A Maine town that's far from idyllic

A fishing town provides the setting for a nice helping of New England noir in Blow the Man Down.

No, the above photo does not show two people getting rid of infectious material gathered from a coronavirus hot spot.

It’s a photo from Blow the Man Down, a little helping of noir that will be available on Amazon starting Friday, March 20, and which could provide welcome diversion in these days of maniacal, single-minded focus on ... well ... you don't need me to tell you what has all our attention.

Set in Maine, Blow the Man Down marks the debut of directors Danielle Krudy and Bridget Savage who join the ranks of those who have attempted to expose the myths about the idyllic nature of small-town life, in this case, a fishing village where something fishy (actually many things fishy) seem to be happening.

The directors use a small chorus of singing fisherman to punctuate a story that begins at a funeral. Two sisters Sophie Lowe and Morgan Saylor are bidding farewell to their mother. Lowe’s Priscilla has been devoted to helping her mom and dutifully wants to take over her mother’s fish market.

Saylor’s Mary Beth, the younger of the two siblings, simply wants to get out of town.

Irate when she learns that their mother left a pile of debt, Mary Beth storms off for a spitefully drunken evening. At a local bar, she meets a guy (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) who soon will wind up dead, a condition we're led to believe he richly deserves.

No fair revealing more because Krudy and Savage, who also wrote the screenplay, fill the story with surprising (if not entirely shocking) twists as they bring a variety of townsfolk into focus.

Margo Martindale portrays the sly and powerful Enid Nora Devlin, the woman who runs the town’s bead and breakfast, which happens to be a brothel. Gayle Rankin appears as one of the young women who works for Enid. Will Brittain has a nice turn as the local cop who’s trying to get to the bottom of the story's foul proceedings.

June Squibb, Annette O’Toole and Marceline Hugot play three women who know everyone’s history and who form a kind of court in this Irish-American community. These actresses instantly convince us that their characters have known each other forever and understand the social calculus that keeps the town afloat.

The performances are all spot-on, and Krudy and Savage add enough New England atmospherics to create the right amount of chill. Oddball noir easily can get off track. To its credit, Blow the Man Down never derails.

A invitation you may want to refuse

If Table 19 were a pilot for a TV sitcom -- which tells you something about the level of the humor in this dismal comedy -- it might not survive 20 minutes of a meeting on whether to the project deserves a green light. Despite the presence of the usually lively Anna Kendrick, director Jeffrey Blitz can't animate a screenplay by Jay and Mark Duplass. Either the director wasn't up to what the Duplass's were trying to achieve (an off-kilter mixture of comedy and seriousness) or the material wasn't up to snuff. Either way, Table 19 winds up falling flat on its face. A wedding comedy about those assigned to the worst table at a reception, Table 19 casts Kendrick as the former best friend of the bride who was banished from maid-of-honor duties when the bride's brother (Wyatt Russell) dumped her. The rest of the table includes June Squibb, whom you'll remember from Nebraska, as a pot-smoking former nanny to the bride. Also on board: Lisa Kudrow and Craig Robinson, as an Ohio couple with marital issues; Tony Revolori (of Grand Budapest Hotel), as a horny teen who's in constant phone touch with his nagging mother; and Walter (Stephen Merchant), a geeky embezzler who's the father-of-the-bride's disgraced nephew. Before service at Table 19, where all the principals are seated, concludes, Blitz has introduced terminal cancer, marital discord, and slapstick involving the wedding cake. The movie opens with Kendrick's distraught Eloise agonizing over whether to attend the wedding or send regrets. I think you know where I stand vis-a-vis accepting an invitation to this anemic affair.

When dreams begin to age

Blythe Danner boosts I'll See You In My Dreams.

Carol Peterson lives in a nice home in a pleasant California neighborhood. She's a retired widow who evidently has no money or health problems. But even at that, Carol's life isn't perfect. When she's forced to put her 14-year-old dog down, her loneliness becomes more acute. Carol knows there's something missing from a life in which the "to-do" board in her kitchen contains only two items: "Walk" and "dry cleaning."

I'll See You In My Dreams belongs to Blythe Danner, the actress who plays Carol.
Having been widowed for 20 years, Danner's Carol becomes a kind of case study: What happens when an older woman who's secure in most ways can't entirely conquer her loneliness?

The movie introduces a couple of men into Carol's life. The first is Lloyd (Martin Starr), her pool boy. Don't fret, director Brett Haley, working from a script he co-wrote with Marc Basch, isn't going to force Carol into an affair with a younger man whose life can't seem to take root. The two develop an emotional closeness with hints of romantic attraction. Nothing more.

After a reluctant and disastrous attempt at something called "speed dating" -- men and women meet in a contrived situation in which they're supposed to get to know one another within minutes -- an attractive man (Sam Elliott) approaches Carol and expresses a straightforward interest in her.

Elliott's Bill is a self-assured bachelor with a boat. He charms Carol, although he may be needier than he lets on. Bill usually carries an unlit cigar (an oral fixation, he muses), and he may be a little too eager to push Carol toward commitment.

