Carnal Knowledge

1971 sex drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A pair of friends fail to grow as sexual beings.

Whenever Jack Nicholson had to be naked in this movie--and there are frequent chances for his character to shower for whatever reason--he told the crew, "Here comes Big Steve!"

Neither of these characters wind up developing enough to make a marriage work, but this movie is a perfect marriage of great writing and great acting. The dialogue is so clever here, and it's clever in a way where the characters aren't even aware how clever it is. In fact, most of the time, these characters aren't even in on the joke as there are great moments of dramatic irony.

Every actor in this gets a chance to shine, even Carol Kane who doesn't get a single line. Nicholson's at his most ornery and fiery, playing this chauvinist who is probably easier to despise than feel sorry for. This character fits him so well that you might think he's playing some version of himself. He gets to scream the word "cunt" and talk about "tits" a lot, but there are so many layers with this character who on the surface is nothing but surface that it makes his journey, or really a lack of journey, such a rewarding experience.

Big goofy Art Garfunkel is great at pretending his character has dimensions, but it's all a deception. You think you've seen everything you need to see with Garfunkel, and then all of a sudden, the dude's got a mustache and you're blown away. A mustachioed Garfunkel becomes your solitary ice-skating beauty twirling on the ice. He's so sneakily unlikable, both a foil for Nicholson's character and a despicable male at the same time. And just watch him down that drink.

Candice Bergen is an approachable beauty. She's involved in a lovely opening shot, an extended shot where she emerges from the darkness and apparently a Volkswagon and then becomes the victim of Garfunkel's awkwardness. Her best moment is this perfect look she gives nobody in particular when Garfunkel stupidly asks, "What do I do with my other hand?" She's great at playing this character who is between rock-hard Nicholson and Garfunkel and a hard place, and I kind of like how she just disappears from the movie, a character who knows this really isn't her story.

Ann-Magret has the most arousing tan lines I've seen in a while. Her character is a wounded and beautiful animal, and you have to appreciate her as an actress here because she's able to keep up with whatever Nicholson is doing. She and Jack get a sex scene, and it's something else, not because of what you see (which is nothing) but because of their sounds as the camera tracks through the apartment on a hunt for the couple. Post-coital, Nicholson showers, and Ann-Magret shows off her tan lines, and it's like a randy Edward Hopper painting.

I don't know if Mike Nichols is thought of as a visual filmmaker, but this is shot really well. A lot of the time, the characters are half-submerged in these shadows, and there are times, like in that opening extended shot, where the camera moves exquisitely. I also loved this transition with a white screen and then that shot of the ice skater. So perfect, like a dream these two characters can't shake themselves awake from no matter how destructive it is.

This isn't the happiest of movies, but there's definitely some comedic moments. They come as naturally as the performances. You have to love Nicholson's narrated "ball busters" slide show, and his Porky impression that ends it.

Which song is used more in films, by the way--"Beyond the Sea" or "Moonlight Serenade"? You'd know the latter if you heard it.

Great tagline for this one: The United States Supreme Court Has Ruled That "Carnal Knowledge" Is Not Obscene. See It Now! All the best movies from 1971 are nearly obscene, it seems.

First Man

2018 moon movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Neil Armstrong goes to the moon.

Flag lovers get more than a few money shots as the patriotism is surprisingly laid on pretty thickly here. I say surprisingly because there was the hubbub way before the film's release that had the MAGA crowd upset because there wasn't a shot of that flag on the moon, I'm guessing because they wanted to use it as masturbation fodder. America-loving tweeters were ready to burn their copies of La La Land because they'd heard the flag was replaced with all this hippie globalist garbage about an international effort to explore beyond Earth's atmosphere. Indeed, the influence of Armstrong's soundless tap dance on moon dust (because this is a Damien Chazelle movie) is shown in a montage of international broadcasts and interview snippets with people in various places around the world. As a proud libtard, I thought that was a nice touch, and I also liked more brief pandering to the hippie audience with a portrayal of Gil Scott-Heron performing "Whitey on the Moon" and some shots of protesters that might tick off patriots as much as watching the national anthem before an NFL game. Now that I think about it, maybe there is enough here to piss off Americans who really love America. I mean, we didn't actually see a flag planted, did we?

I'll tell you what annoyed me, however. I couldn't care less about the planting of that flag. I'm more troubled that Chazelle didn't show Buzz Aldrin--arguably a more interesting character than Neil Armstrong, by the way, although Second Man probably won't be made any time soon--pooping on the moon. That was what got me into that theater seat. Armstrong might have been the first man to step onto the surface of the moon, but Aldrin, as you might not know but should, was the first man to defecate on the moon. But no, this movie is more concerned showing Armstrong next to a crater with this sentimental gesture to jerk a few tears from the audience than showing what Buzz Aldrin was probably doing at the same time--taking the first lunar dump.

Maybe it'll be a deleted scene on the dvd release? Buzz Aldrin fans can only hope.

Chazelle bounces back and forth between two distinct storylines with the same protagonist. There's the trials and tribulations of Armstrong and his astronaut buddies and their efforts to finally beat the Russians at something. And there's the domestic troubles in the Armstrong household as Neil makes a half-assed attempt to balance work and being a husband and father. I do like that this includes the struggles of being an astronaut's wife as much as the struggles of being an astronaut, but I didn't love how the scenes were filmed. With the space and rocket stuff, you've got a lot of claustrophobic moments and perspective shots where you are forced to look at nothing at all or can't even be sure what you're looking at, and along with a lot of shaky cinematography, you're really placed in Armstrong's astronaut boots. Chazelle shoots the domestic scenes similarly. A lot of the scenes in Armstrong's home look like home video footage shot by somebody who really needed a tripod. I'm sure this was the filmmaker's attempt to match the turbulence of space travel with the turbulence of Armstrong's domestic life, both which whichever-Ryan-this-is stoically works his way through. I just thought it was a little too much and didn't care for the style.

I thought this Ryan (Gosling, I think) and Claire Foy as his wife were both really good in those scenes though. Foy does a lot with her giant eyes to express things that we don't need the character to even say. Gosling gets to cry a couple of times and be stoic most of the time, just like how America likes its astronautic heroes. The other astronaut actors, including Jason Clarke because he has to be in every movie, are fine at acting like tough astronauts, like frightened astronauts, and like astronauts on fire.

