The dark sci fi comedy Daddy: is set in a future where only a limited number of men are approved by the government to father children. Four guys apply for the privilege and are isolated in a mountain lodge to wait for the expert evaluator, who doesn’t immediately show up. As they try to figure out what’s going on and what they should do, they succeed only in demonstrating how unfit they would be as parents – until things get all Lord of the Rings. It’s a very funny skewering of both male overconfidence and male angst.
Finally, the guys get an unexpected visitor, who may or may not be the evaluator that they expect. What’s impressive about this episode is how each man’s instinctual reaction, different from each other’s, can be so profoundly wrongheaded.
The mountain lodge is equipped with an artificial baby model (a doll). Co-writers Neal Kelley and Jono Sherman refrain from overusing this prop in slapstick. It’s far funnier to glimpse the doll as it seems to silently rebuke the foolhardiness around it.
Daddy is the second feature and first feature, respectively, for for co-directors/co-writers Kelley and Sherman, who also play two of the guys. Cinequest’s online festival Cinejoy hosts the world premiere of Daddy.
The Levin Brothers during their time with People! in BROTHERS BROKEN. Courtesy of Cinequest.
The documentary Brothers Broken contains a singularly refreshing aspect on a familiar phenomenon – the breakup of a 60s rock band. But here, the band breaks up, not because of drugs or ego, but because of a cult. And the estranged band members are brothers. The band doesn’t last long, but the brothers’ arc covers a 58-year arc.
Those brothers were the creative force behind the San Jose band People!, which was poised for future success after their hit I Love You in 1967. But at that point, one brother joined Scientology, and was forbidden to have contact with the rest of the band, including his own brother.
That former Scientologist brother, Geoff Levin, has co-directed Brothers Broken and says, “This has been a 75 year journey. 8 years ago I was on the verge of death. A deep depression caused by close to fifty years in Scientology almost ended my life. I came out of the cult and I am very grateful to my family and friends who have helped me recover. “
People! band members today in BROTHERS BROKEN. Courtesy of Cinequest.
There have been excellent Scientology documentaries, most notably Alex Gibney’s Going Clear: The Prison of Belief. Here, the Scientology aspect benefits from the brothers’ relatability and authenticity.
Not all is happy in Brothers Broken, because Geoff’s decision is still costing him dear family relationships. But Brothers Broken is an audience pleaser.
Brothers Broken is the first feature for co-directors Geoff Levin and Lily Richards. Cinequest’s online-festival Cinejoy hosts the US premiere of Brothers Broken. Fitting for Cinequest, the brothers and the band are from San Jose!
Photo caption: DESTINY ON THE MAIN STAGE. Courtesy of Cinequest.
In the brilliant documentary Destiny on the Main Stage, a female director (and almost all-female crew) chronicle three years in the lives of Dallas-area strippers – and it’s authentic and NOT sensationalist or exploitative. The strippers include both a 20-year veteran very comfortable in her vocation and a former stripper organizing to help women exit the business. And, of course there are the very young women who are puddles of bad choices. Over the three years, the subjects’ lives take some very gripping turns.
This is not an advocacy film that seeks to criticize or promote the industry. This is cinéma vérité, and the pivotal events in the women’s lives are depicted as they happen. Hearing the strippers’ voices through a female lens/gaze/perspective is both novel and insightful. Director Poppy de Villenueve says, “These events are revealed as part of life, filmed in a nuanced way, reflecting something these women rarely are given the opportunity to have revealed.“
What Destiny on the Main Stage is filled with, instead of titillation, is humanity. De Villenueve says, “It is difficult to find real intimacy and connection these days, but by highlighting it in the darkest environments, I believe we move the world towards a better, kinder place.”
This is a serious film that could become an audience favorite, too. Destiny on the Main Stage is the second feature for director Poppy de Villenueve. Cinequest’s online festival Cinejoy hosted the world premiere of Destiny on the Main Stage, and it’s playing the in-person Cinequest in August..
