Movie Nation

Labor activists and just plain working folks might look with envy overseas, to France, where work weeks are shorter and life can be better when unions battle management.

The truth, as recreated in the new film from Stéphane Brizé (“The Measure of a Man”), is grimmer and grittier, drawn-out. Where foreign news media might summarize the final score of a strike, who won and who lost, the battle itself is harrowing, fraying and exhausting.

That’s what the docudrama “En Guerre” (“At War”) captures. It’s a gripping and glum account of the ebb and flow of a strike in an era when all the power lies with management, and too much of the media sympathy lies with ownership — stockholders.

Vincent Lindon of “The Apparition” and “The Measure of a Man” stars as Laurent Amédéo, a working man and union rep fighting for his and the 1100 other jobs that will be lost when a German-owned auto-parts conglomerate closes their factory in high-unemployment Agen.

The 60ish Lindon has to get across the wearying nature of the struggle, the energy burned in combative union meetings, trying to keep the workers united, and in arduous negotiations with a company that will not be swayed from closing the factory by reason, economics, government pleading or the courts.

Le Perrin Industries is still making a profit, just not enough to prop up the big dividends that they keep handing out. Two years of labor concessions later, they’re pulling the plug.

Laurent and Mélanie Rover and their team go round and round with the plant’s manager (Jacques Borderie), trying to get them to honor their five year commitment, agreed to when concessions were given by labor.

No dice.

But Laurent has absorbed the words of the film’s opening title, (in French, with English subtitles) “Whoever fights, can lose. Whoever does not fight has already lost.”

“At War” follows this struggle for months, through losses of faith, fractures in the “united front” of workers, through scrums with riot police and factory takeovers and workers unloading on a government that always acts in the best interests of business.

Several players in the drama are not actors and use their real names, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of the crocodile tears that Borderie, actually an elected official, cries when he assures Laurent and Mélanie (actually a welder) and their team that “It’s not workers against bosses any more. We’re all in the same boat.”

Other “suits” declare, “”That grief that you feel, we managers feel it too.”

But Laurent and Melanie are testy and firm — “We kept our word,” she says. “You keep yours.”

They gave up millions in added labor and lost bonuses to allow the company to thrive, but that cash was paid out in stock dividends and management pay, or so the workers see it.

Their contract is binding only until the company decides to bail out of it, the French courts rule. And damned if the president doesn’t figure that getting involved “would be counter-productive.”

We never hear “Thoughts and prayers,” or see it in the subtitles. But you can feel it.

Brizé intercuts the bracing debates with TV report point-of-view footage of the workers marching, manning picket lines, taking over headquarters and bickering over strategy as the weeks become months and stout hearts waver.

A pulsing electronic score paces these scenes, and Brizé parks his camera halfway behind pillars or other figures, giving “At War” the feel of footage grabbed on the fly and on the sly, as this battle unfolds.

The union leaders try to correct violent extremes in each others’ behavior, but there’s desperation in every talking-over-each-other shouting match.

The factions that break out deride Laurent for “prancing on the evening news,” but when they start to cave in, he spits his own accusations and warnings back at them.

“You’ve got a shovel to dig your own grave!”

There’s energy and pace in this film, despite the fact that it’s mostly talk, conversations carried out at a shout.

Plodding along — despairing — as it does, “At War” wearies the viewer much as the activists themselves are worn down. But that’s the idea. We can talk the “Stay strong, stay together” talk all we want, but until you’ve been faced with ruin, a gutted future and a desperate present, you just won’t know.

When the inevitable eruption comes, we can only shake our heads and wonder if that kind of direct consequences for callous, mercenary corporate behavior, would have any impact in the U.S.

Maybe, “At War” dares us to consider, the “fight” is all we have left, even if the war itself is lost.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, profanity

Cast: Vincent Lindon, Melanie Rover, Jacques Borderie, David Rey, Olivier Lemaire

Credits: Directed by Stéphane Brizé, script by Stéphane Brizé, Olivier Gorce.

A Cinema Libre release.

Running time: 1:54

This French drama, from the director of “The Measure of a Man,” is about a strike — the breakdown in negotiations that lead to it — opens in limited release July 19 and 26.

