Todd Solondz’s films have always been about the quiet struggles in dark corners. His 1989 debut, Fear, Anxiety, and Depression,pretty much tells you that in the title, but it was his sophomore effort, 1995’s Welcome to the Dollhouse, a coming-of-age tale down all the wrong paths, that cemented that notion and branded Solondz an indie auteur to watch for.
Solondz’s latest, Wiener-Dog, is a sequel of sorts to Dollhouse as that film’s protagonist, Dawn Wiener, is one of several owners of the film’s titular dachshund. This is not the first mention of Dawn in Solondz’ cinematic universe; her name also popped up in the director’s 2004 flick Palindromes, which featured the travails of her cousin Aviva played by seven actors of varying race, age and gender. Sadly, it was revealed early on in Palindromes that Dawn had committed suicide. With Wiener-Dog, it’s unknown if Solondz has had a change of heart or if this film take places before Dawn’s death. Either way, Dawn “Wiener Dog” Wiener is back, with Greta Gerwig taking over for Dollhouse‘s Heather Matarazzo.
In Solondz’s latest, the titular pup evokes, much in the same way the onerous ass does in Robert Bresson’s timeless classicAu Hasard, Balthazar (1966), the true nature of its handlers. Just how humane are they behind closed doors with no one but the dog as a mute witness. But unlike Au Hasard, Balthazar‘s donkey, Christ-like and in ways, more human than the people around it, Wiener-Dog is just a furry prop, however sad and vulnerable, that is passed from one set of hands to the next to elicit the truthful testimony of Solondz’s troubled souls. Continue reading
The basis of the film is an unpublished novel by Karen Rinaldi, who must be a friend of Miller’s. Or perhaps the project began as a fragile conversation at a cocktail party and took root once the financial backing got the green light. After sitting through the visual adaptation, I can only imagine that the final pieces of Rinaldi’s complicated love triangle among intellects never quite got cemented – thus its in-limbo status. Miller, who adapted the story as well as directs, is clearly all in and seems more comfortable behind the camera than with earlier efforts “Personal Velocity” (2002) and “The Ballad of Jack and Rose” (2005). 
The filmmakers, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, must have thought they had a lock on a picture of redemption, with a congressman felled by scandal looking to come back as mayor of New York. Given what’s on the film, Weiner sounds the part, talking charismatically about the quality of education and the ability to earn a wage equal to living in New York. It doesn’t hurt that the seemingly resurgent pol has a wife who’s a senior aide to Hillary Clinton ramping up her political machine for a 2016 presidential run. 
In “The Nice Guys” we’re hanging out in Los Angeles circa 1977 where the neon buzz of “Boogie Nights” is everywhere and the veins of corruption, akin to “L.A. Confidential” and “Chinatown,” run deep. It’s in this tawdry underbelly that Jackson Healy (a paunchy Russell Crowe) makes a living by punching people in the face. Got a stalker? Want them off your back? Give Healy a few bucks and the problem’s solved. Healy would like to be something more than a hatchet but isn’t certain he’s got the goods to cut it as a private detective, though he might make a better one than Holland March (Ryan Gosling), a lush who talks so much he reveals all his cards before the hand’s dealt. To be fair, he’s coping with the loss of his wife and trying to raise a preteen daughter (Angourie Rice, channeling the sass of Jodie Foster and Tatum O’Neal in the 1970s).
If you haven’t experienced the game, wasting away the hours by mindlessly launching flightless birds beak-first at roly-poly laughing green pigs in rickety fortresses, consider yourself lucky. Even if you got caught up in the craze, you probably had no idea why the birds couldn’t fly. The bigger-screen animation, in which flightless avians live on a remote island in a bird-only community, never really answers the question either, but we do gain insight into Red (Jason Sudeikis), the stout ostensible cardinal with Groucho Marx eyebrows and anger issues. The sassy bird, we learn, was an orphan. As a result of his intolerable behavior, Red lands in an anger management school led by a yogini who farts sparkling radiation that can take out a few houses. She’s not the only one with odd talents; there’s a pudgy grouse called Bomb (Danny McBride), who can level a treehouse with his flatulence if riled. It brings a whole new meaning to “Birdie, birdie, in the sky.”
This has ramifications across the Avengers’ alliance. Bucky’s been underground since Cap put him down, but shadowy images show Bucky pulling off an assassination in Africa and there’s something about a 1991 incident for which we keep going back to video footage and getting new insight what happened and how the pebbles of one cold act ripple through time.
For What it's Worth 