Alan Cumming in MY OLD SCHOOL, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
The absorbing documentary My Old School is about a guy who fooled his Scottish high school classmates and, notably, the school authorities, into believing that he was not who he really was. The impersonation was extreme, audacious and more than a little creepy, and resulted in a scandal well-known in the British Isles.
Writer-director Jono McLeod was one of those classmates, and he has been able to garner more than a handful of the kids and teachers who were eyewitnesses. And he secured over five hours of audio from the impersonator himself, which are brilliantly lip-synced by actor Alan Cummings (kind of the opposite of voiced by).
MY OLD SCHOOL, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
If that weren’t creative enough, McLeod uses animation to illustrate key moments in the story. And, surprisingly, there comes a video clip of a high school performance of the musical South Pacific, a performance that would be excruciatingly mundane – except for what the audience knows.
In telling My Old School, McLeod reveals the deception itself right away and then gradually unspools a series of more shockers, about how the ruse was executed, with whose help and the motivation. It’s quite the story.
My Old School opens in theaters this weekend, including at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco.
SPEER GOES TO HOLLYWOOD. Courtesy of Vanessa Lapa.
In her absorbing documentary Speer Goes to Hollywood, filmmaker Vanessa Lapa takes us inside a Nazi war criminal’s brazen attempt to rehabilitate his image into “the Good Nazi”. Previously unheard private audio recordings of Albert Speer himself reveal him to be one of history’s most audacious spin doctors.
Speer, the highest ranking Nazi to escape execution at the Nuremberg Trials, was the master of the Nazis’ wartime production efforts. A trained architect, any ability Speer had to design structures was surpassed by his genius in logistics. In Speer Goes to Hollywood, Speer displays an ever greater gift for dissembling.
After being released from prison in the mid 1960’s, Speer published a bestselling (and self-serving) memoir, Inside the Third Reich, to perpetuate what is known as The Speer Myth. Speer would have us believe that the worst crimes in history occurred – right under his nose and to his benefit – without any participation on his part. Speer’s defense was essentially, “Hey, it was the OTHER Nazis“.
(Note: not even a liar as bald-faced as Speer denied that the Holocaust happened.)
To supply the German war machine, Speer exploited the nearly limitless pool of those conquered, persecuted and to be exterminated by the Nazis. Powering his production with forced labor, Speer enslaved 12.5 million victims and worked many of them to death, all to perpetrate a war of aggression.
In the tapes, we hear Speer collaborating with Andrew Birkin, a Stanley Kubrick protege, on the script for a film to further Speer’s version of history. In the face of damning evidence, Speer never wavered in his deflections, dodges and denials. Speer Goes to Hollywood reveals Albert Speer to stay on message with unmatched relentlessness, discipline and audacity.
Andrew Birkin was trying to cash in on the popularity of Inside the Thrd Reich. The tapes show Birkin to be stunningly enabling in the attempted whitewash. Once Birkin slips and blames a kerfuffle on “the Jewish machine”.
Another Birkin mentor, Carol Reed is the truth teller. Reed, the director of The Third Man, gives Birkin a reality check – this IS a whitewash, pure and simple.
A prime example of the banality of evil, Speer doesn’t seem to be a fanatic hater, but an amoral grasper/climber, willing to swallow even genocide as an acceptable price for getting ahead. He does display an ingrained antisemitism, once tossing off “Of course, we resented the Jews“, as if, who wouldn’t?
Here’s a tantalizing nugget from Speer Goes to Hollywood. We hear Speer claim to have written the top Nuremberg prosecutor, American Robert Jackson, to claim important knowledge of Germany’s neurological warfare research, using it as leverage to avoid being turned over to the Soviets. Speer hints at an implied quid pro quo, but given Speer’s credibility, who knows if any of it is true.
The ever-watchable Speer Going to Hollywood chronicles unashamedness on a mass scale.
Photo caption. Leonard Cohen in HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN, A JOURNEY, A SONG. Courtesy of Leonard Cohen Family Trust.
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song is a biodoc as reflective as the subject himself. That subject is poet/singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen, creator of profound verse and ear-worm melodies. Cohen was such a seeker that he secluded himself for five years at a Buddhist monastery on Mount Baldy.
Co-writers and co-directors Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine have comprehensively sourced the film with Cohen intimates and a substantial dose of Cohen himself. Geller and Goldfine have braided together Cohen’s journey with that of his most sublime song, Hallelujah.
One doesn’t think of a song even HAVING a journey, but Cohen wrote Hallelujah over years and years, possibly composing over 150 verses, only to have Columbia refuse to issue the album that it had commissioned. Then the song was rescued by John Cale, rejuvenated in the animated movie Shrek, and became iconic with the spectacular cover by Jeff Buckley. Along the way, Cohen himself would reveal alternative lyrics in live performance. Helluva story.
