dark comedy

RADIO DREAMS – stranger in a strange and funny land

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RADIO DREAMS

The droll dark comedy Radio Dreams explores the ambivalence of the immigrant experience through the portrait of a flamboyant misfit, a man who rides the roller coaster of megalomania and despair. That misfit is Hamid Royani (Mohsen Namjoo), the director of programming at an Iranian radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Hamid, an author in Iran, is a man of great certainty, with an unwavering sense of intellectual superiority He assumes that everyone should – and will – buy in to his idiosyncratic taste. This results in extremely random radio programming, and Hamid tries to sabotage everything that he finds vulgar (which is everything that might bring more listeners and revenue to the station.)

With his wild mane and indulgent programming, we first think that Hamid is simply batty. But immigrants to the US generally forge new identities, and we come to understand that Hamid has not, perhaps will not, forge that new identity. His despair is real but it’s hard to empathize with – he might be a legitimate literary figure in Iran, but he’s probably a pompous ass over there, too.

The highlight of Radio Dreams is Hamid’s reaction when he is surprised that Miss Iran USA, whom he has dismissed as a bimbo, might have literary chops that rivaling his.

Hamid has concocted a plan to have Afghanistan’s first rock band visit with the members of Metallica on air, and that’s the movie’s MacGuffin. As we wait to see if Metallica will really show up, the foibles of the radio station crew dot Radio Dreams with moments of absurdity. There are the cheesy commercials about unwanted body hair, Hamid’s obsession with hand sanitizer, a radio jungle played live on keyboards EVERY time, a new employee orientation that focuses on international time zones, along with a station intern compelled to take wrestling lessons.

Writer-director Babak Jalali is an adept storyteller. As the movie opens, we are wondering, why do these guys have musical instruments? Why are they talking about Metallica? What’s with the ON AIR sign? Much of the movie unfolds before Hamid Royani emerges as the centerpiece character.

Hamid is played by the well-known Iranian singer-songwriter Mohsen Namjoo, “Iran’s Bob Dylan”. This is only Namjoo’s second feature film as an actor. He’s a compelling figure, and this is a very fine performance.

Except for Namjoo, the cast is made up of Bay Area actors. Masters of the implacable and the stone face, all of the actors do deadpan really, really well.

As befits the mix of reality and absurdism, here’s a podcast by the characters in Radio Dreams. I saw Radio Dreams at the Cinema Club Silicon Valley, and Babak Jalali took Q&A after the screening by phone from Belgium. Radio Dreams is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes and kanopy.

KNIVES OUT: born on third base and thought they hit a triple

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Daniel Craig in KNIVES OUT

Writer-director Rian Johnson explodes the genre of the drawing room murder mystery in the gloriously entertaining Knives Out.

Knives Out opens at the country estate of a multi-millionaire author (Chistopher Plummer), where he is found dead. If he was murdered, it had to be at the hands of his sweet caregiver Marta (Ana de Armas) or a member of his icky family of ingrates (Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Chris Evans). A Hercule Poirot-type consulting detective (Daniel Craig with a Southern accent) arrives to investigate, and the game is afoot.

I’ve met plenty of folks like the author’s family, who were born on third base and thought they hit a triple. That’s what Knives Out is really about – a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement. One of the running jokes is that they claim that Marta is “one of the family”, but none can remember which Latin American country she’s from.

Despite Daniel Craig’s turn as the famed detective, this is really Ana de Armas’ movie, and she is superb. All of the cast are excellent, but everyone except de Armas and Plummer play very broad characters. BTW De Armas plays Paloma, the Bond Girl, to Craig’s James Bond in No Time to Die (coming in April 2020).

Ana de Armas in KNIVES OUT

I recently wrote about Rian Johnson’s 2005 breakthrough Brick, which inhabited the form of another familiar movie genre – film noir. In Nate Jones’ interview in Vulture, Johnson says “One thing I don’t believe in is the notion that this is a dusty old genre and you have to find a way to flip the old tropes on their heads. The basic machinery of it, the tropes of it, are why it works.”

