‘Zenith’1/2
‘Zenith’ is a mess, but a pretty stimulating one, with some nicely photographed sex scenes, which take the sting out of the general dystopian malaise.
Writer-director Vladan Nikolic scrambles two chronologies. In the present day, Jack (“Dumb Jack, if you will,” as actor Peter Scanavino continually says in voiceover) leaves a cache of 10 mysterious tapes for his drug-dealing son (Jason Robards III) to discover in the year 2044. Son Ed peddles long-expired prescription pills to a populace engineered for artificial happiness but strung out on conspiracy theories. There’s considerable filmmaking technique at work here, even if Nikolic can barely tell his Brooklyn- and Queens-shot stories straight — or, rather, crooked in a satisfying way. “Zenith” is intended as a “transmedia experience,” requiring viewers to “expand the film’s storyline” by way of social media and various web sites. Two ways in: stopzenith.com and z-search.org. If you’re sufficiently intrigued, that is.
No MPAA rating (violence, nudity, sexuality and language). Plays Fri.-Thu. at Facets Cinematheque. Running time: 1:33.
‘Certifiably Jonathan’
Depressing — for reasons unrelated to its inspired subject, Jonathan Winters, who has battled manic-depression throughout his life. Filmed several years ago, director James David Pasternak’s cutesy mockumentary purports to follow Winters, an avid surrealist painter in real life, in his mission to secure a Museum of Modern Art retrospective. Full of famous comics from Robin Williams to Sarah Silverman all playing along with what for passes for “the gag,” the film ends up sidelining the genius it purports to honor. Only in the archival “Jack Paar Show” footage, in which Winters riffs like no one else on the planet, do we relax into the presence of a genius.
No MPAA rating (language). Plays Fri.-Thu. at the Siskel Film Center. Running time: 1:25.
vM.P.
