That Obscure Object of Desire

1977 Altman movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A randy rich guy relates the story of how a woman won't sleep with him.

It's like The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie but with fucking instead of food.

This is another I needed to rewatch before compiling that 1977 Best Films list that I know all of my friends are eagerly awaiting.

Told in flashback to passengers on a train who wanted Rey to explain why he dumped a bucket of water on a poor woman, this story of unfulfilled lust against a backdrop of terrorist bombings (including some from a group called the Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus, a great band name) is darkly hilarious. Sometimes a train is just a train, but I'm not sure it is here. Why these particular passengers, by the way? There's a dwarfish psychology professor, a judge, and a mother and daughter. The latter is sent away when the story gets especially randy, and as viewers, we can be thankful that the youngster wasn't subjected to Fernando Rey's oppressive chest hair.

Two actresses play the love interest of Rey's character here, a perplexing choice by Bunuel but one that works. Rey doesn't seem to notice that she's two separate women. Or more accurately, his penis can't tell the difference. He's just concerned with getting in her pants. He first tries a move that seems like it should work every single time--aggressive hair fondling. Later, he uses money, gifts, inspiring persistence, the gal's mother, words that he thinks she probably wants to hear, rationalizing, exhibitions of his importance, and violence. At one point, he even goes full-Trump!

The power dynamics are a lot of fun here. Rey's got money and gender on his side but is helpless against the powers of the fairer gender and her chastity pants. This is a movie about those dynamics and one about how man views women, but mostly, it's just a funny comedy. The Bunuelean surreal side bars--a mouse, a fly in a martini, recurring shots of a guy with a sack, a pig baby--keep you on your toes, and just having this world where an act of terrorism that kills 290 people doesn't even make front page news makes me laugh.

Or maybe I didn't actually laugh. I don't even know what to type here anymore.

The funniest moment is when the flashback gets particularly sexual and is interrupted by a shot of the passengers on the train. There is, after all, a child listening to all this! With that shot, however, it's revealed that a second child has actually joined in to listen to this man's gaudy tale of lust and unrequited sex. Now that surely made me laugh!

Actually, I can't guarantee that made me laugh either.

Ok, I have to go make my 1977 list now. I apologize for writing several of these things that aren't worth anybody's time.

3 Women

1977 Altman film

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Shelley Duvall gets a new roommate.

Two perfect lead performances from Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek, two of the titular three women, lots of yellows and pinks, loads of shots with mirrors, a fantastically ominous avant-garde score from Gerald Busby, recurring references to melts, a Sissy Spacek beer guzzle, dresses getting caught in car doors, apathetic twins, a haunting dream sequence, lots and lots of humor. Before making a final 1977 movie list, I wanted to watch this again, and I'm glad I did. I love it even more than I thought I did! I don't quite understand it, but I love it. It's enigmatic, a riddle that starts ominously enough with shots of old people in a pool and just keeps getting stranger and stranger and more and more perplexing. And more and more hilarious! This is a really funny movie, and it somehow gets even more comedic once Spacek's parents show up, odd since tragedy has struck at that point.

This movie is based on an Altman dream. I wish I had Altman dreams.

Great use of a fake baby in this one.

One Sings, the Other Doesn't

1977 Agnes Varda film

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Covers the years of a friendship between two women in France.

This is the most overtly feminist film I've seen from Agnes Varda. Marriage as prostitution, seemingly throwaway lines like "Men, don't come in so abruptly" during a singing rehearsal, Iranian veils, lots of abortion references, song lyrics about being a woman or being pregnant or being a pregnant woman, the recurring idea of a woman's body belonging to that woman and nobody else. Near the end, a narrator tells us that these women had "fought to gain the happiness of being a woman," a really sadly beautiful idea. At another point, free will is described as "philosophy in action," and part of what makes this so refreshing is how the titular duo--both really, but especially Pauline--make the decisions they want to make. Those decisions might not always lead to happiness, but it doesn't matter so much because the decisions are theirs.

This isn't overtly political exactly despite the feminist angle. Mostly, it's the story of the friendship, one that feels very organic. I love how Varda films these two when they're apart, but I really love what she does when they're together. When they are apart, they exchange postcards, a "bridge in the air" and a "dialogue in the imagination." It's a gimmick that's worked in other movies but really works here to connect these characters and show how they inspire each other. So much of this movie is about being part of a group and women supporting each other.

There are lots of songs in this because as the title says, one of these characters sings. The other doesn't. I thought the songs were quirky and fun, and some of the musical moments in this almost seemed like music videos.

There are lots of references to photography in this, including opening credits which show a series of photographs. A lot of them are sad women, women who have been posed in specific ways or asked to look a certain way. I have a favorite photograph, but I'm not going to talk about which one that is.

One bit of humor I really liked: Pauline is rehearsing this weird skit/song where she's topless and sitting on the shoulders of another person who is hidden beneath a long skirt. Rehearsal time ends, and she slips on a t-shirt to cover her exposed breasts. On the t-shirt? Exposed breasts. I loved that bit of visual humor, but it might have something to do with me liking breasts a lot.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

2019 sequel

Rating: 12/20 (Jen: 16/20; Buster: 19/20)

Plot: Emmet has to enlist the help of Rex Dangervest to save his friends from aliens who kidnapped them so that a shape-shifting menace can marry Batman.

The cheeky closing credits with the song from Beck and The Lonely Island was better than the actual movie.

I'd probably have to watch the first one of these again to figure out if I even liked it. This seems like more of the same, but the theme at the heart of it doesn't quite sneak up on you the way the other did. Once I knew what this was all about--and that was early--you kind of see how much work they have to put into the whole thing to get there. Along with a twist that didn't really seem like a twist because of [omitted] and probably [omitted], it just didn't work for me. The first movie surprised me and slipped in cameos and allusions that were pretty clever. With this second part, a lot of stuff feels shoehorned in.

That includes a character named Larry Poppins although I think I might have loved him.

The China Syndrome

1979 thriller

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A journalist uncovers a potential cover-up at a nuclear power plant.

"Get in tight on the navel." Belly dancing right at the beginning of this. And Jane Fonda? Oh, mercy!

Jane Fonda's character becomes infinitely more interesting in this once it's revealed that she's got a turtle and a tacky goose lamp. Initially, she's overshadowed by what Michael Douglas is doing. What I like best about this is the clash between how Fonda's character wants to be seen or what her career aspirations might be and how others are seeing her as nothing but a soft and beautiful female who should be doing stories on tiger's birthdays, the migration of gray whales, and singing telegrams. And those belly dancers. Oh, mercy!

Hey, there's a game show shown in this that involves a giant pinball machine. Is that real? Why haven't I seen reruns of that on the Game Show Network?

Teen Wolf's dad is in this, and even though his character is trying to explain all this nuclear energy stuff with graphics and everything, I'm still not smart enough to get it. What's easy to understand--and especially relevant in today's world where big corporations are sacrificing our futures and the lives of our offspring because of their own greed--is how people in these positions might cover up something in order to save themselves a buck. Or a million or so bucks. There's a clever moment in this where you hear this Taco Bell commercial, one where the voice over is talking about how fresh and healthy the Taco Bell food is. There's a parallel between the voice making promises in that commercial and the spokespeople for this nuclear power company, isn't there?

