By Roger Costa
CHEECH & CHONG’S LAST MOVIE
Get ready to discover the truth behind the world’s most notorious comedians and potheads. This amusing documentary features the pair’s testimonies and perspectives on their lives, how they came across each other and formed a special, incomparable business partnership that gave them fame, glory and decadence alike.
Director David L. Bushell delivers the ultimate Cheech & Chong story, as he follows the pair on a road trip through the American desert, giving access to their secrets and private stories to be explored through a different angle.
As they recall memories of business and the creative process of making the audience laugh, the film reveals them simply as humans: young artists pursuing a dream while experiencing freedom, drugs, love and everything else called as a social revolution.
While the narrative explores their struggle to make their names known, the director moves towards building a portrait of Hollywood showbiz in contrast with the ups and downs of friendship and partnership, creating an efficient source of historical material for that period.
Affecting and hilarious, and very revelatory, Cheech & Chong’s last ride together is definitely worth taking it.
(Keep Smokin’/Bushell Productions. 4/24. Regal Union Square, AMC Jersey Garden and others).
APRIL
One of this year’s most provocative films, Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili’s sophomore project is a sensitive pro-abortion feminist drama, but the result is very uneven. Focused on pleasing the militants of the cause, the director delivers a rustic, Avant Garde-style, in-movement story that never goes too far from presumption. The plot follows a doctor accused of malpractice; while the investigation goes on, she continues to secretly perform medical care to local women facing risks and persecution. The use of a very slow style of shooting and framing extremely long scenes is patience-challenging, and somehow irritating. Though I respect the serious material of the film and its attributes (the actress is courageous and convincing, the film won major awards and is among the most well-reviewed films of the year), I couldn’t stand its excesses, both in its artistry or length. The final verdict for this one doesn’t look good: it’s a tragically bad movie.
(Metrograph Pictures. 4/25. Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center)
Comments