Look in the Mirror

IZZY GETS THE FUCK ACROSS TOWN (A-minus) - Mackenzie Davis goes all-in for this classic tale of a spurned millennial on a hero's journey to win back her true love. Or something like that. Here she is the title character trying to venture across Los Angeles to crash the engagement party of her ex-boyfriend and ex-friend. Davis brings depth and nuance to this familiar role, and she is ably assisted by a strong supporting cast of actors who pop in for memorable cameos.

Lakeith Stanfield and Haley Joel Osment get mowed down by this force of nature in a blood- and wine-stained tuxedo from last night's catering gig. Davis, who was about the only good thing in this year's "Tully," can do no wrong carrying the picture on her shoulders. One of her pop-ins turns up Annie Potts as a sympathetic mother figure. And then there is the force of nature known as Alia Shawkat, who takes a throwaway role and turns it into a riveting character study. And we haven't mentioned the gravitas bequeathed on the production by Carrie Coon (HBO's "The Leftovers") as Izzy's sour sister and former bandmate.

This is a debut feature -- and a labor of love -- from Christian Papierniak, and it buzzes with sharply observed character interplay and well honed lines of dialogue. It's Davis who carries it over the finish line, though, with her determination to bring a fresh perspective to a classic millennial lament.

PERSONA (1966) (B) - I don't know what this has left to add to a conversation in 2018, but Ingmar Bergman's classic is concise and less aggravating than many European art films of the 1960s. Liv Ullmann's near-silent performance -- as a mute actress tended to by a young nurse -- is a cavalcade of expressions. Bibi Anderson does the heavy lifting as the chatty attendant. We also hear Bergman's own silent wail bookending the film in the person of a young boy longing for his absent mother.

Typical art-house philosophy is espoused. The black-and-white cinematographer is sharp and unforgiving. This two-handed morality play zips by in 83 minutes, holding up well as a curiosity piece.

BONUS TRACK
A centerpiece of "Izzy," both by Corin Tucker and by Davis and Coon in a memorable scene between the sisters, "Axemen":


 

Doc Watch: Justice

DEADLINE (B) (2004) - This bare-bones documentary is surprisingly effective in chronicling the process by which Illinois' lame-duck governor at the time, George Ryan, decided whether to end the death penalty before the end of his term. Ryan set up a sort of Peace and Reconciliation commission to hear the arguments of those on Death Row and the families of victims. Filmmakers Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson ("Cameraperson") capture compelling testimony and build a sense of intrigue over what Ryan will do. Most folks will remember the outcome, but if you don't know or have forgotten, let the drama play out.

THE STAIRCASE (A-minus) (2004) - This eight-part TV production launched a thousand true-crime series and podcasts with this French crew's examination of Durham, N.C., writer Michael Peterson and mysterious death of his wife in a pool of blood at the foot of a staircase in their home. TV veteran Jean-Xavier de Lestrade leads a French film crew with a fresh perspective on American jurisprudence.

This is one of the best legal procedurals you will find, as Lestrade gains an all-access pass into the defense strategy of trial lawyer David Rudolf, who has his hands full with an unappealing client, who happens to have been in Germany with his ex-wife when a neighbor woman just happened to die in a very similar manner about 17 years earlier. Peterson's online dalliance with a male escort provides a juicy dramatic twist and comedic relief in the form of the sex worker's animated testimony.

Again, if you either never knew the story or have forgotten the outcome, let it play out without revealing the verdict via Wikipedia. One of the final shots, winding through the bowels of the courthouse, way beyond normal security limits, is a great coup for the film crew. In addition, the psychological profile of Peterson's children, most of whom support him, thanks mainly to a healthy dose of denial. This certainly laid the foundation for the true-crime craze that remains in full flower.
 

New to the Queue

Cold, hard stare ...

A young Iranian man seduces the women of Denmark, looking for a ticket to stay in the country, in "The Charmer."

Barry Jenkins follows up "Moonlight" with an adaptation of James Baldwin's "If Beale Street Could Talk."

A documentary about survivors of the Chinese Communist Party's purges of 1957, "Dead Souls."