Of course, most people watching this movie, unless they're just there to see a flag being planted on the moon, are interested in that space and rocket stuff. It's all pretty great, mostly in how it creates that claustrophobic chaos of space travel. I knew how every single one of these scenes with Armstrong and others in rockets ended, but the cinematography and editing of these sequences managed to have me on the edge of my seat anyway. For the sheer awe-inducing beauty of space travel, I'd still turn to For All Mankind and its real footage, but there were a lot of shots in this that looked like they came straight from that documentary.

It's probably in the quieter moments when this really works. There's music in this movie, but most of the time, I kind of wish the action unfolded sans any score at all. And that's even with the cool use of the theremin. I did really enjoy a musical moment during the trio's trip to the moon after Armstrong passes Aldrin a cassette. But those quiet moments--a first shot of the moon's surface when the Eagle's door is open after it (spoiler alert) lands, a bird flying past the window of a rocket pre-launch, a shot of an astronaut obviously contemplative even though you can't see his face, those footprints, the final shot of the Armstrong couple--are probably more memorable than the more bombastic highlights of Armstrong's trek.

Poor Michael Collins, by the way. The dude's barely mentioned by name in this movie.

Idaho Transfer

1973 science fiction movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Kids are whisked 56 years into the future in an attempt to save humanity from being wiped out by some unnamed catastrophic event.

The second Fonda-directed movie I've seen in the past week, Idaho Transfer is an odd little sci-fi movie. I hesitate to call it a gem because its limitations really get in the way. Fonda doesn't seem all that interested in telling a story that makes much sense, and for the second movie in a row, I had to seek some help afterward in order to even find out what happened. The actors and actresses are mostly non-professionals, and it shows. The movie does have a Carradine in it though. The acting is not good, lines seemingly read with these stilted deliveries, but in a way, it adds to the weird vibe of the whole thing. But I'll tell you what--listening to the two sisters having conversations about all this time-travel stuff and scientific mumbo-jumbo nearly caused me to bail, especially when there were voiceovers over scenes of their driving.

The complete lack of budget was not one of the major problems. Fonda seems to be working with a budget of about 150 dollars, but that also adds to that aforementioned weird vibe. And I actually liked the lone special effect used in this movie--a kind of shaky slow fade used during the "transferring." The setting is mostly this post-apocalyptic desert strewn with lava rocks, and where this really succeeds as a science fiction movie is in Fonda taking advantage of the otherworldly beauty of Craters of the Moon National Park. A large percentage of the movie is shots of characters maneuvering through this landscape, making it like a cross between Gerry and Primer. There are a few gorgeous shots, including one that includes this inexplicable rainbow.

If Fonda and writer Thomas Matthiesen (a guy who has nothing else on his filmography) didn't really succeed in telling a Twilight Zone type of story, you'd want the movie to be strong thematically. It almost gets there, but it's a little thematically muddled unfortunately.

Bruce Langhorn (or Bruce Langehorne as he's credited here) did the score for this one, but there's a lot more synth than in The Hired Hand. It's not bad though.

Hold the Dark

2018 mysterious wolf movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: After wolves allegedly drag off yet another kid somewhere in Alaska, a guy who wrote a book about wolves is summoned to find the animal. Then a bunch of other things happen in sequential order.

Hold the Dark? This movie should have been called Keep the Viewer in the Dark. Wakka wakka!

I don't mind a little or even a lot of mystery in a movie narrative. But Saulnier seems to be working extra hard to really keep me from understanding what was going on here. I really don't think it's laziness on my part this time. I mean, I have trouble understanding some of the Marvel movies, but that's on me because I get bored early and kind of stop paying attention. That didn't happen here. I got bored with this, but I was actively paying attention.

The plot makes very little sense. It's a series of things that happen in sequential order, but looking at anything closely, it's hard to pinpoint exactly why any of it happened. Saulnier, I'm guessing, is being purposely nebulous, probably because it's artsier that way, but it really kept every single character in this thing at a distance. I've got so many questions about why this character did this or why that character went there or what the hell this mask business was all about or where the hell did that come from, but there was very little in this movie that makes me want to put any thought into any of that.

I'm sure there's some connection being made to humanity and the primitive. It's possible that it's all interesting, but when one character tells another that he needs to "let the wolf out a little" or something, I just rolled my eyes. I'm pretty sure these are themes that were already covered in Teen Wolf Too.

Why does everybody whisper in Alaska? Do they not want the dark to be able to hear them? Jennifer Jason Leigh actually would have been perfect in this movie because she's got that whispery acting down. Saulnier must have told his entire cast to pretend they were Jennifer Jason Leigh.

There are some nifty shots of wolves and the Alaskan wilderness. More emphasis on the importance of place might have helped this out a little, but like the plot, that wasn't fully realized. There's shocking bits of violence in this with shocking bits of people being shot off or people being shockingly stabbed a little bit or getting shocking arrows in their shocking bits. Saulnier isn't shy with the bleeding if that's your bag.

Private Life

2018 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A couple in their forties try various ways to get themselves a kid. A step-niece might be the answer!

Here's what is most amazing about this movie--as good as Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti are in this, neophyte Kayli Carter in her first movie comes in and more than holds her own. She really gets beneath the skin of her character and really nails both the confusion and excitement of the character in her particular situation. She's playful and she's scared and she's empathetic and she's sad in just the right amounts.

Hahn and Giamatti really are good. The latter even gets a shot at some physical comedy, and he nails it, most obviously in an early scene that involves some pornographic material. Hahn's terrific, doing all sorts of subtle things with her face and body language to define this character. Really, the pair do a great job creating a single character--a married couple who are part of the same team but not really together. I'm not sure how much rehearsal went into working on their body language in the scenes they're in together, but they paint this picture of this couple who probably aren't as hopeful as they want to believe they are and do a terrible job of hiding their frustration.

Oh, and you know who else can really act? Molly Shannon! A spin-off movie where we get to explore that character a little more wouldn't be a terrible idea.

