Doc Watch: Inner Peace

 A pair streaming on PBS:

REMAKE (B) - Career documentarian Ross McElwee treads some of the same ground as in his 2012 self-examination "Photographic Memory," producing a sequel that deals with the death of his son from a drug overdose. Sadly, it sags under the weight of 112 minutes.

 

Fourteen years ago, McElwee focused on the arc of his career and his life, contrasting it with that of his young-adult son. That son, Adrian, would eventually descend into substance abuse while flailing away searching for his own voice as a budding filmmaker. McElwee revisits some of the same footage from "Photographic Memory," and he repeats it internally within "Remake," which will test the patience of viewers, some of whom will bail out early anyway. Adrian was a curious, precocious kid, but he loses his way shortly into adulthood, and nothing can help him regain his grip. He also has become a less interesting character.

McElwee, in his 70s, has found love in the past decade, with a younger woman from Korea, also a filmmaker. But McElwee hammers away here at the lost opportunity that Adrian represented, repeating variations on "What could have been done?" and "If I curate footage of your life, can I keep you alive somehow?" It's not that it's tedious, but it certainly is niche. The viewer needs a tolerance for sifting through the detritus of one man's life -- yet again.

McElwee's other main character is a friend, vivacious in her youth but now descending into dementia, her own photographic memories jumbled or slipping away. She had long chastised her friend for living his life through the lens of a camera. She competes for the final word, in a late interview before her death, ridiculing McElwee for putting so much stock into such an ugly little machine. Was she right? Hard to say. McElwee does deserve credit for splaying his motives and emotions so publicly without making his grief seem manipulative or self-serving.

The film is an opportunity, at least, to study how one man reconciles the choices he has made throughout his life.

MARY OLIVER: SAVED BY THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD (B-minus) - In the opening scenes of this documentary about poet Mary Oliver, she explains that she overcame an abusive childhood by burying the experience and that she eventually learned the secret to a good life: Learn how to love and be loved. There is not much more to convey beyond reading aloud some of her poems. 

Thus, there is not really enough to warrant a full-length film. Instead, go read her poems, maybe track down a couple of her interviews, and you'll be set.

 

I learned of Mary Oliver's poetry well after she had won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award in 1984. I remember in the early 2000s a yoga instructor, who had named herself Supriti, reading Oliver's spare poetry at the end of class, while we were in repose during savasana. Oliver was a devotee of Walt Whitman, and her writings from nature reminded me of the elegant simplicity of Emily Dickinson (if Dickinson could have been cajoled to leave her room and frolic in the woods). Her most famous line: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Director Sasha Waters ("Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable") struggles to illustrate the words of Oliver. The film is riddled with distracting random nature scenes. There are a lot of shots of flowers opening in time-lapse, waves crashing over rocky shores, a curious number of foxes; often the frame is artificially scuffed with arty red lens flares. A recording of Oliver describing child sexual abuse at the hands of her father is illustrated with archival shots of figure skaters.

Poets, biographers and academics are joined by a few scattered celebrities, like comedian Stephen Colbert, singer Lucy Dacus, and Oliver's longtime Provincetown neighbor John Waters, the filmmaker. They are all big fans, but do they really open any doors to understanding Oliver's art more than we already do? I don't think so. It reminded me of another near-miss, "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold."

Oliver liked to smoke, bop around town and write. At some point she found a home in New England and a partner to share her life with. It seemed like a quite satisfying life in the end. But it doesn't make for a compelling visual story. What's on the page suffices.

New to the Queue

 Headed for a fall ... or autumn, if you prefer ...

 

The son of William Greaves curates the father's footage from a legendary party of luminaries in 1972, "Once Upon a Time in Harlem."

A view of the attacks on Gaza from the rooftops of Tel Aviv, "Naza."

Because of its epic length, we'll wait for streaming to check out the latest from Alex Gibney ("Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," "We Steal Secrets," "Going Clear"), the four-hour profile "Musk."

Ava Duvernay is following up her documentary about the 13th Amendment by proceeding in numerical order, "14th."

