Tag Archives: 2018 Reviews

Don’t look down: Free Solo (***½)

October 15, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 13, 2018)

In my 2011 review of the film Drive, I wrote:

If there is one thing I’ve learned from the movies, it’s that a man…a real man…has gotta adhere to a Code. Preferably a “warrior” code of some sort. […] Steve McQueen…there was a guy who specialized in playing characters who lived by a code; he also brought a sense of Zen cool to the screen. There were others, like Jean-Paul Belmondo, Lee Marvin, Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood.

It seemed inevitable that at some point in E. Chai Vasarhelyi’s documentary Free Solo, it would be revealed that its “star”, free-soloist climber Alex Honnold, lives by such a code.

“For [my girlfriend] the point of life is like, happiness,” the soft-spoken, seemingly unflappable Honnold confides at one juncture, “To be with people that make you feel fulfilled; to have a good time. For me, it’s all about performance. Anybody can be happy and cozy. […] Nobody achieves anything great because they are happy and cozy. It’s about being a warrior. It doesn’t matter about the cause, necessarily. This is your path and you will pursue it with excellence. You face your fear, because your goal demands it. That is the goddamned warrior spirit. I think the free-soloing mentality is pretty close to warrior culture; where you give something 100% focus, because your life depends on it.”

I’m taking his word for it. When it comes to heights…I get a nosebleed from thick socks.

It’s not that the Spock-like Honnold never experiences fear; he just processes it differently from most humans. Literally. In one scene, a bemused Honnold gets a brain MRI. The results? “You have no activation in your amygdala,” the neurologist marvels, “Things that are typically stimulating for the rest of us just aren’t doing it for you.” Hmm.

Honnold (now 33) dropped out of UC Berkeley at 19, scrapping his original plan to study engineering so he could free-climb full time. He’s become a rock star in the climbing world over the years, striving to outdo himself with each ascent. In June of 2017 Honnold went for his ultimate personal best by aiming to be the first person to do a free solo ascent of the 3,200-foot face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Vasarhelyi re-teamed with her husband, photographer/mountaineer Jimmy Chin (the couple co-directed the 2014 film Meru) to document Honnold’s meticulous preparation and the attempt itself.

The deliberate pacing of the film’s first two thirds, which gives only fitful peeks at what makes the taciturn, borderline hermetic Honnold tick, belies the genuine excitement of the final third, which rewards the viewer’s patience in spades. There are glimpses at his personal life with his devoted girlfriend, who seems to have resigned herself to accepting his eccentricities as par for the course. Well, you know what they say- “whatever works”.

You may already know whether Honnold achieved his goal; I had no clue before watching the film (I haven’t gone out of my way to follow the world of free climbing). I also purposely did not Google his name beforehand, because I figured it would ratchet up the suspense. Boy, did it ever-especially in the film’s climactic climbing sequence, which was the most harrowing, white-knuckled, yet ultimately exhilarating and life-affirming 20 minutes I’ve experienced at the movies in ages (I had a lot of activation in my amygdala).

The photography is stunning (as you would expect from a National Geographic film…they do have a rep to uphold), and the editing in that final sequence is Oscar-worthy. I watched my preview copy on a 40-inch flat screen; but I easily visualize this film as a spectacular big-screen experience. Granted, it will likely end up airing on Nat Geo Channel (with 153 commercials) but go see it at a theater if you get the opportunity.

On Music

My 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee picks

October 10, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

Image result for rock and roll hall of fame

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced their 15 nominees for 2019, which must be weeded down to 5 for the next induction. Once again, I will dutifully fulfill my mission as an alleged pop culture critic and argue for my 5 picks (while hopefully not enraging fans of the remaining 10). Just remember kids…it’s only rock ‘n’ roll. Relax.

The Hall’s nominees are: Def Leppard, Devo, Janet Jackson, John Prine, Kraftwerk, LL Cool J, MC5, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Roxy Music, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, Stevie Nicks, The Cure, The Zombies (who I already endorsed last year) and Todd Rundgren. So here’s who I feel should be in the clique…and why:

Devo – Yes, that retro-futurist band with two Bobs and two sets of brothers who made vaguely unsettling videos you could dance to…they must be inducted immediately. They emerged straight outta Akron in 1973, and they were…different. It took them a spell to find an audience, as they initially leaned more toward arch performance art than conventional musicality. Yet they turned out to be quite musical; and with benefit of hindsight, unarguably visionary.

