RAGTIME (1981)

E.L. Doctorow’s literary fantasia about pre-WWI New York society (high, low & in-between) is like a rich, historical vaudeville where all the acts bump into each other backstage.  One of the great reads of the day, its jokes, lively coincidence and plethora of famous & fictional characters packed into 270 pages, had most of its fun flattened when Michael Weller’s script and Milos Forman’s direction ennobled Doctorow’s kaleidoscopic view into scolding social drama.   A well-made disappointment upon release, now that the book has somewhat receded from view, the film, if still no RAGTIME, seems to work better than it did at the time.   The second half does turn into the Coalhouse Walker story (Black stride piano-playing striver turns avenging martyr when his Model T is defiled), but enough of the whirligig character (in people & plots) comes across thanks to tasty period settings and effective casting.  Police Commissioner James Cagney, hilarious, spunky & vital after a twenty-year hiatus; Brad Dourif’s sweetly off-kilter fireworks anarchist; Kenneth McMillan’s gleefully racist fireman; even Mandy Patinkin’s reinvented Jewish filmmaking immigrant.  (Look fast, that’s Fran Drescher as his unfaithful wife.)  Though any adaptation that skips J.P. Morgan & Henry Ford’s fireside chat and can’t find a believable font for silent film inter-titles can hardly be called RAGTIME.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Originally optioned by Dino De Laurentiis for director Robert Altman, his post NASHVILLE/’75 slump left him a commercial pariah till THE PLAYER/'92 resurrected him.  That film’s tricky structure showing what might have worked here.  On the other hand, Altman really was putting out a lot of stinkers at the time . . . almost as many as producer Dino De Laurentiis.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The original Stateside poster a High Concept dud blamed for poor initial grosses.  Replacements all de-emphasized the Coalhouse Walker/racial storyline.  The messy Japanese try (see above) coming a little closer to combining sales pitch with honesty.

GLASS ONION (2022)

Writer/director Rian Johnson follows his KNIVES OUT/’19 success with a second murder mystery for private detective Benoit Blanc.  Bigger, if not better (the sole improvement sees Daniel Craig firming up that wayward Southern accent), the general effect like getting a free upgrade from Coach to First Class only to find yourself stuck in a world of entitled a-holes obnoxious enough to make you prefer Coach’s lack of leg-room, squalling kids & stained cushions.  (On the other hand . . . Free Drinks!)  Lightly suggested by Agatha Christies’s A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED/’85 and the puzzle-mad LAST OF SHEILA/’73 (note cameo from SHEILA’s co-scripter Stephen Sondheim), here Master-of-the-Universe tech whiz Edward Norton invites a gaggle of old pals to his spectacular island retreat for a wknd game of ‘murder,’ only to find any ‘quotation’ marks dispensed with when one of the guests really dies.  Yikes!  Dropping clues like Hansel & Gretel drop bread crumbs in the forest, Johnson then doubles back to highlight anything we might have missed with re-enactments from revealing angles.  (More overheard secrets than you’d get in a Georges Feydeau triple-bill.)  But the fun feels forced, missing the sense of relief generated in KNIVES OUT.  How much nicer to have stayed home with Craig’s surprise life-partner Hugh Grant.  Maybe a third outing will see this pair go all Nick & Nora Charles on us . . . in Business Class.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned, A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED; THE LAST OF SHEILA. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-last-of-sheila-1973.html    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/10/agatha-christies-miss-marple-1984-92.html   OR: KNIVES OUT: https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/01/knives-out-2019.html

PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH (2022)