I’ve seen splashier documentaries – this is, after all, about a poet. The one forehead-slapping shocker for me was the initial rejection of Hallelujah. At almost two hours, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song is a settle-in-and-be-mesmerized experience.
(BTW, could there be a bigger producer/artist mismatch than Phil Spector and Leonard Cohen?)
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song is opening July 8 in some Bay Area theaters (including the Roxie, the Opera Plaza, the Rafael and the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood), and will expand into more theaters on July 15 and 22.
It’s a great time to get stoked with the two most bitchin’ surfing movies, the documentaries Step Into Liquid and Riding Giants.
In Step Into Liquid (2003), we see the world’s best pro surfers in the most extreme locations. We also see devoted amateurs in the tiny ripples of Lake Michigan and surfing evangelists teaching Irish school children. The cinematography is remarkable – critic Elvis Mitchell called the film “insanely gorgeous”. The filmmaker is Dana Brown, son of Bruce Brown, who invented the surf doc genre with The Endless Summer (1966) and The Endless Summer II (1994).
Riding Giants (2004) focuses on the obsessive search for the best wave by some of the greatest surfers in history. We see “the biggest wave ever ridden” and then a monster that could be bigger. The movie traces the discovery of the Half Moon Bay surf spot Mavericks. And more and more, all wonderfully shot.
The filmmaker is Stacy Peralta, a surfer and one the pioneers of modern skateboading, (and a founder of the Powell Peralta skateboard product company). Peralta also made Dogtown and Z-boys (2001), the great documentary about the roots of skateboarding, and wrote the 2005 Lords of Dogtown.
Both Step into Liquid and Riding Giants can be streamed from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
The 2017 documentary James Stewart, Robert Mitchum: The Two Faces of America traces the mostly parallel and mostly contrasting Hollywood careers of icons James Stewart and Robert Mitchum.
Hero and anti-hero. James Stewart became perhaps American cinema’s greatest screen actor by portraying earnest, well-meaning,, play-by-the-rules types like George Bailey and Jefferson Smith. Mitchum, so identified with film noir, is known as an insolent rebel with no pretense of following anybody else’s rules. (Of course, it’s more complicated than that – among Stewart’s greatest performances are his darkest, in Hitchcock classics like Vertigo and Rear Window and in Anthony Mann’s psychological Westerns like Winchester ’73.)
James Stewart, Robert Mitchum: The Two Faces of America is not a deep dive into this optimism/cynicism theme of American postwar psychology. Instead, it’s more of a marriage of two showbiz biodocs.
That being said, fans of the actors (and I am a big fan of both) get some insights. Both actors reflect on their own work (see trailers below). The most evocative segment is about Stewart’s grief at the loss of his son, a marine killed in the Vietnam War that Jimmy himself supported politically.
Stewart and Mitchum did not socialize, despite their daughters knowing each other in high school. They only worked together once, late in their careers, in the 1978 remake of The Big Sleep. James Stewart, Robert Mitchum: The Two Faces of America highlights a remarkable coincidence in their deaths.
I watched James Stewart, Robert Mitchum: The Two Faces of America on Turner Classic Movies, where it will be replayed on June 25. It is also streaming on the subscription services WATCH TCM and DIrecTV.
Photo caption: Patricia Highsmith in LOVING HIGHSMITH. Courtesy of Frameline.
In the revelatory biodoc Loving Highsmith, documentarian Eva Vitija reveals intimate perspectives on the iconic author. Patricia Highsmith’s novels were turned into twisted movie thrillers that include Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and all the Tom Ripley movies, as well as the queer memoir Carol.
Vitija has sourced Loving Highsmith with the firsthand memories of Highsmith’s last live-in lover Marijean Meaker, her Berlin lover Tabea Blumenshein, her Paris friend Monique Buffet, and members of Highsmith’s rodeo-focused Texas family. The insights include:
Highsmith’s Texas roots.
Her heartbreakingly one-way relations with her mother.
The origin of the Tom Ripley character.
Her intentionality in crafting the ending of Carol.
Her obsession with her married secret London lover.
Even those who are familiar with Highsmith will be impressed with this 360-degree portrait. Loving Highsmith plays this year’s Frameline on June 21 at the Castro.
Photo caption: Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of Film Movement.
Fanny: The Right to Rock documents the first all-female rock band to get signed by a major record label and churn out five albums. Fifty years ago, the band Fanny was breaking ground for women musicians – and for lesbians and Filipinas. Women rockers were a novelty in the early 1970; imagine layering on LGBTQ identity and Asian-American heritage.
Although you probably haven’t heard of them, this was no garage band. They had a major label record deal, European tours, and hung out with big name peers. Unlike many male bands of the period, Fanny didn’t crash and burn due to drug use or clashing egos. They just never caught on with record-buyers.
It’s pretty clear that music industry and media sexism, combined with maybe being a little ahead of their time to deny Fanny stardom. Too bad – I would have loved to listen to them in their heyday.
