Best of Ever, Vol. 10: Kieslowski's Three-Colors Trilogy, Part 3

  The Guild Cinema brought Krzysztof Kieslowski's seminal Three-Colors Trilogy to the big screen for some September matinees. A visit with our favorite filmmaker of all time has been long overdue. We soon will also revisit his masterpiece, "Dekalog."

RED (1994) (A-minus) - Kieslowski concludes with a return to his common theme of characters with little in common bonding nonetheless. He also re-installs a strong female lead, Irene Jacob as a young student/model forging an awkward friendship with a retired judge who eavesdrops on his neighbors' telephone calls.

Like "White," this film depends on a slow build. Pay attention early on. I had a little trouble keeping track of the characters. The narrative structure is precise, though. Jacob's Valentine has a jerk of a boyfriend whom we hear only by phone, from England, and she also has a neighbor that she doesn't know about, Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit), who is dating Karin (Frederique Feder), who runs a weather-forecasting service by phone. (There are a lot of phone calls in this analog-era movie.) And those are just the side characters.

Valentine hits a dog with her car and tracks down the owner, the grumpy judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who tells her to keep the dog. She soon discovers that he is listening in on his neighbors' calls, and he shows no remorse over the hobby. One of the neighbors has a secret gay lover; another is Karin, the weather gal; one man might be trafficking drugs. All the while, a giant billboard of Valentine, swathed in red, hovers over the city (Geneva). 

Valentine and the judge share personal stories, and layers of their personalities are revealed. They draw close. The judge faces a reckoning over his invasive habit.

Jacob, who broke through in 1991 in Kieslowski's "The Double Life of Veronique," is a steady but sometimes dull presence here. She often gives off some combination of a pout and a vacant stare; maybe that's intentional, seeing as she's playing a model. But Valentine steadily deepens as Kieslowski patiently builds his puzzle.

If you've seen "Red" before, you know that it builds to a moment of semi-magical realism, a surreal coincidence that brings back characters from the previous two films in the trilogy. (We also get a conclusion to the long-running sight gag of the bent-over old woman struggling to place a bottle into the opening of a recycling container.)

Visually, Kieslowski and cinematographer Piotr Sobocinski play with shading, angles and reflections. In key scenes, interacting characters are set at different heights; that might be a signal or just a neat stylistic flourish. Close-ups of broken glass appear at critical moments, another theme carried over from his previous work.

"Red" feels like one substantial reckoning, a settling of a lifetime of scores for the various characters, notably the judge, and a wish for the future. Kieslowski had announced that it would be his final film. Sadly, he would die two years later at age 54. What he left behind is deeply profound. It's a minor consolation that he wrapped up his career so neatly, sweetly and perfectly.

Note: "Red" is one of the rare films to have a perfect 100% score on Metacritic.

Here are links to the other films in the trilogy: "Blue" and "White."

BONUS TRACK

A snippet of the soundtrack, by Zbigniew Preisner:

Best of Ever, Vol. 10: Kieslowski's Three-Colors Trilogy, Part 2

  The Guild Cinema brought Krzysztof Kieslowski's seminal Three-Colors Trilogy to the big screen for some September matinees. A visit with our favorite filmmaker of all time has been long overdue. We soon will also revisit his masterpiece, "Dekalog."

WHITE (1994) (B+) - Kieslowski employs a lighter touch, but even his whimsical take on a failed marriage traffics in dark subjects and grim meditations on freedom and death. "White" is the poor middle-child of the trilogy, a slight but at times touching variation on the threaded theme of grief and longing.

Maybe because it has a male lead, this entry feels a bit off, not as compelling as "Red," "Blue" and "The Double Life of Veronique." Here, Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) has been humiliated in Paris by his beautiful French wife, Dominique (Julie Delpy, in her early 20s); she divorces him for failing to consummate the marriage. Karol is now broke and homeless; stripped of his papers, he strikes up an improbable friendship with another Pole he meets on the street, Mikolaj (Janusz Gajos), and in slapstick fashion, Karol is smuggled back to Poland, where he returns to the salon he ran with his brother, Jurek (a drolly funny Jerzy Stuhr).

 

Mikolaj has offered Karol thousands of dollars if Karol will kill a person who wants to die, but Karol refuses. Karol takes another job as a bodyguard for a shady agency, and when he overhears the bosses speculating about buying up a swath of land, Karol gets to a few landowners first, and eventually earns a windfall, which he then spins into great wealth. He then puts into motion his ultimate revenge plot against Dominique.

Kieslowski, known as a tender and thoughtful storyteller, not only traffics in dark ideas here, but the film feels a bit choppy, with much of the action backloaded to the end of the film. Karol's transformation also feels rushed. But the narrative is always compelling. 

Humor is threaded throughout, and it's often as dry as toast. The build-up of the revenge plot comes off as not merely retributive but also a bit misogynistic. Delpy is not allowed to be very effective here. She pops up only at key junctures. Meantime, every scene centers Zamachowski, as he alters his entire life in order to satisfy his monomanical focus.

When the subject of the trilogy came up with the venue owner, Keif, he asked which one was my favorite, and I said I had to view them again to choose between "Red" and "Blue." He replied, "No one ever picks 'White.'" That's because it's the weakest one. Maybe being saturated in white, it's just not as colorful as the others.

 

Here are links to the other films: "Blue" and "Red."

Best of Ever, Vol. 10: Kieslowski's Three-Colors Trilogy, Part 1

 The Guild Cinema brought Krzysztof Kieslowski's seminal Three-Colors Trilogy to the big screen for some September matinees. A visit with our favorite filmmaker of all time has been long overdue. We soon will also revisit his masterpiece, "Dekalog."

BLUE (1993) (A) - Juliette Binoche is simply captivating as a woman mourning the death of her husband, a world-renowned classical composer, and their daughter. Her recovery from the accident that killed them is complicated by some revelations about her husband's secret past.

Krzystof Kieslowski is simply a master of morality tales, and his examinations of the human condition burrow deep into a viewer's soul. Here he soaks the screen in blue tones, and it comes off as a revelatory depiction of melancholia rather than a facile, cliched take on sadness. Little touches of blue are everywhere -- a file folder, a candy wrapper, the swimming pool in which Binoche's character, Julie, escapes.

