Anxiety Steals The Show From The Emotional Ensemble In INSIDE OUT 2

Now playing at a multiplex near us all:

INSIDE OUT 2 (Dir. Kelsey Mann, 2024)

 

While it’s easy to be cynical about Pixar churning out yet another sequel of one of their biggest hits, it’s actually been five years since they’ve put out one, which was TOY STORY 4, (that franchise’s LIGHTYEAR was an odd spin-off not a sequel). 

 

With the last several offerings by the Disney-owned animation studio being far from the insta-classics of old, I’m glad to report that this second INSIDE OUT is a worthy, and very funny follow-up that is a very welcome offering for this cinematic summer season.

 

The 2015 original INSIDE OUT, which matched its huge critical acclaim with big box office (and deservedly won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature), is one of Pixar’s finest, so it’s great to see Amy Poehler back heading the emotional ensemble as Joy, Phyllis Smith as Sadness, and Lewis Black as Anger while Tony Hale, and Liza Lapira fill in for Bill Hader, and Mindy Kaling as Fear and Disgust respectively.

 

Then there’s the addition of four new characters that invade their turf in the headquarters of the conscious mind of the 13-year old Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman, replacing Kaitlyn Dias from the first film), after the puberty alarm sounds. This new crew is led by Maya Hawke as Anxiety, Ayo Edebiri as Envy, Adèle Exarchopoulos as Ennui (“boredom” in French), and Paul Walter Hauser as Embarrassment, who wears a big hoodie in order to hide his big pink noggin in.

 

Diane Lane, and Kyle MacLachlan also reprise their parts as Riley’s parents, but they have very little screentime as the story revolves around the budding young girl going to hockey camp, and her relationships with her team mates. Hawke’s Anxiety pushes the old emotions aside (literally bottling them into a big glass jar), and casts them into a dark vault in the outer realm of Riley’s psyche so that she can take over the console and influence the girl’s thoughts with negativity. 

 

This is so that Riley will leave her friends behind so that she can join the popular girls (led by former Nickelodeon star Lilimar as Riley’s idol, Valentina “Val” Ortiz) in her desired hockey team, the Fire Hawks (a name that Black’s Anger says he can really get behind). So like the first film, the premise concerns a journey through the terrain of Riley’s mind to try and put things back in order, and, sure, it treads some of the same narrative ground, but the laughs, and heartfelt moments along the way help make it far better than a stale retread.

 

Among the amusing highlights is the appearances of a 2D retro cartoon character from Riley’s childhood named Bloofy (Ron Funches), a pixelated video game avatar called Lance Slashblade (Yong Yea) whose ineffectual method of rolling himself as a ball towards the advancing police-like mind workers sure made for a few crowd-pleasing visual gags, and Riley’s first experience with sarcasm, hilariously aided, of course, by Ennui. 

 

Of course, there’s no way a sequel to INSIDE OUT could have the same fresh feel of the first one, but screenwriters Meg LeFauve (co-writer of the original), and Dave Holstein bring enough punch to this project to make it a winning combination of humor and pathos bathed in bright primary colors, and it also helps that the animation is even sharper and more eye engaging in this entry, while still retaining the look and feel of the innerspace of the first installment. 

 

While Poehler still enthusiastically rules as Joy, and Black’s Anger and Smith’s Sadness prove there’s a lot more mileage to get out of their clever comic personas (Hale and Lipira put in good turns as well, but they’re more sideline to the three leads), it’s Hawke’s frantic, dizzying performance as Anxiety that really steals the show. Hawke’s high energy take on the fuzzy fretful foe for Joy makes for a sympathetic antagonist, and adds another layer to the zippy proceedings.

 

Maybe like Richard Linklater’s BEFORE trilogy, they should do an INSIDE OUT sequel in another nine years (and unlike that series, the characters don’t have to age), as the near decade gap here appears to work in this film’s favor.

INSIDE OUT 2, the solid directorial debut of long-time Pixar creative, Kelsey Mann, made me laugh, and tear up a bit, as while it played a lot of the same beats as its predecessor, it successfully pulled the same right heartstrings too. So those dismissive of sequels should take note that Pixar’s track record for well worthwhile franchise efforts has again proven to be pretty damn strong.

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The BAD BOYS Are Back After The Slap

Opening today at multiplexes near us all:

BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE

(Dir. Adil & Bilall, 2024)

With only four years between entries, this movie marks the shortest gap between sequels for the BAD BOYS action comedy franchise that began in 1995 (the longest was the 17 years between BAD BOYS II in 2003, and BAD BOYS FOR LIFE in 2020). But what’s obviously more significant is that this fourth film in the series is the first big Will Smith movie, a contender to be a summer blockbuster no less, since the slap that was heard around the world.

And, yes, that slap is referenced in this glossy, glorified, over-stylized production that re-unites the 55-year old Smith, and the 59-year old Martin Lawrence to play the bickering buddy cops, Detectives Mike Lowrey, and Marcus Burnett. We catch up with them in the high octane (it’s all high octane) opening sequence of the tuxedoed duo racing through the sunny streets of Miami to get to the church for Mike’s wedding (to his physical therapist, Christine played by series newcomer Melanie Liburd), and thwarting a convenience store robbery on the way (Marcus had to stop for a ginger ale, Skittles, and a hot dog).