John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell look like they are having fun in the latest from the writer of "Tropic Thunder," Etan Cohen's "Holmes and Watson." 

Pawel Pawlikowski follows up "Ida" with a postwar love story, "Cold War."
 

Doc Watch: Outsider Art

MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A. (A) - This mix of contemporary video and home movies by the rapper M.I.A. creates a swirl that is the life of a modern, insurgent artist. With a slight nod to the Kurt Cobain fever dream "Montage of Heck," newcomer Stephen Loveridge curates an intimate portrait of the talented Sri Lankan refugee immigrant who refuses to shut up about the plight of the people she left behind.

M.I.A, aka Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka Maya, shot home video going back to her time in her homeland (where her father was a founder of the Tamil rebel group) around the turn of the millennium. She also was developing her beats and raps on cassette tapes. She was "disovered" by Justine Frischmann of Elastica and before you know it was performing before thousands at Coachella by 2005 on the heels of songs like "Galanaga" and her debut album "Arular." She eventually broke huge with "Paper Planes" on the "Slumdog Millionaire" soundtrack, and before you know it, she was hanging with Madonna and Nikki Manaj at the Super Bowl, infamously giving America the middle finger.

Loveridge does not shy away from either the controversy or the accusations of hypocrisy against an entertainer who celebrates the underclass while luxuriating in the billions of the Bronfman family that she briefly was married into. But we never lose sight of the young girl who grew into the truth-telling woman still pushing to champion people of color. Loveridge plays with the chronology like a pro, and the result is a burst of energy and primal scream, urging us to listen to this voice.

HERE TO BE HEARD: THE STORY OF THE SLITS (B-minus) - This is a fun but somewhat sluggish celebration of the female punk band the Slits, who gained popularity alongside the Sex Pistols and the Clash but who quickly devolved into a noodling reggae band and soon faded into obscurity.

The archival clips are fairly extensive, and the middle-age surviving members are mostly in good spirits as they reminisce. The production values are a little cheap, and the history of the band itself is rather thin, but this helps fill in some of the blanks in the history of punk.

SEARCHING FOR INGMAR BERGMAN (B-minus) - You get the feeling that the filmmakers merely scratch the surface in psychoanalyzing the groundbreaking Swedish director of the New Wave era. His greatest hits are on display here, and the women who indulged him over the years, now wrinkled, wax nostalgic about working with the man who did his best to harsh the vibe of the hippie generation with his heavy films. A move to Germany in the '70s for tax reasons feels under-reported. One of his sons offers an analysis of dear old dad. In the end, we might not know much more than a few Rosebud moments that shaped a man who left his mark on cinema.

BONUS TRACK
From the closing credits of "M.I.A.," "Reload":


 

Holiday Doldrums

The Onion AV Club (no relation) just unleashed another string of mediocre grades for the latest releases. Ten reviews in a row range from B-minus to C:

• Mowgli
• Vox Lux
• Ben Is Back
• Aquaman
• Capernaum
• Bird Box
• Mortal Engines
• Mary Poppins Returns
• The House That Jack Built
• The Mule

The string was broken by last night's A-minus review for Barry Jenkins' "If Beale Street Could Talk."
  

Doc Watch: Women in Peril

THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR (B+) - This quiet, methodical documentary brings a modern-day sensibility to the harrowing story of the gang-rape of a young mother and wife in Alabama in 1944. Nancy Buirski ("The Loving Story," "Afternoon of a Faun") by now has developed a style that is more dry than flashy. Here, she marches through the narrative, mixing the news reports of the day in black publications with present-day recollections, including by Taylor's brother. We also hear Taylor's voice on an audio recording. (Buirski uses video of Taylor herself sparingly and to powerful effect.)

Buirski also takes the opportunity to celebrate Rosa Parks, who was the NAACP investigator assigned to Taylor's case. That storyline adds depth to the tale and helps bridge the generations from World War II to the civil-rights achievements of the '60s through to the present-day plight of the African American struggle.

