Rough Trade

LONDON TO BRIGHTON (2006) (B) - Pulp fiction avoids falling into lurid sex and violence in this tale of a young prostitute and a 12-year-old street kid on the lam after a bloody episode with a kinky john.

Writer-director Paul Andrew Williams has a fine touch with dialogue and character drawing. Johnny Harris strikes a perfect balance as the bumbling heavy. Sam Spruell is frightening as the mob boss and son of the skeevy victim of the girls.

Lorraine Stanley and Georgia Groome are endlessly appealing as the Mutt & Jeff women on the run. Williams uses flashbacks to snip apart the narrative. He also relies more on menace than actual violence, which is refreshing.
 

Past Masters

SPRING NIGHT, SUMMER NIGHT (A) - This perfect nugget of Americana filmmaking finally got some attention on its 50th anniversary last year. The Appalachian love story has been one of the lost gems of cinema, and its restoration is a triumph.

This BFI story explains the movie's phenomenon, including its connection to the Guild Cinema and its former co-owner Peter Conheim. This is essentially the only film J.L. Anderson ever crafted and sought to release, and it is flawless, essentially a blueprint for the American New Wave of the late 1960s and '70s.

Gorgeous black-and-white images abound in the rural setting. Anderson employs a pseudo-documentary style, melding a handful of professional actors with locals. A brother and sister -- who question whether they are actually blood siblings -- take their attraction a step too far, leaving Jessica (Larue Hall) pregnant. Carl (Ted Heim) flees for a while as the family grapples with the disgraceful situation. The hard-ass father (John Crawford) bickers constantly with his wife (the mesmerizing Marj Johnson, with that '60s Ethel Kennedy glow about her), who likes to flirt around town.

The bar scenes are covered in grit. The landscapes in southeast Ohio are stunning. One extended scene involving a sensuous young woman licking an ice cream cone while riding on the back of a motorbike is a master class in filmmaking. Just one element in an absolute masterpiece.

COLD WAR (B+) - There's something antiseptic about Pawel Pawlikowski's postwar love story set behind the Iron Curtain. Stunningly shot in crisp black-and-white, every scene is meticulously laid out and a feast for the eyes.

But "Cold War" can be a little too cold. Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot play star-crossed lovers whose off-and-on romance ebbs and flows along with the fate of the Eastern Bloc. Like the smooth jazz that dominates the soundtrack, the film itself can feel light and effervescent, not unlike "Roma" in the way it entertains visually but fizzes away with the aftertaste.

This is Pawlikowski's follow-up to "Ida," but it lacks the gravitas of that previous film. Kulig and Kot are moving throughout, but there is something off about their chemistry (which is partially the point). At 89 minutes, this is succinct storytelling and especially luscious on the big screen.

BONUS TRACKS
A representative clip from "Spring Night, Summer Night," including that motorbike sequence:



A fine analysis of "Spring Night, Summer Night":


 

Out of Step

FATIMA (2016) (B) - Divorced cleaning lady Fatima (Soria Zeroual) jousts with her young-adult daughters across the generational divide. The older one is starting medical school; the younger one is a lazy high school student.

Philippe Faucon has spent his career studying immigrants in France, and here he takes his time letting us get to know Fatima and her dreams -- not just for herself, but for her daughters. She toggles between prudery and pride. Nesrine (Zita Hanrot) is full of doubt about making the leap to a higher class. Younger Souad (Kenza Noah Aiche) seeks to rebel in anti-intellectual ways.

Fatima keeps a diary and takes French writing lessons, perhaps surprising herself with her thoughts and ideas. Each woman's story unfolds in touching ways.

TYREL (B-minus) - Psych! What if you made a horror film but nothing horrible or horrific happens? Sebastian Silva ("Crystal Fairy," "Nasty Baby") pulls off the ultimate misdirection with this mind-fuck about a black man joining his friend for an otherwise all-white-male weekend of bro debauchery in the Catskills.

He's not really the only "minority" at the party. The host and one other guest are apparently Latin American, and an older gay man is there too.