From there it’s on to Marcus paying for his comic gluttony by having a heart attack on the dance floor at the reception, and, after a near death dream sequence, comes to at the hospital that he’s invincible because his slain superior, Captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano) appeared to him beyond the grave to tell him it’s not his time yet.

Pantoliano’s Captain Howard, who was killed in the previous entry, has been framed as being involved with the drug cartels, so it’s up to Vice City’s finest to clear his name, but they end up on the run themselves as fugitives with $5 million bounties on their heads.

Mike’s son, Armando Aretas (Jacob Scipio), comes into play as he can identify the movie’s villain, James McGrath (Eric Dane), a former U.S. soldier turned cartel boss that the screenwriters, Chris Bremner and Will Beall, don’t flesh out to be that memorable of a character.

Every beat of every shoot-out, chase (both foot or automobile), and hand-to-hand combat scene has been done to death before, but the fast pace, and disregard for any realism makes it flow entertainingly if not thoughtfully. I hope that much of Lawrence and Smith’s banter was improvised because riffs about Marcus having encountered Mike in a former life as a donkey really don’t feel work-shopped and honed.

One scene features our hip, black, wise-cracking heroes having a run-in with rednecks on their trailer trash property (a Confederate flag can be prominently seen hanging in the doorway of their mobile home), and it’s a lazy piece of comedy with Marcus and Mike trying to fake knowing a Reba McEntire song at gunpoint. Still, the audience at the screening I saw laughed plenty – especially when the cops stole and roared off in the rednecks’ pick-up truck with a country version of “Bad Boys,” by McEntire blares on the soundtrack. I’m not making this up.

The climax at an abandoned alligator-themed amusement park is also standard stuff, with the threat of a 16-foot, 900-pound albino alligator named Duke, and Marcus making Jurassic Park jokes. Along for the ride on Mike and Marcus’s team is Vanessa Hudgens, and Alexander Ludwig as weapons and tech experts of the Advanced Miami Metro Operations (AMMO) headed by Paola Núñez (also Mike’s ex-girlfriend, returning from BAD BOYS FOR LIFE), and Ioan Gruffudd as a Miami mayoral candidate, who everybody can tell is corrupt from his first moment onscreen.

But what about the famous sucker punch that Smith landed on Chris Rock at the Oscars two years ago? Well, Smith, whose premise this time is he’s dealing with trauma that freezes him in action, gets slapped himself during a spell by Lawrence who scolds him as a “bad boy.” Again, I’m not making this up.

Belgian directing duo Adill and Bilall continue the competent job of aping Michael Bay’s glitzy music video/TV commercial aesthetics - the packaging of every Jerry Bruckheimer production - that they did on the third installment, with shots made by always swooping cameras to insure that the audience never gets bored. And that did indeed work as boredom was not a beef of mine here.

Lawrence and Smith can still bring the crude charm, and chemistry, but with only a handful of funny, laugh out loud gags, BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE is a predictably empty, and noisy experience at its worst, and simple dumb fun at its best. I can’t deny that it was a crowd-pleaser at the showing I attended (I even heard someone say, “That’s the best one yet!” at the end), but whether paying moviegoers will give it the same love will be to be seen, as we’re living in times of a lot of high-profile theatrical flops these days.

Fans of the franchise will undoubtedly dig it as it contains around the same quality of the others (maybe not BAD BOYS II though as that’s arguably the worst of the series), and folks just looking for a good diversion on the big screen will find enough amusement enough, but I can’t hail it as a must see. So watcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you? Wait for streaming.

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THE BEACH BOYS Doc Makes Its Disney+ Debut, But Does It Offer Anything New?

THE BEACH BOYS (Dir. Frank Marshall, Thom Zimny, 2024)

There have been plenty of Beach Boys, and Brian Wilson documentaries before so fans that know their story backwards and forwards may wonder whether what this film, which debuts today on Disney+, brings new to the table. 

 

Well, famed producer/filmmaker Frank Marshall, and Thom Zimmy (best known for a handful of acclaimed Bruce Springsteen doc projects) give us loads of never-seen before photos, lots of previously unshown footage, and a bunch of brand-new interviews with the principles (Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks, and Bruce Johnston) so that’s what.

 

But with this wealth of material, it’s surprising that the program’s length is less than two hours (1h 53m, to be exact), as one might reasonably expect an epic three-hour (or even two part) event. This means that THE BEACH BOYS is heavy on the early years (1961-1969), going into detail about their beginnings in as a Four Freshman-inspired garage singing act from Hawthorne, California, giving focus to the creation of their sound, and their run of chart-topping singles, and speeds through their later career in the last thirty minutes.

 

However, despite this doc’s uneven presentation, it contains a very entertaining exploration of how a band that was defined by the surf ‘n sun Californian dream (so much so that their first three records had the word “surf” in their titles), came of age in the mid ‘60s rock era with the Beatles as their rivals/later friends, and went through various re-births via the two then concurrent incarnations of the band.

