MY EFFORTLESS BRILLIANCE (2008) (A-minus) - An early effort from Lynn Shelton, who died this past spring, this comic-drama features a pair of talented actors riffing through some improvisational material under Shelton's firm gaze.
An urbane, self-obsessed author, Eric, (Sean Nelson, better known as the lead singer for Harvey Danger) travels way out of his element to rural Washington in order to repair a friendship we see him trashing in the film's opening scene. His old pal Dylan (Basil Harris) is loath to warm to this horrid old acquaintance, but Eric humbles himself and tones down the snark, and the two find slivers of opportunities to bond.
That's the whole movie, a classic of the Mumblecore genre. It was Shelton's dry run right before her twin gems of "Humpday" and "Your Sister's Sister," creating a hat trick that Shelton could never replicate. But here she sketches out a story and lets two talented personalities fill in the gaps with bon mots and a natural rapport. (Nelson rarely acted outside of Shelton projects.)
The result is funny and tender, with a hunting scene that serves as a Gen X ironic slap at David Mamet. A key piece of the indie canon.
WITHNAIL & I (1987) (A) - This classic from the post-punk hangover era ages well. IMDb sums the plot up well: "In 1969, two substance-abusing, unemployed actors retreat to the countryside for a holiday that proves disastrous."
Richard E. Grant is bonkers as the lighter-fluid-drinking Withnail, and Paul McGann (as & I) plays the straight man whose uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths) lusts for Withnail. Ralph Brown is brilliant as Danny the drug dealer.
Bruce Robinson (who followed up with Grant to make the equally askew "How to Get Ahead in Advertising"), apparently working from a fever dream, tosses this all together in a wacky salad. It is offensive and inspired, a descendant of a Shakespearean farce.
BONUS TRACKS We rarely bother with the extras, but the DVD bonus feature with "Withnail" is a short documentary about the making of film and the cult that grew around it.
The New York Times last week had a fine piece (here) about the evolution of the key members of the past decade's Mumblecore movement as they advance in their 30s.
Here are a few of my favorites from the past 10 years:
"The Puffy Chair" - The Duplass brothers, writer/director Jay and writer/star Mark, make the first great Mumblecore film, about a guy who is determined to drive cross country to deliver a chair to his dad on Father's Day.
"Humpday" - Perhaps my favorite of them all. Lynn Shelton's third film is a brilliant study of male relationships. Perfectly paced and expertly acted, it's both funny and touching.
"Mutual Appreciation" - Andrew Bujalski's only watchable film so far, the first of the genre that I saw, features a strong cast led by Justin Rice as a musician falling for his pal's girlfriend.
"Nights and Weekends" - Joe Swanberg directs and stars with Greta Gerwig in an insightful analysis of a long-distance relationship.
"The Color Wheel" - Alex Ross Perry and Carlen Altman meld Mumblecore with the '70s road-movie aesthetic in a dark comedy about abrasive siblings on a mission to retrieve her belongings from her ex's house. The dialogue crackles (and sometimes disturbs).
"The Do-Deca-Pentathlon" - The Duplass brothers take the Judd Apatow
model and give it some depth. Here, two grown brothers re-create their
childhood competition, involving 25 goofy feats of athleticism and
stupidity.
"Tiny Furniture" - Lena Dunham's gem, which introduced us to her "Girls" voice and to Alex Karpovsky (who had also been featured in "Beeswax," a passable Bujalski effort).
"In Search of a Midnight Kiss" - A sweet tale of a couple who find each other on New Year's Eve.
"Momma's Man" - From Azazel Jacobs ("Terri"), the laconic escapades of a grown man who returns home to live with his parents.
Disappointments: "Funny Ha Ha" (the granddaddy of the genre, from 2002), "Hannah Takes the Stairs," "Beeswax"
And the genre goes mainstream:
"Your Sister's Sister" - Lynn Shelton uses Mark Duplass to great effect again as a guy mourning his brother and retreating to a friend's cabin, only to get snagged in a triangle between the friend and her lesbian pal. Rosemarie DeWitt and Emily Blunt give heft to the proceedings.
"Jeff Who Lives at Home" - Jason Segal, Ed Helms and Susan Sarandon lend the Duplass brothers Hollywood cred in this under-appreciated indie.
"Frances Ha" - Fortysomething Noah Baumbach and his new
girlfriend, the Queen of 'Core Greta Gerwig, splash the genre in
multiplexes in all its black-and-white glory.
Bonus Track
"Bishop Allen Drive," from Justin Rice's band Bishop Allen:
In the tradition of newspaper editors who like to take two unrelated celebrities and pair their obits merely because they happened to die during the same news cycle, we pay tribute to two of our favorites whose deaths were announced today:
There have been few people funnier than Fred Willard, who emerged in the '70s as Martin Mull's sidekick on "Fernwood 2 Night" and had a long run in the era of mockumentaries which followed that trailblazing fake talk show (like "Best in Show"). He died at age 86.
No one did deadpan like Willard, a veteran of Chicago's Second City. He was more recently known for his "Tonight Show" bits with Jay Leno (a throwback to the days when Steve Allen hosted and interviewed various men on the street, picked up later by Jimmy Kimmel) and on ABC's "Modern Family." And here's his highlight reel from his appearances with David Letterman on "Late Night."
Here's Willard, in "This Is Spinal Tap," welcoming the shaggy-haired metal rockers to a military base to perform during the monthly at-ease weekend:
Lynn Shelton, just 54, died this weekend. She made quiet, wonderful films from her base in Seattle. She was already in her 40s when she made her debut, and she broke through as a leader of the Mumblecore scene when she wrote and directed "Humpday" with Mark Duplass in 2009. She and Duplass quickly followed that up with the even stronger "Your Sister's Sister" (where we also rediscovered Rosemarie DeWitt, fresh off of "Mad Men").
