BELLFLOWER

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The preteen boys of the '70s who played "war" in their backyards and pored over dirty magazines in their clubhouses are transmogrified into a pair of 21st century twentysomething misfits in writer/director/actor Evan Glodell's wild and woolly contemplation of apocalyptic America.

The characters here possess considerably more aptitude for destruction than their younger predecessors.

Woodrow (Glodell) and Aiden (Tyler Dawson) are a pair of best friends obsessed with building a flamethrower gun and flame-spewing muscle car named Medusa, after the name of their two-man gang "Mother Medusa."

Joel Hodge's saturated cinematography emphasizes the film's lo-fi "Mad Max" intentions. Countless laws were obviously broken to get this rebellious indie film in the can. Woodrow slips into a doomed relationship with an ethically ungrounded blonde, Milly (well played by Jessie Wiseman). The couple's tortured relationship incites its own brand of scorched-earth emotional expression. Blood and fire rain down.

Adventurous, original, and executed with fearless sincerity, "Bellflower" is a thought-provoking commentary on the seething underbelly of an emotionally and intellectually stunted country. Evan Glodell has invented a bold vision of independent cinema that pisses down throat of the "mumblecore" indie movement. Call it "apocalypticore." Here is a movie that sears itself into your eyeballs and brain.

Rated R. 105 mins.

TINY FURNITURE — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

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The fad Cinema movement known as mumblecore takes a few baby steps in writer/director/actress Lena Dunham's melancholic piece of navel-gazing. Empathetic characters are nowhere to be found. This movie is a dog; there's no such thing as a good dog.

Dunham plays 22-year-old Aura. She returns after college to live in her artist mother's palatial TriBeCa apartment where Aura's bitchy — and hotter — younger sister Nadine (Grace Dunham) rules the roost.

Aura plans to move into an apartment with a college girlfriend in the coming weeks, but lacks direction and motivation. At an East Village party Aura meets YouTube phemon/experimental filmmaker Jed (Alex Karovsky). He is allegedly in town for meetings with television networks like HBO.

Aura, who has a film theory degree, makes experimental films that she too posts on YouTube. Overlooking Jed's snotty personality and lack of money, Aura invites him to stay with her at her mother's place while mom (played by Dunham's real-life mother Laurie Simmons) and sis are away. Despite the obvious opportunity, Aura is unable to tempt Jed into any sexy time. Meanwhile, at her new job as a restaurant hostess, Aura attempts to work her limited womanly wiles on pill-hungry sous chef Keith (David Call).

Dunham made "Furniture" in her mother's actual apartment. She colors the anti-plot narrative with vague pop culture references to BDSM, Woody Allen, Craigslist, and Rachel Maddow.

There is a bland naturalism at play, albeit a narcissistic one, that comes across in a series of amorphous scenes that go on much longer than they should. Anger, frustration, and confusion are in plentiful supply. The movie is weighed down with too much emotional baggage for any humor to seep through.

Watching "Tiny Furniture" is like showing up for a dinner party but being taken to the dentist instead. It's not a pleasant surprise.

Vomiting all of the time now.

Complete and utter shite.

Not Rated. 98 mins. 

ZERO STARS

GOODBYE SOLO

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Co-Writer/director Ramin Bahrani ("Chop Shop") could learn some lessons from the late John Cassavetes who eschewed having his characters speak each other's names because it's not how people talk in real life.

In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Senegalese cab driver Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane) is an effusively optimistic family man training to become an airline attendant when he picks up a cantankerous and depressed 70-year-old passenger named William (Red West).

William contracts Solo for a thousand dollars to drive him one-way up to the mountainous Blowing Rock National Park in two weeks. William's suicidal plan is obvious, and the two-week timeline gives Solo plenty of time to befriend the old codger with an idea of changing the old man's mind before the fateful day arrives. William and Solo's step-daughter Alex (Diana Franco Galindo) speak his name with such a repetitive frequency that the all suspension of disbelief is smothered.

Film critic A.O. Scott famously misnamed "Goodbye Solo" as a "Neo-neo-realist" film. Rather, the film represents a barely competent script made gripping by an inspired director and two equally talented actors. Also, the fact that Bahrani ripped off "Taste Of Cherry" for this film is just one more smudge on "Goodbye Solo."    

Ramin Bahrani is a promising filmmaker who needs to work much harder at crafting dialogue and complete stories, and not believe the false praise being bestowed on him by the A.O. Scotts of the world. 

 

(Roadside Attractions) Not Rated. 91 mins.