded warriors, a group led by the elderly but spunky Dona Sebastiana (Tania Maria), who provides refuge to the dissidents at her compound. The network places Armando at the national ID center, where he has an opportunity to search for the records of his late mother, who died when he was a boy. He also has a little boy of his own, Fernando, who lives with the parents of Armando's dead wife.

There is much gloom surrounding our hero, as well as a lot of mundane oppression, with the tone set in the first scene when he is questioned and searched menacingly but lazily by a corrupt cop before being allowed to head off on his way. During the whole scene, a week-old dead body lies ignored nearby under a piece of cardboard and a rock. Violence has become routine a decade into the dictatorship's rule. 

In flashbacks, we learn that Armando made an enemy of the CEO of a utility company who had taken over the university where Armando teaches. This business thug, Ghirotti (Gregorio Graziosi) puts a hit out on Armando, dispatching a pair of hapless goons to rub him out. This cat-and-mouse game feels like merely a subplot to the grander saga of Armando's journey through the country's underground. Grim comic relief comes in the form of a shady police chief, Euclides (Roberio Diogenes) and his two dim-witted sons who are called in to investigate the discovery of a severed leg found in the belly of a shark. 

Where did the shark come from? We are in Recife, the hometown of filmmaker Kleber Mendonca Filho, who knits together some of his best previous work into a confident, fully realized creation, a fictional drama steeped in authenticity. He sets some scenes in the back rooms and projection booth of a classic movie theater, following up on his documentary "Pictures of Ghosts."  It is a period reverie with a stoic lead, like "Aquarius." Following some hits and misses, "The Secret Agent" finally feels like a coming of age. 

Filho will definitely test your patience across 2 hours and 40 minutes. He re-animates the bitten-off leg for a bit of magical fantasy, imagining it going on a rampage and terrorizing gay men cruising in a public park. (Apparently based on an actual Brazilian urban legend.) Much of the action takes place during Carnival, with newspaper accounts keeping track of the festival's death count in the seaside town, with implicit and explicit nods to "Jaws," which has a popular run at the local theater.

The bold filmmaker is almost daring the viewer to keep up with his pinballing plot. He even jumps to the present day to observe two young women -- including a compelling Laura Lufesi -- as they comb through the archives of the regime and the resistance. No rabbit hole is too dark for Filho to explore. 

To tie it all together, the sets and the costumes are impeccably of the '70s. This is a flawless re-creation of that era -- on a par with Walter Salles' companion drama "I'm Still Here" (too recent of a release for Filho to have cribbed from). I got lost in the sights and sounds. At times I was a bit adrift. I'm not sure I put all the pieces together, but I'm eager to watch it again to see what I might have missed. For some reason, the nostalgia of authoritarianism and bubble-top phone booths hits home these days.

BONUS TRACK

The soundtrack mixes traditional Brazilian tunes with '70s pop songs (both Brazilian and of the American variety, including Donna Summer and Chicago). Here is the chippy instrumental "Harpa dos Ares (Ar)" by Ze Ramalho and Lula Cortes:

Jarmusch in Review: Free Solo

  

BROKEN FLOWERS (2005) (A) - Ever since seeing the opening scene of "Broken Flowers," I've always fantasized about being dumped by Julie Delpy. (She doesn't have to date me; just dramatically break up with me, preferably using a heaping helping of French.)

 

That's what happens to Bill Murray's rich aging playboy, whose younger girlfriend, Sherry (Delpy), walks out on him, frustrated with his glum demeanor and refusal to commit. Along with "Dead Man," this is among Jim Jarmusch's most dour assessments of the human condition, trekking along with Murray's character as he cycles through his past by visiting long-ago exes, always with a fresh bouquet on offer, on the chance that he might have a son out there somewhere.

Bill Murray barely cracks a smile throughout, though a deadpan humor hums along the surface, mainly via the relationship between Murray's Don Johnston (a name often confused with the famous actor, and a play on Don Juan) and his neighbor Winston, a traditional family man from Jamaica. (Flashes of classic Murray rascality leak out when Don banters with Winston's precocious little girl.) It is Winston (Jeffrey Wright), an amateur sleuth, who plots the logistics for Don's road odyssey, which is prompted by an anonymous pink letter purporting to be from an ex who claims to have had his child 19 years earlier.

Don is set in his middle age -- he made a ton of money in computers -- but his sterile bachelor life is depressing, especially compared with Winston and his bustling brood. Murray is matched by a powerful cast of women portraying his exes. There is Sharon Stone as Laura, a still frisky professional closet organizer, whose teen daughter, Lolita (!) (Alexis Dziena), parades around naked when she's not there. (The look on Don's face when this happens is priceless.) Frances Conroy (HBO's "Six Feet Under") is an icy realtor with a douchebag husband, a long way from her hippie-chick days. Jessica Lange plays Carmen, an animal psychologist with little patience for Don, who is bum-rushed by Carmen's possessive receptionist (a sharp Chloe Sevigny). And the cleanup hitter is Tilda Swinton, almost unrecognizable in dark hair and heavy mascara, as Penny, whose reaction to Don is the most volatile. (The others mostly flatter him as a pesky rogue.)

Jarmusch, as he likes to do, speckles the film with coincidences, especially effective in a case like this where we're trying to solve a mystery. (Is Penny's pink typewriter a key clue? Hard to tell, because pink is prevalent throughout, which is no surprise.) The director has a field day hiding a bunch of Easter eggs, which pile up at the end, when Don runs across two young men whose presence only deepens the mystery. In the final shot, Don literally stands at a crossroads, Jarmusch's camera whirling around him in a dizzying swoop, Murray's visage placid until the end. 

Don's final stop on the circuit before he returns home is at the grave of a fifth ex, and it is that experience which seems to shake him the most. Was she The One? Like with everything else here, it is tough to tell. Jarmusch unspools one big conundrum, and it is up to the viewer to put the puzzle together in their own way. That is the gift of "Broken Flowers."

GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI (2000) (B) - This one hit better 26 years ago, but now its casual violence and earnest eastern philosophizing feel dated. That's a shame, because Jarmusch and his hand-picked star, Forest Whitaker, really click throughout. 

 

Whitaker plays a Samurai-style mob assassin, nameless to his mafia benefactor, communicating only through homing pigeons that "Ghost Dog" communes with on the rooftop of his urban apartment. Ghost Dog fancies Rashomon and studies the spiritual guidance of the Hagakure to guide him in the ancient ways of the warrior. He is like a zen James Bond, fashioning his own silencers and wielding a code-breaking device that opens security gates unlocks car doors and ignitions. (After starting the cars, he always pops in the same CD, featuring the music of RZA from Wu-Tang Clan, who scored the film.)