 

As Brian Wilson refrained from the road to conjure up studio genius with the aid of The Wrecking Crew, “The Beach Boys effectively became two groups, the touring group and the recording group,” Love reflects as the doc gets into edgier territory with the ground-breaking Pet Sounds sessions, and the shelving of the ambitious Smile album. 

 

The main arc (or arcs) concerns how the band goes from being cool to embarrassingly unhip to cool over and over again, but, as it skips over huge chunks of their output in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and even the ‘90s, it doesn’t feature how the touring and recording versions of the group later became two camps.

 

Firstly, the long-running Mike Love-led hits-centric outfit that largely performs at state fairs and casinos under the banner of the Beach Boys (Love has the exclusive license of the name), and the Brian Wilson-fronted pop orchestra that has played loftier venues, recreating Pet Sounds, and Smile in full, as well as a ton of fan favorites with Jardine, and later BB member, Blondie Chaplain (who is also featured in a new interview in the doc).

 

There are many, many elements from the band’s canon that are either glossed over, or skipped completely while the most attention is paid to Wilson toiling over the mixing console conjuring up his eccentric brand of melodic magic with almost a half an hour spent on Pet Sounds and SMiLE, and the ending’s declaration of its sacred place in musical history.

 

Not that I’m complaining as those are amazing works, and BB enthusiasts will dig the insights and delight in all the footage finally seeing the light of day here, but there really is too much that’s left out of this treatment. The stories around their later day attempts to recapture the band’s glory days would be nice, and I believe necessary to have been included, for example their 50th Anniversary album, That’s Why God Made the Radio, which re-united all the principles in 2011 for a surprisingly solid effort, but isn’t even mentioned here.

 

Keep in mind, these are the quibbles of a fan who has grown up with not just the BB catalogue, but with the narrative behind the music, and would probably still have issues with a three-four hour version. Overall, whatever it lacks, THE BEACH BOYS is a highly recommended watch for what it has, and I was impressed that when it was wrapping up, it had gone its entire running length with no instance of “Kokomo,” the unbearably cheesy 1988 single that was the band’s last top 20 hit. 

 

But I had thought too soon, as when the black screen credits starting rolling, “Kokomo” kicked in. Sigh. I’m not usually a fan of medleys, but there’s an early ‘80s single, officially sanctioned by Capitol Records, “Beach Boys Medley,” made up of bits from eight smashes from their ‘60s heyday, that would’ve worked so much better, especially as this doc is more about those times than any others.

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THE PLANET OF THE APES Gets A Solid Franchise Extender In KINGDOM

Opening today at a monkey-infested multiplex near us all:

KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
(Dir. Wes Ball, 2024)

Since it’s been a minute since we’ve visited the PLANET OF THE APES (which we all know is really future earth) – the last film was 2017’s WAR OF THE PLANET OF THE APES – I had to refresh my memory with YouTube recap videos as I couldn’t quite remember where they had left off. 

 

This is the fourth entry in the POTA reboot series that started in 2011, when James Franco was still a thing, and it begins with the funeral of Caesar, the lead chimpanzee from the first trilogy, and then we flash forward, as a caption tells us “several generations later” (no reason to be specific about a particular year), to a clan of apes who live in towers made out of branches and logs right outside of some (again not specified) ruins of a city.

 

Our new protagonist is Noa (affably voiced and motion captured by Owen Teague), a noble chimp who we first meet in a stunning action sequence at the top of a green, tree covered rotting building (a “hard climb” the apes call it) stealing an eagle’s egg and almost having a hard fall because of it. 

 

Back home, where Noa’s father, Koro (Neil Sandilands), leads as a master of falconry; the abrupt appearance of a human woman (a stoic Freya Allen) gets the egg broken in a scuffle, and Noa travels back into the city to get another where he comes upon an evil clan led by the wonderfully scary villain bonobo ape, Proximus Caesar, who has co-opted and misconstrued what the original smart monkey, Caesar was all  about. “For Caesar!” Kevin Durand’s Proximus declares as he kills Koro in a powerful fight scene as the village burns.

 

Resembling many action adventure movies (including the recent THE CREATOR and CIVIL WAR), the film becomes a road trip scenario to rescue Noa’s clan, in which our determined ape is joined by the woman (who finally speaks saying her name is Mae), and an elder, incredibly intelligent orangutan name Raka (Peter Macon) who teaches Noa about books and astrology (there’s a stirring scene set in an observatory where Noa sees something that startles him through the lens of a ginormous telescope that they don’t let us see).

 

Noa, Raka, and Mae find that Proximus has built a settlement with scores of ape prisoners around a human-built bunker in the cliffs on the seashore. Proximus, who uses his ape slaves to daily try to destroy the impenetrable door to the bunker, asks Noa what he sees when he looks at what he calls his “kingdom,” “stolen clans” is our down-but-not-out hairy hero’s reply.

 

Another human, Trevathan (the always trusty William H. Macy), as our antagonist’s opportunistic history teacher, tries to dissuade Mae’s plans to get to what’s in the bunker before Proximus, saying “it’s already their world!” but with Noa’s smarts, and unflappable motivation to save his clan, there’s no stopping the determined duo.