This is one of Netflix's better film offerings. Tamara Jenkins, whose only other two films are Slums of Beverly Hills and The Savages for some reason, wrote and directed this, and like those other two movies, she's created these characters in difficult situations. There's some humor because there has to be. One needs humor in order to wade through the absurdity. There are also all these clever little touches. So many shots look ironically pre- or post-coital.

And that ending! It reminded me of the ending of another 2018 movie, but I wouldn't want to mention which one for fear of spoiling this movie or that one. I like endings that are bound to piss off a large percentage of the viewing population, and this one has the potential to do that.

This reminds me of good Woody Allen, and if that's the sort of drama with light comedic touches that appeals to you or if you like Jenkins other two movies (seriously--only two?), then you should check this out.

Maleficent

2014 twisted fairy tale

Rating: 9/20

Plot: It's Sleeping Beauty but from the perspective of the villainess.

I've been trying to do some research to find out whether Angelina Jolie's cheekbones were CGI or not.

Look, I don't want to make this entire review about whether or not I'd have sex with Maleficent or not, but there are some things I have to get out of the way. First, would Diaval have be there? You almost assume he would, and even if he's not, I'd be spending the whole time wondering if this shadow or that mouse or that candlestick is a peeping shapeshifter. I'm just not comfortable with the idea of somebody being in the room and watching me while I disappoint Angelina Jolie.

Second, wings or no wings? Likely, wings of that size would get in the way or at least limit the number of positions that could happen. I'm fine with Maleficent-on-top although seeing those wings would be intimidating. Any reverse-cowgirl situation could result in a concussion or a mouth full of oily feathers.

Third, would the James Newton Howard score have to be involved? I've gone limp just thinking about it.

Actually, it's entirely possible that I'm now impotent because of the fairies in this movie--Dimbleweed, Thistlebong, and Snottybits. They're played by Imelda Staunton, who should have been able to find something better to do with her time; Juno Temple, who should have been able to find something better to do with her time; and Lesley Manville, who should have been able to find something better to do with her time. Thinking of them in their small-fairy form, it's unlikely that I'll ever be able to get an erection again. R.I.P., true love, and R.I.P., Shane's boner.

What do you think a fairy would smell like? Most, I think, would guess that a fairy would smell pleasant, but I'm thinking it's the complete opposite, something like a mix of dead flowers and stale pixie dust and turtle ass and those candy circus peanut things. What do you think Angelina Jolie smells like, and is that different than how Maleficent would smell?

Sex in the air might be an option, but I'm going to be honest with you--as my wife could tell you, I barely know what I'm doing on a flat surface. How does one get leverage when having sexual intercourse while floating in the air? I don't like my chances up there.

Also, I assume that sex with Maleficent would have to occur in the world created by these Disney animators. Sure, it's an imaginative explosion of fairy tale foliage, gnarled castles and cliffs, and strange creatures, but I thought it was pretty ugly, production values not too far off from what you'd expect to see from that fairy tale drama that was on television. What was that called? Grimm? The initial novelty of seeing the character fly or the backgrounds wore off very quickly. CGI-enhanced sets looked strangely flat and lifeless.

Jolie is about perfect for this role, but she's got very little to work with. The script does almost none of the lifting in the creation of this character. It's all costuming and cheekbones. Most of the performers look a little lost in this thing, like they're having trouble connecting with other characters or the world they exist in. My guess is that a lot of them weren't used to acting in front of green screens.

[Questionable content has been removed here.]

I'm going to go look for Maleficent erotic fan fiction now.

Shaft

1971 blaxploitation classic

Rating: 12/20

Plot: The titular private eye is hired by a gangster to find his kidnapped daughter.

What's it say about me that my favorite part of this movie is a stuttering newsstand guy?

Richard Roundtree was in the Samuel L. Jackson remake of Shaft from 2000, and I just noticed that there's going to be a sequel to that supposedly coming out next year. I really like him here. This was his first role, and he comes on the scene as a presence. Half of what makes this movie worth watching at all is the attitude that he brings to the character.

Am I allowed to say that I don't think the score for this is all that good?

The Hired Hand

1971 Western

Rating: 15/20

Plot: After trouncing around the country with a buddy, a man decides to return home to his wife and daughter. She allows him to stick around as a hired hand.

If nothing else, this Peter Fonda Western preaches "bros before hos." This one's got complex characters created in very simple ways. The filmmaking, with its slow dissolves and languid pace, almost seems lazy. These characters--especially Fonda's and that character's wife played by Verna Bloom--have all kinds of unexplored dimensions. Instead of fleshing them out with needless flashbacks or exposition, the characters are just allowed to exist in this time and in this conflict. Fonda and Bloom are good, and it's always fun to see Warren Oates.

I like the easygoing stylistic touches of this one. There are some really beautiful shots and all those slow dissolves, but the real star might be the soundtrack by Bruce Langhorne, Dylan's inspiration for "Mr. Tambourine Man." It's so pretty, just stunningly beautiful, and it fits the pace of the narrative perfectly.

My favorite moments include a death scene in which a young buck convulses and moans, "Mother!" I also liked a messenger's giggle.

It's funny to see how drastically different this Peter Fonda film is compared to his Easy Rider cohort Dennis Hopper's from the same year.

Funeral Parade of Roses

1969 flower movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Transvestites do their thing in Japan.

There's a narrative loosely based on Oedipus Rex in this mishmash of avant-garde tomfoolery, documentary-like interviews, and cinema verite; unfortunately, I had trouble finding it. Maybe I'm not as familiar with Oedipus Rex as I thought I was or am confusing it with something else.

This is the second Toshio Matsumoto film I've seen recently, and according to IMdB, that means I've seen half of his feature films. This is much different than Shura (Demons). It's definitely a lot more playful. There are title cards, sped-up slapstick sequences, sex scenes with this demented carousel music, talking bubbles, the use of still photography, those documentary-style interviews, some fly-on-the-wall footage of these transvestites playing strip balancing games or dancing, and an out-of-sequence story used to paint a picture of these particular people at this particular time. There's almost no subjectivity. I know Matsumoto's got a story in this, but it's less interested in telling that story than just showcasing these characters and their lifestyle. It's a pretty wild counterculture trip, one shaded by Godard and psychedelia but existing as this crazy beast of a film all by itself.

