The revelatory biodoc Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things traces the life of the jazz icon.
It opens with the Harlem teenage dancer who was an eyewitness to Ella’s 17-year-old public debut at the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night in 1934. We learn of Ella’s rocky childhood, with the traumas that led her to being incarcerated as a juvenile delinquent and becoming homeless in Harlem. We see the arc of her career, with the initial mentorship of bandleader Chick Webb and the later guidance of producer Norman Grantz.
Her son, Ray Brown, Jr., is on hand to reveal Ella’s family side (with photos of mom pitching to son, both in Dodgers gear).
One of the Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things‘ highlights is a never-broadcast interview in which Ella makes clear her views on race, American racism and civil rights. Markedly clear-eyed, it’s all the more powerful because of Ella’s gentle demeanor.
A Must See for jazz fans, Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things is reverential and by-the-numbers, but it is well-sourced and insightful. It opens June 26 in the Roxie Virtual Cinema.
Spike Lee’s latest film, Da 5 Bloods has some compelling elements, but the movie isn’t compelling as a whole. It’s too long and drags in places. The Wife and I stopped watching after the first hour. I finished it a couple days later.
Da 5 Bloods works best as a reflection on the Vietnam War and on the Black experience in America; how Spike handles those themes is far more evocative than is the story itself.
The story: four African-American vets return to Vietnam fifty years after their service. They are seeking to recover the remains of their beloved commanding officer. What they keep to themselves, is that he is buried with a fortune in gold bars. This quest is remarkably similar to Treasure of the Sierra Madre (and Spike even throws in the most famous quote from Sierra Madre).
Delroy Lindo in DA 5 BLOODS. Photo courtesy of NETFLIX.
The best reason to watch Da 5 Bloods are the performances of Delroy Lindo and Clarke Peters. Lindo has the best role of his craeer – as a man who is tormented by PTSD from wartime guilt and a family tragedy back home.
The old actors play themselves in the fifty-years-before flashback scenes. I suspended disbelief, but it decidedly did not work for The Wife.
Besides Delroy Lindo’s searing monologues, the highlights of the movie are an unexpected family reunion for the Clarke Peters character and a gripping sequence in a minefield.
The supporting cast is excellent, especially Melanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser, Jean Reno, Le Y Tan and first time actress Sandy Huong Pham, Jonathan Majors, so great in The Last Black Man in San Francisco, is fine but wasted in an underwritten role.
Da 5 Bloods does showcase an impressive selection of soul shakes. Spike also drops in has signature double dolly shot in the epilogue, to effetively cap the Clarke Peters story line.
One of the best things about Da 5 Bloods is the soundtrack; I can’t get enough of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, and neither can Spike. Time Has Come Today by the Chambers Brothers is underused in the movie, but dominates the great trailer embedded below (and the trailer is better than the movie).
The absurdism of Luis Buñuel meets the social awkwardness of Seinfeld in Hong Sang-soo’s Koran comedy Yourself and Yours.
In Yourself and Yours, Minjung (Lee You-young) dumps her boyfriend (Kim Joo-hyuck) after he objects to her heavy drinking (“I’ve stopped drinking – now I stop after only five rounds“). Then another man thinks that he meets Minjung, but she claims that she is Minjung’s identical twin. We’re not so sure about that. And then she meets ANOTHER man, and her identity remains in question. Her original boyfriend is comically bereft, and he’s on the lookout for her, too.
One character says “You men are all pathetic“, and Minjung proves that point at every opportunity. In a deliberate homage to Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire, Lee You-young plays the role of Minjung and her multiple doppelgängers (unless they are all really Minjung herself). There are plenty of LOL moments as Yourself and Yours winds its way full circle to a satisfyingly sly finale.
I saw Yourself and Yours (Dangsinjasingwa dangsinui geot) at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM). In an Only-At-SFFILM moment, I (a Hong Sang-soo newbie) was surrounded in the audience by devoted Hong Sang-soo fans. During its Bay Area virtual run at the Roxie, you can stream Yourself and Yours at Roxie Virtual Cinema.
The superb documentary King in the Wilderness follows Martin Luther King, Jr., through his turbulent final two years. Although King had already become an icon, he was facing the challenges of a new political and societal landscape that King himself had helped create. And he was foundering.
King’s approach, which overcame the overt cultural racism and statutory segregation in the South, was not working against the de facto segregation and urban riots in the North. Nor was King gaining traction to expand the movement against bigotry into a movement against poverty.
His leadership in the Black community was being usurped by younger, more militant, leaders. Stokely Carmichael and his peers were quick to discard longtime White Civil Rights workers and to alienate White America with a message of Black Power, which resonated in the Black community. King refused to use the weaponized term, while trying to hang on to his base.
