Movie review by Greg Carlson

John Crowley’s film of Colm Toibin’s popular novel “Brooklyn” features a tremendous Saoirse Ronan – whose thoughtful and inviting presence is more than enough to recommend the movie, despite some of its easy calculations. As Eilis Lacey, a young woman who leaves her home and family in Enniscorthy, Ireland for the promise of a bigger life in America, Ronan adds another noteworthy performance to her already impressive filmography. Set in the early 1950s, “Brooklyn” trades to a significant degree on a kind of highly filtered, golden nostalgia, and opinions are divided on the success of this tactic.

Nick Hornby’s screenplay retains the soul of Toibin’s book: Eilis’ painful homesickness and heartsickness, the old-fashioned benevolence of the Catholic Church, and Eilis’ disequilibrium over her national identity – especially when she returns to the country of her birth. The movie does, however, differ from the novel in several notable aspects. The opening is more streamlined, the strange scene between Eilis and Miss Fortini in the dressing room is altered, and the film makes only the tiniest nod to the African American customers of Bartocci’s department store.

The biggest change, however, is Crowley’s decision to conclude with a definitive resolution concerning the state of Eilis’ relationship with first love Tony (Emory Cohen), scuttling the more open-ended final scene as rendered by Toibin in the novel. While the trope of a character pursued by more than one suitor ranks high on the scale of storytelling familiarity, the employment of the love triangle in “Brooklyn” functions better as a symbolic choice between the two countries Eilis has inhabited. Tony equals America while Domhnall Gleeson’s Jim Farrell stands in for all the comforts of Ireland.

In his vicious review, Richard Brody destroys the film for what he perceives as unforgivable “simplifications and sanitizations,” attacking it for misrepresenting and misunderstanding the fullness of New York City (no surprise) and for apparently promoting something like banality. Brody claims that the film “isn’t so much a bad movie as it is a virtual self-parody of a genre – that of the minor, dignified, clean-hands art-house preciosity.” While the venerable Brody is squarely in the minority with regard to “Brooklyn,” his arguments serve as a reminder of criticism’s subjectivity. Where Brody sees costar Cohen’s “comically chewy stage accent,” Michael Sragow writing for “Film Comment” remarks that “Cohen’s Tony riffs beautifully on Brando’s gallant street courtship of Eva Marie Saint.”

What Brody might be missing is the possibility that the very essence of Crowley’s cinematic interpretation of “Brooklyn” depends on the construction of a world experienced through the unreliable eyes of Eilis, whose innocence and inexperience color everything. Eilis is our guide and navigator, and her journey toward the kind of maturity that results in self-actualization in only the most vivid characters is the film’s central agenda item. Brody observes that “Eilis expects nothing, imagines nothing, knows nothing, sees nothing, does nothing,” frustrated at the perceived lack of conflict on display. Yet for Eilis, a series of tangible and frightening challenges presents her with enough conflict for a lifetime, and many viewers will come away certain that Eilis saw and imagined much, learned and did a lot.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Belinda Sallin’s documentary “Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World” captures the Swiss artist near the end of his interesting life. Giger, who rocketed to international fame and Oscar glory for the iconic designs he contributed to Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” died in 2014 at the age of 74. Sallin, given full access to her subject, capitalizes on the privilege to prowl through the cluttered rooms of Giger’s home, a shabby heap teeming with macabre curiosities and enough specialized volumes to rival the finest libraries. The dwelling immediately emerges as a central character in its own right, competing directly with Giger’s artwork as the movie’s primary visual attraction.

The filmmaker is less successful communicating any substantive analysis of Giger’s imagery, content to let a handful of associates repeat simple explanations of Giger’s thematic concerns familiar to anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the man’s eroticized “biomechanical” hybridizations of the organic and the industrial. An affable, quiet Giger, operating with the full awareness that his post-stroke physical health has slowed him considerably, doesn’t say much. Sallin supplements several scenes with archival footage of Giger from his most active years, chasing the man’s quicksilver talent for locating the intersection between dream and nightmare.