Binoche was known for lighter fare at the time -- "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," "Wuthering Heights" -- but here she emerges as a profound performer who wrings every emotion out of Julie, who seizes the opportunity to make a fresh start in her life amid the gloom. With no time or inclination for tears, Julie simply empties their mansion and disappears for a while to a nondescript apartment (the only memento from her past is a light fixture of blue stringed beads). She bides her time interacting with mice and neighbors. She bonds with Lucille (Charlotte Very), an exotic dancer ostracized by neighbors for her liberal sexual endeavors. 

It is hinted early on that Julie might have secretly written her husband's music. That little bombshell never gets addressed head-on or fully examined. Julie does eventually work with her husband's collaborator, Olivier (Benoit Regent), who has always been in love with Julie. Olivier has been quietly tasked with completing her husband's final opus, an anthem dedicated to a united Europe. 

Julie, meanwhile, cannot escape the past or the memories of her husband and daughter. A skateboarder who witnessed the car crash tracks down Julie to return to her the necklace (with crucifix) that he found at the scene. A street performer plays familiar airs on a flute, haunting her and inspiring her. Eventually, a figure from her husband's past will appear, and it offers Julie an opportunity to display forgiveness and offer redemption. It ends in a magical moment of graceful storytelling.

Kieslowski's camera is forever curious. He was a master at angles and perceptions, playing with focus and reflections -- all of which adds to the layers of mood. At times when Julie is confronted with a revelation or key decision, a swell of music rises up, the screen goes black for a few seconds, and then returns again to Julie, simulating an out-of-body experience (or epiphany?) at these critical moments. He takes close-up shots of notes on a score sheet and pans along as the music plays or the chorus blares.

The movie itself is a symphony. A hosanna to the heavens.  A rhapsody in blue.

 

Here are links to the other films: "White" and "Red."

Now and Then: Love Stories

 We check out the latest from Christian Petzold (and his lead actress, Paula Beer) as well as his  recent film from 2020. See also our reviews of his other one-word titles "Transit," "Phoenix," and "Barbara."

AFIRE (B+) - Director Christian Petzold, for us, is a solid B+ director. His films can meander a bit, lose you for a while, but he always builds to a powerful conclusion. The same pretty much applies to this shaggy-dog story of a shlubby writer who goes off with a friend to a retreat in order to finish his second novel, only to be distracted by a another traveler who was double-booked at the house.

Paula Beer shines, as usual, as Nadja, the free spirit who can't help but be distracting, and who senses the mental block that is afflicting Leon (Thomas Schubert). Among the other distractions -- Leon's pal Felix (Langston Uibel), whose mom double-booked the summer home, is flirting with Nadja's boyfriend (Enno Trebs), and some wildfires are flaring up off beyond the woods.

Petzold takes a long time to delicately place his characters in their precise place in this universe. Schubert is wonderfully understated as the grumpy, arrogant (but insecure) writer, and Beer is light as a feather but fully grounded as a woman who has more going on than it seems. There is plenty of dry humor -- thin walls undermine privacy and sleeping arrangements -- but most of it is laced with melancholy. 

After a fairly shocking twist late in the film, Petzold has another fine ending up his sleeve. I wish it had ended five minutes sooner, on a grim note, but a coda provides a serviceable sliver of sunshine and a glimmer of hope. Either way, your patience during the first half will be duly rewarded.

UNDINE (2020) (B-minus) - I get grumpy when there is homework involved, especially when watching a film feels like reading a textbook. Petzold refuses to give any hints as to the mythological backstory to the narrative here, of a mermaid who takes human form, but with some highly restrictive conditions.

Paula Beer holds the center here, too, as Undine, who informs her boyfriend in the opening scene that if he breaks up with her he's going to have to die. But then she takes no steps to make that happen. Instead, she falls in love with sweet Christoph (the always intense Franz Rogowski). Meet-cutes do not get any more twee than this water-logged one, steeped in symbolism. Christoph also happens to be a deep-sea diver who sees Undine's name on an archway deep underwater and has visions of her swimming sadly with a giant catfish of legend. It's often quite dreamy.

Petzold is not only maddeningly obtuse about what he's going for here plotwise, but he also spends large chunks of time watching Undine give tedious lectures to students about the history of Berlin's architecture. Several times. It's frustrating. 

It isn't until the final reel that some of the pieces of the plot and unspoken backstory finally play out in a satisfying narrative structure. Petzold plays with time shifts, tosses in a bit of neo-Gothic horror, and then pivots to magical realism in a way that somehow feels earned. It's a shame that it can be such a chore to get to those touching final scenes. Beer and Rogowski, as a couple, are a memorable mismatch made in heaven. It is to their credit that the film just quite seems worth it in the end.

BONUS TRACKS

From a key scene and the closing credits of "Afire," the dreamy "In My Mind" by the Wallners:

From the final scene and credits of "Undine," the plaintive adagio from Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto in D Minor by Vikingur Olafsson:

New to the Queue

 As we head into the fourth quarter ...

Director Craig Gillespie ("I, Tonya," "Lars and the Real Girl") and a solid cast follow in the footsteps of "BlackBerry" for a romp through the GameStop stock spectacle, "Dumb Money."

A wry look at an Afghan immigrant searching for human connection, "Fremont."

We are a fan of Chilean Patricio Guzman's more recent films -- "Nostalgia for the Light," "The Pearl Button" -- so we're curious about his 1971film, newly restored, from the early days of Salvador Allende's brief reign, "The First Year."

A documentary about the long-gone days of direct-to-video soft-core movies, "We Kill for Love."

Neo-Noir Chronicles: The Chase

 We considered making these a "Best of Ever" pairing, but neither felt quite like a candidate for the pantheon, back then or now, although they are close.

BASIC INSTINCT (1992) (A-minus) - Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas make for quite the sizzling pair of stars, and director Paul Verhoeven and writer Joe Eszterhas provide the pulp and suspense in an old-fashioned thriller about a haggard cop's investigation of a brutal slaying in San Francisco. It is still breezy and witty and as over-the-top as you'd expect from the notorious team behind "Showgirls" and the writer of "Jagged Edge" and "Flashdance."