The performers were mostly non-actors, it seems. The main character Eddie was played by somebody named Pita who was a teenager at the time. Pita would go on to appear in a Zatoichi movie and Kurosawa's Ran. Though I suspect he wasn't playing a character much different than himself, I thought he really seemed like a natural here.

Allegedly, this influenced Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, but I'm having as much trouble seeing that as I did figuring out what was going on with the plot. Surely it's not just the sped-up slapstick parts. Clockwork might be considered fairly wild, but it's definitely a lot more carefully planned than anything that is going on here.

Indecent Desires

1968 outsider porn

Rating: 4/20

Plot: A loner finds a doll in the trash, and combined with a magic ring, he's able to use it like some sort of weird sexual voodoo doll.

Message for my wife if she ever reads this: Yes, I did watch this on a porn streaming site, but I had no choice. This is one of the "certified weird" movies on a site that I like (366 Weird Movies, a site that celebrates "the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, strange, psychedelic, and the just plain WEIRD!"), and I'm trying to watch all 366 movies on the list. This was the only way I could watch this movie.

Watching Indecent Desires, you'd erroneously guess that the perv responsible A) was a man and B) had a high-heel fetish. Well, the writer/director of this Wood-esque soft porn weirdo fantasy was actually a woman named Doris Wishman. She directed it as Louis Silverman and wrote it as Dawn Whitman, and that's something because can you find another case where an artist used two pseudonyms with the same project? How about two pseudonyms that end with the same three letters as the real name?

She might have a high-heel fetish though, or maybe she's just making this for men with that particular fetish. There are a grand total of two female characters in this movie, and both of them are frequently seen walking around their homes or apartments completely naked except for high heels. So that's something. Anybody actually looking for pornographic material on this porn streaming site I used will likely be very disappointed as there's barely any sex at all. Instead, you get a low-budget movie that barely tops the 70-minute mark that might not have enough ideas for a 10-minute short. The black and white and the sound that was obviously dubbed in later gave this a Beast of Yucca Flats vibe. That's probably a boner-kill on its own, so unless you've got a Tor Johnson and high-heel fetish, this likely isn't going to do much for you.

Sharon Kent played the victim of the creepy loner played by Michael Alaimo, a character made even creepier by not having a single line of dialogue in the entire movie. Kent looks great walking around naked in high heels, and she gets one moment to shine when she has to pretend she's being whipped as Alaimo takes a belt to the doll. Wishman/Silverman/Whitman didn't need special effects there because Kent did a good enough job jerking around. Surprisingly, there was one special effect used when the creepy loner saw Ann and her coworker for the first time and the doll is clumsily superimposed over it.

Michael Alaimo seems like the type of actor who would only be in this one movie, but he has quite a few film and television roles. That includes playing a doctor in Space Jam. So good for that guy.

I'm intrigued by Whitman/Silverman/Wishman and would like to see more of her work. Hopefully, my wife won't check my history.

Le Bonheur

1965 colorful film

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A married father of two meets another lady with whom he'd like to sleep and does exactly that.

Sunflowers and Mozart, and my God, what else does a person even need? The colors in this are the most beautiful colors I've seen in a movie recently. Some of these are colors that I'm not sure actually exist though I can't know for sure because I've never been in the French countryside. Colors that seem impossible! Ones that were obviously invented by a higher power just so Agnes Varda could use them in her movie. And she sure knows how to use them! There's a pan across a lake to the happily married couple sitting under a tree, and the background looks like Monet painted it. It's stunning.

Varda also shows off with some flirtation in a cafe. Man, the husband in this movie sure has game. Those lines about ten arms and apple orchards would make any woman swoon, I think. This ends with a montage showing a happy family again (and no, that's not a spoiler), and visually, this shows a woman at the height of her directing powers.

A smarter writer/cinephile would dive into a feminist critique of this, but I'm not that writer/cinephile and won't even bother.

Bad Times at the El Royale

2018 mysterious thriller

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Six people and one desk clerk converge on the El Royale, a tacky motel on the California/Nevada line.

On the one hand, you have to credit writer/director Drew Goddard for making something cohesive out of these divergent characters and their individual narratives that led them to this same place and time. Almost embarrassingly Tarantino-esque with its non-chronological structure, too-cool period characters, loudly hipster soundtrack choices, and even chapter titles, the narrative deceives you into thinking it's better than it actually is. The film's entertaining from beginning to end with twists and turns that keep you guessing, but when you look back on just how empty it all is, you're left a bit cold. I mean, really, what does this add up to? The only things I learned from these characters' shenanigans is that I might have a thing for Dakota Johnson and definitely have a thing for Chris Hemsworth's torso.

Torso aside, Hemsworth's appearance was where this really started to go downhill. Perhaps with this many mini-plots colliding into one gigantic mess of secrets and violence, it was bound to collapse on itself. When Hemsworth gets to the titular motel, things get very silly and more than a little mean. There's one diversion into flashback territories during the lengthy chunk of film that Hemsworth is doing his thing, and that was easily my least favorite part of the movie. That might be because Dakota Johnson was not walking around as much though.

But for you male Fifty Shades fans, I can tell you that she might have been tied up at one point. You perverts.

I thought everybody was good here. Bridges didn't grumble and mumble his way through this like he's done in movies the last few years, and he does some sneaky things to bring some depth to his character. Like almost all of the rest of these characters, he's pretty unlikable, but Bridges manages to make this priest of his somebody you can almost root for. Cynthia Erivo is not an actress I know, but I thought she was great here. And she's got a set of pipes that she shows off in a couple of great scenes, one featuring a metronome which, if you know me at all, you know I always enjoy seeing in movies. Jon Hamm, sometimes with a ridiculous fake accent, and Lewis Pullman with the perfect mixture of innocence and something very very dark, are also very good. Oh, and Nick Offerman is also kind of in this.