 

In a world cluttered with big action franchises, KINGDOM is a surprisingly solid series entry with a compelling narrative in which very little is a hard climb to tackle. Its gliding, and intensely detailed visuals, provided by cinematographer Gyula Pados, keep the eyes popping, with the characters given just the right amount of heft to keep us emotionally interested. There’s also some nicely placed humor of the human-bashing sort including Noa and Raka ridiculing Mae’s smell during some down-time.

 

Taking this in, and looking back at the three films (RISE, DAWN, and WAR) that proceeded it, I have to say that this is one of the stronger sci-fi series going these days. Since the original classic 1968 POTA, there has been four sequels in the ‘70s, a really weird (and bad) stand-alone Tim Burton version in 2001 (with an ending that makes absolutely no sense), and now this effective reboot series with four more films (there were also live action and animated TV series, but let’s stick to the big screen) so I really wasn’t expecting anything but another attempt to keep the series afloat here.

 

But when there’s a creative team (and a sharp screenwriter in Josh Frieman) bringing primo passion and power to such a project, a fresh direction for these old APES can actually happen. And it’ll most likely happen again and again (of course, until the series becomes unprofitable), but for now the bottom of this barrel of monkeys is very far from being scraped dry.

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The Intense Impact of A24’s CIVIL WAR Comes From Its All-Too-Real Feel

Opening today at a multiplex near us all:

CIVIL WAR (Dir. Alex Garland, 2024)

Alex Garland’s fourth film as director (and eighth as screenwriter), after an impressive run that includes EX MACHINA, ANNIHILATION, and MEN; is the fillmmaker’s most intense, and impactful work yet in its depiction of a lawless, ravaged country that has been torn apart by the destructive divisions that we’re all very aware, and frightened of right now. 

 

Yes, it’s a familiar dystopian future scenario, but without sci-fi tinges as it appears to happen in the very near future under the reign of a nameless fascist three-term president played by Nick Offerman (who will always be Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation to me). 

 

The film follows Kirsten Dunst as a tough as nails war photographer (it’s mentioned that her coverage of the Antifa Massacre broke her career), Wagner Moura as her journalist friend, Stephen McKinley Henderson as an elder New York Times reporter, and Cailee Spaeny as a young aspiring photojournalist, as they travel from the Big Apple to Washington DC to get an interview with the president because as Moura says, “it’s the last story out there.”

 

Driving in a white SUV through threatening territory, the ragtag crew encounter violence in the form of open country, and urban shoot-outs; and a militia group headed by a grim, camouflaged Jesse Plemmons (Dunst’s real-life husband) who interrogates our protagonists standing over a mass grave of bloody bodies in the movie’s scariest, edgiest scene.

 

The raw look of the film adds to its authenticity as cinematographer Rob Hardy, who had worked on Garland’s previous films, aims to illustrate what the photographer characters capture on their cameras with gritty still shots effectively being presented throughout. CIVIL WAR itself was shot on a new camera, the digital handheld DJI Ronin 4D, which self stabilizes, decreasing vertical shake.

 

While I was left with some questions about the crumbling nation Garland presents, CIVIL WAR is a compellingly executed narrative about a road trip from hell that culminates in a fiery, bombastic White House climax that will stick in your head for days. Its grounded by the sharp performances of Dunst, in a distinctively different role than she’s ever played before, and Spaeny, whose investment here made me forget pretty quickly that her breakthrough roles was portraying Elvis Presley’s all-too-young wife in Sofia Coppola’s PRISCILLA last year.

 

With his latest offering for what’s arguably American’s hippest film production company, A24, Garland again gives us a thoughtful, fearless, and abrasive take on compromised, and cornered human nature. It’s also a tribute to journalism, and the crucial place the press have in our democracy. Dunst and her fellow scrappy newshounds never spout out any opinions about anything that went down or lament where they are currently in all the chaos; they just do their jobs without bias, only wanting the best in-the-moment documentation. 

However, my cynicism at times made me think these people wouldn’t get as far as they did in these treacherous badlands with a vehicle with the large letters denoting “PRESS” on its front doors.

CIVIL WAR can be a disturbing, and often jarring, experience, but what makes it really scary is how real it feels as it’s a harsh warning about what really could be coming in our future considering, well, everything.

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That Time The Travelling Wilburys Stole A Line From An ‘80s Melanie Griffith Movie

That’s right, the rock supergroup made up of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, and Tom Petty (Roy Orbison was a member, but passed after their first record’s release) lifted a line (and twisted it), from Mike Nichols’ 1988 Melanie Griffith comedy WORKING GIRL, and it’s a doozy.

At a party scene, Griffith’s ambitious Tess McGill schmoozes with a colleague she’s just met, played by Harrison Ford at his ‘80s prime, and says (after a few tequila shots):

 

“I’ve got a head for business, and a bod for sin. Is there anything wrong with that?”

Cut to the first single off of the Travelling Wilburys second album in 1990, jokingly entitled Vol. 3, “She’s My Baby,” featuring this couplet that comically reverses the line:

 

“She’s got a body for business, got a head for sin/She knocks me over like a bowling pin”

The line is sung by George Harrison on the single (the same version of which kicks off the record), but there is a demo of the song that has Dylan singing the entire song so it’s safe to assume that he’s the one that had the idea to co-opt Griffith’s line, which came from WORKING GIRL screenwriter Kevin Wade. 

