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An Irani-Tinged “White Lotus”? A Queer “Thelma and Louise”? Two You Missed at Tribeca

Brandon Judell — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 21:22:50 +0000

An Irani-Tinged “White Lotus”? A Queer “Thelma and Louise”? Two You Missed at Tribeca Brandon Judell July 11, 2025 - 17:22

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Tribeca

“Tragedy,” Arthur Schopenhauer noted, is the “awakening of the knowledge that the world . . . can afford us no true pleasure, and consequently is not worthy of an attachment.”

Mhmmm. But so, how did the “pessimistic” German philosopher survive such a conclusion? “I’m an irreverent person. There are few things in life that I don’t like to mock, and there are few people I won’t eventually start to wind up. I enjoy laughing at serious things and being serious about ridiculous things.”

That might just be the perfect motto for Wes Anderson and his recently released The Phoenician Scheme. Brilliantly visual and intermittently entertaining, the timely comic romp that decimates the rich, the powerful, the religious, and the self-involved certainly seems to embrace Schopenhauerism.

As do many of the offerings of this past year’s Tribeca Film Fest.

Lilian T. Mehrel’s dramedy, Honeyjoon, also has a doleful essence tinged with frivolity. Lela (the superb Amira Casar), with her daughter June (Ayden Mayeri), has flown to the Azores, a favorite locale of her late husband. Within a few days, the pair, on the first anniversary of his death, plan to honor him by throwing a clipping of his hair into the sea.

As Lela, a therapist by trade, notes: “He loved life so much. Always with a cappuccino under the sun. But life betrayed him. His body betrayed him.”

However, this trip for Poppa is not uniting the two mourners as expected. In the States, Mom’s stationed on the East Coast while June’s escaped to the West. The duo seldom interact. Could June possibly be thinking the wrong parent died? Lela wonders aloud.

Of course not. All June wants is to have a good time and meet a guy or two, which might be difficult to accomplish since the hotel they’ve booked into is a mainstay for horny honeymooners. Result: no double beds and no single men except for the staff. Yes, she and her oft-bloated mom are delegated to one mattress.

A good time? How will that even be possible?

For the Persian-Kurdish Lela, who years ago escaped from the tyranny of Iran and is still mourning the loss of her country, joy is not expected. Constantly checking her phone for news, especially for any mention of Mansa Hina Amini, who was murdered by the “morality” police for not wearing a hijab. Her diligence is rewarded in an unwanted manner: a group of Iranian women have just been arrested for dancing in Amini’s memory, diminishing Lela’s hope even further that she could one day return to her birthplace.

“Can we not have a good day?” the consistently scantily clad June pouts. Please note this clever young woman turned her back on a medical career because she found hospitals too sad. As for learning Farsi to connect with her roots, forget it. Tsk. Tsk.

What follows is a wry tale of mother and daughter clashing and melding and loving each other amidst private masturbatory gropings, gaseous attacks, flirting, and hiking. There’s also their bonding with the affable tour guide João (José Condessa), who might be the wisest of the threesome. At least he is when asked about happiness by a despondent June. He, a surfer, responds, “Nobody’s happy all the time. Happiness comes in waves, in little moments, but it’s not forever, even more reason to ride the wave when it comes.”

The two heroines of Josalynn Smith’s debut feature Ride or Die, woefully, don’t have much of a wave to ride. Though if you edit out the opening minute of the film, what you have for quite a while is a poignant, interracial lesbian love story that takes place in the highly racist state of Missouri. According to my AI search results, Missouri has “the second-highest number of racial terror lynchings outside of the South.” That I assume is a statistic from the past, although around every corner of the state, at least as depicted here, a bigot proudly stands.

Driving past all these Archie Bunkers is Paula (Briana Middleton), heading to her hometown after getting her degree in filmmaking in New York. Her next hoped-for achievement is a career as a documentarian in L.A.

Stopping at a thrift store, she realizes her old high-school crush Sloane (Stella Everett) is working the cash register. The renewed sexual attraction is immediate. So immediate and intense that Sloane refuses to charge Paula for her purchase, not knowing her boss is standing nearby. She gets fired, jumps into Paula’s car, and eventually initiates a make-out session.

Now these are two beautiful, highly talented actresses sensuously embodying the characters here. In fact, casting director Lois Drabkin has brought together a uniformly impressive group of thespians for this entire project. However, Everett and Middleton are so fine you don’t want the film to become what it does become. Was the gun, the knife, and the punch-out necessary? Why go all-Tarantino on us?

And why can’t Paula realize that the quite illiterate, hard-drug abusing, calamity-inducing young woman she fetishes is dangerous to be with outside of a thrift store and off the mattress? This love object can’t even sit through a screening of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust. I mean, we all have harbored desires for the hot-looking bozo with a troubled past, present, and future. I know. I’ve been there. I’ve tried it. But give me flowers, not a stranger’s hemoglobin on my jeans.

