Benjamin Netanyahu in KINGS OF CAPITOL HILL. Photo courtesy of JFI.
The Israeli documentary Kings of Capitol Hill traces the history of an American political institution, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Founded as a lobby group to advocate for the interests of Israel, AIPAC has grown in power and has shifted (and narrowed) its mission.
AIPAC is controversial because the policies of the recent right-wing Israeli governments, supported by AIPAC, and those of most Jewish-Americans have diverged.
Kings of Capitol Hill highlights two pivotal moments. The first came in 1984 when Paul Simon unseated Charles Percy as US Senator from Illinois, and AIPAC was given the credit and the accompanying political fearsomeness. The second came a decade later, when AIPAC abruptly rejected bipartisanship to become a mouthpiece for the Israeli Right and the US Republican Party.
For 60 years, AIPAC leaders have refused to be interviewed about the organization. Israeli filmmaker Mor Loushy has secured the oral histories of many of AIPAC’s top leadership from its founding and fashioned them into a compelling story.
Note: The film was completed before both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, two of Kings of Capitol Hill’s villains, were unseated in the past nine months.
I screened Kings of Capitol Hill for this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, which opens on Friday. You can peruse the festival’s program and schedule at SFJFF, and here’s my own SFJFF preview. Here’s where you can stream Kings of Capitol Hill.
Photo caption: ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain is an unusually profound, revealing and unsentimental biodoc. Rarely has a documentary revealed so much about such a complicated and ambiguous person. Roadrunner deliberately builds into a triumph for director Morgan Neville, Oscar-winner for 20 Feet from Stardom.
In Roadrunner, we hear from Bourdain’s brother, second wife and his close friends and associates. His friends were creatives – artists, musicians, writers, chefs. His work partners — agent, publisher, producers, TV crew – had all stayed with him for many years.
Bourdain attained overnight celebrity as the Bad Boy chef with his ribald and iconoclastic memoir Kitchen Confidential. That platform propelled him into his television career as a traveling professional foodie – and then as a professional traveler.
I didn’t know that, before his TV shows, Bourdain had not traveled outside the US except for boyhood visits to family in France. One friend observes that, “his travels were in his head“. Tony himself was allured by the chance to “have adventures while antisocial“. Bourdain’s brother said that Tony was “reborn” through travel.
ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN
Bourdain was so fun to watch because he was a kind of adult Holden Caulfield, perpetually aggrieved by phoniness in any form. The dark humor in his caustic observations was unfiltered. Yet, Bourdain was an unexpectedly shy man for such a bad ass. Often, when someone (including Bourdain himself) made an incisive statement, Tony would furtively glance directly into the camera – was this his “tell”?
His friends saw Bourdain, despite his overt cynicism, as a romantic . Romantics are always disappointed in – and sometimes betrayed by – reality.
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain does reveal what upset him on the night that he, cold sober, chose to kill himself. But it doesn’t label that disappointment as the simplistic reason for his suicide. Instead, Roadrunner thoughtfully documents his life as a “runner”, focusing his addictive personality on everything from heroin to jujitsu to evade his demons.
Ultimately, Roadrunner is about the people who loved Tony and his difficulty in accepting their love. The saddest scene in Roadrunner recounts when Tony dramatically summoned his producers and proclaimed that he needed to quit; he never anticipated that, far from pushing back, that they would be wholly supportive.
Bourdain was beloved by his fans (including me). If you need a dose of the sentimentality that Roadrunner eschews (and there’s nothing wrong with that), CNN-produced retrospectives are available in episodes 93 and 95 of Parts Unknown, which can be streamed from HBO Max.
[Note: Roadrunner has provoked some contretemps in the chattering class. A computer-simulated voice reads one of Bourdain’s emails as if it were Bourdain himself, and Neville chose not to invite Asia Argento, Bourdain’s last girlfriend, to participate as a talking head (although we see and hear plenty of her on film). In both cases, Neville was seeking the fundamental truth about Bourdain and made the absolutely best choices as a filmmaker. Ignore the hoohaw.]
One more thing – Neville went with the perfect ending for Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, so perfect that, now that I’ve seen it, I can’t imagine any better one. This is one of the Best Movies of 2021.
Mama Weed: In this French comic thriller, a woman (Isabelle Huppert) embraces an increasingly bizarre and risky plan. Mama Weed starts out droll and blossoms into madcap.
The Boys in Red Hats: A documentarian’s point of view shifts as he peels back the onion on a social media frenzy. It comes down to insights into media, social media and, especially, White privilege. I screened The Boys in Red Hats for its world premiere at Cinequest,. Now it’s in theaters and also streaming on Virtual Cinema.
Augustine: obsession, passion and the birth of a science. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
Don’t miss the once-lost Argentine film noir masteriece Bitter Stems (Los tallos amargos). On Turner CLassic Movies on Saturday night and Sunday morning on TCM’s Noir Alley.
Vassili Lambrinos and Carlos Cores in BITTER STEMS
Photo caption: Vassili Lambrinos and Carlos Cores in BITTER STEMS
Turner Classic Movies brings us a rare treat this Saturday and Sunday, July 17-18, the recently recovered Argentine masterpiece of film noir – The Bitter Stems (Los tallos amargos). TCM will air it on Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley.
The Bitter Stems was listed as one of the “50 Best Photographed Films of All-Time” by American Cinematographer. It won the Silver Condor (the Argentine Oscar) for both Best Picture and Best Director (Fernando Ayala).
The Bitter Stems was thought to be lost until a print was discovered in a private collection in 2014 and restored with the support of Muller’s Film Noir Foundation. I saw it – and was enthralled – at the 2016 Noir City film festival in San Francisco. That was probably The Bitter Stem’s US premiere and probably the first time that it was projected for any theater audience in over fifty years.
There is often an Icarus theme in film noir, with protagonists who over-reach and risk a lethal fall. Here, Gaspar (Carlos Cores), a grasping Argentine journalist, conspires with Hungarian immigrant Liudas (Vassili Lambrinos) to concoct a fraud that will make them a quick and easy fortune. Unfortunately, the scheme requires a hamster-in-the-wheel effort to stay ahead of collapse – and everything must go just right…
Lambrinos’ performance is particularly sui generis.
This was a very early film for director Fernando Ayala, who went on to establish himself as one of Argentina’s major directors. Cinematographer Ricardo Younis had studied under Greg Toland, who originated the groundbreaking techniques in Citizen Kane. Ayala and Younis combined to create the film’s storied dream sequence – one of the most surreal in cinema (see images below).
The Bitter Stems (Los tallos amargos) is a masterpiece, but almost nobody has seen it in over fifty years. Don’t miss it this time – set your DVR.
THE BOYS IN RED HATS. Photo courtesy of Shark Dog Films.
Remember the resulting frenzy when the Kentucky prep school boy at the Lincoln Memorial smirked at the indigenous tribal elder? Documentarian Jonathan Schroder is an alum of that very prep school – Covington Catholic or “CovCath”. In The Boys in Red Hats, his point of view shifts as he peels back the onion on what really happened. It comes down to insights into media, social media and, especially, White privilege.
Like most of us, Schroder was initially outraged at the boys; as more facts emerged, he became sympathetic to what seemed like mistreatment of the boys in social media. Don’t give up on this movie as a whitewash – as the story gets more complicated and Schroder becomes more reflective, his needle sways back and forth until the final payoff.
This was a Rorschach event at the Lincoln Memorial. One thing is for sure, these privileged kids and their chaperones, confronted by a crazy hate group (Black Hebrew Israelites), were unequipped to deal with a momentary convergence of disorder and diversity.
To put my own cards on the table, I am not disposed to sympathize with rich kids who were comfortable in being shipped to an anti-choice rally, wearing MAGA hats. In The Boys in Red Hats, the journalist Anne Branigan’s perspective most resonated with me.
Schroder gives plenty of rope to a professional conservative talking head, two CovCath dads and the school’s alumni director, none of whom display a modicum of sensitivity or empathy to those less rich, less white or less male than they.
Schroder sees the significance when one of his CovCath buddies says, “I like my bubble”.
I screened The Boys in Red Hats for its world premiere at Cinequest, and it made my Best of Cinequest 2021. The Boys in Red Hats releases in theaters and streaming on Virtual Cinema on July 16.
In the French comic thriller Mama Weed, Isabelle Huppert plays Patience, a woman beset by money troubles stemming from the care of her aged mother. She embraces an increasingly bizarre and risky solution. Mama Weed starts out droll and blossoms into madcap.
Patience, having been born in colonial Algeria, is fluent in Arabic. Her day job is as the translator for a French police unit that wiretaps Arabic-speaking drug dealers. She learns that the cop are about to take down the son of her mom’s beloved caregiver, and she tips the kid off. That results in her gaining the possession of a ton and a half of somebody else’s hashish. Patience disguises herself, enlists some dimwitted street dealers and seeks to monetize her haul. Did I mention that she is dating her boss on the Narc Squad?
Her own employers are now throwing all their resources toward catching this mysterious new dealer, whom they don’t know is sitting in their midst. The original owners of the hash, a murderous lot, are also hunting her down.
She’s more and more at risk, but the story gets commensurately funnier. She adopts a retired drug-detecting police dog. One of her client drug dealers is ravaged by the Munchies in a kabob shop. Much of the humor is centered on the experience of Arabs and Chinese in contemporary France. One central theme is the cynical principle that money makes world go round.
Mama Weed also recognizes how we value the caregivers who take loving care of our elderly parents; those folks can become more dear than family.
I’ll watch anything with Huppert in it, although it’s hard to top her electrifying performance in Elle.Of course she’s a great actress, having been nominated 16 times for an acting César (France’s Oscar). But here’s her sweet spot – no other actor can portray such outrageous behavior with such implacability as Huppert. She is probably the least hysterical actor in cinema.
Mama Weed opens in theaters in July 16 and on digital on July 23.
Photo caption: Riley Keough and Taylour Paige in ZOLA. Photo courtesy of A24 Films.
The titular character in Zola (Taylour Paige, Ma’s girlfriend in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) is a waitress in a Hooters-like joint in Detroit and an occasional pole-dancer. Zola accepts an invitation from Stefani (Riley Keough, Capable in Mad Max: Fury Road) for a weekend roadtrip to Tampa to make some quick cash stripping. Stefani is the most recent of acquaintances, and Zola doesn’t realize until it’s too late that the Tampa weekend is going to be a harrowing misadventure.
Off they go with Stefani’s boyfriend (Nicholas Braun) and Stefani’s mysterious “friend” (Colman Domingo). It is revealed that Stefani is a basket of bad choices, dangerous entanglements and treacherous mendacity. The trashy fun quickly descends into the appalling, the disgusting and the terrifying.
Zola has widely been called a comedy. It is filled with very funny moments, but it is about dysfunction and exploitation, and it’s not a relaxing watch.
Zola is the first feature for director Janicza Bravo, and it is a highly original film:
Bravo co-wrote the screenplay “based on the Tweets by A’Ziah King”, a series of 148 Tweets that recounted an actual occurrence in real time.
Zola is a film by a BIPOC female director on sexual exploitation.
There is no female nudity, but there is male nudity.
Riley Keough, who is white, plays Stefani with a blaccent and in what Taylour Paige calls “blackface” after discussing cultural appropriation with Bravo.
Stefani’s boyfriend (Nicholas Braun) is astonishingly dumb, so much so that he asks, “do you think I’m stupid?”. There are varieties of melons that are smarter than this guy. Braun throws himself into this character without any hint of irony, which makes him him even funnier.
Other comic highlights:
A brief rehash of the story from Stefani’s outrageously deceitful point of view.
An enthusiastic pre-dance group prayer by the strippers.
Ben Bladon, a character actor who usually plays zombies, makes the most of his turn as a strip club patron who utters what he thinks is a complement.
Riley Keough is the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, and I keep mixing her up with Jenny Lewis’ old band Rilo Kiley.
They say that acting is reacting, and Taylour Paige is excellent as our prism for the story. Keough has the showier part, and Paige is usually observing Stefani’s antics with some combination of annoyance, disgust, and increasing desperation. Paige is effective as Zola’s anchor.
Zola is now in theaters. Just make sure you don’t think that Zola is a naughty, light comedy.
Sly Stone in SUMMER OF SOUL (…OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED)
In Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Questlove recovers the never-before-seen film of the Harlem Cultural Festival over six weekends in 1969. The promoters had tried to market the footage as “the Black Woodstock”, but had no takers at the time (for the obvious reason).
This is a superb concert film, but that’s not all it is. 1969 was an important historical and cultural moment – especially for American Blacks, and Questlove supplies the context. A 2021 audience cannot miss the parallels between 1969’s Black Is Beautiful and Black Power and today’s Black Lives/Black Voices.
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson is widely-known as drummer of The Roots and bandleader for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Creative and versatile, he is Emmy-nominated and Grammy-winning, he is going to win an Oscar for this, his directorial debut for a feature film. Summer of Soul proves that Questlove is such a gifted storyteller that I hope he takes on narrative fictional filmmaking, too.
The music in Summer of Soul is fantastic:
Sly and the Family Stone shattered expectations with their garb, racially integrated band and female musicians on trumpet and keyboards. Their psychedelic funk and super-charged ebullience blew away the audience. (BTW Vallejo native Sly Stone is now age 78.)
Stevie Wonder was only 19, 3 years before Superstition, and already taking his remarkable creativity and musicianship down new roads.
Gladys Knight and the Pips – watch the Pips and appreciate how those guys really worked it.
BB King at the height of his popular breakthrough, singing Why I Sing the Blues.
The Fifth Dimension were best sellers among the white mainstream – and here they were finally accepted by a Black audience. Billy Davis Jr. and Miriam McCoo get to relive the experience on camera in one of Summer of Soul’s most touching moments.
The musical high point is a rendition of Precious Lord, Take My Hand by Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples. Mahalia was then 58 and a legend, and this was her signature song. Mavis was already a showbiz veteran at 30 and at the top of her game. The Reverend Jesse Jackson introduces the song with a heartbreaking account of Martin Luther King asking for this, his favorite hymn, seconds before his murder. Mahalia was not feeling well, and asked Mavis to kick off the song. Mavis’ first verse is volcanic, then Mahalia takes over and the two finish together in an explosion of emotions. Epic.
Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson in SUMMER OF SOUL (…OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED)
Something else happened that summer – the manifestation of JFK’s pledge to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. Questlove uses file footage of person-on-the-street interviews to contrast the reactions of Blacks and Whites. It’s a Rorschach test of privilege and alienation.
Gladys Knight recounts “it wasn’t just about the music”. BB King performed here just weeks after the release of The Thrill Is Gone, and he must have included Thrill in his set, but I’m sure that Questlove instead chose Why I’m Singing the Blues to focus on that song’s larger subtext for Black Americans.
And the need to show the militant commitment to self-determination must be why Questlove features so much of Nina Simone at her rawest. If she had ever worried about being too harsh, Simone was well past that point in 1969.
On a lighter note, ironic sombrero-wearing must have been a thing in Harlem that summer – check out the crowd shots (and drink a shot for every sombrero.)
Summer of Soul etc. etc. has also earned the #13 ranking on my list of Longest Movie Titles.
How good is Summer of Soul, which swept the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at Sundance? It’s hard to imagine it not winning the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, and I’m guessing it will be that rare doc nominated for Best Picture. FWIW I’m putting it on my list of Best Movies of 2021 – So Far.
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is in theaters and streaming on Hulu. It’s worth watching for the music and worth it for the history, too; for the combination, it’s a Must See.
Don Cheadle in NO SUDDEN MOVE. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
Double crosses abound in Steven Soderbergh’s neo-noir thriller No Sudden Move. Here’s all you need to know about the story – two Detroit hoods, Curt (Don Cheadle) and Ronald (Benicio Del Toro) are hired for a one-time job. They are being substantially overpaid for the job, which means that they might be getting set up…
The plot contains more betrayals than movie stars, and No Sudden Move is star-studded – Cheadle, Del Toro, Matt Damon, Jon Hamm, Ray Liotta, Bill Duke, David Harbour and a very, very fleshy Brendan Fraser. Amy Seimetz, the noted indie director of Sun Don’t Shineand She Dies Tomorrow. is in here, too.
Soderbergh relishes genre movies, and here he delivers a satisfying thriller. There have been comments about the plot being challenging to follow, but I didn’t have a problem keeping the twists coherent. One of the persistent themes in film noir and neo-noir is the riskiness of overreaching – and No Sudden Move is instructive about settling for one’s share.
For the Fourth of July weekend, I’m recommending going to theaters to see The Sparks Brothers or In the Heights, OR streaming Riders of Justice.
Last night I saw one of the year’s most eagerly-awaited films – and it;s great: Questlove’s Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revo’ution Could Not Be Televised). Now in theaters and on Hulu.
Censor: less scary and suspenseful than it is unpleasant.
ON VIDEO
Riders of Justice: It’s the year’s best movie so far. A character-driven comedy thriller embedded with deeper stuff. Marvelous. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
Slow Machine: An incomprehensible art film that is surprisingly engrossing. At Laemmle now and coming to the Roxie.
The Courier: Benedict Cumberbatch stars in this true story of Cold War espionage. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE
About Endlessness: Damned if I know. Streaming on Amazon, Vudu and YouTube.
On July 3, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the 1951 Alfred Hitchcock suspense thriller Strangers on a Train – one of his very best. A hypothetical discussion about murdering inconvenient people turns out to be not so hypothetical.
Robert Walker plays Bruno, one of the creepiest villains in movie history. Guy (San Jose native Farley Granger) thinks that Bruno is just an oddball – until it’s too late. The tennis match and carousel finale are epic set pieces.