King was under pressure to make public his opposition to the Vietnam War. King’s strong anti-militarism came naturally from his study of Gandhi and his commitment to non-violence. But campaigning against the War would be seen as a betrayal by King’s most effective ally and benefactor, President Lyndon B. Johnson. King was genuinely grateful to LBJ, and LBJ was famously vindictive.
King was just off the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the two greatest legislative Civil Rights victories since the 13th Amendment prohibiting slavery one hundred years before. In King in the Wilderness, it’s only a year later, and Martin Luther King, Jr. is facing a big fat case of What Have You Done For Me Lately?
It’s easy for us to forget just how young King was:
He was only 26 when he led the Birmingham Bus Boycott.
King wrote the Letter from Birmingham Jail and led the the March on Washington at 34.
He won the Nobel Peace Prize at 35.
He led the march from Selma to Montgomery at 36.
After a great historic victory, it can be difficult to find a new objective. It’s hard to gain political power, and it can be just as hard to keep it. It’s difficult for a public figure to remain relevant in changing times. These are the challenges of leadership.
By focusing on this period of King’s life and career, director Peter Kunhardt and writer Chris Chuang have made an inspired choice. They have also sourced it brilliantly, with the remembrances of King intimates, most notably Andrew Young and Henry Belafonte, along with Stokely Carmichael’s fellow SNCC leader Cleveland Sellers. King family confidante Xernona Clayton bookends the movie with the two most poignant anecdotes.
King in the Wilderness was originally aired on HBO and won an Emmy for best historical documentary. It’s now widely available on streaming platforms.
Coming up on Turner Classic Movies on June 18, the Japanese neo-noir Pale Flower is a slow burn that erupts into thrilling set pieces. This is pioneering neo-noir. Pale Flower is writer-director Masahiro Shinoda’s masterpiece; its look and feel is as different from classic noir as are Elevator to the Gallows and Blast of Silence.
Maraki (Ryô Ikebe) is a fortyish Yazuka hit man, just released from loyally serving a prison term. He went away for offing a gangland rival, but now the two gangs have become allies. Out gambling with fellow Yakuza, he encounters the much younger woman Saeko (Mariko Kaga). The stoic and completely self-contained Maraki becomes fascinated by – and then obsessed with – Saeko, who lives her life seeking thrill after thrill.
PALE FLOWER
Maraki and Saeko meet gambling on the Japanese card game of hanafuda (flower cards). She is the only woman at a table surrounded by male gangsters. Shinoda makes the tension of card games resemble that of walking into a hostile bar or waiting an Old West quick draw gunfight. The card games are silent but for the ritual betting and the players clicking their cards. The film’s title refers to both hanafuda and Saeko.
Mariko Kaga in PALE FLOWER
Just who is this mystery woman? Muraki is snagged, but he is too cool to search out her background. His obsession is more complicated than sexual passion alone, although there is a sexual element (watch whether he acts on it when he can). The mystery makes Saeko (the then 20-year-old Mariko Kaga in only her fourth movie) all the more captivating.
In another gripping set piece, Saeko races her sports car through Tokyo’s tunnels and overpasses at 2:30 AM. In the passenger seat, Muraki is transfixed by her recklessness. He’s not thrilled by the careening wild ride, he’s thrilled by Saeko’s compulsion to seek the thrill.
Mariko Kaga and Ryô Ikebe in PALE FLOWER
The ultimate thrill might be to accompany a hit man on the job. The climactic three-minute scene is a mob hit in a church, set to an aria, Henry Purcell’s Dido’s Lament. It is operatic – and remarkably similar to Francis Ford Coppola’s later montage in The Godfather where Michael Corleone’s assassins kills all his enemies while he is standing in church at the christening of his sister’s baby. Muarki’s murder-for-hire is up-close-and-personal.
When Maraki and Saeko are on-screen, Pale Flower is dramatically and stylistic Stylistic – the card games, the car race, the final killing, In contrast, we see the mundane plotting of the Yazuka bosses (but not their crimes) as they kibbitz at the horse races. Their underlings go bowling.
Does it all matter? is a central theme in film noir. Pale Flower’s powerful final prison scene is the the ultimate neo-noir ending.
Pale Flower is included in Roger Ebert’s Great Movies. Pale Flower is challenging to find; it can be streamed with a subscription to Criterion Collection or Kanopy, and it plays occasionally on TCM, including on June 18.
Christopher Plummer and Diane Ladd in THE LAST FULL MEASURE
The Last Full Measure tells the true story of a slain military hero who, due to the efforts of those who survived the battle, finally get a deserved Congressional Medal of Honor decades after his death. It’s a pedestrian movie periodically enlivened by excellent supporting performances.
