GHOSTBOX COWBOY: a dim bulb tries to re-invent himself

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GHOSTBOX COWBOY

In John Maringouin’s inventive satire Ghostbox Cowboy, we first meet Jimmy (David Zellner) in an American store, gazing at that aisle in every Walgreens or CVS that is filled entirely with crappy plastic gizmos made in China. We later learn that he’s thinking, “somebody is getting rich making this stuff and that person should be me.”

Wearing a cowboy hat for effect, Jimmy takes his small nest egg to the capitalist frontier of China and tries to re-invent himself as an entrepreneur. He has the prototype for an absolutely phony product, which he tries to pitch to young Chinese capitalists. Jimmy thinks that he can outsmart the locals because he is an American, but the joke is on him – he’s now the dumbest guy in China.

Jimmy doesn’t bother to learn any Mandarin, so he leans on or two shady, super-marginal ex-pats (Robert Longstreet – just great – and Specialist) to help him navigate the local scene. One of his “buddies” fleeces him, and Jimmy is hired by contemptuous Chinese when they need a Caucasian stand-in. As Jimmy is stranded near Mongolia, Ghostbox Cowboy gets mystical, and the cringe humor gives way to the surreal.

The filmmaking itself is a remarkable story. Ghostbox Cowboy was shot in the massive boomtowns around Dongguan, Guangzho and Shenzhen (each a city with a population between 8 and 15 million). Because the Chinese government frowns on critique cinema, Maringouin had to shoot on the sly, guerilla style. To photograph the illegal factories that manufacture knock-offs, he pretended to be a potential investor. Maringouin and his two SAG actors spent ten days in China, essentially pretending not to shoot a movie.

David Zellner in GHOSTBOX COWBOY

I saw Ghostbox Cowboy at Cinema Club Silicon Valley, with a Q&A with writer-director-camera operator John Maringouin. Bay Area filmmaker Maringouin wanted to focus on White entitlement, with a protagonist who adds no value of his own but imagines that he should still be “a participant” in China.

Ghostbox Cowboy was selected to play the Tribeca film festival and earned a NY Times Critic’s Pick. Ghostbox Cowboy can be streamed on Amazon (included with Prime).

THE SOUVENIR: amplification by stillness

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Honor Swinton Byrne and Tom Burke in THE SOUVENIR

The slow-burn romantic tragedy The Souvenir is a study of a bad romantic choice, exacerbated by co-dependence.

In the 1980s Thatcher Era UK, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) is a 24-year-old Ken Loach wannabe trying to make her first socially aware film. She’s from a middle class background and has a set of artsy friends. She meets Anthony (Tom Burke), who affects the chalk-stripe pinstripe suits and the bored drawl of the upper classes, and says that he works at the Foreign Office. She is intrigued.

It’s an unusual courtship. He takes her to a stupefyingly posh tearoom. They visit an art gallery and deconstruct the Fragonard painting The Souvenir. But are these dates? Kinda dates? She lets him crash at her place. All of this precedes any physical intimacy or hint of passion. He wants her, but never pushes the pace. They do become lovers, and it turns out that he is not as he seemed. (Kudos to the trailer below for NOT spoiling Anthony’s biggest secret.)

This is a remarkable piece of filmmaking. Writer-director Joanna Hogg frames each shot exquisitely, and lets the characters’ feelings unspool before us. This is a movie with lots of stillness, and the stillness serves to amplify the emotional power.

This is the first feature film performance as an adult for Honor Swinton Byrne, the daughter of Tilda Swinton. Byrne is superb as Julie, whom we care about because she is so genuine and vulnerable. This is also the first time I’ve seen Tom Burke, and he is excellent as a quirky guy who might really appeal to some woman, but who can’t escape his fatal flaw. Tilda Swinton appears in the supporting role as Julie’s protective mom, and nails the character.

Joanna Hogg, just like her Julie, was a young British filmmaker in the 1980s, and this story seems searingly personal. I don’t know to what extent it is autobiographical, but the heartbreak is so powerfully vivid, that I hope Hogg didn’t have to endure it in real life. There’s a sequel already in post-production.