 

Lynne said in a Rolling Stone interview at the time of Vol. 3, the band heavily relied on Dylan for their lyrics: “We all throw in ideas and words, but when you’ve got a lyricist like Bob Dylan — well, what are you gonna do?” So it’s highly likely that it was Dylan, who has a history of quoting without credit from movies, Civil War-era poetry, and even an episode of Star Trek, that thought it was a line worth stealing, and toying with.

 

Dylan didn’t have to have seen the movie either to have been exposed to the dialogue; it was featured in the trailer, and in TV spots that ran throughout the film’s successful release in late December 1988 through the next year, in which it was nominated for six Oscars (it only won one, Carly Simon for her song “Let the River Run”).

 

So I’ll again quote His Bobness, “Steal a little and they throw you in jail/steal a lot and they make you king,” and leave you with the rousing video from the song in question - “She’s My Baby”:

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Full Frame 2024: Part Two

My second day at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in downtown Durham was my busiest day of watching films on the big screen in a long while. And the whole day was spent in Fletcher Hall, the main stage at the Carolina Theater, with its 1,048 seats and two balconies. 

Saturday morning, I attended the Remembering Nancy Buirski event, in which a host of the Full Frame founders colleague friends, including Co-Festival Director Sadie Tillery, filmmakers Yance Ford, Chris Hegedus, and Sam Pollard; Center for Documentary Studies Director Tom Rankin, and Buirski’s sister, Judy Cohen, gave really touching, really emotional testimonies to the recently passed Full Frame founder and filmmaker.

POWER (Dir. Yance Ford, 2024)

Ford’s follow-up to his excellent Oscar nominated doc, STRONG ISLAND (which I called “one of the strongest documentary documentary debuts I’ve ever seen,” when it screened at Full Frame 2017), is a fascinating thesis on the history of policing in America. In a thorough effort to find the roots and cause of where we are now, Ford calls upon writers, scholars, and most dominatingly, Minneapolis Police Inspector Charles Adams, to put into perspective the issues that result in extreme brutality through the dawn of the first forces to the modern day tragedies of Rodney King and George Floyd. This compelling, and often disturbing, doc will premiere on Netflix later this year.

UNION (Dirs. Stephen Maing & Brett Story, 2024)

“We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going to space because while he was up there we were signing people up.” - Chris Smalls, President of the Amazon Labor Union

The struggle of current and former Amazon employees in Staten Island fighting for their rights against Jeff Bezos’ mega corporation is captured with grit in this scrappy yet vivid doc. The story is largely headed by the strong-minded Chris Smalls, who was fired for protesting work conditions from the company’s New York warehouse in 2020, and founded the ALU. We follow Smalls as he mans a stand across from the ginormous fulfillment center (shot so ominously it comes off like the Watergate in ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN), and urges passing workers to unionize. The friction between Smalls, and his colleagues is palpable at moments, but the sense of community is undeniable especially when times get tight. UNION is a crowd pleaser of a impactful doc that should be sought out when it, with hope, opens wide after its run on the festival circuit. 

ENO (Dir. Gary Hustwit, 2024)

At past Full Frames, Saturday night was often when a music documentary, or rockumentary, was given the spotlight with previous years featuring such illuminairies as Arcade Fire, the Avett Brothers, Nick Cave, the Magnetic Fields, the National, and Pussy Riot, so I was elated to see that this year’s subject is one of my favorite figures in modern music: Brian Eno. 

Though he’s more known as a producer (U2, Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads, Devo, lovers of art rock well know his performing chops as shown here in rare live footage of his tenure in Roxy Music, and in the studio working on his seminal ambient solo work (one of his early albums is actually called Ambient 1: Music for Airports).

Thing is, this experimental film, billed as “the world’s first generative cinematic documentary,” is presented from a code via custom made software that determines different routes in which to assemble the scenes so it’s different every time. In a Q & A following the screening, director Hustwit said that the version that was shown at Sundance had a lot more Laurie Anderson cues in it. So it’s kind of a Choose Your Own Adventure-style kind of doc presentation. That’s fine and all, but I just want to know if there’s a version that has more Devo.

As a fan, I’d like to see multiple takes on this material, so I’m sure I'll be revisiting this in the future. Hustwit’s ENO gives hope that more music-themed docs will attempt anti-Wikipedia-type run downs of careers, and mix it up a bit. But even without the flashy packaging, Mr. Eno is more than enough of an engaging artist to spend time with, and this doc is at its best when it cools it with the code, and just hangs with him.

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Full Frame 2024: Part One

After years of being a virtual only event, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival returned to the Carolina Theater, and Convention Center in downtown Durham, N.C. this last weekend. Despite not being as robustly attended as in the pre-pandemic days, there was a healthy roster of films with 50 titles including 35 features and 15 short films from 22 countries, and a lot of familiar faces piling in to take in the four day run of primo infotainment.