One of Silva's assertions is that the opposite of black culture is the music of R.E.M. (three songs featured here, including a menacing "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"). Of course this and other micro-aggressions add up for our hero, Tyler (Jason Mitchell). (The title is an intentional typo, based on one character's botching of his name -- again a seemingly innocuous event.

Not enough happens here, and the improvised dialogue never sizzles like a more reliable Apatovian exercise would. Christopher Abbott (HBO's "Girls") can't find the right tone, Mitchell is solid but unspectacular, and not even Michael Cera's loopy charm can elevate this above average.

Late-Stage Capitalism

Two early films from the Chinese master, Jia Zhang-Ke:

UNKNOWN PLEASURES (2002) (A-minus) - Here we see the flowering of Jia's vision -- aimless young adults coping with a seismic shift from old-school communism to the capitalism of the future. Here is a concise plot summation from the Onion AV Club (no relation):

Set in the small provincial city of Datong, the film centers on Zhao Wei Wei and Wu Qiong, jobless best friends who spend their limitless free time hanging around a pool hall, tooling around the city on mopeds, and coveting the American dollars that will get them out of their rut. Still living at home with his mother, who is lost to the Falun Gong religious cult, Zhao joins the long line of young men looking to volunteer for military service, but his blood tests reveal hepatitis. Meanwhile, Wu pursues the forbiddingly beautiful Qiao Qiao (Zhao Tao), a traveling dancer shilling for Mongolian King Liquor, a company run by a possessive gangster (Zhou Qing Feng) who keeps her on a tight leash and sics his goons on each of her suitors. As their situation grows more hopeless, the two friends hatch a comically misconceived robbery scheme to scrape up some quick money.

While it isn't very sexual, it is sensual, especially during a pivotal club scene. Tao Zhao emerges as a unique talent who would grow into Jia's collaborator and, eventually, wife.

PLATFORM (2000) (B+) - Here's IMDb again with the helpful summary:

Set in Fenyang, Shanxi Province, the film focuses on a group of amateur theater troupe performers whose fate mirrors that of the general population in China as massive socio-economic changes sweep across the mainland. The film commences in 1979 with the troupe performing numbers idolizing Mao Zedong, ending in the '80s when the shows reflect the strong Western influences pervading China, covering a decade in which China saw tremendous changes.

Jia has a steady hand with the camera, showing patience with scenes, as actors come and go through shots, particularly in a scene between Tao Zhao and her would-be beau. The sweep of history is subtle, reflected obtusely through hairstyles and clothes. This new generation struggles with love and art, and the interplay can be heartbreaking, especially during a scene in which that future rolls in on the rails, bringing hope from the outside world, as if the Beatles are onboard it. (See the second video below.)

BONUS TRACK
The "Platform" trailer and a key scene:

New to the Queue

Paying dues to the survivors guild ...

A documentary about an odd coupling of Harlem street musicians, "Satan & Adam."

An underworld-themed trend? A zippy documentary from Penny Lane ("Our Nixon," "Nuts!") profiles devil worshipers in "Hail Satan?"

We're on the fence about this giddy romp about Emily Dickinson, but Molly Shannon in the title role is drawing us to "Wild Nights With Emily."

It's normally a hard pass when it comes to Andrew Garfield, but the latest from David Robert Mitchell (enchanting with "The Myth of the American Sleepover," clunky with "It Follows") looks fun -- and it has Riley Keough -- "Under the Silver Lake."

A documentary about a craftsman in the heart of New York City, "Carmine Street Guitars."
 

Doc Watch: Innovations

APOLLO 11 (B+) - This fairly by-the-numbers documentary about the moon landing 50 years ago has the good sense to get out of its own way. No talking heads are needed, as original footage, some of it rarely seen before, forms the narrative and ratchets up the drama. 

With a throwback "You Are There" style, the documentary launches with the famous speech by President Kennedy vowing a man on the moon by the end of the decade and then marches through the events of the summer of 1969, with countdown clocks and odometer readings. (Warning: The graphics are in small print and might be hard to read on a TV or computer screen.)

