Red Rocket (2021)

 'Red Rocket' is a film by director Sean Baker, who made one of my favorite films of a couple of years back 'The Florida Project'. Like that film, 'Red Rocket' is about people living on the margins, which makes Baker something of an American equivalent of the English filmmaker Mike Leigh. 

Our lead character is "Mikey Saber" (Simon Rex) a has been pornstar who returns to his hometown on the Texas gulf course, presumably to reconcile with his estranged wife (Bree Elrod) but princably because he can't think of anything else to do. Effectively unemployable on account of his past line of work, Mikey becomes a drug dealer, another of his previous professions. Mikey is pretty good at this job, he now has a strong cash flow, his wife's coming around, he even has the admiring friendship and occasional free chauffer serives of his neighbor Ethan Darbone.

However, Mikey becomes smitten with the 17 year old redhead (Suzanna Son) who works the counter at the donut shop where he does much of his dealing. He charms her and slowly works to open her to the idea of doing porn, thinking this young beauty might be his ticket back to the adult film industry. Mikey is not honest with the girl, nicknamed "Strawberry" about his true circumstances, but he's not really honest with anybody, a perpetual fiber and exagertor. Mikey is living multiple lives and has a number of balls (schemes) in the air. He is simply not smart enough to pull all this off, so as the movie goes on you keep waiting to see which shoes will drop and drop they will. 

Made for around a million dollars and featuring a mix of professional actors and locals, this a grungy film about the displaced and the underclass. Set in the summer of 2016 against the backdrop of the presidential election, 'Red Rocket' is a subtlety rumative piece, almost a kind of folk filmmaking. These are the kinds of characters you don't see in film that often and there is something really true about them. ***

Drugstore June (2024)

 I recently became a fan of the comedian Esther Povitsky, so when I learned that she was to be the lead in a film I knew I had to see it. I will start by saying 'Drugstore June' is not for all tastes, it's an incredibly idiosyncratic film that only Povitsky could make. She plays June Fine, a variation on her wider comic persona. June is a Millennial stereotype as well as an extremely individual person. The world she lives in, a small Illinois town populated by fellow comedians and a couple of unexpected casting choices, I found a delight to visit.

This is a film dense with dry humor, almost every line of dialogue is on at least some level funny. June is of indeterminate age, still living at home with her parents and brother. She is self obsessed, a social media and sugar junkie, still desperately in love with her ex boyfriend of two years Davey. Davey is played by Haley Joel Osment and it is an ongoing joke how this unexceptional looking fast food manager is somehow admired by everyone who knows him and is considered a real catch.

June hopes to get Davey back from his fiance Miranda Cosgrove. She at one point wants to be deputized and literally arrest him in order to spend time with him. You see the drugstore where June works for her very tolerant employer Bobby Lee has been robbed. June thinks that she can somehow solve the case and this will somehow get Davey back. She sets out on her own investigation, interacts with a bunch of colorful characters and in the end, against all odds, somehow...

I won't spoil it.

There are so many funny and telling details, quarks of personalities and the way people interact. June's propensity to speak in clichés, her strange obsessions, such as 20 years trying to convince the family doctor Bill Burr to diagnose her as on the autism spectrum, she's both off putting and oddly endering. I've watched this three times and it's funnier each time. Again not for all tastes, but for me this is a new favorite. ***

Carry on Emannuelle (1978)

 Well, after 15 years I finally finished that Grindhouse movie set I bought at Boarders Books and Music. Tarantino chose to close it up in a kind of meta fashion with movie #20. 'Carry On Emmanuelle' is the 30th in the series of 'Carry On' films, bawdy sex comedies of the Benny Hill school which spanned from 1958's 'Carry On Sargent' to 1992's 'Carry On Columbus'. I'd heard of these but never seen one before, I was aware they spoofed all kinds of topics. What they are saterizing here are the 'Emmanuelle' films, a series of internationally successful French erotic dramas featuring a sexually adventures woman named Emmanuelle.

Here Emmanuelle (the lovely Suzanne Danielle) is married to the newly appointed French ambassador to England (Kennth Williams). The ambassador is impotent so his wife seeks her pleasure with the household staff and various big wigs who visit, including the Prime Minister. Larry Dann, a recurring player in these since the 50's, is an obsessive one night stand of Emmanuelle's who documents her hanky panky resulting in a massive public sex scandle remiscent of the real life "Profuma Affair" of 1960's British politics. 

Audiences and critics were exhausted of this series by 1978, the film scores only 17% on Rotton Tomatoes and they didn't make another one of these until 1992, which would turn out to be the last. However I enjoyed this, I'll take lower tier Bristish spoof over lower tier American spoof almost any day. Suzanne Danielle is quite enchanting, she sells the thing, if they hadn't cast her right I can see this film being kind of awful. **

Mad Max (1979)

 Yep, I'd never seen this. The first in Frank Miller's 'Mad Max' series, this is essentially an origin story for Mel Gibson's iconic character. The film is set mid-apocolypse, society is slowly breaking down from gas shortages and ecocide. Agreesive motorcycle gangs roam the country, there is still a police force and they a leather clad for some reason. Max is an effective cop but he leaves the force to protect his family after earning the ire of a particularly vicious gang. This is not enough however and they track him down, resulting in the incident that makes him so mad. This is pretty solid, the slow collapse of the society is unsettling. The franchise would go the way of Rambo with the first film being very reflective and ethically gray, while later entries focus more on action spectical. ***

High School Hitch Hickers (1973)

 We are finally nearing the end of the Grindhouse set. Listed on the box as 'High School Hitch Hickers' but on the screen as 'Schoolgirl Hitchhiker's' our leads are in their 20's and never hitchhike. This is a French production. Dark haired girl and blonde are bisexuals on a hiking trip who chance upon an abandoned villa (great location). They decide to spend the night but later find the place is used as a hide out by a group of criminals, French Ben Gazzara, French Maude Adams and French Tom Savani. There's a lot nudity from the leads. Airy film with a lose vibe and not much to it. However there is something about the obvious dubing and odd acting and musical decisions that kind of worked for me. **

Demon Witch Child (1975)

 Again from the Grindhouse set, the double feature companion piece to 'The Children' is 'Demon Witch Çhild', an Italin knock off of 'The Exorcist'. Staring Marian Salgado (who had dubbed Linda Blair in the Italian release of 'The Exorcist') as a pubescent girl possessd by the ghost of a satanic witch. All in all this is not that bad, it's hoaky, the variations on the 'Exorcist' often amusing, once or twice kind of disturbing stuff happens. The second half of the film is better then the first. This is also Italy substituting for The United States, which is always entertaining. **

The Bad Sister (1931)

 'The Bad Sister' is the screen debut of the ill fated Sidney Fox, dead at 34 from a probable suicide. The Broadway star Fox is second billed behind Conard Nagel and before Bette Davis (also her film debut) and Humphrey Bogart. The diminutive Miss Fox (4'11) is the spoiled (middle?) daughter of a prominent small town Ohio family, whose hottie ways are humbled when she falls for a con man (Bogart). This film is perfectly fine melodrama based on Booth Tarkington's 1913 novel 'The Flirt', which had been filmed twice before as a silent. Fox dominates the film, though the supporting cast is good, especially Davis who I prefer in nice girl parts like this. The ending here is definitely one of its time. ***