While Sallin includes some of Giger’s most famous images, few meaningful stories accompany them. For example, a tantalizing reference by Giger’s mother in law to the use of “Penis Landscape/Work 219: Landscape XX” by the Dead Kennedys as a poster insert in “Frankenchrist” reads only as a confusing throwaway. While the American obscenity trial involving Jello Biafra and Alternative Tentacles should open the door to an essential chapter in the Giger biography, Sallin ignores it and all the other historical collaborations and/or relationships between Giger and recording artists like Debbie Harry and ELP.

As expected, Sallin covers the “Alien” experience, but opts for period interviews – including a brief clip of Scott acknowledging Giger’s gifts – rather than any newly collected content. Prior to that section of the film, a short episode on Li Tobler, the actor who would become Giger’s life partner, model and artistic muse, leaves viewers hungry for a deeper examination of arguably the most important single figure in Giger’s career. Giger, choked with emotion, confirms that speaking about Tobler (who committed suicide in 1975) is still difficult decades later. The two appeared together in Fredi Murer’s 1972 television documentary “Passagen,” and it is not difficult to imagine their alliance as the subject of an entire feature.

Sallin’s cameras follow Giger to a few public appearances, observing a number of moments in which the most devoted members of the Giger cult tremble and break down in the presence of their deity. “Dark Star” misses yet another opportunity to place its subject into proper perspective, largely skipping over the fan/artist relationship. At least Celtic Frost’s Tom Gabriel Fischer, one admirer who creatively channeled his dedication to Giger’s vision, attests to the peculiar levels of hero worship offered to Giger. Fischer, who parlayed his fandom into a stint as one of Giger’s professional assistants, enjoys a rare and unusual connection few disciples know. Interest in Giger is not likely to wane, and “Dark Star” is not going to be the last word on the spellbinding surrealist.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Like hapless novelty salesmen Jonathan (Holger Andersson) and Sam (Nisse Vestblom), filmmaker Roy Andersson clearly just wants to help people have fun. Completing his “Living” trilogy – which also contains the brilliant pair “Songs from the Second Floor” (2000) and “You, the Living” (2007) – “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence” is the set’s piece de resistance and one of the best films of the year. Revisiting Andersson’s ambitious themes, which include observations on class, colonialism, lust, greed, and war, Andersson’s colossal achievement is a memento mori made surprisingly warm by the filmmaker’s desire to laugh with his fellow human beings and not at them.

Better witnessed than described, Andersson’s work nevertheless draws favorable comparisons to Edward Hopper and Samuel Beckett, and cinematic grand masters like Luis Bunuel, Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick, and Woody Allen, with strong kinship to the traffic jam insanity of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Weekend” and the pinball connections of Richard Linklater’s “Slacker.” Andrew O’Hehir even suggests that “if Wes Anderson and Lars von Trier tried to write a sitcom together,” it might be something like “Pigeon.” Truly, as has so often been repeated, there is nobody out there making movies quite like Andersson.

Marked by painstakingly composed tableaux, uninterrupted takes with no cut-ins or close-ups, and jet-black comedy alternating with tender poignancy, Andersson’s universe is vast and wondrous. His approach to production is the antithesis of the assembly line factory churning out Hollywood studio fare: almost unbelievably, Andersson designs his sets (which typically heighten and exaggerate the illusion of depth) and then collects dozens of takes of mostly non-professional performers until he sees something he likes. The scenes that end up in the movies are human-scale dioramas – moving and breathing paintings that merit multiple viewings.

Andersson, whose sharp-eyed existentialism complements the anything goes atmospherics contained within his movie world, is so comfortable and in command, viewers readily accept the methodological madness that includes musical numbers, fourth-wall violations, genre assassinations, and time-bending disequilibrium that blurs all borders between dream and reality. Quotidian moments – lovers looking out from a window, two little girls blowing bubbles – share space with mind-melting fantasias like the nightmare showstopper in which wealthy, formally dressed senior citizens are entertained by the music produced from the torture of slaves being cooked in a gigantic, rotating copper cylinder.

