Film · NPO 1 · 2026
Pass it on
Hokum
45Watch it awake.
It banks on bawdy blues craft and still has to prove the labor beats the leer.
The review
Hokum is a film about the blues style it is named for. Songwriters earned a living dressing lust in analogy and selling the laugh.
The craft and history in those old records are the genuine good. Leave it running and the innuendo takes the table; the players' labor gets lost under the snicker. It opened this week on NPO 1 off a 1920s commercial hit and keeps testing whether wit matters more than the dirty joke.
Journal
Keep Hokum in the record.
No house has filed a sentence for this yet.
Live Historic number 45. Yours can differ.
The glance
Household and Piety and Temperance and Truth are the thin ones.
Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?
This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.
Consider this
Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story
56 instead of 45
Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story is still a comedy film, and it scores 56 instead of 45. What you gain is truth: She will not lie about the inside of her head.
The eight
- 7Industry
Songwriters earned bread turning lust analogies into working blues songs.
- 3Household
Bedroom winks stand in more than any steady marriage or lived-in home.
- 4Piety
Conscience still checks whether the joke leaves room for any reverence.
- 5Courage
Coded talk once risked real trouble while church and law were listening.
- 5Republic
Neighbor laughs stay shared without turning the whole street loose.
- 2Temperance
Every line winks at the body, so appetite runs the whole show.
- 4Truth
Euphemism keeps the word half-kept and leaves the bill half-paid.
- 6Stewardship
Musical craft is what remains only if it outlasts the smut.
Where to watch
Finding the page.
Live Historic · Hokum · 45IMDb