After Ghost Dog's most recent hit on a made man, the local mob boss (a welcome Henry Silva) orders the assassin to then be rubbed out. That sets off a battle of one against many, a classic Samurai chess match. The gangster story, shot around New Jersey, feels authentic, in the unflattering manner of '90s touchstones like "Goodfellas" or "The Sopranos," with their often-bumbling foot soldiers. Jarmusch recruits talented character actors -- such as John Tormey and Cliff Gorman -- to flesh out the crew. 

Tormey's Louie is Ghost Dog's contact, and the two have developed a bond ever since Louie saved the young man's life during a random act of street violence. The honor code between the two is tested, as Louie is reluctant to double-cross his ward but he also has sworn an oath to his mob family. Who will be left standing after the ensuing outburst of violence?

Ghost Dog is a man of few words, but his humanity is brought out by a French-speaking friend who sells ice cream, Raymond (Isaach de Bankole), and a well-read little girl he meets at a park and shares books with. There certainly was much more to be explored here.

Instead, Jarmusch settles for a rote mob revenge story, with a neo-noir nod to "Le Samourai." The relentless gore distracts from the enlightened ideas that remain undercooked when the dignified ending arrives.

BONUS TRACKS

As usual for Jarmusch, the "Broken Flowers" soundtrack is eclectic and fascinating. It includes tracks from the Brian Jonestown Massacre and from Ethiopian jazz master Mulatu Astatke. And, over the closing credits, Holly Golightly joins the Greenhornes for the trippy "There Is an End":

 

"Broken Flowers" also digs deep for the 1968 rocksteady cut "Ride Yu Donkey" by Jamaica's the Tennors:

 

And a sampling of RZA's music for "Ghost Dog":

 

Here is our latest attempt to rank the films of Jim Jarmusch, from most to least favorite:

• Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
• Dead Man (1995)
• Broken Flowers (2005)
• Down by Law (1986)
• The Only Lovers Left Alive (2014)
• Night on Earth (1991)
• Mystery Train (1989)
• Mother Father Sister Brother (2025)
• Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (2000) 
• The Limits of Control (2009)
• Paterson (2016)
• Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
• Permanent Vacation (student film, 1980)
• Gimme Danger (2017) 

Not seen: "The Dead Don't Die" (2019)

New to the Queue

 Is it war in here or am I crazy? ...

 

A coming-of-age film out of Macedonia about a teen who defies his strict father to be a DJ, the debut release "DJ Ahmet."

A documentary chronicling the takeover of Rijeka near the Italy-Croatian border by a fascist poet, "Fiume o Morte." 

Time to check in on Steven Soderbergh ("Logan Lucky"); his latest is about an art forger who bonds with her targeted elderly artist, "The Christophers."

From the director of "Jethica," a tale of a bride-to-be (Charli XCX) on a trip to Warsaw who runs into the ex she had a sizzling chemistry with, "Erupcja."

A documentary about Amy Goodman and the independent news program "Democracy Now," "Steal This Movie, Please!"

A comedy about a New Yorker sabotaging his airline-worker friend's budding relationship in order to preserve his plus-one flight perks, "The Travel Companion."

Tourist Traps

 

THE NAPA BOYS (C-minus) - There's nothing wrong, necessarily, with making a moronic movie. But it should be more than occasionally funny. And if you are going to go off the rails, find a better go-to gag than excessive bodily fluids.

 

 

 

The brainchild of its two stars -- check that: the idea of the two lead actors -- "Napa Boys" imagines a world in which a rag-tag group of "Scooby-Doo" wannabes enjoys a cult following as they traipse around wine country and help their pal Mitch compete for the top prize at a wine festial. Oh, and there's a mysterious Somellier whose amulet they have discovered. Or something like that.

Director Nick Corirossi is Jack Jr., the alpha male, and co-writer Armen Weitzman plays his buddy, Miles Jr., the ultimate beta cuck (his wife and daughter have died, LOL). They come off as an obnoxious, tone-deaf Greg Kinnear (Corirossi) and a mentally challenged Jason Schwartzman (Weitzman). I've never seen a deader crowd at a comedy; every 20 minutes or so you'd hear a chuckle in the sparsely attended cinema. A deadpan running gag has characters using the "Jr." after their names constantly, while others have descriptors instead of names -- such as Stifler's Brother (an amusing Jamar Malachi Neighbors) or the Mayor of Napa or the Milfonator (yuk-yuk). 

A few sad cameos from C-Listers raise the game of these D-Listers. That includes the micro-budget filmmaker's best friend, Ray Wise; comedian Natasha Leggero; the amusing Riki Lindhome; and Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, reprising their hoary roles as Jay and Silent Bob from Smith's own awkward comedies from years ago. This has been described, generously, as a cross between "Sideways" and "American Pie," with the latter running away with the contest in a landslide. It is supposedly some high-concept meta-joke (it masquerades as the fourth in a series of franchise films), but it mostly comes off as sophomoric. 

NEIGHBORHOODS AT A CROSSROADS: WELLS PARK (2020) (B) - Local documentarian Anthony DellaFlora continued his series of profiles of Albuquerque neighborhoods with look back at the history of Wells Park, which provides a unique mix in the heart of the city: residential, industrial and homeless services. 

This probably came at the nadir of the homeless inundation six years ago, a problem that has eased in recent years with the revival of the neighborhood's namesake park at Sixth and Mountain, where kids and dogs were running around and basketball players were sieging the hard court during this week's screening of the 46-minute film next door at the Johnny Tapia Community Center. Tapia gets his due in the documentary, the troubled boxer having cut his teeth in the working-class neighborhood in the 1970s and '80s.

Two couples -- Jessie and Fred Sais and Claudette and Leo Romero -- handle the bulk of the reminiscing, all of them at some point central to the formation of the Wells Park Neighborhood Association in the mid-1990s, a move credited with addressing the blight and decay that had been plaguing the area ever since the urban-renewal movement of the 1960s. That includes significant cleanup of the environmental hazards created by the sawmills and public utility.

DellaFlora makes expert use of archival photos and yellowed documents. He digs out interesting stories, including one from Jesse Herron, owner of what was once a rowdy brothel at the turn of the 20th century (called, believe it or not, the Swastika Saloon) and now is a quaint inn called the Painted Lady, which revives the old house of ill repute in spirit if not in practice. Local Ken Salazar recalls handling the solo evening shift at the family-owned gas station as a kid to give his dad a break. We get a solid overview of the Chicano rights movement led by Reis Tijerina (who ran for governor in 1968). It's a fine mix of memory-lane traipsing and analysis of the phases of a city neighborhood. (Available on YouTube.)

