David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake

It is often the case that those who are most convinced they can see clearly enough to decipher the hidden signs and cabals covertly governing the world are actually the most befogged by booze and controlled substances. That is not a matter of irony—it rather follows. Sam is a perfect example. The nothing slacker will interpret no end of clues hiding in plain sight all around us. Yet, somehow, they might just lead him to some answers regarding his missing neighbor in screenwriter-director David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake, (his follow-up to It Follows) which opens today in New York.

Sam has developed a huge crush on Sarah, who probably is not equally enamored with him, but she is friendly enough to get stoned together, which is encouraging. However, when he comes looking for her the next day, he finds Sarah and her roommates have vanished. The apartment complex manager is not inclined to be helpful, because Sam is seriously in arears on rent. Instead, Sam will get some crucial intel from a comic artist who draws Under the Silver Lake, a zine about Los Angeles’ secret history and urban legends, like a serial dog killer and the Owl’s Kiss, a black widow-like bird creature.

Sam’s investigation will take him to the exclusive corners of the town, where the super-rich and highly strange rub shoulders. He learns to interpret hobo symbols from the 1930s and the subliminal lyrics in a hipster band’s specialty EP pressing. Conveniently, many of the clues are buried in the ironic pop culture he is so familiar with. Nevertheless, the unfolding of the conspiracy’s details is oddly fascinating. Unfortunately, Mitchell’s ultimate rabbit hole is just too deep and outrageous. Most viewers will be incredulous to find out what it is really all about. Still, the getting there is surprisingly entertaining.

Indeed, Lake is a pleasant surprise, considering how divisively mixed critical opinion has been up to now. It does not hurt that Mitchell loads the film up with film noir conventions and homages. A detour to Griffith Park? But, of course. Frankly, some of the most important work comes from the art and design teams, who created the art of the Silver Lake zine, the vintage magazines, the hobo handbook, and the eccentric knick-knacks generously distributed throughout the featured apartments.

Andrew Garfield manages to be just the right degree of twitchy as Sam. We can easily envision him as one of the nutty commentators on Room 237, but he is hardly a sad, non-functional figure, like Mel Gibson’s character in Conspiracy Theory. Riley Keough also so convincingly balances charm, seductiveness, and mysteriousness, we can easily buy into Sam’s determination to find her. Plus, Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Grace Van Patten, Riki Lindhome, and Wendy Vanden Heuvel all make strong impressions as various women co-existing in Sam’s warped world.

Mitchell just takes the film a little too far, but the real news is just how much of Silver Lake genuinely works. It is hard to believe nobody has taken a crack at adapting Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49, but Mitchell’s film gives us a taste of what it might be like. Recommended for fans of LA noirs and conspiracy fiction, Under the Silver Lake opens today (4/19) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center.

Sundance ’19: The Lodge

Step-parenting is always a tricky proposition, but it is especially so for Grace. As the sole survivor of a suicidal death cult, she has sort of already lost one “family.” Her prospective stepson and stepdaughter are less than thrilled to welcome her into their family. It is hard to form a conclusive judge about them or her in Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala’s The Lodge, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Grace’s father was the charismatic leader of an apocalyptic Christian cult that committed mass-suicide Hale-Bopp-style. She was left behind to tell their tale, like the characters left standing at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Should that make us trust her more or less?

Regardless, Richard fell for her hard while writing a retrospective piece on the cult. Aidan and Mia were already seriously unhappy with his decision to take up with Grace, but when their mother Laura is suddenly ushered out of the movie, Grace becomes the focus of their hard feelings. Hoping to bring peace to their awkward family unit, Richard books a getaway vacation at an isolated mountain lodge. Right, what could go wrong—aside from Richard getting called back to work just before a severe storm cuts off Grace and the two resentful children from the outside world?

Maybe Grace is a victim in all this, or maybe not, but either way, her cult backstory is massively creepy. Franz & Fiala frequently return to images of the mass suicide, which are especially disturbing, because they deliberately emulate news footage of the Heaven’s Gate cult. It is arguably exploitative, but undeniably effective.

In fact, The Lodge is consistently unsettling because of its uncertainties, starting first and foremost with the true nature of Grace’s character. Riley Keough’s subtle, ambiguous performance gives viewer plenty to support any interpretation. Likewise, as Aidan and Mia, Jaeden Lieberher and Lia McHugh make two of the most suspicious and intense kids to appear on film since the off-the-rails twins in Franz & Fiala’s Goodnight Mother.

If you want to get technical, there are probably some serious logical issues within The Lodge, but Franz & Fiala’s command of mood and atmosphere is so strong, we don’t even notice in the moment. The chills are further heightened by Thimios Bakatakis’s appropriately icy cinematography. However, the recurring use of a dollhouse motif is probably a mistake, because it automatically brings to mind comparisons to Ari Aster’s Hereditary. Recommended for fans of high-end horror, The Lodge screens again today (2/2), as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky

It is not exactly Le Mans, but since it usually runs over four hours, the Coca-Cola 600 is easily the longest race of the NASCAR season. That’s a lot of time to spend money at the concessions. Hopefully, it will also give Jimmy Logan enough time to pull off an unlikely heist in Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky (trailer here), which opens today nationwide.

Logan thought he would claw his way out of border state poverty playing football, but when his knee blew out, he lost his scholarship. Work had been so scarce, he drove all the way into North Carolina for a construction gig, but he is fired by the cold-blooded HR department for not disclosing his limp. At least Logan got a good look around while he was on the job repairing sink-holes under Charlotte Motor Speedway. Turns out, there is a system of pneumatic tubes that takes money dropped at the registers directly into the vault. It is enough to give a fellow ideas.

