With X (2022) and then Pearl (2022), writer-director Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers) rather unexpectedly initiated a decades-spanning portrait of evil that allowed him to access distinct movie styles— using the richness of ‘30s Technicolor in Pearl to map the psychological terrain of a character who serves as a rotting vision of what might have happened to Dorothy Gale had she never been swept off the farm to catch a glimpse of Oz, or the sun-bleached, grungy foreboding of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as the template for X.

The trilogy comes to a close with MaXXXine, in which the porn star would-be actress Maxine, who  survived a massacre in X perpetuated by the demented murderess Pearl, who somehow retained a degree of sympathetic connection with the audience, if not her victims, has found her way to Hollywood circa 1985 in relentless pursuit of the life she believes she deserves as a mainstream movie star. She lands the lead in a sequel to a ‘80s video nasty that may provide the path to that stardom right about the same time that another murderer, disguising his unfortunate victims as those belonging to real-life Los Angeles serial killer Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, begins bringing Maxine’s bloody past back to haunt and perhaps eventually extinguish her.

Since we’re in the middle of the Summer Olympics and in thrall to the far more ambitious and impressive achievements of gymnast Simone Biles, it’s impossible for me to resist saying that MaXXXine fails to stick the landing fans of the previous two films were hoping for. And part of the problem may just be that, being newly beholden to the aesthetics of an era in which neon-lit, relatively style-free, formula-bound splatter films were the order of the day, West ends up recreating not only the look of the sleazier, tourist-unfriendly Hollywood Boulevard of the time, but also the limitations of that particular form of visual and narrative storytelling.

MaXXXine is fun moment to moment, but as it moves toward its sleazy milieu toward the answer to the mystery of just who it is stalking Maxine, the movie starts to get bogged down in attempts to comment on 2024 by evoking images of Moral Majority-esque protests and heavy-handed proclamations about low art usually delivered via the movie’s own directorial stand-in (Elizabeth Debicki), about whom West never really takes a stand as to her status as either self-proclaimed artist-with-a-voice or just another pretentious industry hack. (Debicki’s haughty film director may be modeled at least partially on female horror auteurs like Stephanie Rothman or Amy Holden Jones, whose Slumber Party Massacre was written by Rita Mae Brown.)  And it eventually succumbs to the sort of thinly fleshed-out third act that was part and parcel of the video and theatrical nasties of the day— there’s nothing here to match the chilling, searing endings of either of the previous films. If sleazy ‘80s horror is your thing, there may be plenty here to provide a gristly meal, but merely revisiting that cheapo VHS aesthetic was not enough for me.

And speaking of the previous two, MaXXXine is also hobbled by the fact that it’s the only movie in the series that does not work fully as a stand-alone film. Without particular knowledge of what transpired in X, West’s somehow elliptical, I would say almost cavalier approach to grounding his audience in events that have transpired which directly affect his new film and the character of Maxine Minx is kind of perplexing, and audiences without that foreknowledge might find themselves confused to the point of indifference.

However, MaXXXine does still have Mia Goth, who absolutely makes you believe she is a woman, however mangled by her past and her own violent tendencies, who will not accept anything less than the life she feels she deserves, and if there’s less of the psychological depth she brought to Pearl (and that film’s absolutely soul-shaking final moments), she’s still fully committed to the role and she’s never less than riveting. So much so that the movie never really lives up either to its predecessors or to Goth herself.

MaXXXine is fun in its way, especially if you can see it the way I did, at a drive-in in the middle of a darkened, forested patch, but compared to X and especially Pearl it’s an anticlimactic finish to an otherwise strong series.

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The movie’s not-so-secret weapon is Mia Goth as Pearl, who sells the character’s constant teetering between levels of reality and desire with horrifying immediacy and surprising shades of empathy, especially given the, um, antisocial behavior we see her indulge on first pitch(fork). In mapping the psychological terrain of a character who could be, given that Technicolor signaling director Ti West indulges with abandon, a rotting vision of what might have happened to Dorothy Gale had she never been swept off the farm to catch a glimpse of Oz, Goth accesses the guileless spirit of a young Shelley Duvall, and the final shot of the movie, which she occupies to devastating effect, made me feel like I was having a Bickle-sized meltdown to match the one on screen. 