Johnson slyly (and without comment) inserts a shot of Marta’s mom watching a rerun of Angela Lansbury in a Murder, She Wrote, dubbed in Spanish. And the great M. Emmet Walsh has a cameo as the aged security guy who proudly explains the VHS-based security camera system.

Knives Out works as a darkly funny murder mystery and as a pointed social satire. It’s one of the year’s smartest and funniest films.

Stream of the Week: HEADHUNTERS – from smoothly confident scoundrel to human piñata

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Aksel Hennie in HEADHUNTERS

For the second straight week, I’m recommending the marvelously entaertining Headhunters to kick off your summer. The smug Norwegian corporate headhunter named Roger Brown (don’t ask) explains his motivation at the very beginning of the movie: at 5 feet, 6 inches, his insecurity about keeping his six foot blond wife leads him to cut some corners. As ruthlessly successful as he is in business, he feels the need to also burgle the homes of his clients and steal art treasures. So the dark comedy thriller Headhunters (Hodejegerne) begins like a heist movie. But soon Roger becomes targeted by a client with serious commando skills, unlimited high tech gizmos, and a firm intention to make Roger dead.

Roger Brown is played brilliantly by Aksel Hennie, a huge star in Norway who looks like a cross between Christopher Walken and Peter Lorre. The laughs come from Roger’s comeuppance as he undergoes every conceivable humiliation while trying to survive. As a smoothly confident scoundrel, Roger is at first not that sympathetic, but Hennie turns him into a panicked and terrified Everyman when he becomes a human pinata.

HEADHUNTERS

Headhunters is based on a page-turner by the Scandinavian mystery writer Jo Nesbo. A Hollywood remake of Headhunters is somewhere in development.  In the meantime, stream Headhunters on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube or Google Play and have a fun time at the movies.

Stream of the Week: HEADHUNTERS – from smoothly confident scoundrel to human piñata

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Aksel Hennie in HEADHUNTERS

The smug Norwegian corporate headhunter named Roger Brown (don’t ask) explains his motivation at the very beginning of the movie: at 5 feet, 6 inches, his insecurity about keeping his six foot blond wife leads him to cut some corners. As ruthlessly successful as he is in business, he feels the need to also burgle the homes of his clients and steal art treasures. So the dark comedy thriller Headhunters (Hodejegerne) begins like a heist movie. But soon Roger becomes targeted by a client with serious commando skills, unlimited high tech gizmos, and a firm intention to make Roger dead.

Roger Brown is played brilliantly by Aksel Hennie, a huge star in Norway who looks like a cross between Christopher Walken and Peter Lorre. The laughs come from Roger’s comeuppance as he undergoes every conceivable humiliation while trying to survive. As a smoothly confident scoundrel, Roger is at first not that sympathetic, but Hennie turns him into a panicked and terrified Everyman when he becomes a human pinata.

HEADHUNTERS

Headhunters is based on a page-turner by the Scandinavian mystery writer Jo Nesbo. A Hollywood remake of Headhunters is somewhere in development.  In the meantime, stream Headhunters on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube or Google Play and have a fun time at the movies.

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS: some chuckles for Coen Brothers fans

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Zoe Kazan in THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is the Coen Brothers’ homage to the Western genre; it’s an anthology with SIX of their darkly funny stories. They clearly share Mark Twain’s cynically wry take on human nature, which they depict in Western situations of wagon trains, stagecoach rides, prospecting and hangings. The Coen brothers are not just making fun of Western clichés but also celebrating the genre, with beautiful vistas of New Mexico’s harshness and the spectacular Colorado high country.

The funniest is the opening vignette, with its over-the-top send up of Western conventions – white and black hats, saloon gambling, super fast gunplay and the rest, including nods to the “loquacious Western” subgenre.  And it cements Tim Blake Nelson as having the funniest shit-eating grin in cinema.

The best performance is Harry Melling’s in the Meal Ticket segment. Melling is best known as Harry Potter’s Dudley Dursling.  He plays an itinerant performer who only speaks during his performances; Melling is startlingly brilliant in those performances and even better when he silently and fatalistically regards his competition.

Harry Melling in THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

By far the best story is the saddest, The Gal Who Got Rattled, about a sad-eyed young woman (Zoe Kazan) who is following her delusional brother west, to what we all know will be heartbreak. Untethered by her obligation to the brother, she gets the Old West’s opportunity to remake her destiny until the Old West’s cruel chance intervenes.

The movie peters out in the ghostly last story, The Mortal Remains, despite Saul Rubinek’s delicious portrayal of a Frenchman in the Old West.

I don’t recommend The Ballad of Buster Scruggs for general audiences, but Westernphiles and fans of the Coen Brothers dark, dark humor will find it worthwhile viewing; it doesn’t rise anywhere near the level of the Coen’s best:  Blood Simple, Fargo, A Simple Man, No Country for Old Men or True Grit. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is playing in a few theaters and streaming from Netflix.

TULLY: insightful, compelling and, finally, magical

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Charlize Theron stars in Jason Reitman’s TULLY. Courtesy of SFFILM.

The compelling dark comedy Tully stars Charlize Theron, is written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman. Those three combined on the underrated game-changing comedy Young Adult, and Tully is another very singular film.

Theron plays Marlo, a mom who has just given birth to her third child.  Her oldest kid has intense special needs and a newborn brings another level of obligation.  Marlo develops a serious case of depression.  To ease the burden, she gets a night nurse named Tully; Tully has an otherworldly quality which brings relief and respite to Marlo.  And then there’s a major plot twist…

Theron is a fearless actress – not afraid to glam down, She gained fifty pounds for this role (not as big a glam down as for Monster). In Young Adult, she was game to play a thoroughly dislikable character. Here she plays a real Mom, not a Perfect Mom. In real life, caregiving can take its toll, and that’s what we see here.

Mackenzie Davis brings a magical quality to the character of Tully.  Ron Livingston is very good as a loving but clueless husband; ill-equipped to recognize, let alone deal with Marlo’s depression.

Tully was featured at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) (although I missed it because I was at the Leave No Trace screening);  Theron and Reitman attended the SFFILM screening, and, from all reports,  Theron wowed the crowd.

Tully is an excellent and insightful film.  It’s a dark comedy and NOT A LIGHT MOVIE – after all, with all its laughs, it’s about postpartum depression.

DVD/Stream of the Week: YOUNG ADULT – comedy game-changer

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Charlize Theron in YOUNG ADULT

This weekend, Charlize Theron stars in Tully, from screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno) and director Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air).  Seven years ago, in Young Adult, this same team challenged the current mode of comedy itself. They turned many comic conventions on their heads in this nastily dark comedy, and Young Adult was on my list of Best Movies of 2011.

Played by Charlize Theron, the main character is stunningly non-empathetic, utterly self-absorbed and thoroughly unpleasant. She was the prom goddess in her small town high school, and has moved to the city for a job with a hint of prestige. With a failed marriage, a looming career crisis and no friends, she’s drinking too much and is in a bad place. So she decides to return to her hometown and get her old boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) back – despite the fact that he’s gloriously contented with his wife and newborn infant.

Naturally, social disasters ensue. Along the way, the story probes the issues of happiness and self-appraisal.

Patton Oswalt and Charlize Theron in YOUNG ADULT

Patton Oswalt is wonderful as someone the protagonist regarded as a lower form of life in high school, but who becomes her only companion and truth teller.

Young Adult is inventive and very funny. Its cynicism reminds me of a Ben Hecht or Billy Wilder screenplay (high praise). Note: This is NOT a film for someone expecting a light comedy. Young Adult is available on DVD from Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

THE DEATH OF STALIN: gallows humor from the highest of scaffolds

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Jason Isaacs and Steve Buscemi in THE DEATH OF STALIN

One might not expect the death of Josef Stalin and the subsequent maneuvering of his cronies to make for a savagely funny movie, but that is exactly what writer-director Armando Ianucci has accomplished in in The Death of Stalin.  In his Veep and In the Loop, Ianucci has proved himself an expert in mocking the ambition, venality and flattery of those reaching for power.  In The Death of Stalin, he adds terror to his quiver of motivations, and the result is darkly hilarious.

Serving Stalin was a high-wire act.  By the end of Stalin’s Great Terror, everyone still standing in the Soviet leadership had survived by flattering Stalin and by loyally carrying out every Stalin command, no matter how misguided and/or murderous.  Given that the slightest misstep – or even a wholly imagined fragment of Stalin’s paranoia – could lead to a summary bullet-in-the-head, this was no small achievement.  These may have been the most powerful men at the very top of a superpower, but they have all been traumatized into extreme caution by years of fear.

For example, when Stalin suffers a cerebral hemorrhage and falls to the floor, his guards are afraid to burst into his room.  When Stalin is discovered on the floor by his housekeeper, the regime’s top leaders gather around him and decide on next steps.  The first question is whether to call a doctor, because they fear that if Stalin wakes up and finds that someone else has made a decision, he will have them executed.  (Once they get past that, they must work around the fact that Stalin has already killed or exiled all the competent doctors in Moscow.)

Of course, it would be absurd for Stalin’s inner circle to refrain from calling a doctor for hours and hours.  But it really happened.  So did all of the other key occurrences in the movie, although the events were compressed from the real six months into a three-day movie plot.

This cast is brilliant.  Steve Buscemi is cast as Nikita Kruschev and proves to be an inspired choice.  Jason Isaacs, with a ridiculously broad (but historically accurate) chest full of medals, is especially delightful as Field Marshal Zhukov.   Michael Palin, as Molotov, has one of the best bits as he deadpans political correctness while figuring out whether he can admit that the sudden release of his imprisoned wife is really good news.  Each one of the actors – Simon Russell Beale, Olga Kuryenko, Paddy Considine, Jeffrey Tambor, Andrea Riseborough – gets to shine with Ianucci’s dialogue.

This is gallows humor from the highest of scaffolds.  The Death of Stalin is an insightful exploration of terror – and hilarious, too.

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI: raw emotion and dark hilarity

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Frances McDormand in THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, a powerful combination of raw emotions and dark hilarity, Frances McDormand plays Mildred, a small town woman consumed by the unsolved murder of her daughter.  Mildred doesn’t have the power to solve the murder herself, but she has the power to make everyone else uncomfortable until she finds justice and closure.  She buys billboards that personalize the stalled murder investigation, laying the blame on the popular town sheriff (Woody Harrelson).  She intends to rile people up, and, boy, does she succeed.

There are consequences, both intended and unintended.  In addition to the murder mystery, there are two new whodunits related to the billboards and some violent outbursts by two of the characters.  There’s a heartbreaking letter, and two more utterly unexpected letters.

The murder of one’s child is shattering enough, but Mildred also piles guilt on herself.  The murder has enraged the entire family, including Mildred’s son (Lucas Hedges of Manchester By the Sea) and her ex-husband (John Hawkes).  All three express their rage in different ways.  This is a showcase role for McDormand.

Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell in THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

This might be Woody Harrelson’s best performance.  His sheriff is an island of common sense, decency and levelheadedness in a turbulent sea of upset and idiocy.  The character of the sheriff is a remarkably fine father and husband in ways that are fun and interesting to watch.   The sheriff is facing his own mortality, and his feelings are hurt unjustly, but we only see glimpses of the pain in Harrelson’s eyes.  This is a performance that would have been in the wheelhouse for Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda and Gregory Peck, and Harrelson nails it.

Sam Rockwell plays Dixon, one of the sheriff’s deputies.  Dixon is an unfortunate muddle of bad instincts, no impulse control, stupidity, racism and rage.   Then he gets an unexpected opportunity for redemption…

Sandy Martin also sparkles as Dixon’s Momma.  It’s a very small part, but Martin practically steals the movie  with her white trash Svengali. Martin’s 128 screen credits include roles in Transparent, Big Love and as Grandma in Napoleon Dynamite (she’s the one who says Knock it off, Napoleon! Just make yourself a dang quesa-dilluh).

Samara Weaving is really perfect as the inappropriately-young-girlfriend-on-the-rebound of Mildred’s ex.  Weaving is drop dead beautiful with a remarkable sense of comic timing and a mastery of deadpan.  Fully invested in her character’s goodhearteredness and  airheadedness, she reminds me of Margot Robbie and Elizabeth Banks as a comic actor.

Peter Dinklage plays a character that provides comic relief and one important plot point, and he brings an unexpected and profound feeling to the part.

Here’s one thing that is uncommonly great about Three Billboards:  the story would have worked with characters of far less dimension, but the roles written by Martin McDonagh and performed by the cast elevates Three Billboards.  Mildred could have been only a shrew, the sheriff could have been only a cardboard foil and Dixon could have been only a buffoon.  Instead McDormand, Rockwell and Rochwell add layers of complexity to their characters, and Hawkes, Martin, Weaver and Dinklage each contribute more to the mix.

Three Billboards is brilliantly written by director Martin McDonagh.  McDonagh’s 2008 In Bruges was either the funniest hit man movie ever or the darkest and most violent buddy comedy ever.  Three Billboards shares the same dark/funny flavor.   Three Billboards also has a really fine soundtrack with a couple of spaghetti western-inspired cues.

The emotion in Three Billboards is genuine and deeply felt.  There are some especially grim moments, peppered with lots of laughs.   As I ponder this film, I keep coming back to the characters, the performances and the surprises in the story. Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri was an audience favorite on the festival circuit and is a Must See in theaters now.

RADIO DREAMS: stranger in a strange and funny land

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RADIO DREAMS
RADIO DREAMS

The droll dark comedy Radio Dreams explores the ambivalence of the immigrant experience through the portrait of a flamboyant misfit, a man who rides the roller coaster of megalomania and despair. That misfit is Hamid Royani (Mohsen Namjoo), the director of programming at an Iranian radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area. Radio Dreams opens tomorrow for a one-week-only run at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.

Hamid, an author in Iran, is a man of great certainty, with an unwavering sense of intellectual superiority He assumes that everyone should – and will – buy in to his idiosyncratic taste. This results in extremely random radio programming, and Hamid tries to sabotage everything that he finds vulgar (which is everything that might bring more listeners and revenue to the station.)

With his wild mane and indulgent programming, we first think that Hamid is simply batty. But immigrants to the US generally forge new identities, and we come to understand that Hamid has not, perhaps will not, forge that new identity. His despair is real but it’s hard to empathize with – he might be a legitimate literary figure in Iran, but he’s probably a pompous ass over there, too.

The highlight of Radio Dreams is Hamid’s reaction when he is surprised that Miss Iran USA, whom he has dismissed as a bimbo, might have literary chops that rivaling his.

Hamid has concocted a plan to have Afghanistan’s first rock band visit with the members of Metallica on air, and that’s the movie’s MacGuffin. As we wait to see if Metallica will really show up, the foibles of the radio station crew dot Radio Dreams with moments of absurdity. There are the cheesy commercials about unwanted body hair, Hamid’s obsession with hand sanitizer, a radio jungle played live on keyboards EVERY time, a new employee orientation that focuses on international time zones, along with a station intern compelled to take wrestling lessons.

Writer-director Babak Jalali is an adept storyteller. As the movie opens, we are wondering, why do these guys have musical instruments? Why are they talking about Metallica? What’s with the ON AIR sign? Much of the movie unfolds before Hamid Royani emerges as the centerpiece character.

Hamid is played by the well-known Iranian singer-songwriter Mohsen Namjoo, “Iran’s Bob Dylan”. This is only Namjoo’s second feature film as an actor. He’s a compelling figure, and this is a very fine performance.

Except for Namjoo, the cast is made up of Bay Area actors. Masters of the implacable and the stone face, all of the actors do deadpan really, really well.

As befits the mix of reality and absurdism, here’s a podcast by the characters in Radio Dreams. I saw Radio Dreams at the Camera Cinema Club, and Babak Jalali took Q&A after the screening by phone from Belgium.

Radio Dreams is the second feature for Jalali, an Iranian-born filmmaker living and working in Europe. He shot Radio Dreams with a small crew over only 24 days in San Francisco. About 60% of the dialogue was scripted and 40% improvised. The band in the movie, Kabul Dreams, really is Afghanistan’s first rock band, they did get to meet Metallica in real life and the PARS-FM were filmed at a real Iranian radio station in the Bay Area.

Babak Jalali is a promising filmmaker and Radio Dreams is a movie that we haven’t seen before.