Full Frame 2015: Day 1

Looking back on my coverage of years past, it looks like the first day of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is usually an overcast, gray day. This year was no exception for the annual event, now in its 18th year.

But, of course, the downbeat weather didn’t deter film fans from filling up the screening rooms at the Carolina Theatre and the Marriott Convention Center in downtown Durham, N.C., to see what they could out of the 49 new docs, including 12 World Premieres, 13 North American Premieres, and two U.S. Premieres, which will be showing Thursday through Sunday.

The first film I attended was Albert Maysles’ IRIS, the recently deceased documentarian legend’s last completed film (Maysles died on March 5, 2015 at age 80). 

In Programming director Sadie Tillery’s introduction, she spoke of having the filmmaker in her thoughts since his death, and missing his presence at the festival. It was a sentiment that was felt throughout the fine, very funny film, a biopic of fashion and interior design innovator Iris Apfel. 

IRIS feels like it was shot over the course of a few weeks or months with Maysles following around the now 93-year old Apfel as she tries on flamboyant outfits, attends high profile events, and putters around her and her husband Carl’s Park Avenue apartment filled with scores of eye-catching antiques, but co-producer Rebekah Maysles, daughter of the late director, said in the Q & A after the screening that it was filmed over the course of three years.

In between the modern day visits with the Apfels, we get bursts of back story via vintage photos, many magazine covers, and insightful interviews that trace how the style maven went from working at Women’s Wear Daily to working on White House Restoration projects for nine administrations (“We had a problem with Jackie,” Carl says, but Iris doesn’t let him explain), to founding her own company, Old World Weavers.

Just about everything the “geriatric starlet,” as she calls herself, is pricelessly witty, like when she quips that she’s “very much alive and just walking around to save funeral expenses,” and the film pops with every cut – largely due to Apfel’s many crazy wardrobe changes. The much missed Maysles, who can be seen a few times onscreen, has made a portrait as vibrant, colorful and funny as its still thriving subject. Oh, and I loved seeing how many pairs, in different styles and colors, she has of her trademark over-sized, thick framed, cartoonishly round eyeglasses.

Next up, I was pretty taken by TIGER TIGER, the new doc by George Butler (PUMPING IRON, GOING UPRIVER). The film follows Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, co-founder of Panthera (a non-profit big cat conservation organization), who tells us that he’s been “tracking and studying tigers and convincing governments to save those tigers for at least the last 25 years,” as he travels to the Sundarbans to do what he can for the endangered Royal Bengal Tiger population. 

There is extra weight added to the mission as Rabinowitz reveals he has Leukemia, and that this may be his last expedition. Rabinowitz's calm and soft spoken manner entertainingly educates us on the dangers the tigers face (especially when it comes to the Chinese medicine trade), the close-up video footage of the tigers in the wild is stunning, and the film is lushly shot by cinematographer Tom Hurwitz (THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES). TIGER TIGER is a real winner of a wildlife doc.

The film that followed for me, Betzabé García's KINGS OF NOWHERE (Spanish title: LOS REYES DEL PUEBLO QUE NO EXISTE) was way less engrossing. With no narrator, or narrative really, the film focuses on three families who live in a flooded village in Northwestern Mexico. Everybody else has moved away so we get to hear their stories of what used to be, and how they get along daily. That is, in between long stationary shots of the ruins and the rivers that run through them. The serene shots of the crumbling buildings and tortured terrain are well composed, and there's a few fascinating anecdotes here and there, but the film drags so much that it feels a half hour longer than its 83 minute running time.

Finally, the last film for me of the day was the highly anticipated, much buzzed out rock doc, Brett Morgen's KURT COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK (horrible title, but it was the name of a mixtape Cobain made so there's that).

Morgen and editor Joe Beshenkovsky have sifted through tons of photos, drawings, notebook scribblings, fliers, crude audiotapes, home movie footage, TV appearances, and fuzzy live footage to tell the story of the long gone Nirvana frontman, and its a dizzying and often senses-assaulting blend, or more accurately, mess. 

The bloated biodoc, which will premiere on HBO on May 4th, was definitely the loudest doc I saw all day (enough to make some old couples leave). The effect can be jarring when cutting to the quieter interview segments which feature family members, bandmate Krist Novelselic, widow Courtney Love, and most interesting, Cobain's ex-girlfriend Tracy Marander. But for some reason, no Dave Grohl!

At 132 minutes, this is an everything but the kitchen sink doc that really should've been gutted. The animated scenes are gratuitous, there's way too much poorly shot video of Kurt and (an often topless) Courtney goofing off, and there's no reason to have two almost full songs from Nirvana's MTV Unplugged set, as legendary a landmark as it was, when that material is so well known, and arguably overplayed already.

The hodge podgy MONTAGE OF HECK has a lot of intriquing stuff in it, but its all over the place as its trying to be in your face at the same time, and that took away from what could've been a more essential, and more emotional experience. Still, hardcore fans should dig how much of it has never been seen before.

