Movie review by Greg Carlson

Edgar Wright — the subject of his own cult of fandom — knows a thing or two about obsessive devotion to odds and ends of pop culture. And with “The Sparks Brothers,” the filmmaker’s first feature-length foray into nonfiction, Wright applies the same attention to detail and supercharged storytelling that he brings to his fiction worlds. Built to impress longtime listeners and new ears alike, Wright’s love letter to Ron and Russell Mael — the Southern California brothers whose idiosyncratic and influential records have been part of the art pop landscape for half a century (!) — complements the sensibilities of the masterminds behind glories like “Kimono My House” and “Angst in My Pants.”

Like the famous quotation (often attributed to Brian Eno) that “not a lot of people bought the first Velvet Underground album, but everyone who did started a band,” Sparks has inspired a wide variety of recording artists who gained greater levels of fame and fortune. From the Sex Pistols to Bjork, Sonic Youth to Duran Duran, Joy Division to the Human League, Ween to Weird Al, and Beck to Depeche Mode, generations of performers fell under the spell of the Mael blend of wickedly arch wordplay and shimmering, rhythmic synth lines.

Wright lines up a murderer’s row of effusive admirers eager and willing to describe the ways in which Sparks blew minds and broke hearts. Jane Wiedlin (hail “Cool Places”), Flea, Jason Schwartzman, Alex Kapranos, and dozens of others contribute in the talking head department, and the anecdotes shared are as delightful and funny as “The Number One Song in Heaven” or “Thank God It’s Not Christmas.” My own first Sparks experience was hearing “Eaten by the Monster of Love” underscoring a classic scene in “Valley Girl,” which I first saw on a tiny television that was temporarily allowed in my junior high bedroom because I was sick and out of school for a few days.

Throughout the film, Wright leans heavily on the band’s massive collection of archival audio and video to drive the epic tale forward. The striking visuals designed by the Maels — from album covers to television appearances — radiate from the distinctive looks cultivated by Ron and Russell. Ron’s small brush mustache evokes both Chaplin and Hitler, a point which Wright appropriately explores alongside the heartthrob curls and blistering, androgynous falsetto of Russell. The distinctive stage presence of the pair was captured on “American Bandstand” and “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” for thousands of kids who never had the opportunity to see them live.

Sparks also made music videos before MTV was a thing, and Wright takes obvious joy uncorking so many clips of their innovative and expressive short films. Applying the weird science of collage and cut-out animation and the puppet and stop-motion work of Joseph Wallace, who directed the lovely “Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)” for Sparks in 2017, Wright evangelizes as much as possible throughout the film’s generous 140 minute running time. Even though Ron and Russell never quite achieved the complete mainstream success or superstardom they deserved, their legendary status has long been cemented by fierce individuality, bold experimentation, and artistic integrity.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Horror hounds and those who — like me — are attracted to movies about movies will appreciate “Censor,” an intriguing but uneven period piece. The feature debut of director and co-writer Prano Bailey-Bond, the film is set initially within the drab offices of the group of professionals responsible for assigning film ratings during the 1980s “video nasty” phenomenon in Great Britain. Despite the potential to showcase outrageous practical effects and the onscreen depiction of blunt-force trauma and tool-assisted mayhem in tribute to artifacts like “The Driller Killer” and “I Spit on Your Grave,” Bailey-Bond demonstrates a greater interest in the psychological dimensions of her protagonist’s crucible.

Niamh Algar plays buttoned-up Enid Baines, a smart and thoughtful censor who takes seriously the work of determining what violence and gore might be left in place before any given movie to which she has been assigned can be “passed” and made legally available for public consumption. Beyond the initial act, Bailey-Bond does not explore the British Board of Film Censors (later British Board of Film Classification) and the evolution of low-budget, independent horror and exploitation moviemaking that triggered concern in the first place. “Censor” nods to the video rental store culture of the era but does not indulge it or embrace it.

Instead, the tantalizing possibility of a direct personal connection to Enid — she starts to wonder whether a performer in a sadistic film under review could be her missing sister — aligns the movie with tropes concerning the main character’s grip on reality. Enid’s willingness to go down that rabbit hole is reminiscent in a certain way of Harry Caul in “The Conversation.” “Censor” is nowhere near as good or as satisfying as Coppola’s beloved film, but both movies feast on personal second-guessing, paranoia, and the possibility of real danger. They also share an affection for analog technology and the power of interpreting and/or misinterpreting recordings of what we think we see and hear.