Beyond the Laurel and Hardy hijinks of Jonathan and Sam trying to unload their pathetic stock of plastic vampire teeth and cheap rubber “Uncle One-Tooth” masks – a structural thread not too far removed from the misadventures of Kalle the arsonist in “Songs from the Second Floor” – Andersson sticks to his hallmark vignettes. Fans will cite their favorites, and there are no wrong answers in that respect. Memorable contenders include opening bit “Three meetings with death,” the ghoulishly fascinating musical torture chamber, and the anachronistic campaign of King Charles XII (Viktor Gyllenberg). The last, partially glimpsed through windows and in the background, like the business-suited flagellants and the ambulatory apartment of rock and roll newlyweds in the earlier films, confirms Andersson as one of cinema’s irreplaceable treasures.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Celebrating the 30^th anniversary of “Back to the Future,” Jason Aron’s crowdfunded documentary “Back in Time” tries unsuccessfully to capitalize on the blockbuster’s enduring appeal. Released online for “Back to the Future Day,” October 21, 2015 – the date selected in the sequel by Marty McFly to go and save his yet-to-be-born children – “Back in Time” is earnest to a fault. While the movie intends to be the last word on the highest grossing film of 1985, “Back in Time” is ultimately too broad and scattershot to transcend its status as a curio by the fan, about the fan, and for the fan.

Before the torpor fully sets in, Aron lines up an impressive gallery of talking heads to gush, fawn, and deploy much hyperbole – some of it merited – on the magic of Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s practically perfect summer entertainment. In one exquisitely packaged bite, Steven Spielberg claims that “Back to the Future” “defines the taste of buttered popcorn.” Along with Gale, Zemeckis, and Spielberg, cast members Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Claudia Wells, Donald Fullilove, James Tolkan, and others appear to reminisce about their experiences. The verdict: Aron should have cut Wells and Fullilove playing minigolf for charity in favor of more Fox and Lloyd.

In addition to the actors, Huey Lewis, Alan Silvestri, Dean Cundey, Frank Price, and others turn up to share their memories. As inspirational grab bag, “Back in Time” happily tanks up on scene after scene of warm and fuzzy adulation coming from both the people who made the movie and the most devoted and obsessed audience members. From DeLorean DMC-12 “Time Machine” collectors and restorers, who appear in a section so protracted you start to think it will take up the rest of the feature-length running time, to detours on the science behind hoverboards and flying cars, the movie’s exasperating inclusivity will cause plenty of viewers to locate the fast forward button.

For all the stuff it crams in, “Back in Time” toothlessly squanders real opportunities to deal directly with legitimate arguments concerning the shortcomings of the two sequels. While the story of the firing of Eric Stoltz on the original production is handled with more tact and detail than you might expect from what sometimes comes across as a glorified DVD behind the scenes bonus feature, the exit of disgruntled not-so-secret weapon Crispin Glover is conspicuously ignored. To his credit, Aron keeps Dan Harmon’s admonishment that “Everybody knows II and III suck,” but then pretty much leaves it at that.

You’ll also wonder why Aron feels the need to include so much footage from stuff like “The Goldbergs” and “American Dad,” even if Adam F. Goldberg’s thoughts on mother-son incest humorously address the original film’s most durable and potent subtext. A much more satisfying critical examination of “Back to the Future” can be found in Andrew Shail and Robin Stoate’s 2010 British Film Institute monograph, which unpacks ideas about filmmaking, teen culture, nuclear energy, 1950s nostalgia, and time travel cinema in ways frustratingly untouched by Aron’s documentary.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Made in part to capitalize on nostalgia for its source material, “Jem and the Holograms” is considerably less entertaining than many of the animated episodes of the original series that aired in first-run syndication from 1985 to 1988. Directed by Jon Chu, the live action “musical fantasy” borrows a number of familiar elements from the toy-based program that marketed Barbie-like fashion dolls and accessories, but the effort is wayward and misguided. Original series creator Christy Marx was left out of the project, and the resulting flop has already been pegged as one of the biggest wide-release box office failures of the year.

Marx’s “Jem” stories were hardly sophisticated, but they did present a female-centric universe in which smart and determined young women routinely faced ethical dilemmas and discovered opportunities to solve problems through cooperation and collaboration. The central premise, that the late father of Jerrica Benton has invented a pair of technologically advanced earrings allowing his daughter to cloak her identity and appear as either Jerrica or the “outrageous” frontwoman of Jem and the Holograms, is tweaked for the film. Additionally, the artificially intelligent Synergy is altered from a fairy godmother-esque computer console to S1N3RGY, a cutesy relative of EVE from “WALL-E.”

On the show, Jem and her bandmates spent as much time being threatened, imprisoned, sabotaged, cheated, and manipulated by the evil music producer Eric Raymond as they did climbing on stage in the nick of time to perform at fundraisers and charity benefit concerts. In the movie, Eric becomes Erica (Juliette Lewis), and Jerrica’s boyfriend Rio (Ryan Guzman) is clumsily reimagined as Erica’s son. Now it is Rio and not Jem to whom controlling interest in Starlight Music is bequeathed, a stupid move since it erases one of the most appealing aspects of the original series: Jem’s agency outside of her role as a pop star.

While the movie’s tunes and the game performance of star Aubrey Peeples in the title role combine for fleeting moments of entertainment, Chu’s flimsy alternate reality functions in a constant state of collapse. The idea that the identity of Jerrica/Jem would be so hard to keep secret – especially in the YouTube and Internet-saturated world depicted throughout the movie – doesn’t work at all. In the cartoon, it was Rio’s “love triangle” with Jerrica/Jem that triggered the privileged viewer satisfaction enjoyed by the pre-teens consuming the show, but that piece of the puzzle is omitted.

In an essay for Jezebel’s blog “The Muse,” Hillary Crosley Coker writes, “…‘Jem’ fans are so pissed that Scooter Braun, along with other bros Jason Blum, Bennett Schneir, Brian Goldner, Stephen Davis of Hasbro Studios and director John [sic] Chu are producing the film – it’s like a congressional hearing on birth control over there. Even the script’s writer is a dude, Ryan Landels.” If the boys accidentally got one thing right, it might be the absence of the mean girl versus good girl competition provided on the series by the Misfits (not to be confused with Glenn Danzig’s outfit). Jem’s shrill enemies do appear briefly in a post-credits sequence, possibly as a reminder for us to be grateful they weren’t a bigger part of the film.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Strictly for Spandau Ballet fans, “Soul Boys of the Western World” follows the familiar “Behind the Music” formula applicable to thousands of rock and roll stories. Long on hyperbole and much shorter on subtext and context, director George Hencken’s documentary relies on unfettered access to a trove of vintage film and video (for which archive producer Kate Griffiths deserves mention). Tracing the rise and fall of the North London quintet fronted by vocalist Tony Hadley but led by guitarist and chief songwriter Gary Kemp, the movie is a guaranteed nostalgia trip for 1980s pop enthusiasts keen to hear the details of “True.”

Making its way to digital platforms in 2015 following an American South by Southwest premiere last year, the movie is Hencken’s feature directorial debut, following significant producing experience and a longtime collaboration with Julien Temple. Hencken has her work cut out from the start, since Spandau Ballet’s history lacks the lurid criminality, extensive bad behavior, and self-destructive punch of colorful personalities like the Sex Pistols. Still, the group members emerge as working class underdogs turned into wealthy sex symbols in the blink of an eye, and that rags-to-riches part of the traditional rock fable can be breathless and exhilarating.

Hencken occasionally overstates Spandau Ballet’s importance, and while the group’s success on their home turf yielded ten U.K. Top 10 singles, the impact of the band in America was more modest. The film alludes several times to the quasi rivalry between Spandau Ballet and the much more music video savvy Duran Duran, but Hencken skips past any detailed exploration of the artists initially associated with New Romanticism and the Second British Invasion. A joint appearance in 1984 on the Mike Read-hosted game show “Pop Quiz” suggests that the members of Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran were friendly, even if the former can’t identify the lyrics of “Hungry Like the Wolf.”

Hencken fares better rocketing through the early sequences showing the Bowie-inspired rise of the Blitz Kids, those fashion forward, androgyny embracing nightclubbers who paid as much attention to their hair and makeup as they did to their music. But rather than embrace the oft-maligned champagne decadence and conspicuous consumption, Hencken cooks up montages straining to associate Spandau Ballet directly with a political consciousness opposed to Thatcherism. An entire sequence is devoted to “Through the Barricades,” a song alluding to the Northern Ireland conflict but reborn when the Berlin Wall came down – a far cry from the more comprehensively expressed social concerns of the Clash.

By the time Hencken arrives at the band’s breakup, the movie has long run out of steam, but an inevitable reunion sequence shifts from the acrimony and bitterness of the songwriting royalties lawsuit that saw Gary Kemp prevail over his former mates to the victory lap of a 2010 Isle of Wight gig when differences were set aside. Did deep and abiding friendship prevail or were money and middle age the chief factors in the reconciliation? Hencken opts for the former, but not everyone will be convinced. Either way, devoted Spandau Ballet listeners won’t mind.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A carefully crafted homage to sensualist 1970s European exploitation cinema in general and the work of filmmaker Jess Franco in particular, Peter Strickland’s “The Duke of Burgundy” bestows many perverse pleasures upon its viewers. Beautifully designed, confidently structured, and filled with visual and aural luxuries, the story alights on the strained and idiosyncratic relationship between two insect researchers/enthusiasts whose intense study of lepidopterology and entomology approaches Nabokovian levels of poetic expressiveness, especially when combined with the BDSM being practiced by the lovers behind closed doors.

Our introduction to Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna) indicates that she serves as the submissive of Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen), a stern taskmistress who metes out humiliations for the tiny infractions and mistakes committed when Evelyn falls short keeping house and polishing boots properly. Things are not what they seem, however, as Strickland reveals that Evelyn essentially “tops from the bottom,” scripting the exchanges that always lead to her sexual punishments. The more time we spend in the company of the two women, the more the director plays with the idea that Cynthia is a reluctant dominant who mostly, if not only, plays her role to please Evelyn.

Strickland uses the unorthodox particulars of Evelyn’s fantasies to examine the emotional connection between his two protagonists. The erotically charged novelties that constitute Evelyn’s desires – from the repetition of being scolded for failing to properly hand wash Cynthia’s undergarments to confinement in a locked trunk – are presented by Strickland with a great deal of restraint, deliberately leaving much to the imagination. Unlike many of Franco’s films, “The Duke of Burgundy” does not feature nudity. As Strickland goes deeper, he divulges a much stronger interest in the things we do for love rather than any of the “deviant” practices of Evelyn and Cynthia.

Whether one more closely identifies with Evelyn’s need to have her meticulously planned scenarios realized or with Cynthia’s frustration at the ongoing performance requirements and demands, Strickland manages to locate the most basic kinds of conflicts that can affect even the most vanilla partnerships. The movie’s deep respect for interpersonal universals contrasts with the ambiguity of the setting and time period. Like the vaguely anachronistic objects that flavor the films of Wes Anderson (though the filmmakers significantly differ in style), Strickland concocts a universe rife with antiquated technologies that suggest a fantasy space without a fixed year and out of step with 2015, even if the events shown could be happening now.

“The Duke of Burgundy” contains plenty of icebox talk to merit post-screening conversations or invite multiple viewings. While the primary interactions involve Evelyn and Cynthia, all of the supporting players in Strickland’s cast are female, from the curious specialist identified in the credits as “The Carpenter” to the entirety of the audience of academics who attend lectures on the moths and butterflies that serve as the film’s primary metaphoric motif (and provide the evocative title). The end credits, with the same sense of sly humor that courses through much of the film, delightfully lists a roll call of featured insects along with the human performers.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A largely disappointing follow-up to his wild dissection of the methodology of Stanley Kubrick in “Room 237,” Rodney Ascher’s “The Nightmare” introduces an octet of bedeviled souls afflicted by sleep paralysis. Staging chilling reenactments that unfold like the lurid spine-tinglers on television’s “Unsolved Mysteries,” Ascher enjoys his role as deliberately neutral interlocutor, leaving it to the viewer to decide whether the filmmaker sees his subjects as worthy of genuine pity or eye-rolling derision. By the time we reach the end, the concept runs on fumes, frustrating anyone hoping for reasonable scientific verification of the awful and eerily similar experiences described.