Pawel Pawlikowski ("Ida," "Cold War") imagines writer Thomas Mann returning to postwar Germany 16 years after fleeing the Nazis, "Fatherland."

And a reminder about the overdue release of the documentary "Free Leonard Peltier," which we reviewed a year ago after screening it at the Santa Fe Film Festival.

Now & Then: In and Out of Fashion

 

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (2006) (C+) - This popular title is more of a cultural touchstone than anything with an authentic cinematic footprint, 20 years on. It is difficult to watch it now (especially for the first time) as anything other than a collection of indelible one-liners and career-defining performances.

 

Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt became stars, Meryl Streep conducted a master class in acting, and Stanley Tucci snarked with the smoldering sneer of a runway model. Never mind that the plot is rickety and the movie itself is an unappetizing mix of romantic comedy, social satire and screwball farce. It buys into both patriarchal stereotypes (no matter how plucky Hathaway's Andy Sachs may be) and mindless worship of the world of celebrities and fashion.

It all feels like an era we could never go back to, as well as a contributing factor to the AI/social-media jungle we are suffocating in. It epically fails the Bechdel Test, even if the test applied not only to men but also to clothes (which it should). Streep plays a supreme asshole of a fashion editor (the barely fictional Runway magazine) with the zeal of a cartoon villain, treating everyone in her sight, including the ever-loyal Nigel (Tucci), like battered stray animals. We are supposed to find Miranda's Shakespearean cruelty charming.

Hathaway's narrative arc is intended for us to root for Andy -- a Northwestern grad and aspiring journalist -- as she immediately sells her soul and devotes her talens to being Miranda's slavering assistant. She is mocked not only for her TJ Maxx wardrobe, but also for having bushy eyebrows and being overweight (even though she is, you know, Anne Hathaway). But, like in a Disney fairytale, Nigel kits her out in jaw-dropping fashions, and Andy instantly transforms into a power player and infallible assistant; there is nothing she can't handle as she slowly earns Miranda's grudging respect. Suddenly she has eclipsed Blunt's Emily as Miranda's most-trusted right-hand woman.

Along the way, she will break up with her puppy-dog of a boyfriend (the equally pretty Adrian Grenier) and sleep with a roguish writer (Simon Baker) before her inevitable (and telegraphed) come-to-Jesus moment that challenges her ethical standards and true devotion to journalism. Andy is caught somewhere in the ether between "Sex and the City" and "Girls." Writers Aline Brosh McKenna and Lauren Weisberger capture the patter of newspaper people as well as fashionistas, dropping in cagey one-liners, mostly for Hathaway and Tucci, though Blunt holds her own at times. Director David Frankel leans on sweeping views of Manhattan and Paris, and he never met a needle drop (Madonna's "Vogue" and other obvious choices) or a celebrity cameo (Heidi Klum, Donatella Versace) that he didn't like. 

This has the breeziness of a trashy beach novel and a naivete that feels appropriate for the Bush era. There are glimpses of legitimate storytelling -- such as when Miranda drops her guard and allows Andy to see her suffer personally as her marriage hits the rocks. But those are mere glimpses of honest storytelling in this scrapbook of a movie.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 (C-minus) - Now that we've established that the world has changed dramatically from 2006, it's abundantly clear we didn't need a sequel, especially one that barely rises above an '80s episode of "Dynasty." 

 

All the principals are back, noticeably older, with Stanley Tucci slipping into an odd Paul Shaffer vocal pattern, his one-liners now forced and flat. Anne Hathaway just can't find the right tone for Andy, wiser now after the demise of her independent journalism outfit and forced to return to Runway, initially to perform damage control for a pesky little problem involving the magazine and story subject employing foreign sweatshop labor.

The ostensible hook here is about the de-evolution of journalism into cheap click-bait, which threatens the future of the magazine. Miranda's job is less authoritarian these days, though she is in line for a promotion to the parent company, run by Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman) and his unserious son Jay (B.J. Novak), who looks like he is up to no good. Meantime, Emily has moved on to a big fashion house, and she takes up with a simpleton of a tech billionaire, Benji Barnes (a tone-deaf Justin Theroux), who is in line to take over the parent company and save the magazine from ravenous bean-counters and a staff replaced by AI.

