The Death of Dick Long: Things Go South and Get Weird

Hollywood and indie filmmakers alike just aren’t sure what to make of the South. Culturally, it is a whole different world, but the relatively high poverty rate ought to make Southerners politically exploitable. It is not hard to pick up on the conflicted feelings in Daniel Scheinert’s The Death of Dick Long, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Zeke Olsen digs playing in his southern garage rock band Pink Freud with his pals Earl Wyeth and Dick Long, even though (or because) they are more of a drunken rehearsal group than a gigging professional outfit. After pounding plenty of beers during the course of this fateful night, Long asks his buds: “want to get weird?” That they do, but the audience is mercifully spared the spectacle. Whatever happened, it went terribly awry this time, resulting in Long’s titular death.

Due to the unspeakable circumstances, Long is desperate to cover up their misadventures. Unfortunately, he is even less suited to masterminding a cover-up than the Watergate burglars. He is mostly on his own too, because Wyeth makes it clear he intends to boogie out of town. However, Olsen is more tied to the community through his wife Lydia and their young daughter, whose teacher just happens to be Long’s increasingly concerned wife Jane (actually, she is his widow, but she doesn’t know it yet).

Long tries to dispose of evidence and fabricate an alternate narrative, but his efforts are laughably inept. Fortunately, Sheriff Spenser and Officer Dudley are so polite and southern about things, they do not immediately throw him under the third-degree light. Frankly, Olsen’s wife is probably more suspicious than they are.

Lost Child: The Infernal Ozarks

The Ozarks have not had much luck in film and television. Generally, the mountainous plateau is portrayed as a place that combines the worst of the old world and contemporary society. There you will find all kinds of spooky old timey magic practiced, as well as meth. For a recently discharged veteran, it also happens to be home, but for her that is not a point in its favor. The land of Winter’s Bone gets a similar sort of treatment this time around, but there is more empathy than usual in Ramaa Mosley’s Lost Child (trailer here), which is now playing in New York.

Janella “Fern” Sreaves has come “home,” but she still carries part of the war with her. We can tell, because her aversion to guns is quite atypical for the region (and also for her former profession). She returns to the grim duty of her father’s funeral, but for her it is really a matter of paperwork. She would like to patch things up with her recidivist brother Billy, but he holds fast to his misplaced grievances.

That is all very frustrating for Sreaves, but par for the course. Things start to get weird for her when she finds a waifish boy shivering in the woods. Rather awkwardly, the local social worker happens to be her homecoming hook-up, Mike Rivers. Picking up on her own foster kid history, Rivers guilts Sreaves into sheltered the polite Cecil, at least temporarily. However, as soon as she welcomes him into the cabin, she starts feeling ill and her hair suddenly starts graying. Folks start whispering about Cecil and some even warn her outright. Surely, he must be the Tatterdemalion, a life-force-consuming demon that lives in the woods, until some naïf invites it into their home.

What is really creepy about Lost Child is not the is-he-or-isn’t-he question. It is the fact that so many people truly believe there are demons lurking in the woods, here in the present day. You do not even need demons when there are people burning trees to get the evil spirits out. Nevertheless, Mosley nicely maintains a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty regarding Cecil’s true nature—and perhaps the nature of our world as well. Without a doubt, Lost Child represents a quantum leap improvement over her previous film, the vacuous mishmash, The Brass Teapot. This is a gritty, emotionally intelligent film that has a strong sense of place, geographically and culturally.

Leven Rambin is terrific as Sreaves. If you want an example of “strong but vulnerable,” she delivers to a “T.” Fortunately, neither Rambin or Mosley overplay Sreaves’ PTSD, forgoing the typical twitching and night terrors. Instead, it is something more matter-of-fact that she will have to struggle to overcome. Rambin also develops some nice romantically ambiguous chemistry with Jim Parrack’s Rivers, who could be the manliest social worker ever seen in a serious drama.