Okay! So that wraps up day 1 of Full Frame 2015. Check back tomorrow for coverage of Day Two, and for live tweeting of the event follow @filmbabble. 

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New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 5/21/13

Today’s releases feature a plethora of titles that I missed when they were released theatrically early this year. 

First up, former California Govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first starring role in a decade (THE EXPENDABLES movies? Consider those cameos.), Kim Ji-woon’s THE LAST STAND comes out in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. The action flick about Schwarzenegger as a small town Sherriff battling a Mexican drug lord, which looks like it could possibly be big dumb fun, comes with a smattering of Special Features including a nearly half hour featurette entitled “Not In My Town: Making THE LAST STAND,” a few shorter featurettes (“Cornfield Chaos: Scene Breakdown,” “The Dinkum Firearm & Historic Weaponry Museum Tour”), Actor-Cam Anarchy: with Johnny Knoxville and Jaimie Alexander, and over 20 minutes of deleted and extended scenes.

Another I missed, and barely noticed the existence of, Richard LaGravenese’s TWILIGHT-wannabe BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, starring Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert, hits the shelves in a double disc Blu ray package and in a single disc DVD. Special Features a 24-minute collection of behind-the-scenes Featurettes, 8 minutes of deleted scenes, trailers, and a TV spot. I seriously doubt I’ll be queuing this up.

A few films I’m actually interested also drop on Blu ray and DVD today: Fisher Stevens’ STAND UP GUYS and Steven Soderbergh’s SIDE EFFECTS. 

Available in 1-disc Blu ray and DVD editions, STAND UP GUYS stars the awesome trio of Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin as old school gangsters who get together to pull off one last job. Sure, it sounds clichéd as Hell, but I heard good things here and there and will likely give it a whirl this week. Stevens provides a director’s commentary, and other extras include a few featurettes, and a few minutes of deleted scenes. 

Soderbergh’s psychological thriller SIDE EFFECTS, available in a double disc Blu ray set or a single disc DVD package, once said to be one of the director’s final projects before retiring (he’s since said he’s only taking a film-making sabbatical), stars Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Channing Tatum in a tale about a young woman (Mara) who gets prescribed an experimental new medication called Ablixa. Special Features are pretty paltry: a 3 minute behind the scenes featurette, and a couple minutes of fake commercials for the fictional drugs depicted in the film. 

True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season, right in time for the upcoming 6th season of the wildly popular HBO series (premiering on June 16th) is also out today in a spiffy (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) box set. I’ve not been a regular view of the show before, but the fine folks at HBO sent me a review copy of the nicely packaged season so I’ve been making my way through it. I usually like to watch shows from the very beginning, but I’ve gathered bits and pieces about what’s been going on in the Southern sometimes ultra-trashy world of Sookie Stackhouse, played with punchy energy by Anna Paquin. Since I don’t know all the back stories, and my grasp on the mythology is far from formed, I can get a bit lost, but the show moves fast and has a lot of sordid sex scenes so it’s pretty damn watchable. 

5 commentaries featuring cast and crew members are included, as are such extras as something called “advanced viewing mode,” in which gives viewers the options of getting 4 different angles on each episode along with trivia, production notes, character bios, and histories (hmm, maybe that’ll help me get up to date). There’s also an “Autopsy” of episode Six “Hopeless,” “Authority Confessionals,” and a few more featurettes.

Also from HBO, a film I reviewed when it premiered on the premium cable channel last November, Brett Morgen’s Rolling Stones documentary CROSSFIRE HURRICANE is now out in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. The doc, which I considered a “purposeful primer of their formative years” although it adds little new for long-time fans, is enhanced by bonus material made up of of live and TV performances from the mid ‘60s (9 songs in all), an interview with director Morgen, and the theatrical trailer.

Notable retro-tinged releases today are PBS’s American Masters documentary about the legendary comic actor/writer/director Mel Brooks (Robert Trachtenberg's “Mel Brooks: Make A Noise”), the Criterion Collection edition of Haskell Wexler’s 1969 cult classic MEDIUM COOL, and Warner Bros. celebrates the 30th anniversary of NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION with a new special edition Blu ray (also 1997’s VEGAS VACATION, which wasn’t from National Lampoon incidentally, makes its Blu ray debut today).

Paul Borghese’s gritty crime drama ONCE UPON A TIME IN BROOKLYN, starring Armand Assante William DeMeo, Cathy Moriarty, and Ice T comes out on DVD today. Its plot sounds a bit like STAND UP GUYS – guy gets out of prison and gets back into illegal activities – but I bet that there’s a distinctly different tone happening. Director’s commentary, interview with Borghese and DeMeo, and deleted scenes. 