Their music fits right into the stuff I was listening to in the 1970s. I’m guessing that the reason why I hadn’t heard of them is that they didn’t get played on FM radio in the Bay Area.
Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of Film Movement.
These women can still really rock in their 70s, and they’re a hoot.
Fanny: The Right to Rock is filled with colorful anecdotes from back in the day. Todd Rundgren, an important early associate of Fanny, and Bonnie Raitt appear as eyewitnesses. Cherie Curry of the Runaways, Cathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s and Kate Pierson of the B-52s testify to Fanny’s trailblazing status.
I screened Fanny: The Right to Rock last year at the Nashville Film Festival. It releases into theaters, albeit very hard to find, this weekend. I’ll let you know when it becomes available on streaming services.
Photo caption: Ben Fong-Torres in LIKE A ROLLING STONE: THE LIFE AND tIMES OF BEN FONG-TORRE. Courtesy of Netflix.
The documentary Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres lives up to its title, which is a very good thing. Fong-Torres, the longtime music editor of Rolling Stone magazine, is an accomplished man in the most interesting times. Like a Rolling Stone is a satisfying combo of Fong-Torres helping to invent rock music journalism, the history of Rolling Stone magazine, and Fong-Torres’ personal journey growing up the son of Chinese immigrants in baby boom America.
For rock enthusiasts, Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres is filled with nuggets like:
Ray Charles, having been made comfortable by Fong-Torres, unleashing his resentment of racism and the mainstream co-opting of black music.
Fong-Torres himself interviewed about his Marvin Gaye interview, the first popular introduction of Gaye and how he thought of his artistry.
The audiotape of a candid moment ith Jim Morrison, apparently in a liquor store.
Fong-Torres reminds us that the coolest people are those who are not trying to be hip. A humble man among raging narcissists and ever the consummate professional, Fong-Torres behaved professionally even amid the hardest core rock star partying.
As his rock critic protege and now movie director Cameron Crowe describes him, Fong-Tores projects “a lightness and a gravitas at the same time“. The best interviewers are, as is Fong-Torres, good listeners; Fong-Torres’s signature technique has been to follow-up the answers to his question with a simple “tell me more“.
The documentary also gives Fong-Torres the chance to reveal the origin of his puzzling name: His Chinese father came to the US under a false Filipino passport as “Ricardo Torres” to evade the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres is streaming on Netflix.
Photo caption: Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin in JANE BY CHARLOTTE. Courtesy of Utopia.
In Jane by Charlotte, the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg examines the life of her mother Jane Birkin in a series of cinéma vérité candid moments and on-camera interviews. The English-born Birkin was a beauty in Swinging London known for her 1968-1980 Paris-based relationship with singer-songwriter lover Serge Gainsbourg, who is is a cult figure in France. Birkin and Gainsbourg collaborated in music and film, and were a celebrity couple.
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Birkin are an amiable mom-daughter, very comfortable with each other. Because of that, and perhaps because Birkin is so used to being in front of cameras (acting in movies, modeling and being hounded by paparazzi), Birkin opens up about her relationships, her parenting and what it’s like to physically age.
The thing is, I’m not really that interested in Jane Birkin (or Serge Gainsbourg, for that matter) – and I’m a Baby Boomer, formed in the era when Birkin was a minor pop icon. (Can someone be a minor icon?) Jane and Charlotte are two nice people, pleasant enough to spend 88 minutes with, but it’s not a compelling, unforgettable experience.
The one captivating segment of Jane by Charlotte is when Charlotte brings back Jane back to Serge Gainsbourg’s apartment, which Jane had not visited in four decades. Jane and Serge’s love nest for 12 years and Charlotte’s childhood home, it is fraught with memories and loaded with emotion. The museum-like apartment itself, reflecting Serge Gainsbourg’s singular taste and eclectic interests, is pretty cool.
BTW I’m a big fan of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s. She’s an often fearless and always interesting actor (including in Sundown earlier this year). (Just wish she hadn’t appeared in so many movies by that cynical provocateur Lars Von Trier; I originally posted that Von Trier was a dickwad, but The Wife made me change it.) This is Charlotte’s directing debut.
Photo caption: Bruce Mau in MAU. Courtesy of BABKA.
The term visionary is overused, but it surely fits Canadian designer Bruce Mau, the subject of the documentary Mau.
I generally think of design as the means to make objects more pleasing and useful and attractive to consumers. But Mau observes that almost everything we experience is not natural – and therefore DESIGNED. And if designed, it can be RE-DESIGNED to be more beautiful, more sustainable, more intelligent and more humane.
Bruce Mau thinks big. He has been retained to redesign Coca-Cola. And to redesign the millennium-old pilgrimage experience of Mecca. And to redesign the nation of Guatemala.
Mau’s upbringing and his work is somewhat interesting, as is his aspirational exhibition project Massive Action. But the most compelling aspect of Mau is the exposure to how Bruce Mau THINKS. Mau essentially becomes the world’s best TED Talk.
