The title of John Maclean’s Slow West (2015) may refer to the implacable slowness of the Old West in becoming civilized.  To be sure, the film’s characters have it bad precisely owing to an absence of civilization, too often spelling violent death.  The chief figure, Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee), has left Scotland to search the American West for the runaway girl he loves, which girl bears a Scottish-endowed price on her head.

Its premise and story not wholly agreeable, Slow West is slightly more than okay as a Western and outstanding as a debut feature.  There are many inventive shots (a closeup of ants on a pistol barrel, armed men springing up amid tall wheat) and some potent shoot-out scenes.  Macclean is both writer and director, and he knows enough to never patronize Jay, who is little more than a boy.

This too:  as a Western antihero, Michael Fassbender is a much better actor than John Wayne or the young Clint Eastwood.

Gwyneth Paltrow dreams of being an ace flight attendant in the insignificant View from the Top (2003), directed by Bruno Barreto.

Fizzy fluff, it fails to maintain the tone it begins with and is boringly acted by Paltrow miscast as a backwater gal.  Does it embrace the “sexist cliches” that Dennis Lim of The Village Voice says it does?  No.  Just cliches—a few.  There are three assets, though: it has heart, it is photographically exquisite and Christina Applegate, as a fellow stewardess, is gorgeous.

Cover of View from the Top

Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is a poor student but a very bright, nigh adult go-getter at Rushmore Academy, the geeky hero of Rushmore (1998), the second of Wes Anderson’s filmic oddities.  The movie follows the boyish love for an honorable school as it gives way to the boyish love for an appealing female . . . but one for whom Max must bitterly, zanily compete.

The film exists for its plot and its characters, who remain unexplored.  Characteristically Anderson provided no theme, so what we have here is a unique, even delightful if superficial little comedy.

Cover of Rushmore

The 14-minute Meshes of the Afternoon (1942), by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, is as abstract a film as one can find, which nevertheless evokes a sphere of real meshes for the central figure played by Deren herself.  Meshes are things that ensnare, and the existence of such inevitably make the woman’s home a domain of uncertainty and panic.  An avant garde domain.

MITA is not meant to entertain; it is meant to be art.  The dreamlike violence, such as it is, is old hat now, but the rest of the footage has an up-to-date—a timeless—feel.  And, for good measure, it’s more respectable than, say, many of the photographs of Cindy Sherman.

Filmworks X: In the Mirror of Maya Deren (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t understand radio stations.

The Kelly Clarkson hit, “My Life Would Suck Without You,” came out in 2009 and only now, in 2015, is a local contemporary-pop station playing it.  It is every bit as catchy as other pop singles released in ’09 and yet it was ignored.  So was “I Don’t Hook Up,” another bit of meaningful ear candy contributing to a pretty decent career.

Perhaps a host of new but not-so-catchy singles is threatening the profits of this local station and so it is going back to what everyone knew would be a hit, even if not everyone cared.

Cover of My Life Would Suck Without You