Movies

THE LAST MOVIE STAR: reflections on a famous life

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Burt Reynolds and Ariel Winter in THE LAST MOVIE STAR

In The Last Movie Star, an aged action movie star (Burt Reynolds playing someone very similar to Burt Reynolds) examines his life choices.  It’s very funny and sentimental (in a good way).

Burt plays a thinly disguised version of himself – a retired movie star named Vic Edwards, who had played halfback at Tennessee instead of Burt’s Florida State.  The movie opens with opens with  a clip of the 70s Burt from the Smokey and the Bandit era.  But then there’s a stark cut to Burt today, looking every one of his eighty-two years.  Vic is in a depressing veterinary waiting room, about to get bad news about his pet.  We see that Vic lives a lonely existence, padding about his Beverly Hills home devoid of human recognition or contact.

Vic finds himself invited to be honored at a Nashville film festival.  Flattered and excited, he flies off to find that, instead of a ego-boosting tribute, the festival unleashes one indignity after another.  Humiliated and enraged, he  goes on a rogue road trip to his hometown of Knoxville, where he gets the chance to reflect on his life and make an important amend.

His road trip partner is his film festival driver, a nightmare of Millennial self-absorption, drama and bad attitude played by Ariel Winter (Alex Dunphy in Modern Family).   Winters’ character adds an Odd Couple thread to the comedy, and Winter brings down the house with a monologue on her history with psychotropic medication.

Director Adam Rifkin cleverly inserts the 82-year-old Burt into his own movies to interact with the 36-year-old Burt.  We see Burt as one of the greatest guests ever on Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  And we see him in Deliverance, brandishing a bow-and-arrow and clad in a sleeveless neoprene vest – there has never been a more studly image in the history of cinema.

The key to Burt Reynolds’ appeal is that unique combination of virility, and charm, his stunning physicality leavened by his not taking himself too seriously.  I’m ridiculously handsome, and isn’t that just ridiculous?

If you’re going to be sentimental, then be unashamedly sentimental.  Rifkin takes this to heart, which makes The Last Movie Star so emotionally satisfying as well as so damn funny.

I saw The Last Movie Star at Cinequest, where it was warmly received by the festival audience.  The Last Movie Star was released theatrically for about a minute-and-a-half (and on only ONE screen in the Bay Area).    Fortunately, now you can stream it on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

BEAST: finally unleashed … and untethered

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Jessie Buckley in BEAST

The psychological thriller Beast is set on the British Channel Island of Jersey, where the young woman Moll lives with her affluent family. Moll (Jessie Buckley).  Moll is the disregarded and put-upon step-sister in her own family – ignored except when being assigned the task de jour.  Only the local cop is sweet on Moll, which brings her only revulsion.  Jessie is dramatically rescued from a bad situation by the scruffy, somewhat feral, dreamy-eyed Pascal (Johnny Flynn).  Moll and Pascal fall in love.

It turns out that Moll has within herself confidence, strength and passion – all long and cruelly suppressed by her mother. Pascal pulls Moll from her horrid family and unleashes, for better and for worse, Moll’s true persona.  So this is a pretty fair romance to this point, but I did mention that Beast is psychological thriller. A serial killer has been prowling Jersey, raping and murdering young women and girls. The police suspect…Pascal.

Now we experience some unsettling ambiguity. Does Moll protect Pascal because she thinks him innocent? Or because she thinks that he’s the murderer?  In his impressive first feature, writer-director Michael Pearce finally reveals something in Pascal’s past that gives us pause. And, even later, we learn something about Moll’s past, too.  Holy shit.  And we’re off on a roller coaster, wondering what Moll is going to do next and why, all the way to the shocking ending.

Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn in BEAST

The reason that Beast works so well is the stunning performance of Jessie Buckley. As an audience, we’re always drawn to Buckley’s Moll, at first understanding and relating to her defeatedness, inner rage and lust.  But then Buckley keeps us from knowing exactly what’s going on inside, although we learn to accept that it sure is unpredictable.  Buckley is Irish, and her singing career was launched on an American Idol-type show in Britain.  She’s since acted in some British Isles television series. She is an incredible force of nature in this role.