The shadows of Full Frame founder Nancy Buirski, and documentary filmmaker god D.A. Pennebaker, who both passed since the last in-person Full Frame in 2019, loomed large over this year’s recovened proceedings, and were lovingly celebrated this festival with screenings of their work, and tribute panels featuring remembrances from colleagues.

Having missed the first day of Full Frame 2024, I kicked off my Friday at the fest with Buirski's final film:

DESPERATE SOULS, THE DARK CITY, AND THE LEGEND OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY 

(Dir. Nancy Buirski, 2022)

Nobody who’s ever seen John Schlesinger’s 1969 classic, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, the gritty X-rated counterculture drama that won the Best Picture Oscar in 1970, will ever forget it. I say that because it's been decades since I've seen it on VHS, but its scuzzy depiction of the friendship between two hustlers, Jon Voight’s Texan rube, Joe Buck, and Dustin Hoffman’s sleazy schemer “Ratso” Rizzo is permanently burned into by brain.

Inspired by Glenn Frankel’s 2021 book, Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic, Buirski examines the complicated feelings, and tumultuous times behind the amorously questionable adaptation of James Leo Herlihy’s 1965 novel, and offers a lot of tasty context to take in, especially in its exploration of the gay cowboy motif, which, of course, leads to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN comparisons (and use of clips).

Voight appears in tight close-up to give his side of the story, happily with no right-wing nuttiness, while co-star Hoffman appears only in archival interviews, alongside insights provided by actors Bob Balaban (whose first film this was), Brenda Vaccaro, Jennifer Salt (daughter of screenwriter Waldo Salt); and critics Charles Kaiser, J. Hoberman, and Lucy Sante.

Buirski’s superb film effectively breaks down of Schelisher’s unforgettable film in thought provoking moment after moment, leaving one to reevaluate MIDNIGHT COWBOY’S place in film history, queer cinema, and pop culture overall. Having seen several other of the Pulitzer Prize winning woman's other films having gotten spotlights at previous Full Frames like THE LOVING STORY, BY SIDNEY LUMET, and THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR, with her in attendance, and participating in Q & As afterwards, it was quite moving to take in her latest, but extremely sad to not have her there at the end this time to discuss it.

Next up, I finished off my Friday night with a ragged rock doc:

A POEM IS A NAKED PERSON (Dir. Les Blank, 1974)

Going in, I was expecting to learn something about the life of legendary Tulsa musician Leon Russell, but this curious, ramshackle doc that was shot 50 years ago, but shelved until 2015, doesn’t aim to educate - just entertain. The film is split between weird, quirky footage from over a three-year period (‘72-‘74) filmed at Russell’s studio on Grand Lake in Oklahoma, and rowdy concert sequences that show Russell at the top of his game mesmerizing packed audiences.

There are also fascinating time capsule-worthy appearances by George Jones, Willie Nelson, and the lesser-known singer-songwriter Eric Anderson, who seems to clash a bit with Russell in the studio. So I didn't learn anything about Russell’s background, catalogue, or what makes him tick, but I did learn that he was a glorious crowd-pleasing showman with a killer voice, and grand piano chops. And despite this relic’s disjointed, dated approach, that was all I needed.

Stay tuned for Part Two for more Full Frame 2024 coverage.

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The Greatest Moment In Pop Culture History: William Shatner Covering Elton John’s “Rocket Man”

After much deliberation through many studies, countless sleepless nights, and endless arguing with colleagues (i.e. my cats), I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that William Shatner’s cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” is the single greatest moment in pop culture history.

The incredible event went down on January 14, 1978 at the 5th Saturn Awards (broadcast as The Science Fiction Awards on January 21, 1978), which the Star Trek star co-hosted with actress Karen Black. At one point during the awards ceremony (in which STAR WARS unsurprisingly swept), famous lyricist Bernie Taupin, best known for his songwriting collaborations with Elton John; came on stage to introduce the very special number.

 

The sunglasses-wearing, white-gloved, tuxedoed Taupin addressed the audience: 

 

“In 1972, when Elton John and I wrote ‘Rocket Man,’ it became very popular among the listeners. Due to the interest in the meaning of the song, now in 1978 at the Science Fiction Film Awards, I’m trying proud to once again present my ‘Rocket Man,’ as interpreted by our host, William Shatner. Thank you.’

 

As dripping with gravitas as that intro was, it did little to truly prepare the crowd for the intense interpretation they were about to experience. Watch the clip:

 

Chills, huh? The concept is very clear: a man pondering his existence in the early evening over a cigarette is encountered by his other selves, from as the night drunkenly progresses. When one Shatner (in a big close-up projection) statically states, ‘Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids,’ to which the original early evening Bill responds, ‘in fact, it’s cold as hell,’ it hits you right in the feels.

 

Then the song climaxes with the drunkest, most late night vision of Shatner, tie-undone, slurring supremely, and dancing in a fists-clenched manner that strongly resembles Donald Trump’s dance moves, appearing to take the tune home. 

 

The over-whelmingly power performance concludes with each of the three Shatners (maybe this concept was inspired by there being multiple Star Trek episodes with Captain Kirk doubles?) reciting the song’s dramatic last line ‘And I think it's gonna be a long, long time,’ separately, then together until they merge as one.