Does anyone actually know the original story of Puss in Boots?  There’s a cat . . . in boots . . . and a Princess?  That’s about it.  But the character showed up, then got its own film, when even DreamWorks Animation had to admit the SHREK franchise had just about run its course.  And though 2011's PUSS is a bit better than SHREK dreck sequels, it shares the hideous palette, lame pop culture references and quick reverse sit-com mentality.  But now it’s out with the old and in with the New Improved PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH.  Other than voice talent Antonio Banderas as Puss and Salma Hayek as Softpaws, just about every creative has been replaced with fresh hires.  And, mirabile dictu, DreamWorks Animation, courtesy of barely tested co-directors Joel Crawford & Januel Mercado, allow for some adventurous, innovative mixed animation techniques that revel in not blending into default CGI style.  Indeed, the differences all but 'comment' on each other; particularly so in some notable work when the Wolf-of-Death shows up to scare the pants off Puss who’s just finding out he’s down to the last of his Nine Lives.  Will knowledge and a chastened, fearful personality place him even more at risk?  This, rather than plot & chases, is the real concern of the story and its brings a sobering tone you don’t expect, but do welcome.  Something’s at stake; and that makes all the difference.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Puss takes his milk straight, in a shot glass and laps it up like a kid with an ice cream cone.  But real cats invert their little tongues to create a sort of tiny backwards cup which they then draw up into their mouths.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  In a clever bit, a little conscience character, a sort of cross between Jiminy Cricket and Angel-in-Training Clarence from IT‘S A WONDERFUL LIFE gets James Stewart’s voice.

HELL DOGS (2022)

Now in his 70s, Japanese writer/director Masato Harada (of the erotic ghost story/thriller INUGAMI/’01) offers smash action sequences and an ultra-stylish look (cast, clothes, sets) in this contemporary crime pic.  Jun'ichi Okada, tough & toned as a revenge-minded ex-cop who’s turned himself in, avoids prosecution but not consequences when he agrees to an undercover assignment inside a Yakuza organization recently splintered into warring factions, a propitious if decidedly dangerous moment to take this on.  Quickly bonding with less mature partner Kentarô Sakaguchi, these two professional killers are so efficient they’re soon promoted to Team B bodyguards of their gang’s young mastermind, a boyish man of metrosexual mystery.  The Spy/Counterspy games are easy to follow in the first two acts, thanks to Harada’s clear limned logistics, deliriously filled with sex, violence, snazzy locations & Karaoke (surprisingly big on Verdi), accelerating into a third act that’s harder to keep up with (at least for Western audiences), but so loaded with stand alone and wonderfully ‘readable’ set action pieces, you’ll hardly mind.  The film a beaut just to take in visually.  No doubt a second viewing would clear things up, though not perhaps the amount of ‘reveals’ for characters turning out to be secretly working undercover for one agency or another.  (Even the F.B.I. in the mix.)  Exciting stuff, not too gruesome or CGI-sweetened for a change.

DOUBLE-BLL/LINK: As mentioned, Harada’s intriguing, if overcooked, INUGAMI/’01.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/inugami-2001.html

CONTEST:  Just before a plot-altering fight breaks out in the middle of Karaoke Night, the filmmakers borrow a trope from just about the last film you’d expect to find referenced in a Japanese actioner.  Name the famous film and the flagrant lift to win our usual prize: a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choosing.

12 MIGHTY ORPHANS (2021)

Tru-ish paint-by-numbers High School football pic about an All-Orphan underdog team and their new, inspirational coach is inexcusably poor.  Set in the desaturated film stock past of Depression-Era Texas, it feels like a vanity project . . . but whose?  Best guess is Martin Sheen who also co-produced, his supporting role as alcoholic school doc/defensive coach (Dennis Hopper had the equivalent spot in the very similar HOOSIERS/’86) beefed up with wall-to-wall explanatory narration & twinkly optimism.  The boys aren’t bad, each with a single characteristic to chew on (too mad, too skinny, too stubborn, stutterer, etc.), but what’s with new head coach Owen Wilson?  In what amounts to the Gene Hackman role in HOOSIERS, Wilson even more self-regarding than he is for Wes Anderson.  Trying for quiet depth he makes no impression at all.  (Perhaps disappearing into one of those WWI trenches he keeps flashing back to.)  Then there’s Wayne Knight, playing a vicious, corrupt school administrator as if he were Simon Legree in a 1914 silent of UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.  D.W. Griffith might have asked him to tone it down.  (Let’s not even mention that FDR impersonator.)  Nothing wrong with clichés if you can execute them, but this ‘can’t miss’ football story from writer/director Ty Roberts misses just as badly as George Clooney did on his 'can't-miss' football tale, LEATHERHEADS/’08.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2009/07/leatherheads-2008.html

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  Stick with HOOSIERS.  Make it a drinking game with one shot downed for every storyline & character rip-off.