Shelton, who made money in recent years directing TV shows, drifted a bit with the so-so "Touchy Feely" ("a rare misstep") and "Laggies" (saddled with Keira Knightly). And she disappointed last year with the disjointed "Sword of Trust." But she was back on her game the year before that with "Outside In," a powerful character study twinning Edie Falco and Jay Duplass, Mark's brother, who wrote the script with Shelton.
Shelton wrote and directed tender stories about the human condition, and her death is a big loss for storytelling cinema. Here's a good appreciation from Variety.
BONUS TRACK Our title track, from the Chicago Sun-Times in July 1998, the twinning of actor Robert Young and astronaut Alan Shepard:
LAGGIES (B-minus) - It takes a lot to take a full movie's worth of Keira Knightley, especially when she tries to be funny. But this toss-away from indie heavyweight Lynn Shelton ("Humpday," "Your Sister's Sister") is not without its charms.
Knightley plays Megan, a 20-something who is frittering away her life 10 years out of high school. On the brink of an engagement, she disappears after meeting a bunch of high schoolers who ask her to buy booze. She befriends Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz) and quietly crashes at Annika's house, helmed by her quirky but lovable attorney single-dad Craig (Sam Rockwell flailing at playing Fred McMurray by way of Hugh Grant).
You can guess the rest. Shelton is in a bit of a slump lately; this comes on the heels of the ho-hum "Touchy Feely." She has now graduated to swooping aerial shots of her beloved Seattle, but her filmmaking is not being well served by a bigger budget and brighter movie stars.
Yet I couldn't turn away. Knightley sells the thin script. (Luckily, others handle most of the comic scenes, including the irresistible Kaitlyn Dever from "Short Term 12" as Annika's best friend.) New writer Andrea Seigel can turn a phrase, and Shelton knows how to spin a few good lines into familiar patter. FREE RIDE (B) - Anna Paquin carries this slight but affecting period piece about a mom escaping domestic violence by taking her two daughters to Miami, where she gets caught up in the drug trade.
Set in the late '70s, actress Shana Betz's autobiographical tale has a whiff of "Night Moves," without the heft of that '70s noir classic. Betz's avatar here is the younger daughter, doe-eyed Shell (Ava Acres), who occasionally narrates. Older sis MJ (Liana Liberato) is 15 and restless. She gets corrupted by one of mom's druggy friends at a concert, the movie's flattest scene that, unfortunately, leads to the climax.
The supporting crew doesn't really register. Drea de Matteo struggles
to bring depth to the role of Sandy, Christina's old stripper pal who
introduces her to the drug ring's main players. Betz loses control of her movie in the final third, when she lazily manufacturers a car crash to bring everything home.
But there's something here that keeps you tuned in. Paquin's character reminded me of Janet McTeer's turn in the obscure mother-daughter road movie "Tumbleweeds" from a decade ago. Betz puts a nostalgic shimmer on the story but she never gets maudlin. A few small touches -- an outfit here, a "Waltons" reference there -- make this memorable.
And she wisely brings this home in under 90 minutes.
BONUS TRACK "Free Ride" features a strong, rootsy soundtrack. Here are the Figs over the closing credits with "To Sail the Sea":
CRYSTAL FAIRY & THE MAGICAL CACTUS AND 2012 (B+) - An almost documentary-level road trip film from Sebastian Silva ("The Maid") is rescued by a strong cast lifting up a slight script. Michael Cera -- totally in the zone here -- is Jamie, an American in Chile who corrals three local brothers into hunting down a San Pedro cactus for a beachcomber mescaline experience.
First, however, Jamie meets a new-age manic pixie dream girl who goes by the name Crystal Fairy, a fellow American, and invites her on the trip. Almost immediately, Crystal's zen vibe clashes with Jamie's hyperactive personality as a passive-aggressive bully. You'll either love or hate Cera here; this feels like the ultimate skittish man-child he was born to play.
Gaby Hoffmann, a former child actor, is perfect as the uninhibited Crystal Fairy, who quickly earns the nickname Crystal Hairy for the tufts of untended body hair she's not ashamed to show off in front of the boys. She's all about meditation and blessings and talking out her feelings; Jamie just wants to score a cactus and go lose his mind. The brothers, only one of whom speaks decent English, are around mostly to serve as foils and as a charming Greek chorus.
The hunt for the cactus is fun, and their time on the beach culminates in the classic cliche of the confessional around the campfire. The reveals here are both bizarre and underwhelming. But by that time, you've grown fond of all five characters. Silva's hand-held camerawork and smart script produce five very real 20-somethings bouncing off of each other and building up a relationship not only with each other but with the viewer. Cera is a wonder to behold, and Silva wisely follows the actor's lead. A small gem.
TOUCHY FEELY (B-minus) - The impeccable Lynn Shelton ("Humpday," "Your Sister's Sister") wastes a strong cast with this slight mood piece about the healing powers of alternative therapies. My biggest gripe is the reliance on a tired trope -- older characters taking a drug trip to open their minds and hearts -- to bring epiphanies to the main characters.
The entrancing Rosemarie DeWitt is Abby, a masseuse who suddenly not only loses her touch but is repulsed by sight of skin, even that of her boyfriend Jesse (Scoot McNairy). Meantime, her super-meek dentist brother Paul (a distractingly lethargic Josh Pais) resuscitates his practice by finding a magic healing connection with his patients.