Anyway, this is not a surprise because the very first minute of this Jamie-Foxx-produced feature, even before you can digest your first Milk Dud, displays a shot of Sloane with broken eyeglasses askew and blood a-dripping. What follows, we eventually learn, is a flashback that leads us back to that first moment.

A nominee for Best U.S. Narrative Feature at Tribeca, you just know everyone involved here will have a long career, collecting SAG benefits long after I’m dead. Especially Guinevere (Go Fish) Turner. Here, as a chatty bartender, she lets loose with a lesbian-go-mad-feline-revenge saga that’s worth the price of admission and a boycott by PETA.

But wouldn’t a love story be nicer?

(Both Honeyjoon and Ride or Die are not yet being distributed or streamed. Keep checking justwatch.com for their latest status.)

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The OTHER Lou

Gary Lucas — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 01:37:37 +0000

The OTHER Lou Gary Lucas July 10, 2025 - 21:37

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Music Review

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celebrity obit

R.I.P. Lou Christie (19 February 1943 - 18 June 2025)

Very sad to hear of the death of the great soft rock vocalist and teenage angst emoter for the ages, Lou Christie, born Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco.

Lou’s mid-'60s AM radio anthems "Lightning Strikes" and my favorite "Rhapsody in the Rain" were odes to male priapic lust of the adolescent variety, enveloped in near-Spectorian productions which featured thunderous orchestrations, crooning dirty white girl group-type backup singers (kinda like The Angels) standing in for the objet d’amour in lyrical question who whispered, commented on, and answered Greek chorus-like Lou’s falsetto call of frustrated desire with encouraging yelps and screams, urging him on to GO ALL THE WAY!

Which he does on both of these singles.

Years ago, I appeared on the syndicated Joey Reynolds Radio Show with my pal Mitch Myers in support of his book The Boy Who Cried Freebird.

Joey’s other guests that night were the legendary Lou Christie himself and the late John "Cha Cha" Ciarcia, owner of the fantastic Italian pastry joint Cha Cha’s of Little Italy at 113 Mulberry Street. Caroline had cast Cha Cha in many a mob-related film (Mafia movies and TV series being just one of her specialties. She currently is casting FX’s Gravesend), so we got a little 3-way repartee going after I played some deep blues on my National steel:

Cha Cha: “I know his wife!”
Me: “But not in the Biblical sense!”
Joey: “Have to cut to a commercial now to pay those bills! Lift that barge, tote that bale!”

After a break for our sponsor, Joey interviewed Lou, who was sweet, gracious, and charmingly modest. After the show, I told him how much his music meant to me growing up, especially "Rhapsody in the Rain," the earworm follow-up to "Lightning Strikes."

Lou: “You know that?? We got banned all over the place with that record!”

But not in good old heavily Italian-American Syracuse, where I grew up.

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Marital Blitz

Chet Kozlowski — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 16:59:31 +0000

Marital Blitz Chet Kozlowski July 9, 2025 - 12:59

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horror

Two new movies mine marriage for horror-thriller mayhem.

In Vitro

Directed by Tom McKeith and Will Howarth. Runtime 89 minutes. On VOD and digital platforms.

In Vitro is set on a remote farm in Australia. Jack and Layla breed cattle and bemoan the absence of their teenage son. Jack is the cow-cloner and has expanded his inventory—and species—with the help of a ranch hand named Brady and without his wife Layla’s knowledge.

Directors Tom McKeith and Will Howarth maintain a consistent tone of dread throughout; their bucolic milieu maintains its ordinariness and ups the suspense by slowly revealing ominous high-tech underpinnings. They are aided by DP Shelley Farthing-Dawe and production designer Alexi Wilson, who provide razor-sharp visions of a desolate landscape.

The actors will be familiar, and you might be surprised that they’re Australian. Talia Zucker (Layla) has been in Lake Mungo. Ashley Zuckerman (Jack) has been in the U.S. TV series Silo, Succession, and Apple Cider Vinegar. Will Howarth (Brady) has Beast and much Australian TV to his credit. Competent technicians and artists all.

So, In Vitro has good bones. With all this talent, it’s a surprise that there’s so little meat on them. Mr. McKeith and Howarth aspire to big ideas. Their directors’ statement says the film aims to express “something important about the times we live in,” and the hope that audiences “will reflect on their own ideas around love and control.” Shoehorning cultural speculation into compelling drama is a tough balance. In Vitro never achieves the poignancy of, say, Never Let Me Go, and lacks the intellectual punch of, say, Shane Carruth’s Primer.

While In Vitro is very watchable, its subject demands more. Humanity has, like the truth, become a fragile notion. A potentially provocative topic is diluted by a lot of running around. In Vitro’s purposes are thin, even as we enjoy watching pros at work.

Bury Me When I’m Dead

Directed by Seabold Krebs. Runtime: 99 minutes. On VOD and digital platforms.

Married couple Catherine and Henry run a flower shop. Catherine is diagnosed with cancer. All she asks of Henry is that he bury her at a spot in the woods where she was happy in her childhood. Henry promises to do so. Catherine dies.