DE PALMA (B) - It isn't easy to defend Brian De Palma's film oeuvre. He was baptized in schlock, he made his name stealing Hitchcock's moves to create stylized violence, and his legacy has not aged well, especially '80s noir-porn like "Dressed to Kill" and "Body Double." But he is a really good storyteller, and he was present at the dawn of the American New Wave, so he's an engaging subject for a documentary.

Next-gen directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow pay homage by curating loads of movie clips and simply plunking down De Palma in front of a camera (Errol Morris-style) and having him spin stories about his movies and famous pals. The takeaway here is that, say what you will about a director who liked the idea of impaling an actress with a three-foot-long drill bit or dumping a bucket of pig's blood on poor Carrie, he worked hard at his craft and he had an old-fashioned appreciation for things like mise en cine and narrative structure. And he entertained a lot of people with "Carrie," "Scarface," the very first Tom Cruise "Mission Impossible," "Blow Out," "The Untouchables" and Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" video. Hanging out with the old guy, you'll learn a few things and have some fun along the way.
 

Doc Watch: Secrets

SCOTTY AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD (B) - This fascinating character study follows Scotty Bowers, a super-spry nonagenerian, as he looks back on his postwar glory as pimp to the stars, mostly closeted gay men. Matt Tyrnauer ("Studio 54") brings Bowers' memoirs off the page and onto the big screen, and he is an engaging subject, full of stories, most of which seem corroborated by contemporaries.

Bowers was sexualized by men when he was a boy (he doesn't see it as abuse) and then had a romp-filled stint in the military, emerging from World War II with a gas station in Hollywood, where he set up shop procuring buff young men for randy actors looking for $20 action. Bowers, boyishly handsome and long married to a woman, comes across as either the most well-adjusted pansexual libertine or the most deluded victim of delusion ever.

We watch his hoarder lifestyle take over his house, as the stories pour out of him, whether it's pornographically gay romps, orgies, or feeding women to Katherine Hepburn. Tyrnauer shrewdly scrutinizes America's views of sex and the power of pop-culture tropes. It's a fantasy world wrapped in a fantasy world. While you pity some of the stars who were trapped in the closet, you have to tip your hat to the old folks -- they sure had a wild time back then.

RUNNING FROM CRAZY (C-minus) - This disappointing profile of the haunted Hemingway clan comes with a major red flag -- it is brought to you by Oprah Winfrey's fawn factory. Turns out that fatally counteracts the power of legendary documentarian Barbara Kopple ("Harlan County U.S.A.").

Mariel Hemingway anchors this examination of the clan descended from legendary writer Ernest Hemingway, who famously took his own life in 1961 at his home in Idaho. Very little illumination is shed on a family that has suffered through nine suicides over the generations. Mariel's daughters seem fairly well adjusted, but there really are no deep insights that delve into the family history. Mariel is treated with kid gloves, and we have to slog through scenes of her yoga routine and bickering road trips with her boyfriend.

Kopple captures it all with the production values of a church video from the '80s. Truly a lost opportunity.

Bonus Track
The trailer for "Scotty":


 

Class struggle

KES (1969) (A) - Ken Loach broke through with this raw, brutal examination of the life of the underclass in rural northern England. Working with mostly non-actors, Loach (most recently "I, Daniel Blake," "The Angels' Share") lucked out with David Bradley as Billy, an earnest adolescent who sees falcon training as his escape from the dead-end life of his coal town around Yorkshire. He is bullied by his lunkhead older brother and ignored by most everyone else, but when he discovers a nest of kestrels and learns how to train them, his world explodes with possibilities.

Working class indignities abound. A soggy soccer practice and a locker-room humiliation become just one in a series of daily horrors that befall Billy and his mates. There are no easy answers here and no simple, logical resolution to this story. In fact, the ending is gut-wrenching. The Criterion edition includes insightful extras about Loach and the film. A milestone in British cinema.