 (This post was written in 2022 just after seeing Ti West's Pearl for the first time.)

From 1970 on, Duvall had been in some of the most influential movies I ever saw in my life during that period, most of them directed by my favorite filmmaker, Robert Altman— Brewster McCloud, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us, Nashville and 3 Women. She was, as my friend Steven Santos has suggested, central to understanding and finding your way to Altman’s wavelength, and the movies he made with her are unimaginable, especially now, without her. In 1982, when I found myself wandering through that theater lobby and eventually spotting Duvall unassumingly standing near the snack bar, engaged in a conversation, she was coming off of the two movies that most people probably associate her with—Altman’s Popeye (1980) and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, also 1980)—a moment in her career that would never again be duplicated. (And to those who love to propagate the theory that Kubrick’s punishing methods drove her to eventually crack up, well, there was certainly no evidence of it that I could see—it’s called acting, folks.)  

I stood there for what seemed like a long time, hemming and hawing, hands in pants pockets, trying to get up the courage to go up to her and say something no more prepossessing than “Ms. Duvall, I’m a huge fan. Thank you for your wonderful work.” But I hadn’t yet lived in Los Angeles—I was still only a very green visitor and I had no idea whether I’d be overstepping myself or how she would react to being approached. I have since heard, from people I know who *have* talked to her, that I had nothing to worry about that night 42 years ago. But I didn’t know that then. And so, after a bit more rocking back and forth on my heels and toes, I slunk back to my seat and left her to the movie and to her life.

That’s a decision I’ve regretted ever since, especially today. Because Shelley Duvall, maybe my favorite actress for a good 20 years or so, has died of complications from diabetes. Of course, her ill health and her stepping away from Hollywood were widely known, thanks in part to some callous exploitation of her situation by people who ought to know better but who, in pursuit of dollars and notoriety and clicks, have long lost the crucial compassion of bedrock humanity. But it’s heartening to know that she found love even during this difficult time in her life, and that far more people seemed to surround her and support her in the wake of all that exploitation than wanted to take advantage of her. Up till the end, she had meaningful relationships and fans who would become friends who visited her from all parts, and she seemed genuinely happy, even though her circumstances were far from those that would ever been blessed and anointed by the Hollywood spotlight.

It's hard to underestimate, or even express what she’s given to me since I first saw her-- in Nashville a few years before I ever saw her film debut in Brewster McCloud-- but I remember being immediately taken by her unusual comportment and lack of self-consciousness as a performer, her openness, her vulnerability, and the hint that there was something behind those giant eyes that haunted the untrained approach she brought to almost every role. (Pauline Kael once described her as possessing the appearance of having stepped straight out of a Modigliani painting.) I love her in Brewster McCloud, the hero’s one true tie to the world who inadvertently sets the stage for his downfall; and as Keechie, unsophisticated partner and lover to the gangster Bowie (Keith Carradine, with whom she was paired three times in Altman’s films) in Thieves Like Us; and of course Millie Lamoreaux, the spa worker whose misplaced confidence and desperate longing to insinuate herself into a world she can’t see doesn’t really want her brings about a strange fusion and personality transference with a young woman (Pinky, played by Sissy Spacek) who she ostensibly takes under her wing in Altman’s 3 Women (1977). (Duvall won the Best Actress award at Cannes in 1977 for her work in this movie.)

