EVIL DOES NOT EXIST: not so mesmerizing

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Photo caption: Hitoshi Omika in EVIL DOES NOT EXIST: Courtesy of Janus Films.

I was delighted when Evil Does Not Exist finally trickled on to VOD recently. I had been eager to se it because of my admiration for it’s writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, whose last movie, Drive My Car, made #1 on my Best Movies of 2021. Evil Does Not Exist had also won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Unfortunately, I didn’t like it.

This parable is set in a tiny village nestled in remote mountains (shot near Nagano, Japan), with its surrounding forest still wild and relatively untouched. Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) is the village jack-of-all-trades, and he is attuned to the natural cycles of life in the forest. A hospitality corporation has bought land outside the village and hopes to attract tourists to a newly developed glamping camp.

Takahashi (Ryûji Kosaka) is the PR guy dispatched to sell the project to the locals and preempt any political resistance from them. When Takumi raises concerns at a community meeting, Takahashi smoothly tries to deflect them. However, Takahashi privately recognizes that Takumi is right – the project’s lack of adequate septic capacity will imperil the village’s drinking water. Takahashi is the most interesting character in the fil, as he takes risks to push back internally against the company line.

In a devastating ending, Takumi, who has been stewing about the water issue, reacts to an urgent situation by taking an action that was hard for me to understand.

Evil Does Not Exist has been described as mesmerizing, and that’s how I found the extended introduction to be, but but too many scenes are way too long, especially the community meeting. I’m more patient and receptive to slow burns than most movie viewers, but, IMO, this story needed to be told more economically. Then, the ending lost me.

Now, I’m an outlier here. Besides its slew of prestigious festival awards, Evil Does Not Exist has an 83 rating on Metacritic, including raves by some of my favorite critics.

Evil Does Not Exist is streaming on Amazon, AppleTV and Criterion.

SWEETHEART DEAL: a triumph of cinéma vérité

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Photo caption: Kristine in SWEETHEART DEAL Courtesy of Abramorama; copyright Aurora Stories LLC.

The engrossing documentary Sweetheart Deal follows four Seattle sex workers; none of them want to be working in prostitution, but each is a heroin addict and sees obstacles to getting sober. They are at best indifferent to the men they service and fear that some night’s customer will turn out to be a murderer.

Elliott is a man in his 60s who lives in an RV parked on the strip. He says his mission is to keep the prostitutes safe, offer them comfort and encourage them to kick their addiction. All four women drop in to Elliott’s RV for a meal or a nap. Elliot’s RV is the hub of Sweetheart Deal.

This is a remarkably empathetic film. Each woman tells her own story of addiction, and we witness the ravages of heroin addiction upon their health and the carnage in their family relationships. In the third act, there’s an an unexpected betrayal, sickening and monstrous. Not every heroin addict who works the streets is going to survive. But even the most vulnerable can sometimes find the power to find justice and save themselves – and that’s the ultimate redemption in Sweetheart Deal.

It’s harder to identify with Elliott, despite his self-proclaimed altruism. Essentially, he’s just another homeless guy who is getting a form of status and authority from his vocation with the women. He enjoys the attention of the documentary crew and reporter, so much so that he doesn’t notice that the reporter is appalled by an inappropriate boast.

Sweetheart Deal is a triumph of cinéma vérité. A project of over seven years, Sweetheart Deal is the first feature directed by Elisa Levine and the late Gabriel Miller, and it is brilliant filmmaking on several levels. The filmmakers managed to engender an amazing level of trust with their subjects, resulting in the access tht allows the audience inside their world. It’s also brilliantly constructed and edited; the very first shot of the film – a man feeding pigeons – takes on new meaning and importance by the end of the film.

I’ve reviewed fifteen documentaries this year and screened another 80 while helping to program a film festival. Sweetheart Deal is the best documentary I’ve seen this year.

Sweetheart Deal releases in LA on October 18, including at the Laemmle Royal.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Mo Chara, DJ Próvai and Móglaí Bap and in KNEECAP. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

This Week on the Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Kneecap, Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid! and The True Story of Tamara De Lempicka & the Art of Survival.

Note: this summer’s fine coming of age film Didi and the unabashedly surreal Mother Couch are now on VOD.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK

On October 17, Turner Classic Movies presents the seminal 1960s neo-noir Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin. Marvin stars as Walker, a heist man who is shot and left for dead by his partner Reese (John Vernon, Animal House’s Dean Wormer), who absconded with Walker’s share of the loot and Walker’s wife. When Walker recovers, he is hellbent on revenge, aided by his sister-in-law Chris (Angie Dickinson).

