Movies

THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER: a blowhard plans a stunt, gets an education

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Photo caption: Zak Efron and Russell Crowe in THE GREATEST BEER RUB EVER. Courtesy of AppleTV.

In the surprisingly thoughtful anti-war comedy The Greatest Beer Run Ever, an ignorant blowhard’s neighborhood pals are serving in the Vietnam War, and he thinks he can uplift their spirits by bringing them beer. It’s a plot too idiotic to be credible – except that it really happened.

Our protagonist is Chickie (Zak Efron), a slacker ne’er-do-well (although we didn’t call them slackers back then) who has the intellectual curiosity of a stump. Offended by non-rah rah media coverage of the Vietnam War and by the burgeoning anti-war protest movement, he thinks a simplistic gesture is in order. As a merchant marine, he actually has means to GET TO Vietnam – by signing on a freighter. So, off he goes, with a duffel packed with cans of beer.

Once he is on the ground in country, of course, he sees that press is accurately reporting that the war is not going well and that the LBJ Administration and the military commanders are indeed lying about it. He learns that not all Vietnamese welcome Americans. And that war is very, very dangerous and very, very scary. Nor do his pals all welcome his crazy stunt.

A lesser director could have made this film as an empty-headed Bro comedy, only about the stunt itself. But Peter Farrelly, as he did with the Oscar-winning Green Book, has made an entertaining movie about a serious human experience.

And give Farrelly credit for something rarely seen in a Hollywood Vietnam War movie – Vietnamese characters are more than cardboard cutouts. Chickie has interactions with a goofy traffic cop, a savvy bartender and, most stirringly, a peasant mother and her young daughter in the countryside. The carnage and grieving among Vietnamese of all persuasions is depicted, too.

That being said, The Greatest Beer Run Ever is a very funny film, with most of the humor stemming from Chickie’s dunderheadness and the military characters all assuming that an American civilian asking for a helicopter ride into a combat zone MUST be CIA.

The very underrated Zak Efron carries the movie as Chickie gets force fed a life-changing reality check. Russell Crowe is excellent as a world-weary war correspondent. Bill Murray, without a single wink at the camera, is perfect as the lads’ bar owner, a WW II vet who just doesn’t get it. Matt Cook is very funny as a junior Army officer who idolizes the CIA.

Make sure you watch the closing credits.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever is streaming on AppleTV.

AMSTERDAM: a star-studded thriller without the thrills

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Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington in AMSTERDAM. Courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Amsterdam, which wants to be a star-studded paranoid thriller, is only star-studded.

Burt (Christian Bale) and Harold (John David Washington) met as American soldiers in WWI, and stay in Europe after the war, sharing an Amsterdam apartment and a bohemian lifestyle with another spirited American expat, Valerie (Margot Robbie). As Amsterdam the movie opens, Burt, now a shady physician, and Harold, now a lawyer, have returned to New York City, and the two share a commitment to helping other WWI veterans. The two are called to investigate a suspicious death, which they determine to have been a murder, and then there’s another murder, for which they are framed. Off they go to find the real murderers and clear themselves, becoming entangled in a convoluted conspiracy and re-encountering Valerie in the process.

Despite Bale, Washington and Robbie delivering solid performances, the story never pops. That’s the fault of a remarkably disappointing screenplay by director David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle). We’re never surprised, never waiting for the next page to be turned, and not particularly invested in the characters.

The movie’s stars aside, Russell also wastes the talents of a ridiculously deep cast: Robert De Niro, Rami Malek, Andrea Riseborough, Ana-Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Michael Shannon, Zoe Saldana, Mike Myers, Timothy Olyphant, Taylor Swift, Matthias Schoenaert, Alessandro Nivola. There’s not a bad performance in the lot, but they just don’t get much to do. Michael Shannon and Mike Myer bring some laughs, but Schoenaert and Nivola have roles that could have been played by cardboard cutouts. Two weeks later, I can’t even remember Olyphant’s character. After winning an Oscar for wearing horse teeth and NOT singing like Freddie Mercury, Rami Malek seems to have settled into a career playing reptilian villains.

Here’s an example of bad storytelling . [SPOILER ALERT] The movie’s climax is an attempted assassination in an auditorium, like in The Manchurian Candidate. Burt is staggered by a bullet in the torso. Then there’s a fracas in which the shooter is apprehended. There’s a melee with uniformed Nazi sympathizers. Malek and Taylor-Joy’s characters are exposed, and the conspiracy is explained. Ten minutes later, as everyone leaves the auditorium, Burt removes his jacket and reveals that the bullet had only struck his back brace, and he doesn’t have a gunshot wound after all. By this time, I had FORGOTTEN THAT HE HAD BEEN SHOT.

An allusion to a real historical conspiracy is only a half-hearted political statement because this movie’s plot is just like that of every fictional paranoid conspiracy.

I recommend skipping Amsterdam and watching American Hustle again.

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS: more subtlety, please

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Photo caption: Charlbi Dean and Harris Dickinson in in TRIANGLE OF SADNESS. Courtesy of NEON.

The biting satire Triangle of Sadness is very funny and is at its best in the first, most subtle moments. Yaya (Charlbi Dean) and Carl (Harris Dickinson) are a couple, both professional models. Because of Yaya’s status as an influencer, they are comped a cruise on a luxury yacht. This puts them amidst a boatful of superrich fellow passengers, and Triangle of Sadness, like Parasite and Knives Out is Eat-The-Rich cinema. It’s fun to laugh at the rich, with their entitlement, tone deafness and absurd customer requests.

The cruise starts going horribly awry, even before the formal captain’s dinner is scheduled during a ship-tossing storm. Eventually, things get all Lord of the Flies. The tone of Triangle of Sadness evolves from pointedly witty to all-out comic mayhem, a la the Marx Brothers, I Love Lucy or The Hangover. As the humor gets broader, there are belly laughs, but the humor is no longer as smart. And Triangle of Sadness would be more watchable if it were shorter than 2 1/2 hours, too.

The sly beginning of the film is brilliant, with a memorable and telling scene about picking up the check in a restaurant. And funny little Easter Eggs abound, like the first names of an elderly British couple and the dramatic express delivery of a mysterious case that we learn contains jars of Nutella.

Triangle of Sadness was written and directed by Ruben Ostlund. His first notable film, Force Majeure, was a masterpiece of subtle humor. Having lessened the subtlety, his next two inferior satires, The Square and Triangle of Sadness have each won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Go figure. Anyway, I recommend that you watch Force Majeure on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu or YouTube.

The cast is very good. Charlbi Dean is excellent as the vivacious, frivolous and admittedly manipulative Yaya; (Dean died suddenly of a viral infection before the film’s theatrical release). I really admired Harris Dickinson’s performance as the dim and spineless Carl. Vicki Berlin is very good as the put-upon head steward. Zlatko Buric soars as a Russian fertilizer magnate, the self-described “King of Shit”. Woody Harrelson is very funny as the yacht’s alcoholic, Marxist captain, who does not suffer fools.

The most memorable performance is by Dolly DeLeon, who plays a character almost invisible until the final act, when she becomes pivotal and gives DeLeon the movie’s best opportunity for a killer line reading. She nails it.

I enjoyed most of Triangle of Sadness, less so as it became broader (and longer). It’s always fun to kick the rich, and Ruben Ostlund is a caustic observer of their frailties.

TAR: a haughty spirit before a fall

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Photo caption: Cate Blanchett in TAR. Courtesy of Focus Features.

Tar, Todd Field’s exploration of #MeToo and Cancel Culture, is a showcase for the considerable acting talent of Cate Blanchett. We immediately accept her as Lydia Tar, a superstar orchestra conductor. Lydia is an international thought leader in music, she speaks fluent German, and big SAT words flow off her tongue in her regular speech. She’s also imperious and abuses her privilege.

We’re used to powerful men abusing their position, but Field, by centering on a powerful woman, unpeels our kneejerk reactions. Here’s a person who has earned her status by talent and accomplishment – but she’s just too mean and selfish.

Of course, it is written that pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. These days, a viral internet can bring destruction and fall with shocking suddenness. In Tar, the telling of Lydia Tar’s final arc is compelling.

But Tar is almost two-and-a-half hours long, and the middle part is too long. Field invests about an hour and forty minutes in showing us how masterful Tar is. Having already gotten his point in the first forty-five minutes, I nodded off.

I found a very public flameout at the end to be implausible, but the Wife found it believable.

The cast is excellent, especially Nina Hoss (Barbara and Phoenix) as Lydia’s spouse and Noémie Merlant (Jumbo, Curiosa) as her seemingly fragile assistant.

Todd Field has made three feature films, the others being the superb 2001 family psychological drama In the Bedroom and my choice for the best film of 2006, Little Children.

Note: most of what usually goes in a movie’s closing credits (gaffers, best boys, caterers, drivers, accountants and the like) is in Tar’s opening credits. The closing credits only includes the cast, the music and the musicians. Odd.

Blanchett’s performance deserves an Oscar nomination, but I wouldn’t sit the the whole movie again in a theater.

