Fred Ross (foreground left) and Cesar Chavez (foreground right) in AMERICAN AGITATORS. Courtesy of Cinequest.
American Agitators is the important story of legendary organizer Fred Ross, the mentor of Cesar Chavez, and essentially a saint of the social justice movement. American Agitators shows Ross being formed by the Great Depression and the left-wing politics, the union movement and the New Deal. As a fully formed organizer, Ross met Chavez; Ross’ organizing resonated with Chavez applied his own imagination to Ross’ tactics and launched his own historically essential movements for farmworker unionization and Chicano Rights.
Director Raymond Telles has sourced the film impeccably. The third act rolls out Ross’ legacy today, not just Chavez the icon and the Farmworkers movement, but the influence of Fred Ross, Jr. and then a more loosely configured compendium of recent and current labor campaigns..
Fred Ross and Dolores Huerta in AMERICAN AGITATORS. Courtesy of Cinequest.
LOCAL SAN JOSE INTEREST: Fred Ross met Chavez at Cesar’s home at 53 Sharff Avenue in San Jose, hired Cesar as his deputy and organized out of McDonnell Hall at Our Lady of Guadalupe on East Antonio Street. Cesar’s son Paul (of San Jose) appears in the film as does Luis Valdes of Teatro Campesino, who has also had a significant presence in San Jose.
I screened American Agitators for its world premiere at Cinequest.
The title character in the affecting dramedy Burt is a an elderly street musician with Parkinson’s Disease. Burt rents a room in the home of his landlord Steve, an ever-suspicious and oppositional guy who is Burt’s age. Nevertheless, Burt is relentlessly upbeat. A young man, Sammy, arrives with a letter from one of Burt’s youthful flames, explaining that Sammy is Burt’s son. Burt jumps into belated fatherhood with both feet, and then discovers that all is not as it seems.
Burt (Burton Berger) may face disappointment and hurt, but he does so with an irrepressible generosity of spirit. This is not a Disease of the Week movie. It’s not about Burt’s Parkinson’s. It’s about Burt, a vital guy who is open about his living with Parkinson’s, but who focuses on what he can still experience.
Oliver Cooper and Burton Berger in BURT. Courtesy of Cinequest.
Oliver Cooper (David Berkowitz in Mindhunter, Levon in Californication) captures the contradictions within Sammy, who’s been incarcerated until recently. Sammy shares a lot of traits with the average criminal – not smart, not strategic, irresponsible and easily led astray. I’m guessing that his impulse control and anger management aren’t great, either. But, somehow, Sammy has a reservoir of empathy that may impede his criminality. Cooper also co-wrote.
A remarkably endearing movie, Burt is just the second feature for director and co-writer Joe Burke. Burke shot Burt in seven days for $7,000 with a three person crew. He succeeded in getting fine performances from the non-professional actors playing Burt (Berger) and Steve (Stephen Levy)..
Burt was executive produced by indie stalwart David Gordon Green (George Washington, All the Real Girls, Undertow). I screened Burt for its world premiere at Cinequest.
Nicole Betancourt in THE UNFIXING. Courtesy of Cinequest.
The mesmerizing The Unfixing is a self-therapeutic memoir, chronicling the filmmaker’s personal journey through her parents’ divorcee, her own sudden disability from chronic fatigue syndrome, and then shockingly, her daughter’s affliction with the same symptoms via Lyme Disease; mom and daughter experiment with a new therapy that purports to rewire their brains. How will this family story end?
The clever structure (in yearly segments tied to climate change) and repeated motifs (of photography, the beach and grief) make this an art film inside a memoir. The Unfixing is the first feature for director, writer and subject Nicole Betancourt.
THE UNFIXING. Courtesy of Cinequest.
This unique film may not be for everyone, but it’s that wholly original cinema that people hope to see at a film festival. I screened The Unfixing for its US premiere at Cinequest.
Severin Films founder David Gregory in BOUTIQUE: TO PRESERVE AND COLLECT. Courtesy of Cinequest.