Certifiable

 

WHEN WE WENT MAD (B) - There is nostalgia to be mined from exploring the good ol' days of publishing, back when you could have a blast and make good money printing a magazine. That joy sits at the core of this ribald documentary about the beloved, subversive Mad magazine.

In the 1960s and '70s, the ribald magazine, touting an initial motto of "Humor in a jugular vein," had circulation above 1 million, peaking above 2 million in 1974. It catered to its Baby Boomer readership with a mixture of clever satire and puerile idiocy. It was fronted by its goofy mascot, gap-toothed Alfred E. Neuman. Its cartoons could set your parents' hair on fire. If you know it, you know it.

This coke-fueled documentary knows its timeline (a Mad historian, Grant Geissman, is a main talking head) and has a riot reminiscing with former editors, writers and artists, as well as a bevy of fanboys (they are all male, of course), including Weird Al Yankovic, Howie Mandel, Gilbert Gottfried, Brian Cranston, Quentin Tarantino, David Zucker and the requisite appearance by the always available Judd Apatow. 

Director Alan Bernstein walks through the magazine's origins as a 1950s comic book birthed from the stable of Educational Comics (EC), which was known for its line of pulp horror titles, as well as a connection to DC Comics and the Superman franchise. It wasn't until EC ditched all of its sleazy titles -- under pressure from Congress, which cracked down on the scourge of comic books -- and spun Mad off into a glossy magazine that things started turning up. Once Alfred E. Neuman came aboard, the rest was history.

The film looks fondly on Mad's founder, William Gaines, who took the business over from his father, and who is treated with the same reverence Harold Ross still gets at the New Yorker a century later. Gaines, who died more than 30 years ago, brought on Al Feldstein as editor for Mad's first 30 years. Feldstein and a bunch of other former colleagues savor reminiscing about the camaraderie at the publication and all the crazy hijinks they got away with. One alum sums up the experience as one of being "deeply embarrassed and fiercely proud."

All the greatest hits are here: the backpage fold-in gag; Spy vs. Spy; the razor-sharp ad parodies. Famed cartoonist Don Martin (the one whose characters had the floppy feet) gets barely a minute of screen time (perhaps punishment for having jumped shipped for Cracked in the late '80s). While the whole enterprise was generally silly, Mad's parent company took its free-speech rights seriously -- it defended the right to parody songs all the way to the Supreme Court, and won. The staff certainly enjoyed its success -- Gaines would take them on annual trips to exotic locales -- and Mad had mixed results with empire building, which included a board game, a cinematic bomb (1980's "Up the Academy") and a crude TV show ("Mad TV"). It all started to hit the skids by the '90s, fizzling out as an anachronism in the era of the internet and social media.

The film is rife with busy graphics and scatter-shot editing, and it often has the cheap feel of a VH-1 "I Love the '80s" special. It also was apparently just dumped online, streaming free on YouTube (though I enjoyed it with a crowd at the theater). But the celebrities are engaging, and the ex-staffers show a genuine affection for the work they accomplished. It was easier back then to have a gas doing what you loved if you hit on the right formula for success, no matter how embarrassing your printed product could be at times. 

JIM & ANDY: THE GREAT BEYOND (2017) (B-minus) - There is something off-putting about this look behind the scenes at Jim Carrey portraying Andy Kaufman on the set of the 1999 film "Man on the Moon." And it's not just the reminder that we don't like biopics, especially ones involving contemporary subjects.

 

Talented documentarian Chris Smith ("Fyre," "The Yes Men," "Devo") is just too enamored with the central gimmick here:  "never before seen" on-set footage of Carrey immersing himself into not only the character of Andy Kaufman but also Kaufman's alter-ego, the obnoxious Tony Clifton. It's the tired trope of the method actor's immersion into a character to the detriment of his mental health and to the frustration of everyone around him. 

The best parts here involve an older and wiser (and sagely bearded) Carrey, nearly two decades after the filming of the biography, sitting for an extensive interview to not only look back on his wild celebrity during the 1990s but also to put into perspective the full arc of his career and his ensuing philosophy of life. That part is worth the price of admission. Carrey is thoughtful and contemplative, and he articulates his brand of Taoism through generously dispensed koans. 

The old footage from the set can be fascinating at first -- Carrey-as-Kaufman refuses to break character and rampages through the set like the provocateur he is portraying -- but it soon grows tiresome. Most of his co-stars, including a few pals from Kaufman's "Taxi" days, don't hide their eye-rolls at Carrey's obnoxious behaviour, and "Man in the Moon" director Milos Forman (the auteur behind classics like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") perpetually looks like he wants to wring his star's neck. The film is weighed down by the excessive footage of a young Carrey behaving like a 12-year-old jerk.

Smith also weaves in footage from other Carrey touchstones from the era, in a bid to sync with Carrey's magical thinking which suggests that some divine being was sending films and characters to him at just the right time in his life. That includes "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (director Michel Gondry apparently delighted in finding out that Carrey was miserable from a break-up just in time to begin planning the production) and, most obviously, "The Truman Show" (which Carrey not-so-humbly dubs a "prophecy"). It's all a bit far-fetched. (Hmm. What was the universe revealing to him when he signed up to talk with his butt in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective"?)

But Carrey grounds the film with his sober analysis in the present day of 2017. His pearls of wisdom -- "I don't need to be held together. I'm fine just floating through space like Andy" -- are comforting, and you cheer him on for growing beyond a Jerry Lewis-like career of variations on "Dumb & Dumber." If only the whole "Man in the Moon" kerfuffle wasn't such a cliched look back at wacky Hollywood antics.

New to the Queue

Apres le deluge ...

The latest from Christian Petzold ("Afire," "Transit," "Barbara") teams him with Paula Beer again for a story of a woman dealing with the aftermath of an accident, "Miroirs No. 3."

Francois Ozon takes on Albert Camus, with a black-and-white take on "The Stranger." 

Nadav Lapid ("The Kindergarten Teacher," "Synonyms") returns with a more madcap tale of a married couple getting decadent with the power elite, "Yes."

Romanian provocateur Radu Jude ("Aferim," "Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World") clocks in under two hours with his latest satire, "Kontinental '25."

Tell-Tale Heart

 

A POET (A-minus) - Whether you find this tale of a sad sack heartbreaking or not will depend on your tolerance for struggling artists with drinking problems. I found it bittersweet and quite moving.