 

When watching this amazing video, I can’t believe how the audience was able to keep from laughing (I think you can hear some gasps though) because this shit is hilarious AF. In the pre-YouTube era, or pre-internet era in general, this was a very rare video that one might hear talk of, but not actually see.

 

I remember seeing the late, great SNL legend Phil Hartman bring it up on a late night talk show sometime in the late ‘80s-early ‘90s, saying there was a videotape of it being passed around through his comedy buddies, but it didn’t gain real notoriety until another comedy legend (that thankfully is still with us) Chris Elliot parodied Shatner’s spoken word spectacle on an episode of Late Night with David Letterman on June 12, 1992:

 

Since then it’s also been targeted by Beck (from the 1997 video for “Where it’s At”):

And Family Guy (“And the Wiener is...” S3E5, broadcast on August 8, 2001:

What’s funny about these takes is that none of them really satirizes what Shatner did in his immaculate presentation of the iconic pop classic, they just do what he did as it can’t *be* parodied, only imitated. 

 

It’s also funny that Shatner has re-framed the performance, claiming it wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone but the audience at the Saturn Awards show (although it was broadcast less than a week after its taping on network TV, and that he meant it as a joke.

 

“I thought how funny, amusing, interesting – all those words - it would be if I did Frank Sinatra doing that song,” Shatner reflected in a 2019 interview. “He loosened the collar, he puffed out a cigarette, and then what I thought, ‘Well, if I try to do anything different, it’s [in monotone] ‘Rocket man,’ that’s Captain Kirk, and then there’s ‘Rock it, man!’ like a rock ‘n roll guy, I thought that was another interpretation, and then there was a third interpretation, three ways, three layers that I could do it. I was trying to be amusing in front of a 100 people.”

In a 2022 interview with Chris Wallace on CNN, Shatner is again confronted with the clip, and again re-inforces his view that he was “just kidding around, I didn’t know they were recording it,” even going on to say “I’m front of an audience, I’m doing this thing; we’re all laughing, we’re all having fun,” when the clip contains no laughter from said audience. That’s one of the things that makes it so funny now, is how seriously it’s taken.

 

Not my finest moment,” he confessed to Wallace. “But I re-recorded it on another album the way I thought it should go.” What Shatner is referring to having released a new version of the song for his album Seeking Major Tom in 2011. 

 

Also, this new version of “Rocket Man” was released on a limited edition seven inch single in 2022 with this nifty picture sleeve:

Since Shatner actually became a rocket man in real life, via a brief trip into space on a capsule piloted by Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin in 2021, his cover has much more resonance, which makes it even funnier.

If this post is your first time seeing the greatest moment in pop culture history, I think it's gonna be a long, long time before you ever forget it. 

Just as Shatner recites whispering with incredible drama: “A long...long...time.”

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Movie Of The Week: THE MOSQUITO COAST

And now, another entry in this year’s new series:

Movie of the Week: Peter Weir’s THE MOSQUITO COAST (1988).

Between Indiana Jones sequels in the mid to late ‘80s, Harrison Ford was on an interesting roll with WITNESS (his only Oscar nom), FRANTIC, and WORKING GIRL, but this role as a idealistically delusional guy who pulls his family, including wife Helen Mirren and son River Phoenix (leading the way for his crucial part in INDY 3), away from society to futilely build a new civilization in Central America might be his most invested performance ever. It also may be Ford’s most loathsome character this side of WHAT LIES BENEATH, but the message that lies beneath this forgotten gem can't be denied: get over yourself.

Author’s Note: I’ve not seen the Apple TV series adaptation (2021-2023) of Paul Theroux’s book the ‘88 film was based on starring his nephew Justin Theroux. Should I?

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R.I.P. M. Emmet Walsh (1935-2024)

R.I.P. M. Emmet Walsh

True movie and TV fans know this guy as he has well over 200 credits mostly in small parts (mostly as corrupt cops or middle men), but he owned his starring part in the Coen brothers’ 1984 debut BLOOD SIMPLE. From his first film role in ALICE'S RESTAURANT through appearances in everything from PLANET OF THE APES and AIRPORT sequels to classics like SLAP SHOT, THE JERK (the madman that shoots at Steve Martin’s Navin R. Johnson!), BLADE RUNNER, and SERPICO the guy put in memorably crusty work. Film critic legend, Roger Ebert once wrote, “No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.” Amen.

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ONE LIFE: An Anthony Hopkins WWII Drama That Will Get You In The End

Opening wide today at a theater, multiplex, or likewise venue near you:

ONE LIFE (Dir. James Hawes, 2023)

The first half of this film, the feature film debut by television director James Hawes (Doctor Who, Inside Story), is well-made (and well-meaning), and very watchable, but a fairly standard World War II story about fleeing the Nazis, and escaping the holocaust.

 

But, via the strong performances of Anthony Hopkins as the elder version of the British banker, Nicholas Winton, a humanitarian stockbroker who helped hundreds of Czechoslovakian children to escape from Prague; and Johnny Flynn, who portrays the younger Winton, the film grows more and more compelling until its very satisfying ending.