In a throwback to the days of film noir, Stone plays Catherine Trammel, a wily author who likes to write books about gruesome acts that have eerie parallels to real life and whose best friends happen to be murderers (research, she claims). When her rock-star boyfriend gets ice-picked to death during a round of hot sex, she is the logical suspect. She famously doesn't wear panties to her interrogation, and passes the audition, running free and soon luring to bed Douglas' Nick Curran, a reckless cop who once shot two people while high on cocaine. When his department rival ends up dead, Nick is suspended, but he doesn't give up the chase.

Their affair gets kinky and torrid (akin to the passion in "Body Heat"), and Nick starts to lose his shit when he finds out that Catherine's next book will be a thinly veiled portrait of him and his checkered past. It helps that she somehow got access to his psychiatric files; she may or may not have had a past with Nick's therapist and occasional bed partner Beth (an indispensable Jeanne Tripplehorn). Nick has a guardian angel in his colleague Gus (a rock-solid George Dzundza), but it does him little good.

The plot thickens, Stone smolders, Douglas spews charisma in all directions, and the twists and turns are delectable. While the topic is noir, the visuals are bright and eye-catching all around the bay. Some scenes border on ridiculous (again, consider the sources), like when Nick gets hit by a car but just gets up and chases after the perp. 

Like "Jagged Edge," this one never lets up and never lets you down. It's a throwback to the old-fashioned thrill of watching movies.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) (A-minus) - In the hangover of the 1960s, this foundational film suffers a little bit from the Sloppy Seventies syndrome, and Gene Hackman has had less hacky performances, but William Friedkin's cops-and-robbers tale of two cities is suspenseful and, at times, riveting.

At the dawn of a dark decade, New York is starting to show its seedy underbelly. Friedkin picks at all of the city's scabs and revels in Hackman's Popeye Doyle, a narcotics detective who doesn't play by the rules and steps on a lot of toes as he follows a hunch about a big heroin shipment due in from Marseilles. Roy Scheider is along for the ride as Doyle's partner (and conscience), Buddy "Cloudy" Russo. They traipse through a Brooklyn world of small-time hoodlums with shady international connections.

There is a lot of international intrigue and subtitles, and Friedkin doesn't bother to lay things out clearly. He employs Altman-like overlapping dialogue, and some conversations get swallowed in incidental noise. This, though, is the movie that perfected the car-chase on the big screen -- a riveting scene in which Doyle carjacks a Pontiac Le Mans and drives it frantically (and recklessly) under a set of el-train tracks in pursuit of a suspect who has hijacked the runaway train above at gunpoint (apparently it's the D through Brooklyn). Another fascinating scene involves cops meticulously dismantling an impounded car suspected of holding the smuggled heroin. 

Hackman and Scheider shoulder the story here, but they have critical help from character actors like Fernando Rey as the French mastermind ("Frog One"), Tony Lo Bianco as the American point man Sal Boca, and Eddie Egan as the gruff police captain. Friedkin, who died last month, shuffles everything together in a grim, sloppy caper.

Questionable Behavior

 

BOTTOMS (A-minus) - This is the gut-busting, crowd-pleasing comedy of summer. Writer-director Emma Seligman and writer-actor Rachel Sennott have created a hyper-speed send-up of high-school comedies, a vulgar mish-mash of genres (ranging from "Breakfast Club" to "Fight Club") with non-stop jokes and two perfect lead performances.

Sennott stars as PJ, a frumpy lesbian who schemes with her best friend, Josie (Ayo Edebiri), to create a fight club at school as a way to seduce cheerleaders and thus lose their virginity before graduation. ("Do you want to be the only virgin at Sarah Lawrence?") Edebiri is deft and charming as the good cop to Sennott's bad cop, although it will be Josie who will have some explaining to do when it's time to reveal to her crush how they lied about why they started the fight club. (It wasn't about empowering women -- though, in classic Afterschool Special fashion, that just might the takeaway after all.)

The school and its inhabitants come off as silly and cartoonish, which gives Seligman plenty of ironic cover for just how ridiculous this all plays out. Football players wear their uniforms to school every day -- pads and cleats included -- and the hunky QB Jeff (it says "Jeff" on the back of his jersey) is venerated like a god by teammates and classmates alike. Josie has her eye on Jeff's girlfriend, Isabel (Havana Rose Liu), while PJ has the hots for the willowy, stiff Brittany (Kaia Gerber). PJ and Josie are not shunned because they are gay; they are ostracized because, as the principal announces over the loudspeaker, they are "ugly, untalented gays."

The ringleaders rope a male teacher into being their adviser. He is played with fine deadpan panache by former pro football player Marshawn Lynch, who has a subtle way of having inappropriate conversations with his students. The one who really steals the show is Ruby Cruz as Hazel, the super-eager fight-club secretary who can't wait to escalate things into pyrotechnics. (She's also clueless about her mom having an affair with the star QB -- "I just thought 'Jeff' was her safe word.")

This all sounds flat when translated into words. But the jokes are sharp and don't let up, and the presentation is coy and clever. It takes a simplistic, cliched premise and layers it with subversive ideas about feminism and conformity. Sennott and Edebiri are confident and consistently funny; they have a Laverne & Shirley comfort level together. Early on, there are times when their timing seems a little off, but that might just reflect the looseness with which Seligman put this together. It's almost like a winking insight into what had to have been an improvisational exercise at times. (The outtakes shown during the credits -- another nod to '80s farces -- back up that theory.)

The two stars and Cruz keep their foot on the pedal and don't let up for 91 minutes. Not since "The Wedding Crashers" or "The Hangover" have I laughed so hard so often and nearly fell out of my seat. Some might find this too dumb to abide, but if you can't appreciate low-brow satire, that will be your loss.

MILLIE LIES LOW (B+) - Ana Scotney, a relative newcomer to the big screen, is a tour-de-force as an up-and-coming architecture student who panics before a trip to a dream internship in New York City and instead merely pretends on social media that she made the voyage and is having the time of her life. In reality, she is still in New Zealand, skulking around the streets trying not to blow her cover.