This has enough style and some great cinematography that makes it worth watching even if it doesn't work as a whole. The pieces make it worth watching, maybe even a second time. As a fan of kitsch and tackiness, I enjoyed the look of the El Royale. Seems like I've been seeing jukeboxes a lot in movies. I liked how a few of the scenes were shown from multiple viewpoints because it added texture to something that we'd already seen. The overlapping storylines worked, and I enjoyed some of the dark humor. And there was one perfectly choreographed and executed extended shot that I really loved.

What I didn't love: a mystery that remains a mystery, like Marsellus Wallace's briefcase. It just made this seem that much more like a Tarantino rip.

I'm really not sure about my feelings about this movie. Part of me thinks that it's better than I think it is, but part of me thinks it's worse. Parts of it will stick in my mind for a while, and parts of it kind of irritated me.

The Sisters Brothers

2018 Western

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The titular bounty-hunting duo chase down a guy for their boss, Rutger Hauer.

This darkly comic Western appeared on my "Most Anticipated Films" list earlier in the year, mostly because of the team-up of Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly. If you just close your eyes and imagine the kind of rapport these two would have, you'd probably come up with something very similar to what these two have together. They clash beautifully here, and without the use of any words, because words are for sissies in the Wild West, the feelings between these brothers is clear. Thankfully, this isn't as overtly comedic as I'd been led to believe, and the two actor's comedic timing and delivery work perfectly.

Like a lot of Westerns, this has a lot to do with changing times and shifting ideals. There's a clash between the kind of macho brand of shoot-first-ask-questions-later that was probably rampant in this neck of the woods in 1851 and all this newfangled science craziness with its chemistry and its climate change nonsense. That's interesting by itself, but Phoenix's character also seems to have a problem with language. There are several moments in this where Charlie Sisters seems agitated by the words that Jake Gyllenhaal's character uses.

These characters manage to be simple and complex at the same time. They're on a literal journey, but it also winds up being a metaphorical one as well. I don't know how I feel about where the pair end up in this movie, but the individual episodes that get them there sure are entertaining to watch.

Flower

2017 dark comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A troubled teenager explores a money-making scheme with a pair of friends and works on her bowling as she deals with emotions from having a father in prison and a potential step-father and step-brother, the latter who she forms an emotional bond with.

This Zoey Deutch has the potential to be something special, and she does more with this character and this movie than either actually deserve. I didn't like where this started, didn't like where this went, and didn't like where it ended, but I really liked Deutch, an actress who seems to be channeling something from the more angsty 1990s.

I watched this because Tim Heidecker is in it, but his part could have been played by anybody. Adam Scott is also in this, and I'm still not sure what to think about that guy. Part of me likes him because he seems willing to take some risky acting gigs. But it really seems like he plays the exact same character in everything he's in.

My favorite part involved some Cocoa Puffs product placement.

I'm having a tough time understanding what the point of Flower is.

Mind Game

2004 cartoon

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A loser with a crush on a girl gets a second chance at life and love after outsmarting a fish-faced god. A whale is involved.

I'm not sure I've seen anything else like this movie, and that's worth something. Ever-shifting animation styles keep this thing interesting throughout, even when the characters Pinocchio themselves and end up in a single setting for a large chunk of movie. My favorite bit has to do with an ornery God whose visage shifts rapidly enough to give the staunchest atheist a headache.

With a narrative that reminded me a little of Gilliam at his wildest and the chaotic and unpredictable style swings, fans of adventurous animation should seek this out immediately.

This was the first movie I watched in October that wasn't from 1971 or 2018.

The Last Movie

1971 movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A stunt coordinator decides to leave the movie business behind and stay in South America with a lady friend, but he finds himself sucked back into the business when the locals decide to make a film of their own.

1971 brought us The Last Picture Show and The Last Movie. Also released in 1971: The Last Rebel, The Last of the Powerseekers, The Last Valley, The Last Run, The Last Traitor, The Last Child, and The Last Generation. And The Omega Man. This isn't information that you asked for, but I'm here for you anyway.

It would also be the last time a studio gave a lot of money to Dennis Hopper to direct a movie.

Really wanted to like this mess of a movie. In a lot of ways, it's my type of movie, and there's probably a really good movie in there somewhere, the kind of idea that would have been something in the hands of a Jodorowsky or a Herzog. There are ideas about the film industry and its effects on the rest of the world and the creative spirit in there that, along with the exotic locale, should have been fleshed out into something great. But in that hands of a coked-up Dennis Hopper? Not so much.

The biggest issue is easily the disjointed editing, and interestingly enough, that might be Jodorowsky's fault since he saw an earlier cut of Hopper's film and made fun of him for being linear and telling a story that makes sense. So it seems like Hopper took that criticism and, wanting to be one of the cool kids, took a hatchet to his movie and pieced it back together into the mess that it is. It's an easy enough story to piece together again, but it seemed like a lot of work. It was really more work than I was willing to put into the thing.

Hopper's acting is also a concern here. There's a goofiness to what he's doing that makes it impossible to figure out what's going on in his character's mind. He's still Dennis Hopper and therefore impossible to ignore and almost impossible to not like, but he apparently lost interest in creating a character.

I know this has its fans, but it was hard for me to watch this and not see it as a gigantic missed opportunity. Blame the drugs, I guess.

Klute

1971 hooker mystery

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The titular detective looks for a missing friend and gets help from a prostitute.

It's unclear why Jane Fonda won an Oscar for this and wasn't even nominated for her superior performance in Barberella.

I just spent the last fifteen minutes looking at pictures of Jane Fonda. That was time well spent, but now I'm pretty tired.

You know what else is unclear? Why is this movie named after Donald Sutherland's character? To me, it seemed this was more about Bree Daniels' story than Klute's.

I have a couple of favorite parts of this movie, but I don't want to talk about them. They have nothing to do with the mystery that Klute is trying to solve.

10 Rillington Place

1971 killer movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The dirty deeds of a British serial killer are blamed on a neighbor.

This film about a real-life serial killer in this titular English address is less concerned over the grisly details of his murders and more concerned with the effects of impulsivity with investigations about these sorts of things. Murderer John Christie is at the center of things, of course, and the movie does take its time to show you his procedures as he stalks, plans, and kills, but the story's main conflict has more to do with the character played by a very young John Hurt.

