(VOD) THE ATOMIC CAFE is an expertly crafted pastiche documentary that maps the nuclear age and Cold War via interviews, archival footage, and U.S. propaganda. It may be because of current times, age, selective memory or whatnot, but I recall it feeling far more irreverent when I first watched it in the 90s. Rewatching it in this day and age, it feels like the pendulum has swung back, becoming a cautionary work again.
Arguably the new 4K restoration looks a bit too clean, has too much of a sheen to it — film grain shouldn’t be scrubbed out of existence! — but it’s worth it to get the film back out there again.
(Prime/VOD) When I first found out about VIBES a few months ago via TCM Underground, I was very upset. “What do you mean there was a late-80s film with Cyndi Lauper, Peter Falk -and- Jeff Goldblum? Why am I just finding out about this?!” Now that I’ve had a chance to watch it, I can understand why it never registered on my radar but I do feel it’s the sort of film that anyone who has any interest in either of the three performers — which I think encompasses most of humanity — needs to know about.
VIBES capitalized on the short-lived mid-80s screwball romantic adventure genre spurred by ROMANCING THE STONE and the like. It’s comprised of two psychics (Lauper & Goldblum) who are enlisted by a dodgy cad (Peter Falk) to track down treasure in a lost Incan city. As you’d expect, the romantic intrigue and banter between Lauper & Goldblum should be enough to propel the film forward but, sadly, Goldblum’s halting delivery hampers an already weak vaudevillian script. For example, here’s an exchange between veteren character actor Michael Lerner and Peter Falk, regarding Falk’s wife: “Harry, I once slept with your wife.” “Estelle? Or Vivian?” “Both.” “Well, you’re one up on me!” (Cue rimshot.)
The sole highlight is Lauper as a 1980s Mae West but, sadly, the material simply isn’t there to let her shine. While she has the enthusiasm and rhythm for the role, her jokes rely on a more energetic and combative performer than the languid Goldblum (who has since been given far more opportunities to hone his comedic timing than Lauper).
I don’t want to oversell -or- undersell this film. Veteran TV director Ken Kwapis does the best with the material as he can, Julian Sands does a classic Julian Sands heel turn, and Steve Buscemi briefly appears as a sad-sack gambler! It’s an intriguing oddity, and it’s worth your time if your Venn diagram of interests intersect with any of those I listed above.
(archive.org / DVD) THE MOVIE ORGY is a mesmerizing, epic camp pastiche of media footage and materials from the 50s and 60s that subversive film auteur Joe Dante (GREMLINS, THE ‘BURBS) assembled as a film student.
It originally ran seven hours long and was a mutating roadshow film, toured around college campuses and, every time it was screened, they’d edit new bits in, snip out other sections and otherwise re-assemble the film. As you might expect of a film that is seven hours long, has no real narrative so speak of, and was screened on college campuses in the late sixties and seventies, this isn’t a film you sit and watch sober, but a film you experience with others, where it provides part of the color of the communal experience.
THE MOVIE ORGY has been since been edited down to four and a half hours and, as it consists solely of stolen content, and the only way to properly see it is in a museum or makeshift underground theater (which is how I caught it, as Dante briefly came to Chicago to screen GREMLINS 2 and HOLES at the gorgeous Music Box Theatre, then screened THE MOVIE ORGY at a tiny little art space on the opposite side of town). However, there is a bootleg DVD out there, and it’s also available to stream via https://archive.org/details/the-movie-orgy. It’s perfect background material for however you’re managing to entertain yourself in this cold, dark, withdrawn wintertime.
(hoopla/VOD) I’m an easy laugher, and I also tear up easily. (Often both at the same time.) Really, I’m an emotional person in general, but that’s okay because alternative comedian Eugene Mirman is too.
The first half of IT STARTED AS A JOKE is a ’behind the curtain’ comedy documentary, showcasing the end of an era as Eugene Mirman wraps the 10th and last Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival. This last festival is a star-studded affair, but all of the prior ones were too (just a lot of folks didn’t know it at the time, including some of the performers). We’re talking about Janeane Garofalo, Reggie Watts, Kumail Nanjiani, both Michaels: Ian Black and Showalter, Wyatt Cenac, Kristen Schaal, the list goes on. There’s a lot of great footage of older fests, interviews and bits you’d never have seen otherwise.
The second half deals with how he and his wife Katie (who has also been heavily involved with the comedy scene) deal with her cancer and how they, and comedians in general, deal with finality.
It’s a very sincere and heartfelt tribute from seasoned news and doc producers but first-time directors, Julie Smith Clem and Ken Druckerman celebrate the groundwork Eugene and Katie have created.
(Hulu/VOD) Brea Grant is one busy creative. Tracking 2020 film releases alone, she wrote and appeared in this year’s LUCKY, popped up in THE STYLIST (sadly, I’ve been unable able to watch either yet), had a prominent role in AFTER MIDNIGHT, and still found time to write and direct 12 HOUR SHIFT.
12 HOUR SHIFT is a taut dark comedy about Mandy (Angela Bettis, MAY), a junkie nurse trying to appease her organ trafficking cousin Regina (Chloe Farnworth, IN CIRCLES) who misplaced the kidney Mandy pilfered for her. It’s a nasty good time featuring absolutely deplorable behavior from everyone involved but, despite behaving very badly, the characters are uniquely fleshed out and feel surprisingly grounded. While you can tell Chloe Farnworth is having a lot of fun leaning into her character’s impulses, the film belongs to Angela Bettis with her gruff voice and stern stares.