A movie about working people struggling in an era when all power, political and economic, is in the hands of corporations and their stockholders.

In an alternate, perhaps more just universe, the career of deadpan comic Marc Maron might have been just a tad less quixotic.

A hit sitcom (not this) or long-running chat show hosting gig, a movie here and there, a household name without having to labor through years of failures and a last-ditch podcast taped in his garage.

But that Marc Maron might never have filmed the dopey, double-down deadpan “Sword of Trust,” a no budget farce filmed in Birmingham, Alabama. He might never have swapped testy banter with Michaela Watkins and Jillian Bell, or been upstaged by the hilarious Toby Huss.

He might never have starred on THE indie comedy of the summer.

“Sword” is an oddball deep dive into a Deep South that has gotten over some things, and not gotten over too many others. It’s about legacy, family, the responsibility of true love and the bitter aftertaste “The War of Northern Aggression” has left with a few too many “Duck Dynasty” types.

The characters feel real, the situations not that-far-fetched, and the dialogue has the halting, fresh-picked life of improvisation, a tribute to the script by “mumblecore” mistress Lynn Shelton, who also directed, and Michael Patrick O’Brien of “Saturday Night Live.”

No lie, it is laugh out loud funny.

Maron plays Mel, longtime proprietor of Delta Pawn. He seems honest, which in his profession, is half the battle.

“What, you gonna try and sell this yourself? They’re used,” he tells a customer pawning some fancy boots. “You need the money.”

“You’re not screwing me?” the guy wants to know.

“Not screwing you.”

Well, maybe.

Mel’s weathered, world-weary true colors come through via later visitors to the shop. There’s Deirdre (director/co-writer Shelton), a 40ish waif and “poet” who has “AA” written all over her, and of course needs money. They have history, but that isn’t going to sway Mel.

“Swear to God, I’m good for it.”

“You’re NOT good for it.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Isn’t it?”

And then there’s Cynthia and Mary, who show up with a Civil War (“War of Northern Aggression”) sword.

It’s all Cynthia’s (Jillian Bell of “Office Christmas Party,” “The Night Before” and TV’s “Supermansion”) granddad left her. That, and a long, demented rambling letter and this odd certificate “authenticating” the sword.

It belonged to General Sherman. Or Sheridan. It was surrendered by said Union general at Chickamauga. Or Chickabogga. Something like that.

Mel’s lowball offer, “story, or no story,” won’t do, as Cynthia and Mary are sure it’s worth more, even if they’re not quite down the rabbit hole of the “true believers,” those “Invictusians” in search of the “truth” about how that war some Southerners will only call “The Late Unpleasantness” turned out.

A little Youtube searching by Mel’s otherwise-useless assistant (Jon Bass) convinces him that maybe he needs to up his offer.

“Is this ‘Antiques Road Show for Racists?'”

That leads to a very reluctant partnership. And that’s when good ol’boy Hog Jaw (Huss) shows up and drawls, cusses and struggles mightily against the redneck stereotype that he most certainly is. “Think I was born yesterday?” he says, hearing their “story,” wading through the BS as they inadvertently verify what he firmly believes is history’s attempt to “erode away the real truth” about The War.

That’s about all that’s quotable from Hog Jaw in a profanity-averse review. But suffice it to say, every F-bomb, menacing shrug and look of “You stupid Yankee” befuddlement, every smeared diphthong, or El Camino motor-revving that emanates from Hog Jaw’s ball-capped self is a hoot.

Mel’s “Let’s take these suckers for all they’ve got” strategy starts to seem more dangerous than any other transaction with bearded, belligerent rednecks he’s ever taken part in.

And the ladies? They’re a couple, and they insist on coming along to every drug-dealer styled “meet” the Invictusians and their Big Boss (Dan Bakkedahl ) ordain.

A hallmark of the “mumblecore” movement in indie cinema is the sparkling, quasi-improvised wit of the characters, mouthy “Comfy Chair” fans of “Humpday” (an earlier Shelton film) who talk and talk and talk, and amuse most every time they open their mouths.

Maron handles the style with ease, but Watkins is a damned virtuoso of bitchy banter, making us believe Mary, Cynthia’s life partner, is “not angry with you. You just sort of rub me the wrong way.”

