For the record ...

 

  Every week, the number of movies released threatens to become more unmanageable. Some films creep into the market where I work without opportunity for advance viewing. That makes the critics' job difficult. And given the onslaught of releases, particularly as the year draws to a close, playing catch-up can be daunting.

 So where am I going with this?

 I've been looking for a way to call attention to movies I believe deserve consideration, although I may not offer full reviews. I hate to see movies of interest fall through the cracks. 

  So, here are two movies I found worth my time and may well be worth yours.

  Let's begin with Nouvelle Vague, director Richard Linklater's movie about the making of Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard's groundbreaking 1960 movie. By 1960, the French New Wave had already broken on the shores of world cinema. Godard was late to chime in, but he made his presence felt.

  Beautifully filmed in black-and-white, Nouvelle Vague features Guillaume Marbeck as Godard, who was 29 when Breathless hit world screens, a little old to be a cinema enfant terrible, but still young enough to begin a career that lasted 70 years.

  Aubry Dullin portrays Breathless star Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Zoey Deutch appears as Jean Seberg, his co-star. 

  Nouvelle Vague reminds us of a time when audiences were discovering movies that felt fresh, invigorating, and full of promise. The future seemed open and expansive, as if something vital was happening -- not just in one movie but across the cinema board.

   And that's the key. We don't necessarily yearn for  something "new" at the movies. We yearn for something "fresh," movies that reignite our excitement by making cinema feel alive and putting us in touch with aesthetic sensibilities that awaken the senses, and -- in rare cases --point us toward truth.

Christy tells the story of Christy Martin, nee Christine Salters, a woman who boxed professionally from 1989 to 2012. A West Virginia native, Christy became known as "The Coal Miner's Daughter," which, in her case, was literally true. Her dad was a miner.

   Sydney Sweeney, who reportedly gained 30 pounds to play Christy, looks fiercely credible in the ring as a hard-punching boxer driven by fury and ambition.

  Christy's sexuality -- she's a lesbian -- gives the movie another focus, shedding light on her relationship with her trainer, Jim Martin (Ben Foster). Martin coerced Christy into marriage and took charge of her career, convincing her that no one else could help her advance.

   The movie charts Christy's rise in conventional ways, but  her relationship with her husband makes for an increasingly wrenching domestic drama, made all the more painful by the Svengali-like control Martin exerts over Christy and which culminates with a shocking display of violence.

   Sweeney and Foster are in fine form. Additionally, Merritt Wever gives a scalding performance as Christy's censorious mother, a woman more worried about public perception than her daughter's well-being. Similar kudos for Chad L. Coleman, who plays boxing promoter Don King, a man who could charm but who always lets those around him know who’s in charge.

Can a divorce really be amicable?

Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver play a divorcing couple in director Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story.

In a divorce, it eventually becomes clear to one or both partners that the person in whom they had placed their trust no longer is the person they believed them to be. Suddenly, the most intimate person in one's life becomes an unfamiliar antagonist.

This isn't true of every divorce, but it's the underlying dynamic that drives Marriage Story, the latest movie from director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Frances Ha, The Meyerowitz Stories. The always insightful Baumbach tells the story of two creative types who love each other, but whose marriage has run out of gas. Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) has decided that her acting chops have sustained the career of her husband (Adam Driver), an acclaimed experimental theater director. Driver's Charlie reaps the rewards and adoration. She's an also-ran.

Eventually, the situation proves intolerable for Nicole -- that and the fact that Charlie has slept with a member of the Manhattan theater company he runs.

To pursue her career, Nicole moves to her hometown, Los Angeles, a city that Charlie loathes. She eventually lands a big role in an important TV show.

For his part, Charlie's career begins to stall and he can't accept the idea that his family, which includes a young son (Azhy Robertson), no longer can call itself New York-based.

Baumbach begins the movie with a nifty bit of trickery. We hear the content of letters in which each of the spouses lists the good points about their mate. The movie then undermines what seems an expression of love and goodwill by telling us that these letters were written at the suggestion of a mediator after the couple agreed to divorce.

The movie is less the story of a marriage than the story of a break-up. What appeared to be a good marriage was fraught with difficulties, the most important being Charlie's self-absorption. Early hopes for an amicable divorce eventually wind up in the hands of lawyers.

Laura Dern portrays Nicole's lawyer, a shark who knows how to find blood in the water and move in for the kill, isn't afraid to soften her hard edges. Ray Liotta turns up as Dern's male counterpart, another lawyer whose strategy involves biting into the nearest jugular. Liotta's character takes over after Charlie tries to do business with a reasonable, realistic lawyer, a terrific Alan Alda in full mensch mode.

Baumbach works hard to turn Marriage Story into an equal opportunity movie for each side. He evidently doesn't have a taste for the kind of drama that rips us apart, and he introduces comic elements that stem from Nicole's mother (Julie Hagerty) and her sister (Merritt Wever).

An attempt at farce in which Wever's character serves Charlie with divorce papers is overwrought to the point of annoyance. And there are two instances of characters doing musical numbers that easily could have been cut from a movie that doesn't quite know when to end. But I guess you could say the same about Charlie and Nicole's marriage.

Bob's cinema diary: 4/8/'19 Dogman and Charlie Says

Dogman

Marcello (Marcello Fonte) earns his living grooming dogs. But in the rundown Italian coastal town where Marcello lives, this simple occupation may not be enough to support an estranged wife and a young daughter. So Marcello occasionally sells cocaine. The great irony of director Matteo Garrone's Dogman centers on Marcello’s personality. Cocaine or no, he hardly seems a typical gangster. He's a simple, good-hearted fellow who tries to get along with everyone, including the town bully (Edoardo Pesce). Pesce's Simone becomes a kind of one-man scourge, attacking people, destroying property and generally terrorizing the town's residents. He's so much a nuisance that one of the town’s businessmen go so far as to propose that an assassin be hired. As the story unfolds, Garrone (Gomorrah) turns Marcello into an unfortunate sap whose innocence and rudimentary sense of honor only add to his troubles. Garrone’s narrative builds toward an explosive ending that leaves Marcello alone and abandoned against the decaying landscape of the town where he has tried so hard to fit in. Those familiar with Garrone's work will be tempted to read metaphorical meanings into a simple tale that takes place against a backdrop of ruined buildings. As we follow Marcello's story, hope gradually gives way to feelings of abandonment. Marcello displays sweet affection for dogs and for his daughter. Even so, Garrone refuses to see life in Italy (and perhaps beyond) through a lens tinted by optimism. In Dogman, Marcello’s love for others goes largely unrequited.

Charlie Says

Rather than try to explain Charles Manson, director Mary Harron's Charlie Says concentrates on Manson’s spell-binding relationship with the women who ultimately carried out or abetted him in the Tate/LaBianca murders, endlessly discussed crimes that left an indelible mark on American culture. The movie focuses on three women: Leslie Van Houten (Hannah Murray), Patricia Krenwinkel (Sosie Bacon) and Susan Atkins (Marianne Rendon). After immersing in the cult-like atmosphere of the Manson family's California commune, Harron brings us to the murders. She follows the carnage with a lengthy section in which a teacher (Merritt Wever) tries to help each of the women -- by then imprisoned in maximum security -- achieve some degree of self-realization. Perhaps this is where the movie should have started. At it stands, Harron (American Psycho) doesn't provide a compelling enough reason for taking another drive through Manson country. And without more context, the free-floating atmosphere of the '60s -- manifested mostly through sex, drugs and the charisma Manson (Matt Smith) supposedly projected -- seems a trifle ridiculous. Last week, I wondered whether we needed another film about Ted Bundy (Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile). I had my doubts, but in this case, it seemed clear that Charlie Says doesn't offer enough by way of insight to answer the question that inevitably seems to arise with movies about heinous crimes, particularly those that already have been the subject of enough books and movies to qualify as an industry: Exactly why am I watching?