Allison Janney is sadly misused here as a cartoonish reiki therapist who counsels Abby and mentors Paul. And Ellen Page ("Juno") seems lost as Paul's daughter Jenny, who has a mental block about applying to college and gets randomly crushy.
Abby pulls away from Jesse immediately after he asks her to move in with her (he was just supposed to be a fun rebound). The cast struggles to find the connections between the characters, and I'm not sure whether most of that was intentional on Shelton's part. Some shots are downright powerful -- such as when Abby is jolted out of a supermarket trance by one big tear falling down her cheek. But other scenes -- Page professing her love out of the blue -- are overwrought.
This is a rare misstep from Shelton. She's normally sure-handed and in sync with her cast. Here, it's not clear what she's going for, and too many of the actors seem either miscast or misguided. Worth it, still, for some of those special moments.
BONUS TRACK A key song from the "Crystal Fairy" soundtrack, "Man on Fire," from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros:
ONCE UPON A TIME ... IN HOLLYWOOD (B+) - This ode to a lost era (the end of the 1960s) is an intriguing concoction of macho bunk and addictive nostalgia from a fading Quentin Tarantino. This is much more a return to "Jackie Brown" and "Pulp Fiction" than the endless string of pulp fantasy and genre wanks Tarantino has indulged in during the past 20 years. (I wrote, after seeing "Django Unchained": "It's as if his true 12-year-old was finally set free by his
'90s successes, and the Weinsteins' blank checks gave him free rein to wank
off. ... It is simply stylized and soulless nihilism.")
Here, he focuses on Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick, an aging TV Western star, and his stuntman buddy (and Man Friday) Cliff (Brad Pitt) as they struggle with a changing world, where hippies are replacing cowboys and the postwar high has gotten sucked into the quagmire of Vietnam. Cliff keeps seeing a seductive teenage girl (Margaret Qualley) on the streets of Los Angeles, and when he finally invites her into his car (Rick's actually), he manages to resist her come-ons but does take her to the Spahn Ranch, the former movie set (in real life) where Charles Manson and his "family" were shacking up with the aged owner (a fine cameo by Bruce Dern in a role meant for Burt Reynolds) while plotting their crimes. Pitt's visit to the spooky ranch, under the glare of Manson's zombies, is by far the high point of the movie. (Qualley, the daughter of Andie MacDowell, is invigorating here but she sticks out as too clever and self aware to be a Manson devotee.)
The brilliance of the movie is the way Tarantino re-creates L.A. at that moment in time, with granular precision. There are many driving scenes and thus endless snippets of AM radio sounds: songs, DJ banter, ads. The soundtrack itself is rife with period AM treasures, with some deep cuts like album tracks from Paul Revere and the Raiders and Jose Feliciano's mournful version of "California Dreamin'," plus a renewed appreciation for muscle songs like Bob Seger's "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" and the Rolling Stones "Out of Time" -- the latter a little too cleverly on-point. Tarantino also has a gas coming up with fictional Spaghetti Westerns for Rick to star in during a six-month sabbatical in Italy, Eastwood-like.
This really is a high achievement of period filmmaking. With much more of a sheen than Paul Thomas Anderson's "Inherent Vice" (which spilled into the '70s), Tarantino serves up a bubblegum-drenched memory of his (and my) childhood, when it was daunting even to be a 6-year-old in 1969. The attention to detail is obsessive. One quick scene -- a series of neon signs coming to life at iconic L.A. landmarks, at dusk at the onset of the fateful night of the Manson slayings -- is as brilliant a slice of celluloid as you can hope to see. Even in his bad movies, Tarantino can bowl you over with his mastery of the craft.
Not that there's much of a plot. Weighing in at 2 hours 40 minutes, "Once Upon a Time" is very much a hang-out movie, very much a shambolic sunshiny noir. And it's quite a ride up until the climax. Not only does Cliff visit Manson's compound, but Rick lives next door to Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), who represent Hollywood's future (Polanski as a budding auteur who could potentially do for Rick in the '70s what Tarantino did for John Travolta in the '90s). Tate here is portrayed as an innocent naif, ripe for slaughter, romping at the Playboy Mansion while being ogled by Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis), bopping to records as she sets up her nursery, or sneaking into a matinee of her latest film and drinking in the audience reaction around her.
But she's a woman, so she doesn't matter as much as do the macho men who soak up most of the screen time. Cliff, especially, gets to beat up hippies, kick Bruce Lee's ass, and repair a rooftop TV antenna shirtless. And, oh yeah, he reputedly killed his ex-wife back in the day, maybe by accident, maybe not. Pitt is the star of the show here, still somehow flashing "Thelma & Louise" charm (and abs). DiCaprio adds layers to his portrayal of Rick (a stutter is a nice touch), and he goes deep during Rick's interaction on the set with a child actor (Julia Butters) -- of Glassian precociousness -- who shakes him out of his late-career stupor.
But this wouldn't be a Tarantino film if he didn't ruin it with cartoon violence and buckets of blood pouring out of people's heads. The final reel finally brings together the two main camps -- our twangy good ol' boys and the Manson family. The horrors that ensue come with a twist, and whether you buy into the ending or not, there's no denying that it feels tacked on and utterly gratuitous. It leaves a bad taste as you walk out of the theater. For a couple of hours, though, that old magic -- L.A. before the fall, Tarantino before grindhouse -- was back on the big screen.
