BUFFALOED (2020)

December 16, 2020

(Hulu/VOD) I love fictional (emphasis on fictional) works about con-artists, smooth talkers, grifters — however you want to name ‘em, I’ll line up to watch a work about ‘em.

BUFFALOED falls into the genre of ‘grifters with a heart of gold’ that I like, as opposed to the grifters that took over film around the late 80s. (I blame WALL STREET.) It features Zoey Deutch (who keeps flying under the rader, but she’s fantastic in FLOWER) as Peg, a lower class teenager living in Buffalo, NY whose father died of a heart attack when she was young, leaving her with her brother (SCHITT’S CREEK’s Noah Reid) and her mother, played by Judy Greer. Peg is consumed with having enough money to never have to worry about finances ever again and, as a youth, runs a few mostly-harmless small scams like reselling buffalo wings and trafficking loosies in her high school parking lot.

Peg gets accepted into her first college pick, but her mom informs her that they don’t have enough money to actually send her, so she upgrades her grifting and starts selling counterfeit Bills football tickets, which eventually lands her in jail before she has a chance to finish high school.

Several years and many lawyer bills later, she gets out and gets a phone call from a debt scammer (yes, we’ve culturally moved along from the penny stocks of say, BOILER ROOM (2000) to debt collection) and she sees an opportunity to wipe out her owed ‘cash’ as a debt collector and she leaps at it, albeit on her own terms.

The film is brash and brisk: the script — via Brian Sacca — is tighter than a drum, and director Tanya Wexler gives it proper verve. If there’s one fault, it’s that the portrayal of the town and characters occasionally become more cartoonish than necessary but, otherwise, it’s a fun, well-crafted, and well-disguised screed against the state of consumer debt in America.

THE BOOKSELLERS (2020)

December 15, 2020

(Prime — yes, Amazon picked this one up, despite the fact that they forced so many physical bookstores out of business) Whenever my wife and I travel, we always make it a point to visit the local bookstores and find a book (or two or three) to bring home as a worthwhile memento to read later, and documentary THE BOOKSELLERS instigated flashbacks of our trip to NYC in 2016, as we stopped by all of the classic NYC bookstores. Sure, we didn’t have the money to buy anything too rare or fancy, but we did pick up a few token prints and a handful of cheap genre books with snazzy covers.

THE BOOKSELLERS is a NYC-centric deep dive into the folks who collect and sell rare and/or interesting books, or just consider themselves ‘collectors of books’. The people they interview are a wide tangle of distinct personas, ages, and genders, which is rather refreshing as, yes, it’s still unrightfully considered a ‘male’ business.

I constantly harp about the need for physical media because it’s something that’s -important- and it’ll only become more important in the future as fewer works are denied proper physical releases. We’ll see more and more important works wither off because of licensing issues, because they’re too niche, deemed too unimportant. This doc definitely details the fetishization of physical media, but it also makes the case for the importance of it.

Ultimately, this is a documentary about people who care about the -printed word- and ensuring that these words live on. It’s not the most engrossing documentary but, if you’re a book nerd, it’ll open your eyes towards certain facets of of the industry. And, if you’re familiar with the booksellers, it’s a welcome COVID escapist film.

One item of note: Julia Wertz has a terrific collection of NYC book store renditions in her amazing illustrated history of New York City: TENEMENTS, TOWERS & TRASH. It’s a hefty tome, and I don’t know how relevant it is in a post-COVID world, but it’s well-worth your time.

http://www.juliawertz.com/2017/09/24/trash/

“The only thing I regret are the books I’ve never bought.”

FRANK (2014)

December 14, 2020

(hoopla/Kanopy/VOD) A ‘stranger in a strange land’ band story that focuses on the enigma of frontman Frank (Michael Fassbender), who never removes his gigantic, pie-eyed papier-mâché head, and the folks drawn into his orbit including Domhnall Gleeson on keyboard, Maggie Gyllenhaal on theremin, Carla Azar on drums, and Scoot McNairy as the band’s manager/producer. (Really, that’s a tremendous cast.)

While it’s directed by Lenny Abrahamson (ROOM), it’s really the vision of renaissance man Jon Gleeson who, before being the gonzo journalist who wrote THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS and making documentaries, he played keyboard in Chris Sievey’s band, known as THE FRANK SIDEBOTTOM BAND.