Best 3 albums: Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978), Freedom of Choice (1980), and New Traditionalists (1981).

Kraftwerk – In terms of innovation and lasting influence, this German “krautrock” outfit (founded 1970) holds the most import of my 5 selections. While not necessarily the first band to embrace electronica, they were among the first to seamlessly forge the technology with pop sensibilities. Eschewing traditional guitar-bass-drum backup for synths, vocoders, and drum machines, Kraftwerk upped the ante with self-consciously detached, metronomic vocals that caused many to snicker and dismiss the band as a novelty act. They’re not laughing now, as Kraftwerk’s influences continue to flourish in rock, hip-hop and club music.

Best 3 albums: Autobahn (1974), Trans-Europe Express (1977), and Computer World (1981).

MC5 – Granted, they may not be as musically innovative as others who are enshrined in the Hall of Fame, but if you consider “attitude” a key component of rock and roll, these Detroit-based rockers had it in spades. Call it what you will, proto-punk, garage, psych…they were loud, fast, and aggressive long before it was fashionable. In fact, they scared the living shit out of the mellow peace love and dope crowd at the time. Perhaps most notably, they were boldly outspoken and overtly political (which got them into a lot of trouble during the Nixon years), paving the way for activist bands like The Clash, Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy, System of a Down, and Green Day. This is the fourth time they have been nominated…if there has ever been a time to kick out the jams, it’s NOW, motherfuckers!

Best 3 albums: Kick Out the Jams (1969), Back in the USA (1970), and High Time (1971).

Roxy Music – This English outfit (founded in 1970) had very strange optics for its time. They looked like a hastily assembled jam band comprised of space rockers, 50s greasers, hippie stoners, and goths, fronted by a stylishly continental 30s crooner. But the music they made together was magic. It also defied categorization and begged a question; do we file it under glam, prog, pop or art-rock? The answer is “yes”. They were a huge influence on art punk and new wave, and even their earliest music still sounds freshly original. Let ’em in!

Best 3 albums: Roxy Music (1972), Siren (1975), and Avalon (1982).

Todd Rundgren – It’s shocking to me that the Hall has waited this long to nominate Rundgren, who’s been in the biz for over 50 years (and is still going strong). He is a true rock and roll polymath; a ridiculously gifted singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer extraordinaire. He is also a music video and multimedia pioneer. Granted, his mouth gets him into trouble on occasion (he is from Philly you know), and he does have a rep for insufferable perfectionism in the studio-but the end product is consistently top shelf (including acclaimed albums by Badfinger, The New York Dolls, Meatloaf, The Tubes, Psychedelic Furs, and XTC). Whether he’s performing pop, psych, metal, prog, R&B, power-pop, electronica or lounge, he does it with flair. A wizard and a true star.

Best 3 albums: Something/Anything? (1972), Todd (1974) and Faithful (1976).

Documentary, Politics, Show Biz

Here come the nice: Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (***½)

October 8, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 6, 2018)

Oh, Mr. Rogers, you sly son-of-a-gun. As it turns out, you get to have the last laugh, even though you were not alive to defend yourself. From a 2007 Wall Street Journal piece:

Don Chance, a finance professor at Louisiana State University, says it dawned on him last spring. The semester was ending, and as usual, students were making a pilgrimage to his office, asking for the extra points needed to lift their grades to A’s.

“They felt so entitled,” he recalls, “and it just hit me. We can blame Mr. Rogers.”

Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were “special” just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself.

[…] Some are calling for a recalibration of the mind-sets and catch-phrases that have taken hold in recent decades. Among the expressions now being challenged:

“You’re special.” On the Yahoo Answers Web site, a discussion thread about Mr. Rogers begins with this posting: “Mr. Rogers spent years telling little creeps that he liked them just the way they were. He should have been telling them there was a lot of room for improvement. … Nice as he was, and as good as his intentions may have been, he did a disservice.”