Henry is pressured by Catherine’s devious father, Gary, to bury her back at home. Henry succumbs. Henry is also involved with their employee Rebecca, who tells him she’s pregnant. Rebecca tells Gary she wants to keep the baby and start a new life.

Promises are made, promises are broken. Henry’s luck turns bad, and he blames Catherine’s ghostly presence.

It’s a decent premise. The problem is, while Bury Me When I’m Dead is sold as a horror film, it’s devoid of scares, and most of Henry’s travails can be explained logically. (The poster’s psychedelic trauma image accounts for only a few minutes of the film, essentially a bad dream.)

As Henry, Devin Terrel’s expression remains grave (no pun intended) as he moves from one bad decision to the next. Charlotte Hope gives Catherine a sprightly and yet noble aura. Makenzie Leigh (Rebecca) maintains her second-choice mistress's dignity. Richard Bekins and Roxanne Hart are Catherine’s parents; both are consistently good, low-profile actors, Ms. Hart being most recognizable as a regular on TV’s Chicago Hope. Mike Houston is Buck, who haplessly provides the deus ex machina denouement.

Bury Me When I’m Dead is moody, more a study of a person on the edge. But the edge of what, exactly? Most of the action is shot in extreme close-up and in near-darkness, characters being little more than their silhouettes. It only brightens up to show off its limited CGI.

Ultimately, Bury Me When I’m Dead reveals itself to be a one-joke joint that relies on tropes from older, better movies.

(BTW: Henry’s last name is Samsa, and Rebecca’s is Gregor. Gregor Samsa is Kafka’s protagonist-turned-insect in the story The Metamorphosis. Significant or a coincidence? Sadly, that mystery is more intriguing than what goes on in Bury Me When I’m Dead.)

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Mastery of Faux Finishes

christopherhartchambers — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 16:36:10 +0000

Mastery of Faux Finishes christopherhar… July 7, 2025 - 12:36

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sclupture

Hiroyuki Hamada, #100, 2023, Painted Resin, 38 x 63 x 26.5" Base: 35 x 46 x 26.5"

Hiroyuki Hamada: New Sculpture
May 6 - June 13, 2025
Bookstein Projects, 39 East 78th Street, NYC

This exhibition of Hiroyuki Hamada’s new sculptures comprises eleven works, both free-standing sculptures and wall hangings. I hesitate to term all of the latter “bas reliefs,” while several of the major works certainly are. A nd those are very similar in formulation to the free-standing sculptures, although they are sans the hallmark pedestals, which stand to be part and parcel with the abstract forms they support.

The smaller wall-hung pieces are more akin to bricolage painting, as folded, bent, and twisted scraps of what looks like metal or leather are affixed to flat, subtly toned, apparently wooden substrates. The larger works impart a distinctly Japanese aesthetic in their elegant, zen-like, and graceful simplicity of pure form; as such, without any backing besides the wall, or they are free-standing. What appear to be natural materials, such as white or black ceramic tile, rusted iron, or stone, are also displayed on bases of what look to be thoroughly rusted pipes. To be clear on this point: the artist considers these works painted sculptures. They are all constructed of synthetic materials. Hamada’s masterful use of trompe l'oeil surfacing is astounding. The rusty piping is, in fact, PVC, and the aquiline shapes they support are carved insulation foam coated with painted plastic resin. Polystyrenes have been popular with artists since at least the 1950s and '60s when Jean Dubuffet and Nikki de Saint Phalle first explored the then-new found resource.

Hiroyuki Hamada, #88, 201 - 20, Painted Resin, 29 x 47 x 41"

The properties of these media allow for direct impulsive carving and so generally disregard the conventional sculptural necessity of pre-construction of an armature, or so to speak, skeleton within, thereby allowing the artist an unrestrained free hand in expression. Notably, Dubuffet topped off his monumental works with stucco while de Saint Phalle frequently embellished her works with mosaics. More recently, others have crusted the artifice with epoxies, fiberglass, urethane putties, or other substances; then painted them in order to stave off degradation resulting from exposure to sunlight. These are industrial materials often used in construction, or automotive assembly, shipbuilding, and even for making surfboards. Significantly, pragmatic considerations have enabled artists to explore and discover various possibilities. These newfound materials were lightweight, comparatively inexpensive, and easily manipulated without the need for a foundry. If Hiroyuki Hamada’s works were composed of what they convincingly appear to be, they would weigh more than could be lifted in this gallery’s elevator, or hung on its sheetrock walls. Yet there are laborious old-school techniques that could enable his vision with a forge and kiln. Frankly, Hamada’s mastery of faux finishes over the coated, smoothed, and refined forms is so complete that I didn’t notice until he mentioned it.

The illusionistic pragmatism is not what grabbed me. I was attracted to the work purely for it’s aesthetics–it’s elegance: the simple smooth forms which reference predecessors Isamu Noguchi and Jean Arp’s exigencies, amongst many functional designers, who modeled their modernist forms in traditional materials–whilst Hamada’s tasteful combinations of industrial supplies are not what they seem to be at all, presenting a fascinatingly duplicitous conundrum.

