music

AMY: emotionally affecting and thought-provoking

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AMY
Photo caption: Amy Winehouse in AMY. Courtesy of A24.

An Amy Winehouse movie (Back to Black) is coming out this weekend, but I’m not aware of any reason to go see it, when you can watch a great Amy Winehouse movie, an Oscar winner, at home. Amy, documentarian Asif Kapadia’s innovative biopic of the singer-songwriter, is heart-felt, engaging and features lots of the real Amy Winehouse.

In a brilliant directorial choice, Amy opens with a call phone video of a birthday party.  It’s a typically rowdy bunch of 14 year-old girls, and, when they sing “Happy Birthday”, the song is taken over and finished spectacularly by one of the girls, who turns out to be the young Amy Winehouse.   It shows us a regular girl in a moment of unaffected joy and friendship, but a girl with monstrous talent.

In fact ALL we see in Amy is footage of Amy.  Her family and friends were devoted to home movies and cell phone video, resulting in a massive trove of candid video of Amy Winehouse and an especially rich palette for Kapadia.

We have a ringside seat for Amy’s artistic rise and her demise, fueled by bulimia and substance addiction.  In a tragically startling sequence, her eyes signal the moment when her abuse of alcohol and pot gave way to crack and heroin.

We also see when she becomes the object of tabloid obsession. It’s hard enough for an addict to get clean, but it’s nigh impossible while being when harassed by the merciless paparazzi.

Amy makes us think about using a celebrity’s disease as a source of amusement – mocking the behaviorally unhealthy for our sport.  Some people act like jerks because they are jerks – others because they are sick.   Winehouse was cruelly painted as a brat, but she was really suffering through a spiral of despair.

The Amy Winehouse story is a tragic one, but Amy is very watchable because Amy herself was very funny and sharply witty.  As maddening as it was for those who shared her journey, it was also fun, from all reports.  Everyone who watches Amy will like Amy, making her fate all the more tragic.

Amy, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature can be streamed from Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and is included in Max and Hulu subscriptions.

ENNIO: the good, the bad and the transcendent

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Photo caption: Ennio Morricone in ENNIO. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

Ennio Morricone is one of the greatest composers of movie music and certainly the most original, and the thorough and well-sourced documentary Ennio traces his life and body of work. We hear from Morricone himself and plenty of talking heads – many film directors, composers and musicians, from Clint Eastwood to Bruce Springsteen.

Morricone is the first artist I’ve heard of who aspired to become a doctor, but was forced by his father to play trumpet. During WW II in Italy, the Morricone family business was a small town brass band that entertained occupying German, then American troops, which the young Ennio found humiliating. Nevertheless, he followed his talent into a music conservatory, and evolved into composing.

Circumstances brought him a gig writing movie music and led to his groundbreaking scores for Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Beginning with the whistle in A Fistful of Dollars, this now iconic music is described in Ennio as “cultural shock” “operatic” and a “whole new language”. We learn how Morricone built his score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly around his interpretation of a coyote howl. Great stuff.

Ennio’s other highlights include:

  • His work with Joan Baez for Sacco & Vanzetti in 1971.
  • His 9/11 symphony.
  • How he was snubbed by the Oscars for The Mission and The Untouchables before wining for The Hateful Eight.

Ennio takes two hours and 36 minutes to comprehensively survey Morricone’s entire career, and I would have preferred a shorter film more focused on the highlights. There is an unnecessarily long exit ramp of accolades at the end.

BTW I recommend listening to Morricone himself conduct an orchestra’s performance of his music from The Mission; search YouTube for “morricone conducts the mission”

Ennio is now available to stream on Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube.

CYPHER: the year’s most original movie?

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Photo caption: Tierra Whack in CYPHER. Courtesy of Hulu.

Filmmaker Chris Moukarbel toys with us in Cypher, an ingenious narrative in the form of a pseudo documentary about rapper Tierra Whack.

As in any music doc, we meet Whack (smart, genuine and naturally charming) and trace her artistic emergence. Whack’s real life team and Moukarbel’s real-life crew play themselves. Fifteen minutes in, they meet a fawning fan in a diner, an interesting woman who soon veers into conspiracy talk. Whack continues with a world tour, on the road to shooting a music video. Whack and Moukarbel are unsettled when secretly-filmed video of them shows up on social media. Moukarbel is hounded by the unbalanced daughter (Biona Bradley – perfect) of the woman in the diner. The intrusions become increasingly menacing, and are tied to the same conspiracy theory. Reeling, the film crew visits the daughter, but the threats only escalate, all the way to a showdown on a video shooting set.

It’s hard to tell when the story dips in and out of fiction, and this is definitely not a movie you’ve seen before. Cypher reminds us that we can enjoy and appreciate moies, even when we’re not sure what’s going on.

I screened Cypher for the Nashville Film Festival. Cypher is now streaming on Hulu.

THE STONES AND BRIAN JONES: casualty of rock

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Photo caption: Brian Jones in THE STONE AND BRIAN JONES. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

The Stones and Brian Jones tells the story of the ill-fated co-founder of The Rolling Stones. Most of us remember that Jones was fired from the band when his abuse of alcohol and drugs kept him from being able to record and perform with the band. This film delves into:

  • Jones’ unhappiness with Mick Jagger and Keith Richard’s diversification of the Stone’s portfolio beyond American Blues.
  • Jones’ insecurity about his role in the Stones being eclipsed by the band’s primary songwriters, Jagger and Richards.
  • Jones’ complex relationship with his parents.
  • The essential testimony of Jones’ girlfriends and those of other Stones (but not from the late Alita Pallenberg, who emerges as a villain in the story).

The most revelatory moments in The Stones and Brian Jones come from Jones’ bandmate, bassist Bill Wyman, who explains Jones’ musical contributions by pointing them out as we hear Stones songs.

Wisely, The Stones and Brian Jones doesn’t spend much time on Jones’ very unmysterious death. Somebody who mixes large amount of barbiturates and alcohol daily just isn’t going to survive very long, especially when they also get in swimming pools alone at night. Jones’ death occurred before premature substance abuse deaths of celebrity music figures (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Mama Cass, Jim Morrison, Gram Parsons, Keith Moon) became more commonplace.

This is a competent and extremely well-sourced doc, which helps us understand someone who played a key role in forming an iconic band, but it’s not a Must See rock documentary. The Stones and Brian Jones is streaming on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK: triple-threat trailblazers

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Photo caption: Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.

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.

FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.

It’s pretty clear that sexism in the music industry and media, 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.

These women can still really rock in their 70s, and they’re a hoot. Tomorrow night, May 17, they’ll perform for one time at the Whisky A-Go-Go to commemorate the 50 year anniversary of their now infamous club performance at the Whisky.

Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.

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. On May 22, you can watch it on your very own television when It will be broadcast on PBS and begin streaming on on PBS.ORG and the PBS APP.

HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN, A JOURNEY, A SONG: a reflective artist, a reflective movie

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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. I’m reposting about this film because it is finally widely available to stream.

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 now available to stream from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.

LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING: never denying his identity, but renouncing it

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Photo caption: Little Richard in LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Little Richard: I Am Everything traces the life of the trailblazing rock-and-roller, and it is NOT your paint-by-the-numbers showbiz biodoc. Director Lisa Cortés (Primetime Emmy winner) has superbly framed the two defining aspects of Little Richard – an unfettered confidence in his exuberant performances and an uneasy assessment of himself as a flamboyant gay man.

As one would expect, Cortés lays out Little Richard’s importance in the very beginning of rock and roll – writing hard-driving hits, many with unmistakably sexualized lyrics and performing them with then unseen animation. Before Elvis. During Jim Crow. Before African-American music was played on mainstream radio.

Most strikingly, from the very beginning, Little Richard never tried to dress or act like a heterosexual male. (Baby Boomers will recall that this was the age of an unconvincingly closeted Liberace and no other hints of homosexuality in American mass culture)

As much as we see Little Richard in later work by artists like David Bowie, Elton John and Prince, there were performers that Little Richard himself emulated. In a staggering achievement in sourcing, Cortés brings us photos and film of queer black performers of the 1940s whom Little Richard saw – and some he worked with as a teenager. I’ve seen plenty of documentaries on showbiz, LGBTQ and African-American history, and I’ve never seen much of this material.

Little Richard is a difficult case for queer people because, although he was an important role model who never DENIED being a gay man, he sporadically RENOUNCED his own sexual identity. He is a difficult case for all of us, because his music would celebrate sex as naughty fun, but then he would occasionally scare himself back into backwoods religion.

Little Richard: I Am Everything also reveals the original lyrics of Tutti Frutti, and how they were cleaned up to Tutti frutti, oh rootie.

David Bowie is joined by Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Tom Jones in appreciating Little Richard’s pioneering career. John Waters reveals that his own pencil-thin mustache is an homage to Little Richard’s.

Little Richard: I Am Everything touches on rock music, race in America, drugs, sex and sexual identity – and spends a lot of time on sex and sexual identity sex drugs. It’s a remarkable insightful profile of a complicated man who was himself very fun for us to watch.

THE RETURN OF TANYA TUCKER: FEATURING BRANDI CARLILE: she’s still a handful

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THE RETURN OF TANYA TUCKER.: FEATURING BRANDI CARLILE. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile is a portrait of a music legend with sapped confidence, whose career is jumpstarted by admiring younger musicians. The audience gets a glimpse into the creative process of writing of a song, an Emmy winner at that.

Tanya Tucker, in showbiz from age 9, exploded onto the country music scene with the monster hit Delta Dawn at 13. After stardom in her teen years and a Wild Child period in her twenties, her career dipped, setting up a comeback in her thirties. Now sixty, by 2019 she hadn’t released any recording for 17 years.

In 2019, Shooter Jennings began a project to showcase Tucker’s talent with new material (a la Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash) and invited Brandi Carlile to help. Carlile, a huge Tanya Tucker fan, became central to the project, coaxing Tucker along, pumping up her confidence and riding the roller coaster of Tucker’s reliability issues. The Return of Tanya Tucker is essentially a “making of” documentary about the project.

Now 60 and looking older, Tucker has a lot of mileage on her (and has launched her own brand of tequila, named with the Spanish translation of Wild Thing). Carlile finds out that Tucker is a handful.

Tucker is still a formidable song stylist, though, with a distinctive cry-in-her-beer break in her voice. The project goes better than anyone could have expected, and there’s a Feel Good ending. The Wife particularly enjoyed this film.

I screened The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile for the Nashville Film Festival. It is now in theaters.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES: what Armstrong was really thinking

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Photo caption: LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES. Courtesy of AppleTV.

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues affirms my observation that, ideally, a satisfying documentary requires a great subject and great source material. For decades, apparently focused on his historical legacy, Louis Armstrong audiotaped his conversations with visiting friends, preserving his candid thoughts and reflections on his life and times. His family has made those taped conversations available to the filmmakers and Armstrong’s own words are a revelation.

Armstrong’s public Satchmo persona, perpetually upbeat and non-threatening, made White Americans comfortable and seemed Uncle Tom-like to younger Black Americans. Armstrong’s own words in private (he preferred being called Pops) leave no doubt about his own complicated thoughts. Armstrong, who was raised in the South at the height of the lynching period, was clear-eyed and resolute about American racism. His perception of personal safety and commercial viability intentionally guided his self-invented image and, also, the roles in the Civil Rights movement that he adopted and that he declined.

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues also lays out Armstrong’s pivotal influences on impact on vocal popular music, on jazz and on American music. We also see Armstrong’s private personality with his family and intimates.

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues, which closed this year’s Nashville Film Festival, is steaming on AppleTV.

TAR: a haughty spirit before a fall

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Photo caption: Cate Blanchett in TAR. Courtesy of Focus Features.

Tar, Todd Field’s exploration of #MeToo and Cancel Culture, is a showcase for the considerable acting talent of Cate Blanchett. We immediately accept her as Lydia Tar, a superstar orchestra conductor. Lydia is an international thought leader in music, she speaks fluent German, and big SAT words flow off her tongue in her regular speech. She’s also imperious and abuses her privilege.

We’re used to powerful men abusing their position, but Field, by centering on a powerful woman, unpeels our kneejerk reactions. Here’s a person who has earned her status by talent and accomplishment – but she’s just too mean and selfish.

Of course, it is written that pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. These days, a viral internet can bring destruction and fall with shocking suddenness. In Tar, the telling of Lydia Tar’s final arc is compelling.

But Tar is almost two-and-a-half hours long, and the middle part is too long. Field invests about an hour and forty minutes in showing us how masterful Tar is. Having already gotten his point in the first forty-five minutes, I nodded off.

I found a very public flameout at the end to be implausible, but the Wife found it believable.

The cast is excellent, especially Nina Hoss (Barbara and Phoenix) as Lydia’s spouse and Noémie Merlant (Jumbo, Curiosa) as her seemingly fragile assistant.

Todd Field has made three feature films, the others being the superb 2001 family psychological drama In the Bedroom and my choice for the best film of 2006, Little Children.

Note: most of what usually goes in a movie’s closing credits (gaffers, best boys, caterers, drivers, accountants and the like) is in Tar’s opening credits. The closing credits only includes the cast, the music and the musicians. Odd.

Blanchett’s performance deserves an Oscar nomination, but I wouldn’t sit the the whole movie again in a theater.