Signs of narcissism among college students have been rising for 25 years, according to a recent study led by a San Diego State University psychologist. Obviously, Mr. Rogers alone can’t be blamed for this. But as Prof. Chance sees it, “he’s representative of a culture of excessive doting.”

And of course, it’s no secret that the Fox news crowd has been gleefully vilifying the beloved children’s television host for quite some time now; holding him accountable as a chief enabler of the “participation trophy” culture they so vociferously mock and despise.

But here’s the funny thing. Several of the more interesting tidbits I picked up about Fred Rogers in Morgan Neville’s documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (currently available on PPV) were: (1) He was a lifelong registered Republican, (2) He studied to be a minister, and (3) He came from a well-moneyed family. I wonder if his fire-breathing conservative critics were aware this radical hippie commie cuck-creator was one of them!

In his affable portrait of this publicly sweet, gentle, compassionate man, Neville serves up a mélange of archival footage and present-day comments by friends, family, and colleagues to reveal (wait for it) a privately sweet, gentle, compassionate man. In other words, don’t expect revelations about drunken rages, aberrant behavior, or rap sheets (sorry to disappoint anyone who feels life’s greatest pleasure is speaking ill of the dead). That is not to deny that Rogers did have a few…eccentricities; some are mentioned, and others are implied. It goes without saying that he was an unusual and unique individual.

The bulk of the film focuses on the long-running PBS children’s show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, which debuted in 1968. Neville demonstrates how Rogers sparked children’s imaginations with the pleasant escapism of “Neighborhood of Make-Believe”, while gently schooling them about some of life’s unfortunate realities. Right out of the gate, Rogers intuited how to address the most pervasive fears and uncertainties stoked by current events in a way that (literally) a child could understand and process (a clip showing how Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination was handled is poignant beyond words).

If anything lurked beneath Rogers’ genteel countenance, it was his surprisingly steely resolve when it came to certain matters-and you could file these under “eccentricities”. For example, there was the significance of “143” in Rogers’ personal numerology. He used that number as shorthand for “I love you” (“I” is 1 letter, “love” is 4 letters, and “you” is 3 letters). “143” was also the consistent weight he strove to maintain all his adult life; helped by diligently swimming the equivalent of 1 mile in the pool nearly every day.

That same resolve is evidenced in an extraordinary bit of footage I’d never previously seen. The Republican Nixon administration (not unlike the current one) devoted a good portion of its first year vindictively hamstringing various achievements by the previous Democratic president. Lyndon Johnson’s Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which created and earmarked funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, was an early target.

When Congressional hearings commenced in 1969 to address the White House’s requested 50% budget cuts for CPB, Rogers appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, to speak on behalf of Public Television. Armed with little more than a few notes, some song lyrics, and his unique brand of friendly persuasion, you watch in amazement as Rogers turns the (initially) comically gruff and hostile committee chairman into a puddle of mush in just under 7 minutes, prompting the senator to chuckle and quip “Looks like you’ve just earned 20 million dollars.” Straight out of a Frank Capra movie.

Granted, there is virtually nothing to shock or surprise most viewers, especially if you are one of Fred Rogers’ “kids” who spent your formative years riding Trolley Trolley (and you “entitled” so-and-sos know who you are). And yes, expect the waterworks, especially if you’re sentimental. That said, anybody with a heart should go in with a box of Kleenex on standby. I was 12 in 1968, so I was already too hip for the room back in the day…but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t peeling onions every 10 minutes or so while watching this film.

With apologies to Howard Beale, I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everyone knows things are bad. There is so much vitriol, spitefulness, division, and ill will floating on the wind that it’s an achievement to make it to bedtime without having to ingest vast quantities of pills and powders just to get through this passion play (with apologies to Joni Mitchell). I think this documentary may be what the doctor ordered, just as a reminder people like Fred Rogers once strode the Earth (and hopefully still do). I wasn’t one of your kids, Mr. Rogers, but (pardon my French) we sure as shit could use you now.

