Movies

WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT: her soul and her heart

by
Guy Clark holds his favorite photo of Susanna Clark in WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT

The lyrical documentary Without Getting Killed or Caught is centered on the life of seminal singer-songwriter Guy Clark, a poetic giant of Americana and folk music. That would be enough grist for a fine doc, but Without Getting Killed or Caught also focuses on Clark’s wife, Susanna Clark, a talented painter (album covers for Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris) and songwriter herself (#1 hit I’ll Be Your San Antone Rose). What’s more, Guy’s best friend, the troubled songwriter Townes Van Zandt, and Susanna revered each other. Van Zandt periodically lived with the Clarks – that’s a lot of creativity in that house – and a lots of strong feelings.

Susanna Clark said it thus, “one is my soul and the other is my heart.”

The three held a salon in their Nashville home, and mentored the likes of Rodney Crowell and Steve Earle. You can the flavor of the salon in the 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways (AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube). It features Townes Van Zandt’s rendition of his Waitin’ Round to Die. (Susanna was also a muse for Rodney Crowell, who, after her death, wrote the angry song Life Without Susanna.)

Documentarians Tamara Saviano and Paul Whitfield, have unearthed a great story, primarily sourced by Susanna’s diaries; Sissy Spacek voices Susanna’s words. These were artsy folks so there are plenty of exquisite photos of the subjects, too. It all adds up to a beautiful film, spinning the story of these storytellers.

Guy and Susanna Clark in WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT

I loved this movie, but I’m having trouble projecting its appeal to a general audience, because I am so emotionally engaged with the subject material. I’m guessing that the unusual web of relationships and the exploration of the creative process is universal enough for any audience, even if you’re not a fanboy like me.

The title comes from Guy’s song LA Freeway, a hit for Jerry Jeff Walker:

I can just get off of this L.A. freeway

Without gettin’ killed or caught

There is plenty for us Guy Clarkophiles:

  • the back story for Desperados Waiting for a Train;
  • the identity of LA Freeway’s Skinny Dennis;
  • Guy’s final return from touring, with the declaration “let’s recap”.

There’s also the story of Guy’s ashes; the final resolution is not explicit in the movie but you can figure it out; here’s the story.

Without Getting Killed or Caught is in very limited theatrical run; I saw at the Balboa in its last Bay Area screening.

WILDLAND: giving family ties a bad name

by
Photo caption: Sandra Guldberg Kampp in WILDLAND. Photo courtesy of BAC Films.

In the remarkable Danish neo-noir Wildland, teenage Ida (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) is orphaned and is placed with relatives that she doesn’t really know. She gradually learns that the family, headed by her mom’s estranged sister (Sidse Babett Knudsen) is a ruthless criminal enterprise.

Will Ida become entangled in a life of crime? Can she escape? Wildland simmers and evolves into a nail biter right up to its noir-stained epilogue.

WILDLAND. Photo courtesy of Snowglobe.

Wildland is a study in both study in teen psychology (why doesn’t she report these criminals?) and in dysfunctional family dynamics. The aunt is the indisputable matriarch, and not only runs the crime crew like Tony Soprano, but also seeks to control the personal lives of her adult sons. She infantilizes them, keeps them all living on her house and expects to pick their romantic partners. Jonas (Joachim Fjelstrup), the oldest and most functional-appearing son, is always affable and seems in control – until his mother has a conflicting whim.

Sidse Babett Knudsen was Mads Mikkelsen’s co-star in Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding, which I pegged as the second-best movie of its year. Playing a prime minister, she was the lead in the political drama series Borgen, a huge, 30-episode hit in Denmark and the UK. Here, Knudson goes downscale as a trashy, middle-aged mom, still with a saucy walk; she’s always in control – until she isn’t.

Sandra Guldberg Kampp, with her watchful and ever-observant demeanor is perfect as Ida. This is a breakthrough, possibly star-making, performance.

Wildland is the first feature for director Jeanette Nordahl, who also had the idea for the story. The movie’s original Danish title Kød & Blod literally translates as Flesh and Blood.

Wildland has been compared to the Aussie neo-noir Animal Kingdom, which garnered Jacki Weaver an Oscar nod as the ever-ebullient grandma who puts out a hit on her own grandson. Animal Kingdom also featured the crime matriarch with a set of thuggish sons and lots of suspense, but it featured more action than does Wildland – fence-jumping escapes and a shooting at the finale. Wildland is more deeply psychological.