Watching Lost Child brought to mind Robert Love Taylor’s yet-to-be-properly-appreciated novel Blind Singer Joe’s Blues. They both usher us into a world where “hants” and infernal ones have a palpable effect on people, regardless whether they are real or not. Recommended for fans of Southern Gothic at its most hardscrabble, Lost Child is now playing in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Cut to the Chase: Shreveport Noir

It is a really bad idea to run up gambling debts with a gangster simply known as “The Man.” It is a particularly bad idea to do so in Louisiana, where a lot of the rules do not apply so much. Of course, a lowlife like Max Chase specializes in really bad decisions. He assumed his sister, an assistant district attorney would protect him from consequences, but he will have to save her instead when she disappears under mysterious circumstances in Blayne Weaver’s Cut to the Chase (trailer here), which screens tomorrow in New York and next Monday in Los Angeles.

After an ill-advised double-or-nothing bet, Chase now has a week to pay The Man $3,000—or else. Yet, he is not even trying to raise the money or get out of town. He just carries on with his degenerate life style. Unfortunately, he misses the frantic calls from his frantic sister Isobel during his drunken debauchery.

It turns out Izzy Chase had an abusive ex-boyfriend in her private life and had just been assigned to lead the DA’s case against The Man in her professional life, so there is no shortage of people Chase can get mad at. Thanks to the spooked DA (who was also seeing Isobel on the side), Chase tracks down Nola Barnes, the star witness against The Man to forge an alliance of convenience. Unfortunately, Chase is getting played left and right, but he is still dangerous in a bull in a china shop kind of way.

The most important thing to take into consideration regarding Cut is Lance Henriksen, The Man himself, plays The Man. Knowing Henriksen is on-board guarantees the film a solid baseline of genre entertainment. As his own lead, Weaver is certainly willing to act sad and disreputable, perhaps succeeding too well. Lyndie Greenwood also shows some impressive fierceness as Barnes. Frankly, the entire film is well cast. The problem is the narrative often feels very small time.

When watching Cut, it is hard not to think of the recent tragic death of Bill Paxton, who made a specialty of playing colorfully flawed characters in Southern noirs like this. Weaver is no Paxton, but he is not bad, while Henriksen reliably does his thing, being The Man. Darkly diverting but not exactly essential, Cut to the Chase screens tomorrow (2/28) in New York, at the AMC Loews 19thStreet.

Sophie and the Rising Sun: Mixed Romance in 1941

Ralph Carr was not FDR’s favorite governor. The Colorado chief executive was adamantly opposed to the New Deal. He was also the only political leader of any consequence who criticized the Japanese internment policy. Gov. Carr did his best to welcome Japanese-Americans relocated to his state. Perhaps things might have been easier for Sophie Willis and Grover Ohta if they had met in Colorado. Instead, fate brings them together in segregated, true blue democrat Salty Creek, South Carolina, in the Fall of 1941. Interracial romance is strictly taboo in the small town, but the wounded lovers will take their chances in Maggie Greenwald’s Sophie and the Rising Sun (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

During a misadventure in New York, Ohta was badly beaten and deposited in a southbound bus that unceremoniously dumps him out in Salty Creek. Anne Morrison reluctantly agrees to host the mystery man everyone assumes is Chinese during his convalescence, but is delighted to find they share a passion for gardening. It turns out, Ohta also shares a love of painting with Morrison’s socially awkward friend, Sophie Willis. She is still too young to be a proper spinster, but after her fiancé was killed in WWI, her prospects in the narrow-minded and narrow-streeted burg are decidedly limited.

They are probably meant to be together, but Pearl Harbor really throws a spanner in the works. It also inspires another severe beating. Even the tough-talking Morrison wavers in her broad-mindedness, but not Willis. Morrison’s no-nonsense new housekeeper Salome also keeps things in perspective, but Ruth Jeffers, the town’s wildly judgmental busybody is a different story entirely.

Greenwald has such a fine feeling for the era and the setting, you can practically smell palmetto trees and hear crickets chirping. However, the narrative (adapted from Augusta Trobaugh’s novel) is so predictable, beat-by-beat, nothing comes remotely close to surprising even the most distraction-prone viewer. It is a shame Greenwald plays it so agonizingly safe, because the performances of Julianne Nicholson (a survivor of the Osage County horror show) and Takashi Yamaguchi are really quite lovely. Their chemistry is potent yet delicate—and absolutely never forced.

Margo Martindale also gives awards caliber work as Morrison, deftly balancing her down-home flamboyance and gutsy defiance. Lorraine Toussaint nicely handles some pivotal reveals as Salome. Unfortunately, Diane Ladd and the rest of the supporting cast seem to be engaged in a contest to see who can play the most unpalatable, over-the-top Southern stereotype.