Todd Douglas Miller's curation of the footage might come off as too dry at times, but you have to admire his restraint. There is no denying the building suspense and the sense of camaraderie that seemed to sweep the nation. Nostalgia hangs in the air, as nerds in short-sleeved white dress shirts banter in Mission Control and families in sunglasses gape across the bay at the launch from the Kennedy Space Center. It was a time when Americans conquered a monumental task rather than bickered over how it couldn't be done.

JOSEPH PULITZER: VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (B-minus) - This PBS "American Masters" production offers a primer on the 19th century newsman who defined an era and lives on today through his namesake awards for journalistic excellence. The film traces his journey as a Hungarian immigrant, fighting as a hired gun in the U.S. Civil War and eventually launching a media empire in St. Louis and New York. 

The re-enactments here can be distracting, but director Oren Rudavsky keeps them understated as he tries to enliven a story devoid of modern images. Liev Schreiber hams it up as the voice of Pulitzer, and Adam Driver drones as the humorless narrator.

Even veteran news junkies can learn a thing or two from this meticulous curation. Pulitzer was an innovator, melding the low road with the high road as he never lost sight of his goal: selling newspapers. His papers uncovered corruption while also scraping the bottom of police reports for some of the more lascivious examples of human nature.
 

New to the Queue

Altered states ...

The colorful debut feature from Ghanian musician Blitz Bazawule, "The Burial of Kojo."

French teens explore their sexuality and desires in "Slut in a Good Way."

The documentary about a program in New York that treats prostitutes as victims, not as criminals, "Blowin' Up."

Claire Denis goes to space and explores the human condition in "High Life."

Alex Ross Perry ("Listen Up Philip") re-teams with Elisabeth Moss ("Queen of Earth") for the punk anthem "Her Smell."

A profile of a classic hockey bad boy, "Tough Guy: The Bob Probert Story."
 

Fathers and Sons

A SCREAMING MAN (2010) (B) - This slow burn occasionally borders on tedium, but at 92 minutes and with a powerful lead performance, it manages to provide a compelling portrait of a middle-aged man competing with his son for relevance. Adam (Youssouf Djaoro), also known as Champion for his youthful swimming exploits, tends the pool at a club in N'Djamena, Chad. But new Chinese club owners are purging older workers, and the manager fancies Adam's son, Abdel (Diouc Koma), and so Adam is demoted to working the front gate.

Adam also feels pressure from local military leaders, who extract taxes for the war against the rebels. Adam makes a fateful decision that could earn him his job back -- but at a much higher price than paying money to the rebels. Adam's resentments are never clearly stated but rather encapsulated in his persistence in hanging on to his youth. He still walks with an athlete's lanky strut. A simple scene of him doing sit-ups speaks volumes. Writer-director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun creates a low, satisfying hum throughout Adam's ordeal that will engulf his family.

THE WINDOW (2009) (A-minus) - Antonio Larreta is mesmerizing as a dying man holding vigil in his bed as he awaits a visit from his estranged son. Writer-director Carlos Sorin uses Laretta -- who literally looks like he's on his death bed (the actor was in his mid-80s at the time and would live to be 92) -- as the centerpiece around which a delightful cast of characters assembles.

The frail Antonio can count on his faithful servants Maria del Carmen and Emilse at his rose-colored retreat in Patagonia, Argentina. Buzzing in and around the mansion over the course of the main day that the film takes place are a piano tuner (Antonio's son is a celebrated pianist), a doctor and a friend. Everyone's task can be traced to preparations for the arrival of the son.

Hard-headed Antonio decides to take an ill-advised stroll to experience the elements outside his window. Sorin's tender treatment of this man's final days and hours can be considered rose-colored itself -- especially in gauzy flashbacks to Antonio's childhood that bookend the movie -- but there is not denying their emotional appeal. At a brisk 85 minutes, this often unfurls like a perfectly executed stage play.
 

At Your Own Peril

THE GUILTY (B) - Jakob Cedergren is solid as a cop under investigation, forced into desk duty as a dispatch operator, making the best of his situation by hustling to help a woman in danger. The film unfolds almost in real time over an hour and a half, as Officer Asger Holm takes a call from a woman being transported in a van against her will. He juggles incoming calls and coordinates with different precincts as he tracks the woman's movements.

