Josie and the Pussycats

 

More of a devalued rhinestone than an undiscovered gem, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan's Josie and the Pussycats is a live action cartoon with enough sass and color to merit cult status. Not merely piffle, this 2001 film is a cinematic Cheeto. It satirizes product placement (and pop culture) while simultaneously utilizing it. Wanting to have its cake and eat it, too, the film bops merrily along. Whatever is to be said of the filmmakers contributions to cinema, they are able to mine Tara Reid's dubious talents better than anyone until she found her true haven as the siren of the Sharknado saga. Admittedly, Ms. Reid is perfectly cast here as a mooncalf drummer. Rachel Leigh Cook and Rosario Dawson are serviceable. Parker Posey and Alan Cummings amuse. Fans of Barbarella, Modesty Blaise, the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Cheetos should check it out.

Sorry to Bother You

 

Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You is an accomplished film debut. I have been a fan of Riley's musical work with his band, The Coup, but nothing, not even their witty videos, prepared me for the tonal variety and dexterity of this film. The underlying Marxist critique of American capitalism that grounds his music is apparent in Sorry to Bother You as protagonist Lakeith Stanfield struggles to keep his head above economic waters by taking a McJob as a telemarketer. Similarly, his main squeeze, charmingly played by the dependable Tessa Thompson, must toil as a sign spinner in order to support her artistic career. Still, the tone of the film is of cheerful resistance to one's plight, not despair in the face of economic determinism. Even Ms. Thompson's sign spinning is an opportunity for Mr. Riley to engage is some playful semiotics.

Even when Mr. Stanfield's success as a "white-voiced" telemarketer leads the film into dystopian horror, Riley maintains a spry tone of wry humanism. The camaraderie between Stanfield and his coworkers is stressed in the face of corporate inhumanity. Jerome Fowler, Danny Glover and Steven Yeun all register as fully rounded characters and not faceless proles. Even the white corporate sleazeballs played by Michael X. Sommers and Armie Hammer are portrayed as all too human in their clueless malfeasance.

Sorry to Bother You is hardly perfect. The satiric barbs at our media saturated culture are hit and miss and the last act could have used some trims. However, the film is so full of vitality and belly laughs that there is not much to carp about. Riley is too clear eyed a critic of our culture to not demand revolutionary change. What heartens me is that there is room in Riley's revolution for humor, dance and music.  (11/13/18)

Rififi

Jules Dassin's Rififi, from 1955, is a pretty good heist film that suffers from structural deficiencies and directorial lapses. The twenty minute, largely silent jewel theft is justly famous and the final sequence, in which Jean Servais careens his car about Paris as life seeps out of him, is affecting. Servais, Dassin himself and, especially, Robert Manuel deliver finely etched performance as the thieves. The distaff side of the cast is less memorable. As in his American noirs, Dassin seems more interested in the brutality of his males. The backward tracking shot, foreshadowed in the film, of Dassin getting his coup de grace after betraying his comrades seems an apt response to the Hollywood rats who gave Dassin's name to HUAC and precipitated his exile.

However, Dassin's narrative drive seems to meander at times. The sequences tracing the thieves' downfall are belabored and stop the film in its tracks. The musical numbers are more leaden than playful, adding to the film's aura of impending doom, I suppose, but also halting its momentum. Dassin is not the subtlest of directors and this hampers some sequences. Particularly one in which Servais confronts an ex flame about her unfaithfulness while he was in the slammer. Servais' beating of the woman is savagely violent, but Dassin feels compelled to heighten an already over the top scene by zooming in on an old photo of the formerly romantic duo. Rififi is a fitfully fine film, but not as fine as its reputation.