Ry Levey’s infectious documentary Boutique: To Preserve and Collect is about passion – passion that fuels the preservation and rejuvenation of cult cinema. We’re mostly talking about exploitation movies that would otherwise be lost. Much the credit for saving them goes to Severin Films and Vinegar Syndrome, which are essentially the Criterion Collection for grindhouse cinema. Both companies evolved from aficionados making bootleg tapes of their favorite obscure films into legitimate catalogues of preserved films.
You may not think that a certain movie is IMPORTANT, but there is probably someone who finds it absolutely ESSENTIAL. Many movies have been made to be disposable, but have inspired loyal fans. One person’s drive-in may be another’s arthouse. What makes Boutique: To Preserve and Collect fun to watch is the contagious enthusiasm of the devotees.
Boutique: To Preserve and Collect takes us from the Dark Ages, back when, once you had seen it in a theater, a film was forever lost to you. No matter how much you wanted to watch it again or share it with others, your only recourse would be to scour TV Guide for when it might show up on late night television. Then, the introduction of the VCR made it possible to collect movies you love and to evangelize for them. The video store and the DVD opened up the possibilities even more.
Boutique: To Preserve and Collect covers a lot of ground, much of it arcane, so it’s fortunate that the editing keeps the film popping. Canadian filmmaker Ry Levey has been to Cinequest before, most recently with his fine LGBTQ pro wrestling doc, Out in the Ring.
[Severin is now selling House of Psychotic Women: Rarities Collection Volume 2 and a Blu-ray set of Fear in the Philippines: The Complete Blood Island Films. Vinegar Syndrome’s current offerings include DVDs of The Possession of Joel Delaney (4K Ultra HD) and The White Cannibal Queen.]
I screened Boutique To Preserve and Collect for its US premiere at Cinequest.
A. P. Giannini in A LITTLE FELLOW: THE LEGACY OF A.P. GIANNINI. Courtesy of Cinequest.
A Little Fellow: The Legacy of A.P. Giannini: Here’s an underdog story – a boy loses his immigrant father, starts out impoverished and builds the nation’s largest bank, helping to rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. This very comprehensive documentary also tells the less well-known story of Giannini as movie financier – backing films like City Lights, Gone with the Wind and Sleeping Beauty.
A Little Fellow is a very by-the-numbers doc and is pretty uncritical of Giannini, but it is impeccably sourced and has a damn interesting subject.
I screened A Little Fellow: The Legacy of A.P. Gianninifor its US premiere at Cinequest. The Cinequest audience will note the local interest. Giannini’s childhood began in San Jose, his father was murdered in Alviso, and his first bank branch building still stands, only 1500 feet from the Cinequest screening at the Hammer Theatre.
Photo caption: Guan-Zhi Huang and Ming-Shuai Shih in SILENT SPARKS. Courtesy of Cinequest.
In the Taiwanese neo-noir Silent Sparks, small time hood Pua (Guan-Zhi Huang) is released from prison and checks in with the local crime lord (Chih-Wei Cheng). The boss assigns him to a lieutenant, Mi-Ji (Ming-Shuai Shih), who happens to be Pua’s former cell-mate. But when Pua and Mi-Ji meet again, the encounter is a study in social awkwardness. Pua just wants to start earning money and working his way up in the syndicate, but Mi-Ji is surprisingly unhelpful.
Pua finally gets the chance to do some crime, and we wonder, will Pua get caught, or worse? And what explains Mi-Ji’s behavior toward Pua? As Silent Sparks smolders on, the risks escalate.
The lead actors are very good. Chih-Wei Cheng is very funny as the crusty, vulgar crime boss, who is full of joie de vivre. Jui-Chun Fan is exceptional as Pua’s mom.
Chih-Wei Cheng in SILENT SPARKS. Courtesy of Cinequest.Jui-Chun Fan and Guan-Zhi Huang in SILENT SPARKS. Courtesy of Cinequest.
Silent Sparks is the first feature for writer-director Ping Chu, and it’s a promising debut. I screened Silent Sparks for its US premiere at Cinequest.
Megan Stevenson and Ruth Syratt in TIME TRAVEL IS DANGEROUS. Courtesy of Cinequest.
In the deadpan British comedy Time Travel Is Dangerous, Megan (Megan Stevenson) and Ruth (Ruth Syratt), two ditzy gals who run a vintage shop discover a discarded gizmo from the early VCR era. Looking suspiciously like a carnival bumper car, it turns out to be an operational time machine, which they use to pilfer objects in the past that they can merchandise in the present. “You can’t put a price on nostalgia. Well, we do.”
It never occurs to them to 1) go back and change history, 2) go back and reveal the answer to a historical mystery or 3) go back and get something crazy valuable, like the Holy Grail, or 4) sneak a peek at the future – they’re just getting stuff for their junk store. “We’re not scientifically-minded“. they’re not ANYTHING-minded,
The two are tracked down by a consortium of inventors, and Time Travel Is Dangerous brilliantly sends up organizational behavior and other human foibles (one becomes stuck in her insufferable teenage years. When they carelessly unlock a dangerous vortex, we’re off to another dimension. The filmmakers don’t take themselves too seriously, and the special effects are the best you can find at the Dollar Store
Jane Horrocks (Little Voice) appears, as does the esteemed Brian Blessed, in his most unrecognizable role. The narrator is Stephen Fry.
If you like Portlandia and Best In Show, but wish they were wackier, you’ll enjoy Time Travel Is Dangerous. I screened Time Travel Is Dangerous for its Bay Area premiere at Cinequest.
Alexander Karim in THE DOG. Courtesy of Cinequest.
The electrifying thriller The Dog follows a classic neo-noir premise. MZ (Alexander Karim), a low level hood, is assigned to drive the call girl, Kadzo (Catherine Muthoni), and he falls for her – against the explicit instructions of their employer and advice from Kadzo herself. To stake a new start for them in a faraway land, he reaches for the big score. Desperation results. What’s unusual about The Dog is that it’s exceptionally exciting and that it’s set in Mombasa, Kenya.
In his quest to make a quick fortune, MZ tries to cash in on a tip about a drug deal. When that goes awry, he finds himself owing a huge debt to Saddam (Caroline Midimo), one of Mombasa’s crime matriarchs. He then tries working with Saddam’s rival Ainea (Veronica Mwaura). MZ takes more and more risks as he get more deeply entangled with the two godmothers. All the way, he’s just one double cross away from disappointing the last people he’ll ever disappoint.
There’s a wonderful low-speed tuk tuk chase (on three-wheel taxis) through Mombasa’s open air markets, street performers and herds of goats. And there’s another unforgettable scene that will be particularly uncomfortable for male audience members.
The Dog matches up well to Howard Hawks’ definition of a great movie – three great scenes and no bad ones“. My FOUR nominations for the three great scenes:
a big spender who owes MZ money brings him to his home;
Kadzo has MZ film her latest video ad, and he watches her at her sexiest through her cellphone camera.
Kadzo explains that she is not asking anyone to save her;
MZ faces his reckoning,
The Swedish-born Alexander Karim is superb as MZ. MZ works out to maintain a physicality that intimidates johns and debtors, but he knows his place in the crime hierarchy and grovels before the godmothers; when he screws up, he knows the consequences and moves directly into desperate terror. Alexander Karim has worked in lots of Scandanavian films (so he must be familiar with Nordic Noir) and appeared in Gladiator II.
Catherine Muthoni in THE DOG. Courtesy of Cinequest.
Catherine Muthoni is very good as Kadzo. This may be a neo-noir, but Kadzo isn’t a manipulative femme fatale – it’s only MZ who drives himself to his fate. Midimo and Mwaura are wonderful as the two crime bosses. Watch for how matter-of-factly Midimo dons Saddam’s eyeglasses in the most extreme scene.
The Dog is brilliantly directed, and edited. The director is Alexander’s Ugandan-born brother Baker Karim, who is also based in Sweden. That makes The Dog a Swedish movie, although it has every appearance of a Kenyan film.
David Allen White in Fabio D’Orta’s THE COMPLEX FORMS. Courtesy of Slamdance.
The visually striking atmospheric The Complex Forms is set in a centuries-old Italian villa, where Christian (David Allen White) and other down-on-their-luck middle-aged men sell their bodies for a period of days to be “possessed”. Possessed how? By who or by what? As the dread builds, Christian resolves to pry the answers from the secretive masters of the villa.
Director Fabio D’Orta unspools the story with remarkably crisp black-and-white cinematography, a brooding soundtrack and impeccable editing. In his astonishingly impressive filmmaking debut, D’Orta wrote, directed, shot and edited The Complex Form.
David Allen White is excellent as Christian, who begins resigned to endure whatever process that he has committed to, but becomes increasingly uneasy as his probing questions are deflected. So are Michael Venni as Christian’s talkative roommate Luh and Cesare Bonomelli as the impassive roommate simply called The Giant.
Like his countrymen Fellini and Leona, D’Orta has a gift for using faces to heighten interest and tell the story. He makes especially effective use of Bonomelli’s Mt. Rushmore-like countenance.
I screened The Complex Forms for its United States premiere at Slamdance. The Complex Forms was my favorite Slamdance film and won the festival’s Honorable Mention for Narrative Feature. The Complex Forms is playing Cinequest on March 12 and 13.
Photo caption: Sly Stone in SLY LIVES! (AKA THE BURDEN OF BLACK GENIUS). Courtesy of Hulu.
Questlove’s insightful documentary Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) traces the rise, fall and legacy of the groundbreaking musician Sly Stone (birth name Sylvester Stewart) of Sly and the Family Stone. It’s the remarkable story of a prodigy
Sly led and wrote the songs for Sly and the Family Stone, startlingly innovative as both a multi-racial and a multi-gender band. It’s too easy to use the label psychedelic soul (although it does fit Sly and the Family Stone’s music); but, Sly was an original and a genre-buster, whose music blurred (or erased) the lines between rock, R&B, funk, soul and pop.
The term prodigy also gets thrown around, but I didn’t know (until I watched Sly Lives!), that Sly was working as a songwriter, producer and D-jay as a TEENAGER, already moving the needle on Bay Area music culture during its most fertile period.
Sly Lives! also gives us file footage showing Sly to be articulate and charming, with the gift of being quick-witted even while stoned. But then came the heavier drugs, sabotaging his career with a pattern of concert no shows and walkouts that have persisted thru at least 2007. His productivity essentially ended in 1974. All members of Sly and the Family Stone were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Sly is alive today at age 81.
This is an exceptionally well-sourced fil. Besides lots of previously obscure archival material from before Sly’s stardom, we get plenty of footage of Sly in interviews and performances back in the day. Perspective comes from the band member themselves, Sly’s ex-wife and his former partner, and a slew of experts in the music industry,
Questlove asks his interviewees about black genius (and seems to confound them). There’s no question Sly was a musical genius. I think that Questlove is emphasizing the word burden in his subtitle – suggesting that having to achieve while battling institutional racism finally sapped Sly of his resilience.
Questlove also reminds us that Sly’s creativity peaked during one of our most turbulent periods – the MLK and RFK assassinations, urban riots and the political evolution from Civil Rights to Black Power. The Black Panther Party suggested that Sly bankroll them personally.
Questlove, who was three years old at the time of Sly’s last hit in 1974, is widely known as the band leader of The Roots on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and the producer for many recording artists, including Common, Jay-Z, John Legend Al Green and Elvis Costello. He is a musicologist and a historian of Black music and Black culture. In his directorial debut as a filmmaker, he won the Best Doc Oscar for Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). (The Movie Gourmet predicted that Oscar BTW.)
I loved this nugget from the film – band members celebrated their first big paycheck by acquiring signature dogs. Not cars, jewelry or exotic vacations – dogs.
Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) is streaming on Hulu.