SWORD OF TRUST (C+) - A serious misstep by Lynn Shelton ("Humpday," "Your Sister's Sister"), coming off the quiet gem "Outside In." Here, she offers a broad comedy about a mismatched group of people in Birmingham, Ala., dealing with Civil War deniers. She handles the set-up well -- a pawn store owner stumbles on a sword purportedly related to the North's surrender to Gen. Lee -- and assembles her characters before setting them off on a shaggy-dog road trip. But nothing really gels, and the actors seem to be competing with each other to see who can be the quirkiest. Marc Maron has an appealing melancholy as the store owner, but the three other actors -- Michaela Watkins, Jillian Bell and John Bass -- never take it to the next level.
The banter can be clever, suggesting a loose improvisational shoot. Shelton herself steals the show with a funny, bittersweet cameo as Maron's drug-addicted ex. Toby Huss and Dan Bakkedahl (HBO's "Veep") inject some giddiness as Deep South villains, but this all falls apart by the end as our bumbling quartet tries to out-maneuver the bad guys. Shelton pretty much ignores the real-life dangers of truthiness and the resurgence of the white nationalist movement with this lightweight romp.This is more on a par with her lesser work, such as "Laggies" and "Touchy Feely."
OUTSIDE IN (A-minus) - Edie Falco and Jay Duplass slug it out as heavyweights in Lynn Shelton's lived-in drama about a school teacher who has worked to free her former student and his struggle to re-enter small-town life after 20 years in prison. Falco's face teaches a master class in acting, and Duplass is perfect as Chris, the doe-eyed man-child pining for Falco's Carol, who is stuck in a loveless marriage and battling her morose, bratty teenager, Hildy (Kaitlyn Dever, "Short-Term 12").
Chris took the fall for a group crime, involving his brother and a friend, which ended up in a death. He did 20 years without squealing, and now he returns to soggy Everett, Wash., tooling around on his BMX bike, as if he were still a high school senior. He professes his love for Carol, who wisely resists but who also hates her own household. Meantime, Hildy is drawn to the brooding, aimless sad-sack.
Shelton co-wrote the spare, sharp script with Duplass. She has been doing a lot of mainstream TV work lately to pay the bills, and here turns in her best effort since 2012's "Your Sister's Sister," which featured Jay's brother Mark in a different kind of love triangle. They take the story on a realistic arc, avoiding a pat, conventional ending. Falco -- plain, if not haggard-looking -- runs a gamut of emotions with low-key grace, and Duplass was born to inhabit this bundle of repressed needs. A few scenes slip into trite exchanges involving secondary characters, but this is a gripping slice of life.
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (B-minus) - Like life, this is nasty, brutal and dreary. Joaquin Phoenix lumbers monosyllabically through this relentless revenge flick about a hammer-wielding thug whose job seems to be to rescue young girls from human traffickers. Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, the hardcore realist behind "Morvern Callar," "Ratcatcher" and "We Need to Talk About Kevin," offers up a dark, twisted, stylish nightmare that challenges you to sit through it.
Adapting source material by Jonathan Ames (HBO's "Bored to Death"), Ramsay dispenses with extensive dialogue and easy exposition, instead going for mood and id. Phoenix is bulked up and beyond miserable, resembling a psychotic homeless man. His Joe is exorcising childhood demons, mainly through vengeful violence and suicidal ideations. He stumbles on a sex ring that apparently involves a governor and a senator, with the aim of rescuing one little blond-haired, blue-eyed tween in particular (Ekaterina Samsonov). Ramsay adopts a "Mean Streets" urgency to her shots, with effective extreme close-ups, flashbacks, and jump-cut editing that gives the oldies on the soundtrack a menacing staccato effect. Like life, this is a slog. Ramsay and Phoenix are a daunting team. Hang out with them at your peril.
BONUS TRACKS From "Outside In's" closing credits, Andrew Bird with "By Any Means":
From "Never's" scratchy oldies soundtrack, "Angel Baby" by Rosie & the Originals, from 1961:
And the pure cheese of Charlene's pure '70s cheese, "I've Never Been to Me":
Richard Brody, at his New Yorker blog, takes a shot at listing the 12 greatest living narrative filmmakers. He's riffing off of a 20-year-old list by Jonathan Rosenbaum.
I don't know about "great," but, for grins, let's list our favorite directors, living or dead (but let's call them "modern"), without thinking too hard, knowing we will miss a bunch and will do this again someday with different names. OK, I'll reverse the numbers and do 21 because I'm lazy:
The Coen Brothers
The Duplass Brothers
The Dardenne Brothers
Michael Winterbottom
Francois Ozon
Noah Baumbach
Danny Boyle
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Sofia Coppola
Steven Soderbergh
Wes Anderson
Zhangke Jia
Nicole Holofcener
Tsai Ming-liang
David Lynch
Jim Jarmusch
Lynn Shelton
Bela Tarr
Bobcat Goldthwait (hey, he put Jerry Lewis on his list)
A documentary about the ramifications of corporations harvesting your online personal information, "The Great Hack."
A harrowing documentary about the war in Syria, from one family's perspective, "For Sama."
A satire involving the re-enactment of the actions of a strongman who collaborated with the Nazis, from Romanian Radu Jude ("Aferim"), "I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians."
Marc Maron falls under the wing of the talented Lynn Shelton ("Outside In," "Your Sister's Sister") for a romp involving Civil War truthers, "Sword of Trust."
A documentary about the photographer/artist Jay Maisel and the dismantling of his historical Manhattan home, "Jay Myself."
