By Ray Pride

Small things bedevil small men.

In Pablo Larraín’s inexorable, insistent nightmare, “Tony Manero,” we are cast into four grimy nights and days of a middle-aged man, Raúl Peralta, who has the countenance of a grave-robber and the pallor of a ghoul. The 52-year-old Raúl, played by co-writer Alfredo Castro without a speck of vanity and with charismatic unpleasantness, lives in Chile in 1978 during the authoritarian military regime of Augusto Pinochet. He’s found a place to transfer his frustrations, this man who seems thoroughly unengaged with the world, with people around him: a movie. The movie? “Saturday Night Fever.” Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Director Davis Guggenheim gave Al Gore a platform to teach the world about global warming in “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006.) Now he gives three electric guitarists a venue for discoursing on their artistry: associate producer Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), The Edge (U2) and Jack White (Raconteurs, The White Stripes). Their insightful bios–light on sex, drugs and tax brackets–contextualize their musical backgrounds in U.S. and U.K. pop culture. But this always watchable (and just as listenable) documentary looks at each musician apart from his respective bandmates. We get sit-down sessions between the three guitarists. Guggenheim art-directs these scenes as an apt homage to the finale of Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz” (1978). On a dark, vast studio set, the audience is only crew members standing at the periphery. Page, The Edge and White are great–maybe in more ways than fans can discern from their solos in concerts and recordings. About to meet his elders, White confides to the camera his intent to “trick them into teaching me all their tricks.” A tad affected in his derby, bow tie and vest, White supplies “It Might Get Loud” with a lovely opening trick of his own: in a Tennessee field, he builds a one-string electric guitar from scratch and rocks some nearby dairy cows. 98m. (Bill Stamets)

RECOMMENDED

Or, John Cheever’s “Christmas Story.” Wrap your mind around that, and add characters of all ages that say “fuck” “shit” and “motherfucker” a lot, and you’ve got a taste of “Lymelife.” Derick Martini’s bittersweet gem (written with brother Steven) is set on Long Island in the recession of 1978-79, where you’re never far enough from the tracks not to hear trains wail in the distance, dead center in what a radio announcer calls “the tristate suburban area.” Reviewers who have called the story familiar are overlooking the richly profane dialogue—as “fuck”-filled as anything by executive producer Martin Scorsese—and the serene spite of adult and young performers alike. Coming-of-age story, maybe; this storytelling? Sturdy stuff about ordinary lives and extraordinary rage. Read the rest of this entry »

By Ray Pride

The most subversive thing to do in the studio system farm teams is to make a good movie.

With his second feature, “Fighting,” writer-director Dito Montiel is a subversive. Jesus, what a scrappy in-your-face, in-your-lap uncontrollable B-movie puppy dog he’s made with “Fighting,” a lovable, scrappy scamp, bold pastiche that romanticizes mean streets and meaner breaks. His first feature, based on his 2003 memoir of growing up on the streets of Astoria, “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints” (2006), was visually expressive, a bit arty and precious, but accomplished for a debut. But finding one’s voice in other filmmaking grammars? That shows talent to watch out for. Read the rest of this entry »

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This is one seriously fucked-up movie. “Travis Bickle, Mall Cop”? Almost. Nearly. Consider two types of return: The return of the prodigal, the return of the repressed. In writer-director Jody Hill’s “Observe and Report,” as Ronnie Barnhardt, a heavily medicated, prone-to-delusion rent-a-cop, Seth Rogen captures vainglorious delusion in a comic style that steadily grows from a disenchanted cipher to something far more paranoid and cruel. Read the rest of this entry »