Movie review by Greg Carlson

At 63 years of age, Paul Reubens completes a minor miracle with the return of beloved, iconic manchild Pee-wee Herman, the eccentric creation whose appeal to grown-ups and children hit the bullseye in Tim Burton’s feature directorial debut “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and on television in “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday” fails to top the 1980s incarnation of the character, but longtime fans will smile at several of the movie’s colorful gags. Produced by Reubens and Judd Apatow and directed by John Lee, the film is a nostalgic reminder of the anarchic charms of the devilishly singular Herman. The movie could end up pointing some viewers to the early, harder-to-find content showcasing Reubens’ huge talent. It’s unreal that Pee-wee debuted more than 35 years ago.

The screenplay, written by Reubens and Paul Rust, conservatively retraces much of the basic road trip narrative that propelled “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” but without the deeply motivating homage to De Sica’s “Bicycle Thieves.” This time, Pee-wee slings hash and mixes milkshakes at Dan’s Diner in the picture postcard town of Fairville, until a chance encounter with Joe Manganiello (playing himself) develops into a star-crossed friendship. Invited to the “Magic Mike” star’s NYC birthday party, Pee-wee lights out cross country, encountering another parade of unusual and idiosyncratic personalities. Perhaps the most welcome cameo comes courtesy of Diane Salinger (so memorable as Francophile dreamer Simone in “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”). Salinger appears in a brief scene as a fearless aviator who takes Pee-wee in her flying car.

Depictions of the Amish community and flamboyant hairdressers don’t feel particularly progressive, and in one scene the movie plays with the ancient “farmer’s daughters” joke, placing Pee-wee in the path of a nonet of enthusiastic young women. In Rebecca Keegan’s Los Angeles Times review, the critic writes, “…it’s not entirely clear who is meant to be the butt of the joke, as when a farmer with a house full of chubby daughters tries to marry one off to Pee-wee. The moment feels strangely mean-spirited, as if the joke is on unappealing fat women instead of Pee-wee’s ‘Ew! Girls!’ response.” I did not read the film’s presentation of the physicality of the women as mean or negative, but Keegan’s comments speak to the challenges of cultivating subtlety and complexity when viewer response is so subjective.

A significant part of Pee-wee’s enduring appeal manifests in the carefully calibrated subversiveness that allows glimpses of sexuality, selfishness, and anti-authoritarianism alongside a genuine inclusivity and egalitarianism that welcomes and celebrates difference. For me, once a Pee-wee fan, always a Pee-wee fan. I probably won’t watch “Big Holiday” the way I mainlined “Big Adventure,” which saw several VHS copies spool through the deck so many times they fell apart. Still, I loved much about the new odyssey: Pee-wee’s sustained boy soprano scream, pitched a couple octaves above middle C; the exquisitely timed deflating balloon demonstration; the visual homage to the heroines of “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” Sometimes, you should just loosen your red bowtie, slip off your glen plaid jacket and white tassel loafers, kick back, relax, and sip from your tiny root beer barrel.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Craig Cobb, the white supremacist who purchased properties in Leith, North Dakota as part of a warped plan to establish a community for like-minded racial separatists, takes center stage in “Welcome to Leith,” recipient of the Bill Snyder Award for Documentary Filmmaking at the 2016 Fargo Film Festival. Principally examining the period during which Cobb’s actions and publicity-seeking behavior ran afoul of the townspeople (depending how you count, not more than two dozen souls) and ended with Cobb’s arrest and subsequent incarceration, the riveting feature by directors Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Echoing Jesse Moss’ “The Overnighters” as another documentary focused on themes of outsiders/insiders in one of the nation’s least populous states, “Welcome to Leith” succeeds in part because of the all-access privilege enjoyed by the filmmakers, who shadowed both Cobb and Leith mayor Ryan Schock over a period of time. The moviemakers also get to know key players like the no-nonsense Lee Cook, Leith’s only African-American resident Bobby Harper, and Cobb’s confederate Kynan Dutton. Both “The Overnighters” and “Welcome to Leith” observe details of North Dakota life that alternately refute and reinforce stereotypes about the inhabitants – both newly arrived and lifelong.