Documentary, Politics

Through the looking glass: Fahrenheit 11/9 (***½)

September 24, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 22, 2018)

On occasion, like any self-respecting lefty cuck, I will “hate-watch” Fox or “hate-read” Breitbart. Today Breitbart has a post entitled “MICHAEL MOORE’S 11/9 TANKS AT BOX OFFICE” (barely 24 hours after the film opened wide…but whatevs). As I skimmed through, risking a bout of vertigo from eye-rolling, this bit caught my attention:

We go to the movies to see what we cannot see at home; so, what can Moore possibly offer in a world where a Jake Tapper is topping him daily, a world where Moore’s dishonest and shameless leftism runs wild 24/7… and is just a click away?

Dismissing the predictable tribalism, the OP raises a legit concern; one I admit consumed me yesterday, even as I forked over my hard-earned $13 (and an additional $7.50 for a goddam SMALL popcorn). Now I loves me some Michael Moore, and I feel duty-bound to cover this film, which could well be our final beacon of hope in these dark, dark times.

But I fear that Trump Fatigue threatens to overtake me. In my private despair (which I labored to hide beneath a brave face, for the sake of my fellow dedicated graying Seattle libs scattered throughout the sparsely attended 3pm matinee showing) I indeed pondered what insight Moore could possibly offer at this point, in a world where anybody who still gives two shits about our Democracy is on 24-hour Trump watch…and just a click away?

Was I in for 2 hours of Trump-bashing? I would nod in agreement, while thoughtfully stroking my chin. But to what end? The credits would come up, I’d go home, turn on the news, and…he’d still be in office. That’s the bad news (he’s still in office). The good news is that Moore’s film is not necessarily all about President Donald J. Trump himself.

It’s about us. According to Moore, we all had a hand in this (consciously or not).

In my 2011 review of the documentary Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, I wrote:

“Crimes against humanity” are still perpetrated every day-so why haven’t we had any more Nurembergs? If it can’t be caught via cell phone camera and posted five minutes later on YouTube like Saddam Hussein’s execution, so we can take a quick peek, go “Yay! Justice is served!” and then get back to our busy schedule of eating stuffed-crust pizza and watching the Superbowl, I guess we just can’t be bothered. Besides, who wants to follow some boring 11-month long trial, anyway (unless, of course, an ex-football player is involved).

Or maybe it’s just that the perpetrators have become savvier since 1945; many of those who commit crimes against humanity these days wear nice suits and have corporate expense accounts, nu? Or maybe it’s too hard to tell who the (figurative) Nazis are today, because in the current political climate, everyone and anyone, at some point, is destined to be compared to one.

Let’s dispense with this first. Yes, Michael Moore goes “there” in his latest documentary Fahrenheit 11/9…at one point in the film, he deigns to compare Trump’s America to Nazi Germany. However, he’s not engaging in merit-less trolling. Rather (as Moore slyly implies), don’t take his word for it-listen to what one of his interviewees has to say here:

“Taking [immigrant] babies away from their mother [at the U.S. border] and locking up one or the other and separating them because they did no harm to anybody…they just didn’t comply with the stupid regulations…that’s a crime against humanity in my judgement.”

OK, so that’s one man’s opinion. You would be perfectly within your rights as a healthy skeptic to counter with “and what makes this guy such an expert on what constitutes a “crime against humanity”? Unless the gentleman in question happened to be the last surviving Nuremberg trials prosecutor…which he is. 99-year-old Ben Ferencz’s appearance recalls the scene in Annie Hall where Woody Allen “just happens to have” Marshall McLuhan on hand to call out an insufferable blowhard waiting in a movie line.

So how did we get here? It’s complicated. Following a brief (and painful to relive) recap of what “happened” on 11/9/16, Moore’s film accordingly speeds off in multiple directions As he has always managed to do in the past, he connects the dots and pulls it together by the end. In a nutshell, Moore’s central thesis is that Trump is a symptom, not the cause. And the “cause” here is complacency-which Moore equates with complicity.

Specific to 2016, it is the complacency of the nearly 42% of eligible American voters who sat out the election. But Moore does not lay the blame squarely on disenfranchised voters, many of whom have valid reasons to be disillusioned and fed up with politicians in general. He cites a number of examples, and he spares no one. In fact, he lays into a few sacred cows of the Left; the DNC, President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama.