Millie is the pride of Wellington, a local girl making it to the big time, and her image is plastered all over the city as part of a huge marketing campaign (including at the airport where she has her panic attack in the opening scene). But Millie cracks under that pressure, can't bear to admit her failure to fly to New York, and instead fabricates a guerrilla Instagram campaign, mostly via cut-and-paste images, purporting to show her romping around New York. As you might expect, the big lie gets harder and harder to sustain.

Writer-director Michelle Savill is assured in her feature debut, unwinding a character study of a young woman panicking over one snap-decision that could ruin her life. Millie's anxiety is not without foundation; she has a strained relationship with her mom, and there have been whispers going around that Millie's success was built on designs that she plagiarized from her best pal, Carolyn (Jillian Nguyen). Savill (who co-wrote the script with Eli Kent) is sympathetic to Millie but doesn't let her off the hook. It is a layered examination of a young woman battling expectations as she is launched into her career.

The movie also plays small-ball, with charming vignettes of Millie sneaking around (living in a tent on her mom's property, close enough to the house to steal the wi-fi signal). She suffers a mix of small victories and significant indignities during her days of subterfuge. There might be one coincidence too many in service of the narrative -- especially when Millie is in the wrong place at the right time for a big reveal -- but it's not fatal to the film.

 

Scotney is a revelation as Millie, finding the right mix of humor and desperation. She is gifted at physical comedy, and her face conveys many moods. She resembles Alia Shawkat both visually and talent-wise. She carries this quiet film, creating a few indelible images along the way.

Godard Lives: Bang-Bang

   In this occasional series, every once in a while we will view and re-view the films of Jean-Luc Godard, who died in September 2022. Today, we go back to the '60s. (Historical note: These are the last two DVDs I got by mail from Netflix before the service disappeared.)

MADE IN U.S.A. (1966) (B) - Crime is played for grins in this send-up of mindless American shoot-'em-ups. Anna Karina, with her bouffant 'do, does a star turn in a role that runs simpatico with Barbara Feldon and Diana Rigg, the gals with guns from the era.

Karina plays journalist Paula Nelson, who travels to fictional Atlantic-Cite to investigate the death of her communist boyfriend Paul P (his last name is always drowned out by random noises, Godard's cheeky way of granting him mystery and anonymity). We hear his voice on tapes spouting his radical philosophy. Godard displays an ear for a durable political diatribe when he notes a "penchant for sublime parry being used by the Right today which gives the masses the facile emotion of courage without the risk and pride without sacrifice." Touche.

Godard mixes precise references to influences (the novel Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye) with cartoon violence that evokes a blood-stained Disney, a couple of daft Keystone Kops, and random whims, like including singer Marianne Faithfull for no good reason. He loves his colorful splashes; he evolves noir into neon. The plot, however, gets needlessly complicated in the final reel, buoyed by cliched double-crosses. 

Karina rocks moddish yellow-and-orange outfits. Godard's camera glides through a gym where models exercise. Godard's sneer at America's culture (except for certain hallowed filmmakers and writers) might make you crave a side order of Freedom Fries. At this point in his career, his observations are pretty sharp, and he doesn't assault you with several ideas at once or a firehose of polemics, like he would start doing by the '70s. This one is a bit of a mess, but it's always entertaining.

LE PETIT SOLDAT (1963) (B-minus) - Shot in 1960 but withheld from release for three years because of its controversial take on the Algerian war, this early black-and-white film is too dense and flat to be effective. Anna Karina, working for the first time with Godard, pairs with newcomer Michael Subor as a cool couple negotiating tightropes among the factions for and against Algerian independence. 

Subor's Bruno is a deserter from the French army posing as a journalist while working with a French terrorist organization. He is ordered to kill a rival activist to prove that he is not a double agent, but he refuses. Things turn grim in the second half. A scene of Bruno being tortured is pretty sadistic and is dragged out too long for comfort.

Karina's Veronica is two-dimensional, and she stands around a lot brooding like a bored femme fatale. Subor is too wooden as the hardened, intellectual revolutionary. More twists toward the end turn this darker and darker.There are some good ideas here, but it's all too dense to be effective. This is Godard finding his way. He shot this the same year as "Breathless," and it was released just before "Contempt" (in color with Brigitte Bardot), which made Godard an international sensation.

BONUS TRACKS

Previous takes on Godard's oeuvre:

• Contempt
• Band of Outsiders
• Masculin Feminin
• 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her
  
• Goodbye to Language
  
• Film Socialisme
• The Image Book
• Hail Mary
• Histoire(s) du Cinema
  

 

Noir Chronicles: Summer of Stan

 This year's annual Film Noir Festival at the Guild Cinema in July featured another powerhouse lineup (though we didn't catch the Japanese or French double bills). It included contributions from Stan Getz and Stanley Kubrick.

MICKEY ONE (1965) (B+) - Wow. In 1965, all you had to do was throw Warren Beatty in a movie with a couple of pretty gals, and you're halfway there. Toss in a bonkers script and a slither through the underbelly of Detroit and Chicago, and you've got quality entertainment.

Beatty teams up with director Arthur Penn -- just two years before they would make history with "Bonnie and Clyde" -- for this truly gritty tale of a club comedian on the run from the mob after he slept with the boss' girl. The verite technique by Penn -- featuring realistic side characters -- gives this a documentary feel and a "Naked City" gravitas.

Opening scenes suggest John Cassavettes making a black-and-white James Bond film. It bops along to a jazz soundtrack featuring improvisations from Stan Getz. Beatty is on top of his game as a desperate, but often flippant, man on the run. His scenes doing standup are genuinely funny and disturbing. This one comes out of left field and doesn't disappoint.

SPOTTED: Well, I blinked and I missed him, or I don't remember spotting him, but Chicago everyman Dennis Franz has a bit part as an unnamed guy in a dressing room. Franz, of course, would go on to star in "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blue."

