I watched a curious new movie that nobody else seems to know about. Just came out on DVD yesterday, no fanfare whatsoever, and I couldn’t find any reviews or even promo photos of it. It says “based on the bestselling book by Jack Black,” but I don’t think it’s trying to trick us into thinking that’s the same Jack Black from I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. This one spent his life riding the rails and stealing, and then he wrote a memoir about it that was published by Macmillan in 1926. I admit that I never heard of it before, but it seems it was a sensation in its time and it’s stayed enough of a cult book that it was reprinted by Amok Press. Apparently William S. Burroughs read it when he was a kid and cited it as an inspiration. (This was before Encyclopedia Brown.)
That seems like a book I should read, but more relevant for this moment it sounds like good source material for a potentially interesting movie. And what really sold me on it is that it’s directed by Robinson Devor, whose debut was the excellent Charles Willeford adaptation THE WOMAN CHASER. He also did the documentary ZOO that some of you might remember me reviewing for The Ain’t It Cool News.
YOU CAN’T WIN is kind of like an evil cousin to TRAIN DREAMS. It’s another hazy, non-linear contemplation of a quiet, simple man’s life in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Both were filmed and partially set in Washington state, and IMDb says they share nine crew members, plus Will Patton (THE POSTMAN), who appears on screen this time, he’s not the narrator. Both movies include problematic encounters with Chinese immigrants (this guy gets caught trying to steal from James Hong). But while Mr. Train Dreams spent his life working what was considered an honest job and yearning to be home with his family, this Jack Black does nothing but crimes for most of his life, always riding the rails, never sticking in one place except when he gets locked up. He does have a girlfriend at one point, he finds her on a river bank crying, she seems like an interesting character who says her name is Annie but implies that’s not her real name. I believe they stick together for a while, but whether that can be measured in weeks or years I couldn’t tell you, because those sorts of things are never made very clear in this movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS (2020) is an incredible slice of life movie. It’s not a documentary but it sure feels like it is (you even see the camera operators a couple times). It’s kind of like a more verite take on another indie drama I love, 
I enjoyed the extra strength absurdity of 
Last year there was a well-reviewed Valentine’s Day slasher movie playing in theaters. Normally I’d be all over that shit, but I boycotted for political reasons. You see, the production company behind it, Spyglass Media Group, were the assholes who fired the star of SCREAMs 
QUEENS OF THE DEAD is a 2025 zombie comedy written and directed by Tina Romero. Yes, that Tina Romero. The one who was in 
BLUE MOON is one of Richard Linklater’s two 2025 joints, the one that’s in English and that he didn’t sell to Netflix and that was nominated for two Oscars (actor and original screenplay). At a glance it doesn’t sound like the most typical Linklater picture, because it’s about the songwriter Lorenz Hart when his partner Richard Rodgers has just started a successful new team with Oscar Hammerstein II. But when you see it it turns out it’s very Linklater, because it’s basically a one location play starring Ethan Hawke (like 
Kelly Reichardt’s THE MASTERMIND is in a niche that really appeals to me: the unglamorous crime tale. It’s about an art heist, but there are zero Hollywood-style thrills involved, no witty dialogue, no gun fights, not much in the way of car chases. They seem like regular people, the plan isn’t complicated at all, lots of attention is paid to the slow, mundane details of the process. It’s a period piece, set in 1970 – that’s pretty cool. But it’s not, like… ’70s New York or anything. It’s Framingham, Massachusetts. The one very smart concession to cinematic fantasy is an excellent avant-garde jazz score by Rob Mazurek of Chicago Underground. He plays cornet and I think there’s some piano but sometimes it’s just drums, and it does make everything seem pretty cool.
KNIGHTS OF THE CITY is an incredible ‘80s b-movie fever dream that’s still only on VHS, and so up my dark, garbage strewn alley that it’s amazing I never knew about it before. Gives me hope for what else could still be out there.
THE WRECKING CREW is, in some ways, what the world needs: a buddy action movie starring Dave Bautista (