The Last Full Measure is set in 2000, 32 years after the battle, when a selfish Pentagon career-climber (Sebastian Stan) is stuck with the unwanted assignment of validating the act of valor (it ain’t going to help him advance his career). He bitterly visits geezer after geezer to find out why the medal is deserved and why it wasn’t awarded earlier.
I’m not convinced that Sebastian Stan brings anything to non-action movies, and his parts of the film drag (which is bad, because he’s the main character).
Remarkably, the supporting cast of William Hurt, Christopher Plummer, Diane Ladd, Samuel L. Jackson, Amy Madigan, Peter Fonda and Ed Harris have combined for two acting Oscars and sixteen nominations. Christopher Plummer ia absolutrly radiant here; it’s some of his best work. Peter Fonda, in his final movie, also gives an indelible performance. Amy Madigan’s part is perfect matched to Madigan’s piercing eyes. And every Social Security-eligible actor is very, very good.
The battle scenes in the flashback are well-crafted, and Jeremy Irvine is very good as the hero. But this won’t make any list of top 20 Vietnam War films.
If you must watch The Last Full Measure, which is available on most of the streaming platforms, just fast forward until you see somebody old.
In the Netflix comedy The Lovebirds, Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani star as a couple, once passionately in love, who have reached the breaking point. At the very moment that they call it quits, they are plunged into a dire situation – to clear themselves of a murder, they must evade the cops and find The Real Killer.
This is a rom com where the characters have ALREADY met cute. As they endure ever more outrageous indignities, they remember why they fell in love in the first place, despite the other’s foibles. The plot is playful, but the relationship is very truthful.
Rae (Insecure) and Nanjiani (Silicon Valley, The Big Sick), both so appealing, are pitch perfect.
The Lovebirds is successful as a light diversion with plenty of LOL moments, and it’s streaming on Netflix. Here’s the trailer.
Mountain climbing partners tie a line between themselves so – if one of them falls – he can be saved by the other. But what if an accident puts BOTH of them at mortal risk? What if the fallen climber can’t be pulled up? What if one climber’s fall has doomed the other? The gripping documentary Touching the Void retraces that situation in real life – what happens if you cut your partner’s line?
In 1985, this happened to expert climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates in the Peruvian Andes. The 2005 film Touching the Void re-enacts the incident with the reflections of participants.
There’s no more life-or-death decision than “Should I cut the rope?” Although the issues of betrayal and guilt naturally arise, it turns out to be lot more complicated than that.
That moment of decision is dramatic, of course, but it’s only one segment of Touching the Void, which includes multiple survival stories in one adventure. One of them is absolutely epic.
Touching the Void was directed by Kevin Macdonald, who won the Best Documentary Oscar for 2000’s One Day in September, about the terrorist attack at the 1976 Munich Olympics. Touching the Void has been acclaimed as“the most successful documentary in British cinema history”. Touching the Void can be streamed from Amazon and iTunes.
Brian Dennehy, Lucas Jaye and Hong Chau in DRIVEWAYS
I can’t think of a more authentic movie about intergenerational relationships than the charming, character-driven Driveways. It’s a modest little indie, and it’s one of the Best Movies of 2020 – So Far.
Kathy (Hong Chau) and her nine-year-old Cody (Lucas Jaye) arrive in a small town to clean out and flip the house of Kathy’s late sister. Kathy and her much older sister had lost touch,and Kathy is surprised and disheartened to discover that the sister had become a hoarder, making the clean-up job monumental. The octogenarian next-door neigbor Del (Brian Dennehy) watches from his porch.
All three are facing life challenges. Kathy is a single mom trying to navigate a career change; now she has an unwanted chore and some guilt from not reviving the relationship with her sister. Cody is a sensitive kid who isn’t comfortable in many situations and who has an embarrassing reaction to anxiety. Del is grieving the loss of his wife and facing the loss of his independence. Things do not go as the audience expects.
Hong Chau in DRIVEWAYS
Director Andrew Ahn, by dropping subtle clues, lets the audience connect the dots about the characters and their back stories. We learn about the mom-son relationship when she discards a cigarette on the ground and he wordlessly grinds it out with his shoe. We learn about Del’s fears about his independence when he glances at an increasingly forgetful buddy.
Driveways is a three-hander and all three actors, Hong Chau, Lucas Jaye and Brian Dennehy are superb. 91-year-old character actor Jerry Adler is brilliant in a few very brief scenes.
This was the final performance for Brian Dennehy (scroll down to bottom for my remembrance). His performance – so remarkably genuine and subtle – in Driveways is award-worthy. Dennehy’s facial expression, in one fleeting moment, conveys Del’s profound regret about a mistake that he made with his own daughter.
