Ghostbox Cowboy

Movies to See Right Now

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Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn in WHERE’S MY ROY COHN?

The upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival is the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies. Check out my list of Best Movies of 2019 – So Far – The Last Black Man in San Francisco, They Shall Not Grow Old, Amazing Grace and Booksmart are all available to be streamed.

OUT NOW

  • Downtown Abbey is a satisfying wrap-up for fans of the beloved PBS series.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and is there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a Must See – one of Quentin Tarantino’s very, very best.
  • The family dramedy The Farewell is an audience-pleaser.
  • Bay Area filmmaker John Maringouin’s inventive satire Ghostbox Cowboy, skewers white entitlement and sneaks a peek inside the shadiest corners of the Chinese boom economy. Ghostbox Cowboy earned a NY Times Critic’s Pick and can be streamed on Amazon (included with Prime).

ON VIDEO

The Aretha Franklin concert film Amazing Grace is, at once, the recovery of a lost film, the document of an extraordinary live recording and an immersive, spiritual experience. Amazing Grace can be streamed on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play; the DVD can be rented from Redbox.

ON TV

On September 25, Turner Classic Movies will present the groundbreaking French comedy La Cage Aux Folles – a daring film in 1978, when few were thinking about same-sex marriage. A gay guy runs a nightclub on the Riviera, and his partner is the star drag queen. The nightclub owner’s beloved son wants him to meet the parents of his intended.  But the bride-to-be’s father is a conservative politician who practices the most severe and judgmental version of Roman Catholicism, so father and son decide to conceal aspects of dad’s lifestyle. Mad cap comedy ensues, and La Cage proves that broad farce can be heartfelt. Michel Serrault is unforgettable as Albin/Zaza – one of the all-time great comic performances. (La Cage was tepidly remade in 1996 as The Birdcage with Robin Williams, but you want to see the French original.)

Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault in LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

Movies to See Right Now

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Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern in DOWNTON ABBEY

Make plans for Mill Valley Film Festival, the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies.

Now is a good time to catch up on films from my list of Best Movies of 2019 – So Far. The Last Black Man in San Francisco, They Shall Not Grow Old, Amazing Grace and Booksmart are all available to be streamed. And, of course, to see Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood if you haven’t.

OUT NOW

  • Downtown Abbey is a satisfying wrap-up for fans of the beloved PBS series.
  • David Crosby: Remember My Name is a rock star bio that reflects on relationship carnage.
  • Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a Must See – one of Quentin Tarantino’s very, very best.
  • The family dramedy The Farewell is an audience-pleaser.
  • Bay Area filmmaker John Maringouin’s inventive satire Ghostbox Cowboy, skewers white entitlement and sneaks a peek inside the shadiest corners of the Chinese boom economy. Ghostbox Cowboy earned a NY Times Critic’s Pick and can be streamed on Amazon (included with Prime).

ON VIDEO

My stream of the Week is San Jose native Matt Sobel’s impressive directorial debut, Take Me to the River. Not one thing happens in Take Me to the River that you can predict, and it keeps the audience off-balance and completely engaged. It made my Best Movies of 2016. You can stream Take Me to the River on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play or rent the DVD from Netflix.

ON TV

On September 15, Turner Classic Movies presents one of the greatest ever courtroom dramas, Stanley Kramer’s brilliant Inherit the Wind from 1960. The story is taken from the real-life Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, so it has elements of the culture wars and politics that resonate today. Spencer Tracy and Fredric March are superb as the warring thought-leaders (based on Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan).

Spencer Tracy, Harry Morgan and Fredric March in INHERIT THE WIND

Movies to See Right Now

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THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD

Wow, I gotta say that the offerings in movie theaters this August/September are as unappealing as I can remember, even for this period of traditional cinematic doldrums. There are a couple of good indies that I’ve seen coming to art houses in mid-September, but that’s about it until October.

However, now is a good time to catch up on films from my list of Best Movies of 2019 – So Far. The Last Black Man in San Francisco, They Shall Not Grow Old, Amazing Grace and Booksmart are all available to be streamed.

OUT NOW

  • Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a Must See – one of Quentin Tarantino’s very, very best.
  • The family dramedy The Farewell is an audience-pleaser.
  • You can find, if you look hard enough, Jirga, an indie parable about atonement that was Australia’s submission to the Academy Awards.
  • Bay Area filmmaker John Maringouin’s inventive satire Ghostbox Cowboy, skewers white entitlement and sneaks a peek inside the shadiest corners of the Chinese boom economy. Ghostbox Cowboy earned a NY Times Critic’s Pick and can be streamed on Amazon (included with Prime).
  • Here’s my rant on the latest Olivier Assayas film, Non-Fiction.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the cautionary documentary Jimmy Carter – about the American people asking for something that they didn’t warm to once they got it. To stream Jimmy Carter from iTunes, search for “Jimmy Carter” under TV Episodes (not under Movies). Jimmy Carter is also available on DVD from American Experience. 

ON TV

On September 10, Turner Classic Movies will be airing the 1940 version of Gaslight. Here is my essay on the movie versions of Gaslight and gaslighting as domestic violence, including a reference to the Film Noir Foundation’s fine podcast on the topic.

Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer in GASLIGHT

GHOSTBOX COWBOY: a dim bulb tries to re-invent himself

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GHOSTBOX COWBOY

In John Maringouin’s inventive satire Ghostbox Cowboy, we first meet Jimmy (David Zellner) in an American store, gazing at that aisle in every Walgreens or CVS that is filled entirely with crappy plastic gizmos made in China. We later learn that he’s thinking, “somebody is getting rich making this stuff and that person should be me.”

Wearing a cowboy hat for effect, Jimmy takes his small nest egg to the capitalist frontier of China and tries to re-invent himself as an entrepreneur. He has the prototype for an absolutely phony product, which he tries to pitch to young Chinese capitalists. Jimmy thinks that he can outsmart the locals because he is an American, but the joke is on him – he’s now the dumbest guy in China.

Jimmy doesn’t bother to learn any Mandarin, so he leans on or two shady, super-marginal ex-pats (Robert Longstreet – just great – and Specialist) to help him navigate the local scene. One of his “buddies” fleeces him, and Jimmy is hired by contemptuous Chinese when they need a Caucasian stand-in. As Jimmy is stranded near Mongolia, Ghostbox Cowboy gets mystical, and the cringe humor gives way to the surreal.

The filmmaking itself is a remarkable story. Ghostbox Cowboy was shot in the massive boomtowns around Dongguan, Guangzho and Shenzhen (each a city with a population between 8 and 15 million). Because the Chinese government frowns on critique cinema, Maringouin had to shoot on the sly, guerilla style. To photograph the illegal factories that manufacture knock-offs, he pretended to be a potential investor. Maringouin and his two SAG actors spent ten days in China, essentially pretending not to shoot a movie.

David Zellner in GHOSTBOX COWBOY

I saw Ghostbox Cowboy at Cinema Club Silicon Valley, with a Q&A with writer-director-camera operator John Maringouin. Bay Area filmmaker Maringouin wanted to focus on White entitlement, with a protagonist who adds no value of his own but imagines that he should still be “a participant” in China.

Ghostbox Cowboy was selected to play the Tribeca film festival and earned a NY Times Critic’s Pick. Ghostbox Cowboy can be streamed on Amazon (included with Prime).