Twists and turns ensue, but the vibe really never rises above the level of soap opera.  Director Frankel returns after an uneventful intervening career, and he doesn't have much to offer beyond more montages set to dance-club hits and swooning shots of Manhattan and, this time, Milan. He devotedly conducts fan service with call-backs to the original, one more tired than the next. (The eyebrows!) Andy, who gets an editor title and an office, is saddled with a bland new boyfriend and a cliched Radar O'Reilly-like assistant, neither of whom can move the needle here. Frankel stuffs in even more celebrity cameos (Jon Batiste, Tina Brown). Nothing coheres.

Like the first film, everyone continues to worship at the altar of fashion, with an added dash of lip-service to the grand question of the precarity of journalism. A serious polemic this is not. Rather, it creaks with worshipful adoration of the original, with everyone just going through the motions and collecting that paycheck. 

 

You can see a glimpse of what might have been during a charming coda, in which Andy and Emily seek to make peace and settle back into their familiar snippy banter. It becomes clear that those two are the keys to the overall arc of the story. It's not Andy battling Miranda or Nigel parenting Andy; instead it is a pair of 40-something women who have been chewed up and spit out by the fashion-industrial complex, but remain survivors who no longer have the energy to snipe at each other. Hathaway (less doe-eyed now) and Blunt (with her features sharpened by age) extract a few ounces of emotion as they toe the line between rivalry and camaraderie.

If you find yourself inclined to bail on this mess, at least skip to that final scene. It doesn't rescue the sequel, but it somehow redeems the original movie and its core mission. After nearly two hours of missteps and tepid retread scenes, the hint of an honest film peeks out at its audience, albeit too little too late.  

Star Power

 

POWER BALLAD (B+) - John Carney's run of solid music-themed films continues. The writer-director who splashed with "Once" in 2007 is now two decades into a career defined by strong characterizations and heartfelt underdog stories.

 

Here he is blessed with Paul Rudd, admirably slumming as a foundering wedding-band singer in Ireland (don't ask) whose song is stolen by a former boy-band poseur and turned into a mega-hit. It's a thoughtful exploration of the vagaries that decide the difference between journeyman and superstar status.

Rudd plays a middle-aged shlub, the conveniently named Rick Power, who happens into a late night of one-on-one jamming with superstar Danny Wilson (a serviceable Nick Jonas), who is under pressure to come up with a hit single and snap a losing streak. He later helps himself to the core of Rick's "How to Write a Song," which he adds a bridge to and produces a smash that revives his career. The rest of the film finds Rick trying to convince the world, but mainly his wife and daughter, that he actually wrote the song -- if only he could find definitive proof in his cluttered music archives.

Carney sold this shtick two years ago when he wove another fairytale, "Flora & Son," about a mom who takes online guitar lessons and bonds with her hip-hop-loving son in the process. That movie, and 2016's "Sing Street," build on Carney's belief in the healing powers of pop music, especially earnest, yearning ballads. The beauty of "Power Ballad" is that a lot of it tracks as plausible and believable. Rudd has that knack of embodying the Everyman spirit (as Eve Hewson did as Flora), and he gives it all -- including singing some classic pop songs (presumably with a big assist from AutoTune). He is a working-class guy fighting not just to lay claim to a potential fortune he is owed, but also to stand up for the craftsmen everywhere who believe in their creative talents.

The central scene in the movie is between Rick and Danny during their alcohol-fueled noodling workshop, and you can appreciate Carney's dogged attention to authenticity regarding the songwriting process. (He wrote the songs for Rick's character in collaboration with Gary Clark, whose claim to fame is the song "Mary's Prayer.") He also gets the vibe right during the wedding scenes, where guests revel in the painfully familiar hooks of the classic-pop era -- which can wear on a musical artist craving authenticity and even a little novelty. And he also nails the fragile camaraderie of local Irish session players riding the coattails of the oddball Yankee who fronts their part-time gigs. There's even a touching callback to "Once," with perfectly calibrated bookending scenes of Rick interacting with a street busker.