 

Ubeimar Rios stars as Oscar, a not-so-lovable loser who lives with his ailing mom as he approaches middle age. He is a diehard poet, a self-proclaimed tortured artist whose demons are doused only by getting blackout drunk on the sidewalks of Medellin in Colombia (more than once we see him wake up in the morning on concrete and limp home). He fumbles the most basic adult tasks -- he's a lousy, broke father to his high-school-age daughter Daniela (Alisson Correa) -- and he is blinded by his devotion to the beloved poet Jose Asuncion Silva, who died at 30 by a self-inflicted gunshot to the heart. In a small gut-wrenching scene, we watch Oscar sitting on the edge of the bed, shirtless, and using a black marker to draw a heart in the middle of his chest. He is quick to sob.

In a word, Oscar is miserable -- until he reluctantly takes a job teaching and latches on to a student who shows a lot of promise as a poet. Yurlady (Rebeca Andrade) needs a confidence boost, and she is distracted by an overstuffed household of siblings and relatives. Writer-director Simon Mesa Soto revels in the chaos among the busy brood, with little to no judgment of their working-poor lifestyle. Upon taking Yurlady under his wing, Oscar gets sober, seizing on the opportunity to replace his stalled career with the hopes of the next generation to break through.

Of course, this is not destined to go smoothly. Oscar is not the best candidate for long-term sobriety. When he chaperones Yurlady and her classmates to an adult literary event and the kids misbehave, Oscar's self-control begins to unravel. 

Soto walks a tightrope throughout between humor and pathos. He does not gloss over the debilitating heartache that Oscar carries with him at all times, but he finds the day-to-day humor in the lowly adventures of a bumbling sad sack. Rios, with a stricken homeliness of Allen Ginsberg, shuffles from scene to scene. He alternates between petulant family squabbles to passionate polemics about the classic poets to incoherent babbling about his long-stalled publishing career. When he first starts teaching, he is sloppy drunk in front of the students. While it is disturbing, it is also successfully played for uneasy laughs, as the students take it in stride. Meantime, his effort at reconciling with his teenage daughter is more laughable than funny; he obviously has a form of PTSD that links her birth to the drying up of his writing abilities. But he's trying.

I can say that I laughed, I squirmed. There are no easy answers offered to Oscar's plight or to the problems of the underclass in Medellin. But the film is full of heart. Do I have to draw a picture for you? 

BONUS TRACK

A lovely interlude from "A Poet," Los Zafiros with "La Luna en tu Mirada":

On the Lam

 

NIKA AND MADISON (B) - Every generation gets the "Thelma and Louise" it deserves. Here, two indigenous young women hit the road after one of them violently rejects the sexual aggression  of a police officer while off the Canadian reservation. 

 

Star Slade brings star power to the screen as Madison a flailing college student who meets up with old pal Nika (Ellyn Jade) on a visit back home. Nika is gruff and plain-spoken and rebuffs Madison's pleas to go out on the town. When Madison gets into a bar fight -- and then a tussle with the handsy cop -- Nika comes to the rescue. Meantime, the tribal president (Gail Maurice) defies the investigators and enforces the tribe's jurisdictional authority over the local police.

Amanda Brugel and Shawn Doyle flash a fantastic chemistry as the TV-style trash-talking detectives. Doyle's brusque Det. Warhurst has little patience for the niceties of diplomatic relations, and Brugel imbues her Det. Timmins with a jagged sarcasm that hints at sympathies for the young women of color. 

Slade lights up the screen with big eyes and an appealing smile, but she also digs deep for the ennui Madison is experiencing on the mainstream academic track. Nika has a hard-shell protecting a bruised interior; she describes herself as having "lost my momentum." But you know there is a not-so-cryptic reason for why she has shut down emotionally. The only true misstep: a "Breakfast Club" moment when the stylish, urbane Madison dolls up the tomboyish Nika for a night out in the big city.

Otherwise, this pair of dueling duos chug down parallel tracks as filmmaker Eva Thomas (co-writing with Michael McGowan) steers clear of plot potholes and brings this familiar but authentic tale to a satisfying finish in less than 90 minutes. This is thoughtful, quiet but effective storytelling.

SIRAT (B-minus) - The first half of this apocalyptic road movie has a powerful hum to it, peeling away layers from a carnival cast of characters wandering the Moroccan desert as the start of World War III apparently plays out off-screen in the background. 

Sergi Lopez stars as Luis, a portly normie infiltrating the desert rave scene searching for his missing daughter. He has ill-advisedly brought his young son with him (and their dog), which bogs him down as he tries to keep pace with a troupe of oddballs leading a three-vehicle caravan to the next festival site where they might track down Luis' daughter. The off-the-grid group (compared by one viewer to a Jodorosky cast) is led by the visually arresting punk Jade (Jade Oukid) and includes the androgynous Steff (Stefania Gadda), as well as a man with one leg and another missing his right hand.  

 

Filmmaker Oliver Laxe (co-writing with Santiago Fillol) is too enamored of the blaring, pulsating dance music that opens the film and provides trippy interludes for the nomads; he struggles to weave it smoothly into the narrative. Luis's SUV often can't keep up on the off-road path traversed by the group's steampunk trucks, but Jade & Co. refuse to abandon the poor shlub. 

However, the wheels come off of this cross between "Mad Max" and "The Road" in the final third, as Laxe begins to pummel the audience with unspeakably violent acts that pick off characters one at a time. As the caravan becomes trapped in a minefield (a metaphor for a filmmaker derailed from his plot), and the detonations start, "Sirat" becomes an endurance contest. (And with every blast, I couldn't help being reminded of SCTV's Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurock.) What starts out with dystopian promise devolves into Laxe's game of Whac-a-Mole with his characters, fumbling a promising opportunity.

28 YEARS LATER (C) - I don't remember much about "28 Days Later" from 2002, but back then Danny Boyle was in his prime and his narrative skills were unmatched. With his recent sequel "28 Years Later," the next generation deals with the aftermath of the viral outbreak that spawned a rampage of the undead. A gazillion zombie movies later, there is nothing to be wrung from such a tired tale. And Boyle's brand of boyhood magical realism has lost its charm. 

The British pop-auteur ("Millions," "Slumdog Millionaire," "Sunshine") re-teams with Alex Garland ("Ex Machina") from the original film, but very little works here as they unspool a drab, uninspired tale of a boy, Spike (Alfie Williams), venturing out on a vision quest from the walled-off safe zone that is England, across a land bridge to the European continent to hunt zombies with a bow-and-arrow. Would you believe that on his various missions he will narrowly escape death repeatedly so that he can eventually bring his mysteriously ailing mother (Jodie Comer) to the danger zone to seek a cure from a mad survivalist doctor? 