Enid might be akin to a Final Girl as she navigates her personal downward spiral and descends deep into the mystery of the film within the film (called “Don’t Go in the Church” with spot-on video nasty authenticity). And Bailey-Bond handles with confidence a number of solid scenes, including a creepy encounter with an odious and sleazy producer played with relish by Michael Smiley. Also effective is the tension between Enid and her grieving parents. The painful decision to get on with their lives by finally taking the step to have their long-departed child declared legally dead is a sobering reality check for the skeptical and frustrated Enid.

There is enough dark humor in “Censor” to avoid arguments that the filmmaker is taking it all too seriously, but Bailey-Bond carefully modulates the tone to achieve her desired outcome, which has led some to complain that there isn’t enough splatter to capitalize on the premise. Had “Censor” managed both Enid’s personal nightmare and wrestled more deliberately with some of the moral questions posed by the title, viewers might have been inclined to initiate conversations about the horror genre’s traditions of transgression.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Theo Anthony’s thought-provoking Sundance Special Jury Award prizewinner “All Light, Everywhere” ponders a great many questions joining past and present, perception and reality, and beholder and beheld. Among its fascinating explorations is the link between the development of photographic processes and their application in the arenas of warfare and policing. Anthony contemplates the ways in which the design of the camera and the gun share several disturbing traits — extending well beyond the basic idea that both machines “shoot” when a trigger is engaged.

Constructed as a highly intelligent, highly inquisitive stream-of-consciousness personal essay, “All Light Everywhere” succeeds on the basis of Anthony’s editorial choices; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which by themselves constitute several chapters or mini-documentaries capable of dropping one’s jaw. If Anthony’s second feature can be distilled to a single penetrating thesis question, it has something to do with the “truth” of the photographed image. We have long been taught to accept the shaky premise that the camera records and transposes the objectively “real.”

Anthony is not the first theorist to shred that assumption, but the reason that “All Light, Everywhere” merits careful attention has much to do with the film’s timeliness. As America continues to be choked by routine gun violence and murders of citizens by the very police officers sworn to protect and serve them, the film upends the argument that body cameras and the data they capture benefit and safeguard the taxpayer by holding law enforcement to some degree of accountability.

A visit to Arizona-based Axon Enterprise, Inc. supplies one of the movie’s meatiest segments. Rebranded from TASER International, Inc. (the original acronym referenced Tom Swift’s Electric Rifle as described in a 1911 novel for young adults), Axon not only manufactures and markets electroshock weapons and user-worn cameras, it has expanded into the “cloud-based digital evidence management system” Evidence.com, a rather ominous repository of the images captured by organizations outfitted with Axon cameras. The implications of this technology-driven, information-based phenomenon and the inevitability of the perpetuation of unchecked racist and classist institutional power send an icy chill up the spine.

Anthony’s level of access to Axon, as seen through the slick and eager salesmanship of executive Steve Tuttle, at first seems almost too good to be true. Why, we wonder, would this company be so willing to open its doors to a filmmaker whose point of view is almost certain to oppose Axon’s well-practiced rhetorical jargon? The answer may have to do with Axon’s commanding perch within the industry and its Orwellian doublespeak concerning a definition of “transparency” quite some distance away from the objectivity implied by the use of the word.

“All Light, Everywhere” is itself an artifact of our culture of observation and monitoring — something not lost on Anthony as his crew attends a Baltimore community meeting in which Ross McNutt from Persistent Surveillance Systems attempts to sell understandably skeptical neighbors on the “value” of constant aerial recordings of the streets below. Anthony integrates these contemporary illustrations with doses of history, from motion studies to military pigeons to mug shots, that connect the dots with almost cosmic sweep.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Another movie long-delayed by the pandemic, “Saint Maud” can finally be viewed on Amazon Prime and several other online outlets (the world premiere took place a lifetime ago at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival). Writer-director Rose Glass makes a convincing feature debut with an unsettling study of a personal carer who obsessively ministers — in every sense of the word — to a professional dancer ravaged by cancer. The subject matter is pitch black, but Glass is smart enough not to take herself too seriously. “Saint Maud” is as funny as it is grim.

“Saint Maud” has been favorably compared to an impressive roster of memorable films both old and new, including “Carrie,” “Under the Skin,” “The Witch,” “Persona,” “Taxi Driver,” and “The Exorcist.” Parallels to these movies and several others are most certainly present, even if “Saint Maud” is not nearly as strong or as brilliant as its direct and indirect inspirations. As Katie/Maud, Morfydd Clark immediately conveys a blend of self-disciplined piety and roiling inner conflict that links her to characters as far apart as Carrie White and Travis Bickle. Her willingness to veer from the truth — like the name change to distance herself from a recent work-related catastrophe — signals deeper trouble.

Glass asks the audience to wonder about the details that derailed Maud’s previous job and brought her so quickly to an intense devotion to Roman Catholicism. The young woman bonds with new patient Amanda Kohl, played by the reliably great Jennifer Ehle, and the change in venue from institution to private home intensifies the anxiousness and foreboding. Glass increasingly toys with the line separating the real from the supernatural, and when we see or hear things — does that creepy voice that speaks to Maud in Welsh come from God or the Devil? — we still find room to empathize with our lonely and desperate protagonist.

Sure, “Saint Maud” can be called a horror film, but it is equally a psychological drama that gets a lot of mileage from a tried and true trope: the shifting power dynamics in a superior/subordinate relationship. Maud is Amanda’s nurse and also Amanda’s employee. And yet, Amanda’s diminished physical condition means that Maud can wield control in many situations. Glass manipulates the audience by withholding the concrete and emphasizing the abstract. To what extent does Maud dream about the kind of life Amanda once enjoyed as a vibrant performing artist? Are Maud’s acts of self-flagellation for penitence or sexual gratification?

Yet another link to modern pop culture is the presence of William Blake, and particularly Blake’s image “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun.” Like Francis Dolarhyde in the Thomas Harris novel “Red Dragon” (and its cinematic adaptations), Maud experiences a kind of inspirational, transcendent ecstasy upon encountering Blake’s hallucinatory interpretation of events described in the Book of Revelation. The many contrasts probed in “Saint Maud” — good and evil, belief and atheism, celibacy and liberation — are starkly compared and contrasted in the differences between Maud and Amanda. Each woman imagines she might be able to build a persuasive argument. Each woman underestimates the other.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Hard to say whether non-cinephiles will be interested enough to watch a feature-length documentary about a movie critic, but Rob Garver’s “What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael” is a worthwhile biography of a fascinating life led with purpose and conviction. Of course, the film-obsessed won’t need to be told twice — Kael’s passionate, singular voice inspired moviemakers and movie viewers for decades. If Roger Ebert is the best-known American film critic of the last century, then Kael is certainly the most influential.

Garver draws heavily from the career highs and lows detailed in the late Brian Kellow’s top-notch 2011 book “Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark,” and that’s more than enough to provide the film with a complete supply of devilishly entertaining anecdotes and a solid structure. While it may seem impossible in the fractured landscape of today’s internet for one writer to wield enough power to make a film’s fortunes, Kael’s impact astonishes.

The section on “Last Tango in Paris” — in the running with “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Nashville” as her most famous rave (see her notes on “The Sound of Music,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Blade Runner,” and “Shoah” for the flipside) — illustrates the extent to which Kael’s enthusiasm could lift a movie’s commercial prospects. Her full “Last Tango” review, in which she links Bertolucci’s controversial film to the “hypnotic excitement” of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” was used as the advertising campaign in a two-page New York Times Sunday spread.

Molly Haskell, who happened to be married to Kael rival Andrew Sarris, wonders aloud why Pauline would defend a movie that was so “artificial, forced, calculated, ugly, [and] unerotic.” Some have accused Garver of crafting a hagiography, but they miss one of the film’s most thrilling dimensions: the presence of those with whom Kael disagreed and those she stabbed with the razor-sharp tip of her poison-dipped pen. The clip in which David Lean admits to having his confidence shaken by Kael’s cruelty is poignant, no matter what you think of “Lawrence of Arabia.”

Plenty of directors and stars feared Kael’s reactions to their movies, and Garver includes an entertaining montage of personal letters written (by the likes of Steven Spielberg, Jessica Lange, Kevin Bacon, Carol Burnett, and many others) in the hope of maintaining favor or just making a connection with the fierce cinema savant. The titles of her books — “I Lost It at the Movies,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” “When the Lights Go Down” — cheekily allude to the seductive, sexual pull offered by the filmgoing experience. How many of us studied those collections carefully and closely, along with each must-read piece in The New Yorker?

Even though Garver is faced with the challenging task of balancing the personal components of Kael’s life and the professional examination of her peculiar vision for the cinema, he finds a rhythm and settles into it. Kael’s movie-mad minions will gobble up the latter, made all the more tantalizing by dozens of scenes from the films she championed or throttled. There are plenty of talking heads, including Kael’s eloquent and indispensable daughter Gina James, but “What She Said” is most alive and electrifying when Garver uses old radio and television clips of the critic speaking for herself.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As tantalizing subject matter goes, the topic of Marilyn Agrelo’s “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street” is as much a slam dunk as Morgan Neville’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” Even though the 107-minute documentary sticks mainly to the contents of Michael Davis’s excellent 2008 book, which was published in anticipation of the show’s 40th anniversary in 2009, fans will not fault Agrelo’s tough editorial choices. The director has so much material from which to select, nothing in “Street Gang” feels wasted, out of place, or inessential. Viewers who grew up on the series will enjoy both a heady wave of childhood memories and a fresh, behind-the-scenes perspective on American television’s most influential children’s educational program.

The most devoted will have opinions on the right way to divide up the credit for the show’s success, and one of the most satisfying aspects of Agrelo’s film is the manner in which she thoughtfully considers so many of the players central to the development of “Sesame Street.” People will likely come for Jim Henson and Frank Oz and the Muppets, but stay for Joan Ganz Cooney and Jon Stone and Christopher Cerf and Joe Raposo and several original cast members whose anecdotes point to the scope and scale and ambition of the endeavor. Agrelo has a terrific feel for the various layers that define “Sesame Street,” and articulates the value of the iconoclastic, subversive, and progressive elements baked into the enterprise.

You won’t find any sustained critiques of well-meaning white liberalism in Agrelo’s film, but the director handles the socio-political dimensions of “Sesame Street” with clarity. Obviously, the diversity of the cast, the urban setting, the recognition and inclusion of the Spanish language, and the basic respect for multiculturalism were inspired by and adjacent to Joan Ganz Cooney’s feelings about the civil rights movement. Agrelo includes a reminder that “Sesame Street” was briefly dropped from Mississippi airwaves (see Jake Rossen’s “Mental Floss” article for a deeper dive). Not everyone shared the love.

And to underscore the adage that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, Agrelo lights up the story of Matt Robinson. Spanning only a few pages in the Davis book, Robinson’s importance to early “Sesame Street” could have been easily overlooked in the film. For seasons one through three, Robinson portrayed Gordon — the very first person introduced in the initial scene in the inaugural episode — with what Davis describes as “a near-perfect blend of urban cool and downtown sophistication.” Robinson would also create the controversial Roosevelt Franklin, the proud and soulful Muppet that, according to his critics, reinforced negative stereotypes.

Agrelo instinctively settles into a rhythm that ties together such a massive undertaking. Legendary milestones, like the handling of Mr. Hooper-portrayer Will Lee’s death, have been thoroughly covered elsewhere, but receive the proper and necessary respect one would expect. In 2014, Caroll Spinney was the subject of his own feature documentary, “I Am Big Bird,” but it’s impossible to imagine a wide-ranging history without addressing the one-two punch of the giant yellow avian and the irritable green trash-lover. Don’t be surprised if “Street Gang” leaves you wanting more — that’s often the mark of something special. I’m ready for full-length cinematic treatments of Henson’s infinitely creative experimental short films, the performances of the celebrated musicians and guest stars who stopped by to say hello, and a biography of Count von Count performer Jerry Nelson.

For the record, the Count is my favorite Muppet. I’d like to hear about yours.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Talented hyphenate Ben Hozie breaks through with “PVT Chat,” an audacious and exciting low-budget, NYC indie sure to generate equal measures of interest and controversy for its onscreen depictions of graphic masturbation. Hozie, the guitarist and vocalist of Bodega, serves as the movie’s director, writer, cinematographer, and editor. Sparking with “going-nowhere-fast” energy that parallels the urgency and big risks of “Uncut Gems,” Hozie’s film is something of a companion piece to the Josh and Benny Safdie showcase. Along with the familiar face of Buddy Duress, the presence of Julia Fox — who made her feature film debut playing Howard Ratner’s inamorata Julia in “Uncut Gems” —  links the two movies.

The onscreen title “PVT Chat: A Romance About Freedom Fantasy Death Friendship” promises something more substantive than a strictly prurient piece of exploitation. And although it aims for a different vibe and tone than the Isa Mazzei-written, Daniel Goldhaber-directed “Cam,” the film joins a short but expanding list of titles examining the constantly-evolving world of computer-mediated sex work. Peter Vack’s Jack represents many young men telling tall tales and constructing identity in real time inside the virtual realm of the internet. Jack mainly switches between online poker and cam girls. He develops feelings for domme Scarlet (Fox), who expertly indulges Jack’s submissive yearnings.

Unlike so many mainstream cinematic depictions of BDSM and kink that treat the subjects as an easy joke, near-criminal aberrance/deviance, a source of embarrassment and shame, or a combination of all of the above, Hozie presents the lusty releases with matter-of-fact directness. Vack’s uninhibited performance is matched by Fox’s own fearlessness, and deep into the story Hozie surprises with a major shift in point-of-view that asks the viewer to reorient previously established attitudes about the transactional nature of Jack and Scarlet’s relationship. By opening the door to a consideration of Scarlet’s desires, Hozie both humanizes her and explores how online space is complicated by IRL actions.

In an excellent consideration of “PVT Chat” for “Paste,” Mary Beth McAndrews writes, “Self-pleasure has become prioritized over real life connections — illustrating intimacy’s shift from physical contact to an ethereal, individual experience built upon fantasies.” In one sense, this statement alludes to the way in which Hozie’s movie belongs to a tradition of self-reflexive cinema. In another, it makes a strong case for the film’s credulity-stretching coincidences and connections that have raised the eyebrows and ire of less charitable critics. Like the movie or lump it, Hozie nails the greener-grass metaphor with a clarity that reminded me of the last lines of James Joyce’s “Araby.”

The “unsimulated” (a loaded word, to be sure) capture of certain acts places “PVT Chat” in a fraternity of provocative movies that includes Michael Winterbottom’s “9 Songs” and several works by Catherine Breillat and Gaspar Noe. Hozie, however, expresses love and sympathy for art-makers of all kinds. He understands the grind required to pay the bills and the way the hustle spills from one kind of survival to another. The biographies of both Fox and Vack boast bona fides that sharpen the verisimilitude. Both performers can point to artistic projects that extend beyond screen performance. Add to that Fox’s once-upon-a-time experience working as a dominatrix and “PVT Chat” feels like an inside job.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Validated and legitimized by a kind of inflated imprimatur as an episode in “The New York Times Presents” series, filmmaker Samantha Stark’s “Framing Britney Spears” is a frustrating piece of lopsided speculation that never quite does enough to investigate and interrogate the horrifying treatment experienced by its subject as a young woman in the spotlight. In other words, the nonfiction celebrity exposé risks becoming the thing it may set out to critique: a sensationalized provocation long on gossip and short on complexity. It doesn’t help that Spears did not participate in the production, but did anyone expect her to do so?

To Stark’s credit, the film’s straightforward chronology presents an overview of the pop star’s classic American success story that capably explains the appeal of the determined kid from small-town Louisiana as she rockets to fame and fortune. The film might have focused on the ways in which Spears was chewed up and spit out by an industrial machine that exacts incalculable costs from children treated too quickly as adults. Accelerated sexualization and the brutal demands of generating wealth and income for both corporate master and a small army of employees and family members are grim conditions that go back to the beginning of modern Hollywood.

In a landscape in which the recent past is being scrutinized for misogyny, double standards, and interactions that have aged like milk, Spears earns sympathy and respect she never received during the time she was constantly assailed with questions about her body, her sexuality, her authenticity, her morals, her character, and her motivations. Stark has no trouble pointing to multiple examples of how Spears was bullied on camera by the likes of Diane Sawyer and Matt Lauer, not to mention the non-famous “journalists,” mostly much older and male, who asked all kinds of nonsense.

After Spears and Justin Timberlake ended their romantic relationship, an anti-Britney narrative quickly cast her as the villain, the cheater, the heartbreaker. But once the story arrives at the low points in the saga (the so-called “downfall”), exemplified by the hellish omnipresence of the paparazzi following the birth of Spears’s children, Stark turns her attention to two ideas that deserve more thoughtful and thorough treatment than the movie can adequately address: the permanent legal conservatorship allowing Britney’s father James “Jamie” Spears control over her healthcare and finances and the so-called “Free Britney” movement that trips over unsourced and unverified conspiracies as much as it provides genuine support for the singer’s autonomy and independence.

The best aspects of “Framing Britney Spears” are implicit while the least effective parts are explicit. And in the absence of direct comment from Spears, Stark surely could have used more evenhanded and considerate interview subjects. The episode’s most reasoned commentator is former MTV personality Dave Holmes, who demonstrates an understanding of the ways in which superfans project all kinds of desires through close identification with a celebrity. Watching “Framing Britney Spears,” I thought about Margo Jefferson’s “On Michael Jackson” and imagined what the film might have been like had Stark taken Jefferson’s approach.