Punks

DON'T BLINK: ROBERT FRANK (B) - This by-the-numbers overview of the career of irascible photographer/filmmaker Robert Frank gets by on a gritty attitude and a powerful alt-classic soundtrack.

Frank, whose breakthrough book "The Americans" grabbed attention in the late 1950s with its echoes of Walker Evans' work during the Depression, is still kicking at 91 and apparently as cranky as ever. He fell in with the beat writers, becoming a close friend of Jack Kerouac, who penned the introduction to his landmark book. In the '70s he hobnobbed with the Rolling Stones.

In the 1960s, Frank turned to moving images, training his harsh eye on documentary subjects, sometimes blurring fact with fiction. His famous documentary about the Stones' tour in the "Exile on Main Street" era -- called "Cocksucker Blues" -- was effectively banned after the band sued to block its release.

This paean to an iconoclast is too often a rote, unimaginative affair. Clips fly by -- whether it's footage from his movies, snippets of past interviews with Frank, or examples of him creating his visual art -- and it can be an overwhelming visual assault at times. Director Laura Israel, in her sophomore effort, seems overeager to stuff the film with images. In doing so, she sacrifices a coherent narrative and fails to justice to any specific works of Frank's.

There are hints of a more powerful documentary here. We get understated references to the deaths of both Frank's daughter (in a plane crash) and his son (who struggled with mental health issues), and a sense of domestic satisfaction with his wife, the artist June Leaf. There is often a somber tone to the proceedings.

A jolt of pre- and post-punk aesthetic comes through with the music, including our beloved Mekons, who contribute the opening track, "Memphis, Egypt," and "Where Were You"; two from Tom Waits; early Dylan, as well as a Dylan cover by the White Stripes; Yo La Tengo; the Kills; Velvet Underground; and Charles Mingus. That soundtrack both overwhelms and rescues an otherwise workmanlike movie.

BANG GANG: A MODERN LOVE STORY (C) - This half-hearted debut feature about mopey French teens engaging in zipless sex is entirely limp and uninspiring.

Bored, under-supervised and somewhat dead inside, the high-schoolers form the Bang Gang, a group of students who respond to e-notices to attend random orgies at the home of the ringleader, whose parents have entrusted their summer home to him alone. (His mom is off in Morocco for nine months.)

That host is hunky Alex (Finnegan Oldfield). He and his carrot-top pal Niki (Fred Hotier) get bored with beating off to videos of gymnasts, and so they parlay Alex's successful seduction techniques to rope in others, including the cute blonde George and her more ordinary bestie Laetitia (Daisy Broom) -- all setting up a bizarre love quadrangle that never gets off the ground.

Then there's moody moptop Gabriel (Lorenzo Lefebvre), who noodles with his electronica music in his bedroom while dutifully tending to his disabled dad. Gabriel is the responsible kid meant to serve as the prudent counter-balance to his shallow, frivolous classmates. His father is the hectoring conscience. It comes as no surprise that one (or both) of the girls will fall in heart-love with Gabriel despite bumping genitals with the kids in the fun group.

Writer/director Eva Husson seems to be treading well-worn coming-of-age territory in trying to chronicle the disaffected acting-out of millennials. She awkwardly wedges in her metaphors -- a B-plot about a summer spate of trainwrecks is particularly unsubtle. (A bunch of trainwrecks -- get it?) All of the members of the Bang Gang are attractive and in good shape, so the audience won't be disturbed by any ordinary faces or lumpy bodies. The movie suffers in comparison to other French art-house youth sex romps, such as "The Dreamers," "Blue Is the Warmest Color," or even the more recent "Breathe."

Where does this all lead? Well, with all the cell-phone cameras constantly documenting the randy proceedings, it is inevitable that something will leak online beyond the gang's secure settings, putting a reputation on the line. Then what? Well, not much. Summer will end. The kids will go back to school, having learned a valuable lesson. Surprisingly little attention is paid to the emotional or psychological toll that such an experiment would have on a bunch of naive teenagers. No damage is done that a pill can't clear up.

These kids are detached and aimless. So, too, is Husson's first attempt at storytelling on the big stage.

BONUS TRACKS
Highlights from the Frank doc include this rare track from Bob Dylan, "You've Been Hiding Too Long":



The Kills, "What New York Used To Be":



Tom Waits, the grinding "Sixteen Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six." ("I'm gonna whittle you into kindling!"):