SUPPORT THE GIRLS (B) - Andrew Bujalski never puts the pieces together in this blue-collar dramedy about women asserting their rights at a divey breastaurant of the Hooters variety. Bujalski, the godfather of Mumblecore, was on a roll -- and a path to the mainstream -- with "Computer Chess" and "Results," but he takes a sideways slide by losing his focus on storytelling. A top-notch cast, led by Regina King as Lisa, the mother hen of a den of young women, captures its share of moments. But the story -- there's a carwash fundraiser for one of the workers who is some sort of legal predicament -- is confusing.  As a series of vignettes, it's satisfying. And actresses like Haley Lu Richardson and Shayna McHayle (aka Junglepussy) bring alluring energy as they lead a crew of appealing (and we're not talking about the push-up bras) characters. But by the end, I wasn't sure just what all had transpired on Lisa's very trying day. With James Le Gros, always welcome, as the creepy boss.
 

Drama Queens

Two from our gal Alia Shawkat:

DUCK BUTTER (B) - Just a lovely love story between two young women who decide to take on the grand arc of a long-term relationship squeezed into 24 hours of intense bonding. It's a gimmick but a fun one. Alia Shawkat here writes the script with Miguel Arteta ("Beatriz at Dinner") and stars as Naimi alongside the appealing Laia Costa as Sergio in this roller-coaster comic drama.

With the hint of the artificiality of a theater exercise, Shawkat and Costa are all-in for this one. The dynamic alternates between intense and droll. They vow to have sex every hour on the hour. Naimi, in a nod to the conceit, complains during the second half of the experiment, as the bickering begins, "We haven't had sex in two-and-a-half hours!"

The result feels both workshopped and lived-in. It would not work without the dedication of the two actresses and the steady hand of Arteta.

PAINT IT BLACK (C) - Shawkat stumbles here in the awkward directorial debut of actress Amber Tamblyn. This is yet another drama about a mother and girlfriend distraught over the death of a young man. The great Janet McTeer tries her best to bring sense to the role of the grieving, conniving mother, but even she cannot find the right tone.

Shawkat, looking unnaturally skinny, also can't hit the right pitch of this pseudo-horror melange. Tamblyn exhibits a flashy style, and she has an eye for visual hooks. But her story (she co-wrote it with two others, including the author of the source material) is hollow. We don't know enough about the young man to appreciate why Shawkat's character would be so aimless and his mother would attack her. (Except that they both seem to do a lot of drugs and alcohol.) Throw in a nonsensical ending, and you have a missed opportunity from Tamblyn.

BONUS TRACK
From the opening of "Duck Butter," the band Hinds with "Garden":


 

Bleak Is Beautiful

BURNING (B+) - A slow, lovely meditation on yearning. Farm-boy Jong-su (Ah-in Yoo) pines for Hae-mi (Jong-seo Jeon), who has gone off to Seoul, the big city, and, after sleeping with her once, he agrees to watch her cat while she takes a trip to Africa. When Hae-mi returns, she has Ben (Steven Yeun) on her arm, a slick playboy-type with a fancy apartment. The three hang out together, most memorably back at Jong-su's farm, where Hae-mi entertains the troops with a topless dance to a Miles Davis song at twilight.

But when Hae-mi disappears, Jong-su grows suspicious of Ben. But it's not clear which one of the men is the sane one and which one is the paranoid one. Chang-dong Lee, who wrote and directed the equally quiet and compelling "Poetry" in 2010, returns with a true slow burn of a tale. This laconic mind-game (a surprisingly perky 148 minutes) crescendos with a violent ending, and whether or not you feel tricked by the filmmaker, you almost certainly will be drawn in by the performances and the gorgeous look of the scenery.

DARK RIVER (A-minus) - Clio Barnard ("The Selfish Giant," "The Arbor") adapts this brutal, grueling slog of a story about a damage woman named Alice (Ruth Wilson), who, after the death of her father, returns to her rural northern England village for the first time in 15 years vowing to claim the tenancy to the rundown family farm she believes is rightfully hers. But she is stymied at every step by her drunken, hirsute brother, Joe (Mark Stanley), and haunted at every turn by visions of the father (Sean Bean in flashbacks) who molested her when she was a girl. (The only knock on the film is Barnard's horror-story over-use of those incessant glimpses of the past.)