 

Hawes’ film, based on the book, If It’s Not Impossible…The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton by Barbara Winton, and scripted by Lucinda Coxon, and Nick Drake (not the folk singer of “Pink Moon” fame), begins with Hopkins’ Winton cleaning his study in 1987, and reflecting on a scrapbook he kept with information about the many Jewish children that he took part in relocating in 1938.

 

This leads to heavy flashbacks in which we see Flynn’s noble, determined Winton work with his co-workers (including Romola Garai as Doreen Warriner, and Alex Sharp as Trevor Chadwickof) of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, and his posh mother, Babi (Helena Bonham Carter, who gets one sharp, effective speech) to help scores of scared kids to board trains to the safety of foster families in England. These scenes are the movie’s most tense moments, you know because of grim, paper-checking Nazis.

 

Hawes cuts back and forth from the two time periods, maybe a bit too hastily as some shots and scenes aren’t given much room to breathe, but it’s Hopkins’ narrative, which involves the retiree trying to figure out what to do with his documents (donate them to the Holocaust Museum? Try for a newspaper retrospective?) that shines the brightest as it finds our hero being celebrated on the BBC series, That’s Life (which Winton’s wife, played superbly by Lena Olin calls “a very silly show”), and meeting a number of the people, and their families, who owe their life to the humble humanitarian. 

 

ONE LIFE, which takes its title from the expression, “If you can save just one life, it's worth it,” would’ve probably been celebrated much more greatly itself in a different era, as there’s been so many WWII films (and so many Anthony Hopkins historical dramas), but it’s such an earnest, and straightforward tale of humanity at its best while the world is at its worst, that it shouldn’t be dismissed. 

 

Its conclusion is so emotionally well-executed that if you don’t well up at least a little while viewing it, you might not be hooked up right. But if it doesn’t get anywhere near pulling your heart-strings, maybe one can at least see that it brilliantly shows what benefits may come when you de-clutter your office.

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Movie Of The Week: THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN

 Another entry in this year’s new series:

Movie of the Week: Despite being a modest success, Danny Devito’s theatrical directorial debut, THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN, wasn’t really appreciated by audiences or critics in its original release, but the 1987 comedy thriller is really ripe for re-evaluation. It’s a riff on Hitchcock’s STRANGERS ON A TRAIN that has inspired witty writing (by sitcom scribe Stu Silver), great cinematography (Barry Sonnenfeld, back when he was shooting Coen brothers classics), and Devito’s most touching character ever, Owen, as seen here in the above clip (my favorite scene) showing his coin collection off to Billy Crystal’s tortured novelist protagonist, Larry.

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2024 Oscar® Recap: “I’d Like To Thank My Terrible Childhood And The Academy”

Last night’s 96th Academy Awards was one of the most well produced, entertaining, and incident-free (no violence!) Oscar ceremonies in recent memory. Jimmy Kimmel did a solid job as host, the past winners saluting the new nominees device was touching, and Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken” big number from BARBIE brought the house down with the feeling of everyone in the room being blown away being gloriously palpable.

I was happy to see the well predicted OPPENHEIMER sweep go down. Christopher Nolan’s epic is a movie’s movie that’s got old fashioned majesty with modern polish, and it well deserved to win the seven Oscars it did (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor (Yay to Robery Downey Jr., the first former SNL cast member to ever win an Oscar - the quote in this post’s headline comes from his speech), Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Score).

 

My score of 18 out of the 23 categories was far from my best (22 out of 24, back when Sound was split into Sound Editing and Sound Mixing), but better than my worst, 13 out of 24.

 

Here’s what I got wrong:

 

BEST ACTRESS: Lily Gladstone, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

 

I, like many, thought it was Gladstone’s Oscar year as she had won the Golden Gl0bes, the Screen Actors Guild, and many critic association awards, but noooooo as Belushi would say (dated reference lost on younger readers), Emma Stone is now a two-time Academy Award winner for POOR THINGS. 

 

But Stone’s emotional acceptance speech was wonderful, featuring this funny moment:

“My dress is broken! I’m pretty sure it happened during ‘I’m Just Ken.’”

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING: Kazu Hiro, Kay Georgiou and Lori McCoy-Bell, MAESTRO

 

Another POOR THINGS miss. I should’ve known MAESTRO would go home empty handed.

 

DOCUMENTARY SHORT: THE ABCS OF BOOK BANNING (Dirs. Sheila Nevins and Trish Adlesic)

 

This was a stab in the dark, as I hadn’t seen any of the Documentary Shorts. Now I’ll definitely seek out THE LAST REPAIR SHOP, which was the winner of this oft overlooked category.

 

SOUND: Jonathan Glazer, OPPENHEIMER

 

This was one I was glad to get wrong, because the sound in Jonathan Glazer’s THE ZONE OF INTEREST is such a major element of that movie, which deservedly won Best International Picture (I got that one right). OPPENHEIMER won everything else anyway.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDERVERSE

 

Simply, I thought the more commercial, and more massively popular film would nab this award like usual, but I’m satisfied that Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki’s THE BOY AND THE HERON went home with the gold. 

 

Okay, so that’s my bout with Oscars 2024. You can now go about your day.