Movie review by Greg Carlson

Harmony Korine keeps a tight grip on his title as one of the most critic/critique-proof filmmakers of recent times with “The Beach Bum,” a sultry companion piece to 2012’s memorable “Spring Breakers.” Not without its own kind of middle-aged charm and a worldview to match, “The Beach Bum” is virtually unthinkable without Matthew McConaughey as priapic poet Moondog, a quintessential stoner icon whose consumption of marijuana is rivaled only by his quest for constant sexual gratification. Buoyed by an endless supply of cash from his wealthy and tolerant wife Minnie (Isla Fisher), with whom he shares an about-to-be-wed daughter (Stefania LaVie Owen), Moondog reigns from the Magic City to the Keys as the Sunshine State’s wastrel laureate.

The vibe of “The Beach Bum” is more mellow than the criminal-minded “Spring Breakers,” but both movies share the rainbow glow of Benoit Debie’s neon-addicted photography. Debie, who also regularly collaborates with Gaspar Noe, understands the interaction of light and matter so thoroughly that his optical acumen transforms human bodies into bioluminescent angels. Whether in daylight or in dusk, Debie’s measurements of the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum tease out colors that merit the price of a ticket entirely on their own. The dazzling technical rigor of Debie’s camera perfectly balances the defiant “margin of the undefined” treasured by Korine.    

Korine’s wild casting made for a mouthwatering trailer, but not all the promises of the preview are kept in the feature. Snoop Dogg works as Minnie’s lover Lingerie, and Jonah Hill is fun as Moondog’s agent Lewis. Martin Lawrence’s cameo as the tourist-hustling Captain Wack, however, is a mixed bag. Korine, unsurprisingly, has no qualms about using Lawrence in a one-off piece of broad physical vaudeville complete with a “those aren’t dolphins” shark attack gag that results in a severed foot. More of the same awaits Zac Efron’s rehab escapee Flicker, who lets his elaborate facial hair carry most of the acting load. Jimmy Buffett plays himself, leaving viewers to marvel at Korine’s powers of persuasion.  

As part of a package that must have cost a hefty chunk of the total budget in music licensing fees, Buffett’s own “A Pirate Looks at Forty” joins instantly recognizable tracks by Gordon Lightfoot, Eddie Money, Van Morrison, Waylon Jennings, Stephen Bishop, and Gerry Rafferty as aural accompaniment to Moondog’s neverending party. The Parrotheads who stick around for the end credits will be treated to a new Buffett/Snoop Dogg collaboration called “Moonfog.” According to Buffett, along with “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” Korine drew inspiration for “The Beach Bum” from “Margaritaville.” The translation is authoritative.  

When the movie’s raison d’etre orbits around aimless drifting and an ironclad commitment to irresponsibility, what might we glean from “The Beach Bum” in terms of a philosophy (or even a point of view)? Moondog’s money-to-burn enactment of the Rake’s Progress-lite ends not with institutional, capital-B Bedlam but with individualized, small-b bedlam. Drawing parallels to income inequality and the wretched excess on display in our leadership’s worship of filthy lucre, some might strain to locate an eff-you in Moondog’s rejection of riches as an end unto itself. But Korine, less provocative here than in previous outings, holds to his absurdist affection for feeling over analysis. Maybe changes in latitudes do, in fact, cause changes in attitudes.   

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Following a world premiere as one of the opening night selections of the Sundance Film Festival in January, conceptual visual artist Rashid Johnson’s adaptation of Richard Wright’s venerable “Native Son” debuts April 6 on HBO. The third big screen version of the story of Bigger Thomas, Wright’s film retains many of the book’s central plot points and its ideological critique of institutional racism. The screenplay, by Pulitzer-winner Suzan-Lori Parks, updates sparingly and, for the most part, efficiently. Only committed devotees of the literature will notice the significant alterations, the most prominent of which revolves around the fate of the character Bessie and the resolution of the drama. Johnson’s movie, despite several shortcomings, is well worth a look.

Ashton Sanders, memorable as both the teenage Chiron in 2016’s “Moonlight” and opposite Denzel Washington in last year’s “The Equalizer 2,” makes an excellent Bigger Thomas (called Big this time out). Enveloped in several stylized trappings of artistically-inclined hipsterism — including fingernail polish, green hair, Malcolm X-evoking eyeglasses, and a safety-pinned leather motorcycle jacket decorated with a painted “Freaking Out” motif ala classic punk rock — Big’s got smarts of both the book and street varieties. Working as a bike messenger but living in less-than-ideal conditions with his family, Big accepts a “golden” opportunity to become the live-in chauffeur for rich white man Henry Dalton (Bill Camp, never better).  

