Wonder Wheel

WONDER WHEEL               D                           
USA  (101 mi)  2017 d:  Woody Allen                 Wonderwheelmovie - Official site

Wow!  What an epic misfire.  Most have probably never seen a Woody Allen film that falls this far off the rails, unfunny and unchallenging, on the wrong footing from the very start, as it feels completely miscast, where viewers recognize the neurotic voice of Woody Allen in the narration, but don’t associate those words and thoughts with any of these actors, as the dialogue is simply not interchangeable.  Allen speaks with a pronounced ethnic Jewishness, which has always been a reference point in his films, but here the constant nagging tone is all wrong, as its Borscht Belt humor is carried out by Gentile actors, where the result is simply not the same, as the actors go through the motions but lack any hint of comedy or vaudeville humor, turning this into an agonizing dramatic misadventure with pretensions to Tennessee Williams or Eugene O’Neill, the great American playwrights, but without the depth and complexity, falling enormously short.  Framed as a Eugene O’Neill dysfunctional family set in the 50’s, where everything that can go wrong does, set entirely within the raucous confines of an overcrowded Coney Island amusement park, even the living quarters, intermixed with elements of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a spinoff apparently from 2013 Top Ten List #7 Blue Jasmine, it features an ongoing narration by a family outsider, Justin Timberlake as Mickey (normally a decent actor, but he’s all wrong as the voice of Woody Allen), an aspiring playwright who also works as a Coney Island lifeguard, who never once is seen rescuing a swimmer in distress.  Instead he intervenes in places where he shouldn’t, basically playing the field, fostering the hopes and dreams of two very different women.  First is Ginny (Kate Winslet), an emotionally-charged older waitess in an oyster bar who finds herself lost in a Blanche Dubois delirium, continually going on emotionally distraught monologues complaining of migraines and overwork, where her every last nerve is being tested.  She is a former actress whose career was derailed by a momentary lapse of judgement when she cheated on her husband, an anonymous jazz drummer who consequently left her, forever blaming herself for that mistake, sending her on an alcohol-fueled bender, leaving her with an emotionally damaged son (Jack Gore as Richie) who is clearly affected by his father’s absence, turning into a serial pyromaniac, lighting fires whenever the feeling hits him, which happens to be several times a day.  Finding a fellow alcoholic on the rebound, Ginny re-marries her current husband, a blue-collar carousel operator named Humpty, Jim Belushi, who spends the entire film doing his best Stanley Kowalski impression.  Into their lives walks Carolina (Juno Temple), the second woman, Humpty’s long-lost daughter who got herself involved with a dreamy young mob gangster with pockets full of cash, actually spilling the beans to the feds, where she’s now on the run with the mob looking for her, with shades of Mia Farrow in Broadway Danny Rose (1984).  This is a film where the sins of the parents are handed down to their own children, each an emotional basket case of frazzled nerve endings.

There isn’t a single likable character in this film, much of which is ugly and overwrought, delving into the ongoing personal insecurities and fears of people with barely enough money to scrape by, who constantly harp at one another for the choices they make, as they’re stuck in a rut that they can’t get out of, mostly feeling like caged animals.  Ginny is a whirlwind of fluctuating moods, much of it delusional, where she constantly thinks of no one but herself, growing hysterical when she thinks it’s all too much, with a claustrophobic world closing in on her, giving her no room to breathe, where she hasn’t an ounce of so-called freedom, literally suffocating before our eyes.  Humpty is a loud and blustery character who’s little more than a blowhard, all bark and no bite, that is since Ginny has removed alcohol from his daily regimen, keeping him off the sauce, as he grows brutally violent when drunk, though when times get rough, she takes a swig from a bottle she keeps hidden underneath the sink.  Timberlake’s confessional, on-going narration couldn’t be more off-putting, as it’s completely out of synch with the rest of the picture, where he’s more of a con man than he lets on, always shrouded in innocence, yet he’s a snake in the grass, never being honest with the audience, where the entire film feels like a rationalization for womanizing, yet he’s constantly being judgmental towards others without ever pointing the finger at himself.  At the center of the film is Ginny’s guilt, as she’s forever blaming herself for the pit she’s fallen into, stuck like a trapped insect, unable to pull her way out, as her husband has no ambition, leaving her having to pull the entire weight.  That heavy burden is constantly hovering over her, like a dark cloud, relentless and debilitating, as she’s been sucked into a life she hates, where everyone in it literally disgusts her, including herself, where her son’s constant obsession with setting fires is actually more of an irritation, as she never comes to grips with it, but simply blames him each and every time, having yet another panic attack.  For his part, Richie is cool with all the attention it provides, never fearing the consequences of getting caught, thinking so what, as it doesn’t hinder his actions, simply doing what he wants whenever he wants, with no interference.  From Ginny’s point of view, this is total bliss, as it’s unlimited freedom, exactly what’s missing in her overly constricted life, where she’s suffocating and can’t breathe, drowning in a life of squalor with a man she probably doesn’t even like, much less respect, but she sticks around as he rescued her from her prior emotional downfall.   