The Souvenir is universally acclaimed by critics and has a Metacritic score of 92. I admired the film and the filmmaking, but was not engrossed; most viewers will find the deliberate pace makes The Souvenir a challenging watch for one hour and 59 minutes. It certainly is the most profoundly sad film of the year. It can be streamed on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

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Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a marvelously entertaining masterpiece. I’m just going to keep beating this drum until I run out of friends who haven’t seen it yet (including The Wife).

OUT NOW

  • Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a Must See – one of Quentin Tarantino’s very, very best.
  • The family dramedy The Farewell is an audience-pleaser.
  • You can find, if you look hard enough, Jirga, an indie parable about atonement that was Australia’s submission to the Academy Awards.
  • Here’s my rant on the latest Olivier Assayas film, Non-Fiction.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is The East, a smart and gripping thriller that explores both our response to corporate criminality and the unfamiliar world of anarchist collectives. The East is available on DVD from both Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, iTunes, GooglePlay and other VOD outlets.

ON TV

Kirk Douglas in SPARTACUS

On August 31, Turner Classic Movies offers Kirk Douglas’ testosterone exploding across the screen in Spartacus, The Vikings and Gunfight at the OK Corral. The latter is the John Sturges 1957 version with Douglas and with Dennis Hopper as Billy Clanton; (I prefer the 1946 John Ford version of the same story – My Darling Clementine, with Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Ward Bond, Walter Brennan and John Ireland.)

Kirk keeps his shirt on in OK Corral, but Spartacus and The Vikings are filled with shirtless virile charisma. There’s really nothing to The Vikings except action adventure (and a scary contact lens), but it’s been a guilty pleasure of mine since the first time it played on TV.

Kirk Douglas in THE VIKINGS

TOWN WITHOUT PITY – the song, not the movie

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Turner Classic Movies is airing Town Without Pity (1961) on Saturday – and I don’t think much of it.  It’s a postwar drama in which Kirk Douglas defends four GIs from rape charges in an Allied-occupied German town.  But the great Dimitri Tiomkin wrote the score, and, like he did with his Oscar-winning High Noon, he came up with a pretty good title song.  The song became a Top 40 hit for Gene Pitney.  Here’s Pitney performing the song on TV.

(For a total change of pace, the song was also featured in John Waters’ 1988 Hairspray.)

Stream of the Week: THE EAST – how do we punish corporate crime?

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Brit Marling in THE EAST

The East is a smart and gripping thriller that explores both our response to corporate criminality and the unfamiliar world of anarchist collectives. Brit Marling plays a brilliant up-and-comer in an industrial security firm who goes undercover to hunt down and infiltrate a band of eco-terrorists named The East.

The East seeks to brings deadly personal accountability to corporate leaders who injure people and the environment. These aren’t Hollywoodized corporate villains – all of the corporate crimes depicted in the movie have occurred in real life. Lesser filmmakers would have made The East into a revenge fantasy with a Robin Hood-like merry band of earnest kids – or a conventional espionage procedural, hunting down a gang of wild-eyed terrorists.

The East is so good because it explores our helplessness in the face of corporate malfeasance. The corporate targets deserve to be held accountable, and their crimes cry out for punishment. Yet the vigilante violence of The East is clearly unacceptable. No self-selected group of avengers – no matter how legitimate their grievance – should be able to inflict extra-legal violence. (If you don’t think so, just substitute white supremacist militia, fundamentalist Mormons or Chechen immigrants for the hippies in this movie.)

We view this dilemma through the perspective of Marling’s protagonist, whose own views evolve through the course of the story. Marling co-wrote the screenplay with director Zal Batmanglij. Marling and Batmanglij spent over three months in an anarchist collective, living a cash-free life off the grid; that experience has paid off with an unusual authenticity in the depiction of the anarchist lifestyle.

