CARPET COWBOYS (C) - What a bizarre little curiosity this is. If you watch the trailer and then settle in for the full movie, you may end up feeling like a sucker conned by a miserable bait-and-switch.
Newcomers Emily Mackenzie and Noah Collier start out strong by showing us a bunch of good ol' boys in and around Dalton, Ga., and it seems like this will be a quirky romp through the history of carpet manufacturing and the takeover of the industry by conglomerates that are squeezing out these charming little guys. But then something goes wrong. The directors either lost faith in their project or got sidetracked by one character in particular. That would be a clownish Scotsman named Roderick, who fancies himself a born-again cowboy, kitschy costume and all.
The story arc of Roderick -- who is far along the down-slope of whatever carpet-designing career he once enjoyed -- is flat and annoying. He comes across as a pathetic huckster, his spiel no longer selling in Asia, though he does craft a backup plan: a life with a trophy wife in the Philippines, where his meager savings will let him live in veritable splendor among the poor natives. Roderick also fancies himself as some sort of singer-songwriter, and he is stringing along an obsequious Man Friday, a relationship that will not end well.
I'm sorry this guy took up a whole paragraph of the review. But he hijacks this movie 20 minutes in, and whatever idea anyone had that this could be a compelling film about the carpet industry in northern Georgia has fizzed away. Characters are completely abandoned. Shots of manufacturing plants appear out of context. There is the hint of a fascinating industry backstory that never gets followed up on. It's as if the film is documenting the acrid hangover of something ... but what, exactly?
With not much to show for their first few years of filming, the directors took a two-year break (funding issues? COVID?) and return for an update, which becomes a melancholy coda that just muddies the narrative further. (And guess who dominates.) It's a shame, because this was executive-produced by John Wilson, whose unorthodox documentary series on HBO is a model of deadpan delivery. Good for him for bringing others along. That's what's disappointing here. The film trailer for "Carpet Cowboys" brims with possibilities -- that old man keeping the cigarette in his mouth lit while swimming laps, and his son who reminds us of Harlan Pepper from "Best in Show" -- and you hope for the same other-worldly vibe we got from visiting "Truth or Consequences." But the film, in the end, is as authentic as a Scottish cowboy.
THE SAINT OF SECOND CHANCES (D+) - This Netflix documentary spends time with Mike Veeck, the eccentric owner of a minor league baseball team and the son of legendary Bill Veeck, the showman who made Chicago White Sox games a blast in the 1970s. Not even Mike Veeck, one of the ultimate shlockmeisters, deserves this cheesy of a tribute.
Half the movie consists of re-enactments, some including Veeck (playing either his dad or himself), and the quality of the re-creations is nothing short of clunky and embarrassing. A bland Charlie Day, drained of his comic personality, looks lost at sea while playing the young Veeck. Jeff Daniels' narration comes off as smug. Famous people cannot rescue this dud.
There are
flashes of fun, a few jolts to muscle memory, especially if you grew up
in Chicago. Mike Veeck destroyed his major-league career by staging
1979's riotous Disco Demolition, a promotional catastrophe that continues to live in infamy,
and the event gets a nuanced retelling here. It's fun to see shots of
Bill Veeck shirtless and peg-legged in the bleachers; Haircut Day; happy organist
Nancy Faust entertaining the crowd; Harry Caray
leading the seventh-inning stretch in song; and hey, it's first-baseman Lamar Johnson!
But the journey here is a slog. In the final third, the movie lays on thick Veeck's
decision to stop drinking and reconnect with the daughter who had played
second-fiddle to his career and who suffered from a debilitating eye
disease. Directors Jeff Malmberg and Morgan Neville ("Won't You Be My Neighbor," "20 Feet From Stardom") wallow in shmaltz, but the emotional tug feels unearned.
No comments:
Post a Comment