Barnard knows how to tap into the grit and grime of life in North Yorkshire, and Wilson and Stanley wallow in it, surrounded less by the loveliness of nature than by the blood and guts of the rats, rabbits and sheep they live among. The siblings do battle as Alice, a sheep-shearer by trade, strives to fix up the grounds to appease the banksters while Joe resists change. Things get ugly, and it all builds to a horrific -- yet oddly cathartic -- tragedy, though with a coda that reveals the true beauty of the environment these two scarred souls were raised in. The film is bleak and devastating at times but absolutely compelling.

  

New to the Queue

Coast to coast ...

Alfonso Cuaron ("Children of Men," "Gravity") revisits his childhood and the domestic worker who helped raise him in "Roma."

A documentary explores George R.R. Martin's curiosity shop and arts/entertainment center in Santa Fe, "Meow Wolf: Origin Story."

I gave up on Clint Eastwood's bloated movies long ago, but something is drawing me to his drama about an elderly drug-runner, "The Mule."

A pair of Catholic sisters query passersby on the street in the restored 1968 documentary "Inquiring Nuns."

Hirokazu Kore-eda ("Nobody Knows") returns with another family drama, "Shoplifters."

A documentary about the discovery of bizarre industrial musicals from the business world, "Bathtubs Over Broadway."
 

RIP, Ricky Jay

Magician and actor Ricky Jay has died at 72. Here is our July 2013 review of the documentary about him.

DECEPTIVE PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AND MENTORS OF RICKY JAY (B) - This was highly enjoyable, with an entertaining subject and clever framing device. I would give it a higher grade -- because it's definitely worth seeing -- but for two reasons: 1) You need to be a little bit of a fan of Ricky Jay and/or his card tricks. 2) Grading this too high would suggest that this is the ultimate profile of Ricky Jay and his magician mentors; it's not.

But at times, it's true joy. Jay was a child star in the '50s and grew up to be the Penn Jillette of the '70s, perfecting his card-tossing routine as a long-haired hippie of the now generation. You may know his face from David Mamet's films opposite Joe Mantegna in the '80s, such as "House of Cards," "Things Change" and "Homicide." He's also the author of numerous books on magic and various oddities.

What this documentary brings to light is Jay's role as a historian in the world of magic. Because he was already an established performer in the 1950s (urged on by his amateur-magician dad), he provides a key link to the artists going back to the turn of the last century. His library is comprehensive.

Director Molly Bernstein stretches the soup a few times when she's stumped for footage, but she employs a simple but effective framing device: Jay sitting in front of a mirror at a felt table shuffling a deck of cards and occasionally showing off his sleight of hand. She introduces us to the elders: Al Flosso, Slydini, Cardini and others. She shows respect for the secrets of these men.

We also get clips of Jay hamming it up with Dinah Shore on her talk show. And we see closeups of the face of a man easing into old age, his hands still quicker than the eye.

The trailer: 

King of America

THE KING (A) - Eugene Jarecki continues to battle for the soul of America, with this examination of our nation's original sin as viewed from the backseat of Elvis Presley's Rolls-Royce. Did Presley embody the American dream as a poor boy from Tupelo, Miss., to international superstar, only to die on the toilet at age 42?

Jarecki, the meticulous chronicler behind "Why We fight" and "The House I Live In," captures dreamlike images of a diverse group of participants floating along America's back roads in the lap of luxury, ruminating on the rock 'n' roll icon and how he may have symbolized everything good and bad with our country. Filming mostly during the 2016 presidential campaign, the result is a profoundly moving gumbo of ideas.

Celebrities like Alec Baldwin, Ethan Hawke (a producer) and Ashton Kutcher (surprisingly warm here) act out the ups and downs of celebrityhood, while sharp observers like Van Jones and Public Enemy's Chuck D (author of the classic line "Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me") offer a wider perspective. Mike Myers, representing the level-headed Canadian counter-balance, is not only quite funny but rather insightful in his analysis of Britain's conjoined-twin nations.

Random musical acts are sprinkled throughout and are lovingly recorded. Old-school artists like John Hiatt (who breaks down weeping in the presence of the spirit of the King) and Emmylou Harris share the spotlight with alt-hipster M. Ward, teenage yodeler Emi Sunshine, and acidic rapper Immortal Technique. The Handsome Family croons a patented murder ballad while gliding through the Southwest. Presley himself is a very real presence, through generous archival footage, following him from rags to riches.

