Ah, those songs and that voice! Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's fine new documentary, LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE

Do kids today even know who Linda Ronstadt is? My generation and probably that of my daughter certainly do, but what a shame and a waste if my grandkids miss out. They (and we) will get a very good taste of the magic that was this singing idol, who gave her last live concert in 2009 due to Parkinson's Disease, via the new documentary LINDA RONSTANDT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE. Ms Ronstadt may not have written the songs she performed, but as one of the many talking heads in the doc explains to us, she made every song she sang her own.

As directed by the duo of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (shown at right, with Mr. Friedman on the left), the documentary bubbles along mostly joyously, even though we learn about the Parkinson's early on, offering up Ms Ronstandt's history and her songs, via a plethora of "greats" from the world of music -- mostly "country" and "folk" -- from Dolly Parton and Emmy Lou Harris to Bonnie Raitt and Maria Muldaur.

We trace her heritage (Mexican and European) and via some fine archival footage, meet her family and learn how her career took off almost immediately once she left Tucson, Arizona, for Los Angeles -- where that glorious voice of hers attracted immediate attention from audiences, critics, music producers and other musicians.

The young Ronstadt (above and below) proved as beautiful to view as her voice was to hear, and she was also blessed with a grace and graciousness that stood her in good stead throughout her career.

What seems most striking now about that lengthy and enormously successful career is how willing -- nay, insistent -- was the singer on consistently challenging herself to try new things

These included an unheard-of-for-a-single-singer range of musical genres, folk and country to rock, pop and even Mexican canciones to appearing in live theater in New York City in a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance (first outdoors in Central Park, then transferring to Broadway and finally being made into a movie for theatrical release).

She of course did the constant touring in amphitheaters across the country but over time grew tired of this. And that's when her expansion began.

Unlike most documentaries or narrative films about hugely successful pop/rock musicians, Ronstadt didn't have much of a struggle with drugs or alcohol. The worst she managed, from what we see here, was a temporary diet-pill problem.

The film does not delve too deeply into Ronstadt's romantic relationships, and only once or twice during its brisk 95-minute running time does it veer a little too near hagiography. Granted, there does seem to be nothing but good things to say about her, but too-many, too-close-together is never a good idea in these bio-docs.

That said, if the sound of Ms Ronstadt's incredible voice does not reduce you to rubble, even as the sight of her lithe, young and beautiful self in the midst of those redolent 1970s brings back loads of fond memories, TrustMovies shall be very surprised.

Released by Greenwich Entertainment, 1091 and CNN Films, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice opens this Friday, September 6, in New York City at Film Forum and in Los Angeles at The Landmark and Arclight Hollywood. Here in South Florida, it will open on Friday, September 13, at the AMC Aventura and at The Movies of Delray and The Movies of Lake Worth. Wherever you live around the country, click here to find the playdates and location of the theaters nearest you.

Jake Meginsky's documentary, MILFORD GRAVES FULL MANTIS, opens in theaters

The new documentary about evidently-famous percussionist Milford Graves entitled MILFORD GRAVES FULL MANTIS begins with the following quote from Mr. Graves: "Look at the room downstairs. Look at the garden outside. Don't try to analyze it. Just take it in." Hang on to that statement because it is probably the most intelligent and interesting thing you'll hear for the next 91 minutes. Halfway through the doc, I became so frustrated and angry that I had to stop and refer to the press materials that accompanied the film. (I rarely do this, as I prefer to see a film knowing as little about it going in as possible.)

What I learned via those press materials was that the film's director, Jake Meginsky (shown at left), is evidently an enormous fan of the work of Milford Graves and so one day presented himself as an acolyte/student of the master, who over time seems to have become a kind of mentor to Meginsky, who clearly wanted to memorialize his idol via this film.

Instead he has allowed Graves (shown below) to ramble on throughout the documentary, sharing with us his thoughts on just about everything and anything to the point that the man begins to look like a complete narcissist who must, along with his "ideas," always be the absolute center of attention.

The apotheosis of this (and the nadir of the film) is reached during a lengthy, rambling remembrance from Graves about the time his teenage son appeared to be in the midst of being murdered downstairs on the sidewalk in front of the family's Brooklyn home. How this tale of terror turns into yet another example of narcissistic nonsense in which Mr. Graves becomes the center of attention is remarkable indeed. And unless I missed it somewhere, we never do find out what happened to the son!

The filmmaker seems to have tried, in his way, to turn his movie into a kind of visual equivalent of jazz -- combining interviews past and present with "musical" sections and polarizations/solarizations that maybe indicate that we (or his subject) are on some kind of acid trip. It is all too much -- yet not nearly enough.

Along the way, we get some of Graves' history, his theories -- animal, mineral and medical -- his martial arts/mantis training (which I suspect, to an actual martial artist, will look pretty amateur), and his work in medical laboratories which leads to his recording of and theories about the sound of heartbeats.

Graves' drumming solos (as above) have a kind of spastic spontaneity, but the too-lengthy musical interludes, including one percussion'dance number (below), do not make much of a case for his or their artistry. Nor is his explanation of how a plant moves anything close to the profound. There's some talk about the cosmos, if you're a fan of that sort of thing, but TrustMovies will take an actual scientific documentary such as Particle Fever for his "cosmos" experience.

Finally, the director's attempt at "stylish" touches -- from garden florals (which I admit are pretty) to stop-motion photos (below) -- simply call attention to themselves, as well as to the lack of content here. Clearly I am not the right audience for this documentary, as I found it one of the least persuasive and most embarrassingly amateur endeavors I have seen. But since it did win the Independent Vision Jury Prize at the Sarasota Film Festival, perhaps there is an audience out there.

Viewers will have the opportunity to find out, when Milford Graves Full Mantis, from The Cinema Guild, opens theatrically in New York City (at the The Metrograph) this Friday, July 13, and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3 on Friday, July 27, to be followed by a limited nationwide release. 

LIBERATION DAY: North Korea again, from an unusual angle, in Olte/Traavik's new rock doc

I'm not sure why but, so far at least, nearly every movie I've viewed about North Korea -- mostly documentaries but also even the sometimes-comic The Interview -- have proven too long, repetitive and a little too boring for their own good. Finally, here comes a documentary to do with North Korea that, despite its being -- yes, again -- too long, repetitive and a little too boring for its own good, is still more enjoyable and thought-provoking than the usual. If not as much fun as the winner (so far) in this genre, The Lovers & the Despot, the 2016 documentary, LIBERATION DAY provides enough intelligence and eye-opening food-for-thought-and-view that it slips just barely into the realm of acceptability.

As co-directed by Uģis Olte and Morten Traavik (the latter of whom is shown at right), the movie's most interesting moment occurs immediately, as this quote from the rock band Laibach appears onscreen:

All art is subject 

to political manipulation 

except that which speaks 

the language of 

the same manipulation. 

Hmmmm, we think to ourselves and immediately begin applying that idea to the movie, country and band at hand, the first of which details the would-be momentous event of this band's surprising invitation -- the first ever for a rock band -- to perform inside the highly closed state of North Korea. That the band's accouterments, from costumes to appearance to performance and much else -- fairly drip of fascistic images (coupled to conscious and consistent irony) makes the invitation even more bizarre.

Unaccountably, a couple of Laibach's songs became hugely popular in North Korea, perhaps because these were "cover" versions of songs from, yes, The Sound of Music, which the North Korean populace probably heard without benefit of any accompanying visuals, thus making them near-completely lose both the sense of Laibach's irony and (most likely made-fun-of) overt fascism.

So here we are as the band arrives in North Korea for what is perhaps the most unwelcoming "welcome dinner" in history, and then we watch and listen as the band's program is consistently undercut by the North Korean censors, even as Laibach tries its level best to abide by the hugely curtailed "freedom" that country allows. Early on, one of the retinue decides to go for an unscheduled walk-around-town, despite the fact that the group has been warned not to go anywhere alone and/or without prior permission.

Undoubtedly because the freedom-to-film is every bit as subject to censor and "permission" as all the other freedoms in this self-titled democracy, what we end up watching for a too-long 100 minutes is often repetitive and not at all what might be the best or most apt visual for us to see. Still, over time, things come together, as does the concert itself, and we're finally treated to a small portion of this, as well as to the absolutely bizarre response from its seemingly baffled audience.

Along the way, yet another stand-off between the Koreas, North and South, occurs and various provocations continue to arise. All this happened before our own nutcase/liar-in-chief rose to the Presidency, but it certainly would have been even more interesting had Laibach's performance come a couple of years later.

In the press quotes for the film, as well as in the actual film itself, we are treated to reactions from HBO Emmy-winning John Oliver and everyone's favorite (mine, at least) Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek as to the importance of the band's visit. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian calls this "a genuinely historic event."  Indeed, historic the visit may be, but the movie about it surely ain't. Instead, it keeps promising so much more intelligence, laughs, music, surprise, wonder and/or irony that it can possibly, under these constrained circumstances, ever deliver.

And so we come back to that above quote and what it says/means. The art/language of Laibach (wherever did the band get its name, I wonder? It always makes me think of that famous sexual direction, "Lie bach and spread your legs") is so full of irony, as well as politics, history, pretense and fantasy, while the art/language of its host (is there "art" in North Korea? Isn't real art individually created rather than collectively?) is something real, chilling, provocative and hugely damaging to its citizenry. Or perhaps Laibach is saying that its own art is above such manipulation because -- ah-hah! -- it already understands/speaks in that same manipulative manner.

Well, figure it all out for yourself. The movie, disappointing as it is, is still worth seeing for the questions it raises and for the event it covers. Released by Sundance Now, the documentary receives its U.S. theatrical premiere at New York City's Film Forum this Wednesday, October 18. Elsewhere? No idea, but one would imagine the film will see the light of day (or the light of a movie-house disc player) in a few more cities around the country.

Stephen Fry explores music, fandom and guilt in Patrick McGrady's WAGNER & ME

Stephen Fry (on poster, foreground) is a delightful humorist, satirist and general wit; a gifted performer (Wilde, Bright Young Things -- which he also adapted and directed -- and  V for Vendetta), writer, director and manic depressive. He is also, as we quickly learn from the new documentary WAGNER & ME, a Jew and an enormous fan of Richard Wagner -- two things that are not always found in the same room. Adolf Hitler was also a big fan of the anti-semitic composer, and his "take" on Wagner's work smacks of the "master race" hoped for and then fought for by the Nazis in World War II. The documentary is Fry's attempt, abetted by the film's director, Patrick McGrady (shown below), to assuage what TrustMovies perceives to be Fry's guilt about this perhaps somewhat unusual pairing.

The movie is mostly Mr. Fry, all the way and all the time, and the man appears to be in a very "up" and rather proselytizing mood. He wants us to love (as much as he himself does) Wagner's music, along with the composer's ability to create some astounding operas, taking music into a heretofore unexplored realm. As creator and narrator, host and guide in this documentary, Fry seems in a quite jovial mood, and this is mostly contagious. After awhile, however, I longed for more of his usual distance, irony and wit -- little of which is to be found here. (Toward the beginning, though, he does amuse us by noting that, "You stand around waiting for a Valkyrie for hours -- and then they all come at once.")

As a Jew who lost family to the Holocaust, Fry's being torn between guilt about and love for Wagner's music earns our understanding and empathy. And so his taking us on a tour of the places most important to the musician -- Switzerland (with its beauty) to Bayreuth (where he built the theater that would house his work) to his patron Ludwig's famous Neuschwanstein castle (above) -- seem both appropriate and enjoyable. To a point.

Fry fingers Wagner's own piano (above: a gift to the composer from the Steinway company) in Bayreuth; travels to Russia, to a city nearly destroyed by the Nazis to interview an opera director more than willing to perform Wagner; then meets the composer's great grand-daughters, two sisters who are now in charge of the annual Wagner festival -- one of whom will have nothing to do with Fry's little "ode to posterity."

Often dressed in bright red slacks and yellow shirt, Fry provides almost as visually interesting a view as he does intellectually. "What is it about Wagner's music," he asks us, "which inspires someone" (Hitler, Ludwig) "to seize on his stories and ideas -- which belong in the theater -- and seek to give them substance in the real world instead?"  Well, yes, but wouldn't Wagner have been delighted at that outcome? Did he not fully believe in what he created? Fry muses about the music inspiring us to tear down the boundaries separating fact and fantasy, and how Wagner's work is like some great, gorgeous and complex tapestry that has been irretrievably stained.

Are we, Fry wonders, looking at Wagner's work only through Hitler's viewfinder? Doubtful. In a particularly thoughtful few moments, Fry visits an Auschwitz survivor who played in the famous orchestra there made up of Jewish prisoners. Her thoughts on music and Wagner are most interesting. So, does our hero manage to reach some level of accommodation with his Wagner love and his Jewish heritage? Maybe.

In any case, his final remarks -- which I will not give away here -- may break your heart because, if you love this composer's work, you would so much wish that they were true.