The plot here is a means to an end, adding a layer of Southern social commentary to a comedy about a culture that’s filled with liars and frauds who prey not just on the gullible, the “willing to believe,” but on each other.

Maron, Watkins, Bell, Bakkedahl and especially Huss make everybody in this world as recognizable as that nutty neighbor or Flat Earth uncle we all know and roll our eyes at. And they let us laugh at them.

MPAA Rating: R for language throughout.

Cast: Marc Maron, Jillian Bell, Michaela Watkins, Jon Bass

Credits: Directed by Lynn Shelton, script by Lynn Shelton and Michael Patrick O’Brien. An IFC release.

Running time: 1:29

He’s often said he’d like to do eight or nine did he’s proud of, and then hang it up. We’ve been assuming hel’ll finish that promise with a “Star Trek” or some such final film that he has bandied about, publicly. Now he’s suggesting, “Maybe this is it.’ That’s how The Hollywood Reporter is taking it, anyway.

I think there are already lawyers involved in the “Star Trek’ talk, so I am calling BS on THR’s spin. What Tarantino really wants, as we saw at Cannes, is to be immunized against criticism.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/tarantino-suggests-once-a-time-hollywood-may-be-final-film-1222491

Here I was, all set to hate all over “Trespassers” and leave a mess as I did.

But it delivers such a visceral, pulse-pounding and predictably far-fetched finale that my hate was gone with the wind — almost.

“Trespassers” is an attractive-young-folks trapped in a remote house thriller, menaced from without — SOMEbody wants to get in — and menaced from within.

Angela Trimbur, Zach Avery, Janel Parrish are Jonathan Howard are two young couples, the ladies “high school besties,” the guys utter strangers set to have a “Quien es mas macho?” contest.

Sarah (Trimbur) chose to not do this AirBnB weekend from Hell alone with her husband Joe (Avery). They’ve experienced a loss, and she’s summoned Estelle (Parrish of TV’s “Pretty Little Liars”) and Estelle’s boorish beau Victor (Howard) to this McMansion in the desert.

A little booze, a little coke, a little sex in the hot tub,  “have fun, and forget the world exists for a bit.”

But an opening scene has teased us with the fate of the owners of the house. It wasn’t a happy fate. Sarah’s messing around in their dark room might be a clue as to why they were targeted by masked, gold-toothed, machete-and-pistol-packing Latinos. The owners were photo journalists.

The quartet in the house have just enough time to get irritated with Victor’s bullying, his racist cracks about “border hoppers” and sexist insults about strip clubs, when a stranger calls. Or knocks. As she’s played by Fairuza Balk of “The Craft” and “Valmont” and “Bad Lieutenant,” we question her motives.

“Finding truly kind people in this world is like finding a diamond in a sea of broken glass.”

Why, again, does she need to use their phone? And man, if there’s a screen-written “story” about why anybody needs to use a phone that’s more elaborate or contorted than the Corey Deshon wrote for “The Stranger” here, I’ve forgotten it. Red flags in every line.

“I’m not the Wicked Witch of the West, honey. I’m a neighbor.”

So far, so formulaic, right? But here’s where the “hate” kicks in.

Any time a thriller gets so caught up in dreaming up ways to torture women that we wonder why the torturers don’t stop torturing and, you know, go FIND the “MacGuffin,” the Hitchockian plot contrivance that drives the movie, instead of demanding that their hostages TELL them or “We’ll do this to your eye or THAT to your teeth or leave your friend’s brains spattered all over the wall,” you have to wonder.

Wonder what the director or screenwriter’s beef with women is, wonder if they have mommy/sister/girlfriend/wife issues they might want to work out with a shrink instead of subjecting viewers to their torture porn.

The complex entanglement of relationships among the two couples is of only lukewarm interest, and the drawn-out assault on McMansion in the Mohave so expected that “Trespassers” dissipates the good will and intense interest it needs for its mid-movie twists to come off.

But that finale is a real corker, excruciating in the ways director Orson Oblowitz ratchets up the tension and the expectation of intense suffering and pain. Yes, I’m saying the torture porn, and its resolution, made me squirm.

I hate the genre, can’t stand those genre tropes, and can barely forgive them even when they work.