Wildland is streaming on Virtual Cinema at Laemmle.

Previewing the Nashville Film Festival

by
Brian Wilson in BRIAN WILSON: LONG PROMISED ROAD. Photo courtesy of Nashville Film Festival

The Nashville Film Festival opens on Thursday, September 30 and runs through October 6 with a diverse menu of cinema, available both in-person and on-line. I have already seen over a dozen films in the program, and I’m impressed so far. I’m am heading back to Nashville for my first in-person film festival coverage since March 2020.

The Nashville Film Festival is the oldest running film festival in the South and is an Academy Award qualifying festival. The program includes a mix of indies, docs and international cinema, including world and North American premieres.

This year’s fest opens strong with the in-person screening of Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, an unusual documentary about an unusual man.  The Beach Boys’ songwriting and arranging genius weighs in on his life and work.  The extremely terse Brian Wilson would not be the ideal subject for a conventional interview documentary.  Instead, the filmmakers have Wilson’s old and trusted friend, rock journalist Jason Fine, drive him around important places in Wilson’s life; it’s the format of Comedians in Cars Drinking Coffee, and it pays off in with emotional revelations.  It turns out that Wilson is remarkably open about his travails and his creative process – and we get to see which of his songs that Brian himself listens to when he is feeling grief or nostalgia.   

The fest closes with The Humans, Stephen Karam’s film version of his Tony Award-winning play. It’s a family drama with Steven Yuen, Beanie Feldstein, Richard Jenkins, Amy Shumer and June Squibb. I haven’t seen it, but it got promising buzz at Toronto and is slated for a theatrical release by A24.

Lauren Ponto, Nashville Film Festival’s Director of Programming, says, “The 2021 Nashville Film Festival will be a different experience than our audiences are historically accustomed to and our team is excited for the community to be a part of it. The reimagined 52nd Festival will include 150 films ranging in categories from narratives, documentaries, new twists on horror, US Indies, eclectically bold Music Documentaries and much more.“

Ponto continues, “It’s been invigorating to program the Festival this year, knowing that we will be able to showcase a select group of films in person. The content is stronger than ever and very intentional. “

The Nashville Film Festival embraces its home in Music City and emphasizes films about music. Besides Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, the program includes

  • 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. These women can still really rock in their 70s, and they’re a hoot.
  • Poser (my favorite film in the festival) is set in the underground music scene of Columbus, Ohio’s Old North and is packed with original music. It’s a dark psychological portrait of an artistic wannabe among real artists.
  • Fable of a Song (a film that I haven’t seen yet) is a documentary about the writing of a song; this film was originally intended to document the creative process, but real life intervenes both to stagger the artists and to impact the very meaning of the song’s lyrics.
  • Hard Luck Love Song (another film that I haven’t seen yet) is a portrait of a troubled, self-sabotaging musician. Inspired by singer-songwriter Todd Snider’s song Just Like Old Times.

See it here first: Old Henry, Hard Luck Love Song, Luzzu, Beta Test, Flee, The Humans, Clara Sola, The Tale of King Crab and Poser have all secured distribution and will be available to theater and/or watch-at-home audiences. Before just anybody can watch them, you can get your personal preview at the Nashville Film Festival.

Check out the program and buy tickets at the festival’s Film Guide. Watch this space for Nashville Film Festival recommendations (both in-person and on-line) and follow me on Twitter for the latest.

Sylvie Mix and Bobbi Kitchen in POSER. Photo courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE: some dignity for the clown

by
Photo caption: Andrew Garfield and Jessica Chastain in THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE

Jessica Chastain’s powerhouse performance in The Eyes of Tammy Faye humanizes and brings dignity to a disgraced celebrity. Tammy Faye, of course, is Tammy Faye Bakker, married to televangelist Jim Bakker of the PTL Club. The relentlessly upbeat couple eschewed fire-and-brimstone for a happy talk ministry based on “Jesus loves you” and “God wants you to be rich”.

Jim Bakker was the preacher and talk show host. Tammy Faye was the singer, puppeteer and sidekick. Tammy Faye’s on-her-sleeve emotions, swinging between pep talks and ready tears – were especially popular (and revenue-inducing) with the PTL Club’s audience.

Of course, the ministry empire was a Ponzi scheme, which eventually sent Jim into federal prison; a sex scandal precipitated the collapse. The story is well-chronicled in the excellent 2000 documentary, also titled The Eyes of Tammy Faye, upon which this movie is based (available to stream on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube).

Jim Bakker (and certainly not Tammy Faye) was the mastermind of the fraud. But Tammy Faye, with her increasingly grotesque makeup and her flamboyant persona, had also become a figure of widespread ridicule, and her fall from grace was also very harsh.

Chastain’s convincing performance is centered on Tammy Faye’s EverReady Bunny exuberance and naive good intentions. Reportedly, she had to spend several hours each day getting outfitted wih prosthetics and daubed with makeup.

Andrew Garfield perfectly captures Jim Bakker’s smarminess and ambiguous sexuality.

Tammy Faye’s mother is played by Cherry Jones (Transparent), who always gives a strong performance. Here she plays a character who starts out seeming to be an emotionally distant, kill-the-dream stick-in-the-mud, but who evolves into the story’s moral anchor.

The one false note in The Eyes of Tammy Faye is Vincent D’Onofrio, who is supposed to be playing Jerry Falwell. Falwell, of course, was rarely seen without his smug grin. Onofrio plays him as a hulking, never smiling menace and with a much different accent and speech pattern than Falwell’s. It’s as if D’Onofrio had never seen Falwell, and his performance completely misses the insincerity and hypocrisy behind Falwell’s veneer of affability.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is now in theaters.

KANSAS CITY BOMBER: self-discovery at the roller derby track

by
Raquel Welch (right) in KANSAS CITY BOMBER

Kansas City Bomber, which plays September 23 on Turner Classic Movies, is a hella entertaining, kickass 1970s tale of female self-discovery. Raquel Welch plays a single mom scraping by, who skates in the roller derby at night. She and her daughter (Jodie Foster in only her second feature film film) move to a new city, and she joins the local roller derby team. She becomes the team’s star, and the team owner (Kevin McCarthy) is eager to date her (she’s Raquel Welch!) and use her to leverage his next business expansion.

There is a significant power imbalance between the skater and the owner – for starters, she’s broke in a new town, and he’s her boss. He expects both to have her sexually and to cynically profit from her talent. Will she be exploited or not? Is she another of his pawns?

Kevin McCarthy in KANSAS CITY BOMBER

In 1972, Raquel Welch was thought of more as a novelty movie star than as an actress. She had become instantly recognizable for displaying her spectacular figure in a skintight spacesuit (Fantastic Voyage), a doe-skin bikini (One Billion Years B.C.), a star spangled bikini (Myra Breckenridge), and flimsy undergarments (100 Rifles). Although the poster of her cavewoman bikini had gone viral, she hadn’t gotten the chance to show that she could act.

The role of the hard scrabble single mom in Kansas City Bomber was perfect for Welch. Welch had two kids by the time she was 21 and was divorced at 24. While trying to make it in showbiz, she bounced between jobs as a department store model, cocktail waitress and TV “weathergirl”.

In her performance in Kansas City Bomber, Welch nails the character of a woman committed to raising her kid while facing one indignity and bad choice after another. She also was up to the physicality of a character who competes in a contact sport where fisticuffs are common. Raquel reportedly has that said that Kansas City Bomber was the first of her films that she actually liked. And, as in The Three Musketeers a few years after, she got to show her acting chops.

Trivia digression: Welch’s father was Bolivian, and her cousin was the first female president of Bolivia.

Jodie Foster and Raquel Welch in KANSAS CITY BOMBER

Kansas City Bomber is a genre film that works because, along with the subtext of feminist self discovery, the action is really good. Besides mixing it up on the track, Welch’s character beats up some male attackers, too.

Kansas City Bomber has real professional roller derby skaters and includes actual roller derby action and crowd reactions. The actors were roughed up during the shoot, and Raquel said “Skating is a batchy, sweaty, funky life.” Verisimilitude abounds. Kansas City Bomber is indisputably the best-ever roller derby movie. (My own favorite childhood team was the Bay Bombers with Joanie Weston and Charlie O’Connell.)

Raquel Welch and Helena Kallianiotes in KANSAS CITY BOMBER

Helena Kallianiotes plays the rival roller derby star in the Big Race at the finale. Kallianiotes was unforgettable as the unbearably negative hitchhiker in Five Easy Pieces (her first credited role); this is one of only ten feature films in her career. Bill McKinney, one of the the infamous “Squeal Like a Pig” hillbillies in Deliverance, also appears.