If truth be told, the Logan family could use the money. According to his brother Clyde, there is a Logan family curse responsible for Jimmy’s knee and the hand he lost while serving in Iraq. So far, their sister Mellie has escaped the curse, but the beautician is hardly living on Easy Street. When his ex-wife serves notice of her intention to move further away with his beloved daughter Sadie, it creates a sense of urgency, so he hatches a scheme to knock over the Speedway. In additon to his siblings, Logan will also need the help of the only demolitions expert he knows. Unfortunately, bleach-blond Joe Bang is serving time in prison, with his parole imminently approaching, so the Logans will have to sneak him in and out of prison without anyone being the wiser.

Frankly, some of the cleverest parts of the scheme revolve around that secret prison break. Unlike most caper films since Rififi, Soderbergh and first-time screenwriter Rebecca Blunt do not immediately explain the full extent of their plan, opting instead to reveal it step-by-step, while the heist is already underway. Apparently, critics on both coasts are so obsessed with the Donald, nearly every review includes a condescending line to the effect of: “this is Trump country, but the Logans are surprisingly likable and dignified.” Conversely, no Western Virginian review of a Woody Allen movie would ever feel the need to observe: “when Upper-Eastsiders are not dining at Elaine’s, marrying their ex-wives’ adopted daughters, and hosting fundraisers for Hillary Clinton, they are just as insecure as the rest of us.”

Regardless who the Logans might have voted for, the suggestion Soderbergh treats them and their milieu with respect is indeed correct. Frankly, Channing Tatum and Adam Driver look more like real life siblings than any movie pairing since De Caprio and Carey Mulligan appeared as near-identical twins, Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann’s accidentally taboo take on the Great Gatsby. As Jimmy and Clyde Logan, they convey a sense of years of shared history and the shorthand that comes with such familiarity. When Tatum rolls his eyes at Driver’s talk of the curse, we feel like they have replayed this scene thousands of times before.

Yet, the most important relationship in the film is that between Jimmy and Sadie Logan. We can believe he would indeed risk his fabulous bachelor lifestyle to maintain their connection and possibly scratch out better futures for them both. A good deal of pre-release publicity has understandably focused on Daniel Craig’s drolly eccentric and muscularly swaggering performance as Joe Bang, but Riley Keough stands a chance of breaking through to Tatum’s level of fame through her work as the sassy but grounded Mellie. As a bonus, Hillary Swank and Blue Ruin’s Macon Blair nicely uphold the Twin Peaks-X-Files tradition of eccentric FBI agents in near cameos as the investigating Feds.

Lucky has a pleasantly genial vibe, but the stakes for the Logans are much higher than in Soderbergh’s Ocean films, which diegetic news reports slyly name-drop. There are definitely some clever bits, but more importantly, the film has real heart. Recommended for fans of caper movies and NASCAR, Logan Lucky opens today (8/18) across the country, including the AMC Empire in New York.

Jack and Diane: With No Apologies to Mellencamp

You could possibly liken lycanthropy to puberty because they both involve dramatic physical transformation.  It is a dubious comparison, but evidently it was enough for writer-director Bradley Gray Rust to build a film around.  As a result, love is rather messy in several ways for two young women in Jack & Diane (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Diane dresses like Goldie Hawn on Laugh-In.  Tomboyish Jack dresses like Tim Allen on Home Improvement.  However, when the two hipsters see each other, it is love at first gawk.  Lost in Manhattan not far from Evacuation Zone A, the visiting Diane accepts Jack’s offer of hospitality.  The British Diane seems to exist in a state of arrested development, but it evidently works for the tough-on-the-outside-needy-on-the-inside Jack.  Yet, just as their whirlwind romance begins, miscommunication and Diane’s meddling aunt threaten to tear it asunder.

Coming between these kids might be dangerous though.  In moments of extreme emotional agitation Diane transforms into a werewolf—but, not really.  For the most part, the lycanthropy is metaphorical, with only occasional hints that these trippy interludes have real consequences.  At least they look distinctive, animated by the celebrated Quay Brothers in a style that is better described as macabre than frightening.

Frankly, it is a wonder Rust has not been picketed by the Hollywood thought police, considering J&D essentially equates its characters’ lesbianism with something explicitly monstrous.  However, he handles their relationship with keen sensitivity and reasonably good taste.  Indeed, J&D is being touted as the lesbian werewolf movie, but it is likely to disappoint fanboys hoping for either sort of exploitation.

Instead, J&D is your basic downtown indie.  It is not mumblecore, but you can see it from here.  Still, the earnest sincerity co-leads Juno Temple and an unrecognizable Riley Keough (Elvis’s granddaughter) bring to their characters shines through strikingly.  Unfortunately, they are not well served by some overripe dialogue and the rather laborious pace.

If you were wondering, the Mellencamp song never appears on the J&D soundtrack and the ex-Johnny Cougar is reportedly not thrilled by the association.  Be that as it may, the film itself is not terrible, but it is far from a cohesive whole.  The Quays and particularly Keough did some fine work, but the concept remains only half-developed.  Fans of the animators should find it worth checking out, but they can safely wait for Netflix and the like.  For the curious, Jack & Diane opens tomorrow (11/2) in New York at the Cinema Village.