Tag: documentaries

Review: ‘The Story of Soaps,’ starring Susan Lucci, Bryan Cranston, Carol Burnett, Genie Francis, Maurice Benard and Diedre Hall

May 20, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Dallas” star Larry Hagman in “The Story of Soaps” (Photo courtesy of ABC)

“The Story of Soaps”

Directed by Robin Pelleck and Rebecca Gitlitz

Culture Representation: The documentary “The Story of Soaps” takes a historical look at American TV soap operas and their impact on pop culture, by interviewing a racially diverse (white, African American and Latino) group of actors, screenwriters, TV producers and other people connected to the business of soap operas.

Culture Clash: Many of the people say in the documentary that soap operas are often misunderstood or underrated and that reality TV shows have brought on the decline of soap operas with professional actors.

Culture Audience: “The Story of Soaps” will appeal primarily to people who want to learn more about this type of this “guilty pleasure” TV genre and also take a breezy nostalgia trip for American soap operas’ most notable moments.

The stars of “Generations” in “The Story of Soaps” (Photo courtesy of ABC)

The comprehensive and thoroughly entertaining “The Story of Soaps” skillfully manages to make this documentary go beyond the expected compilation of TV clips and commentaries from talking heads about the history of American TV soap operas. The documentary also puts all of this sudsy entertainment into a cultural context that shows how soap operas have had much more influence than they’re typically given credit for when it comes to our entertainment choices and how we see the world.

Directed by Robin Pelleck and Rebecca Gitlitz (who are also executive producers of the documentary), “The Story of Soaps” packs in interviews with numerous people (mostly actors, screenwriters and producers) who are connected to the world of TV soap operas in some way. The long list of actors includes Kristian Alfonso, John Aniston, Alec Baldwin, Maurice Benard, Carol Burnett, Bryan Cranston, Mary Crosby, Eileen Davidson, Vivica A. Fox, Genie Francis, Diedre Hall, Jon Hamm, Drake Hogestyn, Finola Hughes, Susan Lucci, John McCook, Eddie Mills, Denise Richards, Marc Samuel, Melody Thomas Scott, Erika Slezak, John Stamos, Susan Sullivan, Greg Vaughan, Chandra Wilson and Laura Wright.

Screenwriters and producers interviewed in “The Story of Soaps” include Shelly Altman (“General Hospital,” “The Young and the Restless”); Brad Bell (“Husbands”); Lorraine Broderick (“All My Children,” “Days of Our Lives”); James H. Brown (“All My Children,” “The Young and the Restless”); Andy Cohen (“The Real Housewives” franchise); Marc Cherry (“Desperate Housewives”); David Jacobs (“Dallas,” “Knots Landing”); Agnes Nixon (the “All My Children” creator who passed away in 2016); Jonathan Murray (“The Real World”); Ken Olin (“This Is Us”); Jill Farren Phelps (“General Hospital”); Angela Shapiro-Mathes (“All My Children: Daytime’s Greatest Weddings”); Yhane Smith (“Harlem Queen”) and Chris Van Etten (“General Hospital”).

Other people interviewed are People magazine editorial director of entertainment Kate Coyne, “The Survival of Soap Opera” co-author Abigail De Kosnik, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” co-star Erika Jayne, Netflix consultant Krista Smith, casting director Mark Teschner and Soap Opera Festivals Inc. co-founders Joyce Becker and Allan Sugarman.

Brad Pitt, Julianne Moore, Morgan Freeman and Tommy Lee Jones are named in the documentary as some of the Oscar-winning actors whose early careers on screen included roles in soap operas. Leonardo DiCaprio, Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei and Kathy Bates are other Oscar-winning actors who were in soap operas before they became famous. Other alumni of daytime soap operas include William H. Macy, Demi Moore and Meg Ryan.

The documentary begins with testimonials from several actors who were in soap operas in the early years of careers, such as Cranston (“Loving”), Baldwin (“The Doctors,” “Knots Landing”), Stamos (“General Hospital”) and Fox (“Days of Our Lives”). Cranston’s first TV job was a guest role in “One Life to Live” in 1968. And when he was in his 20s, he landed a recurring role as Douglas Donavan in “Loving” in 1983.

Cranston says, “I think there are these derisive comments made about soap operas and it’s not fair and it’s not accurate. You’re there to learn. You’re there to bring as much honesty and reality as you can to the moment—and it’s difficult.”

“This genre [soap operas], this job invited me in and put me to work like nobody’s business,” Cranston continues. “It made me feel accomplished, like I broke through a barrier.” Cranston went on to become an Emmy-winning actor several years later, for his role as methamphetamine manufacturer/dealer Walter White in “Breaking Bad,” which he says was a show that was really a soap opera.

Baldwin also says that working in soap operas was extremely valuable to him. He describes “Knots Landing” (where he played the role of Joshua Rush from 1983 to 1985) this way: “It was probably one of the five most important times of my life. They had a very good cast. They had a very talented cast. And that changes everything when you go to work. You don’t care if it’s a soap if you’re working with somebody who’s great. I loved it.”

The grueling hours of working on a soap opera, especially a daytime soap opera that airs five times a week, results in a “sink or swim” atmosphere for a lot of actors who are new to the business. Stamos, who’s best known for starring in the long-running sitcom “Full House,” comments on his 1982-1984 stint as Blackie Parrish in “General Hospital,” which made him a star: “It was great training.”

Fox (who co-starred with Will Smith in the 1996 film “Independence Day”) says of her time on “The Young and the Restless,” where she played the character of Stephanie Simmons from 1994 to 1995: “I learned so much. I learned to hit my cue, how to memorize, how to cry, how to flip my hair.”

“General Hospital” casting director Teschner comments: “There was this stigma to daytime [soap operas] and people misperceiving the acting style as being over-the-top and ‘soapy.’ But I always say that if you can do daytime, you can do any time.” Teschner also mentions that it’s not unusual for a daytime soap opera to film up to 120 pages of dialogue a day, which is the amount of pages that’s typical for a feature-length movie.

“General Hospital” star Francis, who’s been playing Laura on the show since 1977, says in the documentary about her dedication to staying on a soap opera: “Why do I do it? Why do I put myself through this? Because I love to tell stories.”

“General Hospital” co-star Wright, who’s played the role of Carly on the show since 2005, offers a more business-minded perspective to what actors bring to the escapism appeal of soap operas: “It’s our job to sell it to you.” Many of the actors in “The Story of Soaps,” including Melody Thomas Scott (who’s played the character of Nikki on “The Young and the Restless” since 1979), say that because TV brings repeated familiarity in people’s homes, many soap opera fans confuse the actors with the characters that they play on TV.

“The Story of Soaps” has various themed segments which give excellent analysis and commentary on important aspects of soap-opera history. The segment titled “By Women, For Women” details how daytime soap operas have provided many of the best opportunities for women working in television behind the scenes. While male executives dominated prime-time programming, female executives were allowed to shine in daytime television, since the early years of television.

Irna Phillips, who’s often referred to as the “Queen of the Soaps,” could be considered the godmother of daytime TV soap operas, which took the concept of radio soap operas and transferred them to a visual medium. Phillips created the TV soaps “Guiding Light,” “As the World Turns” and “Another World.” She also mentored “All My Children” creator Nixon (who also created “One Life to Live” and “Loving”) and William J. Bell, who created “Another World” (with Phillips), “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.”

In the 1950s, when it was more common for the majority of women to be homemakers, daytime soap operas provided an ideal captive audience for advertisers. The term “soap opera” comes from the fact that during the radio era (before television was invented), soap companies would be frequent advertisers on these drama series.

“The Survival of Soap Opera” co-author De Kosnik notes that when soap operas began on TV, they pioneered the lingering close-ups of actors’ faces to show their emotions, thus adding to the melodramatic appeal. She also mentions that loyalty to certain soap operas would be handed down from generation to generation of women, much like loyalty to certain sports teams would be a generational tradition for men. Although soap operas tend to have a female-majority audience, there’s been a steady increase of male fans of soap operas over the years, especially for primetime soaps.

The documentary’s “Fan-Addicts” segment examines the culture of soap opera fans. Benard (who’s played Sonny Corinthos on “General Hospital” since 1993) calls soap-opera enthusiasts: “The most loyal fans in the world.” The documentary includes a lot of archival footage of fans giving adulation to some of the most famous soap stars over the years, including Stamos and Lucci.

Lucci says of her iconic Erica Kane character, which she played during the entire run of “All My Children” from 1970 to 2011: “I loved playing her. There was such range with her. She was a capable of doing and saying just about anything. And the audience saw humanity in her stories.” And yes, the documentary includes footage of Lucci finally winning her first Daytime Emmy in 1999, after she had a long losing streak of being nominated 18 times and never winning before.

Soap Opera Festivals Inc. co-founder Becker reminisces about the company’s first fan event in 1977, which she says drew “hundreds of thousands of people”—a crowd turnout that probably wouldn’t be possible today, considering how much the popularity of daytime TV soap operas has declined. Becker also describes why soap opera fans are devoted to soap opera cast members: “It’s almost like your own family.”

Legendary comedian Burnett is famously an “All My Children” superfan—so much so that she had a guest-starring role on the show as Verla Grubbs in 1983, 1995, 2005 and 2011. In “The Story of Soaps,” she repeats a story she told in her memoir: When she and her husband spent a month-long vacation in Europe many years ago (before VCRs and the Internet), Burnett asked a friend of hers to send a telegram every Friday with a summary of everything that happened on “All My Children” that week.

One time in the early-morning hours, Burnett was awakened by a hotel employee who was trembling with the telegram, because the visibly shaken employee thought that all the tragic bad news in the telegram was real. Burnett said she started laughing so hard that she began to cry, and the hotel employee thought that she was crying hysterical tears of sorrow, until she explained that what was in the telegram was really an “All My Children” plot summary. Burnett says later in the documentary about “All My Children” being cancelled in 2011: “I’m still angry that they took it off the air.”

A documentary segment called “Love, Lust, Luke & Laura” explores how TV soaps often pushed the boundaries of raunchiness with sex scenes and outrageous love stories, beginning in the 1970s and ramping up even more in the 1980s. Stories about infidelities are very common in soap operas, but the sexual revolution also opened up wilder storylines on soap operas, such as falling in love with a space alien, taboo stepsibling romances and as much nudity as possible.

“General Hospital” characters Luke Spencer (played by Anthony Geary) and Laura were undoubtedly the most famous couple on daytime TV soap operas. Luke and Laura’s 1981 wedding on the show was a major media event, and it remains the highest-rated daytime TV soap opera event, with an estimated 30 million U.S. viewers. However, their relationship was controversial because Luke raped Laura when they first began dating.

De Kosnik says that the 1979 rape storyline was concocted by “General Hospital’s” then-executive producer Gloria Monty (who died in 2006), in a desperate ploy to boost the show’s ratings, because “General Hospital” was on the verge of being cancelled at the time. The show’s producers explained that the rape was “rape seduction” and justified it by saying that Luke really loved Laura. However, that kind of storyline would not have gotten such an easy pass if it had been suggested in later decades.

In “The Story of Soaps,” Francis says about that controversial rape storyline: “I had to justify it for so many years. And I have to say that it feels good to sit here and say it’s awful. They shouldn’t have done it.” In 1998, “General Hospital” made an attempt to remedy this wrong by having Laura angrily confront Luke (they were still married at this point) about the rape.

The documentary segment “It’s a Revolution” is one of the best that demonstrates how soap operas are both a reflection of and influence on culture. Just as soap operas were often the first TV series to have groundbreaking stories about sex, soaps were also among the first scripted TV drama series to address serious social issues. The Vietnam War controversy, abortion, interracial romances, gay teens, transgender relationships, AIDS, mental illness and eating disorders were among the many topics that were considered too taboo for scripted TV series until they were presented on TV soap operas.

“Days of Our Lives” star Diedre Hall, who has played Marlena Evans on the show since 1976, says: “The most compelling thing about daytime drama is that we follow the pulse of what’s goin on.” “General Hospital” writer Van Etten says that he used to be a “deeply closeted” gay man, but he was influenced to come to terms with his own sexuality after seeing Ryan Phillippe portray gay teen Billy Douglas in a 1992 “One Life to Live” storyline.

Emmy-winning “General Hospital” star Benard’s Sonny character is bipolar, and so is Benard in real life. Benard says of the “General Hospital” executives’ decision to make Sonny a biploar character: “I can’t thank them enough.” He says that authentic representation matters in destigmatizing mental illness.

The soap opera “Generations” also led the way in representation for African Americans, since it was one of the first scripted TV dramas to feature a white family and an African American family as equal stars of the show. Although the show didn’t last long (it was on the air from 1989 to 1991), “Generations” co-star Fox comments that the show “changed perceptions” of black people on soap operas, since the black characters on “Generations” weren’t just playing servants, sidekicks or other supporting characters.

But daytime soap operas began to have more competition in popularity with the resurgence of primetime soap operas. The documentary mentions two major social changes that began in the late 1970s and affected the rise of American primetime soaps, such as “Dallas,” “Dynasty,” “Knots Landing” and “Falcon Crest.” First, more women began working outside the home and didn’t have time to watch TV during the day, but they wanted to get their soap-opera fix at night. Second, the VCR became available as a home product, thereby revolutionizing the way people watched TV, by giving people the freedom to record and watch programs whenever they wanted.

“The Story of Soaps” also points out that the most popular primetime soaps in the 1980s were about rich families because it was a reflection of the decade’s fascination with excess and wealth. Former “Dallas” writer Jacob says it all came down to this concept: “People like to see people that rich [can be] that miserable.” And, of course, the documentary includes a look at the “Who Shot J.R.?” cliffhanger phenomenon of “Dallas” in 1980, when lead character/villain J.R. Ewing got shot in the show’s third-season finale in March of that year, leaving viewers to wonder (until it was revealed in November 1980) who shot him and whether or not he was going to live. An estimated 83 million U.S. viewers watched the fourth-season premiere “Dallas” episode that solved the mystery.

And each popular TV soap opera of a decade is a reflection of what was going on society at the time. “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place” were about people from Generation X establishing their identities and careers in the beginning of the Internet age. “Desperate Housewives” was a commentary on middle-aged, middle-class women in the suburbs during the end of the George W. Bush era and the beginning of the Barack Obama era. And awareness in the mid-to-late 2010s of more inclusivity on TV has been reflected in primetime soaps such as “Empire” (a show about an African American family dynasty) and “This Is Us,” which centers on an interracial family with diversity in body sizes.

The documentary’s “Stranger Than Fiction” segment takes an unflinching look at how reality TV has eroded the popularity of traditional soap operas. Reality TV programs have proliferated and thrived because they’re almost always cheaper to produce than scripted shows with professional actors. Several people interviewed say that the O.J. Simpson trial of 1995 was a TV game changer, since live coverage of the trial pre-empted many daytime soap operas, and many TV networks saw that the trial coverage got higher ratings than the soaps. The trial is often called “a real-life soap opera.”

“The Real World” executive producer Murray (who credits the show’s late co-creator Mary-Ellis Bunim for being a TV pioneer for TV soaps) says that they pitched MTV on the concept of “The Real World” as being a “docu-soap.” The late Pedro Zamora, who was on “The Real World: San Francisco” in 1994, is credited with helping bring more awareness to TV viewers about AIDS, since he was the first openly HIV-positive person to be on a reality TV series.

And most reality shows about people’s lives are basically just soap operas with people who usually aren’t professional actors. “The Real Housewives” franchise (which was inspired by “Desperate Housewives”) and the Kardashian/Jenner family are predictably mentioned. Many former reality TV stars have admitted (but not in this documentary) that much of what’s on these reality TV shows is already pre-planned by the show’s producers. Curiously, this documentary didn’t include any footage from “The Bachelor” franchise, which has been described as being among the most “soap opera-ish” reality shows of all time.

The documentary’s “Death of Daytime” segment gives an overview of the cancellations of numerous daytime TV soap operas in the 2000s and 2010s. “Guiding Light,” “As the World Turns,” “Passions,” “All My Children,” “One Life to Live” and “Port Charles” were the long-running American soap operas that were cancelled in these decades. “All My Children” was the cancellation that caused the most viewer outrage, according the documentary. The rise of social media, streaming services, interactive websites, apps and podcasts have further fragmented audiences, who now have millions of more options than the days when there were only a handful of national TV networks in the United States.

Although soap operas seem to be a dying genre, several people interviewed in the documentary point out that many Emmy-winning prestigious shows of the 2000s and 2010s were really soap operas, including “Game of Thrones,” “Breaking Bad,” “The Sopranos” and “Orange Is the New Black.” On the other end of the spectrum, trashy talk shows hosted by the likes of Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, Morton Downey Jr., Sally Jessy Raphael and Jenny Jones also took their cues from soap operas, since these shows thrived on creating nasty fights with guests while the cameras were rolling.

TV news has also absorbed the influence soap operas, as many news programs (especially on cable TV) have taken big stories and presented them as soap operas, with TV hosts and commentators being sort of like a Greek chorus weighing in with their opinions. The overall message of “The Story of Soaps” seems to be that if people have a snobbish attitude toward soap operas, then they should take a look at their favorite entertainment and media and see how much soap operas have had an influence. They might be surprised to see how much soap operas have impacted our culture.

ABC premiered “The Story of Soaps” on May 19, 2020.

Review: ‘Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics’ starring Sting, Ben Stiller, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Bourdain, Deepak Chopra, A$AP Rocky and Sarah Silverman

May 18, 2020

by Carla Hay

Rob Corddry in “Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics”

Directed by Donick Cary

Culture Representation: This documentary interviews a predominantly white male group of entertainers who talk about their experiences taking psychedelic drugs, and the movie features a diverse group of actors doing comedy skits about psychedelic drug experiences.

Culture Clash: Despite these drugs being illegal, almost all of the people interviewed say that they don’t regret taking psychedelic drugs.

Culture Audience: “Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics” will appeal to people who just want one-sided comedic stories about taking psychedelic drugs, because the movie’s agenda is to exclude any stories about the drugs’ long-term negative effects on health.

Nick Offerman in “Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

In its overexuberance to portray psychedelic drug taking as something that’s harmless or something to laugh about later, the documentary “Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics” sinks to new lows of exploitation by prominently featuring two celebrities whose tragic, self-destructive deaths are definitely not funny. The documentary’s filmmakers (including director Donick Cary) made the morbid and tacky decision to display the filmmakers’ interviews with Carrie Fisher and Anthony Bourdain in this parade of celebrities who mostly glamorize taking psychedelic drugs.

Fisher died in 2016 of drug-related causes. Bourdain committed suicide in 2018. They both struggled with mental-health issues and drug addiction and admitted to taking a lot of LSD and other psychedelics in their lifetimes. Needless to say, Fisher and Bourdain are definitely not examples of how psychedelic drugs can help people with mental-health problems and drug addictions. And yet, the documentary pushes the scientifically unproven agenda that psychedelic drugs are beneficial to people suffering from drug addiction and mental-health issues.

But hey, why let these tragic deaths get in the way of making a documentary where these now-dead people are shown joking about their acid trips, as if those drug experiences couldn’t possibly be harmful to them? They’re certainly not going to talk about the negative side effects of “bad trips,” such as suicidal thoughts, depression or psychosis. After all, this movie wants people to believe that psychedelics are “shiny, happy drugs,” without giving a thoroughly honest look at the down sides too, because the film is so focused on having people endorse these drugs.

And there’s a reason why the filmmakers only included entertainers in this documentary that glamorizes psychedelic drugs. Imagine a documentary that featured a bunch of health-care workers, emergency responders, schoolteachers or airplane pilots joking about their experiences doing psychedelic drugs, and many of the interviewees giving the impression that they still do psychedelics on a regular basis. It wouldn’t seem so “harmless” then, would it?

Therefore, it’s no surprise that the documentary focuses on people (some more famous than others) who are in showbiz, where illegal drug abuse is flaunted and often celebrated. The average person in a regular job would not be able to get away with bragging in a Netflix documentary about their drug experiences.

Nor does the average person have the kind of money that rock star Sting has, to fly to Mexico whenever he wants, just to take peyote in an elaborate shaman ritual, which he describes in vivid detail in the documentary. Almost all of the people in this film can easily afford to indulge in taking illegal drugs and do not have to worry about how they’re going to pay for any medical treatment or legal issues if things go wrong. It’s one of the reasons why the documentary glamorizes these drug experiences, because there are some negative consequences to illegal drug taking that the “average” person can’t casually dismiss as easily as a well-paid entertainer can.

In addition to Sting, there are several other entertainers in the documentary who talk about their psychedelic drug trips or say that they’ve used psychedelic drugs: Ben Stiller (who’s one of the documentary’s producers), Nick Kroll, Deepak Chopra, Will Forte, A$AP Rocky, Nick Offerman, Shepard Fairey, Lewis Black, Paul Scheer, Rob Corddry, Andy Richter, Judd Nelson, Sarah Silverman, Jim James, Diedrich Bader, Rob Huebel, Reggie Watts, Natasha Lyonne, Adam Horovitz, Mark Maron, Rosie Perez, Donovan, Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, Brett Gelman, Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon and David Cross.

One of the problems of doing a documentary like this is that you never really know how much people could be exaggerating or lying about these drug experiences. Many of the people interviewed are comedians and actors—two professions that are notorious for people fabricating things about their lives in order to get attention. Therefore, this documentary should not be considered very “realistic” by any stretch of the drug-addled imagination.

The psychedelic stories are re-enacted in one of two ways: through animation or by having live actors do a scripted skit. The animated segments (from Sugarshack Animation) are among the best aspects of the documentary. The scripted skits are hit-and-miss.

One of those misfires is miscasting Adam Devine as Bourdain in a re-enactment of Bourdain’s description of a drug-fueled, Hunter S. Thompson-inspired road trip that he took when he was a young man in the 1970s. Devine is known for having a sweet and goofy persona, while Bourdain was the complete opposite, which makes the re-enactment wrong from the get-go.

Even worse, the story that Bourdain tells isn’t even that funny. The road trip included Bourdain and a male friend picking up two women and partying heavily with them in a hotel room, including ingesting several drugs, such as LSD, alcohol, marijuana and cocaine. One of the women overdosed, and the others thought she was dead. So they just left her unconscious on the floor while they tried to figure out what to do, according to Bourdain.

Bourdain, while high on LSD, says that he imagined that there would be police coming to arrest them, with helicopters, searchlights, and a S.W.A.T.-like team surrounding the room. And then the woman suddenly regained consciousness and started to dance as if nothing had happened. Someone could’ve died from ingesting drugs while you were partying with that person, you had a LSD-induced panic attack about being arrested, and that’s supposed to be funny?

A better re-enactment that accomplishes its intended humor is Natasha Leggero dressed in a “Star Wars” Princess Leia outfit, for Fisher’s tale of being high on LSD while in New York City’s Central Park. During that psychedelic experience, Fisher says she spent a great deal of time being upset at seeing an acorn “misbehave” on the grass. During another acid trip on a beach, Fisher vaguely remembers she might have been topless when a bus full of Japanese tourists stopped right in front of her and they recognized her.

And in a somewhat clever casting switcheroo, Corddry plays Scheer in the segment that re-enacts Scheer’s psychedelic story, while Scheer plays Corddy in Corddry’s re-enactment. Meanwhile, Kroll portrays himself in his re-enactment about how he and a group of male friends were high on LSD at a Malibu beach, and the friends covered him in kelp as a prank. He then imagined himself to be a kelp monster and chased them around the beach. (Things weren’t so funny the next morning when he woke up covered in bites from whatever small animals were in the kelp.)

Most of the psychedelic trips described in the documentary are about hallucinations, experiencing colors in a different way, or losing a sense of time or memory. And there are the typical stories of “revelations,” along the lines of “I saw inside my soul,” “I saw how connected the world is” and “I found out the meaning of life is to love everybody.” Some of the people interviewed also give advice by saying it’s better to take psychedelics with trusted friends and to avoid looking in mirrors while under the influence of psychedelics.

A$AP Rocky (one of the few people of color who’s interviewed in the film) tells one of the documentary’s funniest stories, about how he took LSD with a beautiful female companion. During the course of the time they had together, they started having sex. And he swears that he saw a rainbow shoot from his penis during this encounter. “I don’t even like rainbows,” he quips. (Needless to say, the re-enactment for this story is definitely in animation form.)

But for every entertaining story like that one, the documentary has a story that’s basic or boring. The Grateful Dead was considered the ultimate psychedelic rock band, so you’d think one of the Dead’s drummers would have some hilarious stories to tell. Wrong.

Kreutzmann’s anecdotes aren’t that interesting or revealing, unless you consider it’s fascinating that he tells a story of coming home to his parents’ house after staying out all night while he was on LSD, and hallucinating that his breakfast meal of eggs were moving on the plate. He also mentions that he once couldn’t finish performing at a Grateful Dead concert because he was hallucinating that his drums were melting. Yawn.

Being stoned on psychedelics at a Grateful Dead show is also predictably mentioned by some of the interviewees, such as Corddry and Maron. (The late Fred Willard has a cameo as a Deadhead hippie in the re-enactment of Maron’s psychedelic story.) Garant comedically describes how you can tell the difference between someone having a “good trip” and a “bad trip” at a Dead concert, because someone having a “good trip” will lean forward while walking, while someone having a “bad trip” will lean backward while walking, as if they’re afraid of where their head will go.

Sting, who says he’s had good and bad psychedelic trips, mentions that facing his own mortality was one of the most frightening things he ever experienced while under the influence of psychedelics. He also describes the first time he took peyote. It was at a farm in England, where he was unexpectedly asked to help a cow give birth while he was tripping out on the drug. He was told that the cow would die if he didn’t help, and when the calf was born, Sting says he finally understood the miracle of life.

“I think it’s a valuable experience,” says Sting of taking psychedelic drugs. “Whenever I’ve had a bad trip—and I’ve had many—I’ve realized it was what I needed. Sometimes, you need to have your ego taken down a notch or two. On the other hand, you can have immensely rewarding experiences. My feeling is that it balances out.”

Stiller is one of the few celebrities in the documentary who talks about disliking what he says was his one and only experience with LSD (when he was a young man in the ’80s), because it was a bad trip. He says that he was hoping that it would be an enlightening experience, but instead he spent the approximately six-hour acid trip feeling “fear and anxiety.”

“Immediately, I started to freak out and get really scared,” Stiller remembers. “I started staring at my hand, doing the cliché thing of of pondering what my hand was.” His paranoia during the acid trip was made worse, he says, when he and the friend he was with at the time began walking around New York City and saw the parade floats that were going to be in the upcoming Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Stiller says that he hallucinated that the floats were chasing him, like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the “Ghostbusters” movie.

Perez and Silverman each say that the first time they took LSD, it was by accident. Silverman said that it happened when she and some comedian friends were hanging out at a diner in New York City, when a hippie stranger walked in and handed her a tab of LSD that she took without even asking what it was. Her story isn’t as coherent as some of the others, since she recalls laughing and crying with a group of people in public and then ending up in someone’s car with the driver (who was also on LSD) forgetting how to drive.

Perez said she got “dosed” when she was out with her sister on New Year’s Eve in their hometown of New York City, sometime in the late ’80s. They went to a nightclub, where she was offered some fruit punch as a drink. Little did she know that the punch was spiked with LSD. Perez says that she  hallucinated that the dance floor had turned into waves, and she ended up rolling around with her breasts exposed.

Her trip intensified when she got home and imagined that her body had merged into her bed. Perez says she didn’t do drugs or drink alcohol at this time in her life, so when she was told that she was having an acid trip, her first thought was that she was going to hell. She says that the experience led her to seek therapy, which helped her get over her “Catholic guilt,” so she thinks getting rid of her religious hang-ups was one good thing that came out of the experience.

Speaking of guilt trips, the movie pokes fun at the ridiculous, over-the-top and usually badly acted public-service announcements (PSAs) aimed at preventing people, especially young people, from taking psychedelics. Offerman pops up occasionally throughout the film in a parody of a science professor who talks about the effects of psychedelics. NBCUniversal’s “The More You Know” PSA campaign is mocked with “The More You Trip,” whenever one of the interviewees gives advice on what to do or what not to do when taking psychedelics. (For example: “Don’t drive while on acid.”)

The “ABC Afterschool Special” is given the satire treatment with the documentary’s “LSD Afterschool Special,” a multi-part segment that has actor/comedian Adam Scott as the host of a 1980s-styled PSA film with a plot of nerdy high schoolers (played by Haley Joel Osment and Maya Erskine) going to a house party and being tempted into the “evils” of taking LSD. It’s a funny idea but it’s executed poorly.

On a more serious note, “Have a Good Trip” also attempts to promote the theory that using psychedelics is the best way to treat depression and other mental-health issues. Dr. Charles Grob, a psychiatry professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, is interviewed about his research in this area. Not surprisingly, he’s a proponent of using psychedelics to treat these issues (how else would he be able to continue to get research money), but the documentary fails to present other scientific points of view.

The only other non-entertainer interviewed in the film is Zach Leary, son of famed LSD guru Timothy Leary. And what he has to say is very predictable and reveals nothing new at all: “DMT is like the express ticket to primordial ooze. If you want to see what it is to be an organic being and absolutely watch your ego dissipate into nothingness, smoke some DMT, and you’ll get there right away.”

Although some people in the documentary, including Dr. Grob, caution that taking psychedelics isn’t for everyone and can have damaging effects for some people, any of those “bad effects” stories are shut out of the film. It’s like doing a documentary about bungee jumping and refusing to talk about the people who got seriously injured or killed from this risky stunt.

Celebrity spiritual guru Chopra, who says he experimented with psychedelics in the past, is one of the few people in the film who admits “you run the risk of psychosis” from doing psychedelics. Of course, the film only presents stories from people who say that they have “happy endings” from taking psychedelics. And two of those people are now dead because of self-destructive reasons, so viewers can judge for themselves how “beneficial” psychedelics really are in helping people with serious health issues such as depression and addiction.

One of the more irresponsible things about the documentary is that it leaves out any talk of acid flashbacks. Naïve people who see this film as a guide to taking psychedelic drugs might think that once an acid trip is “over,” the drug has left the body, the way that alcohol can leave the human body through urine after a 24-to-48-hour period if no more alcohol is consumed. But the scientific reality is that, depending on the dosage, psychedelic drugs can stay in the body for a variable period of time, and that can lead to unpredictable and random “flashback” trips.

How people feel about “Have a Good Trip” will depend largely on how much they worship celebrities and take their words as gospel. The psychedelic anecdotes in the film should be taken for what they are—stories from people who are in the business of creating fake personas and making things look more glamorous than they really are.

The people who were chosen to be interviewed for this documentary also have the privilege of being less likely to be arrested for illegal drugs. (With few exceptions, most of the people in this film have a certain level of fame.) And they are less likely to have their careers ruined by a lot of psychedelic drug use, compared to people who don’t live in such a privileged bubble. It’s something to think about whenever you hear a celebrity in a certain income bracket openly brag about using illegal drugs.

Netflix premiered “Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics” on May 11, 2020.

Review: ‘Up From the Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music,’ starring Terence Blanchard, Wynton Marsalis, the Neville Brothers, Harry Connick Jr., Irma Thomas, Robert Plant and Keith Richards

May 15, 2020

by Carla Hay

Terence Blanchard (far right) and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in “Up From the Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music” (Photo courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment)

“Up From the Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music”

Directed by Michael Murphy

Culture Representation: The documentary “Up From the Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music” interviews a racially diverse (African Americans and white people) group of people, including musicians, concert promoters, journalists and music historians.

Culture Clash: The impact of slavery and other forms of racism have shaped the music of New Orleans.

Culture Audience: “Up From the Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music” will appeal mostly to people with diverse musical tastes, as well as people who want to learn more about the cultural history of New Orleans.

Allen Toussaint in “Up From the Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music” (Photo courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment)

Making a documentary about the entire history of music in New Orleans is a very ambitious project, especially if it’s edited into a feature-length film instead of being spread out into an episodic series. But writer/director/producer Michael Murphy has crafted a definitive chronicle of New Orleans music in a film with an impressive range that’s as entertaining as it is educational. Grammy-winning musician Terence Blanchard (one of the documentary’s executive producers) narrates this 104-minute film, which features a “who’s who” of people who are part of New Orleans music history or are connected to it in some way.

In addition to Blanchard, musicians interviewed in the documentary include Big Freedia, Germaine Bazzle, Jon Cleary, Harry Connick Jr., DJ Raj Smoove, Mannie Fresh, Steve Gadd, Leroy Jones, Dave Malone (of the Radiators), Branford Marsalis, Delfeayo Marsalis, Jason Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, PJ Morton, Aaron Neville, Art Neville, Charmaine Neville, Ivan Neville, Robert Plant, Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, Herlin Riley, Alfred “Uganda” Roberts, Reggie Scanlon (of the Radiators), Sting, Bill Summers, Irma Thomas, Reggie Toussaint, Don Vappie, Walter Washington and Dr. Michael White.

Other talking heads in the documentary include Quint Davis, CEO of Festival Productions Inc. New Orleans; Preservation Hall creative director Ben Jaffe; Hogan Jazz Archive curator emeritus Bruce Raeburn; Black Top Records co-founder Hammond Scott; audio engineer Roberta Grace; Center for the Study of the American South associate director William Ferris; and journalists Arthel Neville (daughter of Art Neville) and Alan Light.

Interspersed through the documentary are live performances that are exclusive to the film, from artists such as Blanchard performing with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band; Dr. Michael White and the Original Liberty Jazz Band; a duet with Aaron and Ivan Neville; influential R&B diva Thomas; the Neville Brothers; the Radiators; and Dumpstaphunk.

The film took several years to make, since some of the interviews took place in 2004, according the film’s production notes. And some of the footage filmed for the documentary is of people who have since passed away, such as Art Neville and Dr. John, who both died in 2019.

The movie takes a mostly chronological look at the history of New Orleans music, starting with how the brutality of slavery led to African American slaves developing their own form of music that became the foundation of jazz and the blues, which later influenced the creation of rock and roll, soul/R&B, funk and hip-hop. At times, during the documentary, narrator Blanchard gives a tour to some of the historical sites of New Orleans music, such as the Dew Drop Inn, J&M Recording Studio and the Black Pearl neighborhood that’s known for giving rise to Mahalia Jackson. The Tremé neighborhood (also known as the Cradle of Jazz) is mentioned frequently in the film, since New Orleans is the city that gets the most credit for being the birthplace of jazz.

Several influential New Orleans musicians are given praise and credit for making New Orleans an outstanding music city. Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Louis Prima, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, Earl Palmer, singer Thomas, Allen Toussaint, Professor Longhair, Dr. John, James Booker, the Neville Brothers, the Marsalis family and Earl King all get special mentions in the film.

In the beginning of the film, Blanchard visits St. Augustine Church, established in 1841 as the oldest African American Catholic parish in the United States. He points out how the outer pews were purchased/reserved for slaves by free people of color so that the slaves would not be shunned at the church services. “Growing up in the church, I have always believed you could never separate spirituality from creativity,” Blanchard says.

Sting (whose first band as a solo artist included Branford Marsalis and other musicians with a jazz background) comments: “New Orleans seems to have a complexity about it that other American cities lack, maybe because of the history built on the tragedy of human trafficking. Let’s be honest about that. But what was created out of that—jazz, the blues—is something that the whole human race should be grateful for. It’s not to be an apologist for that tragedy, but at the same time, it’s amazing how resilient the human spirit is.”

Wynton Marsalis notes that when the slave owners allowed Africans to play drums in Congo Square during the years when slavery was legal, this artistic freedom had an enormous impact on the music culture in New Orleans: “The fact that a slave could be free on a Sunday afternoon for five hours [to play music] made [New Orleans] different from the United States of America. That expression of freedom still echoes.”

Preservation Hall director Jaffe, whose parents founded the world-famous venue, says that New Orleans multiculturalism of Europe (especially France and Spain), Africa and the Caribbean (especially Cuba) is reflected in the melting pot of musical styles that have thrived in New Orleans. The documentary includes a segment on how the drumming styles in New Orleans also affected the rhythms that distinguished New Orleans jazz (or Dixieland jazz) from jazz in other areas of the United States.

Jazz is the most famous type of music to come out of New Orleans, so it’s the music genre that gets most of the screen time in the first half of the documentary. The concept of an instrumental solo in jazz is largely credited to influential jazz musicians such as Armstrong and Morton. Connick says: “New Orleans jazz music will never die, because the feeling we get as performers who play it is the greatest drug in the world.”

The documentary also mentions New Orleans was one of the first big cities in the U.S. that established an opera house, due in large part to composer/pianist Gottschalk, one of the first American musicians to become a star in Europe in the mid-1800s. And the influence of Cuban music in New Orleans also gets its own segment in the documentary.

“Up From the Streets” also addresses how sexism affected female artists who were part of the early New Orleans music scene. Traditionally, women performers were usually allowed to only be singers or piano players. But slowly, the barriers started to open up during the Jazz Age, when bands started to accept women in other roles besides as a vocalist or pianist.

Singer/bass player Bazzle comments on the gender barrier faced by female musicians in New Orleans: “There was a line until we started doing it [crossing the line].” She adds there’s nothing about musical instruments that say only one gender can play those instruments, but there used to be a mentality that women couldn’t play certain instruments—a sexist belief that wasn’t unique to New Orleans but it affected the opportunities that women had in the New Orleans music scene’s earliest decades.

Branford Marsalis remembers how tough his parents, especially his late mother Dolores, used to be when it came to demanding excellence from her musical children. However, he says, “I appreciated having stern parents.” And he says that his parents would constantly remind the Marsalis children about how fortunate they were to benefit from the civil-rights movement and to not take it for granted.

The movie also notes that although New York City is the birthplace of rap/hip-hop, there’s a New Orleans hip-hop scene that really began to thrive in the 1990s with Master P, Birdman, Mystikal and Juvenile, and has continued in the 21st century with Lil Wayne, Big Freedia and the “bounce” craze. However, in its coverage of New Orleans music artists who are influential in the 21st century, the documentary makes one glaring omission, by failing to mention Frank Ocean.

As for people outside the U.S. who are influenced by New Orleans music, British musicians are among the most enthusiastic. Plant says that he and his former Led Zeppelin bandmates Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were “obsessed with the music of New Orleans, so we always made it our business to ensure that when we were on tour, we came to New Orleans. It’s just about the quality of music that I could relate to and just how it really had such a profound effect.” In the documentary, Plant also cites Allen Toussaint as one of his favorite musicians, which is why Plant and Alison Krauss’ 2007 Grammy-winning duet album “Raising Sand” included a cover version of Toussaint’s “Fortune Teller.”

Rolling Stones guitarist Richards praises Earl Palmer (who worked with dozens of artists, including Little Richard and Sam Cooke) as a “real rock and roll drummer. A lot of drummers since then have been able to rock, but very few that have been able to put the roll in.” Richards also says of Ivan Neville (son of Aaron Neville), who’s worked with Richards on several of Richards’ solo projects: “I feel like his older brother or an uncle. I’ve seen him go through a lot of difficulties and pain and seen him come out of it.”

Aaron Neville says of the origins of the Neville Brothers as a musical act: “One thing our parents always wanted was to see all of us together. In New York, we got to go in the studio with the Meters. We didn’t rehearse anything. We already knew what their part was, and it just came out naturally. And we decided to do the Neville Brothers from then on.”

And, of course, one of New Orleans’ hallmarks is that it’s very common for big bands to perform in the middle of streets and have Second Line parades. Morton and Jaffe remembers that one of the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was how the city of New Orleans was like a ghost town deprived of street music for a long period of time before the recovery from the hurricane.

Davis, whose Festival Productions produces the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (also known as Jazz Fest), talks about how JazzFest in 2006—the first Jazz fest after Hurricane Katrina—was an example of how music helped bring New Orleans heal from hurricane disaster. The Ellis Marsalis Center for Music (which opened in 2011) was also founded as a result of helping New Orleans rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.

However, some of the people interviewed, including Wynton Marsalis and Mannie Fresh, note that although music can bring people together in New Orleans, after a concert or performance ends, people often go back to living racially segregated lives in the city. Despite the city’s problems, New Orleans has a unique culture that’s been able to thrive largely because of the music. And as Blanchard says in the film, much of New Orleans’ strength comes from “the power of music, the power that it has to change hearts and minds … The most important thing is that it’s not over. This is not the end of the story.”

Eagle Rock Entertainment released “Up From the Street: New Orleans: The City of Jazz” in select U.S. virtual cinemas on May 15, 2020. A portion of the proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation’s Jazz & Heritage Music Relief Fund, a statewide relief initiative supporting Louisiana musicians who have lost income amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYnDVGCFKf8

Review: ‘Call Your Mother,’ starring David Spade, Louie Anderson, Awkwafina, Roy Wood Jr., Norm Macdonald, Kristen Schaal, Bridget Everett and Fortune Feimster

May 10, 2020

by Carla Hay

David Spade and his mother, Judy Todd, in “Call Your Mother” (Photo by Jenna Rosher/Comedy Central)

“Call Your Mother”

Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

Culture Representation: The documentary “Call Your Mother” features a racially diverse (white, African American and Asian) group of mostly American comedians talking about how their mothers have affected their lives, with some of the comedians’ mothers also participating in the documentary,.

Culture Clash: Some of the comedians describe having nonconformist or dysfunctional childhoods that are often used as material for their stand-up comedy acts.

Culture Audience: “Call Your Mother” will appeal primarily to people who want to learn more about the family backgrounds of some well-known comedians.

Louie Anderson with a picture of his mother, Ora Zella Anderson, in “Call Your Mother” (Photo by Alex Takats/Comedy Central)

If you ask any stand-up comedian who’s the family member most likely to inspire material for their stand-up comedy act, chances are the comedian will answer, “My mother.” With that in mind, the documentary “Call Your Mother” interviews a variety of comedians (and some of their mothers) to talk about how with these mother-child relationships have affected the comedians’ lives. Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, “Call Your Mother” might not have a deep impact on society, but it accomplishes what it intends to do. The film is a mostly light-hearted, sometimes emotionally moving and occasionally raunchy ride that will give some psychological insight into how and why these comedians ended up where they are now.

“Call Your Mother” includes interviews with a notable list of comedians (almost all of them are American), including Louie Anderson, Awkwafina, Jimmy Carr, Bridget Everett, Fortune Feimster, Rachel Feinstein, Judah Friedlander, Jim Gaffigan, Judy Gold, Jen Kirkman, Jo Koy, Bobby Lee, the Lucas Brothers, Norm Macdonald, Jim Norton, Tig Notaro, Yvonne Orji, Kristen Schaal, David Spade and Roy Wood Jr.

In some cases, the mothers of these comedians are interviewed alongside their comedic children: Everett, Feimster, Schaal, Spade and Wood all have wisecracking moments with their mothers, who are also shown in the audiences while their children are on stage, as well as backstage or at home. Former “Saturday Night Live” star Macdonald is also interviewed with his mother.  (For whatever reason, no Latino comedians are in the documentary, which is a shame, because there are many Latino comedians who talk about their mothers in their stand-up acts.)