Besides catching it on TCM this week, you can stream Kansas City Bomber from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

Raquel Welch in KANSAS CITY BOMBER

THE CARD COUNTER: a loner, his code and his past

by
Photo caption: Oscar Isaac in THE CARD COUNTER. Photo courtesy of Focus Features / ©2021 Focus Features, LLC

Oscar Isaac stars in Card Counter, Paul Schrader’s dark portrait of a highly disciplined loner who lives by a code but can’t submerge his past. Isaac’s character, improbably named William Tell, is a professional gambler, who lives in an endless string of motels and casinos.

The first thing we learn about William Tell is his rigid sense of self-discipline – in an OCD display of entering a new motel room and covering each piece of furniture in twine-bound sheets. This is an expert who can win free money at casinos, but resists winning too much, so he doesn’t get kicked out. He prefers anonymity to acclaim. More than anything, William Tell invests in keeping his head down.

It turns out that Tell has been traumatized by things he did as an army guard at Abu Ghraib – and the consequences. It’s no surprised that yet another solitary, emotionally damaged character has sprung from the dark mind of Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, First Reformed).

Oscar Isaac and Tye Sheridan in THE CARD COUNTER. Photo courtesy of Focus Features / ©2021 Focus Features, LLC

Above all, Tell is a man with a code. He meets a young man (Tye Sheridan), also haunted by the aftereffect of Abu Ghraib, who is consumed by a revenge fantasy. Although Tell avoids social entanglements, he is compelled to save the kid from himself.

Although most of The Card Counter takes place in casinos, it’s really not gambling movie. There is some card play and some gaming procedure. This is a character-driven story – and it’s not about who wins or how much. Schrader playfully hints at a big poker showdown, but it’s a red herring.

The role of this intense and obsessive man is perfect for Oscar Isaac and his piercing gaze. I usually don’t warm to Isaac, although he has been proficient in some films that I love: Ex Machina, The Two Faces of January. Maybe I don’t see a sense of humor in there? Anyway, he is stellar here.

Tye Sheridan is excellent as the young man bent on revenge. Tiffany Haddish plays a woman who runs a stable of professional gamblers and lives off her emotional intelligence; it’s a delight every time she is on-screen. The great Willem Dafoe appears in a brief but pivotal role.

I haven’t ever seen a movie character like William Tell, which makes The Card Counter an excellent watch.

BEST SELLERS: orneriness goes viral

by
Sir Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza in BEST SELLERS. Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films.

Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza star in the breezy comedy Best Sellers. Plaza plays Lucy Stanbridge, who has inherited a publishing company on the verge of insolvency. She discovers one remaining possible lifeline – the company is still owed one book by a famous author in its stable. Unfortunately, that author is Harris Shaw (Caine), an anti-social, elderly alcoholic.

Harris Shaw’s anti-sociability is anything but passive, which challenges Lucy as she drags a manuscript out of him and takes him, brimming with hostility, on a book tour.

Just when the audience is settled in for a madcap, odd-couple-on-the-road comedy, Best Sellers adds a topical layer. Harris Shaw’s bad public behavior is so extreme that, instead of sabotaging the book’s marketing campaign, it makes him a viral sensation on social media. In an even more wickedly funny turn, Shaw’s sudden popularity is with consumers who do not buy books; “you should be selling t-shirts”, mutters one fan.

Both Sir Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) are funny here, in roles that do not challenge them. In particular, the character of Lucy isn’t written to take advantage of Plaza’s capacity to be simultaneously funny and dangerous (Black Bear).

Best Sellers is the first feature for director Lina Roessler. Although Lucy and Harris develop a friendship and face Harris’ end of life, Roessler manages to keep Best Sellers from becoming pretentious or maudlin.

Best Sellers opens September 17 in theaters and on VOD.

BEING A HUMAN PERSON: this is what I mean

by
Roy Andersson in BEING A HUMAN PERSON

In the documentary Being a Human Person, we meet the filmmaker Roy Andersson as he makes what he acknowledges to be his final film at age 76. Andersson is an auteur who makes very, very odd movies that are humanistic, deeply profound and mostly funny. The movies, like A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Contemplating Existence and this year’s About Endlessness, are comprised of apparently random tableaus in which ordinary-looking Scandinavians do very little.

In thinking about Being a Human Person, I was initially going to recommend it to folks who have seen Andersson’s films. But then it occurred to me that it really a perfect vehicle to introduce newbies to Andersson’s work.

Now, I treasure watching Andersson’s films, but if you’re looking for movies that immediately make sense, then Andersson, most assuredly, is not your guy. In each film, Andersson curates a range of human behavior and lets the audience try to connect the dots. But when he is interviewed for Being a Human Person, he’s happy to tell you what he intends the movies to mean.

Andersson does not equate success and happiness. A wunderkind, Andersson directed a hit movie at age 28, and then plunged into depression. He bought a central Stockholm warehouse in 1981 to “develop my own language”. He built his studio inside and lives in an apartment above.

Andersson’s process is as peculiar as are his movies. He builds the set for each vignette one at a time in his studio. He expertly deploys a range of old school techniques like trompe-l’œil.

Andersson’s movies are about the foibles of everyday humans. They show people’s moments of fragility, vulnerability, confidence and lack thereof. One of his colleagues observes, “Roy sees people who aren’t in the movies.  It’s people who who haven’t been very successful in life. He gives them dignity .” For research, Andersson sits in sidewalk cafes to people-watch (“so I can see the menu“).

Andersson himself notes, “When you think there’s no escape, you are a prisoner in your own mortality.“ Overusing alcohol to combat boredom, Andersson struggles to finish his movie.

Director Fred Scott made excellent use of his access to Andersson, Andersson’s coworkers and family to tell this story. Being a Human Person is streaming from Laemmle.

THE UNKNOWN SAINT: a shrine to really bad luck

by
Photo caption: THE UNKNOWN SAINT. Photo courtesy of The Match Factory.

Here’s the premise of the crime comedy The Unknown Saint: a thief is being hunted down in the vast Moroccan desert. Just before capture, he buries his loot on a sandy hilltop and disguises it to look like a grave. After serving time in prison, he returns to dig up his loot. But he finds that some people, believing the “grave” to be that of a saint, have built a mausoleum over the grave. Even worse, an entire village has sprung up to support pilgrimage commerce, and the shrine is guarded around the clock.

The thief (Younes Bouab) starts plotting to sneak in and dig up the loot, but he’s got to overcome, among other obstacles, the night watchman’s canine corps. It doesn’t help when he brings in an accomplice so stupid that he doesn’t get that his prison nickname of “Ahmed the Brain” is ironic. And he is surprised when he is not the only nighttime tomb raider.

The thief has to wait in a village filled with eccentrics and small timers on the hustle. The dispensary has a bored young doctor, an aged nurse with a wicked sense of humor, and a waiting room full of “patients” putting on a charade of medical need.

Younes Bouab in THE UNKNOWN SAINT. Photo courtesy of The Match Factory.

The Unknown Saint is relentlessly deadpan, as all the characters plunge ahead with profound cynicism or earnest absurdity, with at least one critic likening it to Fargo. It’s all very, very funny, especially an unexpected triumph of dog dentistry involving the town barber.

The Unknown Saint is the first feature for writer-director Alaa Eddine Aljem, and it is an auspicious debut. Aljem knows how to use the vastness of the desert to express human futility and how to wring laughs out of human foibles.

The Unknown Saint is Morocco’s submission for this year’s Best International Feature Oscar. The Unknown Saint is streaming from Netflix.

BOB ROSS: HAPPY ACCIDENTS, BETRAYAL & GREED: improbability squared

by
Photo caption: BOB ROSS: HAPPY ACCIDENTS, BETRAYAL & GREED. Photo courtesy of Netflix.

The documentary Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed tells two improbable stories. The first is how Bob Ross, the soft-talking painting instructor on PBS, could become such a cultural phenomenon. It’s hard not to smile when thinking of the signature permanent adorning Ross, at once ridiculous and kind of innocent, and big enough to warrant its own zip code. [Come to think of it, can you imagine ANY personality who sounded like and looked like Ross, Julia Child or Fred Rogers starring on commercial TV?]

In any event, Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed lets us glimpse the secret sauce that Ross used to make a mundane craft into something singular and indelible. By all accounts, Ross was a very sweet guy. The edgiest thing anyone says about him is that he could tell “ornery jokes”.

The Betrayal and Greed in the title relates to the bone-picking after his death to exploit his legacy. This is a sordid tale, in sharp juxtaposition to Ross’ own career and persona.

Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed is streaming on Netflix.