the gospel of eureka

The Gospel of Eureka reaches its peak in vivid visual symmetry between an arena Passion Play and a local drag bar. Narrated warmly by Justin Vivian Bond, the doc captures a handful of characters and the mood of its title town, Eureka Springs, burrowed in leafy Arkansas mountainside, exceptionally well. In its brisk, but leisurely and elegantly-filmed 75-minute run-time, directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher's doc looks at the divides and the occasional surprising cross-sections between evangelical and LGBTQ life.

We are introduced to a son of two gay dads, now grown with children of his own. The manager of the Passion Play, staged in the mountains of the Christ of the Ozarks, the third largest Christ statue in the world, and the actor who portrays Jesus himself--with syrupy blood and bombastic resurrection and all. But the heart of the picture are couple Lee Keating and Walter Burrell who run Eureka Live--a homey strobe-lit dive dubbed the "hillbilly Studio 54." The documentary, mostly low-key and plain, makes its most canny and exceptional cut midway through in a flash forward scene. It punctures with humor and pain and delves deeper into Keating and Burrell's love and beliefs.

Overall, I appreciated the slyness Palmieri and Mosher often interject and the coyness of Bond's narration. Unlike many slash and burn docs of late, the film's low-key matter-of-fact presentation visually doesn't pit two sides so harshly against one another--it's already burning within the subtext. In fact, there's a lack of outright judgement (except for deserved scorn for Anita Bryant) that would have been an easy brush stroke. The movie savors the natural world--a quick close-up of a spider is a small and grand gesture--a Pride march interrupted by a storm. It's a reminder how silly and complicated human life is as nature strums on. The Gospel of Eureka ends up being a temporary salve in these times, and a southern-fried tale wrapped up deeply by the end of the journey, above the misty mountains. ***

-Jeffery Berg

hamptons film festival recap: better late than never by karen g.

On Saturday, August 10th, my esteemed fellow film buff and social media guru, Twitter’s @ladivaflaca and I headed off to Easthampton for the annual Hamptons Film Festival. Grabbing our press passes at The Maidstone in East Hampton, we excitedly took in the world premiere of Harry Benson: Shoot First, a remarkably entertaining documentary about the prolific photographer who famously snapped the Beatles during their inaugural trip to the United States.

The film is a beautiful chronicle of famous moments captured by the incorrigible, wonderfully likeable and charming Benson, who photographed some of the most iconic people in modern history. From Muhammad Ali to Michael Jackson, Benson intimately befriended and photographed even the most reclusive celebrities.  Benson, at the Q&A following the film, shared that one of his most enjoyable photo shoots was with the mysterious Bobby Fischer.

The HIFF Award for Best Documentary Feature Film went to Missing People directed by David Shapiro. This riveting documentary chronicles Martina Batan’s investigation into her young brother’s unsolved murder. Batan is the director of a prominent art gallery in New York and researches and collects works from New Orleans artist, Roy Ferdinand. Ferdinand’s artworks are famous for their graphic content depicting African American culture in pre-Katrina New Orleans. The story is motivated by Martina’s need for closure and her deep obsession with Ferdinand’s work.

The honorable mention for a documentary feature was Ilinca Calugareanu’s Chuck Norris VS Communism. Calugareanu, a London-based Romanian director and editor, showcases a story about escapism during a deep cultural blackout. This captivating documentary sheds a light on Romania in the 1980s when Western films were smuggled into unlicensed “video nights”. Most of the films were dubbed by the same person, Irina Nistor, who became one of the most recognizable voices in pre-revolution Romania.  Calugareanu’s film shares a touching story on how the power of film created a cultural awakening to an suppressed nation.

Other HIFF 2015 winners include:

 

HIFF Award for Best Narrative Feature was Rams, Directed by: Grímur Hákonarson - a film about two brothers who live side by side but who have not spoken to each other for forty years. 

Honorable mention went to Embrace Of The Serpent, Directed by Ciro Guerra - story about an Amazonian shaman and his journey with an American and German scientist in the search of the yakruna, a sacred plant in the Amazon.

In the Narrative Short Film category, “Over” a mystery by Jörn Threlfall took the prize and Honorable mention went to Eva Riley’s “Patriot”, a story about an 11-year-old girl whose father runs a far right group in London.

 

For a full list of awards and categories at the festival, click HERE.

-Karen G.

 

lost soul

Maybe one shouldn't play with witchcraft. That's one lesson learned the hard way in David Gregory's new doc Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau. Gregory's look is a cheeky, brisk overview of a disastrous slog of a film shoot. The inventive and vibrant (in its heyday) New Line Cinema originally funded oddball filmmaker Richard Stanley (who directed the flawed but interesting cult hit Hardware) to direct a modestly budgeted remake of H.G. Wells' Island of the Dr. Moreau. Original casting choices fell through and the film ended up with notoriously cantankerous actors Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando in the leads. In this doc, Stanley comes off as a sympathetic, genial nerd who tried to make an artistic passion project using vivid, extensive makeup effects (spearheaded by Stan Winston; this doc reminds how awesome and eerie practical make-up effects look compared to the CGI sheen today) but was frustrated by the studios altering of his vision and also couldn't manage the bloated egos and bizarre antics of his two stars. Quickly Stanley was replaced by veteran director John Frankenheimer who stepped in to salvage what was left of the picture and script and who also clashed with much of the cast, including magnetic Fariuza Balk who serves up some great, salty interviews. Dry-humored castmate Marco Hofschneider (of Europa Europa fame) gives some interesting anecdotes on the set and also on Brando and a dismissive Kilmer.

Sometimes bad shoots can deliver solid films but the end result for Frankheimer and co. was a forgettable misfire. The doc made me want to re-watch Island, which I haven't seen since it came out in theaters in 1996 and which I barely remember except for Brando's white makeup and bandage muumuus. Lost Soul isn't really a life-changing picture but a fun little watch for those interested in the pitfalls and difficulties of filmmaking and some behind-the-scenes drama. **1/2


-Jeffery Berg

sarah polley interview

Elvis Mitchell interviews Sarah Polley on her new film Stories We Tell.

stories we tell

I looked at nothing concerning Stories We Tell before seeing it and am grateful, so you might want to wait until after you've seen it before reading this.  A film dependent upon a series of emotional reveals and surprises, Sarah Polley's wondrous piece defies the documentary genre and re-creates--in a dazzling, almost eerily obsessive way--a fractured portrait of her mother's mysterious life.  Once more well-known as a film actress, Polley is quickly emerging as a great filmmaker, showing talent and sensitivity in directing two strong, well-acted films (Away from Her and Take This Waltz) which show wisdom beyond her years by not delving into easy sentimentality or expected routes.  The new doc highlights the thematic elements of infidelity and relationships in Polley's previous work, but also expands upon them in a more unbridled, experimental format.

If examining Polley's parentage sounds slight, it's not, thanks to the quirky and resonant interviews she conducts with family members and friends of her mother (often in fourth-wall breaking ways... as Rory Kennedy did with her clan in Ethel) and the breathtaking use of Super-8 (the line between what's created or not is blurred; the photography is by Iris Ng) and the plaintive music (Timber Timbre's "Demon Host" and the piano nocturnes of Abraham Lass).  Oft-shown in memorable attire (that purple coat) with a late 70s, bell-shaped Lee Grant hairdo, it helps too that the ghost of the picture is portrayed as such an enigmatic, dramatic character; there are contradictions in the way people feel about her and all have, in some way, have been hurt by her loss and the memory of her.  Polley explores the myth and tenuousness of certainty with herself and her subjects.  In eloquent baritone (fussied over in a studio recording that we get glimpses of, with "take that line back again" moments, directed with steely resolve by Polley--is this too a performance?), her father Michael (portrayed as a quippy, showy actor but also a sensitive, reserved man) delivers much of the voice-over, based upon his writings. 

Polley has said of her work, “I don’t know how it has changed me, but I know it has. It is by far the hardest thing I have ever done and the most rewarding in terms of the result.”  Not sure what Polley thinks but making this film seems to be both an attempt in taking control of her mother and the past but also an attempt to clarify the mysteries of her very existence. ****



-Jeffery Berg

dfa records

Cool, brisk doc on the founding of the DFA record label, home to artists such as LCD Soundsystem, Holy Ghost!, The Rapture and more.

the latter days

"... I'm filming my life in order to have a life to film like some primitive organism that somehow nourishes itself by devouring itself -- growing as it diminishes..."

Director Ross McElwee's Sherman's March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation is a sprawling cinéma vérité and a unique personal odyssey.  It begins in a barren loft apartment, white light through the windows, with a calm, whispery and laconic voice-over.  North Carolina-bred McElwee tells us he had intentions of making a documentary about the Union General's Civil War "March to the Sea." Besides the grandiosity of Sherman's campaign, McElwee is also fascinated by Sherman's paradoxical nature: how did one who had come to love the South end up ultimately destroying it?  Yet the idea for his doc is dashed when McElwee finds himself in deep grief after recently being left by his girlfriend.  McElwee soon returns home to North Carolina, and begins thinking about the women in his life. He first meets up with Patricia, a free-spirit who defies the conventions of her upbringing by trying to make a break as an actress. McElwee films her with a Woody Allen-idiosyncratic lust as she does her "cellulite exercises."  Like many of the women in this film, Pat goes off to pursue someone or something else and soon we almost miss her in the way that McElwee does.  His rambling trek follows some of the regions Sherman had destroyed with his 'scorched earth' methods.  Armed with his camera, he meets up with isolationists (they rail against the government intervention but praise nuclear proliferation), plutonium protesters, and even a wannabe Burt Reynolds body double (Reynolds is filming Stroker Ace in North Carolina and around Georgia -- one of Pat's dashed dreams as a potential co-star and a cause for some excitement for the locals).  The women he presents to us are his source of love, admiration, desire and also his agony.  He's often sleepless, thinking about his personal failures and nuclear war (it was filmed in the early 80s, a few years before its 1986 release).  

With its lack of phoniness and judgement, its frayed edges (sometimes the picture or the audio goes out) and revealing moments, Sherman's March is a stunning American portrait.  It's a bit long, but is so full of compelling and wistful scenes: a coming storm over an isolated Georgia island, an aspiring singer (Joyous Perrin) belting out "Respect" in a Sears parking lot, Pat's convoluted and brilliantly strange idea for a movie, potential love-mate Dee Dee's performance of "Just the Way You Are" for an all-girl's school ("the cradle of Southern womanhood") and her subsequent description of her Mormonism.  McElwee has a quiet nature that seems to cause these women to open up to him in unexpected ways.  I was reminded of some of the quote I posted yesterday by Darian Leader describing Robocop: "...he is no longer just a male biological body: he is a body plus machinery."  The camera is a powerful, sexual piece of machinery in this film, as it captures the spirit of and McElwee's carnality for these women.  And perhaps his subjects divulge so much because they know they are on camera (an ecstatic crowd wanting to glimpse Burt Reynolds becomes a self-reflexive scene).  McElwee knowingly stretches some of Sherman's legend and mythology into his own personal strife even when it seems trite. His first person account is perhaps landmark and familiar to us now with such a bevy of quirky docs and reality television but because of its heart and unbridled nature, the film remains an engaging chronicle.  ***1/2

-Jeffery Berg

rags to riches to less rich but still rich

There have already been a few great documentaries (Inside Job and Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer) that have examined and exposed the cause and effect of the 2008 economic crisis, but Lauren Greenfield's The Queen of Versailles may be one of the most offbeat and intimate. The film follows David Siegel, a billionaire owner of Westgate Resorts, and his wife Jackie and the construction of a 90,000 square foot home -- the largest in America -- at the foot of a Florida lake, the architecture modeled after Versailles. For the time being, the couple make do in an extravagant 20,000 square foot mansion of eight children, pets (two of the beloved dead dogs are stuffed in glass cases), and things galore (the Siegels have a Trumpy taste in decor and aesthetics).   But Greenfield goes beneath the tacky, gilded surfaces of David and Jackie and reveals their humble origins.  Jackie grew up in Binghamton, New York, did some modeling, worked for IBM then married David, becoming Mrs. Florida.  Ironically, David's parents lost all their money in Vegas -- his rise and his mammoth resort comes across in the film as a tribute to them.  David's shifty timeshare business, co-run by his son (he tells us there is no emotional connection between him and his father, everything is strictly business), is booming off of "cheap money" until the economic collapse.

There are some stagy moments (Greenfield has admitted that some things were shot out-of-sequence) but Greenfield's background in photography is a luminous asset to this film.  The cluttered rooms, gleaming limos, and dusk and night shots are full of eerie and ironic touches. Greenfield gives us some insight into the lives of children and the help (one of them has to dress up as Rudolph for a Christmas party -- in a scene that's both sad in its degrading implications and amusing).  Ultimately the Siegels seem unable to take care of everything they've collected and made including those around them; the death of a pet lizard is a stirring symbol of neglect.  Even when things get a bit repetitive in the film's somber final act, everything in Greenfield's picture, and its thematic obsession with rooms -- big and small / messy and clean -- is distinct and interesting.  David is surprisingly candid for someone who comes off in the doc as crooked and loveless; in one scene he describes his timeshare clients as "moochers" (though it's unsaid and understood that he's the biggest predator and moocher of all) and brags that he is the reason that George W. Bush became President. These are the sort of crazy moments you can't believe someone would admit on film (not surprisingly, Siegel has since sued Greenfield for defamation) and for that, Queen of Versailles is maddening and also an essential and sprawling portrait of these American times. ***1/2

-Jeffery Berg

best worst movie

As a kid in the early 90s, I didn't have HBO.  If I did, I may have found Troll 2.  The movie has eluded me for years until I watched it recently on Netflix instant--a source of discovery for a new generation of camp horror-inclined fans.  The legend of Troll 2 being one of the worst films is true, it's terrible--cheaply made and poorly acted.  Yet, there's a mood and texture about it that makes it more bizarre than most B-movie trash.

Having a fondness for the unintentional comedy of B-movies with serious intentions, I completely adored and was unexpectedly moved by Michael Stephenson's Best Worst Movie, a doc on the aftermath of Troll 2 and its cult following.  Stephenson is the child actor of Troll 2 who had dreams of being a star (I distinctly remember our era of Macaulay Culkin) but never saw his film until a year later on VHS and was embarrassed and disappointed.  With a sophisticated mix of humor and pathos, Stephenson tracks down and presents his director and fellow cast members of Troll 2, notably George Hardy, who played his father.  Hardy lives well in Alabama and is described as the "Patch Adams" of dentistry there.  Jovial and expressive, he loves to be the center of attention.  Stephenson's subject is entertaining and electric.  We watch Hardy's burgeoning egomania and enthusiasm for his past role as he attends fervent screenings of Troll 2 and his profound disappointment when people don't recognize him or the film at a UK horror convention.

It's also a film about Italian director, Claudio Fragasso.  At the time of shooting Troll 2, Fragasso spoke little English which caused a lot of communication problems on the set.  In the documentary, we watch his seething contempt at the actors (he describes them as "dogs") as they reveal their side of how incompetently  the movie was made.  It's a portrait of a filmmaker's frustration and his inability to defend both what he has created and its cult phenom (the jolly Fellini-esque score that sometimes accompanies the doc is befitting).  

When Stephenson and Hardy visit the Utah home of fellow cast member Margo Prey, an intensely somber strain emerges. Agoraphobic and taking care of her elderly mother, Prey speaks about her view of the film (a movie about people that compares to the likes of Casablanca) and her reluctance to go out to its screenings.  The contrast between Hardy and Prey (who played the parents in the original film) couldn't be starker and Hardy is visibly uncomfortable by her.  We also meet the actor Robert Ormsby, who, despite his extensive stage work, admits he has "frittered" his life away.  Stephenson creates something akin to Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, except this one is real and feels personal--a really complex testament to the making of low-budget horror. ***1/2

how to grow a band

I attended the premiere of How to Grow a Band--the lovely, unassuming doc on progressive bluegrass band Punch Brothers.  While the doc is about the band's formation and music, the main focus may be Chris Thile.  A musical prodigy and ex-member of Nickel Creek (the talented, longtime family bluegrass band that rose to prominence after the T-Bone Burnett-driven folk and Americana renaissance of the early and mid-2000s), Thile is the handsomely scruffy and sleepy-eyed lead singer, mandolinist of the Punch Brothers, portrayed in the film as extremely dedicated to his art.  Enigmatic, golden-voiced Thile comes off as its ringleader, unapologetic about the band's experimental direction on its debut (which consists of an opus of four lengthy string movements).

Directed by Mark Meatto, The movie mirrors the band's music style--freewheeling yet precise--as evident in its careful camerawork (the idea to film the back of the band from outside through the window after a concert at Lincoln Jazz Center was particularly inspired).  It seems focused less on any blow-ups and drama.  Instead, the members seem quite taciturn and inward and extremely hard-working in their musical craft. The quietness may alienate some viewers but for musicians and music fans, there are rewards.  The movie is worth watching for its intimate live performances and its unadorned look at the organic feel of music-making (it closes appropriately with Thile playing late at night with composer software). ***

-Jeffery Berg

never sleep again

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy is an enjoyable, very detailed documentary profiling all of the films in the Nightmare on Elm Street series as well as the cult "Freddy's Nightmares"TV spin-off. Because features on many of the Nightmare DVD's are thin, this documentary is a treat for Freddy fans. It's also a reminder that most of the films in this series are relatively low budget independents that scored significant box office based on their own ingenuity. Financed by the brave New Line Cinemas, a production company that, under the helm of Robert Shaye (an interesting presence in this doc), was quite ahead of its time with bold projects of the 1970s and 1980s. This doc covers a lot of terrain in four hours but unlike many retrospectives, it isn't too glutted with clips. It's smart, fast and quirky. And it isn't edited in a way that sugarcoats the less successful entries in the series. The filmmakers involved are quite honest in their assessments.

Wes Craven, the director of the original, is perhaps the most critical of many of the subsequent films and to some extent, with good reason. The creepy, straightforward vibe of Part 1 differs greatly from the humorous, tongue-in-cheek, noisy visual dream-scape of Renny Harlin's Part 4. But the films themselves mimic a changing era in 1980s horror cinema. Once Freddy became a wisecracking late night guest and a marketable tool (to children as well as young adults), the films themselves, like their audiences, became much more self-aware. Part 1 remains the standard bearer for many subsequent horror films. Dark, moody and imaginative, unlike the standard slasher films before it, it blends fantasy with reality. Some of the images, presented so simply and evocatively (a body bag, a looming Freddy above our heroine Nancy's bed) are still haunting and memorable.

The hastily produced Part 2 ignored much of Part 1's storyline and isn't fondly remembered because of it. Craven remarks that it broke the rules by having Freddy come out of nightmares and into everyday reality in a pool party attack sequence. There indeed is a loss of tension when Freddy can appear at anytime, anyplace rather than within one's dreams. Also, the unusual and frank gay subtext of the sequel is finally addressed by the cast and filmmakers. Because those involved with the project were unable to recognize the mastery of the original and the sequel's homo-erotic overtones, what could have been an interesting premise was largely squandered.

The doc traces the enormous box office of Parts 3 and 4 which remain the most entertaining and best of the sequels and reveals the risks and chances New Line dared to take. 3 was created by the efforts of many future talents such as Peter Jackson and director Chuck Russell. Finnish Renny Harlin, then unknown, constructed Part 4, was underestimated by Shaye at the time. Harlin defied expectations with perhaps the most visually stunning and financially successful entry in the series. The doc includes footage of the wizardry of the films' special effects teams who delivered a lot in pre-CGI times on a modest budget. Both received the most positive reviews of the series and helped Freddy Krueger become a cultural phenomenon. Never Sleep Again provides wonderful, references of this booming 80s horror franchise with clips from Reagan, "Good Morning America," and a staunch Ebert who opposed the young audience marketing of the films.

The series began to lose luster with the less compelling and poorly scripted Part 5 (Freddy has a child!) and with 3-D gimmickry of Freddy's Dead. Yet for the benefit of series fans, Never Sleep Again devotes as much time to these films as the others. One can't help but be excited to hear the story of New Line producer Rachel Talalay, an enthusiastic supporter of the series, finally given the chance to direct an entry.

Craven systematically revived and buried the series with 1994's metafilm Wes Craven's New Nightmare to the delight of critics. Because there is so much self-awareness in films today (from Adaptation. to Tarantino epics--interestingly, Pulp Fiction was released the same day as New Nightmare), Craven's film still seems fresh as a departure from the slicker 80s films.

The much hyped showdown between Krueger and Jason resulted in the 2003 hit Freddy vs. Jason. Recalling the classic Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, I find Freddy vs. Jason simply a generic comic mainstream hit. Unlike any of the Nightmare predecessors, even the worst of them, it has no charm, atmosphere or suspense whatsoever. This is much in line with the bloated, dumbed-down horror movies of Hollywood today. Perhaps for interest of fans only, Never Sleep Again follows its origins and its subsequent box office success.

Never Sleep Again is winning for finding and interviewing so many cast members (who introduce themselves nicely by reading script descriptions of their characters), including the incomparable Robert Englund. Heather Langenkamp, who portrayed the wholesome but slyly inventive final girl of Part 1, narrates and is a fitting choice as she is the bridge between many of the sequels. Some careers have flourished, most notably those of Johnny Depp and Patricia Arquette, who lamentably do not appear here. Many are forgotten. Jsu Garcia reveals how he was marketed by agents as Italian under the name of Nick Corri, and also his struggles with addiction during the shoot of Part 1. Part 3 Cast members talk of the lack of chemistry with Tuesday Knight (who I thought was a good replacement) when Arquette didn't return for Part 4.

For those nostalgic for 80s horror and for film lovers in general, Never Sleep Again is a must-see. I commend the filmmakers for their wit and their thoroughness. The DVD can be ordered here. ***

-Jeffery Berg