THE HARDER THEY FALL (1956) (A-minus) - Late-period Humphrey Bogart anchors this pulpy boxing film about a shady promoter milking a foreigner for big bucks by setting him up with a bunch of palookas willing to tank fights for $1,000 a pop. Rod Steiger also steps up with a meaty performance as the greedy promoter who won't let any thing stand in the way of making a mint.

A perfect mix of casting: Two heavyweights, Bogart and Steiger, slugging it out; a bounty of ace character actors, like Nehemiah Persoff, Harold J. Stone and Edward Andrews; and non-actors, like the boxing champs Jersey Joe Wolcott (as a trainer) and Max Baer (as the reigning champ). The sharp script by Philip Yordan is based on a novel by Budd Schulberg ("On the Waterfront").

Bogart is Eddie Willis, a veteran journalist out of a job who stoops to shilling as a PR man for Steiger's Nick Benko, whose syndicate has imported from Argentina a big lug with a glass chin, Toro Moreno (burly Mike Lane). Never mind that Moreno is a bust; there are plenty of tomato cans who will take a dive in the ring so that Moreno can climb the ladder toward the heavyweight title. As Moreno gains a wide following with every win, Eddie slips lower and lower into the slime, watching his reputation slide into the gutter. The guilt gradually eats away at him.

Along the way, one fighter dies in the ring, and Moreno is headed toward a massive reckoning once he faces off with the champ. The big guy's disappointment will be heart-breaking. Bogart, in his final film role, was born to bring this conflicted character to life. It's a gem from start to finish.

SPOTTED: Too many to count, a virtual who's who of bit players from '60s and '70s television.  Stafford Repp (Chief O'Hara on TV's "Batman"); Nehemiah Persoff, the prolific character actor who died last year at age 102; Harold J. Stone ("Bridget Loves Bernie"); Edward Andrews, the grandfather on "Sixteen Candles" who is housing Dong, the foreign-exchange student; and hangdog Herbie Faye (Fender on Phil Silvers' "Sgt. Bilko")

NOTORIOUS (1946) (A-minus) - A year after World War Two ended, this must have seemed like some sort of marvel of artificial intelligence, a leap in filmmaking. Today it's merely a good old movie from long ago and far away, Alfred Hitchcock shepherding two charismatic leads - Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant -- through a devilish thriller with a killer ending.

This is another heavyweight match that withstands the test of time. Grant's G-man T.R. Devlin recruits Bergman's Alicia Huberman -- the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy -- to help the U.S. infiltrate a den of Nazis in Brazil. Devlin and Alicia immediately start to fall for each other, but Devlin overdoes playing it cool, and he begins to hang her out to dry in a dangerous situation. Alicia goes so far as to marry one of the ringleaders (a perfectly smarmy Claude Rains) -- to Devlin's frigid disregard -- only to put her life in danger.

Hitchcock comes into his own with his patented camera tricks -- for example, distorting the focus and angle when a character is woozy from poisoning -- and crisp pacing. He could have snipped at least10 minutes off of the 101-minute run-time, but he's never really in danger of losing the thread or jeopardizing the suspense. Once you appreciate the ending, you'll forget how long it took to get there.

SPOTTED: Two future "Beverly Hillbillies" alums have tiny roles -- Bea Benaderet (Pearl Bodine) as a file clerk, and Frank Wilcox (Mr. Brewster) as an FBI agent.

KILLER'S KISS (1955) (B) - From Stanley Kubrick comes this glorified TV police procedural, lasting barely more than an hour.  We get another boxer, and this time the setting is on the grimy streets of New York City.

A washed-up fighter, Davey (Jamie Smith), falls for a neighbor across the way, sad dancer Gloria (a striking Irene Kane, "Naked City"), who lives under the iron fist of gangster Rapallo (snarling character actor Frank Silvera). Davey hopes to make one last score in the ring and run off with Gloria, if he can rescue her from the evil gangster.

Kubrick takes his camera on location to the likes of Times Square, Penn Station and the Brooklyn waterfront. He ratchets up the tension, building the suspense to a showdown between Davey and Rapallo in, of all places, an abandoned loft full of unclothed mannequins, the two men doing battle with axes. Will the lovers meet up at Penn Station and escape to Seattle? Tune in and find out.

SPOTTED: We saw nobody who looked familiar. There is a dancer played by Ruth Sobotka, who was Kubrick's wife at the time.

DEMENTIA (1955) (C) - At less than an hour, this mind-freakout -- devoid of dialogue -- is self-described thusly: "A young woman wanders the streets in a nightmare through a landscape of mutilations, patricide, and paranoia, waking in her apartment amidst clues that suggest it wasn’t a dream." Variety called it "the strangest film ever offered for release."

Let's just say that it's an acquired taste. Where there would be dialogue is a constant stream of jangly music, typical jazzy noir fare mixed with spooky space-age bachelor-pad woo-woos. It's a needless gimmick.

A woman, identified in the credits only as the Gamin (Adrienne Barrett), awakes from a nap and then interacts with a series of creeps along urban streetscapes, the kind who leer, grab women at will and even slap them around a bit if the guys are in the mood. She hangs out for a while with a vulgar fat-cat (Bruno VeSota), who ends up stabbed and defenestrated.

SPOTTED: Barrett would resurface in two obscure films in the '80s, and tubby VeSota was a regular on "Bonanza" in the '60s playing various characters. Apparently Shelley Berman and Aaron Spelling make uncredited appearances.

Doc Watch: Mind Games

 

HAVE YOU GOT IT YET? THE STORY OF SYD BARRETT AND PINK FLOYD (B+) - There's nothing really flashy about this documentary about one of the all-time lost souls of the classic-rock era, but it is thorough and comprehensive, so much so that you feel like you've gotten your money's worth.

Writer-director Roddy Bogawa watches over the early work of co-director Storm Thorgerson -- Pink Floyd historian, Hipgnosis (album art) founder, and Barrett's childhood friend -- as they track down just about every person connected to Barrett you can imagine. That includes his former bandmates, notably Roger Waters and David Gilmour, Barrett's sister, and seemingly every former classmate and anyone who bumped into him in the late '60s. It's exhaustive but never exhausting.

