A movie reminder that The New York Times scooped Ronan Farrow, thanks to the Trump-enabling scum-fluffers at NBC — on the biggest sexual harassment scandal story of our time.
Andre Braugher, Samantha Morton, also in the cast.
Nov. 18, the birth of #MeToo, and an Oscar campaign gets under way.
You can’t go far wrong when you decide that your “wholly original” film should be based-on, stolen-from and slavishly devoted to a famous movie by the Coen Brothers.
That’s the premise of “Jesus Kid,” a daft satire from Brazil that zings the country’s fascist-fringe government, the class wars and the delusional ditziness of a star TV commercials director who wants to turn this hack author of paperback Westerns into his “Barton Fink.”
A hapless 50something novelist, Eugenio (Pablo Miklos) has built a comfortably miserable, lonely life out of a long series of just-successful-enough Westerns. The hero of his books? The Jesus Kid, an omnipotent gunfighter with the looks and swagger of a matinee idol.
Writing as “Paul Gentleman” — because really, who’d want to put his real name on this trash, or waste even a good nom de plume on it — Eugenio has another, ready for his publisher, when he agrees to take a meeting with this pie-in-the-sky movie producer.
But fast -alking Max (Fábio Silvestre) doesn’t want the rights to Eugenio’s latest book. No, he’s indulging this director of commercials named Fabio (Gabriel Gorosito), a fabulist who wants to tell the story of “a writer in crisis...a mediocre writer who wants to be a famous writer…like ‘Barton Fink.'”
Fabio talks a good — ok INSULTING — game.
“Western is a DEAD genre,” he declares (in Portuguese with English subtitles). “Especially after what Tarantino did with ‘Django Unchained.'”
Fabio wants to lock Eugenio up in a swank hotel to write a script about a writer who is cracking up in search of that next big idea. The gobsmacked Eugenio considers the cash offer, decides “I have no idea” how to do that, and turns them down.
That’s before he takes his latest “Jesus Kid” manuscript to his publisher. That’s before he meets the hulking new chief (Helio Barbosa) of the government’s Ideological Integrity Control Council. That’s before Eugenio is told “You can no longer write books with offensive characters.”
“Offensive to…me?”
“Offensive to our Lord Jesus.”
What this mountainous Olavo fellow would prefer is that this popular (enough) writer, a “favorite” of the president, write a biography of Dear Leader, Mr. MAGA of Manaus.
OK, a stunned Eugenio figures. Maybe the movie offer isn’t so bad after all.
But he can’t even check into the hotel without believing he’s being followed by some mug in a black coat, black hat and black gloves. He can’t pack a bag without coming home to an apartment that’s been busted into, his pet fish murdered.
And even after checking in, getting past the snarky, rude desk clerk (Leandro Daniel, hilarious), Eugenio is sure he’s about to meet with some accident at the hands of this (assumed) government thug who’s shadowing him.
That’s when Jesus — the cowboy version (Sergio Marone, quite amusing) — manifests himself and starts dealing with Eugenio’s problems with his handy six-shooter.
“I exist so that you can bear your mediocrity,” his greatest creation tells Eugenio.
Director and co-writer Aly Muritiba (“Rust,” “Deserto Particular”) takes us straight down the “Barton Fink/Adaptation” rabbit hole from here on out, telling a tale of a stressed writer probably losing his marbles trapped in a posh hotel, tormented by “Chet,” as Eugenio disdainfully nicknames his desk clerk (the name of Steve Buscemi’s desk clerk in “Barton Fink”), nagged by Max and Fabio and insulted by this shapely nurse (Maureen Miranda) he meets in the hotel bar.
Writer’s block? Let Jesus tap tap away at the laptop. Maybe the nurse will proofread. She seems down for anything (after-sex-scenes show us THREE nudes in the bed, Eugenio and the nurse being two of them). Scared to death of this brute, Olavo? SOMEbody will think of something.
“Jesus Kid” is peopled with characters ranging from odd to downright bizarre, conversations that bite, cut and draw blood and a breakdown any movie-lover will recognize, as will more than a few writers.
“But it’s NOT ‘the story,'” Eugenio protests, as his director and producer confuse his complaints about what’s happening to him for his screenplay in progress. “It’s MY LIFE!”
Miklos, a well-known musician who took up acting with “The Trespasser” (“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” might be a little more famous in North America), is adorably irritable as a character out of his depth and alarmed at his fate, no matter how miserable his old life was.
Miranda is a sassy, dismissive broad mean far beyond what her ordinary looks suggest. I thought she was playing a hooker, at first.
And Marone, who played Pontius Pilate in a Brazilian version of “Jesus of Nazareth” a couple of years back, is a smoldering hoot — funny from the moment we first glimpse him in his cowboy hat, kerchief and holstered pistol.
The movie, like the movie within the movie, hangs up on “the ending.” But a droll, comically sparkling cast make “Jesus Kid” a near bullseye among gunslinger Savior Westerns adapted into “Baton Fink” writer-in-crisis dark comedies, which when you think about it, should become a genre all its own.
Rating: unrated, violence, lots of nudity, profanity
Cast: Paolo Miklos, Sergio Marone, Maureen Miranda, Leandro Daniel, Gabriel Gorosito, Fábio Silvestre and Helio Barbosa
Credits: Directed by Aly Muritiba, scripted by Laura Malin and Aly Muritiba. An IndiePix release.
Running time: 1:28
A “chosen one” and a “chosen child” ride a doe to their destiny among the Lone Antlers and Fire Horse People in “The Deer King,” a lovely if somewhat cluttered anime fantasy from GKIDS.
It begins with a mountain of back-story and piles exposition — new characters, new locales — almost all the way through the third act, which tends to make this simple quest tale drag as it lumbers towards its finish.
In a time of Black Wolf Fever, the uneasy dominion of the conquering Zolians and the subjugated Aquafa is upset when a prisoner of the salt mines, Van, battles an onslaught of wolves about to kill an orphaned toddler named Yuna. Van survives the bite, which spreads Black Wolf Fever, and develops super strength. He rescues the babe, whom he raises as his own in a peaceful nomadic village in Aquafa country.
But this plague has brought the court physician of the Zols, Hohsalle Yuguraul, to visit the infected Aquafa and their “priest doctors.” He is sure there’s a reason this disease only used to infect the Zols, and that it’s not some superstitious curse. To “transcend history and dispel fear” he must find, observe and test Van’s blood to see if it offers a cure.
The female tracker, Sae, is sent to find Van and the child so that the physician can explain his theory and perhaps save all who are swept up in the plague, which manifests itself in a purple tsunami of wolves, spreading the contagion far and wide.
“Saving the body saves the soul,” the physician explains.
Van just wants to get the child to safety and this quest lets him accidentally discover the breadth and depth of his various new superstrengths.
This is a pretty and pretty violent film directed by animators who worked on “Paprika” and “Spirited Away” and a screenwriter who has specialized in anime TV series. That explains why the story is almost overwhelmed with plot flourishes, characters and agendas. There’s a TV season’s worth of exposition jammed into this thing.
The violence takes the form of bloody wolf attacks, arrow impalings and knife and sword fights, with Van enduring many a bandage thanks to the brutal assaults.
It’s not the easiest tale to follow. Perhaps more explanations and discussion of competing agendas, treachery and old grudges would have helped. The “emperor” keeps track of this Medieval Japanese world via magical balloons called “The Emperor’s Eyes,” but we never see this chase unfolding in a way that the emperor sees. Considering all the ideas cribbed from Tolkien, it seems a shame the “seeing stones” were forgotten.
I saw the Japanese (subtitled) version of “Deer King,” which made viewing a bit of a grind, I must say — A J.K. Rowling sea of names of foods, characters, places, legends, illnesses, ridable (and milkable) magical deer and the like — rather like the Old Testament-endless pages of creatures, names and what-not that that give a kind of tortuous texture to Tolkien
“The Deer King” isn’t on a visual par with the best anime, most of it generated by Studio Ghibli. But it’s head and shoulders above the TV mass-production look of “Dragonball” and its ilk. I’d say the same for its story, but that could have used some serious editing before production began.
Genre fans may eat this up, but it’s not anything I’d call a “must see” film, despite its obvious ambition.
Rating: R, for some violence
Cast: The voices of Shin’ichi Tsutsumi or Ray Chase, Anne Watanabe or Erica Schroeder
Credits: Directed by Masashi Ando and Masayuki Miyaji, scripted by Taku Kishimoto. A GKIDS release.
Running time: 1:53
Amazon is most definitely milking this upcoming series for all its worth. Hype hype “Teaser of the teaser of the trailer” for this fall prequel to Tolkien’s “Hobbit/LOTR”
This one looks positively Jacksonesque in its scope and magic and majesty. A lot more female presence, a more diverse cast, a broad “origin” story, of a sort.
I am writing the review of this Brazilian satire shortly, but suffice it to say, it’s a hoot. A riff on politics, writers and writing and a movie maker who insists on getting this nom de plumed hack who writes paperback Westerns under the name Paul Gentleman to become his “Barton Fink.”
Eugenio, our 50something novelist, has been threatened by the Bolsinaro regime for being blasphemous — his novels always feature the amoral gunfighter, The Jesus Kid. That same regime is willing to resort to violence to get Eugenio to write the president’s biography.
Paranoid, hallucinatory, subtitled fun. I hope the residents of Seminole County Florida are ready for it!
MovieNation, spreading international cinema to the southeast, one DVD, one library at a time.
Talk about a trailer that screams “Svengoolie,” “Elvira” and “Remember how much his ‘Halloween’ sucked?”
September.
Australian “slacker rock” star Courtney Barnett and her longtime music video collaborator Danny Cohen team up for a Courtney-and-nothing-but documentary, “Anonymous Club.” It’s not so much an invitation into her world as a peek at it from an almost safe, emotionally-muted distance.
She shows us something of her process, but little of “the Real Courtney” comes through as she and Cohen keep things at a personal arm’s length, if not an emotional one.
Barnett talks about her “feeling sad days,” which produce such self-deprecating singles as “Depreston,” “Anonymous Club,” “Pedestrian at Best” and “Nameless Faceless.” This raw confessional style is her brand. She’s noticed that people “never look up,” they’re always staring at the ground or ahead, or at their cell phones.
“Well time is money and money is no man’s friend. And all eyes on the pavement, I’m not gonna touch ya don’t worry so much about it.”
Cohen gives her a recorder to make an audio diary, where she talks about what she’s doing, the tour she’s on, often just before bedtime. She reads comments from her blog, where she invites fans to talk about rough emotional times they’re going through. And she reads one suggestion about how she should never do another interview again.
It’s only when we see her interviewed — awkward, bored and boring, evading faux complex questions and doing it in the same flat voice (“deadpan,” her fan-critics call it) we hear her sing in that we get it. She’s pretty bad at this part of the career-making exposure.
There are little glimpses of her personal life (she’s gay) and lots of short cuts from her concerts, large venues and small, sing-alongs with fans and one or two actual interactions with them.
There’s little about that screams “rock star,” with her unruly Chrissie Hynde mop and obscure, Ani DiFranco-meets-Chrissie songs-as-therapy songbook. I dare say she could walk most city streets and not earn a second glance — no hint of glam to her.
Honestly, I didn’t get enough of the music and the “process” — picking out tunes to go from long, closely-typed pages of lyrics and phrases in the studio — to come to a conclusion about her as an artist, other than the voice is nothing special squared.
The film’s aesthetic mistake is in limiting the movie just to her, denying us any vocal or visual variety, not letting the folks who made her an AIR (Australian Independent Records) awards maintstay, onetime Grammy nominee and global touring hit tell us why she’s special.
Kurt Vile is her fellow “slacker rock” star and has written for her and performed with her. She doesn’t need his validation, but one monotonous voice makes for a monotonous movie.
At one point, she covers “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” — an apt choice, considering her self-confessed malaise — so plaintively and emotionally flat I almost cried.
One gets a hint that maybe her inspiring backstory — a ballerina’s daughter, self-produced and distributed debut LP (five years before a “Best New Artist” Grammy nod), “born in Sydney, raised in Hobart (Tasmania), based in Melbourne” rise to stardom — makes better copy than hard analysis of why the work speaks to so many.
The audio diary is something of a non-starter, in which Barnett sounds weary, references “Nico, the singer” and suggests “I was an EMO kid before I knew what “EMO” was,” as if we hadn’t figured that out.
All of which circles round to my original point. “Anonymous Club” isn’t an invitation. Don’t know the lyrics? Kind of hard to make them out. Underwhelmed by this guitar snippet or that one? Well, she does like the label “slacker garage rock.”
Leave this one to the fans.
Rating: unrated
Cast: Courtney Barnett
Credits: Scripted and directed by Danny Cohen. An Oscilloscope Laboratories release.
Running time: 1:23
Great White? Maybe a she, maybe a he.
Aug. 26, “Maneater” makes chum out of a lot of young swimmers.
Great locations. Australia? Just beautiful. Except for the blood, of course.
At certain points, relationships can develop their own momentum, careening headlong towards affirmation or collapse. And heaven help anybody trying to stall the inevitable, put the brakes on or turn “The Wheel.”
Albee and Walker are hurtling towards the abyss when we meet them in Steve Pink and screenwriter Trent Aktinson’s intimate indie dramedy. Or rather she is. Walker (Taylor Gray) is grasping at straws, dragging Albee (Amber Midthunder) out for a romantic weekend getaway at an AirBnB. Albee is resigned to “this sh—y thing” she’s agreed to do, and she never lets him or us forget it.
Walker has this plan, consult a self-help book he picked up for little or nothing — “Seven Questions to Save Your Marriage.” They’ll spend a weekend, “four questions today, three on Sunday,” and sort things out.
Question one? “What was the first thing that drew you to me?”
They’re very young, their hostess Carly (Bethany Anne Lind) notices. And yet they’ve been married eight years.
“We were 16,” Walker blurts. “It was Texas.”
Maybe they’ll hit that Ferris wheel they drove by on the way up, Albee tells Carly, “if we’re not divorced.”
They’re both given to blurting.
“The Wheel” is about that marriage about to break up, and co-owners Carly and Ben (Nelson Lee), who are about to marry, trying to intervene. Well, she wants to intervene. He’s picked up on toxic Albee acting like “a monster.”
“Maybe they’re not supposed to be together,” he reasons. “She doesn’t need help. She needs an exorcist!”
“Bad relationships are contagious,” he adds as a warning.
Over the course of the weekend, both couples will be tested. Revelations will explain characters — some more than others — the marriage and the desperate way it began. And we watch and shake our heads and wonder if this plunge over a cliff can be averted, or even should be.
The intimacy of this movie seems to raise the personal stakes among the four. Aussie TV writer Atkinson makes up our minds for us about this character or that one, and then upends those formed opinions.
Midthunder (TV’s “Roswell”), affecting a sort of cruel-cloying Aubrey Plaza vibe, is perfectly believable as a 24 year-old aspiring actress out to sabotage this marriage, come hell or high water. Gray (“Walt Before Mickey”) comes off as that all-in very young guy who can’t imagine life without Albee, mainly because he has no perspective.
Prospects don’t look good, and seeing the waves Albee makes in the about-to-marry couple, we don’t dare hope for any sort of happy ending for “The Wheel.” With this cleverly unassuming script, anything could happen, no matter where the momentum is taking them and us.
Rating: unrated, profanity
Cast: Amber Midthunder, Taylor Gray, Bethany Anne Lind and Nelson Lee.
Credits: Directed by Steve Pink, scripted by Trent Atkinson. A Quiver release.
Running time: 1:23
“He’s only dating you for the ‘WOKE’ points!”
Fighting words in this Billy Porter (TV’s “Pose”) art school romance, with one character transitioning. July 22 on Amazon.
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