Bob's Cinema Diary: 11/12/20 -- 'Fireball: Visitors From a Darker World,' 'Echo Boomers,' and 'Where She Lies'

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Fireball: Visitors FromDarker Worlds

Director Werner Herzog, this time along with scientist Clive Oppenheimer, delves into the subject of meteors and the dangers they can pose to Earth. If you know anything about Herzog, you'll immediately understand that Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds will be poetic, idiosyncratic, and full of captivating eccentricities.  In pursuit of all things meteor, Herzog visits a variety of far-off places: from Mecca in Saudi Arabia to Castel Gandolfo (summer home to popes) to Antarctica. He also introduces us to a variety of voluble scientists who eagerly reveal their obsessions with these deep-space visitors, so much so that Herzog sometimes ends their disquisitions, noting that any more would be boring. Herzog offers commentary and Oppenheimer, who collaborated with Herzog on Into the Inferno (2016), does much of the interviewing.  We learn a lot about how meteors have shaped everything from evolution to the Mexican Day of the Dead.  Herzog not only conveys the immensity of a cosmos which may harbor objects that don't bode well for mankind, he also highlights fascinating human idiosyncrasies. Oh, and by the way, Fireball also offers insight into the origins of life on Earth. 

Echo Boomers

Oh, the woe of millennials. They can't find the jobs they're sure they deserve and their path to the great American dream seems to have been blocked at every turn. Echo Boomers subscribes, at least partially, to this self-pitying view, becoming a thriller about disgruntled boomers who turn to crime and convince themselves that they're making bold political statements in the process. When these thieves invade the homes of the rich, they also destroy everything in sight, smearing the walls with half-baked slogans. The story begins with a journalist (Lesley Ann Warren) interviewing an imprisoned young man, Patrick Schwarzenegger's Lance. Warren's character wants to know how Lance became part of a larcenous ring that's connected to the older man (Michael Shannon) who serves as the group's fence. Lance, who's drawn into these criminal forays by his cousin Jack (Gilles Geary), quickly comes to enjoy the adrenaline rush of theft. Lance becomes valuable to the group because he's trained in art. Unable to find a job at a gallery, he can at least identify the best paintings to steal. Alex Pettyfer portrays the group's leader, a guy who seems to believe there's actually something politically relevant about ravaging the homes of the wealthy while walking away with their high-end art.  Director Seth Savoy tries to link a caper movie to some sort of fuzzy political statement. The result:  a movie that peddles a whole lot of hooey, so much so that it may make even hardened leftists feel sorry for the one-percenters whose homes are vandalized.

Where She Lies

Director Zach Marion's documentary, Where She Lies, tells the story of Peggy Phillips who, as a 19-year-old, gave birth to a child in Chattanooga, Tenn. The year: 1961. Phillips, we learn, slept with a man who misled her into thinking he was separated from his wife. Marion becomes personally involved in helping Phillips, who's in her 70s when the director meets her. He joins attempts to locate the daughter that was taken from her shortly after being delivered. The movie's mystery centers on the question of what actually happened to the child. Did she die, as Phillips was told? Did her highly judgmental father arrange to have the baby adopted? At one point,  a young woman claiming to be Phillips' daughter turns up. She has a  criminal record and her life has been marred by drug addiction. It struck me that Marion may have become too involved in Phillips' story but his movie sheds light on the sad and lingering impact of shame that once was heaped on women who became unwed mothers. 

A president meets 'the king'

Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey make a fine Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon. I know . I wouldn't have believed it, either.

Talk about a stretch. If you were making up a list of actors who could convincingly play Elvis Presley, I doubt whether Michael Shannon's name would make your short list. And Kevin Spacey may play President Frances Underwood on House of Cards, but Nixon? Well, Spacey's a terrific mimmic, so maybe.

I don't know who decided to team Shannon and Spacey in a comedy called Elvis & Nixon, but whoever it was deserves credit for a masterstroke.

Although Shannon looks nothing like Elvis -- even with deep sideburns and generous helpings of Memphis bling -- he manages to capture the spirit of "The King."

And Spacey, who can be a great comic actor, makes a more than credible Nixon, hunched over, dyspeptic and willing to warm to anyone who happens to agree with him.

What we wind up with is a rousing snapshot of two paranoid men -- one a president, the other a "king" -- both of whom display cagey smarts.

The screenplay -- credited to Joey Sagal, Hanala Sagal and Cary Elwes -- takes a real incident and tries to determine what might have happened the day Elvis showed up at the White House requesting a meeting with Nixon.

Nixon didn't install his infamous taping system until a few years later, so it's open season for anyone who wants to speculate about a meeting between such unlikely companions.

Director Liza Johnson (Hateship Loveship) evidently thinks the meeting, which resulted in the most requested photo in the National Archives, couldn't help but be funny. In her imagination, Elvis didn't kowtow to Nixon, who initially was reluctant to meet with a rock n' roller.

Isolated and accustomed to being the center of attention, Elvis digs into Nixon's M&Ms, which had been forbidden to him, and asks to drink the Dr. Pepper Nixon's aides also asked him not to touch.

Elvis had no interest in protocol; he wanted Nixon to give him a badge that would make him a "federal agent at large," a lawman with undercover responsibilities.

