While reggae legends Bob Marley and Peter Tosh have been the subject of multiple films, the documentary “Inna De Yard: The Soul of Jamaica” shines a spotlight on lesser-own reggae artists who have influenced generations of people. The film chronicles the making of an album recorded by Ken Boothe, Winston McAnuff, Kiddus I, Judy Mowatt, Var, Jah9 and Cedric Myton, among other artists. The album is also this film’s soundtrack.
The film also takes a closer look into the lives of some the artists, who give in-depth interviews. Myton, who is best known as the lead singer of the Congos, is the elder sage of the group. He’s weathered the ups and downs of his career, including a marijuana bust that had him deported from the United States. (Almost all of the artists in the movie are Rastafarians.) His personal life is also colorful: He has 11 children, and has been married for 40 years.
The politically minded Kiddus I, who was prominently featured in the 1976 cult film “Rockers,” talks about feeling disillusioned from the music industry for several years after his career didn’t pan out the way he had hoped. On the flip side, Boothe (who is probably the most famous singer in the film) describes that he wasn’t necessarily very happy at the height of his success because his fame came at a price—namely, the constant touring prevented him from spending time with his family.
Family issues are also a source of emotional pain for McAnuff (whose nickname is Electric Dread), who tells a heartbreaking tale of his young adult son Matthew (an aspiring artist) being murdered in 2012, and how he has trouble coping with the trauma. It’s the most emotionally touching part of the movie.
Mowatt beings a Zen quality to the movie, which shows that she has remained grounded and relatively stable. Var and Jah9 represent the young generation of Jamaican music artists. Var likes to blend other music genres—such as R&B, hip-hop pop—into traditional reggae, and enjoys drawing from his rural roots in Jamaica’s Maroon lands when making music. Jah9 is an unapologetic feminist who isn’t afraid to speak out about issues that matter to her, such as sexism, poverty and legalization of marijuana. She’s also a yoga teacher with a spiritual side.
The musical performances on and off stage are compelling to watch. (It’s almost impossible not to get engrossed in the beats, even if you’re not a fan of reggae music.) The documentary has somewhat of a rambling, scattershot tone and could have benefited from tighter editing. Ultimately, the movie is solid but it won’t be considered a classic.
The Jersey Shore in the dramatic thriller “Low Tide” isn’t at all like what’s portrayed in dumbed-down reality TV shows filled with argumentative, fame-hungry people who don’t want real jobs. “Low Tide” (the first feature film from writer/director Kevin McMullin, a New Jersey native) is told from the perspective of 1980s working-class teenagers, who have simmering resentment of the well-to-do people who vacation on the Jersey Shore. The locals have a name for these wealthy interlopers: “benny,” because they usually come from the nearby cities of Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark and New York.
The local residents need the wealthy vacationers (who often have second homes on the Jersey Shore) to keep the local economy going. The money that flows in during peak season is needed during slower seasons. It’s a cycle that often keeps the working-class locals stuck in a co-dependent rut with the rich people who spend money on their goods and services.
In this environment of tension over class and wealth, three local teen rebels—Alan (played by Keean Johnson), Red (played by Alex Neustaedter) and Smitty (played Daniel Zolghadri)—commit burglaries together in unoccupied houses owned by the type of privileged people who use the Jersey Shore as a place for another home or other real-estate investments. Alan is the heartthrob of the group, Red is the bullying leader, and Smitty is the scrawny runt who’s constantly trying to prove his merits to Alan and Red.
The movie begins with the trio almost getting caught during a botched burglary. While escaping, Smitty jumps off of a roof and breaks his foot, but he’s carried to safety by his two friends. In the panicked confusion, Smitty accidentally leaves one of his shoes behind at the scene of the crime. It’s a mistake that will come back to haunt them later in the story. Smitty’s hobbling around town on crutches doesn’t go unnoticed by Sergeant Kent (played by Shea Whigham), the local cop who’s investigating the burglaries.
It’s summer, and these high schoolers have a lot of time on their hands. In between making mischief, they go to the beach, boardwalk and other local hangouts, where Alan meets and becomes attracted to a pretty teen named Mary (played by Kristine Froseth), who (somewhat predictably) happens to be in the benny crowd . Alan strikes up a budding romance with Mary, while they both try to ignore the differences in their socioeconomic status. He isn’t exactly the smartest guy in the room, so he doesn’t notice that Red is also interested in Mary—or he’s at least jealous that Alan might be accepted into a benny social circle, while the rich kids in town treat Red like a dirtbag.
Meanwhile, the police use Smitty’s lost shoe as evidence to bust him for the botched burglary. Even though Smitty has been arrested and let out on bail, he won’t snitch on his friends. Smitty’s broken foot and arrest have put the three friends’ crime spree on hold. But when they find out that a wealthy elderly recluse has died and has left behind an unoccupied house, it’s a temptation they find hard to resist.
With Smitty out of commission, Alan enlists his younger, well-behaved brother Peter (played by Jaeden Martell), who reluctantly agrees to replace Smitty as their lookout during the burglary. After breaking into the house, Peter and Alan find a bag of rare gold coins. This time, the police catch them in the act of the burglary—Alan is arrested, but Peter and Red narrowly escape from the scene of the crime in separate ways. Unbeknownst to Red, Peter has kept the bag of coins and has hidden the loot in a secluded, wooded area near the beach.
After Alan is released on bail, Peter shares his secret about the coins with Alan. The two brothers decide to lie and tell Red and Smitty that they didn’t take any valuables found at the house because they had been interrupted by the police. Alan and Peter then take a few of the coins to get appraised at a local pawn shop, and they discover (based on the estimates) that the coins are worth a total of about $100,000.
Alan is eager to sell the coins, but Peter cautions that they can’t do too much too soon with the coins, or else it will raise suspicions. They bitterly argue over how to cash in on their stolen haul and how much money should be spent. The conflict leads Peter to doubt if he can trust Alan.