I wish I could say I liked The Fall Guy, directed by David Leitch, better than I actually did, because coming to it relatively late (it's been hanging on in theaters for about a month now and is already available at home on video-on-demand services) I was rooting for it for reasons based almost solely on it being one of the two pictures leading into the summer movie season that have themselves been designated fall guys emblematic of the so-far disastrous Hollywood money-making year. But instead of being engaged on a big-budget action-movie level (the way, say, Bullet Train, also directed by Leitch, or the John Wick series, which was directed by Leitch's associate at 87 North Productions, Chad Stahelski, most definitely were), the movie's eagerness to please the crowd left me at a distance; its 126 minutes passed by me with only the occasional ripple of genuine amusement, the way an episode of the TV show The Fall Guy might have, had I ever watched a single episode.

Leitch and company have designed The Fall Guy, all about a top-level stuntman (Ryan Gosling) trying to rekindle a romance with his latest movie's director (Emily Blunt) while trying to stay alive on the job and solve a mystery involving the obnoxious movie star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, obviously modeled on Tom Cruise) for whom he serves as a stunt double, as a tribute to the Hollywood community of stunt performers. These folks, whom Leitch and company repeatedly point out take their lives in their hands for their craft, have been largely overlooked (at least as far as awards are concerned) when credit is doled out for the effectiveness of these sorts of movies, and other genres where stunt work might be slightly more invisible, or at least low-key. The possibility of a new Oscar category for stunt coordination and performances has been gaining momentum and may well become a reality by the time nominations are handed out in February 2025 for the beleaguered year through which the American moviegoing audience is now living.

The irony is, if such an award materializes, The Fall Guy would not, in any likely sense, be the top contender, or at least the most deserving of that recognition. No, The Fall Guy's partner in scapegoating for Hollywood's current dire straits, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, would be the more obvious choice here, George Miller's film having far better realized how to create, integrate and execute A-level stunt work with a story for which that work feels organic, essential. The Fall Guy, on the other hand, is impressive on the execution level, but it's story is TV-level; it feels like an afterthought, a way to stitch all this impressive effort and talent into something resembling a coherent narrative.

Leitch, as director and (presumably) overseer of the film's team of editors, headed by Elisabet Ronaldsdottir, even undercuts his own action, interrupting the momentum of several big stunt set pieces with expository scenes which deflate any rhythm and thrust that would have naturally have built, had the scenes been allowed to play as complete sequences. (Imagine if Miller had stopped one of the big scenes involving the War Rig's assault on Gastown to show Immortan Joe back at the Citadel growling in worry or anger about whether or not the truck had arrived yet. Or if Staheleski had repeatedly interrupted John Wick's agonizing battle on the 222 steps leading up to the Sacre-Coeur Basilica so we could get glimpses of Ian McShane and Clancy Brown checking their watches and wondering whether Wick was gonna make it in time.)

I understand why people like The Fall Guy;  it pushes a lot of the right buttons, and the audience I saw it with had a good time with it, yet it's not nearly so clever as its lighthearted movie-star badinage would seem to indicate it thinks it is. And in trying so hard to highlight the stunt performers, who it correctly asserts don't get the sort of credit they deserve, and embarrass the Hollywood awards community into their own sort of action, Leitch's movie undercuts its own argument by not providing a solid movie in the great narrative tradition of the well-told blockbusters of old (and the more recent) to back that argument up. As paeans to the pluck, determination and talent of stunt movie performers and crews, at least The Fall Guy (2024) is no The Fall Guy (1981-1986). But in order to really bolster its own tribute to the dangers of being a great stunt man, it would have been helpful to have something else going on beside (or even in addition to) the paper-thin romance that props this new movie up. Maybe if Leitch had tapped more from The Stunt Man (1980; Richard Rush) than Hooper  (1978; Hal Needham), we'd be talking about a new classic instead of another big, middle-of-the-road action movie taking the fall for its studio's lack of faith and its director not being able to keep his eye entirely off the prize.

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During my senior year under his tutelage, as if I was being rewarded (it certainly felt like it), Bill captained near full quarters on Coppola and Altman, and during that period he more than once appealed to my ego by referring to me, in private and in class, as "our resident expert on The Godfather," even consulting me to help resolve the issue of what characters were ported over, backward in time, from the 1940s of the first movie to the 1920s Little Italy section of the second-- the question was regarding whether one character in The Godfather Part II was a young version of Sal Tessio, and my wisdom was accepted when it was determined that the character of Genco, played by Frank Sivero, was causing the confusion, likely due to a presumptive resemblance (it must have been the brow) to what one could imagine a young Abe Vigoda looking like.

And I will always be grateful to him for the intense study afforded to what emerged during this time as my favorite movie, Nashville. Our in-class sessions examining and discussing Altman's masterpiece were a whirlwind of excitement and critical stimulation for me and helped cement Altman as my favorite director. I'll never forget Bill's remarks when we projected the film's harrowing, exhilarating finale in the classroom the day after seeing the entirety of the film collectively in our assigned lecture hall. After Barbara Jean is assassinated and the shocked crowd resuscitates to the strains of Albuquerque's rendition of "It Don't Worry Me," that crowd eventually joining in with her, Bill stopped the projected and proclaimed, "If you can watch that scene and not be moved to tears, you're a stronger person than I am."

I also remember a fellow student daring to bring a copy of Pauline Kael's Reeling, to that classroom discussion, the book which featured the reprint of her controversial rave for the film, and I readied myself for fireworks-- given Bill's endorsement of the auteur theory, it was no surprise that he favored Andrew Sarris and The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968 over Kael's writing. But instead, Bill noticed the book, acknowledged it and even discussed Kael's thoughts briefly, and as far as I know that student still passed the class. It was also during this week that Bill afforded me an opportunity that I have never since duplicated-- I was able to attend the 7:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon screenings of Nashville, so scheduled for those students who might not be able to attend the evening screening, as well as that regular 7:00 p.m. evening screening, making this the one and only time I've ever managed to see the same movie three times in one day, and I'm so glad it was this one. 

Bill Cadbury was the best sort of influence on me, both as a student given as much to arguing the interpretations he lent to any given work as to absorbing them, and as the human being I eventually became in the wake of experiencing his classes ad learning to think for myself. I will never forget the challenges, the revelations, the affirmations and the criticism he offered to my work, and I am grateful that he was the furthest thing from a rubber stamp on my academic achievements (or anyone else's) that I could have wished for, even during those time when I might actually have preferred that rubber stamp. He helped provide a very valuable education for me in the art form I have loved ever since I can remember, expanding my knowledge and leading me onto paths where I would discover for myself just why that art form was important, its endless possibilities, and what it could ultimately mean to me, if I'd just keep my mind open.

Thank you, Bill, for opening my mind. Happy birthday!

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I'm still reeling from the experience of seeing Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga at the SIFF Downtown Theater  (formerly the Seattle Cinerama) in downtown Seattle on Monday afternoon (May 27). Given the disparity of reviews from writers I like I respect (Stephanie Zacharek, Odie Henderson and Owen Gleiberman check in for the negative, while Justin Chang, Robert Daniels, Manohla Dargis and Keith Uhlich rank on the enthusiastic side), I had defiintely adjusted my expectations going in, intrigued at the prospect of a movie that could end up being even more interesting because of the diversity of those reactions.

But you can count me with the yea-sayers on this one. Despite a couple of narrative rough patches, Furiosa is, I think, a perverse, hellacious masterpiece, its roots set in a despoiled garden of Eden, its multiple branches of humanity distended, twisted, gnarled by a relentless Wasteland Armageddon, its inhabitants cosplaying their worst savage instincts in a (yes) furious drive not just to survive, but to survive and dominate and extinguish-- not exactly an unfamiliar scenario given our own current modern geopolitical reality. (Eden and Apocalypse are united near the end in one of the most gasp-inducing images of decay and rebirth I can remember ever seeing, especially in a big action film released by a major studio.

