MARTHA (B+) - You get the feeling watching this documentary about the rise and fall and resurrection of better-living guru Martha Stewart that the film might have actually captured the true personality of its subject. Here she is, warts and all, an in-your-face businesswoman who doesn't seem to care what you think about her.
I can see viewers walking away from this with varying reactions -- some thinking that she was singled out for prosecution (over a shady but relatively minor stock trade) because she was a strong woman, and others concluding that she was an insufferable task-mistress who likely got what she deserved. (It could be both.) R.J. Cutler specializes in celebrity profiles (like "Belushi"), and he finally seems in command of the storytelling.
He is lucky to have Stewart herself, parked in a chair, essentially narrating much of the film and framing the arc of her life story. How reliable a narrator she is, well, that's also for viewers to decide. I got the feeling that she doesn't always tell the truth -- including when James Comey went after her for the suspicious timing of her selling stock in a friend's company, right before a negative news story was going to tank it. She has no reason to be repentant -- she did five months in prison -- and she comes off as quite the scrappy executive. But her veneer slips occasionally, like when Cutler calls her out on a double-standard after she trashes her first husband for cheating on her -- when she also was unfaithful. Stewart dismisses her indiscretion as nothing but decries her husband's affairs as unforgivable. We also see her treating underlings dismissively and borderline cruelly.
But we also are offered many clips of Stewart in her prime -- planting gardens, glazing desserts, tricking out a bedroom -- as a woman on a mission who could not be stopped. She is smart and funny, and the camera adored her like the model she once was. The stories about her time in prison -- again, you have to assume she is being truthful about all of it -- are fascinating, and her renaissance as a social media butterfly and pal to Snoop Dogg is fun to watch.
It all feels like a comprehensive two-hour spin through the life of a key pop-culture figure of the second half of the 20th century. It might reinforce your opinion of a divisive personality, or it might open your mind to reconsideration of a celebrity you thought you loved or hated.
RETURN OF THE KING: THE FALL AND RISE OF ELVIS PRESLEY (B-minus) - What a lopsided misfire about one of the most fascinating moments in rock 'n' roll history. In a bit of a bait-and-switch, only a fraction of this movie revolves around the December 1968 TV special that revived Elvis Presley's career after a decade that had sidetracked the rock idol with military duty and bad Hollywood movies, while the Beatles reconfigured the music world. (An inauspicious opening to the film doesn't help; it starts out with a re-enactment and hyperbole, a couple of red flags.)
Two-thirds of the movie -- more than an hour -- are spent just on the run-up to the '68 special, which then gets short shrift. Some build-up was necessary; you can't tell a redemption story without putting the original fall from grace into perspective. But here it feels as if the familiar beats of Presley's first 12 years or so in the public eye form a litany of greatest hits that won't end. We don't need yet another glimpse of Presley with his locks shorn before heading to Germany or his bride Priscilla's giant bouffants.
There certainly is some great outtake footage from the '68 special, some of it showing an anxious and insecure Presley. And an unusual array of talking heads -- such as Bruce Springsteen, Conan O'Brien and Billy Corgan -- offer some quite cogent insight into Presley's psyche. But the final half hour is just not enough time to appreciate the TV spectacle that unfolded, in particular the electrifying jam circle that reunited Presley with his '50s bandmates. They show clips from "Trying to Get to You," but not the heady moment where Elvis gets so riled up he can't stay in his seat. The rest of the clips are so chopped up that they lack sufficient impact. Maybe last year's "Reinventing Elvis" from Paramount did a better job; we'll have to track it down and compare.
BONUS TRACK
The full-on Elvis, whose chair just cannot contain him, with "Trying to Get to You" at the 1968 taping:
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