Newcomer Gustav Moeller (co-writing with Emil Nygaard Albertsen) shoots in the claustrophobic dispatch center, climbing up in Cedergren's personal space. They unravel the simple story gradually, revealing a couple of not very surprising twists as the narrative chugs along. Cedergren makes you care about the story behind the story.

GLASS (D) - I was forced to watch this. M. Night Shyamalan might have good ideas, but he is a klutz when it comes to writing and directing a movie. The dialogue is laughable. The camera shots are the work of a serviceable hack. The story makes sense in the end, but it's torture getting there. Shyamalan had his moment, but that was a couple of decades ago. His output has been unappealing since. Is this rock bottom? I haven't paid attention, so I don't know. This is ridiculous.
 

RIP, Agnes Varda

The great New Wave filmmaker Agnes Varda died this week at age 90. Variety has an obit. We reviewed two of her films in recent years.

In "Jane B par Agnes Varda," we lauded a scene in the 1988 documentary (released in 2016) as "a magnificent celebration of female beauty and power, so fundamentally human yet posed and mannered."  The following year, we considered "Faces Places" as a "charming and touching" rumination on her life as she collaborates with a young photographer.

Here's a clip from her latest film, "Varda by Agnes":



And a clip from her masterpiece, "Cleo From 5 to 7":


 

Doc Watch: Peril

LAST TRAIN HOME (2009) (B) - This fascinating documentary follows one family as they take part several times in the annual new-year's migration of urban workers returning to China's rural areas. Filmed a decade ago by Lixin Fan -- who takes a fly-on-the-wall approach without narration -- we settle in with couple Changhua and Suqin, their two children, and the grandmother who raises the kids while the parents work in a clothing factory.

The sheer volume of people trying to make the same trip -- during last decade's great economic expansion in China -- creates harrowing scenarios of nightmare attempts to score a train reservation back home. Eventually, older daughter Qin drops out of school and joins the parents in the workforce. The final year's trek, by Qin and her parents, finally exposes raw nerves, provoking an outburst back home that would make the Kardashians blanch. It is that scene, around the one-hour mark, that makes for compelling viewing, just as we've settled into the cadence of the family dynamics and their annual migration.

I AM JANE DOE (C) - Filmmaker Mary Mazzio tries too hard to tell the story of victims of sex trafficking, and she ends up taking a story that tells itself and filling it with distractions. Randomly, Jessica Chastain narrates. We meet several victims now trying to get on with their lives. But Mazzio spends an inordinate amount of time talking to politicians (like John McCain and Claire McCaskill) who are seeking to plug the loophole in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which lets websites off the hook for the content supplied by third parties.

The villain here is Backpage.com, a corporate relation to the venerated Village Voice, which looked the other way in the face of blatant evidence that teenage girls were being sexually exploited through classified ads. The chronicle of a court case against Backpage drags on too long, offering little intrigue. Mazzio continuously cuts to footage of innocent girls -- completely unrelated to the actual sex trafficking -- frolicking in different settings, tugging at our heartstrings. Meantime, the victims' stories get chopped up and lose their emotional impact. This mix of outrage and empowerment just falls flat.
 

Out of Sorts

A SUMMER IN GENOA (2008) (B) - Michael Winterbottom simmers in his mid-career malaise of a decade ago with this serviceable but inessential study of a father and daughters mourning abroad after the tragic death of the girls' mother. Fine performances rescue this from being merely average.

Colin Firth carries the ball here as the stunned widower looking for solace and escape during a summer in Italy with the girls, one of whom is a curious teen flirting with adulthood. Catherine Keener offers an additional layer of sorrow as his hang-dog platonic pal. The younger daughter (Perla Haney-Jardine) is traumatized not only by sudden loss but also by guilt, and Winterbottom captures that trauma well.

Winterbottom was coming off a spectacular run -- "Wonderland," "24-Hour Party People," "In This World," "9 Songs," "Tristram Shandy" and "A Mighty Heart" -- and you wonder if he needed a break. His output since has featured minor-key dramas and some disjointed narratives (with the "Trip" movies as outliers). Here he is writing with occasional collaborator Laurence Coriat, and they manage to capture the horror of the ordinariness of loss. This slow burn is the cinematic equivalent of watching a wound slowly heal, though not completely.

