The Power of Music

ALIVE INSIDE (B-minus) - This feel-good documentary is just a little too perfect in its advocacy of music as a way to heal the sick, especially elderly folks with dementia. Michael Rossato-Bennett follows true believer Dan Cohen as the founder of Music & Memory  visits assisted-care facilities and tests out his theory about the healing effects of the tunes from the patients' youth.

Repeatedly we see instances of older folks suddenly coming to life and firing off fresh neurons connecting the music to long-lost memories. It's all a bit too perfect, though. I got the feeling that some of the scenes were either staged or goosed, with the subjects maybe coached a bit before the headphones were slapped on them. We never see an example of Cohen failing to snap a senior out of a stupor.

As heartfelt advocacy, though, "Alive Inside" can be quite entertaining. Scenes with a younger man suffering from multiple sclerosis is quite moving. Others work with Cohen to pick out their favorite oldies, dredging up the Beach Boys or Glenn Miller. If it were a more objective rendering, it would be downright inspiring.

THE BALLAD OF RAMBLIN' JACK (2000) (C+) -  A daughter with marginal filmmaking skills -- and a voice unsuited for narration -- makes a documentary about her quirky folkie father. The results are underwhelming. Jack Elliot was a key link between Woody Guthrie, whom he befriended, and Bob Dylan, who copied them both.

Aiyana Elliott tries desperately to infuse drama and pathos into a narrative of the absentee father, but she never connects the dots. Thus, her attempt to create a Big Drama falls flat. She also tends to gloss over her father's failing, dismissing his apparent drug woes of the 1970s with a casual aside.

We do get great footage, including the Brooklyn Cowboy jamming with Johnny Cash on Cash's late '60s TV show. We get flashes of Elliott's verbal ramblings on stage, but again, we don't get that full picture.

This is an obvious valentine to the old folk legend, but at nearly two hours, the subject matter sags by the end.


1991: THE YEAR PUNK BROKE (D+) - A crappy home movie focused mainly on Thurston Moore as his band Sonic Youth tours Europe in August 1991 with Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr. and a handful of other bands from the Heyday of the Planet of Sound. Moore riffs verbally (and nonsensically, mostly) over crude footage in between performances, mostly by Sonic Youth.

It was a heady time, but you wouldn't know it from this shaky chronicle of hipster slackers, shot by one of Moore's hangers on. The footage of Kurt Cobain and his mates are interesting, but otherwise this all plays like a rather sad snapshot of a forgotten era.

Oddly, many of the performances are chopped up -- to the point where very few of the images are actual live shots, as if the filmmakers were limited by copyright issues.

BONUS TRACK
Henry, 93, is transformed by music (from "Alive Inside"):