Meanwhile, the police are building a case against this group of teenage thieves (in this relatively small beach city, it’s easy to know who hangs out with each other), and it isn’t long before the cops and other members of the community find out that the dead man had some valuable coins that have gone missing from his house. The rest of the movie is filled with tension over secrets, lies and betrayal, as Red and Smitty begin to wonder if Peter really has the stolen coins, and if anyone in the group will snitch about the burglaries. Red, who has a history of being a violent thug, is also seething with anger when he notices that Alan and Mary have gotten closer.
“Low Tide” isn’t a groundbreaking film—the movie’s screenplay and production use a lot of familiar tropes—but the story is elevated by the believable performances of the cast. Martell (who played Losers Club member Bill Denbrough in the 2017 horror blockbuster film “It”) is a particular standout, since he brings an intelligent sensitivity to the role. Peter is younger than the teenage boys who’ve lured him into their criminal mess, but he’s wiser and has more inner strength than they do. In that sense, “Low Tide” is also an authentic portrait of coming-of-age masculinity in a pre-Internet/pre-smartphone era when teenagers didn’t need social media to validate themselves. “Low Tide” is a crime thriller, but the movie is also a compelling look at how these boys make decisions that will have a profound effect on the type the men that they will become.
UPDATE: A24 Films will release “Low Tide” in select U.S. theaters on October 4, 2019.
“Our Time Machine” is a documentary that is the epitome of “hurry up and wait.” Chinese artist Maleonn has decided to collaborate with his father, Ma Ke, on a life-sized, elaborate puppet stage production called “Papa’s Time Machine,” based on the memories that father and son have about their lives. It’s a race against time because Ma Ke is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and his losing his memory. But mounting a stage production like this can also move at a slow pace, since it’s not exactly the type of commercial production that can easily find investors.
Maleonn, who was single and in his early 40s when filming of this documentary began, is very close to his parents, who have been married for more than 50 years. Maleonn also has an older sister named Ma Duo. Both of their parents come from artistic backgrounds. His mother was an actress, who says she got pregnant to get out of hard labor. His father used to be the artistic director of the Shanghai Chinese Opera Theater and the director of the Peking Opera Theater.
Ma Ke’s career was negatively affected when he banned from working for 10 years during China’s Cultural Revolution, which ended when Maleonn was 5 years old. The reason for the ban isn’t made very clear in the documentary, which suggests that the family might still ashamed about this part of their history. When Ma Ke was allowed to work in theater again, he spent so much time working that it took away from his family life at home. Maleonn is still coming to grips with past resentment over his father’s absence, and he hopes that “Papa’s Time Machine” will help bring them closer together.
The documentary, which is slower-paced than what most Americans are used to seeing in films, shows the painstaking process of bringing the production to the stage. Maleonn’s home studio becomes populated with the elaborate metal puppets that he has created for the show. He also has to find the right puppeteers and write the show’s dialogue. One of the people on the team is the show’s co-director Tiyani, a patient and pretty collaborator who eventually becomes romantically involved with longtime bachelor Maleonn.
Making the puppets is fairly easy compared to finding investors to help bring the production to a theater stage. In between rehearsals, Maelonn travels to various places in search of investors, including New York City for the Pitch New Works program at the International Society of Performing Arts. Maleonn gets rejection after rejection, but still persists because he has always dreamed of collaborating with his father.
It might be too much of a spoiler to reveal if Maleonn’s dream comes true, but to give you an idea how much time passes in the documentary, Maleonn and Tiyani get married and have a daughter together, and Ma Ke turns 100 years old. At a family party to celebrate Ma Ke’s 100th birthday, his memory has deteriorated even further, because he constantly has to be reminded that the child he sees with Maleonn is Maleonn’s daughter. Maleonn tries to mask his heartbreak over his father’s failing health by saying that having to repeatedly introduce his daughter to his father has a bright side, because it’s worth seeing his father’s happy reaction over and over again.
As for the “Papa’s Time Machine” stage production, the puppets are truly a work of art, but based on what the documentary shows, the stage production’s storyline seems a little thin and perhaps a little too personal to appeal to a broad audience. The movie doesn’t have any big, suspenseful moments, which might disappoint people who are expecting more dramatic tension. Even though “Our Time Machine” is about a big, ambitious stage production with some visually stunning puppets, the documentary’s smaller, quieter moments with Maleonn and his family are where the movie is at its best.
UPDATE: Walking Iris Media and POV will release “Our Time Machine” in select U.S. virtual cinemas on September 11, 2020. The PBS series “POV” will premiere “Our Time Machine” on September 28, 2020.
The history of ska-rock band Sublime is tied to the tragic string of rock-star deaths in the 1990s, when several lead singers of famous bands died too young, with each singer leaving behind an infant/toddler child to grow up without their father. Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, INXS’s Michael Hutchence, Blind Melon’s Shannon Hoon and Sublime’s Bradley Nowell all share this deadly legacy. The documentary “Sublime” is a fairly conventional but well-made telling of the band’s story, with new commentary from the surviving members of Sublime, their associates and several of Nowell’s family members.
Since most people who see this movie already know what happened to Nowell (he died of a heroin overdose in 1996, at the age of 28), the documentary is essentially a ticking clock to what we know is going to happen at the end of the film. Is it depressing? Yes, in some ways. But under director Bill Guttentag’s storytelling style, he makes sure that there are plenty of happy memories told without glossing over the dark pattern of behavior that led to Nowell’s death.
We’ve all heard this story before: Band struggles for years in the local music scene. Band slowly builds a following. Band gets a record deal. Band gets a big hit and becomes famous. Band struggles with fame, egos and drugs. Band burns out and either breaks up or goes on a downward spiral.