NOPE: an exceptionally intelligent popcorn movie

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Daniel Kaluuya in NOPE. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Jordan Peele’s Nope is an exceptionally intelligent popcorn movie. I’m not a big horror/sci fi guy, and I loved it.

Siblings OJ and Emerald own their dad’s legacy ranch in a desolate SoCal valley (Nope was shot near Santa Clarita). Surreal, unexplained events take place, and they wonder if the happenings are supernatural or extraterrestrial (as in space aliens)?

At first, there are strange noises. Then sinister things happen with ordinary objects – a house key, a Jefferson head nickel and, eventually, a blue tarp. Finally, OJ connects the dots about a cloud in the sky and…we’re off on a thrill ride.

This is not an agricultural ranch – it houses horses that are trained for production of movies and video commercials. OJ is continuing his dad’s role as a professional movie horse trainer and wrangler.

OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) is a man of few words – very few words. He’s all business, and prefers horses to people. Uncomfortable with the Hollywood schmooze and hustle, he wonders why being a horse whisperer doesn’t seem to be enough to keep the business alive.

OTOH, his sister Emerald (a very funny Keke Palmer) is all about self-promotion, and sees her future success coming from showbiz or the internet, not from isolated, dusty horse corrals. She is bubbly, self-absorbed and has no boundaries.

On the other side of the valley, there’s another ranch, owned by a former child television star Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yuen), who runs a hokey, retro Old West theme park. (The cheesy, family theme park reminded me of San Jose’s Frontier Village in my youth.) In Jupe ‘s back story, there’s an incident from his childhood TV work that fits with one of Nope’s themes – the dangers of messing with natural phenomena.

Why would space aliens come to our planet – to explore, conquer, inhabit our bodies, study us or destroy us”? From 1951’s The Day the Earth Stood Still and 1953’s War of the Worlds, movies have posed the question, should we fight off the aliens or try to make friends? In a brilliantly pointed observation of our culture in 2022, Jordan Peele knows that many would ask – how can we monetize this?

Brandon Perea, Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer in NOPE. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

OJ and Emerald need high tech assistance, and they happen upon a Gen X geek working in a particularly reviled electronics store. Angel (a perfect Brandon Perea) greets them with a despairingly weary Thanks for shopping at Fry’s and invites himself along on their quest.

Nope begins with a WOW segment and ends with a Western-movie-meets-sci-fi horseback escape. Along the way, it explores the transformation of our economy and culture.

Daniel Kaluuya is a charismatic enough presence that he can, like Gary Cooper or Clint Eastwood, carry a feature film without saying much. Keke Palmer and Brandon Perea are very funny in essential roles. Yuen’s performance may be the most nuanced, with an insincere Hollywood slickness masking his feelings about a childhood trauma and a failing business. Michael Wincott is excellent as an old school cinematographer whose gravelly voice makes Sam Elliott sound like a soprano.

The title is from a hilariously appropriate mutterance of OJ’s. The obvious title Don’t Look Up was employed by Adam McKay just last year.

Here’s a hopeful thought. Will Jordan Peele bring young moviegoers to theaters for horror thrills and teach them to expect SMART movies?

Nope is now widely available to stream (and should be watched on the biggest screen available to you). It’s one of the Best Movies of 2022 – So Far.

PIGGY: surprising and darkly hilarious

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Photo caption: Laura Galán in PIGGY. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

In the fresh and darkly hilarious Spanish horror movie Piggy, Sara (Laura Galán) is an overweight teenager cruelly teased by her peers. She works in her family’s butcher shop, which supplies her tormentors with a surfeit of unkind pork-related nicknames. Her affectionate but clueless dad and her brusque martinet of a mom aren’t much comfort.

One day, at the town swimming pool, mean girls sadistically traumatize her. Sara makes a shocking decision, and Piggy becomes a kind of Carrie meets Beauty and the Beast thrill ride as Sara is bounced along to the satisfying conclusion.

Piggy is the first feature for writer-director Carlota Pereda, a veteran television director. It’s based on her award-winning 2018 short with the same Spanish title, Cerdita, and also staring Galán. Galán gets all the teen angst and impulsiveness just right and, in a piñata-like role, is a helluva good sport.

Horror films turn on whether the protagonist can survive, and, often, on whether the victims deserve their demise; Pereda has a lot of fun with both.

I screened Piggy for the Nashville Film Festival, where it was one of my Under the Radar picks. Piggy opens this week at the Alamo Drafthouse and then rolls out nationally. This movie is a hoot.

THE GRAY MAN: an action movie highlight show

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Ryan Gosling in THE GRAY MAN. Courtesy of Netflix.

Ryan Gosling stars in the kickoff of a Netflix espionage thriller franchise, in The Gray Man. It’s a top rate action film directed by the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe (Arrested Development, The Avengers and Captain America) .

Gosling plays a highly skilled covert operative with a back story thatreally doesn’t matter – just think of him as a renegade American James Bond.

There are six, count ’em, SIX, amazing action set pieces , at least as good as in any James Bond film. The effect is like watching an all-highlight show like ESPN’s Sportscenter, where every football clip is an amazing TD catch and every baseball clip is a walk-off home run. No need for much dialogue or character development in between, That’s okay – The Gray Man isn’t trying to be more than it is – glossy entertainment.

There’s a reason that Ryan Gosling is a Movie Star in the best sense of the phrase. He has a special charisma before the camera, and we are driven to watch him and to sympathize with him. Of course, he’s a remarkably versatile actor who can be heroic, stolid, sexy, dangerous, funny, lovelorn and even musical. Gosling has brought whatever was needed to excellent cinema like La La Land, Drive, The Ides of March, The Big Short, The Place Beyond the Pines and Crazy, Stupid Love, and even to crap like Gangster Squad, First Man and the execrable Only God Forgives. Gosling is a perfect choice to lead a franchise like The Gray Man, and his acting chops are not challenged here.

Netflix’s bankroll provides the Russos with an impressive cast. Chris Evans is a worthy villain to match up with Gosling, and Ana de Armas is a glamorous sidekick. The great Alfre Woodard, along with Billy Bob Thornton, show up in key roles. There’s a very brief flashback to a rotten father figure, close to a non-speaking part, and the Russos were able to utilize the always memorable Shea Whigham in this tiny part.

The supporting roles of Jessica Henwick (Nymeria Sand in Game of Thrones) and Tamil superstar Dhanush set them up for key roles in future chapters of the Gray Man franchise.

The Gray Man streams on Netflix.

DON’T WORRY, DARLING: misfire (but with Huell Howser’s cool house)

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Don't Worry Darling (2022) - IMDb
Photo caption: Florence Pugh and Harry Styles in DON’T WORRY, DARLING. Courtesy of Warner Brothers.

Don’t Worry, Darling is a paranoid thriller that, most unfortunately, stops thrilling halfway through.  We’re in the late 1950s, and Alice (Florence Pugh) is a housewife married to Jack (pop star Harry Styles), an engineer.  They live in a company town, an idyllic, color-saturated suburb improbably planted in the remotest corner of the Mojave Desert.  All the men work on a highly secret R&D project, and no one is to leave the company’s property, “where it’s safe.”

Everyone is going full Mad Men with cocktails and cigarettes, Alice and Jack are gloriously oversexed, and Don’t Worry, Darling sports a delightful period soundtrack.  It’s a much better Stepford Wives, only really hedonistic.  So far, so good.  

But Alice sees some things that are disturbing.  Is she hallucinating?  Or has she stumbled upon the company’s evil secret? During this Am I Going Crazy part of the movie, I started to think that this is taking way too long.  And then it got less and less interesting.

Part of the problem is heavy-handedness, with an unnecessarily overt Order vs Chaos message.  Poor Alice even utters the words, “you’re gaslighting me.” In case we don’t get it, I guess.
And there are (I think two) brief scenes with Alice and Jack at their same ages, but set in the present, where they are having a lot less fun.  These bits are confusing and superfluous.
None of this is the fault of Pugh or Styles.  It’s all in the increasingly less gripping and less coherent story.

Don’t Worry, Darling especially disappointed me because director Olivia Wilde and screenwriter Kate Silberman had previously collaborated on the smart and sweet Booksmart.

Olivia Wilde the actress is very good as the pack leader who wrangles the other wives.  Nick Kroll shines as her husband, a good timer who has drunk the Kool-Aid.  I always love seeing Chris Pine, and he’s predictably good here as the corporate leader admired by the other men to a cult-like degree.  Timothy Simons (Veep) is perfect as the company physician/enforcer.

My friend Keith that he was distracted from the story when he recognized the building that stands in for the evil corporation’s secret headquarters.  It turns out that it is a home in Twentynine Palms, California, owned by the late Huell Howser, the relentlessly affable host of California Gold, where each week he would discover another a-MAZ-ing roadside attraction.

All I’ll say about the film’s off-screen controversy is that no one would raise much fuss about a male movie director dating a much  younger female star, which has been going on since the birth of cinema.

Don’t Worry, Darling is in theaters.

LOVING HIGHSMITH: intimate and revelatory

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Photo caption: Patricia Highsmith in LOVING HIGHSMITH. Courtesy of Frameline.

In the revelatory biodoc Loving Highsmith, documentarian Eva Vitija reveals intimate perspectives on the iconic author. Patricia Highsmith’s novels were turned into twisted movie thrillers that include Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and all the Tom Ripley movies, as well as the queer memoir Carol.

Vitija has sourced Loving Highsmith with the firsthand memories of Highsmith’s last live-in lover Marijean Meaker, her Berlin lover Tabea Blumenshein, her Paris friend Monique Buffet, and members of Highsmith’s rodeo-focused Texas family. The insights include:

  • Highsmith’s Texas roots.
  • Her heartbreakingly one-way relations with her mother.
  • The origin of the Tom Ripley character.
  • Her intentionality in crafting the ending of Carol.
  • Her obsession with her married secret London lover.

Even those who are familiar with Highsmith will be impressed with this 360-degree portrait. I screened Loving Highsmith for this year’s Frameline in June; it’s now in theaters.

Wrapping up Cinequest

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Photo caption: Jim Gaffigan and Rhea Seehorn in LINOLEUM. Courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment.

Cinequest ran through this August 29. Here are the films that I hadn’t posted about yet:

Linoleum: Colin West’s gentle story of a lovable loser with a nose-diving kid’s science TV show is superficially about the guy’s eccentric attempt to build a real rocket in his garage; but it’s really three love stories – or are they one love story? Although West peppers some clues throughout, it’s not until the final act that the audience connects the dots about what is going on. Linoleum is hard to review – or even describe – without spoilers, but let’s just say that it is a highly original and sweet film.

Spin Me Round: The crowd at a well-attended screening loved this unpretentious and delightful comedy, a showcase for the comic talents of, among others, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Zach Woods and Molly Shannon. It’s a very zany comment on corporate sexual predators with a withering send-up of The Olive Garden. There are wild pigs, too. Spin Me Round is now streaming on AppleTV.

What We Do Next: Stephen Belber’s taut drama featured the best acting ensemble at Cinequest, with searing performances by Karen Pittman, Michelle Veintimilla and Corey Stoll. The story unfolds in seven segments over a a span of years, initially dealing with how an innocent miscalculation years ago could erupt into a career-killing political scandal. Each of the characters becomes more entangled by the choices of the others, and the dominoes fall.

Medusa: In this French drama, two adult sisters live in a house on a woodsy lane. Brain injury from a car crash has crippled one sister’s capacity to walk and to speak, and her sibling cares for her. The caregiving sister brings home her new, hunky boyfriend, who becomes fascinated with occupational therapy for the injured sister. As he helps her recover her speech and mobility (her libido has not been impaired), sexual tension and jealousy simmer. This is the first feature from writer-director Sophie Lévy, and she depicts sexual playfulness from a female perspective. There are several recent films with the same title, so it’s best to search for this movie under its French title, Méduse.

Shoebox: This sweet film is about a man who refuses to accept that his city is changing around him; he persists in trying to run a tiny neighborhood movie theater – kind of an Indian Cinema Paradiso. As it meandered predictably, I lost interest.

Free Renty: This earnest advocacy documentary has one thing going for it: one of the very most searing images from slavery in America. It’s a daguerreotype of Renty Taylor, a slave whose demeanor blares that he is fiercely expressing his human dignity. The film is about litigation by one of Renty Taylor’s descendants to recover the property rights to the image from Harvard University. The family is very sympathetic, but the doc loses credibility when it casts off all objectivity in the final act.

The Dinner Parting: This purported screwball comedy is actually an exercise in dark deadpan humor as three people try to foist a brazen lie on their acquaintances. The humor is supposed to stem from the absurd lengths they use to pull off the deception. But the premise is too obviously contrived, and some actors seem to be working in a different tone than the others. It’s a misfire.

Ghosting Gloria: This Uruguayan comedy was my biggest disappointment of the fest, because I so enjoyed the filmmakers’ witty entry at the 2017 Cinequest, The Moderns (Los Modernos). Here, the protagonist has lived to 30 without an orgasm until she moves to a haunted residence. She is then faced with a choice between a ghost and a real human guy. It’s uncommon that I find a sex comedy to be a yawner, but this was too predictable.

Bottom line: Linoleum and Spin Me Round join Trust, Charm Circle, 12 Months, The Grand Bolero, Out in the Ring and Tell Me a Memory as the Best of Cinequest. In 2023, Cinequest returns to its usual in-person time slot in late February.

Aubrey Plaza and Alison Brie in SPIN ME ROUND, Courtesy of IFC Films.