Now out on VOD, Bert and Arnie’s Guide to Friendship is an odd couple comedy with the promising premise that the two main characters become entangled when one has an affair with the other’s wife. The good news is that the comedy is driven by the characters, one an abrasive womanizer and the other a pretentious and self-involved minor novelist. The bad news is that the broad characters are neither textured or interesting or sympathetic enough to sustain a movie of longer than 49 minutes (which is when I stopped watching). And worse, Bert and Arnie wastes a supporting performance by the delightful Anna Chlumsky.
Bert and Arnie’s Guide to Friendship is available streaming from Amazon and iTunes.
I always welcome a new Western, and writer-director Jared Moshe’s impressive debut Dead Man’s Burden takes us to a darkly realistic Old West. The dry New Mexico landscape is beautiful but unforgiving, and the law is three days ride away. The times are hard and the women are harder. The Civil War ended five years before, but families are still reeling from losing a generation of young men.
As the film opens, a man rides away on horseback. A petite woman, young but worn, hoists an 1853 Enfield rifle to her shoulder, takes aim and fires. We later learn the identity of the man, his relationship to the woman and her reason for firing. It’s not what you might guess. And the villain is not who you expect it to be.
Moshe’s story reveals some characters to be bound by duty and others to be opportunistic. They are caught in the same web of circumstance, which funnels inevitably them to conflict. The movie’s final two shots echo an earlier moment, and neatly (if grimly) wrap up the tale.
The cast – Barlow Jacobs, Clare Bowen (Scarlet in ABC’s Nashville), David Call and veteran Richard Riehle – is uniformly good. Jacobs (Kid in Shotgun Stories) is especially well suited for a Western hero, with expressive eyes that narrow like Eastwood’s or Van Cleef’s.
There’s a gunfight that is more historically typical than the usual cinematic facedown in the street. These men, hunters and former soldiers, chase each other through the brush, firing from cover. It ain’t heroic. And Dead Man’s Burden is remarkably unsentimental.
DEAD MAN'S BURDEN
Dead Man’s Burden was shot on 35mm by Robert Hauer, and the look of the film brings out the isolating vastness of the land. Sadly, the sound is substandard, and I had difficulty comprehending some of the dialogue.
Dead Man’s Burden is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, Vudu and other VOD outlets.
DECEPTIVE PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AMD MENTORS OF RICKY JAY
In tracing the development of the great magician Ricky Jay, the documentary Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay explores the fascinating history of 20th century American magic. We get to see performances by Jay and his mentors, with comments by Jay himself. Ricky Jay’s mysteries are the secrets of 1) his illusions and 2) his family – both unrevealed. Whether expansive about his mentors and his passion for magic, or tight-mouthed about his relationship with his parents, Jay is a fascinating character.
Because the audience gets to see lots of amazing magic, Deceptive Practice is attractive as a performance film. But Jay is an unsurpassed raconteur, one of my favorites, and when he holds forth, it’s as entertaining as any of his illusions.
(I was fortunate to see Deceptive Practice at the San Francisco International Film Festival sitting next to bunch of real magicians.)
Gideon’s Army, another gem from HBO’s fine summer documentary series, explores the work of public defenders in the South. By defending indigent criminal defendants, these lawyers preserve the American legal principles of fair trials and the presumption of innocence. But the game is rigged against them – they are starkly under-resourced and, in the South, face shockingly high bail requirements and extremely severe mandatory sentencing laws. Each responsible for 120-150 cases at a time, they suffer long hours and low pay, defending the mostly guilty – a recipe for burnout. One PD even has had one client who planned to murder her in open court.
To tell this Sisyphean story, Gideon’s Army focuses on a handful of public defenders and their cases. There’s probably more optimism in the film than in real life (which is necessary, because a more realistic depiction would probably be depressingly unwatchable). It’s an important subject and a good watch. Gideon’s Army is currently playing on HBO.
I’m repeating last week’s DVD/Stream of the Week because you just shouldn’t miss The Imposter. Life is at times stranger than fiction, and The Imposter is one of the most jaw-dropping documentaries I have seen. Nicholas Barclay, a 13-year-old Texas boy, vanished in 1994. Three years later, a young man surfaced in Spain, claiming to be an American boy kidnapped for sexual exploitation; he was identified by Spanish police as Nicholas Barclay. In fact, he was a serial impersonator named Frédéric Bourdin who had contrived the ruse to escape getting busted for his own petty misdeeds.
That’s not a spoiler, because The Imposter’s audience learns this framework right away. Here’s the first real shocker: the imposter is accepted by Nicholas’ family. This is more amazing because Frédéric is seven years older than Nicholas, is not a native English speaker and looks nothing like him. Of course, Frédéric is surprised that the family is embracing him as Nicholas – and then he begins to suspect why…
Filmmaker Bart Layton expertly spins the story, We meet the actual Frédéric Bourdin, members of the Barclay family, and the detectives who broke the case.
The Imposter is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and many other VOD providers.
We’ve all seen cop buddy comedies before (Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours and scores of copycats). In the The Heat, the odd couple is Sandra Bullock (as the arrogant and fastidious FBI agent) and Melissa McCarthy (as the earthy and streetwise Boston cop). There are some especially well-written bits in The Heat, especially when Bullock’s prig finally explodes into a completely inept torrent of profanity and when McCarthy’s cop belittles her commander’s manhood for what must be the zillionth time.
But here’s why you will enjoy The Heat. Melissa McCarthy’s line readings are brilliantly hilarious. Her gift for dialogue makes everything and everyone in this movie much funnier. Her performance elevates the entire movie. In fact, every person who has talked to me about The Heat has laughed when describing it. It may not be that original, but it’s sufficiently well made and McCarthy is sublime.
As gross-out comedies go, This Is the End is adequately entertaining. Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, James Franco and other movie comedy stars play themselves – all partying at Franco’s over-the-top Hollywood mansion when the Apocalypse and The Rapture intrude.
The cast does a good job with the very broad material. Franco, Hill, Harry Potter’s Emma Watson and especially Michael Cera all poke fun at their own images. And, just when you think you’re watching a low brow comedy, Danny McBride arrives and takes that brow even further into the gutter.
It’s co-written and co-directed by best friends Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who co-wrote Superbad as teenagers. Jay Baruchel plays a character based on Goldberg, down from Canada to visit his boyhood chum and distrusting Rogen’s Hollywood posse. It’s a solid send-up of the apocalyptic movie genre, with a nice little homage to The Exorcist. The guys will enjoy This Is the End more than will the gals.
The documentary 20 Feet from Stardom delves into the careers of rock music’s backup singers – so close to the celebrity spotlight, yet so obscure and under appreciated. Some prefer the background (the Walkers and the electrifyingly talented Lisa Fischer), and some aspire to major solo careers (Judith Hill). Others have been disappointed in the quest for stardom (Merry Clayton and Claudia Linnear) – or stardom has been delayed (Darlene Love). We meet all of these very talented and appealing women, and hear from Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen and Sting.
The best parts are hearing Darlene Love’s story (which adds to the body of evidence that Phil Spector is a terrible human being), the inside glimpse into Merry Clayton’s iconic solo in the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter and experiencing the magical voice of Lisa Fischer. It’s a little slow in places, but 20 Feet from Stardom is a pretty good choice for any viewer and essential for music fans.
The absorbing French drama Augustine is based on the real work of 19th century medical research pioneer Jean-Martin Charcot, known as the father of neurology. A young kitchen maid begins suffering wild seizures and is brought to Charcot’s research hospital. He ascertains the triggers for the seizures, and begins to close in on cure. Needing funding for his research, he triggers her seizures before groups of his peers; he is showing off his research, but it’s clear that his affluent male audience is titillated by the comely girl’s orgasmic thrashes.
She is drawn to this man whose kindness to her belies their class difference and whose brilliance is the key to her recovery. The good doctor intends to cure her – but not until she has performed for his potential funders. She is unexpectedly cured just before Charcot’s most important demonstration, and she gets to decide whether to continue her exploitation. In the stunning conclusion, she gets the upper hand and her simmering feelings erupt.
The fine French actor Vincent Lindon (Mademoiselle Chambon) excels at playing very contained and reserved characters, and here he nails Charcot’s clash of decency and professional ambition. The French pop singer Soko is captivating as his patient.
It’s an auspicious first feature film for writer-director Alice Winocour. She has constructed a story that about two sympathetic characters whose interests converge, then diverge and then…
Life is at times stranger than fiction, and The Imposter is one of the most jaw-dropping documentaries I have seen. Nicholas Barclay, a 13-year-old Texas boy, vanished in 1994. Three years later, a young man surfaced in Spain, claiming to be an American boy kidnapped for sexual exploitation; he was identified by Spanish police as Nicholas Barclay. In fact, he was a serial impersonator named Frédéric Bourdin who had contrived the ruse to escape getting busted for his own petty misdeeds.
That’s not a spoiler, because The Imposter’s audience learns this framework right away. Here’s the first real shocker: the imposter is accepted by Nicholas’ family. This is more amazing because Frédéric is seven years older than Nicholas, is not a native English speaker and looks nothing like him. Of course, Frédéric is surprised that the family is embracing him as Nicholas – and then he begins to suspect why…
Filmmaker Bart Layton expertly spins the story, We meet the actual Frédéric Bourdin, members of the Barclay family, and the detectives who broke the case.
The Imposter is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and many other VOD providers.