In the case of Sublime (whose band name came from Nowell’s then-girlfriend picking it out of a dictionary), the band’s breakup was an unexpected occurrence caused by Nowell’s death, but Sublime had already been headed down the “burnout” path even before Nowell’s untimely passing. Sublime—formed in 1988 in Long Beach, California—was part of a music scene in Southern California that blended influences from punk, ska, reggae, hip-hop and rock. It was a scene that was also racially integrated, as Fishbone’s Angelo Moore, former Sublime drummer Marshall Goodman (also known as Ras MG) and Sublime friend Opie Ortiz remember in the documentary. Goodman was eventually replaced on drums by Floyd “Bud” Gaugh, but he continued to work with Sublime as a songwriter. Singer/guitarist Nowell, drummer Gaugh and bass player Eric Wilson were Sublime’s trio lineup that recorded all three of the band’s studio albums.
Although Nowell came from a comfortably upper-middle-class family, he and the rest of the members of Sublime lived a fairly scrappy existence in their road to stardom. At one point, drummer Gaugh was homeless. One scene in the documentary includes archival footage of Sublime on stage at a club in the band’s early days, with Nowell announcing that the band needed a place to sleep, and asking if anyone in the audience had a lawn to spare.
No Doubt was also part of the late ’80s/early ’90s music scene in the Long Beach/Orange County area of California, and the band did several concerts with Sublime before and after they had their first big hits. Both bands had respect for each other and they both released music on indie labels before signing to major record companies. But the two bands were very different from each other. The documentary mentions several times that Sublime was the counterpoint to No Doubt.
No Doubt’s lead singer Gwen Stefani, bassist Tony Kanal and guitarist Tom Dumont are all interviewed in the film. They all tell stories of the differences between both bands when they toured together. Backstage before a show, the members of No Doubt would be most likely doing vocal warmups or working out, whereas Sublime would be doing hard drugs like meth, cocaine or heroin. No Doubt was the kind of band that would show up on time, whereas Sublime would be the type of band that was constantly late, if they showed up at all. No Doubt was inoffensive. Sublime was controversial. The No Doubt comparison in the movie is important because it makes people wonder how far Sublime would have gone and how long Sublime would have lasted if the band members’ hardcore drug addictions hadn’t derailed their momentum.
Stefani, who says she used to have a crush on Nowell in Sublime’s early days, describes him in a way that is consistent with what everyone else in the film says about him. He was very intelligent, charismatic and authentic, but (like a lot of rock stars) he was very troubled. It wasn’t unusual for him to get into fights, and he had unpredictable mood swings. His longtime drug addiction, which went back to his teen years, certainly didn’t help. Nowell had been to rehab multiple times in his short life, and it was noted in the documentary that people could tell how deep he was in his drug addiction by his weight gain or weight loss. When he was skinny, he was at the worst of his addiction; when he was chubby, things weren’t so bad and he was trying to stay sober.
Sublime had a breakthrough hit a couple of years before No Doubt went on to become a multiplatinum band. And in pure Sublime fashion, that first hit offended a lot of people. The song was 1992’s “Date Rape,” which was initially misunderstood as a song glorifying rape because the lyrics were from the perspective of a rapist. “Date Rape” is actually an anti-rape song, because if people listen to the lyrics from beginning to end, they would know that the rapist is incarcerated and is getting punished by other prisoners for his sex crimes. According to the documentary, “Date Rape” (which ended up on Sublime’s 1994 debut album, “40oz. to Freedom”) became one of the most-requested songs in the history of KROQ, the influential Los Angeles rock station that played a huge role in Sublime’s success.
It was during this breakthrough time that Nowell met Troy Dendekker, the woman who would eventually become his wife and the mother of their son, Jakob. Dendekker is interviewed in the film, and her memories are perhaps the most emotionally moving, since she knew a side of Nowell that was different from the drug-crazed rock star that became part of his image. She vividly describes their relationship as an instant connection, but their courtship had a few bumps in the road along the way to becoming a full-blown romance, since she started out as a devoted but platonic Sublime fan/friend. Dendekker and Nowell were married for just one week when he died, and Jakob was only 11 months old.
Although several of Nowell’s other family members are interviewed for the movie—father Jim, mother Nancy, sister Kellie and stepsister Katie Gibson—Jakob is not among them. However, Jakob did participate in the 2017 indie documentary “The Long Way Back,” which chronicles longtime Sublime associate Todd “Z-Man” Zalkins’ struggle to stay sober and how he tries to help Jakob overcome his own drug addiction.
The “Sublime” documentary is also a good history lesson in how the music business operated in the 1990s, when it came to “alternative” rock bands. Among those interviewed are Michael “Miguel” Happoldt, Sublime’s producer who would become the band’s manager; Epitaph Records founder Brett Gurewitz, who said he didn’t want to sign Sublime because the band members were smoking a lot of crack, and Gurewitz was newly sober at the time; guitarist Mike Einziger of Incubus, a band that was an opening act for Sublime in 1995; Butthole Surfers guitarist Paul Leary, who produced most of the 1996 “Sublime” album; and Randy Phillips, the CEO of Gasoline Alley Records, who would eventually sign Sublime.
In the documentary, Phillips says he found out about Sublime from his nephew, who was a fan of the band. But the band alienated Phillips when, as a prank, they put Sublime stickers all over Phillips’ brand-new BMW. According to Phillips, Lava Records founder Jason Flom (who had a Lava distribution deal with Atlantic Records) was also interested in signing Sublime. Nowell used this rival bid as leverage to not only get Phillips interested in the band again but also to offer a bigger, more lucrative contract than what Flom was offering.
Gasoline Alley was distributed by MCA Records, which Phillips said wasn’t considered as “hip” in the rock world as Atlantic Records. MCA was desperate to have a new hit “alternative” rock band at a time when every major label was looking for the next Nirvana. Nowell knew that MCA, with its deep pockets, might work harder for Sublime than a record company like Atlantic that had more rock bands on its roster than MCA did. He used all of that knowledge to win Phillips over and get him to sign Sublime.