From the film festivals in Telluride to Toronto and from Venice to New York, here's what we've cobbled together as titles to look for this fall and beyond:
First Out of the Gate
THE SKELETON TWINS - Hugely talented "SNL" alums Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader get dark with a family drama of estranged siblings.
THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU - An appealing ensemble cast joins hack director Shawn Levy in another family tale. Starring Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Adam Driver, Kathryn Hahn and Rose Byrne.
THE ZERO THEOREM - Familiar Terry Gilliam dystopia porn, starring Christoph Waltz and screening at the local art house cinema. It's been a while since we checked in with the Python alum, having missed his more recent "Tideland."
Auteur, Auteur
STRAY DOGS - Taiwan's Tsai Ming-liang ("What Time Is It There?") finally returns with the
story of a family in poverty.
TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT - Marion Cotillard stars in the latest from master filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.
AN EYE FOR BEAUTY - Canadian Denys
Arcand ("The Barbarian Invasions") spins a new love story.
THE NEW GIRLFRIEND - Francois Ozon is back with the story of a young woman who makes a startling discovery about the husband of
her dead best friend.
BIRDMAN - Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("Amores Perros," "Babel") recruits Michael Keaton as an aging actor trying to relive his heyday as a superhero.
THE CUT - Fatih Akin ("Head On," "The
Edge of Heaven") casts Tahar Rahim from "A Prophet" to turn a spotlight on the Turkish genocide
of the Armenians between the wars in the 20th Century.
NED RIFLE - Indie darling Hal Hartley completes the
trilogy he began with "Henry Fool" and "Fay Grim," with Henry and Fay's son taking over.
LISTEN UP PHILIP - Alex Ross Perry follows up "The Color Wheel" with a Jason Schwartzman frolic as a writer going off the rails as his second novel is to be published.
LAGGIES - Lynn Shelton continues her slog toward the mainstream with a story of a 30-ish woman (Keira Knightley, meh) ditching her fiance to hang out with a teenage girl.
WHILE WE'RE YOUNG - Noah Baumbach teams with Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as a couple whose
career and marriage are shaken up by a younger pair.
99 HOMES - Ramin Bahrani ("Man
Push Cart," "Chop Shop," "Goodbye Solo") returns with the story of an unemployed
construction worker and a shady realtor who foreclose mortgages.
FOXCATCHER - Bennett Miller ("Capote," "Moneyball") casts Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum in another promising wrestling film. (See "Win Win.")
Familiar Faces
CAKE - Jennifer Aniston is a woman in a
chronic-pain support group who investigates the suicide
of a fellow group member (Anna Kendrick). Also starring William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman.
WHIPLASH - Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons team up as rivals between a college band leader and the drummer he recruits.
MANGLEHORN - David Gordon Green casts Al Pacino as a local locksmith still heartbroken by the woman he loved and lost decades
ago.
MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN - Jason Reitman corrals Adam Sandler for a comedy about sexual angst in the Internet age. Also starring
Kaitlyn Dever, the little punk from “Short Term Twelve."
ST. VINCENT - Bill Murray stars as a brooding former Vietnam War vet who befriends a neighbor boy and takes the lad on inappropriate adventures.
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING - "Man on Wire" director James Marsh dramatizes Stephen Hawking's life story.
DUMB AND DUMBER TO - The originals are back with a sequel to one of the stupidest and funniest movies of all time.
INHERENT VICE - Shall we give Paul Thomas Anderson and Joaquin Phoenix another chance? Here they adapt Thomas Pynchon's gonzo 2009 novel about a Southern California private eye investigating the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend's wealthy
boyfriend. The cast includes Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson and Reese
Witherspoon.
Pulp Fiction
GONE GIRL - Warily, we dive into the juicy adaptation of that great summer novel despite director David Fincher and star Ben Affleck.
KILL THE MESSENGER - The sad story of Gary Webb, the west coast journalist who pursued the explosion of crack in the inner city during the 1980s. Starring Jeremy Renner, with Mary Elizabeth Winstead ("Smashed").
EDEN - Greta Gerwig stars in the new
film from French director Mia Hansen-Løve ("Goodbye First Love"), which
focuses on the rise of the French electronic-music boom in the 1990s.
Lynn Shelton ("Humpday," "Your Sister's Sister") switches Duplass brothers and gives a lead role to Jay, teaming with Edie Falco, for the story about an ex-con adjusting to society for the first time as an adult, "Outside In."
We're not ready to quit Wes Anderson yet. He returns to stop-action animation ("The Fantastic Mr. Fox") with the dystopian "Isle of Dogs."
Laurent Cantet ("The Class") returns to an adolescent academic setting with a drama about students doing a group exercise with a novelist, "The Workshop."
Chinese students navigate life in the United States while attending a private college in Maine, the documentary "Maineland."
Fifty years on, a documentary about the final years in the life of MLK, "King in the Wilderness."
In a variation on New to the Queue, we list the past two weeks' openings in New York City, which we would be bingeing on if we happened to live there this week:
Two of the most anticipated films of the year: Michael Keaton spoofing his own career highlight as a superhero in Alejandro Inarritu's "Birdman," and the return of Alex Ross Perry ("The Color Wheel") snagging Jason Schwartzman, who plays a variation on his "Bored to Death" writer, in "Listen Up Philip."
The impressive debut of Justin Simien, "Dear White People."
For a quick pick-me-up, a documentary about genocide, "Watchers of the Sky."
Another doc, a sympathetic one about the hero/traitor Edward Snowden, from PBS "POV" trailblazer Laura Poitras, "Citizenfour."
Lynn Shelton stumbled last time out, and we're not big fans of Keira Knightley, but we'll check out "Laggies."