The actual murder scenes are creepy because of the mousey Richard Attenborough's quiet performance and the matter-of-fact way he goes about his business. He plays the character with this strained mild mannerism that really gets under your skin. More than any movie I can remember, Attenborough creates a character who personifies dark secrets while seeming like the sort of person who could be your neighbor if you live in England or happen to have a neighbor who speaks in an English accent. It just feels a little too real, and adding to that realism is the fact that this was filmed at the actual address of these crimes.

Here's another note I wrote down but couldn't understand: the word "barrel" with a question mark after it. I figured that one out though. John Hurt's character's wife was named Beryl which, until I watched this, I didn't realize was a name. Darryl? Sure. Meryl? Yeah, I know that one. But Beryl?

I just looked up famous Beryls because I have nothing better to do with my life. There are a few, but I didn't see any A-listers on there. I think if you name your child Beryl, you're really not helping him or her out.

Demons

1971 drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Hell hath no fury like a samurai scorned.

The world is a sea of blood as our scorned hero goes cray-cray and chops some people up. A transition from a color sunset to black and white is jarring but not as much as the twists that director Toshio Matsumoto throws in his storytelling. The story is a simple one of revenge, but there are some avant-garde shadings and some of the bleakest imagery you'll ever see. This isn't your typical samurai picture. This one is brooding and nihilistic, a world without any good guys with swords and with limbs strewn all over the place.

The Old Man and the Gun

2018 crime drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: An old guy robs banks with Tom Waits and Danny Glover.

Anybody who knows me knows why I was excited about this movie. It had nothing to do with it being Robert Redford's swan song and everything to do with the appearance of Tom Waits, one of my favorite human beings. Waits is fun here, and David Lowery gives him one moment to shine by allowing him to do what he does best--tell a story. Like the pie-eating scene in Lowery's ghost movie, hearing Waits' character talk about why he doesn't like Christmas is an unexpected bit of genius.

Redford ends his career with a bang if this really is his final movie. His beautiful eyes, that mischievous smile, and that natural charm are probably enough to carry a movie like this, but his old man is such an intriguing character and the period details are so good. There's a developing romance with Sissy Spacek that ironically works like a temptress, drawing him away from the life of crime that he is more naturally drawn to.

After this movie, a couple of middle-aged women who were sitting in front of me and annoyingly talking throughout the movie, were talking about Tom Waits. They knew the name but didn't know who he was and were looking up his filmography on the phone. One of them thought he was black. I chimed in, but they didn't seem impressed with my list of top-25 Tom Waits songs that I have stored in my memory just in case there's every a situation where that is needed.

This might be the most 70's 2018 film of the year, but I'd have to think about it.

The Decameron

1971 sex comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Filthy stories.

"Why create a work when it's so beautiful just to dream it?"

I was going to write something intelligent about Pier Paolo Pasolini's arsty potty humor, but I'm distracted by a shot with nuns looking out of windows, the alliteration of the director's name, Eli Manning's nightingale, and all that jaw harp.

This movie has the strangest collection of teeth.

Get Carter

1971 crime movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A gangster tries to get to the bottom of his brother's death.

Whenever I attempt Michael Caine impressions, I'm going to try saying "Albert Swift" over and over again.

I had an entire paragraph typed here, but I decided to delete it because it was a little too bleak.

On Any Sunday

1971 motorcycle documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Motorcycle racers compete in a variety of motorcycle races.

I have no interest in motorcycles or racing of any kind, but this documentary from Bruce Brown, the guy who made the surfing documentary Endless Summer, is just so watchable. The cheesy narration that reminded me of film strips I watched in school as a kid and the cheesy music made this the documentary equivalent of candy. I enjoyed the personalities followed around the country, risking their bodies as they hurtle themselves through rugged terrain on these little machines. Fighting through injuries and pain and devoting themselves to this craft would make them seem like maniacs even if there was hefty prize money or glory to be had. These guys are doing it for far less than that although the sheer joy of doing it might be better than either money or fame. That's most evident in a beautiful series of shots at the end that show a trio of riders, one of them being none other than Steve McQueen, just riding along a beach for no reason other than being together and riding on motorcycles.

There's great footage of the various kinds of races. I enjoyed all the slow-motion shots of riders with the soles of their feet touching the ground as they round curves, but the marathon desert race would be the one I'd most want to take part in. I also enjoyed scenes from riders trying to ride up the side of a cliff.

The Hospital

1971 hospital movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The director of a hospital tries to hold it and his life together.

Man, is George C. Scott good in this as this character who's molded by his situation. Scott plays depressed, alcoholic, horny, frazzled, suicidal, mildly hopeful, and determined, and he plays it all convincingly. He's nervous breakdown incarnate. In a way, he's an actor who is playing a character who doesn't realize your life, your marriage, and your career are just all one giant dark comedy. There's a mystery at the center of this hospital drama, but the solving of that never seems quite as vital as what's going on in George C. Scott's head.

Paddy Chayefsky wrote this thing, and there's a real zing to the dialogue, especially between Scott and the fetching Diana Rigg.

The Point

1971 animated fable

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A round-headed kid in a pointy-headed world is ostracized and finally banished, so he walks around the forest and has adventures with his dog.

Crude animation with some cheapo sketchy psychedelic brings this simple fable about bigotry. It reminds me a lot of the old Tootsie Pop commercials with that owl who's a giant asshole. If you're my age, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This movie was before our time, but the ideas are unfortunately timeless ones. In 2018, we're still ostracizing people who don't have pointy heads.

The real star of the show is probably the Harry Nilsson songs. As a Nilsson fan, I heard the music for this long before I saw the movie. This is also Nilsson's story although I'm not sure if he's responsible for all the silly attempts to make "point" puns. Actually, there was a lot of attempted word play here that didn't work at all, almost like it was written by somebody who only sort of understands what word play even is. Anyway, the songs work. The melodies match the crude and childlike look of the animation even if the songs all kind of sound the same. If you like Harry Nilsson, you won't mind that.

So this is a movie for anybody who loves watching those Tootsie Pop commercials and listening to Harry Nilsson.

