Movie review by Greg Carlson

David Fincher lays down plenty of track on the great big electric train set of “Mank,” the filmmaker’s return to the director’s chair after “Gone Girl” in 2014. Depending on one’s interest in the evergreen legend of “Citizen Kane” and the politics of classic Hollywood, mileage may vary, but Fincher’s detailed visual style and an invested performance from Gary Oldman — not to mention the talents of several entertaining supporting players — combine to form yet another purely speculative chapter in the cottage industry of films toying with the mythology of one of the most venerated motion pictures ever made.

Sole screenplay credit on “Mank” is given to Fincher’s late father Jack Fincher. Many have already pointed out that the movie’s focus on Herman J. Mankiewicz erroneously downplays and minimizes the extent to which the script of “Citizen Kane” belonged as much to Welles as it did to Mankiewicz. Traced to Pauline Kael’s controversial — and discredited — essay “Raising Kane,” the rumors favoring Mankiewicz as the real architect of the screenplay known for a time as “American” get another lift here. Tom Burke’s Welles does not loom large.

The presence of and roles for women in this male-dominated industry unfold as one might expect: all of the female characters with speaking parts exist in relation to Mank. Amanda Seyfried’s Marion Davies, in large measure due to the depiction of her surprisingly chummy relationship with the writer, fares better than long-suffering spouse “Poor Sara” (Tuppence Middleton). The film’s most sustained conversation between two women is a literal kitchen sink exchange in which nurse/housekeeper Fraulein Frieda (Monika Gossmann) spills the beans to secretary and scribe Rita Alexander (Lily Collins) that Mankiewicz personally intervened to save a village of one-hundred from Nazi persecution.

Rabid “Kane” devotees will have no problem dismissing the fanciful constructions and historical revisions. Their eyes will feast instead on the multiple “Kane” allusions and rhyming shots, the most obvious of which are built around flashbacks to Mankiewicz’s friendly visits to William Randolph Hearst’s castle in San Simeon. Using digital tools to reconstruct the still jaw-dropping analog techniques advanced by Welles, cinematographer Gregg Toland, and the rest of the talented RKO 281 production team, Fincher maintains his well-established pursuit of technical perfection. He even includes amusingly anachronistic cue marks — which he previously honored in “Fight Club” — to add to the 20th century Old Hollywood verisimilitude.

As biopics go, “Mank” is simply not in the same league as “The Social Network.” In both cases, however, it is the artfulness of great storytelling rather than historically-based journalism that produces the most cinematically satisfying results. The same could be said for Fincher’s only other fact-based feature, “Zodiac.” The secondary plot in “Mank” revolves around the writer’s interactions with powerful men behind desks and next to fireplaces (Arliss Howard is particularly good as an emotional Louis B. Mayer). Landing on the California gubernatorial election of 1934 between conservative Republican Frank Merriam and author Upton Sinclair (the movie doesn’t bother to include third party Progressive Raymond Haight on the leaderboard), “Mank” probably spends more time than necessary defining the protagonist’s own crisis of conscience within the corrupt and decaying dream factory.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmakers Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker step gingerly into the minefield of serious media considerations of the infamous dictator with their new documentary “The Meaning of Hitler,” a Doc NYC world premiere available to stream through November 29. Acutely aware of the likelihood that they might be “contributing to the Nazi cinematic universe,” the married directors use the film to draw comparisons to contemporary nationalism, populism, and authoritarianism while revisiting many of the biographical markers of Hitler’s rise and fall. Using the 1978 book of the same title by Sebastian Haffner (the pen name of journalist Raimund Pretzel), Epperlein and Tucker enlist a variety of on-camera guests to map out a reminder and a warning.

Even as Donald Trump sulks and broods — and lies — about his loss in the national election, “The Meaning of Hitler” alludes to certain parallels between the two men. Savvy use of mass media tools to amplify propaganda may be more frustrating today, given the proliferation of troll farms and disinformation campaigns, but Hitler’s discovery of his gift for public oratory got an electronic assist from the Neumann CMV3 — a cylindrical microphone that acquired the nickname the “Hitler Bottle.” Sequences like this one, in which Epperlein and Tucker illustrate the seductive ability of the popular device to translate emotion by intercutting footage of the Beatles’ performance at Shea Stadium, keep viewers off balance.