Barrett's story will always be fascinating. He founded Pink Floyd with Waters and others and wrote their songs, including their first hit, "See Emily Play," a foundational track in pop-psychedelia. He was smart, handsome and charming. But after daily mega-doses of LSD during the band's first two years, he started to exhibit odd behavior, freezing on stage and turning catatonic at random times. Whether it was the drugs or some combination of causes, Barrett lost his mind. By 1968, he was kicked out of the band and replaced by his former art-school chum, Gilmour. Barrett lived out his final three decades with his mom in his hometown of Cambridge. Neither Gilmour nor Waters ever went out there to visit Barrett; they try to hide their shame over that snub, telling themselves that Barrett didn't want to see them all those years anyway.

But before he disowned his music career, he gave it a go as a solo act. Gilmour and Waters produced the solo album "The Madcap Laughs." That and a self-titled album were released in 1970. They are both under-appreciated gems. He shares a simplicity of songwriting and recording with American outsider Daniel Johnston. (This documentary has a gravitas that brings to mind both "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" and "We Jam Econo," the wistful reverie about the snakebit Minutemen.)

Thorgerson (who died 10 years ago) has the inside track on all the key sources who piece together about as comprehensive a biography as you can get. It's an intimate tribute to a recluse. Barrett's bandmates tell grand tales. The beginning of the end was when Barrett, still in the band, toyed with his mates while showing them the chords of a song he had just written but repeatedly changing the chord structure whenever they thought they had gotten it down. (That is the source of the movie's title.) They also tell the story from a few years after that, when Barrett visited their recording studio but was unrecognizable, having gained weight and shaved his head (including eyebrows). Pink Floyd recorded the song suite "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" as a tribute to their fallen mate. 

As one talking head intones, "It's a very, very sad story." It's impossible to know what went through Barrett's mind all those years. But this is a valiant, touching attempt to understand the man and the artist.

BONUS TRACKS

"Terrapin," the opening track on his first solo album:

 

"Octopus":

 

"Gigolo Aunt," from the second solo album, a song that inspired the band of the same name:

 

An old soft-shoe, "Here I Go":

Now and Then: Back in Romania

 A pair from Cristian Mungiu -- his latest and going back to his breakthrough from 2007:

R.M.N. (B+) - Mungiu's gloomy, dimly lit drama about xenophobia in Transylvania builds slowly to a chilling payoff. It feels like two movies spliced together. 

One story, which doesn't reveal itself fully until the second half, is about the Romanian villagers' hatred of Sri Lankan immigrants who fill jobs at a bakery that no one else will take (and because Romanians prefer to pursue better wages elsewhere, like in Germany). The other narrative revolves around Matthias (Marin Grigore), who returns from a bad work experience in Germany to his estranged wife (Macrina Barladeanu) and their child, Rudi, who has stopped speaking after a mysterious fright in the woods. Matthias also hounds after an old flame, Csilla (Judith State), who is now divorced and still holds a candle for him. (She also plays the cello, and the gorgeous theme from "In the Mood for Love" is woven through the movie.) He also has an ailing father (whose sheep are being poached, either by humans or bears).

Matthias broods, threatens his wife, chastises his son for being effeminate, and treats Csilla like a convenient landing spot. Csilla owns the bakery that imports the workers whose lives eventually are threatened by the ugly denizens. (The film is based on a true story.) The sad, ironic twist is that the bullies are ethnic Hungarians living in Romania and looking down on the other immigrants (as well as canceling their bread orders; they're obsessed with the idea of people of color touchng their food). The Christian church is complicit in indulging and enabling the ignorance of the townfolk.

A pivotal scene during the final third gathers the residents for a town-square meeting, where the residents actually score some points regarding the low pay of the bakery (while flinging conspiracy theories about the hygiene of foreigners). The scene starts out played for laughs but actually digs deep into the issues of immigration, xenophobia and the overbearing policies of the European Union. The meeting is interrupted by a tragedy, and then Mungiu builds suspense toward a bittersweet conclusion. The eeriness of The Other haunts the movie from beginning to end.

FOUR MONTHS, THREE WEEKS, TWO DAYS (2007) (A) - Still Mungiu's masterpiece, here he tracks the harrowing journey of a college student seeking an illegal abortion in the 1980s. The story is raw and powerful, neither glorifying nor condemning the practice.

Laura Vasiliu is chilling as Gabita, who, as the title suggests, is farther along in her pregnancy that she lets on. Gabita is infantalized herself, coming off not as a cunning or callous young woman but instead as a victim of her circumstances. She is assisted by Otilia (Annamaria Marinca), her dorm roommate who takes charge of the situation and takes over the film.

Like in Todd Haynes' "Carol," it is the secondary character who is the true focus of the movie. Otilia is the emotional center of this drama. She tussles with her boyfriend -- at one point hinting that she, too, might be pregnant and in the same fix as Gabi -- and negotiates with the abortionist when he demands more that the money they've come up with. The deal she arranges is degrading, but she soldiers through it.

After Gabi's procedure, Otilia takes a detour to attend a birthday party for her boyfriend's mother. Marinca is riveting as she endures the ramblings of judgmental bourgeois adults, all the while worried about whether Gabi will recover without complications.

Mungiu employs a documentary approach. He doesn't turn away from the clinical procedure performed in a hotel room. And he is not shy about showing the practical aftermath of having an abortion. But in many ways, his sterile approach offers a reminder that this is a common occurrence for two typical young women during any era. The no-nonsense abortion provider Mr. Bebe (a chilling Vlad Ivanov) is portrayed not as a monster but as a gruff tradesman who isn't above exploiting vulnerable women while he also helps them.

Gabita's choice is neither surprising nor flippantly made. This is a sober depiction of a day in the life of these two young women, and no matter your personal point of view, you might find insight into a divisive issue. Throughout, Marinca is simply riveting, right down to the final shot, as her soulful eyes turn to the camera, reminding all viewers of their role in all of this.

New to the Queue

 California dreamin' ...

From the director of the Beach Boys bio "Love & Mercy," a minor-key music film about belated success, "Dreamin' Wild."

Ella Seligman re-teams with "Shiva Baby" star Rachel Sennott for a broad comedy about two girls scheming to sleep with cheerleaders, "Bottoms."