It turns out that Walker needs to trace the money through a cavalcade of Mr. Bigs (Lloyd Bochner, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O’Connor). There’s a great set piece where Walker invades a highrise penthouse, despite the heavily guarded elevator being the only entrance. Point Blank ends in a thrilling nighttime finale at Fort Point.

Walker is a very uncomplicated character, all he wants is to kill Reese and reclaim his $93,000. Anyone in Walker’s situation would be pissed off, but Lee Marvin plays Walker in a constant state of cold rage. Lee Marvin’s unique charisma animates this relentless killing machine.

Marvin, just coming off The Dirty Dozen and having won an Oscar for Cat Ballou, was at the peak of his stardom. Marvin’s other contribution to the film was handpicking the then unheralded John Boorman to direct; (this was five years before Boorman’s masterpiece Deliverance). Boorman intentionally delivered a morally bleak story in the most deserted of locations: empty parking lots, the Los Angeles River channel. and San Francisco’s two icons of abandonment – Alcatraz and Fort Point.

Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK

If you’re wondering why Angie Dickinson was a movie star, Point Blank is for you. Angie was ballsy, sexy and always unashamedly very direct, and she rocked midcentury fashion. (She plays one unforgettable scene in a dress with bold horizontal stripes in the colors of Denny’s restaurants.)

Watch for James B. Sikking as the professional sniper; Sikking became well-known as the supercilious SWAT team commander Lt. Howard Hunter in Hill Street Blues. Future horror icon Sid Haig pops up as the security guard in the penthouse lobby.

Angie Dickinson and Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK

CARVILLE: WINNING IS EVERYTHING, STUPID!: rascal truth-teller

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Photo caption: James Carville in CARVILLE: WINNING IS EVERYTHING, STUPID!. Courtesy of CNN Films.

The CNN documentary Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid! brings insight into the colorful political consultant James Carville, today’s political environment and the example of his long-surviving marriage to another strong willed professional.

Carville is known as a strategic genius and earthy communicator, but the documentaryremonds us that he was an unaccomplished Baton Rouge lawyer who hadn’t won his first major election campaign until he was age 42. Then after producing some surprise US Senate victories, at 48, he created his masterpiece – the nine lives of the oft-doomed Bill Clinton presidential campaign. Just this much is a helluva story.

But Carville, who grew up poor, watching his single mother hustle for a living, selling encyclopedias door-to-door, has always appreciated the need to get people’s attention first. That’s why he is a grinning provocateur, unafraid to offend to make his point. And you will probably be offended by something he says in Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid!, especially when he argues that the Democratic Party can’t be too woke to win a national election; “Screw the ARGUMENT, win the ELECTION!’. Carville was ahead of the curve in recognizing that Democratic Party needed to dump Joe Biden in 2024, and he’s comfortable in the role of truth-teller (as he sees the truth).

Carville can be dead serious about politics without taking himself seriously. Sadly, his joie de vivre has become rare in today’s toxic political environment. That’s why his rascal persona is so refreshing.

Of course, Carville is half of a celebrity marriage to Republican political strategist Mary Matalin, and she is a major part of Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid! Matalin, as tough as nails and intolerant of bullshit, is the perfect foil for the blustering Carville. They share the tough episode when Matalin was back working in a GOP White House during Bush’s war in Iraq, which Carville bitterly opposed. Matalin comes off as very genuine and very wise about relationships.

I watched Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid! in its premiere on CNN. It is now in theaters.

THE TRUE STORY OF TAMARA DE LEMPICKA & THE ART OF SURVIVAL: a daring icon revealed.

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Photo caption: Tamara de Lempicka (right) in Julie Rubio’s THE TRUE STORY OF TAMARA  DE LEMPICKA & THE ART OF SURVIVAL. Courtesy of Mill Valley Film Festival.

The Mill Valley Film Festival is hosting the world premiere of The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & the Art of Survival, a biodoc that reveals an astonishing life. The art deco artist de Lempicka was as groundbreaking in her lifestyle and self-invention as in her art.

De Lempicka painted her female subjects as confident and comfortable with their sexuality, and her highly-stylized nudes are striking. A de Lempicka has sold for over $20 million, the third-highest price ever paid for a painting by a modern female artist.

De Lempicka lived substantial parts of her life Russian-ruled Poland, France, the US and Mexico. Her adventurous personal life, dotted with rich husbands and affairs with celebrity lesbians, brazenly disregarded all the prevailing societal mores of the first half of the twentieth century. She said, “I live life in the margins of society and the rules of normal society don’t apply to those who live on the fringe.” Although de Lempicka didn’t care what anyone thought of her sexual behavior, she constructed much of her own image, sometimes embracing fiction as fact.

The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & the Art of Survival is the third feature and first documentary from Bay Area director Julie Rubio, the producer of East Side Sushi. Rubio’s extraordinary research has uncovered that, in building her flamboyant persona, de Lempicka obscured much of her identity, including her heritage and her real name. Bringing birth and baptism certificates, 8mm home movies and the testimony of family members to light for the first time, Rubio completes a new and accurate understanding of de Lempicka.

The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & the Art of Survival plays the Mill Valley Film Festival on October 11 at the Sequoia Cinema and October 13 at the Lark.

KNEECAP: sláinte!

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Photo caption: Mo Chara, DJ Próvai and Móglaí Bap and in KNEECAP. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

In the raucous comedy Kneecap, a trio of Belfast slackers get busted for spraying some pro-republican graffiti, and, in the police station, resist by refusing to speak anything but the Irish language. When the frustrated anti-republican constabulary kick them loose, the guys form a hip-hop group that raps in Gaelic, with the provocative name Kneecap. Amazingly enough, this is the actual origin story of the real band Kneecap, whose members (Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvai) play themselves in this film.

While Kneecap is about promoting Irish nationalism by embracing the Irish language, it has the tone of Roadrunner versus Wiley Coyote. Plenty of comic situations arise as our three rascals play a frenetic cat-and-mouse with the humorless and repressive cops. Adding a layer of complication to their new local notoriety, the father of one of the band members has faked his death to hide from both the cops and the IRA. The father is played by German-born but Irish actor Michael Fassbinder, he of the two Oscar nominations, who has somehow found himself in this goofy little movie.

You won’t see a more energetic movie this year. Kneecap is the first narrative feature for director and co-wrier Rich Peppiatt, and he is responsible for the zesty pace, even throwing animation and camera effects into his spicy movie, and he’s pulled it off with some first-time screen actors.

Kneecap is a good choice for those especially interested in Ireland, or for those in the mood for some harmless bawdy fun. Mid-movie, The Wife said “at this point, it’s gonna become predictable”, but then she was pleasantly surprised.

For serious dramas about Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland, see my Best Films about The Troubles (Northern Ireland).

Kneecap, which won the audience award in Sundance’s NEXT section, is now streaming on Amazon and AppleTV.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Kris Kristofferson in LONE STAR.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a spate of new reviews and an all-updated Current Movies. The five new reviews are Will & Harper, Wolfs, In the Summers, Made in England: The films of Powell and Pressberger and Megalopolis. The best of this week’s crop is the one with the fewest movie stars, In the Summers, which marks the debut of an impressive female director.

REMEMBERANCES

Maggie Smith’s career began in the 1950s, and she was accomplished enough by the mid-1960s to play Desdemona to Laurence Olivier’s Othello. She won Oscars in the 70s for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and California Suite.  Her popularity soared in the 2000s with Gosford Park, the Harry Potter franchise and her unforgettably withering Lady Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey.

After establishing himself as a great American songwriter, Kris Kristofferson turned to acting and amassed 121 screen credits. Originally cast for his fame as a music star and for his hunky magnetism, Kristofferson proved himself a fine actor who chose to work with talented directors: Sam Peckinpah in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Martin Scorsese in Alice Doesn’t Live Anymore, Michael Ritchie in Semi-Tough, and John Sayles in Lone Star,. Limbo, and Silver City. He also chose little indies with really good scripts, like Deadfall and The Motel Life. My favorite Kristofferson performance was as the villainous sheriff in Lone Star.

Recognizable character actor John Amos earned 112 screen credits, with recurring roles on TV series from Good Times to West Wing and scads of guest appearances.  He also worked in films including Sweet Sweetback’s Badassss Song, Coming to America and Die Hard 2.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Photo caption: Ennio Morricone in ENNIO. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

Tomorrow, Turner Classic Movies present the recent documentary Ennio, about Ennio Morricone, one of the greatest composers of movie music and certainly the most original (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). Ennio takes two hours and 36 minutes to comprehensively survey Morricone’s entire career, and I would have preferred a shorter film more focused on the highlights, but the highlights are pretty great. Just skip the last 20 minutes of redundant accolades.

WILL & HARPER: old friends adjust

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Photo caption: Will Ferrell and Harper Steele in WILL & HARPER. Courtesy of Netflix.

The Netflix doc Will & Harper features a road trip by Will Farrell and his longtime friend, former SNL writer Harper Steele, who has transitioned. Steele, who has recently transitioned, has always relished auto journeys across the back roads and small towns of America, and wonders if this pleasure is still open to her as a trans woman; Ferrell is going along for support.