And pairing vision with sound, the filmmakers use the hidden-in-plain-sight influences of Leni Riefestahl on Hollywood to address some of the most seductive designs favored by Hitler in the construction of his image. It is certainly not the first time that side by side comparisons have linked the medal ceremony that ends “Star Wars” with the symmetry in uniform carefully arranged at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally in “Triumph of the Will.” “The Lion King” also pops up, as well as a series of clips that — expectedly — checks off “The Producers.” Sarah Silverman’s interview with Conan O’Brien, in which she appears in full Hitler costume, is a newer entry in the comic renditions of Hitler.

In the end, “The Meaning of Hitler” lands somewhere between an exploration of Hitler as phenomenon and Hitler as person. Unfortunately, some of the movie’s most intriguing scenes veer from their intended goal. A visit to examine a Hitler-painted watercolor is introduced by the famous “Citizen Kane”-inspired tribute at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The filmmakers do not ask the question of whether these artworks should continue to be protected. Much more effective is a montage of dramatized scenes of Hitler’s suicide, accompanied by a compelling argument that almost all of those movies bestow upon him a kind of dignity not afforded to his victims.

I am not sure whether giving ghoulish Holocaust denier David Irving so much screen time helps or hurts the efforts to shine light. Thankfully, Deborah Lipstadt, the victor in Irving’s notorious libel suit, also appears in the film. Novelist and writer Martin Amis is a droll addition to the lineup of talking heads, unleashing several acidic barbs when Trump is mentioned. But historian Saul Friedlander, now in his late 80s, is the movie’s most eloquent observer. Friedlander clearly gets what Epperlein and Tucker have set out to do, and never fails to offer poignant and reasoned thoughts on Hitler’s durable popularity.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Channing Godfrey Peoples makes a noteworthy debut as feature writer/director with “Miss Juneteenth,” a 2020 Sundance Film Festival premiere now collecting early — and well-deserved — award season accolades including, among others, a Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director nomination from the IFP Gotham Awards. The film provides lead performer Nicole Beharie with all the room she needs to shape Peoples’s central creation Turquoise Jones into one of the year’s most unforgettable characters. And it doesn’t hurt that Beharie is surrounded by such a gifted supporting cast. The result is stirring and sharp.

Depicting her home town of Fort Worth with a native’s level of observational clarity, Peoples adds her film to a list of revered titles that have come to represent different geographical and cultural parts of Texas. Closer to the interpersonally intimate “Tender Mercies” and “Places in the Heart” (and even “Paris, Texas”) than to several genre icons that have become synonymous with the Lone Star State, “Miss Juneteenth” paints a vivid portrait of the nation’s thirteenth-largest city. But like all great movies, the core of the story is universal.

Peoples juggles several conflicts, including a romantic triangle placing the protagonist between her employer Bacon (Akron Watson), a mortician who runs the funeral parlor where Turquoise holds down her second job, and Ronnie (Kendrick Sampson), the auto mechanic who is the father of Turquoise’s teenage daughter Kai (Alexis Chikaeze). The heart of the narrative, though, explores the complex contours of the mother-child relationship. Turquoise’s intense and borderline obsessive focus on Kai’s participation in the Miss Juneteenth pageant resonates in every scene in the movie.

With a flair for economy in dialogue, Peoples trusts viewers to gather all necessary information to understand the motivations of the heroine. A previous Miss Juneteenth winner, Turquoise faces constant reminders that she never lived up to the promise of the crown. Her own mother’s alcoholism, partially hidden behind the depth of religious faith, alludes to just one set of possible sacrifices made by Turquoise not that long ago. The multi-generational divide also works as a cautionary warning to Turquoise that history could repeat itself if she pushes Kai too hard.

The competition of the Miss Juneteenth pageant, with a scholarship on the line, builds in a certain degree of anticipation for the viewer, and Peoples exploits several small crises ahead of the main event to heighten the tension. Will Turquoise be able to get enough cash together to acquire the special dress she believes will give Kai an edge? Will Ronnie fulfill his promises? Will Kai stick with the plan to perform Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” in the talent showcase? Some of the outcomes are expected while others surprise, but none strain credulity or undermine the solid foundation Peoples meticulously constructs.