GAS, FOOD, LODGING (1992) (C) - This mother-daughter companion story has not aged well, if it was even good 25 years ago. Allison Anders, a wunderkind who never caught on as a film director, stomped onto the scene with this story of a single mom and her two daughters eking an existence in a fictional New Mexico town.

Little of the story and the scenery ring true. Brooke Adams is a weak lead, and Ione Skye struggles to find her voice as the slutty, bratty older daughter. A young Fairuza Balk is a revelation as the younger, brighter daughter, but she has little to work with in Anders' adaptation of a Richard Peck novel. The outfits look fussed over, reminding us that we're not really hanging out with a trailer-park mom working in a roadside diner. Even the music by J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.) is rather uninspired.

Anders would further explore artificiality a few years later in "Grace of My Heart" before settling in with blander TV work the past two decades, her own dreams of being an auteur put in their place.

RIP, Dick Dale

Dick Dale, the legendary king of surf guitar, died this past weekend at 81. Here's an obit. And below are the opening scene and opening credits from "Pulp Fiction," which introduced him to a new generation of fans of his unique guitar music. We saw him a couple of times, most recently in 2016; here's that write-up.

He was a true pioneer and an electrifying performer.





And here's a recent live show in L.A. Check out "Amazing Grace" at the hour-ten mark.


 

New to the Queue

Surging into the past ...

The latest from the great Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke, "Ash Is Purest White."

We're curious about the droll comedy of Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman ("L for Leisure"), so we'll check out "Two Plains & a Fancy."

Jafar Panahi ("Jafar Panahi's Taxi") continues to produce films surreptitiously in Iran, and the latest is "3 Faces."

The understated documentary on the 50th anniversary of the mission to the moon, "Apollo 11."

A documentary about the pioneering journalist, "Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People."
  

Now & Again: Holmes & Yo-Yo

We look at the team of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly and ask, were they ever that funny together?

HOLMES & WATSON (D+) - Limp and lazy, this forgettable comedy lacks any discernible inspiration or sharp wit. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, coasting on their previous accolades, give it the old college try, but writer-director Etan Cohen gives them little fresh material to work with in the picked-over history of Sherlock Holmes.

Most of the funniest bits are in the trailer. Cohen strains to turn 19th century situations into modern gags, like a "Make Britain Great Again" cap and a selfie with a tripod camera. Several people in recent days have mentioned that they prefer Ferrell in small doses -- such as in his vintage "Saturday Night Live" sketches -- and this film would be Exhibit A in their argument. He and Reilly wring some laugh-out-loud moments here and there (like dropping a Victrola needle of "Unchained Melody" for a "Ghost" spoof), but this whole production comes off as half-assed and dashed off to make a buck. Cohen, a disciple of Mike Judge, usually writes as part of a team, and maybe this exposes him as the weak link in those collaborative efforts. Even talented folks like Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and Hugh Laurie seem confused about where to find the funny. And Rebecca Hall, Laura Lapkus and Kelly Macdonald are often used as props.

STEP BROTHERS (2008) (B-minus) - Eh. Again, this one has its moments. It's not as embarrassing as the new film. But it takes one joke and stretches it to movie length. This must have been fresher a decade ago, during a simpler time. Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins come off as both good sports and embarrassed as the fish-out-of-water parents of two 30-somethings who act like children. This runs out of gas pretty quickly. But at least Ferrell and Reilly are trying harder here to be faithful to the comedic premise

BONUS TRACK
"Holmes & Watson" was, unfortunately, our annual Christmas Day Mainstream Movie. It barely avoids the basement in the rankings of our longtime tradition:

  1. Up in the Air (2009)
  2. Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)
  3. Dreamgirls (2006)
  4. Charlie Wilson's War (2007)
  5. The Fighter (2010)
  6. American Hustle (2013)
  7. The Shape of Water (2017)
  8. La La Land (2016)
  9. The Wrestler (2008)
10. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
11. Young Adult (2011)
12. This Is 40 (2012)
13. Holmes & Watson (2018)
14. Into the Woods (2014)