Whether one is a lucid dreamer or dead-to-the-world slumberer, the particulars of sleep paralysis sound downright hair-raising: essentially trapped in a state of consciousness, victims find themselves completely unable to move so much as a muscle while buzzing electrical currents course through the nervous system and shadowy figures creep into view. Those unwelcome visitors, usually men and sometimes in hats, bear down on their petrified prey. Some have eyes that glow bright red. Occasionally, cats or catlike creatures akin to the incubus of Henry Fuseli’s iconic and best-known painting come calling. One poor guy is regularly attended by grinning aliens made of static.

But where is Robert Stack when you need him? Once Ascher finishes cross-cutting among the individual variations, one expects the film to shift into some kind of deeper or more careful consideration of these waking dreams. Instead, he eschews medical explanations, sleep physicians and researchers, tossing out pretty much any contextualizing counterpoint to the woeful tales of the damned. Some of the subjects hint at personal trauma that deserves some additional acknowledgment. Many viewers will simply dismiss the visions as byproducts of stress that emerge as manifestations of how a body might psychologically deal with emotional drain, threat, or demand.

Deep into the movie, Ascher nearly escapes the hole he has dug. Using clips from several films, including “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Communion,” and even “Natural Born Killers” the filmmaker sets up what appears to be an attempt to link the horrifying apparitions visited upon his interview subjects with similar motifs in popular culture. Unfortunately, the kooky, energetic approach to film clip illustrations that worked so well in “Room 237” stops before it can make an impact. Ascher refrains from exploring the obvious question: do those dealing with sleep paralysis construct their demons from the potent images created by storytellers, or are these archetypes made of something more primal?

Ascher’s strategy to conjure up the willies for his audience results in more fantods than frights. How come we never get to know any of the sufferers as fully functioning human beings with jobs and family members? Beyond the briefest mentions of non-nightmare mundanities, the director limits the content of the talking heads to detailed explications of the physically and mentally exhausting dread awaiting the unlucky when they could use a good night’s rest. Ghost stories around the campfire have always fueled our imagination, but skeptics will become impatient with “The Nightmare” long before it is time to wake up.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Bearing a handful of the stylistic touches of prominently credited producer Ulrich Seidl, Austrian horror-thriller “Goodnight Mommy” turns the screws of its nasty little bal masque until many viewers will avert their eyes. Written and directed by Seidl’s partner and frequent co-scripter Veronika Franz and Seidl’s nephew Severin Fiala, “Goodnight Mommy” – retitled from the original “Ich seh Ich seh” for English language markets – twists the home invasion premise of fellow Austrian Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” into an oedipal pretzel. While not as unrelentingly bleak as Haneke’s vision, the abundantly creepy “Goodnight Mommy” easily gets under the skin.

When the heavily bandaged, post-surgical mother (Susanne Wuest) of pre-adolescent twins Lukas and Elias (played by brothers Lukas and Elias Schwarz) returns to their isolated retreat in the country, the boys begin to suspect that the woman is an imposter. Wisps of exposition answer a few questions but raise others as mama and her boys move swiftly toward irreversible dysfunction. The ensuing power struggle, during which the filmmakers shrewdly manipulate viewers to switch allegiances several times, escalates into a series of increasingly gruesome confrontations. Franz and Fiala observe from a chilly distance, content to let the beautiful 35mm photography of Martin Gschlacht play the leading role.

Some horror aficionados will compile a checklist of influences while watching “Goodnight Mommy,” noting the film’s sympathies and/or intersections with works like “Eyes without a Face,” “Audition,” “High Tension,” and “Borgman.” The ambitions of “Goodnight Mommy” are measurably smaller than these titles, however, especially in terms of the core relationship dynamics. As we yearn to know more about the curious bond of brother to brother and mother to sons, the directors get in their own way for the sake of a crucial plot point. A more thorough examination of character might pay greater dividends when we arrive at the combustible conclusion.

To great relief, the bloody rictus of “Goodnight Mommy” is attended by several instances of bleak humor, although individual mileage will vary depending on one’s tolerance for large cockroaches, lethally modified toys, and liberal applications of polymerizing adhesives (cat lovers deserve fair warning as well). In one terrific display of Hitchcockian Bomb Theory, two unwitting Red Cross volunteers come calling for a donation at a particularly delicate time. Franz and Fiala delight in the complication, showing a penchant for suspense while both mother and sons, for different reasons, sweat out every excruciating second of the visit.

For all of its beautifully austere compositions and long takes, “Goodnight Mommy” strains to back up the startling shifts between languorous privilege and lightning strike violence with any deeper exploration of identity, vanity, femininity, and class. The filmmakers are more successful delineating the remarkable contrast between the sleek modern angles of the family’s architecture-porn enclave and the natural world surrounding the compound. In one of the film’s most effective sequences, Lukas and Elias descend into a cavernous ossuary, crunching bone fragments with each footstep. The history of those mysterious skulls contained inside, like several other unsettling details in the narrative, go deliberately unexplained.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As the most likely audience members of “Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead,” hardcore National Lampoon fans of a certain age are the choirboys and choirgirls to filmmaker Douglas Tirola’s preacher. Tracing the history of the magazine and its prolific mediated spinoffs, Tirola’s film at least scratches the surface of the rise and fall of the Lampoon empire, even if a comprehensive account couldn’t possibly fit in a single feature movie. Cramming together dozens of interviews, hundreds of illustrations and photographs, and seemingly thousands of scattershot thoughts, the documentary works best as a rough introduction to the anything-goes, decidedly politically incorrect worldview of the publication’s key personnel – most notably cofounders Henry Beard and Doug Kenney.

Beyond Beard and Kenney, Tirola struggles to keep straight for the viewer the many players and their roles, prominently featuring obvious personalities like Michael O’Donoghue and John Belushi while leaving others unexplored. Many key participants are introduced, but the breadth-over-depth tactic results in fleeting glimpses that will leave many viewers craving details on the volatile relationship dynamics that resulted from the dangerous cocktail of youth, ambition, intelligence, lust, and the consumption of mountains of drugs and oceans of alcohol.

National Lampoon’s sensational art direction, realized through scores of parody advertisements (like the floating VW Beetle image referencing Chappaquiddick), cartoons and illustrations (including work by Arnold Roth and Neal Adams), and a parade of unforgettable cover images (from the scathing William Calley/Alfred E. Neuman mashup “What, My Lai?” to Ed Bluestone’s iconic “If You Don’t Buy This Magazine, We’ll Kill This Dog”) begs to be the subject of its very own feature documentary, but Tirola shows as much as possible, blasting through one eye-popping snapshot after another. Fortunately, Michael C. Gross, who did more than any single person to shape the look and sensibility of the magazine’s graphic identity, is on hand as an important guide.

The distance of time illuminates some of the magazine’s less savory white male personality traits, from brutal misogyny to ugly racism (even when the intention is for the jokes to be on racists). Disappointingly, Tirola elects to gloss over these issues when some critique on the philosophy and evolution of comedy is sorely needed. When, for example, Anne Beatts shares a joke about getting into comedy the way Catherine the Great got into politics, the moment passes without any of the important context framing the conditions faced by the women who participated in a culture notorious for its regressive attitudes and practices. A shrug and a wink are pretty cold comfort.

Not surprisingly, Tirola devotes a considerable amount of time to the exploration of National Lampoon’s widest “superstar” breakthrough: the unexpected success of “Animal House.” Many of the personalities associated with the movie discuss its genesis and burnish its legendary influence on an entire genre. The siren song of Hollywood dollars, not to mention the routine poaching of Lampoon talent by Lorne Michaels for “Saturday Night Live,” directly contributed to the decline and eventual demise of the magazine, and this partial explanation hovers over the later sections of the movie. The party and the story really end with the mysterious and much-debated death of Kenney, briefly memorialized on camera by friend Chevy Chase in a grim yet heartfelt lightning bolt of black comedy.