One of the most rewarding dimensions of “Miss Juneteenth” is the insightful manner with which Peoples guides the viewer through the world of the pageant itself. Cognizant of how outsiders might react to some of the old-fashioned and deeply ingrained expectations about femininity and womanhood that may now seem out of place, Peoples does not shy away from interrogating questionable details and traditions. But the pageant also represents Juneteenth and its historical importance, and the filmmaker recognizes her opportunity to educate viewers. That she does so with such subtlety and grace speaks to a real talent.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Sofia Coppola’s delightful distraction from national affairs sees the writer-director returning to her sweet spot: the tiniest whiff of autobiography in a story that, to paraphrase James Stewart’s Macaulay “Mike” Connor in “The Philadelphia Story,” eavesdrops on “the privileged class enjoying its privileges.” A mashup of thematic terrain explored in the cross-generational partnering of “Lost in Translation” and the father-daughter bonding of “Somewhere,” “On the Rocks” notches another exemplary Bill Murray performance in the actor’s latest team-up with Coppola.

“On the Rocks” delays Murray’s grand entrance as playboy/art dealer/epicure Felix by sketching the weary routines of Rashida Jones’s Laura, a successful writer and devoted New York mom pulling inequitable domestic duty with a pair of young kids to cover for the frequent absences of workaholic husband Dean (Marlon Wayans), whose promising tech startup requires dinner meetings, business trips, late nights, and lots of hours away from the nest. Marital woes and worries are exacerbated by the proximity of Dean’s chic colleague Fiona (Jessica Henwick). Laura suspects that her husband might be hiding an affair, and papa Felix encourages the thought.

In a well-explored literary and cinematic tradition, comedies of suspected infidelity lean heavily on tropes including misconstrued clues/evidence of cheating as well as poor or nonexistent communication within otherwise strong relationships. While we all know that some simple and straightforward talk would clear things up in an instant, our nervous protagonists must run the gauntlet before arriving at the almost always happy conclusions. From Preston Sturges’s “Unfaithfully Yours” to Masayuki Suo’s “Shall We Dance?,” the format accommodates a large number of pathways.

Coppola has always shown an affinity for mixing laughter and introspection, and “On the Rocks” successfully deploys the strategy. The amateur stakeouts and sleuthing of the used-to-be-fun Laura and the rakish Felix — who insists on “getting ahead” of Dean’s possible liaison by teaming up with Laura to spy — snowball into increasingly ridiculous predicaments, but the gags are a front for an earnest and heartfelt exploration of the challenges we face when addressing a parent as a person who has dreams and desires that exist independently of the complete attention we desire. And since Laura worships her father, the pain he has caused comes with an extra sharp sting.

Observed through the lens of their differences, Jones plays the more challenging role — Laura’s insecurities about her own marriage and the constraints and responsibilities of motherhood contrast with Felix’s inveterate, age-inappropriate flirtations with seemingly every woman who crosses his path, allowing Murray to pour on the charm as a mansplaining, alpha-male relic of a fast-dimming era. And yet, when Felix sneaks Laura down the hall at an acquaintance’s party to share a moment gazing at a privately-held Monet, we see what Laura sees in him.

Surely, Coppola is playing with some subtext to circle around the recent shifts and changes in attitude toward the sexual entitlement of powerful men in Hollywood. And what elevates “On the Rocks” is the filmmaker’s position that Laura’s love for her dad, in spite of Felix’s sexism and narcissism and the impossibly easy manner in which he glides from one enchanting experience to another, outweighs all of the things about him that she cannot abide.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

David Byrne and Spike Lee embrace the inevitable comparisons between Jonathan Demme’s “Stop Making Sense” and their recently-released filmed version of “American Utopia.” Lee’s skillful screen translations of more than half a dozen live shows, including “Passing Strange” and “Rodney King,” position him as an ideal choice to capture the immediacy of the in-person event. Like Demme, Lee also takes the viewer to all kinds of places inaccessible to ticket holders, and the result is an exhilarating and exuberant companion to the legendary 1984 concert film.

Byrne maintains his minimalism. He is joined on the stage of Broadway’s Hudson Theatre by eleven performers all dressed in matching outfits and bare feet, and the international troupe gives him a platform from which to make some pointed remarks on behalf of immigrants. It is just one of several instances of editorial commentary rebuking the current administration and its erasure of kindness, compassion, and decency. The musicians are completely untethered and cable-free, and the wireless wizardry combines with Annie-B Parson’s choreography in a sublime union of sound and movement.

Rachel Syme devoted an excellent New Yorker Culture Desk column to the evolution of Byrne’s gray suit, quoting from the performer’s own thoughts on the matter from his 2012 book “How Music Works,” as well as from Pauline Kael’s astonishing review of “Stop Making Sense.” For superfans in search of esotericism, Syme’s article delivers the goods, fully pressed and cleaned. The custom-built costumes in “American Utopia” will make any fashion enthusiast geek out, and Syme’s note that the uniforms suggest “a rare kind of harmony, and a lack of hierarchy” corresponds to the arresting images collected by veteran cinematographer and frequent Lee collaborator Ellen Kuras.

The show’s twenty-one song set spans Byrne’s career discography, but no one record or era dominates. Only five of the selections are from the 2018 studio album from which the musical takes its name. The order and arrangements don’t always thematically cohere, but a narrative emerges, abetted by the anecdotes and narration interspersed between the songs. Messages of hopefulness and positivity coexist with the reality of bleak and disheartening setbacks. In one timely example, Byrne pauses to highlight the importance of voting, urging audience members to go to the polls.

During the introduction to the ensemble’s cover of Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout,” Byrne reassures the audience that Ms. Monae provided her blessing when approached about the inclusion of her shattering protest song. As a “white man of a certain age,” Byrne’s acknowledgment of his own privilege may not be enough to persuade everyone, but his good intentions, combined with Lee’s own long tradition of speaking and listing names, electrifies the unforgettable moment — especially when Lee adds a triptych of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd as a reminder of the work yet to be done to dismantle institutionalized inequality.

The 68-year-old Byrne of today is less livewire, exposed-nerve, performance-art provocateur and more professorial elder statesman, particularly when delivering observations while holding a human brain prop, but the durable rhythms and elastic lyrics of classic Talking Heads numbers like “Don’t Worry About the Government,” “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On),” and “Road to Nowhere” — like any timeless texts — suggest chilling and urgent new meanings during a global pandemic intensified by frightening authoritarianism, racism, and misogyny. The latter song turns out to be the ideal curtain-closer, a joyous march through the audience that captures a moment in time shortly before live performance went dark and imagines the thrill of being able to do it again in the future.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The return of Sacha Baron Cohen’s fictional Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev is deliberately timed to bring shame to the already circus-like Trump administration ahead of the looming national election on November 3. The first of three evolving onscreen title translations tags the project “Borat: Gift of Sexy Monkey to Vice Premier Mikhael Pence for Make Benefit Recently Diminished Nation of Kazakhstan.” While this “subsequent moviefilm” is statistically unlikely to move the needle for any unicorn-esque undecided voters, it is also a worthy successor to the original 2006 outing. A finely calibrated blend of lowbrow vulgarity and sharp social satire, it is a document — or mockument — of and for the moment.

Baron Cohen’s longtime working methods depend, at least in part, on the unwitting participation of people not in on the gag. Some content is carefully scripted while other scenes emerge from the expected and unexpected reactions of the marks who cross the path of the production. One imagines that the presence of cameras might arouse a certain skepticism, but there is no shortage of willing performers. And alongside the regular folks are those with some degree of power and/or public profile. Given how long Baron Cohen has been drinking from the well, it says something that a high-visibility figure like Rudy Giuliani ends up with egg on his face and a hand down his trousers.

Giuliani’s encounter with breakout star Maria Bakalova, the Bulgarian performer who plays Borat’s fifteen-year-old daughter Tutar, has gobbled up most of the initial coverage of the movie. Even if you buy Giuliani’s claim that he was merely tucking in his shirt, his eagerness to follow Bakalova into the hotel suite’s bedroom for post-interview drinks shows remarkable gullibility and poor judgment. It’s no mean feat that Giuliani comes off worse than the woman who, at Borat’s request, decorates a cake with “Jews will not replace us” or the two disconcertingly sympathetic conspiracy theorists who host Borat during the pandemic.

Besides the set-piece that posterizes Giuliani and the moment in which Baron Cohen interrupts Mike Pence at the February 2020 meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (in which Borat disguises himself in a Donald Trump costume), the general arc of the narrative is in keeping with the antics of the original movie. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the comedian makes a convincing argument that racism, ignorance, misogyny, and antisemitism are perhaps in even greater evidence, if not greater supply, under Trump.

The original “Borat” launched the ridiculousness at such a rapid pace that it didn’t matter whether every gag landed. The sequel utilizes the same more-is-more technique (the trailer contains several items that didn’t make the final cut), and the weary and the wary might not be inclined to offer Sagdiyev the warmest of welcomes on his return to the United States. There is a certain “eye of the beholder” quality to Baron Cohen’s tactics, and Inkoo Kang and others have written essays questioning the extent to which Baron Cohen punches down instead of up. Outrageous exaggerations and fabrications about Kazakhstan culture aside, Borat stumbles into hopefulness where it is otherwise in short supply.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Animator Don Hertzfeldt holds at bay the crushing malaise of life during pandemic-time and reaffirms his status as one of the planet’s most accomplished filmmakers with “World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime.” The presumptive conclusion of his second major trilogy, the thirty-four minute adventure leaves admirers drooling like one of the title character’s imperfect clones. If Hertzfeldt’s ability to successfully expand on the emotional terrain and metaphysical considerations of previous chapters is a recipe, then he is an impeccable cinematic chef de cuisine.

Considering Hertzfeldt’s uncanny gift for sequels of increasing depth and breadth, nothing stands in the way of future “World of Tomorrow” installments. Fans may still clamor for an all-in-one feature-length Hertzfeldt effort yet to materialize, but there is much to appreciate in the artist’s longtime method — a kind of artistic accretion that functions like its astrophysical parallel, gravitationally pulling together particles into one massive whole. Like the preceding films in the “World of Tomorrow” series and the trio of “Everything Will Be OK,” “I Am So Proud of You,” and “It’s Such a Beautiful Day,” one can look at the pieces separately or together. Either way, the conclusion is the same: Don Hertzfeldt is a master of his form.

The special potency of the original “World of Tomorrow” in 2016 appealed to critics and audiences alike. Worries about Hertzfeldt’s move to digital animation were quickly quelled. The film received a Sundance Grand Jury Prize, Hertzfeldt’s second Academy Award nomination, and dozens of honors from the film festivals in which it was screened. Like the earlier stories featuring memory-challenged protagonist Bill, “World of Tomorrow” executed a dazzlingly choreographed fireworks display of colorful rockets alternating bursts and plumes of humor and horror. Hertzfeldt continued to etch his key themes, contemplating mortality, temporality, memory, love, and loss.

Winona Mae’s beloved Emily Prime is now absent, but happily, Hertzfeldt enlists Jack Parrett as young David, briefly returning to the technique of hilariously visualizing and integrating the captured-moment child’s-eye views and observations that mapped a large share of the inaugural passage’s dynamism: “We have a rabbit! And a shark! A universe!” In one of the movie’s many highlights, Hertzfeldt situates Parrett’s thoughts in an incongruously innocent kaiju nightmare. Assault helicopters fire on the evolving Godbaby while it knocks down towers and terrorizes a cityscape. The inspired lunacy is classic Hertzfeldt.

Julia Pott returns as Emily and deftly handles all the convoluted time travel explanations with her character’s established affinity for deadpan gallows humor: “Death was instantaneous. Probably.” In contrast, aside from some “uncontrollable horrifying screaming noises” that come from an adult iteration of David, the mature figure’s quietude aligns him with the determined and indefatigable silent era dreamers portrayed by Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. The stakes are high and the sacrifices great. David must continually dismantle aspects of selfhood, deleting parts of his own neural operating system to carry out his quest.

Later, in what might be the film’s most stunning piece of purely visual storytelling, Hertzfeldt revisits a pivotal moment that we first saw from Emily’s point of view, taking us “between the frames” to experience a previously hidden series of events that expands the greater “World of Tomorrow” mythology and deepens our appreciation for the moviemaker’s skill. It would be terribly unfair to say much more about that sequence and risk spoiling it for those who have not yet viewed the film (what are you waiting for?), but it rearranges our previous perceptions with a “Rashomon”-like epiphany that suggests there is no ceiling for Mr. Hertzfeldt. I’m already counting the days until his next movie.