Jarecki shares an aesthetic, as well as actual clips, with Thom Zimny's two-part HBO documentary "Elvis Presley: The Searcher," finding the complexity and layers to the man-child who embodied the hopes and dreams of popular culture for decades. The road trip as metaphor works wonderfully, as the Rolls breaks down a few times, perfectly encapsulating a nation (and its founding philosophy) growing long in the tooth. One man's American dream is another American man's nightmare; and sometimes that contradiction is embodied in one iconic soul.

GARRY WINOGRAND: EVERYTHING IS PHOTOGRAPHABLE (B) - A fascinating, if scattered, study of the work of one of the leading street photographers of the 1960s and '70s. His contemporaries and art critics have studied the hell out of his pictures, and sometimes it feels like they are overthinking and overanalyzing the work. But the images are undeniably compelling.

One ex-wife is on board to examine the man himself, who, if you piece this all together, appears to have been a bit of a sexist pig, but perhaps no more so than most men of his era. One of the hooks here is that Winogrand left tens of thousands of rolls of film undeveloped when he died in 1984 at age 56

BONUS TRACKS
From the closing credits of "Winogrand," early R.E.M. with "Catapult"



From "The King," Immortal Technique spitting "Rich Man's World":



Also from "The King," the angelic crooning of Loveful Heights, "Train Song":

Regards to Broadway

LOVE, GILDA (B) - This by-the-numbers, fawning biography of "Saturday Night Live" star Gilda Radner offers an unsatisfying mix that underplays the funny (her brilliant comic acting) and overplays the sad (death from ovarian cancer in her 40s). Maybe a running time of more than 88 minutes would have balanced things out. A fully formed artist never emerges from the sympathetic direction of newcomer Lisa Dapolito and an army of producers. (Too many cooks?)

Dapolito dwells on Radner's childhood as a fattie but then mostly glosses over adult eating disorders. Too few "SNL" clips are included and they are way too short here. The comedy has no room to breathe. A lot of time is spent on her rather uninteresting post-"SNL" career, and her relationship with Gene Wilder is told mostly through longtime pals and a nephew of Wilder's.

Radner's diaries are used to good effect, but that device sits in stark contrast to Judd Apatow's extensive examination of the psyche of Garry Shandling for HBO (which has the luxury of being three times as long); not that such over-indulgence would have necessarily worked here. Maybe there just aren't as many neuroses and noodlings to sift through when it comes to Radner. But you leave with the sense that you don't really know her all that better than you did before, and you didn't get to laugh as much as you wanted to.

THE SUNSHINE BOYS (1975) (A) - One of the great Neil Simon screenplays, this one starring Walther Matthau and George Burns as estranged vaudeville partners asked to reunite for a TV special. Richard Benjamin steals scenes as the nephew/agent of Willie Clark (Matthau), the frustratingly irascible dotard who harbors petty grudges against Al Lewis (Burns). In classic "Odd Couple" fashion, Willie lives in a messy hotel room in Manhattan while Burns idles away at his daughter's house in New Jersey. Zingers and malapropisms fly past at an impressive rate, and all three actors are at the top of their game. Besides the corny depiction of a bygone era -- filmed in Gerald Ford's New York -- there is a lot of heart on display here, both between Willie and his nephew and between the two old cranks. Still as funny as any word with a K in it.
 

New to the Queue

Thinly veiled ...

A documentary about a filmmaker tracking down the man who stole the first movie she shot 20 years ago, "Shirkers."

Peter Bogdanovich and others finally complete Orson Welles' final film (and film within a film about a filmmaker), "The Other Side of the Wind."

The Welles movie comes with a companion documentary from Morgan Neville ("Won't You Be My Neighbor," "20 Feet From Stardom"), "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead."

Patrick Wang ("In the Family") gets mopey with a delayed-release drama, "The Grief of Others."

A shallow documentary about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, "Daughters of the Sexual Revolution."