It helps that 12 HOUR SHIFT is tightly constructed, the score seamlessly — and surprisingly — weaves through genres, Grant and cinematographer/composer Matt Glass (SQUIRREL and the upcoming GHOSTS OF THE OZARKS) make the most of the hospital space and ensure that every color pops, and they somehow managed to (briefly) wrangle Mick Foley.
It’s worth noting that Brea Grant -also- co-hosts the READING GLASSES podcast with Mallory O’Meara, who wrote the edifying biography about Milicent ‘Designer of The Gill Man’ Patrick: THE LADY FROM THE BLACK LAGOON!
(Prime) Obviously we’ll be hearing a lot about this series over the upcoming months, but a lot of ink has already been spilled as to whether Steve McQueen’s SMALL AXE is TV or film. You’d think that, since Krzysztof Kieslowski did something similar with THE DECALOGUE in the late 80s, critics would have an answer to that by now. Personally I don’t care. Call it a modern successor to the televised theater anthologies of old for all I care. Let him win a bunch of Emmys and Oscars!
It’s a singular achievement in this day and age — each and every segment of SMALL AXE would land on anyone’s ‘best of’ list this year — and to release five masterpieces in one year? It feels like McQueen challenged himself to direct the hell out of a wide range of genres, personally investing himself by showcasing London’s Black community he grew up in, daring himself not to fuck it up.
Visually sumptuous with scenes full of food preparation, simmering, consumption; aurally entrancing with music endlessly throbbing, knives and forks clattering on ceramic; exceptional performances that bolster meticulously crafted scripts — it’s fantastic cinema. Or TV. Or cinematic TV. Or just great art.
Yes, you can watch every film on its own — although I’d suggest going with the suggested viewing order — and you will find each and everyone to be exceptional, but watch them together, watch the timeline of events unfold, watch matters ebb and escalate, and the whole becomes a greater sum of its parts. It’s remarkable.
(kanopy/Apple TV/Blu-Ray) Cinerama was a widescreen shooting and projection process that, at its time, was the closest you could get to a wholly immersive filmgoing experience. The way it worked was primitive and troublesome, as it not only shot three negatives at the same time (similar to early Technicolor films), but it did so through three cameras, positioned so the footage could be (mostly) seamlessly projected by three projectors.
The end result is spectacularly overwhelming. While the primary allure is the all-encompassing visuals, you’re also bombarded by seven-channel directional surround sound. It truly is a unique experience when it works, but projecting films like this is a hairy process, one that requires constant monitoring for -each- projector. (You can read more about the projection process here.)
If memory serves, the process broke down and had to be re-synced when I saw THIS IS CINERAMA at Los Angeles’ Cinerama theater during TCM Fest, a time when you have your top projectionists on the job. (The LA Cinerama is one of the few existing Cinerama theaters; the other two are in Seattle and Bradford, England.)
Cinerama as a shooting process didn’t last long, thanks to the unwieldy cameras and the introduction of single-strip widescreen lenses like the Ultra Panavision 70, but the theaters survived as many widescreen spectacles were converted to their three-strip projection setup, not unlike how many 35mm films are blown up for IMAX screens.
“So,” you might ask, “if it’s about the experience of being in a high-end theater, why should I watch this on my laptop? Also, isn’t the film mostly a travelogue with some choreographed water skiing?” Well, yes, you certainly aren’t watching for the story. However, while the current restoration allows you to watch it like any widescreen film, it also allows you to view it in the shape you’d see it in at the theater. In a time when we can’t — or at least shouldn’t — be attending theaters, it’s a similarly unique home viewing experience.
(fubo/VOD) Yes, this is a direct-to-DVD sequel to the classic Mary Harron adaptation. Yes, it has little-to-nothing to do with the American excess/toxic masculinity of original film. Yes, it features pre-BLACK SWAN Mila Kunis as well as an unlikely William Shatner playing a teacher that students swoon over. Yes, it’s cheap, trashy — 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, just so you know what you’re getting into — and tries to have its cake and eat it too by toeing the line between earnest satirical genre work and self-aware camp. That doesn’t mean that it is not a whole lot of fun, especially the last third of the film.
(Hulu) Liza Mandelup’s debut documentary about wanna-be influencer Austyn Tester has been stuck in my mind since I saw it last year. Austen is the very definition of a pretty, unthreatening teen boy who is so earnest and straight-forward, but simply doesn’t have the skills to play the influencer game. Watching Mandelup capture his attempt in real-time is depressing but encapsulates what many folks — not just teens — are chasing: the need for social capital to further yourself.
(Starz/VOD) I have a hard time believing this film wasn’t pitched as ‘gritty adult Encyclopedia Brown’ (and then whomever was being pitched probably replied ‘Encyclo-what?’) but even if it wasn’t, it works as a pretty succinct summary.
As I grew up reading ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN and TWO-MINUTE MYSTERIES, and love Chandler-esque detective fiction in general, I was already on this film’s side. While it’s much more subdued, quiet, and cynical than I thought it’d be, debut feature writer/director Evan Morgan clearly loves the genre and is surprisingly unwilling to poke fun at it, or even to modernize it. (For a film that takes place in modern day, it’s surprisingly reliant on landline phones.)
While some may be turned off by the dourness of the film — there are cutting remarks and laughs to be had, but the film is soaked in melancholy — it’s a welcome surprise to see a neo-noir that isn’t peppered with flippancy.