Beware of a Holy Whore

1971 German movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Some people try to make a movie.

Maybe I didn't like this, but it's apparently one of Bob Dylan's favorites which forces me to give it bonus points. We learn that pride goes before the fall with this near-story about a purgatory disguised as a movie shoot. I've seen an alarmingly small number of Fassbinder movies, but I still consider myself enough of an expert to find an opening soliloquy about Goofy to be somewhat shocking.

Knowing how bad I am about writing these things, I've been jotting down notes. For this one, I have two notes that I don't understand. The first just says "jukebox." I know what a jukebox is, and I remember a jukebox being in this movie. I think all the music is actually from that jukebox. But I'm not sure why I would have just written down that one word. What's going on there?

The other is "sleep aids." I have no idea what that's all about, but it must have been important because I put a box around it and wrote it in all capital letters.

This starts with that Goofy soliloquy and ends with this fantastic shots on stairs, a newspaper and characters leaving one by one. In between, the first half consists of all these tiny sketches, these vignettes with all these extended shots. There's a sneaking choreography as the camera moves through the characters. By the end, things are more frenetic. The settings change rapidly, and the shots aren't nearly as long. There will be a brief snippet of conversation, and then, as if somebody has magically snapped his fingers and made it happen, the scene shifts to a new location and a new conversation.

Sleep aids. Huh.

A Star Is Born

2018 musical drama

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A drunk alternative rocker has-been meets a talented singer and helps her become a star.

This is a story that's been told many times, and it's not really told all that convincingly here, but I did like how they fell for each other. Both characters fall for the other's vocal stylings, both Cooper and Gaga nearly getting O-faces as they hear the other one sing for the first time. Their rapport works without being obvious although it is better in the first half of the movie, probably something that was deliberate.

I didn't really like either of these characters even though I liked both performances. Gaga really is a star. Without a doubt, she's got the singing chops to pull this off, but she really shines in her ability to do so much with a character who is fairly disappointing. Cooper grumbles his way through the movie. Or maybe he Sam Elliotts his way through it. He's got this natural charm that makes the character lovable even when he's skimming rock bottom. A scene with eyebrows, scenes where he's goading Gaga, and times when the character is allowed to be playful really makes it easy to see why Gaga's character would fall for him. Was Cooper's character supposed to be a little dumb though? He seemed a little dumb.

I don't know what to say about the music. I didn't like it, but I'm not really the right person to ask about contemporary alternative rock that sounds like it might have come from the late-90s or whatever sub-genre of pop music Gaga is performing. The allure of Gaga's voice might save some of the songs, but I didn't really fall in love with any of them. A couple of weeks after seeing this movie, I can at least remember one of them, but that might be the result of it being in the movie about a dozen times.

Very likely, this is just a romantic story and nothing deeper. If you have to look for a theme at all, you would wonder if this is about the destructive force of choreographed dances in pop music performances. Or maybe something about how alcohol is more addictive than love.

I might not have fallen in love with this like most everybody else has, but I did seem to like it more than the couple who fell asleep down the row from me and snored during the final 45 minutes of the movie. I thought it was just one of them who fell asleep, but when the lights came back on, they were both asleep. I was the last to leave the theater other than them and probably could have woken them up, but I decided to take a picture of them instead.

Red Sun

1971 western eastern

Rating: 14/20

Plot: An outlaw teams up with a samurai in order to retrieve a priceless sword and some stolen cash.

This is Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune teaming up to look for a priceless kitana, some stolen money, and a little revenge. That's probably all you need to know. If you really think about it, Bronson and Mifune is a perfect match on paper, and they're a perfect match out in the barren desert wherever this is shot, too. Western bravado and loud guns clashes with quiet and graceful swordplay of the East, and it's fun watching those two ideals skirmish on screen and these two manliest of men match wits.

The Hellstrom Chronicle

1971 mockumentary documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A fake scientist explains how bugs will wind up outliving people.

So the scientist in this might be completely fake, but the message--that the insect world, savage and resilient, will be around long after we superior humans have scienced ourselves into oblivion--certainly is timely with very real scientist making terrifying pronouncements about the doomsday clock and very stupid politicians ignoring the whole thing. Man, I dig that scientist guy, the titular Dr. Hellstrom played by Lawrence Pressman. You're just about duped that he's this scientific prophet of the apocalypse even with the poetic narration, all the talk about how "Life must take life for the sake of life itself" or "Learn the inevitable destiny of ignorance" or something being "as limitless as the imagination of the insane."

The real star of this faux-documentary-with-an-actual-documentary-hidden-inside would be the insect photography. The whole thing begins lava-tastically, a scene that can only be described as lava rape. From there, you get these impossible close-ups like in Microcosmos or The Besieged Fortress, and if you like either or both of those, there's more than enough for you to love here, too. Almost impossibly beautiful, these time-lapse shots or tight shots on insects could almost fool you into thinking CGI was involved. It wasn't though because Dr. Hellstrom would never lie to you.

This would make a great double feature with The Day After, that TV movie about nuclear apocalypse. Insects, you feel, will giggle at our corpses after we're gone. Dr. Hellstrom tried to tell you so.

Fahrenheit 11/9

2018 propaganda piece

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Michael Moore takes America's pulse, focusing on the Flint water situation, the Trump presidency, how terrible everything is, and how there might be a reason to have hope for the future.

But probably not because everything has been consistently terrible for so long and will likely be terrible for a long time after I'm gone. As much as I know that Michael Moore's documentaries are pure propaganda and as much as I have to admit that if this guy was on the opposite side of politics as me that I would despise him and his baseball caps, I looked forward to this one because I really enjoy his work. There's a levity to the dooming and glooming to make it all easier to swallow, and I enjoy having my core beliefs validated and maybe even learning a thing or two.

Maybe it's a sign of the times, but this movie really depressed the hell out of me. This was a nearly devastating. A look at the Donald Trump robot being constructed for Disney's Hall of Presidents--at least I think that's what was going on--was probably depressing enough, but the first ten or so minutes that retells a story of Trump's inspiration to run for president and his pummeling of the other Republican nominees and then final surprise victory on election night was difficult to watch. If I didn't already know the ending, it might have been even scarier than Hereditary, and I can't say it's footage that I really cared to revisit again. It felt like a prelude to the apocalypse as it was happening, and it feels like that now.