Michael Cera stars as a man who returns to his hometown and gets caught up in childhood recriminations, "The Adults."

The story behind one of the great moments in television and rock history, "Reinventing Elvis: The '68 Comeback Special." (Check out this fine review in the L.A. Times.)

A companion piece to "Horn From the Heart," another take on the white-boy blues movement in the 1960s, "Born in Chicago."

One more music doc: A look at the twee collective of DIY bands (including Apples in Stereo) who shared a record label and an ethos, "The Elephant 6 Recording Co."              

BONUS TRACK

The Apples in Stereo with "Allright/Not Quite":

That '80s Grift: Weepers

 

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (1983) (A) - With quality from top to bottom -- including writer-director and cast -- it's hard not to fall again for this shaggy-dog story of a woman and her mother both searching for ways to be happy, with or without men. Debra Winger, following up "Urban Cowboy" and "An Officer and a Gentleman," stakes her claim as poster child for the early-'80s zeitgeist with her sweeping portrayal of an ordinary Texas woman trying to raise a family with a philandering academic husband.

A very young Jeff Daniels is endearing as her hound-dog of a husband, who philanders with her students as he climbs the ladder through small-time academia. He and Winger are a powerful combination, though they toil in the shadows of a pair of heavyweights -- Shirley MacLaine as Winger's uptight mother and Jack Nicholson as MacLaine's neighbor, a portly former astronaut whose reputation still reels in the young groupies. 

James L. Brooks ("Broadcast News") directs and writes the slyly effective script based on the novel by Larry McMurtry ("Lonesome Dove," "The Last Picture Show"). The story is granular and the characters are richly developed. Winger's Emma is a dreamer and a striver, but she is chained at home with three kids while Daniels' Flap plays professor. Emma finds a loving adulterous relationship of her own with a kindly man she meets in a grocery store (John Lithgow, the essential fifth man here). 

It's no secret that Emma eventually gets sick, and the story gets messy, veering off into territory that sets it light-years beyond your typical TV weeper of the week. Emma's relationship with her two boys is particularly nuanced and heartfelt. Meantime, MacLaine and Nicholson engage in a mature pas-de-deux, with one-liners flying by faster than you can keep track of them. At their first meal out together he tells her she needs a lot of drinks. "To break the ice?" she asks. "To kill the bug you have up your ass," he replies with a grin.

At two hours, 12 minutes, and covering a decade or so, this has the sweep of an epic. Like "The World According to Garp," it represents peak '80s melodrama mixed with droll comedy.

LEAN ON ME (1989) (B) - This one doesn't wear as well, slicked all over by the 1980s.  Morgan Freeman fashions a star turn in the based-on-true-story of Joe Clark, who, Kotter-like, returns to an inner-city New Jersey high school in turmoil and transforms it into a model educational system.

What put a lump in our throats 30 years ago now lands a little lower, in the pit of the stomach. Whereas Brooks' movies were fresh and innovative, "Lean on Me" -- from "Rocky" director John Avildsen -- is strictly by-the-numbers and downright cheesy at times. Freeman carries everything on his shoulders and lifts it above the humdrum, with passion and a sharp tongue. But writer Michael Schiffer ("Crimson Tide," "Colors") has trite tendencies when it comes to storytelling. And Avildsen's old "Rocky" pal Bill Conti shoehorns his soundtrack noodlings in with contemporary pop music, like rap songs and hard-edged fare like Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle."

The zippy transformation of the high school from the aforementioned jungle (look for "Sopranos" regular Michael Imperioli as a hood in the opening scenes) to a pristine, high-functioning citadel of learning beggars belief, but just roll with it. The bad guys -- a vindictive parent, a craven mayor -- are cartoonish, but just enjoy the moment they are forced by Clark to eat crow. The kids are wide-eyed and chubby-cheeked -- just cheer them on to succeed, as you know they will.

I was more of a sucker for this shtick back in the day. Maybe I'm just jaded now. Freeman is worth the price of admission, as intent as his character is to make this project succeed, by sheer force of will.

 

Noir Chronicles: Western Civilization

 

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951) (B+) - Alfred Hitchcock directs this juicy thriller, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel about two men who meet on a train and discuss helping each out with a murder that would ease each others' lives. The story drags on too long, but the two leads are worth the price of a ticket.

Farley Granger ("They Live by Night") steps up his game as tennis star Guy Haines, who needs a divorce from his frumpy wife so that he can marry the wealthy daughter of a U.S. senator. Bruno Antony (Robert Walker) is a smooth-talking sociopath who proposes the plan so that he can get out from under his oppressive father, who is denying Bruno his inheritance. Actually, this is all Bruno's concoction, and when Guy's wife turns up dead, what was proposed as dual crimes with perfect alibis becomes a new twist on blackmail that has Guy in a bind.

Hitchcock locks in on a durable MacGuffin -- Guy's monogrammed cigarette lighter -- and hammers away at it to great effect throughout the movie. Elsewhere, he traffics in noir tropes while offering fresh visual takes. An extended scene of a tennis match is wonderfully rendered, with the perfect use of body doubles (unless Granger was a tennis ace) and believable outcomes. 

Bruno grows a bit tiring, and this should have been wrapped up in 90 minutes, but make sure to stick around for the climactic showdown that takes place on an out-of-control merry-go-round. It's hectic.

SPOTTED: Bruno's mother is played by Marion Lorne, who would go on to play dippy Aunt Clara on TV's "Bewitched."

THE SEARCHERS (1956) (B)  - Even grading on a curve to account for the 1950s/1860s racism that should be long buried, this epic from John Ford is tonally inconsistent and a tad too long. It provides a forum for a gruff and grumpy John Wayne to rant about Indians and play out a revenge fantasy.

I have to say, the opening shot of the movie is gorgeous. We see the silhouette of Martha Edwards (Dorothy Jordan) stepping into the doorway of the family cabin, the colorful scrubland and mesas of Texas (actually Utah or Arizona, where the movie was filmed) sprawled out before her. It is the arrival of Wayne as Ethan Edwards, her brother-in-law, returning three years after the end of the Civil War, having done mop-up work for the Confederacy. It is suggested that she and Ethan have a history, but Martha and Ethan's brother, Aaron (Walter Coy), have two lovely daughters and a son. Soon, that family, except for the daughters, will be killed when that cabin is set aflame by Native Americans. 