For her part, Carol's happy for the company, and when she shares news of her involvement with her visiting daughter (Malin Ackerman), she's clearly anticipating a new chapter in her life.

Carol's gal pals provide the movie its own Greek chorus: Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place and June Squibb all have their moments.

Haley's direction hardly qualifies as ambitious. Still, this mostly quiet movie deserves credit for dealing with something real: the emptiness that can accrue to those who are left alone and who sometimes feel the taunting vacancy in a day's silence.

Besides, you get to hear Carol, a former singer, do a karaoke version of Cry Me A River that may just give you new insight into the song, as well as a greater appreciation for Danner's ample gifts.

A cracked journey across Nebraska

Bruce Dern's somber performance anchors director Alexander Payne's latest foray into the Midwest.

Director Alexander Payne's Nebraska practically begs to be admired by cinema buffs and critics. To begin with, the movie -- set in bleak towns of the Midwest -- was shot in black and white, a retro move that can be seen as a defiantly bold stroke.

Just as significant, Nebraska boasts a fine and flinty performance from a 77-year-old actor, Bruce Dern. The plus: It's always nice to see a sagging career reinvigorated.

To further add to its cinematic bona fides, Nebraska exudes a sense of wistful melancholy, emerging as a slightly cracked ode to a vanishing America. The story takes place in towns made sparse by the absence of everything from tempting upscale malls to well-stocked big-box stores. The landscapes and towns in Nebraska seem to have slumped into a state of spiritual and material exhaustion.

It's hardly surprising that the characters who inhabit these landscapes can feel similarly depleted.

I guess I'm saying that there's plenty to admire about Payne's latest road movie, but I'm not totally on board with the effort.

Look, Nebraska has significant rewards (Dern's performance, surprising jolts of humor and a quietly moving father/son finale), but the movie also can feel burdened by a sideshow quality that makes some of its characters seem as if they've been imprisoned in a grotesque Midwestern diorama.

The story centers on Woody Grant (Dern), an aging alcoholic who receives a magazine promotion in the mail, and believes he has won $1 million. No longer in a possession of a driver's license, Woody sets out to claim his prize by walking from Billings, Mont., to Lincoln, Neb. Clearly, Woody's running short on mental acuity. He's quiet, withdrawn, perhaps a bit demented, a man whose good old days probably never were all that good.

And that's part of what makes Dern's performance so convincing. He captures the hollow vacancy of a man whose memory has begun to fail. It's as if half of him already has left the planet.

After unsuccessful attempts to talk his father out of a perilous journey, Woody's son Dave (Will Forte of Saturday Night Live fame) decides to drive his dad to Lincoln. Dave knows the "sweepstakes" prize is a bogus come-on designed to sell magazine subscriptions, but he indulges the old man's fantasy.

Maybe Dave hopes that an extended road trip will provide an opportunity to bond with his emotionally remote, sometimes cruel father. Besides, Dave's at loose ends, having just lost his fiancee.

Thankfully, Woody and Dave don't spend the entire movie in a car. They make an extended stop in Hawthorne, Neb., the bleak town where Woody grew up.

Woody's family -- the folks who remained in Hawthorne -- acquires traces of freak-show distortion, particularly his two nephews, bestubbled dolts whose entire conversational repertoire consists of mocking the length of time it has taken Dave to drive from Billings to Hawthorne.

Once word gets out that Woody has won $1 million, the covetous Hawthorne townsfolk cozy up to him. Ed Pegram (Stacy Keach), a former business associate, insists that Woody owes him a substantial sum. Just about everyone wants to feed at the trough of Woody's supposed good fortune.

Many of the scenes in Hawthorne are played for laughs as Dave becomes increasingly protective of his father's sad fantasy, a tacit recognition that his father's hope -- though built on a false foundation -- might be all the old man has left.

The movie receives a considerable boost when Woody's wife (June Squibb) shows up in Hawthrone to spew some venom and speak unforgiving truths about the town's residents, both living and dead. Squibb's Kate Grant adds one of the movie's livelier touches, although some of her dialogue can be seen as the kind of cheap trick you'd find in lesser movies: the supposed shock of hearing an older person use profanity, for example.

Forte holds his own, as does an underutilized Bob Odenkirk (familiar from TV's Breaking Bad). Odenkirk plays Dave's brother. As an anchor on a local TV news show in Billings, Okenkirk's Ross seems to have trumped his brother's meager professional accomplishments. Dave works in a stereo store.

For me, Nebraska felt like a backward step from Payne's work in movies such as The Descendants, Sideways and Election. Falling more into an About Schmidt mode, Payne -- working from a script by Bob Nelson -- tries to alleviate some of his comedy's bitter sting with an ending steeped in sentiment.

At times, Nebraska feels as flat and uninflected as the landscape over which it travels, but fortunately for Payne, the movie's small-triumph ending pretty much works. That puts Nebraska in a weirdly incongruous class of its own: It's a dreary crowd-pleaser of a movie.