Tag: movies

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What We Want, What We Believe: The Black Panther Party Library DVD

“Let us go on outdoing ourselves; a revolutionary man always transcends himself or otherwise he is not a revolutionary man, so we always do what we ask of ourselves or more than we know we can do.” –- Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide


What We Want, What We Believe: The Black Panther Party Library (AK Press), taking its name from the two categories that Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale divided their ten-point program into when forming the Black Panther Party in 1967, is a four-disc set of short documentary films from Newsreel Films and archival video and audio clips of interviews, panel discussions, and reunion events. Continue reading “What We Want, What We Believe: The Black Panther Party Library DVD”

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Gandulf Hennig’s Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel

In some circles, Gram Parsons is a certified legend. In others, he is virtually unknown. Gandulf Hennig’s Fallen Angel (2004) documentary will enlighten the latter to the opinion of the former. Even if you know his basic story, love his music, or know nothing about him, this DVD offers plenty of revelations about his short but prolific existence.

Gram Parsons

Parsons grew up in Georgia, the heir to a million-dollar orange juice fortune. He was briefly a member of The Byrds, did some of his best work with The Flying Burrito Brothers, and recorded two beautiful solo records. He crossed paths and spent quite a Gram Parsons: Fallen Angellot of time with the Rolling Stones, and Emmylou Harris started her career collaborating with him. Interviewees in the film include Keith Richards, Emmylou, Peter Buck, fellow Byrd and Burrito Brother Chris Hillman, Parson’s manager, guitarist, widow, members of his family, and several friends.

With his tragic death at age twenty-six the stuff that movies are made of (for real, see Johnny Knoxville in Grand Theft Parsons), it’s good to see one made mostly about his life. Here’s hoping that Fallen Angel will entice more people to go back and listen to Parson’s music.

Speaking of, Rhino is also releasing a special edition, three-CD set of Parson’s two solo records, GP and Grevious Angel, with a third disc of outtakes, interviews, and rare tracks (sixteen in all), plus a fifty-two-page booklet. Complete Reprise Sessions is a perfect collection piece for both newbies and completists.

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Bomb the System Directed by Adam Bhala Lough

With its focus on graffiti and a lackluster storyline, Bomb the System (Palm Pictures) can be described fairly accurately as an update of the 80s graffiti classic Wild Style, which also rode a thin plot through the streets and walls of New York City. Its real value is in the visuals. From the nighttime shots of The City to the many pieces themselves, Bomb the System is a beautiful film. In spite of the story itself, BTS also manages to capture a sense of the energy involved in outlaw street art, a sense of the camaraderie of the crews that do it, and a sense of why they do it. Continue reading “Bomb the System Directed by Adam Bhala Lough”

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Dig! Directed by Ondi Timoner

Ondi Timoner’s Dig! is the story of a musical revolution, which may or may not have happened, depending on your perspective. The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Worhols were friends before either had any modicum of fame, and they were determined to change the world — or at least the world of music. They took separate paths toward this change, and the onset of two types of fame turned them into rivals of the oddest sort. Continue reading “Dig! Directed by Ondi Timoner”

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Recurring Themes, Part One: The Dissolution of Trust

“Who put thing together, huh? Me! Who do I trust? Me! That’s who!” — Scarface

One of my recent obsessions has been Shane Carruth’s movie Primer. The story revolves around two engineers who build a device in their garage, a device that turns out to alter time. As intriguing and fascinating as it is, on a deeper level, the science revealed in the film only acts as a catalyst for the evolution of their relationship, which moves from enthusiastic reliance to complete distrust. The two engineers, Abe and Aaron, start off as best friends hellbent on building their machine, but once things get out of control, a rift develops, and the two find that they can no longer work together. Upon first viewing, maybe their scientific discovery overshadows the nuances of their relationship, but once one gets past the idea of time travel (and the subsequently intricate plot structure), the human elements of the story move to the fore.

PrimerSo, after my second viewing of Primer, the idea of fading trust stuck in my head. My terministic screen was then duly haunted by it. Every time I go to a bookstore and I see Micheal Moore’s new book on display (Will They Ever Trust Us Again?), I cringe. I mean, I like Michael Moore, but in the same way that I like Dennis Rodman, Chad Muska, or Andrew WK: I’m not really a fan, but I’m glad he’s there doing his thing. But do I trust him? Not so much.

I’ve also been on a Mike Ladd kick lately. A friend of mine in Seattle turned me on to his music several years ago, and I’ve been geeked enough to try to keep up since. It’s not easy. Ladd is the kind of artist who makes it difficult to be his fan: All of his records are on different labels, many under different names, and often categorized in different genres. Mike Ladd is a poet, a producer, a performer, and more. He’s usually found filed under “Hip-hop,” but genre distinctions cannot contain his work.

In What Language?Anyway, one of his recent records, done with phenomenal pianist Vijay Iyer, In What Language? is an exploration of travel and the breakdown of trust. The record’s namesake is the pre-9/11 experience of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi: “While traveling from a festival in Hong Kong to one in Buenos Aires. Transiting through JFK, he was detained by INS officials, shackled to a bench in a crowded cell for several hours, and ultimately sent back to Hong Kong in handcuffs. Panahi’s description of this ordeal was widely circulated online. He wanted to explain his story to fellow passengers: ‘I’m not a thief! I’m not a murderer! … I am just an Iranian, a filmmaker. But how could I tell this, in what language?'” The airport represents the intersection of the vectors of travel, commerce, globalization, and culture: This is not neutral territory. Have you been to the airport lately? Do you feel trusted? Do you trust the people searching your bags?

And finally, I just got the new Sage Francis record. It’s title? A Healthy Distrust… (By this point, a pattern had emerged.) If you’re familiar with the work of Sage Francis, then you know where this title comes from. It’s the same distrust of Public Enemy, Refused, or Rage Against the Machine (and the same healthy dose that 49% of Americans currently have).

Like so many other intangibles, trust is a process. It’s something that gets checked and re-checked throughout the lifecycle of a relationship. It’s not something I’ve really put much thought into in a while, but my Primer obsession got me thinking about it. Shane Carruth used a scientific discovery to check the trust between his main characters, saying in an interview, “…some device or power is going to be introduced that’s going to change what’s at risk, what they are liable to lose if that trust is broken. And that’s going to be the thing that unravels their relationship, and not just relationships, I was interested in it because I think it’s universal, whether you’re talking about power structures in politics or whatever.”

Universal, yes. Always at the forefront of conscious concerns, no.

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Literary Conversations and Interviews with Filmmakers

The University Press of Mississippi has been quietly putting out an amazing catalog of books for years now. One such set is their Literary Conversations Series (edited by Peggy Whitman Prenshaw) that consists of interviews and essays with modern literature’s most fascinating authors. I got Don DeLillo, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, and Jack Kerouac, but the series also includes Tom Wolfe, August Wilson, Robert Penn Warren, Gore Vidal, Ray Bradbury, Gloria Naylor, R. Crumb, Audre Lorde, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among many others.

Ridley Scott InterviewsThey also put out a similar set called the Conversations with Filmmakers Series (edited by Peter Brunette). These include Ridley Scott, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Jean Renoir, Tim Burton, Charlie Chaplin, Francis Ford Coppola, Terry Gilliam, and many more. Since each of these books focuses on a specific person, but spans the length of his or her career, one really gets a sense of their attitudes, ambitions, processes, career development, career pitfalls, and, of course, personal tribulations. If you’re interested in any of these creators’ work, then the appropriate book here is indispensable. Hell, even if you’re not necessarily interested in the subject, they’re good. I mean, have you ever seen a bad episode of Behind the Music?

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Roman Polanski from 1984:

Franz-Olivier Giesbert: After all that you have gone through, you still look only thirty years old. What’s your secret?

Roman Polanski: My curiosity, without doubt. I’m always trying to learn something new. A language or a musical instrument. Old age is an illness that sets in when you don’t want to learn anything new.

Amen.

So keep an eye out for these volumes. They’re all certainly worth checking out.

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How To Draw a Bunny Directed by John Walter

Ray Johnson has been called the “the most famous unknown artist in the world.” He was an unsung Pop Art innovator, collaging, mailing, and performing his way through the mid-twentieth century New York art scene. As artist Billy Name says in one of the interviews in the film: “Rauschenberg was a person making art, so was Andy (Warhol). Ray wasn’t a person. Ray was art… That’s why he’s an artist’s artist.”

How to Draw a BunnyHow To Draw a Bunny documents Ray’s life as best as it could be done. Many were acquainted with him and his work – and many over long periods of time – but no one seemed to know who Ray was. His entire life was a performance. And so too, it appears, was his death (the mystery surrounding his apparent suicide opens the film). He never went to openings, never had his own art show, despised galleries, was meticulous about his prices, and truly worked outside the art system his entire career.

Ray Johnson started or helped start many of the techniques and trends for which other artists are known: the use of copy machines and collaging; using images from advertising, brand logos, and pop culture icons; and mail art, or as he called it, “correspondence art.”

How To Draw a Bunny is a fun collage in itself: a collection of interviews of artists who knew Ray, including Chuck Close, Christo and Jean-Claude, James Rosenquist, the aforementioned Billy Name, and Ray Johnson himself; many great photographs; and, presented mostly in black and white, the film maintains the opening mood of mystery throughout. It’s a fun and intriguing look at an artist about whom one may not have heard, but will certainly be better off with his acquaintance.

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Under the Overpass Written and Directed by Gariss

In this short but fascinating film, a wheelchair-bound homeless man, Michael, begins his day when he wakes up under an overpass, slowly maneuvers into his wheelchair, and heads to a local coffee shop. After cleaning up the sidewalk out front, collecting his pay (a cup of coffee), he makes his way to another overpass where he sips his coffee, and pulls out his flute. Unbeknownst to the hurried passersby, through his music, Michael is transferred to a world with able legs: legs able to run, jump, and leap with joyous abandon. Continue reading “Under the Overpass Written and Directed by Gariss”

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R.I.P. Rest in Pieces: A Portrait of Joe Coleman Directed by Robert-Adrian Pejo

For the uninitiated, Joe Coleman paints meticulously constructed circus-dream visions that often depict serial killers and does performance pieces in which he bites the heads off rats and sets off explosions on his own body. One Chicago performance found him arrested and charged with “possession of an Infernal Machine” (a machine or apparatus maliciously designed to explode and destroy life or property) — a charge not levied against anyone since the 19th Century. Continue reading “R.I.P. Rest in Pieces: A Portrait of Joe Coleman Directed by Robert-Adrian Pejo”