The two start at Steele’s home outside New York City and end up on the beach in LA. As they stop in Indiana, Steele’s hometown in Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas, The Wife and I found ourselves cringing and holding our breaths. There are both sweet moments of acceptance and ugly moments of hostility.

The specific case of Steele and Ferrell is used to flesh out why and how one transitions, and how friends can be both curious and supportive.

Ferrell’s celebrity is a subtext here; he clearly enjoys (and maybe needs to be) recognized. Steele is cognizant of how she is treated (or even acknowledged) in or out of Ferrell’s presence.

I have not been a fan of Ferrell’s brand of comedy, but I have to commend Ferrell for his loyalty to a friend and his generosity in spending over two weeks on this cross-country road trip. Ferrell casts his vanity aside to show one episode where he badly misjudges a situation and worsens Steele’s discomfort.

Of course, Ferrell and Steele are both comedy professionals, and they are funny people, as are their SNL pals, about ten of whom show up from time to time. When Will & Harper wants to be funny, it’s funny. When it wants to be emotional, it’s genuinely emotional.

Will & Harper is streaming on Netflix.

WOLFS: two charming stars and a chase

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Photo caption: George Clooney and Brad Pitt in WOLFS. Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

The crime comedy Wolfs is about the job of fixer, the guy you call when somebody has OD’d in your hotel room and you need someone to clean up the scene as if it had never happened (think Harvey Keitel’s The Wolf in Pulp Fiction). The premise of Wolfs is that TWO fixers are called to the same scene. Both are highly skilled professionals, paranoid, have big egos and are used to working alone. They are also super cool and played by George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

They bicker and posture, and, as they go about their job, circumstances make the situation more dangerous and desperate. Plenty of laughs follow, along with an excellent and imaginative nighttime chase through NYC.

Wolfs is all about the plot and the charm of its stars – it’s really just disposable entertainment. That’s not bad, because it doesn’t take itself too seriously and it’s well-crafted for what it is. It doesn’t take itself very seriously. The last two minutes is an unmistakable homage to to a very popular 1969 movie.

Some really fine actors show up in very small roles: Amy Ryan, Richard Kind and Zlatko Buric (so good in Triangle of Sadness). There’s a very funny performance by Austin Abrams as a slacker piñata in way over his head.

Wolfs is streaming on AppleTV.

MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBERGER: Scorsese’s film class

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Photo caption: a scene from THE RED SHOES in MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBERGER. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group.

Martin Scorsese was immensely impacted by the work of British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger, and, in his documentary Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressberger, he explains how and why. It’s like a guest presentation in film school.

The screenwriter Pressberger wrote director Powell’s 49th Parallel, one of the very best WW II propaganda films. They found themselves to be each other’s muse. The two co-directed One of Our Airplanes Is Missing in 1942 and continued to co-direct 16 films through 1959’s Night Ambush. Their oeuvre includes several films generally acknowledged as classics of cinema: Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, and one of my personal favorites, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. The creative partnership wore itself out in 1959, but the two remained close friends, and were unashamed to describe their partnership as based on love.

Along the way, they routinely discarded cinematic conventions to make risky innovations:

  • Pausing the story in The Red Shoes to mount an original ballet in its entirety.
  • Using one actress to play three different roles in Colonel Blimp.
  • Building the drama to the pivotal duel in Colonel Blimp and then audaciously NOT showing the actual fight.
  • The humorous use of hunting trophies to mark the time passages in Colonel Blimp.
  • Using filmed music in Black Narcissus.
  • Evoking the set and production design of Fritz Lang’s iconic Metropolis in A Matter of Life and Death.
  • Switching between black-and-white and color in A Matter of Life and Death.
  • Creating Tales of Hoffman as a “composed film”, a marriage of cinematic imagery with operatic music.
A scene from A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH in MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBERGER. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group.

After his association with Pressberger, Powell made what I consider his best film, Peeping Tom, which was released in the same year as Hitchcock’s Psycho; I find Peeping Tom to be the better film, and more shocking and disturbing..

Made in England makes a passing reference to Powell’s last film, Age of Consent, but doesn’t mention that it features a voluptuous, nubile 24-year-old Helen Mirren naked.

Here’s another random thought sparked by Made in England – Anton Walbrook, who is not in the pantheon of famous actors from the Golden Age, was a really excellent actor.

Now you might NOT want to go to film class, and, in that case, this is an Eat Your Broccoli movie. But if you’re a hardcore cinephile and/or a Scorsese fan like me, this film is for you.