CIRCO (2010)

The sole feature-length work from tv and short-subject documentarian Aaron Schock* is a paradigm of fly-on-a-wall non-fiction filmmaking.  With an unusual topic (one-ring family circus working out-of-the-way towns in rural Mexico); complicated relationships (Grandpa holding all the finances in his pocket, parents & kids the main labor force outside and inside the Big Top); backstory in a century of circus lineage, now four brothers running family circuses of their own; menagerie of wild animals no longer seen/accepted in North of the border shows; ceaseless one-night stops; performers taking off to try ‘normal’ life only to return like addicts to old ways.  There’s something elemental & touching in following the bonds and discipline of this lifestyle.  And Schock’s found just the right family to follow in Circo Mexico’s Tino Ponce & family.  Grandpa’s a bit of a shit controlling the finances, but there’s real pleasure in watching this fit & handsome new generation pick up on the family traditions/obligations, work ethic, and specialty acts.  A daredevil cousin returns to ply his star turn, a Circle-of-Death motorcycle act, but far better are the simpler feats of contortion and slack wire routines the Ponce kids (pre-to-late teens) put on to enthusiastic locals not yet jaded by internet connections.  You can really imagine what running off to join the circus might mean to the little day-and-date locales they stop at.  Hard to see many more years of this when even the smallest town gets up to internet speed.  A fact that only adds  poignancy to a waning profession and this lovely film.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Exceptional Mexican-flavored score from Calexico.

DOUBLE-BILL: Disney’s original DUMBO/’41 remains the one-ring circus pic of your dreams.  (Avoid Tim Burton’s 2019 live-action misfire.)  OR:  *Schock’s award-winning 40" short, LA LAGUNA/’16 (not seen here) about a tween-to-teen Rainforest Mayan boy.

EN KVINNAS ANSIKTE / A WOMAN’S FACE (1938)

Swedish audiences must have had quite the pleasurable shock watching Ingrid Bergman (already an established star at 22) play Bad Girl in a story where looks = character.  So naturally, Bergman’s been disfigured since childhood; unfit for anything but villainy, part of a criminal gang of blackmailers now caught mid-job at the home of a (wait for it) plastic surgeon.  With encouragement from the doctor’s unfaithful wife (her secret love letters the reason Bergman was there), an operation is arranged to turn her monstrous face into angelic beauty.  Will it also change her character in time for the second half of the film?  Or will a new start merely set up a better scam, one involving an expendable little boy she’s just been hired to take care of?  Yikes!  And you’re not the only one to note the dramatic possibilities.  M-G-M snapped this one up for a 1941 remake with Joan Crawford.  There, the first half is elaborated (bigger criminal gang/futuristic operating room), but the second half gets gooey in comparison with the Swedish original.  So, swings and ‘roundabouts with both worth seeing.  But when her young charge says goodnight with a spontaneous hug, and Bergman must push her tussled hair back into place on her recently perfected face, Crawford doesn’t stand a chance.  No one would.  Best print found on Criterion’s Bergman in Sweden series.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned, George Cukor’s M-G-M remake with Crawford.      https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/03/womans-face-1941.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK: Three years after Cukor directed the Crawford remake, he remade another Euro-hit, this time with Ingrid Bergman stepping in to win the first of her three Oscars for GASLIGHT/’44.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/05/gaslight-angel-street-1940.html    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/05/gaslight-1944.html   OR: Can it be coincidence that Conrad Veidt, villain in the Crawford remake, had his own disfigured face role in a classic late silent of Victor Hugo’s THE MAN WHO LAUGHS/’28?   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/man-who-laughs-1928.html

