Capers Great and Small

 

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (B) - This stylized revenge story is too coy and cartoonish to be taken completely seriously, but it flaunts an appealing style and spins a tight, clever narrative that keeps you hooked until its provocative ending. That clever plotline is not without a few idiot-plot pitfalls, and as such it must rely on the appeal of Carey Mulligan to drag us along as we follow the story of a sullen medical-school dropout who devotes her underwhelming existence to entrapping men who prey on drunk women.

However, what is supposed to be a feminist howl from debut writer-director Emerald Fennell is undercut repeatedly by a obsession with candy-colored grrrl-power visuals and a fairly naive broad-brush depiction of "nice guys" as inveterate sexual predators. For all the eye candy, the world of Mulligan's brooding Cassandra is incredibly two-dimensional. As she turns 30, she works (or at least shows up) in a coffee shop and lives with her stuffy, emotionally constipated parents in their suburban museum of a house.

Haunted by the loss of her best friend Nina that followed a med-school rape scandal, Cassie, hollowed out by the crushing of their career dreams, honors Nina's memory by trolling dive bars, made up like a tart, faking being drunk and defenseless, luring a seemingly sympathetic gentleman to rescue her, and then, after the bros make their move, snapping out of it and slamming the men with a sober lesson in consent.

This all would feel more grounded in gravitas if it weren't for Fennell's decision to plop this into some sort of Lollipop Land of Powerpuff empowerment and cardboard villains. Fennell also fetishizes Mulligan, and not just when she is dressed to kill but also dolled in fuzzy tween sweaters and cracking gum, while sporting a puppy-dog look and dimples. Cassie is frequently depicted in stagey static shots, sitting or standing in stiff poses, an aura around her head, like a statue of a virtuous goddess (or the Angel of Death?). With her fluffy blond hair, Mulligan (also noticeably swallowing her British accent for a flat heartland affect) is treated not just like a Britney Spears type but like a Britney Spears doll -- is she supposed to be an inhuman revenge machine or a gutted victim-adjacent empath bereft of true feeling? What was she like before this? Cassie never comes across as a fully formed human being with thoughts and needs and desires of her own, and thus she is a flawed vehicle for telling a believable story. Allison Brie, as another classmate who had hoped not to be reminded of the assault, has more nuance and dimension in a mere couple of scenes, than Mulligan is allowed to manage during the whole film.

Cassie, reluctantly, connects romantically with a former med-school classmate (a funny Bo Burnham), who really does seem like a nice guy, but you don't have to be a film-school grad to figure out that he will be ensnared in Cassie's ultimate plot -- disrupting the bachelor party of their former classmate who raped Nina and is about to marry a bikini model. He and his privileged doctor friends will gather and revel, oblivious to how they were allowed to go on with their lucky lives.

Fennell has a final ace up her sleeve, and her ending, while barely grounded in plausibility, is deviously thought-out and delightfully juicy. It's a shame that she trips over her own ideas and sends out mixed signals all along the way to that rich comeuppance.

BARB & STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR (B-minus) - Whether you choose to see this and whether you enjoy it probably depends almost entirely on your opinion of Kristen Wiig. If you love or tolerate her, this is silly fun and a solid entry in her impressive portfolio.  If not, don't bother.

Barb (Wiig's co-writer Annie Mumolo from "Bridesmaids") and Star (Wiig) are helmet-haired, culottes-clad suburban simpletons who decide to throw caution to the wind and indulge themselves with a trashy trip to an island resort. Improbably, they get unwittingly caught up in an "Austin Powers" style plot to infest the island with killer mosquitoes. The agent carrying that out is ruggedly handsome Edgar (Jamie Dornan, playing nicely off his more famous role in the "50 Shades of Grey" series), who takes orders from (and pines for) the evil albino mastermind (a nearly unrecognizable Wiig in a dual role).

Don't overthink this. Little of it makes sense, and that's mostly the point. Whenever Mumolo and Wiig paint themselves into a plot corner, they just make up something ludicrous and shrug to the next scene. The pair have a loose improv rapport, and they seem genuinely giddy to be working together. They are devoted to their goofy idea and vaudevillian characters, and both Barb and Star take their Hero's Journey through a classic story arc. They toss in musical numbers and even a sartorial deus ex machina that made me laugh out loud.

The supporting cast is in on the joke and the overall tone, especially Vanessa Bayer as a sadistic, fun-averse book-club leader. But in the end, this comes around to your appreciation for Wiig and her wackiness over the course of 107 mindless minutes.

Oh, Happy Day

 

SUMMER OF SOUL (A) - This unveiling of footage from six summer concerts in Harlem in 1969 is the most uplifting and joyous concert film since Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" in the mid-1980s. This gathering of prodigious talents is knitted together from six concerts held the same summer as Woodstock and put in perspective by its own assembly of talking heads that include performers, organizers and attendees.

Ahmir Thompson, better known at Questlove, the drummer for the Roots, shows an incredible feel for his subject matter and its place in history, in his debut as a film director. The first 15minutes or so involve too many quick-cuts that could induce a bit of vertigo, but Thompson -- as if giddy over the discovery of this goldmine of material and wanting to share it all at once -- settles in and slows the pace while still covering a lot of ground.

