THE KING -- Eugene Jarecki’s fascinating doc about Elvis and America--opens in So. Florida

Not a great film but one that is consistently interesting and often thought-provoking, THE KING offers, on one level, an intellectual experience something akin to viewing a splatter artist’s painting for the first time and out of all that color and form discovering a lot of fascinating connections. On another level – and done in an unusual manner but very well -- the movie is a smart bio-pic of Elvis Presley, as it moves back and forth in time and place until it has given us a surprisingly cogent account of his character and career.

As written and directed by Eugene Jarecki (shown at left), who has given us some terrific and important earlier docs (Why We Fight, The House I Live In and a section of Freakonomics), this film seems to TrustMovies to be one of this filmmaker's most free-form and impressionistic works. It's alternately allusive and illusive.

At one point in the doc, the director himself  (who makes a now-and-then appearance) allows that he isn't even sure what's he's doing here. By the end of the film, however, he has put together a compelling enough array of connections to make a pretty fair case. Mr. Jarecki sees Elvis' life, his rise and fall, as a kind of stand-in for America itself -- certainly for that elusive but so often remarked upon "American Dream."

Both Elvis and our country seemed to stand for something important and unusual. The country has now imploded, sinking into its own worst features and fears. Elvis did, too, though even in one of his final appearances, he managed to sit down at the piano and play and sing Unchained Melody like the great performer he could be and often was.

Jarecki wisely and movingly ends his film with this song, set against an array of fast, vast, nearly subliminal visuals that hit and highlight American history. It's impressive, as has been much of the lengthy movie itself -- which travels, via Elvis' own Rolls Royce (shown above, and which breaks down occasionally) across the country, east to west, with stops including Tupelo (Elvis' home town in Mississippi), Memphis, Nashville and the armpit/cesspool of the USA, Las Vegas.

Along the way we meet and hear from celebrities such as Ethan Hawke, Alec Baldwin, Ashton Kutcher and Public Enemy's Chuck D (shown below) and just-plain-folk: one of Elvis' longtime best friends, an ex-girlfriend (above) and the housekeeper who was with him at the end. What the latter have to say seems very bit as interesting as that of the former, though Mr. Kutcher does make a statement of about fame and talent that shows he's "woke" -- regarding himself, at least.

Not everyone here agrees with Jarecki's "take" on things (chief among these is David Simon, noted TV writer of The Wire and other shows), but the filmmaker seems perfectly OK with disagreement. This is part of what makes his film all the more interesting and acceptable. The connections he makes, ranging from easily accessible to pretty far afield, are nearly always understandable, even if you may sometimes nay-say.

We're treated to some good music along the way (Elvis', of course, and that of some others, shown above and below). By film's end, you'll have been made privy to a theory/thesis that should keep you on your intellectual and emotional toes, as well as to a Elvis bio-pic that -- depending on what you already knew about the legendary performer -- will make you both appreciate and lament this "king" all over again.

From Oscilloscope Films and running a lengthy but never boring 109 minutes, the movie, after opening in major cities over the past month, hits the South Florida area tomorrow, Friday, August 3. In Miami, look for it at the Bill Cosford Cinema and the Miami Beach Cinematheque, and in Palm Beach County at the Living Room Theaters of Boca Raton, and the Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth and at the Lake Worth Playhouse. Click here to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters across the country.

Brett Berns & Bob Sarles' smart and savvy music doc, BANG! THE BERT BERNS STORY

Though co-directed by Brett Berns, the son of its subject Bert Berns, the new music history-cum-biography documentary BANG! THE BERT BERNS STORY turns out to be no slavish hagiography about "my wonderful dad." Oh, you can feel the love and appreci-ation of the younger Berns for his father throughout, but the movie is so full of facts and characteristics -- not nearly all of them positive -- about Bert Berns that by the end of this fast-moving and wonderfully entertaining doc, you'll feel as though you've ingested pretty much the full measure of the man.

You'll also find yourself amazed by just how much Berns père contributed to the 1960s music scene -- writing, performing, arranging, producing an enormous amount of the best songs of this fecund period of rock-and-roll. Co-directed by Bob Sarles, the talented producer/director/editor of a wealth of fine documentaries (the two co-directors are pictured above, with Sarles on the right), BANG! is a near-non-stop review of greats songs, along with many of the folk -- songwriters, producers, performers -- who brought them to us, from Ellie Greenwich (center left, below) and Phil Spector to Van Morrison and Neil Diamond (at left, below).