THE FABELMANS (2022)

Steven Spielberg’s likable, lightly fictionalized auto-bio, a sentimental education about a boy and his movie camera, has only one real surprise in it: Seth Rogan can act!  Playing family ‘Uncle’ to the Fabelmans clan, he’s incorrigible cut-up to the four kids, working partner & BFF to visionary computer geek Dad (Paul Dano), and secret soul-mate/ unrequited pash to unfulfilled stay-at-home Mom (Michelle Wiiliams).  And it’s the Spielberg character’s accidental discovery of the dynamic between the three adults in his life via his 8mm filming addiction (a BLOW UP/’66 moment a decade before that film came out) that becomes the lynchpin in his understanding in the power of film to capture & hold, his own powerful draw to the medium, and the power it offers to control after the fact.  Much of this underplayed and suggested rather than spelled out.  Nothing else in the film (well, nothing until a final hilarious meeting with aging director John Ford who bluntly offers something precious & specific instead of pep talk generalities) hits with the same force or originality.  The rest perfectly fine: a brilliant dad easily lost in his own computer-savvy mind; a mom unable to develop her artistic potential; an itinerant family life of new schools and changing levels of casual (and not so casual) anti-Semitism which the young Spielberg paves over by ingratiating himself with precocious filmmaking skills.  Co-scripter Tony Kushner, as so often, tends to be too on point (his default mode is all trees/no forest), while Spielberg remains stubbornly more craftsman than artist.  It’s why his bad films hold so little interest.  This one, filled with quiet interest.

DOUBLE-BILL:  François Truffaut takes this sort of thing to a whole other level in THE 400 BLOWS/’59.  No wonder Spielberg fought to get him in cast in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS/’77.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The color on those 8mm movies, especially the later ones made in ‘Super 8', look a bit pale.  As if young Spielberg didn’t use proper Kodak stock, but saved money by using generic store brand stuff.  Something he’d never do, right?

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: In yet another Hollywood cooking gaffe, Williams, who’s admittedly supposed to be a bad cook, is seen dishing out matzo brei from a pot.  Who cooks matzo brei in a pot?  It’s basically French Toast made with matzo.  Would you cook French Toast in a pot?  No one on set noticed?

JOCKEY (2021)

You know the drill: aging athlete, fighting against declining skills/advancing pain/physical & mental breakdown to get thru just one more goal/fight/race.  Here, character actor Clifton Collins Jr. takes on a leading role playing the worn out jockey going for broke in this well-meant, often effective indie from writer/director Clint Bentley.  Two complications: his longtime trainer pal (and sometime romantic interest) has a new horse with tremendous potential under the right hands (his), and a new kid at the track, likely competition and just maybe the son he never knew about.  It’s the latter complication that gives the film a fresh kick, since it plays out like a horse-track/gender-switched STELLA DALLAS/’37.  The old Barbara Stanwyck weepie about the slatternly mother who does right by her daughter by giving her up to her uppercrust dad & stepmom.  Bentley even ends his film with a near quote from this King Vidor classic.  Didn’t see that coming. That said, most of the film’s tropes are nearly as worn down as our jockey.  And Bentley’s idea to visually freshen things up consists largely of shooting everything in ‘Golden Hour’ sunset/sunrise haze, or in shadow, silhouette or heavily backlit.  The idea must have been to hold any bright sunshine in reserve for the races.  But, possibly from budgetary constraints, these are all handled via tight close-ups on Collins as he bounces thru a race.  (Collins also a rather presenational kind of actor for Bentley’s ultra-naturalistic style.)  Still, interesting stuff, worth a look.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  For an aging horseman (rodeo, not racing), JUNIOR BONNER/’72 is tough to beat.  OR: Check out that final shot from STELLA DALLAS.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/12/junior-bonner-1972.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/stella-dallas-1937.html