"Power Ballad" is funny at times, touching at times, and solidly written to carry you through Rick's narrative arc. Rudd pulls off the role of obscure rock purist, rocking a shaggy Lindsey Buckingham hairstyle and showing command of a guitar and a vocal turn. He gets an assist from solid cast of character actors, including Peter McDonald ("The Batman" and who co-wrote this script) as a guitarist willing to serve as the ultimate wing-man. Carney knows how to whittle this down to a tidy 98 minutes in the most entertaining of ways.

YOU HAD TO BE THERE (B-minus) - This good-natured documentary -- about the notable cast of the Toronto production of the quirky musical "Godspell" in 1972 -- overstays its welcome, even though the amiable stars, some of whom went on to fame with "Saturday Night Live" and "Second City Television," are at their charming best.

The film stumbles out of the gate by overplaying its hand and comparing the original stage cast to a powerhouse lineup akin to the storied 1927 New York Yankees. Granted, Martin Short and Eugene Levy have had solid careers, but neither they nor their co-stars qualify as legendary performers or A-list celebrities. Don't get me wrong, I've recently been rewatching the debut season of "SCTV" on Netflix, and I love Short, Levy, Andrea Martin, and Dave Thomas (as The Beaver), and their 1972 co-star Gilda Radner certainly is an all-timer, but don't tell me that their young, eager troupe rivaled the Beatles on the "Ed Sullivan Show," even if you throw in character actor Victor Garber (TV's "Alias") and bandleader Paul Shaffer ("SNL," "Letterman"). 

 

All that aside, there is a great deal of charm in this very Canadian film production, notably from good-guy Short, whose own home recordings as a teen and his surreptitious taping of one night's performance of "Godspell" serve as the archival foundation for the rollicking narrative. Journeyman director Nick Davis shows little creativity in cycling through his affable talking heads, and he relies too heavily on amateurish animated re-enactments, which seem intentionally drawn in a crude manner meant to evoke the cheesy cartoons of the era, such as "Josie & the Pussycats" and "Scooby-Doo." He also includes random celebrities to gush about the cast, even though they have no real connection to Toronto in 1972; I was scratching my head over the appearances of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Janeane Garafolo, Mike Myers (at least he's a local) and a couple of recent B-listers from the "SNL" cast (Heidi Gardner, James Austin Johnson), which must have been some sort of sop to Canadian godfather Lorne Michaels (who does not appear). 

The actual former cast members (except for the late Radner, of course) still exude god-given comedy chops, including the more obscure members like Jayne Eastwood, a funny woman who has a good run in movies and television. The film crashes around the 80-minute mark though -- when it should be wrapping up but goes on for 20 more minutes. We get a story out of left field from one of the women in the original cast (Avril Chown), who reveals for the first time that, after getting her big break in television after "Godspell," was repeatedly sexually assaulted while a repertory member of the Saturday morning "Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show." Then there is an extended coda involving a reunion of the surviving cast members at one of those parties where they act like they don't hate or envy any of the others; reminisce incessantly; and sadly re-create their old show tunes. It's cute but unnecessary.

If you have no clue about most of the cast members listed above -- Andrea Martin, who starred in the "Big Fat Greek Wedding" franchise, is brilliant but not exactly a household name -- then this is probably not for you. If you have a soft spot for character actors like Victor Garber (the only Toronto cast member to make the cut for the 1973 movie adaptation) and are not by now tired of the ubiquitous Short (who just got the Netflix treatment) and Levy, then you probably will appreciate this valentine to a quaint era in entertainment. These folks weren't the Murderer's Row of comedy; rather, they are the plucky underdogs, the scrappy Pittsburgh Pirates seeking to upset the '27 Yankees.

BONUS TRACKS

The set-list of cover songs for Rudd and the boys goes beyond obvious choices like "Celebration" and is occasionally quite inspired, such as Stevie Wonder's "I Wish," which is marking its 50th anniversary this year. It opens with that indelible walking synth-bass line:

 

One interlude in "Power Ballad" is scored to the Ink Spots' "The Best Things in Life Are Free":

In the End Days, You Can't Take It With You

 

Jim Bakker died this week at age 86. He was the disgraced televangelist whose 1990s prison conversion didn't last long, and so he lived out his days hawking survivalist gear for what he perceived to be the coming apocalypse, grifting to the end.

The Charlotte Observer, which helped expose his lavish lifestyle and con game with wife Tammy Faye Bakker, finally got a chance to write his obit and dance on his grave. Rest in prosperity, you weasel.

We confessed all of our Bakker-related sins in 2021 when we reviewed the wonderful biopic of the creepy couple, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye." Now is a good time to revisit Michael Showalter's drama starring Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield, who "nails the smarm and massive insecurities -- not to mention the whiny speech patterns -- of Jim Bakker."

Here is how I'll remember Bakker, broken and sobbing while exiting his lawyer's office and surrendering to U.S. Marshals.

Driven by Desire

 

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) (B) - David Lean's epic has not worn well over these past six decades in its depiction of British military officer T.E. Lawrence's exploits leading Arab regiments battling for independence toward the end of World War I. Like most films of its era, it suffers from colonial white-savior ideations, personified by the gorgeous blue-eyed Peter O'Toole, in his breakout role.

 

The Arab people's were revolting against Turkish rule during the war, and Lawrence took up their cause, despite the machinations of Britain and France in drawing up plans to carve up the Middle East into protectorates. O'Toole's Lawrence is depicted as brave and sensitive to the Arab cause, though he develops a bloodlust that threatens his sanity and propriety, a condition rivaling that of Marlon Brando's Col. Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now."

I can't imagine anyone other than film-history buffs actually enduring this 3-hour 47-minute saga in one sitting; I did it in three parts. "Lawrence of Arabia" feels like it's not just from another era but also another world. O'Toole is merely average as the suave adventurer. Omar Sharif, plucked from Egypt's acting world, brings some heft here as Sherif Ali, the adviser to King Feisal, who is the figurehead behind the Arab rebellion. Ali and Lawrence have a contentious relationship, but much of Sharif's job in this movie is to gaze longingly at the fair-haired pretty-boy star. (Rarely is a pomaded hair out of place on O'Toole's head throughout the movie, even after the heat of battle.)

As viewed now, the film is not much more than a homoerotic escapade, captured magnificently (and before there was CGI) by David Lean ("The Bridge on the River Kwai," "Doctor Zhivago"), who was doing battle with sand, the elements and camels in the Jordanian desert. I always wanted to see this on the big screen, and I'm sure I missed a lot by viewing it on DVD, but I'm also glad I wasn't trapped in a theater for four hours. I was also grateful for the occasional rescue by subtitles, as both the British and Arabic accents are laid on thick throughout. 

The story can get convoluted, and Lean struggles to imbue the proceedings with enough action and suspense to justify the epic running time. The cast is hit-and-miss. Alec Guinness is about as authentic playing King Feisal in the desert as he is as a Jedi master out in space. Jose Ferrer, Claude Rains and Anthony Quinn are all rather flat in supporting roles. 

I'll take the blame for waiting so long to finally sit for a screening of a movie that was released the week I was born. Lesson learned. Don't let eras pass you by, and if you do, don't try to recapture a historical moment. "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives." 

BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER (2000) (B-minus) - A ridiculous cartoon of a comedy is made palatable by a fine cast, led by a young Natasha Lyonne as an observant Christian cheerleader who is forced to go to a conversion-therapy camp for gay teens.

"Broad" doesn't cover the tone of the movie, and cartoonish might sound too dismissive, but this is definitely lightweight storytelling, which ironically leans on gay-friendly exaggerations to satirize horrible fundamentalist homophobes. It is shot in bright neon colors (mostly pink and blue to enforce normative gender roles) and presents its characters in stark two-dimensional stereotypes.

 

Lyonne, following up "Slums of Beverly Hills" and "American Pie," is still pudgy-cheeked and bright-eyed, the perfect vehicle for writer-director Jamie Babbit, who would go on to a solid career directing TV shows. Lyonne's Megan, so pious that she doesn't clock her own sapphic fantasies, is joined by fellow lesbians resisting the indoctrination, including roles for Melanie Lynskey (still rocking her New Zealand accent) and Clea DuVall (HBO's "Veep"), who provide a solid foundation for salvaging a decent story out of the silliness.

