EEKLIPSE

Next Monday parts of the U.S. will be treated to the spectacle of a total eclipse of the sun. The great state of South Carolina, for its part, is remaining prudently cognizant of the possibility that this astronomical phenomenon could increase the likelihood of encountering a Lizard Man.

Specifically, this refers to...

Monster-of-the-Week: ...our honoree this week, The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp, SC's scaly 7-foot-tall reptilian variation on Bigfoot, first reported in the 1980s. Here he is, as depicted by Tim Goheen in Columbia, SC's The State newspaper...

In anticipation of the eclipse, the South Carolina Emergency Management Division actually released this map detailing the spots where Lizard Folk have been sighted...

Consider yourself warned.

STEVE, MARTIN

Last night The Wife and I betook ourselves to the Comerica Theatre in downtown Phoenix to see...

...Steve Martin and Martin Short, along with the bluegrass ensemble The Steep Canyon Rangers and the gifted pianist Jeff Babko. The comedy legends described it as a "See Them Before They're Dead" tour. I had seen Short, more than a decade ago, perform brilliantly with the Phoenix Symphony--he narrated Peter and the Wolf as Ed Grimly, Jiminy Glick, etc--but I had never seen Martin, and I admit I felt bragging rights after seeing him do the "King Tut" dance during the encore.

Much of the evening consisted of the two men trading companionable showbiz aspersions, and in that way it felt somehow reminiscent of what (I imagine) the famous "Rat Pack" shows in Vegas in the '60s must have been like--famous guys creating the sense that they're just clowning around off the cuff, mostly for their own amusement, in front of thousands of paying customers. It should also be noted--Martin wryly notes it during the show--that while the 72-year-old Martin's style has become relaxed and reserved, Short's is as physically abandoned (and daringly off-color) as ever. He's a crazy whirlwind.

As terrific as the top-billed performers were, however, it's possible that the most exciting part of the show was the Martin-less showcase number of the Steep Canyon Rangers, "Auden's Train." Put simply: Those guys can play.

RIP to the superb Joseph Bologna, passed on at 82. Despite starring in '70s fare like Made for Each Other, Cops & Robbers, Chapter Two and The Big Bus, Bologna's finest hour was in a supporting part: the hilariously virile, blustery "King" Kaiser in 1982's My Favorite Year. (He was also pretty good in 1984's underrated Blame it on Rio.) I was lucky enough to see Bologna live before he was dead, back in 2001 at the Orpheum Theatre here in Phoenix, opposite his wife Renee Taylor in a two-person show called If You Ever Leave Me...I'm Going With You!

Here's my pal Barry Graham on why he doesn't want to see Joe Arpaio, recently convicted of contempt, locked up himself. Vindictive and spiteful as I am, I nonetheless agree with Barry's reasoning here. This would not, however, make it any less outrageous if President Ubu Roi exercised his pardon power for the first time on Arpaio, as he suggested he might do today.

TO BE, OR NUT TO BE

Opening this weekend:

The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature—It may be that Our Commander in Chief raised the profile of this movie a bit when, with the presidential gravitas we’ve come to expect from him, he reportedly referred to his fired FBI Director as a “nut job.” Not much less than executive action could have kept this sequel to 2014’s animated feature The Nut Job, a particularly drab and unrewarding kidflick, from flying under the radar. 

The original, which was based, in turn, on a much better 2005 cartoon short from Canada called Surly Squirrel, was about squirrels and other fuzzy little creatures from a city park raiding the nut shop across the street in the manner of a noir heist movie. It was promising idea, wrecked by the inclusion of a bunch of obligatory kid-movie elements, like an underdog hero and a love interest, which negated the caper-picture atmosphere.

The sequel finds alpha squirrel Surly (voiced, again, by Will Arnett) and his pals living easy on the hoard in the basement of the now closed and abandoned nut shop. When this lifetime supply is destroyed, the gang is forced to return to the hard but character-building work of foraging in the park, as Surly’s love interest squirrel (Katherine Heigl) had been urging all along. But when a greedy Mayor (Bobby Moynihan) decides to turn the park into a shoddy but profitable amusement park, the creatures band together to mount a resistance. 

I’m not suggesting anyone should rush straight to the multiplexes to see Nut Job 2, but for whatever it may be worth, it’s funnier than the original. It has some visual richness—there are scenes which recall everything from Caddyshack to Bill Peet’s wonderful children’s book Farewell to Shady Glade—and some truly crazy old-school cartoon slapstick.

The most memorable character from the first film, a pug voiced by Maya Rudolph, is back again, this time with a love interest (Bobby Cannavale). But the best new element is Mr. Feng, a feral white mouse voiced by Jackie Chan who leads a crack army of martial-artist mice. Toward the end, this rodent collective commandeers a HAZMAT suit, and brings it to wobbly life, something like the mice masquerading as a ghost that torment Sylvester in the classic 1954 Warner Brothers cartoon Claws for Alarm.

Stuff like this bumps Nut Job 2 up a few notches over its predecessor. If you find yourself at a matinee of it with your kid, you may get a few more chuckles than you expected.

Still in theaters:

Atomic Blonde--There's some enjoyment, certainly, in watching the stunning 41-year-old Charlize Theron beat the snot out of skeevy-looking guys. And you can get your fill of this pleasure from this espionage thriller, set in Berlin in 1989, against the backdrop of The Wall coming down. There are lots of fight scenes, intricately choreographed, superbly shot, and performed with a percussive, grunting-and-groaning violence by Theron and the heavies assaulting her, and these sequences go on for a long, long time. 

They often feel like fights in a stage play, with the actors "selling" their highly telegraphed moves with loud vocalizations. The combatants slow down as the fights progress and they get increasingly tired and injured. They're left bloody and dirty and scarred, and our heroine is forced to take ice baths to revive herself afterwards.

This is not to say, of course, that the action in this film is really much more plausible than that in any Bond or Jackie Chan movie. It's just stylized in a different way, and after a while the brutality of it becomes funny--you wonder what makes these people so doggedly determined to kill each other, what could possibly inspire such loyalty and commitment in the face of such savage punishment. 

But it is fun to watch. Many of the film's brawls and stalkings are ingeniously edited to '80s techno-pop hits, Bowie and Falco and Nena and the like, and as with the '70s stuff in the Guardians of the Galaxy flicks, it's a terrific, nostalgic playlist.

Theron plays Lorraine, sent by MI6 to investigate the murder of a British spy just as the East German government is unraveling, and to recover the McGuffin he was chasing, some sort of list that could restart the Cold War. This allows Theron to be spectacularly showcased, both in terms of her physical abandon and her nicotine and Stoli-charged ‘80s glamour. But there’s nothing especially distinctive about Lorraine as a character, and while I didn’t particularly notice any deficiencies in her British accent, the person with whom I saw the film did. 

The star, the fights and the music have to hold us through a story that's both complicated and somehow uninvolving. Lorraine's bosses tell her to trust no one, including Their Man in Berlin (James McAvoy). Other shady sorts include Sofia Boutella as a neophyte French operative, John Goodman as a CIA man, Til Schweiger as a contact in a watch shop, Eddie Marsan as the Soviet asset they're trying to smuggle into West Berlin, and Toby Jones and James Faulkner as the British Intelligence honchos.

That cast is a game and capable bunch, clearly, but the script, adapted from a graphic novel, doesn't release their full potential. And the director, stunt unit specialist David Leitch, doesn't find a way to unwind the plot twists coherently. The movie feels overlong to no notable benefit; stretches of it are entertaining, but it's ultimately unsatisfying.

SEVERAL STEPS BEYOND

If you haven't been getting enough Vitamin MVM in your diet these days, there's a pretty big dose of Your Humble Narrator available online right now: My feature on the New Times blog about the remarkable Amanda Lipitz documentary STEP...

...opening this weekend in the Valley, and my short interview on Phoenix Magazine's "Desert Digest" blog with area food blogger Joanie Simon about her upcoming appearance on the Food Network show with the alliterative but troubling title Guy's Grocery Games.

RIP to the great Glen Campbell, passed on at 81. The Wife and I were lucky enough to see him perform a few songs some years ago at the Orpheum Theatre, as part of Alice Cooper's "Christmas Pudding" show. But I also vividly remember how ubiquitous he was in his heyday in the early '70s, when his beautiful, subtle, dramatic voice seemed to issue nonstop from every radio and TV, all day long.

With The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature opening tomorrow...

Monster-of-the-Week: ...this week let's give the nod to the Brobdingnagian squirrel...

...that briefly menaces our hero and heroine in 1960's The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, one of the more mundane monsters ever stop-motion animated by Ray Harryhausen.

SAM HE WAS

Happy August everybody! The great Alice Cooper adorns the cover of...

...the August edition of Phoenix Magazine, on the stands now, but can he truly be the star of the issue when it also features my "Four Corners" column on Mediterranean restaurants around the Valley? It's also the 2017 "Best of the Valley" issue, and a bunch of these opinionated picks were penned by Your Humble Narrator as well (as in previous years, no prizes for guessing which).

A couple of RIPs: To voice acting giant June Foray, passed on two months shy of her hundredth birthday. She was the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Natasha, Granny and Witch Hazel and Cindy Lou Who, among countless others. Any one of these would gain her admittance to the pantheon.

RIP also to Sam Shepard, passed on too young at 73. I saw his play The Unseen Hand performed outside in Ohio in 1984; one of my great theatrical experiences as an audience member. His work was so charged with beautiful language and hard but not ungenerous truths about America that it didn't matter when it was uneven or jaggedly constructed. He was a wonderful movie actor, too; I love him as Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff,  and he didn't get enough credit for his commanding turn as the Ghost in Michael Almereyda's modern-dress Hamlet (2000).

In Shepard's honor...

Monster-of-the-Week:  ...this week let's acknowledge the Bog Beast from his play Back Bog Beast Bait, first staged at the American Place Theatre in 1971. Here's the Beast, as depicted in a poster for a later regional production...

...but perhaps we'd do better to let Shepard's stage directions paint his picture: "He is just as Maria described him. Two heads like a pig, he snorts and spits, lights come from his eyes. His skin is covered with slimy green moss." Alas, he's as hapless as any Shepard character: when the other characters prove "oblivious of the beast's presence" he "...crosses downstage center and faces the audience. The action happens around him. Somehow the beast seems helpless and alone in the situation. He exits."

BLOB POST

This week...

Monster-of-the-Week: ...the honor goes to a favorite, the title character of Larry Hagman's sole feature directing credit, 1972's Beware! The Blob!

This week something or other reminded me of that film, in which a group of Boy Scouts encounters a shapeless mass of slime.

Dick Van Patten played the scoutmaster.

NOT JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE BEACH

Opening this weekend:

Dunkirk--In the hair-raising opening scenes of this historical epic from Christopher Nolan, a young English soldier tries to make it to the title town's beach alive, and just barely succeeds. Aside from surviving, all he really wants to do is find a peaceful place to evacuate his bowels. This is the sort of human detail that many war movies leave out, or treat jocularly, but realities like this are the core of Dunkirk.

Well-played by a newcomer named Fionn Whitehead, the character is listed in the credits as "Tommy," but his name hardly matters. He's an everyman--an everykid, really--and the other young soldiers he meets, played by Aneurin Barnard and One Direction's Harry Styles, are similarly generic. Nolan's script, clearly by design, offers no real characterization, presumably on the theory that backstory, in these circumstances, would be grotesquely irrelevant.

Instead, Nolan relies on his actors to fill in the stock figures. Since the cast includes such vets as Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, James D'Arcy and Tom Hardy, it need hardly be said that this proves a sound strategy.

Almost everything Nolan tries here seems to work. The movie focuses on the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of English and French soldiers, surrounded by the German army and threatened from the air by the Luftwaffe, across the Channel to England in late May and early June of 1940. Nolan cuts between three main strands, "The Mole," aka the breakwater where soldiers like Tommy waited days to be picked up by Navy vessels, "The Sea," in which we follow one of the "Little Ships of Dunkirk," the small civilian commercial and private crafts that took to the Channel to rescue the trapped men, and "The Air," in which we follow three RAF pilots in Spitfires trying to down German airplanes before they can bomb or strafe the evacuees.

The dialogue, sparing to begin with, battles the ambient noise, Hans Zimmer's brooding, gut-vibrating score, and (for us Yanks especially) thick accents, to the point that after a while I mostly gave up and just tried to follow what was going on by context. Similarly, because of the differing travel times required for the three modes of Channel crossing, Dunkirk employs another of those intricately non-chronological time-schemes, as in Momento, so that Nolan can use crosscutting to maximum emotional effect. And while emotional it certainly is, I must confess that in the final third of the film I found myself disoriented at times by where we were in this reticular narrative. But that may have just been me.

In any case, it didn't detract from the overall impact of Dunkirk, which at its best has something like the sweep and punch of the great silent war epics (I saw the film on an IMAX screen, by the way, and recommend this format if it's available to you). The performances, the incongruously gentle hues of Hoyte van Hoytema's exquisite cinematography, and the sustained assurance of Nolan's direction all combined to make this sad, terrifying yet ultimately uplifting story one of the more potent movie experiences I've had in a while.