He is generous with the clips of the performances, thankfully not chopping them up into scattered pieces. His lineup is unparalleled: Stevie Wonder, the Staples Singers, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, B.B. King, Sly and the Family Stone, and the 5th Dimension. Making a case for their soul bona fides, the 5th Dimension's Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis appear in the present day to describe the vibe from 50 years ago.  Like a few others, they are filmed sitting and watching the performances on a monitor, and they well up with emotion, as do attendees and the offspring of other performers. 

Thompson provides perspective by explaining how the event was organized and filling in the background of the gregarious emcee. He also provides historical perspective by capturing the zeitgeist of the sloppy late '60s. Most notably, he name-checks Apollo 11 and shows archival interviews at the concerts of inner-city residents wondering why America was spending its resources in space. 

Politics and racial pride share the stage with the awesome music. Jessie Jackson, then fronting Operation Breadbasket, comes off as charismatic and inspiring to the sea of humanity. Mavis Staples (heard in the present day only in voice-over) describes the honor of sharing the stage with the legendary Mahalia Jackson for a soaring version of the gospel standard "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." Meantime, Stevie Wonder -- then still a teenager -- performs with abandon, even taking a turn on the drum kit. 

The wealth and depth of talent can seem boundless during the two hours that fly by. But Thompson doesn't just use the shots that were aimed at the stage. Throughout, he splices in audience reaction shots, and the faces, coifs, and clothing choices make for endlessly riveting people-watching. Look closely at the expressions on all of those various faces of all ages, and you begin to get a sense not only of the thrill that came from forgetting their worries on a summer day, but what it meant to be black in that moment, and how this grand entertainment event not only would be quickly eclipsed by the Boomers' wallow in the mud upstate but also unceremoniously shelved and nearly forgotten for half a century.

This film aims to fix that unforgivable historical slight. And it stands as a shout to the world that we're not going back to that world.

BONUS TRACKS

There are too many highlights to try to reference here, but one fascinating moment comes when Thompson syncs footage of the moon landing with the opening strains of the Staples Singers performing "It's Been a Change":

The Id and the Odyssey

 

ZOLA (A-minus) - It's tempting to dismiss a movie like "Zola" as a lightweight exploitive romp, but director Janicza Bravo juices this buddy film about road-tripping strippers with a confident visual and aural flair. It's this year's razzle-dazzle summer-blast version of "Baby Driver."

Bravo is blessed with a solid core of four appealing actors, starting with the always watchable Riley Keough, tapping a similar well to the one she drew upon for "American Honey." Like in "Honey," Keough (below, left) plays off a relatively young co-star, Taylour Paige ("Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"), with Keough's batshit-crazy Stefani complemented perfectly by Paige's wide-eyed and overwhelmed Zola.

Zola and Stefani meet-cute in a restaurant, and Stefani convinces a skeptical Zola to take a 20-hour drive to Tampa, Fla., for a lucrative stripping gig. Keough mostly performs Stefani in a sort of black-voice (which apparently is still OK these days?), creating an artifice that steadily builds throughout the movie. Joining the road trip are Stefani's anxiety-riddled boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun) and her unnamed "roommate" (Colman Domingo), a menacing shape-shifter, with different accents depending on his mood.

It turns out that the roommate is more of a pimp, and Stefani has roped Zola (our reliable narrator) into more explicit sex work than she bargained for. Once that table is set, Bravo reels off the adventure with a rat-a-tat style that would make Quentin Tarantino envious. She has an ear for perfect soundtrack moments that heighten the tension and make the whole screen come alive. And she has a sharp eye for small moments, sometimes dropped casually in the background, that perfectly capture the seedy underbelly of a desperate America on the hustle.

Paige, as Zola, comes off as a bit detached, but that's almost certainly intentional. She is the calm in this storm, and Zola's strategy of not wigging out is a pretty clever survival strategy. Paige lets Keough dominate the proceedings with a whack, desperate vibe, while Domingo's hot-and-cold character echoes them both. It all zips by in 86 urgent minutes, without a need to catch its breath.

FRENCH TWIST (B-minus) - Azazel Jacobs ("Momma's Man," "Terri") never finds his footing in this minor-key black comedy about a woman losing her fortune and using what money she has left to venture off to Paris with her adult son. This is his second mainstream misfire, along with 2017's "The Lovers," which similarly sat flat on the screen and limped to a finish.

This seems like a comeback bid by Michelle Pfeiffer, who has played mostly forgettable roles for the past 20 years since her '90s heyday. Her presence here is quite a distraction -- her different look in nearly every scene is hard not to notice -- and it was hard to get lost in her character and the plot, what little there is of one.  I kept thinking, "Hmm, so that's what Michelle Pfeiffer looks like at 60. Son of a gun." This might not be as much of a problem for people who don't have an ex-wife from the '90s who resembled Pfeiffer.