Brian Dennehy and Lucas Jaye in DRIVEWAYS
Driveways played at Cinequest 2020 with an in-person appearance by Hong Chau, which I skipped because I sized it up as too sappy. I was wrong.
You know how children are drawn to some kids and not to others? Driveways perfectly captures the joy of making friends when a kid discovers another kid with common interests.
That authenticity is exactly what keeps Driveways from being corny. There’s not a hint of manipulation from Ahn. That’s why Driveways is that rarity, a recommendation from The Movie Gourmet that can be described as”heartfelt”.
Cody is as much the lead character as are the mom and the old guy. The Wife thinks that the movie is too slow for kids. But I’d give it a try and challenge the kids. It’s only 83 minutes, and I think kids will be drawn to the portrayal of a kid that is so real-world and unlike the stock characters spoon fed them by the likes of the Disney Channel.
Driveways is available to stream on all the major platforms.
James Brown and His Famous Flames in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW
The T.A.M.I. Show is probably the first concert film as we think of the genre today. An amazing confluence of talent gives us an unfiltered 1964 time capsule of British Invasion, Surf, Motown, Pop and early Soul (but there’s no Folk) music.
Here are the performers:
The Rolling Stones
James Brown
The Beach Boys
Chuck Berry
The Supremes
Marvin Gaye
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
Lesley Gore
The Blossoms (backing Gaye)
Gerry and the Pacemakers
Jan and Dean
The Barbarians
Billy D. Kramer and the Dakotas
Eight The T.A.M.I. Show performers are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Berry, the Stones, the Beach Boys, James Brown and the Famous Flames, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and The Blossoms singer Darlene Love, who was inducted as a solo act. Future actress Teri Garr and choreographer/pop artist Toni Basil were two of the Go Go Girls. Members of the famed Wrecking Crew session musicians constituted the house band, including guitarist Glen Campbell, pianist Leon Russell and drummer Hal Blaine, along with the jazz great, bassist Jimmy Bond. The house band is rarely glimpsed, but you can see them to the right during The Supremes’ set and at the finale.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW
The T.A.M.I. Show was filmed in two performances at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Tickets were free for LA teenagers. (Future film director John Landis and future teen heartthrob David Cassidy went as seventh grade classmates.) The event was emceed by by Jan and Dean. T.A.M.I. stands for either Teen Age Music International or Teenage Music Awards International (although there were no awards).
James Brown absolutely killed. His was a performance for the ages, and the crowd went nuts. To their everlasting regret, the Rolling Stones had to follow him to close the show.
In this performance, the Stones were hippy Brits singing Blues music (that, oddly, White American teens were only now discovering though these White guys from the UK). It’s most notable for Mick Jagger’s groundbreaking definition of a Front Man. As I write this in 2020, I just heard a Stones song on the radio that I didn’t recognize and learned that it was released this year – 56 years after the T.A.M.I. Show.
The Beach Boys in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW
The Beach Boys came on immediately after a Jan and Dean song, which does not favor Jan and Dean today in comparison. Brian Wilson’s genius and the band’s fun energy were many rungs above what Jan and Dean had to offer as musicians. It’s poignant to watch the the young, 1964 Beach Boys today, knowing that everything about them hung precariously on Brian Wilson’s traumatized mental health.
Billy J. Kramer fronting the Dakotas in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW
There are two very odd “What are those guys doing here?” sets. One is the slick-haired Brit popster Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, an act managed by Brian Epstein and produced by George Martin at the same time as the Beatles; Kramer got to perform FOUR songs!
The second is one of the first shaggy haired American rock bands, The Barbarians. They perform Hey Little Bird, which preceded their one novelty hit Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?
The Barbarians, for some reason, performing in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW
When I watch these 1964 performances, I can’t help but think about what these artists still had ahead of them. James Brown had just recorded I Got You (I Feel Good), but it wouldn’t be widely released until 1965. The Stones still hadn’t created EARLY Stones songs like Satisfaction, Paint It Black, Sympathy for the Devil and You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Marvin Gaye hadn’t yet sung I Heard It Through the Grapevine or What’s Goin’ On. Ahead for the Supremes were Love Child and a flock of other number one hits. And this was before The Beach Boys did California Girls and Good Vibrations, not to mention the Pet Sounds album.
The T.A.M.I. Show is on the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. It probably would have been more influential, except that hardly anybody saw it for years. It’s somewhat of a Lost Film, having fallen off the radar after its 1964 release. I recall seeing it on late night TV sometime in the late 1970s or early 80s. It was resurrected in VHS bootleg form in the 80s (but without the Beach Boys set).
It’s still not available to rent a stream, but The T.A.M.I. Show is available on Netflix DVD. It’s very easy to find the full one hour 52 minute version for free on YouTube, along with clips of each of the acts.