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South Dakota Tone Poem

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 21:08:44 +0000

South Dakota Tone Poem Chet Kozlowski July 3, 2025 - 17:08

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Film Review

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drama

Fall is a Good Time to Die looks terrific. The images—from vast South Dakota landscapes to small spaces packed with specific details —are crisp and well-composed. Dalton Coffey did the cinematography.

Its pace is unhurried yet gripping. The editor was Dalton Coffey.

Its guitar score girds the action well, unobtrusive yet driving the film. Dalton Coffey did the music.

The script is full of surprising setups and convincing dialogue. You guessed it: Dalton Coffey wrote and directed it, too.

Multitasking is not uncommon today. Many new directors are getting their first shots and have auteurist ambitions. Dalton Coffey is different: he shows such taste and restraint in this film that it stands as the strong work of a singular vision.

The premise of Fall Is a Good Time to Die is a familiar one: a convict is released from prison, and someone sets out to find him and settle a score. The idea is simple, and in Fall Is a Good Time to Die, the delivery is confident and original.

A young cowboy named Cody is surprised that his estranged aunt appears one day to tell him Jason White is back at large. White was in prison because he raped and killed Cody’s sister. Cody makes his way across the vast landscape of South Dakota to avenge her death.

Meanwhile, a local peace officer wrestles with her own demons. Her work oppresses her, and her marriage has dissolved because of an act some deem heroic. Eventually, she, Cody, and White come together in a final reckoning.

Joe Hiatt plays Cody as a boy about to take adult matters into his own hands. He is fresh-faced and an interesting choice of protagonist. Jennifer Pierce Mathus embodies middle-aged angst as Jane, the deputy sheriff who must live up to her reputation. And it’s a real treat to see Joey Lauren Adams—Amy of Chasing Amy—in a rare turn as Trista, Cody’s meddling aunt.

Fall is a Good Time to Die trods ground similar to Hell or High Water and any number of modern Westerns. The difference is that Mr. Coffey approaches his material with deliberation and a sense of his own limits. His approach is direct and lyrical. He shows off a bit in his use of space and time, as scenes repeat, mixing past and present, sometimes within the same shot. His storytelling is linear to that point, and the change jolts until you understand what he’s up to. The technique is inventive and mostly works, but is a little unclear, ultimately, about what happens when.

But these are quibbles. Fall is a Good Time to Die is an engrossing open plains potboiler and a good sign that we’ll see even better work from Dalton Coffey in the future.

________________________________

Fall is a Good Time to Die. Directed by Dalton Coffey. 2025. From Buffalo 8. Runtime 90 minutes. On VOD and digital platforms.

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Mondo Dogg (It's A Dogg's World)

Gary Lucas — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 22:59:06 +0000

Mondo Dogg (It's A Dogg's World) Gary Lucas July 1, 2025 - 18:59

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documentary

"Sittin' on a cornflake
Ridin' on a roller skate
Too late to hesitate
Or even meditate
Always looking up what's down
They've come to get me from the lost and found
But believe me, I'm feeling fine
To the world I'll throw some wine"- Swamp Dogg, "Total Destruction to Your Mind"

Goofy and entertaining new documentary about the legendary R&B artist and songwriter who began his lengthy career as "Little Jerry Williams" and morphed into psychedelic trickster/funkmeister Swamp Dogg in 1970. After years on the fringes of the more trad R&B scene and watching Black music world go all patchouli oil-scented paisley-colored (witness the emergence of The Temptations's Psychedelic Shack, Miles Davis's Bitches Brew, Muddy Waters's Electric Mud, most anything by Sly and the Family Stone, and of course the baddest and boldest of them all, Jimi Hendrix) Williams defiantly changed his image and his sound with his landmark 1970 album Total Destruction to Your Mind. Released nearly simultaneously with George Clinton's 1970 cutting-edge outing Funkadelic (you have to wonder who was zooming who here), Swamp is depicted sitting on a garbage bin in an alley, which started the ball rolling for his prodigious and unclassifiable subsequent album forays into the wacky.

This doc captures Williams in all his imperious glory (he had hits in Nashville writing cross-over country classics!)—and his ragtag coterie (esp. Guitar Shorty and MoogStar) are nearly as colorful and larger than life as the guy himself in this kitchen-sink melange of vintage clips, outtakes, animation, bloopers and studio sweepings. Suppose Ryan Coogler's Sinners posits a Fear of White Musical Appropriation of a Black-created idiom (da Blooze) by the stage-Irish vampiric folk troupe who wander into frame out of nowhere (for me, the weakest part of an otherwise powerful film). In that case, Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted celebrates Williams' musical miscegenation in Nashville with the likes of John Prine. Highly recommended (although sad to say, I was the ONLY attendee at the 2:30 PM show two days after it opened in the big theatre at the IFC, WTF).

Best sequence: Swamp Dogg releases an album of various dogs barking, The Beatles' Greatest Hits, under the name The Barkers.