All too quickly Big realizes that his principal responsibilities entail driving Dalton’s manipulative daughter Mary (Margaret Qualley) wherever she wishes to go, which more often than not fails to correspond to Mr. Dalton’s assumptions regarding her activities. Mary’s companion Jan (Nick Robinson), a social activist who, like Mary, is oblivious to his own privilege, rides along. For those unfamiliar with the classic 1940 novel, an almost surreal and certainly absurd tragedy marks the turning point of the narrative. Johnson handles it with the necessary horror, balancing on Wright’s carefully constructed tightrope that supports the weight of not one, but two victims.  

Arguably, the scenes in which Big navigates the white world of the Daltons ring out with the most punch, especially in terms of dialogue and performance. The pressure on Big to perform multiple roles, dependent on the shifting contexts in which he operates, brings code-switching into the equation in a way that allows the filmmakers to explore the most contemporary aspects of Wright’s ideas (along with, of course, the unchanged realities of two Americas). Whether or not Johnson overcomes the arguments made by James Baldwin in essays contained within “Notes of a Native Son” rests largely with the viewer’s sympathies with the objectives and sensibilities of Wright (and Johnson).  

As tech credits go, first-time feature helmer Johnson’s not-so-secret weapon is the presence of ace cinematographer Matthew Libatique, who also serves as one of the film’s producers. Johnson’s striking vision is enhanced by Libatique’s photography, which perfectly outlines the discomfort experienced by Big as he tries — and fails — to fit in anywhere. The vivid images, which capture the ironic juxtapositions of beautiful graffiti in economically depressed neighborhoods as well as the weight of seeing the work of celebrated contemporary African American painters decorating the walls of the Dalton mansion, mirror Big’s pain and his struggle to deal with the liminal state between his own sense of self and the version of it acted out for others.      

Movie review by Greg Carlson

With enough mirrors, doublings, and doppelgangers to make Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Welles proud, Jordan Peele’s “Us” cements the filmmaker’s reputation as a master craftsman and visual stylist. Creepy, funny, and wicked sharp, the film’s genre is horror, the ideas are expansive and the execution clean. An ominous text prologue alludes to the networks of unused and abandoned tunnels snaking underneath the streets and communities of the United States (shortly, a glimpse of the VHS spine of “C.H.U.D.” next to a television sweetens the allusion). Next comes another prologue introducing viewers to Addie, a child traumatized during a solo visit to an amusement park funhouse on the beach of Santa Cruz, California in the mid-1980s.

We reconnect with the grown-up Addie (Lupita Nyong’o) more than thirty years later as a married mother of two, trepidatious and secretive about an upcoming return to the location of her childhood nightmare. Along with husband Gabe (a terrific Winston Duke), daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), and son Jason (Evan Alex), Addie sets out for the family vacation home and eventually gives in to Gabe’s desire to meet up with friends Kitty (Elisabeth Moss) and Josh (Tim Heidecker). Peele’s world-constructing unfolds at a deliberate pace, but the director laces this entire build-up with a wealth of important detail that pays dividends in the wild second half.    

Peele’s inclination to invert the 1986 Hands Across America fundraising effort as a means of critiquing the dark forces of wall-building, racism, and selfishness works. Really works. “Us” interrogates the deep divides within and among the population, literalizing the other as the very worst parts of ourselves. In that way, the movie’s timing is perfect, but it also thinks carefully about economic and class divisions by situating the action among families of wealth and privilege. The links between the America of Ronald Reagan and America under Donald Trump don’t intrude on the value of “Us” as entertainment, even though Peele’s thematic interests look poised to inspire a healthy supply of essays.   

“Us” also owes a considerable debt to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” and both Don Siegel’s brilliant 1956 classic and the 1978 Philip Kaufman edition inform a great deal of the social commentary explored by Peele. The structure of “Us” follows conventional horror tropes, and some viewers may have less patience with the long-simmering arrival of the home invasion component teased in the trailer. Others, however, will delight in Peele’s affinity for tension-breaking comic touches, several of which stand out as highlights — especially those that grapple with the suspension-of-disbelief requirements governing the specific rules of the “Us” universe.  