Actually, that's probably not a clever moment at all. It's probably just product placement. And now, even though I'm gluten free and never eat Taco Bell food, I have a hankering for a chalupa. A chalupa filled with radiation! Oh, mercy!

Charlie Chaplin makes a sneaky appearance in this movie.

Seriously, somebody find out about that giant pinball machine game show. I'm too busy to look that up.

The Tree of Wooden Clogs

1978 farming movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: People live on a farm.

This movie taught me what chilblains are.

"Paradise beings with the love we show each other on earth."

Two movies in a row where the idea of paradise comes up. There's a whole lot more God in this one, however, and the faith that comes with there being a whole lot of God in a place like this. What else do these characters have to do but worship something? Tell stories, I guess.

The idea of community comes up a lot in this. This involves four (I think?) families working on somebody else's farm. Maybe it's Maggie's farm, but it's clear they're not like Dylan. They want to be there. It's the place for them. And a big part of that place is the other people who are there. And part of what makes it all work is how they co-exist and help each other. At one point, a character seems confused by a proffered thank you, saying, "Thank us for what? If we don't help each other. . ." and later, a nun brings up the idea yet again, claiming, "We must help each other in this world." Along with the above quote and many moments, some very quiet and inconspicuous, where characters have each other's back, pray for each other, and watch over each other, that theme is very clear.

This movie is long and almost entirely plotless, just slices of the lives of these people who work and work and work. Small victories seem momentous. Witness the grandfather character and his tomatoes, a subplot that is sprinkled in here and there throughout this. We see the guy sneaking around at night with a bucket of chicken shit, we see him talking with his granddaughter about his intentions, and then we see the emotional payoff of all that. It's a hushed firecracker of a moment, and I can see a lot of people watching this and being bored and frustrated, but if you're engaged, you'll pick up on lots of those kinds of moments.

Clogs, by the way, don't factor into this whole thing until around the hour-and-five-minute mark and then dropped again until almost the very end of the movie. It's just one short story of many in this, one tragedy that surely isn't the first and won't be the last because life for these people is all about embracing the routine and, whenever tragedy does arrive like a sinister visitor, figure out a way to move on. Most of those ways, of course, have to do with God or working with others.

There are moments of levity. A carnival rolls into town, giving these people an opportunity to break that routine in non-tragic ways. You know, the typical eating thirty-six eggs and drinking ten literal bootfuls of wine or having dangerous-looking pole-climbing competitions or riding a carousel in the vicinity of clowns or listening to a guy talk about his arthritis ointments. Most of their lives, however, there's a music that always seems just out of reach of these people. When nuns enter the picture later on, one talks about how the nuns are singing because the world needs to be beautiful. These characters live in a beautiful place, but it's not an easy life. It's the kind of life where you have to decapitate geese which might bite or listen to those horrifying pig screams before those piggish intestines spill out. These characters hear music, but it's always out of reach.

Of course, one of them does this peasant freestyle rap which is something else. Rap music was invented in late-19th Century Italy apparently.

One other stand-out scene involves newlyweds on a lengthy boat trip. Director Olmi really takes his time with this, but he then skips the sex scene. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed.

Oh, one other moment that stands out and nearly made me tear up is a decision by an oldest sibling when his mother suggests they get rid of a brother and sister. That touched me.

This apparently one of Al Pacino's favorite movies.

Falling Down

1993 dramedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A guy with anger issues has an interesting day as he tries to make it to his daughter's birthday party.

When I saw this in '93, I loved it. I'm pretty sure I thought it was pretty deep. Seeing it in 2019 as a middle-aged liberal, it's a much different experience. I remembered the opening with the traffic jam, the scene with the gang members, and the scene in the military surplus store for some reason. And of course, I remembered the ending, one that I remember thinking was nearly as moving and shocking as the ending of Vertigo, my personal favorite at the time.

I didn't remember how awesomely heavy-handed this thing is. Hell hath no fury like an angry white man scorned. It's never really clear whether we're supposed to identify with this Michael Douglas character because his viewpoints are wildly inconsistent. There are times when he's a little like Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm character, griping about the ills of a world he's having trouble fitting into, maybe even legitimately raising issues about society in the early-90s. Most of the time, he's just a very angry white man, the kind of guy you figure would even wear a MAGA hat around. It's really hard to see what Joel Schumacher is trying to do with this character or with Duvall's more cartoonish version of Tommy Lee Jones' cop in No Country for Old Men.

The whole thing's really thematically muddy, but that makes it a fascinating document from a very muddy decade. This is a very 90's film. Douglas's character is searching for a home. He's lost a literal home and family, and it's clear that his character doesn't recognize the America he's walking through in his efforts to get back to his literal home. "Everybody has their own ideas about what paradise is." The corrupted imagery of urban Americana in this movie is almost a failed Garden of Eden, America some sort of failed attempt at a kind of paradise.

Part of that failed attempt has to do with America as this utopian melting pot. The most obvious statement is the African American man protesting that he's been considered "not economically viable" and winding up arrested, but there are other people who aren't angry white men who Douglas's character runs into or interacts with. The gang members he encounters are Hispanic. The guy who tries to overcharge him for a Coke is Korean. There's a Japanese cop. There's a Middle Eastern guy who sells him a unicorn snow globe. What isn't represented much at all here along his journey through hellish Los Angeles is women. There's a female cop, and his ex-wife and daughter surely factor into the story, but there aren't many female characters he interacts with while trying to find a home.

Lots of American iconography litters the screen. It starts right away with the great opening extended shot showing Douglas in that traffic jam, a scene that plays a lot like a horror film. Early on, you see Garfield, a Big Boy advertisement, American flags, and religious and pessimistic bumper stickers. Later, there's the Coca Cola, a broken jar of American flags, a mural with Native Americans, greedy banks, military surplus stores, homophobia, racism, moon mission failures, pollution, anti-Communist rants, and people golfing in goofy hats. It's a nauseating glimpse at America Douglas journeys through, and there's seemingly no place for him anymore as he fulminates giving money to Korea (though he's unsure about that whole thing), his rights as a consumer, fast food menu accuracy, freedom of speech and the right to disagree, and anything else that seems to bug him on this stressful morning of his. Meanwhile, he keeps upgrading his weapons. He starts with a wildly-swung briefcase before inheriting a bat, trading that in for a knife, and eventually getting his hands on a bag of guns.

What's it all mean? Again, I'm not so sure.

Falling Down anticipates a decade that just kept getting angrier and more angst-ridden, and though it's unclear to me what its intentions might be, it remains a really fascinating document of troubled times in a troubled place and one lost soul trying to navigate it all.

Kramer vs. Kramer

1979 drama

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A father is forced to juggle parenthood and his work after his wife abruptly leaves him. Then, she comes back and wants custody. Women!

What a terrible ending!

Lots of pissing in this movie, and there's some Tab product placement. My favorite part of the entire movie might be at the very beginning when a character passes street musicians rocking a mandolin and a guitar and playing that Vivaldi concerto used for the opening credits. It led me to believe that this would be a little more playful than it ended up being.

I liked the rapport between Dustin Hoffman and the kid (Justin Henry), but every time I see Meryl Streep on the screen, it seems like she's acting. Her performance kind of clashes with Hoffman's more natural one here, but maybe that's part of the point.

Land without Bread

1933 Spanish documentary

Rating: too short for a rating

Plot: Bunuel looks at an isolated region of Spain and the people there.

"Nothing keeps you awake better than always thinking about death."

