Movie Nation

Oh, to have someone say this about you after your death.

“I haven’t had a good laugh since he died!”

Most of us only experienced the late life “public” Truman Capote, the bitchy literary gnome who flitted among the beautiful people, drank with the great and near great and the elfin “bad boy” chat show guest who scored laughs by insulting many of those whose paths he crossed.

But he was a publishing sensation at 23, world famous in his ’30s, threw “the only important (masked) ball of the 20th century,” and had barely sobered up from his infamous Studio 54 days when he died at 59 at the end of the summer of 1984.

“The Capote Tapes” is the second documentary appreciation of his talent and how he used or abused it in the space of a year, following “Truman and Tennessee,” the similarly structured (tape recordings) documentary about his long friendship and rivalry with the great playwright Tennessee Williams.

The hook here is in the title — “Tapes.” Former White House deputy social director and first-time documentary filmmaker Ebs Burnough got his hands on “tapes.” Not just talk show interviews, radio conversations or TV documentary footage from Capote’s glory years — the 1960s — although Burnough generously samples those. No, he acquired the recordings of “a journalist,” a coy early credit in the film teases, someone who knew Capote and traveled in his circle.

He could have just said “I got George Plimpton‘s extensive interviews with Capote and those in his social whirl, writers and rich people, friends and colleagues, and made a film out of them.” Because as polished and entertaining if not exactly exhaustive and thorough as “The Capote Tapes” is, with a solid lineup of fresh on-camera interviews with the likes of Dick Cavett and Jay McInerney, Sally Quinn and fashion editor Andre Leon Talley, it’s Plimpton’s work that makes it.

Plimpton got on the phone with Lauren Bacall and Lee Radziwell and Slim Keith and other surviving Capote “swans,” the beautiful society women he was friends with. He collected anecdotes from Norman Mailer about dragging Capote to a New York Irish working class bar, without thinking, and marveling over how accepted the famous, tiny and effeminate writer was and just what it “cost him” to maintain the cocky, swishy New York persona he first affected in his 20s throughout his later life. Plimpton recorded the screenwriter, George Axelrod, tasked with sanitizing Capote’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” into a general audiences blockbuster starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Mancini’s wistful “Moon River,” and got Jack Dumphy, Capote’s longtime companion on the phone.

Those interviews provide the killer, pithy quotes. “Truman saw everything and he remembered it.” Film siren Bacall called him “an intellect…someone you looked forward to seeing.” “Lionized” and “Sleazy” and “seductive,” and someone who remained, his entire life, “a naughty little kid,” Capote made an impression. And even some of the people who never forgave him for publishing a scandalous magazine excerpt of his never-finished “masterpiece” and final “non-fiction novel” “Answered Prayers,” were full of opinions they were willing to share with Plimpton after Capote’s death.

Burnough complements those with a collection of still-surviving friends and acquaintances who provide the distance and whole-life framework that the film needs. This isn’t a PBS film built on chats with Capote biographers. Here’s playwright and sometimes cruising companion Dotson Rader, and the daughter of Capote’s manager, who left his wife for a fling with the writer in the ’60s. Kate Harrington, along with chat show host Dick Cavett and peers like Lewis Lapham provide lots of context and sympathetic views of Capote’s celebrity “trap” and how his partying and drinking cost him years and books he might have written.

“Bright Lights, Big City” author Jay McInernery, a former “boy wonder” of publishing himself, adds the perspective that “early success is a bit of a curse.”

We tend to forget Mailer was a fan, and he comes off as someone who appreciated what Capote had to struggle with, from his emotionally crippling childhood to his mother’s suicide, not long after he became famous. Conservative columnist, magazine publisher and chat show host William F. Buckley Jr., a notorious homophobe, gave Plimpton a snide, patrician thought on two of the “not a fan” variety.

The movie leaves out much of Capote’s Hollywood experience, and avoids some worn out anecdotes while recycling others, such as Capote regaling Johnny Carson about how “great an actor” Brando is, while noting that he is “so stupid he makes your skin crawl.”

The most revealing Capote nugget of all might be the one that provided the title of his “lost” last book, a roman a clef that was to serve up much of the dirty gossip about “the bored rich” he thought he’d become friends with, but whom he came to realize “saw him as a servant.”

“More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”

The early fame, topped by the sensation that “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “In Cold Blood” created, may have allowed him to host the celebrated, all-star “Black and White Ball” at New York’s Plaza Hotel in 1966. His celebrity exceeded his wildest dreams, and led to endless travel, sailing yacht vacations and every high society invitation that was worth having. He was a gay icon before such creatures existed, and normalized gay acceptance with every florid and flamboyant TV appearance.

But in the end, those “answered prayers” were his undoing as a star writer, A-list guest and famous wit.

This may not be the “definitive” Capote biography. Perhaps PBS will be the one to get around to that, some day. Burnough’s still made an entertaining and generally brisk overview of the career and the life of the most famous writer of his day.

Rating: Unrated, profanity, adult subject matter

Cast: Dick Cavett, Kate Harrington, Sally Quinn, Dotson Rader, Jay McInerney, Lewis Lapham, Andre Leon Talley and the voices of Truman Capote, George Plimpton, William F. Buckley Jr., Lauren Bacall, Norman Mailer, Lee Radziwell and Slim Keith.

Credits: Directed by Ebs Burnough, scripted by Ebs Burnough and Holly Whiston. A Greenwich Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:38

A quiet chill clings to “Azor,” the debut feature of Argentine filmmaker Andreas Fontana. It’s set among his country’s uber-rich, their grand, inherited estates and stables, their horse racing outings, Michelin star dinners and galas. But they’re a glum lot, filled with resignation or dread.

“Azor” is set a few years after Argentina’s 1976 military coup, the time of “los desaparecidos,” “the disappeared,” when a military dictatorship made tens of thousands of Argentine activists, political rivals and other “undesirables” disappear — one of recent history’s most infamous state-sponsored mass murder programs.

And as many times as our protagonist, the visiting Swiss banker Yvan De Wiel
(Fabrizio Rongione) is told “You don’t understand, this country was a mess” and that the coup brought “much needed reforms” and that “a purification phase” was in order to deal with “parasites,” he’s seeing resignation in the faces and fear in the voices of the well-heeled.

He can tell his wife, confidante and traveling companion Ines (Stéphanie Cléau) “It’s like being in Europe,” but there are soldiers on the streets, stopping anybody young, anybody at all.

And for the rich, who along with the higher-ups in the Argentine Catholic Church who might have backed that coup, the drunken revel in “owning the left” is past. The hangover is here.

“The military is getting restless,” one client sighs (in Spanish, with English subtitles). Another takes them horseback riding, but there is no joy in the outing. His estate is missing one resident. His daughter “disappeared.”

“These days, they don’t have enough with people,” still another gripes. “They ‘disappear’ horses, too.”

And in the small talk of “Do you know Gstaad?” and “You are more than welcome to stay with us when you visit,” Yvan and Ines hear snippets of the unthinkable.

“Did you hear about Perez? They went to his house and took everything from him!”

The oligarchs got their way, a government of their choosing. And now it’s eating them, too.

Fontana’s covering some of the same ground as the Argentine classic “The Official Story” and “The Disappeared.” But he uses a seriously unsympathetic outsider as his and our tour guide, letting one of those famously discrete and infamously amoral Swiss bankers see a nightmare that their clients help bring on by hiding their assets, dodging taxes and backing governments that let them get away with it.

The title is a bit of Swiss (French, Italian and German speakers) banker slang for “ask no questions.” And the story, as its opening chapter reveals, is “The Camel Tour,” a “private” banker coming to the clients, far and wide, trying to help them navigate the shifting political sands and hyper-inflation that dog the country.

He and his wife are there because his bank’s partner, Keys, who ran things in country, might be laying low in Argentina or even Switzerland, or “disappeared.”

They hear an array of opinions about the man, good and loyal to manipulative and crude. Some of the very wealthy — and that’s the only world De Wiel travels in — including the Monsignor (the person to refer to the victims of the regime as “parasites”), have an idea of what happened to Keys.

There are other “commercial” bankers working over this client list, promising investments in currency speculation, which might keep pace with the ruinous inflation — something the rich all over the world fear more than death or dictatorships, their accumulated wealth losing most of its value.

De Wiel has to suffer business and social slights and boorish lawyers (Juan Pablo Geretto), the threat of losing clients to better (currency speculating) offers or to government “interest.” Can he adapt, on the fly, to maintain his business and preserve his own inherited wealth?

Fontana’s film is a cautionary tale an overt red-alert warning. Beware the world you make, superrich. It will eat you, with only the bankers figuring out a way to profit from the violence that comes from extreme wealth disparity and government by kleptocracy. Maybe the police and soldiers and some of the rabble are on your side, for now. But when “the military gets restless…”

Veteran Belgian actor Rongione, last seen in “Rose Island,” makes this poker-faced banker flinch now and again, a man recognizing what’s going wrong and how it will impact him even as he scrambles to piece together the business his partner was mixed up in. When De Wiel faces the indignity of an armed search, he is shocked enough to say the privileged part out loud.

“Us too?”

Cléau (“The Blue Room”) is perfectly crisp and businesslike as Ines, a woman whose role is to look tall, thin and rich and charm the wealthy women and men they interact with, rendering this “private banking” personal.

And Geretto stands out in the supporting cast, an oily, blunt speaker of harsh judgments about his countrymen, even those who use his services.

Fontana’s tale is austere, quiet and posh, mirroring the world he’s depicting. There’s enough mystery here to hold our interest. Still, as we count up the mysterious off-camera figures in it — Keys, a rival banker Lutz and the sinister name scribbled on a note left by Keys, the soldier Lazaro — one can’t help but be reminded of “The Third Man” and think Fontana neglects the core mystery and leaves the stakes entirely too low, or at least removed from this world of money and connections.

We see no shootings, no disappearances. There is little in the line of surprise appearances, and De Wiel’s quest is more vague than directed. The coda has a punch and comes completely out of the blue, yet could have used more build up.

But “Azor” is still riveting entertainment and dispiriting in its “It happened there, is it happening here?” allegories. If you aren’t chilled by the consequences of this coup, you must think Jan. 6 was “a normal tourist visit.” Here’s what happens if the next one succeeds, and they come for you.

Rating: unrated

Cast: Fabrizio Rongione, Stéphanie Cléau, Juan Pablo Geretto

Credits: Scripted and directed by Andreas Fontana. A Mubi release.

Running time:

Every documentary filmmaker’s first major hurdle is finding a subject worthy of the intense labor, spread over what is often a prolonged period of time, a subject that’s novel enough that it will stand out in a tsunami of documentaries that are finished and unleashed on the public in a given year.

I am pitched upwards of 50 documentaries a month, producers, publicists and filmmakers desperate for a review, a little recognition and a chance their film will get noticed as it reaches public presentation.

With major streaming services like Netflix and HBO, Hulu and Amazon picking them up for distribution, there’s at least a better chance of getting your story out there and seen these days.

“Hood River” is about an Oregon high school’s soccer team, the way its coach, Jaime Rivera, tries to blend the disparate players from a student body of white affluence and LatinX immigrant working poor into winners, year after year.

Yes, it seems like 240 other sports dramas, comedies and documentaries we’ve seen before it. Even the story arc, taking us through a season of lopsided wins and serious tests, has the ring of the familiar. If you’ve seen enough sports movies, you can guess where this is going, how it all will play out and who will be the hero or goat when the payoff hits.

It’s that limply predictable. Even the jolt of a kid’s father being caught, “sent to immigration jail” and deported, seems like an ingredient in a formula.

The film’s narrow focus circumscribes its reach and aims. On the field it’s somewhat interesting, off the field somewhat less. And neither plays as anything particularly new.

What’s more, it’s the first cinema verite/fly-on-the-wall documentary I’ve seen in ages that makes you painfully aware that there’s a camera in the room impacting how ordinary people — kids and their coach — behave.

The PG-party scene feels real (ish), and the Hood River Valley High Eagles games and practices have their own drama and meltdowns. Some of the home life scenes have an invisible-camera vibe. Then there’s the illegal immigrant father’s melodramatic pep talk with his son, the tall, wealthy white kid’s painfully awkward, might-not-have-been-his-idea visit with an immigrant teammate’s family so that the team captain can feel like a “leader.”

The financially-strapped immigrant family books a flight so that the son can fly down to visit deported Dad in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico. With a film crew in tow. Did the production pay for everybody’s flight?

Needless to say, whatever drama “Hood River” delivers, I didn’t buy it.

There’s built-in suspense in the ups and downs of any sports movie, something that explains the ongoing appeal of this or that sport — the idea that “anything can happen” in the one entertainment we all partake in that isn’t scripted.

The trouble with “Hood River” is that it feels scripted and pre-ordained, even if it isn’t.

Rating: unrated, profanity

Cast: Domingo “Mingo” Barraga, Jaime Rivera, Saul Chavarria, Angel Sonato and Erik Siekkinen

Credits: Directed by Steven Cantor and Jonathan Field. A Gravitas Ventures release.

Running time: 1:21

Here’s a little Pandemic-ish horror set in the Hotel Roosevelt, the venerable Hollywood landmark.

Not a lot of star power in this Sept. 14 release, but that setting…that set up.

Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor;Joy and Terrence Stamp reconnect us with a dreamy, then nightmarish vision of London in the Swinging 60s. Stamp actually cut quite a figure on Mod London. This looks dazzling.

An October release.

Mike Mills (“Beginners,” “Twentieth Century Women”) directed this monochromatic A24 release, using several recognizably romanticized childhood locales — NYC to Venice Beach — a road trip a father takes with his little boy.

Before “Ted Lasso,” Sudeikis was typecast as a smarmy douche in film after film, TV guest shots, too.

In this Oct. 8 release, he plays an ex con who longs to give the great love of his life one last great year.

She’s played by Evangeline Lilly, and her character is dying of cancer.

Sudeikis is getting a shot at a different career arc and a wider range of characters, if nothing else. Thanks, Hulu.

Phoenix friends set up a massive grocery store coupon scam, raking in tens of millions and spending like drug lords until they bring down a massive Federal tactical response in “Queenpins,” a caper comedy overflowing with dark farce possibilities.

The script lured former “Veronica Mars” co-stars Kristen Bell and Kirby Howell-Baptiste, as well as Vince Vaughn, Joel McHale, Stephen Root, Bebe Rexha, Jack McBrayer and Paul Walter Hauser of “I, Tonya” and “Richard Jewell.”

It’s got adorable not-dumb but hardly brilliant criminal masterminds, oafish over-eager corporate “loss prevention” and (postal) law enforcement, coupon stealing and money laundering, Lamborghini collecting and arms dealing.

And after all these balls are tossed in the air, writers/directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly (“Beneath the Harvest Sky”) make a nearly complete hash of things. A promising set-up, a bouncy first act, some fun performances, and the whole enterprise goes off the rails.

“Inspired by actual events” (a $40 million bust in 2012), our story is narrated by the perky, obsessive Connie Kaminsky (Bell), a Phoenix housewife and retired Olympic gold medalist race-walker who has thrown herself into couponing.

And of all the things to invent for your fictionalized version of a “pink collar” criminal mastermind, that there is a doozy. Was it to flatter Bell into taking the role?

Connie is couponing buddy with neighbor JoJo (Howell-Baptiste), a bubbly, failed-saleswoman, hard-luck would-be entrepreneur and Youtube “personal brand” builder who does videos about couponing as the SavvySuperSaver, “the savior of saving.”

They both love the thrill of watching a supermarket receipt subtracting price after price until that final total prints out and they can take home what one cashier calls “your trophy.”

They’re both experts at what a “six month stock up price” is for this or that product, and are willing to dumpster dive for proof of purchase boxes to feed their mania.

“Watch the pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves!”

And yes, both women have their sad reasons for this compulsion.

It isn’t until Connie learns the rewards of writing strong letters of complaint to assorted food and household product empires that they see a bigger score — reselling those “free” coupons such companies send out to maintain customer loyalty among the disgruntled.

And that’s what points them to Chihuahua, Mexico, where the coupons are printed and also processed, the promise of NAFTA at work. When Connie pushes them to figure out how to steal those coupons, smuggle them home and sell them illegally, they have their caper.

“Sounds bad when you say it like that!”

All that’s left is selling them online and stuffing cash into empty Pampers boxes.

They’re going to need help avoiding getting caught. That comes from identity theft queen Tempe Tina (singer/actress Bebe Rexha). And if you’re laundering money, why not spend it on high-end guns, the kind that go up in value when you see them in a film?

“No better commercial for a gun than a John Wick movie!”

Hauser, who is making a career out of playing law-enforcement wannabes, is the “Let’s cut to the Chevy Chase” loss prevention officer who can’t quite piece this all together. Vaughn is the Postal Policeman who gets interested when the FBI (Root) laughs off the crime. And McHale plays Connie’s tightwad, always-on-the-road/never-the-wiser IRS auditor husband.

With so much to work with, the writers/directors have trouble figuring out the tone and who and what to direct our attention to.

Our heroines aren’t heroic, but not enough is made of their desperation and no effort is given to making them identifiable and sympathetic. They’re cute together, but the “Robin Hood” ethos is a hard sell.

Better to have locked-down on the nuts-and-bolts logistics of low rent larceny and made our leading ladies dizzier and luckier — let their mistakes be more obvious, their downfall more comically suspenseful.

Their first meeting with “Tempe Tina,” involving blindfolds and a drive into the night for a secret rendezvous could have been tense comic gold, but is so ineptly-handled it should have been cut.

Vaughn and Hauser are co-starring in a crude, cut-rate “We’re not partners” cop-buddy picture with a few lowball laughs tossed around. And they’re the comic standouts in the cast. Bell and Howell-Baptiste never quite come off as comical as their characters seem destined to be.

The “sell guns to Arizona militia nuts” with their Proud Boys’ guts seems a lot more chilling now than when this was filmed, and might have taken me right out of the movie if it hadn’t lost me several scenes earlier.

All these complications make for a cluttered script that staggers towards a long-overdue and anticlimactic finish. And the epilogue is an unnecessary afterthought.

The first act of “Queenpins” makes you giddy at the comic possibilities, but the finale is the final straw in the letdown it too-quickly becomes.

Rating: R for language (profanity) throughout.

Cast: Kristen Bell, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Paul Walter Hauser, Bebe Rexha, Joel McHale, Stephen Root and Vince Vaughn

Credits: Scripted and directed by Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly. An STX release.

Running time: 1:50

This is Kosovo’s official Oscar entry in the Best International Feature category. Yes, it’s about beekeeping. It opens Nov. 12.