Balk is the stand-out in a cast of supporting actors (a “Fury” credit here, a “Last Ship” regular, or a recurring “Good Place” character there) given a shot at taking on leads.

Howard has the meatiest role, and impresses as something of a brutish stereotype, and Trimbur gets across intelligence and anguish without straining.

But Corey Deshon’s script is a veritable catalogue of thriller devices, types and worn out situations. Every “cut” and “paste” shows.

And no amount of sex in the hot tub or stabbings in the eye can hide that.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, sex, cocaine and alcohol use

Cast:Angela Trimbur, Zach Avery, Janel Parrish, Jonathan Howard, Fairuza Balk

Credits: Directed by Orson Oblowitz, script by Corey Deshon. An IFC Midnight release.

Running time: 1:27

If I’m honest, and I strive for that in every review, I think I cut the last “Avengers” movie the same slack I cut the last “Pirates of the Caribbean” picture. The last “X-Men” outing? Maybe not as much.

I’m just grateful that the whole shooting match is over, and I summon up every good feeling I’ve had over the run — from the terrific early efforts, to the desultory, repetitive finales — for that one last review of farewell.

Those obsessed with these elaborately back-engineered universes get a lot more out of these filler-filled exercises in fan-service. Like Jon Favreau and Gwyneth Paltrow, I can get a little lost. Unlike them, I’m not inclined to blame myself for the convoluted chaos I’m having to sift through on the screen.

I never bought a superhero comic and despite liking that grand huxter, Stan Lee (interviewed him a few times, delightful), never bought into this Nobel-worthy BS hype attached to all he and his ilk hath wrought.

Honestly, if Joss Whedon and Joe Johnston weren’t involved, if there’s no empowerment messaging in Gal’s character, no convincing WWI recreation, no Kenneth Branagh flourishes in “Thor,” no Paul Rudd or Robert Downey Jr. ways with a witty line, no Jason Momoa self-mocking machismo, I’m fighting boredom in your typical digital barroom brawl from the DC or Marvel SuperheroWorks.

Favreau directed “Iron Man” and has acted in these films and hopes they push Robert Downy Jr. for a superhero movie Oscar nomination, this time out. I wouldn’t be shocked if he landed one.

But all I can think about, as the credits roll and we wait for that silly “Coming NEXT time” movie plug after them, is how I’d much rather see Downey, Don Cheadle, Rudd, Mary Elizabeth Olsen, ScarJo or virtually ANY of these actors in something else.

Chadwick Boseman was in a culture-shifting blockbuster. But has he ever been worse in a movie? Have you SEEN “42,” “Marshall,” “Get on Up?”

Downey tossed away a third of his acting prime on indulgences and drugs, and much of the rest wearing an Iron Man suit. Maybe that upping of his quote and polishing of his “brand” extended his career. Or maybe he’s wasted his leading man window on movies that aren’t fated to age well.

Chris Evans? He’s getting out just in time to remind us of the light comedian he has been and can be, a leading man who can handle romances, dramas, etc.

Nobody should worry about Scarlett Johansson. But she has burned through some good years doing these mindless glorified cameos. Olsen had a great career staked out in indieland. That’s probably gone forever.

Cobie Smulders hasn’t turned her “Avengers” fame into anything non-Marvel worth watching. Samuel L. Jackson has found some side benefits from wearing the eyepatch, but his career’s at that “Any work is worthwhile” stage. Patrick Stewart is likewise benefited greatly from his attachment to the genre, cementing his fanboy status, becoming a pop culture icon (like Jackson) in the bargain.

People know who Tom Holland, Danai Gurira and Zendaya are. Ryan Reynolds has become a household name. Nicholas Hoult may owe his “Tolkien” turn to X-Men, but one is hard-pressed to think of others who have really blown up thanks to their years of service in S.H.I.E.L.D. or Professor Xavier’s school or the “Justice League.”

Michael Fassbender doesn’t need Magneto to make the rent or make his big screen mark. Margo Robbie need never revisit “Suicide Squad.”

Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo and Don Cheadle are interesting cases — turning themselves into household names with these movies. But being in “The Avengers” for them all has been like being drafted was for the WWII generation of actors. Only back then a leading man could have a screen shelf life right up to his 60s. That’s not the case, now.

I follow these fine actors on Twitter, and watch them hustling up return viewers to “Endgame” so it can break the all time box office record. Well, not Cheadle. He’s one of Twitter’s great troll-killers. Follow @DonCheadle if you don’t already.

Renner’s finding good parts, and bad ones, trading on his man-of-action persona. More “Kill the Messenger” and less “Avengers/Mission: Impossible/Hansel & Gretel” would be nice. Instead, there’s a “Hawkeye” TV series. Ugh.

Ruffalo? Man, invest the money, but get back to making movies about something.

Have these guys gotten any sort of career bounce out of tiny parts in time-consuming superhero movies?

Hugh Jackman has made more out of his Wolverine turn than virtually anybody else in any of these movies. But at what cost? He can get a “Prisoners” or “The Front Runner” made, but how many of those did he pass on to grow the sideburns back?

I wonder if there’s a life lesson for actors and agents in these now-aged-out franchises, and the sorts of contracts the players submit to.

Maybe the next James McAvoy won’t agree to anything so open-ended, maybe the Halle Berry/Jennifer Lawrence and yes Ben Affleck model will prove more attractive.

Even the best superhero actors let on how bored they are with their franchises. Jackman, again, might be the exception.

Even if audiences have shown little sign of tiring of these pictures, surely actors who value variety, acclaim for their work above the adoring pre-pleased fanbase and challenges, will want to look at all these names and faces, all that money that changed hands and all those years that were the price of that cash and want something more.

The villains, from Keaton and McKellen all the way to Pfeiffer and Jim Carrey, always had the better deal. One movie, in and out, cash the check.

What could the great Jake Gyllenhaal be thinking?

The one person one can say, without reservations, has taken nothing but benefits from his superhero “Avengers” years is Mr. “Swingers,” Jon Favreau.

His directing career as Disney’s go-to Big Budget guy, his face on screen in most every Iron Man/Avengers movie, it’s been win-win-win for him.

Everybody else, though, might rightly wonder if these were years and movie-making windows well-spent. Is that Comic Con special guest until the day you die status worth it?

Coincidence? This looks…terrific. And empowered and real “year of the woman/Decade of women” sharp.

And how many yuan do you think The Mouse will haul out of China by making it and releasing it there?

A young lady who was born to be much more than “a good wife.”

Next March, we will see what we see.

The latest Tom Holland Web Slinger outing has earned $185 million since Tuesday.

Spider-Man is as bulletproof a franchise as there is. No getting around it.

The decision to open the graphic but only faintly nightmarish “Midsommar” opposite it didn’t help the heavily hyped follow-up to “Hereditary.” Probably didn’t hurt.

I wonder how audiences are taking to it. Reviews have leaned HEAVILY on statements from the director “interpreting” his intent.

Yeah. Caught Justin Chang on NPR doing that, and misstating a plot point or two.

Whenever critics do that, I cringe.

Understandable when the work we see in the screen is challenging, and maybe not remotely as blunt as the director seems to think. But using his “spin” in a review is cheating. The film, as Kubrick always said, has to speak for itself, stand on its own.

“Midsommar” doesn’t.

Note that “The Secret Life of Pets 2” has made twice as much as the very last “Men in Black” we will ever see –$140 to $71, “Aladdin” makes bank, “Avengers” inches toward that “Avatar” record and “Annabelle” is firmly established as the big horror bit of the summer; early summer, late summer and “Midsommar.”

The girl doll has cleared twice as much as Chucky, $50 to $26.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/

Interesting read from The Hollywood Reporter. It used to be cable that gave the Glenn Close/Kyra Sedgwick generations fresh opportunities. Now it is streaming video that has “lifted women of over 40, 50 or 60”

https://t.co/3nWj7Kncsk https://t.co/pYh12zLUng https://twitter.com/THR/status/1147774015794274304?s=17

Let us focus, on this day of its death, on the good Movie Pass did, not on its unsustainable business model.

Theater chains came up with their own discount mass consumption of movies model.

Young people got back in the movie going habit.

So there’s that. via Variety.

“MoviePass on hold amid cash woes” https://t.co/jjoIicbyCV https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1147445082791931906?s=17