That doctor is played, improbably and to the hilt, by Ralph Fiennes, slathered in iodine (best to ward off any virus) and juggling a detente with the wild population. (He's no Col. Kurtz, and this is no "Apocalypse Now.") By that final third of the film, you probably will be exhausted by Boyle's cliched visual effects -- awe-inducing prismatic skies, amateurish camera tricks where the image freezes upon the impact of the arrow and rotates 90 degrees before resuming motion. The narrative is a string of idiot plots lazily stitched together. Whereas "Billions" or "Slumdog Millionaire" could make boyhood adventures seem enchanting, Spike's adventures here just seem silly and strained.

Maybe we're jaded in the modern era. But whatever charm or suspense that we experienced nearly a quarter century ago has evaporated with this unnecessary, limp sequel.  

BONUS TRACK

It's no "Lust for Life" from "Trainspotting," but Boyle gets good mileage out of "Lowly" by Young Fathers, which sets the table early on for "28 Years Later":

Time Out of Mind

 

NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE (A-minus) - Matt Johnson has a genius' knack for making smart, fun films. He has the look of a sloppy vaudevillian, the mind of Groucho Marx, and the director's eye of Hal Ashby.

 

I don't know much about Nirvanna the band, or Nirvanna the show, but this has been a long-running project between Johnson (above left) and collaborator Jay McCarrol who spent 2007 to 2009 creating a web series that chronicled fictional versions of themselves striving to play the Rivoli theater in Toronto. They incorporate footage from the original series (which they brought to television in 2017 and 2018) to create this clever slapstick time-travel romp that spans the past 18 years. 

The hook here is that the pair -- who remain down on their luck in the present day and still undiscovered -- develop a scheme to pose as time travelers from 2008 by rigging an RV to mimic the car from "Back to the Future" (whose footage is borrowed here in the name of satire). When the time-travel machine actually works (thanks to a plot device involving spilled Orbitz, a passing-fad drink from the 1990s), it is an opportunity, if all goes according to plan, to rewrite history and book that gig at the Rivoli in 2008 -- and ensure fame. Of course, all does not go according to plan. While in 2008, an unexpected rift between the two present-day pals (tiptoeing around their 2008 selves) triggers a butterfly-effect glitch in time/space, leading to an altered present day in which Jay went on to become famous and Matt hangs with a bunch of nerds in a Jay McCarrol tribute band.

The film starts with an elaborate stunt in which the pair plan to visit the deck of the CN Tower and parachute into Toronto's Sky Dome baseball stadium. It's not clear how much of this is staged, how much is real, or if doubles were used -- but the mockumentary effect is brilliant. The tower will play into a grand finale involving a crazed scheme to use a lightning strike to fuel the time machine. It's all quite complicated but enormously delightful. It all pretty much makes sense in its own controlled universe.

Like in Johnson's debut film "The Dirties," there is an "Office"-like meta touch of an unseen crew filming all of the antics, both in the present day and back in 2008. Johnson still gets a lot of mileage out of subtle glances at the camera, often trying to mask a deep-seated panic that he is determined to overcome. And like "The Dirties," this is a heartfelt buddy movie, a touching paean to enduring friendship. (The germ of an idea for the original web series started when the pair were high school besties.)

Matt is clearly the instigator of most of the mayhem. At times, Matt and Jay's interactions on the streets and in the businesses of Toronto seem like actual footage, with real people and folded into the narrative. Their TV show was known to break the fourth wall, and this melange of factual, fiction and metafictional somehow gels as a cohesive movie that absolutely nails the ending.

None of this happens without Johnson and his ability to synthesize disparate elements into a movie that somehow comes off as lame-brained and brilliant at the same time. (See also his retro take on a government film crew making a film that fabricates the 1969 moon landing, "Operation Avalanche.") Most recently, Johnson went back in time to score with "BlackBerry," which fictionalized the creation of the original PDA and precursor to Apple's iPhone.

So far, as a writer, director and performer, he can do no wrong. His joy of filmmaking pours off the screen, and this DIY inside joke is as entertaining as 100 minutes can get. 

New to the Queue

 Is the planet getting warmer or is just me?

A documentary finding humor in a cancer diagnosis, "Andre Is an Idiot."

A silly romp through wine country, "The Napa Boys."

An artsy documentary about life in Naples in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, "Pompei: Life Below the Clouds."

Speaking of clouds, a profile of a cameraman who specializes in unique skydiving stunts, "Space Cowboy."

Now and Then: Tom Waits for Jarmusch

 

FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER (B+) - There is something rather comforting in a Jim Jarmusch film. The leisurely pace. The assured direction. The sparse, off-kilter dialogue. The loops of echoing themes. And his respect for his audience's intelligence.

Here he unspools three stories about parents and children, in three disparate settings capturing the awkwardness of family relations. The cinematic connective tissue involves random repeated threads -- skateboarders, wristwatches, family photos, overhead shots of tables full of food and drink, toasts, color coordination of outfits (in the red family), horoscopes, car trips and sly variations on the British colloquialism "Bob's your uncle." The other common theme: Usually parents are depicted as out of touch and pitied by the younger generation; here, Jarmusch offers a Boomer's wink suggesting that his generation was and is the wiser, more well-adjusted and hippest of them all.

 

Adam Driver accepts the torch from Tom Waits as Jarmusch's off-kilter anti-hero, as they star together as father and son in the first short, with Mayim Bialik as Waits' daughter. The two offspring set the table for the whole movie with their disjointed and arm's-length conversation during the drive on the way up to their father's isolated lake house. It is clear early on that the father is exploiting his kids' generous nature and not letting on that he might be living a better life than his messy house suggests.

Waits is perfectly odd as the mumbling, fumbling father who just doesn't connect with his spectrum-y adult children, whether he is running down a list of drugs he's not taking or wielding an ax for no good reason. Driver, who starred in the director's "Paterson," can underplay a role with the best of them; I can't imagine anyone else in this specific role. And Bialik is the ultimate get-along sister/daughter. The actors have wonderful chemistry playing three relatives that have none. You almost wish it were its own standalone short film.

The third episode jumps a generation to a pair of 20-something twins visiting Paris to clear out the apartment of their parents, who have died in a plane crash. Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) have a playful banter and a fundamental connection, which is a refreshing contrast to the stilted relations on display in the first two episodes. Again, the lives of the parents -- excavated through photos, fake IDs and documents -- suggest a much more interesting narrative than the mundane plot we are watching, a clever sleight of hand.

 

Moore and Sabbat display the ease and dexterity of veteran actors, and it is fun to explore the side streets and interiors of Paris with this laid-back pair. They also are the most intellectually curious of all the film's characters. And we get a final subtle generational twist for the finale. 

The middle entry is the weakest. Charlotte Rampling portrays a best-selling novelist who must endure a traditional mother-daughter high tea with her two dysfunctional daughters. Cate Blanchett plays a straight-up nerd, and Vicky Krieps is the stereotypical aging punk-rock chick (at least Jarmusch's version of one). They live in Dublin, of all places, walking on eggshells around each other at the mom's fancy home. 