Casting Cathy Moriarty as the uptight fascist director of the therapy camp is the only real misstep here; Moriarty simply is not very funny, and her lines mostly fall flat. RuPaul is on hand to play an "ex-gay" man who runs the recruits through their paces, unconvincingly. The cast also includes Bud Cort ("Harold and Maude") and Mink Stole as Megan's stuffy parents; Richard Moll and Wesley Mann as an old gay couple who live near the camp and provide refuge to those trying to escape; and a cameo by Julie Delpy as Lipstick Lesbian, who tempts Megan in the town bar.

At this point in her career, Lyonne had not developed the swagger and rough edges she has now, but she still is a fun actor to build a throwaway film around. It's interesting that as a kid she appeared on "Pee-wee's Playhouse," because the movie has the aesthetic of an Afterschool Special as conceived by Paul Reubens. Still, Lyonne, Lynskey and DuVall yank this out of the straight-to-video dumpster, and Babbit (with screenwriter Brian Peterson) manage to wring some actual emotion at times, as the captive teens rebel against the attempted brainwashing and seek to find their true selves. I'm being generous here, but I laughed a lot and didn't mind the simplistic presentation of a situation that, a quarter century later, feels a bit anachronistic. I'm not above dumb fun.

BONUS TRACKS

The "Cheerleader" soundtrack buoys the film, especially right out of the gate with Go Sailor's "Ray of Sunshine," which reminds me of classic Primitives:

 

Let's double up on Go Sailor and spin another one, "Together Forever in Love":

 

Someone had a crush on Marilyn Munster. Maybe April March, with "Chick Habit":

 

For the closing credits, Dressy Bessy croons "If You Should Try to Kiss Her":

Let the Drummer Have Some

 

On the past two Tuesdays, I went downtown to see music, and each time the band relied on a drum machine to set the rhythms. In the case of the first band, it was both drum and bass that were programmed by computer. 

I'm not morally opposed to the concept of backing tracks -- Scott H. Biram did the same thing a few months ago when he performed as a "one-man" band -- or recorded rhythm sections. But it is odd and feels like an ominous trend. You think of the drummer as the engine of a live performance, and it's disconcerting to look around for, you know, Animal behind the kit, only to see a modest laptop flashing its lights and machine-gunning beats like a souped-up metronome.  

The first band I saw was Japan's Melt-Banana, now ensconced as a duo -- singer Yasuko "Yako" Onuki and guitarist Ichiro Agata -- emitting a burst of sound and fury for an hour. It is unrelenting noise rock. We last saw them at Meow Wolf in Santa Fe in 2022 and described their technique, involving a handheld MIDI controller, Yako's urgent wailing and Agata's ragged guitar screeches. (We also saw them in Albuquerque way back in 2013.)

Someone recorded last month's show at the Launchpad. Here it is:

 

And here is Melt-Banana from an Atlanta show in 1996, in their original form, when they were relatively new to the scene and still a quartet of instrument-playing Japanese kids. I had seen them, probably about a year earlier, at Lounge Ax in Chicago, and they were a blast live, all of them just bashing away.

 

For balance, I checked out a newer band popular with the kids. Every generation gets the Joy Division it deserves, and for 20-somethings, one of those is French Police. They are two guitarists and a bass player shrouded by back-lighting; they have little personality, and one of them mumbles indecipherable lyrics into the microphone. They play ethereal, jangly post-punk electronica-flavored pop, driven by a propulsive drum machine.

With little knowledge of their catalogue, I could not tell their songs apart at their hourlong live show at Sister Bar. But the youngsters could, and they were going wild for this trio. French Police struck me as a sort of New Age New Order, with all the angst bled from music and the vocals merely an afterthought. It is kind of on the Yacht Rock spectrum.

Here is the band's 20-minute AudioTree performance recorded four years ago in Chicago, the band's base. See if you can distinguish between tracks.

BONUS TRACK

Our title track, courtesy of Firehose and drummer George Hurley: