Jane By Charlotte (2021)

 

JANE BY CHARLOTTE  (2021)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Charlotte Gainsbourg

A home movie done as a series of conversations between singer/actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and her mother, singer/actress Jane Birkin. The locations range from Paris to Tokyo, New York City to the South of France, and their exchanges cover everything from dogs and children to loss and regret to aging, pain and death. They know they're being filmed - they're doing the filming - but they're both so comfortable in front of the camera that it doesn't matter very much, and the act of making the movie becomes a part of the process that draws them closer together. Neither wears much makeup, and Birkin, in her 70s, actually seems to grow older as the film goes on. You get a real sense watching it that both women know their time together is limited, and that Charlotte's determined to capture as much of her mother as she can before it's too late. It turned out to be Birkin's final screen appearance. 

Laurel and Hardy's Laughing 20's

 

LAUREL AND HARDY'S LAUGHING 20's  

    D: Robert Youngson                    (1965)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

A collection of clips from the Hal Roach studio, featuring Laurel and Hardy and numerous (more obscure) silent comedy stars. Robert Youngson made a series of these compilation films, which helped keep silent movies in the public eye at a time when the public's memory of them was fading. Highlight: Extended footage of the pie fight in "The Battle of the Century" (1927).

Lawrence of Arabia: The Battle For the Arab World (2003)

 

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA: THE BATTLE FOR THE 

ARAB WORLD  (2003)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: James Hawes  

It's no accident that the original ad art for David Lean's 1962 epic "Lawrence of Arabia" was an ink-drawn head shot of a man whose face was completely obscured. More than 100 years since he helped lead the Arab revolt against the Turks during World War One, T.E. Lawrence remains one of the 20th century's most elusive historical figures. This documentary covers the basics and gets at some of the politics involved in Lawrence's wartime adventures and the disastrous impact of the post-war settlement that carved up the Middle East. The filmmakers spent a lot of time and money on reenactments, which look real good but aren't at all convincing when viewed side-by-side with archival footage, and especially with multiple actors playing Lawrence. As for Lawrence himself, the warrior/scholar/ 

spy/recluse/exhibitionist who alternately relished his time in the spotlight and shrank away from it, he continues to be what he always was and seems likely to remain: an enigma.

Wilde Salomé (2011)

 

WILDE SALOMÉ  (2011)  ¢ ¢

    D: Al Pacino

Al Pacino directed this documentary about Al Pacino making a movie about Al Pacino directing a stage production of Oscar Wilde's "Salomé" starring Al Pacino. That's an awful lot of Al Pacino. Maybe too much. See for yourself. 

Made In England (2024)

 

MADE IN ENGLAND  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: David Hinton

Martin Scorsese plays tour guide on a journey through the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who teamed up in the 1940s on a series of movies that combined a groundbreaking use of Technicolor with undercurrents of mysticism. Clips from "A Matter of Life and Death", "Black Narcissus" and "The Red Shoes", intercut with shots from "Mean Streets", "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull", show the direct influence the Powell & Pressburger films had on Scorsese, who first started watching them as a kid on a black-and-white TV. He's been watching them ever since. 

Grateful Dead (1995)

 

GRATEFUL DEAD  (1995)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Paul McCartney

Linda McCartney's black-and-white photos of the Dead in the '60s, with "Anthem of the Sun" on the soundtrack.

The Tenth Inning (2010)

 

THE TENTH INNING  (2010)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Ken Burns, Lynn Novick

Ken Burns goes back to the ballpark to update his epic documentary on baseball. This will appeal to just about anybody who cares about the game, but especially fans of the Yankees and Red Sox. (Burns is a die-hard Red Sox fan and was inspired to make the movie when the team finally won the World Series.) The big story playing out over the time the film covers is the steroids scandal, so there's a lot of Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds, at the expense of players who were just about as talented but not so conspicuously juiced. George Will, Bob Costas, Pedro Martinez and Joe Torre are among the witnesses. A plus for Mariners fans: Ichiro. A minus: Seattle's 116-win season in 2001 isn't even mentioned. 

Fragments of Paradise (2022)

 

FRAGMENTS OF PARADISE  (2022)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: K.D. Davidson

The long, eventful life of avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who escaped from Lithuania toward the end of World War Two, having pissed off both the Germans and the Russians, spent four years in a displaced persons camp, and eventually landed in New York City, where he picked up a 16mm movie camera and spent the next 60  years shooting film. Mekas never cared about technique and his movies show it, but he took his camera everywhere, and whenever something he found interesting passed in front of his lens, he filmed it. John Waters, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese and Jim Jarmusch are among those he influenced and inspired, and they all turn up here as witnesses. Viewers with a minimal interest in the movies Mekas made might still want to take a look at this one. 

Jimi Plays Monterey (1986)

 

JIMI PLAYS MONTEREY  (1986)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus

Concert footage of Jimi Hendrix at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. John Phillips does the sparse narration, and Janis Joplin, Grace Slick and the Mamas & the Papas appear just long enough to be recognized. 

Richard Burton: In From the Cold? (1988)

 

RICHARD BURTON: IN FROM THE COLD?

    D: Tony Palmer                                (1988)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

A documentary on the acting career and tabloid life of Richard Burton, from a coal-mining town in Wales to Hollywood, "Cleopatra", seven Oscar nominations and marriage to what's-'er-name. The witnesses are mostly relatives and admirers (plus a refreshingly candid Lauren Bacall), and if the movie doesn't quite capture what drove Burton, it does get at some of his contradictions. Clips from his films help tell the story, but titles letting you know what movies you're looking at would've helped.

Rolling Thunder Revue (2019)

 

ROLLING THUNDER REVUE  (2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Martin Scorsese

In 1975, Bob Dylan set out on tour - driving the bus, it looks like - along with Allen Ginsberg, Joan Baez, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and a bunch of musicians known collectively as the Rolling Thunder Revue. Some 40 years later, Martin Scorsese took footage from the tour and concocted this alleged documentary, with Dylan in whiteface and eye makeup performing some of his best songs, while he and others provide retrospective commentary as talking-head witnesses. "I don't remember a thing about Rolling Thunder . . . so what do you want to know?" Dylan says at one point, and that's as close as he comes to explaining himself. The movie makes no distinction between what's real and what's invented, and you don't always know, till finally Michael Murphy turns up in his persona as Senator Jack Tanner, talking about how Jimmy Carter once got him into a Dylan show in Niagara Falls. In a movie like this one, fronted by Bob Dylan, the fact that Jack Tanner is fictitious makes perfect sense. 

Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President (2020)

JIMMY CARTER: ROCK & ROLL PRESIDENT  

    D: Mary Wharton                             (2020)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

The first American president to attract the attention of the rock-&-roll generation was probably JFK, who died before most rockers could vote. The first president with a genuine interest and appreciation for the music was Jimmy Carter, who claims Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and Greg Allman as friends, and credits the Allman Brothers with helping him get elected in the first place. Others in the lineup in this documentary include Ray Charles, Paul Simon, Roseanne Cash, Aretha Franklin, Garth Brooks, Sarah Vaughan and Bono, and that's just a partial list. There's even footage of Rosalynn Carter singing harmony with Willie (sort of) and Jimmy providing vocals for Dizzy Gillespie (more or less). You also get Carter, looking spry in his 90s, talking with obvious affection about the people whose music has inspired him, and it's clear from the other talking-head witnesses that the feeling is mutual. Carter's presidency had its share of flaws and failures, along with some notable accomplishments, but his life and work after leaving the White House set a standard for public service that may never be matched. That, and an unbeatable playlist.

Jimmy Carter

(1924-2024)

The Other One (2014)

THE OTHER ONE: THE LONG, STRANGE TRIP 

OF BOB WEIR  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Mike Fleiss

The Grateful Dead guitarist talks about his music, his friendships with Neal Cassady and Jerry Garcia, and a lifetime spent playing in the band. Phil Lesh, Peter Coyote and John Perry Barlow are among the other witnesses. Required viewing for Deadheads. You know who you are.

The Poetry Deal: A Film with Diane di Prima (2011)

 

THE POETRY DEAL: A FILM WITH DIANE 

DI PRIMA                                           (2011)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Melanie La Rosa 

"A poem can be anything," Diane di Prima says at about the midpoint of this 27-minute documentary. "You have a blank piece of paper. You can do anything. You can make anything happen." Di Prima spent a lifetime doing that, as one of the few women to crack the mostly boys' club that was the Beat Generation. She was passionate about her work and tenacious in her pursuit of it, because she didn't know any other way to be. "Remember, you can have what you ask for," she says at the end. "Ask for everything."

The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg (1993)

 

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ALLEN GINSBERG  

    D: Jerry Aronson                                      (1993)  ¢ ¢ ¢

These days, it's hard to imagine a poet reaching the level of acclaim and notoriety that Allen Ginsberg attained in the second half of the 20th century. As a primal figure in the Beat movement of the '40s and '50s, a queer, a Jew, a champion of psychedelics, an activist against the Vietnam War, a student of Eastern mysticism and a cohort of everybody from Jack Kerouac to Timothy Leary to Patti Smith, Ginsberg both defined and symbolized the counterculture for 50 years. This documentary digs into some of that, with William S. Burroughs, Herbert Huncke, Abbie Hoffman, Joan Baez and Ken Kesey all lining up as witnesses, and Ginsberg himself talking about his life and reading from "Howl", "Kaddish" and other works. Required viewing for fans of the Beats, and highly recommended for anybody trying to figure out how a poet could ever command that kind of public attention.

Vaudeville (1997)

 

VAUDEVILLE  (1997)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    W: Greg Palmer

When I was a kid, there was a guy who used to show up on television from time to time called the Banana Man. The Banana Man would come out wearing a long, bulky overcoat and he'd pull stuff out of his overcoat - bananas, hundreds of them, but lots of other stuff, too. It was amazing what he could pull out of his overcoat. That was it. That was what he did. The Banana Man had been a novelty act in Vaudeville, and he turns up briefly in this American Masters documentary with more than a hundred other performers, some of them famous and a lot of them (these days) obscure. Starting in the 19th century, Vaudeville, with its comics, dancers, jugglers, musicians, plate-spinners, regurgitators, magicians, contortionists and acrobats, was massively popular at a time when live entertainment was the only entertainment there was. What killed it was technology, specifically radio and film. The irony, watching a movie like this, is that film is the sole reason most of these performances still exist, an art form preserved by the medium that brought it to an end. Immortality, of sorts, for the Banana Man.

Conrad Veidt: My Life (2020)

CONRAD VEIDT: MY LIFE  (2020)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Mark Rappaport 

As the first-person, beyond-the-grave narrator of this documentary points out, the two roles Conrad Veidt is most noted for are the bookends of his career: Cesare, the somnambulist in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1919) and Major Strasser, the Nazi who tangles with Humphrey Bogart in "Casablanca" (1942). The movie says almost nothing about Veidt's life before "Caligari", and the focus wanders sometimes to the point where you wonder whether maybe the filmmakers have forgotten that their picture is supposed to be about Conrad Veidt. As with his previous documentary on Jean Seberg, Rappaport's subjective approach can be more distracting than illuminating. Good clips, though, some from movies you've probably never heard of. Veidt worked in Germany into the sound era, and got away to Britain and then Hollywood after clashing with Josef Goebbels. (Veidt's wife was Jewish.) He died from a heart attack on a golf course in 1943 (the 11th hole, if the information in this movie is correct). He was 50.

Country Music (2019)

COUNTRY MUSIC  (2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Ken Burns

90 years of county music, from Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family to Hank Williams and Patsy Cline to Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash to Emmylou Harris and Garth Brooks. From the beginning, country music has straddled a line between art and commerce. As soon as broadcast and recording technology made it commercially viable, folks were using it to sell stuff. And despite Burns' efforts to showcase its diversity and its roots in gospel and blues, it's always been primarily a white man's game. And a conservative one. At its worst, country is just bad pop music. At its best, it touches the heart. All the key figures turn up in this, and the witness list includes everybody in the business who was still breathing when the movie was shot. Mandolin virtuoso Marty Stuart is the most articulate, and, appropriately, gets the last word. 

Kingdom of Shadows (1998)

 

KINGDOM OF SHADOWS  (1998)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Bret Wood

A documentary on horror in silent cinema, from "Nosferatu" to "Vampyr" to "Witchcraft Through the Ages". An excellent collection of vintage clips. Campy, over-the-top narration by Rod Steiger. Watch out for a brief segment from 1903 titled "Electrocuting an Elephant". It looks like they're actually doing that. 

Playing Unfair (2002)

 

PLAYING UNFAIR: THE MEDIA IMAGE OF THE FEMALE ATHLETE  (2002)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    P: Sut Jhally, Loretta Alper, Kelly Garner, Kenyon King

A documentary about how women in sports are portrayed (i.e. sexualized) in popular culture. Some things haven't changed much since this movie's release, but one thing has: There are out lesbians in the WNBA now. A lot of them. And some of those women are modeling swimsuits, too. Exploitation or empowerment? It depends on who's looking and who you ask. Unfortunately, none of the talking-head witnesses here are female athletes. Maybe it's time for a sequel.