All the principal actors are called into service for a pair of distinct performances; each plays the twisted and malevolent simulacrum as well as the above-ground “normal” person under attack. Nyong’o, who drew fire from organizations including RespectAbility for partly basing her character Red’s voice on the sounds of sufferers of spasmodic dysphonia, anchors the movie as Addie and Red. Ultimately, the brilliance of “Us” is found in the complex duality offered by Peele’s fascinatingly sympathetic reading of the duplicates called the Tethered. “Us” will make your head spin as you attempt to tell the difference between the heroes and the villains.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Set in the fictional Little Woods, North Dakota — a small town in the western oil patch not too far from the Canadian border — Nia DaCosta’s first feature film as writer-director marks an auspicious and confident debut. Recalling some of the same issues explored in Courtney Hunt’s memorable “Frozen River,” “Little Woods” also shares its point of view through the harrowing day-to-day of two working class women pushed to break the law to survive. While “Frozen River” dealt with the illegal trafficking of immigrants across the northern border, “Little Woods” addresses the limitations of the U.S. healthcare system via the smuggling of prescription pharmaceuticals. DaCosta’s commentary is not limited to the state of absurd drug costs. She also acknowledges the exploitation of the poor by predatory energy speculators, the frustrations of mortgage options for a person of meager means, and abortion access.

Despite the checklist of social issues and the mostly erroneous descriptions identifying the movie as a kind of western, “Little Woods” operates with the tension of a crime thriller. Tessa Thompson adds yet another astonishing performance to her already remarkable filmography. As Ollie, Thompson perfects the weary guardedness that comes from hand-to-mouth living. Coming up on the end of a term of mandated supervision, the reminder given to Ollie by her probation officer Carter (Lance Reddick) that she is just days away from successful completion should clue the audience that the final stretch is going to be a rough ride. Carter’s encouragement of and belief in Ollie don’t prevent him from doing his job, and DaCosta puts together a brilliantly nerve-wracking sequence when Carter pays less-than-truthful Ollie a surprise visit.

Just as she approaches the finish line, Ollie’s single-mom sister Deb (Lily James) confesses that she is pregnant and uncertain about her short term housing options. Coming up with even a few thousand dollars to postpone foreclosure on their recently deceased mother’s place is out of reach. Navigating the system is difficult enough, but Ollie’s troubles are exacerbated by both the father of Deb’s young son (James Badge Dale) and a competing local dealer (Luke Kirby) very unhappy to learn Ollie is getting back in the trade. In large ways and small, DaCosta sharply explores the ways in which women navigate a hostile environment dominated by men.  

Those familiar with the short and long-term impact of hydraulic fracturing on the Bakken formation’s North Dakota oil boom will immediately recognize the living conditions of the men and women working in and around the industry. The look and feel of Yvonne Boudreaux’s production design, Patrick Jackson’s set decoration, and Colin Wilkes’ costuming evoke the tough realities seen in nonfiction films like Isaac Gale’s “Sweet Crude Man Camp,” J. Christian Jensen’s “White Earth,” Jesse Moss’ “The Overnighters,” and Rita Baghdadi and Jeremiah Hammerling’s “My Country No More.” And even though “Little Woods” was shot in Texas, most North Dakotans won’t find much of anything amiss in the representation.   

DaCosta is flat-out terrific at constructing scene after scene of anxious menace. I can’t wait to see what she does collaborating with Jordan Peele on the upcoming “Candyman.” The examples are plentiful (just look at what the director does with a clinic waiting room), but Deb’s harrowing quest to obtain a fake ID while Ollie casually tries to distract a cop is a master class in cross-cutting. DaCosta intensifies the dread of being busted with the terrifying alarm of a possible sexual assault. Sexism and toxic masculinity are not unusual in this genre, but DaCosta’s emphasis on sisterhood and the presentation of a female point of view turn “Little Woods” into a fresh, must-see cinematic experience.

“Little Woods” is the closing night feature of the 2019 Fargo Film Festival, screening on Saturday, March 23 at 7:00 p.m. The film will be released theatrically in April. 

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Early 1960s Oklahoma is an ideal setting for classic coming of age themes in Martha Stephens’s “To the Stars.” Richer in characterization and emotion than it is in plotting, “To the Stars” capitalizes on Andrew Reed’s beautiful monochromatic cinematography, with inky blacks and shimmering silvers aspiring to the same kind of nostalgia conjured by the legendary director of photography Robert Surtees in “The Last Picture Show.” Shannon Bradley-Colleary’s screenplay focuses on teenagers Iris Deerborne (Kara Hayward) and Maggie Richmond (Liana Liberato), two misfits locked in the age-old struggle to find acceptance and love in a stifling environment that prizes conformity and rewards narrow-mindedness.