I had to wait on the Bunuel movie that I needed to rewatch and watched this instead. I couldn't shake how much it reminds me of the kinds of documentaries Werner Herzog would make 40 years later. The narrated bit about how the crew is there for months or whatever and "never heard a song" sounded especially Herzogian. Bunuel's a trickster, contrasting the matter-of-fact (maybe even bored) narration with these stark images of the suffering people of Las Hurdes and staging sequences with a falling goat and probably a donkey that dies when it's attacked by bees. This should not be shown to animal rights activists although I'm not sure they'd care all that much about a movie that is almost 90 years old. One senses that there's a lot staged or manufactured in this. There's a harrowing moment where the camera examines a little girl's mouth while the narrator informs us that the character dies a few days after the footage was shot. Anybody just taking Bunuel at his word with stuff like that is probably gullible. From what I've read, this is a parody of ethnographic studies or anthropological excursions that Bunuel apparently believed were similarly exaggerated for effect.

A humorous moment is a sequence where Bunuel is showing dwarves and "cretins" who are in charge of looking after goats. The footage keeps shifting to a new figure, and the narrator announces "another cretin" several times. I also liked the matter-of-fact "After two months in this country, we leave" followed by a jarring "FIN." That was so perfect.

Divorce Italian Style

1961 dark comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A guy wants his wife gone so that he can marry a first-cousin.

Marcello Mastroianni plays charming villain so well in this breezy dark comedy that would probably double-feature well with my favorite Sturges' movie, Unfaithfully Yours. Mastroianni plays the character so straight, enabling those fantasy death sequences to be grounded and somehow making the whole scenario even funnier. There's this fragile coolness to the character, and watching him try to keep it all together when he's at his most flustered is delightful. I thought his facial tic, a kind of exaggerated twitch that I kept trying to replicate, would grow tiresome, but it never did, even when I could predict exactly when it would happen.

Shame on Pietro Germi for making us side with this villain, a man who wants one human being dead so that he can sleep with the much-younger first-cousin he's desperately in lust with. As a superficial male, I felt tricked into siding with the husband over the wife mostly because she's got a unibrow and a hint of a mustache. So shame on you, Germi!

I really enjoyed this one, my favorite scenes being the ones where the protagonist (and others) are leering at the cousin, those fantasy death scenarios, and a lawyer's closing arguments.

Bad Movie Club: Twisted Pair

2018 sci-fi wackiness

Bad Movie Rating: 5/5 (J.D.: 5/5; Fred: 4/5; Josh: 5/5; Tami: 5/5)

Rating: 2/20

Plot: I'm not the best person to answer this question.

This is completely incomprehensible, but thankfully, it seems like Neil Breen's still got that magic touch. I worry that the Las Vegas real estate agent will become more self-aware and start to make bad movies on purpose, but that doesn't seem to be the case. With Twisted Pair, his fifth "movie," Breen's lack of self-awareness once again combines forces with his self-importance to create something that I'm wondering if he even understands. He's got his usual targets (corporate greed) and some of his usual vices (I don't remember any fancy cars in this one though), but with this one, he's got more special effects at his disposal. He had promised a "bigger" movie with more of a budget. He'd know, but the explosions, the bloody wounds, and the flight or super-jump movement that one of his characters does repeatedly don't succeed in making this seem like a movie with a bigger budget. Or a budget. The jumping thing reminded me of when Blue from Blue's Clues skiddoos into pictures except Neil Breen doesn't rotate. Still, he's come a long way from that monster mask in I Am Here. . . .Now.

What am I saying? No, he hasn't.

You might notice that I typed "one of his characters" up there. That's right, Breen plays doppelgangers in this one. It's not as confusing as it could have been because one of the titular pair has the worst fake beard I believe I've ever seen in a movie. Ok, scratch that. It's still pretty confusing. Along with the fake beard, you also get these decorative cats that keep moving for some reason, a fairy girl muse with spiky shoes, gratuitous partial nudity (one of those aforementioned vices), fake mice, lots of guns, slowed-down garbled voices. Breen must have been watching Twin Peaks: The Return. Breen's convoluted story involves space travel, superhuman powers, Artificial Intelligence, terrorism, and romance. It's a glorious Breenian mess of what I imagine Neil Breen loves and what he can afford to buy from dollar stores.

Breen plays both of the characters in his usual unnatural way he plays all of his characters, the kind where you wonder how he's a real estate agent because he doesn't seem to have any idea how human interaction works. Here, he's playing "hybrid A.I." characters (whatever the hell that means), so the unnatural cadence and inability to interact naturally almost fits in that Arnold Terminator kind of way. The other bad-acting stand-out is Denise Bellini who plays the agency director. But to be honest, it's really hard for bad acting to stand out in a movie like this.

My favorite shot is the one where one of the Breens gets to hang out with an eagle.

Breen spelled "detective" wrong in the closing credits. Twice.

Toy Story 4

2019 fourth movie in the trilogy

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 18/20; Dylan: 17/20; Abbey: 19/20; Buster: 20/20)

Plot: Bonnie, nervous about starting kindergarten, makes a new toy friend out of a plastic spork to help her deal with the change. When the family goes on a vacation

Things I've learned about the Toy Story franchise in the last week: Andy doesn't have a dad because of budget issues. Pixar couldn't afford to create a father for Andy. Something similar happened with Toy Story 2 actually. I always figured the inclusion of that weird old man who plays chess against himself in the Pixar short into the Toy Story world was a choice, an Easter egg like putting that Pizza Planet truck in every movie. Apparently, it was also because they couldn't afford to make a new character and decided just to reuse that guy.

Something else I realized after watching this and thinking about all four movies: These series of films has a lot in common with Bergman's "silence of God" trilogy. Maybe it's just because those are fresh on my mind, but if you take the idea of Woody's kids being god figures, it's hard not to see the connection.

I've gone three of these movies thinking they're about the relationship between children and their toys or maybe the relationships within this gang of toys. When this fourth installment was announced, I wasn't sure it was a story that needed continuing. That third movie ended things tidily enough.

But this isn't Toys Story, is it? It's Toy Story--as in the story or journey of a single toy. And that toy is Woody. This isn't a story about the relationship between toys and kids or the collective journey of a clan of kids. These are stories about Woody's growth and development as this sentient toy, a journey filled with existential crises, doubts about his gods or his role as a toy, and his discovery of his identity. Yes, the movies all have arcs for other characters. Buzz gets his in the first movie. Jessie gets hers in the second. But these are Woody's movies.

In the first movie, Woody understands his role but not in mature ways. His spirituality is a selfish one, childish with room for jealousy as soon as there's a situation that threatens his place in his universe. He learns about friendship most obviously, the power of congregation. In the second movie, his own egotism is his antagonist to the point where he doubts his God. He's agnostic Woody, ready to leave Andy's room behind and live in a Godless world. In the third movie, he faces false gods, temptations, and eventually death before converting at the end in a kind of spiritual rebirth.

I have no idea what I'm talking about in the above paragraph, but I wish I did. I feel like I could win a Pulitzer or something.

So what's going on with Woody here? He's the guy at the end of the third movie, focused on keeping his kid happy no matter what his role might be in the room. And it's good for our cowboy hero that that's the case because Bonnie barely pays any attention to him at all. Bonnie is a Bergmanian God, so what's Woody going to do when his God has abandoned him? What's that snake in his boot going to tell him to do?

