Quick Takes, September 2022

Michael J. Pollard and the magnificent Lee Purcell in Dirty Little Billy

An outlaw origin story and revisionist Western, Stan Dragoti's Dirty Little Billy, from 1972, is a grungier McCabe and Mrs. Miller on Quaaludes. Michael J. Pollard stars as a demythologized and demented Billy the Kid in a film as historically inaccurate as the more mythic biopics. Dirty Little Billy is slow as molasses and virtually plotless with a visual palette that ranges from taupe to soot grey. The first shot is a close-up of a mud puddle and Dragoti seems committed to rub his audiences' faces in the mire. He succeeds somewhat, but it is a dubious achievement. Lee Purcell, as a soiled dove, is the highlight of this woebegone film.

Robert Altman's The Company, from 2003, takes a backstage and barely fictionalized look at Chicago's Joffrey Ballet. The dance sequences are thrilling and Altman's documentary style gives the film some forward momentum. However, the attempt to flesh out the characters, particularly the lovers played by Neve Campbell and James Franco, are sketchy. Malcom McDowell is miscast as an Italian-American artistic director. He nails the character's egoism, but is about as Italian as a crumpet. Despite the plot's deficiencies, dance lovers will find much to enjoy here. Featuring appearances and choreography by Lar Lubovitch and Robert Desrosiers and an interesting musical score by Van Dyke Parks.

Greg Glienna's Relative Strangers, from 2006, is a rancid retooling of Meet the Parents (which Glienna wrote) and Flirting With Disaster. Uptight yuppie Ron Livingston's birth parents turn out to be Louisiana rednecks Kathy Bates and Danny DeVito. The one note jokes land with a thud and there is little the talented cast (Edward Herrmann, Christine Baranski, Neve Campbell, Beverly D'Angelo, Bob Odenkirk) can do amidst the ham handed direction.

Jordan Harris and Andrew Schrader's The Age of Reason, from 2014, is a portrait of Texas teenage suburban anomie. The acting is amateurish, except for Tom Sizemore's drunken Dad, but the direction and editing show assurance. Too overly derivative of the work of Richard Linklater to earn my seal of approval, the film still shows signs of promise. 

Abbas Kiarostami's Close Up, from 1990, is a peculiar docu-drama concerning Hossein Sabzian, an Iranian who impersonated film director Mohnsen Makhmalbaf and his subsequent trial. The participants play themselves in recreations. The trial, with the judge playing to the camera a la Joseph Welch, is actual footage. It drags the film a bit, but Close Up finds Kiarostami at his most playful.

A two hour commercial for the US Air Force circa 1955, Anthony Mann's Strategic Air Command contains feeble humor, gorgeous VistaVision footage of B36s and B47s in flight, real life bomber pilot Jimmy Stewart, and June Allyson. A must for fans of vintage aviation, otherwise eminently skippable. My wife and I often play a game we call "Schlock, Schmaltz or Kitsch". Victor Young's score is schmaltz. Strategic Air Command verges on kitsch.

My wife is from Indiana, Pennsylvania, hometown to Mr. Stewart growing up and site of The Jimmy Stewart Museum. On the town's main thoroughfare, Philadelphia Street, the crosswalks are linked with the voice of a Stewart imitator (Rich Little?) telling you when it is safe to walk.