Geraldine James in BEAST

Veteran actress Geraldine James gets the juicy role of the controlling and oppressive mother, her every remark filled with manipulation, shaming and the inducement of guilt.  The mom is by FAR the least sympathetic character – and this story also has a serial killer in it.  Johnny Flynn is very good as Pascal.

But it’s Jessie Buckley’s performance and Michael Pearce’s story that should bring you to see Beast.  It’s a heckuva ride.

AMERICAN ANIMALS: a preposterous heist

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AMERICAN ANIMALS

In Bart Layton’s clever documentary/re-enactment mashup American Animals, four college kids plan a major art heist. The film opens with the title words THIS IS NOT BASED ON A TRUE STORY morphing into THIS IS A TRUE STORY. Indeed, in 2003, four college kids really did target $12 million in rare Audubon and Darwin books at the Transylvania University library in Lexington, Kentucky.

The story follows the classic arc of a heist movie -the intricate planning, the assembling of a team and, finally, the Big Day.  Because the heist is so preposterous (and because these guys are smoking a lot of weed while planning it), the whole thing is pretty funny.

Layton has his cake and eats it, too.  He has actors re-enact the real events.  And he has the real participants commenting as talking heads.  (With the retrospect of fifteen years, none of the participants now thinks that the heist was a good idea.)

I was especially eager to see American Animals because director Bart Layton also made The Imposter, one of the most jaw-dropping documentaries I have seen. American Animals is not as good as the unforgettable The Imposter, but funnier and more inventive – and damn entertaining.

I saw American Animals at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM).  It opens in the Bay Area this weekend.

RBG: humanizing a stonefaced icon

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RBG

RBG is the affectionate and enlightening biodoc about US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  The challenge, of course, is in making such a famously stonefaced 84-year-old subject relatable.  RBG pulls that off by hearing from Ginsburg’s family and childhood friends, and by showing her reaction to the “Notorious RPG” meme and to her portrayals on SNL.

Most importantly, RBG traces her longtime marriage to her late husband Marty, an affable extrovert with a zany sense of humor.  He was a highly accomplished lawyer in his own right but, unusual for his generation, was also a man who embraced his wife’s career goals surpassing his own.

This is an exciting movie for a legal geek (like me). RBG documents Ginsburg’s role as the leading legal strategist for women’s rights, carefully picking the factual bases and the sequence of cases heading to the Supreme Court.  It appears that Ginsburg really has only Thurgood Marshall as a peer in orchestrating the progress of a major civil rights movement.

Unfortunately that makes Ginsburg’s dissents in the regressive decisions of Roberts Court (Bush v Gore, Hobby Lobby, Shelby) all the more sobering.

That being said, what is impressive (and reassuring) is that RBG shows Ginsburg working out at the gym – she can hold a plank longer than I can hold mug of beer.

I must note that RBG is outright reverential – but why not?  Ginsburg deserves it.

Stream of the Week: ZODIAC

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Robert Downey, Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal in ZODIAC

In the 60s, 70s and 80s, we in Northern California suffered more than our share of serial killers, to the point that I couldn’t even remember the Golden State Killer, recently snagged by a much ballyhooed foray into ancestry DNA. But the list topper has to be the Zodiac Killer, a random thrill killer who used the news media to taunt the police and terrify the Bay Area.

Officially, this case has never been solved.  But there’s a pretty convincing theory about the killer’s identity advanced in David Fincher’s 2007 Zodiac.

Fincher spins his story through the separate obsessions of three Zodiac-hunters.  There’s the dogged homicide detective (Mark Ruffalo) and the renegade newspaper reporter (Robert Downey, Jr.).  Then there’s the oddball, a newspaper cartoonist (Jake Gyllenhaal);  unlike the other two, it’s not his job to track down the killer.  He’s a puzzle hobbyist who takes on the killer’s cryptogram and then plunges down the rabbit holes of matching handwriting and the availability of various suspects.

Ruffalo, Gyllenhaal and Downey are all superb.  And John Carroll Lynch takes the creep-o-meter off the scale as the prime suspect.

The supporting cast is brilliant and unusually deep, including Chloe Sevigne, Elias Koteas, Clea DuVall, Donal Logue, Philip Baker Hall, James Le Gros and an unrecognizable Candy Clark.  Brian Cox nails the bluster and wit of that prototypical celebrity attorney, Melvin Belli.

John Carroll Lynch in ZODIAC

Fincher, of course, is the master of the serial killer movie.  Before Zodiac, he made what is probably still the most thrilling serial killer movie, Se7en.   He followed Zodiac with the top-notch  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl.  In Zodiac, Fincher builds the tension, occasionally giving the audience relief with some laughs, especially when Gyllenhaal’s amateur sleuth finds himself in a situation that he thinks is much more dangerous than it really is.

The film is also a dead-on time capsule of the 70s in the San Francisco Bay Area, from the opening shot, a drive through a Vallejo neighborhood on the 4th of July.  The fashions and the music of the period are perfect, especially the Donovan and Santana songs.  This was before law enforcement had DNA to work with – and, in the case of two of the investigating police departments, even a newfangled fax machine.  As the 70s approach the 80s, we even see an early Pong video game.  One thing that I did not personally remember from the era, but have verified really did exist, is the Aqua Velva cocktail.

This is a wonderfully entertaining movie.  Zodiac can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

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.

QUALITY PROBLEMS: a screwball comedy for the sandwich generation

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QUALITY PROBLEMS
Brooke Purdy in QUALITY PROBLEMS

The remarkably successful dramedy Quality Problems plunges us into a contemporary world that most of us in the sandwich generation recognize – a life so busy that the relative importance of our stress-inducers can blur. Something like the cake for your kid’s birthday party can seem as important as paying the bills or dealing with an aging parent. Until cancer reshuffles the deck. Quality Problems‘ insights in navigating modern life are accessible because it’s so damn funny.

Bailey (Brooke Purdy) and Drew (Doug Purdy) are a couple in their early forties with two school-age kids. Each is comfortable taking on one child-rearing or domestic task while handing off a competing responsibility to their partner. Each knows – and accepts – what the partner is – or is NOT – good at. Both have wicked senses of humor, and they are affectionate and even playful. Their relationship has weathered the usual financial and parental challenges, along with an episode where Bailey beat back breast cancer.

Brooke Purdy wrote the screenplay and also co-directed with Doug Purdy. The breezy banter between characters is often flat-out hilarious. This is not sitcom-grade humor, it’s much closer to a Hawksian screwball comedy. The characters deal with cancer and parental dementia with a dark humor that is realistic and funny.

Bailey’s single neighbor and bestie Paula (Jenica Bergere) is an essential member of the family’s support structure, but Paula and Drew loathe each other. Chained together because of their attachment to Bailey and the kids, every interaction sparks a new round of insults. This isn’t good-natured teasing – the jibes, in particular about his job and her reproductive health, are aimed to hurt. The Paula-Drew relationship adds some edginess to the mix and contributes to the film’s authenticity.

Watch for an uncredited cameo by the prolific and versatile character actor Alfred Molina (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Love Is Strange). Veteran Chris Mulkey is excellent as Bailey’s dad, who is sinking into dementia.

Quality Problems is the directing debut for Brooke and Doug Purdy, and I attended its world premiere at Cinequest.  Quality Problems can now be streamed from Amazon Prime, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

THE RIDER: a life’s passion is threatened

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Brady Jandreau in THE RIDER

In her contemporary Western The Rider, director Chloé Zhao has made a beautiful and emotionally powerful film and announced herself as an American filmmaker of significance. In The Rider, 20-year-old Brady is a rodeo rider and horse trainer who lives on the least romantic ranch on the windblown South Dakota prairie. Brady lives with his 15-year-old sister, who has a cognitive disability somewhere on the autism spectrum, and his non-touchy feely dad. The mom has died a few years before. The family lives in a trailer on a hardscrabble working ranch.

Brady’s soaring career as a rodeo star has been ended by a bronco’s hoof; Brady now has a metal plate in his skull and seizures in his hand. His rodeo career – and his only shot at fame and fortune – is over. But Brady is also a gifted horse trainer – and he may not even be able to ride horses without risk to his health and life. What makes that risk not at all theoretical is that Brady’s rodeo friend Dane is in even worse shape and lives in a rehab facility. So Brady’s story is one of confronting loss and figuring out how to negotiate the rest of his life without access to his passions.

Brady’s story is emotionally powerful and devoid of cheap sentiment.  The Rider is not even the least bit corny.

I went to see The Rider knowing almost nothing about it.  When the end credits rolled, I was stunned to see that the actors playing Brady, his sister and his dad are a real family.  Indeed, ALL of the cast are non-professional actors.

Director Chloé Zhao met The Rider’s star, Brady Jandreau, when he wrangled horses on her first film Songs My Father Taught Me, also shot on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation.  After the making of that film, she reached out to Brady after he suffered a serious real life rodeo injury.  When he told her that he would risk his life to continue training horses, she determined to make Brady’s story into this movie.

THE RIDER

Zhao’s partner, the Brit cinematographer Joshua James Richards, shot both of her films.  The cinematography, in The Rider is exceptional, especially the weather in the Big Sky above the prairie. There’s a cowboy campfire scene which may be the most beautifully shot scene in movies this year.  The Jandreaus live on a scruffy working ranch, neither romantic or picturesque.

I’m not fascinated by horses, but I found the horse training scenes in The Rider to be riveting.

It’s clear that Zhao and Richards are major artists. The Rider is a significant movie and one of the year’s best.

ISMAEL’S GHOSTS: indecipherable waste of talent

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Marion Cotillard and Charlotte Gainsbourg in ISMAEL’S GHOSTS

Suppose that you’re in mid-life, mid-career and mid-relationship, and your ex-spouse – whom you have thought dead for a decade – suddenly shows up.  In Arnaud Desplechin’s Ismael’s Ghosts, that is exactly what happens to a filmmaker (Mathieu Amalric) when his long-disappeared ex (Marion Cotillard) pops in.  So far, so good.  But then Ismael’s Ghosts begins to slide off the rails.

The filmmaker accompanies his ex-father-in-law, who is being honored in Israel, but then the story becomes unhinged and, finally, impossible to follow.  It’s just one indecipherable mess.

I was actually looking forward to this movie.  I loved Desplechin’s My Golden Days, and I admire Cotillard and Charlotte Gainsbourg (who plays the filmmaker’s current partner).  But Ismael’s Ghosts is just a waste of their talent and my time.  I saw Ismael’s Ghosts at Cinequest before its US theatrical release.

CLAIRE’S CAMERA: a deadpan human camera observes…

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Min-hee Kim in a scene from Hong Sang-soo’s CLAIRE’S CAMERA, playing at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 4 – 17, 2018. Courtesy of SFFILM.

Claire’s Camera is the latest nugget from writer-director Hong Sang-soo, that great observer of awkward situations and hard-drinking.  Jeon (Min-hee Kim of The Handmaiden) is a film company assistant who ia traveled to the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of a Korean film.  It turns out that the film company executive has had a long-term relationship with the movie’s director, and she immediately fires Jeon when she learns of Jeon’s fling with the director.  With several days sill to go before her return flight, Jeon wanders around Cannes. Jeon meets the French schoolteacher and amateur photographer Claire (Isabelle Huppert) and they hang out.  Coincidentally, Claire also meets the director.  Most of the dialogue is in English, the common language of the French and Korean characters – and the earnestly imperfect English-speaking supplies some of the film’s humor.

Not only does Claire have a camera, she IS the camera through which we observe the foibles of the other characters.  Jeon is breathtakingly clueless (or in denial) about the reason for her dismissal.  The director, as many Hong Sang-soo characters, has an enthusiastic relationship with alcohol.  It’s all dryly funny, although the director and the executive redefine their relationship in a powerfully realistic scene.

This is an especially fine performance by Min-hee Kim.  She pulled off some deadpan humor in The Handmaiden, a film more thought of for its eroticism and mystery.  Here, she’s often just wandering around in reflection and making small talk.  But Kim is just so watchable, she keeps the audience’s interest keen.

Claire’s Camera is not as surreal as last year’s Hong Sang-soo entry, Yourself and Yours, but just as observational and droll.  I saw Claire’s Camera at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM), where Hong Sang-soo has a cult following and always appreciative audiences.  It’s now playing at the 4 Star in San Francisco.

Min-hee Kim and Isabelle Huppert in a scene from Hong Sang-soo’s CLAIRE’S CAMERA, playing at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 4 – 17, 2018. Courtesy of SFFILM.