Rising looks and sounds great, thanks to Wolfgang Held’s nostalgically evocative cinematography and David Mansfield’s distinctive score. For extra added authenticity (and a rare bit of fun), there is also a swingingly period-appropriate contribution from Vince Giordano. Frustratingly, scene after scene come like totally on-the-nose teachable moments. There is no subtlety, no irony, and no ambiguity. A little bit of one or all three would have greatly deepened its impact. Good looking and well-intentioned, Sophie and the Rising Sun earns a mixed recommendation, primarily for audiences that will respond to its unmistakable message, when it opens tomorrow (1/27) in Los Angeles, at the Laemmle Music Hall.

My Father, Die: Southern Exploitation for People Who Hate the South

It is only due to the influence of his father that Asher Rawlings is the man he is today: a psychosomatically deaf-mute introvert. However, he harbors ambitions of becoming a patricidal killer. It would be an improvement. Revenge comes deep fried in Sean Brosnan’s grubby My Father, Die (trailer here) which opens this Friday in New York.

MFD opens with an ultra-stylized flashback that shows us how Rawlings’ dysfunctional family ran fatally off the rails. To teach him the birds-and-the-bees, his older brother Chester sets him up to peep while he pays a call on Nana. She is roughly Chester’s age, but their Neanderthal father Ivan stills considers her his exclusive sexual property. Therefore, the biker father logically murders Chester and beats the snot out Asher when he barges into their rendezvous.

Ten years later, the old man is released due to prison over-crowding, leading Rawlings to understandably freak out. Resolving the best defense is a good offense, Rawlings saws off a shotgun and heads out to kill his father like the rabid dog he is. Thanks to a violent encounter with Ivan’s old pal Tank, Rawlings gets the drop on him in his scumbag motel. However, he ill-advisedly assumes the battered Ivan is dead. You know what assuming does. Thus, Rawlings’ grudge match becomes a mutual thing.

Frankly, MFD probably sounds considerably more fun than it really is. Tonally, it is a bizarre mishmash, over-reliant on black-and-white flashbacks and ponderous narration recorded in Rawlings’ prepubescent, pre-tragedy voice. They are played so achingly self-serious, it makes you wonder if they were intended to parody pretentious indie films. Needless to say, if viewers can’t tell if considerable portions of MFD were meant to be satire that’s a problem.

Brosnan’s oozing contempt for the South also gets old quickly. Whether it is white power bikers or tent revival evangelists who secretly visit pornographic webchats wearing an S&M hood, his vision of Southern men is gothic in the extreme. How would Brosnan (son of Pierce) like it if Southern Evangelical filmmakers made a film in Ireland, portraying the Irish as nothing but drunks and terrorists? Obviously, that would be grossly unjust, but it would be about as fair as the treatment dispensed in MFD.

Since English Joe Anderson spends most of his time as “adult” Asher wearing shades and his late brother’s raccoon skin hat, it is hard to connect with the character and the performance. At least former Merseyside-born boxer Gary Stretch is impressively fierce as the dad from Hell. As Tank, Kevin Gage (from Wisconsin—technically not the South either, but much closer) chews the scenery and howls in pain with gusto.

So, what about that comma between “father” and “die?” Sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not. Its better off without it. Awkward title syntax just seems to generate bad karma. As it is, MFD is already too scuzzy in the wrong, non-retro sort of way. By refusing to fully embrace the payback genre and the bayou milieu, Brosnan ultimately sabotages his own attempt at neo-Southern exploitation. Not recommended, My Father Die opens this Friday (1/20) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Reel South: Soul City

Floyd McKissick endorsed Nixon in 1972 and was appointed to the bench by Republican Governor James G. Martin in 1990. That made him quite a maverick among civil rights activists, but McKissick was his own man—but he was also a man of vision. He had a plan for a new city entirely conceived, built, and managed by African Americans. It could have been something like Reagan’s “shining city on a hill,” but it was undermined by politics (and one might argue, ugly architecture). The story of the founding and still-born death of the ambitious North Carolina community are chronicled in Monica Berra, SheRea DelSol & Gini Richards’ Soul City (trailer here), which airs as part of the current season of Reel South on PBS’s World Channel (hosted by Darius Rucker).

