Movies

SLY LIVES! (AKA THE BURDEN OF BLACK GENIUS): rise, fall and legacy of a groundbreaking prodigy

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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.

FOUL EVIL DEEDS: from not so bad to worse

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Photo caption: Alexander Perkins in Richard Hunter’s FOUL EVIL DEEDS. Courtesy of Slamdance.

The deadpan anthology FOUL EVIL DEEDS depicts a range of aberrant human behavior, most of it darkly funny. The deeds themselves arise from a wide variety of root causes:

  • a couple’s social clumsiness;
  • a loner’s inner rage;
  • some kids’ youthful stupidity;
  • one guy’s uncommon sexual need;
  • an otherwise upstanding dog-walker’s entitlement;
  • and one man filled with deep-seated, sociopathic evil.

The threads are woven together into a wry, clever and very cynical movie that veers to the misanthropic. The segment about a neighbor’s cat could have been written by Larry David about George Costanza.

Writer-director Richard Hunter’s debut feature is consciously an art film; Hunter says he is influenced by the work of Ulrich Seidl, Michael Haneke and Roy Andersson, and it shows. It’s a slow burn, and the audience wonders, why is that guy checking out the remote wooded wetland? (Hint: he’s looking to coverup a future evil deed.)

Hunter seems to be measuring human behavior by its impact on others. Some might still consider an unconventional sexual practice to be a “sin”, but it’s entirely victimless (and isn’t even illegal). In another thread, what is intended as a harmless practical joke becomes tragic.

Alexander Perkins is excellent as a man with anger management issues that he can’t shake. As a consequence, he is grinding his teeth through workaday drudgery, and he’s mad about that, too. Does he have a path out of his situation, or he just going to stew until he explodes? There’s only one person who he can talk to (Oengus MacNamara in an unexpectedly riveting performance).

I think that FOUL EVIL DEEDS is likely to secure US arthouse distribution. FOUL EVIL DEEDS It premiered at Locarno, and I screened FOUL EVIL DEEDS for its North American premiere at Slamdance.

Through March 7, 2025, you can stream FOUL EVIL DEEEDS on the Slamdance Slamdance Channel. A 2025 Slamdance Film Festival Virtual Pass, which brings you FOUL EVIL DEEDS and almost all of my Slamdance recommendations, only costs $50.

MEMORIES OF LOVE RETURNED: moments preserved

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Photo caption: MEMORIES OF LOVE RETURNED. Courtesy of Slamdance.

The fine documentary Memories of Love Returned is the result of an accidental meeting. On a 2002 trip to his native Uganda, actor Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine (Treme, The Chi, The Lincoln Lawyer) happened upon a rural studio portrait photographer named Kibaate. Over a span of decades, Kibaate had documented everyday people over decades in thousands of portrait, many of them stunningly evocative. Mwine helped Kibaate preserve his body of work, and, after Kibaate’s death 20 years later, organized a public showcase of Kibaate’s collection.

The revelation of the unknown Kibaate as an artistic genius, is a compelling enough story, but the exhibition prompts a complicated and sometimes awkward exploration of Kibaate’s siring a prodigious number of children with a bevy of surviving mothers. The filmmaker’s own health and family story takes Memories of Love Returned seamlessly into another direction, topped off by Kibaate’s documentation of Ugandan LGBTQ culture.

Memories of Love Returned is the second documentary feature directed by Mwine. Executive-produced by Steven Soderberrgh, the film has been piling up awards from film festivals. I screened Memories of Love Returned for Slamdance.

Through March 7, 2025, you can stream Memories of Love Returned on the Slamdance Slamdance Channel. A 2025 Slamdance Film Festival Virtual Pass, which brings you Memories of Love Returned and almost all of my Slamdance recommendations, only costs $50.

STOLEN KINGDOM: true crime with nerds

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A scene from STOLEN KINGDOM. Courtesy of Slamdance.