I don't want to get into this anymore because I don't know what I'm talking about. There goes my Pulitzer! Also--spoilers. Maybe we can talk about it in the comments?

The first Toy Story looks so cheap in comparison, and if you watch it 150 times, you'll notice the continuity errors. There's beauty in individual shots, but seeing some of the shots in this make that movie look like crap. Or like a Dreamworks joint. The amount of details in the antique shop where a lot of the action takes place is staggering. Amusement park lights are nearly as beautiful as the myriad of colors displayed in Coco. A cold open that details a rescue mission and the loss of a character showcases a neighborhood and rainy streets that just don't look like they're animated.

The voice work, as expected, is great. The old favorites are all here, even Don Rickles who apparently is doing voice work from the afterlife. Rex's dinosaur girlfriend might have the funniest lines, at least near the end. I really loved what they did with Bo Peep, a great female character after having next-to-nothing to do in those first two movies.

A lot of the old characters don't have a whole lot to do, but it doesn't take much time to fall in love with the new characters. Keanu Reeves' Duke Kaboom even gets a fun and slightly touching story arc of his own, and I thought the villain, voiced by Christina Hendricks, is a lot more nuanced than the bear in the third movie. And she's got a trio of ventriloquist dummies as henchman, and if you know anything at all about me, you know I love ventriloquist dummies. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele always threaten to annoy, but they were my daughter's favorite characters, so I can't complain. And hey, Bonnie's got a dad! And as a dad myself, I found that character a little too easy to identify with. And Tony Hale as Forky? There's enough depth and existential angst in Forky's story to make a fourth Toy Story work, and he's just around to get the plot going.

It's hard to think of what doesn't work in this movie. The humor works. The action sequences work. The characters and their relationships work. The themes work. After Toy Story 3 came out, I was ready to declare the three movies one of the best trilogies ever made. Though I had doubts with this fourth one, it completely delivers. This is the best quadrilogy ever made.

The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting

1978 painting movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A collector of paintings takes the viewer on a tour of six works of Fredéric Tonnerre and speculates on what a missing painting might have looked like.

Part-mystery and part-parody, this spell-binding French pseudo-documentary isn't quite like anything else I've ever seen before. Dueling narrators, at least one who you might say is unreliable, take the audience on a tour of this guy's three-dimensional recreations (tableaux vivants) of these six paintings, speculating on how they're connected and what their hidden meanings might be. I'm not totally sure it's presciently poking fun at Internet obsessives picking apart every last detail of a work in order to find hidden meanings that likely aren't there, but it certainly seems that way. As a bonus, this looks as good as you'd expect something from cinematographer Sacha Vierny to look. Likely, this movie being filmed in black and white is some sort of joke.

Fighting with My Family

2019 wrastlin' movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Coming from a wrestling family, both Paige and her brother have dreams of joining the WWF or WWE or whatever it's called. Paige's dream comes true when she's selected to train in Florida. But can she overcome obstacles and character flaws to actually make it big?

I had no idea that I had any interest in a true-life story of professional wrastler Paige, but this surprised me with a lot of humor and heart. Likely, I only watched this because of The Rock's involvement to help me get through the last month and a half before the next Fast and Furious installment, but he was mostly a distraction from what I really liked about the movie--the family dynamics and Paige's plucky rise to wrestling stardom. The Rock's reaction to a recurring "Dick me dead, bury me pregnant" line--that trademark eyebrow thing he does--was good though.

That rise to wrestling stardom didn't shy away from cliches with your typical training montages and the exact story arcs you might expect even if you've never heard of Paige. It's kind of a shame because there's a freshness to the opening half hour or so with this with all the family stuff. The four have a great rapport and their lines, filled with a special brand of English wit, sound natural even when you know there's nothing natural about it. That is until the end when, surprise, you see the real characters this is all based on because that's something that all of these movies are apparently required to do. And then, Nick Frost and Leana Headey's performances and exchanges seem pretty spot on. Jack Lowden, playing Paige's brother, is also good, but it's Florence Pugh who really excels here. I'm not sure how much of the physical performance is hers and how much is editing and stand-ins, but I was impressed. Vince Vaughn's also in this, and although he's as grating as he usually is, this is a character he wears pretty well.

Some great one-liners throughout, and the themes about perseverance, family, and teamwork are rewarding even if they're pretty typical. Fighting with My Family was a pleasant surprise.

Hotel Mumbai

2019 action movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Details a terrorist attack at the Taj Mahal Palace Motel in India in 2008.

That's two movies in a row that are based on a documentary.

I really don't have much to say about this one. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Welcome to Marwen

2018 movie from the director of Forrest Gump

Rating: 8/20

Plot: The same as the superior documentary Marwencol, only with more animation.

The last time Robert Zemeckis did this to a documentary that I loved, I resisted but finally gave The Walk a chance and thought it was one of the most underrated movies of the last five years. I'm still not sure it justified its existence, but it told the story well with enough heart and suspense to make it worth a watch.

I can't say the same about this effort. Mark Hogancamp's story is told so much better in Marwencol, and from the first animated frame to the really silly Back to the Future references to the film's final shots, this seems like a complete misstep. There are early tone issues that continue throughout, and I'm never really sure as a viewer what's supposed to be funny here and what's not. I'm sure the animated parts seemed like a cute enough idea on paper, but they really add nothing to this character. Or maybe I should say that while they do give a little insight into Hogancamp's mind, how he views the women around him, and the personal conflicts he's dealing with, they kind of stop giving new insight after a while and just seem like they're just taking up space. It probably didn't help that the animated parts reminded me of those creepy Barbie movies my daughter used to make me watch with her. The best part of the animated parts might be the humorous dialogue and one-liners (cow-lateral damage is a personal fave), but it got to the point where it would transition to another animated action scene in Hogancamp's fictional town and I'd just groan.

Other than clumsy, too-obvious music cues referencing the main character's mental struggles (Patsy Cline's "Crazy" is the worst offender) or dreams/imagination, the worst thing about this movie is that the focus is all wrong. Emphasis is put on Hogancamp's eccentricities, his mental disorder, and his love of high heels instead of where it should have been placed--the man's photography. Sure, the artistic side is there, but too often it feels like we're being told, "Look at what a weirdo this Hogancamp fellow is. And oh, by the way, he also takes nice pictures. But seriously, look at how weird he is!" Far too often, it feels like the screenplay is wanting us to laugh at Hogancamp rather than really understand him.

Steve Carell isn't very good in this. He probably went into this thinking it was his Gump, but with dialogue as asinine as this, he really had no hope.

My biggest laugh was when Carell and his neighbor (Leslie Mann) are having a conversation about his favorite actress, Susie St. John, a porn star played by a Zemeckis. "Oh, I haven't seen it," Mann says. Again, I'm not totally sure that's supposed to be funny. I really had a tough time with that.

Definitely see Marwencol if you haven't already done that. You can skip this.

Stan & Ollie

2018 biographical movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A decade-and-a-half after their biggest hits, Laurel and Hardy embark on a stage tour of England to drum up interest in a Robin Hood comedy.

Though it was a wise decision to focus on this particular period in the career and relationship of Laurel and Hardy, my favorite part was easily the 10-minute opening extended shot that takes the titular comedy duo through a studio to the set where they film a scene for their Western comedy. During that scene, the dialogue reveals everything even a person with limited knowledge of Laurel and Hardy need to know about their popularity or success and their relationship, and there's a third party who enters the conversation at one point to set up what winds up being the inciting incident that throws them into the situation they wind up in fifteen years later. Well, that an an elephant. As a cinephile, I always enjoy seeing old-timey movie studio sets like this, and as a fan of early comedy, I really liked seeing this pair of characters coming to life like this.

The movie does a good job focusing on the friendship of these two, their professional partnership, and a conflict that threatens both. There are moving moments that are likely more moving because John C. Reilly and Steve Coogan do such a good job of humanizing this pair. They're not mythologized, and they're not turned into caricatures. They are humans with ambitions and hurt feelings and regrets and unspoken gripes. Reilly's under six hundred pounds of make-up and fat spray, waddling with a limp. He sounds like John C. Reilly at times, but I'm not sure I would have known it was him if I didn't know it was him. Coogan's also great, and again, they're great because they're playing human beings. Sure, they nail the stage personas, the dance moves, the hat tricks, and the gags, but this movie doesn't work at all if they're just doing impressions of Laurel and Hardy.

Eventually, Lucille and Ida, the wives played by Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda, join the pair on their tour, and at that point, this movie started to deflate a little bit. Their performances were a little too big at first, and it started to distract from what was really the heart of this movie. But you know what? Those performances and those characters really grew on me after a while.

"There it is--the Eiffel Tower." That one made me laugh.

Anna

2019 French action movie

Rating: 9/20

Plot: I don't have time for that.

If you saw a preview for this Luc Besson action movie with a model kicking and/or shooting people in throats and crotches, you probably knew exactly what you were getting into with this movie. There are no surprises in this thing although it's a movie that is really proud of its surprises. Early on, there's a reference to Matryoshka dolls, so you know what Besson wants to do with his character and her quest for freedom in this world of assassins and spies. Unfortunately, there's not much to this character. She's pretty and she's deadly, and in 2019, it feels like the type of character we've seen time and time again.

One stand-out action scene has the titular character killing a bunch of people in a restaurant, and as flashy and bloody as that is, it had to unfortunately hit the big screen about a month after John Wick 3 which does that thing so much better and with so much more originality and personality.

I'd like to see Helen Mirren and John Malkovich bringing their Russian accent talents to the same movie some time.

Oh, this movie might have bad chess in it. Like the action scenes, this was edited in such a dizzying way that I couldn't really tell. The whole sequence was just a cheap way to use chess as a metaphor anyway, so I already didn't like it.

A Separation

2011 Iranian drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Complications arise following the titular separation between a husband and wife after the former hires a caretaker for his father.

This is a quietly Rashomon-esque drama that requires the viewer to make judgments about these characters and their actions when he or she, like most of the characters, don't have all the information at their disposal. This is a movie with no obvious villains, just a difference of opinion that leads to a life-changing decision that is the opposite of a problem's solution it's supposed to be that leads to dishonesty and mistrust. And there's a game of foosball in there somewhere. From the moment the action picks up--a moment when a character has to decide between following religious doctrine and helping a human being who is suffering--A Separation just gets gnarlier and gnarlier. Seems crazy to ask a question like "Is it a sin to help a man who is suffering?" but when evangelical Christians are supporting the serial rapist in the White House, I guess that sort of thing shouldn't surprise me.

Glass

2019 superhero movie

Rating: 9/20

Plot: The three guy from Unbreakable and Split wind up in a hospital where a doctor tries to cure them of their delusions that they have superhuman abilities.

M. Night's back to Shammalammadingdonging his way through movies again. At least anything you could call a twist in this movie--this particular big twist is telegraphed from about a Beast hop, skip, and jump away--fits in thematically although the whole thing is so gummy that interest and momentum are lost fairly early on. By the time the big reveal hits and all the pieces come together, it's difficult to care what happens to Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, or James McAvoy.

Jackson probably gives the best performance of the three, but that might only be because he doesn't have a lot to do. Willis is as dispirited as he has been in this recent part of his career, and McAvoy's a total distraction. His is a big, flashy, show-off performance, and you get the sense that both he and Shyamalan are really pleased with themselves. McAvoy plays his characters in a way that says, "Hey! Look at me and what I can do!" and Shyamalan gives him all these artificial opportunities to showcase the various personalities because he thinks he's some sort of genius for even creating the character.

M. Night, because he thinks he's the reincarnation of Alfred Hitchcock, gives himself a really pointless extended cameo. It made me feel sorry for him.

The whole thing is just so hammy, and the comic meta-commentary is really clumsy. Characters might as well look directly at the audience and explain the parallels to you. In fact, I think one of them does that at one point. A bunch of things happen after a long period of time when not-much-at-all happens, and then things end and then end again and you think a little about the struggle between the remarkable and unremarkable or logic and the imagination but mostly wonder why a trio of characters are sitting where they happen to be sitting, realizing that it's yet another Shammalammadingdongian attempt to show off how clever he is.

I laughed out loud when McAvoy said "Hey" at one point in this. It's possible that the humor was intended, but I just don't know. I mean, I'm the guy who thought The Visit was a straight comedy.

The Young and the Damned

1950 drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A kid tries to make good choices amidst gangs and poverty.

It's not a Bunuel movie until somebody has a dream with a chicken. I have a theory that you can tell how good a director is by how he or she utilizes chickens. This has chickens--both subconscious ones and real flesh 'n' feathers ones--and it's also got a lot of eggs, one thrown directly at the camera. I'm not sure if this was available in 3D in AMC theaters back in 1950, but that egg scene would have had people diving to the sticky theater floors to avoid the egging.

I'm not sure which comes first in the movie--the chicken or the egg. I do know that the juvenile protagonist, as well as the posse he runs around with, are in a situation where it's nearly impossible for them not to avoid that egging. They're splattered by circumstances, yolk clotting in their hair like yellowed fate. In this Bunuelian version of Mexico City slums, there's little nurturing, especially for Pedro whose mother wants nothing to do with him. So Pedro depends on nature and instinct, but he's a baby bird and has never had anybody chew up worms for him. But hey, he's getting by, and he's trying to do it by being good. Unfortunately for you, young Pedro, Bunuel's setting doesn't make survival by doing things right very easy, and those chickens are probably snickering behind your back, Pedro. And the dogs dancing around in people clothes. And the donkey that acts exactly like Lassie at one point, braying to another character that so-and-so has fallen in a proverbial well. Or that other goat having it's teat sucked by a child. That's the world Bunuel has these young and/or damned characters inhabiting--the kind where a kid is sucking milk directly from a goat.

The first bit of violence that takes place in this film happens in front of a building that is the process of being built. In fact, there doesn't even look like any progress is being made on that building, at least in the image I have in my memory. No crane, no workers, no other equipment. It's just the skeleton of this building, the idea of a building, a building in its formative years so to speak. I think that's a telling detail, but the blind one-man-band, the character Bunuel tricked me into liking before hinting that he's a pederast, probably doesn't care all that much about that because somebody just put a foot through his drum.

There's great imagery here on what appears to be a budget of a few pesos. Foggy streets at night, a character framed by a cactus and train smoke, milk being poured on a young girl's legs. There's a kid with nightmare teeth, the kind that might cause the guy with no legs--he appears to have rolled from the future right out of a Jodorowsky movie--to feel sorry for the kid. I didn't get a look at his teeth though. Maybe he had no legs and bad teeth.

It's not a Bunuel movie unless there's a wacky dream sequence. What a creepy vibe that whole sequence has with characters shot in reverse and the obligatory slow-motion chicken. It's the kind of scene that probably made a young David Lynch want to rub a dove on a lady's back.

"I wish we could lock up poverty instead of these men."

I have nothing to say about that quote.

The Biggest Little Farm

2019 documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A couple, following an eviction because of their barking dog, buys 200 acres of dead soil and attempts to make it into a successful farm while living in complete harmony with nature.

The self-congratulatory nature of this documentary with constant narration should have probably bugged me a lot more than it did. The characters are a little too flawless, and if somebody other than Mark Chester had made this documentary about the efforts of him and his wife to create this farm that is in perfect harmony with nature from 200 acres of dead soil, that might not have been an issue at all. My biggest surprise was that I wasn't completely annoyed by these people. Their persistence, their ingenuity, their willingness to cooperate with others and give the others credit, and their overall vision ended up being inspiring in what might be the most feel-good documentary I see this year.

Things start near the end of their journey with California wildfires that threaten to ruin everything they work so hard for. Then, we flash back six or so years to the beginning of their journey, the catalyst being their dog that has the prettiest eyes I've seen in a movie in a really long time. Early shots of the farm show almost no potential whatsoever. The soil's dead, the whole place looks like a desert, and there's almost no sign of life. Over the next several years, with the help of a kooky mentor and a lot of people willing to help out, the farm begins to thrive although there are all sorts of moments that test their problem-solving abilities and persistence. Coyotes, snails, winds, drought, farm demons. Clearly, nature has the potential to destroy dreams, but an understanding of nature can help people unleash its powers to realize those dreams.

And nature, of course, can be beautiful. The cinematography is terrific, all kinds of lovely shots of this developing farm with its undulating hills and burgeoning foliage, the plethora of animals they bring onto their 200-acre neo-Eden, and all these smaller bugs and insects. The visuals alone make this a documentary worth catching on the big screen.

I'm not sure I buy the chronology of a lot of things that happen here. There are some parallels that are a little too convenient and all. However, that doesn't take away from the central messages of this documentary, and it doesn't distract from the emotional impact. I teared up a little during one very sad moment and one very happy one, and I imagine most people with any sort of heart at all would probably do the same. Not those coyotes though. Those guys are just bastards!

I was alone in the theater for this one until a younger woman walked in about 30 minutes after the movie started. She sat behind me and was fidgety. Then, after about 10 or so minutes, she turned her phone one. She stood up and came down to my row and started to approach me. I figured it was the end for me, but she was just looking under the seats for something. It made me uneasy.

This ends with a Avett Brothers' song that I liked. For that reason alone, I should have brought my life along for this one. She played it after I told her about it when I got home, and I teared up again listening to the lyrics. I'm such a baby.

Bad Movie Club: Track of the Moon Beast

1976 horror movie

Bad Movie Rating: 3/5 (Josh: 3/5; Lisa: 2.5/5; Tami: 3/5)

Rating: 4/20

Plot: Some guy named Paul who doesn't like to wear shirts is struck in the brain with a moon rock. It causes him to turn into a goofy-looking lizard monster that kills poker-playing campers and inebriated bowlers.

Our first Bad Movie Club meet-up in a while brought us a Moon Beast, a creature in a cheap rubbery lizard costume that I'm fairly positive the makers of this thing regretted. Action-horror sequences are limited in this. There's an early scene where the violence takes place off-screen featuring a drunk guy with a bowling ball. He's played by Alan Swain, and I'm happy to say that since I've seen this and Timerider: The Adventures of Lyle Swann, I can call myself an Alan Swain completist. Swain's been a location manager for the last several years, but he was also a rigging electrician in 2012's The Avengers. That's right, Alan Swain is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The best action scene has the "moon beast" interrupting a poker game in a tent, and I doubt the director of this (Dick Ashe, who directed nothing else after this atrocity) wanted me to laugh during that. You get the sense that they filmed one of these monster-killing-spree scenes, looked at it the next day, and decided, "We can't put too many of these in there!" and then wrote more scenes where the characters just talk and talk.

Leigh Drake is probably the worst performer in this, and it's a shock that she was allowed to act in two other movies. Every in is delivered in the same monotone, and my bad movie club friends and I really hoped she was the first to die. Unfortunately, she was the love interest, falling madly in love with the titular moon beast because she got to see him without a shirt so often.

Scientifically, this makes no sense at all. There's a character named Johnny Longbow who is a Native American and a scientist, and he just makes shit up as he goes. "Well, let's shoot him with an arrow that has an arrowhead I made out of the same moon rock lodged in his frontal lobe! After all, there needs to be a reason we showed off my character's bow and arrow skills earlier in the movie, right?" His make-it-up-as-you-go stylings seem to be the modus operandi of the pair of writers who penned this screenplay--Charles Sinclair and Bill Finger. Yes, it's that Bill Finger--the one who was a co-creator of Batman. Anyway, these two (yes, it took two brains to write this brainless script) seem to just be making it all up as they go along. More confusing science--Paul has this lizard as a pet, and it breaks out of its cage one night. I thought for sure there would be some twist where it was revealed that the lizard either was the creature responsible for all the killing or had somehow merged with Paul. Nope--the lizard just kind of disappeared and never played any role in any of this at all.

I've spent too much time writing about this movie, but I do want to mention the concert footage of Frank Larrabee singing "California Lady." This was apparently all he ever did, too. Maybe a moon lizard ate him.

Not a waste of time as a good-bad movie if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Annie Hall

1977 romantic comedy

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A comedian has an on-again/off-again romance with a singer. Lobsters. 

The lobster redux sequence is heartbreaking, and whenever I think about this movie, it's always the first thing that I think about. 

It's not easy to love a Woody Allen movie in 2019, but I can't help it because this movie is just too good not to love. The rapport between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton keeps this so breezy, and the whole thing is like some sort of comedy jazz stylings complete with riffs and solos. Though it's difficult to enjoy Woody Allen in 2019, Keaton's Annie was probably extraordinarily easy to fall in love with. A lot of this movie is about enjoying the time you have while you're alive on planet earth, ignoring the fact that the universe is expanding because it's not really any of your business. These characters aren't always the most likable human beings, but you unquestionably enjoy spending time with them. 

What else is this movie about? Being thankful that you're miserable, a similarity with Pixar's Inside-Out maybe. The topic of hostility comes up again and again, but I'm not sure I agree with Allen and his co-writer (Marshall Brickman) that any of the characters are hostile. I'd say it's closer to something like neuroses, although I guess a person's neurosis can lead to hostility. This fragmented love story also brings up--overtly or subtly--the idea of the physical vs. the intellectual. Neither of the characters can drive (the first drive with Keaton is one heck of an action sequence), a real problem since their relationship is in clear need of a driver. They navigate clumsily, engage in a few high speed chases, break down a few times, sputter around for a few blocks, gaze at the headlights of other cars. Sex, or the absence of sex, pops up here and there. Of course. By the end, geography becomes a metaphor and Keaton is Los Angeles and its cleanliness and Christmas carols while Allen is New York and it's filthy streets and middle fingers. 

Meanwhile, Jeff Goldblum tries to remember his mantra, Christopher Walken shares his own story about cars and driving, and Paul Simon has creepster hair. 

The rapport keeps this all breezy, but there's a playfulness to the direction that helps as well. 4th wall bashing, subtitles during a conversation that reveals the characters' secret thoughts, disembodied characters, split-screen use during family dinners or analysis sessions, omniscient pedestrians, Scrooge-like flashback hopping, a cartoon interlude, very clever juxtapositions. There are lots of tricks, but it never feels like Allen is showing off. Perhaps his best trick is somehow making a flashback montage work. Those never work, but one near the end of this one does. 

The Marriage of Maria Braun

1979 Fassbinder movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The titular character's marriage runs into some issues because of a war, a murder, and an exchange of money. Luckily, the loving couple still have a burning passion for each other.

This really does show the duration of a marriage, from a chaotic wedding filmed like an 21st Century action sequence to a final scene when the titular woman ends the movie on her terms. There are parallels in that beginning and ending, and you don't even have to look all that closely to see them. I loved that beginning with all those papers dancing in the air and the random cries from a baby, the type of movie opening that makes it seem like you somehow jumped right into the end of the movie.

Hanna Schygulla's a beautiful woman with an ugly name. I enjoyed her legs most, but she's just so lovely in all these early scenes in this war-torn setting. She practically glows against the dreary, dilapidated backdrops, and early on, her luck seems so bad that you can't help root for her even when the character is making some questionable or selfish decisions. She uses people--especially men--and displays this apathy, even saying "It's not a good time for feelings" while it seems rare that there's ever a good time for feelings with her. It should make her a villain, but there's something about the way she takes charge and rises above the situation to become what she becomes that makes her almost heroic.

Schygulla's performance is good, but Fassbinder also has all these little moments that are never commented on that also showcase the heart (or heartlessness) of this character. The way she's framed in comparison with other characters, subtle glances, a lack of eye contact, an enticing movement. When I first started watching Fassbinder movies, I thought there was something a little lazy about him. Well, lazy might not be the right word. But I definitely felt he was on the other side of the spectrum from a more anal, meticulous director like Wes Anderson or somebody. But there is a lot in the details with this one, and the movie is shot beautifully with several impressive extended takes. The choreography with characters in a scene where she finds out the truth--at least the truth at that particular moment in time--is great, and I also liked a scene at the end where Schygulla is a whirlwind. Other great moments include a sensual scene with wet black and white flesh, an undressing scene with an observer in the background, and a key-fumbling scene. Oh, and every shot that showed the tear in Maria's mother's boyfriend's t-shirt.

The Dead Don't Die

2019 zombedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Inhabitants of Centerville, a nice place to live, deal with a zombie apocalypse.

Like those Marvel movies, this has individual character posters, but I'm having a difficult time finding one for Tom Waits' Hermit Bob character, dumbfounding considering he plays a significant role in this and gets a soliloquy that is sort of the gnarled heart of this film. Or maybe it's the intestines, disemboweled and squelchy. Tom Waits, whose first line in this film is "Up your hole with a wooden pole, Bob," should be featured on every movie poster, even for movies that he isn't in. So not getting his own character poster for this movie is a disappointment.

On the surface, this Jarmusch movie might also seem like a disappointment. Despite my boredom with the zombie genre and belief that there's really nothing left in that well, I was semi-excited about this because I'm a Jarmusch fan and liked the cast. The deadpan humor works throughout if that's your bag, and the film's structure--less a coherent plot than a series of vignettes where eccentric characters in this "nice place to live" can interact humorously--almost makes this like a pleasant cross between Night of the Living Dead and Coffee and Cigarettes. The story doesn't progress; it sort of shambles along like a zombie's movements. At times, it feels a little half-assed, but fans of Jarmusch's aesthetic will likely be able to ride its currents.

And it is fun! Tom Waits gets to play a fun character, kind of the same guy you imagine his gold-hungry character from the Coen Brothers' movie last year would eventually turn into if he lived to be 200 years old. Tilda Swinton's Buddhist Scottish mortician who can swing a mean samurai sword is a character that makes virtually no sense, right up until the moment she surprisingly skiddoos, but it's the funniest I think I've ever seen her. Bill Murray and Adam Driver have nice dispassionate rapport, both just kind of understanding the type of character who is supposed to inhabit a Jarmuschian world and fitting in as well as you'd think they would. Chloe Sevigny, Danny Glover, Steve Buscemi, Caleb Landry Jones, Larry Fessenden, and Iggy Pop also get their moments in this.

The satirical content is a little too on-the-nose, a very obvious indictment of Trump-era small-town Americana. The first clue is Steve Buscemi's red cap, the message of "Keep America White Again" which still makes me laugh. The zombies in this are attracted to their activities as living human beings and lurch along mumbling words like "coffee" or "Snickers" or "Snapple" or "tools" or "wi-fi," again something that feels a bit tired and obvious. The more I think about the variety of characters in this, however, the more I think the satire works. Chances are, you'll recognize yourself in one of these characters. You'll see your personal reaction to Trump's America and how the entire country has lost its fucking mind and how everything is "all jacked up." It's all topsy-turvy, and day is night, and night is day, and Adam Driver doesn't think it will end well because it probably can't end well. You can observe, you can panic, you can fight, you can check your devices, you can put on a cap. It's up to you, but you have to worry about a zombie ripping out your intestines and feasting on your innards.

I'm not sure what to make of some of this. There's some meta moments that weirded things up, and it's hard to figure out how one of the two trios of teenage characters fit into things. Some day, I'll revisit this, and it's fun enough and filled with enough interesting imagery (love how flashing police lights and smudged windows can show zombies) and tangents that it'll be an easy one to watch again. I'm still not sure how I feel about seeing special effects in a Jim Jarmusch movie, however.

A Nos Amours

1983 drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: I have to go to bed soon and don't have time to write a plot synopsis.

The poster for this is a still from what might be my favorite scene, an early one that shows our young protagonist (too young to be this naked, it should be noted) on the "I'm King of the World" part of a boat, a breeze threatening to billow her skirt to scandalous heights, while a trio of guys, including her brother, ogle her. And that's all while Klaus Nomi chants. It's lovely.

This movie drifts like adolescence, and director Pialat isn't afraid to challenge both himself and the audience. This is a movie about family and the dissolution of a family as much as it's about the sexual awakening of a teenager. There are moments when it's beautiful, especially whenever Sandrine Bonnaire lets a smile escape, and there are times when it's raw. Bonnaire in her first role is fantastic. Within her, there's an innocence and something very dangerous, and she unleashes both of those so naturally whenever the character needs to.

Ok, I have to go to bed now.

In the Realm of the Senses

1976 pornographic art

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Sex, more sex, and then what sex generally leads to.

I nailed that plot summary. One could accuse Nagisa Oshima of including too many sex scenes in this movie. As a matter of fact, I was a little embarrassed watching this in the same room as my wife who was not interested in the least and accused me of having ulterior motives with this selection because every single time she looked up, Eiko Matsuda and Tatsuya Fuji were trying out yet another position. She could have looked up every thirty seconds and would have seen those two gettin' it on in some fashion. That, or inserting eggs into orifices or choking each other or watching as one or the other  a third person.

"This movie," I explained, "is one of the 1,000 greatest movies of all time according to the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list. I pretty much have to watch it."
"I don't know what that is, and whatever."
And Eiko Matsuda doesn't help by adding, "Whoo! Let me at that penis!"

So could you argue that the amount of sex scenes in this is a little extraneous? Yes, it makes their individual obsessions entirely clear, but could have that been clear with a little more grace and a little less boinking? Likely, but Oshima could also have told this story without so many beautiful shots, and nobody would have wanted that.

It's possible that I need to watch this about six more times in order to better understand its themes.

The Battle Wizard

1977 battle wizard movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Battle wizards battle wizard it out!

This was on an old "must see" list, and that was without even knowing that the main villain is named Yellow Robe Man. This Shaw Brothers production is less a kung-fu movie and more of a wizard thing with characters talking about kung-fu but shooting each other with laser fingers or Palpatine-esque lightning bolts, women who attack with poisonous snakes, men who gain powers via the swallowing of a poisonous toad, a guy in a gorilla suit, a Yellow Robe Man who shoots fire from his mouth, and my favorite character, a guy with some sort of half-a-lobster-claw who is apparently metallic. That's right--this is nuts!

The plot doesn't make a great deal of sense. There's some threatened incest within your typical revenge plot, and I was completely lost once a new clan came into the picture. Actually, I think I was lost the entire time, but it was worth it when my wife came in during the climactic battle scene to hear her "What the hell are you watching?"

My Sweet Little Village

1985 Czech comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Life in a sweet little village.

This is a sweet little Czech movie about life in the sweet little village. There's an affair, there's a disgruntled worker, there's a plan to get an undesired member of the village out, and there's likely a murder, all these slice-of-life anecdotes that have a lot to do with the loss of innocence. Otik (played with almost entirely silent charm by Janos Ban) and Pavek Pavek (Marian Labuda) have this relationship that ended up really touching, earning the right for what really should have been a goofy ending featuring synchronized walking and hopping. My friend Eric, the guy who mentioned this movie without really recommending it, thought the two had a Laurel and Hardy vibe. There are a lot of humorous moments throughout, but this isn't all about the comedy. The key might be in the main characters' proximity to a cemetery. I like what this has to say about that aforementioned loss of innocence and human relationships.

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story

2019 musical documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Robert Zimmerman embarks on a strange tour in the middle of the 1970's, and Allen Ginsberg tags along.

See, it's a Bob Dylan story, one of many stories, none which are likely true. He claims this tour, and likely therefore this documentary, is "about nothing." He says, "It's just something that happened 40 years ago," before, he claims, he was even born. Maybe he slipped and meant "born again" since this was right before he saw the light and released that holy trinity of Christian rock albums. He also claims that "thought will fuck you up," that you can trust people to tell the truth when they're wearing masks, and some psuedo-psychology mumbo-jumbo about how life isn't about living but about creating yourself. You could use any of that as a launching pad for hypothesizing about what this movie's all about or even what Dylan's all about. He's a chameleon, a charlatan, a medicine man, a shaman, a wizard, a deceiver, and a thief, and you see all these personas on display in this, all these Dylans weaving in and out of each other, ducking and weaving, and ducking and dodging. By the end of this, any Dylanologist might suspect that Martin Scorsese's involvement in this is as manufactured as everything else to do with this film, one that might be closer to a mockumentary than the documentary it claims to be. You get the sense that Dylan took it as an opportunity to be whatever he wanted. Hell, even Joan Baez gets to be Bob Dylan!

One surprising truth of the Rolling Thunder Revue--Bob Dylan did a lot more of the driving that you would have suspected.

A Joan Baez moment is one of the highlights of this documentary, but like everything else, you don't know the legitimacy. Dylan, looking his most forlorn in what isn't a very happy period in his life, is having a one-on-one with Baez. It's sweet and it's sad, and it's probably obvious to people smarter than me that it's complete bullshit, just two icons aware of a camera and what that camera might like to see.

Other great moments: a gal's post-coital (I mean, post-concert) reaction where her face transforms from spiritually stunned to sobbing in just a few seconds. All the Scarlet Rivera backstory and anecdotes, most likely total bullshit, not that that's going to stop me from wanting to go back in time and have her threaten me with a knife after I awkwardly come onto her. Allen Ginsberg reads some poetry, and that's always worth watching, but what a hoot is is to watch him bust a move on the dance floor. Or how about Ginsberg and Dylan at Kerouac's grave, reading poetry and getting so so deep like beatniks and guys wearing hats with ridiculous flowers can get sometimes. Ramblin' Jack, Sam Shepherd, Ronnie Hawkins, and so many others. A cast of characters who all get their moments.

Even Sharon Stone! No, I didn't quite buy Sharon Stone's story here, figured she was a stand-in for something else. But that manufactured myth has some serious layers, bits-within-bits about KISS inspiration and Stone being the inspiration for a song that was released ten years before Dylan met her when he really never met her at all. The invented filmmaker, the politician who was supposedly Jimmy Carter's pal but who was actually just a character from another film. Oh, shenanigans! I'm ashamed that I bought any of it at all.

This is a musical goldmine for any Dylan fan, probably what might distract anybody from seeing through some of the games. In his career, the mid-70s is yet another period of fervency as he's performing live again after eight years of not touring following a (likely fake) motorcycle accident. He's electric, even when he's accompanying himself with the acoustic guitar, and that assembled band knows how to cook! I would have likely been stunned spiritually and sobbing just like that woman. He's painted his face, he's setting fire to audiences, and he's (mostly) having a blast. The rehearsal stuff is great as the band is trying to pound out these numbers and keep up with his screaming of the lyrics. There are too many live highlights to mention, but I'll mention "Isis" anyway since that's always been an enigmatic personal favorite of mine. And the "Ira Hayes" song sung amidst an audience of Native Americans and all the "Hurricane" stuff shows he still gave a shit about stuff. Joni Mitchell even stops by to teach him a song.

This is a lot about Dylan, but I wonder what it's saying about America. There's a lot of patriotic bicentennial goofballery, flag-waving and guys hawking their "new national anthems" in the shadows of the Twin Towers. But really, this is about Dylan creating himself. Starting in Plymouth, fittingly, this is about searching, rediscovering America, an exploration, rock 'n' roll as some sort of medicine, maturation, bringing salvation, redemption. And, as older Dylan tells us as he thinks back at his younger self, it's about nothing. It is "something that happened," and I'm thrilled that Scorsese or whoever was really involved made it happen on my television screen.

Mouchette

1967 drama

Rating: 18/20

Plot: I don't feel like doing a plot synopsis for this one.

Whoops! I thought this was part of that Danny Trejo Machete franchise! WTF! LOL!

Bresson's gift is how he can create something so simple and so enigmatic at once. Symbolically chunky, Mouchette is one of those you feel more than you actually understand. It's a movie that affects more than entertains you. And it's a movie that convinces you that every closing door and every muddy squelch contains more meaning than you've had in your own life in the past several years. This is a spiritual experience.

Bresson himself said that the titular teen is used to prove that "misery and cruelty" are in the world, as if that's something that anybody needs to see further evidence of. He says she is "found everywhere" and mentioned concentration camps and assassinations as examples. I'm not sure whether or not concentration camps had bumper cars, but I suppose if the viewer isn't aware whether or not Mouchette is aware of the joys of bumper cars, this whole thing just doesn't work.

We're all boozing it up and riding bumper cars while Mouchette is rolling down a hill and soiling her new dress, aren't we? Soiler alert.

I'm aware of my typographical error, but I "soiler alert" cracked me up. Accidental genius!