While McKissick led the Congress on Racial Equality, he pretty forthrightly advocated “Black Power,” even though he sounds a bit slippery in 1960s archival footage when asked to explain what that term meant to him personally. Therefore, many former allies inevitably charged him with selling out when he endorsed Nixon and started accepting HUD money to build Soul City.

Both Nixon and North Carolina’s Republican Governor James Holshouser (quite the rarity south of the Mason-Dixon back in that day) threw their weight behind Soul City, but the newly elected Sen. Jesse Helms did not. As one might expect, he emerges as the villain of villains in Soul City. Apparently, the Soul City project fell victim to rumors and tabloid journalism, which Sen. Helms exploited to cut all Federal funding. Unfortunately, Berra and company never really explain any of the allegations. They just assure us it was all slander, but that only leaves viewers wondering.

Regardless, McKissick is a fascinating, larger-than-life figure, who deserves his own full documentary-profile treatment, beyond the half-hour SC. The narrative of Soul City’s initial development and premature demise is also quite instructive. However, amateur architectural critics might wonder if the shortcomings of 1970s Brutalist and International style architecture hindered the project, at least on a psychological level. The surviving buildings that were erected certainly look very much of their time, which in this case, is not necessarily an endorsement. It also looks like the could-have-been iconic Soul City sign already had conspicuous rust stains streaking the concrete background. That just doesn’t help build confidence.

The filmmakers talk to most of McKissick’s close associates, but sadly nearly all of the relevant political figures, including Nixon, have long since gone to the great logrolling swamp in the sky. Although the helmers are more-or-less conventional in their approach, the film sounds terrific thanks to the groovy original soundtrack performed by the UNCSA Jazz Band. Recommended for the history and music (but not the architecture), Soul City premieres this Sunday (1/8) on World Channel.

The Hollow: Murder and Meth in a Dry County

A triple homicide has so profoundly shocked a small Mississippi town, they almost consider canceling the big high school football game—almost. Instead, they settle for some quick words of prayer before kick-off. After all, only one of the victims is a local. Unfortunately, one of the outsiders happened to be a congressman’s daughter. Once again, two FBI agents get a chilly reception in Mississippi, but the bitter alcoholic one doesn’t do much to endear himself in Miles Doleac’s The Hollow (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

As cops go, meth-dealing sheriff’s deputy Ray Everett is one of the worst. Perversely, he recommended the clearing by the lake to the out-of-towners as a good make-out spot, even though he knew it attracted sketchy types. To make matters worse, he was seen by at least one customer getting special consideration from the third victim, “troubled” cheerleader Kami King. Ordinarily, he could keep a garden variety triple homicide under wraps, but this is literally a Federal case.

Everett takes an instant dislike to Special Agent Vaughn Killinger, but to be fair, almost everyone does. His ex-wife’s allegations of abuse nearly destroyed his career and his relationship with his young son. These days, he mainly copes through binge drinking. However, his partner, Agent Sarah Desoto still stands by him, even though she feels guilty for allowing the affair that led to all his personal problems. It seems strange the agency J. Edgar Hoover built lets them carry on as partners, but whatever. In between hook-ups and flare-ups, they start sniffing around Big John Dawson, the town’s shadowy benefactor and Everett’s not so secret supplier.

It is rather sadistically entertaining to see how dissipated and unruly James Callis gets as Killinger. He drinks more than the cast of a Hong Sang-soo film (in a dry county) and sweats more than Ned Beatty in Deliverance. Yet, somehow his chemistry with Christiane Seidel’s Desoto kind of-sort of works. Dloeac himself just oozes pond-scummy sleaze as Everett, while William Forsythe’s Big John Dawson chews the furniture and everything else not nailed down like deep fried pickles. Unfortunately, 1990’s cult favorite William Sadler (Die Hard 2, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight) is grossly under-utilized as Sheriff Beau McKinney.

There are some pretty huge credibility gaps in Hollow (you’d think the Feds might want to dust the dime bag of meth found on the victim for prints, but apparently not). However, Doleac goes all in on sordid scandal and vice, which certainly makes it watchable. It probably can’t justify the cost of a Manhattan movie ticket, but this is exactly the sort of film Netflix streaming was invented for. In the meantime, The Hollow opens this Friday (10/7) in New York, at the Cinema Village.