Bridget Everett’s mother, Freddie Everett, is memorable for being as foul-mouthed and crude as Bridget. (Freddie even gives the middle finger to the camera, but all in good fun.) Bridget Everett says, “My mother is really one of a kind. She’s the person you meet that you never forget. She can be kind of mean, but somehow she gets away with it.”

Bridget continues, “She’s got a real naughty streak in her,” when describing how her mother was the type to wear very revealing outfits in places where it would be inappropriate for a woman’s breasts to be openly displayed. “There’s something really liberating about that in a small, conservative town.”

Like many of the comedians interviewed in this documentary, Bridget Everett is a child of divorce. After her parents’ divorce, her mother Freddie (who raised six kids) would take a pre-teen Bridget with her to stalk her ex-husband, mainly to see if he was dating anyone new or other reasons to spy on his post-divorce love life.

Bridget remembers her mother telling her to look in windows and report what she saw to her mother. These experiences are part of Bridget Everett’s stand-up act.  And just like her mother used to do when she was young, Bridget Everett dresses in cleavage-baring outfits on stage. “My mom pulses through my performance,” she says. “It’s really a tribute to her.”

British comedian Carr says although his mother “was the funny person in the house,” she often suffered from depression. He turned to comedy to help cheer her up. He says of stand-up comedians: “Most of us come from unhappy childhoods.”

Fans of Louie Anderson already know about how he grew up in a home with an abusive, alcoholic father and a loving mother, because he’s used his childhood as joke material in his stand-up act for years. In the documentary, Anderson (who’s been doing stand-up comedy since 1978) says that he started out doing self-deprecating fat jokes, but he eventually switched to mostly jokes about his family when he saw that it got a stronger reaction from audiences. He also says that dressing in drag for his Christine Baskets character in the FX comedy series “Baskets” was a tribute to his mother, Ora Zella Anderson.

Anderson believes that there’s a reason why so many stand-up comedians come from dysfunctional, often abusive households: “I think comics are about control. They’re trying to control the whole situation, because we had no control growing up.”

Anderson also echoes what most stand-up comedians said in Comedy Central’s documentary “This Is Stand-Up” about gravitating to stand-up comedy because it was their way of being the center of attention and getting unconditional love from people, even if it’s for the limited time that the comedians are on stage.

Spade is another child of divorce. His father left his mother when he was a child, and he says it had long-lasting effects on him and undying respect for his mother, Judy Todd. “My mom is very positive and upbeat and also very funny and clever.”

Todd is seen visiting the set of her son’s talk show “Lights Out With David Spade” on her 82nd birthday, where the audience shouts “Happy Birthday” to her, and she’s invited on stage with the interview guests. Todd is somewhat “normal,” compared to what other comedians have to say about their mothers. She’s almost downright reserved, since she doesn’t do anything to embarrass her son.

The same can’t be said for what comedians Koy, Lee and Gold have to say about their mothers, whose cringeworthy mothering techniques have been fodder for much of these two comedians’ stand-up comedy acts. Koy, who was raised by his divorced Filipino mother, Josie Harrison, remembers how his outspoken mother would inflict terror on anyone who would dare to criticize him.

Bobby Lee talks about how his Korean immigrant mother, Jeanie Lee, used to call his name to get his attention, just so she could fart in front of him. And when they would go to a shopping mall, she would encourage Lee and his younger brother to play in the shopping-mall fountain, while she would take a nap on the floor in a store. Lee, who is a recovering alcoholic/drug addict, also claims that his mother was fairly good-natured about his multiple trips to rehab, whereas most other mothers would be horrified or ashamed. He describes a moment during a family rehab meeting where his mother got the family to laugh so hard in what was supposed to be a serious gathering, they almost got kicked out of the meeting.

Judy Gold says in the documentary that she had the quintessential nagging, over-protective Jewish mother, Ruth Gold, who liked to leave long, demanding phone messages. Gold’s mother passed away in 2015, but Gold still plays some of her mother’s phone messages in her stand-up comedy act. She also plays some of the phone messages in the documentary and remembers that she did not get much overt affection from her parents when she was growing up.

Gold also says that her parents weren’t the type to hug their children and say, “I love you.” Instead, in her family, people would be rewarded based on whoever did the best to “one-up” the others with a quip. Still, Gold says that toward the end of her mother’s life, she did express her love more openly, and she shares an emotionally touching memory of what happened the last time she spoke with her mother.

One of the issues that the documentary covers is how mothers react when they find out that their children want to be professional comedians. Roy Wood Jr. says it was a very uncomfortable experience for him, since he had dropped out of Florida A&M University after being put on probation for shoplifting. He secretly started doing stand-up comedy in 1999, and when he told his mother, Joyce Dugan Wood, that he wanted to do stand-up comedy full-time, she was very upset.

“She definitely felt my priorities were in the wrong place,” he says. So, in order to please his mother, Roy went back to Florida A&M. And when he graduated, he gave his mother the plaque of the college degree that “I didn’t need” and began pursuing a full-time comedy career. Now that he’s become a successful comedian (including a stint as a correspondent on “The Daily Show”), Wood says of his mother’s approval: “These days, I feel supported.”

When comedian/actress Awkwafina (whose real name is Nora Lum) was 4 years old, her mother died, so when she was growing up, her paternal grandmother was Awkwafina’s main mother figure. While most people in Awkwafina’s family had expectations for her to going into a traditional profession, her paternal grandmother encouraged Awkwafina to pursue her dreams in entertainment.

Although many of these comedians say vulgar things about their families in their stand-up acts, the documentary shows that a lot of stand-up comedians have a soft spot for their mothers and like to hang out with them. Kristen Schaal and her look-alike mother, Pam Schaal, are seen shopping together at a fabric store. Norm Macdonald and his mother, Ferne Macdonald, play Scrabble and golf together. Wood’s mother Joyce accompanies him to a tuxedo fitting.

But not all of these mother-child moments are warm and fuzzy. Some of the comedians, such as Norton and Spade, admit to changing their shows to being less offensive and less raunchy if they know their mothers are going to be in the audience.

Norton says that he’s felt uncomfortable at times when his sex life (which he talks about in his stand-up comedy routine) is a topic of conversation with his mother. Norton remembers how after he did a stand-up show where he talked about his experiences of hiring hookers, he got a call from his mother suggesting that he join a gym to meet new people and improve his dating life. (In the documentary, he even plays the voice mail from 2001 to prove it.)

As for talking about their mothers in their stand-up comedy acts, Koy says that it was hard for him to do at first, but his mother and the rest of his family have gotten used to it. Feinstein says about her mother: “She likes it when I impersonate her. She gets upset if I don’t.”

Fortune Feimster says something similar, in an interview seated next her mother, Ginger Feimster: “She would rather me talk about her and be the center of attention than me not talk about her at all,” Fortune says. “She’s a good sport and she likes the attention.” Ginger Feimster says in response, “That is so true.”

Whether these comedians’ relationships with their mothers have been good or not-so-good, one thing that most people can agree on is a sentiment that Gold expresses in the movie that is a tried and true cliché: “There’s nothing like a mother’s love.” And at the very least, this documentary might inspire people to get in touch with their mothers to express gratitude if their mothering wasn’t a complete disaster.

Comedy Central premiered “Call Your Mother” on May 10, 2020.

Review: ‘Spaceship Earth,’ starring John Allen, Marie Harding, Kathelin Gray, Mark Nelson, Linda Leigh, Tony Burgess and Sally Silverstone

May 8, 2020

by Carla Hay

Biosphere 2 dwellers in “Spaceship Earth.” Pictured from left to right: Jane Poynter, Linda Leigh, Mark Van Thillo, Taber MacCallum, Roy Walford (in front), Abigail Alling, Sally Silverstone and Bernd Zabel posing inside (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“Spaceship Earth”

Directed by Matt Wolf

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Arizona and California, the documentary “Spaceship Earth” has an all-white cast of people who are interviewed about their involvement in the environmental experiment Biosphere 2, where eight people lived in a giant sealed dome from 1991 to 1993.

Culture Clash: The Biosphere 2 principals and participants were accused of being cult members and frauds by several legitimate members of the scientific community.

Culture Audience: “Spaceship Earth” will appeal mostly to viewers who have an interest in documentaries about eccentric people or futuristic ideas about how to sustain Earth’s environment.

Biosphere 2 in “Spaceship Earth” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

The documentary “Spaceship Earth” isn’t actually about a ship in outer space. It’s about a well-publicized, non-scientific experiment where eight people volunteered to live in an elaborate, sealed bio-dome called Biosphere 2 covering 2.5 acres in Tucson, Arizona, from 1991 to 1993. The idea was that Biosphere 2 could be a prototype for humans to have colonies in outer space. This bio-dome was called Biosphere 2 because the group considered Earth to be Biosphere 1. Although this documentary (directed by Matt Wolf) is certainly fascinating, it raises some questions that aren’t really answered in the film.

The first half of this two-hour movie is an extensive history of the group of eccentrics (who were hippies in the 1960s) that launched Biosphere 2 with the help of Texas billionaire Ed Bass. The group’s leader is John Allen (also known as Johnny Dolphin), a former member of the U.S. Army and a graduate of Harvard Business School. Allen was much older than the mostly young people in their late teens to 20s whom he recruited to join an experimental performing arts group in the late 1960s and early 1970s in San Francisco. The group would call itself the Theater of All Possibilities and would perform around the world.

Allen and several of the group members are interviewed in the documentary, including Marie Harding, also known as Flash, who would become Allen’s wife and chief financial administrator; Kathelin Gray, also known as Salty; William Dempster, also known as Freddy; and Mark Nelson, also known as Horse Shit. They all “dropped out” of their conventional lives to live in a commune and follow the leadership of Allen. All of this sounds like a cult, but the group members deny that they are a cult.

Unfortunately, the “Spaceship Earth” documentary doesn’t interview anyone with a more objective perspective of what this group was about, since everyone interviewed in the movie has been in the group for years or benefited financially from the Biodome 2 spectacle when it launched in the early 1990s. The only real voice of skepticism in the documentary is archival 1990s TV footage of an interview given by whistleblower David Stumpf, a former Biosphere 2 scientist, who said that Biosphere 2 was a scientific fraud and that it was just “trendy ecological entertainment.”

By 1969, the group was fed up with the commercialism of the San Francisco hippie scene and moved to New Mexico to live at a place called Synergia Ranch. It was at this ranch, where the commune members grew their own food and had a self-contained sustainable lifestyle, that Allen started to delve more into the idea of building an enclosed biosphere environment where humans could live. They funded their lifestyle by starting different businesses and doing performances.

The Synergia Ranch group was inspired by several books, including Buckminster Fuller’s “Spaceship Earth,” the Whole Earth catalog and the works of William S. Burroughs. Even though the Theater of All Possibilities group lived a counterculture, hippie lifestyle, Gray says that the group “didn’t take drugs, which would kind of blow it.” It’s very hard to believe that statement, considering much of the group’s performances (shown in archival footage) look a lot like people whacked-out on psychedelics drugs.

Whether they used drugs or not, this group certainly had an unusual mindset that worshipped Allen. Nelson was a native of Brooklyn, New York, who had drifted from job to job before joining the group at the Synergia Ranch in 1969. Nelson says in the documentary that he was a taxi driver, a proofreader, a court reporter and a social worker before leaving New York for the alternative lifestyle offered by Allen and the group. “I really was looking for something different,” Nelson says.

Nelson, Gray and other members of the group talk about Allen being a brilliant visionary, with the word “genius” used quite a bit to describe him. Nelson says Allen is like “a father figure” to him and that Allen is “charismatic,” “tempestuous” and a “genius.” Gray gushes, “I met geniuses before, but no one like John Allen.” Gray hints that she was in love with Allen too, but is purposely vague in saying how intimate she got with him.

Allen’s wife Harding, who said she was never the marrying kind, explains why she agreed to marry him: “It wasn’t for the normal married life type of thing. We were married to make a project.” In other words, their relationship is more of a business arrangement than a traditional marriage.

By 1974, the group members relocated back to California, this time to Berkeley, with the ambition to build a giant Noah’s Ark-inspired ocean ship in nearby Oakland. They succeeded in that goal, and named the ship the Heraclitus. They sailed around the world in the ship and used their construction skills to get jobs by helping construct various buildings.

The group’s adventures in the Heraclitus planted the idea of building a sealed colony that could possibly be used in outer space. In the documentary, many of the group members talk about wanting to “make history” and being at the forefront of futuristic living. One of the key members of the group was Margaret Augustine (also known as Firefly), who started out in the group as a 19-year-old neophyte with no construction work experience and ended up as a chief architect of many of the group’s projects.

It was in the 1970s that the group found an enthusiastic supporter in billionaire Bass, who wanted the group to go to different areas and improve the land. Bass (who is not interviewed in the documentary) is described as someone who was a rebel from a conservative family and is obsessed as the group is about futuristic living. Gray comments about Bass, “He really liked the sense of exploration and adventure.”

Having a wealthy benefactor gave the group more clout, and they began hosting conferences with international intellectuals and “forward thinkers.” Allen is quick to take credit for these conferences being among the first to introduce to the public the concepts of global warming and climate change.

Phil Hawes, a sustainable architect who frequently spoke at these conferences, is credited by the group for coming up with the idea of an adobe spaceship that could be a colony for humans in outer space. Another big influence on the Biosphere project was the 1972 movie “Silent Running,” starring Bruce Dern as a scientist who makes a greenhouse in a space station after all plant life on Earth has been destroyed.

The documentary gets a lot more interesting in the second half, which details the construction, launch and controversy of Biosphere 2. For the massive undertaking of Biosphere 2, which was largely funded by Bass, several scientific consultants were used, including those from the University of Arizona, the Smithsonian Marine Systems Lab and the New York Botanical Garden.

Augustine was Biosphere 2’s chief executive officer, while Harding was the chief financial officer. Harding says that it took most of the 1980s to build Biosphere 2, and it cost $200 million back then. Tony Burgess, a desert ecologist, was recruited to design Biosphere 2’s desert. About 3,800 species of plant and animal life were brought into the dome. The idea was that Biosphere 2 would be completely sustainable on its own, with nothing from the outside to assist for the two years that the people would stay in the dome.

And then by 1990, there was the massive search to find volunteers who were willing to live in Biosphere 2 and not come out for two years. Allen said that he wanted to select “free thinkers,” not followers. There’s archival footage of the auditions, which basically look like Allen telling people to do weird performance antics and exercises. The dwellers could still communicate with the outside world by telephone and videoconferencing, but Allen would be the one to decide who could talk to the dwellers and vice versa. That kind of extreme control by one person doesn’t exactly sound like an atmosphere conducive to “free thinking.”

In the end, eight people were chosen to be the Biosphere 2 dwellers: Jane Poynter, Taber MacCallum, Abigail Alling, Bernd Zabe, Linda Leigh, Mark Van Thillo, Roy Walford and Sally Silverstone. MacCallum and Poynter were a couple, and so were Zabe and Alling. The documentary doesn’t mention if any of the Biosphere 2 dwellers had children.

Although all the Biodome 2 dwellers worked together in communal duties to maintain the space while living there, most of them had a particular specialty. Poynter was in charge of the agriculture and animals. MacCallum did a lot testing of the atmosphere and soil. Alling was the resident marine biologist. Zabe was the repairman. Walford, the oldest member (he was in his early 60s at the time), was the physician. Silverstone was the main cook, and she says in the documentary that only natural ingredients were used in the Biosphere 2 food.

Leigh remembers what she thought of being part of this select group of Biosphere 2 dwellers: “This is a great, bright group of people that are really into what they’re doing … They’re wacky, and I fit right in.” Silverstone says, “I loved science-fiction movies where people were all living under glass domes.” In other words, Biosphere 2 was a dream come true for her. Silverstone later says in the documentary that after the two-year isolation period was over, she didn’t want to leave Biosphere 2 and that she would’ve lived there as long as she could if she were allowed to do it.

The day that the eight Biosphere 2 dwellers entered the dome was met with great fanfare and media attention from all over the world. The documentary has interviews with two of the people who were part of the publicity campaign: Kathy Dyhr, who was Biosphere 2’s public relations director, and public-relations strategist Larry Winokur, who was brought on board because, as Dyhr says in the documentary, she didn’t really know what she was doing and they needed someone with more professional PR experience.

The fact that all of the people chosen to live in Biosphere 2 were white and from Western countries (most from the United States, a few from European nations) probably wouldn’t be considered acceptable today in a more diverse-conscious society. When the Biosphere 2 project decided to raise money by opening up a visiting area, so visitors could look in the dome like people look at a fish bowl, some African Americans are shown in archival footage commenting on the lack of racial diversity of the people in the dome.

But that was just one criticism in a growing list of skeptical observations. Many scientists said it would be inaccurate for Biosphere 2 to be considered real scientific research, since it was an experiment that wasn’t going to be duplicated to double-check results, and there were too many unknown variables.

Things got even more controversial after Poynter accidentally got the tip of one of her fingers cut off in a grain threshing machine, and she had to go outside the dome to get medical attention. Having someone leave Biosphere 2 before the end of the two-year period automatically invalidated the highly touted main goal of the experience: that all eight dwellers would not leave Biosphere 2 for two years.

And then it was discovered by the media that when Poynter returned to Biosphere 2 after getting medical treatment, she broke another rule, by bringing in two duffel bags of outside supplies. And with another goal destroyed, tensions and conflicts grew inside and outside Biosphere 2.

The atmosphere in Biosphere 2 began to have dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide, so oxygen had to be pumped into the dome. It was another failure in the Biosphere 2 goal of not bringing in anything from the outside during the two-year period. According to Dyhr, as the media began to have more questions about the validity of the experiment, “Margaret [Harding] and John [Allen] became more secretive, and that reinforced the idea that they had something to hide.”

And criticism began to grow about the control that Allen (who’s not a scientist) had over the group, which further fueled accusations that the group is a cult. Desert ecologist Burgess tells a story about being threatened and terrified by Allen, after Burgess was accused of being disloyal for expressing his concerns to the media.

Burgess and Allen later put asides their differences. In the documentary, Burgess is quick to defend the group: “Frankly, I don’t know any organization that does an innovative start-up that doesn’t have cult-like aspects, especially in the corporate sector. We are hard-wired to create cults in the innovative phase of an organization.”

And then things really began to fall apart when more scientists quit the project and billionaire Bass, the group’s chief investor, got disillusioned. And then, Steve Bannon (yes, that Steve Bannon, the same one who later became famous for founding Breitbart News and being Donald Trump’s political adviser) got involved in the whole mess. Although the end results of Biosphere 2 have been widely reported and are in the documentary, that spoiler information won’t be included in this review.

After the controversy, this is what Allen has to say about Biosphere 2 all these years later: “We were people who recognized that climate change is a threat and tried to develop the means to counteract that threat.”

Because Allen and his group control so much of the narrative in this documentary, director Wolf fails to answer some basic questions. For starters, did any of the people in this commune group have children? There’s absolutely no mention of any of these people being parents, and how raising kids affected what they did for the group and for Biosphere 2. This is a documentary about a group of people obsessed with how future generations are going to live on Earth and possibly outer space, so it’s very strange for this documentary not to include information about if these people have any children.

Another glaring omission is that the documentary doesn’t have interviews with any scientists who weren’t on the Biosphere 2 payroll, in order to get more objective observations. Instead of spending a lot of time covering the history of this commune group, that screen time in the film should have been for putting into context what, if any, effects that Biosphere 2 had on today’s scientific plans or theories about environmental issues.

Although the documentary makes it clear that there were many scientist critics of Biosphere 2, the filmmakers never bothered to interview any of them for this documentary. It would have been a welcome balance to the obviously biased gushing about Biosphere 2 from Allen’s group members. It would’ve been more interesting to get further details over why so many scientists quit the project. Surely, some of them are still alive to interview, but the documentary doesn’t answer those questions.

It also would’ve been interesting to get Allen’s response to all the criticisms that he was a bully who ran a cult and why his group seems to be lacking in diversity, in terms of age and race. Allen’s group seems to be a bunch of old, white former hippies. If this group is so great at “forward thinking,” where is this group’s next generation of members? They’re certainly not in this documentary.

These are questions that “Spaceship Earth” fails to answer, much like a lot of the mythology around Biosphere 2. It seems as if Allen has control over not just his group of followers but he also exerted a lot of control, directly or indirectly, in how this documentary was made. “Spaceship Earth” leaves viewers with the impression that the filmmakers could’ve dug deeper for more information, but chose not to do it because they didn’t want to lose Allen and his flock to provide the documentary’s majority of interviews and archival footage.

Neon released “Spaceship Earth” in select U.S. drive-in theaters, pop-up city-scape projections, virtual cinemas, on digital and on Hulu on May 8, 2020.

Review: ‘The Delicacy,’ starring Jim Marshall, Andrew Zimmern, Harry Liquornik, Stephanie Mutz, Ward Motyer, Haiwen Lu and Ray Isle

May 7, 2020

by Carla Hay

Harry Liquornik and Stephanie Mutz in “The Delicacy” (Photo courtesy of SOMM TV)

“The Delicacy”

Directed by Jason Wise

Culture Representation: This documentary examines the business behind the delicacy of sea urchin, with the film featuring interviews with a predominantly white cast (and some Asian representation) of sea urchin divers, chefs and journalists.

Culture Clash: “The Delicacy” addresses the controversies over fishing for sea urchins, including the environmental impact and what sea urchin divers have in response to people who are offended by their line of work.

Culture Audience: “The Delicacy” will appeal mostly to non-vegan/non-vegetarian people who are passionate about fine dining and are curious about the specifics of how sea urchin goes from the ocean to human consumption.

Sea urchin and caviar prepared at Aubergine restaurant in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California in “The Delicacy” (Photo courtesy of SOMM TV)

“The Delicacy” takes a fascinating look at the business of making sea urchin a fine-dining item. Unlike other food TV shows that focus primarily on the end results of food preparation, “The Delicacy” takes a deep dive (literally) into the entire procedure of making sea urchin available to the public, including showing how sea urchin divers work, how sea urchin goes through processing plants, and how sea urchin is prepared for meals. The heart of this 70-minute movie is with the sea urchin divers, since the documentary shows a very human side to their line of risk-taking work.

Sea urchin is eaten for its center, which is called “uni” in Japanese, and is usually eaten raw. And sea urchin is considered among the top-tier of luxury seafood. Uni Diaries blogger Haiwen Lu, who’s interviewed in the documentary, comments on sea urchin: “A lot of other delicacies out there, like foie gras or caviar or oysters, I feel like they don’t have that buzz factor like uni has.”

Celebrity chef/restaurateur Andrew Zimmern says, “My relationship with sea urchin? Profound.” And he comments on preparing sea urchin: “It’s a simple process but a rare thing.” Yoon Ha, wine director of San Francisco restaurant Benu, adds: “There’s nothing like sea urchin. It’s eaten raw. It’s sweet. it’s briny. It’s incredibly luxurious in texture. It’s a perfect luxurious food item.”

Other restaurant chefs interviewed in the film are Justin Cogley, executive chef at Aubergine in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California; Kyle Connaughton, executive chef at Single Thread in Healdsburg, California; and Aaron Koseba, chef de cuisine at Single Thread.

It would have been very easy for “The Delicacy” filmmakers to keep the movie focused on glowing commentary about sea urchin and filling the documentary with glam shots of sea urchin being prepared. The film certainly shows those fine-dining aspects of sea urchin, but director Jason Wise also includes a history of why sea urchin became a delicacy and what kinds of people fish for sea urchin today.

The history of sea urchin being a delicacy is known to date as far back as the days of the Roman Empire. Archeologists have found evidence that after the upscale vacation city of Pompeii was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius erupting in the year 79 A.D., the upper-class people who lived in Pompeii used to frequently dine on sea urchin. Because sea urchins live in deep underwater environments, they were much harder to get in the days before deep-sea diving equipment was invented.

The documentary then veers off into a brief history of abalone and how it created a “gold rush” for abalone in California, beginning in the 1950s and peaking in the 1970s and 1980s. Unfortunately, abalone (which has a very slow reproductive rate) was being “picked almost to extinction,” says Food & Wine executive wine editor Ray Isle. And that scarcity led to a crackdown on fisheries that sold abalone and the rise of aquaculture businesses that work to grow aquatic life that’s harvested for food. Andrew Kim of Monterey Abalone in California is shown in the film giving a brief tour of his business.

Abalone is brought up as an example of what could happen to the sea urchin trade if there is too much fishing of sea urchin and not enough protection of the species. The documentary points out that illegal poaching of all endangered species will be a reality, but the goal is to not let valuable animals in the food chain reach the point of near-extinction.

Sea otters are mankind’s biggest competition in eating sea urchins. Lillian Carswell, U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s southern sea otter recovery coordinator, notes that sea otters were at the brink of extinction for decades, because they were hunted for their fur. But due to a fluke in nature, a part of the reef near Big Sur in California made it difficult for boats to dock there, so a small group of sea otter that lived there began to multiply and thrive. Generations of sea otter still live there today.

It’s in California, off the coast of Santa Barbara, that the documentary takes another turn, with an up-close look at some modern-day sea urchin divers. The movie focuses primarily on four of these rough-and-tumble group of adventurers: Jim Marshall, who is considered the respected elder; Harry Liquornik, an extrovert who considers Jim to be a like a mentor/father figure; Harry Liquornik, who is quiet and reserved; and Stephanie Mutz, who says she’s the only woman who’s a professional sea-urchin diver in California.

This quartet of sea urchin divers all know each other and have worked together at one time or another. Jim and Harry have a long history together, and they jokingly tease each other, with Jim saying that Harry is “cocky,” while Harry says that Jim is “grumpy.” Mutz considers Liquornik to be her mentor, and they work closely together.

Diving for sea urchin is considered one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. There’s a constant threat of being injured in various ways, and being killed by a shark is also a very real possibility. (And true to his sense of humor, Liquornik jokes that as he gets older, it’s harder for him to fit into a wetsuit.) Sea urchin diver Billy Eggers is also interviewed, but the other four divers get most of the screen time in the segments that feature the divers.

Although the job can pay well (top divers have the potential to earn six-figure incomes), there are also huge risks involved in the work, such as the aforementioned on-the-job injuries and shark attacks, as well as bad weather and the unpredictability of when business might be slow. The divers also have to develop a keen knowledge of where to dive for sea urchin, because the quality of sea urchin depends on how much kelp that the sea urchins eat. The more kelp that a sea urchin can eat, the higher the quality of the sea urchin.

And for people who think that fishing for sea urchin will destroy the food chain, Marshall’s response is that letting sea urchin overpopulate the ocean would actually damage the food chain, since “too many sea urchins … would wipe out the kept forest.” Kelp is essential for ocean life, so the divers say that there needs to be a balance in not destroying a species but also not letting a species overpopulate the ocean.

One of the best aspects of “The Delicacy” is the cinematography from Jackson Myers and the underwater photography by director Wise. Regardless of how someone might feel about the ethics of eating animals, most people would agree with how life in the deep ocean can be stunning and awe-inspiring. Some of the underwater scenes in “The Delicacy” are absolutely gorgeous.

Full disclosure: “The Delicacy” director Wise (who is a producer, co-editor and co-writer of the film) is also the founder of SOMM TV, a subscription video-on-demand service for enthusiasts of food, wine and travel. “The Delicacy” can be viewed exclusively on SOMM TV, which was launched in 2019 by several of the filmmakers of the “Somm” documentary series. If “The Delicacy” is any indication of SOMM TV’s original documentaries, then SOMM TV is a good alternative to other food-centric networks that have programming appealing mostly to casual-dining audiences. “The Delicacy” is the kind of documentary that fine-dining foodies deserve.

The movie ends with sobering reminder of the human cost of diving for sea urchins. Throughout the movie’s segments on the sea urchin divers, there is archival footage of California diver Jim “Wiener” Robinson. He died of a shark attack in 1994, at the age of 42. Marshall, Liquornik and Motyer all give emotional testimonials about Robinson and how his death affected them.

Not everyone agrees with the idea that humans can kill animals for food. Mutz has this response to people who are opposed to her line of work: “I might go to urchin hell, but I’m okay with that. I don’t have any remorse.” Regardless of how people feel about animal rights or eating animal-based food, Marshall sums it up this way: “Fishing will always be around as long as people have to eat.”

SOMM TV premiered “The Delicacy” on May 7, 2020.