Lastly, a few horror titles drop on DVD this week: H.P. LOVECRAFT’S COOL AIR, directed by Albert Pyun is out now only on DVD with no Special Features other than a trailer gallery, and AFTER DARK ORIGINALS: DARK CIRCLES, the full length directorial debut of Paul Soter, one of the Broken Lizard comedy team who brought you SUPER TROOPERS and CLUB DREAD. Soter appears with actor Johnathon Schaech, and blogger Ryan Turek on an audio commentary, and the sole other extra is a DARK CIRCLES behind-the-scenes featurette.

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New HBO Rolling Stones Doc Celebrates 50th Anniversary But More Their Bad Boy Image

CROSSFIRE HURRICANE (Dir. Brett Morgen, 2012)

To celebrate their 50th anniversary, the Rolling Stones have come out of retirement to release a few new singles (“Doom and Gloom,” and “One More Shot”), perform some surprise club shows leading up to a major tour next year, and have taken part in the new retrospective documentary, CROSSFIRE HURRICANE, which premieres on HBO Thursday night, November 15th.

Directed by Brett Morgen, best known for co-directing the acclaimed 2002 bio-doc THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE, about mega-producer Robert Evans, the film covers the early ‘60s to late ‘70s rise of England’s oldest hit-makers, featuring new audio-only interviews of band members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ron Wood, Bill Wyman, and Mick Taylor.

The doc packs a lot into its one hour and forty plus minute running time, including healthy chunks of such classics as “Street Fighting Man,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” “I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction),” “Sympathy For The Devil,” and “Honky Tonk Women,” mostly smoothly mixing an overview of their hits into the band’s layered narrative without overly cluttering it.

In one funny mid ‘60s TV clip, a straight-laced news commentator criticizes the raunchy rock group for their “carefully calculated air of ‘blow you, Jack!” This speaks volumes as the doc itself strongly appears to be a carefully calculated attempt to re-inforce the Stones’ legendary bad boy image right in time for their reunion.

There is much talk about how they were set-up by their shrewd manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham to be the anti-Beatles, the nasty bad boy antithesis to the fab four’s seemingly squeaky clean image, with a lot of back stage decadence displayed in the footage including many shots of Stones’ members drinking every bit of available liquor there is. 

It’s like the Stones (most of who produced or executive produced this doc) are saying: ‘We know we’re old mainstream geezers now, but back in the day we were quite dangerous. We had tons of sex, drugs and booze along with our kick ass rock ‘n roll, and even spent time behind bars. We just want to remind you of all that.’

CROSSFIRE HURRICANE, which takes its title from a lyric in “Jumping Jack Flash,” only covers up to the Stones’ ‘1978 album “Some Girls,” though there is brief footage from Hal Ashby’s live concert film LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER (shot in 1981, released in ’83), so there’s a lot of story left to be told, but the film does ideally cover the band’s most vital eras. 

Since those eras have been already very well covered, Morgan’s doc often feels like a hodgepodge of clips from the many other Stones documentaries, almost resembling a greatest hits of the best bits from their filmography.

There’s cool black and white footage of Mick and Keith working out “Sitting on a Fence” from the newly restored and released doc CHARLIE IS MY DARLING (shot on their tour of Ireland in 1965), there’s an excerpt of the Stones playing in Hyde Park after the death of Brian Jones from THE STONES IN THE PARK (1969), there’s the great gritty film of the band recording in Keith’s basement at Villa Nellcôte in France that appeared in the 2010 doc STONES IN EXILE, there’s the shocking moment of murder at Altamont captured in the Maysles brothers’ essential GIMME SHELTER (1970), and so on.

Some of the same archival footage has also been used in Martin Scorsese’s SHINE A LIGHT (2008), from which Morgen also borrows a performance of “All Down The Line” for the end credits (the most recent film of the Stones in this doc).

So if you’re a big Stones fan, you are likely to have already seen a large percentage of this stuff, but if you’re a newcomer to this material, it functions as an purposeful primer of their formative years. 

As a longtime fan myself, I learned precious little I didn’t know before, but enjoyed a few fresh insights from the new interviews like when Richards remarks “The essence of Jagger and Richards together, I suppose would be ‘Midnight Rambler.’ Anybody could’ve written any of our songs, but I don’t think anyone could’ve written ‘Midnight Rambler’ other than Mick and Me.”

Or drummer Charlie Watt's assessment that guitarist Ron Wood, who replaced Mick Taylor in the mid '70s, became “the link between the two strong egos (Jagger and Richards), and the two light ones (himself and Wyman).”

Trying to sum up the group’s appeal, the late Brian Jones, looking back on their ‘65 breakthrough just a year later, tells a reporter that they had “the right type of sound, and the right visual image the kids of the world wanted at the time.”

Fifty years may have passed, and the Stones haven’t had that bad boy image for a long-ass time, but when the publicity machine kicks in with this doc, their new ‘best of’ 3 CD compilation (“GRRR!”) dropping this week, and their looming 2013 tour, surely to be one of the biggest grossing tours ever, it will again be inescapable that they are still hugely wanted by the now over-aged kids of the world.

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