You can't ask for three more skilled actors, but they struggle to connect; their disparate accents don't help. There is no heft to the narrative, besides the disappointment a high-powered parent can barely conceal in her under-achieving children. Maybe the filmmaker just doesn't have an ear for this type of female interaction. It's fine but dwarfed by the impeccably curated tales that bookend it.

DOWN BY LAW (1986) (A-minus) - Jarmusch is at his '80s quirkiest, blessed with three unique actors who bond in this absurdist prison tale set in the unforgiving swamplands of Louisiana. 

John Lurie returns to the fold from "Stranger Than Paradise" to portray Jack, a somewhat dimwitted pimp who gets set up in an embarrassing police sting. Tom Waits, whose music career was humming along, is Zack, a hipster-doofus deejay who gets suckered into being a bagman, with disastrous results. They are eventually joined in prison by Roberto, a happy-go-lucky Italian who speaks fractured English and is played with broad comic joy by Roberto Benigni, in his American film debut (and his first of three films with the director). 

 

Benigni seems to embody all three Marx Brothers simultaneously as he steals the show from his sublimely deadpan co-stars. He constantly mixes up Zack and Jack (understandably), and he crafts charming fractured phrases from his notebook of English idioms. ("I am a good egg. ... We are a good egg.") Waits, especially, provides a deadpan backboard for the giddy offerings from the strange man they call Bob.

Time passes slowly but pleasantly in the jail cell. When they eventually make their way into the backwoods as fugitives, Jarmusch and cinematographer Robert Mueller let their lazy camera glide along the swamps with the stumbling escapees. Jarmusch's plot employs a satisfying switch at the end, alighting upon a lovely Italian restaurateur in the middle of nowhere (Nicoletta Braschi), who helps flip the hipster script.  

The filmmaker avoids the sophomore slump and sets the table for a rolling out of his patient, outre character studies and zen thought experiments that would play out over a four-decade career. 

BONUS TRACKS

Jarmusch shuns music in favor of an eerie stillness for most of "Father Mother Sister Brother," but then he picks a perfect daytime car ride in Paris to drop a needle on "Spooky" by Dusty Springfield:

 

 

Here is our latest attempt to rank the films of Jim Jarmusch, from most to least favorite:

• Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
• Dead Man (1995)
• Broken Flowers (2005)
• Down by Law (1986)
• The Only Lovers Left Alive (2014)
• Night on Earth (1991)
• Mystery Train (1989)
• Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) 
• Mother Father Sister Brother (2025)
• The Limits of Control (2009)
• Paterson (2016)
• Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
• Permanent Vacation (student film, 1980)
• Gimme Danger (2017) 

Not seen: "The Dead Don't Die" (2019)

R.I.P., Rob Reiner, Part 2: King Me

 A pair of Stephen King adaptations. See our previous Reiner tribute (both iterations of "Spinal Tap") here.

STAND BY ME (1986) (B+) - Quaint, bordering on quirky, this Boomer nostalgia trip gets by on a naive charm and the performances of its four stars portraying a band of 12-year-olds on an overnight trek to hunt for the body of a co-hort who has gone missing. It is steeped in sepia but sharp enough at key moments to rise above the maudlin.

 

Wil Wheaton (above left) stars as Gordie, a sensitive boy who already has been tagged with the "writer" label, a neat cubbyhole that filmmakers love to exploit. The film is a flashback to 1959 narrated by the adult Gordie (Richard Dreyfuss). He relates the story of the Labor Day weekend excursion with three buddies to track down the dead body that older teens were afraid to report to police.

River Phoenix is the true revelation here as Chris, a tough-talking smoker whose older brother was one of the toughs who first saw the body (but were afraid to report it). Phoenix shows a depth unheard of for a young teen in only his second movie role. By comparison, Corey Feldman is a relative clown as goofy Teddy, who is haunted by his war-hero father's mental-health struggles. Jerry O'Connell is the main comic relief as Vern, the portly Curly of this bunch of little rascals. Their banter is amusing, and Reiner allows his writers (Raynold Gideon and Bruce Evans) to luxuriate in the ribald putdowns and slang of the late Eisenhower era (mostly at the level of juvenile dick references, skidmark jokes, and "two for flinching" bullying). It was a time when America not only still minted pennies, but those pennies could add up enough to feed four boys for a day or two.

Gordie is saddled with the shadow of his dead older jock brother (John Cusack in flashback flashbacks), and the little wimp must prove himself to his grittier buddies. That will come in a memorable showdown with the older gangsters (led by Kiefer Sutherland), who belatedly race the boys to the body by the lake in order to grab the expected media spotlight. I will forever quote the signature line, "Suck my fat one, you cheap dime-store hood."

There are some curious detours here. A scene in which the boys taunt a junkyard dog feels shoehorned in, and there is no payoff to a tall tale Gordie unspools about an obese kid at a pie-eating contest. But a race against a train across a river bridge has genuine tension. And the coming-of-age bonding among the boys -- amid the bittersweet late-summer brink of moving on to junior high -- feels genuine. And the wistful ending might catch in your throat.  

MISERY (1990) (B) - Kathy Bates is a revelation, and James Caan manages a strong performance despite being confined to a bed for most of the movie, a slow-burn thriller about an obsessed fan who kidnaps her favorite author after rescuing him from an auto accident in a blizzard.

Annie (Bates) is actually a nurse, if not one with up-to-date certifications. She is obviously deranged, truly a super fan (of a beloved series of novels that the author is desperate to move on from) but she is not necessarily looking out for the best interests of her captive, King stand-in Paul Sheldon (Caan), who has two broken legs and an arm in a sling. She dotes on her helpless patient but also locks him in his room. She lies about the blizzard closing the roads and downing phone lines, even as the days drag on, and soon this becomes a cat-and-mouse contest of wills and strength.

 

Comic relief comes from Richard Farnsworth ("The Straight Story") as the gruff sheriff and Frances Sternhagen as his helpful wife/deputy, who share a folksy DNA with characters from David Lynch's movies and the Coen brothers' releases to come, like "Fargo." Reiner juggles the two storylines ably; as to the suspense, he is no Hitchcock, but he also does a serviceable job of ratcheting up the tension across 107 efficient minutes. Reiner does struggle at times; an old-fashioned montage of Sheldon healing, as the days pass and he pounds out a new novel under orders from Annie, ain't exactly "Rocky" material. A famous scene involving a sledgehammer is not for the squeamish.