Ethan sets out on a years-long mission to rescue those girls, one of whom will grow up to be a teenage Natalie Wood. Wayne eventually teams up with Martin (Jeffrey Hunter), the girls' adopted older brother, to drive deep into Comanche country. Martin leaves behind Laurie (a histrionic Vera Miles), who pines for the handsome young man.

The putdowns of the Comanches are hard to abide, and enmity aside, the dialogue can be clunky and overwrought. Ford and writer Frank Nugent crafted a compelling version of "Moby Dick," but it's just too difficult to revert to that stagnant era of Cowboys & Indians from the Boomers' childhood.

SPOTTED: Ken Curtis, who would play deputy Festus Haggen in TV's "Gunsmoke" a decade later, plays plays goofy Charlie, who woos Vera Miles while her true love is away.

There Was a Time

 Variations on dick-measuring contests, as we revisit titles from back in the day ...

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (1992) (A) - There once was a world, in another century, in which David Mamet expelled the last gasps of the old-school macho writers, and it was pure poetry. Blessed with great actors to deliver his lines, "Glengarry Glen Ross" is perhaps his most fully realized screen endeavor.

Al Pacino, an aged Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, plus Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin (nearly stealing the film in a single classic scene) -- a full card of heavyweights who slug it out with puffed-out chests and vulgar putdowns, all to cover up their insecurities as real-estate salesmen struggling to survive. Pacino is all swagger, Lemmon is all agony-of-defeat. Harris is cool, Arkin is jittery. Spacey is the office manager who hands out leads and takes the most (often homophobic) slander. Baldwin made his name as the super-salesman who swoops in offering first prize of a Cadillac to the biggest seller; second place is a set of steak knives; third place -- "You're fired." 

Buckle up, gentleman. This movie is not for the gutless. Drama ensues, as it seems one of our men has staged a break-in and grabbed the most promising leads. All bets are off in this dog-eat-dog world of survival of the fittest. One-liners fly by. The patter comes in Mamet's patented jazz rhythms. Everyone's manhood gets questioned at some point. Business is conducted. There are winners and losers. No one said life would be easy, gentlemen. You do or die, though either way, in the end, you die.

FUNNY PEOPLE (2009) (A-minus) - It takes extra patience to tolerate Adam Sandler as a Serious Actor, but it usually pays off. See, for example, "Punch-Drunk Love" (2002), "Reign Over Me" (2007), and more recently, "The Meyerowitz Stories" and "Uncut Gems." This Judd Apatow epic finds the sweet spot for Sandler between mugging and maudlin.

Sandler plays George Simmons, loosely based on Sandler, an insanely rich comic known for his juvenile hit movies, who nonetheless lives alone, occasionally having sex with groupies. He takes in a young comic, Ira (Seth Rogen), not only to craft some fresh material, but to basically keep him company. Ira is awed by Simmons and his wealth, but he still lives on a pull-out couch with two roommates -- a wisecracking fellow comic, Leo (Jonah Hill), as well as Mark (Jason Schwartzman in full unctuous mode), a handsome star of a shallow sitcom, the least talented among them having the most success. They hang out with quirky Daisy (Aubrey Plaza), who undermines the cliche of the manic pixie dream girl.

George finds out that he is dying, and so he wants to make up for the laziness of his existence, and top on his list is making things right with an ex, Laura (Leslie Mann), the love of his life, the one that got away. When he and Ira show up at her door, George bonds with her two girls and does battle with her crazy Australian husband (Eric Bana). 

Like all of Judd Apatow's movies, this one is at least 20 minutes too long, though it is entirely bearable, thanks to a stellar cast of mostly hungry young comic actors. (RZA and Aziz Ansari also have minor roles.) Apatow certainly knows the rhythm of standup sets, and there are plenty here, and they are genuinely funny. Sandler carries it all like a pro. George comes across as a fairly nuanced character; his chronic dick references are so over-the-top that some bittersweet self-loathing breaks through.Things get a little sloppy and sprawling, but Apatow crafts a powerful narrative, with a classic arc, and I never tired of anybody's company here.

TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE (2004) (A-minus) - Sometimes all you need something to be is dumb as a rock and funny as hell. Trey Parker and Matt Stone -- the pop-culture vultures behind "South Park" -- are the perfect men for that job.

This post 9/11 spoof of jingoistic action films is populated entirely by marionettes. Let that sink in. It features a sex scene that would be X-rated if not for the fact that the couple in question are puppets. If you don't think you'd find that hilarious, then maybe skip this one.

The plot involves an actor, Gary, recruited to Team America -- a renegade bunch of special-ops agents taking on terrorists -- because of his purportedly amazing acting skills. The joke -- pummeled throughout the movie -- is that Gary (and most actors) are inept egotistical douchebags improperly revered by American society. In fact, Parker and Stone line up puppet versions of real-life actors -- Alec Baldwin is their top target, along with a monosyllabic Matt Damon -- in order to constantly mock them. He portrays them as insufferable saps whose progressivism blinds them to the evils of America's enemies, in particular Kim Jong Il of North Korea, portrayed as a maniac hellbent on destroying the Bushian New World Order.

Parker and Stone traffic in blatant stereotypes and silly tropes -- especially when mocking terrorists as jibberish-spouting maniacs (from Durka-Durkastan). When anyone speaks a foreign language, they just spout random words, because the filmmakers -- like most Americans -- have no time to actually study another culture. They are essentially daring viewers to stoop to complaining about a puppet show and outing themselves as uptight nudniks. 

The humor is vulgar and foul -- again, these are the provocateurs behind "South Park," OK? -- and ridiculously entertaining. The soundtrack is full of spot-on spoofs of patriotism ("America, Fuck Yeah!") and goofy score-settling (Michael Bay gets savagely skewered). It all rarely rises above the kind of movie we might have made at age 12. If you're not prepared to confront that inner child, you won't stand a chance here.