A Swedish film about a relationship, with avalanches as a metaphor (nice), "Force Majeure."
A look at a fading artist losing the battle against Alzheimer's, "Glen Campbell ... I'll Be Me."
ARE WE GOOD? (B+) - Welcome to your 60s, Marc Maron. As if the comedian/podcaster weren't grumpy enough over the years.
This documentary tracks Maron -- an admittedly B-list standup -- as he winds down his pioneering podcast "WTF" and moves on from the COVID-era death of his girlfriend, the filmmaker Lynn Shelton. That was a tough blow for him in 2020, having found a true partner after a couple of failed marriages and even more battles with drugs.
Here he is, warts and all, a kid from Albuquerque, putting his life in perspective, and as sociology, it can be fascinating at times -- though Maron's self-deprecating crankiness gets a bit old hat across 97 minutes. Maron grapples with an unhappy family history, too, particularly with a gruff, philandering father who now is dealing with dementia, assisted by a younger wife, Rosie (who decades ago was his business assistant). The film's coda places father and son in an Albuquerque diner (Maron is good about coming back to his hometown to look in on the old guy), and it's almost remarkable how unremarkable and anti-climactic the scene is. It lacks either tension or a connection -- just a middle-aged man and his elderly father existing in the same space for a while.
Director Steven Feinartz, a veteran of standup specials, and rookie writer Julie Seabaugh struggle at times to find narrative hooks or a-ha moments that will jump off the screen. Instead, it's slow and steady as she goes, and luckily Maron (depending on your tastes) is an intelligent soul-searcher whose musings connect on a basic level. They assemble some of Maron's comic pals -- including David Cross, John Mulaney, Caroline Rhea and Michaela Watkins -- who explain how far Maron has come from his wilder early years, which included partying with Sam Kinison and displayed through some old stage clips. No one, though, is ever really able to truly capture what exactly made Maron such an asshole back in the day and why they admire is journey as a man.
But Maron does exude a certain rough-hewn charm, even in this maudlin milieu. He is loving to his cats, and he seems to have great taste in music, as reflected on the soundtrack. It might help to connect if you are close to his age and are of a mind to take stock of the events that have unspooled over the decades. My older movie companion and I were heartened.
CODA: As we stood on the sidewalk outside the Guild Cinema breaking down the film, out from the theater toddled an elderly man struggling against a cane, aided by his younger partner. It was Maron's father and Rosie.
BONUS TRACKS
The soundtrack helps the film build to a crescendo and find closure. That includes "The Ticking Is the Bomb" by Dean Wareham of Luna:
The hypnotic "Manhattan" from Chan Marshall as Cat Power:
And over the closing credits, Big Thief with "Change":
A drama about young adults running a foster-care facility, "Short Term 12."
And this past Friday, the New York Times reviewed 25 (!) new releases in one edition. We plowed through them all (plus the crossword puzzle) and settled on these titles:
The provocative (exploitative?) documentary about the elusive author, "Salinger."
Lynn Shelton's on a roll, and she grabs Rosemarie DeWitt again for her lead in "Touchy Feely."
A documentary about the woman who runs a special-ed school in Newark, "Best Kept Secret."
A 62-minute doc on parent-trigger laws that create charter schools, "We the Parents."
The creepy tale of orphaned teens falling prey to skeevy men, including Rutger Hauer, "Il Futuro."
Naomi Watts and Robin Wright as soccer moms sleeping with each other's 20-year-old sons? Be strong ... Resist ... "Adore."
TO LESLIE (B) - Your patience will be tested as to whether you can endure this poverty porn and anxiety exercise about an alcoholic woman reaching another rock bottom six years after having won the lottery. Andrea Riseborough's haunting performance as Leslie is so authentic you might not have the guts to last the two hours of wallowing and desperation.
It doesn't help that she's surrounded by a supporting cast leaning heavily into the corn-pone. It is difficult to stay in the story when you have Hollywood types, raised in the northeast, slathering on the southern drawl. Allison Janney has her moments as Leslie's nemesis; her character Nancy is seethingly resentful that she had to raise Leslie's son, James (a typically mopey Owen Teague). And then there is Marc Maron, turning in another shaky performance, as Sweeney, a kindhearted motel owner who hires the destitute Leslie to clean rooms. Maron was an odd man out in Lynn Shelton's "Sword of Trust," and he shows no more range here as the one-note good guy. (Apparently Maron's role was originally slated for John Hawkes; that's quite a step-down.) Andre Royo and Stephen Root are wasted in fringe roles.
But this is Riseborough's show, from beginning to end. But she is essentially too good, highlighting several weaknesses -- the so-so cast, the labored script, and the plodding pace of the production. Her take on the character is so raw and searing -- which is not to say that it's overdone in any way -- that it overwhelms everything around it. It is probably one of the all-time great depictions of addiction, and you ache for her at all times, even during the bittersweet ending, which offers the hope of redemption. But too often the plot is weak, the pace slow, the surrounding characters dull -- and you wonder if this is anything more than a master class in acting by Riseborough.
This is only the second film written by Ryan Binaco ("3022") and it is directed by TV journeyman Michael Morris ("Better Call Saul"), making his big-screen debut. They wallow in Leslie's condition. They smother the soundtrack with classic country songs that often are too precisely on point for Leslie's latest predicament. Their default is not so much to brutalize Leslie's addiction but to belabor it. Riseborough might leave you in awe, but she's also likely to leave you feeling, as one character notes, "rode hard and hung up wet."
SHELTER IN SOLITUDE (C+) - I just can't recommend a movie that -- no matter how entertaining at times -- is structured around a preposterous idiot plot. This one is ridiculous, even if it has the low hum of amusing rural characters.
Siobhan Fallon Hogan (Kramer's girlfriend on "Seinfeld" way back in the day) is a talented comic actor, and puts her heart into the screenplay, about a washed up country singer who improbably befriends a death-row inmate. Viv (Hogan) is a hot mess; her juke joint has been closed by COVID (and has been robbed during the shutdown), and she likes to drink and sleep a lot in her sloppy home. Her brother Dwayne (a solid Robert Patrick) runs the prison, and Viv somehow manages to get a job overnight guarding a prisoner facing the electric chair, noble Jackson (Peter Macon).
If you can make it over that logical leap, pace yourself -- there are plenty more hurdles to come. Would you believe that Jackson is an innocent man who was just trying to protect his daughter from a rapist? Viv tracks down the daughter, revealing more and more illogical plot contrivances in order to build up a mountain of sympathy for poor Jackson. By the end of the film, the story has gone beyond being cartoonish.
But things pass along in a folksy manner for an hour and a half, and Hogan and Patrick do make for a delightful bickering brother-sister duo. Quirky characters, sporting southern accents, come and go. Viv abides. And it's all rather inoffensive, even if it's far-fetched.
BONUS TRACK
"To Leslie" begs for old-school country cred via its soundtrack full of ringers from the classic era. The best is an all-time favorite from Waylon Jennings, "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way":
Leslie sits in a bar at a crucial point in the movie, and the song is just a little too spot-on -- Willie Nelson shortening Waylon's title to three words, "Are You Sure":
It was mid-August 1969, and the Chicago Cubs were beginning an epic collapse -- blowing a 9.5-game lead that month -- eventually ending up 8 games behind the Amazin' New York Mets. My grandfather uttered "The Cubs stink," went off to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and as he returned to the living room, he keeled backward in the doorway and crashed like a tree, gone instantly. He was 65.
I was 6.
A lot of ugly but amazin' stuff happened in 1969, and after a year of anniversaries, it's time to put them in an Apollo time capsule and seal them away forever. Last year my age was a multiple of seven, and it was time to launch a new seven-year life cycle. I rewatched -- either on the big screen or in my mind's eye -- the gathering at Woodstock, the moon landing, Chappaquiddick, the Manson murders, the collapse of those Cubs, the felling of my mom's dad, the start of kindergarten.
In 2019, I was surrounded by death and illness. Cancer attacked my mom and two of my oldest friends, one of whom succumbed. Two close friends had loved ones murdered. My healing guru in Arizona died of a heart attack. During this whole struggle, I outlived my father, whose heart had given out 28 years earlier, a half a lifetime ago. The message of this odd year was loud, if not clear: It was time to let go and move on.
Seven years have passed since I revived this film blog full-time at the start of 2013, and that's a life cycle that feels complete. (It helped that in 2016 the Cubs finally exorcised decades of demons by winning the World Series.) It became clear this year as I indulged in the nostalgia and trauma of my childhood era, that it's time to bury the '60s. It was a treat to revisit the moon mission in the tick-tock documentary "Apollo 11"; watch the baby boomers wallow in rose-tinted memories of Woodstock documentaries; or have Quentin Tarantino meticulously re-create the specific time of the Manson killings in L.A. that summer (or, better yet, view the female perspective in "Charlie Says"). But it's over.
There's a list below of the best films of 2019, and it's, you know, a list -- already pinned to the past. Many of you have already skipped down to it. That's great. Load up your queue. Follow the links. The blurbs speak for themselves. No essay needed to put it all into perspective. There was no grand theme that emerged. Like the past couple of years, only the top two or three will endure as great movies that withstand the test of time. (We're twinning this entry with a Best of the Decade, for perspective. We mean it -- it's time to put a bow on an era.)
Which brings me to the movie that struck me as the most appropriate and symbolic of the year, a little-noticed film from 2005. It's called "Game 6," and it has all the ingredients I need in an obscure film -- pre-"Birdman" Michael Keaton as my avatar, a baseball obsession (this time the Red Sox' epic fail in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series), a screenplay by Don DeLillo. (GRADE: B+)
The film observes one day in the life in Manhattan of noted playwright Nicky Rogan (Keaton), whose latest drama -- based on his family history -- is debuting on Broadway (and before the vicious critic Steven Schwimmer, played by a loopy Robert Downey Jr.) on the same night that the Red Sox are seeking to close out the World Series in Game 6. You might recall it would be the night when Mookie Wilson's dribbler would go through Bill Buckner's legs, continuing the 68-year Curse of the Bambino.
Buckner, the epitome of the agony of defeat, died, conveniently for this essay, in May of last year at 69. For Nicky, Buckner's error was just another in a long line of heartbreaking plays going back to his childhood as a Red Sox fan. (His age 6 scar involved Johnny Pesky's hesitation on a relay throw in Game 7 of the 1946 Series.) It's that decades-long rollercoaster of having hopes perpetually raised and dashed, raised and dashed, by a stupid baseball team you can't let go of. "It's like having your whole childhood die," Nicky laments to his mistress as he spits mouthwash into the sink for effect, "over and over and over again."
Nicky stalks the city for hours, visiting with a panoply of "This Is Your Life" personas: his dotty father (Tom Aldredge), a burned-out playwright pal (Griffin Dunne), his flaky daughter (Ari Graynor), his chain-smoking estranged wife (Catherine O'Hara -- "I've been talking to a prominent divorce attorney." / "How prominent?" / "He has his own submarine."), his barber (who provides him with a Chekhovian pistol), his lover (Bebe Neuwirth), a young actress (Shalom Harlow), and the cast of his play at rehearsal, led by Peter Redmond (Harris Yulin), who has a mysterious brain disease that's messing with his line readings. Peter can't remember a key line, even though his father character must merely repeat the line posed to him by the son in the play: "This could be it."
This could be it.
Nicky engages with a cabdriver (Lillias White) and her grandson. (In classic DeLillo fashion (see "Cosmopolis") Nicky hopscotches through Manhattan on this day, regaling each of the cabbies (who bear ominous post-9/11 foreign monikers) with his own tales of driving a taxi back in his lean days.) He takes gram and grandson to dinner to watch Game 6. The cabdriver, a wise owl, has mistaken Nicky for an infamous local mobster, and he plays along, gun in the waistband and all. She tries to imbue him with positivity, urging him to lose the loser mentality and embrace hope. (They develop the circular mantra "Baseball is life. Life is good.") Cue a bar full of annoying Mets fans.
This could be it. The moment when the tortured past gets purged, sins are washed.
Except -- and we know this all along -- it doesn't work. Or Nicky just isn't open enough to the universe to allow it to end well. That 6-year-old is stubborn. God and Bill Buckner (former Cub) had other plans. (And Tarantino isn't around to rewrite history.)
DeLillo's philosophical musings are a treat throughout this snappy 83-minute stage play for the screen, full of precise phrasing. (At one point Nicky complains to his pal about a reclusive colleague wasting away "in a small, dark apartment eating soft, white bread.") But the novelist isn't exactly subtle here. "Your truth is locked up in the past," Nicky is told. "Find it. Know it for what it is."
Finding it isn't the problem. How obvious can it be? How heavy can it sit on a 6-year-old's shoulders? But knowing it and wrestling it into submission -- that's the challenge. Nicky would have to wait another 18 years for that championship, for expiation, if he could even be bothered to hold out that long. It can feel impossible to let go of the things that stamped us when we were small.
2019 was a ghastly, ghostly year at times. To cope, I numbed myself with an inordinate number of "R.I.P." headlines in this space -- Agnes Varda, Bruno Ganz, Robert Forster, Robert Evans, Kim Shattuck, Daniel Johnston, Phillip Blanchard, D.A. Pennebaker, Dick Dale ... even one of the "Seven Up" kids died before the latest installment of "63 Up." Bring out your dead!
The pathetic mantra of the Cubs back in the day was always "Wait till next year." Well, next year has finally arrived. The '60s are now comfortably more than 50 years ago; time to seal the decade in a sarcophagus. I'm still among the living, willing to squint into the sunshine and step forward. This could be it.
THE TOP FILMS
1. Give Me Liberty- An exciting debut feature that captures a day in the life of ordinary folks, including a medical transport driver and his charges, in a big city. 2. The Other Side of Everything- A mesmerizing tone poem about the breakup of Yugoslavia as seen through one family's history. 3. Marriage Story - Harrowing, funny, real. It hits uncomfortably close to home. 4. Thunder Road - A crazed fever dream chronicling a flawed man's often-hilarious mental and emotional breakdown. A one-man tour de force. 5. Under the Silver Lake- A modern stoner neon neo-noir in the grand tradition of L.A. cinema. 6. Hail Satan? - A flawless documentary that is informative and entertaining. 7. Wild Rose- As close to pure joy and heartbreak as we got in 2019. 8. Never Look Away- A gorgeous sweeping history of the second half of the 20th century from the fussy auteur Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck 9. Fyre - An absolute hoot and a story that tells itself so well that all the filmmakers had to do was get out of the way and let it spill. 10.Parasite - Bong Joon-ho finally finds the sweet spot between story and spectacle with a sizzling, juicy narrative. 11. Waves - An epic, gut-wrenching family drama that lures you to the edge of your seat and then slams you back in the chair. 12. Honeyland- Realism doesn't get more depressing or insightful than in this documentary. 13. Booksmart- Sheer giddiness and old-fashioned angsty high school bawdiness with two strong leads.
We got to a few leftovers from 2018, too late to make last year's list. A pair that stood out: the unique perspective of the quirky documentary "Bisbee '17"; the tender story of skate-punk buds, "Minding the Gap"
With the dearth of compelling 2019 releases, we reached back further in time and appreciated the following:
We finally got around to re-viewing and reviewing one of the greatest movies of all time, 1968's "Spring Night, Summer Night."
The lovely tale of an old man in his final days, from Italy, "The Window" (2009).
We paid tribute to the memory of Bruno Ganz by teeing up the 1987 classic "Wings of Desire."
David Lean adapting Noel Coward with 1945's "Brief Encounter."
Jamie Bell starring in David MacKenzie's "Mister Foe" from 2008.
Not that we've bothered much with Martin Scorsese the past 20 years, but "The Irishman" was dullsville. And his cheat of a documentary with Bob Dylan was unforgivable, "Rolling Thunder: A Bob Dylan Film."
Frederick Wiseman is fading fast with the watching-corn-grow tedium of "Monrovia, Indiana," a leftover from late 2018.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
(Haven't caught these yet)
Celine Sciamma's "Portrait of a Lady on Fire"
Francois Ozon's "By the Grace of God"
From Romania, "I Do Not Care If We Go Down as Barbarians"
From China, "One Child Nation"
The Safdie brothers' "Uncut Gems"
Stay tuned for reviews of those five titles and plenty more, albeit in condensed form, as we gleefully charge into 2020, such a round even number.