The documentary Stolen Kingdom uncovers a series of offbeat pastimes and their bizarre convergence. Of course, we’re already aware of Disney fans and collectors. Stolen Kingdom also reveals the world of urban explorers, who trespass into closed and abandoned buildings. They’re enjoying the thrill of being where they’re not supposed to be and gawking at what the public isn’t supposed to see.

In Stolen Kingdom, we meet people who sneak into closed theme park attractions and even some daredevils who jump off the rides while operating and mosey around backstage(see photo above). Those folks can be tempted by the black market in Disneyana. As the behavior escalates from pranks to larceny, we know that somebody’s going to get in big trouble, Centering on the theft of an obsolete animatron, Stolen Kingdom takes on the guise of a true crime story, but with the very nerdiest criminals.

A scene from STOLEN KINGDOM. Courtesy of Slamdance.

Stolen Kingdom is one of those documentaries about our fellow humans that make us shake our heads.

Stolen Kingdom is the first feature for director Joshua Bailey. I screened Stolen Kingdom for Slamdance, a week after its world premiere at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

Through March 7, 2025, you can stream Stolen Kingdom on the Slamdance Slamdance Channel. A 2025 Slamdance Film Festival Virtual Pass, which brings you Stolen Kingdom and almost all of my Slamdance recommendations, only costs $50.

PORTAL TO HELL: Faust at the laundromat

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Photo caption: Trey Holland and Romina D’Ugo in Woody Bess’ PORTAL TO HELL. Courtesy of Portal to Hell LLC.

In the witty, dark comedy, Portal to Hell, a hangdog bill collector named Dunn (get it?) discovers a portal to hell, replete with hellfire and brimstone, in his local laundromat. Dunn, with best of intentions, strikes a bargain with its proprietor. Dunn is too nice for his wretched job, but just what is he capable of? And how about the insipid pop band who sings your least favorite earworm – who wouldn’t want to consign THEM to hell? 

Portal to Hell considers the question, what is a good person? but never too seriously. This is an imaginative, comic triumph for writer/director/cinematographer Woody Bess. Bess has a gift for the deadpan and the absurd.

Trey Holland is excellent as the continually perplexed Dunn, sapped of resilience by a personal loss. So is Romina D’Ugo as the reluctant authority figure at the laundromat. Lauded actor Keith David is perfect as Dunn’s cranky neighbor, ever assessing the younger generation with a critical eye. The great Richard Kind soars as a workaday (but crafty) demon.

This is a very funny movie. I screened Portal to Hell for its world premiere at Slamdance, where I predicted it to be the biggest crowd-pleaser at the fest.

BANR: weaving together the lucid and the confused

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Sui Li and Baoqing Li in BANR. Courtesy of ShangJia Picture Film Culture.

The star in Banr is writer/director/editor Erica Xia-Hou’s innovative storytelling – in her first feature film. An elderly husband (Sui Li) is struggling to hold on to his wife (Baoqing Li) as she sinks into Alzheimer’s, with the support of their adult daughter (Xia-Hou herself). That main story is told in a cinéma vérité documentary style, but that’s just what the husband and daughter see in their lucidity. Those segments are interwoven with fragments of the wife’s memory and her delusions and dreams. In depicting the most ordinary daily activities, Xia-Hou keeps us continually off-guard by shifting the points of view between the clear-eyed and the muddled. 

With the exception of herself, Xia-Hou used all non-professional actors. Like Sean Baker at his best, she’s directed exemplary performances from her leads, both first-timers. As the wife, Baoqing Li becomes ever more confused, but is radiant when a cherished memory pops up.

Baoqing Li in BANR. Courtesy of ShangJia Picture Film Culture.

As the husband, Sui Li throws all his deep-seated love and his stubbornness into fighting his wife’s memory loss, and then in caregiving. We know, and his daughter wisely advises him, that his efforts are unsustainable, but he obstinately muddles on, until the progression of her condition gives him no other choice. His performance is fully committed and heartbreaking.