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The Things We Do For Love

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 15:22:34 +0000

The Things We Do For Love Chet Kozlowski June 30, 2025 - 11:22

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Film Review

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drama

The displacement of passion and the vagaries of mature love are the themes of the absorbing new French film Let Me Go.

Claudine is a seamstress in a small town in France. Her son Baptiste, a handsome young adult, is mentally disabled. She dotes on him, bathes and feeds him, and reads to him letters sent from his globetrotting father, absent but for his sentiments.

In truth, her husband left her decades ago, when he learned of Baptiste’s condition. The cards are actually the words of her anonymous lovers. Claudine approaches strangers, asks where they’re from, and if she finds their answers lyrical, beds them. Their words end up in letters addressed to Baptiste. She accepts no money but is keenly intent on her own pleasure.

It’s a complex web of actions and emotions, and director Maxime Rappaz handles it with subtlety. He sets a rich tableau, yes, and his wisdom is remarkable given that Mr. Rappaz is all of 39 years old. This is his first feature film.

Its success is wholly dependent on the amazing performance by Jeanne Balbar. Claudine, as portrayed by Ms. Balbar, is a woman well into middle age, unapologetic in her devotion and sacrifice, and in addressing her own needs.

Eventually, inevitably, one of Claudine’s trysts touches her. She finds herself falling in love with a gentle bear of a man named Michael. And this forces a crucial decision regarding her son.

Just try to look away from Ms. Balbar’s elegant and expressive face. It seduces, it morphs, and it makes you gasp. It flies, it falls, it crumbles. The look she gives Michael upon her final decision is heartbreaking. And watch the business with her scarf. It’s so much a shade of Claudine’s character you might miss it, but the way she ties it and what it represents goes to Mr. Rappaz’s astute narrative sense (he co-wrote Let Me Go with Marion Vernoux and Florence Seyvos). Mr. Rappaz knows what he’s after, and Ms. Balbar delivers it with grace.

Other symbols overreach, however. Mirrors are everywhere, ostensibly to illuminate Claudine’s identity, but Ms. Balbar’s acting does that just fine. Baptiste’s idealization of Princess Diana (the action is set before her death) is ultimately a facile subplot. Let Me Go works best as a simple, quiet contemplation.

Kudos also go to editor Caroline Detournay and cinematographer Benoit Servaux. The cast includes Thomas Sarbacher as Michael, in an impressively understated performance; Pierre-Antoine Dubey plays Baptiste as an awkward naif, surrogate/recipient of Claudine’s repressed fervency; Véronique Mermoud’s role as Chantal, housekeeper and Baptiste’s nurse, is Claudine’s foil, who understands her employer’s predilections all too well. “I’m a woman myself, you know,” she says by way of validation.

It's all very French. Watching the film, I tried to imagine an American version of Let Me Go (the original title, Laissez-Moi, translates in French to “Leave Me”). Claudine responds to life in a way we would judge differently, I think, mired as we are in correctness and virtue signaling. I can’t recall when I’ve seen a more perceptive and intelligent take on the elemental desires of a woman. But I’m sure when I saw it, it was French.

___________________________

Let Me Go (Laissez-Moi). Directed by Maxime Rappaz. 2023. From M-Appeal. French with English subtitles. Runtime 92 minutes. On VOD and digital platforms.

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We Need to Talk About Isaac

Chet Kozlowski — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 01:06:31 +0000

We Need to Talk About Isaac Chet Kozlowski June 23, 2025 - 21:06

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horror

What’s a cult to do with somebody like Isaac?

The leaders have tried everything. They’ve punished him. They’ve slapped him around. They’ve forced him to swallow pills and glug vinegar. They’ve thrown him in a cell. He’s “acidic,” you see. And if he keeps this up, expounding impure thoughts, he won’t ascend in the Rapture with everybody else.

Worse still, he’s no breeder. Give him a comely female supplicant to impregnate, and Isaac can’t seal the deal.

When we first meet Isaac, he’s alone in a cell. The bare walls are festooned with primitive crucifixes. Isaac is dressed Amish style—collarless shirt, pants with suspenders—and is suffering terrible visions of ancient rites: people wearing animal masks performing a human sacrifice. He bolts awake, unsure if what he’s witnessed is real.

Soon he’s released from his dark cell into the sunshine. The location is a lavish mansion, surrounded by majestic mountains against a stunning blue sky. It’s an idyllic scene: maidens in similarly modest dress sing traditional songs and merrily cavort. They all serve at the pleasure of the Wentworths, a husband-and-wife team who command the cult. They work hard to keep their flock “clean” despite the immoral excesses of the outside world.

And so it goes in the new film Dirty Boy. Think of it as a stew of Midsomer seasoned with The Handmaid’s Tale and a dash of Wicker Man. It was shot in the ‘Ausseerland/ Saltzkammergut’ in Austria, the same location as The Sound of Music.

Dirty Boy writer/director Doug Rao is known mostly for TV work. Here he plays with an intriguing notion: is Isaac’s condition religious fervor or mental illness

Dirty Boy has an impressive cast. Graham McTavish (you’ll know him from Games of Thrones) plays Walter Wentworth, the patriarch. Walter’s done up in furs and very droll, and when not ravishing maidens has lines like “If God is always watching, the least we can do is be interesting.” Mr. McTavish could’ve been used to better effect; we see him either propped in his chair or unbuckling. Susie Porter plays Walter’s wife, Verity Wentworth, who sure loves her some baptizing. Her mission is to cleanse Isaac of the “acidic signs of Satan,” inclinations toward pornography, the internet, and hedonism.

Stan Steinbichler plays Isaac to the hilt. He’s gaunt and wired, resembling a young Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. The women in the flock are named for virtues, and he’s ably aided by Hope (Honor Gillies, who looks like she’s stepped out of a Bouguereau painting) in his defiance of the order. Olivia Chenery is fashion-model legs and cheekbones as the sinister psychiatrist.

Mr. Rao and cinematographer Ross Yeandle make the most of their widescreen by mixing stunning panoramas (those mountains are the Alps) with sequences of sharp shadows and a limited color palette. All are well-blocked; particularly an expository scene midway through the runtime with Isaac and the maidens that perfectly sums up the stakes.

The scenario is divided into parts—Lamentations, Revelation, Genesis, and Exodus—though they don’t serve much purpose. Isaac confronts his demons, one in particular named Frankie, and tries to clear his name; he’s been accused of those ritual murders from his nightmares. Dirty Boy uses an ironic voiceover which may have been included to fill plot holes but actually puts a unique spin on the proceedings.

Dirty Boy combines my primary complaints about recent films: it has a misleading title—which in this case trivializes its themes—and a facile climax that results in carnage or deus ex machina. Poor Isaac has nowhere to go, narratively or story-structurally. The outside world isn’t a factor until the denouement (which further reinforces the Psycho connection). Isaac can’t escape. Where’s he going to go? He was born on the compound and has never left—so he deals predictably with his situation.

Too many good dystopias are wasted by ending them and neutering their allegorical sting. A climax commodifies; the tale is no longer cautionary. It’s a completed dramatic unit, so can be put away and ultimately forgotten.

Dirty Boy works itself into a corner and chooses to fight its way out. Too bad: when it works, Dirty Boy showcases some fine performances and raises some interesting questions about insanity and divinity.
_________________________________
Dirty Boy. Directed by Doug Rao. 2024. From Mystic Dream/Stone Hill/Saint Halo. Runtime 97 minutes.

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Tonight At Noon

Gary Lucas — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 15:11:00 +0000

Tonight At Noon Gary Lucas June 17, 2025 - 11:11

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documentary

Jason Robards in “The Day After” (1983, d. Nicholas Meyer)

Television Event–a documentary about the 1983 nuclear holocaust film The Day After

I walked into the lobby of a nearly deserted Film Forum yesterday at noon here in NYC to purchase a ticket to a screening of the documentary Television Event, concerning the watershed anti-nuclear war made-for-TV film The Day After.

I say watershed because this film, depicts the hyper-realistic effects of a nuclear attack on the American populace and its hideous aftermath (and actually pulls its punches in that regard, avoiding any mention of “nuclear winter,” which pretty much would spell the end of all life on earth) was seen by a record 100 million horrified people on Nov. 20th, 1983 when it was first televised on ABC as a two-hour special.. Using state-of-the-art for the day non-CGI effects, audiences bonded closely with the humdrum quotidian life of the appealing cross-section of characters in the first hour and then were pummeled into shocked and awed submission in the devastating second hour, which details the actual attack (who started the war is never made clear) and its ghastly denouement. Never before had the total devastation of nuclear warfare ever been brought so graphically into the living rooms of America. It was an especially traumatizing television event, as the film is set in a typical American town, Everytown, USA, the heartland city of Lawrence, Kansas (so placid and normalized that William Burroughs eventually retired there in 1981 after his tumultuous years in Manhattan).

The brainchild of visionary ABC network exec Brandon Stoddard in 1981, the film was realized over several years with director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) at the helm, a script by veteran tv writer Edward Hume, and outstanding performances by Jason Robards and then relative unknowns Steve Guttenberg, John Lithgow, Amy Madigan, John Cullum and JoBeth Williams. The film still packs a tremendous wallop today (oy) and caused such a publicity furor in the run-up to its broadcast that a special warning was given at the outset for parents to consider not allowing their children to watch the two-hour broadcast. This is nothing next to the public hue-and-cry in the wake of the actual broadcast itself.

Lithgow is especially effective as Professor Joe Huxley, his last name most likely screenwriter Humes’s nod to Aldous Huxley’s bleak 1948 anti-nuclear war book, Ape and Essence. At the conclusion of the final hour of The Day After’s bruising no-redemption narrative where many poignant storylines and characters have either been terminated, cut short, or trailed off into oblivion in the glare of atomic annihilation, the film fades to black with Huxley's urgent, plaintive appeal over his makeshift short-wave radio (a device possibly inspired by Steely Dan's memorable 1973 song "King of the World"):

“Hello? Is anybody there?? Anybody at all???”

To which there is no response.

This 126-minute film—probably the most shocking film to come out of Lawrence, Kansas, since Herk Harvey’s immortal Carnival of Souls (1962)—was brought to you by Orville Redenbacher’s Popcorn. The Day After was not exactly a “popcorn movie,” but what the hey—ABC had great difficulty finding any commercial sponsors at all for their broadcast. Popcorn abounded, though, except for the last hour when the missiles began to fall, which was tactfully shown without commercials.

This was followed by a statement from then-Secretary of State George Shultz, who gamely attempted to reassure the nation that the current US nuclear policy of deterrence would sensibly prevent such a nightmare scenario from ever unfolding. This attempt at a rebuttal was aimed at the very crux of the film (whose message is basically "No More Nukes”)–and was followed by a special discussion panel chaired by Ted Koppel featuring a shaken and clearly disturbed panel of worthies including Eli Wiesel, Carl Sagan, William F. Buckley Jr., Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, and Robert McNamara, who look like they’d all just peered into the Abyss.

A scowling Buckley typically denounced the film as “debilitating propaganda” and essentially anti-American and called into question screenwriter Humes’s motives and ABC’s 7 million dollar investment in the film (a pretty big Bang for the Buck back in the day, come to think of it–mere peanuts by today’s scale of the economy—7 million being the cost now of booking a 30-second spot on the Super Bowl). Planetary scientist and astronomer Sagan sagely pointed out that an actual nuclear war would have much more severe and catastrophic consequences worldwide than those depicted in the film (hard to imagine, as the movie pretty much ends with everyone dead or dying). Author Elie Wiesel, having lived through the actual Holocaust, sounds the most effective and heart-breaking note as to the film’s potential to bring humanity together once and for all.

The film went on to be the biggest “water-cooler” television event of the year. I duly watched it when it aired—and like everybody else was thoroughly terrified by its (literally) ashen-faced denouement. I recall how intensely the film was discussed and debated not only in the media but by my immediate circle of friends. It was eventually shown in 40 countries, and in 1987 was actually broadcast in the then-Soviet Union, the producers demanded it be translated into Russian exactly according to its script and be shown uninterrupted without commentary. In any case, The Day After so disturbed and depressed then-President Ronald Reagan at a White House screening the month before ABC's broadcast that he began to re-think his support for the concept of nuclear deterrence–which eventually led to the 1987 INF Treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) co-signed by Mikhail Gorbachev, which banned all ground-launched ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.

I have not revisited The Day After since it first aired in 1983, but this Australian-American doc Television Event, produced and directed by Jeff Daniels, pretty much brings it all back home, with out-takes, production drawings, interviews with many of the principals involved, and snippets of scenes from the film in question. What is thoroughly striking is the fact that no matter what pressures came to bear on the network to edit the film and basically tone things down, the film still resonates as a mass-bummer experience. The passion and righteous conviction of the production team to pull the curtain back and reveal the terrifying outcome of a nuclear war in living color is pretty strong meat still. Some of the production drawings on view look like nothing so much as the explicitly gory and insanely violent 1962 Mars Attacks trading card series inked by Wally Wood and Norman Saunders, which amongst other things depict humans (and cattle and dogs) being rendered into fiery skeletons by the death rays of the atomic weapon-wielding Martians. (Check out those cards here.)

Over the years, the spirit-destroying reality of atomic warfare has been shoved conveniently onto the back burner of consciousness. It is just too much for the human mind to comprehend the sheer finality of it for very long.

There had been warnings from Hollywood previously, of course. The whole grim business, but with an optimistic twist at the end, had been depicted on the big screen in 1962’s Panic in Year Zero!—A survivalist punch to the gut directed by and starring the great Ray Milland. Before that, there was the cheesy red-scare optics of Alfred E. Green’s 1962 Invasion, U.S.A. Most recently, in Christopher Nolan’s 2023 70mm epic Oppenheimer posited the concept of “reaping the whirlwind,” ie, Oppenheimer supposedly quoted the Sanskrit aphorism “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds” when the Trinity test blast he has successfully masterminded finally goes off.

And, of course, there was the singular jape of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Dr. Strangelove, referred to in Television Event, which burlesqued the entire concept of Cold War atomic paranoia courtesy of Kubrick collaborator screenwriter Terry Southern. What could be more cartoonishly ridiculous AND chilling than the indelible image of rodeo cowboy Slim Pickens waving his ten-gallon hat, whooping it up all his yee-hawing glory astride the Bomb as it plummets downwards? This staggering shot, followed by a montage of possibly every atomic bomb test blast ever registered to film, set to the tune of Vera Lynn’s wartime anthem "We’ll Meet Again," renders the whole notion of atomic warfare and arms race militarism absurd. Absurdity is our default mode whenever we ponder the concept of nuclear annihilation. An ironic chuckle is how we deal with it.

"Immediately in the event of a nuclear attack, bend over...

Put your head between your legs…

And then kiss your ass goodbye!"