Bates, in her breakout role on the other side of age 40, carries the show here. She finds nuance in the stereotypical role of a mentally ill captor. Caan has been better elsewhere, in meatier roles, but he manages to do a lot of work through his eyes and facial expressions. Lauren Bacall shows up in a glorified cameo as Sheldon's literary agent, appearing at the beginning and end of the film. And bonus points for placing Liberace on the soundtrack; Annie is a big fan, yet another red flag regarding her overall mental state.

BONUS TRACK

Fifties oldies pepper the "Stand by Me" soundtrack, but the king (By Ben E. King) is the title track over the closing credits:

Library Cards

 

PARTY GIRL (1995) (B+) - Parker Posey has such appeal that I could watch her shelve books in a library, as she faithfully follows the Dewey Decimal system. And she proves that here.

Posey was a true indie darling in the mid-'90s, on the brink of a mainstream breakthrough (mainly in Christopher Guest's mockumentaries), when she took the lead role in this romp about a wild young adult turning to library work to settle down her life. Posey's line deliveries and physical presence -- as she flounces around in her trendy couture outfits -- are undeniably appealing. And this surprisingly clever film from writer-director Daisy von Scherler Mayer (in her feature debut) builds a story and characters to swirl around its star. 

 

Posey plays Mary, who ends up behind bars for hosting an illegal underground rave, and so she turns to her godmother, Judy (Sasha von Scherler, the filmmaker's mother), who gives her a job in Judy's library to rein in the wild young woman. It partly works. Mary at first is dismissive of the milieu, but she soon learns to appreciate the rigid functionality of the library system. But she still likes to party, pushing the career of DJ buddy Leo (Guillermo Diaz from TV's "Weeds" and "Scandal"), and fending off the advances of brutish bouncer Nigel (a young Liev Schreiber.  

Drawing her down to earth is a budding romance with falafel vendor Mustafa (Omar Townsend), a Lebanese immigrant who yearns to get back to a teaching career. Mary's frivolous ways have consequences on the moony Mustafa and others.

This is no lightweight tossed-off Clinton-era bubble-gum lark. Von Scherler Mayer shows serious chops with snappy one-liners. Smitten upon discovering "The Myth of Sisyphus," Mary intones earnestly, "I think I'm an existentialist. I do." (Leo's response to the story of Sisyphus' slog? "Draaag.") Judy constantly berates Mary as no better than Mary's mother who had "no common sense." Seeking to escape her spiraling situation, Mary seeks out "a nice, powerful, mind-altering substance -- preferably one that will make my unborn children grow gills."

"Party Girl" has spunk and spark. There is a depth to the depiction of Mary's existential crisis on the brink of her 24th birthday. And it launched three decades of Parker Posey delights. 

THE LIBRARIANS (C+) - There is something disturbingly lopsided about this earnest documentary that centers heroic librarians who have spent the decade battling right-wing censors seeking to ban books from school and public libraries. 

We get a boatload of cinematic melodrama as director Kim Snyder ("Welcome to Shelbyville") tracks the assault on libraries in the deep South unleashed by menacing politicians and and the Hitler-adjacent group of crackpots Moms for Liberty. We get very little actual analysis of the content that the right wants to censor, and there is no nuance about whether there is any substance beneath the shouting. Yes, the vast majority of complaints are baseless; but this film doesn't prove that.

The librarians come off as more than First Amendment heroes; they are deified as exalted martyrs, flawless in their convictions. Again, maybe that is mostly true; but why must every scene be so black and white? Snyder works hard to humanize the librarians, many of whom bravely put their careers on the line with their defiance. The Moms for Liberty are depicted as humorless scolds -- in particular one deranged mother who takes video at a library board meeting of one public speaker, who is the gay son she has banned from her household. She is unrepentantly nasty, bringing into sharp focus the brutality of the crusade against books like "Between the World and Me" and "The Color Purple." 

This is an unabashed polemic. But its extreme slant should make an objective viewer at least a little suspicious of its agenda. 

BONUS TRACKS

"Party Girl" has an extensive dance-club soundtrack. Here is L.U.P.O featuring Cathy with "Keep It Up":

 

Wolfgang Press deconstructs Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not to Come":

 

And a ska flavor to Dawn Penn's "You Don't Love Me":

New York Punks

 

BUNNY (B+) - The plot goes off the rails by the end, but at a compact 90 minutes this hectic day-in-the-life romp about apartment dwellers dealing with an unexpected dead body revels in its wild characters and is packed with laughs. 

Mo Stark plays the stringy-haired Bunny, a street hustler who is having a trying day. (The opening scene shows him sprinting through the city streets and then changing his clothes, so you know something has gone down.) Stark has the raw manic energy of Simon Rex in "Red Rocket," and he gives Bunny the patter of a recovering drug addict. The dead body that he's responsible for on the fifth-floor landing (it's a bad guy, so we don't feel bad) is ruining his birthday, cock-blocking the gift of a threesome his wife, Bobbie (Liza Colby), has arranged for him. The apartment building is crawling with crazy characters, including a Chinese woman who barely speaks English and a trio of young women planning their own party on the third floor. Bobbie's estranged father, Loren (Tony Drazen), has decided to drop in that day, and the residents get him high to alleviate the awkwardness of the father-daughter reunion.

 

The secret weapon here is Ben Jacobsen, who directed this rager, co-wrote it with Stark and one other, and steals the show as Dino, Bunny's best bud and fellow schemer. Sporting a platinum buzz-cut, he delivers some of the juiciest one-liners with a deadpan stoner delivery. This is Jacobsen's feature debut, and he shows a steady hand and a command of the urban chaos unspooling in the claustrophobic setting. The deep talent of the cast extends to a couple of New York's finest, two suitably incurious officers played wonderfully drolly by Ajay Naidu (Samir from "Office Space") and Liz Caribel Sierra.

As noted, the plot jumps the shark in the second half (another body turns up and gets stuffed into a suitcase), and plausibility is strained, but by then you are hooked, and the dash to the finish is clever enough and consistently funny. It's a crazy day in the big city, and the time flies by.

SMITHEREENS (1982) (B+) - Susan Seidelman ("Desperately Seeking Susan") splashed with this sharp character study of a runaway on New York's Lower East Side trying to scam her way through the waning punk scene of the day.

The low-budget DIY ethic has a meta tinge to it, as Seidelman's characters wink at the fact that by the early '80s, the punk/new-wave scene was dwindling in New York and migrating to Los Angeles. Susan Berman, with a mop of kinky hair, stars as Wren, a teenage escapee from New Jersey who is months behind on her rent while she stalks various bands in order to punch her ticket to the rock world (as a manager? a groupie?). She sports the style of the day, including a houndstooth vinyl miniskirt and matching checkered sunglasses that she swiped from a sap in the subway. She papers the neighborhood with fliers depicting her mimeographed image and the words "Who is this?"