The most dangerous kind of complacency is what happened in Michigan, and enabled Governor Rick Snyder to essentially seize despotic control of the state under the guise of “emergency powers”. Moore traces the political machinations that led to the water crisis in his home town of Flint, and it’s chilling. Using comparisons with how a democratic, liberal Germany handed power to the Nazis in the 1930s, Moore envisions how easily Trump could take a page from Snyder’s playbook and implement it on a national scale.

If this is all beginning to sound dark and despairing…well, it is. However, this is Michael Moore. He knows exactly when to interject levity and hope into an otherwise sobering treatise (e.g. he drives a truck full of Flint water up to the gates of Governor Snyder’s mansion and proceeds to water his lawn with a high-pressure hose).

He reminds us that there is a grassroots movement afoot that hopefully continues to catch fire; from the nationwide teacher strikes that began in West Virginia to the blue wave of progressive candidates in this year’s midterm primaries. He spotlights the passion and determination of the student activist groups that organized in the wake of the Parkland school shootings.

If you’re a Michael Moore fan, you will not be disappointed. If you’re a Michael Moore hater, this film likely won’t change your opinion (although I am flattered that you’ve chosen this post as your daily “hate read”). The rest of you can play among yourselves; but do me (and the country, and our Democracy) one favor? Please, please vote this time.

Drama, Family Issues

Where the wild things are: We the Animals (**½)

September 10, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 8, 2018)

Image result for we the animals

In my 2009 review of Lea Pool’s film Mommy is at the Hairdressers, I wrote:

It’s a perfect film about an imperfect family; but like the selective recollections of a carefree childhood, no matter what the harsh realities of the big world around you may have been, only the most pleasant parts will forever linger in your mind.

I could almost say the same thing about Jeremiah Zagar’s We the Animals. I say “almost”, because Zagar’s film falls short of “perfect” (more on that shortly). Still, it does succeed in conveying how those “selective” memories of childhood become increasingly ephemeral and abstract as we careen through adult life, slipping ever closer to the abyss.

Adapted by the director and Dan Kitrosser from Justin Torres’ novel, the film is a lyrical slice of life about a working-class Puerto Rican family living in central New York State. The narrative primarily unfolds through a 9-year-old’s point-of-view. His name is Jonah (Evan Rosado). He and older siblings Joel (Josiah Gabriel) and Manny (Isiah Kristian) are de facto latchkey kids, because their young parents (Shelia Vand and Raul Castillo) are often too preoccupied with the drama that generates from their tempestuous marriage.

As a survival mechanism, the brothers have created an idiosyncratic sub-family unit a la Lord of the Flies, with their own set of rules, hierarchy and ritualistic behaviors. Joel and Manny are already displaying signs that they may be inheriting their father’s prideful machismo, whereas Jonah shares his mother’s empathic sensitivity and emotional frailty.

Jonah’s internalized dialog throughout implies he is sharing these sense memories with some benefit of hindsight from an indeterminate point in the future. Oddly, unlike the adult Sean Penn character reassembling bits and pieces of his lost childhood in Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life (a film that feels like a looming influence, to put it politely), it’s Jonah’s 9-year-old “self” who is doubling here as our omniscient narrator (far out, man).

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with emulating Malick; after all, as Woody Allen retorts in Manhattan after someone derisively tells him he has a God complex, “I gotta model myself after someone.” I’m willing to grade on a curve, especially given this is Zagar’s first narrative feature (his previous films have been documentaries).

On the plus side: Zagar coaxes naturalistic performances from the first-time child actors, Zak Mulligan’s “magic hour” cinematography is striking, and Nick Zammuto’s soundtrack nicely complements (I strongly suspect his favorite album is “Dark Side of the Moon”).

On the down side: there’s nothing wrong with an art film, but this one leans toward being a little too self-consciously arty for its own good. I think Zagar is a talent to keep an eye on; I’m just hoping that his future narrative features will feature a little more…narrative.

Documentary, Show Biz

Take a kiss without regret: Scotty & the Secret History of Hollywood (***)

August 27, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 25, 2018)

I’m stiff on my legend,
The films that I made
Forget that I’m fifty
‘Cause you just got paid

-David Bowie, from “Cracked Actor”

Marilyn Monroe once famously said “Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.” Of course, she was specifically referring to the craft of acting, and the difficulty of maintaining integrity while toiling in the skin-deep recesses of the Dream Factory. Indeed, there are myriad stories of those who got off the bus in Tinseltown with stars in their eyes, determined to “make it” at any cost-only to get chewed up and spit out; dreams shattered, souls crushed.

Then you have people like Scotty Bowers, the subject of Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood. When recently discharged Marine combat veteran Bowers came to Hollywood in 1946, he had no illusions about becoming a “star” …in fact he had virtually no expectations at all. He had no acting aspirations. What he did have was a knack for fixing cars, a winning personality, and strapping good looks. He was perfectly happy to land his job working at a service station on Hollywood Boulevard.

As recounted by the now 90-something Bowers, what happened to him soon thereafter almost parallels Dirk Diggler’s journey in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights; a sort of pilgrim’s progress story for hedonists…the difference being that Bowers’ story is real.

What begins as a chance encounter at the pump with actor Walter Pidgeon, who immediately senses something “special” about Scotty and invites him over to his house for a “dip in the pool” ends up as a decades-long dip in Hollywood decadence for the affable ex-serviceman. Bowers became (to use the polite term) a “procurer to the stars”, arranging trysts for many of Hollywood’s closeted elites. He does name names; Bowers certainly shows no coyness in that department (they’re all dead now anyway, he figures).

Bowers also developed quite a rep for his own, erm, “servicing” prowess, with both men and women. Yet, there is no braggadocio on his part; this is a person so straightforward, charming, and refreshingly devoid of sexual hang-ups that by the time he matter-of-factually recalls engaging in “a three-way” with Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, you’ll find yourself thinking, “Yeah, okay. I can totally see how that could happen. Why not?”

But it’s not all about the sex and the salaciousness (OK, mostly…but not all). Some of the “secrets” divulged in the film have been public knowledge for years (in particular, anyone who has leafed through Kenneth Anger’s “Hollywood Babylon” will be shocked, shocked at a number of these revelations). And some of this ground was already covered in the excellent 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet. Still, Tyrnauer does a good job at contextualizing the historical reasons Bowers’ clients had to keep this all so hush-hush.

There is also a Grey Gardens vibe conjured up by the footage of Bowers at home with his wife. In addition to a rather obvious hoarding issue, Bowers doesn’t flinch when the odd skunk or coyote wanders into his garage to feed on the treats he leaves out for them.

There are brief glimpses into darker parts of Bowers’ psyche; there are hints of PTSD symptoms going back to his WW2 experiences, and he speaks at one point of being molested as a child (oddly, as if sensing how it might be perceived, he goes out of his way to give it a sex-positive spin-but it’s an unconvincing coverup of denial).

But the real fun is in the dishing; and you’ll find yourself leaning forward as Bower chats and charms his way into your guilty pleasure center (you may even start to see what Walter Pidgeon saw all those years ago). Speaking for myself, I’ll never again be able to look at Bringing Up Baby or Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? without certain…subtexts.

Con Game, Cop on the Edge, On Politics, True Crime

Who is America? – BlacKkKlansman (****)

August 20, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 18, 2018)

“I-I am going to be a storm-a flame-
I need to fight whole armies alone;
I have ten hearts; I have a hundred arms;
I feel too strong to war with mortals-
BRING ME GIANTS!”

-Edmond Rostand, from Cyrano de Bergerac

[To two members of the KKK, while pretending to capture Bart]

Jim: Oh, boys! Lookee what I got heyuh.

Bart: Hey, where are the white women at?

-from Blazing Saddles; screenplay by Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, and Alan Uger

To bring in something, such as a fish, by winding up the line on a reel.

-from The Free Dictionary definition of the phrase “reel something in”

So what do you get if you cross Cyrano de Bergerac with Blazing Saddles? You might get Spike Lee’s new joint, Black KkKlansman. That is not to say that Lee’s film is a knee-slapping comedy; far from it. It does contain laughs, but there is nothing funny about some of the reaction it has sparked after only a week. From an Indie Wire article:

[Actor] Topher Grace contacted police after receiving a threatening phone call reacting to his role as former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke in Spike Lee’s “Black KkKlansman”. According to reports (via TMZ) Grace told police that someone called him over the phone and referred to him using a gay slur. The mystery caller also warned Grace that his role as Duke would “ruin race relations in America.” […] Grace reportedly described the caller as “aggressive” and “angry.”

Speaking of “race relations in America”, here’s something even less amusing. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are 917 hate groups currently operating in the U.S. And (to paraphrase Gimli the dwarf) it gets even better! If you go to the SPLC website and click the “100 Days in Trump’s America” report, there’s lots of fun facts:

As he spoke to the nation on Jan.20 [2016], President Donald Trump reminded white nationalists why they had invested so much hope in him as their champion and redeemer. He painted a bleak picture of America: a nation of crumbling, third-world infrastructure, “rusted-out factories,” leaky borders, inner cities wallowing in poverty, a depleted military and a feckless political class that prospered as the country fell into ruin. He promised an “America First” policy that would turn it all around. […]

Despite his failure to achieve any major legislative victories, Trump has not disappointed his alt-right followers. His actions suggest that – unlike the economic populism of his campaign – Trump’s appeals to the radical right did indeed presage his White House agenda. On Jan. 31 [2016], former Klan leader David Duke tweeted: “everything I’ve been talking about for decades is coming true and the ideas I’ve fought for have won.”

Well fuck me. There’s that fine fellow David Duke popping up again! When Mr. Wizard Tweeted he’d been “talking about” certain ideas “for decades” …he wasn’t exaggerating. The “David Duke” depicted in Lee’s film is the David Duke of the 1970s, right around the time he became the public face of the “National Association for the Advancement of White People”. This was also when he dropped the hood and robes for a suit-and-tie look.

True story. This window-dressing may have fooled some people, but it didn’t wash with Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington), an African-American undercover cop who managed to infiltrate…and become a card-carrying member (!) of the KKK in Colorado in the early 70s. To address the obvious question, he didn’t crash a Klan rally and ask where all the white women were at, because 1) that would’ve gone over like a lead balloon with the goys in the hoods, and 2) again, Lee’s film is not a comedy (per se).

Stallworth ingratiated himself with the organization Cyrano style. He made them fall in love with him by proxy. The “Ron Stallworth” who wooed his local Klan by whispering sweet racist nothings over the phone was not the same “Ron Stallworth” who attended the meetings. That was Stallworth’s white surrogate, his Jewish undercover partner Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver). In other words, this was old school “catfishing”-if you will.

What ensues is the kind of story that frankly strains credulity…if it weren’t for the fact that this really happened (allowing for some creative license, naturally). Even Lee was skeptical at first, admitting in an interview that he did with Seth Meyers earlier this week:

“…when [co-producer] Jordan Peele pitched it to me, it was one of those very high-concept pitches. Six words: ‘Black man infiltrates Ku Klux Klan.’ […] I thought of [comedy sketches done by] Dave Chappelle, but [Peele] said ‘no’ and he sent me the book. I was very intrigued by it…it was in my wheelhouse.”

I think this is Lee’s most affecting and hard-hitting film since Do the Right Thing (1989). The screenplay (adapted by Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Lee from Stallworth’s eponymous memoir) is equal parts biopic, docudrama, police procedural and social commentary, finding a nice balance of drama, humor and suspense. The cast is uniformly excellent. Washington (son of Denzel) and Driver have great chemistry, and Grace captures Duke’s smarminess to a tee. Other standouts include Robert Lee Burke, Laura Harrier, Ryan Eggold and a genuinely scary Jasper Paakkonen.

Lee is aware he’s preaching to the choir and will never reach a certain percentage of the “fine people” in America…sadly, the very ones who would benefit most from his counsel. And if someone were to call Lee’s approach heavy-handed, I wouldn’t disagree.

He opens with the iconic crane shot from Gone with the Wind that pans over hundreds of dead and wounded Confederate soldiers and resolves with the tattered stars and bars. He cross-cuts a solemn Klan initiation rite with a monologue by revered civil rights icon Harry Belafonte, playing a man sharing a horrifying eyewitness account of a particularly gruesome 1916 lynching. In case you’re still unable to connect the dots between the Stallworth story with Black Lives Matter and Charlottesville, he tacks on a timely denouement that jams to a screeching halt just inches away from slamming into “ta-da!”.

Yes, he ladles in on with a trowel. But you know what? The voices of reason in America are drowned out daily by the relentless clatter and din of Trump-fueled polarization and misdirection. He who shouts loudest wins (apparently). The hoods are off? Fine. I say more power to artists like Lee with something substantive to add to the conversation who feel they must (figuratively) bonk you over the head first to get your undivided attention.

Subtlety is prologue. Resist. Or get riled by seeing this film, immediately. Bring a friend.

Drama, Show Biz, Troubled Teens, Up the Workers

Blu-ray reissue: Woodfall-A Revolution in British Cinema [box set] ****

August 13, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 11, 2018)

Woodfall: a Revolution in British Cinema – BFI [9 disc set; Region ‘B’]

In 1958, taking their cues from the Italian neo-realist movement and Cahiers du Cinema crowd, director Tony Richardson, writer John Osborne, and producer Harry Saltzman founded Woodfall Films, an indie production studio that aimed to shake up the staid UK movie industry by creating what would come to be known as the British New Wave. The studio’s oeuvre was initially pigeonholed as “angry young man” or “kitchen sink” films, but there was more diversity in style and content than that labeling would infer, as this 8-film collection demonstrates.

This 9-disc set features 5 films directed by Richardson: Look Back in Anger (1959; ***½), The Entertainer (1960; ***), A Taste of Honey (1961; ****), The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1962; ****), and Tom Jones (1963; ****). That would make for a fabulous collection in and of itself; but also included are Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960; ***½), Desmond Davis’ Girl with Green Eyes (1964; ***), and Richard Lester’s The Knack…and how to get it (1965; **½). This is also a showcase of breakthrough performances from the likes of Richard Burton, Albert Finney, Rita Tushingham, and Tom Courtenay.

There are over 20 hours of extras (in which I have made but a small dent so far) spread out over the 8 films plus a 9^th disc dedicated solely to bonus material. In addition to new and archival interviews with filmmakers and actors, there is a treasure trove of rare shorts by Richardson, Reisz and others, plus an 80-page booklet with essays on all 8 films.

Picture and sound quality are excellent (many of the films are newly restored; Tom Jones looks particularly gorgeous) with one caveat: for whatever reasons, The Knack…and how to get it is glaringly unrestored. The transfer of the film is decent enough, but the print is a little rough in patches and the audio somewhat muffled (thankfully there is a subtitle option). It’s a minor hiccup in an otherwise stellar package. A film buff’s delight!

Cult Movie, Drug Culture, Sci-Fi

Blu-ray reissue: Liquid Sky (***1/2)

August 13, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 11, 2018)

Liquid Sky – Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray

Downtown 81 meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers in this deeply weird 1982 art-house sci-fi film. A diminutive, parasitic alien with a particular delectation for NYC club kids, models and performance artists lands on an East Village rooftop and starts mainlining off the limbic systems of junkies and sex addicts…right at the moment that they, you know…reach the maximum peak of pleasure center stimulation (the alien is a dopamine junkie?). Just don’t think about the science too hard.

The main attraction here is the inventive photography and the fascinatingly bizarre performance (or non-performance) by (co-screen writer) Anne Carlisle, who tackles two roles-a female fashion model who becomes the alien’s primary host, and a male model. Writer-director Slava Zsukerman also co-wrote the electronic music score.

This space oddity has been long overdue for a decent home video transfer, and Vinegar Syndrome gets an A+ for its 4K Blu-ray restoration (devotees like yours truly were previously stuck with a dismal DVD release that, while sold “legitimately”, screams “bootleg”). Extras include commentary track by director Zsukerman, plus a 50-minute “making of” documentary, a new interview with star Carlisle, outtakes, and much more.