It's not all focused on Trump though. Trump might be more of a centerpiece of a whole smorgasbord of problems with America, but he's not the lone target here. Moore does spend time with Trump, and he does in the exact way you'd expect him to, that way that would even make some liberals give him the old side-eye. When he brings Hitler and Nazis into the whole thing, the propaganda is a little hard to swallow. Until it really comes together that is. When the rhetoric and imagery really converge well, it just makes what you're swallowing sick to your stomach. It's a convincing argument, but it's possible that my level of intelligence makes me the perfect target for stuff like this. I'm not so sure about the links to 9/11 and the Reichstag fire though.

Stuff about Ivanka was both gossipy and unnecessary. I wish that would have ended up on the cutting room floor.

I can't remember the last time I saw a Michael Moore film, but I don't remember the tone being this angry or hopeless. There are definitely less stunts than you might expect. There's the one with a tanker full of Flint water that he sprays on the mayor's tree, and that falls completely flat. Other than that, I can't remember any stunts. Where I think Moore excels is when he just talks to people. Again, it's possible that I'm just being duped here, but he and his hat really seem to be listening to the people he's conversing with. He's not just hearing, but he's listening, and he's doing it with some part of his being that those in power seem to lack.

There are so many threads here, but this is most successful when he's explaining the situation with Flint's water. And when it gets to the point where it's referred to as "systematic genocide," I had no choice but to believe it. You see images and hear about corruption that makes you shake your head and say, "No, there's just no way this is America." I experienced waves of emotion throughout this thing, but I was especially disturbed and saddened by the filthy details of that filthy water situation.

And he's not just pointing a chubby finger at one party. Nobody is safe here, and that includes Obama. Watching Obama's trip to Flint unfold here in the exact way that Moore usually unfolds his tales was a major bummer. He's critical of both sides of the aisle, appropriate since it's really the system as a whole that is failing a lot of American citizens who have no reason at all to ever think that this country was great.

But no, it's not all catastrophe and doomsday. If there's a theme at all here, it's that there's hope to be found in people who are resisting this failed and failing system. There's hope in the youth who are demanding that something should be done about kids being shot up in schools. There's hope in the social media warriors fighting against everything that's broken. There's hope in fresh faces running against the establishment.

I'm not sure the hopeful and more enthusiastic tone that started to break up things in the last quarter of this was enough. I still walked out of the theater with tears in my eyes because as a portrait of my country, this was very dark and dismal. But at least it was something.

Blaze

2018 musical biopic

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A look at a not-so-famous country artist and his life, his love, and his unfortunately short career.

Musical biopics ain't my thing, but if you throw in Townes Van Zandt as a character, my interest will be piqued. That guy very well might be on my own personal musical Mount Rushmore along with the three other sure things. He's at least one of a rotating fourth. I can thank Larry and Lyle Lovett for that because I didn't really know who he was I was way too old to be finding out who Townes Van Zandt was.

Blaze Foley would not have been nowhere near my musical Mount Rushmore because one requirement to be memorialized in my mind's stone is that I need to know you exist. Like most people--even folks who like country music way more than me--Blaze Foley is relatively unknown. Knowing that Townes Van Zandt was a champion of Foley's work piqued my interest, and I was very happy to find out that Van Zandt himself was an important character in this biopic.

My favorite moment might be one of the snippets of a radio interview between Van Zandt and a DJ played by Ethan Hawke who directed this thing because starring in a great movie and another pretty good one wasn't enough for him in 2018. Townes tells a story that involves grave robbing and a pawn shop loan slip that was just about the best thing I've ever heard. Charlie Sexton gives an earthy performance as Van Zandt. His story doesn't distract from Blaze's story, but he's an integral character, and it was great to see him.

As you might expect, there's a lot of music here, and some of the best moments are Van Zandt's. There's one great song he gets where the characters are bathed in this yellow light and lens flare, giving the whole scene an almost magically realistic look. It's beautiful, and there's another touching moment where Blaze brings himself into a performance by his friend that was downright touching. Blaze is played by Ben Dickey, and as a professional musician, he brings a legitimacy to the live performances. If this was Elvis or Chuck Berry or Johnny Cash, the viewer would come in with certain expectations. I'm not sure if Dickey's Blaze is spot-on or not or if he's creating a character who is only almost Blaze and not quite Blaze. It doesn't matter because his musical performances get to a certain depth and help round out this character.

Dickey is really good. There are a lot of good moments, some that would even fall into your typical biopic trappings. You buy him as a musician, and you buy him as a storyteller. You buy him as this giant gregarious bear of a man with troubles burbling beneath his fur. You buy him as a romantic soul and as a sometimes-angry man and as a self-destructive drunk. You buy this guy as a folksy philosopher with these wells of wisdom that you wish he would draw from. Blaze is a character you root for despite his flaws and maybe even because of his flaws. You recognize the genius, identify with the demons, and are attracted to this magnetic personality. Dickey hits a range of emotions in creating this figure who should have been a limping icon.

Hawke's storytelling is disjointed, and for the better part of the movie, I couldn't figure out why that was necessary. In a way, it matches the structure of a live show with Blaze doing some songs, going off on wild tangents, taking time to engage in fisticuffs with a punk who's talking on the phone of this dive serving as a venue a little too loudly, and then getting back to what is normally expected in a live show. Clinking bottles and inebriated chatter add flavor just like little detours in Blaze's life narrative. This narrative bounces around between that radio interview with Van Zandt and Blaze's posthumous influence, the live show recorded just a day before his death, and all of the little episodes that make up his climb to anonymity.

The last one-fourth, from the part right around where his wife is gone until the end, is a little more draining because the character goes to some pretty comically dark places that you wish he wouldn't. And there's a death scene in this--not a spoiler since it's given away right off the bat--that is probably a little longer than it needs to be. I thought it was more effective when it was just a suggestion, a sickening sound that we could identify anyway. I didn't need to see Dickey suffering to know that Blaze Foley had a sad and painful death.

Something in this might give another recent pick for "Song of the Year" a challenge.