‘Miles’ stylishly evokes jazz legend – Antic portrait of college life in ‘Everybody’

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While a little on the nose to be repeated, it’s a good line, and an even better goal in the murky and generally unrewarding territory of the dreaded biopic — especially for someone as elusive, multifaceted and just downright giant as Miles Davis was.

As Cheadle’s Miles cheekily says to Dave in that whispered rasp, “I was born, I moved to New York, met some cats, made some music, did some dope, made some more music, then you showed up at my house.”

Knowing well how a tell-it-all approach can be duller than a Wikipedia page, Cheadle eschews the cradle to grave approach and instead focuses in on two moments — a crazy few days in Davis’ “Howard Hughes of jazz” phase and much earlier during the romantic beginnings and fraught endings of his relationship with the dancer Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi).

Moments

The story jumps from the past to the present very suddenly, employing an interesting visual technique that links the two moments in time through a character, let’s say, falling in the present and another continuing the motion in the past. It’s a unique take on the fluidity and imprecision of memory, but, more precisely it’s indicative of Cheadle’s ambitions to make the film feel as unpredictable and freestyle as Miles’ jazz.

Cheadle as an actor is not afraid to show Miles Davis for all his contradictions — his genius, his charm, his ego and his mania. His bold, studied and fully lived-in portrayal has attitude to spare too.

The “present” part shows a hyper-active Davis, hopped up on painkillers and hobbling with a deteriorating hip trying to collect a payment from the record company that he’s long since stopped producing for. It’s sort of a kitchen sink approach to the escalating events story that takes Dave and Miles everywhere from a college dorm room to score some cocaine to a high-speed shoot out. It’s particularly odd then that this portion is duller than the more traditional portrait of the past.

That section plays more like a languid, melancholy ballad as we peer into his courtship of Frances and the insanity, danger and obsessiveness that drove her away. Cheadle and Corinealdi’s palpable chemistry is an undeniable force here, and is a striking contrast to the occasional awkwardness of many of Cheadle and McGregor’s interactions in the present. In theory, it’s probably meant to be another evocation of jazz stylings, but in execution, it feels more like dead air.

Cheadle has an interesting vision here and his ambitions pay off on a number of levels — especially in his performance — but it doesn’t really come together as a coherent composition. Unlike in jazz, the disparate moments, sounds and styles struggle to coalesce in service of a whole that’s bigger than its parts.

“Miles Ahead,” a Sony Pictures Classic release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for “strong language throughout, drug use, some sexuality/nudity and brief violence.” Running time: 100 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

 “Everybody Wants Some!!” is Richard Linklater’s self-described spiritual sequel to “Dazed and Confused,” and, somewhat miraculously, the spirit has remained intact.

It’s been 13 years from one to the other: long enough to literally watch a boy grow up. But between the 1970s high-school graduation of “Dazed” and the first college days of the 1980-set “Everybody Wants Some!!” it feels like hardly a summer has passed. We left off with Foghat’s “Slow Ride”; we pick up with the Knack’s “My Sharona.”

The song’s thumping bass, which opens the film, is an early signal (if the double exclamation points didn’t already give it away) of the exuberance to come in “Everybody Wants Some!!,” Linklater’s marvelously loose and affectionately antic portrait of college life. It’s a chapter that Linklater’s “Boyhood” never got to. But it’s rendered here with the same attention to the rhythms of youth and the in-between moments the director has long been drawn to.

Shots

But unlike “Boyhood,” it also has bong hits, disco dancing and sex — lots of it. It’s a laid back “Animal House,” with shots of philosophy mixed in.

Jake Bradford (Blake Jenner) is a freshman baseball pitcher who arrives in September 1980 at Southeast Texas University, where he moves in with his future teammates and fraternity brothers. Bros are not the most loved of college types, but Linklater’s frat guys, aside from being competitive, are mostly clever, curious and likable.

Just as with “Dazed,” Linklater has assembled a strong ensemble of young, promising actors. They include the mustachioed star senior Glenn (Tyler Hoechlin), the philosophizing chatterbox Finn (a tremendous Glen Powell) and the bearded stoner transfer from California, Willoughby (Wyatt Russell). Jake easily and confidently joins them as they bounce from nightclub to nightclub, and prowl the parking lots for women.

There isn’t much tension in the mild and innocent “Everybody Wants Some!!” (nor is there any political correctness or sexual assault). The guys of the movie are all eagerness and appetite, with their lives ahead of them. Though the team is nationally ranked and they take their sport seriously, professional baseball is largely an acknowledged pipe dream. Besides, there’s so much more to be excited about. Every night is a different club (disco, country line dancing, punk). Books and records are passed around like joints.

A countdown to the start of classes runs throughout, but not in a foreboding way. Out of the aimlessness, a sense of purpose is growing. The world is opening up to Jake, who begins dating a theater student (Zoey Deutch).

By focusing on baseball players, Linklater has given a far tenderer, more dynamic (and largely true) picture of young male athletes than they are usually afforded. But he’s also limited his canvas compared to the more varied, crisscrossing teens of “Dazed.” And while the sunny and sure Jenner is winning, he’s maybe too much so. “Dazed and Confused” took its center from Wiley Wiggins’ timid teen, but the Jake of “Everybody Wants Some!!” has no anxieties to overcome; his first blush with college life is a home run.

“Everybody Wants Some!!’ is Linklater’s self-portrait of the artist as a young frat boy. The Austin writer-director of “Slacker” and the “Before…” trilogy went to college on a baseball scholarship before segueing into playwriting.

His light touch remains a marvel. Though his characters are often just bouncing from conversation to conversation, night out to night out, the film’s direction is never lackadaisical. The performances are uncommonly natural. Scenes that play out through car windows, over foosball tables or between bong hits are buoyant, funny and meaningful. Though stuffed with ’80s details and a soundtrack from Van Halen to the Sugar Hill Gang, the period setting matters far less than the capturing — and appreciation — of a moment.

Like many of Linklater’s films, “Everybody Wants Some!!” radiates something both slight and profound. In the immortal words of David Lee Roth, “Everybody wants some. Baby, how ‘bout you?”

“Everybody Wants Some!!” a Paramount Pictures release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for “language throughout, sexual content, drug use and some nudity.” Running time: 117 minutes. Three stars out of four. (AP)

By Lindsey Bahr

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