With a constantly repetitive jazz retro soundtrack that continuously plays the same song on repeat, feeling like a recurring headache after a while, the film is shot by veteran cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who creates a mosaic of constantly shifting light and color, especially faces, where a palette of artificiality bathes the screen throughout.  Enter Mickey, who offers Ginny a doorway out, having an affair that couldn’t come at a better time, where she goes all in, like water gushing out of a broken dam, becoming an unstoppable force.  While liking the attention of an older woman and all the associating drama, which he thinks will be excellent material for his plays, Mickey remains more coy about his motives, taking it slower, enjoying the ride, not turning it into such a big deal, which is what she does at every opportunity, constantly reminding him, where he’s her lifeline to a way out.  But Carolina’s youth and good looks complicate the status quo, perking up his antennae, as she’s not like other girls in the neighborhood, having traveled around the world in luxury and style, literally blowing him away, falling for her in spite of himself.  Knowing how this would crush Jenny, he does it anyway, even if it goes against all rationale of good sense, as Carolina is the forbidden fruit.  Of course he does this behind Ginny’s back, never letting on, pretending like nothing’s happening when he knows full well there’s a spark, which changes the dynamic with Ginny, who knows something’s up, but Mickey turns into another good-for-nothing man who deceives her, unable to trust the whole lot of them, turning against all men in the process, spiraling even more out of control, taking refuge in the bottle, with Humpty eventually joining in, becoming the picture of a pathetic drama without an ounce of humanity on display, where instead it’s all bluster.  The male characters are deplorable, every one a sleaze, while the women at least fare better in their scenes together, but in the end Allen’s grim and overly fatalistic view taints all.  With mob heavies Tony Sirico and Steven Schirripa from The Sopranos on Carolina’s tail, she is dangerous merchandise, making her all the more enticing to a young unattached male like Mickey, who seems to have his own issues with illusions, where he’s like a deer in the headlights, hypnotized by her allure, unable to help himself, striking while the iron is hot.  The stage is set for a final showdown with Ginny, but like Blanche, she’s already lost in the cobwebs of her own delusions, barely recognizable as a person, losing every last trace of her dignity, where it all derails into a tailspin of unfiltered torment, each little bit only adding to the collective hell of having to endure more, wiping out any hint of reality, where all that’s left is a waking nightmare that never ends, where she can’t ever wake up, stuck in an endless Sisyphean death spiral of human misery and suffocation, becoming all-consuming, like a fever dream.  Lost in the haze, the film is back where it starts, mired in that sinking feeling of utter futility.  Spare us the drama, Woody, as behind the curtain, nothing is real.  

Killer Joe

KILLER JOE               B                     

USA  (103 mi)  2011  d:  William Friedkin                    Official site

Friedkin’s second consecutive film based on a Tracy Letts play, adapted by the Pulitzer playwright himself from his first work written in his mid-twenties, is a blisteringly dark morality play exaggerated to gruesome and grotesque proportions by poverty and family dysfunction, where the seedy, trailer trash atmosphere gives rise to violence, corruption, and blatant exploitation.  Initially, the first thought that comes to mind is the Quincy Jones song by the same title Quincy Jones - Killer Joe - YouTube  (5:10), but this is not in the film.  The jazzy musical score, however, from Tyler Bates underlies much of the psychological tension which draws heavily from the sophisticated, underlying groove of the soundtrack.  Shot in and around New Orleans, the film is notable for its distinctive locations, supposedly more than two dozen, where they always seem to be set in the middle of nowhere, suggesting life at the end of the world.  While there are comical elements that turn distastefully extreme, the film is replete with disturbing content, including graphic violence, sexual degradation, and some brutal mistreatment of women, likely spurring cries of misogyny, especially when used to comical effect.  The film challenges the concept of moral order, however, especially the male view, where resorting to criminal behavior (boys will be boys) is deemed acceptable so long as people get what’s coming to them and a semblance of social order is preserved.  At times the film borders on the ridiculous, adding a comic book feel to the woes of trailer park depravity, something along the lines of Frank Miller’s SIN CITY (2005), where sex and violence merge into a twisted and perverse sense of human outrage, which ends up being the closest thing to justice.

Killer Joe (Matthew McConaughey) is a Dallas detective who moonlights on the side as a killer for hire, the stereotypical image of a man in black and an avenging angel who straddles the fence between human salvation and the worst Mephistophelean nightmare.  McConaughey brings a mark of distinction to the outrageously uninhibited role and is up to the formidable task of portraying the personification of evil, playing with unusual relish the moral cesspool he rises out of.  Repulsive and often shocking, Friedkin has created another one of his demented but always provocative horror stories, this one laced in noirish black comedy, often pushing the boundaries of absurdity.  Emile Hirsch, so good in Sean Penn’s Into the Wild (2007), may be slightly miscast here, the only weak link in an otherwise superb cast, is Chris, a lowlife, Texas drug dealer who couldn’t be more of a pathetic loser, always down on his luck, but now in dire need of $5000 he owes to a loan shark.  This sets into motion the family dynamic, as he’s been kicked out of his mother’s house and now comes crawling to his father Ansel, the irrepressible Thomas Hayden Church, excellent here as a passively subdued, always mentally challenged good ol’ boy living in a dilapidated trailer with his sexually extroverted wife Sharla, Gina Gershon, and Chris’s overly protected sister Dottie, Juno Temple, from Gregg Araki’s Kaboom (2010).  Both women prance around in a state of natural undress that borders on exhibitionism for Sharla, but Dottie is the virginal picture of innocence, an angelic creature unspoiled by the world’s darker impulses, where the leer factor enters into play with the audience, veering into sexual exploitation territory, conjuring up lewd and lascivious thoughts.  While the action centers around the men, the heart of the story instead focuses upon the women. 

Desperate to save himself, Chris comes up with the harebrained scheme to hire a hit man to murder his hateful mother, someone he and his father conclude nobody would miss, especially since Dottie is the sole beneficiary of the $50,000 life insurance policy.  When Killer Joe reveals his nonnegotiable $25,000 up front fee, the deal seems off until Joe suggests the idea of a retainer, where he takes Dottie as collateral until they come up with the payment.  These dumb and contemptuous degenerates, who continually bite themselves throughout in the ass, actually rationalize that “it just might do her some good,” cruelly leaving her alone for a dinner date with Joe that she never knew was coming, where the eerie horror of her sexual initiation recalls Treat Williams and Laura Dern in SMOOTH TALK (1985), only becoming more graphically deplorable.  When Joe moves into Dottie’s room afterwards, literally taking over the family, Chris is suddenly repulsed by his own reprehensible behavior and has a change of heart, only to find Joe is in no hurry to let any of them out of his clutches.  This is a film that wallows in its wickedness, relishing its accelerating maliciousness like an after dinner dessert.  The over-the-top, choreographed mayhem that develops is utterly appalling and absurdly ridiculous, perhaps even objectionable, but Joe has to be tarnished by his own wickedness for the final act to matter, as he’s no hero, but a thoroughly disgusting sewer rat.  While both Joe and Dottie are brought together by the most ghoulish circumstances of a Grimm fairy tale, the irony is that when Dottie’s Prince Charming finally arrives he’s a brutally efficient killer for hire.  McConaughey brings a fiendish delight to what constitutes male evil, yet his authoritative masculinity, as opposed to the bumbling and ineffectual father and son act, suggests he’s the kind of man women are drawn to, often without thinking, blinded and deluded by dreams of what they want to believe—that’s Killer Joe.  Beautifully shot by Zooey Deschanel’s father, Caleb, the film concludes with an audacious and sexually haughty choice of music Clarence Carter- Strokin' - YouTube (4:39) playing over the final credits. 

Kaboom

KABOOM                                         B+                  

USA  France  (86 mi)  2010  ‘Scope  d:  Gregg Araki 

Queer film fantasia at its finest, actually shot in ‘Scope, a first for Araki who returns to his filmmaking roots where he is constantly having a blast with this candy-colored material where he imagines being 18 again, set from the perspective of the New Order (not “the seminal band of the 80’s”) in the universe, where strange is the new normal.  The entire story revolves around a single character, Smith (Thomas Dekker), a bisexually curious college student whose dreams, everyday gay fantasies and thoughts are embellished onscreen with little left to the imagination, where constant blasts of lurid sexual imagery bombard the voyeuristic impulses from the audience and pretty much typifies how college life is portrayed.  It’s all about getting laid.  While most students may imagine this kind of lurid sensuality, most remain alienated and alone, isolated from the rest of the world in the worst way, even as they hang around in groups as a cover so that they at least entertain the possibility that they are social creatures.  Araki does wonders by turning that common perception upside down.  Smith has a best friend, the constantly-at-his-side lesbian companion Stella (Haley Bennett), the acid-tongued, highly sarcastic art student that invites him to a party where he immediately sees two women he’s never met before, but seen in a constantly recurring dream.  One, the voluptuously beautiful Lorelei (Roxanne Mesquida, from Catherine Breillat films), immediately goes home with Stella while Smith, who sees the other dreamgirl only instantly, the mysterious Red-haired girl (newcomer Nicole LaLiberte), is grabbed by London (yes she’s British, Juno Temple, daughter of documentary filmmaker Julien Temple), where both have near surreal sexual adventures, where Lorelei amusingly has supernatural powers where she casts a spell on her sexual partner to prolong the bliss in bed while London is simply every guy’s dream, as she won’t stop until her partner is completely satisfied.  This little montage of sexual satisfaction is hilarious, as at 18, that’s never the way it actually turns out, as kids are still way too self-conscious and end up blitzed on drugs or alcohol and can barely even remember what happened other than having to lie about it afterwards.    

Adding to the intrigue is Smith’s roommate Thor (Chris Zylka), seen in an opening dream montage, a blond surfer dude with marbles in his head for brains, exactly as Smith likes them, he fantasizes, but Thor insists he’s straight, while an amusing theme recurs throughout the film where this declaration is constantly in doubt.  Out of nowhere, Smith imagines he was attacked late one night along with the Red-haired girl by strange men in masks, where she might have been bludgeoned—cut to bright red jam in a scene at breakfast where Stella finds no evidence of any crime, but according to London, the Red-haired girl was in one of her classes and she has disappeared.  This musical chairs of missing persons, men in masks, hallucinations of perceived violence, all add to a creeping sense of paranoia that begins to spread like wildfires.  When cryptic messages are received, not to mention stealth computer sites that disappear in the night, Smith examines the source of these clues much like Aaron Katz uses a similar Sherlock Holmes subtext in search of a missing girl in his recent indie film COLD WEATHER (2010), both examining a different social strata.  Araki embellishes the gay world with bright colors and perfect physiques, with kids that are willing to hop into bed with one another, and a movie storyline that literally takes off on its own exaggerated sense of playfulness, where bad things continue to plague the world of these otherwise adorable teenagers who mysteriously continue to take an interest in one another.  Again, unlike the stagnant social lives of most teens who appear glum, moody, and continually down in the dumps, in this portrayal, someone’s always knocking on Smith’s door followed by an incessant barrage of cell phone calls of people constantly interested in seeing him.      

Smith’s investigations reveal cult-like symptoms in what is perceived as normal society, where an interesting family secret escalates to grotesque behavior, where the world is run by an L. Ron Hubbard style guru who seeks world domination, yet makes dire, apocalyptic proclamations that the end is near.  Poking fun at the acceptance of Scientology among the well-to-do in Hollywood circles, a movement known for its condemnation and abhorrence of homosexuality, yet accepted by a society where cult status becomes accepted as the norm, Araki uses this prevalent theme of a world falling off its axis.  While the story grows ever more ridiculous, reaching comic book proportions of conspiracy theory absurdity, this insanity is seen as a looming threat that is constantly menacing Smith and the world he knows, where men in masks run a secret campaign to round up innocent victims and make them disappear, much like the Ku Klux Klan once did, reigning terror against their intended victims, a lawless sect using fear tactics and violence that spread beyond the reach of the law, seen as a totalitarian threat intent upon annihilating gays, perhaps even willing to use the New Testament as a sign to fanatically bring about ultimate doom to the entire world, literally carrying out the wishes of a new Revelations.  Perhaps only in this manner can gays be eradicated from the earth.  But much like DOCTOR STRANGELOVE (1964), the director relishes each and every misstep, where there are more twists and turns in this film, all shown in humorous good fun, where the finale plays like the staging of a burlesque review, where the mad romp into the ever wackier world of the absurd is an irreverent dash to the finish line.  This is an insanely appealing film filled with clever twists and beautifully written dialogue that is so outrageously over the top that one can’t help but stand back and admire afterwards what a rollicking good time this was, and, like a Sirk film, that through the veneer of a film soaked in sarcasm and bright artificiality there is a glimpse of something serious lurking underneath.