Not to mention the powerful (and just a little scary) triumvirate at Atlantic Records (shown at bottom, with Berns), who became a large part of Mr. Berns' great success. The documentary charts the history, both family and business, of the elder Berns, along with his questionable physical health, which was obvious early on, along with his incredible drive to succeed and the talent he clearly possessed in order to achieve that success.

Along the way, you hear some lengthy snatches of great old tunes, with the fascinating stories that go with them, so that the movie -- for us seniors, at least -- will be a kind of delicious time trip back to our youth. (Hearing and seeing Van Morrison so young again, as above and below, is a treat, as is his very interesting thoughts about his mentor, Mr. Berns, today.)

The elder Berns long possessed an interest and fascination with mobsters, too, and the doc does not skirt this issue. For awhile, you may imagine that the titular Bang! will have something to do with the man's demise. But no, those health issues remain instead front and center.

For much of its speedy running time (just 94 minutes), the film bounces so joyously, if occasionally scarily, along that when the sadness at last arrives, you'll understand and even somehow appreciate it. I suspect that the late Mr. Berns would be pretty delighted with this film and proud of the work that his son, together with Mr. Sarles, put into it.

From Abramorama, the documentary opened this past Wednesday, April 26, in New York City at the IFC Center, and will opens in Los Angeles on Friday, May 5, at Laemmle's Noho.  To view all upcoming screenings across the country, click here and scroll down.

Jazz, love, death -- 45 years back -- in Kasper Collin's documentary I CALLED HIM MORGAN

It's odd, but somehow quite fitting, that the fellow we learn least about in Kasper Collin's fine documentary, I CALLED HIM MORGAN, is the title character, a jazz trumpeter named Lee Morgan. We hear his music and can easily determine how talented he was (very) but his character, his personality, his quirks and all the rest are barely there. Instead, we come much closer to the two important women in Morgan's life: Judith Johnson, still alive, who fills us in on her role as the "other woman," and Helen Morgan, Lee's common-law wife, who rescued the drug-addicted guy from the gutter, nourished him, loved him, and then shot him dead. (If you're expecting "The Helen Morgan Story," you'll be getting something quite different from those starring Polly Bergen or Ann Blyth.)

Mr. Collin, the Swedish filmmaker pictured at right, has done plenty of homework here, and the result is a smart and generous array of history, memory (provided by those two women and Lee Morgan's friends and co-musicians), and some terrific archival film and photography -- all of it set to music featuring Morgan (shown below, left), his own band and that of Dizzy Gillespie, with whom Morgan began his career. All of this makes the movie a must for jazz lovers, and for anyone who might want to take a time trip back to the the USA, the South, and then New York City in the 1960s and 70s.

The manner in which the film incorporates its music is particularly lovely: It is used in a way that the best movie soundtracks do in order to highlight emotions and events yet still manages to stay true to itself as jazz. (Interestingly enough, both Lee Morgan and Miles Davis did not appreciate the appellation of jazz to the kind of music either of them wrote and performed.)

As the movie tells its story -- which is based mostly on the only known interview that Helen Morgan ever gave after her prison term to journalist/teacher Larry Reni Thomas in 1996, as well as another with Val Wilmer in Helen's Bronx apartment back in 1971 -- we learn of Helen's life as child: given up by her mother to be raised by her grandparents, then leaving at a very young age for the "big city."

That city was, first, Wilmington, North Carolina, and then finally New York.

We learn of Helen's cooking skills, her detestation at being photographed (hence the paucity of shots of her here!), and finally of how she met, bonded with and saved Lee, after his descent into drugs. In the course of it all, we are also made acquainted with the culture of the time, and black music experience, and the black experience in general. And of course the casual, embedded racism of the day: Even in a snowstorm, how could it have taken a New York City ambulance one full hour to arrive at the scene of the shooting?

A sad story filled with wonderful music, I Called Him Morgan highlights, among other things, black male patriarchy vs strong black women, and the difficulty with which those women had to negotiate their route in life. After being released from prison, Helen -- never a religious person -- finds what salvation she can by working with and helping her local church in Wilmington, North Carolina.

From FilmRise and Submarine Deluxe, the documentary opens tomorrow, Friday, March 24,  in New York City at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and on Friday, March 31, at NYC's Metrograph and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Monica Film Center and elsewhere. Click here to view all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed.

LEONARD COHEN: BIRD ON A WIRE, the 1972, never-in-theaters documentary from Tony Palmer, opens at NYC's Film Forum

Could there a more timely release of a fabled documentary from decades past that was never seen theatrically than this 1972 film about the 20-city European tour by the recently-deceased Leonard Cohen (who was only 37 at the time) and his talented crew of musicians? Beginning in Dublin and ending in Jerusalem, the tour, its highlights and discontents are all captured on the fly by documentarian Tony Palmer in a film that proves intimate, inclusive and full of Cohen's music -- which, heard like this and at this point in the artist's career (he had not yet given us Hallelujah, for instance), does register as sometimes repetitive and similar, one song to another. But his lyrics: Ah, these were and are as poetic. elusive and beautiful as ever.

Over the long haul, Cohen (below and further below) and his work proved about as "evergreen" as one could want, but back in the early 70s the artist was in his heyday, and his songs -- from Suzanne to Chelsea Hotel, So Long, Marianne to that title tune -- reflect the period so very well. Mr. Palmer (shown above) tells us at the beginning that his film is "an impression of what happened during the tour." From the outset, it is clear what a quietly commanding presence Cohen is. When an interviewer asks what success means for him," he answers quickly and succinctly, "survival."

Along the way we learn that the rights to Suzanne were stolen from the artist by a "friend," and we see a probably rather typical (but still surprising in its reality) near-hook-up between the artist and one of his fans (below) after a concert in (I think) Germany. "It's hard to come on to a girl in front of the camera," Cohen explains somewhat sheepishly.

The guy is very good at interviews -- even if he may dislike doing them (and even if the interviewer, as below, forgets to press RECORD) -- and he proves generally honest, direct and thoughtful. He calls himself a combo chansonnier, Euro singer and synagogue cantor, and at one point talks about how trying it can be to lose contact with a song's emotion due to the constant repetition of having to sing it at concerts. Later in the film we'll see this seemingly happen, with the result that Cohen simply stops performing, mid-show.

And while the guy seems willing enough to offer his audience its money back when the band's sound system goes haywire, he's not so hot to do the refund thing, after he's walked out mid-concert. Well, you can't always be a mensch, right?

Palmer's doc, with its unshowy, graceful style (the filmmaker both directed and edited), captures Cohen and his band, if not warts and all, certainly not in any hagiography-seeking sort of way.  We see Cohen, as well as his producer/band-mate Bob Johnston, taking showers; one band member casually confesses to actually nodding off during a concert; and Cohen himself can sound awfully silly sometimes.

"Loneliness," he tells us, "is a political act." Well, no, it's not an action, it's a passive state. And while his lyrics can be wonderfully artful and subtle, at least one of the songs we hear -- purportedly about Abraham and Issac -- is way too tub-thumpingly obvious.

Just like most of us, Cohen, too, could be occasionally full of shit. And as he himself admits during the course of several interviews we're privy to, he was not much of a singer, either. But there's just so much poetry and yearning and caring in those lyrics. And, boy, could the guy turn out some lovely tunes!

New York City's Film Forum will play Leonard Cohen: Bird on a Wire for two weeks, beginning this Wednesday, January 18. Elsewhere? One would hope so. I will try to do some digging -- and post the results as soon as I can discover them.

All about artist Nick Cave in Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard's film -- 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH

There are, I believe, an enormous number of "staged" scenes (waking up in the morning, a psychotherapy session, visits with friends) in 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH, the new film -- I am not certain you could call this anything like a full-out documentary, and yet it does manage to let us see and understand its main subject, the singer/songwriter/screenwriter/artist Nick Cave, about as thoroughly as any 97-minute movie could -- by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard (shown below, left and right).

What Forsyth and Pollard have accomplished, however, is something grand and encompassing. Via their idea of bringing together Cave's history, his career, his "notebooks," his music, even some of his performing, the twosome, together with their subject, have created a film in which ideas bounce off each other and grow into something approaching an entire and very rich view of a special personality and talent.

Mr. Cave, above (engrossed) and below (performing), is indeed an original and someone who is multi-talented. He is also, it seems, a man who wants to understand where that talent comes from and how it connects to what he values most in life. To that end he pursues this via friends (that's his long-time collaborator Warren Ellis, at left, three photos below), family, shrink, and of course his work. The filmmakers tag along, having made their own suggestions, and then shoot and edit, wrapping their whole study into a fascinating, unconventional semi-documentary/biopic.

From his Australian roots to Brighton, that rainy, weather-beaten British beach town; from memories of his dad and his first experience with a girl to the various musical groups he's played with; in archival material (below), present-day shots, memories, diaries, and his music and the performing of it, Cave appears as a surprisingly full-bodied character. (At times he reminded me in his own way of the performance artist Marina Abramovic: Maybe it's their dark clothing and severity of appearance, coupled to their intelligence and non-mainstream art...?)

What comes through most strongly here is Cave's sheer intelligence -- along with his ability to feel strongly and put these feelings/ideas together.  And yet, is 20,000 Days on Earth simply a new kind of hagiography? Clearly the filmmakers love their subject and he them (considering the enormous access Cave gave them into his life and art), and the result is a kind of magical film in which we watch, learn and enjoy the experience quite fully.

And everything we see and hear is positive; there's hardly a negative moment in the whole shebang. Perhaps Mr. Cave is a remarkably thoughtful, even-handed and even-tempered fellow. If not, well, we've missed that part of the equation. What we get, however, is so well-conceived, -executed, -filmed and -edited (this is one gorgeous movie) that it's a constant pleasure to view, hear and think about in retrospect. So, yes, it's difficult to complain about something this involving and enjoyable.

20,000 Days on Earth is something new in the documentary/biopic field. You won't easily be able to compare it to any other film. If you know Cave's work (I'm a big fan of his raspy, craggy voice and his songs, less so of his screenwriting), you'll want to see it. But even if you're a newcomer to Nick, I suspect the movie will grab and hold you. (That's Kylie Minogue in the back seat, above.)

In their unique blending of history, personality, music, cinematography, ideas, performance and more, Forsyth and Pollard have come up with something original and accomplished. Their movie -- from Drafhouse Films -- opens this Wednesday here in New York City at Film Forum. In the weeks to follow, it will open in cities all across the country. To see where and when, simply click here and scroll down.

Kerry Candaele's doc FOLLOWING THE NINTH: In the Footsteps of Beethoven's Final Symphony

Who doesn't like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, particularly that final movement, with its evergreen "Ode to Joy." Hell, even Adolf Hitler loved it, using it to inspire his Nazi hordes. You won't learn about Hitler's love for this musical classic via FOLLOWING THE NINTH: In the Footsteps of Beethoven's Final Symphony, however. No: For that bit of information, you'll have to see a much stronger, provocative and chal-lenging documentary, The Pervert's Guide to Ideology. Coincidentally enough, both movies open in New York City this Friday. For those who simply want to revel in the beauty of the Beethoven, while being fed reams of feel-good information and first-person testaments about how the symphony -- as Kerry Candaele (shown below), writer/producer/director of Following the Ninth, explains upfront -- "200 years after its writing, continues to inspire struggles for freedom, survival and healing during dark times," here's the film for you!

Yes, Beethoven's Ninth is a great piece of music. And the Pinochet regime of torture, murders and disappearance in Chile was a horror; China's student protests and the Tiananmen Square massacre, was a one-off jolt backward in that country's extra-long march toward some kind of freedom; while the post-WWII division of Germany into East and West, together with the construction of the infamous Berlin Wall was yet another, major slice of repression from Communism's Soviet leaders. But the documentary that results from the awkward conjoining of all these (plus a trip to Japan where, unless I missed something, there is no struggle for freedom but instead merely a festival honoring Beethoven's Ninth that occurs each December) is simply silly and wrong-headed.

The fact that in Chile and China protestors (shown above and below) were inspired by the symphony is worth an anecdote (just as Slavoj Zizek uses the Hitler/Ninth Symphony connection in The Pervert's Guide to Ideology) rather than a whole movie. Mr. Candaele forces the issue then comes to a kind of feel-good conclusion that I found almost insulting to Chile's followers of Allende who became victims of the Pinochet regime, as well as to the Chinese students.

The individual stories we hear from Chilean progressives and some of the Chinese students today are interesting and moving  -- there's a particularly surprising bit of information about one of our narrators who shares a history with the President of the Chilean Republic -- and the young woman who tell her story about growing up in East Berlin and what happened to her family is also worth hearing. Any one of these country's/people's stories might well fill up a film. But the connections of all this to Beethoven's Ninth are tenuous indeed.

In addition, neither the constant cutting back and forth between countries and tales nor the unnecessary inclusion of some moments of would-be "dance" (above) serves the movie well. The documentary's division into four chapters to ape the movements of the music is another needless stretch. I am guessing that the filmmaker's great love for the symphony inspired him to make the movie. This is commendable, but the result is certainly not.

FOLLOWING THE NINTH: In the Footsteps of Beethoven's Final Symphony opens this Friday, November 1, at the Quad Cinema here in New York.

THE SECRET DISCO REVOLUTION: Jamie Kastner's nostalgic doc with booty & a beat

A very fun, pretty funny, uber-nostaligic documentary that offers up an interesting theory -- political, social, revolutionary -- of the 1970s disco craze (and then politely puts it to rest), THE SECRET DISCO REVOLUTION is shoo-in viewing for gays of a certain age, celebrity addicts or anyone of any sexual persuasion who liked to dance themselves crazy back in the day. It combines everything from talking heads to archival footage, social theory (most noticeably and intelligently from Alice Echols) and -- ah, yes -- those famous disco songs and performers to silly, sweet effect that will probably have you tapping your toes and grinning fairly often throughout.

The brainchild of one Jamie Kastner (shown at left), who wrote and directed, perhaps the oddest and most interesting feature of the doc is his introduction of a trio of "masterminds," as he calls them (shown below and at bottom) -- a black man, a gay man and a woman, supposedly representing the three groups for whom disco accomplished the most "liberation." These three appear regularly throughout the film, though it seems more and more clear as the movie progresses that Kastner sees these masterminds as pseudo: comic material rather than anything remotely real or genuinely important. And for those viewers who might have taken all this seriously, his question to many of the talking heads at the film's close makes it more than clear that the disco revolution may have been fun and different and ground-breaking in certain ways, but it had little to do with revolution or protest.

Instead, it and the film that covers it, are all about beat, drugs, the expending of energy, and selling records (those, junior, are what we had to listen to, back in the day). Reference is made to France under the Nazis, Swing Kids and other historical matters, but what we really want to hear and learn about are all those great songs.

Fortunately, the filmmaker gives them to us, if not full-length, with enough time so we recall why they were such hits. Here come Gloria Gaynor (in the penultimate photo, below), Thelma Houston (at right), Martha Wash and Maxine Nightingale -- to name a few, showing us their style, then and now.

And while reference is made to other big names ("To get from Aretha Franklin to Lil' Kim, you can't understand this without disco!"), we pretty much keep with the disco beat.

The funniest section, in fact, may be that involving The Village People (above) trying to convince us that their songwriters/
composers had no ability to handle double entendres. We always suspected these guys were on the dumb side, but, please!

We also learn that, for maybe the first time in modern music history, songs found themselves listed on the Billboard magazine chart due to their being played not on radio but in the clubs that were forming around the country. After that, of course, radio DJs joined in the celebration. When, as ever, the music industry -- just like the movie industry regarding any popular new idea -- tried to jump on the disco bandwagon, the music grew shoddier and shoddier. And when the nation's, maybe the world's, most famous disco club, Studio 54, came on the scene (with its paean to celebrity, drugs, and shutting "ordinary" people out) one day, nearly overnight it seemed, disco disappeared.

The movie finally evokes all of this -- plus a nod to Ecclesiastes ("There is a time to expand and a time to contract") -- as it combines history, sleaze, music, energy, dance and drugs. It's a lot of fun, a crock of shit, and above all a great nostalgia trip, and it opens this Friday, June 28, in eleven cities across the country.

Here in New York City, it plays at the Quad Cinema and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's NoHo 7. Look for it, as well, in San Francisco at the Landmark Opera Plaza Cinema, in Berkeley atthe Landmark Shattuck Cinemas, in Minneapolis at the Landmark Lagoon Cinema, in Seattle at the Landmark Varsity Theater, in Miami at the O Cinema, in Fort Lauderdale at the Cinema Paradiso. in  Palm Springs at the Camelot Theater, in Portland at the Clinton Street Theater and in Columbus at the Gateway Film Center.