Hidden behind owlish and ill-fitting spectacles, the introspective Iris fails to conceal the open secret of her urinary incontinence, an unfortunate condition exacerbated by the horrifying epithet “Stinky Drawers,” a nickname frequently hissed by the school’s clique of cruel kids. New girl in town Maggie sees right through the haters, recognizing in Iris a kindred outsider spirit. Maggie’s boast that her father shoots photographs for the venerable magazine “Life” — whether true or not — impresses all the queen bees, who would like to incorporate Maggie into their fold. In fact, Maggie offers the juicy tidbit regarding her father’s occupation as the reason for her recent relocation from a bigger city. Only later will Stephens explore the real reason behind the new town/new start change of address.  

Stephens goes on to render the evolving friendship of the assertive Maggie and the timid Iris through common rites of passage that point toward the possibility of romance between the two. The director handles all the confused attraction with enough sophistication that the plot’s actual direction sneaks up in a manner that smartly defies cliche as well as the audience’s first likely guess. The inevitable punishment for lesbian love still arrives right on time, complete with a melodramatic mob of stone-casters right out of James Whale’s “Frankenstein,” but en route Stephens capitalizes on the revelation of an unexpected pairing.

Hayward and Liberato are supported by a cast that includes Malin Akerman, Tony Hale, Shea Whigham, and Jordana Spiro as the parents of the girls. All four performers, contending with varying degrees of somewhat wispy roles, bring quality to the production. Spiro’s open flirtation with Iris’s classmate Jeff (Lucas Jade Zumann in a sensitive performance with echoes of Timothee Chalamet) recalls, of all things, a similar triangle in Martha Coolidge’s 80s teen classic “Valley Girl.” Whigham is especially warm as the father of Iris, as supportive of his daughter as he is frustrated by his spouse.

Stephens keeps notes of observational humor in the mix, but sticks to a serious-minded realization of the period through the eyes and experiences of the women in the story. This female-centric point of view undeniably unfolds as the greatest strength of “To the Stars,” as the aspirations and heartbreaks experienced by Maggie and Iris ripple out in waves familiar to many of the other women in Wakita, including the kind hairdresser Hazel (Adelaide Clemens). Any storyteller working with content set in an earlier time has the potential advantage of using the past to comment on the present, and Stephens certainly has much to say about the incredible pressure placed upon young women to fulfill the expectations of peers, family, and community.  

“To the Stars,” produced by Northern Lights Films, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. A special screening at the Fargo Film Festival is set for Saturday, March 23 at 3:00 p.m. Members of the production team will participate in a Q and A. Tickets are available at the Fargo Theatre box office.     

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Almost relegated to the trashcan of history and the file drawer marked for popular cultural ephemera, the audio and/or video recordings of the industrial musical are properly dusted off and polished to a state of splendor in Dava Whisenant’s “Bathtubs Over Broadway.” The first-time feature director, who earned the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Filmmaker at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, follows longtime David Letterman staff writer Steve Young on his dogged pursuit of increasingly rare LPs of fully-produced, brain-melting shows promoting the corporate images of giants like Coca-Cola, Ford, General Electric, and Xerox.

Young’s crate-digging prowess developed as he unearthed the ridiculous gems and curiosities used as fodder for the long-running “Dave’s Record Collection” segment of the talk show. Even as the most far-out titles were ripe for on-air ridicule, Young was magnetically drawn to the souvenir and “internal use only” collectibles that were also commonly marked “not for broadcast” or “not for commercial use.” Whisenant enthusiastically conveys both the thrill of the hunt and the endearing excitement with which Young approaches fare like G.E.’s 1973 “Got to Investigate Silicones.”   

That’s just one terrific example, but of the productions highlighted in the film, perhaps none can top American-Standard’s incredible “The Bathrooms Are Coming!,” Sid Siegel’s phantasmagoric ode to the luxurious offerings of the company’s 1969 fixture lineup. Fellow deep divers like Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra and Don Bolles of the Germs are quick to praise that recording’s unforgettable je ne sais quoi, and it’s difficult to disagree when you hear lyrical firestarters that begin with “My bathroom is a private kind of place…” In one of the movie’s many treats, Whisenant and Young go one better, investigating the show’s surreal vignettes and connecting with original “Bathrooms” performers.