 

 

Review: ‘Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind,’ starring Natasha Gregson Wagner, Robert Wagner, Katie Wagner, Courtney Wagner, Robert Redford and Mart Crowley

May 6, 2020

by Carla Hay

A 1975 photo of Natalie Wood and her daughter Natasha in “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind” (Photo courtesy of HBO)

“Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind”

Directed by Laurent Bouzereau

Culture Representation: This documentary about actress Natalie Wood interviews an all-white group of people who are primarily from the entertainment business, including her family members, friends and former colleagues.

Culture Clash: The documentary addresses Wood’s personal problems, as well as ongoing speculation that Wood’s drowning death in 1981 wasn’t an accident.

Culture Audience: “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind” will appeal primarily to people interested in 20th century movie stars and biographical information about Wood that has been widely reported elsewhere.

Natalie Wood (center) with members of her business team in “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind” (Photo by Billy Ray/HBO)

“Natalie Wood: What Reminds Behind,” directed by Laurent Bouzereau, is more of a tribute than an investigative documentary. But that shouldn’t be a surprise, since her eldest daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner not only produced the film, but she’s also the narrator. Gregson Wagner is also the person who does a rare sit-down interview with her stepfather Robert “RJ” Wagner, who’s been been the focus of controversy over Wood’s 1981 death by drowning when Wood was 43. Robert Wagner and his family members have all vehemently denied speculation and accusations that Wood’s death was anything other than a tragic accident.

A police investigation was re-opened in 2011 over Wood’s death, which happened the night of November 29, 1981, while she, Wagner, her “Brainstorm” co-star Christopher Walken and boat captain Dennis Davern had been staying on Wagner’s yacht Splendour near California’s Catalina Island. Davern now claims that he lied to investigators in 1981 about what really happened on the yacht.

Davern, who co-wrote a 2014 book called “Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour,” claims that Wagner probably had something to do with Wood’s death and that Wagner threatened him to be part of an alleged cover-up. Natalie Wood’s younger sister Lana has also been in the media with the same accusations. And in recent years, there’s been renewed public interest in Natalie Wood’s death, with some news media calling her death an “unsolved murder.”

“Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind” addresses the speculation about how she died toward the end of the film, as a rebuttal to all the negativity that’s been reported. It’s clear that the documentary was made to also give the family an outlet to rectify what they say is the damage to Natalie Wood’s legacy that the scandal has caused. Gregson Wagner, the talking head with the most screen time in the movie, essentially admits this agenda by saying that she wants her mother to be remembered mostly for how she lived, not how she died.

Before the movie addresses the speculation over Natalie Wood’s death, about 80% of it consists of a mostly glowing overview of her life and career. In terms of biographical information, there’s nothing new that’s uncovered that hasn’t already been revealed in the myriad of media reports and books about Natalie Wood.

The only people who might learn something new from watching this documentary are people who don’t know very much about Natalie Wood. And although family members and friends give personal anecdotes, none of the anecdotes is very surprising or revealing—unless you think it’s important to know that Natalie didn’t wear makeup when she was relaxing at home, or you like to see people name-drop the list of celebrities who used to go to the family’s house parties. It also comes as no surprise that she’s described as a devoted and loving mother, to the point where any flaws she might have had as a mother are not mentioned at all.

Natalie Wood (whose birth name was Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko) was the middle child of three daughters born to Russian immigrants. Her mother Maria was domineering and highly superstitious, while her father Nikolai was quiet and passive. Maria was the parent who pushed Natalie into having a showbiz career. Natalie started out as a child star and evolved into a true movie icon. She was at the peak of her fame with films such as 1955’s “Rebel Without a Cause,” 1961’s “West Side Story,” 1961’s “Splendor in the Grass,” 1962’s “Gypsy” and 1963’s “Love With the Proper Stranger.”

By the time she was 25, she had received three Oscar nominations for Best Actress, for “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Splendor in the Grass” and “Love With the Proper Stranger.” Her other well-known films included 1969’s “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice” and the 1979 TV miniseries remake of “From Here to Eternity,” for which she won a Golden Globe.

It’s hinted in the documentary that she had “daddy issues,” since she preferred to be romantically involved with men who were older than she was. And when her sexual involvement with “Rebel Without a Cause” director Nicholas Ray is mentioned in the documentary—she filmed the movie when she was 16 and he was 43—it’s glossed over as consensual, because Natalie supposedly told people that she was “in love” with Ray.

Natalie’s relationships with the two men she married are also covered in a predictable manner for a documentary financed by one of her daughters: Problems in each marriage are mentioned briefly, but the widespread reports and scandalous details of alcohol-fueled rages, physical fights and emotional abuse are not mentioned at all. Robert Wagner (eight years older than her) was her first husband, from 1957 to 1962. Long before their first date, which Robert Wagner said was on her 18th birthday, she had a very public crush on him.

In a documentary interview with stepdaughter Natasha, Robert Wagner blames the failure of this first marriage to Natalie on “the pressure on her and her career.” And he admits that he would have handled their marital problems better if he had been “older and more experienced” at the time. Robert Wagner went on to marry actress Marion Marshall; they were married from 1963 to 1971, and had a daughter together named Katie Wagner, who’s interviewed in the film.

The movie also hints at but never fully explores the well-documented stories that Robert Wagner was a jealous and controlling husband, which led to numerous fights between him and Natalie. In the documentary, Robert Wagner admits to being very upset by Natalie’s two-year relationship with her “Splendor in the Grass” co-star Warren Beatty, which began after the movie finished filming and while she was separated from Robert Wagner.

“I was ready to go after him,” says Robert Wagner. “I can talk about it easily now, but at the time, it was a little bit difficult, as you can imagine.” Playwright/author Mart Crowley, who became a lifelong close friend of Natalie’s, starting when he was a production assistant on “Splendor in the Grass,” insists that the romance that Natalie had with Beatty was not the cause of her failed marriage to Robert Wagner.

Other men she dated after the divorce included Frank Sinatra, Henry Jaglom, Michael Caine, David Niven Jr., Arthur Loew Jr. and Kadislav Baltnik—the latter two men she was also engaged to but never married. Niven is briefly interviewed in the documentary, and he says he was an anomaly for her paramours because he was younger than Natalie.

In 1969, she married British agent-turned-producer Richard Gregson, and had daughter Natasha with him in 1970. But that marriage fell apart in 1972, after he cheated on her with her secretary. Gregson died in 2019, but he is interviewed here with Parkinson’s disease, and he admits that his infidelity was the main cause of the divorce. Although he mostly praises Natalie, he does say that her temper could be pretty fearsome: “When she let go, she let go,” he comments. It’s yet another vague reference that isn’t followed up with more details.

Natalie’s issues with mental health is also not new information, since she revealed back in the 1970s that she was in psychiatric therapy for years. The documentary mentions that in 1964, she intentionally overdosed on pills while she was staying at Crowley’s place, who remembers that she banged on his door to get help immediately after taking the pills. The incident is explained by daughter Natasha as “not really a suicide attempt” but more of a “cry for help.”

But even her serious problems with mental health get a very positive spin in the documentary. Natalie is also given almost saint-like treatment when Robert Wagner says: “She convinced me to go into analysis … and it saved my life.”

In 1972, Natalie remarried Robert Wagner (who’s called “the love of her life”), and they remained married until her death in 1981. In 1974, Natalie and Robert had a daughter named Courtney together, who’s also interviewed in the documentary. The couple raised Courtney and Natasha, while Katie lived with them part-time. Natasha said she called her biological father Daddy Gregson and her stepfather Daddy Wagner.

Not surprisingly, the children have nothing but good things to say about their parents. Natasha says that Robert raised her as if she were his biological child. And as for her mother: “We weren’t raised by someone who seemed like a movie star at all. She seemed larger-than-life not because she was famous but more because she was her.”

Courtney Wagner, who was 7 when her mother died, gets teary-eyed when commenting: “My memory of her is ever-evolving. I hope I can get to a place where I can access the true feeling that this was my mother, that I came from her, and she was mine for a short time. It’s been very hard to hold on to that.” It’s mentioned in the documentary that Courtney is a recovering addict/alcoholic whose trauma has a lot to do with losing her mother at such a young age.

The documentary includes the expected film clips and archival footage, but the film mostly serves as a series of flattering commentaries about Natalie Wood from people in her inner circle. They include Josh Donen, Robert Wagner’s stepson who lived in a guest house on Wood/Wagner property for years (Donen is the biological son of Robert Wagner’s ex-wife Marion Marshall); Liz Applegate, who was Natalie’s personal assistant from 1977 to 1981; and close friend Mia Farrow, who describes Natalie as “smart” and “incredibly well-organized.”

There are also numerous former colleagues of Natalie Wood who sing her praises. Robert Redford gives her credit for giving him his big movie breakthrough, because she insisted that a then-unknown Redford co-star with her in the 1965 film “Inside Daisy Clover.” Redford was also the best man at the wedding of Natalie Wood and Richard Gregson, who was Redford’s agent at the time.

Redford comments, “It’s a tough business, and to survive in that business, you have to have a tough side to you, and I think she [Natalie Wood] had to develop that, but it wasn’t comfortable [for her]. What she really wanted to do was to laugh and have fun and be a regular person. But mainly, she had a big heart, and that showed in her work.”

One of the more interesting things that the documentary points out is how Natalie Wood was one of the first actresses in Hollywood to break out of the sexist oppression of the studio system, by demanding and getting equal pay for herself and her male co-stars who also received top billing. Farrow says of Natalie Wood’s Hollywood clout: “In a town where women weren’t always respected … she was an exception.”

Other former colleagues who pay their respects to Natalie Wood in the documentary include actors George Hamilton, Richard Benjamin, Elliott Gould, Dyan Cannon, George Segal and Tonya Crowe, as well as directors Peter Hyams, John Irvin and Douglas Trumball. The documentary also has commentaries from publicist Alan Nierob, film critic/author Julie Salamon, photographer Martin Childers, Delphine Mann (one of Natalie Wood’s close friends) and Julia Gregson, who was married to Richard Gregson after Natalie Wood divorced him.

Several people in the documentary (including Natalie Wood’s children) share painful memories about the day that they found out that she died. Meanwhile, Julia Gregson remembers the star-studded party held at the Wood/Wagner mansion the day after Wood’s funeral as being “bizarre” and “surreal” because Elizabeth Taylor was there with a crystal ball, and Shirley MacLaine was trying to “heal RJ.”

Natasha, Courtney and Katie also talk about how disturbingly intrusive the media could be after Natalie’s tragic death, by taking photos of them in their backyard and following them around. The daughters and Applegate (Wood’s last personal assistant) give a lot of credit to the family’s African American nanny Willie Mae Worthen (who died in 2017, at the age of 90), for being a source of strength before and after Natalie’s tragic death. Applegate describes Worthen as “very brusque but loving.”

Robert Wagner’s current wife Jill St. John—who married him in 1990, after they were live-in partners for several years—also chimes in, by saying about her relationship with him: “We did fall in love, but not immediately.” She also talks about how it was difficult for Courtney and Natasha to accept her as a stepmother, but Natasha says they were able to get through it with a lot of therapy.

People who believe that Natalie Wood’s death was not an accident say that Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner’s marriage was volatile at the time that she died. “Brainstorm” co-star Walken was rumored to be in a romance with Natalie, and their relationship was allegedly causing problems in her marriage. But according to what people say in this documentary, rumors of a Wood/Walken affair are completely untrue.

The 1983 film “Brainstorm,” which Trumball directed, was Natalie Wood’s last movie. In this documentary, Trumball insists that Wood and Walken were not having an affair. He says of the sex scene that Wood and Walken had together in the movie: “There was almost no physical charisma between them at all.” Robert Wagner’s stepson Donen also echoes this belief Walken was never Natalie Wood’s lover, and Donen says that Natalie Wood told him that directly.

As for what happened that fateful night on November 29, 1981, Robert Wagner says in the documentary that everyone on the boat had been drinking heavily, and he admits that he was also “high,” but he doesn’t elaborate on which drug(s). And although it’s mentioned elsewhere in the documentary that Natalie Wood had a well-known phobia of being immersed in open waters at night—fueling speculation that she would never have climbed into a dinghy alone that night, which is Robert Wagner’s version of what led to her drowning—he never addresses that phobia in the documentary.

He also repeats what he’s said in other interviews: He and Natalie had been arguing about Walken, the argument got violent—he admits to smashing a bottle during the fight—and he told Walken to stay out of Natalie’s life. Walken is not interviewed in the documentary, and he has rarely spoken publicly about Natalie Wood since her death. In the documentary, Robert Wagner says that Walken was a gentleman and that no one should be blamed for Natalie’s death.

Early in the documentary, Robert Wagner is shown getting emotional when he says: “There hasn’t been a day that’s ever gone by where I haven’t thought about Natalie and how much she meant to me in my heart and in my soul. We started so young, and to see her evolve over the years to the woman she was, was very special.”

As for how Robert Wagner feels about being named by police as a “person of interest” in the re-opened case, he says defiantly in the documentary: “I don’t pay much attention to it. They’re not going to redefine me. I know who I am.”

Natasha replies, “It bothers me that anyone would think that you would be involved in what happened to her, because you would’ve given your life to my mom.” Wagner says, “We all would’ve.”

The “villains” portrayed in the documentary are boat captain Davern, the tabloid media outlets that keep fueling stories that Natalie Wood was murdered, and Natalie’s younger sister Lana. The documentary’s view of Davern is that he’s a greedy opportunist who changed his initial story to sell his book; that the media also push the murder theory for money reasons; and that Lana Wood is looking for attention because her career as an actress was never as successful as Natalie’s career. (Davern and Lana Wood are not interviewed in the documentary, and it’s not mentioned if the filmmakers contacted either of them for a comment.)

Courtney Wagner says of her aunt Lana’s push to have Robert Wagner charged with the murder of Natalie: “I don’t think she believes what she’s saying. I think she’s just angry. I can understand that … but it’s so hard to imagine when [my father] experienced a true nightmare.”

Whatever people might believe about how Natalie Wood died, this family feud is a very sad epilogue to the tragedy. If you take the documentary for what it is—a family tribute to Natalie Wood, not a tell-all chronicle to expose the family’s dirty laundry—then “Natalie Wood: What Reminds Behind” will fulfill those expectations. It’s obvious that there’s a lot of love that went to making this film that honors Natalie Wood. Just don’t expect to learn anything that strays from the movie’s themes that she was a great mother, wife and actress, and that her death was a complete accident that was no one’s fault.

HBO premiered “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind” on May 5, 2020.

Review: ‘Becoming,’ starring Michelle Obama

May 4, 2020

by Carla Hay

Michelle Obama in “Becoming” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Becoming”

Directed by Nadia Hallgren

Culture Representation: The Michelle Obama documentary “Becoming” follows her on tour while promoting her 2018 memoir of the same  title, and the movie shows her interacting with racially and socially diverse groups of people during her tour stops in the U.S. and Canada.

Culture Clash: In the film, Obama addresses the hate and criticism that she and husband Barack Obama have received from critics and conservative political opponents, especially when he was president of the United States.

Culture Audience: Aside from fans of the Obamas (the most obvious audience), “Becoming” will appeal primarily to people who are curious to get a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like for a former first lady to headline a successful arena tour, which had never before been achieved by a first lady of the United States.

Marian Shields Robinson and Michelle Obama in “Becoming” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

The good news for Michelle Obama fans is that the documentary “Becoming” is everything people would expect of a movie that takes a behind-the-scenes of her massively successful “Becoming” memoir book tour, which included sold-out arena shows in North America and Europe in 2018 and 2019. The bad news for Michelle Obama fans who want her to run for political office someday is that she makes it very clear in the documentary’s candid interviews that she’s not interested in subjecting herself to the cutthroat business of being a politician. And she definitely doesn’t miss the unrelenting scrutiny and criticism that she and her family got when her husband, Barack Obama, was president of the United States from 2009 to 2017.

As for people who aren’t Michelle Obama fans (who probably won’t watch this movie anyway), the “Becoming” documentary won’t do much to change their minds, since it shows her in a very positive and sympathetic light in her outreach to the public and how she embodies the same progressive ideals that she had when she was first lady of the United States. Because the movie is about a book tour, which basically shows Michelle Obama interacting with numerous adoring fans, the documentary is told very much from a “bubble” perspective. Michelle Obama is not seen having to directly deal with anyone who is critical of her and her husband. (And there are are lot of people who are definitely not fans of the couple.)

However, the movie does include montages of TV footage and Internet comments from Obama critics to show the high level of animosity toward the Obamas. And what people can see from the film (and in Michelle Obama’s bestselling memoir “Becoming”) is that she’s not afraid to show her vulnerable side by admitting that a lot of the insults and violent threats from Obama haters have done some damage.

In the documentary, she comments on the hate and backlash that she’s received from people who want to see the downfall of the Obamas: “The one thing I can share is that is does hurt. Because if we walk around like it doesn’t, the perpetrator can just say, ‘I was joking. It’s just politics.’ No, no. That [hatred] changes the shape of a person’s soul.”

“Becoming” is the feature-film directorial debut of Nadia Hellgren, who previously helmed short films such as Netflix’s “After Maria” (a documentary about Hurricane Maria survivors in Puerto Rico), as well as the digital docuseries “She’s the Ticket,” about American women running for political office. Hellgren does a very capable job of balancing tour footage and archival footage in “Becoming,” and the filmmakers are clearly fans of the Obamas. The movie hits some very familiar beats that are often seen in tour documentaries. There’s a “feel-good home movie” approach to the documentary, as opposed to a “journalistic exposé” approach. Some people will have a problem with that, while others won’t.

“Becoming” is the third Netflix project to be released from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions, which also backed the Netflix documentaries “American Factory” (which won several awards, including an Oscar) and “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.” Since Barack Obama left office, he and Michelle Obama have inked deals with Penguin Random House (for a reported $65 million) and Netflix, which didn’t disclose the financial terms of its deal with the Obamas, but a low-end estimate is that it’s at least $100 million. Award-winning comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Dave Chappelle and TV producers Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rimes have each inked Netflix deals in the $100 million to $300 million range, so presumably the Obamas have also garnered a Netflix deal in that range.

The fact that the Obamas’ wealth has significantly increased since Barack left office is not mentioned at all in the movie. Also not mentioned in the film are the superstar-level ticket prices charged for Michelle Obama’s arena tour. However, it’s easy to see why the “Becoming” filmmakers chose to omit that information from the film, because if they included it, there would be inevitable criticism that it would make Michelle Obama look greedy or boastful about her wealth.

In fact, the documentary goes out its way to show that Michelle Obama wants to still be perceived as someone who hasn’t lost touch with her working-class roots—she grew up on the South Side of Chicago, which she frequently mentions in the movie—and that she still identifies with the “common people,” even though she’s very aware that her life has become far from common. There are several scenes of her going to places outside of her massive arena shows to lead small group discussions with people from middle-class and working-class backgrounds, such as teenage students, members of book clubs and African American churchgoers. In these settings, she hugs many people and gives advice that’s meant to uplift people’s spirits and boost their confidence.

Although these groups are often racially diverse, “Becoming” places an emphasis on Michelle Obama connecting with women and people of color in these groups. During one of these group discussions, when Michelle Obama is asked by an African American teenage girl how to handle being treated as invisible, Michelle replies: “I never felt invisible. It’s because my parents always made be feel visible.”

She continues, “We can’t afford to wait for the world to be equal to start feeling seen. We’re far from it. Time will not allow it. It’s not going to happen with one president, with one vote, so you’ve got to find the tools within yourself to be visible and to be heard and to use your voice.”

The documentary even goes as far as showing footage of two of the teenage students—Elizabeth Cervantes and Shayla Allen—who met Michelle Obama in these discussion groups, to see what these students are like in their everyday lives. When Cervantes met Michelle Obama in the discussion group, Cervantes was a senior at Whitney M. Young Magnet School in Chicago, where Michelle went during the book tour.

The movie shows Cervantes questioning why she was one of the small number of people chosen for the group discussion with Michelle Obama, since Cervantes said that she wasn’t an academically outstanding student. However, when Cervantes said that in addition to going to school, she works to help give financial help to her father and younger brothers, Michelle pointed out that Cervantes’ family devotion and hard work made her special and shouldn’t be considered less important than academic achievements.

In another part of the documentary, Michelle Obama says in a group discussion: “I tell people we focus too much on stats and not on story. Stats are ‘What college are you from?’ Story is ‘What was your grandfather like? Who was your favorite relative and why?'”

Because people in the U.S. have divided opinions about the Obamas, this type of public interaction can be seen as either very inspirational or very phony. The fans would say that it shows Michelle Obama as down-to-earth and caring deeply about connecting with people who aren’t as privileged as she is. The critics would say it’s just a calculated façade that’s part of the publicity campaign to sell her book. These smaller gatherings are some of the reasons people will want to see the “Becoming” documentary, because it’s a behind-the-scenes look that wasn’t widely shown in the media coverage of the tour.

As for the on-stage footage, there’s plenty of that too, but it’s less revealing, because so much of it has already been covered by the media and is available on audience-filmed videos that have been posted on the Internet. For whatever reason (which isn’t explained in the movie), “Becoming” only has behind-the-scenes footage of the tour in the U.S. and Canada, not in Europe.

The documentary has the expected charming soundbites and anecdotes (many of them very amusing) of Michelle Obama being interviewed on stage by various celebrities. Each show of the tour had a different celebrity moderator. The moderators included Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King, Stephen Colbert, Reese Witherspoon, Valerie Jarrett, Conan O’Brien, Tracee Ellis Ross and Phoebe Robinson.

People who’ve already read the “Becoming” memoir won’t be surprised by what’s said on stage. For example, Michelle Obama repeats the story about how a guidance counselor at her high school discouraged her from applying to Princeton University, because the counselor told her that she didn’t have what it took to be a Princeton student. Michelle not only graduated from Princeton, but she also got her law degree from Harvard University. On stage, Michelle says about that the counselor’s negativity: “I’m still salty about that,” but she uses it as an example of how people shouldn’t let their identities and dreams be defined by haters or people who don’t want others to succeed.

And the backstage footage is also what people would expect, as Michelle Obama greets star-struck and worshipful fans (mostly female, many of them tearful) during book signings and photo ops. “Becoming” is probably the only documentary where people can see Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey backstage in a prayer circle before going on stage at an arena show. There are some sections of the documentary where Michelle Obama reads excerpts of her “Becoming” memoir, but most of her candid comments in the movie are from new interviews that she did specifically for the film.

Michelle Obama says of her meet-and-greets: “It’s an emotional, sociological dance with people … When somebody walks up to me, [I] don’t look around, look beyond them. Look them in the eye. Take in their story. This is how I relate to people. It helps me stay connected.”

Barack Obama makes a brief appearance in the documentary, as he’s seen backstage at the show in Washington, D.C., and appearing on stage to surprise Michelle with a bouquet of flowers. Barack and Michelle’s daughters Malia and Sasha are also briefly in the documentary. There’s footage of a tearful Malia hugging Michelle backstage after a show and saying, “Those eight years [in the White House] weren’t for nothing. People are here because people believe in love and hope and other people.”

The Michelle Obama family members who get the most screen time are her older brother Craig Robinson (who’s a sports executive) and her mother Marian Shields Robinson. Craig, who says that he will always be his mother’s favorite child, admits that he younger sister’s fame has caused some insecurities for him: “No brother should have to deal with their sister being the most popular person in the world.” (Michelle Obama being “the most popular person in the world” is certainly debatable, considering there are celebrities who are beloved by people of all political affiliations, whereas it’s not a secret that a lot of people dislike the Michelle and Barack Obama because of the couple’s liberal politics.)

The documentary includes scenes of Michelle visiting Craig and his family at Craig’s home, as well as Michelle and her mother Marian going back to Michelle’s former childhood home in Chicago, where she and Barack lived in the first year of their marriage. (The house’s current owners aren’t in the movie.)

Michelle Obama also shares fond and bittersweet memories of her father, Fraser C. Robinson III, who died from multiple sclerosis in 1991: “The pain of losing him is an emptiness that I still haven’t gotten over … He just made people feel loved.”

The former first lady makes it clear that she was never ashamed of being raised in a working-class home. Her father was a pump work at a water plant, while Michelle’s mother worked as a secretary for various organizations, including the University of Chicago and mail-order company Spiegel. Michelle Obama also mentions that because of racism, her father was frequently underappreciated and passed over for promotions at his job, while less intelligent and less qualified white co-workers were rewarded.  

Also interviewed are some of Michelle Obama’s longtime employees including chief of staff Melissa Winters and stylist Meredith Koop. Winters remembers that the first year of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was “exhausting” and “not glamorous.” Koop says that when it comes to Michelle Obama’s personal style, “She’s not a minimalist.”

Michelle Obama jokes with Winters: “Do you know that Melissa loves Barry Manilow? I don’t know why we’re friends. We couldn’t be more opposite.” The beginning of the movie shows Michelle getting in a SUV and listening to hip-hop on her phone. And in case you ever wanted to know what kinds of birthday gifts that Michelle Obama gets from her employees, the documentary has some footage of her backstage on her birthday getting “Happy Birthday” sung to her by her employees and getting a selfie stick as a gift.

Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” memoir revealed many of her experiences and feelings about being first lady of the United States. She does the same in the documentary, where she remembers getting harsh lessons in media scrutiny and public backlash during her husband’s first presidential campaign. “I stopped talking off-the-cuff,” she says. “I stopped talking freely. I used teleprompters. I had to be much more scripted than I had been before.”

She also describes how her life changed after Barack Obama was elected president of the United States in 2008: “One day, you’re a normal family, and election happens, and your life changes instantly. It’s like we were shot out of a cannon. We didn’t have time to adjust to it.”

And in somewhat of a rarity, a current U.S. Secret Service agent is interviewed in the documentary. Allen Taylor, who has worked with Michelle Obama since 2008, is “more like a brother” than a government employee, says Michelle. Taylor comments on his job of protecting Michelle Obama: “Stakes are high in this job. It’s a no-fault mission. You have to get it right 100% of the time.”

As for Michelle Obama’s reflections on being first lady of the United States, it’s obvious that she has mixed feelings. On the one hand, she seems proud of the impact that Barack Obama’s presidency had on the entire world, as well as the historical significance of the Obamas being the first African American presidential family of the United States. On the other hand, she clearly does not want herself and her family to continue to go through the viciousness, dangerous hate and intense pressure that come with being family members of a very famous politician who’s in office.

In the documentary, she talks about how on the day that she and Barack left the White House after he left office, she didn’t break down and cry until she was away from the prying eyes of the media and the public: “When I got on the plane, I sobbed for about 30 minutes. I think it was the release of eight years of trying to do everything perfectly.”

And although Michelle Obama is grateful for all the support that she and her husband received that helped him become a two-term U.S. president, she also expresses disappointment that the same support wasn’t shown in the 2016 presidential election for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who was endorsed by Barack and Michelle Obama.

“I understand why people voted for [Donald] Trump,” Michelle Obama says in the documentary. “The people who didn’t vote at all—the young people, the women—that’s when you think, ‘Man, people think this is a game. After all that, they didn’t bother to vote at all.’ That’s my trauma.” And she doesn’t mince words in her disappointment with black U.S. citizens who didn’t bother to vote in the 2016 presidential election: “A lot of our folks didn’t vote. It was almost like a slap in the face.”

She also believes that Barack Obama being the first African American president of the United States unleashed a lot of pent-up racism that has further divided America: “When Barack Obama was first elected, various commentators naively declared that our country was entering a post-racial era and that skin color would no longer matter. Many were overlooking the racism and tribalism that was tearing our nation apart.” She adds that because of her and her husband’s skin color, “Barack and I were living with the awareness that we ourselves were a provocation.”

So what does Michelle Obama want to do next? This documentary shows that it’s a question that she’s still trying to answer, as she detoxes into a less-stressful life and forges ahead with her own identity that is frequently overshadowed by her very famous husband. As she says in the film, “The idea of doing the tour was to be able to reflect, to figure out, ‘What just happened to me?’ This is totally me, unplugged, for the first time in a long time.” And as she says later in the movie, “There is another chapter waiting for me out there.”

Netflix will premiere “Becoming” on May 6, 2020.

Review: ‘Shadows of Freedom,’ starring Robert Satloff, Robert Gildea, Jeannine Verdès-Leroux, Brian Lane Herder, Helen Fry and Christopher Kolakowski

May 1, 2020

by Carla Hay

U.S. troops with Algerians during World War II in “Shadows of Freedom” (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)

“Shadows of Freedom”

Directed by Amos Carlen and Aline Robichaud

Culture Representation: This documentary, which interviews an all-white group of history experts, examines the underreported World War II history of Jewish resistance fighters in Algeria who were influential in helping the Allied Forces build a military strategy to defeat the Nazi regime.

Culture Clash: The Jewish resistance fighters in Algiers had to battle with the Nazi-controlled Vichy government in France, while United States and the United Kingdom disagreed on which Nazi-occupied country to invade first.

Culture Audience: “Shadows of Freedom” will appeal primarily to people who want to learn more about World War II history that took place in North Africa.

José Aboulker in a 1972 TV interview (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)

Much has been written about and reported on Jewish resistance fighters in Europe during World War II, but most people aren’t aware (because it’s rarely taught in history classes) that Jewish resistance fighters in the North African country of Algeria played a crucial role in the Allied Forces winning the War. “Shadows of Freedom” (directed by Amos Carlen and Aline Robichaud) is a very traditionally made documentary that tells this underdog story through the use of archival footage, some animation and interviews with World War II history experts.

Narrated by Youssef Iraqi in an appropriately serious tone, “Shadows of Freedom” begins with a brief summary of the events that led up to World War II, such as Adolf Hitler-led Nazis invading several countries in Europe from 1938 to 1940. France became divided between two territories with two separate governments: the democracy government in the free territory and the Vichy government in the Nazi-controlled territory. Also at stake where the North African countries Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Algiers, the capital of Algeria, was the largest city in this African region.

It was in Algiers that the seeds of resistance were sown with a Jewish man who is widely considered the leader of the Jewish resistance movement in Algeria: José Aboulker, who came from a French immigrant family of left-wing intellectuals. José’s father Henri was a professor of medicine and an activist. José’s brothers Rafael and Stephan also were influential members of the Jewish resistance group in Algeria.

The talking heads who provide commentary in the documentary are Robert Sayloff, executive director of the Washington Institute of Near East policy; Oxford University professor Robert Gildea, author of “Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of French Resistance”; Jeannine Verdès-Leroux, a historian and José Aboulker biographer; Brian Lane Herder, author of “Operation Torch 1942: The Invasion of French North Africa”; World War II historian Helen Fry, author of “Churchill’s German Army”; and Christopher Kolakowski, director of the MacArthur Memorial Museum in Norfolk, Virginia.

José Aboulker, who was a 20-year-old medical student at the time he formed the resistance group, is described in the documentary as intelligent and well-connected. With the help of his brothers, José recruited members of the group under the guise of having health-club/gum gatherings, so as not to raise suspicions of the government. It was a clear ruse, since the meetings would serve twofold purpose of making plans and giving physical training to the resistance members, most of whom were young (18 to 40 years old) but with no military experience.

Other key members of the French resistance in Algiers were two members of the free French government: Henri D’Astier de la Vigerie (a soldier) and Colonel Germain Jousse. And although the majority of the resistance members were Jewish immigrants from France, many were also Jews born in Algeria and some were non-Jewish Algerians.

During the formation of the Jewish resistance in Algeria, there were also disagreements brewing between the United States and the United Kingdom on what military strategy to use to win World War II. The U.S. had resisted getting involved for years in fighting the Nazis, until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941 was the catalyst for the U.S. to get involved in World War II as part of the Allied Forces with the United Kingdom.

The U.S. military wanted to invade an embattled France first to free it from the Vichy regime. However, the U.K. military thought a better strategy would be to defeat Germany in other Nazi-occupied countries first, starting with those in North Africa, and then working up to Europe. The U.K. strategy is the one that was taken, and it turned out to be the correct strategy, because it have the Allied troops the experience and the confidence needed by the time they got to Europe.

In order to free the countries in North Africa, the Allied Forces would have to battle the French/Vichy military controlling these countries. A relatively small group (about 388 people) of Jewish resistance fighters, led by José Aboulker, played a crucial role by taking over the city of Algiers on November 8, 1942. The resistance fighters took police officers and city officials into custody for about six hours, which was longer than the resistance movement had expected.

The resistance fighters’ takeover of Algiers cleared a path when the Allied troops entered Algeria and finished what the resistance fighters started in the famous Operation Torch siege, by defeating the Nazi-sympathetic governments in Algeria and in other parts of North Africa. Unfortunately, the resistance fighters in Algeria were later marginalized in the Darlan Deal, brokered by French admiral Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan after the Allied Forces’ defeat of North Africa. Many of the resistance fighters were imprisoned for their helpful actions during Operation Torch.

The documentary’s pundits say that this mistreatment of the resistance fighters is an embarrassing part of French history, and it’s one of the reasons why the resistance movement in Algeria is not widely taught in history classes. Likewise, Americans and Brits also downplayed or tried to erase the contributions of the resistance fighters in Algeria, because Americans and Brits had to fight against the French in Algeria, and it doesn’t fit the usual narrative that the French were allies to Americans and Brits during World War II.

At 65 minutes long, “Shadows of Freedom” is a completely efficient retelling of this underrated part of World War II history. The archival footage includes early 1970s TV interviews of José Aboulker; his cousin Bernard Karsenty, who was also part of the Jewish resistance in Algeria; and Marc Jacquet, who called D’Astier de la Vigerie “an archangel with a sword” and a “true leader.”

D’Astier de la Vigerie is credited with being influential in the Jewish resistance movement in Algeria, but the documentary also points out that although he was anti-Nazi, he also had right-leaning political views that favored the idea of France going back to being a monarchy instead of  democracy. Satloff (who is the most compelling and articulate pundit in the documentary) also mentions that José Aboulker, who died in 2009 at the age of 89, was also probably not given enough credit in historical accounts of Operation Torch because of José Aboulker’s unpopular political views later in life. José Aboulker advocated on behalf of Algerian Muslims, which was a controversial stance for a Jewish person.

The documentary’s illustrations/animation by Joseph Sherman adeptly complement the story that’s told in the movie. There is a small editing error toward the end when subtitles are absent for historian Verdès-Leroux, who speaks in French. However, “Shadows of Freedom” musical score by co-directed Carlen is on point, ranging from majestic to poignant. “Shadows of Freedom” is the type of documentary that can easily be shown in history classes as part of any curriculum about World War II. However, you don’t have to be a history buff to be inspired by the courage of ordinary people who made a positive difference in an extraordinary period of humankind.

Gravitas Ventures released “Shadows of Freedom” on digital and VOD on April 24, 2020.

Review: ‘A Secret Love,’ starring Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel

April 29, 2020

by Carla Hay

Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel in “A Secret Love” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“A Secret Love”

Directed by Chris Bolan

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Illinois and partly in Alberta, Canada, the documentary “A Secret Love” has an all-white cast telling the story of middle-class lesbian couple Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel, whose relationship began in the late 1940s and was kept a secret for decades.

Culture Clash: Donahue and Henschel kept their romance hidden out of fear of homophobic backlash from society and being shunned by family members.

Culture Audience: “A Secret Love” will appeal primarily to people interested in LGBTQ issues and stories about long-term romantic partnerships that survive major obstacles.

Pat Henschel, Terry Donahue and Diana Bolan in “A Secret Love” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

The LGBTQ community has gotten an increasing amount of representation in movies and on television, but rarely does that representation include senior citizens of retirement age. A notable exception is the emotionally moving documentary “A Secret Love.” The film tells the heartfelt and often-sentimental story of lesbian couple Theresa “Terry” Donahue and Emma “Pat” Henschel, who began their love affair in 1947, and kept it a secret from almost everyone else in their lives for decades while living together.

The documentary, directed by Chris Bolan (Donahue’s great-nephew), includes a historical look at society’s homophobia that kept Pat and Terry “in the closet” for most of their lives. But most of the movie is an intimate look at Pat and Terry’s relationship in transition, as they have to decide whether or not to downsize from their longtime house in St. Charles, Illinois, and move to an assisted-living household, since Terry has Parkinson’s Disease.

Terry’s family dynamics play a huge role in what happens. Almost all of Pat’s relatives are dead, so Terry’s side of the family (who are mostly in the couple’s native Canada, where they grew up in the province of Alberta) have a big say in what what they think should happen with the couple’s living situation. The most vocal relative is Terry’s favorite niece, Diana Bolan (the mother of this documentary’s director), who doesn’t hold back when expressing her strong opinions.

Terry says, “I love the other kids, but Diana is special. She’s the daughter I never had.” In turn, Diana gushes about Terry: “I owe everything to her.” Terry said that out of all of her relatives whom she told that she’s a lesbian, Diana was the one whose reaction was the one she was most worried about the most.

It turns out that Terry didn’t have to worry.  Diana says that a few years before the documentary was filmed, her Aunt Terry told her that she was in a decades-long lesbian relationship with Pat, who Diana knew as Aunt Pat. Diana said she didn’t care about their sexuality and she gave Terry a big hug.

Tammy Donahue, another niece, had a different reaction. She remembers being shocked at the news of her aunt being a lesbian. “I feel betrayed that she couldn’t have told us sooner,” Tammy says in the film.

Terry says that it was unthinkable for her to come out as a lesbian while certain family members were still alive. According to Terry, she had a very homophobic mother and brother, who probably would have disowned her. Terry was closest to her father, who might have accepted Terry for being a lesbian, but she didn’t want to take the risk of telling him. Terry gets emotional and tears up in the movie when she remembers her close relationship with her father. “I loved my mother, but she wasn’t as understanding as Dad.”

But even though Terry’s closest living relatives accepted her sexuality after she came out to them, the documentary shows that things aren’t always so lovey-dovey in this family. Diana admits that some of the family friction comes from the long-simmering tensions that she’s had with Pat because the two women compete for Terry’s attention. As Diana says in the documentary, any politeness she has with Pat is “contrived” and vice versa. “I think we’re both playing games because of Aunt Terry.” Diana also says that she believes that Pat has purposely kept Terry isolated from her Canadian family.

Pat, who is clearly the dominant partner in her relationship with Terry, also admits that there’s some tension between her and Terry’s side of the family. “Everybody loves Terry. They put up with me because of Terry.” Pat says in the beginning of the film that she’s reluctant to move to back to Canada because she doesn’t like the colder weather there. Terry says she doesn’t care where they live, as long as she and Pat are together. The couple also contemplates moving to Florida. And there’s also the decision of whether or not to have their own home or reside in an assisted-living facility.

As these decisions are being made, “take charge” Diana comes to visit to make calls and appointments, for what she says is the necessary step for Terry and Pat to move because their current house has become too big for the couple to manage. During one visit, which Diana calls her “intervention,” she is also dismayed that Terry has lost an alarming lot of weight since Diana’s last visit.

Diana blames Pat for Terry’s weight lost, and hints that she doesn’t think Pat is properly taking care of her beloved Aunt Terry. It leads to a huge, tearful confrontation where Diana accuses Pat of keeping secrets from her and possibly endangering Terry’s health. Pat denies it, of course, but this confrontation is a turning point for what happens later in the documentary.

Amid all of this family drama, the documentary devotes a lot of time to Pat and Terry telling their love story, while putting into historical context how dangerous it was for them to be open about their romance for decades. Terry and Pat were both athletes who were part of the All-American Girls Baseball League, which included several players and teams from Canada.

Terry was scouted at age 19 and came to live in the U.S. in 1946, at the age of 20. She played for the Moose Jaw Wildcats and the Peoria Redways, while Pat had a stint with the Winnipeg All-Stars. They met at a hockey rink in 1947, when Terry was 22 and Pat was 18.

As members of the All-American Girls Baseball League, they had a little bit of fame, since the league’s games were covered by the media. The documentary has archival footage of newspaper clippings, media photos and film footage about the All-American Girls Baseball League that include Pat and Terry. The 1992 movie “A League of Their Own” (starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna) was inspired by this real-life women’s baseball league. The documentary shows Terry signing baseball memorabilia and talking about still be being recognized in public for being a part of the league.

While Terry had a stable home life when she was growing up, Pat’s family background was more chaotic and filled with a lot of tragedy.  Pat came from a family of seven siblings. Her older brother Wally was a military pilot who died during World War II at the age of 19. Her mother died two years later, when Pat was 15.

Pat’s father remarried, but she didn’t get along with her stepmother. And then, her father and stepmother died in an accident at a train crossing. By then, Pat and Terry were having a secret romance, but they gave the appearance of being close platonic friends. Terry’s family included the orphaned Pat in their family activities and treated her as one of their own.

Pat and Terry say when they were young, they dated men while carrying on a secret love affair with each other, but they never went as far as marrying any of their boyfriends. Terry had a boyfriend named Bill who would visit from Peoria, Illinois, and she remembers telling him: “You can come [to visit], but don’t bring a ring.”

Pat says she got engaged to a guy, who ended up dying young. And she said that another guy she dated when she was in her 20s also ended up dying young during their relationship. Bizarre coincidence? We might never know, but one thing is clear: Pat had a lot of people close to her in her youth who ended up dying. It might explain why in the documentary, she seems to be have a lot of trouble dealing with the grim realities of Terry’s degenerative illness and keeps putting off the idea of transitioning to assisted living.

Although it might be easy to dismiss Pat as stubborn and domineering, she shows a very tender and romantic side to her in the movie, particularly when she reads the love poems and letters that she sent to Terry. And during a dinner that Terry and Pat have at the home of their longtime friends Jack Xagas and John Byrd (who are also a long-term gay couple), Pat is the one who says she likes the idea of getting married to Terry, while Terry says that she doesn’t think they need to get married.

When Pat and Terry tell stories about the lengths they went to to hide their sexuality, it’s a reminder of the persecution they could have faced for being gay, which are still harsh realities in many areas of the world, including in countries that have progressive laws for LGBTQ civil rights. Terry and Pat also had the added fear of being deported if people found out their secret. It’s one of the reasons why Terry and Pat didn’t go to gay bars, which were frequently raided by police. The couple said that any LGBTQ social gatherings they went to in those days were limited to secretive parties.

The documentary includes commentary from some LGBTQ-rights experts, including Yvonne Zipter (an author and University of Chicago Press manuscript editor); activist Marge Summit (former owner of the Chicago gay bar His ‘n Hers); and Windy City Times publisher Tracy Baim, author of “Barbara Gittings: Gay Pioneer.” Emmy-winning producer Ryan Murphy (who’s openly gay) is one of the producers of “A Secret Love,” although he is not in the documentary.

“A Secret Love” shows what happened after the “intervention” of Terry’s niece Diana Boland to get Terry and Pat to decide once and for all what they’re going to do about their living situation. (Sensitive viewers should have plenty of tissues nearby for crying during the last third of the film.) The movie is ultimately a testament to long-lasting true love that can withstand prejudice, family conflicts and other life challenges that can often tear couples apart.

Netflix premiered “A Secret Love” on April 29, 2020.

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