Marling and Batmanglij also co-wrote the indie The Sound of My Voice, and Marling wrote and starred in last year’s sci-fi hit Another Earth. Here, they have created a set of original characters and invented some really ingenious plot points, especially a very powerful initiation dinner and an astounding bit of tradecraft involving dental floss.

Besides Marling, Ellen Page is especially good as one of the eco-terrorists. Julia Ormond is brilliant in a tiny part as a business executive. There are other fine performances by Patricia Clarkson as Marling’s nasty boss and by Alexander Skarsgaard and Toby Kebell as anarchists.

There may be some holes in the plot, but The East is such a tautly crafted thriller that we don’t have time to notice. There is one unfortunately corny scene between Ellen Page’s character and Jamey Sheridan’s (he’s become the Go To Guy to play entitled white male scumbags). But those are quibbles – The East is a very strong film.

The East is available on DVD from both Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, iTunes, GooglePlay and other VOD outlets.

NON-FICTION: Olivier Assayas has wasted too many hours of my life

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Guillaume Canet (left) and Vincent Macaigne in NON-FICTION

I finally got around to watching writer-director Olivier Assayas’ Non-Fiction. I had been eager to see it because I generally find the French actor Vincent Macaigne hilarious, and I will pretty much watch Juliette Binoche in anything. My conclusion: Olivier Assayas has wasted too many hours of my life, and I am over his films.

Non-Fiction is a comedy of manners that revolves around the once-successful novelist Leonard, whose books are very lightly disguised re-tellings of his own sordid romantic life, and Leonard’s publisher Alain (Guillaume Canet). Alain is married to Selena (Juliette Binoche), an actress in TV cop shows. Everybody sleeps with somebody else’s partner, and everyone wrings their hands over e-books, audio books, blogs and the impending death of the book industry. That’s about it. None of it is engaging.

In 2006, Assayas, a veteran screenwriter, wrote and directed an okay segment (the one with Maggie Gyllenhaal as an actress pining for her drug dealer) in the delightful anthology Paris, je t’aime. He followed it in 2008 with the fine family drama Summer Hours. And then, in 2011, he did the excellent true crime mini-series Carlos. This was a promising start, and he developed a fan base of admiring critics.

But since then, Assayas has wasted brilliant performances by Binoche and Kristen Stewart in the Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper – two muddled messes that masquerade as cinema. And now, the off-putting Non-Fiction. I am over this guy.

SPOILER: There is one funny moment in Non-Fiction, which I shall now spoil for you, so you won’t need to watch the movie. In the last quarter of the film, the characters decide to publish an audio book read by a celebrity, and they aspire to get Juliette Binoche (who is, of course, in this scene playing her character). I’ll concede that this is a genuinely witty moment, if self-referential.

Non-Fiction is now streaming on Amazon and other platforms.

Movies to See Right Now

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Brad Pitt in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD

The more that I think about Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, the more I consider it a masterpiece.

Here’s my remembrance of Peter Fonda, who died this week at age 79.

OUT NOW

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is Werner Herzog’s documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly,a portrait of Dieter Dengler’s unimaginable life journey, highlighted by one of history’s most amazing feats of human endurance. The brisk 80 minutes of Little Dieter Needs to Fly can be streamed on Criterion, the Amazon Fandor channel, iTunes, Vudu and Google Play.

ON TV

On August 25, Turner Classic Movies is presenting the best of Dustin Hoffman: The Graduate and Tootsie, of course, and also Papillon, the riveting Marathon Man and the underappreciated Straight Time. Check out the 1985 version of Death of a Salesman with Hoffman as Willy Loman, supported by John Malkovich, Stephen Lang and Kate Reid. Attention must be paid.

Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich in THE DEATH OF A SALESMAN

Stream of the Week: LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY – an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy

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LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY

Werner Herzog’s documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly is a portrait of Dieter Dengler’s unimaginable life journey, highlighted by one of history’s most amazing feats of human endurance. With a childhood (as Herzog’s) in WWII Germany, Dengler survived US bombing raids that reduced his hometown to rubble; a glimpse of an American pilot spurred Dengler’s obsession with aviation. His drive to fly led him to emigration and a career as a US Navy aviator. Shot down in the Vietnam War, Dieter was captured and tortured. He made a daring escape, and, after the war, pursued civilian aviation; we finally see Dieter in his Marin County home with its odd survivalist features . Unsurprisingly, given the traumas he endured, Dieter has his quirks.

But the core of Little Dieter Needs to Fly is the amazing jungle escape. It was a 23-day ordeal with a manhunt hot on his heels. His 167-pound frame was whittled to 98 pounds. Herzog takes Dieter back to Southeast Asia and pays the locals to re-enact the capture and chase.

Werner Herzog, known for his German New Cinema art house hits of the 70s and 80s (Aguirre:The Wrath of God, Strozek Nosferatu the Vampyre, Fitzcarraldo), switched gears in 1997 with Little Dieter Needs to Fly and followed it with the masterpiece Grizzly Man. Since, Herzog has become a prolific and masterful documentarian.

Note: It’s not in Little Dieter, but, four years after the 1997 release of the film, Dieter was diagnosed with ALS and died from a self-inflicted gunshot.

The brisk 80 minutes of Little Dieter Needs to Fly can be streamed on Criterion, the Amazon Fandor channel, iTunes, Vudu and Google Play.

Peter Fonda

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Peter Fonda in his THE HIRED HAND

Peter Fonda has died at age 79. Fonda, well-known as a son and brother of film mega-stars, had a prolific career (116 screen credits) dotted with some spectacular successes.

Fonda’s most eternal legacy will be Easy Rider, a film he wrote and starred in, which was the seminal film of the Counter-culture. Most importantly, Easy Rider propelled the staggering movie studios into empowering a new generation of auteur filmmakers.

Before Easy Rider, Fonda had moved from traditional Hollywood male ingenue roles into a couple of Roger Corman exploitation films, The Trip and Wild Angels. In a rich third act, Fonda was deservedly Oscar-nominated for his starring role in the 1997 indie Ulee’s Gold. He also delivered fine supporting performances in The Limey (1999) and 3:10 to Yuma (2007).

Fonda also directed three films, including his grievously underrated Western The Hired Hand (1971). Verna Bloom, who also died this year, plays a woman abandoned on her hardscrabble ranch by her roaming husband (Fonda). When he returns with his trail buddy (Warren Oates), she will only allow him back as a hired hand. It’s a moody and captivating film, beautifully shot by Vilmos Zsigmond.  The Hired Hand is available on DVD from Netflix; the DVD is also available for purchase.

Movies to See Right Now

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Buster Keaton (right) in STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.

OUT NOW

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the Danish director Susanne Bier’s 2006 After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet) with the charismatic Mads Mikkelsen. There’s also a remake – a big Hollywood remake to be released this Friday also called After the Wedding. See this Danish original. After the Wedding was nominated for Best Foreign Language Oscar. After the Wedding, which I had listed as the second-best movie of 2007, can be streamed from Criterion and Amazon.

ON TV

On August 19, Turner Classic Movies presents an evening of Buster Keaton that is one of the best programs that TCM has ever curated. First, there’s Peter Bogdanovich’s fine 2018 biodoc of Keaton, The Great Buster: A Celebration. I had thought that I had a good handle on Keaton’s body of work, but The Great Buster is essential to understanding it.

TCM follows with five movies from Keaton’s masterpiece period:
Sherlock, Jr. (1924), The Navigator (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The General (1926) andSteamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). After 1928, Keaton’s new studio took away his creative control, and his career (and personal life) crashed.

This is a chance to appreciate Keaton’s greatest work. I just wrote about Steamboat Bill, Jr. for this year’s Cinequest. I’ve also recommended Seven Chances for its phenomenal chase scene, one that still rates with the very best in cinema history.

Buster Keaton in SEVEN CHANCES