The main problem, though, is the languid pace and the lack of anything substantive at stake. Pfeiffer's Frances is haughty and bitter, still tagged with her connection to the mysterious death of her somewhat famous husband. Her son, Malcolm (a serviceable Lucas Hedges), is quite the mope, who comes off as either abused or somewhere on the spectrum. Or maybe he's just a bored rich kid. He sleeps with a witch on the boat over to France, and that character, Madeleine (Danielle Macdonald from "Patti Cakes"), will return in the second half to help Frances and Malcolm find their missing black cat, who has a stupid connection to the ex-husband. You might bail out by the time the magical realism kicks in.

Jacobs is going for a Wes Anderson style of subdued quirk here, but there is never a grippable entry point for the viewer, and as a result this becomes merely a series of outre vignettes. Valerie Mahaffey (George's crazy girlfriend on "Seinfeld") injects some life in the proceedings as the clingy, ditzy Mme. Reynard. We're supposed to care what happens to Frances as her euros dwindle and her mood turns dark. Pfeiffer does camp it up and show flashes of brilliance -- especially in a scene in which she exacts revenge on a stereotypically rude French waiter -- but this story never coheres, and instead it merely serves to showcase a fine actress announcing her arrival in a new phase of her career.

BONUS TRACK

From the closing credits of "Zola," a throwback amid the pop and rap, "Because of My Best Friend," by the Clickettes:

Guerrilla Graphics

40 YEARS A PRISONER (B) - This is a serviceable companion piece to the much better documentary "Let the Fire Burn," which in 2015 chronicled the 1985 firebombing of Philadelphia's Move compound of black liberationists. "40 Years" takes a more formulaic approach to an earlier event -- the 1978 shootout between residents and police that left an officer dead and a bunch of Move members languishing in prison four decades on.

The hero of the story is Michael Africa, who was born shortly after his parents, Debbie and Michael, were imprisoned and who now is battling to free them from prison. Too often this documentary has a tone and narrative arc akin to that of a special episode of TV's "20/20." Approaching a run time of two hours, it also feels a little loaded down.

The highlights are the archival footage from TV coverage back in 1977 and 1978, which leans heavily in favor of the police and the cretinous mayor, Frank Rizzo. The talking heads include some former Move members who still have that rebellious spark. Michael Africa Jr. is a quite charming presence, but his modern presence tends to make the milieu from 40 years ago seem more like a curiosity than a compelling true story. Still, you have to root for him and his family.

And maybe it's good that a fresh filmmaking voice -- writer-director Tommy Oliver, a Philadelphia native -- drags us into a new era and leaves all that '70s ugliness in the black-and-white dustbin of history.

THE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER (C+) - The plot, from IMDb: "An investigation into the truth behind the murder of Guatemalan bishop Juan Gerardi who was killed in 1998 just days after trying to hold the country's military accountable for the atrocities committed during its civil war."

The plod: I really wanted to sink my teeth into this story, but director Paul Taylor just never gets this noirish tale off the ground. And it was difficult to get into this narrative of fairly ancient Guatemalan history. The pace slackens early on and never really gets traction. In the second half, the names of the various players start stacking up, inviting confusion. 

Taylor tips his hand pretty early about the likely suspects -- mainly hinting at military involvement in the death of the the beloved bishop. He also fails to provide historical perspective -- glancing over both the two decades of civil war that preceded the killing and the two decades since. It seems too much to ask of a casual interloper into the history of Guatemala to do a deep dive into this one event. Thus, it's hard to recommend it to just anyone.

New to the Queue

 Blowing hot and cold ...

The Roots' Questlove curated footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival concert and has packaged it into a two-hour documentary, "Summer of Soul."

Our gal Riley Keough might be just enough to draw us to the pulpy Twitter trash-noir "Zola."

An Iranian feature about a group of kids who infiltrate a school in order to help a mobster find a buried treasure there, "Sun Children."

A documentary about three siblings who come from a financially struggling family and excel at sports, "Sisters on Track."

And a look at an underground punk icon, "Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over."

A documentary about a filmmaker, Roy Andersson, whose work we've never explored, "Being a Human Person."

And a profile of the ground-breaking comedian and social critic, "The One and Only Dick Gregory."

California Scheming

 

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' (2009) (A-minus) - This Romanian film tells a shambling tale, based on a true story, of a group of U.S. Marines getting stuck in a small town while chaperoning a load of weapons headed to support a NATO mission in Bosnia. Like a good Coen brothers film, it celebrates quirk and carves out some memorable characters.

Former action star Armand Assante plays it cool here as the captain of the crew who must haggle with the local mayor and the station manager who stopped the train and won't let it proceed. The station manager is used to getting a cut of merchandise that gets pirated as it passes through, but in this instance, it seems he's just being difficult.

That man is Doiaru (above), played to world-weary perfection by Razvan Vasilescu. Besides a persistent case of allergies, he is also dealing with his restless teenage daughter, Monica (Maria Dinulescu), who has broken up with her boyfriend and takes a liking to one of the Marines, though neither can speak a word of the other's language, so she recruits a classmate who harbors a secret crush on her to help translate during their dates. 

In the few days that pass, nothing significant transpires, and Capt. Jones and his crew get a chance to relax and partake in some local customs, including a large open-air banquet featuring an Elvis cover band. The mix of bored, yearning local girls with under-occupied Marines leads to a good deal of carousing. Eventually Capt. Jones and Doiarau engage in a casual summit, and hope emerges for an end to the standoff. 

Director Cristian Nemescu -- who died in a car crash during post production of this, his only full-length feature film -- shows a sure hand in juggling the storylines and deepening the humanity of his characters. His style exhibits hints of Iron Curtain masters like Krzystof Kieslowski and Emir Kusturica. His legacy is this charming, delightful minor-key slice of life.

BONUS TRACK

The original Mamas and Papas title track plays over the closing credits. Here is the more melancholy version, by Jose Feliciano live in East Berlin in the 1980s:

Breathtaking

 

OXYGEN (B-minus) - A woman awakes from a cryogenic coma, apparently in a space capsule, and must reason with a HAL-like computer to help rescue her before her oxygen runs out. Melanie Laurent puts on a hell of a one-woman show in her cramped pod, as she races against time to both survive and crack the mystery of her circumstance.

The screenplay, by newcomer Christie LeBlanc, is pretty clever, and its logic is internally consistent throughout, a neat trick. The biggest problem is how LeBlanc and director Alexandre Aja, in this futuristic excursion, are weighted down by the old-fashioned Bechdel test. Their heroine, Liz, is obsessed with reconnecting with her beloved "husband," whom she sees flashes of as she strains to access her memory banks and hunts for clues to who she is and how she can survive. In the end, this is mostly a cheesy soul-mate story about the power of love and companionship.

If it were not for that heavy-handed hetero-normative shmaltz, "Oxygen" could have been a fascinating sci-fi brain teaser. Liz is a resourceful researcher of cryogenics who seems to have been shot by her own gun. Her interaction with AI assistant MILO (Mathieu Amalric) provides snappy dialogue and narrative development; he is just helpful enough to tease Liz toward the next hint or revelation but never satisfying enough to help her fully unravel the full mystery. 

Fortunately, this zips by in a pretty neat 100 minutes, pushed along by the ominous countdown clock monitoring Liz's dwindling oxygen levels. And the ending is smart and, again, logically consistent. If only the anachronistic rom-com tropes weren't such a distraction.

THE WORLD TO COME (C) - Like clockwork, it's another lesbian love story set in the time before the invention of electricity. But this one is a lukewarm mess, with a mismatched cast and a laborious narrative structure.

Katherine Waterston almost makes this worth watching as Abigail, a dutiful but melancholic farm wife in pre-Civil War upstate New York. Waterston offers a mask of heartbreak and longing following the death of a daughter, and her inner emotional glacier is slowly melted when she meets a neighbor, Tallie (Vanessa Kirby), another matrimonial drudge-worker. As the women visit each other, a bond develops. Slowly. 

Problems abound here. The lethargic pace is frustrating. The men mumble and the women whisper (I eventually engaged the subtitles). The characters seems like four unrelated archetypes rather than organic people in a believable setting. The husbands are portrayed by a pair of mopey duds -- Casey Affleck (with Abigail) and Christopher Abbott (Tallie's menacing mate). The screenplay is written from the perspective of two men (and directed by Mona Fastvold) trying to imagine the inner thoughts of two women from two centuries ago. And the main device they use is extensive voice-overs, mainly Abigail narrating her diary entries but also the ol' corny letter-writing dictation. The leaden line readings, a sop to the era, nearly grind things to a halt at various times.

Waterston brings a haunting ache to the story, but Kirby comes off as way too modern, with both her look and her attitude (and, frankly, her fluffy flowing locks). Affleck's character shows a glimmer of understanding of his wife's attraction to another woman, and while that nuance is interesting, it also is rather far-fetched. Fastvold holds off on showing love scenes and then deftly underplays them, saving the most explicit one for close to the end, as she intercuts it with another scene of tragedy. But in the end, this slog mostly sits on the screen, inert, leaving the viewer as frustrated as the women born in the wrong time.

That Millennium Drift

 

NOMADLAND (A-minus) - Chloe Zhao follows up her wonderful breakthrough "The Rider" with more amateur actors from a real community. Here she embellishes into fiction the story of nomadic older Americans traveling between seasonal jobs and struggling to survive. Frances McDormand adds the professional sheen and emotional gravitas as Fern, a woman adrift since the death of her husband.

McDormand has help from David Straithairn as Dave, a fellow drifter, shooting puppy-dog looks at Fern, who isn't ready to connect with a man. The overall tone is rather morose, with the emphasis on the battle each day to make ends meet and find shelter from the elements. (While most people have RVs, Fern lives out of a van, and always on the brink of economic peril.)

The film is set right after the cratering of the company town of Empire, Nev., with the closure of a U.S. Gypsum plant in 2011, setting Fern on the road to survival. Whereas "The Rider" embedded Zhao in a real community and a non-actor as a star, in "Nomadland" McDormand and Straithairn (and a few other ringers) stand out as great actors. It's not so much a distraction as it is sort of the mirage of a CGI trick. It's almost as if McDormand, no matter how dirtied up she is here, has been digitally stitched into a documentary.

That might not be noticeable to a lot of viewers. Regardless of the casting fiction at play, McDormand wrings true pathos from Fern's situation. The budding relationship with Dave doesn't follow a predictable arc (thankfully), and Fern -- still hamstrung by grief over the loss of her husband -- occasionally is able to open up to a few fellow nomads to make a connection. The non-actors contribute a powerful moment, including Charlene Swankie as Fern's ailing friend and real-life RV-camp host Bob Wells, who pours his heart into a sorrowful monologue.

The undeniable strength here, though, is Zhao's vision and the cinematography of the West by Joshua James Richards, returning from "The Rider." The images, combined with the tinkling piano music of Ludovico Einaudi, set the melancholy mood and lay the foundation for Zhao's storytelling. 

This is gorgeous, heartfelt storytelling.

BONUS TRACK

From the closing credits, Cat Clifford with "Drifting Away I Go":

And a sample of Einaudi's soundtrack:

Musical Interlude: First Thoughts

 

 Headline:

Diver says he was swallowed by humpback whale while diving for lobsters off Provincetown

 

Video:

Baby Goat Movies

 

There is a certain type of art film -- quaint, rural, picturesque, mostly wordless, ponderous -- that will almost certainly get me mocked for liking, even among my most intellectual and erudite friends. These are little film-festival nuggets that rarely gain a wide audience. They can be a challenge to watch, at times, but the rewards can be sublime.

We have dubbed these films Baby Goat Movies, so named after our experience with a Santa Fe Film Festival entry from about a decade ago, "Le Quattro Volte," which prominently features a baby goat as central to its artistic aspirations, notably a fateful result for the little critter. That film has a kinship with the "Qatsi" trilogy of films by Godfrey Reggio, starting in 1982 with "Koyaanisqatsi" -- commonly referred to as a contemplative tone poem with a powerful visual flair. 

We followed up the Santa Fe viewing of "Le Quattro Volte" by dragging a friend to a screening at the University of New Mexico Film Center, and she shook her head, mystified, through most of it, and felt the need to flee halfway through for an extended oxygen break, missing the pivotal "baby goat" scene that shall long live in film infamy. I watched it again recently on the smaller screen, and our date this time appreciated the narrative. I was struck this time by how funny it is at times, especially that damn mischievous little goat. The film truly is a special experience.

Then, we made a triumphant return to an actual movie theater -- the venerable Guild Cinema -- to view this year's version of the Baby Goat Movie, this one starring a hog named Gunda.  Let's review both.

LE QUATTRO VOLTE (2010) (A) - We don't throw around the word profound too often, but this dramatized documentary about a remote rural Italian village drills down into the essence of life -- by analyzing the cycles of existence, from human to animal to vegetable to mineral and back to the start. (The title roughly translates to "the four times" or "the four turns.")

This unique brainchild of Michelangelo Frammartino follows the travails of a goat-herder who is old as dirt, which is an apt metaphor, because his secret to longevity is apparently a concoction he drinks every night, a mix of water and sacred sweepings from the local church. It is not clear if this elixir is meant to cure his hacking cough or cause it. 

Eventually the old man succumbs, and phase two begins with a start -- a goat falling out of the womb and splashing into the dirt. Now we follow the journey of the adorable baby goat, a little rascal among the spring class of upstarts. But a goat doesn't live forever, and if you thought this was a light-hearted animal romp, you will be mistaken. In a truly sorrowful and moving scene, our little hero will eventually end up, as we all do, feeding the tree -- in particular a mighty fir that will be felled, celebrated in a ceremony by villagers, and then converted to charcoal in time for winter so that it can heat the residents' homes.

This all sounds so dull and routine -- and you may find it tedious and pointless -- but Frammartino not only celebrates the natural elegance of the countryside, but he homes in on the fascinating details and rituals of daily life, both human and animal. There is hardly any dialogue, pretty much all of it incidental. It might be trite to say that a movie represents the true purpose of cinema, but I can't think of a better representative of the raison d'etre of the art form. 

GUNDA (A-minus) - I grew up with Arnold Ziffel, the boy-like pig who was treated like a son by Fred Ziffel on TV's "Green Acres." Now a half century later comes Gunda the wunda-pig, a sow burdened by a litter of cute little piglets, all the stars of an intimate black-and-white art documentary about farm life. It is shot by Victor Kossakovsky almost entirely from the pigs' ground level. After 90 minutes you can sense something resembling human emotion from Gunda, just like with clever little Arnold.

The opening scene focuses on the notched opening to the pigs' fenced-in pen, Gunda's exhausted face eventually overrun by the newborns clamoring and clambering over her and spilling out into the open space, perhaps for the first time. Much of the rest of the movie shows the mom either suckling the piglets (it nearly made my own nipples ache in empathy) or modeling the classic behavior of snuffling through the dirt.

At one point Gunda jams a heavy hoof onto the runt of the litter, and Kossakovsky lingers long enough to convey the peril but cuts away before we find out if the baby dies or whether it turns into the slow piglet hobbled by a paralyzed foreleg. About a third of the way in, the filmmaker suddenly cuts away to an extended scene of chickens -- including a one-legged clucker -- emerging from a cage and warily exploring their surroundings. The up-close camerawork reveals the birds' physical details, reminding us just how positively prehistoric they can seem. A later scene spends time with a herd of cows, who are constantly besieged by flying pests. I guess I never realized how cows tend to stand in pairs, facing in opposite directions, presumably so they can swat the flies away from the other's face with their tails. 

But then it's back to Gunda, still shot from snout level, whose piglets are gradually reaching maturity. We never see a human in the entire movie, but in the penultimate scene, a large tractor arrives to decide the family's fate and to engender an ending that wells with emotion. It dawned on me that the names of the animals featured in this film are used as pejoratives for humans -- pig, hog, chicken, cow -- but "Gunda" instead humanizes these beasts in an earthy way. I'm hoping that doesn't insult the animals.

New to the Queue

Thinking "We know how to do this ..."

A scorned man simmers in small-town America, "The Killing of Two Lovers."

Chinese master Jia Zheng-ke is back with a documentary revolving around writers from different eras, "Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue."

Christian Petzold ("Barbara," "Phoenix," "Transit") returns with Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski in the fantasy romance "Undine."

We were disappointed in Theo Anthony's debut ("The Rat Film"), but he's a filmmaker with a unique perspective, so we'll give him another try and check out his outre documentary about video surveillance, "All Light, Everywhere."

A restless New York actress wanders upstate for a meandering adventure in "Slow Machine."

Childlike Wonders

 

STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET (B+) - This documentary about the ground-breaking children's show "Sesame Street" is more for history buffs than fans of the show. The filmmakers dig deep into the origins of the show, the groundwork done in the 1960s to turn the vast wasteland of television into an education tool, one targeting in particular inner-city preschool children.

Many of the key players, their faces aged now 50 years or so, are on hand to recall this sensation that first aired in fall 1969. That includes the creator, Joan Ganz Cooney, and a lot of the actors who created some memorable characters. Of course Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, is long gone, but we hear from him in archival interviews. And we see him, in clips, on set with Frank Oz, a puppeteering team for the ages. Highlights include an archival interview with Joe Raposo -- the songwriter who created the show's ear candy, who recounts the story of the inspiration behind "Bein' Green," the wistful hit song for Kermit the Frog in 1979 -- and Holly Robinson Peete joining her father, Matt Robinson, who was the original Gordon and the voice of Roosevelt Franklin.

The veterans -- from both behind the scenes and in front of the camera -- reminisce reverentially. What we're missing here is a true sense of the impact of "Sesame Street" on the kids who grew up with the show. It would be interesting to get a sampling of at least a few people whose lives were truly affected by this multicultural teaching tool beamed into homes all over the country. It's a bit ironic that this documentary is more about the adults than it is about the kids. That's not a fatal flaw, but it's certainly a missed opportunity.

TINY TIM: KING FOR A DAY (C+) - This documentary about the avant-garde singing sensation from the late '60s just never feels comprehensive or essential. Tiny Tim (born Herbert Butros Khaury), has been gone 25 years now, but during his heyday, he was a pop-culture phenomenon noted for his appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and for getting married to Miss Vicki on Johnny's Carson's "Tonight Show." He sang in an old-timey falsetto, most notably on "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," jarring dormant memories of 78-speed records spinning a few decades earliers.

The documentary stumbles out of the gate with excessive animated re-creations, in a graphic-novel style, giving the young Herbert Khaury his own sort-of gothic super-hero origin story. Director Johan von Sydow and writer Martin Daniel don't quite recover from that misstep, and the rest of the 78-minute endeavor feels a bit rushed and superficial. We hear from former friends, wives, and colleagues (Wavy Gravy was a big fan) -- plus cutting-edge filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker and Jonas Mekas -- and there certainly is an appreciation for Tiny Tim's talents beyond the fleeting freak he might come off as in the culture's collective memory.

Alas, the music clips are frustratingly brief -- as if the filmmakers were unable to score the rights to the songs and had to limit them to just a few seconds each. And while we get a sense of Khaury's unique personality and his groundbreaking gender fluidity, the sense of the man here feels incomplete.

People, Places, Things

 

MALNI: TOWARDS THE OCEAN, TOWARDS THE SHORE (B) - This ode to the Pacific Northwest is grounded in the culture of the American Indian. It is a coy, ruminative pastiche of conversations and images, offering a gravitas that is mostly hinted at. The images of nature are captivating and are wasted on anything other than a big movie screen. 

Washington State product Sky Hopinka is behind this valentine to his heritage and homeland. He picks two subjects around Portland, Ore. -- Jordan a married father of young children, including a newborn, and Sweetwater Sahme, a pregnant woman setting her life on course after a wild youth. Both connect their beliefs to their ancestors and to the generations to come, embracing the circle of life. 

Hopinka's camera likes to wander away from his subjects, creating disjointed visuals, often involving water, whether it is Jordan or other unrelated people canoeing across a lake, or Sweetwater Sahme longing for the cleansing powers of the waterfalls she gazes on. Hopinka also weaves in a narrative connected to the Origin of Death myth, not always making clean connections but creating more of a atmospheric tone poem. He makes his point in 82 minutes, offering snippets of cultural touchstones but not overstaying his welcome or staking any claims to creating a comprehensive document on his subject.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES (B+) - Immersive documentary filmmaker Hanna Jayanti spent three years cultivating a relationship with five residents of Truth or Consequences, N.M., and she presents their stories in the form of a tone poem that ponders both the past and the future, using the nearby Spaceport (and its infinite possibilities) as a framing device for how we deal with space and time. Jayanti creates a narrative (science) fiction, set in the near future, of these five souls having been left behind on planet Earth after space travel has begun.

Jayanti is obviously going for a mood here, though she does not ignore her subjects or reduce them to props. The biggest gimmick is a camera trick, in which she does something with focus or lighting to atomize a scene -- a room or a landscape -- to make it look like the granular detail of an iced-over distant planet, only to eventually morph the image back to reality. I guess that's the futuristic space-travel theme at work. It makes for some fascinating visuals amid the bleak desert backdrop.

The characters here are quirky but real. They skew older, though there is a 30-year-old native who has boomeranged back to town to work at the Bullocks general store only to feel trapped and seriously depressed. She copes by joining a crystals club with a bunch of old folks. Then there is an 80-year-old chain-smoking woman who lives in a trailer with her two dogs and reminisces about her days running a circus. We meet a hoarder and a painter, too, each one with a unique philosophical take on life in southern New Mexico. 

It's not that the people here are incidental, but they are bit players in Jayanti's creation, and the sum of their parts, combined with the visual elements, add up to a provocative whole.

Bob Dylan turns 80

 

Today's daily New Yorker cartoon features an elderly couple, with the woman telling the man, "Dylan turns eighty today -- don't you think it's finally time you forgave him for going electric?"

I'm too young to remember Robert Zimmerman's "Judas!" moment or his audacity to expand beyond the folk movement to the point of inspiring Pete Seeger to take an axe to the band's power lines in Newport. I found Dylan when I was in high school, after I discovered the Beatles when I was in junior high. 

For me over the decades, the greatest appeal of Bob Dylan has been "discovering" him -- the different modes of him throughout his career. For decades now, the 1966 release "Blonde on Blonde" has remained in my Top 5 albums of all time, while others have come and gone. (Haunted to this day by "Visions of Johanna," I still mutter to myself a play on those lyrics, during a senior moment, "Jeez, I can't my my keys."

 

I had to forage my way toward "Blonde on Blonde." Early, rudimentary memories, though, evoke snippets of sonic recollections: of being in my parents' black Buick Electra 225 and thinking how "Lay Lady Lay" stood out from anything else I'd ever heard on the radio; in Jerry Woods' basement circa 1978 hearing "Positively 4th Street" and thinking it was Dire Straits, who were the hot new hipsters, not realizing Mark Knopfler was simply Dylanesque and that the real thing was so much more expansive; with a driver's license of my own, tooling down 26th Street in my forest-green '74 Chevy Nova, hearing "Buckets of Rain," being blown away, and thinking, "OK, now which iteration of Dylan is that one from?"

 

It was from "Blood on the Tracks," of course, and -- aha! -- a copy of that record was in my brother's collection. Maybe Dylan's second best release. That album actually led me backward, to start to fill in the back catalog, those legendary recordings from the '60s at the height of his creativity. As I was starting to delve into Dylan, though, it was by now the late '70s, and he had fallen out of fashion during the punk and disco era. Imagine my shock when I bought the new release "Live at Budokan" (1979) and couldn't believe how horrifically he'd butchered his own songs. ("Is that a goddamn flute?! What the ....?")

That was right before "Slow Train Coming," which reaffirmed his popularity but put off a lot of fans who were worried by the launch of that multi-album Christian phase -- which was a concern but which also produced some of his greatest individual album tracks. He would emerge from that phase in 1983 with "Infidels" -- Knopfler, by now producing; Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare the dynamic rhythm section; Dylan's songs again epic in nature. I started going to see him live, maybe four times in the '80s, once with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers backing him, often with the Grateful Dead either preceding him or following him into town but either way cluttering the parking lot each time. 

It was hit and miss for the rest of the '80s -- I had finally caught up with Dylan's recordings in real time -- until his next masterpiece, 1989's "Oh Mercy," recorded with Daniel Lanois. I can't imagine anyone else creating the perfect song "Most of the Time." (Check out Bettye LaVette's version on the wonderful compilation album "Chimes of Freedom." For another fine collection of Dylan covers, go to the soundtrack to Todd Haynes' film "I'm Not There.")