After Nowell’s death, Phillips said that although there was some initial talk about not releasing Sublime’s recently completed, self-titled third album, in the end, he and almost everyone associated with the band thought it would be crazy not to release it. The “Sublime” album would go on to become the band’s biggest hit, selling 5 million copies in the U.S. alone, and spawning the hit songs “What I Got,” “Santeria” and “Wrong Way.”
The documentary includes some descriptions of Sublime in the recording studio (the band clashed with David Kahne, one of the “Sublime” album producers) and the band’s songwriting process (which was usually drug-fueled), but Sublime seemed happiest when performing live. Nowell’s Dalmation named Lou Dog (the band’s mascot) is a constant and adorable companion in the archival footage.
Even when Sublime messed up with bad behavior—including getting fired from the 1995 Vans Warped Tour after defying Warped’s rule of “no dogs and no friends” allowed on the tour—the band found a way to get many people to give them another chance. For example, after being temporarily booted from Warped, Sublime was allowed back on the tour. Nowadays, with entertainers more likely to be hit with lawsuits and social-media exposés, it’s harder for bands to get away with a lot of the antics that Sublime got away with in the ‘90s. In the documentary, No Doubt’s Kanal summed up the appeal of Sublime: “You never knew what you were going to get. There was beauty and also rawness.”
“Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound” is the type of documentary that is best seen in a movie theater, where the film’s impressive sound editing and sound mixing can be best appreciated. It’s also the kind of documentary that some might consider too technical for their tastes, but it’s a must-see for cinephiles, film students or anyone who cares to find out more about the history of sound in film.
The movie does a quick run-through of the transition between silent films and “talkies” to get to the heart of the film—the movies and filmmakers who’ve had the most influence on today’s cinematic experiences. Like a classroom presentation at a film school, “Making Waves” takes a somewhat academic approach in describing the different components of sound in cinema. And that’s probably because “Make Waves” director Midge Costin is an Oscar-nominated sound editor who’s also a professor of sound at USC Film School. The movie divides the discussion intro three categories: voice, sound effects and music. In the voice category are production recording, dialogue editing and ADR (automated dialog replacement). In the sound effects category are SFX, Foley and ambience.
“Making Waves” also interviews many of the top filmmakers in the industry, including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Christopher Nolan, Alfonso Cuarón, Sofia Coppola, Ang Lee, Ryan Coogler, Robert Redford, David Lynch and Barbra Streisand. Sound designers/editors interviewed in the documentary Walter Murch (a longtime collaborator with Francis Ford Coppola), Ben Burtt (a favorite of George Lucas), Bobbi Banks (“The Fate of the Furious,” “Straight Outta Compton”), Anna Behlmer (“Moulin Rouge!”, 2009’s “Star Trek”) and Gary Rydstrom, who’s worked on numerous Steven Spielberg movies.
The documentary takes the position that sound in cinema really began to hit its stride in the 1970s, with movies like “The Godfather” and “Star Wars.” There are several movies that are singled out for their pioneering sound. The 1976 version of “A Star Is Born” is credited with being the first to fully utilize stereo effects in sound editing. Streisand, who starred in the movie and was one of the film’s producers, tells a story in “Making Waves” about how she had to pay $1 million of her own money for the sound, and Warner Bros. Pictures ended up being so impressed with the movie’s sound quality that the movie studio ended up covering the $1 million cost.
Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece “Apocalypse Now” pioneered surround sound, while 1995’s “Toy Story” is considered a breakthrough animated film for sound. Other movies whose sound is given a spotlight in “Making Waves” include “Jurassic Park,” “Argo,” “Top Gun,” “Selma,” “Inception,” “Ordinary People,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “A River Runs Through It.” As for music in movies, the Beatles are credited with being pioneers on screen, as well as being major influences on filmmakers who were fans of the band. “Making Waves” also has interviews with famous composers such as Hans Zimmer and Ludwig Goransson, who gives a demonstration of how he crafted his Oscar-winning score for “Black Panther.”
Although a few of the people interviewed in “Making Waves” come across as bit dull, “Making Waves” is still worth seeing for the way it gives valuable history lessons in cinema. Just don’t watch this movie on a phone or a computer, or you’ll be missing out on the full sound experience of the movie and the reason why this documentary exists.
UPDATE: “Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound” opens in New York City and Los Angeles on October 25, 2019. The movie expands to more cities in the U.S. and Canada, beginning November 1, 2019.
It’s not easy to do a romantic drama about two people with mental-health issues. The story has to handle the issues in a respectful and believable manner in order not to be too offensive. But the romance in the story has to be appealing too—and that’s where “Lost Transmissions” falls short. Unfortunately, the two lead actors in the movie—Juno Temple and Simon Pegg—are frustratingly mismatched in portraying a couple who have a tumultuous relationship while they navigate their careers in the Los Angeles music industry. Temple and Pegg are very talented in other movies, but watching them trying to create chemistry together that doesn’t exist in “Lost Transmissions” is almost painful to watch.
When we first meet aspiring singer/songwriter Hannah (played by Temple) and music producer Theo Ross (played by Pegg), it’s at a house party where he’s the jolly center of attention, playing the piano, and she’s a little bit on the shy side. Theo is able to bring Hannah out of her shell a little bit by encouraging her to sing while he plays. They exchange phone numbers, and the next day, Theo calls her and invites Hannah over to his home studio, where she’s very impressed by his unique collection of musical instruments.
During their date, Hannah confides in Theo and tells him that she’s on anti-depressants, and she once tried to commit suicide by driving into a tree. Most people don’t share this kind of information on a first date, so it’s the first sign that Hannah is one of those people who’s addicted to personal chaos. Hannah says, “Sometimes I feel stuck in glue, and I feel like I might never move again.” Theo has a sympathetic ear, and he hints that he also has a troubled past, but he doesn’t go into too many details.
Theo offers to help Hannah with her music career, so he puts her in touch with a music executive named Darron (played by Robert Schwartzman), who hires Hannah to write songs for a young pop star named Dana Lee (played in a hilarious cameo by Alexandra Daddario). Dana is a social-media-conscious nymphette with multicolored hair (think Ariana Grande meets Billie Eilish at Coachella) who has more natural chemistry with Hannah than Theo does. Hannah and Dana’s budding friendship, which is so entertaining to watch, unfortunately has very little screen time in this movie. It makes you wish that a movie was made about Hannah and Dana instead of Hannah and Theo.
British actress Temple has made a career out of playing pouty, American women who find it difficult to be happy, so she’s definitely in her comfort zone here as an actress. The problem is that she’s paired with the wrong actor—and it’s not just because Pegg is known for playing mostly comedic characters. Together, Pegg and Temple are just not convincing as a couple in love. At times, watching this movie feels like watching awkward rehearsals of a play.
Theo and Hannah continue to date, and they think that they’re in love, even though it’s obvious that they’re wrong for each other. It turns out that Theo has even darker problems than Hannah’s depression issues. On the surface, he seems to have it all together—he’s a respected musician who makes a comfortable living as a producer of indie rock acts. But in reality, Theo is actually schizophrenic—and it doesn’t help that around the time that he’s met Hannah, he’s stopped taking his medication. Theo’s mental illness is also exacerbated because he’s had a long history of taking psychedelic drugs such as LSD or mushrooms—a habit that he goes back to during his relationship with Hannah.
When he’s off his medication, there’s nothing to like about Theo. He has angry outbursts, he’s selfish, he’s unreliable, and (this is where the title of the movie comes into play) when he plays static very loud on the radio, he thinks he can hear messages in the transmissions. It’s clear that Theo is headed for a major nervous breakdown, but Hannah—like so many of the type of co-dependent women who go on TV shows like “Dr. Phil” to talk about their toxic relationships—thinks she can “fix” Theo, or at least help nurse him back to health. According to “Lost Transmissions” writer/director Katharine O’Brien, the movie is inspired by real-life experiences that she went through with a male friend who was schizophrenic. Let’s hope that she handled it better than Hannah does in this movie.
When Theo’s mental deterioration leads him to be evicted from his home, none of his longtime, close friends want to take him in, because they say that they’re too busy with other commitments. (Red flags right there.) Hannah, who hasn’t been dating Theo for very long, ignores these warning signs and agrees to let Theo move in with her instead of immediately getting him professional help. Making that kind of bad decision in the name of love might be understandable if Theo treated Hannah better, but the sweet-natured Theo that Hannah met at the party is long gone.
Hannah doesn’t deserve much sympathy here because she makes excuses for Theo’s horrific behavior. There’s a scene in the movie that is an example of this destructive enabling: Theo, Hannah and one of Theo’s pregnant friends are passengers in a car when Theo, in a fit of rage, lunges at the driver and tries to get the driver to run off the road, which could have caused a serious accident. Eventually, the driver takes control of the car, and they pull over on the side of the road. The pregnant woman is understandably furious, and tells Theo that he’s “dangerous.” Hannah protests and says that Theo is just “scared.”
When Theo’s behavior gets worse, and Hannah finally decides that he needs to be in a professional facility, Theo inevitably ends up in a psych ward. But Hannah (who’s obviously not qualified to give medical advice to Theo) continues to be part of the problem when she tells Theo that he can “outsmart” his schizophrenia. Then the movie veers into a subplot where Hannah tries to get Theo to go back to his native London and make amends with his estranged father. At this point in the story, you’ve stopped caring about this badly mismatched couple, and you can’t wait for the movie to be over so that you don’t have to ever see them again. If the person who inspired the Theo character had this kind of relationship in real life, let’s hope that they’ve broken up and stayed away from each other, for the sake of everyone’s sanity.
UPDATE: Gravitas Ventures will release “Lost Transmissions” in select U.S. cinemas and on VOD on March 13, 2020.
The first thing that you might notice about the dramatic film “Dreamland” is that Margot Robbie plays a character that’s similar to bank robber Bonnie Parker of Bonnie & Clyde fame. The movie takes place in Texas in the 1930s, during the Dust Bowl drought era and when the Great Depression wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy. It’s also when the real-life Bonnie & Clyde became famous outlaws for their bank robberies and murders. But even though Robbie’s Allison Wells character in “Dreamland” is clearly inspired by the real-life Bonnie Parker, this movie isn’t really about Allison’s crime spree. It’s more about the effect that she has on a naïve young man in his late teens named Eugene Evans (played by Finn Cole), after she convinces him to let her hide out on his family farm.
“Dreamland,” which takes place in 1935, is narrated by Eugene’s younger sister Phoebe (played by Darby Camp), who tells the story in voiceover as an adult 20 years later. (Lola Kirke is the voice of the adult Phoebe.) The family has gone through some hard times, even before the Great Depression. Eugene’s biological father, Don Baker, mysteriously disappeared when Eugene was still a very young child, and Don is presumed dead. Eugene’s mother, Olivia (played by Kerry Condon), doesn’t really like to talk about Don. As a child, Eugene is haunted by the idea that his father isn’t really dead but is really still alive and living in Mexico. Eugene dreams of eventually finding Don and reuniting with him. But the sad look in Olivia’s eyes tells viewers that Eugene’s father has abandoned them, and if he’s still alive, he’s not coming back into their lives.