Many North Dakotans followed the unfolding events in Leith without knowing that Nichols and Walker were simultaneously collecting the images that would be shaped into their film. As a result, locals may view the finished work with a sense of déjà vu. Key flashpoints in the Cobb saga, including the town’s efforts to pass ordinances that would require sewer and water for property owners, the November 2013 arrest of Cobb and Dutton on terrorizing charges after they patrolled Leith on foot with loaded rifles, and Cobb’s appearances on broadcast media, are communicated with clarity and urgency.

In one moment that will remind some of the circus-like atmosphere that set up a broken nose for Geraldo Rivera in 1988 when a brawl erupted after a confrontation between John Metzger and Roy Innis during a taping, Cobb appears as a guest on “The Trisha Goddard Show,” a syndicated talk tabloid. Goddard shares the results of Cobb’s DNA test, shocking the grinning hatemonger and the hooting studio audience with news that fourteen percent of Cobb’s genetic material comes from Sub-Saharan Africa. The no-publicity-is-bad-publicity revelation seems to be of little consequence to Cobb, who accrues his power from page views and time spent in the public eye.

Whether or not the filmmakers go too easy on Cobb is debatable, but the objective and observational style of the photography and editing suits the atmosphere of dread and unease that mounts with each of Cobb’s disconcerting and alarming antics. Following the incidents covered in the film, Cobb got up to his old real estate acquisition tricks in Antler, North Dakota, bidding – but eventually losing to the city – on a trio of properties. Not surprisingly, Cobb, according to Forum Communications reporter Adrian Glass-Moore, claimed that he intended to change the name of Antler to “Trump Creativity” or “Creativity Trump.” Glass wrote that the proposed alteration would be “in honor of Donald Trump, who Cobb admires deeply.”  Welcome to Leith and welcome to America.

“Welcome to Leith” will screen on March 18 at 7 p.m. at the Fargo Theatre as part of the 2016 Fargo Film Festival. Directors Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker will be there to take audience questions.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

WARNING: The following review reveals key plot information. Read only if you have seen “The Witch”

Near the thrilling, ecstatic conclusion of first-time feature director Robert Eggers’ “The Witch: A New-England Folktale,” our young protagonist Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), having endured unspeakable horrors, demands that family goat Black Phillip, a possible vessel for the Devil himself, converse with her. The resulting exchange, a pulse-quickening negotiation that maneuvers Thomasin to the brink of damnation, leads to a climax of intoxicating potency, subverting audience expectations and confirming certain suspicions about what it is, exactly, that we have just witnessed.

Part psychological study, part old-fashioned campfire yarn, “The Witch” provides an imagined preamble to the events that would unfold some six decades later in Salem.  There are many reasons to endorse the film, from Eggers’ finely understood sense of cinematic space to the elegant simplicity of the chronologic presentation of the narrative’s increasingly unsettling events. But underneath the many competing interpretations of Eggers’ thematic agenda, one tremendously positive reading stands out above the others: “The Witch” is a powerful feminist statement.

In a recent column, Todd VanDer Werff interviewed Satanic Temple spokesperson Jex Blackmore, who noted, “There is an interest in controlling a female figure and in dictating to her what her role is in a society that benefits males.” While the must-read “Vox” post focuses primarily on A24’s bold marketing relationship with a group well outside the mainstream, Blackmore’s thoughts on patriarchal theocracy in an already intense political atmosphere provide some context for the movie’s depiction of a young woman about to be, in essence, rented out by her parents to another family as a domestic servant.

Blackmore’s written statement on “The Witch,” released to coincide with the temple’s set of public events, says in part, “While the patriarchy makes witches of only the most socially vulnerable members of society, Eggers’ film refuses to construct a victim narrative. Instead it features a declaration of feminine independence that both provokes puritanical America and inspires a tradition of spiritual transgression.” These ideas, I think, are at the heart of claims regarding the film’s potential for future classic status in intriguing pieces like the one Chris Eggertsen wrote called “Why Do So Many Horror Fans Hate ‘The Witch’?”