 

I stuck with him in the '90s when he stopped recording his own material and instead put out albums of traditional folks songs, each album powerful in its own right. He picked up his pen again in 1997 and reunited with Lanois for what is probably his third-best release, "Time Out of Mind," just a haunting howl from a spurned lover now in his 50s and realizing the depth of musical history that came before him. That album was released on September 30, 1997, and it was just a few days later that I found myself in Sacramento for my good friend's wedding, and I was prepared with my Discman and mini earphones, so that after I went down to Tower Records (the original store?), I could go back to the hotel and play the CD right away. Try putting on headphones, closing your eyes, and launching the opening track -- the plaintive, spine-tingling opening notes of "Love Sick," altered here from the original:

That was my heyday (in a lot of ways), and it's been a slow slide toward estrangement for Dylan and me. The last release of his I bought was "Love and Theft."  During this review of the documentary about Tower Records, I told the story of tracking down "Love and Theft" on its date of release -- September 11, 2001 -- despite the inconvenience of a terrorist attack that sunny day. That album was half disappointing, and it was then that I realized that Dylan is at his best when he has the right producer and at his worst -- like in the past two decades -- when his alter-ego Jack Frost is at the controls. Some writers need a good editor; some rock stars need a good producer. I've sampled his recent releases -- giving him the benefit of the doubt, even the horrific Sinatra stuff -- and have concluded that the man's lyrical muse has mostly abandoned him and that he has simply given up on writing melodies. He has essentially retired but keeps going.

I haven't seen him live since the '90s, the last time at a fairly intimate club in Chicago as he was launching that roadhouse version of his band, the sound he essentially still tours with, 25 years on. I've heard horror stories from fans who have gone to see the croaking-frog version of the elderly Dylan, sometimes genuinely baffled at which song he is singing, that's how recognizable the renderings can be. I've delved into his finely curated Bootleg series -- Rolling Thunder is simply the best live tour I have ever heard recorded, and I regret that I'm just young enough to have been too young to have caught that version of his band. It's a shame the recent movie about it is such a disappointment. If I had to pick one recording to leave you with, on Bob Dylan's 80th birthday, that I could take with me to that proverbial desert island, it would be, from "Bootleg: Vol. 5," the live version of "Isis."

Idle Chatter

 

KICKING AND SCREAMING (1995) (A-minus) - Going back to the beginning, here is the debut feature from Noah Baumbach, which establishes his ease with banter and fragile male egos surrounded by manic pixie dream girls. It revolves around Grover (Josh Hamilton), who leads a cadre of smart alecks as they are cast adrift after college graduation.

These prepsters can't quit each other as they stumble out of the career gate, preferring to cling to their alma mater, where life remains simple and familiar. Standing out here is the understated Chris Eigeman (who a few years earlier helped launch Whit Stillman's career in "Metropolitan" and "Barcelona") as the sullen Max. We also get the drolly funny Carlos Jacott as Otis (routinely clad in a pajama top) and Jason Wiles as dippy Skippy. These goofballs hang out in the vicinity of perennial student/bartender Chet (Eric Stoltz), the wise Yoda among these rascals.

Olivia D'Abo (transitioning from TV's "The Wonder Years") rocks a retainer as Grover's ingenue who got away (off to Prague, which is treated like a cliche getaway in the mid-'90s), while indie heavyweight Parker Posey (totally in her milieu) and Cara Buono show more of an edge and less patience with these grown boys. The writing is sharp, and the simmering ennui is wonderfully underplayed. This was the emergence of Gen X, and much of the characterizations ring true.

CABARET (1972) (B) - This seems more like a curiosity than a foundational piece of '70s cinema, but it has its moments. Being of the era, this dances around some sensitive issues as it goes back in time 40 years to Berlin on the brink of Nazi rule to filter everything through the lens of a nihilistic nightclub, though it does dare to address (to a degree) free love, homosexuality and abortion.

Bob Fosse recovered from his debut flop (1969's "Sweet Charity") and emerged with his signature visual flair as he mixes in cabaret numbers with the dramatic vignettes revolving around American Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) and her gay British pal Brian (a confident, nuanced Michael York). Joel Grey steals the show as the club's emcee.

The biggest issue here is the refusal to take on the Nazi problem with any depth or sophistication. The brown shirts are a looming menace, but they are treated more conceptually than head-on, depicted more as annoying pamphleteers than bullies. The original source material is to be respected, but the tension between musical decadence and the building political storm results in more affectation than piercing provocation.

Still, Fosse's vision here (his use of distorted images and misdirection are impressive) and the songs of Kander & Ebb (among others) are truly compelling at times, and just try to get some of these tunes out of your head a week later. Minnelli comes across as a lightweight in the first half of the film, but either she grows on you or she simply learned how to act by the end of the production, because she can be affecting down the stretch, leading to the belting out of the title tune and the haunting final visual.

BONUS TRACKS

Let's put together our list, now that we've seen 10, of Noah Baumbach films (as director), in order of preference and with links to reviews:

1. The Squid and the Whale
2. Frances Ha
3. Marriage Story
4. Margot at the Wedding
5. Kicking and Screaming
6. Greenberg
7. The Meyerowitz Stories
8. DePalma (documentary with Jake Paltrow)
9. While We're Young
10. Mistress America

Not seen: Mr. Jealousy

"Kicking's" soundtrack thrums with indie cred of the era, including Pixies, Grant Hart and Freedy Johnston, plus this pivotal number from Jimmie Dale Gilmore, "Braver Newer World."