Elvis liked badges, and had been awarded many by various local police departments. He carried firearms (licensed) and, in this telling, even brought them to the White House.

Johnson wisely delays the fated meeting until about an hour into the movie. Until then, Elvis gathers his support system, which includes Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer), a friend who had known Elvis since childhood and whom Elvis trusted, and Sonny (Johnny Knoxville) another -- albeit goofier -- member of the Elvis entourage.

We also see some of the familiar White House figures of the day: H.R. Haldeman (Tate Donovan); Egil Keogh (Colin Hanks); and Dwight Chapin (Evan Peters).

Elvis' team is busy catering to "The King;" Nixon's team tries to convince him that it will be good for the president to meet with Elvis because everyone loves Elvis and some of that love could translate into votes.

There's a bit of a subplot: Elvis persuades Schilling, who lives in LA, to accompany him to Washington. Schilling promises the woman he loves he'll be home in time to meet her parents the next day. I can't say we worry too much about whether he'll make it.

Shannon and Spacey come awfully close to parody with their portrayals, but they're far too skilled to let the movie degenerate into impersonations of two famous men, both of whom had little use for the Black Panthers, hippies and the counterculture.

Shannon convincingly finds the loneliness of a man who long ago got lost in his own image, but who also knows how to use that image to his advantage. And Spacey conveys all of Nixon's pettiness, as well as his deal-making instincts.

I'm not sure that Elvis & Nixon, which doesn't use any of Elvis' music but adds a lot of R&B to its soundtrack, is more than an amplified sketch, but why quibble: In Shannon and Spacey's hands, it produces a hunk, a hunk of pointed laughs.

The chaotic world of male strippers

Soderbergh strips away plot and indulges in atmospherics -- and male stripping.

When I read that director Steven Soderbergh was making a movie about male strippers, I scratched my head, but figured that Soderbergh -- who has had both commercial (Ocean's Eleven) and artistic successes (Bubble) -- deserved the full benefit any doubts I and others might have about Magic Mike, a movie starring Channing Tatum.

I carried that accepting attitude into the movie's preview screening, but, sad to say, Magic Mike too often comes across as a lively hunk of junk cinema that does little more than titillate the demographic at which it seems to be aimed, the kind of women who consider watching male strippers a fun night out with the girls.

Not surprisingly, the talented Soderbergh sets the scene well, establishing the environment around a Tampa club called Xquisite, which is run by an oily impresario of beefcake who calls himself Dallas (Matthew McConaughey). McConaughey, who knows how to play sleazy, gives himself fully to the role of an ex-stripper who aspires to move his club from Tampa to Miami and who offers his strippers equity share in the business.

A variety of intentionally hockey strip numbers serve as showy highlights, although they tend become repetitive as the strippers play with male stereotypers -- from firemen to cowboys to cops to sailors.

A whisper of a story emerges when Mike takes a newcomer (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing. We see how Pettyfer's Adam -- a.k.a. The Kid -- learns to be an effective stripper and how he begins to enjoy a life that gives him money, women, notoriety and fun -- at least within the small, strip-club world.

It's probably a mistake to think of Magic Mike as episodic; it's really an immersive movie in which Soderbergh takes us into a world where the men are sex objects and, for the most part, seem to embrace the role.

Tatum, who at age 18 worked as a stripper, is credible as the kind of guy who has irons in many fires. Mike sees himself as a budding entrepreneur, and he hopes one day to start a custom furniture business. To date, he's gotten by on hustle, good looks and charm. He's one of those guys who seem to be dancing on air.

Adam's sister (Cody Horn) would like to see her 19-year-old brother on a more normal path and occasionally serves as the movie's scold, a role not even she takes all that seriously. Horn's Brooke is more concerned about her chaotic younger brother than about the propriety of stripping.

At about an hour into the movie's 110 minutes, I noticed two things. First, the air-conditioning in the theater where the preview screening was being held seemed to be flagging, not a good thing on a day when temperatures had reached 105 degrees. Even worse, the movie began to show its need for a stronger story.

The best Soderbergh can do is to introduce a secton in which Adam gets himself into trouble feeding ecstasy to a sorority girl. The incident further prompts Mike to wonder whether his life isn't a tad empty. Mike'a attempts to make a genuine connection with a woman he seems to see regularly (Olivia Munn) go nowhere. She sees him only as a sexual diversion.

Soderbergh opts for a naturalistic acting style that allows for plenty of hemming and hawing. The cast seems comfortable enough, although some of the strippers (Adam Rodriguez and Joe Manganiello) receive little attention, aside from Manganiello who is seen using a pump to ... er ... enhance his on-stage appeal.

Soderbergh doesn't judge anything that happens, suggesting only that young men outgrow this sort of thing (Mike) or turn it into a marginal form of show business (Dallas) or go along for the ride as long as it lasts (Adam).

There's no point moralizing when a substantial part of the audience will be attending for the beefcake alone, but Soderbergh could have said something a little more trenchant than what we find here.

The world of the male stripping ultimately isn't all that interesting, and this is a case in which what could have made for a lively and unusual backdrop basically becomes the entire movie.