Starting with Thomasin but extending to members of her immediate family and the coven she will eventually join, images of womanhood in “The Witch” are stitched into an important motif that acknowledges several persistent archetypes. The succubus and the hag bookend the external representation of the spellbinder who operates outside the rules and expectations of the governed community. Thomasin herself, passing through the liminal state between childhood and post-adolescent maturity, stands at the center of a precarious place – whether that be 1630s North America or today.

The last sections of “The Witch” bring to full fruition any number of Eggers’ promises. Has Thomasin been groomed for her moment with Black Phillip since the family’s arrival at their forest-edged homestead? Is she responsible for brother Samuel’s disappearance? Typically, young women accused of witchcraft by others, including their own family members, are only guilty of threatening masculine authority. Eggers can be commended for his handling of Thomasin’s emerging sexuality as recognized most viscerally by brother Caleb, but the reactions of mother Katherine and father William are equally stirring. No matter what Thomasin has done or not done, her answer is the same we would give when asked by Black Phillip, “Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As sharp and entertaining as the man it examines, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” is a substantive chronicle of one of the most influential television creators/producers in the history of the medium. While some degree of hagiography is inevitable on the heels of Lear’s 2014 memoir “Even This I Get to Experience,” the filmmakers handle several delicate and/or controversial public and private themes important to Lear’s biography. While some of these – most certainly the treatment of race on “Good Times” and “The Jeffersons” – demand closer scrutiny, Ewing and Grady’s work will send plenty of new Lear scholars to the archives.

Framed with a series of snazzy, staged interstitials that depict a preteen version of Lear played by Keaton Nigel Cooke ambling around backstage in signature white hat, the documentary stretches its creative muscles to imagine one of television’s eminent elder statesmen as the ultimate show business innovator. Plenty of stars are lined up to speak on behalf of Lear’s mentorship, but the often hysterical and always articulate thoughts and expressions of Lear himself are the main attraction start to finish.

Ewing and Grady are not nervous about skipping over huge chunks of Lear’s vita, making choices that reflect a sense of what they endorse as the most critical passages. As a result, one of the film’s finest sequences takes a long look at “All in the Family.” Lear’s tribute to Carroll O’Connor is moving and tender, and the clips selected to illustrate the commentary are electrifying – especially one from the legendary 1978 episode “Two’s a Crowd” (reportedly O’Connor’s series favorite) in which Archie Bunker talks about his abusive father when he and Mike Stivic are locked in a storeroom.

Archival, behind-the-scenes footage of the making of “Good Times” hints at a level of intensity few viewers – and certainly the white ones – would not imagine during the show’s rise in popularity. Both Esther Rolle, seen in previously recorded interviews, and John Amos summarize the painful shortcomings wrought by the writers’ tendency toward broad stereotype and comic buffoonery, particularly when Jimmie Walker’s J. J. trumpeted his catchphrase “Kid Dy-no-mite!” Lear, who was supposedly not a supporter of the recurring bit or the move away from more serious topics, might have had more to say on the subject, but the filmmakers turn their attention to other issues and the viewers are left wondering.

Beyond the giant footprints Lear left on the small screen moonscape, his extracurricular activities as founder of the political action group People for the American Way and as a father (again) in his sixties offer more insight into his character. Lear’s strongly held beliefs about the meaning of patriotism and Americanism led to the 8 million dollar acquisition of a Dunlap broadside, an early copy of the Declaration of Independence, that was shown publicly throughout the United States. With an impressive list of professional accomplishments spanning the majority of the medium’s lifespan, one might imagine Lear would slow down. But at the Sundance Film Festival, the 93-year-old happily spoke about his current and upcoming slate of TV projects.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In the days leading up to the nationwide release of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen’s “Hail, Caesar!,” clickbait slideshows far and wide competed to sort the oeuvre of the siblings. This week, “Slate” culture blogger Gabriel Roth filed a short article laying out a six-point theory to answer his title question, “What Is It About the Coen Brothers’ Movies That Makes Everyone Want to Rank Them?” And now that the film has been met with the kind of public indifference and critical adulation guaranteed to at least keep the saga of Eddie Mannix out of last place in future installments of the game, Coen devotees can start to ponder the details.