Olivia eventually remarries. Her second husband is a police officer named George “Buck” Evans (played by Travis Fimmel), who adopts Eugene. The couple’s daughter is Phoebe, who’s about 10 years younger than Eugene. She’s a curious and intelligent child who admires her older brother for his kindness but worries that people will take advantage of his gullible nature. Buck rises through the ranks of the police force, and he’s a deputy sheriff at the time that Allison commits the Guthrie Plains bank robbery that has resulted in the deaths of multiple people, including her lover/partner in crime Perry Montroy, a Clyde Barrow-like character. Perry (played by Garrett Hedlund) and the deadly bank robbery are seen in brief flashbacks.
When Eugene first encounters Allison, he’s found her hiding in a barn on the Evans family property. She’s wounded from a gunshot in her leg, and Eugene helps her remove the bullet. Her fugitive status is all over the news, and there’s a $10,000 reward to anyone who captures her. But Eugene is instantly smitten by Allison’s beauty and seductive charm.
Eugene doesn’t think Allison is as bad as the police say she is because Allison has told him that although she was involved in the bank robbery, she wasn’t involved in the death of the young girl who was an innocent bystander killed during the robbery. Allison tells Eugene that the police have inaccurately described the death as a murder, but Allison says the death happened accidentally when a stray bullet hit the girl.
Allison also offers Eugene $20,000 to hide her and to help her escape after she’s had some time to heal from her bullet wound. It’s a proposition that Eugene accepts with not much hesitation because he and his stepfather Buck don’t really get along—and more importantly to Eugene, he starts to think that he and Allison can run away together to Mexico, where he can reunite with his father, and they can all live happily ever after.
Eugene, who’s in charge of taking care of the family farm, knows it won’t be that hard to hide Allison since Buck is a workaholic who doesn’t spend much time at home anyway. And besides, no one would suspect that Allison would be hiding out at the home of one of the law-enforcement officers tasked with finding her. It isn’t long before Eugene takes another big risk for Allison—he breaks into the police station at night, steals evidence about the robbery, and burns it. When a police officer at the station sees Eugene in the office where the evidence is, Eugene hurriedly makes up a lie and says that he’s there to get police files for Buck.
There’s a close call when inquisitive Phoebe almost finds Allison in the barn, but Eugene is able to steer her away just in time. But that tactic can only work for so long. Phoebe finds out about Eugene’s secret, but he convinces her not to tell anyone. Buck’s suspicions about Eugene are also raised when Buck gets blamed for the missing evidence, and he finds out about Eugene’s late-night visit to the police station.
Amid all of this family tension, a terrible dust storm hits the area, causing destruction on what became known as Black Sunday. The cinematography of “Dreamland” (from cinematographer Lyle Vincent) is one of the best things about the movie, and the visuals during this storm are especially stunning.
“Dreamland” director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte skillfully uses techniques that show the subtle artistry of someone who can tell a story with what you don’t see on camera as much as what you do see. For example, a pivotal seduction scene with Allison and the virginal Eugene shows that Allison and Eugene are talking in an intimate moment where Eugene is doubting that he made the right decision to help Allison, and he’s almost afraid to touch her. She can be heard but not seen for much of the scene, as the camera lingers on Eugene to show the effect that she is having on him. Some directors would have made the obvious choice to focus the camera on Robbie’s beauty, but the scene demonstrates how dialogue can be more powerful in seduction than someone’s physical appearance.
Robbie, who is one of the producers of “Dreamland,” does a very good job of playing the morally ambiguous Allison, but she doesn’t have as much screen time in the movie as people might think she does. Allison and Eugene don’t spend a lot of time together on screen. It’s a testament to the power of Allison’s manipulation, because Eugene takes a lot of risks for Allison without the reward of being with her in a normal, happy romance that he wants them to have. Eugene is the heart and soul of the movie, and Cole convincingly plays him not as a fool but as someone who thinks doing anything for true love will justify whatever it takes to get it.
The pacing in “Dreamland” is a little slow in some areas, but the third act of the movie makes up for it, as the hunt for Allison takes an intense turn where hard choices are made and people’s true characters are put to the test. But just to be clear: Most of “Dreamland” isn’t about chase scenes between cops and robbers. It’s about what can happen when people steal things more valuable than money—hearts and trust.
UPDATE: Paramount Pictures will release “Dreamland” in select U.S. cinemas on November 13, 2020, and on digital and VOD on November 17, 2020. The movie’s release date on Blu-ray and DVD is January 19, 2021.
Stepping into the emotionally intense world of “Burning Cane” is like being stuck in blistering heat in rural Laurel Valley, Louisiana, where the movie takes place. Things move a little slower, modern conveniences are a little harder to get, and people’s dreams have become a little more tarnished by poverty and hopelessness. In other words, be prepared feel to a lot of discomfort in the atmosphere of people trying to hold on to some dignity as they slog through life’s miseries and cruelties.
The movie opens with Helen Wayne (played by Karen Kaia Liver), a middle-aged mother, listing all the home remedies that she’s tried to get rid of the rashes that her beloved dog JoJo has, but none of the remedies has worked so far. (One of the remedies is sugar cane; hence, the title of the movie.) Helen walks with the kind of world-weary limp that shows she’s carrying a lot of emotional baggage that goes beyond her physical challenges. In a conversation between Helen and her son Daniel (played by Dominique McClellan), we find out that Daniel’s father died of AIDS, but it’s a secret that Daniel finds hard to accept.
It’s not long before we see that Daniel is causing a lot of Helen’s emotional pain. He’s a chronically unemployed alcoholic, and she worries about his well-being and how he’s going to take care of his pre-teen son Jeremiah (played by Braelyn Kelly). Helen isn’t the only one disappointed in Daniel—his wife Sherry Bland (played by E’myri Crutchfield) is becoming increasingly fed-up with him and his inability to financially provide for their family. It’s implied but not shown that when Daniel and Sherry get into arguments, it’s not uncommon for him to hit her.
For many people in the town, the local Baptist church is a symbol of hope and salvation. It’s no wonder that the town’s residents look to the church’s Rev. Pastor Joseph Tillman (played by Wendell Pierce) as their personal savior. His rousing sermons with copious quotes from the Bible serve as beacons of faith in a world that’s often clouded by the murky uncertainties of life.
Pastor Tillman says all the right words to his poverty-stricken congregation. In one sermon, he aims harsh criticism at a famous Malcom Forbes quote: “He who dies with the most toys wins.” Pastor Tillman counters that belief by telling his parishioners: “We must invest in love … God is the most important relationship in your life.”
These are words that Helen takes to heart, and it’s clear that she—like many others in the church—have placed Pastor Tillman on a pedestal. Pastor Tillman, who is a lonely widower, is also considered somewhat of a catch to the single ladies in town.
“Burning Cane” writer/director Phillip Youmans (who also the movie’s cinematographer and editor) effectively uses moody cinematography to convey these two worlds: the church is brightly lit and welcoming, while the homes of Helen and Daniel are dark and depressing. (“Burning Cane” is set sometime in the late 1990s/early 2000s, before the proliferation of smartphones, and when people could still reasonably use rotary phones, as the Waynes do in this story.)
Pastor Tillman has a secret that’s become increasingly difficult to hide: He’s an alcoholic with a history of domestic violence. In one scene, he drunkenly confesses that he beat his wife during an argument. In another scene, he pushes a parishioner away when she tries to stop him from driving drunk. When he’s found passed out in his car in a drunken stupor, the only person whom he tells police to call is Helen.
After Helen finds out about Pastor Tillman’s personal demons, she’s somewhat in denial and conflicted over how to handle it. But once Helen sees the cracks of Pastor Tillman’s façade, it triggers a feeling of disillusionment that influences her actions for the rest of the story. By using hand-held cameras and not having a musical score for most of the film, director Youmans infuses a sense of realism, while keeping a fever-dream-like quality to the pacing of the film, where the dialogue sometimes wanders like a rambling poet.
The main criticism that people might have about “Burning Cane,” whose entire cast is African American, is that all the men in the movie are written as disturbed individuals and/or disappointments. Meanwhile, the women are the “responsible” ones who have to clean up the men’s messes. (Even Helen’s late husband, who’s not shown in the movie, was someone who committed domestic violence against her, according to what Helen says in one scene. The only things we hear about her dead husband are negative.) “Burning Cane” would have benefited from having a little more variety in how the men and women were written instead of relying on somewhat offensive clichés of African American men.
However, “Burning Cane” overall is a well-crafted movie when it comes to cinematography and editing—indications that Youmans has a knack for how a story should look on screen. “Burning Cane” is his first feature film, so it will be interesting to see what he does in the future.
UPDATE: Array Releasing will release “Burning Cane” in New York City on October 25, 2019, and in Los Angeles on November 8, 2019. Netflix will release the movie on November 6, 2019.
It’s too bad that the documentary “Rewind” has a such a generic title, because this stunning debut from director Sasha Joseph Neulinger has so many important messages about complex family relationships and confronting your past that it delivers an emotional knockout to anyone who watches it. You would never know from this movie’s simple title how deep it goes in its raw and honest analysis of a family torn apart by secrets and lies—and how the family has tried to heal in the aftermath. However, it would reveal too many spoilers to go into specifics about who caused this family crisis.
What can be said about “Rewind” is that it’s a powerfully edited compilation of footage (mostly home videos) from Neulinger’s Pennsylvania childhood in the 1990s, when he went through horrific abuse. It’s best not to give away spoiler details to anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, but it’s enough to say that the abuse was reported, and it involved court cases, which are chronicled in the last third of the film. The movie’s narrative gives the details, bit by bit (much like a puzzle), until the full scope of the horror is revealed.
It would’ve been easy for Neulinger to provide narrator voiceovers, explaining what he was thinking and feeling while you’re watching the footage. Instead, he lets the footage do most of the talking, in addition to doing new interviews with members of his family, the psychotherapy community, law enforcement and survivor advocate groups.
If you don’t know his story, watching the movie unfold is like watching a mystery where there’s a feeling of dread that bad things are going to happen to good people—and the sad part is that it’s not just a movie, because it happened in real life. You want to find out who committed the crimes, and for justice to be served.
The documentary is also a cautionary lesson for parents and others on how to spot signs of abuse. In addition, Neulinger hopes that this documentary will also improve the ways that police and other law enforcement interrogate children who report abuse. As explained at the end of the film, Neulinger is working with organizations such as Mission Kids that advocate for law enforcement to have better methods for getting victim statements in abuse cases. Neulinger and others believe that law enforcement should be required to videotape a main cohesive statement from an abuse survivor, instead of forcing the survivor to relive the trauma with repeated interrogations because the first statement wasn’t properly documented.
“Rewind” is not an easy film to watch, but it’s an inspiring example of how someone can confront trauma and use the art of moviemaking as a form of therapy and as a way to help others.
UPDATE: FilmRise will release “Rewind” on digital and VOD on May 8, 2020. PBS will premiere “Rewind” as part of the “Independent Lens” series on May 11, 2020.
There comes a point in any career of a Disney Channel or Nickelodeon star who wants to transition from “teen idol” to “serious artist” that he or she takes on a gritty role so that people will change their perception of them as just another pretty face. Sabrina Carpenter, a singer/actress who has done several Disney Channel projects, has chosen her first such transitional role in the emotional drama “The Short History of the Long Road.” In the movie, she plays a homeless teen named Nola Frankel, who is searching for her long-lost mother, who abandoned Nola as a baby.
In the beginning of the story, Nola is living out of a motorhome van with her father Clint (played by Steven Ogg), an over-protective, paranoid vagrant who thinks that settling down in one place and living among society are dangerous for the soul. Although Clint and Nola don’t live completely off the grid (he makes money by doing odd jobs, such as repairs), he has some quirky habits that have affected Nola’s outlook on life. One of those habits is whenever he and Nola see a movie in a theater or on TV, he won’t let her watch the movie’s ending. We find out early on in this story that Nola’s mother leaving the family has a lot to do with why Clint is raising Nola in a nomadic existence. Nola doesn’t know any other life, since she was raised that way since she was a toddler, and Clint is very reluctant to tell her details about her mother.
Although some people might think this movie is similar to the 2018 film “Leave No Trace” (another grim story about a homeless, paranoid father raising his teenage daughter outside of the norms of society), “The Short History of the Long Road” is not the same kind of movie because it’s not as depressing as “Leave No Trace.” For starters, Clint is the kind of parent who has a sense of adventure, and he doesn’t want to hide his daughter from the world, whereas the father in “Leave No Trace” wants to live in such extreme seclusion in the woods to the point where people can’t find him and his daughter. Although Clint doesn’t trust the school system, he’s educated Nola and passed on a love of books to his daughter—they often go to libraries in their travels—and he has no problems interacting with people in a friendly manner when he needs to make money. Clint also doesn’t keep Nola isolated, since they go to restaurants, stores and movie theaters.
Still, the mystery over what happened to Nola’s mother is starting to weigh on Nola, and Clint’s vague answers (“she zigged while we zagged”) aren’t going to satisfy her any longer. The only thing that Clint will tell her is that when he and Nola’s mother were a couple, they used to own a bar together, and she left Clint and Nola shortly after Nola was born. Clint promises he’ll tell Nola more about her mother when they get to New Orleans (Nola was named after the city’s nickname), but before they get there, something happens to Clint in the first third of the movie that leaves Nola on her own.
Nola is self-sufficient enough to know how to drive a car (even though she doesn’t have a license) and she can make basic repairs, but as a teenage girl, it’s harder for her than it was for her father to get people to hire her for odd jobs. In addition to dealing with the stress of being homeless, alone, and trying to get money legally, Nola has to dodge anyone who might turn her in to child welfare authorities if they find out she’s under 18. She also still has the goal to find her mother.
Although Carpenter is fairly convincing as a distressed teen and brings a certain plucky spirit to the role, what isn’t entirely convincing is how the movie’s screenplay (which was written by director Ani Simon-Kennedy) glosses over some very serious issues of what life would really be like for a teenage girl in Nola’s situation. Nola has to be the luckiest homeless teenage girl in the U.S., because not once does she have anyone try to take advantage of her.
Yes, Nola gets into some uncomfortable situations where she has to contemplate whether or not she’s going to steal in order to eat, but somehow she gets enough money for gas to travel from state to state. Not once is she ever robbed, conned or enticed into criminal activities by people who see that she’s desperate for cash. We don’t know if Clint ever taught Nola any physical self-defense skills because she doesn’t need to defend herself from that kind of harm in this story. Even with the protection of living in a van, she gets into some dicey situations where, if this were the real world, it would be very unlikely that she would walk away unscathed.
For example, in one part of the movie, Nola ends up crashing at an empty house that appears to be unoccupied because the house is in foreclosure. When a rowdy bunch of young male skateboarders enter the house to skate in the empty swimming pool, there’s some initial tension between the skateboarders and Nola, but then the skateboarders invite Nola to party with them in the house. Here’s a young, attractive female in a group of intoxicated, rebellious guys who know she’s homeless and on her own, so it’s kind of unbelievable that none of them would try to make any moves on her.
And her luck continues throughout the story: When Nola (who looks underage and doesn’t have a fake ID) gets caught sleeping in her van late at night in a parking lot, a security guard just shoos her away, even though she’s obviously an underage child out past curfew time. When she tries to steal gas from a recreational vehicle camper owned by a senior citizen, he catches her in the act, but goes easy on her by sending her off with just a warning instead of calling the police. The entire time that she’s traveling, when it’s obvious she’s on her own, she doesn’t have creepy guys offering to “help her out,” even though in real life we all know this would happen to her.
At a convenience store, a female customer named Marcie (played by Rusty Schwimmer) figures out that Nola is homeless, and invites her to eat at a church’s soup kitchen where Marcie happens to be a volunteer. When Marcie gains Nola’s trust, she later invites Nola to live with her, her husband and the other foster kids they are raising. Nola doesn’t stay for long—Marcie is a little too strict and a little too religious for Nola—because Nola is really on a mission to find her mother.
At another point in the story, Nola’s van (which is nicknamed The Hulk) breaks down, and needs repairs that Nola can’t afford to pay. So, she convinces the owner of an auto body shop, a tough-but-tender taskmaster named Miguel (played by Danny Trejo), to let her work for him in order to pay off the cost of the repairs. It isn’t long before Miguel lets Nola live rent-free at the body shop. While she lives and works at Miguel’s body shop, Nola notices a Navajo Indian teenage girl close to her age named Blue (played by Jashaun St. John), who keeps hanging around. Nola and Blue strike up a tentative friendship, and Blue reveals that she doesn’t like to be at home because her widowed father is abusing her. Blue dreams of escaping from her father by moving in with an aunt, who has invited Blue to live with her on a reservation.
It would be too much of a spoiler to reveal if Nola ever finds her mother. Getting the answer to that mystery is one of the main reasons why “The Short History of the Long Road” is more engaging than it should be, considering the movie’s sanitized portrayal of being a homeless teenage girl. Carpenter does as good of a job as she can with the script that she’s been given. This movie didn’t need to have any big, histrionic moments or non-stop mayhem. In fact, Carpenter’s adept portrayal of Nola’s quiet desperation is one of the best things about the film. However, a little more realism about the dangers of being a homeless teenage girl traveling alone across the country would have gone a long way in improving this story.
UPDATE: FilmRise will release “The Short History of the Long Road” in select U.S. theaters on June 12, 2020, and on digital and VOD on June 16, 2020.
