Photo caption: Janis Ian in JANIS IAN: BREAKING SILENCE. Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment.
In Janis Ian, Breaking Silence, the biodoc of the earnest pop-folk singer-songwriter, a teen prodigy steps onto the roller coaster of the music industry at a tender age and experiences the highest highs and the lowest lows. And, it turns out that there’s more to Janis Ian than Society’s Child and At Seventeen.
The word prodigy is overused, but accurately describes Ian, who was doing professional-level song-writing at age 14. Her dad answers a booking request on the home phone with with, “You know she’s only 15, right?“
We’re not surprised that Ian experiences the shock of instant national stardom, the vicissitudes of record companies, the proverbial crooked business managers, (but not as MANY drugs as in most music biodocs). But it’s insightful to hear from Ian herself about how all this seemed and felt as it happened. Ian recounts her relationships while touring, with both men and women, and the impact of being outed involuntarily.
When Ian is unexpectedly confronted by someone who broke her heart years before, she blurts out the perfect last laugh.
Janis Ian: Breaking Silence was made with Janis Ian’s cooperation, and takes a very sympathetic point of view; that’s okay because Ian herself is clear-eyed, self-deprecating and maintains a solid, often wry, perspective on her experience. Janis Ian herself testifies, along with others close to her (including old pals Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez).
This is the third feature for director Varda Bar-Kar, who is aided by excellent editing from Ryan Larkin in his first feature.
The theatrical release of Janis Ian: Breaking Silence is rolling out, including California cinemas: Laemmle NoHo, Laemmle Monica, SBIFF Film Center, SBIFF Riviera, Smith Rafael Film Center, Rialto Cinemas Elmwood and Rialto Cinemas Sebastopol.
Photo caption: Thomas Kinkade in ART FOR EVERYBODY. Courtesy of Tremolo Productions.
Art for Everybody, the absorbing and revelatory biodoc of painter-entrepreneur Thomas Kinkade, begins with an audio recording of a 16-year-old Kinkade, aspiring to become a famous painter when he grew up – but not a poor one. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, harvesting great wealth by creating demand where none had existed and filling it with what he, controversially, called art. After trading on his conservative Christianity, his business model became unsustainable, and Kinkade, living apart from his family, drank himself to death.
That’s a hell of a rise-and-fall story arc, but it gets better. After his death, his family finally saw the other 90% of Kinkade’s work, secreted away in a room they had called “the vault”. Those paintings, so shockingly different than his commercial ones, revealed a Kinkade that he had hidden from everyone. I like documentaries that are jaw-droppers, and this is one. In her first feature, director Miranda Yousef, who also edited, unspools Kinkade’s story flawlessly.
Kinkade, an astonishingly fast and prolific painter, built his empire on sentimental and comforting landscapes with exaggerated light features, such as warm light glowing from the windows of a forest cabin at night. That signature became the Kinkade brand, and he even trademarked the self-given moniker, “Painter of Light”. Because they don’t evoke anything but passive contentedness, I wouldn’t even describe these paintings as art, but rather as decoration or collectibles.
Their themes are more fantasy than nostalgia. For example Art for Everybody shows a Kinkade street scene of busy San Francisco, filled only with all-white, heterosexual families; as a lifelong Northern Californian (like me), Kinkade would surely have known that this was a San Francisco that has never existed.
Kinkade’s open religiosity attracted customers and investors. He exploited the culture wars and even advocated the censorship of other artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano.
Kinkade, busy opening galleries in shopping malls, was already the painter who had sold the most canvases and prints in history before many in the fine art world had ever heard of him. In 2001, when Susan Orlean profiled him in The New Yorker, pointing out that ten million people owned Kinkade products, the traditional art critics seemed to howl in unison, “how DARE he?“
Art for Everybody is impeccably sourced with testimony from Kinkade’s wife and kids, his siblings, the co-founder of his company, along with Orlean and a bevy of experts in the fine arts world. I can’t remember a documentary where the subject’s family was more clear-eyed about their deceased loved one. They clearly love the guy, but pull no punches about his quirks and flaws.
In one revelatory moment, Yousef shows us a home movie of Kinkade taking his family back to see the modest house where his single mom raised Thomas and his siblings. As a kid, Kinkade was deeply ashamed of this home, and vowed to live more comfortably as an adult. As Kinkade shows his wife and kids around, it’s clear that he saw it as hell hole. Placerville, however, is not a bougie place, and Kinkade doesn’t report that he was spurned or teased because of his home, nor do his siblings seemed to be scarred by it. Clearly, the shame he felt was internally driven. Kinkade’s brother spells out what appealed to Kinkade about painting cozy cottages.
This was a a very complicated man – fun-loving dad and workaholic, a talented fine artist who aimed for the lowest common denominator. Once we’ve seen him as a proudly philistine huckster, it’s breathtaking to discover what he painted for himself and hid away. Might Kinkade have destroyed himself by not working out his demons through his art?
After premiering at the 2023 SXSW and a strong festival run, Art for Everybody is rolling out in theaters.
Photo caption: CHAOS: THE MANSON MURDERS. Courtesy of Netflix.
Master documentarian Erroll Morris revisits and updates the Manson Murders in Chaos: The Manson Murders. After over a half-century, it’s still a chilling, unforgettable story – human behavior so bizarre and transgressive that it’s almost incredible.
Morris introduces us to writer Tom O’Neill, who adds a conspiracy theory. .O’Neill accepts that the Manson Family perpetrated the murders at Charlie Manson’s direction,, but he also sees a connection between Manson and a CIA-funded experiment in mind control, although he doesn’t prove a link. It’s clear that Morris doesn’t buy the conspiracy.
What does Chaos: The Manson Murders add to to our understanding, besides the probably bogus conspiracy theory? The passage of time has added sources and perspective that Morris uses to retell the story more completely than in the past. One dispassionate and ultra-credible source is one of the prosecution team, Stephen Kay, an eyewitness to and participant in the trials. Morris has also found archival footage of interviews with members of the Manson Family and, yes, of Charlie himself.
That allows Morris to unspool a chronological narrative that begins with Manson’s release from prison, his assembling his family of misfits in San Francisco and moving them all to LA so he could dabble in the music industry – just enough to develop a grudge. Morris tells the lesser-known stories of the prequel crimes, the murder of Gary Hinman and the attempted murder of Bernard Crowe, who Manson mistook for a Black Panther because of his Afro. And then finally, the horrors on Cielo Drive and Waverly Drive.
For 46 years, Erroll Morris has been one of the greatest documentarians, with a body of work that ranges from the hilarious (Gates of Heaven, Vernon Florida, Fast Cheap and Out of Control, Tabloid) to the unflinching (The Thin Blue Line, Mr. Death, The Fog of War, Standard Operating Procedure),
(BTW a friend of mine on a prison tour was actually introduced to Charlie Manson in the prison yard. He reported that, indeed, Manson creeped him out with a very scary vibe.)
Chaos: The Manson Murders, the ultimate true crime doc, is streaming on Netflix.
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.
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: 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.
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.
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.
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 withTwin Fences will be rewarded. I screened Twin Fences for its North American premiere at Slamdance.