“Hail, Caesar!” is entertaining enough and occasionally hilarious (“Divine presence to be shot”), but its breezy tone and deviation from the Coen films that more soberly ponder the life of the mind place it much closer to “The Ladykillers” (which I like) than to “Barton Fink” (which I love). “Hail, Caesar!” already has its champions. Asher Gelzer-Govatos lays out a moonshot of a dialectical schematic that pairs Coen films in a wild comedy/drama variation on Herodotus’ “one sober/one drunk” account of Persian lawmaking. For the record, Gelzer-Govatos has “Hail, Caesar!” as the supposed yin to the yang of “Inside Llewyn Davis.”

The noisiest “Hail, Caesar!” supporter so far is Richard Brody, who notes that the film is “a comedy, and a scintillating, uproarious one, filled with fast and light touches of exquisite incongruity in scenes that have the expansiveness of relaxed precision, performed and timed with the spontaneous authority of jazz.” Brody is not wrong about the “relaxed precision,” but individual scenes, no matter how entertaining, do not a complete and wholly satisfying experience make – even if one could watch Ralph Fiennes’ Laurence Laurentz enunciate line readings all day long.

Gorgeously staged homages to Old Hollywood dazzle and delight. Alden Ehrenreich’s pretty and vacant singing cowboy Hobie Doyle could have been the central protagonist in his own vehicle, instead of a Montgomery Clift doppelganger adrift in a crowded sea of cameo appearances by big performers one expects to factor in ways that never materialize. Given that the roll call features so prominently in the marketing, one can blame the trailer for intensifying some of that expectation, but why bother to stage Scarlett Johansson’s incredible Busby Berkeley/Esther Williams water ballet kaleidoscope if you’re only going to stick her with a one-note Jean Hagen/Lina Lamont joke and send her packing?

Along with Johansson, the other women of “Hail, Caesar!” also get the fuzzy end of the lollypop. The movie fails the Bechdel Test despite featuring Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Veronica Osorio, Alison Pill, and Heather Goldenhersh. It is something of an understatement to say that all of these actors are cheated in the male-centric universe of Capitol Pictures, where Josh Brolin’s Mannix operates. The Future, the movie’s organization of communists responsible for star Baird Whitlock’s abduction and indoctrination, is a heavy boys club. And the delicious homoerotic sailor number hoofed by Channing Tatum’s Burt Gurney in one of the many movies-within-the-movie is appropriately titled “No Dames.”

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Spike Lee’s second documentary on one of the most unforgettable, electrifying, and controversial superstars of the 20^th century doesn’t compare to the filmmaker’s finest nonfiction features. But the cumbersomely titled “Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall” celebrates an exciting transitional period in the performer’s life with plenty of visual and auditory fireworks. Co-produced with the endorsement and cooperation of MJ estate co-executors John Branca and John McClain, Lee’s film, which plays on Showtime Friday, February 5, 2016, keeps its eyes and ears on the music.

Lee refocuses our attention on Jackson’s recording legacy, reminding viewers that race-based discrimination was a de facto reality of the era in which “Off the Wall” emerged. And while the presentation of information is essentially a straightforward compendium alternating between new interviews with an eclectic roster of talking heads (from Jackson family members to David Byrne to Rosie Perez to Questlove and a bunch of key album contributors) and some tasty and eye-popping archival footage of Jackson from the estate’s vault, Lee recognizes the importance of Jackson as a black artist making a huge commitment to achieving mainstream acceptance and success.