Director/cowriter George Miller has made a brilliant career out of crafting demanding cult entertainment that has somehow wormed its way into the collective moviegoing imagination without ever actually taking the box office by storm. (I would include another masterpiece, Babe: Pig in the City, within that assessment.) The writer-director builds on what he started in 1979, yet even after three great action classics (Mad Max, The Road Warrior and Mad Max: Fury Road) and one dud (Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome), he still busy refashioning the familiar and upping the ante on is signature action style into a film that feels of a piece and yet distinct from the others in pacing, in structure, in its overall effect. Ten minutes in, you sense that this is a movie that was never destined to be a crowd-pleasing blockbuster-- it's too profoundly, defiantly weird for that.

Even so, it is a constantly surprising movie too. Charlize Theron's Furiosa in Fury Road was a real original, but Anya Taylor-Joy thrives in her shadow nonetheless. (And so does Ayla Browne, who plays one of two younger incarnations of this soon-to-be-war-rig-driving warrior.) Yet the biggest surprise, performance-wise, is delivered by Chris Hemsworth, whose over-the-top tyrannical posturing as Dementus (here seen in his Red phase) is far more nuanced and strangely moving (at times) than clips you may have seen could ever have suggested. (Similarly, the film is an eye-popping rejoinder to its own CG-heavy trailers-- Miller and company's integration of CG with physical action is sublimely rendered, almost painterly, sometimes imperfect, and not at all weighted toward the sort of absurdly artificial landscapes and physics-defying nonsense of either those trailers or the majority of modern action epics.)

Furiosa's relatively underwhelming box-office performance, duly noted by wags and pundits and other media vulture types, has more to do with Hollywood studios reaping what they have sown, in terms of loading their slates with giant movies that have to make $500 million in order to even come close to making a profit, than the audience somehow sniffing it out and deciding in advance that Miller's grand undertaking was somehow no good. These mega-budgeted, underperforming "sure things" are also being unleashed at a time when, in order to keep up with those soaring costs created by Hollywood's make-or-break strategy, going to the movies has become prohibitively expensive for many people (unless you're Nicole Kidman, I guess). So who can blame audiences when, taking their cue from the studios' incredibly fucked-up business model, they decide to move on the implicit promise that if they just hold tight, they be able to catch Furiosa (or Barbie, or  Oppenheimer) on Max or Netflix in a month or so. So, no worries! (Two days after I originally posted this piece, on May 29, New York magazine film critic Bilge Ebiri agreed in his piece entitled "Movies Like Furiosa Were Never Meant to Save Hollywood.")

And Furiosa really does need to be seen in a theater-- I saw it with a packed house in that magnificent theater in Seattle and it was one of the most overwhelming sonic and visual presentations I've ever been lucky enough to attend, easily the equal of anything available in the best theaters in Hollywood. (Critic Charles Taylor was right-- that screen is a pisser. And my second screening this past Sunday at my lovely Rose Theatre in downtown Port Townsend was a surprisingly potent presentation as well.) I haven't shaken either experience yet, nearly two weeks after that first showing-- only Miller could, or apparently would even care to infuse the end of the world with this much nerve-jangling exhilaration (tempered by a refusal to suggest that this really is anything but the end of the world), and Furiosa sent me out of the theater on the sort of big-budget movie high the likes of which I haven't experienced since, well Mad Max: Fury Road.

But it also ends on an ambivalent emotional note, of the recognition of a wounded soul set out on a journey that cannot possibly hold anything remotely like the promise of redemption or fulfillment, even despite what we may know from the 2015 film that this one leads directly into. I left Furiosa knowing I saw exactly the movie its creators intended, knowing that I would think about it for days (I have), knowing I'd be back to see it again-- I did, with my daughters. Don't wait for this Max. See this Mad Max saga on the biggest screen you can find. And don't put it off-- Furiosa may soon disappear into a Wasteland dust storm of endless, streaming choices where the hope for anything like the overwhelming technical presentation this movie deserves will be as rare as stumbling upon a Citadel filled with fresh water and food, or a giant tanker filled with guzzoline just waiting to be claimed.

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