Cinequest’s online festival CINEJOY is underway. Here are my top picks:
Share? In this very funny think-piece, an unnamed Everyman (Melvin Gregg) finds himself locked up in his civvies in a high tech cell – and he’s on camera. Through trial and error, he learns that he can acquire necessities and on-screen social interaction with other captives, by performing for the camera; the currency is not unlike the likes and follows of social media. There are many layers of metaphor in this exploration of human behavior and the human appetite for bread and circuses. First feature for director and co-writer Ira Rosensweig. World premiere.
Destiny on the Main Stage: In this brilliant documentary, a female director (and almost all-female crew) chronicle four years in the lives of Dallas-area strippers – and it’s authentic and NOT sensationalist or exploitative. Hearing the strippers’ voices through a female lens/gaze/perspective is both novel and insightful. The strippers include both a 20-year veteran very comfortable in her vocation to a former stripper organizing to help women exit the business. And, of course there are the very young women who are puddles of bad choices. Over the four years, the subjects’ lives take some very gripping turns. This is a serious film that could become an audience favorite, too. Second feature for director Poppy de Villenueve. World premiere.
Daddy: This dark sci fi comedy is set in a future where only a limited number of men are approved by the government to father children. Four guys apply for the privilege and are isolated in a mountain lodge to wait for the expert evaluator, who doesn’t immediately show up. As they try to figure out what’s going on and what they should do, they succeed only in demonstrating how unfit they would be as parents – until things get all Lord of the Rings. It’s a very funny skewering of both male overconfidence and male angst. Second feature and first feature, respectively, for for co-directors/co-writers Neal Kelley and Jono Sherman, who play two of the guys. World premiere.
Everybody Wants to Be Loved: This German dramedy is a triumph of the harried mom genre. As a psychotherapist, Ina (Anne Ratte-Polle) spends her workdays listening to whining and naval-gazing. Then she goes home to her self-absorbed boyfriend and her teen daughter – and the job of teenagers is to be self-absorbed.-Nobody is most narcissistic and entitled than Ina’s mom. It’s the mom’s birthday, and she is rampaging with demands. The daughter is threatening to move in with Ina’s ex, and the boyfriend wants to move the family to Finland for his career. As Ina is swirling around this vortex of egotism, she gets some sobering news about her own health. As everyone converges on the birthday party, what could possibly go wrong? First feature for director and co-writer Katharina Woll. Second screening in the US.
Brothers Broken: The documentary Brothers Broken contains a singularly refreshing aspect on a familiar phenomenon – the breakup of a 60s rock band. But here, the band breaks up, not because of drugs or ego, but because of a cult. And the estranged band members are brothers. The band doesn’t last long, but the brothers’ arc covers a 58-year arc. Fitting for Cinequest, the brothers and the band are from San Jose! First feature for co-directors Geoff Levin and Lily Richards. US premiere.
This is the thirteenth year that I’ve covered Cinequest. The live, in-person Cinequest returns to downtown San Jose in August. My Cinequest coverage, including the current Cinejoy and past festivals, is on my CINEQUEST 2023 page.
Lea Drinda and Anne Ratte-Polle in EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE LOVED. Courtesy of Cinequest.
This German dramedy Everybody Wants to Be Love is a triumph of the harried mom genre. As a psychotherapist, Ina (Anne Ratte-Polle) spends her workdays listening to whining and naval-gazing. Then she goes home to her self-absorbed boyfriend and her teen daughter – and the job of teenagers is to be self-absorbed.-Nobody is most narcissistic and entitled than Ina’s mom. It’s the mom’s birthday, and she is rampaging with demands. The daughter is threatening to move in with Ina’s ex, and the boyfriend wants to move the family to Finland for his career. As Ina is swirling around this vortex of egotism, she gets some sobering news about her own health. As everyone converges on the birthday party, what could possibly go wrong?
Everybody Wants to Be Loved is the first feature for director and co-writer Katharina Woll, who is a perceptive and clear-eyed observer of human behavior. Woll maintains the perfect level of simmering as Ina’s indignities build toward a meltdown.
Anne Ratte-Polle is excellent as the long-suffering Ina, whose tank is about to hit Empty if she doesn’t start putting her needs above those of everybody else.
The rest of the cast is excellent, too, including Urs Jucker as Ina’s maddening boyfriend. Lea Drinda is very good as the teen daughter who pushes Mom to get what she wants, but knows when to stop.
Cinequest’s online festival Cinejoy will host only the second screening of Everybody Wants to Be Loved in the US. It’s one of my picks for theBest of Cinejoy. Watch it through March 13 at Cinejoy.
Photo caption: Brendan Fraser in THE WHALE. Courtesy of A24.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – my coverage of Cinequest (links live later today), now underway, and a new review of Women Talking. Plus the following rant.
I finally got around to watching Top Gun: Maverick, if only because The Wife insists on catching herself up on all the movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. I knew that I was not the audience for this well-crafted movie, which is very entertaining on the most superficial level, and I acknowledge that the aerial training and combat scenes are technically unsurpassed. The actors all do their best with the hackneyed and well-worn dialogue, like “You’re where you belong. Make us proud.” But I wasn’t prepared for the insipidity of the happy endings of each plot thread; the only way Top Gun: Maverick could have been cornier is if they found out that Goose wasn’t killed in the first movie, after all. And, since I’m the last person to see Top Gun: Maverick, I don’t consider this a spoiler: although Maverick and Rooster each do something to sacrifice himself for the other, nobody is really sacrificed – this is another war movie where there is no human cost to the violence; (and the enemies are clad anonymously in Darth Vader-like headgear). The screenplay is cynically written to make sure no one feels sad after this movie – it is a fantasy. FWIW Jennifer Connelly is a huge improvement over Kelly McGinnis in the original Top Gun.
CURRENT MOVIES
Women Talking: safety and its costs. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
Living: what is it to live? In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
Empire of Light: a woman, revealed. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
The Whale: regret to redemption. In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
Photo caption: Judith Ivey and Claire Foy in WOMEN TALKING. Courtesy of United Artists Releasing.
In the drama Women Talking, a Mennonite farming settlement is rocked by predatory sexual abuse; some of the men are locked up, and the rest are away trying to bail them out. That leaves the women a moment to decide whether to stay and fight off the the men or to abandon their homes and flee for safety.
This is based on actual events in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia in 2011 – and the story was told in the slightly fictionalized book by Miriam Toews, then adapted into this screenplay by director Sarah Polley.
The women know that the return of the men in imminent, so they are under a deadline to debate whether to stay and fight or to leave. IMO that is a false choice, because they really can’t expect to fend off the abuse from the men in such an isolated environs. What they are really doing is assessing the cost of leaving – losing their husbands and older sons, the community that they have invested their lives in building and any possessions that they can’t carry on a horse-drawn buggy. The drama in Women Talking stems from the life and death consequences of their decision, as well as its urgency. It does seem to me that,once they have made a decision, it takes a lot of movie running time to implement it.
Ben Whislaw, Rooney Mara and Claire Foy in WOMEN TALKING. Courtesy of United Artists Releasing.
This is essentially a six-hander, with almost all the dialogue between the women played by Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey and Sheila McCarthy and the one remaining man, the gentle schoolteacher August (Ben Whislaw). August is serving as the taker of minutes.
This is an exceptionally well-acted movie. All six actors are superb. Frances McDormand produced Women Talking and plays an almost non-speaking role, although she ably deploys her fierce visage.
Jessie Buckley in WOMEN TALKING. Courtesy of United Artists Releasing.
Claire Foy’s character has the most pivotal moment, and Jessie Buckley’s gets some sparks, too. The scenes with Whislaw and Rooney are especially heartbreaking.
The Wife liked Women Talking much more than I did (and she had read much of the book, but paused, not wanting to spoil the movie). There were plot points that confused me, and I was impatient with all the decision-making process.
I was very disappointed, because I am a longstanding admirer of Sarah Polley. Polley’s very first film, Away from Her, was my pick for best film of 2007, and Polley’s adapted screenplay was Oscar-nominated. She followed that by directing her original screenplay Take This Waltz, with its remarkable performance by Michelle Williams, and the astonishing autobiographical documentary Stories We Tell.
Polley’s screenplay for Women Talking has also been Oscar-nominated, but it’s a failure anytime I am watching a movie and thinking about anything other than what is going to happen to her next? In Women Talking, I kept thinking about stuff like has it only been an hour?, THAT would never happen and was this originally a stage play? That’s never good, and it’s not what Polley intended.
A Mennonite colony in 2011 Bolivia is an odd setting for a Monkees song to pop up, but Polley’s use of Daydream Believer is inspired (and I think I recognized Anne Murray’s cover over the closing credits). Polley had brilliantly used Video Killed the Radio Star in Take This Waltz.
So, Women Talking is original and strongly acted, but not the most watchable movie.
Photo caption: Felix Kammerer in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. Courtesy of Netflix.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’m busy screening movies that are programmed at Cinequest’s on-line festival Cinejoy, beginning next weekend. Of the current movies that I recommend, only Living, The Fabelmans: and Everything Everywhere All at Once are still relatively easy to find in theaters. The good news is that most are already streaming (see Current Movies below), and Empire of Light just became available to stream.
REMEMBRANCES
Raquel Welch in KANSAS CITY BOMBER
Early on, Raquel Welch was thought of more as a novelty movie star than as an actress. She had become instantly recognizable for displaying her spectacular figure in a skintight spacesuit (Fantastic Voyage), a doe-skin bikini (One Billion Years B.C.), a star spangled bikini (Myra Breckenridge), and flimsy undergarments (100 Rifles). In 1972, she proved that she could act in Kansas City Bomber. Welch nailed the character of a hard scrabble single mom committed to raising her kid while facing one indignity and bad choice after another. (Welch herself had two kids by the time she was 21 and was divorced at 24.) In 1973, she demonstrated brilliant comic acting chops in The Three Musketeers,
Her birth surname was Tejada; she took Welch from her first husband. Welch’s father was Bolivian, and her cousin was the first female president of Bolivia.
Director Hugh Hudson’s FIRST FEATURE won the Best Picture Oscar – Chariots of Fire. He never approached that level of achievement with feature films again, although he had a successful career directing commercials. He was one of the very few directors to attempt to make a movie about the American Revolution, Revolution
CURRENT MOVIES
Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
Saeed Jaffrey, Michael Caine and Sean Connery in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
On March 1, Turner Classic Movies presents a great Rudyard Kipling adventure yarn, gloriously brought to the screen by director John Huston – The Man Who Would Be King. Michael Caine and Sean Connery star as Peachy Carnahan and Daniel Dravot, two reprobates mustered out of the Queen’s army in colonial India. Rather than return to menial prospects in England, these cheeky and lovable scoundrels seek to make their fortune as mercenaries on the outskirts of the Raj. Fortune smiles, and they reach unforeseeable success – and then one of them overreaches…
John Huston had been trying to make this 1975 movie since the 1950s. His first choices for the roles of Carnahan and Dravot were Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable, but Bogart became ill. Then the casting of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster fell through. When he was mulling over a pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Newman advised him to use British actors for these British roles. Thank you, Paul Newman – Caine and Connery are magnificent.
Huston told Caine that the movie was about friendship, and that Carnahan and Dravot are successful as long as they are united in single purpose.
Christopher Plummer plays Kipling. Saeed Jaffrey is excellent as the local fixer.
Song Kang-Ho and Ji-eun Le in BROKER. Courtesy of NEON.
I am between film festivals, and here I sit in the winter of my discontent. I still haven’t found a way to see Women Talking, Turn Every Page or No Bears, the last three 2022 films that I am eager to see. And I am waiting to see Return to Seoul and Full Time, the first really promising 2023 films. Sigh.
Anyway, I’ve got two very cool TCM recommendations below. And check out my Best Movies of 2022 as we await the Oscars.
CURRENT MOVIES
Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. In theaters.
Carole Lombard and John Barrymore in TWENTIETH CENTURY
On March 21, Turner Classic Movies will present the 1934 screwball comedy Twentieth Century, which holds up as well today as it did 89 years ago. A flamboyantly narcissistic Broadway producer (John Barrymore) has fallen on hard times and hops a transcontinental train to persuade his former star (Carole Lombard), now an A-list movie star, to headline his new venture. Barrymore’s shameless self-entitlement and hyper dramatic neediness makes for one of the funniest performances in the movies.
And, on March 23, TCM airs a milestone in LGBTQ cinema, the 1976 madcap comedy The Ritz. A straight and very square suburban businessman (Jack Weston) is fleeing from his homicidal mobster brother-in-law (Jerry Stiller) and hides out in the very last place one would look for him – a gay bathhouse in Manhattan. The Ritz is a fish-out-of-water farce with lots of comic mistaken identities. Today, it’s plenty dated, and a handsome but squeaky-voiced detective (Treat Williams) falls especially flat. But it’s one of the first movies with a decidedly queer setting, and F. Murray Abraham plays one of the first entirely sympathetic and relatable gay movie characters. Rita Moreno is all in as Googie Gomez, the house entertainer. Watch for John Ratzenburger (Cliff the mailman in Cheers and the voice of many Pixar movies) as a bathhouse patron.
Rita Moreno, F. Murray Abraham and Jack Weston in THE RITZ.
Bill Nighy in LIVING. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – (finally!) new reviews of Broker and Living. Check out my ever-updated Best Movies of 2022. Plus two filmmaker remembrances.
REMEMBRANCES
Melinda Dillon was Oscar-nominated for Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Absence of Malice. But my favorite Dillon performance will also be that of another mom, who is worried her son will shoot his eye out in A Christmas Story. She also shared an intimate scene with Paul Newman in Slapshot, and said, “I spent 10 and a half hours naked in bed with Paul and absolutely loved it.”
Cindy Williams, before her TV success in Laverne and Shirley, made two of the 50Greatest Movies of All Time. George Lucas’ American Graffiti is about that moment in 1962 when the innocence of the 1950s was months away from being replaced by the turbulence of the 1960s, for which nobody in America was prepared; she played the girlfriend of Ron Howard’s Steve, whose willfulness got her in a situation that was more than she could handle. Williams’ apparent sweet innocence was also perfect for Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, where it is revealed that her character was not so threatened after all.
CURRENT MOVIES
Park Hae-il and Tang Wei in DECISION TO LEAVE. Courtesy of MUBI.
Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. In theaters.
Armageddon Time: coming of age – right into a moral choice. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
The Banshees of Inisherin: no limits on stubbornness. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
Tar: a haughty spirit before a fall. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
Triangle of Sadness: more subtlety, please. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
WATCH AT HOME
MUSTANG
After pausing through the Holidays to highlight the best movies of 2022, I’m returning with The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE.
Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
Wind River:“This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.”Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Lee J. Cobb and Jane Wyatt in THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF
On February 15, Turner Classic Movies airs the underseen The Man Who Cheated Himself, in which a cop falls for a dame who makes him go bad. But it’s not just any cop and not just any dame.
The cop (Lee J. Cobb) isa seasoned and cynical pro who knows better. The woman (Jane Wyatt) is a puddle of capriciousness and carnality. Jane Wyatt is best known as the mid-century suburban mom/wife in Father Knows Best, rock steady and super square. But in The Man Who Cheated Himself, Wyatt got to uncork more hysterical unreliability, sexual predation and neediness than in all of her other roles combined.
And, odd for a San Francisco-set noir, it is definitely not fog-shrouded. The day I saw The Man Who Cheated Himself at the 2018 Noir City film festival was one of those gorgeous sunny days that San Francisco gets in the winter – and that’s what the movie looks like.
The Film Noir Foundation has restored The Man Who Cheated Himself, but it’s not yet available to stream. See it this week on TCM.