 

Wren uses her wiles to try to seduce a pouty fading punk, Eric, played by Richard Hell of the real-life Heartbreakers and Voidoids. Pining for her is Paul (Brad Rijn), who has ventured from Montana in a beat-up van, which he lives in, in an empty lot, with a gaggle of prostitutes as his neighbors. Wren strings along the naive Paul (by this time she is evicted and needs a place to crash) while she pursues the philandering Eric, whom she sees as her ticket to the L.A. scene.  

Seidelman shoots guerrilla-style along the grimy streets of Manhattan, in grubby apartment units, and at the trendy Peppermint Lounge. She deftly captures the longing of a smart young woman eager to rush toward full womanhood.  The traditional love triangle gets a gruff '80s makeover, where no plot element succumbs to the traditional format. The cast is raw but effective. One sex worker (Katherine Riley) nearly steals the whole movie with the lethargic moves she puts on a reluctant Paul in the front seat of his van. The scene is an instant classic.

Will Wren hone her street smarts into a successful con game? Does she deserve to succeed? Seidelman, whose edge would dull by the end of the decade (see "She-Devil"), will keep you guessing till the end.

BONUS TRACKS

The Feelies provide the core of the "Smithereens" soundtrack with selections from their 1980 album "Crazy Rhythms." Here is "The Boy With the Perpetual Nervousness":

 

The Feelies' "Loveless Love" mimics the jangled psyche of Wren:

 

"Bunny" sports an eclectic retro soundtrack, culminating in "Give Me Daughters" from Jonathan Fire Eater, a post-punk revivalist band from the '90s that morphed into the Walkmen:

 

The Stalkers' "In Your Street Today" has a throwback garage energy that syncs well with "Bunny's" frenzy:

 

"Bunny" kicks off with a '70s flashback to Garland Jeffreys' FM anthem "Wild in the Streets":

The Altman Universe: Odd Woman Out

We figured it was time that we revisit the works of Robert Altman, something we somehow haven't done in the past 13 years. This is the start of an occasional series.

3 WOMEN (1977) (B+) - Two women -- Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall -- are at the peak of their quirkiness in this character study with a sci-fi psychological twist on sisterhood and motherhood. 

With a nod to Ingmar Bergman's "Persona," Robert Altman plays with the concept of shifting identities as he follows Spacek's naive Pinky as she joins the crew of a rehab spa in the California desert and latches on to a co-worker, Millie (Duvall), a self-absorbed and delusional motor mouth living a pathetic life. Pinky moves in with Millie at an apartment complex populated by young hipsters who mock Millie behind her back. The apartments are run by alcoholic former stunt double Edgar (Robert Fortier) and his mysterious pregnant artist wife Willie (Janice Rule).

 

Spacek is wide-eyed and creepy, as Pinky starts to "Single White Female" Millie, eventually seeking to take over Millie's outgoing personality. Duvall is off the wall as the clueless goofball prone to empty boasts. It might be her most memorable character and performance; she dives deep into Millie such that at times you get the sense that Altman just followed her wherever she went, without regard to the rest of the cast or the dictates of the script. Pinky is the only person clueless enough to take Millie seriously, despite the constant verbal abuse that Millie heaps on Pinky.

With a wink that might have informed David Lynch in future endeavors (like "Mulholland Drive"), Altman's second half toys with the timeline and shifts the perspectives of the characters. Millie's cheap affair with the boorish Edgar will scramble the stakes, culminating in a feminist outburst that unites the three women and rearranges their personas one more time. 

The harsh desert landscape and the echoes of an outdated Hollywood make for a haunting backdrop. And while the two stars talk past each other more than they interact, their bizarre bond propels the narrative, greased with the dry black humor that endures until the final visual punchline. 

A WEDDING (1978) (B+) - An ensemble cast of character actors slowly unwraps Altman's day-in-the-life chronicle that revolves around a snake-bit wedding and reception populated by bourgeois elitists, screw-ups and horny guests. What starts out slowly builds momentum, with the random gags and fleeting one-liners that add up to a satisfying whole.

 

Altman juggles perhaps his biggest cast of all and knits together a dizzying array of mini-plots. The nouveau riche  bride, Muffin (Amy Stryker), wears braces, and the old-money groom, Dino (Desi Arnaz Jr.), may have impregnated her sister, Buffy (Mia Farrow), though Buffy has been so popular with the boys that the source of the fetus is anybody's guest. The mother of the bride, Tulip (Carol Burnett), is getting hit on by the groom's uncle (Pat McCormick). And the matriarch of the groom's family (screen legend Lillian Gish) has passed away peacefully upstairs in her bed, though not everyone who visits her notices. There is a drunken doctor (Howard Duff), a harried wedding planner (Geraldine Chaplin), an overwhelmed lead security officer (John Considine, who shares screenwriting credits), a bumbling bishop (John Cromwell) and a coterie of pals from the military school Dino hails from (including Craig Richard Nelson). 

Illicit affairs occur in every corner of the mansion. A painting of the topless bride will be ceremoniously unveiled. When the bride and groom's exes show up, they each greet their old flames openly with passionate kisses. Burnett and McCormick provide the main comic relief as they fumble through the first stages of a potential affair. The quality of the cast is deep. Paul Dooley is the father of the bride, who is a little too close with daughter Buffy, the mostly mute maid of honor. Nina Van Pallant is radiant as the unhappy mother of the groom with a melancholy backstory. Dina Merrill exudes old-school class as her bossy sister. "Mork & Mindy's" Pam Dawber provides spunk as Dino's ex. A raft of young actors from the Chicago theater scene (mostly Steppenwolf and Second City) score roles as barely recognizable extras, including Joan Allen, George Wendt, Dennis Franz, Danny Breen, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.

Some will find this meandering and underwhelming. It didn't click for me until the second hour. It's almost brilliant in its scattershot understatement. (Similar to how Roger Ebert appreciated the "insane logic" of Altman's "MASH.") Only Altman at the time could attract this level of disparate talent. He seems to be bursting with small ideas and having fun watching his players run around with them. 

BONUS TRACK

Let's take a shot at ranking from memory the Robert Altman films we've seen and watch how the list evolves as we re-view them and add more. (Boldface indicates recently added or re-viewed.)

  1.  Nashville

  2.  McCabe & Mrs. Miller

  3.  MASH

  4.  The Long Goodbye

  5.  The Player

  6.  Short Cuts 

  7.  3 Women

  8.  A Wedding

  9.  California Split 

 10. A Prairie Home Companion

 11. Gosford Park