Wagner & Me opens -- after playing in Chicago last week -- this Friday, December 7, in New York City at the Quad Cinema and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. In the weeks to come it will play in another half dozen cities. You can click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters. (And that's the gifted anti-semite himself, shown above.)

The best musical doc since "Sugar Man" -- Jay Bulger's jolting BEWARE OF MR. BAKER

This year has been a banner one for documentaries: So many good-to-great films are there, originals and hybrids, that I cannot imagine the difficulty, come "Oscar" time, in choosing a shortlist. Now, to have among these, two new musical-themed docs as different -- and as remarkably well-done -- as Searching for Sugar Man and BEWARE OF MR. BAKER is surely a blessing of sorts.

You could hardly ask for two "leading men" as different as Sixto Rodriguez and Ginger Baker, the musical stars featured in these films: one a hero in so many ways, the other -- the titular Mr. Baker -- well, you'll have to see it to believe it. Ginger (shown at right) is pretty much every negative cliché you've heard concerning nasty, thoughtless, drug-addled rock musicians rolled into one. Except that he possesses, as the movie makes clear, incredible, innate talent as one of the greatest jazz & rock drummers who has ever lived. Couple this to his character, and you have one crazy, crass, complicated guy -- whom writer/director Jay Bulger (shown below) has captured with surprising finesse for a first-time filmmaker.

Mr. Bulger has balls, that's for sure. We learn this almost immediately as he tells us that his first contact with Baker came when the younger man pretended to be a writer for Rolling Stone magazine who then conned an interview with the drummer, charmed him into telling, if not all, then quite a bit, and went on to actually have his article published by Rolling Stone. In addition to those cojones, Bulger has looks, charm and most important, talent. He captures Ginger as fully as one would think possible within the movie's 92-minute time frame.

Using a fine array of historical footage, the filmmaker compiles a history of Mr. Baker that includes three generations of family, a musical history of drumming, from which we learn who the man's mentors were; whom Baker considers to be among history's better drummers; the state of his wives and children; his struggles with addictions of various sorts; and his ultra-surly, borderline-crazy disposition and behavior.

Though Bulger bounces back and forth in time and goes from live-action to artful animation (above), he never loses us nor the thread of his story. He appears to have an innate sense of what goes where, and why, and for how long, so his movie moves speedily ahead and is flat-out fascinating for its entire length. (I am no fan of the kind of music that Baker has been involved in -- Cream, Blind Faith -- and yet the film held me completely; I should think that, for fans of this fellow and his drumming, it would prove unmissable.)

For all the music we see and hear, Bulger does not stint on personal history and psychology, and so we get an unusually rich, rounded picture of this man, his career, and those closest to him -- family members and other musicians -- from one of those great drummers, Phil Seamen, to Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts and a certain Mr. Rotten (above). Each has his specific "take" on the man or on music, and the real beauty of this movie is how Bulger has assembled all this to create a full and indelible character.

Baker is most often, it seems, a monster, and a talented one. Yet the movie makes it difficult to hate the guy (how he treats his own son will bring you closest to hatred). It seems most likely that psychological help was called for early on -- certainly later on! -- but by then Baker was old enough and rich enough to reject it. Bi-polar doesn't begin to define the swing of his moods (nor his finances), one of which begins the movie, the consequences of which are seen at the finale. (That sign in Ginger's yard in South Africa, shown at the top of this post, is there for good reason.)

Among the many surprises (to me, at least) is Baker's interest in the sport of polo (those are his ponies, above) and his connection to the famous African musician Fela. Concerning the latter, as usual, when the going gets tough, Baker quickly hightails it out of danger. Another point that Bulger's movie makes, perhaps unintentionally, concerns the relationship between art and destruction. We more often, I think, join art with creation, but Mr. Baker generally has it otherwise.

Still, toward the end of this rather amazing movie, Baker tells Bulger, "This was music you couldn't put in a box, Jay!"  Ginger Baker, to his everlasting credit and shame, is equally un-boxable. This movie about him, from SnagFilms, opens on Wednesday, November 28, for a two-week run at New York's Film Forum.

Elsewhere? Here's what we've learned so far: The film will open at the Sundance Sunset in the Los Angeles area on November 30 and play at least through Dec. 6 -- followed by openings in eight additional cities (via Abramorama) in the weeks to come. Look for it on Cable & Satellite VOD via Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon Fios, Cox, Charter, AT&T, DISH and DirecTV from 2/26/2013 to 04/22/2013, and then to Broadband Digital via Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, V.dio and Xbox beginning February 26, 2013.

Special note: filmmaker Jay Bulger (above, right)

will appear at Film Forum in person this Wednesday, 
November 28, at the 8:20 screening!
And Ginger? Don't think we'll be seeing him. After all,
we don't want fist fights and broken furniture to harm
New York's favorite repertory cinema....

Malik Bendjelloul's SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN: most important film of the year so far

That truth can be stranger -- more powerful and more wonderful -- than fiction gets a good going over (the best I've seen in a long time) with the documentary SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN from Scandinavian filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul. This movie, ostensibly about the search for what really became of a folk-rock singer from the 1960s/70s who is said to have committed suicide by burning himself to death in front of a live audience, raises all kinds of and so many interesting questions, more than it could possibly answer. Yet you can't watch the film without having these questions pop up, together with their answers, some of which the documentary provides, others that you yourself will piece together, even as you heart soars and your eyes well up and then rather copiously spill over. As mystery, history, social commentary and more, this is one eye-opening, mind-expanding, spellbinding film.

The filmmaker, Mr. Bendjelloul (shown at left) begins with a pleasant but unknown song on the soundtrack, as we drive along a beautiful, mountainous coastal highway in present-day South Africa and learn a bit about this fellow named Rodriguez. Then it's back to 1960s Detroit and the club scene there, as some guys who were part of the music industry back then talk about their discovery of this song-writer/singer/guitarist, shown below, who liked to stay in the shadows and always wore dark glasses.

These industry people were certain they had found a performer as good, important and original in his way as was Dylan. "Nobody else but Dylan was doing anything this good," notes one of them. (In this section, Benjelloul offers his own animated version of 60s Detroit, one of several times in which animation is used most interes-tingly.) In any case, these music people persuade Rodriguez to make a album of his material, which he does. It flops. Nobody hears it (outside of a few music industry professionals), so nobody buys it. Finito. One of those pros, below, thinks it's good enough to warrant a second album, so he produces one. (We hear from him now, retired, and living in Palm Springs.)

Soon after, in South Africa, during the height and heartlessness of Apartheid, those albums make their way to the southern tip of the dark continent, where, bootlegged, they become the byword for disaffected youth of South Africa and, in their own way, weapons against Apartheid.

From here, this marvelous story grows richer and deeper, as a few musicians and/or musicologists (above and below) determine to discover just what happened to Rodriguez. That suicide-by-fire story is crap, we're told. No, he pulled out a gun on stage and shot himself. These people pour over the man's lyrics to find clues (the city of Dearborn is one such), and when they hit a dead end, they just try again. "To a detective, " one tell us, "an obstacle is an inspiration!"

What they find is the occasion for all that joy and those tears, as well as for more of the ideas and questions that keep cropping up. The word "hero" is never mentioned, I believe, but if Rodriguez is not a true American hero, then there is no such thing. Of course he himself would never use the word nor admit to this. But given what we learn, there is plenty of reason to honor someone like him rather than the usual suspects (politicians of any stripe or, god help us, the Donald Trumps of the world).

We also learn how true art survives and grows, and about how little we really knew of South Africa under Apartheid -- even given Lionel Rogosin's attempt with Come Back Africa. And why didn't those two albums succeed here on their home ground? This implicates not only consumers who barely got word of the works but our revered guardians of culture -- the critics -- as well as all those who might have given the albums radio play. What? Was there not enough payola circulating to make it worth anyone's time and effort.

Oh, yes: And what happened to the money from the sales of all those albums in South Africa? Someone made a lot of lucre, and it wasn't Rodriguez. As I say, there are questions here aplenty, but it is to the movie-maker's credit that he allows them all to surface without feeling hell-bent to answer each.  Searching for Sugar Man will have you considering so much about life in America (and elsewhere), about the uses of art and performance, about work and the work ethic, about family and history and what is worth honoring in this world of ours that I think you simply must see it.

From Sony Pictures Classics -- the distributor that often has the lock on Best Foreign Film; this year it might have the Best Documentary, as well -- and running just 85 minutes, Searching for Sugar Man hits theaters in New York (the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the Angelika Film Center) and Los Angeles (The Landmark) this Friday, July 27. It'll be opening around the country starting next week and over the coming months. Click here to see all the currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters.