By David Elliott
Flix Nosh is a personal movie menu, fresh
each Friday.
APPETIZER: Reviews of White
Boy Rick and Active Measures
White Boy
Rick
Like Anthony Drazan’s wonderful Zebrahead (1992), White Boy
Rick is set in a rotting Detroit and also centers on a white teen, his
father, and the black urban life that the boy envies, fears and mimics. But Zebrahead has a poetry that elevates
some generic clichés. Rick is a rough
scramble of visceral scenes rather loosely based on real people, heavily salted
with derivations (Scorsese, Spike Lee, etc.) and fewer Tarantino pops than the
trailer may have led you to expect.
French director Yann Demange repeats some of the raw
dynamism of his British debut film, ’71,
while attempting a caring family story inside a caustic crime story. He shows
how in the early ’80s Richard Wershe Jr. (first-time film actor Richie Merritt)
buys into the gun-selling racket of his frantic father Richard (Matthew
McConaughey), a grifter whose absurd
excuse for not moving the family out of war-zoned Detroit is “a lion don’t
leave the Serengeti.” That leaves Rick, when the “dream” backfires, among the
prey. Hating his white-trashy prospects, he joins the black gang of a rising
thug, Johnny, becoming White Boy Rick as a gofer and mascot. He makes a “wow”
trip to Vegas, and survives near-death in an ambush to become a drug-dealing, covert
tool of the FBI (represented as totally ruthless – quite an image gift today, with
the Bureau under fierce attack).
The three scripters evidently cleaned up Richard Sr. somewhat,
without doing McConaughey any major favors (among the least: goo-goo baby
scenes). Richard remains a hapless dad and sleazeball, often sidelined as newcomer
Merritt carries most of the story (compellingly, if not very charismatic). McConaughey
is a generous star, as in his superb work with teen Tye Sheridan in Mud, but daddy Wershe is just a cheesy scrounger,
surrounded by actors playing smarter characters, incisively: menacing Jonathan
Majors as Johnny, Taylor Paige as Johnny’s sex-trap wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh
and Rory Cochrane as FBI hard cases, veterans Bruce Dern and Piper Laurie as
Ricky’s grandparents. As Rick’s sister Dawn, the big-eyed, scene-stealing Bel
Powley goes through hell, like Little Miss Detroit on heroin.
The plot is a zoo of zig-zags, many familiar from past
movies and TV series. The scene in a Vegas ballroom isn’t bad, but no match for
Casino or American Hustle. When Rick-boy gets his big-bling chain necklace,
like the top hoods, we get no sense of growth, graduation or anything positive.
Basically a pawn, Ricky received a life-long prison term for dope dealing and
served 30 years, but in the fade-out scroll he sounds almost as stupid as dear old
dad.
Active
Measures
Jack Bryan’s documentary Active Measures nails Donald Trump as a flop casino owner who
became a jackpot for Russia, a deep-intel asset cultivated for years and then cashed
big-time by the true gambler, Vladimir Putin. A kind of dossier thriller, dense
with interviews and clips, it could maybe use fewer prompter bells and graphic
whistles. But in its cram-class way, this is a rich rehearsal for the coming
report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller (and a rich validation of British
intel wizard Christopher Steele).
Round up the usual creeps: Manafort, Flynn, Cohen, the
fantasists of Fox News and Russia Today, Moscow oligarchs, many Ukrainians, larval
ghost Julian Assange, a swamp of Mafiosi and Deutsche Bank laundro-gnomes. In
essence, two monstrous destinies converged. Obama-hater Donald, his neurotic
ego marinated by Russian/German “loans,” his high-rises stuffed with crooks and
shell companies, decided that vulgar success on Celebrity Apprentice justified his ascent to the White House. In
parallel, eventual Hillary-hater Vladimir, a conniver with a KGB epaulet chip of
fierce resentment and Soviet nostalgia (“the tragic collapse of our state”),
persuaded Russia’s presidential drunk (Boris Yeltsin) to give him power. As the
film analyzes chillingly, the wormy master of menace created his new, very own USSR
(Union of Servile Slug Rogues). Is this
history, or a sequel to Dr. Strangelove?
The kleptocratic melding of criminal enterprises is
fascinating. The most valuable testimony comes from Trump’s and Putin’s opponents,
smart insiders not shocked out of their wits (or morals). Viewers who insist on
denying the lucid testimonials of John Dean, Michael Isikoff, Jeremy Dash, Hillary
Clinton, Toomas Ilves (of Estonia), Michael McFaul, Clint Watts, Eric Swalwell,
the late John McCain and many others may be more than lazy students. They may
be what Lenin called poleznyye idioti – useful idiots. .
SALAD (List)
Twelve Strong Movies Involving Drug
Crimes
In
order of arrival: Easy Rider
(director Dennis Hopper, 1969), The
French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971),
Panic in Needle Park (Jerry
Schatzberg, 1971), Pulp Fiction
(Quentin Tarantino, 1994), Casino
(Martin Scorsese, 1995), Boogie Nights
(P.T. Anderson, 1997), Traffic (Steven
Soderbergh, 2000), Training Day
(Antoine Fuqua, 2001), Blow (Ted Demme,
2001), City of God (Mereilles/Lund,
2002), No Country for Old Men (Coen
Bros., 2007), Inherent Vice (P.T.
Anderson, 2014).
WINE (Vin Orsonaire de Chateau Welles)
Aug.
25 was maestro Leonard Bernstein’s birth centennial. We call upon Orson and his
chum Henry Jaglom for a few memories:
OW:
“Lenny’s developed this flourish with the baton that he started a couple years
ago.”
HJ:
“His pinkie is up?”
OW:
“Way up all the time. He can’t jump as high anymore. It’s as if he’s announcing
to the world that he can still jump, but he doesn’t leave the floor. He used to
leave the floor!”
HJ:
“I went to a Carnegie Hall concert and it started with Bernstein playing some
Chopin. And he started crying in the middle ... He just wept.”
OW:
“Yes, he’s very emotional, genuinely.”
HJ:
“It made the music stronger, in some way. He’s so theatrical. Does he know?”
OW:
“Of course he knew he was going to
choke back the tears. He’s a ham.” (From Jaglom’s book My Lunches With Orson.)
ENTRÉE (Starlight Rising)
The
fourth star of Funny Face (after
Paris, Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire) is Kay Thompson as Maggie, a fashion
magazine editor: “Her chief fame pre-FF
was in creating Eloise, chubby mischief mascot of the Plaza Hotel, her book
antics largely inspired by young Liza Minnelli (Thompson would veto Ivana
Trump’s offer to build an Eloise Room at the hotel). Arriving like Mama Eloise
on the set, veteran trouper Thompson was not awed by Audrey, Fred or Paramount
wardrobe queen Edith Head. She disliked Head and her designs, and loved
Givenchy’s raincoat that covered Head’s couture. Maggie is a demento-delight,
over the top but a thrilling advance beyond Ginger Rogers as an editor in
1944’s Lady in the Dark.” (From the
Audrey Hepburn/Funny Face chapter of
my book Starlight Rising: Acting Up in
Movies, available from Amazon, Nook and Kindle.)
DESSERT (An Image)
A great movie image is more than a still,
it’s a distillation.
Editor
Maggie (Kay Thompson) flashes fabric in the “Think Pink!” number of Funny Face (Paramount, 1957; director
Stanley Donen; cinematographer Ray June).
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