Leading up to the creation of the “Off the Wall” album, Lee explains Jackson’s desire to emerge as a solo artist and distance himself from the groups associated with his siblings. The movie’s amazing stories of Studio 54, the unexpected popularity of “Ben,” and clips of the Jacksons on stage during the 1979 Destiny tour keep company with accounts of Michael’s role as the Scarecrow in Sidney Lumet’s film of “The Wiz,” responsible for placing Quincy Jones in the path of an ascendant Jackson desperate to shake off doubts that he was a has-been child star with no future. It seems farfetched now, but Jackson’s lone “Off the Wall” Grammy didn’t even make the broadcast. It was presented during a commercial break.

Once the film reaches the section focused on a track-by-track analysis of “Off the Wall,” the most devoted will be wishing we arrived at that point earlier. Expectedly and deservedly, tunes like “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” “Rock with You,” and “She’s Out of My Life” receive solid workouts, but Lee glosses over others – even if it is a “throwaway,” Paul McCartney’s “Girlfriend” is dispatched quickly and the title song certainly merits an even weightier examination. Followers of the Nick de Grunwald and Martin Smith “Classic Albums” rock documentaries hoping for super-nerd dissections of mixes and multitracks won’t find that series’ level of nirvana, but Lee digs deep enough to whet appetites.

The post-screening Q & A at the Sundance world premiere almost immediately turned to the possibility that Mr. Lee would complete a Jackson trilogy with a future installment focused on “Thriller” – a pretty safe bet. “Thriller” was unprecedented, but so was “Off the Wall,” a multiplatinum game changer for the twenty-year-old phenomenon and his growing army of listeners. After the sights and sounds of Jackson himself, the best parts of Lee’s film capture what it means to be a fan. Over the end credits, Lemon Andersen delivers his poem from Lee’s first “Brooklyn Loves MJ” birthday tribute in 2009, reciting in part:

Go find your spot in the park
Swing, slide, see-saw
You were our shot in the dark
You gave us a better night life
51 years of victory
Now enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself
Enjoy yourself for me…

Movie review by Greg Carlson

WARNING: The following review reveals key plot information. Read only if you have seen “Anomalisa.”

Like so many of the curious, distinctive places imagined and created for his films, the universe of Charlie Kaufman’s “Anomalisa” is simultaneously familiar and strange, recognizable and alien, inviting and terrifying. Based on Kaufman’s 2005 play, the film adaptation is codirected by Kaufman and stop-motion practitioner Duke Johnson, and has the distinction of being the first R-rated movie to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. Even at a tidy 90 minutes, “Anomalisa” is on several levels as thought-provoking as Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York,” the polarizing cult film that also grapples with questions of desire, self-worth, cognition, and identity.

“Anomalisa” follows speaker and customer service author of “How May I Help You Help Them?” Michael Stone (David Thewlis) during a one-night engagement in Cincinnati. In a series of scenes that unfold mostly in real time, Michael arrives at a hotel called the Fregoli, another of Kaufman’s frequently deployed linguistic/terminological Easter eggs, this one a reference to the psychiatric delusion that multiple individuals are actually just one person who can change appearance. Francis Fregoli was also Kaufman’s nom de plume on the original play script.

At the hotel, every banal encounter unfolds with a sense that there is something else as uncanny as the head and facial designs of the fascinating 3D printed puppets. But the intricately fabricated sets and armatures are only one facet of a central auditory conceit that informs any reading of the cinematic text. Some critics have opted to refrain from discussing what Richard Brody describes as a “coup de theatre too clever to divulge,” but the “technical gimmick” of using Tom Noonan as the voice of every character Michael encounters until he hears the unique and euphonious Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is the aspect of “Anomalisa” that will have you reflecting for days.

Michael’s excitement at hearing Lisa distinctly from all others, including his wife and his child, leads to some of the movie’s most discussed touches, including a lovely moment in which Lisa sings an intimate rendition of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” that makes Michael’s eyes sparkle (an absolute blessing in disguise when the filmmakers were not able to license “My Heart Will Go On,” which was used in the play). But the more time we spend, the greater our discomfort at Michael’s “condition.” An unsettling late callback to a scene in which Michael spots an unusual mechanical sex doll while looking for a gift to bring home to his son is pure Kaufman – a hall of mirrors in which we watch an inanimate object regard an automaton and start to wonder whether we are all Michaels.

