PTA MEETING

Opening this weekend:

One Battle After Another--The erotic power of revolutionary violence is the initial theme of Paul Thomas Anderson's latest. Set in a strife-torn, more or less contemporary U.S., it follows the exploits of "The French 75," an SLA-like cadre who liberate immigrant detainees and blow up communication towers and banks and the like.

A French 75 operative known as Perfidia Beverly Hills (the goddessy, imperious Teyana Taylor), finds political mayhem an aphrodisiac; she's desperately turned on whenever her sheepish explosives expert squeeze "Ghetto" Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) is about to blow something sky high. Her seditious salaciousness isn't limited to Calhoun, however, but also to her enemy, the reactionary Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn)--there's a loathing sexual tension between them the second they meet, at gunpoint.

Anderson's strange saga, very loosely derived from Thomas Pynchon's Vineland (much like There Will Be Blood was vaguely inspired by Upton Sinclair's Oil!) soon fast-forwards seventeen years. The theme then shifts from uncontrolled libido to domestic complacency. Perfidia is long out of the picture, and Calhoun, now known as "Bob Ferguson," is living incognito and raising the teenaged Willa (Chase Infiniti) in an A-frame in Colorado.

Bob learns that he, and Willa, are again targets of the forces of Lockjaw, who's trying to gain membership in an order of wealthy old white guy racists, the "Christmas Adventurers." The French 75 start getting the band back together to protect Willa, but after years of sitting on the couch smoking weed, Bob finds his revolutionary chops are rusty. Besides, he's forgotten all the passwords.

A wild and blood-soaked cat-and-mouse game ensues across the west. Bob and Willa's allies range from radical nuns to a native tracker to Sergio, a relaxed but capable martial arts sensei and immigrant underground railroad conductor played by a scene-stealing Benicio del Toro. The action is often laugh out loud funny, and though the comedy is grim and splenetic, these characters are weirdly endearing.

Partly this is because DiCaprio, Penn, del Toro and others are about as good here as they've ever been. But it's also because Anderson puts them through standard action movie paces--gunfights, rooftop scrambles, interrogations, and one of the more original, woozily effective car chases in some time--but they execute them like real human beings, fumbling in uncertainty. "Tom Cruuuuuise!" Sergio crows at one point, trying to encourage Bob to some derring-do, and it's a funny yet rueful reminder of the contrast between what we're capable of and what the movies have taught us we should be capable of.

If there are real-life revolutionary groups in the style of The French 75 of any significance currently active in this country, I haven't heard about them. But One Battle After Another still has the ring of emotional truth. It all may seem crazy, but it sure doesn't seem nearly as outrageous and improbable as it would have, say, ten or twelve years ago.  Like Ari Aster's recent Eddington, this is a flailing, angry satirical portrait of where we are emotionally right now. But unlike Eddington, it gives us characters we can root for rather than just pity.

Eleanor the Great--Like last year's Between the Temples, this one is about an elderly woman connecting with a younger person, and preparing for a very belated Bat Mitzvah. June Squibb the Great plays the title character, a sassy 90-something widow who moves in with her daughter (Jessica Hecht) in New York after many years in Florida when her beloved longtime roommate Bessie (Rita Zohar) passes on. 

Eleanor accidentally wanders into a Survivors Support Group at the Jewish Community Center, and finds herself telling everyone about her experience during the Holocaust. Nina (Erin Kellyman), a young journalism student who's there observing, understandably latches onto it as a great story, and she and Eleanor quickly bond as friends. The trouble is that the story isn't really Eleanor's; it's Bessie's. Eleanor is from Iowa; she converted to Judaism when she married.

It's clear that Eleanor's impulsive act isn't just angling for attention; she's trying to keep Bessie's story, which she never told anyone else, from fading away. Nina is deeply bereaved over the recent death of her mother, and her father (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a famous TV journalist, has been distant from her since the loss. But he takes an interest in the story, and pretty soon poor Eleanor is in over her head.

This peculiar but painfully plausible comedy-drama marks the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson. Her work is crisp and proficient, but the script, by Tory Kamen, is unsteady; the attempt to pull everything together toward the end doesn't quite come off. None of this, however, is an impediment to the indomitable Squibb, whose fearless, direct performance transcends any shortcomings in the material, as she did in last year's similarly uneven Thelma. And despite the unsavory tension behind the situation, her scenes with the excellent young Kellyman have a sweet hum.

The intriguing film programs at Scottsdale's Western Spirit Museum probably don't get as much notice as they should. The movies are free with museum admission; $10 for just the movie.

The current series is Robert Rodriguez: Sinema Sin Fronteras. The next selection by the Texas auteur, the charming Harryhausen-esque fantasy Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, shows at 2 p.m. this Sunday, September 28. It's followed by Once Upon a Time in Mexico at 6 p.m. Wednesday, October 1; Spy Kids 3: Game Over at 2 p.m. Sunday, October 5; the vampire yarn From Dusk till Dawn at 6 p.m. Wednesday, October 8, and the bloody actioner Machete, starring Danny Trejo, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, October 22.  

The Spy Kids flicks are great for children; the evening Rodriguez movies are decidedly for grown-ups. Go to westernspirit.org for details.