Sophie Fiennes' documentary, GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI, gives us the performer, the musician and the woman

TrustMovies has long felt that cinema has rarely, barely ever, shown off that most unusual performer/singer Grace Jones to good advantage. Of her three major movies -- the second-rate Bond film, A View to a Kill; a lesser Eddie Murphy vehicle, Boomerang; and the surprisingly entertaining vampire movie, Vamp -- only in the latter did the filmmakers put this strong and visually striking woman to anything approaching maximum use.

Now, in the new documentary, GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI, filmmaker Sophie Fiennes (of The Pervert's Guide to Cinema and Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow) manages to do this larger-than-life presence cinematic justice -- and then some.

Ms Fiennes, shown at left, seems to have been given remarkable access to Jones, her family, friends and co-workers -- and over a period of several years, at that --  and although the filmmaker does not identify time frames, or even places, her documentary provides a surprisingly good entryway into the life and times, as well as the music and performing abilites of this remarkable woman. Ms Jones turns 70 next month, but you would hardly know it watching and hearing her sing, prance, move and command whatever stage she is on.

As a young man, I found myself in awe but also somewhat frightened of this incredibly statuesque and sexual icon. With age and a better understanding and appreciation of who Jones is and what she is doing, I am now a major fan. You may be, too, once you've spent the nearly two hours of time that Fiennes, as both director and editor, has cobbled together in such a free-form but oddly gripping fashion.

There is no way around the fact that this entertainer cuts such as formidable figure -- the lithe/lean body, the bizarre head-gear, and those endless legs! The movie begins and spends a good deal of time in a musical number or two, and then lets us see her adoring fans, with whom she interacts  The music we hear seems more impressive than I remember from decades past. But, then, perhaps my tastes  have changed for the better over the years.

Fiennes spends a good deal of time with Jones' family -- mother, siblings, kids, even I think, a grandchild -- and almost as much behind the scenes as she works to bring about another concert. There's a little of her love life, too. And even some casual, full-frontal nudity (yes, she looks justs as fabulous unclothed).

She goes to church, where we hear (I think it's her mom singing) His Eye Is on the Sparrow. Later the preacher fills us in on Jones' history as a naughty little girl. Along the way, we get snippets of her philosophy: "Sometimes you have to be a high-flying bitch!" and "Deep love is like a beating with a cloth belt." Family history and her father's death crop up, too.

The documentary ends with the idea of possibly building a house in the hills of Jamaica (where Jones was born) and where an earlier house was destroyed by a hurricane. Set to this is one of her more recent songs, Hurricane, which is an impressive piece of music sung with all the strength and power one might expect of this phenomenon.

Watching the viewing link I was sent, I sometimes wished for English subtitles to help decipher the soundtrack's dialog that was occasionally hampered by too-loud ambient sounds and/or the Jamaican accents. Otherwise, this documentary proved engrossing and impressive -- a "must," I think, for any Jones fan, and a film that will most likely convert a number of newcomers, too.

From Kino Lorber and running 115 minutes, Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami opens tomorrow, Friday April 13, in New York City at the Metrograph and Film Society of Lincoln Center and at BAM in Brooklyn. On April 20 it hits Los Angeles at the Landmark NuArt, and then over the weeks to come open in cities all across the country. Click here and scroll down to see the complete list of playdates, cities and theaters.  

An original delight: Kyle Mooney/Dave McCary's BRIGSBY BEAR opens in So. Florida

Bizarre but finally quite winning, this new film from director Dave McCary (shown below) and co-writer/star Kyle Mooney is so unusual but so consummately conceived and executed that movie buffs -- maybe even some of what we might call "general audiences" -- will embrace the film, if at first gingerly, at last whole-heartedly. The movie, which was co-written by Kevin Costello, jumps off from a premise so strange that it will take awhile for audiences to brings themselves au courant. Trust me: It's worth the work it'll take to watch, listen and understand.

In fact, I am not going to tell you what the premise is because that would deprive you of some of the puzzling fun at hand. Let's just say that the movie has to do with "family": a faux family and a real family and the journey that brings our hero, James (played by Mr. Mooney, shown below), from one to the other.

The title character in BRIGSBY BEAR, turns out to be a kind of TV show that James has watched for his entire life, and one that he has pretty much based his life around. How and why this has happened is the movie's jumping off point, and how James is able to deal with it all provides the film's through-line and plot.

Brigsby Bear is, in its own strange way, an almost perfect example of American independent cinema. It's the kind of film that could never induce a major studio to back it, even as the finished product provides the opportunity for a whole raft of fine actors to strut their stuff (and very well, too), while giving its director and writers the chance to offer us something different, succulent and finally quite nourishing -- if in an unexpected way.

The film's premise is what seems to have put off some viewers and critics. This is understandable because it's a whopper, all right. But because that premise is what fuels the film, while forcing its audience to consider what James' experience must have been like, as well as what his faux parents were hoping to accomplish and why, there is plenty of food for thought here.

That the explanation for those latter points is never forthcoming bothers some folk. I found it better not to have it dished out to me. That way I could imagine what those parents wanted and why, as you probably will, too. As played by a wonderful Mark Hamill (above) and a under-used-but-always-worth-seeing Jane Adams, they're an oddball treat.

As James moves along his path, he must adjust to a new family (Matt Walsh, above left, and Michaela Watkins, right), along with his new sibling (Ryan Simpkins) and her friends, chief among them a kindly and intelligent whizz kid named Spencer (Jorge Lendeborg, Jr., below, second from right, and at bottom, right), who proves a big help to our hero.

Also along for the fun ride are Greg Kinnear as the local police chief, and current indie queen, Kate Lyn Sheil, below, left, playing a far-away waitress who proves pivotal to that old Brigsby Bear "television" series. Kinnear brings his kindly gravitas and just-slightly-withheld emotion to the proceedings, while Ms Sheil, in her small but quite telling scene, is so emotionally on-point as to break our hearts.

There's action, thrills and surprise here, along with the joy and creative bursts that come with making an indie movie that's also clearly a labor of love. That's what the film-within-a-film proves to be, and it's exactly what Brigsby Bear -- the character and the film itself -- is, too.

From Sony Pictures Classics (the movie's own take-off on the SPC logo is one of its great jokes) and running 100 minutes, after hitting both coasts, the film opens here in South Florida tomorrow, Friday, August 11. It will play the Miami area at the AMC Aventura and Sunset Place, Regal's South Beach and Cinemark Paradise (in Davie). In Palm Beach County, look for it at the Cinemark Boynton Beach and in Boca Raton at the Cinemark Palace and Regal Shadowood. To see all playdates, cities and theaters around the country, simply click here, and then click on GET TICKETS.