Chris Sievey was an aspiring singer/songwriter but one day he fashioned himself a gigantic, pie-eyed papier-mâché head and adopted a rather juvenile comedic man-child persona and thus Frank Sidebottom was born. Frank Sidebottom would perform both in his band and as a comedian, ultimately becoming a minor British TV personality. Sadly, the character would ultimately feel like a boondoggle for Chris Sievey’s artistically-minded aspirations, and Sievey had a hard time coping with Frank’s limitations. (You can learn more about Chris Sievey and Frank through the documentary BEING FRANK: THE CHRIS SIEVEY STORY (2019, Prime/Rental).) Allegedly, Gleeson asked for — and received — Cievey’s blessing for the film before he died, but who knows what Gleeson actually pitched to Sievey.

The Frank portrayed in FRANK is a cracked take on Sievey’s Frank: Gleeson’s Frank is the frontman of a band, and he’s child-like, and a few other similarities, but his Frank is also quieter and more thoughtful — perhaps what Gleeson suspected Sievey wanted to be in the first place. The end result is a a film that meanders some times while wearing its heart on its sleeve, while occasionally pulling the rug out from under the audience. It helps that the film ends on an emotional high note. (I rewatch the closing scene on a monthly basis.)

It’s worth noting that all of the songs were performed by the actors — no miming here — and by Gleeson’s admission it worked out because of Carla Azar (who you may know as the drummer for Autolux, and is now Jack Black’s drummer) was a firm backbone for every scene, and while watching, you can see her intensity and professionalism bleed through.

Secure the Galactic Perimeter:

Final scene (obviously, spoilers):

Trailer:

THE CATERED AFFAIR (1956)

December 13, 2020

(VOD) Gore Vidal adapts Paddy Chayefsky’s (best known for NETWORK and MARTY) play about a young couple (Debbie Reynolds and Rod Taylor) that wants a no-muss, no-fuss wedding get pressured into a huge wedding by Reynold’s mother (a delightfully antagonistic Bettie Davis) that Reynold’s father (Ernest Borgnine) can’t afford. (It also features Barry Fitzgerald as the idiosyncratic uncle, one of my favorite character actors.)

Like all Chayefsky works, it’s the words, culture, and class issues that matter, but when I think about this film, I think about the set design and decoration: it’s grimy, it’s old, it’s cramped, it’s -lived in-, but it’s home. It’s a fantastic little film that gets lost in Chayefsky’s catalog, simply because it a rather small melodrama, but that doesn’t make it any less effective.

DOGTOOTH (2009)

December 12, 2020

(hoopla/kanopy/Shudder/tubi/VOD) One of the other ‘uncool’ Chicago film fests is the European Union Film Fest, which takes place at the Siskel Film Center. Even I often forget about this one, but back in 2010 I caught wind of this weird Greek film from unknown-to-us director Yorgos Lanthimos (who would go on to direct THE LOBSTER and THE FAVOURITE) that sounded like a batshitcrazy modern New Wave-ish film, and my wife — being Greek — was also intrigued, so we immediately pre-ordered two tickets..

We arrived at the Siskel and were happy to already have tickets, because it was completely sold out — the line wound completely around the upper second floor — and the audience consisted of 80% older Greek couples, clearly there to support Greek film. I whispered to my wife: “Do they know what they’re getting into?”

I say that because most Greek films I’ve attended with my wife have been in-offensive crowd-pleasers, whereas DOGTOOTH actively, -aggressively- is not. It’s a film about shelter, about not letting go, about manufactured culture, about language, about emotional, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, and even heavier subjects. I was surprised to see that Shudder (a streaming service solely geared towards horror) picked it up and I realized, why yes: it is a Haneke-esque horror film, and not just an incredibly dense, fucked up family drama.

I exited the theater feeling dazzled and bruised, and fully expected the crowd we entered with to have turned against it, especially since they were very quiet during the screening — even the funny parts (of which there are many) — but no! They were ebullient about it! To this day I don’t know whether they liked it (much less enjoyed it — this isn’t a film you ‘enjoy’) but it was a singularly memorable screening for a brilliant film.

METAL GEAR SOLID 3: EXISTENCE (2006)

December 11, 2020

(YouTube) You may be thinking: wait, METAL GEAR SOLID 3 (MGS3 from here on out)? That’s a video game! I’ve played it! It’s not a film!

Surprise! METAL GEAR auteur Hideo Kojima released a three-and-a-half-hour non-interactive version of MSG3 as part of the METAL GEAR SOLID 3: EXISTENCE (MGS:E) limited edition version of MGS3. While Kojima insists that it isn’t a film — partially because I suppose folks have assumed he’s always wanted his games to be films instead of games, due to the extraordinarily lengthy cut-scenes he utilizes — but let’s call a spade a spade: it’s a film. Nowadays, folks don’t hesitate to discuss the influence of video game camera and storytelling techniques on films — I had the gall to do so when I wrote about ENTER THE VOID a few months back — but MGS3:E was one of the first non-full-motion video games that I can think of where the creator tried to take their game, repurpose it, and sell it as non-interactive entertainment.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the end result is extremely clumsy[ 12/9/20, 5:16 AM Almost verbatim what I said ~14 years ago.]. A lot of that boils down to the fact that Kojima has historically been an aspirational-but-graceless storyteller (see: MGS1 & MGS2) often riffing off of works he likes instead of weaving something new. For what it’s worth, it feels like with MGS3, Kojima finally started figuring out how to write proper character arcs, and even managed to pen a heartfelt ending, but if you rob the view of the interactive efforts it took to get from point A to point B, well, you end up with a lot of dull flailing.

That said, it’s still a noteworthy attempt, and has helped mold his current storytelling sensibilities into something more subtle and interesting via DEATH STRANDING. (Well, subtle for Kojima.) While it’s a narrative best experienced with the interactive core it was built for, this effort is still a fascinating curio.

If you’d like to read more about METAL GEAR SOLID 3: EXISTENCE, check out my initial write-up from waaaay too years ago.

http://thenewgamer.com/content/archives/metal_gear_solid_3_snake_eater_film

The full ‘film’ can be viewed at:

TUFF TURF (1985)

December 10, 2020

(Prime/hoopla/tubi/VOD) A quintessential mid-80s high school film where the teachers fear the students, but a new pupil has come to town to set them straight. TUFF TURF features a pre-PRETTY IN PINK James Spader as the new stranger at school, Kim Richards as the gang leader’s girlfriend who Spader has designs on, and a pre-LESS THAN ZERO Robert Downey Jr. as Spader’s over-eager new friend.

TUFF TURF is directed by Fritz Kiersch, best known for helming the first CHILDREN OF THE CORN, which may explain why the film is surprisingly violent, especially the elaborate final confrontation. While the combination of wooing, dance scenes, and vicious beatdowns does feel a bit jarring, it results in a rather winsome little film. It helps that the soundtrack features a healthy dose of The Jim Carroll Band.

DOGVILLE (2003)

December 9, 2020

(VOD) DOGVILLE is the first in Lars von Trier’s unfinished ‘USA – Land of Opportunities’ trilogy, comprised of this and MANDERLAY. (The third film, WASHINGTON, never materialized, and probably never will.) DOGVILLE and MANDERLAY are staged like black box theater productions: shot on a sparse, flat set that barely sketches out the town via a handful of open-standing walls and props, painted lines delineating the properties and prominent objects.

Despite having the trappings of black box theater, the camerawork is smartly considered and tightly covers the action while still allowing you to see the ‘private’ activities occurring in the background. Additionally, the wall-to-wall synced sound and editing heightens the tension, especially in the last few chapters.

Both films deal with class issues and human exploitation in a way that I think feels organic to the story, but as commentary about the US it falls a bit flat, although I don’t feel it detracts from the film itself. (It’s worth noting that Lars von Trier wrote DOGVILLE and MANDERLAY having never visited the United States, which is glaringly obvious even without watching the wildly insensitive MANDERLAY.)

Obviously, as this is a Lars von Trier film, it’s an extremely difficult watch and, as is par for the filmmaker, focuses on beating a woman down (literally and figuratively), but it ends in a very different place as most of his films (albeit, while still retaining his standard nihilism).

The cast is loaded with talent: Nicole Kidman is the lead, a woman running from gangsters who takes sanctuary in a small town for safety, and the town sucks her dry. The townsfolk consist of Stellan Skarsgård, Lauren Bacall (who also appears in MANDERLAY), Philip Baker Hall, Jeremey Davies, Chloë Sevigny, Patricia Clarkson, and more. Udo Kier, Ben Gazarra, and James Caan also appear, and everyone turns in amazing performances, especially Kidman.

Even for Lars von Trier, it’s a severely avant-garde film, and one that seems to get lost in the rest of his oeuvre. It’s worth seeking out if you can stomach it.

DOGVILLE’s prologue:

A hilariously terrible official trailer that tries to disguise what the film really is:

THE BIG CIRCUS (1959)

December 8, 2020

(VOD) I’ll be straight: THE BIG CIRCUS isn’t a great film. Yes, it’s exactly what the title promises: a deeply fictional take on a post-break-up Ringling circus with Vincent Price as the ringleader, Peter Lorre as a clown., and Victor Mature as the defiant owner. Sounds thrilling, right?

Sadly, the film lacks in narrative sizzle — it’s basically an array of calamities that Mature overcomes to thwart the bank supervisor overseeing the circus’ use of its significant loan — but it makes up for with the circus acts, especially the acrobatics. Unfortunately, all of the circus spectacles are mostly one-setup shots, mimicking an audience member’s view, so even the performances feel a bit cheap. If it were shot in Cinerama, like it feels like it should be, perhaps it’d achieve the grand spectacle Irwin Allen intended.

Yes, this film was the vision of Irwin Allen, the ‘Master of Disaster’. Before THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and THE TOWERING INFERNO, Allen wrote and produced this, and intended to direct it. (Instead Joseph M. Newman ended up as the director.) Consequently, his penchent for catastrophes fits this film well, especially since most of the disasters portrayed in this film are somewhat based on actual events during the Ringling history.*

About the cast: Victor Mature portrays Hank Whirling like GYPSY-era Rosalind Russel but as a circus owner, and just think about what that might have been. Price is fine as a straight-laced ringleader, and a very squat Lorre ambles along as a drunk clown, which is also fine. Kathryn Grant’s mis-matched solids/plaid outfits often steal every non-circus scene.

Again, it’s not a great film, but it’s heart-warming fun with some entertaining numbers, and why would you give up the chance to see Price and Lorre on-screen together?

“Where are you going?” “All the way.” “I thought you’d never ask.”

ORLANDO (1992)

December 7, 2020

(Prime/VOD) Somehow, I knew next-to-nothing about ORLANDO when I cracked open Virginia Woolf’s book roughly two years ago. Since then, it’s become a book I’ve extolled as brilliance I wish I’d encountered far earlier in my life.

Similarly, I came to Sally Potter’s adaptation only recently and, it too, is fantastic. However, it’s very difficult to discuss the particulars of its plot without divulging certain facets that make the book truly special, but here’s my attempt:

First and foremost: Swinton is absolutely perfect in this, and I love the audacity of how sparsely she’s adorned (except, of course, when she’s not). Obviously, it’s a role that rightly put Swinton in the limelight.

Second: Potter’s adaptation is more succinct, almost obscenely so as she could have given the scenes a bit more room to breathe, but instead she often races through the plot to the point where it feels more like a fever dream, as opposed to the lackadaisical pacing of the novel. The impact of which is felt nowhere harder than in Potter’s final act, which also bestows its own ending which, fair, it’s her film and all, but it’s -a lot-, and left a unique taste in my mouth.

Third: The gazes! They’re all amazing and all so wound with meaning, especially those that break the fourth wall.

Lastly: The cinematography and score. It has the formalistic trappings, portraiture stylings and sturdy tracking shots of a Greenaway film, but still engages with the action, as opposed to mannerly setting a tableau. Potter herself composed the music, which has a Nyman-esque minimalist flair that, yet again, engages more with the material than you’d expect.

In case you needed more coaxing: it’s Toby Jones’ first role and, despite that, if you’ve seen Toby Jones in anything, you know immediately that yes: that’s Toby Jones.

Trailer (a perfect three-act teaser):