And so we laugh and move on. Because buried deep inside us is the knowledge that if we dwell upon this subject too long, and truly think through all of its implications, it will probably drive us mad (“mutually assured destruction” a.k.a. MAD).

But The Day After—as glimpsed in the rearview mirror of Television Event—is no joke.

The mood in the Film Forum lobby last Friday was somber. News of Israeli bombs falling on Tehran had been broadcast that morning, and the inevitable retaliation from Iran was heading Israel’s way.

A close friend blurted out to me yesterday: “I can’t believe this war has started. We’re sitting ducks here in New York!” NYC is most likely Ground Zero in the event of a nuclear attack.

An article in the NY Times Magazine, April 10th, 2025, claims that 1/3 of all adult Americans are currently prepping for a Doomsday scenario involving the construction of fortified bunkers—basically, fall-out shelters.

POSTSCRIPT:

About a week ago, I had a very vivid dream.

It’s a sunny summer day in NYC, and I’m walking up the west side of 6th Avenue towards 11th Street with CultureCatch founder, Dusty Wright.

We arrive at that corner, and I point to a grocery store across the street.

“Wait, let’s ask Jima (pronounced Jeema, as in Iwo Jima, don’t ask me why this particular name came to mind, it was only a dream) to go across the street and get supplies for us at the market.

Suddenly, I hear a roar behind me.

I wheel around and look up into the cloudless blue sky over the treetops of leafy 11th Street.

In the center of the empty sky is a huge yellow fireball—a star burning brighter than a thousand blazing suns.

The realization of what’s going down–instant karma, if you will–hits me hard.

And in our last moments together, I shout to Dusty:

“SNEAK ATTACK ON NEW YORK!!”

And then I wake up.

“All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.”

—Edgar Allan Poe

Call it an unpleasant premonition.

But the dream was too real—and given the events of recent days, I just cannot shake it.

In conclusion, this doc should be required viewing by every person on planet Earth who has ever seriously contemplated the fantasy of “nuking” the Other.

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One for the Road, Man

Chet Kozlowski — Sat, 14 Jun 2025 10:18:40 +0000

One for the Road, Man Chet Kozlowski June 14, 2025 - 06:18

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Film Review

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documentary

Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie is a sweet surprise, a late-stage rumination on a joint (no pun intended) career that had its highs (pun intended) and lows. Cheech and Chong are old now. In their heyday, their name was synonymous with a brand of stoner comedy that rode the first wave of improv. Their Last Movie takes us back to a tumultuous time.

The film is not plot-driven. It’s two guys driving through the desert, laughing and arguing and reminiscing. Their meanderings thread through a collage of newsreels, live shows, talking heads, interviews, and animations. They also dip into their private stash of never-before-seen footage. We ride along as they careen through the 1960s and 70s, political slash social revolution, Motown, the draft years, hippie culture, Hollywood, MTV and, finally, redemption.

Richard “Cheech” Marin grew up being the only Chicano in school, where he was popular because of his uniqueness. He used humor as self-defense against an overbearing father, who one acquaintance called “the most even-tempered man I ever met: always angry.” Cheech took up pottery, kicked around Canada and wrote for Poppin magazine, their Rolling Stone.

Tommy Chong was born to Chinese and Canadian parents. In his early 20s, he married Maxine and had a family, settling into domesticity. “That’s where I spent my time: raising kids and being happy.” Chong played guitar with Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, which led to Motown, popular recordings and eventually ownership of a stripper bar that he turned into an improv club.

That’s where Cheech and Chong’s destinies converged. Comedy albums and live shows came next, then the hit movie Up in Smoke. The rest is history. More risks, more movies, Grammys, worldwide fame.

Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie is a lot of miles to cover. We zip by the likes of Stokely Carmichael and David Harris, marvel at an adolescent Michael Jackson, give LSD guru Timothy Leary a part in a movie, and get grilled by Geraldo Rivera (these interviews are a revelation: in contrast to the oblivious characters they play, we see two confident, ambitious strivers who are clearly enjoying their moment). Ghosts from the past appear in the backseat of their car, like Tommy’s wife, Maxine, and music impresario Lou Adler.

Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie is directed by David Bushell, whose previous documentary was I Needed Color, about Jim Carrey. He produced Sling Blade and, with Judd Apatow, Get Him to the Greek. Here he works with editor Brett Mason and animator James Blagden.

While Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie is a celebration, it doesn’t shy away from the failures and disappointments, the raging egos, bad business deals, and embarrassments, like their bid for film legitimacy, the satire of Dumas’ The Corsican Brothers, after what Cheech calls the “amiable messes” of their earlier movies.

Cheech and Chong’s story is a classic tale of rise and fall, and success built on luck and hubris. They were the perfect comedy voice for the counterculture. And just like the counterculture, they couldn’t last.

The title Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie can be read as a eulogy. It’s poignant to see the two old guys on the shoulder of the highway, bickering, and spot a roadside bar in the middle of nowhere. They walk in arm in arm, two amigos. The place is called The Joint.

Pun intended.

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Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie. Directed by David Bushell. 2025. Runtime 120 minutes.