Kaufman deliberately resists the kind of homogeneity and polish that would more smoothly align the sympathies of the audience with Michael. Instead, the character’s selfishness, uncertainty, and privilege are displayed in such a way to allow for a wide range of readings and interpretations of authorial intent. Is Michael a bad person? Are we all bad people? Thewlis, Noonan, and Leigh, reprising their roles from the Theater of the New Ear production, are all so good that once you see “Anomalisa” you might believe the members of the Academy nominated Ms. Leigh for the wrong movie.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Leading all Oscar challengers with a total of twelve nominations, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “The Revenant” has to overcome a few daunting statistics reported by prognosticator Scott Feinberg in order to win Best Picture. Feinberg notes that only one movie in the last fifty years (“Titanic,” which, coincidentally starred Leonardo DiCaprio) snagged the top prize without a screenplay nomination. Additionally, “Braveheart” was the last film to collect Best Picture sans a best ensemble SAG Award nod, and that was twenty years ago. It’s a pretty safe bet, however, that “The Revenant” won’t go home empty handed, as star DiCaprio is widely seen as the frontrunner in the Best Actor category.

Inarritu’s radical reimagining of the Hugh Glass story veers so wildly from anything like historical fidelity that the movie should have just cut the tag “Inspired by true events.” Even so, the narrative retains several key components from the adventurer’s biography – most notably the 1823 grizzly bear attack in present-day South Dakota and Glass’ remarkable odyssey of survival. Opinions on the rendering of the former run the gamut, but compared to the story’s treatment of women and Native Americans – and especially Native American women – it is clearly better to be a bear. Following the mauling, Glass is not expected to live, and two expedition members, the surly John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and the young Jim Bridger (Will Poulter) are assigned to stand watch over Glass until he expires.

What follows is not exactly the roaring rampage of revenge promised in the film’s advertisements, but rather a protracted fever dream of human-versus-nature challenges. The fabrication/addition of Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), the teenage Pawnee son of Hugh Glass, registers only as a plot gambit to intensify Glass’ thirst for reprisal, but many viewers will wonder why Inarritu and co-screenwriter Mark L. Smith withhold scenes that would establish a stronger bond between parent and child.

“The Revenant” has divided cinephiles who alternately marvel at the natural light accomplishments of superhero cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and criticize the award season campaigning on behalf of the movie by its makers. Back in July of 2015, Kim Masters wrote a feature for “The Hollywood Reporter” chronicling the brutal physical conditions under which the movie’s principal photography took place. Masters’ piece set the stage for a making-movies-is-hard narrative that served the production until a backlash from writers like Devin Faraci started calling bullshit on the looping PR repetition of DiCaprio being cold and wet and gnawing on a real bison liver.

Inarritu haters have been taking shots at the filmmaker long before “Birdman” scored the picture, director, screenplay, and cinematography Oscars, and “The Revenant” will do nothing to quiet the din. Jaime N. Christley’s “Slant” takedown, for example, is worth reading for the volley of zingers like this one: “Inarritu doubles down on his rudimentary grasp of visual metaphors with a straight-faced update of the birthing gag from Steve Oedekerk’s ‘Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.’” Even so, Inarritu is capable of commanding screen space with a sense of grandeur that owes much to the influence of Terrence Malick.

Christley’s snark aside, Inarritu’s biggest mistake may be failing to honor the grim resolution of Glass’ quest for satisfaction as it stands in the historical record. The climactic mortal combat confrontation between Glass and Fitzgerald – a predictable cinematic inevitability given the film’s considerable budget – is nowhere near as existentially bleak as Michael Punke’s rendition or the reality in which Glass recovers his rifle but cannot, or does not, mete out any physical retribution against his enemy.