Fans of Letterman will appreciate how Whisenant’s profile of Young coincides with the end of the “Late Show with David Letterman” in the spring of 2015. The filmmaker uses the program’s curtain call as Young’s own midlife turning point and pause for self-reflection. The bittersweet farewells to colleagues as Young packs up his desk ripple out to appreciators of American broadcasting history in the audience, and Whisenant (who edited several dozen episodes of “Late Show”) probably has enough material to pursue another feature film examining the end of the Letterman era of nighttime entertainment. Letterman, one of several executive producers of “Bathtubs Over Broadway,” appears briefly in the movie.

Whisenant emphasizes the ways in which Young’s quest have led him to meaningful interpersonal relationships and a sense of avocation that transcend his work as a writer of television comedy. Capturing interactions with well-known performers like Chita Rivera, Florence Henderson, and Martin Short, as well as other meetings with writers like Sheldon Harnick and Hank Beebe, Whisenant — through Young — communicates a commanding level of earnestness and respect for work that we previously thought was disposable. That surprising discovery, accompanied by the implication that one person’s art is another employee’s moldering memento of a 1965 Seagram Distillers distributor meeting, turns out to be the movie’s affirming heartbeat.

“Bathtubs Over Broadway,” with Whisenant and Young in person, will be featured as the opening night showcase of the 2019 Fargo Film Festival on Tuesday, March 19 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are available now at the Fargo Theatre box office.     

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Director A.J. Eaton’s rock star biography “David Crosby: Remember My Name,” checks all the boxes of the lion-in-winter music documentary. Crosby’s clear-eyed laments for heady days of monumental drug consumption simultaneously see him twinkle with pride and blush with regret as he recounts his unbelievable adventures. As the irreplaceable C of CSN and CSNY, Crosby parlayed his early stardom as a founding member of the Byrds into an odyssey of legendary Pacific Coast songwriting and performing. A quintessential symbol of the countercultural movement championing peace and love, Crosby possessed the uncanny ability to land in several of the right places at several of the right times.

His instantly recognizable locks and mustache now snowy white, Crosby carries eight stents in his ticker and claims on camera that the next heart attack will surely take his life. But despite diabetes and declining overall health, he candidly and poignantly admits his hunger for more time. Eaton, with a major assist by producer Cameron Crowe, treats viewers to a personally guided tour of Crosby’s Los Angeles, and the tactic — which includes a spine-tingling stop outside the gate of the house where Crosby, Stills & Nash first took flight — electrifies pop music fans as much as any of the judiciously selected archival shots, like an excellent rarity showing papa Floyd Crosby at work as a cinematographer.   

Eaton’s approach, which heavily favors intimate close-ups as a contemplative Crosby unburdens himself, largely skips newly-collected content from the cast of famous figures most important to Crosby’s development. Opting instead for old talking-head clips to fill in key spots, Eaton sticks to a very specific kind of tale, passing over narratives involving Crosby’s children. Longtime spouse Jan Dance does enter the spotlight on occasion, and Eaton extensively covers Crosby’s significant relationships with Joni Mitchell (a rich section that provides one of the movie’s many highlights) and Christine Hinton, two of the three women who inspired parts of “Guinnevere.”    

A refrain of “how did I survive this?” propels other forays into the darkness. While the specifics of 1982 and 1985 arrests flow together, Crosby’s more-than-once rock-bottom drug and/or weapon charges extended all the way to 2004, when another bust was added to the record. News footage reporting on the nine months Crosby spent in Texas state prison draws serious gasps, but Eaton has an even bigger shock in store: the disastrous final performance of Crosby, Stills & Nash at the 2015 National Christmas Tree Lighting. Their off-key, out-of-tune butchering of “Silent Night” (which, at least, CSN did not choose) is an awful and embarrassing sunset on a career that includes masterworks like “Helplessly Hoping,” “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” and “Teach Your Children.”  

Eaton elects not to dive too deeply into individual song histories, with “Ohio,” and the rawness that surrounds it to this day, standing as the most notable exception. The director uses a clip of Crosby’s infamous questioning of the Warren Commission report on stage at the legendary 1967 Monterey International Pop Music Festival to illustrate how his divisive and strident positions would alienate Crosby from his closest collaborators. The whole film, in fact, skews heavily toward an elegiac mournfulness that marvelously erases any and all of the punchlines depicting Crosby as an out-of-control, substance-abusing has-been, replacing them with a more complex — if deliberately incomplete — portrait of an enormously talented artist.