This may be Erica Xia-Hou’s directorial debut, but she has a substantial body of work as an actress, screenwriter, editor and art director in the Chinese film industry, after studying dance, broadcasting and acting at three Chinese universities. She co-wrote and acted in the Jackie Chan sci-fi action film Bleeding Steel. She will co-star with Tony Leung and  Olga Kurylenko in the upcoming action thriller Fox Hunt, which she also co-wrote and edited.

What’s with the film’s title? Banr is companion in Mandarin, and many older Chinese couples affectionately refer to each other as Lao Banr, meaning old companion.

Banr is an immersive film, filled with humanity, and an important directorial debut. I screened Banr for its world premiere at Slamdance, where it was one of my Must See picks.

Through March 7, 2025, you can stream Banr on the Slamdance Slamdance Channel. A 2025 Slamdance Film Festival Virtual Pass, which brings you Banr and almost all of my Slamdance recommendations, only costs $50.

Sui Li in BANR. Courtesy of ShangJia Picture Film Culture.

CORONER TO THE STARS: too transparent?

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Photo caption: Dr. Thomas Noguchi in CORONER TO THE STARS. Courtesy of Slamdance.

The absorbing biodoc Coroner to the Stars tells the story of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the former Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner and his bouts with fame (or infamy). His LA County jurisdiction meant that he was responsible for conducting the autopsies of a striking collection of celebrities, including Marilyn Monroe, William Holden, Natalie Wood, John Belushi and the Manson Family’s murder victims. Noguchi was also responsible for making his reports public – and therein lies the rub.

The public is fascinated by the details of celebrity deaths, and the news media eagerly panders to that need, however prurient or ghoulish. Official records in California, including coroner’s reports, are public. Noguchi did not shy away from the media spotlight, which triggered controversy. He was clearly fulfilling his legal duty, but did he enjoy it too much? Was he a publicity hound? Can an official be transparent without being unseemly? Indeed, Coroner to the Star’s tag line is Fame kills.

Writer-director Ben Hethcoat and Keita Ideno, in the first feature for both, present an extraordinarily well-sourced, credible and insightful documentary. Noguchi is still alive at age 98 and appears in the film to speak for himself.

Noguchi’s work (and style) stepped on some influential toes – the families and friends of the deceased, the major Hollywood studios and bureaucratic/political foes. Whenever he came under attack, the subtext was his race and the public perception and acceptance of Asian-Americans. Noguchi was a post-war immigrant who didn’t experience the Japanese-American internment during WW II, but Japanese-Americans traumatized by the camps would organize to defend LA’s highest ranking Japanese-American official.

Noguchi was also an internationally recognized pioneer in forensic science. Coroner to the Stars reveals his determination, in the RFK autopsy, to avoid the mistakes that resulted in the continuing, unresolved contention about the JFK assassination. Coroner to the Stars, without sensationalizing it, also touches on a key finding of the RFK forensic evidence.

Rock-solid in its exploration of race, science and history, Coroner to the Stars thoughtfully considers the challenge of acting professionally with what is sensational. I screened Coroner to the Stars for its world premiere at Slamdance.

Through March 7, 2025, you can stream Coroner to the Stars on the Slamdance Slamdance Channel. A 2025 Slamdance Film Festival Virtual Pass, which brings you Coroner to the Stars and almost all of my Slamdance recommendations, only costs $50.

Dr. Thomas Noguchi (right) in CORONER TO THE STARS. Courtesy of Slamdance.

TWIN FENCES: where is she going? Aaaaah.

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Yana Osman (right) in her TWIN FENCES. Courtesy of Slamdance.

In her quirky, and finally profound, documentary Twin Fences, writer-director Yana Osman starts us off with what seems like a a droll, absurdist film about a ridiculously obscure subject, a prefab concrete fence design replicated thru the USSR. Osman stands, hands down at her side, facing the camera, spouting random facts. It may be off-putting at first, but the approach grows to be intoxicating. When she finds talking heads who are actually experts on the fences, we wonder if we’re watching a parody of a talking head expert documentary. We even hear about a Soviet who returned from Chicago in the 1920s, inspired to improve public health with a proprietary sausage.

Osman’s story takes us through Russia, Afghanistan and Ukraine, until there’s a pivotal tragedy in her family. The ending, with her grandfather, is sweet and heartbreaking.  Only then do we  realize that we’ve just watched a clear-eyed comment on contemporary Russia. 

TWIN FENCES. Courtesy of Slamdance.

I’ve never seen a film that wanders across such disparate topics over 99 minutes, seemingly randomly, but which turns out to get somewhere unexpected and worth arriving at. This is Osman’s first feature; Twin Fences is very well-edited, and unsettling tones on the soundtrack help tell the story. Osman is an idiosyncratic, and, I think, pretty brilliant filmmaker.

Audiences who hang with Twin Fences will be rewarded. I screened Twin Fences for its North American premiere at Slamdance.

Through March 7, 2025, you can stream Twin Fences on the Slamdance Slamdance Channel. A 2025 Slamdance Film Festival Virtual Pass, which brings you Twin Fences and almost all of my Slamdance recommendations, only costs $50.

UNIVERSE25: thoughtful, ever-surprising and mysterious

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Photo caption: Giacomo Gex in Richard Melkonian’s UNIVERSE 25. Courtesy of Slamdance.

The thoughtful, ever-surprising and mysterious Universe25 embeds a fable of self-discovery in a dystopian sci-fi framework. Mott the Angel (Giacomo Gex) is sent to Earth, essentially on a cleanup mission, by a Creator (Andre Flynn) who is ready to pull the plug on our world. Mott dutifully searches urban Britain for the planet’s sole remaining saint until he happens upon an unlikely Everyman, the hardscrabble Romanian immigrant Andrei (Dan Socio). As Mott careens from Britain to Romania, he questions just what/who he aspires to be.

The gritty, noirish contemporary world is juxtaposed with Biblical references and imagery.

Photo caption: Giacomo Gex in Richard Melkonian’s UNIVERSE 25. Courtesy of Slamdance.

Hilariously, the story is revealed when the scroll that Mott writes for the Creator ends up in the lost mail bin, where it is read by a bitter postal clerk. 

In a singular and impressive feature debut, writer-director Richard Melkonian has imagined a look at humanity from an space alien’s point of view. It’s an imaginative and witty blend of themes and genres.

I screened Universe25 for its world premiere at Slamdance, where it was my top Must See pick in the festival.

Through March 7, 2025, you can stream Universe25 on the Slamdance Slamdance Channel. A 2025 Slamdance Film Festival Virtual Pass, which brings you Universe25 and almost all of my Slamdance recommendations, only costs $50.

Here’s a clip.

THE BRUTALIST: buffeted by fate, can his soul survive?

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Photo caption: Adrien Brody in THE BRUTALIST. Courtesy of A24.

The Brutalist opens with László (Adrien Brody) arriving in New York Harbor as a refugee. Emma Lazarus could have been thinking of László when she wrote her immortal poem; having survived Buchenwald, he is tired, poor, huddled, homeless and tempest-tossed.

He makes his way to Philadelphia, where his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola), has gone native, Americanizing his name, marrying a Catholic New Englander, and opening a small furniture store that he intends to build into a bigger enterprise. László, who was a architect of accomplishment and renown in prewar Hungary, has no such aspirations. László is grateful merely to be alive and away from war- and Holocaust-ravaged Europe and is content with even the least comfortable accommodations and the most menial employment. He does yearn for reunification with his wife Erzsébet and niece Zsófia, from whom he was separated years before in the Holocaust; they are alive, but in Soviet-controlled territory, and getting them to America will be difficult and complicated.

Just when László gets a taste of a promising situation, things don’t work out with Attila, and László finds himself homeless again. But then fortune smiles upon him – to an incredible, unpredictable and life-changing degree. Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a local zillionaire, learns of László’s international reputation and commissions a monumental vanity project – one that will bring fame and wealth to László. The only downside is that Van Buren is extremely capricious, and László owes all of his new found comfort to him. Van Buren giveth, and Van Buren can taketh away.

Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce in THE BRUTALIST. Courtesy of A24.

It is an asymmetrical relationship. László is all about expressing himself through his architecture. Van Buren is a collector, and, like any of his collectible objects, Van Buren enjoys László as an amusement and as a marker of prestige. Van Buren’s dominance manifests in countless micro-aggressions, and, finally, in the most degrading way.

László rides this roller coaster alone until Erzsébet arrives with Zsófia. László can be prickly and his confidence is always teetering, but Erzsébet is smooth and comfortable in her skin. Erzsébet is stronger than László, and many times as resilient. She has been able to survive a Nazi death camp, escape from behind the Iron Curtain and make her way to the New World, all while protecting her vulnerable niece. Although physically wrecked by her ordeal, she is eager to resume her career as a writer and her role as László’s coach and cheerleader. Erzsébet intends to make her own destiny, and refuses to be buffeted by the whims of fortune.

No matter how highly valued is his talent, László gets the message that he is too foreign, too Jewish, and, ultimately, is unwanted by America. While that weighs on him, his experience with Van Buren becomes soul-crushing. How much is too much for the human spirit to endure? Can Erzsébet help László find peace and dignity?

Feliity Jones in THE BRUTALIST. Courtesy of A24.

The Brutalist is a sweeping story, told in three hours thirty-five minutes (with an intermission), and every second brims with artistic ambition. Director and co-writer Brady Corbet has acted in movies by Gregg Araki, Michael Haneke, Lars Von Trier, Ruben Ostland and Olivier Assayas, and he is aspiring for his own individualistic masterpiece. Corbet makes every shot visually impactful, and the score juxtaposes period pop standards with throbbing, droning musical cues, and even begins with an overture. Corbet risked making The Brutalist pretentious and self-important, but it never is. Almost everything Corbet throws at the screen works to tell the story and to enhance our experience.

The one thing that doesn’t work is the epilogue, set in 1980, when an adult Zsófia (Ariane Labed) gives a speech at an architectural conference that honors László with a retrospective. Zsófia explicitly connects the dots between László’s artistic themes with the horrors of experience. After such a momentous and vivid story, told with so much artistry and innovation, the epilogue is both unnecessary and a buzz kill. It reminded me of the finale of another great movie, Psycho, in which Simon Oakland plays a psychiatric expert who explains to us that, indeed, Norman Bates was suffering from a recognized mental disorder. But, if you swing for the fences, you are allowed the occasional foul ball.

Adrien Brody in THE BRUTALIST. Courtesy of A24.

The acting is exceptional, especially the three leads, who are each justifiably Oscar-nominated. Adrien Brody brilliantly takes us through László’s remarkably up-and-down journey, with its very high highs and very low lows. (BTW Nikki Glaser’s best joke at the Golden Globes was “Adrien Brody – two-time Holocaust survivor.“)

Similarly, the battle between Van Buren and László (or the one between the good Van Buren and the bad Van Buren) wouldn’t be enough without Erzsébet being so appealing and such a badass. Felicity Jones captures her grace and ferocity.

Much of the film relies on Guy Pearce’ Van Buren, whose appetites, prejudices, emotional needs and entitlement drives the plot, as they buffet poor László. If Van Buren isn’t complicated and unpredictable, there’s no story here. I find Pearce to remarkably resemble classic film star Brian Donlevy here.

The wonderful Ivory Coast-born, French actor Isaach de Bankole is as good as always as László’s American friend Gordon. Gordon often represents the moral center of the story, solidly grounded while László flutters about. Joe Alwyn is appropriately malignant as Van Buren’s rangy snake of a son, Harry Lee, to whom Harrison has not passed on any of his better qualities.

The Brutalist is an epic in several senses of that descriptor, and one of the Best Movies of 2024.