AMERICAN BOY: A PROFILE OF STEVEN PRINCE

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If you've ever seen Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" then you most likely remember the scene wherein Travis Bickle buys a slew of handguns from a savvy criminal in a hotel room. The slick black market gun salesman is played by Steven Prince. His performance is so seamless, so patient and professional that you believe him entirely.

So it is that two years after "Taxi Driver's" release, Martin Scorsese made this fascinating document about Steven Prince, the actor that Scorsese had hired to be his driver, bodyguard, and drug connection.

Filmed in a friend's (ostensibly) Los Angeles living room, Scorsese directs from in front of the camera while working from a handful of notes to prompt Steve to tell wild anecdotes from his eventful 30 years of living.

A master storyteller, Steven recalls events from his days managing Neil Diamond, stage managing "Hair" in downtown Manhattan, and growing up in New York City. Clips from home movies of Steven as a kid help paint the picture.

A couple of Steven's stories might sound familiar since Quentin Tarantino and Richard Linklater each used them in their own films.

I won't spoil any of the shock of hearing these tales for the first time, but suffice it to say any of Steven's stories would make great audition monologues for any actor willing to do his or her homework.

"American Boy" is also a great chance to get a peek into Martin Scorsese's intimate directing style.

I love this movie! You just might love it too!

Not Rated. 55 mins.

GHOST LIGHT

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At a time when Hollywood has lost its mojo, low budget indie films such as “Ghost Light” come with simple theatrical pleasures that remind us there is a world of talented, inspired artists who have not fallen prey to America’s industrial Cinema complex of military indoctrination — see any superhero movie made in the last 15 years.

The long-observed stage curse incited by speaking the name of “The Scottish Play” aloud inside a theater, comes back to haunt a troop of actors performing a small town production of “Macbeth” in this cinematic amuse bouche. Whistling in a theater is another no-no that one of our irreverent actors is all too willing to test. Theatre superstitions are nothing to trifle with.

Although the writing could be stronger, “Ghost Light” has some shining moments thanks to the reliable scenery-chewing efforts of stage legend Carol Kane, and (surprisingly) of Shannyn Sossamon in her Lady Macbeth incarnation. Carey Elwes manages to mask his less-than-impressive acting abilities in the context of an amateur stage production of one of Shakespeare’s most admired plays.

The film’s play-within-a-play narrative landscape allows for sufficient suspense to build even if the movie comes to an anti-climactic finish.

The ghost light of the film’s title refers to a stage light that must remain lit on an empty stage if a production is to be successful. It’s a metaphor befitting our current filmic wasteland. It takes films such as “Ghost Light” to maintain a glow of hope that one day American Cinema will be reborn. In the meantime, Shakespeare’s plays remain a wellspring of material to rinse out Hollywood’s static noise. “Ghost Light” is good, clean (if a little bloody) fun. For Hollywood, it’s back to the woodshed.

Not Rated. 102 mins.

THE POST

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Steven Spielberg’s nostalgic celebration of the heyday of American journalism offhandedly gives deserved praise to such brave patriots as Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning for their part in speaking truth to power via newspaper institutions (i.e. The Washington Post).

However, much gets lost in this film’s meandering script that takes far too long to kick into gear before settling on an overleveraged climax that is underwhelming at best.

The film focuses on events surrounding President Richard Nixon’s attempts to legally quash American newspapers from publishing extracts from The Pentagon Papers, which revealed a decades-long cover-up regarding truths behind

America’s failures in its senseless war in Viet Nam. The script (by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer) is sophomoric. “All The President’s Men” this is not.

Meryl Streep, as Washington Post publisher Kay Graham, runs circles around Tom Hanks in his role as Post executive editor Ben Bradlee. Not since “Papillon,” where Steve McQueen upstaged Dustin Hoffman, has such obvious head-cutting between actors been so glaring. They might just as well have titled the film Meryl Streep’s Washington Post. Hanks fails to craft a believable character, while Streep’s portrayal is utterly convincing. There is no comparison.   

“The Post” isn’t an awful movie; it just isn’t very good. Sure, you’ll come out of it feeling all fuzzy about a time when newspaper editors fought the good fight with everything in their arsenal of editorial responsibility, but those days are long gone. American media panders to the public to do their job for them as they use every clickbait trick they can think of while denigrating their already dumbed-down content with distracting online ads and video ads that autoplay as soon as you start to scroll.

Every time you see a rhetorical-question lede (“Has Elway broken the flawed Broncos’ championship window?”) or hear an NPR host or guest say “sort of,” realize that there is no such thing as responsible editorial reporting in the American media anymore. That’s something “The Post” doesn’t tell you. In the words of John Wesley Harding, “you don’t get to read the news in U.S.A. Today.”  

Rated PG-13. 130 mins.